jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
|
Post by jfever on Feb 7, 2013 21:10:18 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by rickno7 on Feb 7, 2013 21:29:59 GMT -8
That is pretty crazy considering a 4E fighter can heal himself. I wonder if they are trying to make the 4E players happy by keeping the same overall power of that edition. We're years away and there are bound to be tweaks, but still, that strong without a self heal seems rather incredible.
|
|
jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
|
Post by jfever on Feb 7, 2013 22:54:26 GMT -8
I think it stems from the 5E special abilities like Parry. As where the 4E guy could make people attack him, the 5E version can avoid damage all together. Also, they can deal a bunch of damage once a combat, sort of like 4E. This is interesting though, right? Also, something that they don't talk about, is how certain classes are not just better than others, they are WAY better. Like the rogue and the fighter. The caster classes aren't as good, and don't seem to improve enough to be better than the fighter or the rogue in later levels.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2013 6:59:08 GMT -8
I do miss the lethality of older editions. This is making me rethink my position on 5E. I think it's likely still better than pathfinder.....maybe, if for nothing else than being simpler...but I do own all those books.
|
|
jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
|
Post by jfever on Feb 8, 2013 11:17:32 GMT -8
The thing to keep in mind about this article is that it is only comparing 1st level fighters. Each system will have a vastly different graph in higher levels. I never played anything earlier than 3rd, so I can't comment on those. But I can tell you that at level 20, 3rd edition fighters would be dead when fighting a 20th level creature 1 on 1, with average level appropriate equipment. A 4th edition fighter, on the other hand, would survive longer and possibly win. 5E fighters can't be fully assessed, because they haven't made high level character classes yet. Still, the way it's looking, I can speculate that a 5E character may have the same results as 4E, just in a different way. Ultimately it seems that WotC is trying to over power their characters to fulfill every munchkin's wet dreams. I'm not okay with a game that doesn't have danger built into the mechanics, because it will require extra work from DM/GM/Narrators to create danger. DM/GM/Narrator's already have enough on their plates.
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 8, 2013 12:25:45 GMT -8
I never played anything earlier than 3rd, so I can't comment on those. But I can tell you that at level 20, 3rd edition fighters would be dead when fighting a 20th level creature 1 on 1, with average level appropriate equipment. A 4th edition fighter, on the other hand, would survive longer and possibly win. Hi jfever, Back in the day of 1st edition a player's skill was more important. I am not referring to tactical use of the statistics gathered on the characters record (it was called a record back then, as a place to write a will and keep accounts). I am neither referring to what some call meta-gaming. I am sort of a time capsule myself having not progressed with the hobby. I am a throw back to those olden days. So it is hard for me to explain the difference but it made a design impact. Many of the monsters were all mythological. There was no telling players they had never met a particular monster so they should not "meta game." In the hobby or not, every body high school age and older knew that a medusa was a save or die monster. D&D just codified it with a stat. But you do not have to be an D&D player to know not to look one in the eyes. We brought that sort of thing to the table on a regular basis. We also brought our 20th Century wits with us in so much as we could search an imaginary room or check a chest for traps (the only trap detection and disarming that required Thief Skills). When we came upon a trap in a hallway, we figured it out through the careful use of narration - including the input from those around us at the table - as kind of a lowbrow riddle. Inside the DMG there is the advice not to let players create gunpowder for the simple reason that could have been a player skill - depending with whom you played. So all this was part of a much open system - but not open in the way people talk about sandbox but open in the way people were expected to bring themselves into the party role they chose to play. I guess what I am saying is that it is not so much playing the game today that will give you an insight as to the game and its system as much as it is playing the game with the mindset it was released into and designed by. I think this is the biggest challenge D&D Next has to face both in its designing as well as in its marketing. And that is why I believe D&D Next will never be compatible with the first edition.
|
|
jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
|
Post by jfever on Feb 10, 2013 19:33:14 GMT -8
I think you may have misread that quote CC. I wasn't asking about what 1st Edition was like in order to find out it's possible compatibility with 5th Edition. I was talking about how powerful characters were in each addition, and stating that since I hadn't played anything earlier than 3rd edition I couldn't describe what the power level of characters were like.
All I'm pointing out is that in 4th Edition there was a focus on creating REALLY powerful characters. 5th edition, at first glance, seems like it is changing things up. When you really read the material, along with the original article I posted to start the thread, they aren't changing things at all. They are making characters that are really hard to kill, which make for a harder job for the DM. Not that it's the DM's job to kill PC's, but it makes creating a challenging game WAY more difficult.
CC, I think what you're talking about warrants a different thread: Talking about the times we live in affecting the design of 5th Edition.
I'm specifically siting one aspect that I find very important: Character power and how it affects the job of the DM, which in turns affects the feel of the game as a whole.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2013 4:06:45 GMT -8
I don't think characters will be tougher than 4e, looks like they will be the same level as 3e. Too bad cause I liked the original playtests having frontloaded HP at 1st level and then getting very few each level, the 3e HP (standard HP/level) aproach they are taking seems like counter intuitive since their goal was to eradicate power creep, and now you have power creep in hit points and damage (martial dice), just not in magic items.
If that is their new goal, "You can still kick all the ass, without the need for magic items.", I'd rather play Iron Heroes where everyone is Conan and there is much more depth in character creation. It is to be expected when the Wizards pick the Iron Heroes guys to lead Dnd 5e design.
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 11, 2013 4:41:43 GMT -8
Hi jfever
I was commenting that the power level, let's say the recognised or expected power of (all) characters back in AD&D 1e, included the people playing at the table. So the INT 3 character could be played as the player's INT 10; a more vivid an example but no less true than the STR 18/00 Fighter played by STR 7 teenager with thick glasses or the opposite: the jock playing the 15 STR fighter - both suffering risk rolls according to the random stat generated for the character.
Also to note: because the expectations were different back then, maybe, the game could be played without the same mechanical needs today. The equivalent might be like saying the horseman in Monopoly is a better role than the car.
You're right, though, I would like to discuss a historical game culture a little more in-depth as it bleeds into comparison. I did try to do so on an "Old School Gamers" group but what I was saying was twisted by a vocal video game munchkin who made the topic an us vs. them argument. (If we were all OSG, then there really is no “them” just “us” but I digress.) This thing about gaming culture is still on my mind so my apologies if that was coming out too strong here.
The idea of power levels for a fighter in the early editions (everything before 2e) rested on class and/or race distinctions. Fighters were the only group (Fighters + Rangers + Paladins) permitted to have a CON bonus to HP higher than 2 and they were the only role to have exceptional strength bonuses.
All roles/classes had a cap on Hit Point dice (9 for fighters as I recall) but the Ranger started with 2D8+CON, had a cap of 11 HD and had attack roll bonuses that scaled to level vs. "Giants" which included all goblinoids, kobolds, ettins, gnolls, ogres, ogre magi, orcs, and trolls – as well as all giants proper. It should be noted that monsters were stated sometimes well above player's roles because of these caps - something foreign in later editions.
Character generation of 3D6 in order had to match the minimum requirements for a role: Easy to do for the four basic roles but harder to meet the requirements for a subclass. I do not recall much re-rolling back in high school though there was some - but nowhere near my munchkin last week who re-rolled for about 20 minutes until he got a Ranger. I think we needed one stat to be a minimum 15, as a house rule. This reminds me of video games like Baldur’s Gate where you could generate new stats until you had nearly all 18s….
Stats had NO bearing on what we chose to do as players. It certainly had a bearing on the success of what we did. Our role/class was our limitation as players and we suffered loss to our XP if we acted outside our class as AD&D 1e DMG advised on page 86. We had bonuses to act from weapon speed, used in the calculation of initiative because DEX was not part of initiative as it is in 3x. This would "customize" our build. Weapon proficiency at 4 weapons from a restricted list, which improved to add one weapon to proficiency every 4 levels, was the closest thing to a feat. The non-proficiency penalty was lower for a fighter.
I am just adding this in support of your conclusions, knowing you have not played AD&D 1e. Again, my apologies if I took the topic too far off course.
|
|
|
Post by Kainguru on Feb 11, 2013 10:05:05 GMT -8
The mistake with the Fighter class in later editions is a misguided attempt to 'fix' the fighter from earlier editions. OAD&D - you get hitpoints and a better chance 'to hit' - that's it . . . no new quell spells or abilities etc - unfortunately, compared to other classes, bit boring. One caveat before people scream from ramparts and pour vitriol on my head . . . the interest should be from the RP and the character within his/her world . . . but still it's 'linear fighter' vs 'quadratic wizard'. Later editions attempted to rectify this by mistakingly equating 'power' with 'interesting abilities' - and it's still happening. Power creep through unintentional design - in the attempt at solving one problem the other was created. Maybe the fighter should have gained abilities/skills etc that were related to combat but not 'power' related - unique to the class and useful ie: fighters/soliders thru out history have always had more skills related to their profession than just swinging a sword or shooting a gun (like the Roman Legionnaires . . . the could build a small fortified 'town' in a day) Aaron
|
|
|
Post by CreativeCowboy on Feb 11, 2013 10:52:04 GMT -8
Aaron, When people say they do not want to roll for walking, talking and chewing bubble gum they mean they do not want to roll for being sappers and engineers, tanners, leather workers, weaponsmiths and armourers - armour repair in the field being the responsibility of individual soldiers: broken or split straps, fasteners, and helmet, barding and thrown horseshoes. These were lessons taught to squires that every fighting man could perform as well as weapon upkeep. (Should non-fighters suffer a weapon penalty for poorly kept weapons?) Playing an individual fighter in the old days was about role-playing and connected to what today would be called the minutia. Being a Paladin or a Ranger was less so reliant on role-play but they were still fighters. The requirements to roll stats for a simple fighter were also lower. But, because of my recent experiences and my remembrance of playing AD&D 1e in the early 80s, I keep thinking there was more role-playing done in the old days - accented by the system design to which you are referring.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2013 10:59:53 GMT -8
The mistake with the Fighter class in later editions is a misguided attempt to 'fix' the fighter from earlier editions. OAD&D - you get hitpoints and a better chance 'to hit' - that's it . . . no new quell spells or abilities etc - unfortunately, compared to other classes, bit boring. One caveat before people scream from ramparts and pour vitriol on my head . . . the interest should be from the RP and the character within his/her world . . . but still it's 'linear fighter' vs 'quadratic wizard'. Later editions attempted to rectify this by mistakingly equating 'power' with 'interesting abilities' - and it's still happening. Power creep through unintentional design - in the attempt at solving one problem the other was created. Maybe the fighter should have gained abilities/skills etc that were related to combat but not 'power' related - unique to the class and useful ie: fighters/soliders thru out history have always had more skills related to their profession than just swinging a sword or shooting a gun (like the Roman Legionnaires . . . the could build a small fortified 'town' in a day) Aaron That's true, you can't say that DnD 4e had boring fighters though, they were really fun to play, but unfortunately they had to break the system to make them work. The bad thing about the martial dice is that they are an infinite resource, which pretty much equates to more power, instead of more options. Again, Iron Heroes had it right, many classes used a token mechanic that could be spent for cool actions; and there were a bunch of ways to regain tokens, archers could spend actions to aim, barbarians getting hit (or hitting themselves) and assassins sizing up their opponents. But I don't think wizards is willing to make the fighter so complicated in this edition by giving him a true resource mechanic, that is too much of a sacred cow to them.
|
|
|
Post by Kainguru on Feb 11, 2013 15:58:37 GMT -8
The mistake with the Fighter class in later editions is a misguided attempt to 'fix' the fighter from earlier editions. OAD&D - you get hitpoints and a better chance 'to hit' - that's it . . . no new quell spells or abilities etc - unfortunately, compared to other classes, bit boring. One caveat before people scream from ramparts and pour vitriol on my head . . . the interest should be from the RP and the character within his/her world . . . but still it's 'linear fighter' vs 'quadratic wizard'. Later editions attempted to rectify this by mistakingly equating 'power' with 'interesting abilities' - and it's still happening. Power creep through unintentional design - in the attempt at solving one problem the other was created. Maybe the fighter should have gained abilities/skills etc that were related to combat but not 'power' related - unique to the class and useful ie: fighters/soliders thru out history have always had more skills related to their profession than just swinging a sword or shooting a gun (like the Roman Legionnaires . . . the could build a small fortified 'town' in a day) Aaron That's true, you can't say that DnD 4e had boring fighters though, they were really fun to play, but unfortunately they had to break the system to make them work. The bad thing about the martial dice is that they are an infinite resource, which pretty much equates to more power, instead of more options. Again, Iron Heroes had it right, many classes used a token mechanic that could be spent for cool actions; and there were a bunch of ways to regain tokens, archers could spend actions to aim, barbarians getting hit (or hitting themselves) and assassins sizing up their opponents. But I don't think wizards is willing to make the fighter so complicated in this edition by giving him a true resource mechanic, that is too much of a sacred cow to them. That's exactly the point. They're not boring but they break the system largely because of power creep. To make the class 'more interesting' they made it more 'powerful' think that the two equate. They need to rethink interesting as interesting rather than powerful - more combat options don't have to equate more pluses to hit or damage, they could simply exist as combat options only open to fighters without a power creep advantage. A good example from old 1e was the use of a war horse in combat - fighters and cavaliers were able to use a warhorse as a warhorse while for other classes a horse was a horse (of course unless of course that horse . . . ) Aaron
|
|