TPK
It's been a while since I've seen a total party kill in a game. Sure enough, though, the little fantasy campaign that has been running for a good while came to a close last night in just such a fashion...
I don't believe the finale is up yet, but most of the events are chronicled at http://aeranos.blogspot.com/ . After surviving entangling plants, servitude to a dragon, sneaking in a city, traipsing into the underground, enduring captivity, struggling through winter without gear, and aiding a tribe of beast men instead of going home, going after the necromancer/lich was probably a little much.
We were probably doomed about that time, to be honest. I just didn't expect it to be in a 7-to-3 fight against "normal" opponents. The combat went on a long while, but one by one we dropped to good-for-them-bad-for-us rolls. Two action point rerolls and a luck domain reroll weren't enough to save us. And with the main party down, our recent addition (too big to get past the hole made around the gate) was simply trapped for the bad guys to marshal their forces and finish off.
And for months, in game, Tristan has really just wanted to go back home. Ah, the life and death of heroes.
I'm left with two lines of thinking from a more technical standpoint...
First, the heavily-modified Unisystem rules used for this game were adopted largely because the GM and one or two others don't like D&D (a bias from before 4E). The largest complaint I hear is about how damage/health involves whittling, where 100% HP is little different from 1%. And yet we ended up at mostly the same place: slow whittling in battle except with the threat of insta-kills from a combination of high/low rolls. I'm not sure that's much better, and I think this is making the GM consider that. The scale of degrading damage put in the rules rarely came up. It was usually either a Minor Wound (no negative affect until you accumulate a bunch) or a Mortal Wound (death).
Second, being the only (for the last several sessions) non-caster in the group was booooring. My character went from being a ranger/hunter sort to an excellent sword-and-board warrior, but even with his "really high" sword skill, the difference was a +13 compared to other characters' +8 maybe in the case of the dedicated caster to +11 (even 12 or 13 when magic-buffed) in the case of the combat cleric types.
My character had some qualities they didn't all have. The initiative bonus was nice, but didn't really matter often. Being a noble with resources was theoretically good, but was necessary none of the time and actually was usable maybe two sessions out of the nineteen or so we played - once we're in the wilderness, status doesn't matter.
So my character could do straight combat very slightly better than the others (as far as skill, I think both the dwarf and goatman had an edge on damage). But they can do a huge range more with fireballs, air walking, evil shadowy tendrils of doom, magical healing, buffs to attack and defense, magically opening locks, in-frickin-visibility...
And whenever it came time to spend XP, others had choice to make. Me? I looked at that character sheet and said "Well, I guess I'll try to raise my sword skill, that's pretty much all I'm using these days."
I recently had a discussion with tashiro about similar mechanics. It was a discussion of using the Storyteller system to do Star Wars, where basically you'd have normal people as the base characters, then Force-users would be a "template" added on (like Mage or Vampire) that gives a Force score and access to Force powers.
He keeps arguing that the additional special powers are such an XP sink they balance out against not having them. This is a perfect example of why I disagree. "Supernatural" options like magic or the Force are huge benefits that usually make a character vastly more flexible even if a mundane character ends up with a few more points in stats/skills. And as "levels" increase, that edge usually becomes even less visible because a lead of one or two points means less. Nevermind that after character creation, the player of the supernatural character can usually choose to increase mundane stats/skills to keep up with the normal characters while having that small, if undeveloped, supernatural edge.
I don't believe the finale is up yet, but most of the events are chronicled at http://aeranos.blogspot.com/ . After surviving entangling plants, servitude to a dragon, sneaking in a city, traipsing into the underground, enduring captivity, struggling through winter without gear, and aiding a tribe of beast men instead of going home, going after the necromancer/lich was probably a little much.
We were probably doomed about that time, to be honest. I just didn't expect it to be in a 7-to-3 fight against "normal" opponents. The combat went on a long while, but one by one we dropped to good-for-them-bad-for-us rolls. Two action point rerolls and a luck domain reroll weren't enough to save us. And with the main party down, our recent addition (too big to get past the hole made around the gate) was simply trapped for the bad guys to marshal their forces and finish off.
And for months, in game, Tristan has really just wanted to go back home. Ah, the life and death of heroes.
I'm left with two lines of thinking from a more technical standpoint...
First, the heavily-modified Unisystem rules used for this game were adopted largely because the GM and one or two others don't like D&D (a bias from before 4E). The largest complaint I hear is about how damage/health involves whittling, where 100% HP is little different from 1%. And yet we ended up at mostly the same place: slow whittling in battle except with the threat of insta-kills from a combination of high/low rolls. I'm not sure that's much better, and I think this is making the GM consider that. The scale of degrading damage put in the rules rarely came up. It was usually either a Minor Wound (no negative affect until you accumulate a bunch) or a Mortal Wound (death).
Second, being the only (for the last several sessions) non-caster in the group was booooring. My character went from being a ranger/hunter sort to an excellent sword-and-board warrior, but even with his "really high" sword skill, the difference was a +13 compared to other characters' +8 maybe in the case of the dedicated caster to +11 (even 12 or 13 when magic-buffed) in the case of the combat cleric types.
My character had some qualities they didn't all have. The initiative bonus was nice, but didn't really matter often. Being a noble with resources was theoretically good, but was necessary none of the time and actually was usable maybe two sessions out of the nineteen or so we played - once we're in the wilderness, status doesn't matter.
So my character could do straight combat very slightly better than the others (as far as skill, I think both the dwarf and goatman had an edge on damage). But they can do a huge range more with fireballs, air walking, evil shadowy tendrils of doom, magical healing, buffs to attack and defense, magically opening locks, in-frickin-visibility...
And whenever it came time to spend XP, others had choice to make. Me? I looked at that character sheet and said "Well, I guess I'll try to raise my sword skill, that's pretty much all I'm using these days."
I recently had a discussion with tashiro about similar mechanics. It was a discussion of using the Storyteller system to do Star Wars, where basically you'd have normal people as the base characters, then Force-users would be a "template" added on (like Mage or Vampire) that gives a Force score and access to Force powers.
He keeps arguing that the additional special powers are such an XP sink they balance out against not having them. This is a perfect example of why I disagree. "Supernatural" options like magic or the Force are huge benefits that usually make a character vastly more flexible even if a mundane character ends up with a few more points in stats/skills. And as "levels" increase, that edge usually becomes even less visible because a lead of one or two points means less. Nevermind that after character creation, the player of the supernatural character can usually choose to increase mundane stats/skills to keep up with the normal characters while having that small, if undeveloped, supernatural edge.
I was thinking about this the other day in the shower (shush) where in D&D 3rd Edition, the melee/physical classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue and even to some extent Cleric) would rule in the first 5 or so levels. They had the best AC, could attack every turn with their best ability, where spellcasters would "run dry", not many monsters forced difficult saves or had high ACs comparitively, and had more hit points. Then around the time wizards get fireball it all starts to shift and by level 10, while there's -gear- to make the melee/physical types good, they pale to their spell-casting companions. AC stops mattering as much as most monsters hit with their primary attack most of the time, just about every creature has a power to save against or spell casting of its own, and frankly, the big spells that hit for a lot of damage at a distance completely outshine a fighter's +2 longword. It could be argued that the multiple attacks in a round are a sort of compensation, but really, the first attack is the most likely to hit, the second might and after that it's a bunch of fluff attacks unless the target has an exceptionally low AC for its challenge rating. Only the rogue can keep up in any measure with the ever increasing sneak attack bonus, but even then they only get that against certain creature types (no constructs, oozes, plants or undead) TL;DR version, magic trumps physical every time, especially as campaigns go for longer. D&D 4th Ed addresses this with the growth of characters tying into everything they do (add half your level into attacks, defenses and skill checks) and giving every class Powers (special tricks) every few levels. sure the wizard gets their iconic fireball, but rangers can shoot arrows into multiple targets in one flurry of shots, fighters can smash a foe for three times the damage of their weapon -and- make that enemy unable to move and so on. Every class gets kewl powerz to keep even with one another, more or less. I'm not trying to promote 4th ed as the solution to all the ills, especially the idea of magic > mundane, because magic is almost always better, no matter how you do it, but at least some games try to give equal weight to both skilled combatants as well as those who wield powers beyond mortal ken.
ReplyDeleteTrue-ish. Somehow in none of the games I played in 3E did the casters come to totally blow away the warriors. Most of our games probably peaked in the 7th-13th level range. Casters were awesome and had some great utility, but I don't remember a straight-fighter character who was ever rendered useless. High hit points and reliable (if lower) damage output generally still mattered. Of course, part of that's situational. If you start fights at range in open fields, that heavily benefits fireballs over longswords, whereas close-quarters "dungeon" fighting is more the opposite. 4E gives everyone special abilities. Which, as said in The Incredibles kinda makes everyone seem less special. I've only dabbled with it, so I don't know how much magic shines at higher levels and how non-magic abilities compare, but at low levels everything feels so homogenized that there's nothing magical about a wizard zapping someone compared to a sword swing. Now... that's good and bad. It's good for balance between characters, but kinda bad for the flavor of magic.
ReplyDeleteActually, in 3.5 you hit one nail right on the head -- the ability to hit outstrips the ability to avoid being hit. Eventually it becomes a matter of 'how much do you take each round?' I work actively to combat this as a player. I push my AC for my warrior as high up as possible, specifically to ensure that he outstrips the ability of his enemy to hit. This means by level 9, I'm pushing ACs of 30+, making it almost impossible for him to be touched by most enemies. It is constant work, but it has paid off. He'll still take 30-70 damage during fights with a bunch of high level monsters, but most people don't wade in to fight 6-7 of these creatures at once, either... In most one-on-one fights, he's left untouched.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but you're into breaking systems. ;)
ReplyDelete