Quote from: Christopher Brady;921004'Damage'?  What the fuck are you wasting spells on 'damage'???  

I dont know. What the fuck are you whining again about spell damage for then if you knew you were wrong?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;920901:rolleyes:  Yes, we can't have everyone do well in combat, can we?  We have to force a player to sit back, do nothing, while the real damage machine, the Magic User (I believe that's what the name of the class was) does all the work.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;921024Wait, are you saying the game was never about combat?

It was not ONLY about combat. That's why you get XP for getting the loot, not for killing the monster.

The theoretically perfect, "platonic ideal" dungeon session in old-school D&D would be the one where you get out of the dungeon with all the loot but without having fought a single round of combat.

The Fighter is supposed to be the fallback for whenever you don't manage to achieve the perfect solution.

Quote from: S'mon;921012In 4e a 1st level NPC typically has around 28 hit points, where an at will attack might do 9-10 damage. Like I said, this is a specifically 4e issue, other editions of D&D work fine IME.

Mook guards are minions. They are there to die like skittles. A NPC with a class and level is an Important Dude who should not be one-shot killed.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;921030The original game started out with 3 classes; Fighting Man, Cleric, and Magic User. One third of those classes was designed almost purely for combat.

I run OD&D/S&W:WB with 3 classes. AKA, no thief or as I say, everyone's a thief.  Also, I use 1D6 for HD and 1D6 for base weapon damage.

Clerics are great fighters. They wear plate and carry a mace which cracks heads, doors and treasure chests.

Mages also don't suck in combat. Sure, they have no armor and lower HP, but that dagger or staff is 1D6-1 damage. In OD&D, the ACs aren't crazy. With a +0 bonus, you hit AC 14 30% of the time, and you do 2.5 damage against foes who don't have piles of HP. Of course, the goal is never to put the mage in combat, but no mage out of spells has to sit in the back with thumb in bum.

Fighters do more than just fight. Because of their higher HP, they can scout. They can take the surprise hit, the sudden trap, and their better saves often keep them alive against non-combat threats.

At the insistence of players, I added the Assassin class. AKA, the Fighter who wears leather, gets +1 Attack & Damage bonus per Level with Surprise Attacks, and +2 Save vs. Traps. My players prefer him to the classic Thief because he's kinda Thief, kinda Ranger and feels right with the other classes. BTW, in calling it Surprise Attack, I killed off all the arguments about backstab and sneak attack. Did you surprise the enemy? Yes? Get your bonus!

Quote from: Luca;921049The theoretically perfect, "platonic ideal" dungeon session in old-school D&D would be the one where you get out of the dungeon with all the loot but without having fought a single round of combat.

That would bore the shit out of me. I'm here to toss dice, eat Cheetos and mosh it up with monsters!

Quote from: Luca;921049The theoretically perfect, "platonic ideal" dungeon session in old-school D&D would be the one where you get out of the dungeon with all the loot but without having fought a single round of combat.

Quote from: Spinachcat;921159That would bore the shit out of me. I'm here to toss dice, eat Cheetos and mosh it up with monsters!

For me, it would depend on the group's operational plan. Sometimes the mission IS to take out certain monsters that pose a threat. Constantly trying to tiptoe past all the monsters can sometimes bite you on the ass and you can be attacked at the worst possible moment. Sometimes it is better to just eliminate a threat on your terms with a good plan than to risk triggering an encounter when you are least prepared to handle it.

A great example of this is the ogre in module B2. Once discovered by scouting, a sound plan can be made to lure the creature out into the ravine into nice kill box set up beforehand. It takes out a big threat and reduces the chances of having to fight the thing AND the goblin tribe at the same time.

Combat certainly has its place in the game but players who are smarter about when and how to engage will generally be more successful.

Quote from: Omega;921045I dont know. What the fuck are you whining again about spell damage for then if you knew you were wrong?

Truthfully, I'm a little confused.  Spell damage has never been a problem.  It's the spells that bypass the damage part that are the issue.  And the latter spells are the ones that, in my experience, have always been seen as superiour, which again in my experience, has proven to be.

Quote from: Spinachcat;921159That would bore the shit out of me. I'm here to toss dice, eat Cheetos and mosh it up with monsters!

And would invalidate most what two of the three original classes are meant to do straight out of the box.

Bypassing all combat is not the point of a fantasy game.  Especially D&D with it's war game pedigree.  Combat is meant to happen in some fashion.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;921422Truthfully, I'm a little confused.

Spell damage has never been a problem.

1: Obvious from every thread where you bitch incessantly about caster/wizards ad nausium.

2: Then why do you keep using it as an example? The wizard has some focused spells. And for the umpteenth time. So what? The gun has an ammo limit. The ammo tends to have a miss factor of some sort, either totally or partially. Or had their effects sometimes diminished. Moreso in 5e. Said ammo may be appallingly rare other than what you pick up naturally. And while not as fragile as before, said gun is still on the fragile side.

X: Back on the subject of the Rogue and backstab. Surprisingly enough the Rogue can output more average damage than the Wizard. Not by much. But dont underestimate teamwork and backstab.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;920901:rolleyes:  Yes, we can't have everyone do well in combat, can we?  We have to force a player to sit back, do nothing, while the real damage machine, the Magic User (I believe that's what the name of the class was) does all the work.  And no, a good Thief NEVER engaged in a fight, because with their small weapon dice, and severe lack of armour, but still requiring to be in the middle of monsters, like all good meat walls, would simply get them killed, and we can't have that, not if they want to feel useful when a door or a trap comes around. After all, in combat foes are always aware, and there's no way to pull off a stealth in that chaos, nope.  The Thief has to be alone and in the dark to Backstab a bitch.  Very team oriented that class.

Now, if you're lucky, the DM will make every combat encounter near a trapped/locked door, so that the poor player can feel useful while the Fighter stands there, chipping away, as the Cleric heals and does little else, while the Magic User, the truly effective class, gets to show off by using selected spells.

Assuming they're more than level 1, this is also assuming that their porters and NPC army that they brought is dead by now, the Magic User can often end a fight in a minute or two (1 to 2 Rounds), especially if they have Save of 'Die' spells like Sleep on hand.

And if they don't, you're screwed.  HP attrition is not in the player's favour, and hopefully the DM allows you to run away, and the monsters don't have ranged attacks to pick you off.


I simply don't get the appeal of forcing people to feel useless in a game.  I don't get it.  We bitch and moan when players find something else to do, like play on their phones, when their turn is not up, and yet, in my limited experience that's exactly what the older (Or at least, back to Rules Cyclopedia) editions seem to promote.

I guess I'm too stupid for this hobby after all.  I just like my players to have fun, and so far, having them feel useful seems to work...  I guess I'm just not hardcore enough.

You've never played D&D correctly, I see.

In my games, I'm pretty sure no Thief feels useless. They just don't get to do more damage every single round than a fighter would. It was one of the worst features of 3e+ that the fighter was the least useful character even in a fight.

The greatest OSR rule-set in terms of characters really working well is DCC for this reason: every character has a strict niche, all of them are absolutely awesome in it.  Magic-users are really cool, but whereas in regular D&D a fighter becomes less and less useful compared to the magic user as you go along, in DCC the fighter becomes more and more useful compared to the magic user. A mid-level fighter in DCC is a killing machine of awesome moves. Likewise, the thief is nowhere near as good in melee combat as a fighter, but he's spectacular in so many other ways, including his Luck mechanic.

But ignoring the best-case scenario, even in plain old D&D, the Thief's role in combat was very important. It just wasn't to be a front-line melee guy doing the best damage while the fighter stood beside his opponent to let the thief flank and therefore 'sneak attack'. Instead, the D&D thief could pull off a backstab, then fall back and use ranged weapons. Or, if backstabbing was out, he would whip out a spear and attack from the safety of the second row, providing an important secondary-combat role.


Oh, and Sleep is not a "save or die" spell. There is no saving throw in Sleep. Which shows your level of expertise on the subject of D&D.

Quote from: Omega;920905You love being wrong on this don't you? Yes. Yes you do.

Once again lets point out that the fighter outperforms the Magic User in sheer damage output. The wizards powerful to be sure. But its a very different and oft fragile power. (Least pre 3e) And in 5e the Fighter out-performs every other class that I've checked so far.

This was something I hammered home over and over again as a Consultant: the fighter MUST be the best combat guy. It took some work to get there.

Quote from: RPGPundit;922151You've never played D&D correctly, I see.

If you're talking about pre-second edition, that's AT ALL.  Of course, that never stops him from blathering incorrectly about the editions he's never played ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Quote from: RPGPundit;922151Or, if backstabbing was out, he would whip out a spear and attack from the safety of the second row, providing an important secondary-combat role.

A spear isn't something one can just "whip out."

Quote from: Bren;922160A spear isn't something one can just "whip out."

As far as I know, it takes one round to draw a spear, if it's on your person.

Quote from: Bren;922160A spear isn't something one can just "whip out."

China disagrees. (Chain whip, essentially a metal whip with a spear tip.)
[video=youtube;iSt_6cUHLYU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSt_6cUHLYU[/youtube]

Quote from: RPGPundit;922175As far as I know, it takes one round to draw a spear, if it's on your person.

If Im reading the 5e rules right its a free action to unsheath/ready a weapon.

Quote from: Omega;922179China disagrees. (Chain whip, essentially a metal whip with a spear tip.)

China can get stuffed. Whip+arrowhead <> spear. Also that guy looks like a cheerleader twirling a baton.

Quote from: RPGPundit;922175As far as I know, it takes one round to draw a spear, if it's on your person.

Draw it from where? :confused: If the thief is using it from the second rank it isn't likely to be the sort of thing that easily fits "on your person" like a sword or dagger. Carried in hand or ported over a shoulder sure, but in either case the spear, unlike the sword or dagger, is already out and not something one needs to draw or "whip out."


One might unsheath a spear if there is a protective sheath over the spear head. But that isn't something I've seen a lot of in real art or fantasy art.

The thief using a spear is edition dependent. OD&D and B/X no problem. An AD&D thief cannot become proficient in spear or any sort of bow or crossbow. club,dagger, dart,sling, and sword are the available weapons (without non proficiency penalty at least).

The thief was a class that could only really excel by denying other classes the activities that they were already doing. I blame the class for the fucked up perception that a character couldn't do anything unless it was specified on the character sheet as an option. The thief truly earned its name stealing the fun from the other classes. As if that were not bad enough, the designers in their infinite wisdom had to pile on elite special forces combat ability rendering the fighter an amateur melee combatant in comparison.