Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[shadzar]

shut the fuck up and do your job

... and thus the cleric as a walking med-kit was born....

The system creates the role. The only question is whether you are too selfish to conform to the role.

I mean, if someone said "I want to be Conan and he never wore armor so my fighter is not going to wear armor of any kind and just have a really bad AC" then the proper response is "GTFO or play the class the right way."

so you know the RIGHT WAY, one-true-way, each class is to be played?

funny you mention Conan as it WAS an AD&D game.

[Chamomile]

If you want an example, seriously, try any technical activity, whether it's reading a book, preparing a meal or even just watching TV. When your attention is focused on that, you're more likely to have someone sneak up on you and you're way more likely to be surprised if a SWAT team kicks down the door, as opposed to say if you were standing up in the middle of the room, your eyes darting from entrance to entrance and listening for any approaching threats, all the while in a ready stance to react.

It's funny you should mention that, because I've been known to freak people out by immediately dropping into a guarding stance whenever I'm distracted from a technical activity by a loud noise. In fact, about the only time I don't react that way is if I have something fragile in my lap (like a laptop). The effects strike me as more the Spot/Listen penalty due to being distracted than instantly losing a solid six seconds of activity.

Regardless, as you yourself pointed out, the Rogue gets screwed over by this system. From the party's perspective, the optimal strategy is still to throw the Rogue at anything that could ever be trapped, which sucks for the Rogue because he gets surprised in practically every combat. This creates a conflict of interest between people who are supposed to be on the same side.

[Daztur]

shut the fuck up and do your job

... and thus the cleric as a walking med-kit was born....

The system creates the role. The only question is whether you are too selfish to conform to the role.

I mean, if someone said "I want to be Conan and he never wore armor so my fighter is not going to wear armor of any kind and just have a really bad AC" then the proper response is "GTFO or play the class the right way."

In any case, Conan wears as much armor as he can get his hands on.

[K]

... and thus the cleric as a walking med-kit was born....

The system creates the role. The only question is whether you are too selfish to conform to the role.

I mean, if someone said "I want to be Conan and he never wore armor so my fighter is not going to wear armor of any kind and just have a really bad AC" then the proper response is "GTFO or play the class the right way."

so you know the RIGHT WAY, one-true-way, each class is to be played?

funny you mention Conan as it WAS an AD&D game.

Actually, Conan was not an Ad&D game. It was a separate game made by TSR that used d10s and had it's own built-in assumptions. I know because I played it back in the day.

Your own link proves you wrong, at least on the d10s. Congrats on failing.

[Josh_Kablack]

I mean, if someone said "I want to be Conan and he never wore armor so my fighter is not going to wear armor of any kind and just have a really bad AC" then the proper response is "GTFO or play the class the right way."

I thought the proper response was



"I am not taking you seriously until you go read some of REH's original Conan stories."

Or

"Dude, if someone doesn't wear armor, that means they weren't a fighter. That dude would be a Monk / Swashbuckler / Transmuter who focuses on self-buffs "

Or even

"Sorry, this system doesn't really model settings like the Hyborean age where sometimes martial characters want to wear armor and sometimes they don't. That's arguably a design failure in the system but we decided to use it, so tough."

[shadzar]

The system creates the role. The only question is whether you are too selfish to conform to the role.

I mean, if someone said "I want to be Conan and he never wore armor so my fighter is not going to wear armor of any kind and just have a really bad AC" then the proper response is "GTFO or play the class the right way."

so you know the RIGHT WAY, one-true-way, each class is to be played?

funny you mention Conan as it WAS an AD&D game.

Actually, Conan was not an Ad&D game. It was a separate game made by TSR that used d10s and had it's own built-in assumptions. I know because I played it back in the day.

Your own link proves you wrong, at least on the d10s. Congrats on failing.

try reading it again.

CB1 and CB2 are Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventures.

the adventures came a year BEFORE the Conan game to try to get the most out of the license. that is why i gave the link to the whole Conan bit from TSR and the archive page so you COULD see that part and check the dates.

i didnt play Conan, because i played D&D...maybe that game is what fucked you up understanding D&D and the want to play things like some mechanical moron, rather than understand the game of D&D.

since the now owners say 4th edition is the only D&D, then play it or GTFO cause anything before that, and by your concept of "GTFO" if it dont follow strictly the mechanics, means that is what you should do... GTFO.

[K]

If you want an example, seriously, try any technical activity, whether it's reading a book, preparing a meal or even just watching TV. When your attention is focused on that, you're more likely to have someone sneak up on you and you're way more likely to be surprised if a SWAT team kicks down the door, as opposed to say if you were standing up in the middle of the room, your eyes darting from entrance to entrance and listening for any approaching threats, all the while in a ready stance to react.

It's funny you should mention that, because I've been known to freak people out by immediately dropping into a guarding stance whenever I'm distracted from a technical activity by a loud noise. In fact, about the only time I don't react that way is if I have something fragile in my lap (like a laptop). The effects strike me as more the Spot/Listen penalty due to being distracted than instantly losing a solid six seconds of activity.

Regardless, as you yourself pointed out, the Rogue gets screwed over by this system. From the party's perspective, the optimal strategy is still to throw the Rogue at anything that could ever be trapped, which sucks for the Rogue because he gets surprised in practically every combat. This creates a conflict of interest between people who are supposed to be on the same side.

I've actually done enough martial arts training to tell you that if I'm reading a book and someone surprises me, they get hit before I even know what I'm doing. It's actually a common thing among trained fighters.

Heck, I've even been known to reflexively put people in armlocks because they started splashing water at me in the pool.

Of course, this still means that you have to convince me that finding traps is like reading a book and not like paying attention to my surroundings. I mean, can you honestly say that when you are looking for your keys in your room you can't notice when someone walks in?

Paying attention to your surroundings is a skill that you can learn to multitask if you really want to do it. The problem is the most people don't because it has no value in our society.

[K]

try reading it again.

CB1 and CB2 are Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventures.

the adventures came a year BEFORE the Conan game to try to get the most out of the license. that is why i gave the link to the whole Conan bit from TSR and the archive page so you COULD see that part and check the dates.

i didnt play Conan, because i played D&D...maybe that game is what fucked you up understanding D&D and the want to play things like some mechanical moron, rather than understand the game of D&D.

since the now owners say 4th edition is the only D&D, then play it or GTFO cause anything before that, and by your concept of "GTFO" if it dont follow strictly the mechanics, means that is what you should do... GTFO.

Ok, so since there were some AD&D adventures that were not built on the assumptions of the Conan game, this somehow proves that unarmored Fighters in DnD were ever a good idea?

Fail.

Every game has assumptions. If you don't play to those assumptions, you are very shitty at that game and should GTFO because TPKing the party and ruining the fun for everyone is both stupid and selfish.

I mean, what if someone said "Well, I want to play Elric so I'm going to be a Wizard who uses a two-handed sword and melees and I'm not going to cast spells and I'll have an Int of 9 and a Strength of 18."

The proper answer to that is: GTFO.

Now, if you have some neat build that is good for something and people know that you aren't going to play to type, then go for it. No one cares if someone is an archer cleric as long as the party has enough healing, but it's a big fucking deal when you TPK because there wasn't enough healing.

[shadzar]

Every game has assumptions.

ok step one in noticing you have a problem is complete....

now for all those other people raised and starting on 3.x to notice this problem, or even earlier editions that falsely assumed D&D to be one thing, when it was another, that jsut allowed them to mostly use their assumptions, would solve a LOT of the fucking problems over the years.

IE: assuming D&D was made for this rather than that.

the competitive method you use to say class X must be doing this or it is being played wrong.

the purpose of the cleric is NOT to be a walking med-kit, but to offer a class that has those options as well as MANY others.

how about i one-up you and tell you that if you are playing D&D and require a cleric or healer IN every party, then you are playing D&D wrong, so GTFO. same goes for a rogue...they arent NEEDED. they are helpful, but not a requirement to play.

a party of ALL fighters works fine, and much fun can be had with it, without altering ANY of the games guidelines.

[K]

a party of ALL fighters works fine, and much fun can be had with it, without altering ANY of the games guidelines.

All the basic assumptions have to be changed for a party of fighters.

First, you can't beat any challenge at your CR or higher. You can't play above about 6th level. You can't play any published adventure. You can't do more than one fight a day, and probably not more than one a week. If you want to play DnD at a level that a mixed party can, you need to have so much magic treasure given to you that it becomes exactly like everyone is a gestalt character.

These are all objective facts that are easily revealed in playtesting.

Once you change those assumptions, you can then tailor adventures to the party's overwhelming weaknesses and have some fun.

[shadzar]

First, you can't beat any challenge at your CR or higher.

i know i will regret asking this because it is probably from 3.x, but WTF is CR?

[K]

First, you can't beat any challenge at your CR or higher.

i know i will regret asking this because it is probably from 3.x, but WTF is CR?

It's from 3.x. It's a very rough measure of how tough a monster is, and it determines the Encounter Challenge Level(ECL) that is used for XP gain and estimating encounter difficulty.

Your party of fighters has to XP off much weaker monsters if they want to survive combats.

[shadzar]

Legends and Lore deals with MORE than just 3.x and 4th edition.

just because 3.x screwed things up doesnt mean it is all that ever was. and yet again, i wont deny that 3.x was a screw up of the game....

if all fighter party doesnt work, then that just shows one of MANY failings of 3.x as it lost sight and focus of the purpose of D&D, which is what i mentioned earlier.

i accept no responsibility for 3.x

[hogarth]

a party of ALL fighters works fine, and much fun can be had with it, without altering ANY of the games guidelines.

This has never been true in any edition of D&D. A party of 10th level fighters going through the Tomb of Horrors would last about five minutes.

[RadiantPhoenix]

A party of 10th level fighters going through the Tomb of Horrors would last about five minutes.

This may have more to do with it being, you know, the Tomb of Horrors, than with the party being all fighters.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I've heard that in earlier editions Fighter was pretty much just the class you took if you rolled too poorly for the stats needed to get into a better class.

[Juton]

I've heard that in earlier editions Fighter was pretty much just the class you took if you rolled too poorly for the stats needed to get into a better class.

Not really true. Back in the earlier versions of D&D Clerics couldn't buff like they can in 3.5, so Fighters where actually the best at melee combat. Since creatures had less hitpoints and their ACs that tended to stay on the RNG the Fighter could actually contribute in combat. They also had the best saves, or close to it, so they weren't a liability in that department either.

The assertion that a party of Fighters couldn't get through the Tomb of Horrors is also incorrect, as long as we are talking about the earlier editions. One of the first player characters to complete the adventure was Lord Robilar, who sent his army in one at a time to find and deal with all the traps. I think he needed about 500 soldiers to do it, I can't remember where I first read this so I can't verify that.

Edit: Grammar

[shadzar]

a party of ALL fighters works fine, and much fun can be had with it, without altering ANY of the games guidelines.

This has never been true in any edition of D&D. A party of 10th level fighters going through the Tomb of Horrors would last about five minutes.

as the previous poster said...it relies on assumptions not made...

D&D assumes one thing, while published modules/adventurers assume other things.

the game is NOT the published adventurers, but the DMG, PHB, and MM...anything else is an OPTIONAL addition.

BECMI...Basic was the game. ECMI was optional.
AD&D, UA/DSG/WSG/MoTP...all optional
2nd, Player's Options, DM's Options...hmm seems their own name states they are optional.

3rd...started fucking up core and forgetting where the game was, but still based on the 3 PHB/DMG/MM

4th lost its damn mind changing the core to mean "balanced" rather than the foundation of the game.

within the CORE game, that doesnt include silly options to add fasle assumptions... the all-fighter party works within and without changing the guidelines.

[Darth Rabbitt]

Oh, OK.

I stand corrected.

[tussock]

Shadz, sweetie, try a bit harder. Here's your argument at its best.

"You can play D&D with only fighters because you don't have to use the things that would make them suck." But you can replace "fighters" with "0-level commoners" and that'll still be true. So it's kind of a weak point to be making.


Darth Rabbit: 2nd edition parties, IME, had one cleric for every three fighters, plus a Ftr/Wiz and a Ftr/Rog to do the other stuff. Ftr/Clr were good in a small party as your 3rd fighter. Optimal parties exchanged the Ftr/Wiz and the Ftr/Rog for a Bard, who fought just as well, cast better, and did all the important Thief stuff anyway (which is how 3e Bards ended up sucking, overcompensation).

Eventually you wanted a strait Wizard or three, but not until at least 9th level, which took a year of play to reach. Optimal to have a Fighter dual-class into Wizard after hitting 7th level for the extra attack, but that needs very good stats.

I played a couple low level casters and they were basically useless next to the optimised fighter builds. Your best trick was recruiting more fighters with Charm, or emptying whatever wand the party found.

Oh, and someone always played a Psionicist in any big party, so when the party was losing they could win instead. So much cheese, so lame the rest of the day.

[shadzar]

replace "fighters" with "0-level commoners"

must be more assumption that D&D began with 3rd edition....

Robilar used masses of orcs under his control/guidance to defeat TOH i think...

but that is beside the point, as human fighters could have been used just as easily.

someone tell me where in the game books it says a cleric is required in the party, or that ANY class is required in the party?

again people are making assumptions that are not correct.

[quanta]

The assumption that if there are traps getting hit by even one of them is necessarily more punishing than the rogue being surprised in combat 100% of the time is pretty much just a reflection of how occasionally D&D has instadeath fuck you traps.

More generally the optimal choice obviously depends upon the frequency of traps as well as how threatening they are compared to the frequency of monsters compared to how threatening it is for a party member to be caught off guard by them.

There are traps in D&D that aren't very threatening, and you'd be better off with the rogue soaking those so he gets to go in the surprise round so he can chuck a bajillion flasks with sneak attack to instantly wipe out a threatening monster.

It's funny you should mention that, because I've been known to freak people out by immediately dropping into a guarding stance whenever I'm distracted from a technical activity by a loud noise.

That time it takes you to drop into a fighting stance is all the time it takes someone good to knock you the fuck out before you are in that stance. Of course, in D&D surprise is more like a few seconds advantage since there aren't many useful actions smaller than a standard action. Obviously from a less abstract viewpoint, this is silly.

I've actually done enough martial arts training to tell you that if I'm reading a book and someone surprises me, they get hit before I even know what I'm doing. It's actually a common thing among trained fighters.

Heck, I've even been known to reflexively put people in armlocks because they started splashing water at me in the pool.

Of course, this still means that you have to convince me that finding traps is like reading a book and not like paying attention to my surroundings. I mean, can you honestly say that when you are looking for your keys in your room you can't notice when someone walks in?

Paying attention to your surroundings is a skill that you can learn to multitask if you really want to do it. The problem is the most people don't because it has no value in our society.

If someone good at jiu jitsu gets behind you, you have probably lost. Rear naked choke, fuck you. Or maybe the first contact they make is a knockout blow. And it's a hell of a lot easier to do that to a guy who's guard isn't up. Your situational awareness does matter against anyone as competent at combat as yourself, because they will have a fraction of a second advantage on offense, and moreover will be more able to anticipate your defensive move because they are looking at you properly whereas your attention may not have been initially focused on the proper part of their body for prediction. Professional fighters have lost matches because they were a quarter-second slower than their opponent.

Your "I can hit them first when they have no combat experience because I am a l33t fucking shaolin master" is a load of horseshit. For anyone of sufficient skill, getting to strike first is a huge advantage. And they will have it if you are sitting in a chair, reading a fucking book. If the bullshit you said was true, it would be basically impossible to KO someone with a kick to the head because that pretty much depends on failures in the opponent's reactions or predictions. And notably, that tactic can work when people are in full combat mode staring at each other from 5 feet away.

And this is neglecting the fact that if the rogue is staring at the cracks in the goddamn floor looking for traps or hidden passages, he isn't gonna see the crossbow bolt coming from thirty feet down the corridor. Because he is looking in the wrong direction.


Now, I'm not saying I actually like Swordslinger's system (I don't dislike it more than the current system either, and I don't think it's enough on its own to make traps interesting), but your verisimilitude complaints are retarded (this does not reflect upon the fact that in practice, I expect parties to pull exactly the bullshit you say they will with bullying the rogue to be in constant search mode even when it's suboptimal, thus pissing in the rogue's cheerios).

I'd rather traps of the "search the walls by eye" form were constrained to low levels and had more minigame stuff going on. The trap minigame could be more serious and involved (but abstracted, sort of like hacking minigames can be fun but they are abstract). Rogues could lay down quick traps or they could mess with an existent trap by moving the trip wire, changing the height the secret crossbow bolt comes out at, making it so that the normal safe way to disarm the trap triggers it, etc.

[Kaelik]

Okay quantu, guy who knows unspecified martial arts is staring at a door. Guy who knows jujitsu bursts through door.

Does he win without a fight?

The example is not "Someone is 5ft behind you and you don't know it" it's "You are looking at a door, and then the door opens and someone who didn't know you were there, or at least didn't know your exact location charges through."

[K]

If someone good at jiu jitsu gets behind you, you have probably lost. Rear naked choke, fuck you. Or maybe the first contact they make is a knockout blow.

I'm just going to ignore everything you said because it's pretty obvious you don't know anything about fighting.

Honestly. Not a single thing was correct.

[Chamomile]

Oh, no, let's ignore everything he got wrong about the concepts of fighting in general and pay attention to why nothing he said applies to the situation being discussed even if his wildly incorrect assumptions weren't.

First off, why is it assumed that my opponent is equally competent? We aren't talking about the real world, where impressing the guys at the bar still means you're peanuts compared to anyone important in the world of beating people up/to death. We're talking about D&D, where if the PC isn't more competent than most of his opponents, your GM is trying really hard to kill you and by definition you are unlikely to survive two fights.

Second, how did this guy get behind me in the first place? I have a party! Why didn't they warn me that this guy was sneaking up behind me? Why weren't they watching my back? They're trained adventurers, this should be familiar territory even for a level one party.