Weaning people off of the Martial power source.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What the fuck do power sources even matter?

Within the mechanics of a game, it's power effects that matter.

But as I said in the beginning of this document, people get weepy-eyed when people use the Martial Power source to teleport and fly. But they still want the Martial Power source alongside power sources that do allow people to teleport and fly. While simultaneously being able to have epic adventures that call for people to teleport and fly.

If you really don't think that power source should matter then the Martial power source shouldn't do anything that it does right now. Everything that it does, from multi-attacks to auto-damaging stances to whatever is done by every other source in 4E and better. That's unacceptable.

[hogarth]

I honestly don't see why you can't do gadgeteers, spellcasters, and random powers all in the same system.

Right -- if the comics can have a mutant with robot eyes who was polymorphed into a ninja, there shouldn't be a problem with fantasy characters who are a random mess of abilities, too.

Now, the problem that I see with this is that writing three different sets of mechanics for the same effects is going to be time-consuming and confusing. What K is suggesting (I believe) is essentially Mutants and Masterminds in a fantasy universe. This, of course, has some problems with it, but it is not unworkable.

I don't think you have to write three different sets of mechanics. In Champions/HERO terms, each power has a "special effect". If all or most of the powers you choose has the same special effect, you get some sort of bonus (in HERO, for instance, you can have an Elemental Control framework that gives you a cost break) -- this is K's equivalent of a "class". Why do you get a bonus? Because if one of your abilities doesn't work, then probably none of them will work (e.g. the Human Torch doesn't work underwater, Zatanna doesn't work if she can't speak, Iron Man doesn't work without his armor, etc.).

Now you would have to write a bunch of different special effects/classes to choose from; that's what would make it a class-based system.

[MGuy]

If the only problem with the Martial Power Source is people whining about it then that's a problem with people. "Power Source" don't mean shit until the rules say they do. Sure there are assumptions people will have but they mean shit in the face of game mechanics and system fluff.

That being said I DO think there should be heavy distinction BETWEEN the sources. When I say that I mean not only do they have different flavors but distinct in game mechanics that separate one from another. Warriors should have warrior only abilities, mages should have mage only abilities, priest should have priest only abilities. No everyone doesn't need to be on the same track to be awesome. But their abilities should make them equally awesome without each one being able to step on each others toes.

[virgil]

• Madmartigan stays "Madmartigan" but he gets an additional power source grafted onto him. This is called the "gadgeteer" option, because as he continues to advance in this manner the Orb of Silt and the Blade of Shattered Hope will loom much larger than him in the story and he will eventually be just a launching pad for all the stuff his cool ear can do.
• Madmartigan is forced to become a Sorcerer Hero or Divine Champio or something that does not have the Martial Power Source limits anymore. Madmartigan stays level appropriate, but the flavor of him being a mortal swordsman is lost.
• Madmartigan is allowed to take Martial Powers that exceed the limits that K, Random Casualty, and the D&D orthodoxy have placed on him and everyone else with the Martial Power Source. He keeps his flavor, he stays level appropriate, and people have their suspension of disbelief deeply offended. People will call it "weaboo" or "retarded."

Those are the choices. Period. End of story. And K continues to insist that he has a fourth option where... I don't even fucking know.

What I was getting out of K's statements were that the fourth option is a kind of amalgamation of the three, where Madmartigan can switch out power sources between adventures, while within a particular adventure a power source will have effects that will cause his powers to be lost (a disarmed or sundered Sword of Truth, a distracted or gagged spellcaster, etc).

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, you forgot the fifth option of just letting Madmartigan continue to gain bullshit inferior powers but then just lie to the players about how cool and awesome the character is and tell them that finding ways around their deep weaknesses is what makes them REAL ROLEPLAYERS.

It sounds retarded, yes, but if you feed the players this line of bullshit for 30 years I think it'll stick. To the point where people actually get angry at you for correcting the imbalance.

[Josh_Kablack]

I don't think you have to write three different sets of mechanics. In Champions/HERO terms, each power has a "special effect". If all or most of the powers you choose has the same special effect, you get some sort of bonus.

If we're talking HERO, then I got the sense that K was arguing for something a bit more mechanically constraining than just special effects.

Potentially:

"All [martial] powers have to be bought with the Focus (weapon) limitation."
"All [magic] powers have to be bought with charges (recovered by studying spellbook) "
"All [racial] powers have to be bought with the Inherent advantage."

So while Fire and Stones Cut, Flames of Weathertop and Draconian Breath are all AoE EBs with the [fire] special effect, Sir Ignatz, Crimson Firemage and Bob the Dragonborn all bought them slightly differently.

[RandomCasualty2]

But as I said in the beginning of this document, people get weepy-eyed when people use the Martial Power source to teleport and fly. But they still want the Martial Power source alongside power sources that do allow people to teleport and fly. While simultaneously being able to have epic adventures that call for people to teleport and fly.

Well no. I don't think this is necessarily true.

Some people just want a basic LotR style RPG and actually complain that characters in D&D get too powerful with flight and invisibility and the like. They're typically the people complaining the game is too high powered and really just want the game to play like LotR or Conan.

It's the age old problem of D&D not really knowing what it's trying to emulate because it tries to emulate all kinds of fantasy. And really, it's all a matter of power scaling. Mythic Hercules is a badass who does all kinds of crazy shit like lifting the entire world and Conan has no right traveling with him. Of course there's also the live action Adventures of Hercules series that really scales down his abilities. And we can totally see Conan being in the same party as that guy. And it all matters on what scale you want to use for the high powered characters.

With wizards, it's really the same deal. They can be masters of world manipulation or they can be Gandalf.

But it all boils down to D&D's fundamental problem of trying to be both an LotR style RPG and an over the top high magic game. Really, if there's anything good D&D 5E can do, it's split the game into these two camps.

[Psychic Robot]

To the point where people actually get angry at you for correcting the imbalance.

Some people feel that the imbalance should exist. By "correcting" it, you're fundamentally changing the game, and that's obviously going to upset some people.

[Kaelik]

To the point where people actually get angry at you for correcting the imbalance.

Some people feel that the imbalance should exist. By "correcting" it, you're fundamentally changing the game, and that's obviously going to upset some people.

Yes, but only stupid people like you who specifically want some people to play shitty characters.

[RandomCasualty2]

Some people feel that the imbalance should exist. By "correcting" it, you're fundamentally changing the game, and that's obviously going to upset some people.

That's the only wrong camp here.

You can very well do your game LotR style where you've got Aragorn and Gandalf. You can also do it high magic style where you have mythic Hercules traveling with Elminster. Either of those are okay, and just a matter of personal preference as to what kinds of characters people want to play. I'd really say a low magic and high magic fantasy game differ about as much as a fantasy versus a sci-fi game.

The one thing you should never do is have Conan traveling with Elminster and Goku. That's just bad design and generally people in favor of that are excessively close minded grognards or PCs who enjoy overshadowing their friends and have fun wanking off at their expense.

[Username17]

They're typically the people complaining the game is too high powered and really just want the game to play like LotR or Conan.

Yeah, but the "Aragorn gains a level" or "Conan gains a level" problems are not actually different from the "Madmartigan gains a level" problem, and have precisely the same answers. Except that answer #4 is "ban Morgoth from the game" or "ban Alexus from the game" respectively. Both of them exist in a world with enemy magic users who are higher level than they are, and they cannot rise to that level without abandoning the "feel" of being a mortal swordsman with a good length of steel.

Hell, both of them even have adventures where they transcend this mortal swordsman bullshit. Aragorn becomes a Necromancer King and grabs for himself the power to turn entire kindoms into ghosts. He raises a ghost army that is able to make all the armies of the living and the entire rest of his party and everything they ever did look small in the pants. Conan goes all dimension hopping sorcerer king later on, when he becomes a dimension hopping sorcerer king.

What I was getting out of K's statements were that the fourth option is a kind of amalgamation of the three

That's possible. But it doesn't explain why K keeps insisting that he is rejecting all three of those solutions rather than what he actually appears to be doing is accepting those solutions and then trying to use more than one.

-Username17

[DeadlyReed]

People will always make shitty characters and then insist on being catered to.

[RandomCasualty2]

Yeah, but the "Aragorn gains a level" or "Conan gains a level" problems are not actually different from the "Madmartigan gains a level" problem, and have precisely the same answers. Except that answer #4 is "ban Morgoth from the game" or "ban Alexus from the game" respectively. Both of them exist in a world with enemy magic users who are higher level than they are, and they cannot rise to that level without abandoning the "feel" of being a mortal swordsman with a good length of steel.

Hell, both of them even have adventures where they transcend this mortal swordsman bullshit. Aragorn becomes a Necromancer King and grabs for himself the power to turn entire kindoms into ghosts. He raises a ghost army that is able to make all the armies of the living and the entire rest of his party and everything they ever did look small in the pants. Conan goes all dimension hopping sorcerer king later on, when he becomes a dimension hopping sorcerer king.

But the thing is that they really don't abandon the swordsman routine. Sure Aragorn leads a ghost army, but don't really think of that as some new power he has, think of it as just some lame DM plot device that happened to encompass his character. The ghost army isn't some recurring thing Aragorn can call on. It's called on once, and the ghosts' oaths are fulfilled and then they disappear to the afterlife. I mean he can't even use them to attack Mordor, let alone use them in any future adventures.

After they're gone, he's back to swording people as usual. Really the ghost army was just a plot device cutscene that he happened to activate as part of his quest. Instead of "kill the orcs like at helm's deep" the DM threw him a curveball and had him go recruit some help as the method of winning the siege of Gondor.

Now in larger context :

Yeah, but the "Aragorn gains a level" or "Conan gains a level" problems are not actually different from the "Madmartigan gains a level" problem, and have precisely the same answers. Except that answer #4 is "ban Morgoth from the game" or "ban Alexus from the game" respectively. Both of them exist in a world with enemy magic users who are higher level than they are, and they cannot rise to that level without abandoning the "feel" of being a mortal swordsman with a good length of steel.

Quite simply.. not really. Yes, while it's true there are probably going to be higher level characters (warriors and magic users), there's nothing really saying that at high levels magic necessarily has to be better than swording stuff.

I see no reason why Legolas or Aragorn couldn't just put an arrow through Saruman or why Madmartigan couldn't beat Bavmorda. Seriously, if they get some kind of technique to resist basic magic, which fuck, if you're equal in level to your opponent, your defenses should be capable of holding them off decently well.

But neither of those magical foes really does anything that prevents someone from running up to them and sticking a blade through their ribs. This concept of an invisible, flying superman wizard is almost entirely a pure D&D construct and should really be dropped for comparative purposes. Because seriously, there's no reason your game even has to let wizards do that, and indeed if you plan on making Aragorn and Conan valid archetypes, it should explicitly try to prevent wizards from doing crap like that.

Even the planeswalkers from M:tG aren't immune to the attacks from ground creatures. There's no shame in deciding to nix the flight and invisibility in a fantasy setting.

[Orion]

@Random, even without combat-breaking fuck-yous, LotR had active characters who could

--control the weather
--scry over long distances
--come back from the dead
--breed an army of supermutants

At some point, if you have no comparable abilities, the fact that you can murder someone who does doesn't make you a valid PC.

[Orion]

K seems to be rejecting the Mechanics of your "chakra" system, because he doesn't want to force PCs to buy items with money or for the DM to seed items. The PCs just declare that they now have items.

He also objects to the flavor of your "transformation" fix. He doesn't want your character to have to "become something else" like an angel or vampire.

His preferred solution is for players to select arbitrary powers and then justify them by declaring ex post facto that they come from items which were found at some point.

So he IS rejecting both of your options as he sees it, although if you only care about the mechanics he would be "accepting option 2." His actual proposal is baffling, but does meet the criteria of not being any of yours, if you accept a flavor difference as determining.

[RandomCasualty2]

@Random, even without combat-breaking fuck-yous, LotR had active characters who could

--control the weather
--scry over long distances
--come back from the dead
--breed an army of supermutants

Honestly, so what?

Controlling the weather really didn't do a heck of a lot from a game standpoint. Yeah it's a pretty cool special effect, but it's not like every character needs it. Scrying is just an information gathering ability, which could be comparable to a warrior's knowledge of the land. Being able to come back from the dead is pretty comparable to just not dying in the first place.

As for the army, the fighters had armies too, and they beat the so called supermutants. It took time and resources to breed and equip the Uruk-Hai. It also takes time and resources to hire and equip mercenaries and soldiers. If anything the warriors have the advantage since they can run around conscripting people like at Helm's deep, while if the wizard doesn't have orcs bred, he's in trouble.

I'm just not seeing why any of these things phase out warriors at all.

[Username17]

But neither of those magical foes really does anything that prevents someone from running up to them and sticking a blade through their ribs. This concept of an invisible, flying superman wizard is almost entirely a pure D&D construct and should really be dropped for comparative purposes.

First of all, the ability to physically kill a specific enemy in a direct fight does not make you equal. The fact that Private Jenkins can physically shoot General Rommel in the face were they to meet in person does not make Private Jenkins the equal of the General in any way. The General is more important and will always be more important, world without end, amen.

Now, even disregarding that blatantly obvious fucking fact, let's consider Conan's actual fight with Alexus:

In his castle on the hills near Tarsus, Alexus transformed his guards into Demon-Bats. His castle became as black as his soul. When he sensed his sister approaching his castle, he sent a rain of fire and brimstone over her squadron, then unleashed the Demon-Bats against them, forcing his sister to kill them. Only Conan and Narcia reached the castle. Transformed into a demon, Alexus attacked Conan, knowing that the barbarian couldn't kill him. Narcia transported herself and Conan into another dimension where Conan and Alexus could fight as equals. Alexus followed them. Human again and clad in his dark armor, Alexus confronted a white-armored Conan. His familiarity with that alternate dimension let him best the Cimmerian, driving Narcia to save him. Alexus was struck by Narcia's mystical blade of compassion but became even more powerful. Maddened with his increased power, Alexus destroyed the castle and killed Castrica. Narcia convinced Conan to slay her so that she could ascend to Alexus' level. The two siblings, now equal in power, continued their fight in the ether, but the world was safe.

So no. You're factually wrong. Conan faces an invincible, flying, superman wizard. And he loses. He is only able to save the day by buying time for another flying, dimension hopping, immortal, superman wizard. So in order to have the world of Conan, you have to have a card in hand for what happens when everyone in the party gains levels up to Alexus' power point.

-Username17

[Orion]

Oh, fuck you RC. I'm not willing to have this conversation with you again.

A Great all-seeing eye which can track cursed enemies across hundreds of miles is not and will never be equivalent to some scouts.

It's not clear to me why Trollman feels PCs have to be able to be the biggest dudes in the setting. It's fine with me if the most powerful beings in the setting are all "magic" if they're all NPCs. But you can't let the Gandalf player advance into being Sauron unless you also have Legolas advance to be Galadriel.

EDIT: Frank, is there some reason you can't structure a game around a Magic villain that is better than the party fighters? I mean, many campaigns end with a boss fight. The boss should be bigger than any of the PCs. So the biggest thing in the setting should never be a PC.

[God_of_Awesome]

Anime is again on the ball. Read the Fairy Tail manga, pay attention to the character Erza. Her power is to telekinetically control lots of weapons, being able to store them in extradimensional spaces, do the same with armor and switch them out at-will. Now, this is supplemented by apparently some smithee guy that makes magic shit but give Erza the power to do it herself and you got a character that is equal to any old wizard. Or make the smithee a class feature.

Downside, such a character is so blatantly magic that it stops being the Fighter and starts being Magic Fighter. The difference is enormous for some. The prime example, Erza, is in fact herself a wizard; her magic just happens to be sword themed. In the manga, regular warriors have been shown to utterly fail against wizards.

[RandomCasualty2]

So no. You're factually wrong. Conan faces an invincible, flying, superman wizard. And he loses. He is only able to save the day by buying time for another flying, dimension hopping, immortal, superman wizard. So in order to have the world of Conan, you have to have a card in hand for what happens when everyone in the party gains levels up to Alexus' power point.

But that's not an opponent you should ever meet in an RPG. Because Narcia isn't a PC, she's an uber NPC that pretty much saves the day through a plot device.

It'd be akin to having SG-1 face off against the Ori in their ascended forms and saying: See! If they don't have the power cosmic, they can't compete. They totally need to give SG-1 the power cosmic.

The hero is the context. Once you've decided that Conan is your hero in the RPG, then all threats need to be at his level. That's just the way shit works. Once you've figured out what the PCs are, the threats they face should be of their level. If Conan is a hero then by definition, the shit he faces should be stuff he can beat with the abilities he has.

Now, you're probably saying: "But you idiot, I just quoted a passage where that opponent does exist."

Well, novels can and will do shit that RPGs absolutely shouldn't do. We all know and accept that. And this is just one of those cases, because it breaks the basic principles of RPG design.

The moment you say that Conan can be a PC archetype in your game, you automatically exclude superman wizards, because they're beyond Conan's scope and including them is pretty much just creating a giant penis NPC. Running your PCs through a quest where they have to fight a giant penis by enlisting the aid of Elminster is not a fun experience and you just shouldn't do it.

[RandomCasualty2]

Oh, fuck you RC. I'm not willing to have this conversation with you again.

A Great all-seeing eye which can track cursed enemies across hundreds of miles is not and will never be equivalent to some scouts.

Yeah, that "all seeing" eye did a great job tracking the ring. Honestly I have no idea why people even think the eye of Sauron is so useful. It seriously did fucking nothing besides have a bunch of guys hype it up.

An evil ranger on the other hand with knowledge of Mordor may well have known about Shelob's cave and predicted the direction they may try to sneak in.

I honestly don't know how the eye of Sauron works, and I honestly don't care. All I know is that the hobbits managed to fool it without using magic, so it's obviously not as awesome as people hype it up to be.

[Orion]

I'm not willing to argue about the specifics of LotR any more.

That said, RC, you seem to me to be *nearly* onto something with your point about Narcia and Alexus.

So, let's look at three types of characters:

Swordmen/Pyromancers: These guys have personal combat ability and mundane skills like horseback riding.

Sorceress/Priest-King: These guys have magic powers that automaticall win against swordsmen and pyromancers. They can also conjure demon servants, mind-control armies, transform enemy armies into pigs, etc.

Paladin/Abjurer: These guys have personal combat powers that let them track and kill priest-kings and sorceresses. They don't have armies of bound demons and can't turn armies into pigs.

Now obviously a Paladin and a Priest-King aren't balanced members of the same party. Also obviously, a party of swordsmen can't fight a Priest-king. But it seems to me that a game could be designed in which PCs started as swordsmen and level into Paladins, while the BBEGs were Priest-Kings.

[Username17]

Frank, is there some reason you can't structure a game around a Magic villain that is better than the party fighters? I mean, many campaigns end with a boss fight. The boss should be bigger than any of the PCs. So the biggest thing in the setting should never be a PC.

Yes.

OK, long answer time: Let's say you define your baddest ass martial character to be level 8, or level 10. Whatever, it's an arbitrary number. And at that level characters can do the maximum stunts that allow you to hold onto your suspension of disbelief. The magic characters at this level can trod all over your suspension of disbelief (of course), but they have sufficient limitations on what their magic can do that they smoothly integrate into the same party. And there's the big bad evil guy, and he's also magic, and he also trods on disbelief suspension. But he's higher level, because he's the big bad evil fucking guy and his powers are greater and his limits lesser and he is blatantly more powerful than any of the PCs, and maybe better than all the PCs, which is why they need to collect a plot device and some allies to take him down. Fine. And if your game ends there, everything is still fine.

But if your game keeps going and your warriors gain a level, then you are stuck with the trilemma again. The warriors were already at disbelief suspension max, so to gain a level they have to either rely on something else that can suspend disbelief, become something else that is allowed to suspend disbelief, or give your personal preferences and standards the big middle finger and just gain more power anyway.

But "you have to stop playing at 10th level" is not actually an answer to "what do I do when I get to 11th level" nor will it ever be. Yes, for any game which ends before the trilemma point, the trilemma is not an issue. But for the game system, it is always an issue.

Having to stop at level 10 because the game system has taken Lago's insulting "Option 5" of simply capping the warriors and pretending that they haven't fallen irrevocably behind is not something that makes people happy. Stopping at level 10 because the characters have defeated the BBEG and there is nothing left to say in their story is fine, but that could just as easily happen at level 6 or level 12.

But that's not an opponent you should ever meet in an RPG.

Oh fuck off RC. Your two examples of appropriate swordsmen are Aragorn and Conan. Both of those characters in their actual stories break your rules. So you actually have no examples. So fuck off.

Aragorn becomes sorcerer king of Gondor. Conan becomes the sorcerer kin of Aquilonia. Neither of those characters is able to gain a level without gaining magic powers, so when they gain a level they get some fucking magic powers. Deal with it.

-Username17

[Orion]

But, Frank, lots of RPGs have stuff that just doesn't interact with PC rules at all. There no number of levels you can go up that makes you into a Solar, and a solar is (at least supposed to be) more hardcore than a level 20 character. Every game system has a max level, and you can just create DM fiat monsters that are more powerful than the system.

EDIT: wait a minute. If you only write Enemies up to level 12, you *can't* have the PCs go past level 10, because there will be nothing left for them to fight. The game HAS to end 2 levels before the top of the opposition.

[Username17]

But, Frank, lots of RPGs have stuff that just doesn't interact with PC rules at all. There no number of levels you can go up that makes you into a Solar, and a solar is (at least supposed to be) more hardcore than a level 20 character. Every game system has a max level, and you can just create DM fiat monsters that are more powerful than the system.

That's just an example of the Epic Rules not working and Fighters not beng able to have nice things. In older editions you could become a Solar by advancing as a Demigod. And in any case, while a 3e Warrior is not allowed to fight as well as a Solar at any level, a spellcaster can simply call one in to whup ass for them with a 9th level spell. Clerics are not only better than a Solar, they are literally four or five Solars a day if they feel like by 20th level.

EDIT: wait a minute. If you only write Enemies up to level 12, you *can't* have the PCs go past level 10, because there will be nothing left for them to fight. The game HAS to end 2 levels before the top of the opposition.

No. Actually the game could continue for several levels past the top of the opposition. And in the old days, it totally did. You burst into a cavern and you slaughter 50 Minotaurs. Or you cut your way through a phalanx of 16 iron golems to fight the cadre of eight beholders on the other side. There are 3-6 PCs, which means that there is a definite top end to what they could fight. But there is no limit to how many enemies can be arrayed on the battle map except possibly table space (and even then you can reuse models as enemies fall and new enemies close ranks). While there is a definable limit to how big the BBEG can be, there is no limit to how numerous and individually inconsequential each enemy mook can be.

Just because the enemies top out at level 12 doesn't mean that the PCs can't go to level 20. They just fight more enemies as they go up in level.

-Username17