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So, one thing that I’ve seen noted recently is this: there seems to be a pushback against making “realistic” classes/ skills unrealistic.
Examples: Martials:
-There seems to be a certain resistance to making martials properly fantasy-like. The best example of this is probably the resistance seen to the “Tome of battle”. I was not a gamer when it came out, but a lot of chatter indicates a lot of violent words towards the “unrealism” of giving martials pseudo supernatural powers. There are similar reactions to the “unrealistic” gunslinger.
Skills:
-This seems more to be on the game design side; IE, most skills do little more than the most mundane things. Being more stealthy simply means your harder to detect with another skill, perception. Mundane crafting takes FOREVER. The more skill you have in something is shockingly plain, and purely a numbers game, no matter your skill.
Why is this the case? I think it’s intimately tied to a notion called the “uncanny valley”. The uncanny valley is a concept that relates to representations of humans in media. We are able to enjoy cartoon, because they look like us and are clearly false. We enjoy live-action because we see our own kind on the screen. But we are incredibly disturbed by a point in-between (called the uncanny valley, and generally observed as computer generated animation) where the images look superficially human, but lack the normal ticks & movements associated with humanity. Dull, lifeless, unmoving eyes are often a first-noticed element. The dissociation between something that appears real, but is quite clearly not, greatly disturbs us.
I am proposing a similar notion for fantasy.
-The “unreal” classes (the type that could never exist in our own worlds, spellcasters, ninja, monks) are easily changed. It doesn’t matter wether a mage use onyx or jello to bind his undead, the situation is sufficiently unreal that it doesn’t enter the “uncanny valley”.
-The real classes (fighters, cavalier, rogues) we are comfortable because they are firmly rooted in notions we are familiar with (despite not being medieval fighters).
-However, when we change those “real” classes, we somehow drag them into the uncanny valley. They are “real” enough to ressemble our own knowledge, but sufficiently “unreal” that it disturbs us.
So what do you folks think? I know better than to think that this notion is all encompassing. But it might lend some insight into why there is so much resistance to to the notion of making "mundane" classes "supernatural", despite being in a fantasy game.
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So, one thing that I’ve seen noted recently is this: there seems to be a pushback against making “realistic” classes/ skills unrealistic.
Examples: Martials:
-There seems to be a certain resistance to making martials properly fantasy-like. The best example of this is probably the resistance seen to the “Tome of battle”. I was not a gamer when it came out, but a lot of chatter indicates a lot of violent words towards the “unrealism” of giving martials pseudo supernatural powers. There are similar reactions to the “unrealistic” gunslinger.
The push back against Tome of Battle has nothing to do with fantasy but with the Tome's heavy Wuxia flavor, that and the fact that you might as well kiss the Fighter class goodbye with this book. Not every GM wants to run a Wuxia themed game.
Martials can be extremely fantasy without resorting to Wuxia. Pretty much all of the classic examples not written in the Orient are.
If only fluff was easily changed or something...
Plus you've gotten it wrong, my friend. Tome of Battle is Too Celtic Mythology.
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I don't have a gaming uncanny valley. I want my Fighter to be like Cu Chulainn, dammit.
It's definitely a thing for others, though. It would be a lot easier to balance the martials against the casters if people could agree that "gad dangit look at them muscles" was sufficient explanation for Sunder Army.
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For me, it's a case of wanting a world that's "like ours, plus extra stuff". If there's a real-world analog, I want the game version to feel it works the same way (I don't insist on 100% realism with people measuring how far someone can fire a bow in real life, but I do want it to feel like it's the same thing on a narrative level.)
We have swords and armor in this world. I prefer a game setting where they work as I'd already expect them to. We have bows, so I'd like them to work as I already expect them to. We have human beings, so I'd also like those to have the same physical limitations as "our" human beings.
... within reason.
My preferred reality is "cinematic realism" - people can get away with edge cases more often than they really ought to be able to due to uncanny luck "because that outcome makes a better story."
Arcane and Divine magic don't exist, as far as we can determine, in the real world. Therefore there's no pre-existing baseline for them, and I'm happy for those to be made up by the creator(s) of the fantasy world.
Even then, there's various levels of magic in different RPGs, and in different settings, and different ways of handling it. I don't necessarily like the way it's handled in some of them.
Now, I'm also a "RPGs are Toolkits" person. I'm quite happy with them presenting more options than I want, as long as there's options for the things I do want. So, I'm more than happy if the game wants to give me mundane martials, fantastic martials, and casters (and probably also a few that sit between those definitions) - I can just remove fantastic martials in my worlds, the same as I can currently remove Wizards and say only Sorcerer-type arcane magic exists.
Technically we then get a game that everyone can enjoy. I don't feel it needs to be 100% aimed at my personal playstyle.
EDIT: I do have to say I like how Pathfinder handles Mythic characters, though. It means I can easily separate out demigod-level games from "normal adventurer" types. I enjoy games with a Mythic level of power, but I want to choose to run those specifically, not all of the time.
See, my impression was that the pushback against the TOB wasnt a flavor one, but a power one.
@ Pan: I have no idea what "properly fantasy-like" is determined. I'm mainly just trying to reflect upon the notion that "fantasticalness" is accepted in magic users, but not in "mundane" classes. The only class that seems to break that mold (to me) is the barbarian.
In any case, this seems to be going in the argument direction rather than the constructive one, as people get stuck on details. Thought there are still some definitly useful comments, especially Matt.
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Making all the options be high end fantastic removes that option from the toolkit.
Using 'less fantastic' mundanes results in the 'mundane' classes being measurably less powerful than the supernatural classes.
To use a comic book analogy, a party of adventurers is like the Justice League: a bunch of better-than-normal people with different powers working toward a more-or-less common goal. But if one guy is playing Batman and one guy is playing Superman, it is not the right time to worry about how many gizmos actually would fit in a utility belt: Batman, despite having 'no powers', needs be capable of some pretty damn impressive stuff, just to keep up and remain relevant.
(If you're not a DC fan, sub 'Avengers', 'Hawkeye', and 'Thor'.)
'Less fantastic' mundanes are certainly possible, but in doing so, you have to remove the most fantastic of the supernatural elements as well. One option might be to remove the 9th level casting classes (and thus spells like wish) from the game.
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Making all the options be high end fantastic removes that option from the toolkit.Using 'less fantastic' mundanes results in the 'mundane' classes being measurably less powerful than the supernatural classes.
To use a comic book analogy, a party of adventurers is like the Justice League: a bunch of better-than-normal people with different powers working toward a more-or-less common goal. But if one guy is playing Batman and one guy is playing Superman, it is not the right time to worry about how many gizmos actually would fit in a utility belt: Batman, despite having 'no powers', needs be capable of some pretty damn impressive stuff, just to keep up and remain relevant.
(If you're not a DC fan, sub 'Avengers', 'Hawkeye', and 'Thor'.)
On the other hand, I find playing a superhero RPG with that kind of mix tends to work out just fine ;) It's down to whether you have players that will be happy with that kind of thing or not.
For those that don't want the underpowered mundanes, they can just remove those from their game world. The only thing is that the option should be there in the toolkit for building the kind of world wanted for any given campaign.
Some things, you can get away with in abstract. Raw damage can be the result of a powerful blow by a demigod, or a precise strike by an expert swordsman. Leaping 20 feet into the air from a standing position, however, tends to be pretty much fixed in the realms of fantastic abilities.
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Given the option of designing from the ground up, I'd probably do something like this:
Firstly, take the fighter as the baseline, and work everything else into balance with that as a base. Spells that obliterate massive amounts of everything, for example, will just be taken off the menu.
Then, taking that new game as the baseline, rework all the removed things into the mythic layer, which can be applied atop the game for people who want more fantasy in their RPG.
Things like teleportation, disintegrate, planar travel, etc - all moved to either to the highest level of magic (possibly even with lengthy rituals necessary to perform them), or made into mythic abilities.
Balance and a choice of how much fantasy you want.
L20 casters would look pretty underpowered compared to their current repertoire of spells, and more balanced with a L20 "guy that is really good with a sword".
Given the option of designing from the ground up, I'd probably do something like this:
Firstly, take the fighter as the baseline, and work everything else into balance with that as a base. Spells that obliterate massive amounts of everything, for example, will just be taken off the menu.
Then, taking that new game as the baseline, rework all the removed things into the mythic layer, which can be applied atop the game for people who want more fantasy in their RPG.
Things like teleportation, disintegrate, planar travel, etc - all moved to either to the highest level of magic, or made into mythic abilities.
Balance and a choice of how much fantasy you want.
I'd probably go for the "pure mythic" route, doing a "tier" thing:
Tier 1 (levels 1-5) would represent "mundanity", with each following step represnting a true transition as suggensted (IE, gritty, wuxia, heroic fantasy, demigod) for all classes. Mythic is close, BUT it's not quite there for the martial side.
In any case, this goes beyond the scope of what I was hoping to discuss. Might be worth starting another thread for that?
I'd probably go for the "pure mythic" route, doing a "tier" thing:
Tier 1 (levels 1-5) would represent "mundanity", with each following step represnting a true transition as suggensted (IE, gritty, wuxia, heroic fantasy, demigod) for all classes. Mythic is close, BUT it's not quite there for the martial side.
In any case, this goes beyond the scope of what I was hoping to discuss. Might be worth starting another thread for that?
I just wanted to throw that in as how I'd prefer to see the problem solved if there's ever any re-balancing done for a PF 2.0, not actually start designing it ;) But if anyone feels they'd like to run with the idea, by all means they can go start a thread with a more detailed proposal and I'll join in and comment :)
So, one thing that I’ve seen noted recently is this: there seems to be a pushback against making “realistic” classes/ skills unrealistic.
Examples: Martials:
-There seems to be a certain resistance to making martials properly fantasy-like. The best example of this is probably the resistance seen to the “Tome of battle”. I was not a gamer when it came out, but a lot of chatter indicates a lot of violent words towards the “unrealism” of giving martials pseudo supernatural powers. There are similar reactions to the “unrealistic” gunslinger.
Skills:
-This seems more to be on the game design side; IE, most skills do little more than the most mundane things. Being more stealthy simply means your harder to detect with another skill, perception. Mundane crafting takes FOREVER. The more skill you have in something is shockingly plain, and purely a numbers game, no matter your skill.Why is this the case? I think it’s intimately tied to a notion called the “uncanny valley”. The uncanny valley is a concept that relates to representations of humans in media. We are able to enjoy cartoon, because they look like us and are clearly false. We enjoy live-action because we see our own kind on the screen. But we are incredibly disturbed by a point in-between (called the uncanny valley, and generally observed as computer generated animation) where the images look superficially human, but lack the normal ticks & movements associated with humanity. Dull, lifeless, unmoving eyes are often a first-noticed element. The dissociation between something that appears real, but is quite clearly not, greatly disturbs us.
I am proposing a similar notion for fantasy.
-The “unreal” classes (the type that could never exist in our own worlds, spellcasters, ninja, monks) are easily changed. It doesn’t matter wether a mage use onyx or jello to bind his undead, the situation is sufficiently unreal that it doesn’t enter the “uncanny valley”.
-The real classes (fighters, cavalier, rogues) we are comfortable because they are firmly...
The OP is valid. People will watch the news unconditionally believing their favorite news caster then suddenly, the newscaster is talking about something know about personally and not only getting it wrong but perhaps getting it precisely backwards. You stop, think, wonder. Then you start wondering about the things you don't know about. How many times did they get it wrong when you couldn't have caught them.
Same thing here. None of us are magicians or alchemists or whatever OTOH some of us have fought or worn armor (modern or recreated), or handled a sword or studied koryu martial arts or been hit with a flippin' baseball bat or whatever and we go, WTH. What that guy is doing just doesn't fit.
Now my approach is cinematic. Man if it works on the page of a comic book (think Grell's warlord or Green Arrow' or in a movie, "Three Musketeers", TV, "Kung-Fu", "Enter the Dragon", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Books, "Red Nails", "Three Hearts and Three Lions", "People of the Black Circle", then by golly I want to see my players and characters working towards that.
But you can do most of that with the core rule books. Except for Cuchulain. There needs to be rules for bronze age style spear and shield mythic guys.
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On the other hand, I find playing a superhero RPG with that kind of mix tends to work out just fine ;) It's down to whether you have players that will be happy with that kind of thing or not.
Absolutely. I think part of the problem, though, is that many people expect that the different roles in a team based game to be able to have comparable (not necessarily identical) impact and 'screen time'.
Some groups have the guy who is happy to be Green Arrow. Other groups, you have people calling 'Not it' to avoid being Aquaman.
For those that don't want the underpowered mundanes, they can just remove those from their game world. The only thing is that the option should be there in the toolkit for building the kind of world wanted for any given campaign.
One could argue that NPC classes exist to be the 'mundane mundanes'.
Some things, you can get away with in abstract. Raw damage can be the result of a powerful blow by a demigod, or a precise strike by an expert swordsman. Leaping 20 feet into the air from a standing position, however, tends to be pretty much fixed in the realms of fantastic abilities.
But it happens is lots of kung-fu moves, and is only slightly veiled in action movies.
In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the classes not being perfectly balanced. Fighters fight...and when you look hard enough they can do som awesome things. They are masters of any weapon they pick up. Martials can attack many times faster than other classes. ... Think of it as super speed if you want. They can lift super human amounts of weight, jump 30ft gorges, survive being hit in the face by a giant, hold their breath under water forever. That's all pretty awesome and super to me.
Achilles, Lancelot, Hercules... All they did was fight and they are pretty epic.
Fighters don't have to run on walls or fly or shoot energy from their hands. If you want that make a wiz but that doesn't make fighters less cool.
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It seems like the simpler approach would be just to play an E6 variant. Then you've got "guy is really good with a sword" being comparable to the casters. Sure, you could make another game system and stretch those levels out over 20 levels, and then build an entire alternate subsystem on top of that, but it seems like a lot of work.
In PF, once you're into the midgame, you're out of the realm of the mundane. Once you're into the high levels you're in the realm of superheroes or legends. That's not where the mundane guy fits.
That's a matter of perception though. I can play a L20 fighter quite happily as "Probably the best swordsman in the world" without feeling they're pulling off superhuman feats.
To me, the superhero/legend stuff is in Mythic-level play. The only issue I really have is the non-mythic casters being capable of so much. E6 cuts away levels in order to keep the game low-powered, when I'd rather do that cutting on spells, I don't really want to cut much, if anything, from existing martials at all.
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It seems like the simpler approach would be just to play an E6 variant. Then you've got "guy is really good with a sword" being comparable to the casters. Sure, you could make another game system and stretch those levels out over 20 levels, and then build an entire alternate subsystem on top of that, but it seems like a lot of work.
In PF, once you're into the midgame, you're out of the realm of the mundane. Once you're into the high levels you're in the realm of superheroes or legends. That's not where the mundane guy fits.
That's a matter of perception though. I can play a L20 fighter quite happily as "Probably the best swordsman in the world" without feeling they're pulling off superhuman feats.
To me, the superhero/legend stuff is in Mythic-level play. The only issue I really have is the non-mythic casters being capable of so much. E6 cuts away levels in order to keep the game low-powered, when I'd rather do that cutting on spells, I don't really want to cut much, if anything, from existing martials at all.
I am so with you. Problem is a lot of folks really like fantasy turned up to 11. E6 is an ok fix but like you point out, it cuts over half the game out for those folks. You nerf spells and then you are turning down the fantasy for the folks who enjoy that element. Really modular design is the answer hopefully we will see a lot more of it going forward so everyone wins without having to have half a game.
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For me, it's a case of wanting a world that's "like ours, plus extra stuff". (snip)
My preferred reality is "cinematic realism" - people can get away with edge cases more often than they really ought to be able to due to uncanny luck "because that outcome makes a better story."
Same here.
I want a game supporting a world (including its inhabitants) with which I can relate to a minimum. I'm not all for realism but I refute the "but dragons!" and "PCs are gods amongs men" arguments as default and sole assuption, without being told "shut-up and play E6!" (although I'm willing to let go of level 16-20). I'm grateful that the game can do mundane easlily and that most magic/supernatural is more or less equivalent to good tech, so that pruning is realatively easy when necesary.
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Given the option of designing from the ground up, I'd probably do something like this:
Firstly, take the fighter as the baseline, and work everything else into balance with that as a base. Spells that obliterate massive amounts of everything, for example, will just be taken off the menu.
I want it to work in both directions.
Low-level Fighters should be able to apply various low-level conditions (like shaken or sickened) with mundane melee attacks (and not gated away for something only an 11th level Fighter can do with the proper feat *if* he scores a critical hit on an alternate Thursday with an improvised weapon...). At mid-levels, long before the hapless 'Critical Feats' would come into play, they should be able to inflict meatier temporary conditions, like staggered or blinded, on people. (New conditions that make someone flat-footed, or cause them to suffer a 20% miss chance on all targets for a round or so, or cause them to immediately provoke an AoO from those threatening them, could also be invented just to buff the melee fighter, as well as a 'Deadly Maneuvers' option to damage a foe *and* perform a maneuver, rather than giving up an attack for a chance at a combat maneuver.)
Spellcasters lower-level spells should *also* apply *low-level* conditions like shaken and sickened, but higher level conditions like nauseated and stunned and panicked should be available only at higher levels, and even higher levels if they are affecting large groups of people. The spellcaster will still be able to do all sorts of stuff that a Fighter can't (like applying one of those low-level debuffs to an entire area, using a weaker variation on stinking cloud, or messing with terrain / concealment / etc.), but won't be able to cast a 1st level spell and knock 2d4 Fighters of equal level down to asleep or as many as can fit into a 15 ft. cone unconscious with color spray.
Lots of sacred cows, such as the sleep spell, would need to be gutted and devoured for this, obviously, and if you go too far in this direction, you might just want to play 4th edition D&D, which already trends in this direction, with martials and casters doing the same basic thing, only using different techniques. (Which can be both a feature and a bug, obviously depending on how far it goes and your gut reaction on the subject matter...)
Making all the options be high end fantastic removes that option from the toolkit.Using 'less fantastic' mundanes results in the 'mundane' classes being measurably less powerful than the supernatural classes.
To use a comic book analogy, a party of adventurers is like the Justice League: a bunch of better-than-normal people with different powers working toward a more-or-less common goal. But if one guy is playing Batman and one guy is playing Superman, it is not the right time to worry about how many gizmos actually would fit in a utility belt: Batman, despite having 'no powers', needs be capable of some pretty damn impressive stuff, just to keep up and remain relevant.
(If you're not a DC fan, sub 'Avengers', 'Hawkeye', and 'Thor'.)
'Less fantastic' mundanes are certainly possible, but in doing so, you have to remove the most fantastic of the supernatural elements as well. One option might be to remove the 9th level casting classes (and thus spells like wish) from the game.
In short, Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. One can summon angels, the other rides a BMX!
But seriously now. I hated Tome of Weeaboo Fightin' Magicks purely for its aesthetics and mechanics. But at least it was a good-faith attempt to fix a long-standing problem, and admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. I certainly didn't complain that it replaced a couple of classes that needed replacing.
E6?
E6?
E6 is a variant rule where classes stop progressing at level 6 (when all full-casters get 3rd level spells.) After that, advancement is all via feats.
It means wizards get to be iconically wizardy with spells like fly, haste, and lightning bolt but stops them before they get sequence-breaking powers like teleport and plane shift.
And fighters get to be tough, but they never get so tough that a troll stops being scary.
For people who think the 'sweet spot' where the game is most fun is below 10th level, it can be a lot of fun.
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That really comes down to the specific RPG setting. The idea of a blue blood noble being able to wipe that blue blood onto any blade to turn it into a plus one sword with leadership bonuses...or a cleric being able to increase power by convincing the populace to worship them instead of a giant stone head.
Its all setting.
If it's possible for a character without wings to fly, I see no reason to believe a character is sufficiently tough enough to shrug off a fall from 50ft up.
I am of the mind that 10th is the absolute mortal peak (i.e. the most powerful NPC wizard in the world), and after that we start getting into demigod territory for all of the classes.
Which is also why I feel like Mythic tiers for unnecessary, but fine addition to the game besides.
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In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the classes not being perfectly balanced. Fighters fight...and when you look hard enough they can do som awesome things. They are masters of any weapon they pick up. Martials can attack many times faster than other classes. ... Think of it as super speed if you want.
...except if they move more than 5 feet. The casters can do their full-round thing, whether they move or stand still, tumbling, flying...
They can lift super human amounts of weight,
...no more so than anyone else. Carrying capacity is a function of the Str score. Their class contributes nothing to this.
jump 30ft gorges,
...no more so than anyone else. Jumping ability is a function of the Dex score and skill points spent. Their class contributes nothing to this. And in fact, in many cases, their class contributes less than it would if they were a class with more than 2 skills/level, or Int as a higher priority stat. Being a Fighter actively hinders their jumping ability.
survive being hit in the face by a giant,
...no more so than anyone else. Surviving hp damage is a function of Hit Die type, and the difference between a full BAB class and a 3/4 BAB class is a mere 1hp/level. The difference between a full BAB class and a 1/2 BAB class is a mere 2hp/level.
Their class contributes very little to this.Put another way, while your Fighter spent the morning doing 1000 squat thrusts, the casters sent their minds to the outer planes, communed with and forged bonds of allegiances with celestial and fiendish beings, to break asunder the boundaries between worlds, and come aid them at a moment's notice (yes, that's how badass preparing a single Summon Monster 1 actually is, in narrative terms. Now describe the other spells, in terms a mundane would view them. Now tell me which PC is cool, and which is lame.).
And after doing this, and living a totally sedentary life, sat on their ass, filling their face with the mediaeval equivalent of cheesypuffs and mountain dew, they're still only 1 or 2 hp behind your guy who made huge sacrifices of time, sweat and effort.
Somebody's being made to look a chump.
hold their breath under water forever.
...no more so than anyone else. Holding breath is a function of the Constitution score. Their class contributes absolutely nothing to this.
A depressing pattern keeps pushing its way into view, that every area of expertise claimed on behalf of the Fighter class turns out to have zero mechanics to back up the claims, or in some cases, is actively hindered by the choice of Fighter as a class.
There is no 'Carrying Super Heavy Loads' Fighter class ability.
A Str 18 Fighter carries the same gear as a Str 18 cleric.
And the Cleric also has spells.
There is no 'Leaping Huge Gorges' Fighter class ability.
A Dex14 Fighter leaps the same distance as a Dex 14 Druid.
Except the Druid can do so in kangaroo form, for extra oomph.
And the Druid has spells.
There is no 'Take More Damage' Fighter class ability.
He takes the same damage as any other full-BAB, d10 HD class, such as the Paladin.
And the paladin can swift-heal himself, and benefit from divine AC bonus, to avoid or mitigate what hits he takes.
And the Paladin has spells.
There is no 'Hold Breath Underwater Forever' Fighter class ability.
But there is a spell called Water Breathing, which the wizard can cast.
And if you give him the respect he expects, he may deign to cast it on you once in a while.
If the flavour write up of a class says it is good at something, then the mechanics of that class should provide the abiltiy to do that thing. Otherwise all you have is unsubstantiated claims.