Murtak wrote:RandomCasualty2 wrote:For instance, is turtle fail a special kind of turtling, or does it apply to all turtling? How defensive do you have to be before it's considered turtling? Is fighting sword&Board alone considered turtling, or just using feats like expertise?
Now, you don't have to actually answer all those, but I'm just throwing them out there as places people can get confused and not really understand what you're saying.
Not to mention the possible confusion over specific vs generic cases. Sure, turtling and sundering in general are bad tactics, but in specific fights they can be excellent tactics. Is that still turtle fail / sundertarding or whatever the meme of the day is?
Except that that isn't true.
In D&D all forms of turtling are turtle fail, because trading offense for defense makes the fight take longer and thus increases the chance you'll get an unlucky break and die. And that's without considering all the things that don't give a damn about your AC.
What's more, even the stuff that does attack AC rarely actually cares, as they will still hit just as reliably regardless. So it isn't just that trading offense for defense doesn't work - it's that your defense doesn't fucking matter, with or without it.
Physically holding a shield means losing a lot of offense for nothing. After all you could just get a floating shield to store your special properties on (the basic AC is irrelevant).
Using a Tower Shield means losing offense for defense, and since the other function involves letting your stuff get broken (worse than getting blasted for piddly shit by far) those can be ignored.
CE is the iconic example of turtle fail, because conceptually it is withdrawing into your shell. It fails for the above reasons and because D&D doesn't have an aggro mechanic, so even if enemies did actually miss you it is not as if they have any incentive to attack you.
What's more, all the effective means of boosting your defense do not require nerfing your offense so even if all of the above were not true and therefore turtling would otherwise be worthwhile, the fact you don't have to fucking do that to be protected still means it is turtle fail.
The Final Destination bit is for when things are grossly oversimplified. Super Smash Brothers Melee with no items, only one character, and a flat, static stage is a grossly oversimplified version of the game. Likewise, pretending tactics, buffs, and items do not exist is a grossly oversimplified version of D&D. Not hard to understand.
Similarly, Sundertard is a direct hybrid of Sunder and Retard, making it Exactly What It Says On The Tin. It is named such because there are no conditions you can use it in that do not make you mentally deficient for thinking that was a good idea.
The usefulness of items is tied to their cost. Stronger items cost more. Yet in order for anything to be worth even considering being a Sundertard on, it must be valuable enough to be powerful enough to be a critical threat... yet it cannot cost over 1,000 gold, and it cannot be so inexpensive despite its importance the enemy won't just have duplicates, which if Sundertards exist at all in the world they will. If it does not meet all of these criteria, you are literally better off dead than breaking it. Of course since the criteria took a lesson from the Judeo Christian Bible in 'Stuff that contradicts the other stuff' this is impossible. Full stop.
Then you get into the odd creatures you're supposed to go Sundertard on... but then you think about it and realize you're better off just auto attacking?
Hydra? Hm, play around with it one head at a time, or just hit it, since its fast healing will only nullify one attack a round at most and for the action cost it takes to remove one head you can attack twice.
Roper? Being a Sundertard makes it worse as losing a strand costs it no actions and gives it another chance to do that weakening thing, which is the only thing it has going for it and that it would normally only get one shot per person at.
This isn't like Bull Rush where you can find a small number of valid uses if you have Knockback and Dungeoncrasher. The entire concept exists as a trap. As such it is unworkable, and unfixable as it is conceptually flawed. 'Turtle Fail' and 'Sundertard' both illustrate those things and their invalidity in one catchy phrase.
