D&D and the Strategy Guide concept

[ethan_greer]

So, after a couple of months hiatus, my biweekly D&D group got together on Saturday.  We're going through the Adventure Path modules and are currently tackling Lord of the Iron Fortress (15th level).  This is bog-standard hide-bound D&D 3.5, which is actually where the game really shines.  I've found that if you play D&D as it was meant to be played, and are on board with the whole "kill monsters and take their stuff" theme of the game, it can be awesome entertainment.  Or it can suck ass.  This bears some explanation.

See, I'm playing the group's tank.  In the previous couple of sessions, I'd been noticing a significant drop-off in my character's effectiveness in the big fights.  I was hitting less often and getting taken out of commission more often.  The sessions were becoming less and less fun for me the higher the party rose in experience levels.  Bottom line is, I had made some poor choices with feats and skills, and now I was paying the consequences in decreased effectiveness.  And let me tell you, decreased effectiveness in this type of play is just no fun at all.

So, with the GM's permission, I decided to rework my character.  I wasn't particularly looking forward to this process.  See, I'm a casual D&D player; going through pages and pages of feats, skills, magic items, etc. for hours on end concocting the ultimate combos and such is not my cup of tea.  I just want to roll some dice and kick ass, with the occasional role-playing here and there.  And what should come out just around this time but the Power Gamer's 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide.  A timely release indeed.  Basically, it did all of the work for me.  All I had to do was read it and follow the guidelines.  An hours-long process was reduced to about an hour (not counting the time it took to read the book, which was another couple hours for my slow-reading self).

And in our latest session, my character was kicking ass again.  Life is good.

The moral of the story is, D&D, more than any other game I've played, relies heavily on player knowledge of the system as a key component of its enjoyment.  Players who know the system well enough to maximize their character effectiveness have more fun, period.  Learning the system to that degree is very rewarding, but also very time consuming.  For the casual player like me, the "strategy guide" approach is a wonderful idea.

[Ben Lehman]

I have always gotten the same service out of fellow PCs but, yes, long-term decision making is vitally important to D&D3 play, and fucking up early on can suck for long term effectiveness and, thus, enjoyment of the game.  This is, I think, the big hole in 3e as it is designed -- you really have to plan characters from level 1 all the way through level 20 to get decent mileage out of the game.  More trouble than I care to take without aid.

I'm glad to hear that people are finally making strategy guides for the game.  "Sword and Fist" had some tantalizing bits about character planning and when to flurry vs. strike for monks, but those were not replicated in later books, replaced by much less useful material.

yrs--
--Ben

[ethan_greer]

That reminds me: The strategy guide was also useful during play. Since there are many strategic decisions that get made during a combat, it was nice to have some guidance, particularly in reference to the Power Attack feat (which allows you to take a penalty on your to-hit for an increase in damage). It wasn't just a char-gen book.

I hope this will start a trend and we start seeing strategy guides for spell-casters, and perhaps strategy info included with new material such as feats, classes (core and prestige) and spells. I might be more willing to look into non-core material if that were the case, and hell, I might even venture to play a non-warrior.

[NN]

are you for real - or is this some type of subtle grognard satire?

[ethan_greer]

Hi NN,
Nope, I'm totally serious. No sarcasm intended. I'm not 100% certain what you thought I was being sarcastic about, but I'm guessing it was the "venture to play a non-warrior" comment. In that case, the background info there is that, in general, I loathe playing spell-casters. Part of the reason for that loathing is an unwillingness to learn all the umpty-bazillion cool spells and how to use them. A strategy guide for spell casters would help immensely in that regard.

[ErrathofKosh]

Then you would know when to attack the darkness with Magical Missile...
:)

I would like something that helped in the creation and playing of hybrid characters like my bard/druid.  Often I make the mistake of taking or improving the wrong feats/skills...

Cheers,
Jonathan

(sorry for the bad joke...)

[NN]

but, if you like the challenge of character creation, a strategy guide is sort of cheating, and if you dont, it just magnifies what you dont like..

[b_bankhead]

I'm going to bookmark this thread as occasionally I still run into people who try to claim that the present incarnation of D&D is a good game for introducing noobs to this hobby.

I mean you need an entire book to design a decent FIGHTER? Good night , and fighers are supposed to be D&D's SIMPLE class!

Gimme Trollbabe any day! Pick one number and you're ready to roll, now that's what I call a beginners game.

[Bankuei]

Hi guys,

D&D bashing aside, its best to look at D&D 3.0 + as being a very successful application of Magic: The Gathering's strategy;  Character creation and development is its own strategy, much like building a Magic deck, and then you have the actual play itself.  

I believe ethan's point is that he enjoys the tactical play itself rather than the long term strategizing, in which case, the strategy book gives options much like preconstructed decks.  And as far as the actual play tactics given, its no more "cheating" than a chess book is to chess.

Chris

[ethan_greer]

What Chris (Bankuei) said. I don't want to solve the system, I just want to play.

[Bill C. Cook]

I think a strategy guide approach for RPG's is legitimate and fruitful. I assume it would be more appropriate for Gamist systems or the pie slice of crunch for others. I'm thinking of TROS. They have those Advice from an Old Bladeslinger sidebars.

I know I only truly began to excel with Starcraft: Brood Wars (and thereby, far more fully enjoy) after several trips to starcraftuniversity.com. (Which, unfortunately, the site's no longer up.)

Come to think of it, that'd just be a killer section on any particular game's website: top strategies for a certain approach. That's what used to jazz me most about the Duelist when M:TG was still insanely popular: the card combo strategy breakdowns of the latest set. I'd read 'em, build a deck around 'em, and kick my friends' asses; and everyone thought I was ingenious:)

[ethan_greer]

The more I think about it, the more I think the M:TG comparison with D&D is pretty much dead-on. (And yeah, those old issues of the Duelist rocked!)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ethan,

I want more actual play meat. Here's what I really wanna know.

What were the character's feats and skills at the very beginning of play?

What were they when you ran into the brick wall of "my guy sucks"?

What were they converted to such that suckage no longer obtains?

Best,
Ron

[Grover]

Am I a gamist or what? :)  I looked at the sample chapter that they had on the web, and immediately started disagreeing with their ratings of various feats :)  Particularly, Whirlwind Attack isn't nearly as useful as they claim it is, and Improved Grapple has offensive as well as defensive moves.  If you're interested in honing your skills at tweaking characters, check out www.rpol.net - in the arena games, particularly,  The Proving Grounds.  There you can learn truly munchkin techniques, such as the proper abuse of grappling, and  how to use Simalacrum for fun and profit :)

[Mike Holmes]

Here's the question I have: what sort of challenge ratings were being used as a guage of the party's effectiveness? That is, you mention Lord of the Iron Fortress being 15th level - was your character 15th level?

If your character was 15th level, were the others? If they were, then did they seem to have the problems that you did? If they didn't, were these players more intensely interested in the planning part of the game such that they made characters that were more suitable in power for the level indicated?

What I'm getting at is that I'm wondering if this is a matter of your character not measuring up to the challenges provided, or to the aplomb with which the other PCs were handling the challenges. Can you see why the difference is important?

Lastly, how do the other players seem to be handling the idea of you getting to rework your character with aid? See the pertinence of this question?

Mike