2. Going around would involve avoiding all threatened squares. Get out your game mat, put the creatures down, count the movement required to "go around" and not provoke an AoO.
3. Not all encounters are in wide open spaces without difficult terrain or obstacles. Sometimes you are in a hallway, or a cave, or a normal sized room.
Sure, it's not always possible or a good idea. But in my experience? It's usually possible, often by some combination of monster/enemy superior reach or high mobility.
I'd go so far as to say I don't think 75% viability is a stretch, assuming non-edge cases like "the caster is so far away he isn't really in the fight, and the ambushers went after the fighter instead of him" or "there's multiple dedicated blockers for each soft target."
Can someone point out to me how monsters just always naturally know where rope tricks are? Because I'm reading over the spell and I don't see the part where it's a bright burning beacon that can be seen for miles and miles.
It's just a rope hanging down.
Cast Rope Trick in the corner of the room, put out the torch before you climb up. Your rope is now all but invisible.
Here's something I've been thinking about in response to the idea of melee characters being unable to keep a monster from going around them.
When I'm playing soccer, and an opponent tries to dribble past me towards my goal, I'm pretty good at marking up on that player and keeping myself positioned between him and my goal. If he goes to my right, I go to my right. If he goes to the left, same thing. The only way he gets around me is if he is much faster, and can outrun me to one side or the other before making his turn towards my goal. Even if he does this, he's had to run so far to the side that I've doubled or tripled the distance he has to cover to get to my goal.
So we know people can do this in real life. How would that work in game terms? Is it as simple as having your fighter ready an action to stay between the opponent and the spellcaster? So long as the fighter can move as many squares as the opponent, the opponent could only move laterally and would get no closer to the spellcaster. Of course, if the opponent used 2 move actions in a round to try to out flank the fighter, the fighter would have to do the same and neither would get an attack that round. Any attempt by the opponent to move closer to the spellcaster would mean trying to go through the fighter's square, which would require engaging the fighter in some sort of melee. Presumably, the opponent would tire of trying to get around the fighter in a round or two, then would engage the fighter in melee or try to go through him-- either option would allow the fighter to use his readied action to fight back instead of moving back and forth.
Do the rules support this? Does this make sense?
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Cast Rope Trick in the corner of the room, put out the torch before you climb up. Your rope is now all but invisible.
Generally you would need at least enough space away from the wall to leave enough room to climb - since it hangs straight down and is difficult to move. Also if you put it flush to the corner it would be a very hard to climb if there were other obstructions around.
It's one thing to expect a rogue to climb a difficultly placed rope (flush near wall) but expecting the wizard and armored clerics to do the same - plus possibly get down in a hurry? Too risky.Also the rope is centered on the 5x3 window to look down...the closer to the corner of the room the more you crop the viewing area you look out of (to see guards or patrols).
Anyway, it isn't a good 15/min workday or Nova tactic spell. Too many problems with infiltrating a base, killing creatures an having the expectation of not getting caught or noticed after 8 hours.
Too much evidence of PC activity to cover up - dead bodies, destruction, looted gear, tracks. Also too many gaping holes to cover when the enemy is eventually going to notice dead clanmates after 8 house (required rest time).
If they have animals that can track, or darkvision (or both) a hanging rope near the corner of the room wouldn't be too hard to find = dead party.
I can't help by feel that those who support the concept that 'melee is a liability' simply ignore the weaknesses inherent in all caster classes.
- Increadably limited resources.
- Requirements to rest.
- Loss of power
As unpopular as this thought might be, there comes a point beyond which a group of three fighters and a rogue can continue to deal with concurrent challanges indefinately.
Certainly such a party has weaknesses, massive, glaring weaknesses, but unlike say a party of wizards, when faced with enemies designed to force the wasting of PC resources and circumstances that demand continuous engagement to prevent failure, a fighter and rogue party stands a far better chance of success than wizards and druids, or wizards and clerics.
Why? Because harressing creatures get to choose when and where they strick, wittling away at the casters until they are forced to expend resources in responces, and then retreat, attacking again at leasure once injuries and conditions are resolved. Keep up such harressment for long enough and the casters will use up their resources most powerful resources. And thanks to pressing the threat, they cannot easily replenish their resources, without suffering a big picture defeat.
I've ran a few casters, and GMed more. At level 5 and above, even the wizard only struggles with limited resources when the opponents are deliberately picked to invalidate much of his best low-level spells. Like, in an all-undead dungeon. And level 7 and above I've only seen resource shortages when I used gimped NPC casters.
"Harassing creatures" either are a joke against a caster-heavy party (because they will eat some SoLs as soon as they appear and then that's that), or will kill most no-caster parties outright (because they are something like incorporeal undead or flying strafers, and melee attackers are disadvantaged against them).
A group of three fighters and a rogue cannot deal with challenges indefinitely. Having a de-facto caster who must pay for all of his spells is a losing strategy, and the cost for removing any negative conditions, but straight HP damage, quickly grows prohibitive by itself. Even cost of wands of CLW adds up eventually. They also absolutely need a Magic Mart to function, and its existence/easy access to it is not guaranteed.
A group of three fighters and a rogue cannot deal with challenges indefinitely. Having a de-facto caster who must pay for all of his spells is a losing strategy, and the cost for removing any negative conditions, but straight HP damage, quickly grows prohibitive by itself. Even cost of wands of CLW adds up eventually. They also absolutely need a Magic Mart to function, and its existence/easy access to it is not guaranteed.Incorrect. It's like a classic example that Erick Wujick laid out in Amber Diceless. If your players all bid high on Warfare and Strength, don't build a campaign based primarily on Psyche. The no-caster party simply requires a campaign built around that fact. From what I've read Iron Heroes proved could that it could be done and should probably be used as a reference on HowTos.
So wait. The all fighter party shouldn't be put into situations where...
...they fight?
And what, exactly, does that leave?
Can someone point out to me how monsters just always naturally know where rope tricks are? Because I'm reading over the spell and I don't see the part where it's a bright burning beacon that can be seen for miles and miles.
It's just a rope hanging down.
Cast Rope Trick in the corner of the room, put out the torch before you climb up. Your rope is now all but invisible.
Scent and Track should allow hostile enemies to track back to the rope trick.
For me at least most humanoids keep animals with scent expressly for the purposes of assisting hunting. Hunting PCs is more difficult than hunting wild game but shouldn't be remotely difficult for a hunting hound/worg/etc to track a party back to their rope trick.
Scentblock and other items would help limit scent based tracking but you still have regular tracks that people can follow, etc.
Unless your trail is impossible to follow (teleport, plane shift, etc) a determined foe will often be able to track you back to your safe resting zone. Not every foe will be an aggressive hunter but enough have sufficient reasons that it's not improbable for the PCs to get periodically ambushed.
I really disagree with the static, reactive only encounter design for most creature types. Unless they are things like unintelligent undead guarding a specific crypt then there is plenty of reasons why a dungeon would react to an initial incursion and proactively try to stop a future incursion.
The default assumption is a mixed party with arcane, divine, skills, and melee/ranged combat types.
When you don't have that, adjustments need to be made. The game is full of ways to allow a GM to do that, or not, as they and their players see fit. 3 Fighters and a rogue has issues, as does 3 wizards and a bard. But it is easy to compensate for the most part.
If I want I want to run a very low magic campaign, I can. If I want to run an all magic campaign, I can. I see nothing broken about it.
The default assumption is a mixed party with arcane, divine, skills, and melee/ranged combat types.
When you don't have that, adjustments need to be made. The game is full of ways to allow a GM to do that, or not, as they and their players see fit. 3 Fighters and a rogue has issues, as does 3 wizards and a bard. But it is easy to compensate for the most part.
If I want I want to run a very low magic campaign, I can. If I want to run an all magic campaign, I can. I see nothing broken about it.
I think the point being made is that a full caster party can adjust to any campaign, while a full melee party can not, therefore melee is weaker.
If the DM has to adjust the bar* up or down for the monsters to compete or not kill one group, then depending on which way the bar is moving, one group is definitely weaker than the other one.
*difficulty
The default assumption is a mixed party with arcane, divine, skills, and melee/ranged combat types.
When you don't have that, adjustments need to be made. The game is full of ways to allow a GM to do that, or not, as they and their players see fit. 3 Fighters and a rogue has issues, as does 3 wizards and a bard. But it is easy to compensate for the most part.
If I want I want to run a very low magic campaign, I can. If I want to run an all magic campaign, I can. I see nothing broken about it.
I think the point being made is that a full caster party can adjust to any campaign, while a full melee party can not, therefore melee is weaker.
If the DM has to adjust the bar* up or down for the monsters to compete or not kill one group, then depending on which way the bar is moving, one group is definitely weaker than the other one.
*difficulty
I wonder if in most cases would not be a matter of difficulty, but of mere availability of magic items..
I get the point, but it isn't a one way situation.
All combat party starts out stronger. In everywhere but colorspray land, the starting wealth, HP, AC, Damage, etc. kicks ass. Later on, all caster party catches up, and surpasses combat. The game has roots in AD&D after all.
I think the all caster party has the advantage of being able to adjust spells everyday, and may have some knowledge advantages, but they don't catch up to a mixed party until the later levels of the game.
Also, chances are there is a nice mix or rangers, paladins, multi-class, and if needed, cohorts, hierlings, etc. All melee/ranged combat with co ability to cast is a corner case, not a gaping hole in the rules.
A group of three fighters and a rogue cannot deal with challenges indefinitely. Having a de-facto caster who must pay for all of his spells is a losing strategy, and the cost for removing any negative conditions, but straight HP damage, quickly grows prohibitive by itself. Even cost of wands of CLW adds up eventually. They also absolutely need a Magic Mart to function, and its existence/easy access to it is not guaranteed.Incorrect. It's like a classic example that Erick Wujick laid out in Amber Diceless. If your players all bid high on Warfare and Strength, don't build a campaign based primarily on Psyche. The no-caster party simply requires a campaign built around that fact. From what I've read Iron Heroes proved could that it could be done and should probably be used as a reference on HowTos.Cannot handle normal campaign = admission of defeat.
An all caster team could go blaze through something like Age of Worms, or Shackled City, or Savage Tide without adaptation.
I have not read Savage Tide (doesn't interest me) and only glanced at Shackled City (had a friend who was going to run it so I stopped reading), but I am currently running Age of Worms and I highly doubt that they could blaze through without adaptation. I do agree that they could survive, just like all the other classes, I just don't see them blazing through.
We just finished Chapter 6 and just the sheer number of traps up to this point would have made it difficult for an all caster party to survive. There are some areas where an all caster party will have an issue, especially if they only focus on spells like color spray (i.e., spells that won't be effective against undead). Some of the dungeons also have a high number of encounters and there aren't a lot of places or time to rest. Even in the Arena in the Free City the all caster party can have an issue especially if they didn't know about or weren't able to stop one of the opponents from appearing. There is also a dragon problem at one point. There is a section where the party can easily be overwhelmed by worms and worm infested undead dragonlings.
Don't get me wrong. An all caster party can complete the adventure and would probably do well. They certainly won't blaze through it though. The casters in my game are finding that they are burning through spells faster than they want. I am running a 20 point buy game and the characters all have relatively balanced stats (i.e., they don't have 3 dump stats). The party is pretty well balanced too. Some areas are easier than others for some of the characters. That's a sign of good writing and balancing an adventure.
Here are some of the campaigns I've run. Non-casters have done well in all of them:
1) Elf/Orc war: The campaign was mostly about dealing with NPCs but there were some monsters to deal with. I would say that the opponents were probably 90% medium sized creatures because that made sense for the campaign. Unfortunately I had to move before completing it so it stopped at level 12 or so.
2) Bloodwar Spillover: Toril had been overrun by the infamous war between the devils and demons. The gods had left, taking traditional magic with them. The devils had taken over the cities and the demons had conquered the wilderness. Silver weapons were illegal and every mortal was born with a death sentence. The devils had the right to kill any mortal on sight without any explanation. The only types of magic allowed were from Tome of Magic and Magic of Incarnum. Vancian casting was not present in any form. There were Psionics but only one person wanted to deal with them. This one required too many houserules and adjustments to make it worth continuing for a long time. My players and I liked the concept but didn't like the pages upon pages of changes and the level of work needed to write the adventures.
3) Age of Worms: currently being run
4) Generia and the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords: In this setting, almost all the NPCs had stats that were 10. They were all generic. The party had exceptional people who were born with extraordinary stats (4d6, drop the lowest). However, once the campaign started every now and then they had to deal with the potential adjustment of one or more of their stats. Their stats slowly were moving to 10s. This was a boon if your stat was less than 10 but for those with higher stats, this was not a good thing. The party had discovered that the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords had been used to seal the River of Life. All they had to do was find this Axe and remove it. Once removed, the world would slowly change back to normal.
There have been plenty of others as well. The point is that not all campaigns center around opponents that one group of characters can't handle or can't handle well. A good DM writes interesting stories and encounters that move the story forward. A good player adapts his character to the needs of the campaign. Even casters need to be adapted to the campaign. If you are playing an enchanter in an undead heavy campaign, you may find some of your abilities to be weak or useless.
Cannot handle normal campaign = admission of defeat.
What is a "normal campaign?" I think this is a huge point of contention in these discussions. We all have different views on what is normal.
I do think that these discussions should have some sort of baseline. I am a strong believer that we should keep in mind the game assumes 15 point buy, WBL, and a mixed party. While none of these are required, changing any of them changes the dynamic of the game.
If your game is catered to your optimization, you will do fine. But in any of the published adventure path your Wizard is going to have a lot of trouble unless it has a strong support group built to protect it's weaknesses and support it's strengths.
Your build is all win or all fail in each encounter. And if it is protected it's going to be encounter MVP pretty regularly. But if it isn't, it's going to get amusingly dropped by the first volume group you encounter or the first big baddie that makes it save and doesn't have anyone standing between it and you.
Yes ... it has been pointed out before. Apparently all the casters spam the spell so that if the save is made first time, it has to be made four times. This begs the question of what happens if half have cast the spell already, and probably leads to a five minute adventuring day ...
As for the "They can go around the fighter" argument, in my experience this is made of fail. If your fighter is ten feet in front of the caster and the Big Nasty does a go-around (assuming he can, and the fighter's options for stopping him do not work and terrain is in his favour) then he gets an AoO from the fighter and one attack on the caster behind the fighter. The fighter can then 5' step to attack the monster again - only this time, he's flanking it. The odds of Big Nasty living long enough to get a full attack in on the caster are slim, to say the least.
The only time this works is when the creature has a form of movement the party lack, and a lot of it, and can make passing attacks by either Flyby or Spring Attack, and even then it risks many AoOs to perform a single attack.
If your fighter is ten feet in front of the caster and the Big Nasty does a go-around (assuming he can, and the fighter's options for stopping him do not work and terrain is in his favour) then he gets an AoO from the fighter and one attack on the caster behind the fighter.
Assuming he has to go through the fighter's reach. It's a big assumption and one that I rarely see bear out, except in fairly tight quarters combat.
Again, 'go around' != 'run past the fighter'.
If your fighter is ten feet in front of the caster and the Big Nasty does a go-around (assuming he can, and the fighter's options for stopping him do not work and terrain is in his favour) then he gets an AoO from the fighter and one attack on the caster behind the fighter.Assuming he has to go through the fighter's reach. It's a big assumption and one that I rarely see bear out, except in fairly tight quarters combat.
Again, 'go around' != 'run past the fighter'.
I think half the question, then, is not the 'build' of the fighter but the tactical acumen of the player. Held actions can always place the fighter between the attacker and the target, after all.
If your fighter is ten feet in front of the caster and the Big Nasty does a go-around (assuming he can, and the fighter's options for stopping him do not work and terrain is in his favour) then he gets an AoO from the fighter and one attack on the caster behind the fighter.Assuming he has to go through the fighter's reach. It's a big assumption and one that I rarely see bear out, except in fairly tight quarters combat.
Again, 'go around' != 'run past the fighter'.
Leaving a threatened area always provokes an AoO unless you use a tumble check.
If a fighter positions himself properly between a wizard, or if he has already gotten his attack the enemy will either spend a majority of his move trying to avoid the fighter or the fighter can just make an AoO against that target as it passes.
Their are numerous ways to prevent them from moving with that one AoO such as a grapple, trip, or even a feat that gives that exact benefit.
Also what he was trying to say is that even if he somehow gets past him after the AoO which he almost undoubtedly would have to intak unless the wizard was infront of him (does not make sense if the wizard is being protected) he can then attack next round because said target will need to make a move and attack which is far less threatening than a full attack and a wizard could most likely (provided you are atleast somewhat innovative) could survive.
The following round after an AoO or a successful grapple/trip/feat use the enemy is probably finished either due to melee damage or wizard getting his nice nifty spell off.
Held actions can always place the fighter between the attacker and the target, after all.
How, exactly?
If you delay, you can take your action after whoever you want, but you can't interrupt the action of another.
Held actions can always place the fighter between the attacker and the target, after all.How, exactly?
If you delay, you can take your action after whoever you want, but you can't interrupt the action of another.
you can delay your action until a trigger action, if you say I wait til they cast a spell, it doesnt matter if they do it before or after a movement you delayed your action and it is triggered by that occurence.
You cannot interrupt part of a full round action i dont believe because it is impossible to ready againt half an action. Thus delay until action.You can ready for in between move actions and standard actions, standards and moves, swifts and moves, ect.
Held actions can always place the fighter between the attacker and the target, after all.How, exactly?
If you delay, you can take your action after whoever you want, but you can't interrupt the action of another.
By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point. You never get back the time you spend waiting to see what’s going to happen. You also can’t interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).
Initiative Consequences of Delaying: Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the delayed action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you don’t get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again).
If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
You move to place yourself between the attacker and the rest of the party and make a single attack. To continue his movement past you, he has to take an AoO or else change his action.
Your quote; added emphasis is mine.
Delay
By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point. You never get back the time you spend waiting to see what’s going to happen. You also can’t interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).
Initiative Consequences of Delaying: Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the delayed action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you don’t get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again).
If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
I removed a couple posts. Stop sniping at each other.
In my games we have a fair amount of combat in dungeons because I like kicking it old school.
In those situations the front-line types can often effectively shield the rest of the party by blocking charge lines, preventing large creatures from moving past them and creating shield walls.
I give everyone combat reflexes as a free feat, AD&D combat and tactics fighters got 3 AoOs +1 every 3 levels or so I don't see any reason why 3.x fighters should be utterly emasculated. It actually allows the PCs/NPCs to effectively create zones of death.
Tumblers are still a problem but Fighters have good counter-tumbling ability.
So that leaves flyers as the primary game changer. While they aren't as useful in dungeons, I'm okay with them being a pretty potent force as flying is a pretty iconic magical ability.
Your quote; added emphasis is mine.
Delay
By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point. You never get back the time you spend waiting to see what’s going to happen. You also can’t interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action).
Initiative Consequences of Delaying: Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the delayed action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you don’t get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again).
If you take a delayed action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
excuse me I was refering to readied actions.
Which are perfectly viable in this circumstance
"I ready my action to move and attack if he moves towards the wizard"
simple as that for stopping him.
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excuse me I was refering to readied actions.Which are perfectly viable in this circumstance
"I ready my action to move and attack if he moves towards the wizard"
simple as that for stopping him.
You can only move or attack, not both.
The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is a standard action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity (though the action that you ready might do so).Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.
Relevant rules bolded. So you could move into his path, but unless you move to right next to him, he can change his course, as your readied action occurs before his action does. Which leaves you in the same boat as having moved up to him on your turn, but you don't get an attack.
This is why I focused on standing next to the wizard in my argument, because the enemy is going to get to the wizard anyway.
You can only move or attack, not both.
You move. He has to move past you. AoO.
excuse me I was refering to readied actions.Which are perfectly viable in this circumstance
"I ready my action to move and attack if he moves towards the wizard"
simple as that for stopping him.
You can only move or attack, not both.
The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is a standard action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity (though the action that you ready might do so).Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.
Relevant rules bolded. So you could move into his path, but unless you move to right next to him, he can change his course, as your readied action occurs before his action does. Which leaves you in the same boat as having moved up to him on your turn, but you don't get an attack.
This is why I focused on standing next to the wizard in my argument, because the enemy is going to get to the wizard anyway.
Huh. I wonder, could you move yourself in such a way that you intercept an opponent during movement and — although you do not get to attack — you set up an attack of opportunity if the enemy continues to move?
That's really convoluted to be sure, but it might actually work, as far as allowing interception.
You can only move or attack, not both.You move. He has to move past you. AoO.
Potentially, now he takes a path to the wizard through the square you were formerly in, instead.
Remember, your readied action goes off just before the action that triggers it. So if the trigger is "when the troll moves, I'll move", your move happens before his, and the troll can pick a different move.
Ready, sadly, is not all that powerful as written. It was a little better in 3.0 wherein you could ready a partial charge.
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Ready, sadly, is not all that powerful as written. It was a little better in 3.0 wherein you could ready a partial charge.
I would probably use that houserule to fix it myself. Then you at least get two attacks instead of one.
Or better yet...
As a standard action, select a line of 5ft squares. You may move to any square in this line until your next turn as a free action.
Possibly use AoOs per round as a limiting factor. Burn an AoO per move. I'd make it a move action if that were done tho. Thus you could attack an enemy and then set up your line to guard against others.
I can see ready actions being somewhat viable in situations where you absolutely want be able to block charge lanes to your squishy teammates but you don't actually have enough movement to charge the opposition's current position or doing that would place you badly out of position.
An example might be to intercept a fast flyer/mover.
Overall I'd agree that it's a substandard action.
Personally I'd allow people to ready countercharges (move + attack action) but I also allow full attack + movement so I'm an outlier ;)
I would probably use that houserule to fix it myself. Then you at least get two attacks instead of one.
That's the way I'd rule it too, but I don't think it's a houserule - if the monster's action is declared it has to follow it.
You can only move or attack, not both.You move. He has to move past you. AoO.Potentially, now he takes a path to the wizard through the square you were formerly in, instead.
Remember, your readied action goes off just before the action that triggers it. So if the trigger is "when the troll moves, I'll move", your move happens before his, and the troll can pick a different move.
Ready, sadly, is not all that powerful as written. It was a little better in 3.0 wherein you could ready a partial charge.
Hang on a minute, if my readied action is to intercept him, then if he moves when I move, I am still moving to intercept him regardless of which route he takes. Moreover, he is already committed to that action - if he doesn't then do so, then my readied action cannot trigger, can it? Or if he changes route my readied action triggers but it's a different triggered action.
For the creature to change it's mind about where it's going makes no sense - after all, it doesn't have an option for a readied action, does it? It's like:
DM: "The creature charges!"
Player: "My wizard uses his readied action to cast X when he is in range."
DM: "Oh, in that case he doesn't."
Player: "What?!! How can he know what I'm going to do before he attacks? He won't see me casting until he's already within range!"
Now I think we'd agree that the action is declared, the target rushes in and the PC has the initiative with the readied action. The creature has no advance knowledge of anything and if he is able to do anything at all about it, it's only to abort his action and lose any further action for the round. That being the case.
DM: "The creature charges!"
Player: "My fighter uses his readied action to move to intercept him as he comes in and hit him."
DM: "Oh well, which ever way you go he goes the other way."
Player: "How? we're moving at the same time - if he can change his course of movement then so can I. I can get in front of him."
It's as much sense for the one to be changed as the other.
Incorrect. It's like a classic example that Erick Wujick laid out in Amber Diceless. If your players all bid high on Warfare and Strength, don't build a campaign based primarily on Psyche. The no-caster party simply requires a campaign built around that fact. From what I've read Iron Heroes proved could that it could be done and should probably be used as a reference on HowTos.
So... if you're building challenges specifically to accomodate fighters, they can survive. I don't really know what challenges are weak to fighters, without being even weaker to something else, but whatever. How the heck this proves superiority of a fighter-heavy party over an all-caster party?
Iron Heroes is not worth the paper it was printed on.
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So... if you're building challenges specifically to accomodate fighters, they can survive. I don't really know what challenges are weak to fighters, without being even weaker to something else, but whatever. How the heck this proves superiority of a fighter-heavy party over an all-caster party?
It doesn't. It proves that the campaign should be tailored to the party.
Iron Heroes is not worth the paper it was printed on.
I haven't played it, only read the rules, and got the impression that it's probably OK for what it is, which is to say, "NOT D&D." If you want a super-casual game that lets you do low-powered martial stuff and also have an excuse to throw poker chips into the middle of the table, and if balance and rules streamlining are not to your taste, it looks like it would be OK for a Sunday one-off.
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here's someting that lets us know even Rich Burlew finds all of this humourous Order of the stick
I had a good chuckle.
It doesn't. It proves that the campaign should be tailored to the party.
So... if you're building challenges specifically to accomodate fighters, they can survive. I don't really know what challenges are weak to fighters, without being even weaker to something else, but whatever. How the heck this proves superiority of a fighter-heavy party over an all-caster party?
Invariably - which makes the whole discussion academic, really, because your party, no matter it's composition or it's optimisation level is going to face the same relative threat level. The only reason for using the 'classic four' or an approximation thereof is because most scenarios are designed with that in mind and it makes the DM's job easier.