The Right Tools
I’ve noticed something since I started serving my time on the dark side of the DM screen. Over the years I’ve seen my fair share of monsters splattered across the battlefield. On rare occasions I’ll bear witness to that perfect strike, when the desperate PCs deal exactly enough damage to fell the monster before it can get another attack. More often than not, however, the killing blow will deal way, way more damage than necessary. Critical hits are exciting and all, but when your Profession (crit-fisherman) character deals 90 damage to a 30 hp ogre, it strikes me as overkill. Combine this with the common complaint of “fighters are boring” and I begin to suspect that the damage-dealing characters of the world have been prioritizing the wrong abilities.
When it comes to martial character optimization, the conversation often begins and ends with “how do we deal the most damage possible?” That is indeed a fighting man’s primary job in combat. But at some point, we’ve got to recognize that a greatsword and power attack are enough to make any barbarian relevant (at least in 3.X terms. Your system may vary in the specifics). My point is that, when there are hit points afoot, very few parties are going to have real trouble with damage output. There is always a way to kill the monster. But maybe, just maybe, those boring fighters would be less boring if we devoted feats and powers to utility rather than “deal more damage.”
What do you think? Do we as a community overemphasize damage output at the expense of a well-rounded character? Sound off in the comments!
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“[…] it strikes me as overkill. ”
Oh, great, you’re one of THOSE people, aren’t you? The self appointed alignment watchman, enforcing their arbitrary rules on others! Seriously, if I never hear another word about “Deescalation of violence”, or “But he surrendered”, or “Maybe we shouldn’t burn the whole village ’cause that one kid looked at you funny?”, it will be too soon!
I suspect an unstated /s is buried in there.
By all means, go ahead and burn down the orphanage. I’m just suggesting that it may be more fun to do so as a lore warden…
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/lore-warden/
…rather than as a two-handed fighter archetype:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/two-handed-fighter/
Ah yes, the Poe’s Law of Roleplaying: “Not sure if sarcastic or just a murderhobo”
It’s a conundrum! On the one hand, I want Poe to have a larger part in the Episode VIII. On the other hand, I dread the ambivalence of the ensuing forum posts.
…b-but damage is best battlefield control. Enemies can’t attack you when they’re dead…unless they’re a balor, but that’s just one explosion.
On a more topical note, if a character had the need to be well-rounded there wouldn’t be party roles or even classes for that matter. If their role is to deal damage, then by all means, let them bring out their big bucket o’ d6s.
Here’s what I’m thinking when I say this. I was running in Exalted 2e (a classless game) when I watched a buddy build a combat monster. His build was all martial arts all the time, had great defenses, and dealt respectable damage. He had no way to contribute outside of combat though. As soon as the talky scene started, he wound up sitting there bored to tears.
I think that can happen in a classed game as well. Speaking for myself, I try to answer three questions when I build a character: What will I do in combat? What will I do in social encounters? What will I do in downtime? I don’t think it needs to be much, but it does need to be *something.* And I’m willing to shave a point our two off of my fighter’s damage output so that he can intimidate properly or actually make that engineering check during exploration. This one’s a personal favorite:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/breadth-of-experience/
Such a character may not be optimized for damage output, but I find it’s a lot more interesting to play. YMMV, but I think it’s at least worth considering.
Wow, I love that feat already! I have a question tho: if I choose to give this as a free feat to characters that have been on the path of adventure for a long time, do you think it would generally incentivize out-of-combat character building or deincentivize it?
Retroactivity is a proud tradition in gaming:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html
Just start referencing “that summer when I worked in the kitchens of Blarg Largemeats.” BAM! Instant cooking skill.
I wouldn’t give it as a free skill though. The thing basically says “gain +80 skill ranks,” and it can be relevant for Kirin Style, Lore Wardens, and similar “knowledge is literal power” types. Moreover, people tend not to value things that are free, and this otherwise extremely flavorful feat could become another dumb numerical bonus.
Balors and also aurak draconians…And the undead
Why Mr. Stabby, you’re looking positively divine. 😛
I don’t think that’s Mr. Stabby, but I doubt it’s a good-aligned weapon if it’s in Fighter’s hands… He wouldn’t like the permanent negative level until he dropped it. 😛
Honestly I’m not sure if it would be the Fighter or the Sword that get’s the penalty…
“Blood. :)”
–Mr. Stabby
Honestly, there’s no such kill as overkill. You want crit fishing? Try a cyclopean seer battle oracle wielding a custom made battle scythe, forgoing the trip weapon ability for 2d6 damage. Apply a couple buffs and maybe a power attack, and you are looking at a character who can do upwards of 80+ damage in a single attack, once a day…. And that’s just scratching the surface of what such a character with only 14 STR can do.
Honestly, it’s only natural for people to do such things, given the right reasons.
Dude still has to confirm. 😛
I hear a lot of complaints about “published modules are too easy” and “fighters are boring.” Put those two things together and I think it points towards a world where gamers do more damage than the system expects. Like I said, dealing 90 damage to a 30 hp ogre is overkill. It may be hilarious the first few times, but devoting a build to that one silly swing has a high opportunity cost.
Sure fighters are “boring” but they do their job well: Hold off the cannon fodder while the specialty guys prepare to sweep the field. I suppose the fighter could be something special with the right feats, and/or a dip into brawler for that oh so great martial flexibility.
At least I’m not using a vorpal scythe and a cyclops helmet. That’d be two guaranteed kills a day. But nonetheless, an auto hit called shot on, say, the heart will have some devastating effect.
Ooh… That oracle would be deadly with the called shot rules. I never played with them myself, but that does sound gnarly.
And all this just for the sake of being a devil slayer, to get back at the archdevil who cursed me to begin with.
However, sadly, I looked over it again, and saw this….
Automatic Hits: Some effects in the game, like true strike or the flash of insight ability of cyclopes, provide automatic or nearly automatic hits. Using such an ability on a called shot turns it into a normal attack, with none of the benefits or penalties associated with called shots.
Unfortunately, it won’t work.
Thus the day was saved by lawful good rules lawyering.
Personally, I always disapproved of making truestrike completely ineffective with Called Shots.
Maxim 37: There is no overkill. There is only “open fire” and “reload.”
On a more serious note, I think the biggest problem is that the system forces you to choose between “combat effectiveness” and “utility/social interactions.” If you choose, say, Skill Focus: Diplomacy, that’s a feat that isn’t going to a feat that makes you better at smashing stuff really hard. As much as I prefer PoW and ToB to vanilla fighters, they still don’t address that problem; they just add more versatility to combat (with a dash of utility from, say, teleportation maneuvers). 5e sort of addresses it by giving fighters a ribbon ability at 7th, but that is a very small adress to the larger problem.
On the one hand, I can see why the system does it. It has the tools where you can choose how to build your character. If you want a Jack of all Trades you can make one, but he won’t be as good at smashing stuff as Bonecrusher the Eviscerator. OTOH, because people almost always travel in parties there is a high incentive to specialize, be very good at what you do, and let others handle what they are good at. Mechanically it’s usually better to have a party where each is highly specialized in an area than one where everyone is mediocre at everything.
I’m wondering if one solution is to strictly divide combat and non-combat mechanics and give both as characters advance. Say, when you get feats you get two, but one must be spent to make you better at killing and one must be spent on utility or social. Similarly, you get abilities when you level up then make you better at both, but when a choice is available it is again strictly divided into combat and non-combat. This way players can give their guys more utility and stuff to do in social encounters without feeling they are weakening their character’s core focus.
I’m guessing you’re thinking of the “Background Skills” system?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/background-skills/
Expanding that to the feat system is an interesting idea. I wonder what a “background feat” would look like? How often would you get them? Etc.
I agree with Bill here. The problem is that you’re being forced to choose between combat effectiveness and other stuff. But it’s worse than it sounds just saying that. You KNOW combat will occur often enough to matter. But any given module or GM might cause your focus on diplomacy/fishing/smithing/utility spells to barely ever if at all have a moment to shine. It’s just hard to convince yourself it’s worth giving up feeling more awesome/competent at something that’s a core focus for things that have the possibility of doing nothing you couldn’t have done with a single sentence in your backstory saying you’re interested in those things.
I do agree that splitting combat stuff and non-combat stuff into two distinctly separate categories would be good. In fact I once designed a system based on that idea. You had Classes (your combat stuff) and Jobs (your non-combat stuff), because once you’re separating the two things there’s really no reason to say the Fighter can’t just as easily be a scholar as he can be a chef or a animal trainer.
At the very least you would never have the problem of “Fighters are boring” because you’d always be more than just a fighter.
I think part of the issue may be with the way adventures are designed. You can’t be sure that a given adventure will have a use for Knowledge (geography), but in the right game that could be extremely useful. Maybe this could be solved with more robust “player introduction” documents that detail the kinds of skills likely to see play?
Otherwise, it falls to the players to make their skills come up, and sometimes that can seem a bit forced.
That’s a good idea for pre-made adventures, but doesn’t help much with original work as most of the time if you asked the GM themself what they plan to put in the game they’d give you a bunch of vague answers and maybes about things. Certainly I have no idea what will come up and how often in the games I run.
The issue I think is more so with the systems, how they’re designed, and the expectations of players.
There’s an expectation (usually well founded) that D&D will heavily feature combat and dungeon delving, especially given the legacy of the game. Premade adventures certainly feature plenty of it, but it’s also usually the biggest part of homebrew adventures in my experience.
And when it comes to RPG systems they’re very often built on combat, and combat is by its nature versatile. It doesn’t usually matter how you get your enemies HP to 0, because the result is the same. Contrast with for example social abilities:
Firstly, the rules have to be more vague because social interaction is much harder to map than hitting things until they’re dead.
Secondly, the way you approach a social situation can massively.impact how it plays out – diplomacy vs intimidation can produce massively different outcomes.
And even outside of social situations, the fact that skills are often so specific compared to combat abilities means that the situations also come up much more rarely.
In other words I guess, the systems and expectations mean that combat is typically the ‘universally applicable abilities’ where everything else feels like kind of an afterthought at worst and really specific at best. Hopefully that makes sense.
It makes a lot of sense, actually.
In fact, it makes me wonder if the “background skills” concept ought to become a bigger part of fantasy adventure gaming in general.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/background-skills/
People will actually take these abilities if they get them for “free.” The problem is making sure that they’re still interesting and evocative without necessarily contributing to combat effectiveness. Because the second they give you bonuses to hit things, they’re just another bauble for the optimizers, which compounds the problem of “fighters are boring.”
It’s really just a difference between the Fluff and the Crunch. Fighting purely involves Crunch, and that’s what’s on the sheet. So, people make the sheet work for Crunching. The large bulk of decision making, as well as Fluff, as well as getting circumstance bonuses or opting to talk to anyone at all, is dependent on the players themselves. It doesn’t even take a Diplomacy roll to chat up an innkeeper and ask where the local gaol is, just a couple of expensive drinks and you keep the fly-gathering half orc outside.
Now, if you want to know who’s in -charge- of the hoosegow or whatnot, Diplomacy might help, certainly. That’s the player decision to involve Crunch in the Fluff situation, though. Diplomancers like Fabio Schmoozynuts make a career out of turning Fluff into well diced Crunch souffle. The player decision to do that is the same one as the guy playing Rokthor Pikebreaker deciding that his spear is the spear that will pierce the heavens.
From another angle, we can’t emphasize Overkill too much, because we’re team players. Trying to be elegant with it means that we’re subject to dice rolls for success, and that means that Underkill is a distinct possibility that puts our companions at risk, one they wouldn’t be at if we opted to murder the babau twice as hard as it needed to be murdered.
BRB. Making a character named Fabio Schmoozynuts.
He and his dwarven buddy Hamsmack McSlabthump are notorious in their respective fields.
I’m running through LMoP with a group of new players, and i’m trying to disabuse them of the notion that combat is pure crunch. Minor LMoP details below.
* I talked our way out of the goblin ambush.
* We engineered a goblin revolution in Cragmaw Hideout.
* We killed three Redbrands, took their cloaks, used them to infiltrate the group.
* We struck a deal with the Nothic instead of fighting it.
* Between the cloaks and the Nothic, we tricked the other Redbrands and the bugbears into coming alone or in small groups to the Nothic’s part of the cave, where we could kill them and dispose of them in one go.
It’s been a blast. =)
In 5e, most AL a games force the Standard Array on you. So even if you’re not so good in social role-play, you can still contribute. If you’re bored to tears because you’re not like Fighter, & killing something till it’s a bloody smear on the wall, that may be a problem for you as a player.
Now, let me flip that coin over. As a DM, your job is to tell a story. You narrate, but you don’t want your players to get too comfy. That’s understandable. But if you’re not gonna tell your players, “That bloodied goblin over there only has about 3-4 HP left”, don’t get bent out of shape if Conan the Barbarian decides to leap forward & bring that Greatsword of Crom down on the poor thing. Players have no way of knowing if that thing is playing possum, or is really that wounded. Both sides have to have a little give & take here.
I think that may be at the heart of the issue for me. On my side of the screen I can see characters doing way, WAY more damage than necessary to beat the encounter. If the big numbers are awesome for the player, then that’s all well and good. But I also hear complaints about martial characters being uninteresting. That’s what makes me wonder about recalibrating damage output expectations.
I wonder if it would be worth my while to track encounters in terms of overkill. Maybe I could see how much less damage the PCs could do and still get away with the same result…
That’s an idea. I usually show health bars when I DM on Roll20, so my players know I’m not bluffing when I say, “That Ogre isn’t gonna be standing too much longer.” That way, they don’t waste a turn doing a Perception check, or thinking, “It’s still standing! Destroy it!” Still, I think Fighter would steal that Greatsword of Crom from Conan, & just go all out on a critter.
Personally I understand that fully, which is why my characters have been starting to diversify their utility. For instance, my favorite character I currently play is a level 11 Bloodrager/Dragon Disciple with 1/3 of her feats being Dazzling Display, Cornugon Smash, and Signature Skill (Intimidate). Yeah she does plenty of damage with her 3d6 natural weapons, but her real contributions so far in this module have been Panicking every enemy that gets in her way, and honestly seeing half the enemy group turn tail and flee for their lives is pretty much just as satisfying as actually getting the kill.
Just had to choose between magus and occultist for a game. I wound up opting for the latter. It’s got far less burst damage, but its tricks are far more flavorful. Fingers crossed that it was the right call. 🙂
Not exactly a tale of overkill, but of just enough kill, and the problems that brought. In our RQ campaign we came accross a refugee family (mother with 4 children), and added them to the party. The oldest child, a boy, wanted to help us in defending his family, so in several fights he participated. And lo and behold, his short sword stab, (1d4 damage I believe) would be the final damage aht would kill the enemy. So he started to beleive his sword was a surefire monster killer!
Untill that fatefull day, when we encountered a larger then normal enemy. After we all attacked the boy steps up, and says something like “My sword will take care of it!”, and stabbing with his sword. He did do damage, but the enemy monster was not even halfway on its hitpoints so no joy. I believe the last thing the boy said was something like: “It’s broken….” before the monster killed him.
I love overkill. It’s fun. I can do the talky stuff, but imaging a 2 foot 7 halfling that only weighs 27 pounds charging up on a boar and slicing dragons into ribbons is just fantastic.
But I am considering retraining Broken Wing Gambit and Butterfly’s Sting. I never use them. Don’t HAVE to use them. I can retrain Butterfly’s Sting into anything I want, but BWG was a Hunter Bonus Feat, which means I have to retrain it with a Teamwork feat. No idea which feat to use though. I already have Outflank, Pack Flanking, Paired Opportunists, Precise Strike, Stealth Synergy, and Shake It Off.
Now see, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Once you get to XYZ level of competence, anything else is overkill. That’s when you go in for utility options:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/bonded-mind-teamwork/
I don’t know about you, but an empathic boar spy sounds hilarious to me.
I will keep that in mind. We actually reached level 17 two weeks ago. Instead of another offense feat, I took Divine Interference. The GM will never be able to crit again! Mwahahahahahaha!
Ooh, maybe Scarred Legion. +2 to Intimidate and Will saves.
Seems appropriate for a war pig.
And it stacks with Shake It Off.
Well, I retrained Broken Wing Gambit into Scarred Legion. I’ll retrain Butterfly’s Sting the next time we have downtime.
Shikigami Style Vital Strike – Nuff Said about my dice numbers.
How does it stack up to that funky cave druid vital strike build?
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pz40&page=1?The-Conquerer-Ooze
I’ve heard that you start with a sledgehammer as an improvised earthbreaker, but I’ve never heard what the numbers look like on the far side of the shikigami build.
The problem is that it isn’t efficient for fighters in most games to do anything but fight. Their stat needs don’t line up with fun skills, they don’t have interesting class skills, they don’t get many skill points, and for most skills it doesn’t pay to diversify as you level because the DCs scale with you. You can invest heavily to be merely bad instead of hopeless, but only in a very few skills and it guts your combat potential because it generally denies you your dump stats as well as taking your feats to overcome the class skill disparity.
The whole paradigm of the fighting man is broken.
I’ve got a buddy running a big dumb guy in Starfinder (vesk soldier). This thing helps: https://www.starjammersrd.com/the-basics/character-themes/spacefarer/
Same dealer with background skills: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/background-skills/
Or with lore warden: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/lore-warden-pfs-field-guide/
Not everybody wants these options, but I appreciate the attempts at a fix for those of us that do.
Gods yes. Casters rule because they can do almost anything, with the right spell. Fighters are limited to what a dude at the gym can do. It’s lame, bad enough that my recent fighter/rogue picked Eldritch Knight as his fighter subclass just so he was more than a pointy sword.
Well, and because I missed my booming blade rogue from the campaign that was cancelled for COVID-19. But utility spells are just fun.