NotD&D: Tactics Across Levels

[the_taken]

In keeping with the idea that as levels get higher, the range of abilities available to players becomes greater, the next exercise is going to involved coming up with some basic tactical choices players can make in the first four tiers of the game. But also, what everyone is capable of doing if they have any physiology what so ever. What I'm looking for are suggestions for abilities that fall under these different tactics, and suggestions for what level of the game they should show up in. (Schmuck, Adventure, Heroic, Epic, post Epic?)

Buff Tactics:
It's a bit difficult for me to figure out how someone can buff someone else in a way that every one can. One way to do it is to implement the Aid Another action from 3.X, but carefully to avoid nanobot assistance schemes. Similarily, people should be encouraged to encourage each other, and a schmuck should be able to say good things to a friend to give him a little bit of a good feeling, abstracted by a tiny moral bonus.

Any have some suggestions?

That all said, a very simple buff tactics that low level classes can use is something like Potions of Strength. The Level 1/2 Alchemist can fling pots around, and any ally he hits with it gains +2 to Strength or something for a little while. This can even be a tier 1 ability. Tier 2 and up can allow buffing characters to improve their allies new ways, such as increasing their speed to give them more range of effect, or increasing their size to do something similar.

A better example would be the Bard, who's primary gimmick all along has been singing to make people perform better all the time. In a similar way, Warlord, Marshals, and other "I'm a military officer" classes also make people feel better enough to actually be better. All of these classes should start at the very beginning with the ability to hand out moral bonuses to everyone at once, instead of just a friend, with a crowd addressing speech.

Enable Tactics:
"If I go do this, you can do that!"
The big example of this I have is something like "Flank Attack"; if two characters are on either side of a mutual enemy, they allow each other to use the Flank Attack ability. Another example it what mounts do, enabling their rider to use Rider abilities just by being sat on.

Less general Enable Tactics should involve a system of tags and requirements. For instance, the Psion has the always active "Synchronize Team" Ability, which means that people can use his initiative result instead of their own if his is better. It works with anyone an his team that doesn't have immunity to mind affecting effects. Something a little more advanced would be an ability that allows an ally to use his line of sight for the purpose of using their abilities, assuming they don't need line of effect to do that stuff.

What kind of stuff should the Pacted and Storm Chaser do?

Debuff Tactics
Quite frankly, there's nothing wrong with these abilities simply being the complete opposite of buff abilities. Aid Another can be countered with Hamper Another, where in two people trying to pull a rope one way can be contested by people trying to pull the same rope the other way. A friendly pat of encouragement can be countered by someone pointing out all the ways an action can fail, and lacking the moral boost, that kind of stuff can make things harder to do, applying a moral penalty.

On class specifics, Alchemists will be throwing pots around that make people's life difficult, applying tiny penalties from either weird oils or poisonous gasses. Conjurers can fuddle people's thoughts with the whispers of demons, and Skunks can make people stink so much that smelling anything at all is difficult.

Harry Tactics
The opposite of Enable Tactics, harrying an opponent removes their ability to perform actions. The most basic of all of these available to everyone is the option to disarm your opponent. This doesn't hurt them necessarily, but it does remove their ability to use whatever item they were holding on account of it not being there anymore. Other harry abilities could include the ability to target someone's mouth to stop them from doing anything speech or breathing related.

More advanced Harry Tactics would require a set of tags on abilities, both the harrying ones and all others, so that people know what kind of abilities they can counter. Kinda like how Wobbaffet had Counter to counter physical attacks, Mirror Move to counter Special Attacks, and Shadow Tag to counter running away. Except more complicated. What comes to mind as a higher level ability is the mystical folks' ability to block teleportation by blocking off travel from the Astral to the Material Plane.

None of the Harry abilities need be automatic, as it will get incredibly annoying when the DM pits the PCs against a team of harriers. The Tome Fighter is an example of the kind of guy that's powerful, too much so with any teamwork of characters in the same class. A team of harriers should be really effective at shutting down a category of abilities, not cause the murder of DMs for frustrating their players too much.

A special note goes towards abilities that don't inherently stop people from doings, merely discouraging them, such as performing suppression fire with a riffle to discourage people from breaking cover, or the Tome Knight's Challenge discouraging an enemy from ignoring him.

Avoid Tactics
Similar to Harry Tactics, Avoid Tactics involve making things not work for the enemies. However as opposed to targeting a specific enemy and making them not do stuff anymore, Avoid tactics target friendlies (usually) and make stuff not work against them. A version of this tactic that everyone has access to is ranged attacks, as it lets them completely avoid melee attacks, at least for a moment or two. This is easily countered by enemies getting ranged attacks, and for many characters, their best abilities will be close range, where put themselves at risk of sword stabs is how they pay for having better effectiveness in battle.

In some cases, characters will only have an inherent immunity themselves, like the Paladin's immunity to fear and diseases. On the other hand, many characters will be able to affect their allies and give them an immunity like the Mindblank spell, or pseudo-immunity like the Remove Fear spell, which are essentially buffs.

Hilarity can ensue when you make people immune to something beneficial, like the aforementioned Psion's abilities that mostly rely on his allies being not-immune to mind affecting stuff. That kind of thing will open up the game for more strategies.

Move Tactics:
Rather self explanatory, Move Tactics movement of entities in play. Classically, this has been teleport and shadow jumping, but in a lesser way, flying. However, at the most mundane level (and a fetish for 4eD&D) is people shoving each other around. And more subtly is the mount's ability to move a character around for them.

Any ability that grants a new form of mobility counts, such as the spells Jump, Spider Climb, Water Breathing, or the humble Feather Fall (which also lets people Avoid falling damage). Many of these could very well overlap with Enable Tactics of Buffs, or in rare cases Avoid in the case of movement abilities that can be activated reactively as a dodge like action. Classically, Contingency is the ultimate Avoid ability as it lets one simply be ready for just about anything.

This also covers abilities that force people to move. A step up from two Sumo Wrestlers shoving each other around are giants that pick up enemies and toss them away, and teleport specialists that teleport parts of enemies to different places. Wind specialists can blow enemies away, and while telekeneticists can shove people around without touching them directly.

A special question, though. Should abilities that remove movement types be Harries of Movings?

Arrange Tactics:
As opposed to moving people around where you want them, Arrange Tactics involve moving parts of the scenery around to either prevent, discourage or allow people to move the way you want them to. The most basic example of this are architects teamed up with construction workers, who create places for you to go, and ways to get there. (But whom is enabling who in this instance?) In terms of D&D examples, this has involved all manner of magicians conjuring up walls, clouds, pools, puddles, flame and even more exotic hazards in areas to prevent people from getting to places and getting things done. An example of an enabling arranger ability would be the Passwall spell, which changes the environment to let everyone through an area. In some cases, Fireball has been cited as an arrange type ability by virtue if the fact that many cloud causing spells and Web are removed by fire.

So many Arrange Abilities can act like harries, as putting up walls in places can remove line of sigh and line of effect.

Entrap Tactics:
This set of abilities cause the most contention in players. As opposed to Harry Abilities, which may only shut down a part of a character, Entrap Abilities shut down the whole character. Players love using them, as it allows them to negate a part of an encounter and split it up more effectively than Arrange Abilities might, but when used against them, it can bring tears and bouts of rage. Classically, this has been Save or Die style spells like Flesh to Stone and Implosion. Properly placed Arrange effects can also act en Entrap Abilities if they manage to remove someone's line of sigh and effect to anyone else. Harrying at low levels can also effectively entrap characters, as schmucks have so few options on what they can do.