Quote from: Benoist;549783Basically, the argument is based on using actual tactics and elements surrounding the situation pitting you against the dragon, with the opportunity to strategize and select circumstances and timing depending on specific campaign circumstances.

It might also be that apt word for first claiming that others 'lack imagination' concerning how to take down a rampaging ancient red.

Then saying 'I'd do it with like...stuff... and things, ya know context"

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549597Sure, you could go the 4e route and make it so that you can't summon, reanimate, charm, create, or hire minions. But seriously: fuck that. I'd rather that some of the classes were unplayably horrible than have my entire fantasy neutered so that necromancers can't even make an army of skeletons. When people are throwing the powers of demigods around, the Fighter needs to be in on that action. And I don't mean "The DM took pity on you and gave you an artifact sword that gives you powers that allow you to compete with the Wizard and his charmed Storm Giants", I mean the Fighter needs to actually ramp up to play at that level without DM pity equipment.

-Frank

I'm generally on the same side as OHT, and Ben, and Black Vulmea -- mainly on account of the fighter/wizard imbalance never having been an issue on my games (though I admit to not having played a lot of high-level (9+) D&D with any edition).

Nonetheless, I'd like to know what would you do to make the fighter competitive, mechanically speaking, without neutering high-level wizards.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549784So your answer to the charge that it is unreasonable to expect your Fighter to outwit the Dragon is to point out that the Dragon is no smarter than the Magic User. I detect goalpost shifting.

Your claim is that the dragon naturally outsmarts the characters. I'm just pointing out, like Black Vulmea before, that the intelligence of the dragon is actually 15-16.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549784How smart is the Dragon compared to, say, the fighter that you were supposedly talking about?

And now, you are shifting the goalposts.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549784So your answer to the charge that it is unreasonable to expect your Fighter to outwit the Dragon is to point out that the Dragon is no smarter than the Magic User. I detect goalpost shifting.
 
How smart is the Dragon compared to, say, the fighter that you were supposedly talking about?
 
-Frank

You do know that the fighter won't be in a vacuum and will definitely be asking his wizard buddy or maybe a Ranger friend, or local sage or whoever he has as a contact that may be relevant to the subject at hand, about Dragon lore so he can set up tactics, which don't absolutely need to raw intelligence to succeed.

Quote from: Marleycat;549786I get the feeling Frank is using a different edition than you or Black Vulmea. Nothing wrong with that but I for one would like some clarification.

Yeah, it seems The Troll Man is using one of the, "DRAGONZ ARR THE MOS AWSUMIST POW3RZ IN THE UNIV3RZ!!11lol!!" editions.

Quote from: Kord's Boon;549787It might also be that apt word for first claiming that others 'lack imagination' concerning how to take down a rampaging ancient red.

Then saying 'I'd do it with like...stuff... and things, ya know context"

It certainly demonstrates a lack of imagination to think that the game is the rules, and the rules the game. Something that Frank has shown in spades over, and over, and over again over what, years of arguing about shit.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549791Yeah, it seems The Troll Man is using one of the, "DRAGONZ ARR THE MOS AWSUMIST POW3RZ IN THE UNIV3RZ!!11lol!!" editions.

If I remember correctly dragons in 1e were very beatable by a prepared party. Heck I think that Fighters had the ability to subdue them and pretty much have a pet dragon if they did it right.

I duffed up a dragon once with a 3rd level fighter using nothing but a wet paper bag and autism meds.

Alternatively, Frankie-boy hasn't played much dungeons & dragons.

Quote from: Marleycat;549795If I remember correctly dragons in 1e were very beatable by a prepared party. Heck I think that Fighters had the ability to subdue them and pretty much have a pet dragon if they did it right.

As much as I can't stand Larry Elmore (ptui!), his painting of the adventurers standing around a small dragon hanging from a tree limb by a noose is pretty accurate as far as my experiences playing 1e went.

Dragons were meant to be fought in 1e, not treated as demigods (Bahamut and Tiamat being the obvious exceptions).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549798As much as I can't stand Larry Elmore (ptui!), ...

He isn't my favorite artist, but he's one of the nicest "big boys" in the industry I've had the pleasure of talking to.

QuoteDragons were meant to be fought in 1e, not treated as demigods (Bahamut and Tiamat being the obvious exceptions).

This is very true.  They are in the basic book for Christ's sake (designed for level 1-3 characters), and certainly appear in enough official AD&D modules to give the impression that they should be fought as early 3rd level or so.

Quote from: Marleycat;549786I assume these are 1e dragons? This whole discussion is kind of pointless unless we know which edition is being talked about. I get the feeling Frank is using a different edition than you or Black Vulmea. Nothing wrong with that but I for one would like some clarification.

I am talking about a "Great Wyrm", just as Mike Mearls was in the 5e preview piece I linked to earlier. Why these yahoos are resorting to quoting stats off an "Ancient Dragon" (who is not, by the way, a high level monster in AD&D) is completely beyond me.

Since we were talking about high level encounters, insisting on ranting about a White Dragon writeup with only 5-7 hit dice is pretty obviously disingenuous. I mentioned an Ettin earlier, but I wasn't such a lying sack of shit as to try to shell game it in as a "high level encounter", it's a fucking Ettin! I introduced it as a low-mid-level monster, because that is what it is and always has been.

Dragons in various editions have been variously powerful. The AD&D ones are ones you are expected to fight when you're around 9th level. This is obviously not what it makes sense to talk about when we talk about high level dragon encounters. If we were talking about AD&D and high level dragon encounters, we'd need to bring up dragons from AD&D that were actually high level encounters. I don't know, Shadow Dragons or something.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549800Dragons in various editions have been variously powerful. The AD&D ones are ones you are expected to fight when you're around 9th level. This is obviously not what it makes sense to talk about when we talk about high level dragon encounters. If we were talking about AD&D and high level dragon encounters, we'd need to bring up dragons from AD&D that were actually high level encounters. I don't know, Shadow Dragons or something.

-Frank

2 things.  First, dragons were meant to be fought long before 9th level in AD&D (see above).  Secondly, in AD&D, 9th level was considered high level.  Or more accurately, "Name level".  That's when characters became heroes, ran castles, etc.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;5498012 things.  First, dragons were meant to be fought long before 9th level in AD&D (see above).  Secondly, in AD&D, 9th level was considered high level.  Or more accurately, "Name level".  That's when characters became heroes, ran castles, etc.

That should have said "by 9th level". Obviously the 5 hit die White Dragon that Benoist was ranting about as if it was some sort of counterexample for high level play was only much of a challenge considerably before 9th level.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549802That should have said "by 9th level". Obviously the 5 hit die White Dragon that Benoist was ranting about as if it was some sort of counterexample for high level play was only much of a challenge considerably before 9th level.

-Frank

Actually, I mentioned the intelligence of a White Dragon once. The Red has 9-11 hit dice, which is the one I kept talking about with a 15-16 Intelligence. But whatever lie helps your case, right?

Also?

Quote from: FrankTrollman;549507First off, to get this thread a little bit back towards the OP: if you posit an AD&D-like high level environment where Magic Resistance is very high and ACs aren't a big problem for the swordsmen, then a rule that allowed a magic user to cast their spell into a melee weapon of another character such that the character's attack roll's success or failure was used instead of rolling Magic Resistance, then there would be more synergy between the magic user and the fighting man and the melee PCs would be less replaceable by groups of hobgoblin mercenaries.

However, and this is important: that wouldn't actually make the Fighter's ability to take up space actually matter at high level. Suggestions like this one:



...Are a complete non-starter. Yes, you can make it so that Wizards lose their spells constantly. And yes, you can make it so that Wizards pop like zits when level-appropriate enemies look at them funny. And this still doesn't make Fighters actually matter! At low level, it totally does. But at high level, it does not and cannot. Because at high level, the encounter is this:


It's an 80 foot long flying lizard with scales as thick as your arm that is incinerating whole city blocks on strafing runs from the clouds. There is no front line, and it does not matter how good a Fighting Man supposedly is at holding it. It is flying around at more than 45 miles an hour and never gets closer than 70 feet to the ground. However deadly and sticky the fighter's sword reach is make absolutely no difference because the high level battlefield is simply too epic for a stalwart swordsman to even register on peoples' give-a-fuck meter.

-Frank

It's totally obvious you were talking about a 3.5 Great Wyrm, right?