Quote from: Votan;639936It is a very challenging task to make Sword and Shield, Two handed weapon and two weapon fighting roughly equivalent.  Swords and Wizardry has a reasonable approach to it, but it doesn't handle magic shields well.  Part of the issue is that D&D has always vastly under-rated the shield relative to armor.

Mmm, looked it up, it is difficult, I find S&Ws approach of +1 to hit using two weapons a bit flat though. Doesn't have any effects or incentives that seem to really represent the style.

I've had a look at the latest playtest package now and it actually does a really good job here, surprisingly. No attack roll penalties but without the feat a character is limited to using two light weapons, and applies Str mod only to the primary hand, so the base damage is pretty similar between using two shortswords and using a greatsword.
IMHO this is good since you get full benefits from if the offhand weapon is magic or has any special properties, and I could see the ability being possibly circumstantially useful in interesting ways e.g. if a character with a torch in one hand wanders into a mummies tomb, they can use it as offhand weapon to get bonus damage from the creatures' fire vulnerability (2d4 fire instead of 1d4 fire).
They've come a fairly long way from the earlier playtest where TWF let you use two swords at once with both, for some reason, doing half damage.

( Sorry about the rant. I love me some two weapon fighting )

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;639951Mmm, looked it up, it is difficult, I find S&Ws approach of +1 to hit using two weapons a bit flat though. Doesn't have any effects or incentives that seem to really represent the style.

I've had a look at the latest playtest package now and it actually does a really good job here, surprisingly. No attack roll penalties but without the feat a character is limited to using two light weapons, and applies Str mod only to the primary hand, so the base damage is pretty similar between using two shortswords and using a greatsword.
IMHO this is good since you get full benefits from if the offhand weapon is magic or has any special properties, and I could see the ability being possibly circumstantially useful in interesting ways e.g. if a character with a torch in one hand wanders into a mummies tomb, they can use it as offhand weapon to get bonus damage from the creatures' fire vulnerability (2d4 fire instead of 1d4 fire).
They've come a fairly long way from the earlier playtest where TWF let you use two swords at once with both, for some reason, doing half damage.

( Sorry about the rant. I love me some two weapon fighting )

One of the inevitable problems with D&D discussions is that they incent different weapons choices than you would typically see in historical examples.  Now some of this might be the cost (a sword cost a norseman a lot of money and having two might be a luxury that cannot be afforded).  It's also the context -- Italian street fighters in the 1500's used two weapons all of the time.  They also rarely used armor.  

Another, separate, issue is that ablative hit points leads to characters taking risks (i.e. with being shot by an arrow) that people rarely seemed to take historically.  Combat often starts at ranges where the bow is less effective, as well.  

It is terribly difficult to balance the bonus of multiple attacks in a round with penalties as bonuses to things like damage nicely stack.  The D&D next playtest document is looking at decent ways to try and make this work.  But it is clear that the problem is hard.  It's worse if it can be mitigated . . .

Finally, nobody has a good way of making shields work.  The closest I have seen is the cinematic "shields shall be splintered rule" which gives them a real reason to be carried around.  Futhermore, shields give +1 AC (in most cases, in most editions) but come up to +5 in bonus.  This goes in the opposite direction that I would expect.  High level fihters love their shield but low level guys prefer two weapons because the shield adds so little.

It is a very tough problem of game design, and I have never been satisfied with any solution.

Quote from: Votan;640096One of the inevitable problems with D&D discussions is that they incent different weapons choices than you would typically see in historical examples.  Now some of this might be the cost (a sword cost a norseman a lot of money and having two might be a luxury that cannot be afforded).  It's also the context -- Italian street fighters in the 1500's used two weapons all of the time.  They also rarely used armor.  

The historicity doesn't bother me so much. I imagine in order to type to keep D&D generally useful regardless of campaign world, all they can really do is try to keep all the weapons/styles about on par...so that if you have a history buff GM running a game for 3 players who want to be a knight, a viking and a musketeer respectively, at least 3 of the 4 are happy...
 

QuoteIt is terribly difficult to balance the bonus of multiple attacks in a round with penalties as bonuses to things like damage nicely stack.  The D&D next playtest document is looking at decent ways to try and make this work.  But it is clear that the problem is hard.  It's worse if it can be mitigated . . .

Finally, nobody has a good way of making shields work.  The closest I have seen is the cinematic "shields shall be splintered rule" which gives them a real reason to be carried around.  Futhermore, shields give +1 AC (in most cases, in most editions) but come up to +5 in bonus.  This goes in the opposite direction that I would expect.  High level fihters love their shield but low level guys prefer two weapons because the shield adds so little.

It is a very tough problem of game design, and I have never been satisfied with any solution.

Hmm...Looking again, it does seem that for the fighter with multiple attacks in Next, TWF doesn't really scale that well (you just get the one extra attack, even though damage for all your attacks is reduced).
And looks like shields are back at +1 bonus (compared to +2 for 3E and 4E). Hadn't expected that. I think they need beefing up rather than TWF needing reductions, though.

I really dislike rangers with magic. I just don't like the "everyone is magic, even your greengrocer" feeling it builds into a world.

My favourite ranger incarnation was the competely magicless C&C ranger (& Bard for that matter), although toning down his hit/dmg vs giants/humanoids was needed IMC.

Quote from: Votan;640096One of the inevitable problems with D&D discussions is that they incent different weapons choices than you would typically see in historical examples.  Now some of this might be the cost (a sword cost a norseman a lot of money and having two might be a luxury that cannot be afforded).  It's also the context -- Italian street fighters in the 1500's used two weapons all of the time.  They also rarely used armor.  

Another, separate, issue is that ablative hit points leads to characters taking risks (i.e. with being shot by an arrow) that people rarely seemed to take historically.  Combat often starts at ranges where the bow is less effective, as well.  

It is terribly difficult to balance the bonus of multiple attacks in a round with penalties as bonuses to things like damage nicely stack.  The D&D next playtest document is looking at decent ways to try and make this work.  But it is clear that the problem is hard.  It's worse if it can be mitigated . . .

Finally, nobody has a good way of making shields work.  The closest I have seen is the cinematic "shields shall be splintered rule" which gives them a real reason to be carried around.  Futhermore, shields give +1 AC (in most cases, in most editions) but come up to +5 in bonus.  This goes in the opposite direction that I would expect.  High level fihters love their shield but low level guys prefer two weapons because the shield adds so little.

It is a very tough problem of game design, and I have never been satisfied with any solution.

One 'problem' with shields in some versions of dnd is stacking AC to the moon.

The numbers are pretty much out of control and poorly planned.
Have 20 types of bonuses and then wait....annoying stacking rules.
Or the AC and to hit numbers are 'too large'

For sheilds, the bonus should be much larger out of the box.
Something like buckler+1, small+2, large +3, Wall+4
Magic pluses could add DR.

I've played a Ranger in several editions now (that being my favourite class), and the best one was the Essentials Scout (though the 4e Core Ranger wasn't bad). No Drizzt-clone there, he was a human who used battleaxe and shortsword (and longbow). But then my Ranger-inspiration is Davy Crockett or Kit Carson, not Drizzt or Aragorn.

Magic is shit, especially minor magic, I'd rather have useful stuff like the Scout's Knacks and Aspects improving all the mundane stuff you can do, and buffing the party outdoors. At least they haven't brought back the animal companion crap, though they have reintroduced the bigot bonus.

Anyway, one more reason for me not to take any interest in Next, which is already looking like total shite.

Quote from: Kiero;640320I've played a Ranger in several editions now (that being my favourite class), and the best one was the Essentials Scout (though the 4e Core Ranger wasn't bad). No Drizzt-clone there, he was a human who used battleaxe and shortsword (and longbow). But then my Ranger-inspiration is Davy Crockett or Kit Carson, not Drizzt or Aragorn.

Magic is shit, especially minor magic, I'd rather have useful stuff like the Scout's Knacks and Aspects improving all the mundane stuff you can do, and buffing the party outdoors. At least they haven't brought back the animal companion crap, though they have reintroduced the bigot bonus.

Anyway, one more reason for me not to take any interest in Next, which is already looking like total shite.

"Bigot Bonus"

Funny!

Quote from: Bill;640322"Bigot Bonus"

Funny!

Bears.  Godless killing machines.

JG