Make Fighter PrCs Essential

[Prak]

I agree. I hate the idea of free resurrection. It completely ruins any risk factor.

and ready resurrection figured into the game doesn't?

[MGuy]

Doing it for free and doing at the cost of party resources are two different things IMO. At least if you have to pay for it (before wealth just starts flying from your ass) you have to spend a good chunk of gold you could be spending on better items to resurrect team mates.

Edit: Along with being required to find someone who can actually perform the task. If having to find them mattes at all in your game.

[Prak]

ok, I can get behind that. I could see doing a free res once in a campaign as a favour for the players if they played out the scenario of "Sir Gawain has fallen". I wouldn't tell the players ahead of time, I'd just do it, assuming Sir Gawain's player wanted to continue playing him.

[God_of_Awesome]

I just realize the RoW Knight class does exactly what I my OP was describing.

[Roy]

However at the same time you're expected to fight something 4 levels higher about 5-10% of the time, which given there are 13 and a third encounters per level amounts to anywhere from 2 per 3 levels to 1 per level. And if you only have a 50% chance of winning the result is you have Elennsar's game where your odds of surviving to level 3 are minimal, and surviving to 20 is virtually unheard of.

Yet clearly people do get characters to non mook levels, and even to awesome levels. So clearly your actual chance to succeed has to be higher than that, or the game is unplayable.

No. It just means that you lose a fair amount of the time and that "resurrection budgets" are built into the treasure games.

Now, at low levels the encounter guidelines don't really work. And at high levels the CRs don't really mean anything. But in the 4-9 range it actually follows pretty well. Yeah, if you throw an Ettin at a first level party it's all over. But the actual suggestion is supposed to be Fire Giant versus 6th level party - and that really can go either way. And yeah, you're supposed to run into that kind of thing like twice in three levels, and one of them is supposed to beat you and the other is supposed to go down. The idea is that losing to the fire giant is not supposed to be game over. The party is expected to have one or two guys escape and then either raise their teammates or watch them make new characters.

Now what actually happens is that the DM gives the PCs a bunch of advantages such as favorable terrain or helpful NPCs for the boss fight with the Fire Giant to make it not "really" a Level +4 encounter and then people don't die. Or the party doesn't jam when the fight starts going ugly and then they all die and wonder what the fuck went wrong.

But the game as conceived really does throw a monster that has about a 50% chance of beating the party about once every level and a half. And it does so with no apologies, because in D&D land, losing a fight to the death is totally survivable.

-Username17

Except that lose does mean everyone dies. And there's also supposed to be causalities elsewhere, but not as frequent, and not to the entire party at once. Of course there's plenty of things that make death only a status effect, but how do you get those things if everyone is down? If they're happening this often, how do you make forward progress, what with the constantly losing level thing? You can't really afford the diamonds at all levels either.

And honestly? Having your whole party die is the best thing that can happen to you on a loss. All the other possible outcomes screw you over further.

Now what really happens is that your party punches above their weight. Not because they're pulling a JE, but because the default assumption is 'No tactics, no intelligence, Final Destination' which means all that is required for you to be better than the assumed norm is for any of the following to be true:

1: Your Cleric has realized in combat healing is a waste of time, or at the very least he is not a healbot.

2: Your Wizard has realized direct damage is a waste of time, or at the very least he is not a blaster.

3: Your Rogue is using flasks or something. I dunno.

4: Your Fighter is playing a real class.

5: You say fuck four box design and stop dragging a weak guy and a gimp along. Casters for the win.

6: Anyone, at all knows what they are doing.

The real problem is that the assumed norm fucking sucks. It pulls a 4.Fail and treats you like a complete idiot, even if you are not. As a result the BBEG fight that is supposedly equal to you is difficult but does not have nearly a 50% chance of game over.

Consider for example the level 6 party vs fire giant example again.

Will save of only +9 means that even an unspecialized wizard who is not using Heighten has about a 1 in 3 chance of ending the encounter immediately just using Glitterdust. And for a 6th level character, Glitterdust is not serious firepower. Throw in at least one other caster with a save or lose and the giant has about a 50/50 chance of even getting a turn. Actually, less than that.

[Username17]

Except that lose does mean everyone dies.

No. No it doesn't.

Some PCs go down, the rest run away, the remaining players either get their characters raised or replaced out of the respawn budget you're supposed to have, then you wander around with some lost money at a lower level. And if the total equipment loss is enough to drop you below the new level benchmarks, the DM is supposed to give you more toys. And if the equipment loss is not enough to drop you below the new level benchmarks, the DM gives you less toys.

Really.

As explained repeatedly, that is specifically and exactly how it is supposed to work. When you lose equipment, the DM is supposed to compensate you with more equipment. When you lose levels and don't lose equipment (and thus have more equipment for your level), the DM is supposed to give you less equipment.

Players are supposed to recognize when they are not winning and withdraw. Fighting to the bitter end is fucking retarded and not even vaguely what is supposed to happen. That so many 3e parties do fight to the end can be attributed to two things:

• General Stupidity
• A lack of clear explanations of risk management in the Player's Handbook

The game where you are never ever supposed to fall back, lose, or die is 4e. In 3e, as in all previous versions of D&D, it is expected that you will end up retreating from combats now and again, sometimes having lost PCs along the way. Many DMs conspire to make this not happen, but that is because they are pussies.

-Username17

[Roy]

Now kindly demonstrate how that actually happens, given that the sweet spot you mentioned is level 4-9, Teleport is not available until 9, and the other means of running away just make you die tired and without seeing it coming. Also remember just how fast combat is, if you get outclassed at least half the party could very well be dead before you even get a turn. Better hope the Teleport guy didn't go down.

Although if we follow your logic, you just nova everything with free consumables and have no problem whatsoever with higher level encounters. So that's one way of doing it, albeit a highly fucking retarded way.

Now it's well established the D&D world, for all its claims of 'heroic fantasy', really just encourages sociopathic bullies. Really, no shit. The problem is that when faced with your equals or betters, your means of recourse are limited. Hell, even 'Teleport away' stops working after a while.

[Username17]

Now kindly demonstrate how that actually happens, given that the sweet spot you mentioned is level 4-9, Teleport is not available until 9, and the other means of running away just make you die tired and without seeing it coming.

Well... at level 4 you have a horse. A Beguiler can say "balls to this" and go invisible for 40 rounds and be nearly a mile away before they become visible again. Few monsters even have a Survival skill even if they were interested in tracking you. Unless you're already stuck in a spider web or something, it's not that big of a deal.

Even if you're up against something totally unfair like the practical CR Abuse of the Elder Arrowhawk, something that has a +19 touch attack and a +21 Tracking modifier to go with its 60 ft. perfect flight to OMGWTFPWN retreaters... still can only be in one place at a time. And it only does 9 points a round. If the 4th level party sees things going badly, and the last two guys run in different directions, it's never going to catch up to the second PC before they get back to town even if for some reason it cares.

And at levels higher than 4th it becomes progressively easier as you get better tricks, more expendable items, and even henchmen you can leave behind while you sprint off. Even "dungeon" encounters can be readily escaped with Feather Tokens (Tree!), caltrops, or webbing a corridor before booking it.

---

Now, you've said many times that you are intellectually insulted by the idea of enforcing treasure parity through DM pity bonus treasure for characters who lose stuff. But the rules do say to do that. And you are committing a reverse Oberoni Fallacy by claiming that the game is broken because you won't follow the rules.

-Username17

[Roy]

Tracking doesn't take very high skill modifiers. Just saying.

As for the mount, that's a temporary measure, and it also only helps somewhat.

[RandomCasualty2]

Players are supposed to recognize when they are not winning and withdraw. Fighting to the bitter end is fucking retarded and not even vaguely what is supposed to happen. That so many 3e parties do fight to the end can be attributed to two things:

I attribute it mostly to the fact that monsters are generally faster than you, and like pretty much the only one capable of retreating is the wizard with teleport spells, meaning he leaves the other party members to a horrible death usually (since it's a full action to touch them all and teleport away).

Generally if you're casting as a standard you can only touch one other guy as part of your teleportation. And from the standpoint of a social game, you really sorta piss your friends off if you leave them to die, because the fighter in full plate really is fucked if things turn bad. So requiring retreats in game is just another fighter hoser system.

[Roy]

Players are supposed to recognize when they are not winning and withdraw. Fighting to the bitter end is fucking retarded and not even vaguely what is supposed to happen. That so many 3e parties do fight to the end can be attributed to two things:

I attribute it mostly to the fact that monsters are generally faster than you, and like pretty much the only one capable of retreating is the wizard with teleport spells, meaning he leaves the other party members to a horrible death usually (since it's a full action to touch them all and teleport away).

Generally if you're casting as a standard you can only touch one other guy as part of your teleportation. And from the standpoint of a social game, you really sorta piss your friends off if you leave them to die, because the fighter in full plate really is fucked if things turn bad. So requiring retreats in game is just another fighter hoser system.

Exactly. And good point about the fighter thing. Though, is there anything that does not hose them? Hell, even caster nerfs hurt non casters more than the actual characters being nerfed.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, if you're not already on the horse, you have to blow a move action to mount it, and if you're not right next to it, you have to blow your standard action to move.

Without horses, it sucks even worse. I've seen players effectively use the withdraw action to double move without provoking an AoO. That works when the other PCs are pulling their weight and one needs to get out of the heat. It doesn't do so well when the entire freaking party needs to retreat. What's worse is, if the monsters speed is at least that of the PCs, they can simply follow up with a charge the next round unless the PCs managed to get around a corner or something. Maybe if you were by a maze of corners and hallways, you could pull that off, but not in semi-open ground.

It's too bad D&D doesn't have a good cover fire mechanic, where half the PCs could retreat while the others pinned down the opposition with cover fire, and they could alternate each round.

[CatharzGodfoot]

It's too bad D&D doesn't have a good cover fire mechanic, where half the PCs could retreat while the others pinned down the opposition with cover fire, and they could alternate each round.

It does. It's called loosing your dexterity to AC when you make an all-out run action. So half the party runs like hell, and half the party sneak or power attacks the enemy if they try to follow.

[RobbyPants]

Well, if the party is retreating in the first place, it seems like that tactic is just begging to have the half that stays behind get fucking murdered.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Well, if the party is retreating in the first place, it seems like that tactic is just begging to have the half that stays behind get fucking murdered.

Just leave your Dwarven Defender behind. It is, after all, the entire point of the class. If you're lucky the DM will forget that the defender has no actual game mechanical way to stop the opposition.

But in all seriousness, you're right. I think that's one of the reasons chase mechanics have been such a focus in projects like TNE.

[Roy]

And forgot he'd die about as fast as anyone else anyways, perhaps faster.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So what do you think is an acceptable win/loss ratio for PCs? It obviously can't be too high or you'll have the Mongol Archer problem where PCs intentionally avoid risk to hang onto their characters. I mean, I don't think anyone thinks that it's a problem if 4th-level PCs try to avoid fighting, say, wyverns but when 4th-level PCs won't even consider fighting ghouls and instead try to farm orcs then there's a problem.

I find that telling people to just roll up new characters is unsatisfying, to boot. This is the modern era of RPGs, people put incredible amounts of effort into designing their characters. The Darths and Droids thing where people actually come up with an extended family is the new standard, not the Old Skool thing where characters don't even get last names until they survive for a few levels.

This of course can be gotten around by having cheap and easy resurrection, which I support in a high-lethality/high-character development game like D&D, but a lot of people bitterly hate the resurrection mechanics as-is, calling them unsatisfying.

So if you want a game where people get attached to their characters but where resurrection isn't cheap and easy, you have to make it so that characters win nearly every battle and/or can easily get away. Both which have their own sets of problems.

[MGuy]

[Noob] Darth's and Droids? [/noob]

[RandomCasualty2]

I prefer having some kind of mechanic where the character doesn't die. Maybe he's just badly injured or some shit, where it takes him a few weeks to recover.

When you're a plot character, you don't really die unless the player wants to abandon the character. You just get really fucked up and that's that. Maybe you just get saddled with some kind of penalty that you have to get fixed. The only time you really die is if you get in some kind of situation of inescapable death, like you fall unconscious inside a purple worm's stomach or the villain actively beheads you.

I like that better than the idea than just having common resurrection, since it still lets you have a world where people feel that death matters. It's not so much so you can permanently kill a PC, but so the PCs can feel like they can actually impact the world with their actions. Otherwise every major NPC they kill will pretty much end up getting rezzed.

[Red_Rob]

[Noob] Darth's and Droids? [/noob]

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