4e Verisimilitude

[Koumei]

Jesus has Water Walking, which is as good as flight for pwning sowrdsmen. We never see him make ranged attacks,

He made a ranged curse attack (on a fig tree, for not bearing fruit out of season... I think we see why Jesus isn't a Wizard here.), for what it's worth. And if he simply had a bow and quiver of arrows, or a sack full of acid flasks, or an assault rifle ("Anachronism? I'm JESUS, damn you!") he would have done just fine.

Why I felt the need to mention that, I'll never know.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Jesus has Water Walking, which is as good as flight for pwning sowrdsmen. We never see him make ranged attacks,

We do in the gnostic gospels. In the infancy gospel of Thomas, Jesus clearly has a variety of Power Words, including Blind and Kill.

Just sayin'.

[Talisman]

Shall I respond with a list of heroic sword-wielders?

Actually, I would like to see this list of heroes who use swords, never touch ranged weapons, and never fly.

Now you're extrapolating from what I originally said.
I never said that a swordsman could never use a bow. Or fly. What I said was that a melee specialist should be a viable option: that is, you shouldn't have to play Superman or Cyclops to be an effective character.
Having said that, I'll gladly come back with a list of melee specialist who rarely use a ranged weapon or fly - because melee is their specialty, and they still manage to be effective and heroic.

I don't know why Bellerophon is cheaper than Perseus or any of those other Greek bastards.

All right...you got me on Bellerophon. Still, one flying-ranged hero doesn't prove anything either way.

DNAngel features 2 angel guys who fly around and shoot energy beams at each other. But there are pletny fo other anime, and western cartoons, with flying magic-shooting heroes.

Anime is its own special subgenre, and even the melee specialists either fly or jump so high they might as well be flying.

Pern? Yeah, the fungus are a major threat, but they fight their share of humans as well. Often this involves dismounting and knife-fighting, but they've also been known to teleport in on thier dragons to show the groundpounders who's boss. Very D&D. Regardless, there are plenty of toher dragonriders. Take Eragon.

Hey, they dismount and knife-fight - instead of strafing the ground-bound enemies with dragonfire.

Jesus has Water Walking, which is as good as flight for pwning sowrdsmen.

Now that's balderdash. Water walking is great - if you're near water, and if[/i] the swordsman has no cover to get behind. It's certainly far less flexible than flight.

[Orion]

Obviously Water Walking is a much less valuable PC ability than flight. But I was thinking in terms fo thigns that invalidate melee heroes.

I should have separated out the ones I was conceiving of as characters from the ones I conceived of as challenges. If you encounter Jesus, he's going to be near a body of water; that kind of thing is just built into his CR.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

I should have separated out the ones I was conceiving of as characters from the ones I conceived of as challenges. If you encounter Jesus, he's going to be near a body of water; that kind of thing is just built into his CR.

You guys are awesome.

[Talisman]

Here are some heroic melee-types. The first batch is from fantasy novels; the other from folklore. I am well aware that most of them probably used a bow at some point, but melee was their primary focus.

Novels
Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli
Conan
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Red Sonja
Richard Rahl - "Sword of Truth" series, Terry Goodkind (yes, he occasionally used magic - but his primary weapon was the sword, and his magic was erratic and unreliable)
Garion - "Belgariad" series, David Eddings (sorcerer, but he used a big ol' whompin' sword 90% of the time)
Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper - "Prydain" series, Lloyd Alexander
Tomas - "Riftwar" series, Raymond E. feist
Paksenarrion - "The Deed of Paksenarrion," Elizabeth Moon
Bahzell Bahnakson - "Oath of Swords," etc, David Weber
Menion Leah (et al) - "Shannara" series, Terry Brooks
Cullyn & Rhodry - "Deverry" series, Katherine Kerr
Kethry - "Vows and Honor" series, Mercedes Lackey

Folklore
Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad, et al
Hercles, Perseus, Theseus, Achilles, et al
Odysseus
Beowulf
St George
Paul Bunyan

And just to clarify - ranged + flight is perfectly heroic when the enemy has the same capacity. And trickery is a superb military tactic, and can be heroic, depending on the circumstances.
My specific point is that ranged flight against an enemy who cannot counterattack is not heroic. It may be efficient; it may be good tactics, but it's not brave, inspiring, daring, or any other heroic quality.
Fighting a foe who poses no threat to you =/= herosim.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

Fighting a foe who poses no threat to you =/= herosim.

Bullshit. If a Behir is exterminating a hamlet, and your party flies safely over it and pincushions it to death, you are are acting heroically. The fact that the Behir couldn't hurt you doesn't mean that the commoners don't fall to their knees and thank you as 'heroes.'

Killing the Behir might not be challenging, it might not even be fun. But to that hamlet you are the very definition of a hero.

[Orion]

Novels
Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli

I can't remember the books, but aragorn has a powerful bow in a lot fo movie-related material. Boromir got killed by an archer, so clearly his archetype paid off.

Richard Rahl - "Sword of Truth" series, Terry Goodkind (yes, he occasionally used magic - but his primary weapon was the sword, and his magic was erratic and unreliable)

I'm guessing that fighting flying enemies would be one of those times his magic works...

Garion - "Belgariad" series, David Eddings (sorcerer, but he used a big ol' whompin' sword 90% of the time)

90%, fine; but it sounds like he could fight a flying archer no problem

Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper - "Prydain" series, Lloyd Alexander

Really, really low-level.

Tomas - "Riftwar" series, Raymond E. feist

Rides a dragon.

Kethry - "Vows and Honor" series, Mercedes Lackey

Isn't she a summoner?

Perseus, Achilles,

Achilles kills people with trhown spears; Perseus has a gaze attack

Odysseus

is famous for his awesome bow

Paul Bunyan[/b]

Paul Bunyan can be however tall he wants, so flyers are no problem for him.

[Ice9]

I'm with SphereOfFeetMan here - maybe against a fellow warrior, you go in melee and "fight fair", but against a monster, you take what advantage you can get.

Weakening dragons by poisoning their food? Laying in a trench to stab a monster's weak point as it passes overhead? Wearing spiky armor so the monster tries to eat you and gets a torn up throat? And yes, shooting arrows at the Behir from the air? All the kind of stuff heroes do.

And this applies double to mindless stuff. If you see a slow-moving ooze coming from a distance, and you decide to go face it one-on-one in melee ... you're not being a hero, you're being an idiot.

[Koumei]

Unless, of course, you know you can beat it in melee. In that case, you go back from "idiot" to "hero" status, and are completely awesome as well.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Oddysseus may be famous for having an awesome bow, but let's all remember that when he went to war, he left that awesome bow at home. His only famous feat of archery is killing a large number of unarmed and unarmored jerks who were guests in his house.

Heracles on the other hand wasn't just an archer, he used poisoned arrows. When confronted with the only flying threat he ever faced, the Stymphalian Birds, he shot them.

Now, I could poke holes in Talisman's list all day, but that doesn't seem to do anything. So I'm going to try a different tack.

In the adventures of those heroes, the vast majority of enemies are low-mobility. So the heroes almost never have to have high-mobility options to defeat them (of course, when they have to, they have them). So that these people focus on melee is a setting issue. If the GM doesn't throw high-mobility enemies at you very often, then you don't use a bow very often.

However, arguing that flight is rare because it is somehow intrinsically a high-level effect is going to fail as long as there are sparrows. Similarly, arguing that kiting archers are lame and shouldn't be effective is going to fail as long as Parthians and Mongols are in the history books. If you don't want to see these effects, don't put 'em in your game, and that game will look a lot more like what you think it should look like. But anyone willing to actually use the countermoves to high-mobility enemies available to melee warriors should be able to encounter such enemies and use said countermoves, in my game. Conversely, given that such countermoves exist, no-one should be forced to feel like a big cheaty-face for being a high-mobility warrior themselves, because minimizing the enemy's ability to hurt you isn't cowardice, it's simply a good idea.

[Bigode]

Here are some heroic melee-types. The first batch is from fantasy novels; the other from folklore. I am well aware that most of them probably used a bow at some point, but melee was their primary focus.

Has it ever crossed your head that the time when they used bows was the one when they needed to? And yeah, there's guys that were melee-only and could fight ranged flyers just fine (at least Bunyan). But I bet we're gonna have some crybaby saying "'idiot without any abilities' should be a viable* concept". And that concept can't play the same game with literally anybody else.

*: not to mention how it's so heroic to have a chainsaw glued to both arms ...

[virgil]

Thank you angelfromanother pin/bigode, that's basically what I've been trying to tell these for most of thread (before I got wrapped up in crappy arguments).

[CatharzGodfoot]

*: not to mention how it's so heroic to have a chainsaw glued to both arms ...

Excellent sarcastic point. Even the guy with a chainsaw glued to one of his arms managed to use a ranged weapon (and it was iconic!).

[Talisman]

All right...I'm done with this debate. I have my opinion and you guys have yours; fair enough?

I think I've made my point that the melee specialist is a valid archetype. And for the last time, I never said a melee specialist couldn't use a ranged weapon.

[Cynic]

I know people have knocked off most of the examples but let me give another type of coutner example.

Everyone from Aragorn/Gimli to Belgarion to Arthur/Lancelot and the more "real" of the fictional melee fighters were incredibly intelligent or insanely mobile.

I can't remember if it's movie-only or if it appears in the book as well, but Gimli's running tally against Legolas only works because either he is able to wade through people (if there are droves of them coming through) or he cna run from place to play to intelligently place himself in locations.

Aragorn -- he is innately wise and intelligent and strong and dextrous and all those other leader-like qualities.

Odysseus - while he might have had a bow that he left at home, his is mostly a puzzle loving mechanism. Aside from Troy, on his journey home, he rarely used his sword. his main use was either tactics or hiding amongst sheep.

Beowulf -- aside from the dragon battle, Grendel & Grendel's mom were fought barehanded

~~~

My point is that while the archetypal fighters of yore and lore (wow, that sounds stupid) excelled at melee combat, they were also allowed to be supplemented by amazing skills that are often not found in the D&D fighter.

This is what is called MAD. A viable melee fighter is exactly not what his name suggests he is. He is not viable because he can either only wade into battle and trip/grapple/do damage. But he cannot trip & grapple & do damage & effectively use strategy through mechanics the way a flying fighter who does not have to worry about certain stats as much.

~~

Mechanically, it doesn't work.

[virgil]

Talisman, what on earth is your point? None of us have said that the swordsman was an invalid archetype, to my knowledge (certainly not me). From what it feels like, the point you're actually trying make is that flying archers are THE counter to a swordsman. And that is a point which is certainly not going to see acceptance, because there exist a number of counters by the melee specialist that don't even require character building resources, not to mention actually using the occasional ranged attack or just flying himself.

A_Cynic, I can see your point on the 'MAD' for the melee fighter, and I believe that's part of the argument for why the D&D fighter is broken. If he's going to fight things on the ground, he needs to be good enough to actually fight a giant scorpion, but still versatile enough that he can contribute in other fields (like fighting a giant scorpion the properly ). I fully support that melee archetype.

By the way, replace the first use of the giant scorpion in this post with "melee specialist opponent", because the giant scorpion itself is more of a puzzle monster.

[Bigode]

Talisman: THEN LET THEM FVCKING USE RANGED WEAPONS!

And, moreover, another part of my point was that you don't even really need to if you have some capacity other than the chainsaw.

Catharz: who had a literal chainsaw glued?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Catharz: who had a literal chainsaw glued?

That would be Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series.

[Talisman]

Talisman, what on earth is your point?

My point is as follows:

The melee specialist is a valid archetype, and it should be possible to play one and contibute meaningfully.

The ranged flier is the ONLY buld that absolutely screws the melee specialist. A melee specialist can deal with kiting horse archers (get yer ass on a horse and ride them down), or flying melee-ers (readied action + smack the crap out of), or even weak ranged fliers (backup bow or turtle). The Superman character - perfect flght + powerful ranged attack - neutralizes melee specialists, along with a vast array of otherwise-interesting foes and challenges.

Therefore, I am in favor of mechanics (while somewhat nerfing the ranged flier.

That's it. That's all I meant. I'm not trying to wreck anyone's game; I'm simply stating my opinion. From my perspective, it seemed as though "everyone" immediately jumped in and tried to poke holes in the "viable melee specialist" idea...hence my defensive tone.

@Bigode:

I never fvcking said they couldn't use a fvcking bow. What I said was that, if I want to play D'Artagnan or Conan or Gimli, I shouldn't be forced to play fvcking Robin Hood or Cyclops or Screaming Anime Sword-Magician #37 just to be fvcking useful.

[JonSetanta]

Bbbbut I like snipers..

[Orion]

If getting on a horse is an acceptable counter to kiting, why isn't getting on a pegasus an acceptable answer to flying?

Furthermore, if the flying, ranged character is also as powerful generally as the melee specialist, isn't he higher level? And doesn't he thus deserve to win?

[Draco_Argentum]

And that is a point which is certainly not going to see acceptance, because there exist a number of counters by the melee specialist that don't even require character building resources, not to mention actually using the occasional ranged attack or just flying himself.

Right, which gets back to my point that this thread is a mish mash of should and are. The stunts that people pull off in stories to get enemies into melee where they are at a disadvantage needs to be made game mechanics. Right now the fly spell > pretty much any other plan for melee. Not only because its good, but because the 3.x mechanics really punish fighters who do pretty much anything outside whatever narrow ability they were built for.

[Falgund]

Catharz: who had a literal chainsaw glued?

That would be Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series.

And he also fights with a shotgun (often point blank).

[Bigode]

LOL @ Ash.

Talisman: if you play Gimli, you are forced to carry throwing axes. As a strong archetype, you should well be able to throw them over the horizon at high levels. And you need only do this when you fight a highly mobile ranged attacker in open terrain. Too much brains for your taste? Alternatively, you could carry a tower shield in a system where tower shields protect against everything ranged ("Superman" only exists via the special exceptions magic gets for eveything in D&D 3.x).