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  1. - Top - End - #871
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Willie the Duck: The ancients were wiser than us in that regard. I once saw a list of abilities of the knights of the round table (I've never read the original Aurthian legends, I'm not sure they have aged well) and I don't think you could publish a modern adaptation of those stories without people freaking out over it.
    The Arthurian legends are definitely in the same vein as folktales or Greek myths. A green knight can have his head cut clean off and keep functioning, Arthur battles a giant boar* as part of Hercules-like tasks set up by a giant chieftan. They are not myths that conform to any kind of man in gym style concept of martial limits. But what do you mean by people freaking out over it?
    *exactly how big varies by telling, but somewhere in the elephant to large house size.

  2. - Top - End - #872
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by HouseRules View Post
    Hephaestus crafted a 5 layer shield that only gods could penetrate. Achilles used a mortal spear and penetrated 3 layers.
    a half god stabs half way through a shield only a god could pierce. Sounds right to me

  3. - Top - End - #873
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Willie the Duck: The ancients were wiser than us in that regard. I once saw a list of abilities of the knights of the round table (I've never read the original Aurthian legends, I'm not sure they have aged well) and I don't think you could publish a modern adaptation of those stories without people freaking out over it.
    This one?

    Quote Originally Posted by David Prokopetz
    Lately, I’ve run across complaints that modern depictions of the Knights of the Round Table are too “anime” - giving them all sorts of goofy powers, and sending them on weird, over-the-top adventures.

    Allow me to point out that the following are all actual things that appear in the older tales about the Knights:

    Sir Kay is said to have had the power to grow to giant size, hold his breath for nine days, and radiate supernatural heat from his hands.
    Sir Bedivere openly practiced sorcery, and suffered from an accordingly sinister reputation; on more than one occasion, he was saved from being hanged as a witch only by King Arthur’s testimonly to his good character.
    Sir Galahad possessed supernatural strength and speed by virtue of his moral and sexual purity - making him a rare example of a male character with virginity-fueled super powers.
    Sir Balin once wielded the Lance of Longinus, and blew up an entire kingdom with a single blow. He also fought an evil knight with the power of invisibility.
    Sir Marrock was a freaking werewolf.

    Conclusion: modern depctions of the Knights of the Round Table aren’t anime enough.

    I made this post two years ago, and while it’s never really taken off, it’s still getting a small burst of additional notes every couple of months. I wonder how folks keep finding it?

    Anyway, the original post is hardly exhaustive - here are a few more fun examples:

    Sir Gawain (you know, the guy involved in that whole mess with the Green Knight) is described as literally solar-powered in some tales, being three times as strong at high noon as he is at daybreak.
    Sir Owain’s best friend and partner in battle is a talking lion. While his tales do include a sort of “origin story” explaining how he met the lion, the fact that it can talk isn’t remarked upon - it’s just a thing.
    Sir Gwrhyr is able to speak every language, including those of animals, and in some versions can transform into various animals as well.
    Though Lancelot isn’t usually described as having any specific supernatural powers or tools, he’s constantly described as “perfect” by everyone who sees him - you can practically see the bishie sparkles.

    (Speaking of Lancelot, it’s interesting to note that in the earlier stories, his illicit romance with Guinevere is actually part of a love triangle involving another knight named Galehaut - and the focus of that love triangle isn’t Guinevere, but Lancelot himself! Galehaut has been quietly edited out of more modern retellings for sadly obvious reasons.)
    So, yep. TOO ANIME.
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  4. - Top - End - #874
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Even sadder, modern Japanese fantasy anime and manga were strongly influenced by the video game industry, and JRPGs outright stole most of their ideas from D&D, with just a few middle steps in between. D&D, meanwhile, stole everything from all the Western myths and then some.

    So if D&D feels like "too anime", it's because anime has been abusing D&D tropes, and material from Western mythology, for decades.
    Last edited by Frozen_Feet; 2019-05-21 at 11:54 AM.

  5. - Top - End - #875
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    To Willie the Duck: The ancients were wiser than us in that regard. I once saw a list of abilities of the knights of the round table (I've never read the original Aurthian legends, I'm not sure they have aged well) and I don't think you could publish a modern adaptation of those stories without people freaking out over it.

    Even when the half-god Greek heroes come up I think the divine aspect is supposed to explain why they are so strong and not how they are able to do those things with their strength (exceptions for Achilles's Heel and similar). So if we have as a setting concept that anyone can get that strong with the right training and conditioning then there is no need for the divine aspect.
    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    The Arthurian legends are definitely in the same vein as folktales or Greek myths. A green knight can have his head cut clean off and keep functioning, Arthur battles a giant boar* as part of Hercules-like tasks set up by a giant chieftan. They are not myths that conform to any kind of man in gym style concept of martial limits. But what do you mean by people freaking out over it?
    *exactly how big varies by telling, but somewhere in the elephant to large house size.
    There have been so many retellings at this point that we've seen everything from those full mythic tales that are "christian" wallpaper over an old structure of the heroes and legends of Celtic cultures, to "Ye Goode Olde Days" knightly romances, to grim and gritty "dung ages" use of the names and basics to tell standard postmodernist Hollywood scripts, to... whatever.

    IMO, the problems arise when an individual telling can't decide what it is, or instead of embracing the mythic is just a hollow excuse for spectacle set-pieces.
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  6. - Top - End - #876
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    There have been so many retellings at this point that we've seen everything from those full mythic tales that are "christian" wallpaper over an old structure of the heroes and legends of Celtic cultures, to "Ye Goode Olde Days" knightly romances, to grim and gritty "dung ages" use of the names and basics to tell standard postmodernist Hollywood scripts, to... whatever.

    IMO, the problems arise when an individual telling can't decide what it is, or instead of embracing the mythic is just a hollow excuse for spectacle set-pieces.
    I couldn't tell with Cluedrew, and I can't tell here -- how does this (or does this) tie in to what has been discussed previously? I'm all for a side-trek into Arthurian folklore, but I'm not getting why CD brought them up in the first place (or why people would freak out).

  7. - Top - End - #877
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    I couldn't tell with Cluedrew, and I can't tell here -- how does this (or does this) tie in to what has been discussed previously? I'm all for a side-trek into Arthurian folklore, but I'm not getting why CD brought them up in the first place (or why people would freak out).
    I'm hesitating to get into it because of recent threads.

    At least in my post, Arthurian folklore and its random treatment in various retellings, have created an incoherent mash of expectations and setting elements -- and this is referenced as an example of how story or system or campaign without an underlying foundation of internally coherent setting and expectations results in a movie or book that the audience is thrown off by, or a campaign that creates repeated "what, what?" reactions for the players.

    From my POV, if the nature of the setting, or the abilities of the characters, are wildly variable depending on the "needs of the moment" in the story or campaign, so that we the audience or we the players have no idea what to expect, and our differing expectations are all both met and violated in turn from moment to moment, then that results in a mess. Further, if the system and fiction layers don't produce compatible expectations and results, you get the same problem.

    Start with what sort of world you're running in, and what sort of things characters are actually capable of... balance exists as much at the fiction level as it does on the system level.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2019-05-21 at 01:44 PM.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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  8. - Top - End - #878
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    At least in my post, Arthurian folklore and its random treatment in various retellings, have created an incoherent mash of expectations and setting elements -- and this is referenced as an example of how story or system or campaign without an underlying foundation of internally coherent setting and expectations results in a movie or book that the audience is thrown off by, or a campaign that creates repeated "what, what?" reactions for the players.

    From my POV, if the nature of the setting, or the abilities of the characters, are wildly variable depending on the "needs of the moment" in the story or campaign, so that we the audience or we the players have no idea what to expect, and our differing expectations are all both met and violated in turn from moment to moment, then that results in a mess. Further, if the system and fiction layers don't produce compatible expectations and results, you get the same problem.

    Start with what sort of world you're running in, and what sort of things characters are actually capable of... balance exists as much at the fiction level as it does on the system level.
    Okay. So the same thing we've been discussing for 30 pages about dissonance and discrepancy in expectations with martials, right. Agreed. Okay, yes, it is another good example. I guess I'll wait for Cluedrew to explain the not-aged-well and freaking-out bits.

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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet View Post
    Even sadder, modern Japanese fantasy anime and manga were strongly influenced by the video game industry, and JRPGs outright stole most of their ideas from D&D, with just a few middle steps in between. D&D, meanwhile, stole everything from all the Western myths and then some.

    So if D&D feels like "too anime", it's because anime has been abusing D&D tropes, and material from Western mythology, for decades.
    AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAAA....

    YES!

    THE DIFFERENCE IS A LIE!

    Awesome is universal. if you'll excuse me, I'll continue being as "anime" as I want.
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    I don't think I'd be comfortable saying that the Arthurian Mythology (as a whole) is inconsistent, because that's like saying fantasy literature is inconsistent. That just doesn't apply to a whole genre, especially one crafted out of bits and pieces of previous legends, myths, and stories. It's just too big to be consistent or inconsistent. You might be able to say that Le Morte d'Arthur has inconsistencies (it almost certainly does), but saying that the whole mythos is inconsistent just doesn't make sense to me.

    I think the whole point of someone bringing it (and Irish legends, etc) up was to note that this "if mundane, then limited by "human" capabilities" thing is a modern issue. Maybe the more "rational" we get[1], the more we limit our imaginations and want to segregate the not-real away from the real and call it magic?

    [1] More precisely, more focused on rationality and reason as the most valid means of looking at the world around us. We're not more rational, just more focused on "rationality". But that's a separate soapbox.
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  11. - Top - End - #881
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I don't think I'd be comfortable saying that the Arthurian Mythology (as a whole) is inconsistent, because that's like saying fantasy literature is inconsistent. That just doesn't apply to a whole genre, especially one crafted out of bits and pieces of previous legends, myths, and stories. It's just too big to be consistent or inconsistent. You might be able to say that Le Morte d'Arthur has inconsistencies (it almost certainly does), but saying that the whole mythos is inconsistent just doesn't make sense to me.
    Well, I'd say you're right, but because the "inconsistency" is the same whether one is looking at "Arthurian mythology" or "fantasy literature", and that it has as much to do with conflicting expectations and desires as anything. I didn't mean to imply that every telling of Arthurian legend should be mutually consistent, but rather than the massive number of retellings of all styles and types and moods means that a new retelling needs to decide what it is before it proceeds, rather than mashing up incompatible elements.

    The setting for one's new Arthurian RPG needs to decide if it's Le Morte d'Arthur, or King Arthur (2004), or The Sword in the Stone (Disney), or Monte Python and the Holy Grail, or... that most recent travesty thing I saw ads for but don't recall the name of.

    And then the players need to grasp what sort of character they can play in that setting, and in the system being used.

    As I started digging into 5e, I learned to my regret that I can't really play the sorts of characters I tend to like, in that system, and realized that I could keep slamming my head against that wall or walk away again.


    Anyway, I've hammered this anvil enough for now.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2019-05-21 at 04:15 PM.
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  12. - Top - End - #882
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    What would really out the martial is being able to do what Belkar Bitterleaf did in the newest Order of the Stick comic without readying an action for it. My beloved 2nd edition did have spell casting times that enabled such activities while it feels like every modern spell is as swift as a sword strike. I'm all for swift casting but can we maybe not have the majority of them being single actions? Like at least a full round for something truly devastating and AOE. This goes back to what makes Legendary actions so inane in 5th edition. Pretty soon we'll be right where Warhammer 40k is and trying to make up for powercreep through further powercreep or edition resets. Wait... we already went there with 3.5 edition.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pleh View Post
    Cluedrew, I feel like the general theme of the conversation may not have been as excessively off topic as it seemed.

    I think we've all been observing (in our own way) that mechanical bias is only half of the problem. I feel like you've been trying to steer it away from the quagmire that is the narrative/fictional bias that commonly inspires the mechanical bias, but I think it's tough (maybe impossible) to extricate one from the other without deliberately constraining the scope of the conversation.
    More I have been trying to tie it together. We were very off topic earlier in the thread and I did try and get it back on topic, mostly I just had to wait for that to run its course. And we might be off-topic for a narrow version of the topic but I think that one ran its course in about 3 pages.

    As it turns out there might be implicate biases in the core rules, but you can commentate for them so just check the resulting balance and be creative when creating solutions. Its as simple as that. Which is not to say its easy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    The Arthurian legends are definitely in the same vein as folktales or Greek myths. [...] But what do you mean by people freaking out over it?
    Freaking out at it here roughly means "angrily rejecting my ideas to give more interesting/powerful abilities to non-casters". My worse experience about it was trying to address the claim that a wizard would be need to have adventures on other planes.

    So yeah A) why bother with other planes, the world is a vast and interesting place, B) rituals or artifacts are fine we don't need to do this on a moments notice C) I presented a system that would allow the ranger (the archetype of non-caster who knows of the wilds) to find places where the line between worlds was thin. It was rejected for some legitimate and some contradictory reasons. Such as being too "low-level" and being too "high-level" I'm not sure exactly what those mean but I am pretty sure they are opposites.

    That is an instance of "freaking out" as I meant it here. Maybe that wasn't the best way to describe it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Arbane View Post
    That seems about right.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    As it turns out there might be implicate biases in the core rules, but you can commentate for them so just check the resulting balance and be creative when creating solutions. Its as simple as that. Which is not to say its easy.
    This is just going to keep bothering me, so might as well address it now -- implicit.

    Freaking out at it here roughly means "angrily rejecting my ideas to give more interesting/powerful abilities to non-casters". My worse experience about it was trying to address the claim that a wizard would be need to have adventures on other planes.

    So yeah A) why bother with other planes, the world is a vast and interesting place, B) rituals or artifacts are fine we don't need to do this on a moments notice C) I presented a system that would allow the ranger (the archetype of non-caster who knows of the wilds) to find places where the line between worlds was thin. It was rejected for some legitimate and some contradictory reasons. Such as being too "low-level" and being too "high-level" I'm not sure exactly what those mean but I am pretty sure they are opposites.

    That is an instance of "freaking out" as I meant it here. Maybe that wasn't the best way to describe it.
    No, actually it is fine (although I still don't get what it is doing in a response to the paragraph of mine you quoted). Personal experiences one can point to are fine. Mostly I am being vigilant against the idea of 'a whole bunch of people over there (that no one can actually point to) that don't get it, are making logical mistakes, don't realize that contradictions in the system, etc.' I don't buy that. We are not some special enlightened sub-breed of gamer who gets something while others don't. I think a vast majority of gamers do recognize the contradictions that their gaming preferences create for high-level play... ...those contradictions just don't change those preferences.
    Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2019-05-22 at 10:28 AM.

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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    As it turns out there might be implicate biases in the core rules, but you can commentate for them so just check the resulting balance and be creative when creating solutions. Its as simple as that. Which is not to say it's easy.
    I think you need to beat your autocorrect with a stout bludgeon. (See underlined.)


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Freaking out at it here roughly means "angrily rejecting my ideas to give more interesting/powerful abilities to non-casters". My worse experience about it was trying to address the claim that a wizard would be need to have adventures on other planes.
    Personally I'm fine giving more interesting and powerful abilities to non-spellcasters, so long as it starts as the fiction level and isn't simply a contrivance of gameplay/fiction segregation.

    I'd say, after this latest round of this subject on this forum, that the quippy shorthand point I'd make is "balance starts at the fiction level".


    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    So yeah A) why bother with other planes, the world is a vast and interesting place, B) rituals or artifacts are fine we don't need to do this on a moments notice C) I presented a system that would allow the ranger (the archetype of non-caster who knows of the wilds) to find places where the line between worlds was thin. It was rejected for some legitimate and some contradictory reasons. Such as being too "low-level" and being too "high-level" I'm not sure exactly what those mean but I am pretty sure they are opposites.

    That is an instance of "freaking out" as I meant it here. Maybe that wasn't the best way to describe it.
    Yeah, I don't quite get the whole "we must go to other planes once we've hit X level" thing, though it seems to be largely a D&D thing IME. I especially don't get the appeal of it in context of D&D's standard clockwork extraplanar cosmology.

    And... rituals, artifacts, portals, places where the "walls between worlds are gossamer", and other strangeness also seems a far more atmospheric and less checkboxy way of handling travel to other planes. I'd rather see things like "is this summer valley we've stumbled into while trying to find the Lost Ruins of Xul still in our world, or is it on the borderlands of the Feywild?" than "we've reached level X, time to learn Plane Hop and check off a visit to the realm of the Fire Queen".
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2019-05-22 at 09:01 AM.
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    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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  16. - Top - End - #886
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    This is just going to keep bothering me, so might as well address it now -- implicit.
    I have been making that exact typo a lot recently and I have no idea why.

    No, actually it is fine (although I still don't get what it is doing in a response to the paragraph of mine you quoted).
    Looking at the post I would have been referencing I'm not sure either. Maybe I misread it?

    I think a vast majority of gamers do recognize the contradictions that their gaming preferences create for high-level play... ...those contradictions just don't change those preferences.
    I think more often people either don't get to high level play (keeping it simple) or use social contract to bring everything in line. That is the wizards and other casters don't push themselves so they don't surpass what the martials can do, the martials might get some extra bonuses on the fly or what-ever. I haven't done a survey but that is what I have seen in person.

    To Max_Killjoy: I am aware, I am aware, I'm glad you like it. Although that particular spin of accidental travel hadn't occurred to me... there are possibilities there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Yeah, I don't quite get the whole "we must go to other planes once we've hit X level" thing, though it seems to be largely a D&D thing IME. I especially don't get the appeal of it in context of D&D's standard clockwork extraplanar cosmology.
    The idea of characters being too big for the world as it is so they need to go somewhere else now is actually quite common in zero-to-hero style stories. It's everywhere in comics, where character in Marvel and DC routinely 'graduate' from Earth-scale issues and go off to fight on a 'cosmic' scale. The recent Captain Marvel movie is a textbook case of this. It's also common in major shounen anime. Dragonball, classically, uses this trope in spades, to the point that by the later portions of super they're fighting over the fate of entire universes, but even in more grounded series its very common for the protagonists to go to some new country or region after they're 'leveled up.' This is also something you see in video games, including MMOs, which tend to have level-gated areas.

    In terms of fiction-level balance, you can utilize this sort of 'leave the world' measure as a way to balance martial and caster power. If at the point where the martials cap out the casters can still grow massively but they have to go somewhere else or even just spend all their time worrying about otherworldly threats, this can be used to balance the game. Dr. Strange, for example, lives in New York but spends most of his adventuring time fighting weird extradimensional entities to the point that he's far too busy to interfere in Earthly affairs unless it's some Thanos-level crisis. Closer to D&D, in Nehwon, Ningauble and Sheelba both have powers that dwarf those of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and could snuff them easily, but they're far too busy playing weird wizard games across the dimensions to bother.

    Unfortunately this sort of thing is hard to manage in a game because all it takes is one god-wizard who refuses to leave home or decides to come back and meddle to massively upset the apple cart. The character of Xaltotun of Python - the wizard who serves as the antagonist for the Conan novella Hour of the Dragon - is pretty much emblematic of how this can unfold.
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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    As a Gm one of the big reasons to kick players out of the Prime Material is setting consistency. There are only so many monsters around that are strong enough to challenge high level players without destroying the setting. Once you're past those, you need the players to go elsewhere to look for challenges.

    The is only so much fun to be had sending level 20 adventurers against a few goblins in a warcamp outside town. Not saying there is no fun to be had with it, but it tends to get old fast.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jakinbandw View Post
    As a Gm one of the big reasons to kick players out of the Prime Material is setting consistency. There are only so many monsters around that are strong enough to challenge high level players without destroying the setting. Once you're past those, you need the players to go elsewhere to look for challenges.

    The is only so much fun to be had sending level 20 adventurers against a few goblins in a warcamp outside town. Not saying there is no fun to be had with it, but it tends to get old fast.
    that or at high level you instead solve the social issue that cause goblins to grow up in an environment that push them toward this kind of career.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    On the Thread Title: I guess it seems a bit charged. I should probably also try to focus on the general take away as well. "A Discussion of How Core Rules have Unintended Consequences on Caster/Martial Balance" feels a bit unwieldy though. Any ideas?
    I haven't gone through all 30 pages to see if this point has been made, but my long-held stance is that caster/martial disparity is very much intended in many of the systems where it shows up. Consider D&D 3.5 for example, often the poster-boy for this kind of imbalance, and this passage on designing strong villains:

    Quote Originally Posted by Dungeon Master's Guide 104, "Villains"
    Here are some pointers for well-played villains.
    ...
    Use Magic: A high-level villain (even a fighter or a rogue) should have a great deal of magic to fall back on, perhaps through the use of spellcasting servants or magic items. The PCs will have plenty of magic to bring to bear against the villain, so she should have a fair number of tricks and surprises for them as well.
    A passage like that simply doesn't make sense in a game where martials were expected to be on even footing to casters. There is no mention of the reverse for example (where a wizard villain is encouraged to get a fighter on his team.) The message is very much "bosses need magic, at least past a certain level" and therefore that not having that magic is a recipe for failure.

    Now, as Grod stated early on, there are other systems like Exalted where this kind of equality is built into the system by simply having the players be demigods to begin with; those games are valid experiences too.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post



    A passage like that simply doesn't make sense in a game where martials were expected to be on even footing to casters. There is no mention of the reverse for example (where a wizard villain is encouraged to get a fighter on his team.) The message is very much "bosses need magic, at least past a certain level" and therefore that not having that magic is a recipe for failure.
    Thats one way to interpret it, but remember that in 3.5s wealth by level, magic items are mandatory for mid level characters much less high level ones it's just how the system is designed. So that evil fighter was expected to have magic items.

    Likewise villains fulfill a different role than pcs and need to be able to do different things.
    If you look at the CR system and the level adjustment system my take a way is they considered a monk/fighter equal to a druid/ wizard.

    Now I could fully concede that some of the designer felt that wizard rule and fighters drool and that was the system operating as intended but i dont think that was the majority and i dont think it was what was intended.

    I have seen a system where arcane superiority was built in I never actually played it so I cant say how well it worked. It was a pseudo point buy system with the assumption that at the start of the game the wizard was a fresh new wizard just starting out and the mundane was a hardened veteran (so harry potter goes on an adventure with Rambo).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Personally I'm fine giving more interesting and powerful abilities to non-spellcasters, so long as it starts as the fiction level and isn't simply a contrivance of gameplay/fiction segregation.
    I wanted to address this in a bit more detail. Mostly that when designing an RPG you control the setting as well. I would say design the setting but sometimes you just choose it which is enough control for this point. Which is that I assume that most people are working on an system for a setting they want to mimic. Or even more extremely, are developing the setting with the system.

    In these cases it shouldn't be a problem. Or not inherently, good design and good world-building can be hard and so one may make mistakes. But the real problem is where the setting isn't quite known. To pick on D&D a bit more (its a big system, it can take it) there are multiple settings it covers an they have different ideas that one rule set can't always represent very well. If you made a new system for Eberon, Ravenloft and Dark Sun I don't think they would be so compatible with each other.

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I haven't gone through all 30 pages to see if this point has been made, but my long-held stance is that caster/martial disparity is very much intended in many of the systems where it shows up. Consider D&D 3.5 for example, often the poster-boy for this kind of imbalance, and this passage on designing strong villains: [Give martial villains magic.] A passage like that simply doesn't make sense in a game where martials were expected to be on even footing to casters. There is no mention of the reverse for example (where a wizard villain is encouraged to get a fighter on his team.) The message is very much "bosses need magic, at least past a certain level" and therefore that not having that magic is a recipe for failure.
    Oddly enough I don't think anyone has. I just have one major question: Is this design intent or did they just realize that things were going wrong before they published the book? Or is awa correct and maybe it is a divide between PCs and NPCs?

    On the other hand if martials are supposed to be "a core of martial skills amplified by magic" then maybe it is just a communication thing? Legend explicitly had that as a balance option, you could swap out some of your ability to use magic gear for more skills.

    But this means we may have to revisit the older D&D editions to figure out if lack of caster survivability was intentional or not. Quertus might of had a stronger point that I initially thought.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    A passage like that simply doesn't make sense in a game where martials were expected to be on even footing to casters. There is no mention of the reverse for example (where a wizard villain is encouraged to get a fighter on his team.) The message is very much "bosses need magic, at least past a certain level" and therefore that not having that magic is a recipe for failure.
    I don't think I find this point to be true. You absolutely could find this passage in a game where martials are expected to be even to casters. Mind you, 3e is not that game, but I still don't agree with the point. First and foremost, this is mixing magic and casting. An opponent needing magic is not the same as the opponent needing to be a caster. Secondly, so long as an opposition that is pure casting or pure martialing is weaker than a mixed opposition, then this point can exist without the martial being even to the caster. Should there also be mention that the reverse (wizard villain need martial support ) is true? Sure, unless that's so obvious it not need to be stated.

    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    Now I could fully concede that some of the designer felt that wizard rule and fighters drool and that was the system operating as intended but i dont think that was the majority and i dont think it was what was intended.
    That is my takeaway as well. The designers thought a high level wizard and high level martial would both make good villains, mentioned that a martial boss would need spellcaster support, and didn't think they needed to mention that the archmage boss would need a front line to hide behind.
    Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2019-05-24 at 10:09 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    Thats one way to interpret it, but remember that in 3.5s wealth by level, magic items are mandatory for mid level characters much less high level ones it's just how the system is designed. So that evil fighter was expected to have magic items.
    I agree that it can and does refer to items too, but I'm not sure the standard Big Six constitutes "a great deal of magic" so much as a bare minimum.

    Meanwhile, if it's referring to more magic than that - say, scrolls and staves activated by UMD - at that point the "rogue/fighter" is becoming more and more of a caster himself.

    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    Likewise villains fulfill a different role than pcs and need to be able to do different things.
    If you look at the CR system and the level adjustment system my take a way is they considered a monk/fighter equal to a druid/ wizard.
    Two problems I have with this viewpoint:

    1) It's a contradiction; the CR system itself is intended for villains, so it makes no sense to point to that rule to say that "villains don't have to adhere to CR=CR because they're special."

    2) That guideline of the CR system is too flawed to be universally applied. In addition to the problems CR has just with properly measuring challenge of static monsters, those problems get exacerbated when class levels and their myriad options enter the picture. For example, using that guideline, a Wizard 20 who prepares nothing but Read Magic in every single slot has the exact same CR as a forum-created Batman Wizard who prepares for every contingency.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cluedrew View Post
    Oddly enough I don't think anyone has. I just have one major question: Is this design intent or did they just realize that things were going wrong before they published the book? Or is awa correct and maybe it is a divide between PCs and NPCs?
    See above - CR is intended for NPCs, so you can't have it both ways; you can't both claim that the CR rule is the reason why you expect PCs of every class to be evenly balanced against one another, while simultaneously saying that the expectations for PCs and NPCs are intended to be different.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2019-05-24 at 09:59 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I agree that it can and does refer to items too, but I'm not sure the standard Big Six constitutes "a great deal of magic" so much as a bare minimum.

    Meanwhile, if it's referring to more magic than that - say, scrolls and staves activated by UMD - at that point the "rogue/fighter" is becoming more and more of a caster himself.



    Two problems I have with this viewpoint:

    1) It's a contradiction; the CR system itself is intended for villains, so it makes no sense to point to that rule to say that "villains don't have to adhere to CR=CR because they're special."

    2) That guideline of the CR system is too flawed to be universally applied. In addition to the problems CR has just with properly measuring challenge of static monsters, those problems get exacerbated when class levels and their myriad options enter the picture. For example, using that guideline, a Wizard 20 who prepares nothing but Read Magic in every single slot has the exact same CR as a forum-created Batman Wizard who prepares for every contingency.



    See above - CR is intended for NPCs, so you can't have it both ways; you can't both claim that the CR rule is the reason why you expect PCs of every class to be evenly balanced against one another, while simultaneously saying that the expectations for PCs and NPCs are intended to be different.
    I fully agree the CR does not work as intended but that doesn't mean we cant use it to see what they thought it should look like. Cr was intended to tell you roughly how tough a foe is supposed to be and how much XP it is worth. Fighters are worth just as much XP as wizards because the creators thought that this was the case.

    We can see some of their logic when they say creatures with bad class races combinations should get a slight discount to their CR I remember a ettin bard using those rules on their web site and further examples that under-wealth Npc should get a CR discount but no where have i ever seen any rule that suggests druids such say get a blanket +2 CR or something.

    So you can believe the CR was purposefully designed to be useless but it goes back to a mentality. Do you A believe that wizards of the coast was lying to players every time they said or implied that a monk was equal to a druid or B believe they weren't great at their jobs and that they play-tested in a way that did not well represent high level play.

    Personally I tend to favor incompetence over malice likewise every one needs to be in on a conspiracy while only a few people need to write broken spells to shatter the games balance.

    edit i never said villains dont adhere to CR I said villains have different needs than pcs
    and as a separate thought
    CR + LA both indicate monk levels and druid levels are equal


    since you dont seem to understand how villains and pcs are different let me explain two. First incorporeal this is a good power for a monster but most parties can reasonably counter it by level 5. But in the hands of a pc this power renders half the monster manual helpless well into the teens thus a shadow might be a relatively low CR monster but its LA would be huge because monster and pcs are different. On the other end of the spectrum the ability to self destruct on death is amazing for say low hp mooks who die in large numbers but basically useless for pcs who will use it at best once.
    Last edited by awa; 2019-05-24 at 10:20 AM.

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    Default Re: The Man Keeping the Martial Down

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Personally I'm fine giving more interesting and powerful abilities to non-spellcasters, so long as it starts as the fiction level and isn't simply a contrivance of gameplay/fiction segregation.

    I'd say, after this latest round of this subject on this forum, that the quippy shorthand point I'd make is "balance starts at the fiction level".
    It's pretty good as quippy shorthands go. There just isn't a lot of fiction-level thought put into D&D's power progression, beyond the nerd power fantasy that are high-level mages/wizards.
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    Ah yes, I remember the high level fighters I played with to have a bag of magic potions to use as needed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    We can see some of their logic when they say creatures with bad class races combinations should get a slight discount to their CR I remember a ettin bard using those rules on their web site and further examples that under-wealth Npc should get a CR discount but no where have i ever seen any rule that suggests druids such say get a blanket +2 CR or something.

    So you can believe the CR was purposefully designed to be useless but it goes back to a mentality. Do you A believe that wizards of the coast was lying to players every time they said or implied that a monk was equal to a druid or B believe they weren't great at their jobs and that they play-tested in a way that did not well represent high level play.
    I think it's more C that the guideline was a quick and dirty rule-of-thumb that should not be treated as any kind of gospel or law. It works in the sense that a party of level 20 Fighters with level 20 magic items can take on a CR 20 monster with a decent chance (but not 100%) of avoiding TPK, just like a party of level 20 druids could. Anything beyond that is too dependent on the details for such a broad number to capture everything.

    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    edit i never said villains dont adhere to CR I said villains have different needs than pcs
    and as a separate thought
    CR + LA both indicate monk levels and druid levels are equal
    That's my point though - villains use CR, not PCs. PCs aren't going around challenging each other or being encounters for each other.

    Quote Originally Posted by awa View Post
    since you dont seem to understand how villains and pcs are different let me explain two. First incorporeal this is a good power for a monster but most parties can reasonably counter it by level 5. But in the hands of a pc this power renders half the monster manual helpless well into the teens thus a shadow might be a relatively low CR monster but its LA would be huge because monster and pcs are different. On the other end of the spectrum the ability to self destruct on death is amazing for say low hp mooks who die in large numbers but basically useless for pcs who will use it at best once.
    I do understand actually (which is why I'm not the one using CR, a villain number, as a balance point for player characters.)

    And yes, you're absolutely correct with your shadow example - the CR of a monster incorporates every single element of its statblock and tactics. A shadow's constant incorporeality would be a huge power boost for many PCs, but on a shadow itself it's a lot less impactful because their other abilities, defenses, and programming are relatively simple/threadbare.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I think it's more C that the guideline was a quick and dirty rule-of-thumb that should not be treated as any kind of gospel or law. It works in the sense that a party of level 20 Fighters with level 20 magic items can take on a CR 20 monster with a decent chance (but not 100%) of avoiding TPK, just like a party of level 20 druids could. Anything beyond that is too dependent on the details for such a broad number to capture everything.



    That's my point though - villains use CR, not PCs. PCs aren't going around challenging each other or being encounters for each other.



    I do understand actually (which is why I'm not the one using CR, a villain number, as a balance point for player characters.)

    .
    Yes the quick and dirty rule of thumb is that fighters and druids are equal in their mind. While warriors and commoners are not. It seems quite clear that the designers claimed that fighters and druids were equal through dozens of supporting arguments. Thus the only real question is whether they were mistaken or lying. I choose to believe the evidence supports mistaken.

    since we started off by talking about boss monsters CR is relevant it says a level 20 fighter is = to a level 20 druid when referring to CR.

    If wizards were supposed to be better they would have a higher CR or LA
    Also stop ignoring that I am also talking about level adjustment you have ignore that aspect both times you have quoted me so far when you nitpick about npcs over pcs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    See above - CR is intended for NPCs, so you can't have it both ways; you can't both claim that the CR rule is the reason why you expect PCs of every class to be evenly balanced against one another, while simultaneously saying that the expectations for PCs and NPCs are intended to be different.
    Point of clarification: I don't claim that combat rating is why I expect classes to be balanced. Nor level adjust for that matter. No the reasons I believe caster/martial disparity is an accident are:
    1. No distinction among classes has ever existed in terms of "ranking" in the official rules. Theme, power-source and role have been, but never have I seen (or heard of really) one being called out as above another. And I believe 3.X and 5 don't at all?
    2. Although there is no advice the opposite direction for villains (casters needing martial support), I believe there is no advice either way for PCs.
    3. Pretty much all of the setting lore (spin off books) for D&D I have read does have more high-level casters than high-level martials. However the casters "on the ground" usually have a similar power to the non-casters around them.*
    4. 4th edition, for all of its faults, did everything it could to bring caster/martial disparity down or rid the game of it completely.
    And that is why I think the classes were supposed to be balanced from... well 3.X on. Maybe some of the earlier editions.

    *So there may be a failure to create high-level martials, but until that point at least things seem balanced.

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