Warrior/rogue/mage

I think the problem with this theory is that sometimes the DM won't want players to simply smash through doors or puzzles. That's why you have rogues and wizards to do the puzzle solving and the magical manipulation and stuff.

In a perfect world, fighters would handle most of the combat stuff while rogues and wizards would only be able to assist, but because combat is such a large part of RPGs in general, wizards can do a shit ton in combat, and rogues can do a lot of damage under the right circumstances. So it's less an equal balance of skills and roles as it is leaving you asking why anyone would want to be just the muscle when they could play a class that lets them have a little of that magic or stealth or intelligence too.

I have no idea what the point of this thread is. Are you debating the balance among these three character archetypes? If so, why haven't you included a cleric to round the group out?

>That's why you have rogues [...] to do the puzzle solving
This is the opposite of why thieves got added to D&D.

Whitebox classes are just Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics. Thieves were from a later supplement (Greyhawk?), and were essentially weak Fighting-Men.
Non-thieves could do all the normal thief things (sans backstabbing and *undetectably* pick-pocketing), thief abilities were essentially insurance. If you failed your ability check or otherwise screwed up (missed the DMs cue for a trap, your description of disarming it was shitty, you tried to hide in plain sight, etc), thief abilities had a (low) chance of supernaturally succeeding anyways (even in outright impossible situations that otherwise wouldn't call for a roll).

>(even in outright impossible situations that otherwise wouldn't call for a roll).
I'm so sick of this narrative storygame bullshit!

I avoid this problem in games by making everyone a wizard.

Melee classes are stupid when magic exists.

>I'm going to go attack that man with a sword

vs

>I just summoned a meteor and wiped out that kingdom

Pickpocketing people who are watching you closely, hiding from people immediately next to you in a dimly lit (not dark) room with no obstructions between you, scaling a oil-slicked perfectly smooth wall without tools, noticing tripwires while blindfolded...

Melee classes are only stupid when BULLSHIT HAX magic exists, and more to the point, when similar melee DOESN'T.

>I'm going to spend half an hour channeling enough mana for a firebolt

vs

>I'm going to cleave apart the king, his throne, his palace, his city, and the mountain it's built on in one stroke

This. Magic suddenly becomes a lot harder simply by forcing the wizard to actually get ingredients for his spells.

>magic is fictional and has no inherent expected limits
That doesn't mean game designers can't put limits in their system.

That's hardly a "this"; ingredients are a petty hassle in my experience. I'm talking about not letting the wizard have a Do The Work Of Hundred Fighters spell *at all*, ingredients be damned, unless of course you also give the fighter the Sword Of Casting Like A Hundred Wizards. (Naturally, this sword cannot be wielded by a nonfighter any more than the spell can be cast by a nonwizard.)

By the time the wizard can actually do that, the fighter is literally superhuman and covered in several hundred pounds of magic weapons and armor, or he could just strip naked and defeat an army of armed men with his bare hands, then swim a river of lava, shake bits of cooling rock off his dick, then chokehold a dragon, steal it's shit, and skin it with his teeth and give it's skin and bones to his craftbitch wizard to make him even better shit.

And if you can't do that, your game is doing it wrong.

I'm just saying that making things harder than just pointing your staff at the enemy and saying pew pew really does make magic less bullshit hax. Melee classes normally can't get to that sort of level without magical assistance at all, so they never have to charge up their strike or anything like that.

> [katanagatari flashbacks]

>I'm talking about not letting the wizard have a Do The Work Of Hundred Fighters spell
Fireball and Magic Missile aren't why Wizards outclass fighters. "Combat" magic isn't the issue. It's the fact that the wizard leaves everyone blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid.

Dear captain obvious, the point goes for Blindness, Deafness, and the other spells too. I was responding in kind to the original point raised in which the given example of magic being OP involved sheer simple destructive power.

But sure, if I need to spell it out, don't give the wizard a Spell Of Bypassing Fighter Entirely either, except to the extent the fighter gets a Shield Of Bypassing Wizard Entirely.

Happy?

...

It got multiple replies, that's at least a 2/10.

You could just make fighters and rogues practice magic after a certain level. There is no reason for them to not get some magic, because after a certain point they will need it. Magic that requires several fucking years to complete, would render wizards completely useless in a fight. Relegating them to being a purely noncombat class, making a rogue a shitty hybrid between a noncombat class and a combat class in functionality. Instead of the rogue being a primarily noncombat class with some combat abilities that would help tide the battle in a critical moment thanks to their sneak attacking skills. In your scenario, nobody would want to play a wizard. Imagine having no knowledge of the cleric's other spells outside of their healing abilities, and then playing them with everyone else who gets more interesting powers and abilities. That is how playing a wizard would be like. In my opinion, every class needs to have at least some unique combat advantage that isn't boring to play. The best way around this problem is to just give fighters and rogues magical abilities that help cement their role in the party.

Clerics are hybrid fighters/magic-users

>Warriors
Also need to know how to properly wield their weapons, block/parry/dodge attacks, etc, so they need skill as well.
>Rogue
In a combat-based game, they're also going to be fighting, which runs into the same issues as warriors. Out of combat, sure, though warriors need to have something to do outside of combat unless you resolve fights like traps (Warrior, roll a Fight check to see if you beat the enemies without taking damage)
>Mage
Depending on system/setting and the specific variety of spellcaster they are, they're most likely to need both skill and natural talent. They need to remember the exact right stuff for their spells, they need to actually cast the spells properly (which takes practice), etc.

So this theory, which you didn't bother describing, is incorrect. All characters benefit from having high stats and high levels of skill (whether that skill is represented by higher skill ranks or stuff that comes for free with leveling up).

"Dear captain obvious"
>Damage Control: The Movie: The Game: The Musical: The Post

>Featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series!

who?

>Your "number of attacks per round" represented your number of opportunities to get a solid blow in during a minute of combat.

I never liked that shit.

If I'm a Fighter who is throwing out shitloads of attacks, why can't I just play out those shitloads of attacks?

I mean, is it so hard to come up with a way to show my badass fighter throwing out ten attacks rather than just fluffing it out?

>muh 10 killing blows every 6 seconds
back, foul beast of the waters.

It really doesn't, as has been stated numerous times in other threads.

In a nutshell, it just adds more bullshit to keep track of and in the end, most ingredients that the wizard will be using will either be so cheap that it's hardly worth the effort or will be powering spells that are so powerful that they'll only really need to use it once anyways.

Making a wizard keep track of their spell ingredients is like making a Ranger keep track of their arrows or making the Fighter keep track of his carrying capacity, it's annoying and will only matter until they gain a means of ignoring it all together.

It's not the fact that wizards get "spell of bypassing fighter entirely," it's the fact that wizard gets spells that can do practically everything, in addition to bypassing the fighter entirely.

It also doesn't help that martials are weaker, dumber, and overall less capable than the nerds who designed them, nor the fact that each level just pushes them further and further into irrelevancy due to everything that's worth fighting generally being capable of slinging spells, ignoring mundane damage, or both.

Missing the point entirely.

If the game states that a combat round is one minute, and during that minute my fighter is throwing out feints, dodges, parries, etc. why can't I play that shit out?

If I'm supposedly throwing out ten attack but only getting one shot at dealing damage, why can't I play out those ten attacks rather than only getting one attack that I can still miss?

If it's a matter of speed, you could easily do something like "each additional attack after X swings gives you a +1 bonus and/or damage" or "you can sacrifice X swings to land one attack automatically."

It's just pointless abstraction that doesn't explain what's actually happening well, and D&D is plagued by shit like this, regardless of which edition you're talking about.

>Missing the point entirely.
>It's just pointless abstraction
>pointless
Missing the point entirely.

But at the end of the day, the fighter can still get dropped in a couple hits by something as mundane as an artillery piece, while the wizard can level kingdoms.

If your abstraction raises more questions than answers, it's a pretty shitty abstraction.

And if your abstraction is so shit that it doesn't even represent the concept that it's simplifying effectively, then it's all around pointless.

It does have a point, though, and that point is to speed up gameplay. For the most part (iirc you can change this pretty thoroughly with splats, but I haven't messed with them much myself) older editions wanted to be fairly streamlined and quick. Having to decide on and then roll for literally 10x as many actions is going to slow the game to a drag, and not everyone wants that.

Obviously some people do, but those editions of D&D were not designed for those people.

I want to see different paradigms in game. Let's get philosophical. What would a game with the classes based on the various forms of monism look like? Physicalist fighters, idealist rogues, spiritualist mages. Dualist rangers, fighter-mages, and clerics. Triplist bards. Let's go nuts

>not tracking arrows and encumbrance

Plebian.

Also.

>not playing games where you'll never readily get the chance to bypass such things

Pure plebian.

Both of those depend on the system in question. 3.X has it more or less that way (warrior-types are a little too durable to get killed by a mere couple hits from an artillery piece) but that's a flaw in the system.

The fact that magic isn't real doesn't automatically make a magic user better than a non magic user of the same level (or number of experience points, or number of character points, or whatever), unless your system is shit.

>raises more questions than answers
That's a matter of opinion. Obviously the user you're talking to doesn't feel that way.
>abstracts something away
The fact that combat is abstracted to the point where you only roll for 1/10 of your attacks because the other 9 are assumed to be blocked/dodged/whatever doesn't mean that it's ignoring the entire concept of those other 9 attacks.

It simplifies and streamlines your collection of 10 attacks into one single roll, but that doesn't mean that your character only makes one attack.

Even if there aren't ways to bypass such things, nobody really keeps track of it.

Players don't because they already have to keep track of their health/spells/equipment/consumables/etc. in addition class/race specific options.

GMs don't because keeping track of 3-6 chucklefuck's inventory, in addition to managing campaign bullshit and enemy abilities, will burn you out.

In truth, unless you're doing something outrageous like carrying out a statue made of gold or some shit, nobody is really going to bother with that shit.

It's less that, and more that, even if you make the wizard go get his ingredients and keep track of them, that just means the adventure is even more about the wizard and his band of assistants. Other than that,

>Plebian.

>Having to decide on and then roll for literally 10x as many actions is going to slow the game to a drag, and not everyone wants that.

Which I already addressed when I suggested ways that would allow it to work without bogging the game down.

It's not a difficult concept mate.

>If your abstraction raises more questions than answers
OK. Completely disregarding *why* you're wrong, this was too stupid to pass up.
Abstractions don't exist to answer questions.
Abstractions exist to throw blankets over questions.

>it doesn't even represent the concept that it's simplifying effectively
Along with the (grossly abstract) hitpoint system, it represents all of the parts of combat that bring you closer to winning or losing.
And along with the (slightly less gross) AC abstraction, it represents all of the parts of combat that

If you insist that you take several minutes to discuss every few seconds of your motion, then you're welcome to talk your DM into letting you.
While you're at it, start an obnoxious hissy fit with . Just to shit the thread up a bit more.

I do it, though I do recognize that most people don't like to. That said, when I DM I don't typically micromanage my players' inventories or consumables because I trust them to handle that stuff themselves.

It doesn't really come into play very often, just update it after battles or other times you get loot (and in the case of finding something like a single potion, you should be able to get away with putting off doing the math until later, since adding something tiny like that shouldn't mess with your character unless you're already borderline on weight), and just keep a tally of your ammo as you use it next to the weapon's statline.

Honestly it's less hassle than abilities with uses or rounds per day, and those are fucking everywhere in some games.

>It simplifies and streamlines your collection of 10 attacks into one single roll, but that doesn't mean that your character only makes one attack.

Which is the problem.

You can say "oh, well you're actually making 10 attacks but 9/10 of your shit gets blocked/parried/dodged/etc." but in practice, it just raises too many questions without actually addressing the concept of "dude who knows how to fight well."

For instance,

>Why am I only making one attack roll when my Fighter is technically throwing out ten attacks per minute?
>If it represents my blows being dodged and shit, then shouldn't AC already cover the concept of dodging blows?
>Also, how does this factor with creatures that are either untrained humanoids (goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc.), creatures with no intellect (giant bee, giant spider, etc.), or creatures that aren't wielding weapons/armor or utilizing specialized forms of offense/defense (dragons, undead, aberrations, etc.)

I mean, the more you think about it, the more flaws you start to notice in the abstraction that's being used, which is a problem because once you notice it, it sucks you out of the game because the only way it could work is if you look at it from a mechanical standpoint that's being used to abstract swordplay in a game.

If you mean
>If it's a matter of speed, you could easily do something like "each additional attack after X swings gives you a +1 bonus and/or damage" or "you can sacrifice X swings to land one attack automatically."
That's not going to speed things up unless people are regularly trading X swings for an autohit. Getting bonuses on later attacks is still rolling literally 10x as many attacks (or making combat happen ~10x faster, which would require significant rebalancing).

>It's not a difficult concept mate.
No it's not, it's just not something that's going to work in older editions of D&D without so much work that you might as well just make a new game entirely.

A fighter can level more kingdoms, he's just slightly slower than the Wizard.

I could bring up the mechanics, but as a Wizardfag, you wouldn't enjoy the metagaming.

It's travel times versus spell perpetration times. Unless you have really small kingdoms, wiz wins.
Or unless the fighter has magic items, I guess. But that's basically wizards winning from the past.

Well, The DM I had worked very fairly for fighters and shit.

Considering by the end of the campaign I had close to 30 strength, I was a literal god of war and I literally smashed a mountain to rubble to plug up a hellgate.

Then again it's like the guy who said Puzzles cannot be done by fighters.

It's like people never use Athletics as a skill for puzzles anymore.

What happened to the big ol' rock blocking people's paths?

>Why am I only making one attack roll when my Fighter is technically throwing out ten attacks per minute?
Because the other guy, who is presumably also combat trained, is trying not to get murdered.
>If it represents my blows being dodged and shit, then shouldn't AC already cover the concept of dodging blows?
Because you don't autohit every X attacks, you get a chance to hit. Alternatively, skilled opponents have a 90% chance to block any given attack, and the game simplified that into only rolling 1/10 of attacks rather than rolling all 10 and having only an average of 10% of them potentially matter (depending on attack vs AC)
>how does this factor with creatures that are either untrained humanoids
This is the one good point I've heard in this discussion so far, though Fighters specifically kinda sorta deal with this by getting fucktons of attacks against notably lower-level opponents.
>goblins, kobolds, lizardfolk, etc
Typically assumed to have at least some training or experience
>creatures with no intellect (giant bee, giant spider, etc.)
You don't need to be sentient to know how to fight
>utilizing specialized forms of offense/defense (dragons, undead, aberrations, etc.)
I don't see why those would be different enough to warrant a different mechanic. In the fluff you're going to be dodging the Dragon's feet (or whatever) rather than parrying, but it's close enough for that level of abstraction.

>utilizing specialized forms of offense/defense (dragons, undead, aberrations, etc.)
I think it's fine. It's more simplified than what I normally go for, but I don't find that it kicks me out of my immersion or anything like that.

>Abstractions exist to throw blankets over questions.

Which doesn't work when the abstraction that you're using just creates more questions the more you sit down and really think about it.

Think about it, in Final Fantasy, or at least the later games/spinoffs, when your character made an attack, it only showed one attack animation but also showed that your character hit X times in one action.

And of course, the more hits you made, the more damage you dealt with your attacks as well.

It's not a mutually exclusive concept to say "oh, you made X attacks, these many hit, so you dealt Y damage" if you stop and think about it logically.

Whoops, that last line of greentext should be
>the more you think about it, the more flaws you start to notice in the abstraction that's being used

Just going to interject here.

But you think 10 attack swings a Min is fast?

This is for someone who would be like a master swordsman or warrior right?

I mean I never played is as an abstraction of my character at all and neither has my DM.

Let's say I am at a level to have 3 attacks

>I swing my sword, cutting at the beasts hide
>I sweep my blade back around cutting on the backhand
>Finally, I thrust my sword forward

>DM would say something like my flurry of attacks forces my opponent back/ wounds them gravely etc.

DM's replies are as follows

>Because you don't autohit every X attacks, you get a chance to hit.

Why is it always 1/10 of your hits though?

I mean, even if you were evenly matched with someone, you're likely going to be able to force more than one opening per minute.

>In the fluff you're going to be dodging the Dragon's feet (or whatever) rather than parrying, but it's close enough for that level of abstraction.

Okay, but how do you explain a dude only hitting 10% of his swings against zombies, ghouls, and skeletons?

>Getting bonuses on later attacks is still rolling literally 10x as many attacks (or making combat happen ~10x faster, which would require significant rebalancing).

Admittedly, I should've just kept the auto-hit thing and called it a day.

I reread what I wrote and realized how dumb it was to say "+1 bonus and/or damage for each additional attack" when the whole point was to speed things up.

The wizard will just shrink the rock, blast it to bits, throw it away telekinetically, or just do some other bullshit to magic it away.

That and most Fighters won't be able to lift that big ol' rock due to their inability to carry anything that's over a few hundred pounds at best.

>inability to carry anything that's over a few hundred pounds at best

How does that work exactly?

How does someone have 20 strength as say, an Orc, and not match a giant's strength?

I think you need to stop playing with autists son.

...

Yes, those various attacks were abstracted into one attack animation. Having multiple chances to hit, though, requires multiple rolls, so early D&D did away with that. It's not particularly realistic, but it's close enough for me and helps the gameplay.

>But you think 10 attack swings a Min is fast?
No, and I never said I did.

>Why is it always 1/10 of your hits though?
It's 1 per round (or potentially more, depending on your character's stats) because it has to be something, and that's what the designers picked.

>I mean, even if you were evenly matched with someone, you're likely going to be able to force more than one opening per minute.
Maybe, but realism explicitly took a backseat to game design.

>Okay, but how do you explain a dude only hitting 10% of his swings against zombies, ghouls, and skeletons?
That one depends on the skeletons and zombies. The skeleton could be as capable as a Human of the same level of skill, and the zombie could be of the relatively fast variety (as opposed to a shambling pile of meat) in which case it would fall into the same category for this as a wild animal.

Also, D&D considers an attack hitting but bouncing off (or whatever) to be a miss same as if the attack were dodged entirely, so something durable (or that didn't care about losing some of it's meat) would soak a few of your swings that get abstracted away.

As I said above, it's not a 100% realistic game, but it's close enough for me and I don't get why you (or whoever, if you're a different guy) keeps going on about how it supposedly "raises more questions than it answers" like that were some objective fact and not a subjective opinion.

If we go by 5e rules, a character with 20 STR would only be able to carry 300 lbs.

If we go by 3.X rules, a character with 20 STR would only be able to carry up to 400 lbs. max.

Even if you doubled these numbers, it wouldn't come close to being able to lift a big ol' boulder.

Ah I see.

You're just an autist then.

Let's say I am a big guy who can bench press 400lb with ease.

I cannot carry 400lb with ease though.

Keep in mind that's how much they can CARRY.

IDK about 5e, but in 3e that means you can lift 400lbs over your head, pick up 800lbs and stagger around with it, or push 2000lbs.

That still doesn't leave room for super huge boulders, but it leaves way more than 400lbs of room.

Here, for proof of your stupidity.

youtube.com/watch?v=0xpuub2DBB8

Who funded this??

The rules always say Reasonably carry.

This to me always means something you can lug around constantly and have no issues at all with. Like a backpack or a suitcase.

Now, the difference between Reasonably carry and "STRAINING TO LIFT SOMETHING AND THROW IT OUT THE WAY" is dramatically different.

Imagine a guy casually carrying 400lb around. That guy is fucking strong as fuck.

I think people are just not understanding how weight works here.

Strong men competitions show just how amazing the Human body is.

youtube.com/watch?v=KyQA4Z7SOU0

That guy is lifting 1000lbs of weight. That's as much as two americans!

>It's 1 per round (or potentially more, depending on your character's stats) because it has to be something, and that's what the designers picked.
>Maybe, but realism explicitly took a backseat to game design.

That's still no excuse, especially now when there are dozens of games available that worked around this basic issue already.

>The skeleton could be as capable as a Human of the same level of skill,

Why and how?

>the zombie could be of the relatively fast variety (as opposed to a shambling pile of meat) in which case it would fall into the same category for this as a wild animal.

It still doesn't explain why I'm only hitting 10% of my attacks though. You can say "oh, they're the fast zombies" but even then, zombies aren't going to be dodging, parrying, or blocking attacks made against them due to the fact that they're dead, feel no pain, and are only interested in eating you.

>Also, D&D considers an attack hitting but bouncing off (or whatever) to be a miss same as if the attack were dodged entirely, so something durable (or that didn't care about losing some of it's meat) would soak a few of your swings that get abstracted away.

Which raises more questions.

Why is blocking a blow the same as dodging an attack?

How am I cutting away the meat yet not doing any damage to the creature I'm attacking?

If I'm actually carving this thing like a christmas ham, why isn't it showing up as damage?

>As I said above, it's not a 100% realistic game

It doesn't have to be realistic, it just has to make sense.

Take SR for example,

If you attack multiple enemies, you split your dice pool between those enemies.

If you're defending, you get a roll to dodge and then a roll to soak up the damage using armor.

If you take damage, you take a penalty towards your next action(s) based on how badly you got hit.

It makes sense and it abstracts combat relatively well, it's not perfect but then again, what is?

>especially now when there are dozens of games available that worked around this basic issue already.
Dude what? D&D predates those games.

>Why and how?
Some settings have skeletons as "people who happen to be dead" rather than walking corpses. As such, those skeletons are as fast as Humans.

>zombies aren't going to be dodging, parrying, or blocking attacks made against them
There could be some residual instinctive blocking involved.

>Why is blocking a blow the same as dodging an attack?
Because they deal no damage and D&D doesn't have armor give DR.

>How am I cutting away the meat yet not doing any damage to the creature I'm attacking?
Most creatures, your attack is bouncing or sliding off the hide, rather than cutting off flesh. Zombies, depending on setting and so on, you may be cutting off useless flesh (skin, fat, etc).

>It makes sense
I'm of the opinion that it makes as much sense as this.

>Okay, but how do you explain a dude only hitting 10% of his swings against zombies, ghouls, and skeletons?
You aren't necessarily missing. You just aren't doing significant damage (reducing hitpoints).

Your abstraction nitpicking is really silly, because there are several deeply interrelated abstractions from TSR D&D that you seem to be unaware of.
A successful attack represents anything that (reduces hitpoints) brings your opponent closer to losing a fight.
Armor Class is how likely you are to *not* (lose hitpoints) be brought closer to losing a fight.
Hitpoints are how close you are to losing a fight.

That last in particular represents an absolutely disgusting number of things, from your deep wounds to your exhaustion to your morale to your luck.
Anything and everything you could potentially lose from running out of. If you tried you could fill a whole page with all the things hitpoints collectively represented and still have more to write.

>or he could just strip naked and defeat an army of armed men with his bare hands
fighters are extremely reliant on gear. If they don't have that several hundred pounds of gear the best they are are damage sponges. Sometimes they can't even do anything just without their regular weapon

Dante from the Devil May Cry series

>Dude what? D&D predates those games.

TSR D&D predates most games.

WotC D&D does not.

>Some settings have skeletons as "people who happen to be dead" rather than walking corpses. As such, those skeletons are as fast as Humans.

Such as?

>There could be some residual instinctive blocking involved.

Why would a creature whose only instinct is "destroy everything that's living" be worried about blocking?

>Because they deal no damage and D&D doesn't have armor give DR.

Which is retarded.

>Most creatures, your attack is bouncing or sliding off the hide, rather than cutting off flesh. Zombies, depending on setting and so on, you may be cutting off useless flesh (skin, fat, etc).

If I'm cutting off flesh though, shouldn't that still be causing damage? I mean, it's not like zombies in D&D follow the "headshot only" rule in most settings/media, so I don't really see why, if I'm slicing off chunks of flesh, it doesn't translate to actually causing some damage to the thing, even if it's only non-lethal or something.

>I'm of the opinion that it makes as much sense as this.

Well then your opinion is wrong.

And the reason you're wrong is because none of the mechanics make sense if you look at them as concept that take place within an actual world.

For instance,

>wearing heavier armor makes you more adept at dodging than a monk who is naked
>you can only make one attack per turn because you're basically dodging/parrying/blocking blows, even against creatures that wouldn't do that.
>A person with high enough HP could tank a fall from terminal velocity without suffering any adverse effects, while classes like the wizard can die from someone throwing a rock at them.

I mean, they make perfect sense if you only look at them from a mechanical standpoint but once you try to explain why that works out within the game's universe, that's when you run into a snag in the game's logic.

>That last in particular represents an absolutely disgusting number of things, from your deep wounds to your exhaustion to your morale to your luck.

Which doesn't make any sense when you consider that a Barbarian with higher than average health could survive a fall off a cliff without any major issues.

If it represents deep wounds then the Barbarian should at least have a broken limb for tanking terminal velocity.

If it represents exhaustion then losing HP would cause an effect that lowers your attack bonus, like how SR causes you to take a penalty to your dice pool if you take too much damage.

If it represented morale then, again, losing HP would cause an effect that lowers your attack bonus, if not causing a fear effect that forces you to run if you run out of morale.

But it doesn't, because the mechanics don't emulate anything within the game's world and only make sense if you look at it from the standpoint of a game, rather than from the standpoint of the game's world.

Discard classes. Everything operates off skills. "Fighters" have martial arts skills. "Rogues" use sneaky skills. "Wizards" use magic skills. You can mix and match skills however you like (within reason and setting restrictions). Want a sneaky fighter? Done. Want a magic rogue? Simple. Want a buff wizard? Easy.

Stats affect the success rate and magnitude of skill checks, and some skills can't even be developed if your character lacks the stats for it (you'll struggle to learn how to fight if you're too physically weak, and certain magic skills might demand a lot of intelligence, like golem-crafting, while more intuitive fare like commanding animals may not).

Death from massive damage (optional) rules, or DM fiat.
Or just roll with it, it's kinda funny and you can play it up to be dramatic.

>for tanking terminal velocity.
High level fights could sometimes survive falling from orbit in Spelljammer.
But how exactly are you reaching terminal velocity from a cliff? You need to fall >1.5k feet.

>Death from massive damage (optional) rules, or DM fiat.

Which creates two problems depending on what you choose.

If you use massive damage rules, then it just gives the mages more power since their spells are more likely to deal that type of damage than the martial's attacks could.

On the other hand, if you use DM fiat to say "well, you fell off a cliff, you died," then the players will get pissed off because a) they'll argue that they have enough health to shrug off the damage, b) they'll cite the damage that they would take from falling off a cliff that's X feet tall and show that they could survive it with their current HP total, c) they'll cite all of their class abilities that would allow them to soak up extra damage, especially the Barbarian which grants bonuses to CON and light DR at higher levels, and d) anytime they take damage and/or die, they'll feel as though it's because you decided "y'know what, fuck that guy in particular" rather than it being a consequence of the dice.

Overall, neither option is all that great in the grand scheme of things.

>Or just roll with it, it's kinda funny and you can play it up to be dramatic.

Only the first few times, then it'll become grating as fuck when the resident martial decides, "y'know what, falling out of this window is faster than the stairs, so I do that lol."

There's no reason for him not to, especially since you don't actually take an injury when you take enough damage.

>Only the first few times
Why are you even in situations where it *could* happen more than a few times?

okay, but the wizard just wasted bunch of spell slots to remove that rock. meanwhile the fighter can just continue to be awesome while the wizard is taking his beauty sleep somewhere and being useless

Unless you have every building in the entirety of your setting only have one floor, it's going to happen multiple times since players are smartasses who will push for every advantage they can come up with.

>or roll Intelligence to find a key
Do people seriously play this way?

Actually, the wizard only wasted *one* of his spell slots.

point being?
at low levels that slot could be everything and at higher levels you are that much closer to the beauty sleep

What's your point here?

At low levels, neither side are going to be taking out boulders anytime soon and at higher levels, you can easily piss away one spell slot and still be pulling everyone's weight until you have to take a rest.

I mean, after level 5, the average mage will likely have 10 spells minimum, not including cantrips, especially if they gain bonus spells thanks to having a higher than average score in their casting stat.

And even if it were possible for the martial to lift a boulder at level 1...okay?

The martial's only claim to fame to chucking rocks? Which isn't even something that's unique to the martial once the mage reaches level 5+ and gains multiple ways of chucking rocks due to how large their spell list is.

I'm not reading the whole thread. Did it turn into Quadratic VS Linear yet?

>every building in the entirety of your setting only have one floor
>one floor
If your griping about realism you should know that a second story fall is fairly trivial.
Even third story falls can be, it's fourth and above that are always really nasty.

No, but there's one persistent poster who's been trying to lean it that way.

Right from the start, actually. Someone is just spamming these threads because they're upset about lewd character thread.

I like 5e, I think fighters should just get more options with the attacks they have. It's nice they can attack X times a round and move freely between them, and always get all their attacks. it would be cool if you could save your attacks and use them out of turn for parries, deflections, and interrupts. Like attacks of opportunity except you get to choose when they go off. Also, ranged attacks of opportunity should be a thing. If a fighter sees a wizard casting meteor storm, he should be allowed to chuck his sword at them to try and break the cast.

Even a second story fall could lead to an injury if you don't land correctly.

I mean, I've seen people break their arms from falling roughly five feet yet a Barbarian can fall hundreds of feet and not only survive, but suffer no major injuries?

The fuck is that nonsense?

Not that guy, but one time I was playing a warforged monk and we had to get somewhere. We are on some slow airship and the pilot said it was the fastest means of travel anywhere.

I jumped off the airship and ran the rest of the way. took 20d6 damage, gave no fucks, and nothing could catch me if it wanted to.

Hmmm.

Now I want to revert round times to 1 minute.

It also adds a nice aesthetic contrast to magic when even the most powerful wizards need a full uninterrupted minute to get a spell off.

It does mess with spell durations though. You get a lot less bang for your buck with rounds being a minute long.

How would you make combat spells have casting times longer than 1 action?