Quote from: Christopher Brady;907926HOW?  There are NO tools to keep them alive.  All goblins and koblods (and that's all that needs to be, the small pathetic monsters) can simply lob objects at the Wizard, like arrows, sling stones, and there's nothing any other classes can do.

It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Lots of ways, let's start with AC bonus for cover. They CAN'T target the magician since they don't have line of sight. The fighters will have to suck up some damage when the vials shatter against their shields. Then, on the party's turn, the spear line goes down on one knee and sleep solves the problem. Because, if facing a howling horde of charging gobbos, we're going with spears and shields. Yes, if the party is ambushed by 80 goblins in a field, you're screwed. Other than that, you figure out how to live. Evolve or die, man.

I ALWAYS played the wizard, and the only "gentleman's agreement" was that the DM didn't have to chip in for the pizza.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?

LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

• And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.
• And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?
• And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.
  
• Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

Quote from: talysman;907927It's a pity D&D doesn't have shields, or marching order. Somebody should add that to the game. Then people could move their fighters to the front line and have them raise their shields to defend the magic-user.

Why didn't anyone think of that?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907929Uh, and HOW, mechanically does that actually help when they target the wizard?  A shield ONLY protects the user.  AND it doesn't actually prevent damage, it's a dodge modifier.  You are hit or not.  Marching order?  And how does that stop things like fire bombs, like bottles of oil lit on fire?  And you think Goblins or Kobolds wouldn't use those types of tools? In fact, clustering together is a GREAT way to hit the entire party.

Quote from: Baron Opal;907930Lots of ways, let's start with AC bonus for cover. They CAN'T target the magician since they don't have line of sight. The fighters will have to suck up some damage when the vials shatter against their shields. Then, on the party's turn, the spear line goes down on one knee and sleep solves the problem. Because, if facing a howling horde of charging gobbos, we're going with spears and shields. Yes, if the party is ambushed by 80 goblins in a field, you're screwed. Other than that, you figure out how to live. Evolve or die, man.

I ALWAYS played the wizard, and the only "gentleman's agreement" was that the DM didn't have to chip in for the pizza.

Quote from: Bren;907936LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

• And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.
• And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?
• And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.
  
• Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

It's scary how people need hand-holding, or in some cases, can't even see the hand they could hold.

In OD&D, the assumption is that natural language and common sense applies. You can't hit what you can't see, and you can't move through a solid obstacle. If you don't believe that... why, OD&D has no rule that says you can't walk right through a stone wall or a closed door, so you must be able to, right? And if the goblins are in a locked room, they can just lob those fire bombs right through the walls!

So, three warriors standing side by side fill a 10-foot corridor. Goblins can't move past them unless they kill them first. The shields are to block the line of sight further. If you really need a ruling for the chance that a warrior can use a shield to deflect a fire-bomb that the goblins are trying to lob over the warrior's head, use a Dex check. If you don't have three warriors to form a line between the M-U and the goblins, retreat to a doorway and have one guy block the path. If you find a wide open space, don't go in until you have some idea what's in there and what your escape route is.

But if you absolutely positively need a written rule for this, play AD&D and use the cover rules. I don't care if a shield is a dodge modifier or not (although I doubt it is.) A wizard behind a shield wall has at least 50% cover, more likely 90 to 100% cover. There's your mechanical hand-holding right there. (For OD&D, I actually just halve the AC for 50% cover, halve again for 75%, and so on. Simple.)

I'd really like to know if Christopher Brady plays with a GM who runs combats with infinite line of sight and no consideration for obstacles, so goblins can target M-Us hiding behind pillars 120 feet away. With those kinds of rules, I could see why a "gentleman's agreement" would be necessary.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;907850I dunno.  Every where I've read (which I admit is purely anecdotally) there's always been this 'gentleman's agreement' to not attack the magic user until the meat shields were dead/removed.

Well, you all have a lot more healing available to you, unlike the previous renditions.

1: Where? With any given session I've been in everyone and their brother twice removed focuses fire on the cleric and magic user/wizard. If they can get to them. No ranged ability or masses to bypass a fighter and yeah the fighter you have to get through to get to the wizard. Its not gentlemans agreement. Its just tactics at work.

Ive lost track of the times groups of kobolds or packs of rats have gotten around the fighter due to sheer numbers to come over and poke the wizard. Who was usually me. But lower number foes the fighters could hold off buying me time to cast or chuck darts.

2: We all adventure under the express assumption that short rests are not going to happen in any adventure. We'll take them if we can. But we never go in assuming we will. We did discuss us all taking the skills to make those cheap basic healing potions if they arent for sale anywhere. Especially if we are going with the harsher healing rules from the DMG.

In the last dungeon crawl I ran standard marching order was two combat-capable PCs up front, three henchmen with spears in the second rank, then the squishies then more henchmen in the rear. The way that the fighters guarded the squishies is being in the fucking way. You're not getting easy attacks on squishies past two ranks of guys with at least one rank having shields in a thin corridor. The PCs went to great lengths to ensure that as many fights as possible happened in corridors. Their mini-phalanx did great work against gnolls with two-handed swords who took up the whole corridor with their big-ass swords. In the open things were much messier but they could still do things like have the squishies get their backs to a tree and put some henchmen in front of them.

A gentleman's agreement not to target magic-users or clerics is just metagaming that flies in the face of what roleplaying ought to be about. So what if hardball turns off new players? After about their third or fourth dead PC they'll start to grasp what intelligent play means - and that's a good thing. If they don't, you can have an out of game discussion about what the word 'tactics' means and how it can (and will) be applied. Also...you are aware that 40-400 goblins means spread out over an entire lair, right?

Quote from: Bren;907936LOS. Jeebus H. Chris, this is why some people think they need 400 fucking pages of rules.

Yeah, that's why the books became bigger.  Because people wanted clarifications, also, very few people realize that because it's not in the book, it's OK to try it.  Most human beings, having a relatively cautious nature in general, will assume that unless it's dictated or clear, it's NOT available.

Outside of TSR and WoTC, bigger books means bigger costs and less profit, so saying bigger books make more profit is sadly untrue.  But really, that's just a strawman used by grognards (a French term meaning grumpy old man) to deflect the point.

And you're using physics and realism in D&D?  Ooo!  Ooo!  I can play this game!

Quote from: Bren;907936And in a dungeon the bad guys (and you of course) often cannot lob shit over the heads of the front rank because it bounces or breaks when it hits the ceiling before it gets to the target. Trajectory. Parabolas aren't just something mathematicians invented because we were out of other toys to play with.

OK, so obviously you don't play D&D because you'd know that's exactly what a 'to hit' roll signifies.  It's an attempt to hit the target in some manner.  And given that most AD&D 2e dungeons were built in 10x10 cubes stacked along a line or in a room like structure...  Splash damage is a thing.

Have you ever heard the expression 'Almost counts only in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades'?  If you don't then, here's the reason why certain attacks like Fireball has a blast radius listed.

So, let's use this argument of physics, given that the average hero is nearly 6 feet (Americans and their fascinations with amazons, I tell ya), in a base 10 foot cube, so they're going to be reasonably clustered and if you underhand throw, which will have an arc, you actually have a minimum 4 foot clearance.  If you're a trained lobber, that's not that much of an issue.  But the cool thing about 'grenades' is that you don't actually have to HIT the target, reasonably close is actually good enough.  Because in this case, oil being a flammable liquid has a tendency to spray and splash in a set pattern given the strength and angle the object being thrown.  Which is why there's a blast radius chart in AD&D.

Here's the short version rub:  You just have to hit close to them.  Smash it off the Fighter's leg, hit the ceiling and let the burning liquid drip down, hit the floor in between them all, all these cases, you now have Burning PC Syndrome, and oil fires don't work well with "Stop, Drop and Roll!"

Now, if we were REALLY using realism in D&D, then the PC's AC given to them by whatever armour they are wearing wouldn't actually matter, leaving them to have an Armour Class based on their Dex bonus alone.  Which, because it never actually scales, means that a grenade like object, the aforementioned oil, would be ever more effective, because it doesn't matter what level of magic armour you're wearing wouldn't ever help, whether level 1 or 31.

But thankfully, D&D being a game, and abstracting things like turning armour into a dodge bonus, rather than actually simulating what it does in real life, it's actually much gentler to the player experience.

Quote from: Bren;907936And if the goblins are close enough to hit you with a thrown oil flask, then they are close enough for your missile troops to hit them. So maybe do that. Target of opportunity anyone?

Not sure how realism works here, so I'm going to roll the dice for both sides and see who goes first.

Initiative says...  Oh look it's the GOBLINS!  Good luck!  At least all they have is bows and arrows today!

Oh, and remember, the Wizard's lower AC, with attendant penalties to hit in a group of people, here's hoping (and I'm being very, very generous here) that the 20 goblins (Because you'd have to roll 2d10x10 to get the size of the group, and that works out to about 100 goblins per encounter.  And I don't know of ANY level one party able to hire that many porters and henchmen to counter that number...) can hit!  Actually the odds of just their archers, not grenadiers, nailing your party wizard to the wall by the balls is pretty good.

So good in fact, that most of the D&D groups I interacted in the past 30 some years with subconsciously created the 'Gentleman's Agreement' of hitting Fighters first.  But, that's just an anecdote, not fact.

Quote from: Bren;907936And if you are in a big white room with no walls, no cover, and a ceiling higher than you can throw shit and you are enormously outnumbered, and you are too stupid or slow to run away, then for you, today better be a good day to die, because that's probably what you will be doing.

Grenades, or more accurately, Molotov Cocktails don't care about your stinking cover.  It burns just as well as you do!  Enjoy!  And that's assuming that the players had time to scramble into a defensive position, and even THAT is making a massive presumption that there's decent, non-flammable cover near by!

Remember, the Goblins have a chance of surprising the PC's.  Especially if the PC's are INVADING THE DUNGEON THAT THE GOBLINS HAVE TURNED INTO THEIR HOME!

Which realistically (there's that damn word again!) they probably would have, meaning they've got home ground advantage.

Also, cover makes it hard for the Wizard to SEE out, as hard as it is for the goblins to see IN.  Almost all spells are limited by being able to see the target.

But if the goblins have a couple of guys with a Molotov, they don't need to see the Wizard.  Who by the virtue of ALWAYS being able to hit with most of their spells are always the first thing they will target.  Because Goblins may not be smart, they ARE cunning.

Quote from: Bren;907936Maybe you should have tried to avoid or negotiate with those 4-400 goblins you saw hundreds of yards away in that big white room instead of metaphorically or literally circling the wagons and waiting for their attack.

Right, you haven't negotiated much have you?  Negotiations happen when BOTH sides, not just one, looks as strong as the other, and just taking what you want would cost more than bartering for it.  Which is why very few countries got to war, they'd rather make treaties and trade agreements to pass needed supplies through each other.

But here?  Assuming that the Goblins even want to talk, which given the numbers is a massive, if unrealistic assumption, they will be doing so from a position of strength.  Oh, and another key point of negotiation is that both parties need to have something that the other side wants.

PC party of 4+ maybe...  6 total porters that they can afford on the meager first level gold pile they still have after they've spent their allowance on gear, weapons and armour, vs. 20 to 200 goblins...

10 member PC party wants to live.

20+ Goblins want the party's stuff, and don't care how they get it.

Doesn't look too good does it?  I don't see exactly what the PC party can offer the Goblins to convince the little blighters to leave them alone.  In fact, it's more likely that the Goblins would be willing to give the PC's a head start on running, but only AFTER they give over all their stuff.  Otherwise it's Murder Time, Fun Time!  YAY!

Hell, that's what bullying is.  One side, the Bully, seeing themselves as more powerful than their victim and proving by taking whatever it is they want from the victim.


I love destroying white room assumptions!  Give me more!

What the hell dungeons have people been playing in that they are encountering tens of goblins at once in a single room or corridor?

200 goblins spread through out a multi-room lair is a much different proposition than 200 goblins all at once.

And I never heard of a gentleman's agreement not to target MUs, thieves, et al. You went in the dungeon you took your chances like everyone else.  Tactics like putting lower armoured characters out of the melee do a lot to improve survivability.

OK, now that's just idiotic. If 1st level PCs are fighting 100 goblins at once they're going to lose no matter what gentleman agreement is in place.

Quote from: Kellri;907947A gentleman's agreement not to target magic-users or clerics is just metagaming that flies in the face of what roleplaying ought to be about.

You mean like building a giant bonfire in front of the main entrance to the dungeon to asphyxiate all the goblins because dungeons are never designed with air shafts?

Or maybe spotting the secret entrance to the dungeon by looking for the constant stream of food bearers on their way in and porters carrying buckets of night soil out, because for some reason no one ever eats or shits in a dungeon.

There's rather a lot of "gentleman's agreements" inherent in D&D, not least of which that we are Not at Home to Mr. Science.

No, those would be design considerations. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with players doing any of those things you mentioned - I'd probably reward it. Wouldn't you? Generally, working out a clever solution is the point, not adhering to some kind of fantasy trope 'just because'.

On the other hand, if someone complained because having a group of monsters target their spellcaster wasn't 'playing fair' I would have a deep, long laugh at their expense and then carry on.

Quote from: daniel_ream;907952You mean like building a giant bonfire in front of the main entrance to the dungeon to asphyxiate all the goblins because dungeons are never designed with air shafts?

Or maybe spotting the secret entrance to the dungeon by looking for the constant stream of food bearers on their way in and porters carrying buckets of night soil out, because for some reason no one ever eats or shits in a dungeon.

There's rather a lot of "gentleman's agreements" inherent in D&D, not least of which that we are Not at Home to Mr. Science.

Don't really see the issue with that. I've had players do that sort of thing which just ended up with big pitched battles at the entrance of the dungeon as the party completely surrendered any element of surprise. Was fun, would do it again.

Quote from: Omega;9079421: Where? With any given session I've been in everyone and their brother twice removed focuses fire on the cleric and magic user/wizard. If they can get to them. No ranged ability or masses to bypass a fighter and yeah the fighter you have to get through to get to the wizard. Its not gentlemans agreement. Its just tactics at work.

Ive lost track of the times groups of kobolds or packs of rats have gotten around the fighter due to sheer numbers to come over and poke the wizard. Who was usually me. But lower number foes the fighters could hold off buying me time to cast or chuck darts.

2: We all adventure under the express assumption that short rests are not going to happen in any adventure. We'll take them if we can. But we never go in assuming we will. We did discuss us all taking the skills to make those cheap basic healing potions if they arent for sale anywhere. Especially if we are going with the harsher healing rules from the DMG.

But, you see, YOU are smart enough to shit unassisted.  Those who are not, complain about the rules.