The Mundane Melee fighter can go fuck himself.

[Whipstitch]

We'll never be rid of bad homebrew anyway, so there's no sense worrying about that. The important bit is keeping the blood off your hands and making sure people who use your core product can have a good experience.

[JonSetanta]

If I were to publish adventures I would cater to the low level audience because that's where the money would be.

[Username17]

If I were to publish adventures I would cater to the low level audience because that's where the money would be.

Well, the best selling module was Keep on the Borderlands, but the second best selling module was Tomb of Horrors. The first is for 1st level characters, the second is for 10th level characters.

-Username17

[zugschef]

sooner or later, some Fightard is gonna wonder why there's no Archfighter for him to PrC into, when the mage gets to continue being a mage; and then, just maybe, if he really puts his tiny pea-brain to work, he will realize that he's been bamboozled and that the whole PrC business was an elaborate lie all along, just to rob him of his pwecious DMF.

Nah. Anyone with that level of critical thinking skill would have also been able to figure out why the DMF isn't a valid high level concept in the first place. It's like a Catch-22 of not being retarded.

Bullshit. If the endless fighter-threads everywhere have told us one thing, it's that the conclusion that the fighter concept dies at a certain point and can't be salvaged without phlebotinum, is not trivial.

That's because the casual player won't think long and hard enough about the game as a whole to recognize this as a fact, but s/he will recognize that her/his fighter is made into a wizard by this prestige class, because that's what concerns them.

[OgreBattle]

If I were to publish adventures I would cater to the low level audience because that's where the money would be.

Well, the best selling module was Keep on the Borderlands, but the second best selling module was Tomb of Horrors. The first is for 1st level characters, the second is for 10th level characters.

-Username17

For 3e?
I've never actually played any version of Tomb of Horrors, but is it good? I read the creator's interview about how the instant death everywhere was to give it more replayability, he compared it to making a really hard videogame.

my general knowledge is it's all about 10ft stick poking and puzzle solving.

[Blicero]

For 3e?
I've never actually played any version of Tomb of Horrors, but is it good? I read the creator's interview about how the instant death everywhere was to give it more replayability, he compared it to making a really hard videogame.

my general knowledge is it's all about 10ft stick poking and puzzle solving.

ToH can be kind of fun if you don't have any real investment in your character and are mostly just in it for the lolz. It's good at generating stories of player stupidity leading to abrupt demises. But it's terrible as the sort of adventure you'd plug into a long-running campaign.

The original version just sort of expects you to be capable of reading the MC's mind, or it assumes that your MC will spoonfeed you a lot of clues. That's really the only way you could even possibly survive. (Alternatively, you summon a lot of creatures or hire a bunch of dudes to be walking trap-detectors.) You can beat the 3E version without being entirely psychic because you can defeat most of the challenges with a sufficiently high skill check. But you probably won't. I briefly tried the 4E version, and it seemed to have very little resemblance to any of the past versions.

[codeGlaze]

Bullshit. If the endless fighter-threads everywhere have told us one thing, it's that the conclusion that the fighter concept dies at a certain point and can't be salvaged without phlebtonium, is not trivial.

That's because the casual player won't think long and hard enough about the game as a whole to recognize this as a fact, but s/he will recognize that her/his fighter is made into a wizard by this prestige class, because that's what concerns them.

Just make fighter poke-volving a class feature.
Done! Send it to the press!

Let's get some pizza!

[tussock]

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything to suggest there was a bias against high level play until after the internet found the problems with high level play.

The IUDC is pre-web, from early usenet days. It is essentially a comedy novel about how high level play in 1st edition AD&D doesn't even work in the slightest if you use the rules.

Or rather, that it does work if you read it incorrectly, but the game is then completely unlike what most people expect and characters lives hang on having exactly the right set of immunities and spellcasters, and jokes about how certain cantrips get no saves and therefore just fucking kill you.

http://www.rogermwilcox.com/ADnD/


There's comments in the fourth supplement for OD&D, the gods one, where it notes continued designer surprise that people want to play at high level, and sets the gods themselves at 8th-20th (with extra HP) explicitly to troll anyone playing higher. In those early modules, GDQ, you kill a god at 16th level, because gods are 16th level. With notes that the DM should veto that if it doesn't suit.

The AD&D (1e) class tables run to 11th level Fighters, 17th level Thieves, and 29th level Wizards and Clerics. Hint, hint.


#Tomb of Horrors. It's written to be the last thing your high level character ever does. Retire or die trying.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... ombHorrors

my general knowledge is it's all about 10ft stick poking and puzzle solving.

It's testing to see if you learnt anything about playing D&D yet. Where D&D means "the treasure is not in the monster that looks like a pile of treasure". It's about understanding intuitively that nothing is what it looks like and everything will kill you, and sometimes there is no save so you need to be proactive in your safety. At least at Gary's table.

[OgreBattle]

#Tomb of Horrors. It's written to be the last thing your high level character ever does. Retire or die trying.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... ombHorrors

my general knowledge is it's all about 10ft stick poking and puzzle solving.

It's testing to see if you learnt anything about playing D&D yet. Where D&D means "the treasure is not in the monster that looks like a pile of treasure". It's about understanding intuitively that nothing is what it looks like and everything will kill you, and sometimes there is no save so you need to be proactive in your safety. At least at Gary's table.

Those comics are a delight to look at, thanks.

[infected slut princess]

I feel like Tomb of Horrors could be turned into a decent horror movie. A bunch of assholes who look like they came from Lord of the Rings go into this tomb, and basically they all get fucked up. It would be like a fantasy haunted house movie.

[Wiseman]

I feel like Tomb of Horrors could be turned into a decent horror movie. A bunch of assholes who look like they came from Lord of the Rings go into this tomb, and basically they all get fucked up. It would be like a fantasy haunted house movie.

I don't like horror movies and even I would pay to see that.

[shadzar]

sooner or later, some Fightard is gonna wonder why there's no Archfighter for him to PrC into, when the mage gets to continue being a mage; and then, just maybe, if he really puts his tiny pea-brain to work, he will realize that he's been bamboozled and that the whole PrC business was an elaborate lie all along, just to rob him of his pwecious DMF.

Nah. Anyone with that level of critical thinking skill would have also been able to figure out why the DMF isn't a valid high level concept in the first place. It's like a Catch-22 of not being retarded.

Bullshit. If the endless fighter-threads everywhere have told us one thing, it's that the conclusion that the fighter concept dies at a certain point and can't be salvaged without phlebotinum, is not trivial.

That's because the casual player won't think long and hard enough about the game as a whole to recognize this as a fact, but s/he will recognize that her/his fighter is made into a wizard by this prestige class, because that's what concerns them.

or maybe people dont care about the same thing of the game that others get so henpecked over.

for one high level is and always will be a joke as said when it wa created...

This book, the Players' Guide to Immortals, starts with the basic information needed to convert your mortal player character to Immortal status. New game mechanics are explained, as are many aspects of the character's new existence.

new mechanics means new game. high level play doesnt work for D&D.

The most basic and far-reaching change in the existing game system involves the character's current Experience Points. The XP total is converted to Power Points, which affect other game mechanics.
Get your character records sheet(s) and a fresh piece of paper. Don't discard the old character sheet when you're done; you'll need many of the details later.

sounds like dont even try to convert from 3rd to 4th....

high level play is NOT compatible with D&D.

High-level AD&D® campaigns pose some special problems for the referee. Encounters are more difficult to construct because the DM cannot simply throw monsters at characters whose prowess are equal to those of Hercules, Merlin, and other heroes of myth and legend. Keeping a high-level campaign on-track and exciting can be so difficult that many players and DMs prefer to retire their high-level characters and start over at 1st level rather than continue the campaign.


Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

when you leave the realm where the mundane fighter can function, you have left D&D and any game that began as somethng other than DC/Marvel Superheroes or 4th edition.

calling someone a casual player because they dont wish to play through Ragnarok is just cause you are a dipshit.

[nockermensch]

I feel like Tomb of Horrors could be turned into a decent horror movie. A bunch of assholes who look like they came from Lord of the Rings go into this tomb, and basically they all get fucked up. It would be like a fantasy haunted house movie.

Violent and merciless like Game of Thrones, but PVE instead PVP. Where is the Kickstarter?

[OgreBattle]

A nicely budgeted Tomb of Horrors movie would be fun and appeal to the GoT crowd who love to see heroes fail.

There was the early 90's Wizardry anime:

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

It's filled with violence and treasure hunting.

[JonSetanta]

Nice. Adding that to my vintage anime collection.

[Mistborn]

As much as I hate to derail this wonderful anime discussion, I noticed a point that I missed saying and wanted to restate.

So if you have something like a really high mundane hide bonus, you still have to tell the other people at the table how you intend to have that apply to your current situation. And if the situation is something simplistic and dumb like "The guard is standing at the other end of the featureless hallway looking down it," that might be very hard to do.

In TTRPGs fluff matter, because like Frank has said in order for you're character to take an action you may have to describe that action. The reality is the breath and scope of things that you can describe doing "mundanely" is much less than what you can do "by magic". The mundane Rogue trying to sneak down the featureless hallway is going have a hell of a time describing that to the GM, whereas the wizard casts invisibility and ya'know turns invisible.

The reality is theres a limit to the things people will buy coming form mundane humans. Your "mundane character" can only things that you can actually describe being done by a human being, heck some of those things you can describe are going to be thrown out for being stupid. You can descibe your character lifting himself up by his own bootstraps but your not going to be allowed to do it outside a game of Munchhausen.

Or in other word the number thing you can describe being done by "a guy who's done a lot of sit-ups is infineitly less than the number of thing being done "by gratuitious use of evil black energy tendrils."

[tussock]

The fluff isn't "mundane" though. Not before 3e at least.

OD&D Fighting-Men are gear-mages. The best shit in the game is magic swords and only Fighters can use them. You're Elric, once you find your sword you win D&D.

AD&D moved onto physical adepts. Your Str/Con stat mods are 2-3x as high as anyone else at level 1, and the magic gear and spells that boosts Str to match the strongest monsters in the game only works properly (or at all) for Fighters. And your gear is still way better than other classes. Like +2 to hit and an extra 2d6 damage or so over a Thief or Cleric, with great AC. And you get an army, and the best saves, at high level.

2nd edition added in being action-economy freaks. Everyone gets one attack, except Fighters, who can get 2+ at first level and at least 5 at higher levels for vastly better damage on each one, and your physical mods are still better, and you still get the best gear (though not as good as 1e). Optimise and the monsters don't really stand a chance, while everyone else is really very vulnerable.


3e gives vorpal greatswords to Clerics and everyone gets gigantic physical stats and multiple attacks whenever they like, better saves, same basic damage, and so on and so on. That only looks "mundane" because they gave the unique super-human gear-mage "Fighter" stuff to everyone, and then rebalanced the monsters so it doesn't kill any of them that well.

Shit, 4e makes them spend a feat to get the best armour, and their best attacks go away when they use them, and everyone literally gets to add whatever stat they want to attacks and damage, because it's super-important that everyone is better than the Fighter at FIGHTING for some reason. ....


So, more, being superhumanly strong and fast with a sword and tough to kill and super-capable with the best magic gear is totally a thing that worked for a long time. You just might not call it "mundane" if you remember to let the numbers work and not give it to all the other classes. Frank's right that people tend to cock-block the fighter-magic a bit more regularly than the wizard-magic (not 100%, it goes the other way at times), but first you have to let the Fighter's thing work, mechanically, in a way that is unique to the Fighters.

Ultimately, call the power source what you like. Designers are still going to design storm-lord Fighter powers that suck ass, and peasant-lad Fighter powers that kick ass, depending on how they personally feel about Fighter competency.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

So, more, being superhumanly strong and fast with a sword and tough to kill and super-capable with the best magic gear is totally a thing that worked for a long time. You just might not call it "mundane" if you remember to let the numbers work and not give it to all the other classes. Frank's right that people tend to cock-block the fighter-magic a bit more regularly than the wizard-magic (not 100%, it goes the other way at times), but first you have to let the Fighter's thing work, mechanically, in a way that is unique to the Fighters.

Ultimately, call the power source what you like. Designers are still going to design storm-lord Fighter powers that suck ass, and peasant-lad Fighter powers that kick ass, depending on how they personally feel about Fighter competency.

I'm going to avoid getting into this too much because I'm not really a DnD guy, but would this idea help? Magic is unnatural and the physical world , though innundated with it, maybe seeks a way to reject it. Fighters subconsciously channel this, being matter fighting magic and as such gain bonuses resisting magic. Plus, the real world aids them against magic, so they can (though less often than magic based characters) have it aid them. A high level character is already a paragon of sorts, so fighters could sort of become "reality's champion".

Returning to the digging the tunnel example, the magician burrows through it with magic. But reality may aid the archer, some stuff shifts around, suddenly chemical bonds aren't as strong as they used to be, some rocks get moved, ect. Same end result and both are sort of MAGIC! but with different sources. Plus, it could give a fighter a niche at higher levels as a sort of anti-magic weapon. Certain monsters need magic to beat, but you could flip it and say that unless you want to turn things into a nuclear bomb duel at ten paces, if you want to take down a high level wizard, you need a high level fighter or other "mundane" guy to help stop his own magic. Is there anything viable here?

[name_here]

That sort of suggestion comes up every so often. There are three counterarguments:

1. Wizards can parley having magic into forms of attack generally agreed to be non-magical, like collapsing a building on top of their enemy. This could be handled by giving them a more aggressive counter-magic capability to nullify magic not directed at them from a distance, but even I will agree that's pushing out of the fighter conceptual space.

2. A countermeasure power like that is highly limited for general applications. You can't use it to build a castle, for instance.

3. Apparently some mundane fighter fans won't like that, and we care for some reason.

[Username17]

We care because the only reason we're entertaining the concept of a "mundane warrior character" at all is because there are fans of the mundane warrior concept who demand it. If the mundane warrior fans weren't whining for a dumb melee fighter character to play, we'd just give the Warrior class the ability to turn into a dragon at 10th level and be done with it.

Making warrior classes who get level appropriate abilities at high level is not actually difficult. You just give them level appropriate abilities at high level and call it a day. The problem being that the players who want mundane warriors (as opposed to Angel Knights and Storm Lords and shit) don't actually want abilities that are level appropriate for high level. The mundane warrior is a low level concept and you can't make it high level without killing the concept.

So any and all plans that involve giving the mundane warrior something at high level that supposedly makes him viable is a waste of everyone's time. Either it is a real high level ability - in which case you've failed to appeal to your target demographic; or it's not a real high level ability - in which case you've fucking failed your Craft RPGs roll.

The only solution to mundane warriors is to convince players to accept non-mundane warriors at higher levels. And from what I can tell, the correct way to do that is with mandatory prestige classes/ paragon classes/ epic destinies at an arbitrary cutoff level. For whatever reason, most mundane warrior fans don't seem to mind being able to dynamically prestige class into Demon King or Demigod - and once they have Death Knight or Chosen One written on their character sheet, they don't seem to mind having phlebtonium based high level abilities. It's a weird and seemingly pointless slight of hand, but it seems to work so fuck it.

-Username17

[codeGlaze]

For whatever reason, most mundane warrior fans don't seem to mind being able to dynamically prestige class into Demon King or Demigod - and once they have Death Knight or Chosen One written on their character sheet, they don't seem to mind having phlebtonium based high level abilities. It's a weird and seemingly pointless slight of hand, but it seems to work so fuck it.

-Username17

Yep, packaging and advertising basically. Pretty sure that's the general consensus TGD has reached within the past year.

On a side note. I've always liked the idea of there being a "natural" counter to magic, a la Saga Frontier 2. The big thing there was that magic (elemental based) was pretty much used by everybody to some degree and people who couldn't use it were pretty much treated as lepers.

...until The Prince was found to have no talent. (DUN DUN DUNNNNN)

He ends up fielding all sorts of soldiers kitted out in metal, which is the anti-magic to the wooden/leaf/fire/stone/wind armor/weapons the normal soldiers wore. His anti-magic troops end up steamrolling everyone for a good portion of the game.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

We care because the only reason we're entertaining the concept of a "mundane warrior character" at all is because there are fans of the mundane warrior concept who demand it. If the mundane warrior fans weren't whining for a dumb melee fighter character to play, we'd just give the Warrior class the ability to turn into a dragon at 10th level and be done with it.

Making warrior classes who get level appropriate abilities at high level is not actually difficult. You just give them level appropriate abilities at high level and call it a day. The problem being that the players who want mundane warriors (as opposed to Angel Knights and Storm Lords and shit) don't actually want abilities that are level appropriate for high level. The mundane warrior is a low level concept and you can't make it high level without killing the concept.

So any and all plans that involve giving the mundane warrior something at high level that supposedly makes him viable is a waste of everyone's time. Either it is a real high level ability - in which case you've failed to appeal to your target demographic; or it's not a real high level ability - in which case you've fucking failed your Craft RPGs roll.

The only solution to mundane warriors is to convince players to accept non-mundane warriors at higher levels. And from what I can tell, the correct way to do that is with mandatory prestige classes/ paragon classes/ epic destinies at an arbitrary cutoff level. For whatever reason, most mundane warrior fans don't seem to mind being able to dynamically prestige class into Demon King or Demigod - and once they have Death Knight or Chosen One written on their character sheet, they don't seem to mind having phlebtonium based high level abilities. It's a weird and seemingly pointless slight of hand, but it seems to work so fuck it.

-Username17

Earlier on you spoke about how higher level play necessitates entering into Kingdom building and the like. It's sort of fitting to the fantasy genre that barring an evil empire, most kingdoms are rules by a mundane, with a council of magic users behind them, so why not give mundane fighters a bonus for leading states and the like? So as there career path progresses they go from damage source and defenseman to more of a "face of the party" like role. This represents less CHA and more their reputation as a warrior and a leader. So a Wizard can flatten a city with a fireball, but if you want to actually take that sucker, Conan is going to have a lot easier of a time raising an army and laying siege to the place. So in effect, both classes have similar power, but one is concentrated in one person's hands and the other lies in all the tools he can bring marching behind him.

[TheFlatline]

We care because the only reason we're entertaining the concept of a "mundane warrior character" at all is because there are fans of the mundane warrior concept who demand it. If the mundane warrior fans weren't whining for a dumb melee fighter character to play, we'd just give the Warrior class the ability to turn into a dragon at 10th level and be done with it.

Making warrior classes who get level appropriate abilities at high level is not actually difficult. You just give them level appropriate abilities at high level and call it a day. The problem being that the players who want mundane warriors (as opposed to Angel Knights and Storm Lords and shit) don't actually want abilities that are level appropriate for high level. The mundane warrior is a low level concept and you can't make it high level without killing the concept.

So any and all plans that involve giving the mundane warrior something at high level that supposedly makes him viable is a waste of everyone's time. Either it is a real high level ability - in which case you've failed to appeal to your target demographic; or it's not a real high level ability - in which case you've fucking failed your Craft RPGs roll.

The only solution to mundane warriors is to convince players to accept non-mundane warriors at higher levels. And from what I can tell, the correct way to do that is with mandatory prestige classes/ paragon classes/ epic destinies at an arbitrary cutoff level. For whatever reason, most mundane warrior fans don't seem to mind being able to dynamically prestige class into Demon King or Demigod - and once they have Death Knight or Chosen One written on their character sheet, they don't seem to mind having phlebtonium based high level abilities. It's a weird and seemingly pointless slight of hand, but it seems to work so fuck it.

-Username17

Earlier on you spoke about how higher level play necessitates entering into Kingdom building and the like. It's sort of fitting to the fantasy genre that barring an evil empire, most kingdoms are rules by a mundane, with a council of magic users behind them, so why not give mundane fighters a bonus for leading states and the like? So as there career path progresses they go from damage source and defenseman to more of a "face of the party" like role. This represents less CHA and more their reputation as a warrior and a leader. So a Wizard can flatten a city with a fireball, but if you want to actually take that sucker, Conan is going to have a lot easier of a time raising an army and laying siege to the place. So in effect, both classes have similar power, but one is concentrated in one person's hands and the other lies in all the tools he can bring marching behind him.

You just described an old school AD&D fighter. 11th level if memory serves.

And it wasn't exactly a solution then (though fighters weren't as f*cked as they are in D20), and as of 3.x it's *really* not a solution.

[Lokathor]

The problem is that a kingdom isn't very mobile, while a wizard is.

And also, a kingdom usually causes people to think that management mini-games are required to handle them, which most people don't actually want to spend time on. So they just skip the whole kingdom-owning part of the game. Things based around having a kingdom as a balance point are probably gonna fail quickly when that part of the game just gets skipped over it.

[OgreBattle]

In Conan, wizards can and have raised armies and established their own kingdoms. They were generally consideredered more prosperous than non-wizard based kingdoms. Kingdoms without wizards also just leave wizards alone. In Hour of the Dragon, King Conan gets his ass kicked by a wizard who paralyzes him with a summoned monster then puts him to sleep and only keeps Conan alive because he wants Conan to serve him.

King Conan loses his kingdom and his army abandons him because they all tell him "We can fight other armies, but you got your ass kicked by that wizard and we're all too scared to fight him without our own magic". Conan then goes on a quest to find other wizards to help him, and an oracle wizard and stealth wizard save his butt as he looks for the macguffin.

Conan is very much a setting where wizards dominate. If Conan wizards were played by Murderhobo D&D players, Conan would've been coup de graced the moment he fell asleep.