D&D and discussions about game mechanics
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012 09:12 amMan! D&D last night was awesome. We fought our way through the rest of a dungeon. I might have more time to post the summary later today, so hopefully that'll catch us all up! Suffice it to say, despite a lack of Sabine, we had great fun! Also, Llewain spent most of the dungeon naked.
I've never participated in a game mechanics discussion very heatedly, but recently Danny's been questioning the way Turn Undead works in various editions (searching for the best), and also started considering potential alternatives to default handling for Wizards memorizing spells in D&D Basic up through D&D 3.5.
Turn Undead's come up because of the recent Legends and Lore post by Mike Mearls on the subject. As most of the responders, Danny's against the idea of the proposed 5th edition alteration that makes Turn Undead a class feature for all Clerics, and puts the effects of that feature in monster stats in the monster manual instead of the player's hand.
My personal opinion on the subject is somewhat simple, since I've only played a few clerics, and rarely played a cleric built around the ability to Turn Undead.
1. Not every cleric worships a deity who gives a shit about the undead. Some deities like the undead, too. Some clerics are evil. So why should turn undead be a class feature? This only severely limits a class that is currently one of the most varied and potentially interesting.
2. The defense "Undead aren't scary enough because Clerics can turn them" brings up two big problems for me. Most important is this: the game is not about keeping the DM's monsters alive because they're oh so cool! Yes, we all want our badass villain to be appreciated and respected by the players. We all also know that the average tabletop player is gleefully irreverent. You know how in 80's movies, the characters are ALWAYS cheesily sassing the villains, even when the villains totally outclass them? Yes, well, most people default to that attitude when playing tabletop. You can take away their power to get rid of the undead without slogging, level-drained and annoyed, through a two-hour battle, but you can't take away their power to snark at you and your monsters. I assure you that a party that HAS to fight the undead, even if they'd rather be able to crush them instantly or run away, is going to be a lot snarkier (and likely sulkier) than a party granted all three options.
3. Undead are not the majority of the enemies I encounter in D&D. I know this must vary from DM to DM, but in the games where I have played Clerics, here's how it actually went down.
Iron Kingdoms (Witchfire Trilogy, reimagined by DM): Most enemies were living or robots; when undead appeared, I could only turn them 1/5 or 1/6 times because I was level 2 and the enemies were level 10. Literally. (The DM later told us as much, impressed we hadn't been murdered yet.)
Kingdoms of Kalamar: We encountered no undead at all. That was fine, since my Cleric was a Cleric of freedom and travel.
4E module (Keep on the Shadowfell): A couple of Undead encounters. I was able to turn some basic zombies when we were deep inside the Keep and trying to rest, but on other attempts I missed.
D&D Basic module (First Quest): Used Turn Undead twice to keep an Undead encounter from attacking us. Instead of fighting them, we walked past (pressed for time) and completed the task needed to save our lives. On the way back, did the same. We walked past, rested in a safer room, and left.
Notably, in all four of these examples, we still had to fight quite a few things that weren't undead. Faced with these, I had no means to send them packing.
4. The power isn't 100% reliable as written in most editions. Generally, even though in AD&D the power says: Cleric can turn up to 2d6 undead creatures if the attack succeeds and hits, that means only once every thirty-six battles is a cleric going to be able to do their max turning (assuming, of course, that they even succeed at hitting the enemies). Furthermore, the chart for the ability also states which level of Undead you can turn based on your own level. The enemies are ALSO only turned in order of weakest to strongest. So say you have six undead, and a level six cleric Turns them. Well, that Cleric rolls low, only a three. Not only does that Cleric only turn the three zombies, that means that the Cleric has now drawn the attention of the remaining three vampires, or whatever. That's nothing to sneeze at!
When you get right down to it, as far as I can tell the complaint about Turn Undead essentially equates to this: 'Players have the ability to surprise the DM with this skill, and can alter the course of the game. I don't feel like they should be able to do so so easily.'
As a DM, and having heard from other DMs, I can honestly say that the best moments in running a game ARE when the players surprise you. It can be kind of boring to be stuck playing arbiter otherwise. Moments where the players do unusually well or hilariously poorly are the moments that everyone remembers about their games, DM and player alike. Trying to take that out of the realm of possibility sounds like anything but fun.
Anyway. Oof, I'm extremely tired today and I'm not precisely certain why.
I've never participated in a game mechanics discussion very heatedly, but recently Danny's been questioning the way Turn Undead works in various editions (searching for the best), and also started considering potential alternatives to default handling for Wizards memorizing spells in D&D Basic up through D&D 3.5.
Turn Undead's come up because of the recent Legends and Lore post by Mike Mearls on the subject. As most of the responders, Danny's against the idea of the proposed 5th edition alteration that makes Turn Undead a class feature for all Clerics, and puts the effects of that feature in monster stats in the monster manual instead of the player's hand.
My personal opinion on the subject is somewhat simple, since I've only played a few clerics, and rarely played a cleric built around the ability to Turn Undead.
1. Not every cleric worships a deity who gives a shit about the undead. Some deities like the undead, too. Some clerics are evil. So why should turn undead be a class feature? This only severely limits a class that is currently one of the most varied and potentially interesting.
2. The defense "Undead aren't scary enough because Clerics can turn them" brings up two big problems for me. Most important is this: the game is not about keeping the DM's monsters alive because they're oh so cool! Yes, we all want our badass villain to be appreciated and respected by the players. We all also know that the average tabletop player is gleefully irreverent. You know how in 80's movies, the characters are ALWAYS cheesily sassing the villains, even when the villains totally outclass them? Yes, well, most people default to that attitude when playing tabletop. You can take away their power to get rid of the undead without slogging, level-drained and annoyed, through a two-hour battle, but you can't take away their power to snark at you and your monsters. I assure you that a party that HAS to fight the undead, even if they'd rather be able to crush them instantly or run away, is going to be a lot snarkier (and likely sulkier) than a party granted all three options.
3. Undead are not the majority of the enemies I encounter in D&D. I know this must vary from DM to DM, but in the games where I have played Clerics, here's how it actually went down.
Iron Kingdoms (Witchfire Trilogy, reimagined by DM): Most enemies were living or robots; when undead appeared, I could only turn them 1/5 or 1/6 times because I was level 2 and the enemies were level 10. Literally. (The DM later told us as much, impressed we hadn't been murdered yet.)
Kingdoms of Kalamar: We encountered no undead at all. That was fine, since my Cleric was a Cleric of freedom and travel.
4E module (Keep on the Shadowfell): A couple of Undead encounters. I was able to turn some basic zombies when we were deep inside the Keep and trying to rest, but on other attempts I missed.
D&D Basic module (First Quest): Used Turn Undead twice to keep an Undead encounter from attacking us. Instead of fighting them, we walked past (pressed for time) and completed the task needed to save our lives. On the way back, did the same. We walked past, rested in a safer room, and left.
Notably, in all four of these examples, we still had to fight quite a few things that weren't undead. Faced with these, I had no means to send them packing.
4. The power isn't 100% reliable as written in most editions. Generally, even though in AD&D the power says: Cleric can turn up to 2d6 undead creatures if the attack succeeds and hits, that means only once every thirty-six battles is a cleric going to be able to do their max turning (assuming, of course, that they even succeed at hitting the enemies). Furthermore, the chart for the ability also states which level of Undead you can turn based on your own level. The enemies are ALSO only turned in order of weakest to strongest. So say you have six undead, and a level six cleric Turns them. Well, that Cleric rolls low, only a three. Not only does that Cleric only turn the three zombies, that means that the Cleric has now drawn the attention of the remaining three vampires, or whatever. That's nothing to sneeze at!
When you get right down to it, as far as I can tell the complaint about Turn Undead essentially equates to this: 'Players have the ability to surprise the DM with this skill, and can alter the course of the game. I don't feel like they should be able to do so so easily.'
As a DM, and having heard from other DMs, I can honestly say that the best moments in running a game ARE when the players surprise you. It can be kind of boring to be stuck playing arbiter otherwise. Moments where the players do unusually well or hilariously poorly are the moments that everyone remembers about their games, DM and player alike. Trying to take that out of the realm of possibility sounds like anything but fun.
Anyway. Oof, I'm extremely tired today and I'm not precisely certain why.
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