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Better don’t give martials any weapons and casters no spellcasting then… (ttrpg.network)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/rpgmemes@ttrpg.network
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[–] 13 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Based on the other comments, some DMs seem to have an issue with that. Did they give a reason? I am extremely confused because I'm pretty sure that's not just the archetype, but also just RAW for rogue. Is there some ambiguity in the wording of the class that I'm just missing?

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  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    "it seems silly that you can just go around the corner and suddenly you're hidden. They know you're there"

    This was rebutted with "they know I'm somewhere over there, but not exactly where or when I'm going to pop out. I'm a 7th level rogue, I'm sure I have tricks you and I can't even think of".

    Sometimes people get like selectively simulationist. They'll ignore most of the game's gamey bits (inventory management, hit points and recovery, magic) but some things throw them off. Usually things that are closer to lived reality. For example, someone having no problem with a wizard hypnotizing an entire room, but balking at a fighter climbing a tall fence.

    There was also: "It seems like a lot of damage..."

    "I'm pretty sure rogue is balanced around doing sneak attack almost every round. The fighter gets multiple attacks, but I don't. Almost every other class gets a resource to burn like spell points or ki points or superiority dice. I have nothing. All I do is sneak attack. Without it, I'm a particularly accurate peasant that can run away real good. And I still miss about a quarter of the time, which means my whole turn accomplishes nothing"

    I wonder if the DMG or something published expected damage per round or per encounter somewhere.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

    I actually don’t like the "magic exist so fuck simulatiounism" reasoning, since it implies that as soon as magic exists, any rational explanations are off the table. I generally prefer to establish what can and can’t be done, so we have as baseline for what’s possible. Otherwise you quickly loose consistency. Martials should be able to do more than regular people in our world, but there should be guidelines on what they can do.

    Yes the game is not a simulation. But I prefer using examples aside from magic. Magic is not simplification for game purposes, magic is part of the setting. Things like HP, the turn order and armor class vs. saving throws generally work better as comparisons.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Well, thankfully I included examples other than magic.

    However, I do think trying too hard on "martials should be like real life" easily leads to harsher limitations for them. It's not always intentional. But when someone says "I want to leap 15 feet over the chasm" some people get all "you can't do that! I can barely jump five feet and I'm athletic (they're not)" and you have a whole digression where someone looks up human records and then argues about if 16 strength is really Olympic class and what about all your equipment and blah blah blah.

    It's much rarer for that kind of argument to come up with wizard types, in my experience.

    Clearer rules up front help, though I feel like half of DND players have never read the rules.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Personally I prefer the "classes should feel comparably powerful/capable" model to simulationism. Since we aren't going full locked tomb and saying that mages are all basically chronically ill, I extend it to martials are folk hero strength. A mid level rogue should be capable of Robin Hood level bullshit.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Our group found the rogue took as long to take their turn as everyone else put together, but we never disallowed anything, we just stopped picking rogues as much. More experienced groups could probably handle the rolls quickly.

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