Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980157The man in my new OD&D group here is not only an experienced player, but a combat vet.  Screening, watching your flanks, protecting vulnerable troops, etc, is all second nature to him.  It's kind of nice.

Our best tactical player (also military, but no combat experience) can't make sessions anymore, but fortunately was with the group long enough to impart the basics to most of the group.  I'm not running so hardcore that they need constant attention to every detail (and probably not skilled enough to require that anyway), but I do expect the basics.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980086Past a certain point, a single weapon attack isn't a big deal. I've seen Sentinel in actual play a total of zero times so far. Also haven't seen a Bladesinger (and probably won't, since I don't run AL games, and it seems everyone at the table just uses my books).

Trust me, there have been plenty of times where if I or the DM I was playing with went as hard on the players as I did in 4e, it would have easily resulted in at least one player death. Shoot, just having zombies munch on downed players tends to cause a tidal wave of player tears.

I guess I have some pretty kickass players. I have to go way over Deadly to challenge my Sunday group at all.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980145The "Gentleman's agreement" I use in 5e is that monsters typically attack either whomever's closest or just hit them hardest.

So you end up with a lot of dead wizards?  

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980145Page 70, 1e DMG:
"If characters or similar intelligent creatures are able to single out an opponent or opponents, then the concerned figures will remain locked in melee until one side is dead or opts to attempt to break out of combat."

So OK, so if the Mummy Lord IS engaged with melee.  Fair enough.  So the best 'tactic' is to send the minions in front and blast the Magic User to bits.  Then let the minions eat the rest of the party because attrition says 'I win'.  Not much in the way of tactics, but hey.  If it works, keep using it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980145In the 2e manual, there are 3 kinds of listed movement for melee:
1. Into melee range
2. Withdrawing
3. Fleeing

That I remember.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;980145The idea of moving through melee isn't even contemplated. Moving into melee range is described as the "basic" maneuver. Chainmail and Holmes reflect the same idea. Mentzer is a bit more clear in stating unequivocally that your only maneuvers in melee are "Fighting Withdrawal" and "Retreat." If you look at any of the TSR editions, when one moves into melee, one's only options are to either stay in melee or retreat; there is no option to continue forward, draw an opportunity attack or some other penalty, and engage the back line.

So the Mummy Lord doesn't move into melee, ever.  Gotcha.  Still end up with TPK's.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;980180So you end up with a lot of dead wizards?

Allow me to clarify.
The monsters typically attack whomever is closest in melee.
If more than one PC is closest, they typically attack whomever did the most damage last round.
Otherwise, I typically roll a die to see who gets attacked.

Artillery monsters tend to go for the back lines or focus-fire on whomever the front is engaging.

I say "typically" because I'm the DM, I can do what I want, and sometimes what I want to do isn't that.

QuoteSo OK, so if the Mummy Lord IS engaged with melee.  Fair enough.  So the best 'tactic' is to send the minions in front and blast the Magic User to bits.  Then let the minions eat the rest of the party because attrition says 'I win'.  Not much in the way of tactics, but hey.  If it works, keep using it.

What is your problem?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980155If it weren't for you and Black Vulema and Asen and one or two others, I'd start to think there was something wrong with my reading comprehension.  Thanks for cashing my reality check.

It's my pleasure:).

Quote from: S'mon;980162I guess I have some pretty kickass players. I have to go way over Deadly to challenge my Sunday group at all.

I know the feeling. I mean, when an ambush about 5 to 1 doesn't work, a GM's got to think on his feet;)!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980157Screening, watching your flanks, protecting vulnerable troops, etc, is all second nature to him.  It's kind of nice.

When we ran through the Temple of Elemental Stupidity, I tried to impart to some of the other players "contact drills". We had henchmen and men-at-arms hirelings, of course. We only kind of half used proper small unit tactics, but we really churned through those elemental fuckers. The DM seemed kind of bewildered.

As I've said before, I'd love to run a modern warfare or espionage rpg, but the players...

Quote from: Christopher Brady;980180So you end up with a lot of dead wizards?  

How would that follow from what he said? If the party is advancing with the high-hp, heavily armored types in front (and maybe a rear guard), with the squishies in the middle, then the monsters engage the heavies, the spellcasters and enemy artillery types either snipe at each other, boost their front line, or damage the other front line (depending upon the specifics of the situation and their capabilities), and the fight goes to whomever does it better. That sounds like the system working.

QuoteSo OK, so if the Mummy Lord IS engaged with melee.  Fair enough.  So the best 'tactic' is to send the minions in front and blast the Magic User to bits.  Then let the minions eat the rest of the party because attrition says 'I win'.  Not much in the way of tactics, but hey.  If it works, keep using it.

I don't even know what this is or what you are complaining about. If the mummy lord is in melee, they are not blasting the MU to bits. If they are blasting the magic user to bits, then they likely aren't in melee and it is a straight front-line-and-well-protected-artillery vs. front-line-and-well-protected-artillery scenario, and it is something in the way of tactics. If the minions eat the rest of the party because attrition says 'I win,' then this is the case because apparently the minions are much better fighters than the fighters are. This sounds like a party up against a far superior force.

QuoteSo the Mummy Lord doesn't move into melee, ever.  Gotcha.  Still end up with TPK's.

Why? Please explain what you think fearsomepirate said that implies this. Walk us through how you envision this battle taking place so that we can point out the assumptions about the scenario or the rules interpretations that you are making, so that we can decide if we agree and/or offer differing takes.

Fearsomepirate and I were talking about the toothless opportunity attack system of more recent editions, and whether one should play the enemies as making rules-smart decision (just eat that attack and rush past to the spellcasters) or making verisimilitude-smart decisions (no, they would engage the front line, since rushing past would be stupid irl). I wouldn't call that a gentlemen's agreement, but it's with discussion-distance of the same thing. There was room to find agreement, instead of doing the same-old throwdown.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980144If their front rank is not sufficiently dense to block movement, characters behind the front rank WILL get meleed.  It's a major killer of 3rd edition and later players; they think in terms of 5 feet per figure, whereas OD&D allows 3 figures in a ten foot frontage.

The section in ODD vol. 3 states that three characters can hit a door simultaneously.  Volume 3 page 12 states that three hobgoblins can fit in a 10 foot wide corridor, and humans and hobgoblins are about the same size.  (Roman legions in close order had 3 1/2 foot between men, center to center.  This is no coincidence.)

QuoteAlso, at some point the assumption "Your front rank is three characters in plate and shield" went bye-bye.  About the same time as the idea of hiring henchmen short or long term to make sure you had your armored front rank, at least one cleric, etc.

Yes, and I for one think this is the real issue. Three characters per 10' frontage works very well when 1) the party is sufficiently large, and 2) the landscapes are sufficiently constrained that you can count on one hand (or a bit more) the 10' frontages needed to block off the back lines from the enemy. When playing oD&D/bD&D/1e AD&D with 6-8 players and a troop of hirelings going into dungeons with 10-20' corridors, this works perfectly. As I've said before, early D&D works phenomenally, when played under the assumption of play for which it was designed.

The problem is that, as player preference of gaming style changed, the rules did not change to match. Gaming groups have tended to shrink to more link 4 players, so that drops the # of characters. Players have usually not wanted to play a bunch of lower-level npcs as well, so hirelings have fallen to a 0-2 per PC kind of thing. And more of the adventuring has moved out of the dungeon. I am not going to say that one playstyle is superior, but I will say that the rules did not keep up. If you are going to play such that spellcasters can't keep out of the range of the enemies, than you can't have squishy spellcasters.

5e has finally sorta recognized this, and responded by at least allowing you to make high AC (bladesinger, 1 level fighter or cleric multiclass dipping, or hill dwarf), high hp (abjurer), or high luck (diviner) wizards. If you don't play with those specific options, though, it seems that the books expect the enemies to not eat the opportunity attack and rush past the front lines to take out the bigger threat/lower defense spellcasters.

QuoteFafhrd and the Mouser, Conan, Elric, and other S&S types frequently had NPCs along either short or long term.  I remember for sure Faf & Mouser hiring a couple of guides for, I think, a mountain climbing expedition.

Yeah, but not for much of their adventuring, and certainly not squads of 3 soldiers per 10' (plus backups for those who fall). Much of the S&S heroes were most often not playing squad tactics. They also were very much of the vein of 'the protagonists are not squishies, they belong in the front line,' even Mouser. I think this might have been part of the movement away from large squad tactics in that people wanted to play these types of characters, who could get into a comingled front line fight and somehow survive.

That's where I'm coming from. I don't think this issue happened between TSR and WotC, I think it was that time of the oD&D fad-bubble and the movement from wargamers to college kids who wanted to play as Fafhrd, Mouser, Conan, Elric, (Frodo, Strider, Merlin), and not as squad commanders.

Quote from: Opaopajr;979923I've had my concerns about 5e save progression (and attribute dependence) since first reading it. I always thought Saves would have been cleaner to add Proficiency Bonus to all Attributes, and class-based save proficiency just provided Expertise (double PB). It immediately mitigates Attribute whinging, as the PB quickly outpaces. And it makes PB tier level more of a guesstimate-able difficulty comparison (basically check tierage between PCs and mobs).

One of these days I'll test my theory out in a homegame...

Yeah it was an odd way to do saves. But it works overall as most saves are Dex or WIS based, with a few others tossed in.

Good example was we had an encounter with an adult black dragon that really didnt want to talk, at all. We were bad off allready from just getting there. Everyone scattered and the damn dragon blasted my Warlock. DC 18 DEX save. My DEX is 10 so just a straight roll. Failed miserably. 56 points of damage which the Warlock survived. But that was half my health gone. Kefra fires off Feeblemind. DC 19 INT save. Dragon fails its save. But uses an ability to shrug it off.
Next round Kefra blasts it with Sunbeam. 19 CON save. And despite having a comprable +10 CON bonus, the dragon fails that too and uses another ability to shrug it off. Then blasts me again. I fail that one too and opt to use an inspiration to reroll the save and actually just bare make it. I was down to 1/4th my HP.
Round 3 and Kef sunbeams it again. Dragon fails save again and uses its ability to again shrug it off. Here I see my opening. I still had some spells left for just such an occasion and nailed it with Dominate Monster as was fairly sure from past experience it couldnt blockade another failed save.
The save DC was 19 (8+5+6) Dragons WIS save is +6. Dragon gets a 15. PING! In me Power! mwah-haa-haa-haa!

Had that failed Id have allmost certainly gone down on the next blast as the dratted lizard kept making its recharge rolls.

So lots of give and take even at high levels with saves and is just natural that you can not excell at everything. and even when you have cranked up stats its not a guarantee.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980144If their front rank is not sufficiently dense to block movement, characters behind the front rank WILL get meleed.  It's a major killer of 3rd edition and later players; they think in terms of 5 feet per figure, whereas OD&D allows 3 figures in a ten foot frontage.

I don't see how that makes a difference since the opposition are aligned on a 5' square as well. It not realistic but it amount to the same thing. I figure it ever bothered me that much I will just switch over to using 1 yard hexes/squares like I used in GURPS. And yes I fucking realize I can ditch the grid, I find using one convenient so I that call I make and live with the less realistic outcome.  

Otherwise the combat I referee pretty much how you described things. If the PCs spread out too much they will find the enemy slipping through and attacking the rear echelon of porters, mules, and magic users. If the players don't watch their left or right they will get flanked and the end will quickly crumpled under the barrage of extra attacks. The same with not properly dealing with formations or god forbid somebody gets behind and attacks are coming in from front and back.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980144So, if the PCs don't keep their ranks solid, they are in trouble.  No "gentleman's agreement" involved.  Learn tactics or die.

No argument from about that.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256The problem is that, as player preference of gaming style changed, the rules did not change to match. Gaming groups have tended to shrink to more link 4 players, so that drops the # of characters. Players have usually not wanted to play a bunch of lower-level npcs as well, so hirelings have fallen to a 0-2 per PC kind of thing. And more of the adventuring has moved out of the dungeon. I am not going to say that one playstyle is superior, but I will say that the rules did not keep up. If you are going to play such that spellcasters can't keep out of the range of the enemies, than you can't have squishy spellcasters.

If what they want to do then live with the consequences of organizing oneself in that style.  And you don't need help from the rule system to make the campaign fun and enjoyable. You need to be smart. If you want to run around in a small group then you need to pay more attention to scouting and situational awareness. In the decades I been running the Majestic Wilderlands only a quarter of the different adventuring groups when ahead and incorporated hirelings into their group. Even when OD&D became the primary system I was using in 2008.

What the other group quickly learned to scout, come up with a plan that catches the enemy unawares, and setup ambushes. And for the most part the execution goes by the numbers and while the party may take some hits generally they win the victors. But catch them with their pants down or fighting a prepared enemy then a TPK looms.

A recent example in two Adventures in Middle Earth campaign. One group charges in and has a lost at least one party member each session. The last session was particular brutal as the party committed several tactical blunders. They got strung out and split their forces. Their opposition were a bunch of wolves, not even wargs. The wolves stuck together and just picked off the party one by one resulting in two deaths out of five in that the session. And the only reason two lived because they were on a wall above the wolves, and one just turned coward and ran away leaving the party's scholar (and healer) to die.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;9802565e has finally sorta recognized this, and responded by at least allowing you to make high AC (bladesinger, 1 level fighter or cleric multiclass dipping, or hill dwarf), high hp (abjurer), or high luck (diviner) wizards. If you don't play with those specific options, though, it seems that the books expect the enemies to not eat the opportunity attack and rush past the front lines to take out the bigger threat/lower defense spellcasters.

high AC is of little help with multiple attacks coming in from all directions and some with advantage.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;980256That's where I'm coming from. I don't think this issue happened between TSR and WotC, I think it was that time of the oD&D fad-bubble and the movement from wargamers to college kids who wanted to play as Fafhrd, Mouser, Conan, Elric, (Frodo, Strider, Merlin), and not as squad commanders.

There is a smart way of doing that and a dumb way. However for the players that do invest in hirelings and take the time to learn tactics, the result is far more effective.

It's not just about your more wargame-inspired scenarios, either. Here's a very simple, classic type scenario:

The Ogre King/Ghoul Lord/Death Knight/[insert favorite BBEG] is brooding in his Boss Chamber. The classic Fighter/Cleric/Thief/Wizard party bursts in. "Ho there, evil foe!" cries out the fighter, as he charges forward with sword in hand. And behold, the BBEG and the fighter are now locked in deadly combat!

In OD&D, AD&D 1e, every variant of Basic, and AD&D 2e, in this scenario, the fighter tangles up close and personal with his mighty blade, with the cleric providing some secondary melee support, dropping back when healing or some other buff is needed. The rogue plinks or tries to get a backstab, and the wizard provides the heavy artillery. Since initiative is side-based, and the guys in heavy armor busted down the door first, it kind of doesn't matter who wins, as this is what is going to happen.

In 3rd and 5th edition, if the DM plays in a rules-smart way, and the fighter does his heroic "rush into the room like a badass" thing, the BBEG probably  beats everyone except the rogue and fighter on initiative, laughs at the stupid fighter's attempt to be relevant, draws a 50-50 chance of a single 1[W] + MOD in damage, walks up to the wizard, and turns him into paste (unless you are high enough level in 3e for the cleric to have buffed himself into Mecha-Jesus). 4e doesn't have this problem, but 4e basically replicated the TSR-style scenario with obnoxiously complicated mechanics. I seriously hated tracking marks.

If I run my monsters in a rules-smart way, the smart tactic for the party is always to never enter the room and just stack up on the. If it's a 10' hallway, the two armored guys can stand up front, and the two ranged guys can stand in the rear. The -2 penalty to ranged attacks is well worth the squishies not being vulnerable. Yes, it works, but it's boring. It means every single fight takes place at a doorway.

To expand a bit on the toothlessness of 5e's opportunity attacks:

Ordinarily, you only get one OA per round. As you level up, the fighter actually has a very weak base melee OA.

Fighter: 1[W] + STR. Fighting Style might give a bit of a boost, +1.3 for great weapon, +2 for duelist. +5% crit chance for Champion.
Melee rogue: 1[W] + 6d6 + DEX
Melee cleric: 1[W] + d8 + STR
Raging barbarian: 1d12 + STR + 3, plus brutal crit
Paladin: 1[W] + d8 + STR, also has Fighting Style.

Really, only the Battle Master can do anything significant, as there are a number of maneuvers which will either impede the BBEG's progress or make him less effective at attacking the wizard. But this reminiscent of 4e's "solve a problem that was never a problem before via more complexity," which is annoying...and it's limited to a specific subclass, and tied to a finite resource of that class, and tied to specific maneuvers. It's easily one of my least favorite 5e design choices.

Quote from: Omega;980257Yeah it was an odd way to do saves. But it works overall as most saves are Dex or WIS based, with a few others tossed in.

Good example was we had an encounter with an adult black dragon that really didnt want to talk, at all. We were bad off allready from just getting there. Everyone scattered and the damn dragon blasted my Warlock. DC 18 DEX save. My DEX is 10 so just a straight roll. Failed miserably. 56 points of damage which the Warlock survived. But that was half my health gone. Kefra fires off Feeblemind. DC 19 INT save. Dragon fails its save. But uses an ability to shrug it off.
Next round Kefra blasts it with Sunbeam. 19 CON save. And despite having a comprable +10 CON bonus, the dragon fails that too and uses another ability to shrug it off. Then blasts me again. I fail that one too and opt to use an inspiration to reroll the save and actually just bare make it. I was down to 1/4th my HP.
Round 3 and Kef sunbeams it again. Dragon fails save again and uses its ability to again shrug it off. Here I see my opening. I still had some spells left for just such an occasion and nailed it with Dominate Monster as was fairly sure from past experience it couldnt blockade another failed save.
The save DC was 19 (8+5+6) Dragons WIS save is +6. Dragon gets a 15. PING! In me Power! mwah-haa-haa-haa!

Had that failed Id have allmost certainly gone down on the next blast as the dratted lizard kept making its recharge rolls.

So lots of give and take even at high levels with saves and is just natural that you can not excell at everything. and even when you have cranked up stats its not a guarantee.

This reads like a "Saves War" reminiscent of D&D 3e or Exalted... This is not a good thing.

Spreading more save resistance around inherently tamps down 'save or suck/pwn' attrition wars, which could only be a good thing, IMO. I need to test out my Houserule to Saves soon.

I'm not really sold on the saving throw concept to begin with. It wasn't so great in its first implementation, where at high level, you failed saves so rarely that there was almost no point to most of them, with casting save spells at high-level monsters being equally pointless. Beginning in 3rd edition, a "save" is just an Attack vs AC without the possibility of a critical hit. 4e dispensed with the conceit that saves and defenses were different in any meaningful way and recast everything as Attack vs AC, critical hits included. 5e's back to 3rd edition, but that's not necessarily a good thing.