The End of 4e D&D.

[Lago PARANOIA]

First of all, the game needs to get away from the paradigm of 'every power needs to involve an attack roll + damage'. In 4E, there aren't many of them, but the powers that don't use attack rolls tend to be more interesting than the ones that don't, because you need to justify them in a way beyond 'basic attack + stock effect'.

It's sometimes fun just to do straight-up vanilla damage without worrying about things like 'where's the best place to put my stinking cloud'. Unfortunately, the fact that nearly every power in 4E does damage in addition to an effect not only makes the effect of 'basic attack + stock effect' incredibly overused but also makes 'basic vanilla damage' incredibly uninteresting.

More concretely, crack open a 3E PHB or Spell Compendium and look at the higher-level attack spells that aren't just straight-up damage. I don't approve of the rocket launcher tag of the spell system, but the spells themselves have a variety of interesting effects. High-level attacks should look like that.

If your character concept cannot evolve beyond the paradigm of 'basic attack + stock effect', then they should just fuck off and die after a certain point in the game or you should end the campaign early.

[Psychic Robot]

The only problem with that idea is that it tends to stretch credibility too far, at least for some players. Take prismatic spray, force cage, and waves of exhaustion, for instance. All of those have interesting effects to them and are useful abilities in a mage's arsenal. Can a fighter duplicate them? No, but that's because it wouldn't make sense for a fighter to do so. Shooting rainbow blasts everywhere? Not really fighter-y. Conjuring a cage and trapping an enemy within it? Still not very fighter-y. Making all your enemies exhausted? I suppose that one's within reason, but it's still stretching it. Part of this is Fighters Don't Get Nice Things, and part of it's "there's no possible in-game justification for you shooting lasers out of your eyes, so no, you can't do that."

Fighters will never be able to use a power like reverse gravity or maze. Unfortunately, that's just part of being a fighter, and I don't think there's a good way to fix this without saying "we're playing Bleach now, so here's your zanpakuto and energy powers." (God have mercy on me for using the term "zanpakuto" in a sentence.)

[Lago PARANOIA]

Then you'll love this fix:

Ban that lazy, weakass piece of shit fighter, rogue, marshal, scout, and all of their other worthless anus-sucking friends after level 8.

You either upgrade to one of those Bleach shinigami or Naruto ninjas you disparaged or you play another game.

There. Problem solved.

[koz]

Then you'll love this fix:

Ban that lazy, weakass piece of shit fighter, rogue, marshal, scout, and all of their other worthless anus-sucking friends after level 8.

You either upgrade to one of those Bleach shinigami or Naruto ninjas you disparaged or you play another game.

There. Problem solved.

You forgot the other solution: nobody gets nice things. Basically, level 8 is the end of the game, and that's that.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Some people want boring characters, and to some extent 'hitting really hard' and 'being hard to kill' can stay relevant forever. You let them hit so hard that they can punch out ghosts. You let them hit so hard that they can bash out of force cages. You let them dodge death rays and dragon's breath. And their characters stay boring, and they stay effective.

[TheWorid]

Then you'll love this fix:

Ban that lazy, weakass piece of shit fighter, rogue, marshal, scout, and all of their other worthless anus-sucking friends after level 8.

You either upgrade to one of those Bleach shinigami or Naruto ninjas you disparaged or you play another game.

There. Problem solved.

Agreed. The concept of forcing people in prestige classes after a certain point (Paragon paths) was a fine idea, which, like all other decent ideas in 4E, was screwed up. ALL martial paragon paths should be magical, so that you can cut the crap about the stupid belief that mundane characters can be relevant after that level.

[RandomCasualty2]

More concretely, crack open a 3E PHB or Spell Compendium and look at the higher-level attack spells that aren't just straight-up damage. I don't approve of the rocket launcher tag of the spell system, but the spells themselves have a variety of interesting effects. High-level attacks should look like that.

Yeah. What's really sad is that most 4E powers don't even have the interesting diversity of a game like Starcraft or Warcraft III. Your dwarven mountain king in Warcraft 3 can
-make a regular melee attack, that has a chance of stunning a foe.
-toss his hammer for big damage and stun something
-pound the ground, damaging nearby enemies and slowing them.
-Grow to giant avatar size and start wailing away on shit.

Now a 4E character can't do anything nearly as interesting, and that's fucking sad. I don't even think the 4E fighter has a single ranged attack.

[Psychic Robot]

Then you'll love this fix:

Ban that lazy, weakass piece of shit fighter, rogue, marshal, scout, and all of their other worthless anus-sucking friends after level 8.

You either upgrade to one of those Bleach shinigami or Naruto ninjas you disparaged or you play another game.

There. Problem solved.

People don't want to be forced to play shinigami, though. People want to play fighter 20 and rogue 20. They want to play "dude with a shield who stabs things."

[sake]

Useful Things I Could Reasonably Believe a Martial Class Could Do:

Daze
Stun
Slow
Knock Prone
Immobilize
Push/Pull
Cause a fear effect
Hit an entire group of nearby baddies with one attack
Hit an entire group of far off baddies with a ranged attack
Interrupt another creature's attack.
Completely negate another creature's attack.
Move really far very quickly for a short amount of time
Apply a penalty to a creature's hit chance
Apply a penalty to a creature's defenses
Disarm a creature
Knock down doors and destroy objects
Restore HP's and end some conditions using first aid.
Grapple or pick up a creature up to one size larger that the character.
Sneak around things undetected
Intimidate people into doing what they want.


Things I Can't Reasonably Believe a Martial Class Could Do Without Going Into DBZ Crazy Town:
Fly
Teleport
Turn Invisible
Mind control someone
Shoot fire from there hands
Grapple hude creatures.


So there really is plenty of shit you could have fighters do besides hit things really hard, that could make them interesting to play. It's the game designers fault for not actually using them.

[Username17]

But when your opponents really are giants who live in cloud castles who throw lightning bolts or dragons that fly around and breathe fire, you had better go into DBZ/Crazy Town.

We've been over this repeatedly. If the Wizard scales up to having nice things, then the enemies will scale up to having nice things. And then no one will give a rat's ass whether you can kick down a fucking door or not. Because the battlefield will take place on battlefields in the air that have floating spheres of lava in them and enemies will be throwing down impenetrable forcefields and covering the world in poison gas.

There are two options:

• At level X, everyone has to take a Paragon Path. Every fucking Paragon Path without exception is able to o wondrous and magical things.
• No one gets nice things. Ever. There are no enemies the size of office buildings, no teleportation, no battles in distant dimensions, no force fields or flying horses. People are just regular flesh and blood swordsmen and so are the enemies. If anyone is allowed to be a "wizard" of any kind, they will be such because they are able to "start fires" or "create light" or do other bullshit that an ordinary guy could plausibly do if he invested in some combustibles and ha some experience with pyrotechnics.

There is no fucking option 3. Getting an extra +1 to-hit is not a fucking substitute for mind control magic. And it cannot ever be one.

-Username17

[Orion]

Can you spot the curious thing about these lists?

Useful Things I Could Reasonably Believe a Martial Class Could Do:

Immobilize
Move really far very quickly for a short amount of time
Knock down doors and destroy objects
Sneak around things undetected
Cause a fear effect
Intimidate people into doing what they want.


Things I Can't Reasonably Believe a Martial Class Could Do Without Going Into DBZ Crazy Town:

Grapple hude creatures.
Fly
Teleport
Turn Invisible
Mind control someone

[hogarth]

There are two options:

• At level X, everyone has to take a Paragon Path. Every fucking Paragon Path without exception is able to o wondrous and magical things.
• No one gets nice things. Ever. There are no enemies the size of office buildings, no teleportation, no battles in distant dimensions, no force fields or flying horses. People are just regular flesh and blood swordsmen and so are the enemies. If anyone is allowed to be a "wizard" of any kind, they will be such because they are able to "start fires" or "create light" or do other bullshit that an ordinary guy could plausibly do if he invested in some combustibles and ha some experience with pyrotechnics.

There is no fucking option 3.

Say what? Everything you list in option #2 is possible in an E8 game (with the possible exception of the "office building" sized enemy -- I can't think of any off-hand in D&D), and I would argue that the fighter hasn't become completely useless by that point (just situationally useless).

[Doom]

You forgot an option, one from AD&D:

Include magic items that ONLY FIGHTERS CAN USE, that can do some amazing things...then have those pop up in the game, so that indeed, fighters can have nice things.

Contrived perhaps, but Rods of Rulership and such used to exist, and this is another way.

[FatR]

There is no fucking option 3. Getting an extra +1 to-hit is not a fucking substitute for mind control magic. And it cannot ever be one.
-Username17

Not any form of useful magic is DnD-style batshit-insane-powerful-no-drawbacks magic. And there is an option 3, making "martial" classes into magical equivalent of gadget-based supers through making magic items their class features. It might be stylystically unsatisfying, but it is there.

[sake]

Not any form of useful magic is DnD-style batshit-insane-powerful-no-drawbacks magic. And there is an option 3, making "martial" classes into magical equivalent of gadget-based supers through making magic items their class features. It might be stylystically unsatisfying, but it is there.

That would require getting through some DM's skulls that powerful magic items are a requirement that characters have to have, rather than some sort of special bullshit thing that must be kept rare, special, and limited so that magical items seem 'magical'.

Ugh... I've already gotten too much of that crap from the recent threads about the new essentials magic item tier system.

[Username17]

You forgot an option, one from AD&D:

Include magic items that ONLY FIGHTERS CAN USE, that can do some amazing things...then have those pop up in the game, so that indeed, fighters can have nice things.

Contrived perhaps, but Rods of Rulership and such used to exist, and this is another way.

And there is an option 3, making "martial" classes into magical equivalent of gadget-based supers through making magic items their class features. It might be stylystically unsatisfying, but it is there.

Those are both just option 1. At some point you arbitrarily tell the Fighter that he has to be magical an special. Whether it's because he turns level 11 and now he's an "Angel Knight" and can totally fly, or because he's level 11 and his level 11 equipment includes "Angel Armor" that lets him fly is totally irrelevant. In either case, he's level 11 and he gets things that will contribute against the world full of DBZ-esque craziness sprea out before him. That's what option 1 is.

-Username17

[Dr_Noface]

You could always change the rules so that characters (not to mention creatures) can only control or channel so much magical might at one time, be it personal (ex wizard spells, super kung-fu) or from an external source (ex items, blessings from gods). Mundane characters such as fighters or rogues could, by lieu of having no magic of there own, be able to attune themselves to more magic items at once, and exchange them more quickly.

This would give wizards and clerics a reason to keep their more martial friends around at high levels. The lack of magic in their blood would allow them to change magic items at a whim, granting them some much-needed versatility.

Heck, why not let buffs last longer (or be more potent) on mundane characters.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It might be stylystically unsatisfying, but it is there.

Talk about an understatement. Why is this unsatisfying? Because the fighter increasing becomes a launching platform for all of the cool doodads the character can do rather than a character in their own right.

There's a reason why people don't want James Bonds to pull out too many gadgets. It devalues his own abilities. And James Bond is operating at the level of 'mortal spy'. If you're fighting at the level of 'attack the cloud giant ghosts in the underworld' then you need to up the gadget ante considerably.

People are impressed by Evil Knievel jumping the grand canyon in a regular motorcycle. People would be super-impressed by him being able to skeet shoot accurately while doing so. No one would be impressed by him flying across the English channel on a flying motorcycle while shooting down clay pigeons with automated lasers.

Well, I mean, people would be impressed, just not by him. They'd be impressed by his cool motorcycle.

ay what? Everything you list in option #2 is possible in an E8 game (with the possible exception of the "office building" sized enemy

That's because in an E8 game people plop that shit down for you in a convenient-to-use manner.

The point is that eventually characters will be the cause of dimensional battlefields and mass summoned ghost horses and volcanos out of fukken nowhere. No one has a problem with wizards and clerics and druids doing these things. If the paladin and ranger classes weren't so underpowered people could accept them doing these things, too, but that's a mechanical problem rather than a stylistic one. No one will ever accept fighters and rogues doing this kind of thing.

Do you see what a problem this is? You have a team of four people and they're all expected to contribute equally. You then have this problem.

DM: Okay, how do you open your assault on the Dark Lord's castle?
Druid: I cast Vines of Death, which causes necrotic plants to grow about the walls and suck the life force out of the troll army.
Artificer: I mix together some chemicals and launch them into the sky with my Super Crossbow. It starts raining acid and hail over the battlements. Fortunately I was able to mass-produce a helmet that will protect our armies from the bad effects.
Paladin: I raise my sword in the air and make a prayer to Pelor. The bones of all of the soldiers who died in previous wars rise from the dust of the earth and are infused with holy power, ready to take my commands.
Fighter: I raise MY sword and give a stirring speech which gives our troops a +2 bonus to attack and fear saves and I lead the charge!
Druid: Dude, there are like two thousand trolls and they are just the cannon fodder. How is that going to help?
Fighter: What do you mean? I'm leading a cadre of elite troops from across the land. Of course it'll help.
Druid: No, I mean, how is you personally charging going to help? You could have just stayed home and the effect would be pretty much the same, other than you killing some fodder trolls. Good, but not battle changing. They wouldn't have gotten your kickin' rad bonus without you, I guess, but all of us have spells to do that.
Fighter: Look, I can kill a troll in one sword swing and a troll berserker in two. That's pretty useful.
Paladin: Dude, so can I. You kill them about twice as fast as me on a good day, but seriously, if you rolled up a paladin instead of that worthless fighter bitch we could have an angel army to go alongside the ghost army.
Fighter: Look, in the final battle in the throne room I'll show you guys! My attack bonus is high enough so that I can outfit the Dark King in a swordfight and I have a kickin' rad 'Blades of Fury' attack that lets me have three attacks.
Artificer: That's nice, but what are you going to do for us NOW? How are you advancing the plot while this shit goes on?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Dr. Noface:

So it's not okay for a fighter to become a DBZ character under his own power, but it is okay for someone else to cast a spell or give them items and turn them into a DBZ character?

[Dr_Noface]

Lago, I fully support the whole mystical warrior archetype. I love the idea of martial characters developing magical and fantastic fighting skills that any wizard would be envious of

But we probably all know people who like to play mundane badasses for all 20 levels of D&D. Frankly, they're okay with their fighters doing DBZ stuff as long as it comes from a magical weapon or spell. I think my suggestion may help with that.

Although we might be critical of their lack of imagination high level games, these people deserve a class that makes this possible. You could probably do something starting with a full bab, all good saves, 8 skills per level chassis. Heck, the Tome fighter probably does it, although some of my friends don't really like Foil and Forge Lore.

[FatR]

Dr. Noface:

So it's not okay for a fighter to become a DBZ character under his own power, but it is okay for someone else to cast a spell or give them items and turn them into a DBZ character?

A whole fucking lot of people seem to think so.

In truth, there is an undeniable charm in the stories of badass normals who beat superhatural foes through smarts, courage and determination (and usually McGuffins). That's why most of the fantasy genre is built along this template.

Of course, the fact is, once supernatural shit gets sufficiently crazy, normals cannot compete anymore. When your BBEG can vaporize normal humans with just his battle aura, you magic up or die.

And DnD never was particularly good at articulating the fact that it gets exactly that crazy at higher levels. The fact that almost every piece of DnD fiction ever published included martial charactes, with maybe a few items, handily defeating powerful magical creatures and spellcasters did not help. So people were coming and still are coming to DnD expecting something much less crazy. And are disappointed, when their characters inspired by Aragorn and whatever just stop working after a certain point. 4E had the right idea with its character tiers - too bad that the execution made the tiers effectively pointless. The ideal DnD should make profoundly clear, that low, middle and high level have different genre assumptions about stuff the characters must do to keep up with their peers. That in fact these level ranges emulate different genres, from low fantasy, to high fantasy/lower end supers, to DBZ crazytown.

[shau]

Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw


Has this been posted here before, because it is a pretty good illustration of this whole problem.

[Dr_Noface]

Yeah, a tiered system would be awesome. I would love outlines for what stories can be effectively told at what tier. And rules for when ritual magic becomes everyday battle-magic would be much appreciated.

A purely "mundane" character class can be written to kick ass in fights at any level, but will be starved of plot advancement powers eventually. This will happen especially fast if the player in question doesn't enjoy the flavour of a powerful mount, artifact, army, or country.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Although we might be critical of their lack of imagination high level games, these people deserve a class that makes this possible.

No, they don't.

If they don't want to play a character that can actually meaningfully participate in the crazy Exalted-level shenanigans going on, then they should fuck off after a certain point in the game.

You don't play D&D if you want to be a pacifist basket weaver who hangs out in town all the time. Seriously, don't even bother picking up the dice, the game is just flat-out not for you. Similarly, you don't play high-level D&D if all you want to do is be a lazy fuck who swings a sword and can't advance the plot unless the combat music is playing. People who don't participate in the game don't belong at the table. That is a basic rule of not just D&D, of not just TTRPGs, but games in general. Participating in high-level D&D means more than just full-attacking; it means you pull out some crazy shit out of your ass.

People who want to play 'high-level' D&D but don't want to actually play 'high-level' characters should be viewed with as much contempt as someone who wants to play paintball but doesn't want to shoot at people.

[Crissa]

I don't think the problem is people who want to play a fighter... It's the other people who won't let them slice mountains and spells with their sword.

-Crissa