Quote from: jeff37923;549672This is a common mistake that I have seen in every fantasy RPG. A wizard's spells are not tactics. A fighter's attacks, feats, and powers are not tactics. Tactics are what the PC's do with their particular special class abilities in situations, in concert with each other in the group.

I agree, as well as thinking in actual game world tactics, outside the box of the rules, to create the combat situation and circumstances in which said skills or abilities or advantages will become defining factors for victory (<-- actual, real world tactics). Like luring the dragon into an enclosed place, catch it and pin it, make diversions, etc etc. There's a game outside the rules for fuck's sakes. The rules are a mean, a tool, not an end.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549669Yeah, the whole 'raise troops' thing goes to pot when the dragon flies overhead and all the 0-levels flee in panic.

There's a reason heroes, not armies, fight dragons.

Range and artillery are wonderful things.  and it was also about hirelintgs and henchmen.  but the zero level fear thing is certainly a factor.

Quote from: LordVreeg;549682Range and artillery are wonderful things.  and it was also about hirelintgs and henchmen.  but the zero level fear thing is certainly a factor.

Totally.

Quote from: Benoist;549671I mean "yes", the idea that a fighter ought to fight a dragon in the air, that there's no game outside of the capacities given to the fighter by the rules or no actual planning and tactics that the fighter could use to level the playground (by setting up a trap, using an army to take the dragon down on favorable terrain, searching for the beast's lair instead of going after it in the fields, etc) is dumb as shit.

Ah. Yeah, u rite.

Quote from: jeff37923;549672This is a common mistake that I have seen in every fantasy RPG. A wizard's spells are not tactics. A fighter's attacks, feats, and powers are not tactics.

No, they're not.

Quote from: jeff37923;549672Tactics are what the PC's do with their particular special class abilities in situations, in concert with each other in the group.

Well, isn't that what 4e tries to do, with its roles?

Quote from: jeff37923;549672The fighter with Fly cast on him makes me smile. In that case, I can easily see the dragon feeling playful and flying just out of reach of the fighter until the spell wears off and then following that fighter down while they plummet to Earth, taunting them all the way down.

Quote from: Benoist;549674I agree, as well as thinking in actual game world tactics, outside the box of the rules, to create the combat situation and circumstances in which said skills or abilities or advantages will become defining factors for victory (<-- actual, real world tactics). Like luring the dragon into an enclosed place, catch it and pin it, make diversions, etc etc. There's a game outside the rules for fuck's sakes. The rules are a mean, a tool, not an end.

Of course, the reply is, luring the dragon into a trap is a 'mother-may-I' situation where the players are asking the referee to let the dragon fall into their trap - and of course the referee will never le his pet dragon get killed like that, so as long as the referee can say no, there is no chance it will succeed, so the players must have the ability to defeat the dragon on its own ground.

And now I need to go rinse the vomit out of my mouth.

I've come to the conclusion that nearly all RPG arguments over the years basically boil down to those who game with people they know and trust vs people who game with people they don't know and/or don't trust.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549712Well, isn't that what 4e tries to do, with its roles?

I can see where it tries to do that, but it does it in such a strict and ham-fisted way that the Powers are used instead of actual tactics. TCO touched on this in another thread, where he declared that he didn't want to think and just wanted menu items to choose from. Tactics require a flexible and creative mind to achieve with any success, since battlefield conditions may change in an instant requiring a re-evaluation of the situation in response.

This is confusion of tactics and character abilities is something that also applies to science fiction RPGs. In a lot of Traveller games, I've seen Players mistake powerful equipment as tactics -- the two biggies being Battle Dress and Plasma/Fusion Guns. In Star Wars games, the common belief is that Force Powers can replace tactics.

It's like vampires draining 2 levels on a hit. "OMG OMG THIS IS SO BROKENZ!!ONE"

Huh. No. Fuck no. That means the vampire is actually a fucking terrifying undead. If you are dumb enough to go in melee with a vampire, you are the moron who is to blame for your stupidity.

As I said elsewhere, the appropriate tactical response when you find a vampire's lair is to get the fuck out of here as quickly as possible to regroup and strategize about (1) the way to avoid the area entirely or make a deal with the vampire if you're evil or whatnot, or divert some other enemies into taking down the vampire for you or weaken it significantly so that then you can finish it/them, (2) the way to take it down appropriately by alerting the local temple, taking all the men-at-arms of the village bearing torches with you to clean up the shit out of the place, with holy water and acolytes and everything, and so on, so forth. When you know what you're up against, then you can actually strategize. But facing a vampire in melee and expect to win? LOL U dumb or wat?

Quote from: One Horse Town;549717I've come to the conclusion that nearly all RPG arguments over the years basically boil down to those who game with people they know and trust vs people who game with people they don't know and/or don't trust.

I actually agree with that. I've come to the same conclusion.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549717I've come to the conclusion that nearly all RPG arguments over the years basically boil down to those who game with people they know and trust vs people who game with people they don't know and/or don't trust.

How does that apply to this? I'm not completely following you here.

Quote from: jeff37923;549721How does that apply to this? I'm not completely following you here.

People who complain about wiz vs fighter being unbalanced are basically playing with people they don't trust to adjudicate fairly or properly without a ruleset to tell them how to.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549723People who complain about wiz vs fighter being unbalanced are basically playing with people they don't trust to adjudicate fairly or properly without a ruleset to tell them how to.

Or collaborating with people who might have a level or two more than their own characters', but whom they know are playing with them, not against them, and know they're not competing in a dick-waving contest in the first place.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549723People who complain about wiz vs fighter being unbalanced are basically playing with people they don't trust to adjudicate fairly or properly without a ruleset to tell them how to.

OK, I got you now.

Quote from: jeff37923;549718I can see where it tries to do that, but it does it in such a strict and ham-fisted way that the Powers are used instead of actual tactics. TCO touched on this in another thread, where he declared that he didn't want to think and just wanted menu items to choose from. Tactics require a flexible and creative mind to achieve with any success, since battlefield conditions may change in an instant requiring a re-evaluation of the situation in response.

A friend of my daughter's recently introduced her to the Pokémon TV series, which is twenty minutes of I-use-this-power-to-counter-that-power.

And once again I'm reminded of how much 3e [strike]deck[/strike] character builds came to resemble M:tG.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;549712Of course, the reply is, luring the dragon into a trap is a 'mother-may-I' situation where the players are asking the referee to let the dragon fall into their trap - and of course the referee will never le his pet dragon get killed like that, so as long as the referee can say no, there is no chance it will succeed, so the players must have the ability to defeat the dragon on its own ground.

What do you want me to answer to someone saying something like this, honestly? "I'm sorry if your DMs universally sucked and you can't find it in you to play an actual role playing game for a change"? I mean, seriously. That type of outlook on the game is completely insane, as far as I'm concerned, to the point where I'd wonder if the dude actually played an RPG in his life. That level of LOLWUT.

Quote from: One Horse Town;549723People who complain about wiz vs fighter being unbalanced are basically playing with people they don't trust to adjudicate fairly or properly without a ruleset to tell them how to.

There it is. The sheer obliviousness of this post is amazing. Apparently OHT is some sort of Mary Tzu who always comes up with tactics so brilliant that he doesn't need to actually have any relevant skills to be able to defeat the most difficult challenges. Either that or he relies so heavily on the DM coddling him that he doesn't even notice how ridiculous it is that he keeps getting patronized and told that he "wins" over and over again no matter how objectively outclassed he is in whatever situation he finds himself.

Like a character in a poorly written fantasy novel, OHT's fighter will always come out on top because the author (DM) is just going to let whatever hare-brained scheme he comes up with succeed. Even if that plan is essentially ridiculous, there will at the very least be some sort of last minute deus ex machina.

Against that kind of impervious anti-logic, discussion is basically impossible. OHT will always succeed because of generous DMing, so he considers actual abilities on the part of his character superfluous. From the standpoint of his game, he's actually right. His character could indeed succeed just as well if his character sheet was just a Münchausen writeup (name, title, underline) and his background was just a rant about how awesome his mustache was. Of course, from the standpoint of the game, or indeed anyone else's game where the DM actually asks your character to have abilities you want to use, that is a wall of horse shit so high it cannot even be climbed.

For everyone else, the fact that the Dragon flies at hundreds of feet per round and breathes fire means that any plan to "lure" it somewhere probably involves getting set on fire. Cunning plans are certainly possible, but considering that the beast in question is specifically smarter, faster, more perceptive, and better looking than your character, that plan better be pretty damn cunning. And it's probably not going to work anyway.

-Frank