I spent 3e trying to get my fighter/mage back.

[Maxus]

Of course, the other answer is that by the time Druids can call lightning, sword-based characters are extreme enough to dodge a lightning bolt with a reasonable chance of success.

And that physical-based characters continue to get more physically extreme compared to non-physical characters, until they are strong enough and fast enough that they stand a 50/50 chance of evading spells with no harm, and get Herculean Strength and routinely break the record for the 100-meter dash every time they gain a new level.

Of course, that's just 'too anime'.

Look, being faster, stronger, whatever, that works. Plausbility problems arise when the Greenthumb the druid coughs and hits Donan the barbarian's sword with lightning, Donan farts and holds the lightning in his sword with the mighty farting power and then next round hits away with an electric sword killing the druid.

If Donan wanted to have an electric sword in the first place, fine. If he wants to have an ability that lets him fart magically and allow him to be a conduit for other's lightnings or fireballs or sonic sneezes, sure. But, there has to be a WHY? That's my only concern.

Yeah. RC has a point--right now, the only counter to Magic is either Magic or "I can't believe it's not magic!" I got into an argument the day before yesterday, over whether the classes were balanced. My opponent maintained that all melee-types should carry around an item which grants them an Antimagic Field, which he said "...are in your price range towards the end of level 1," (quoting meaning if not exactly verbatim) and that spells being negated by so much made them inferior to a Fighter still having his Feats (and there's nothing wrong with any Feat ever published by WoTC) in an Antimagic Field.

I forgot to play that, "Who do you think makes those Antimagic items?" argument, because by then the asshat started posting in Spanish, complete with Spanish punctuation, like the upside-down question mark.

Anyway. Yeah, it would fine if physical-based characters got superhuman strength and speed and this enabled them to stand a chance of surviving spells and getting past caster defenses. But a lot of people just won't countenance the idea that starting around level 7 or 10 (heck, you could make an argument for level 6), a melee-character should start gaining inherent awesomeness and getting increases to strength, dexterity, movement speed, and the number of actions he can take in a round, just because he's gaining levels and getting closer to level 20, which by WotC's own ideas, is when you're ready to move onto being a demigod.

[Cynic]

Fighters Can't get Nice Things.

[Maxus]

Fighters Can't get Nice Things.

That's a sacred cow which will make miiiiiighty tasty steaks when it's been properly cut and grilled.

Speaking of a Sacred Beef Cookout, what about the dividing line between Arcane and Divine magic?

I've just recently found out that most of the gamers I know take it as an article of faith that they are completely separate and different things and that the barrier between them is impregnable. (Oh, and having a Wizard who finds a Divine Scroll and reverse-engineers the spell on it using Spellcraft "makes no sense from neither a mechanical standpoint nor a flavor standpoint" Also, it apparently the accepted method and the One Right Way to have Arcane and Divine casters hate each other. )

Funny how I could game with these people and never find out they believed it that strongly. It just never came up in conversation...

[Cynic]

Fighters Can't get Nice Things.

SACRED COW

OH YOU EVIL EVIL MAN




yeah, I'm a Hindu or something when I want to be one. :-D

[RandomCasualty2]

Anyone have a problem with sword-based characters having a manuever that lets them reflect projectiles Star Wars-style?

Yeah, that stuff is really cool especially for the magic projectiles. I like the idea of a fighter being able to (as a lower level manuever) block the projectile, and as a higher level maneuver being able to actually reflect the attack.

Or at the very least, let people block magic projectiles on their shield. What really pisses me off is that somehow you can't even block a scorching ray or dragon breath with your fucking shield. I mean seriously, you're telling me I can't stick my shield in the way to reduce damage? Isn't that the purpose of a shield?

Even if the shield itself gets destroyed in the process via the object damage rules, that'd still be a nice ability to have.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I've just recently found out that most of the gamers I know take it as an article of faith that they are completely separate and different things and that the barrier between them is impregnable. (Oh, and having a Wizard who finds a Divine Scroll and reverse-engineers the spell on it using Spellcraft "makes no sense from neither a mechanical standpoint nor a flavor standpoint" Also, it apparently the accepted method and the One Right Way to have Arcane and Divine casters hate each other.

Well, the distinction is one of the things that makes D&D really distinct from other games. As for the part about arcane and divine casters hating each other, my cousin's the only person I know who ever had that idea--back when he was 13-14. I think that's real-world baggage (medieval/Christian stuff about how magic or "witchcraft" is inherently evil) invading some people's ideas about fantasy gaming.

[Lago PARANOIA]

BUt, isn't that inherently magical in nature. I'm sorry, are we calling this by pure strength of heart or is this Flex Mentallo style where we have muscle mystery? If so it's still magic. I have no problem giving a sword-based/physical character magical powers but don't mince your words. Call it what it is.

If you have an inherently magical attack being held and then thrown back by pure brute strength that doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, you need a reasoning for this. See, FYIM (Feck You It's Magic) works because there is a system behind that magic that tells you why that can be so.

I'm just saying that sword-based characters should have a counter system that caters to their actual abilities.

In D&D, the solution to a druid trying to strike you with a bolt of lightning is to have an appropriate ring, buff spell, or just man up and take it. That's boring and bullshit. I mean, dodging meteors and manning up to death spells is cool and all, but there's a LOT more cool stuff you can do to counter magic.

None of this A-Team crap where both sides fire off an impressive amount of attacks at each other and nothing ends up happening neither. I want my hardcore fighters to ride bolts of lightning and lasso tornados because they were the best damn ranchers this side of the Styx before the apocalypse.

Back to the lightning bolt example, any old asshole even in real life can hold up a twig of metal to the sky to attract it. Big deal, Benjamin Franklin could do it. It takes a BADASS to actually survive a full-on lightning strike that way unharmed. It takes a mega badass to actually hit Zeus in the face with your electricity-charged sword when it's done.

That's what I think sword-based characters should have--they should have magical counters which are just ridiculous extensions of the ability really dedicated muggles could get. They shouldn't have to detour to Magic Item Shop to have a chance.

And if that ends up being Weeaboo Fightan Magick, so be it.

[Judging__Eagle]

Gilgamesh swam to the bottom of the ocean to get a pretty flower.

Cucullain was so affected by his anger that he grew to be nine feet tall, spat his lungs out, sucked one eye into his skull, let the other eye hang out by the nerves and then proceeded to kill an army of mooks with his bare hands.

After that, he fought some other guy for three days straight in his 'normal' form.

Roland cut a set of mountain ranges in half so that his king could get away.

Beowulf fought a sea serpent while wearing a chain shirt and it made him lose a chain-shirt-wearing swimming race, in the open ocean.

Beowulf stood still and Grendel left without his arm and shoulder.

Beowulf also could hold his breath long enough to find Grendel underwater, fight Grendel's mother, have his normal sword break, find a magic sword inside Grendel's underwater home, and then kill Grendel's mother.

Odysseus was not only a "king of foxes" (according to Circe anyway), but also an amazing fighter. He was strong enough to fight even someone like Ajax to a standstill. Ajax carried a shield made of seven ox-hides, so he would have been no slouch to fight either.

The Middle East, Scotland, Germany, Denmark/Scandinavia, Greece; they all have people that did crazy shit, and not once were they ever declared to be casting spells. They just manifested abilities that let them achieve their goals.

That shit all existed before we even had Weeaboo Fightan magic.

It's just that people somehow seem to forget that you know... Ajax, Beowulf, Cuchullain and Gilgamesh are seriously some of the inspiration for "Fighting Dudes", and then proceed to demand that Fighting dudes can't somehow be like the aforementioned inspiration.

It's like saying that players that make a Wizard should think of Circe, Merlin and Oracles, when they think of the class, but aren't able to cast any sort of Charm, Teleportation or Divination spell with their class.

If I play a fighter, I want to swim around in a damned chain shirt, or swim to the bottom of the ocean.

Why?

Because the people my character is supposed to be could, and I'm looking to play "Dungeons and Dragons," not looking to play "Dark Ages: Filth and Faith."

People trying to create a medieval timeframe can shove it. It can't work in D&D and D&D shouldn't be shoehorned into that role.

[Koumei]

Don't forget the bit about Lu Bu occasionally killing an army, to the point that people were constantly buying him over onto their side - because he was worth whatever they bribed him with, and if they had instead spent that money on more regular troops, it would not be enough and he'd just have more enemy troops to kill. Which he would.

Oh, and Guan Yu was, in the real world, such an awesome warrior that even now he is worshipped as a god of war (mostly in China where it all happened, but I won't rule out there being one or two people elsewhere with a shrine dedicated to his beard).

But I've already mentioned how Romance of the Three Kingdoms is basically how D&D should be, aside from adding monsters to it.

[K]

The problem is not that myth, legends, and fairy tales don't have awesome fighters.

The problem is that there aren't enough people watching action movies who also write game design (I think it's because magic is more interesting to authors). Unconsciously, action movie logic is how we measure non-magical fighters, so we can actually use it to fix this problem.

Here is the essential test: what would Stargate's Major Shepard or Jack do if faced with a powerful tech/near-ascended being/psychic alien? What would any unpowered action hero do if someone started blasting lightning bolts or the like?

We know that answer: it looks like author fiat.

So the design goal is: make something that looks like author fiat into a playable system.

Now, I know the Stargate answer: powerful blasters with psychic shields need to be be deceived into dropping those shields, or snuck up on so that they don't see the shooter behind them where they aren't focusing on stopping bullets in mid-air.

Powerful "non-magical" fantasy fighters need the rules to accept that it is a real skill to take advantage of favorable circumstances. By skill alone they end up in the part of the battlefield where a handy tower shield can be picked up from a body and used to deflect a fire blast, and psychic powers need to be defeatable by warriors humming "I'm a little tea pot" because they are good enough judges of character to know it pisses of guys who dress and act like that psyker.

Madmartagon jumps on the dragon's back and stabs it right in the neck and he doesn't fall off and break his back because he timed it just perfectly and that is just as interesting and as difficult as mastering dark lore that enables you to fire black death energy from your hands.

[K]

As a PS to that post, here is another point:

People can have tools and that can be meaningful.

I mean, I don't mind that there is a power where a warrior needs a basic magic weapon as a prerequisite to his "grounding of lightning bolts" ability.

The key is that the lightning caster needs a matching prerequisite for his powers like needing a wand or being able to freely use his hands (AKA not being in a melee with people trying to chop your arms off). In this way, you can disarm the warrior by getting his sword and you can foil the lightning blaster by getting into melee with him or knocking his wand away.

[JonSetanta]

Oh, and Guan Yu was, in the real world, such an awesome warrior that even now he is worshipped as a god of war (mostly in China where it all happened, but I won't rule out there being one or two people elsewhere with a shrine dedicated to his beard).

/tg/ worships beards in general, usually of the dwarfish kind.
Mention of a Barbazu's "beard attack" draws a terrifying amount of attention.
The forum is a fucking shrine to beards itself.

Keep in mind though that you and I, among others, have held Dynasty and Samurai Warriors as ideal for RPG concepts for months yet the proposals never caught on.
I think it's just not the right audience here.

[RandomCasualty2]

Here is the essential test: what would Stargate's Major Shepard or Jack do if faced with a powerful tech/near-ascended being/psychic alien? What would any unpowered action hero do if someone started blasting lightning bolts or the like?

We know that answer: it looks like author fiat.

So the design goal is: make something that looks like author fiat into a playable system.

I'm all for that theory of game design. I'd prefer action movies be used as a base instead of over the top anime, like DBZ.

[Judging__Eagle]

Here is the essential test: what would Stargate's Major Shepard or Jack do if faced with a powerful tech/near-ascended being/psychic alien? What would any unpowered action hero do if someone started blasting lightning bolts or the like?

We know that answer: it looks like author fiat.

So the design goal is: make something that looks like author fiat into a playable system.

I'm all for that theory of game design. I'd prefer action movies be used as a base instead of over the top anime, like DBZ.

Ok, so.... if you're not a caster... you need to have the "Author Fiat" ability.

How'z about 1 per 2 levels per adventure, you get to just declare "Somthing that saves your ass"?

You only get the ability if you can't affect physics with your head.

Caveat: You need to describe what you're going to do. The Ref and the rest of the team has to suck it; even if it is "I take my pants off and shock them into miscasting the spell as a side-effect of my lower body nudity" or "I grab a piece of scrap off the ground and throw it at the lighting-gun sentry camera, deflecting the lighting bolt."

So, player-created Author Fiat, usable a limited amount of times per day.

[Koumei]

It'll never catch on - author fiat makes people rage all the time. Even I think LotR was all the more lame because walking snacks overcame their challenges through author bullshit, instead of some actual awesome people* cleaving their way through the enemy. How much cooler would that old spider have been if a multi-flasker, a fireballer and a glaive-and-beard wielding madman had worked together to bringing it down, murdering 3/4 of the local orc population as a side effect?

Then you have the Spess Marins. People boil with rage every time their fluff is mentioned, as someone mentions a novel where a Terminator survived getting stepped on by a titan (Invulnerable save, lol), a handful of marines took an entire planet back from genestealers, or an Apothecary deflects a nuclear weapon with his crotch**.

Author fiat pisses people off, so you'll have a hard time making it into an actual mechanic. It'll also leave a lot of people feeling cheated that "some shmuck who is just lucky" can beat them, or from the other side "I'm not that special. I just get lucky, that's sort of bullshit".

So I doubt it'll be widely accepted.

*Lu Bu and Guan Yu

**And the rest of us just hate them because they get new minis/tanks/whatever every three months and every time there's a new edition, Spess Marins are the first to get an upgraded codex, and have so much awesome stuff that they seriously have everything your team of choice has, except better, those GW-favourite terminator armoured [EDITED].

[Judging__Eagle]

the rest of us just hate them because they get new minis/tanks/whatever every three months and every time there's a new edition, Spess Marins are the first to get an upgraded codex, and have so much awesome stuff that they seriously have everything your team of choice has, except better, those GW-favourite terminator armoured [EDITED].

I just figured out how to make it bearable. Mechanically at least.

Play spaz marines.

Seriously.

Buy the codex and play them.

But here's the thing....

Use whatever minis you want.

You could have an Orc army with ... "Skarboyz" (reg marines), "Killa Kans" (dreadnoughts), nobs in 'eavy armour (terminators), Flash Gitz (devestator squad) and some looted tanks (you know, b/c a bunch of orky rhinos work awesome).

I'm sure that you could do the same with any other army.

And seriously, it works for any army.

"winged genestealers" = Assault marines with jumpjets
"heavy armoured termegants" = reg marines


I'm not sure how 'tourny' legal that is, but you'd probably get "props" for your... "amazing conversion jorb."

Although, honestly, if you rely on that sort of shenanigan, then it 'just' might work. You've probably seen first hand how 'impressed' 40k people are by any sort of 'conversions', they honestly don't give a damn about stuff like "balance"; just 'winning', 'crazy fights' or 'cool minis'.

[Cynic]

People want the ability to do things not the ability to metaphorically do things.

AUthor fiat waves things away. It works in situations when you have people who understand that you are taking role playing to a level that's even more meta than it already is. You are acting out the acting out.

So Beowulf finding the magical sword after his breaks is cool because that's in a book and that's author fiat of a sort.


But you suddenly flipping Grendel's mom off is meh.

[Maxus]

I'd be fine with a system that allows characters to do genuinely awesome shit that's hard to describe in normal rules, and let players take the reigns for describing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235

Instead, the system seems to spend a lot of time telling you, no, you can't swing from the chandeliers. Or climb up the giant.

...

Actually, has anyone ever made rules for swinging from the chandeliers? Or rules for swinging from stuff, period?

[Cynic]

I'd be fine with a system that allows characters to do genuinely awesome shit that's hard to describe in normal rules, and let players take the reigns for describing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235

Instead, the system seems to spend a lot of time telling you, no, you can't swing from the chandeliers. Or climb up the giant.

...

Actually, has anyone ever made rules for swinging from the chandeliers? Or rules for swinging from stuff, period?

IH had rules for all kinds of stuff and there was a thread here dedicated to swinging from chandeliers. I think virgileso started it.

[Maxus]

I'd be fine with a system that allows characters to do genuinely awesome shit that's hard to describe in normal rules, and let players take the reigns for describing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaUIShOM54

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235

Instead, the system seems to spend a lot of time telling you, no, you can't swing from the chandeliers. Or climb up the giant.

...

Actually, has anyone ever made rules for swinging from the chandeliers? Or rules for swinging from stuff, period?

IH had rules for all kinds of stuff and there was a thread here dedicated to swinging from chandeliers. I think virgileso started it.

Somehow, I'm not surprised.

[Bigode]

Why do people want 20, 30, 40, 100 levels dedicated to being John McClane/[whatever Stargate has] if Cuchulainn exists?

[Judging__Eagle]

Why do people want 20, 30, 40, 100 levels dedicated to being John McClane/[whatever Stargate has] if Cuchulainn exists?

I HAVE NO IDEA!

I know that I won't start as Cuchullain right off the bat, but I want to look like that; not some other dude who surives b/c of DM fiat.

[K]

Why do people want 20, 30, 40, 100 levels dedicated to being John McClane/[whatever Stargate has] if Cuchulainn exists?

I HAVE NO IDEA!

I know that I won't start as Cuchullain right off the bat, but I want to look like that; not some other dude who surives b/c of DM fiat.

Lots of people don't want to be shapeshifting freaks.

I think the vast majority of people really want to be Conan or Aragorn, and those guys don't do anything overtly magical except maybe wield a magic sword.

The point is not that fiat needs to be incorporated into the game, but things that would be normally be attributed to fiat need to be.

So, it is fiat in a novel for a hero to find a shop selling low-grade magic swords to replace his broken one, but it is a class feature in the game called Contacts in Low Places(allows someone to find people selling minor magic items).

It is fiat for the warrior to notice that he could break a stalactite and have it fall on the dragon's head, but in the game it is a class feature called Shatterwall Strike(allows you to break environmental things to cause indirect attacks).

It it fiat for the warrior to trick the sorcerer into blasting the pillars of the roof with his lightning bolts and causing the roof to collapse on him, but in a game we call it Evoker's Bane(allows a person to draw off and dodge area effects while doing damage to the area effect user and/or environment).

[Maxus]

Cuchullain just doesn't appeal to me. He's too much of an the exaggerated mythology...Although turning into a monster is cool and all, it's still not something every non-magic person should aspire to.

But I'd disagree that people want to play someone who survives by DM fiat. I thought we were talking about getting together some rules/abilities that'd allow non-magic characters to do awesome shit...And then, as level-appropriate, more awesome shit. You could start out as normal person, go up to action movie, and then get to Mythology/Anime.

[Cynic]

Why do people want 20, 30, 40, 100 levels dedicated to being John McClane/[whatever Stargate has] if Cuchulainn exists?

I HAVE NO IDEA!

I know that I won't start as Cuchullain right off the bat, but I want to look like that; not some other dude who surives b/c of DM fiat.

Lots of people don't want to be shapeshifting freaks.

I think the vast majority of people really want to be Conan or Aragorn, and those guys don't do anything overtly magical except maybe wield a magic sword.

The point is not that fiat needs to be incorporated into the game, but things that would be normally be attributed to fiat need to be.

So, it is fiat in a novel for a hero to find a shop selling low-grade magic swords to replace his broken one, but it is a class feature in the game called Contacts in Low Places(allows someone to find people selling minor magic items).

It is fiat for the warrior to notice that he could break a stalactite and have it fall on the dragon's head, but in the game it is a class feature called Shatterwall Strike(allows you to break environmental things to cause indirect attacks).

It it fiat for the warrior to trick the sorcerer into blasting the pillars of the roof with his lightning bolts and causing the roof to collapse on him, but in a game we call it Evoker's Bane(allows a person to draw off and dodge area effects while doing damage to the area effect user and/or environment).

BUt people are also interested in Roland? He cleaved the mountain in half so his king could move through. I understand this could be DM fiat. But the whole idea that the fighter moves through intelligence or quickness rather than his strength is a little aggravating. That's cornering the character into one mold.