Slash's character, combat, etc.

Hi all-

This post is about combat in general but it's really in answer to Slash's question on the Q and A post from last week.

To sum up,

1. Slash has determined that fighting with a weapon in each hand is not good.
2. Big weapons do a lot more damage, but even a long sword would be better.
3. The best way to go with this would be a half orc 1st level barbarian, 4th level fighter.
4. He's worried that the character would be too much like Lynn's.
5. He's hoping to hear all of your thoughts on the subject of what the party needs.

So...ahem, on point 4...YES. Two spell casters in the group is fine in that they have different spells and thus present a bit of variation of play. Not to mention that one of the wizards is doing double duty as a thief, but two 1/2 orc fighters armed almost exactly the same and with nearly the same feats is going to be redundant

But first let me say a few thing. First of all, combat in Dungeons and Dragons, even before dice are thrown, is an incredibly complex organism full of multiple variables. It is seemingly the most difficult part of dungeons and dragons to get a hold of and also elicits the greatest celebration when someone "gets it" (actual roleplaying is, I think harder, but also more rewarding). The problem is that their are different levels of getting it; combat in D and D is incredibly tactically complex. Take whatever you can imagine about simple swordplay (fencing is an Olympic sport after all), add to that all other martial weapons, and then just because it is isn't complex enough just yet, add in other variables, like magical attacks, magical augmentation, magical healing, and all other varieties of magical nastiness to boot. Oh yeah, and then stage the combat in strange locales like cramped dungeons, cliffsides, on the back of a Pegasus.

To reduce combat, then, to a "hit roll" and an "amount of damage," again even before dice are thrown, is extremely oversimplified. Problems are likely to come up, some already have. In thinking in terms of going toe to toe with the monster, you immediately put a strain on the cleric who has to use up the greater portion of their powers for healing. Giving up Monster Summoning for healing is a sign that something has gone wrong. Not horribly wrong, but wrong nonetheless. With this mentality in place, the wizard's list of spells becomes bottle necked. Why get anything that doesn't do direct damage? And continuing on in that thought process, why not just be a fighter? Who needs magic missile when you have a two handed sword?

But in this way of thinking, consider immediately your adversary. A group of fifth level characters can expect to meet 3 ogres. Last night, one such ogre nearly killed the barbarian. Bad rolls? Not particularly. If that ogre zombie had managed to survive one more round of fighting the entire party, you would have needed a raise dead spell. Imagine what would have happened if the two fighters, in attempting to chop down the ogre, had left two more ogres to go toe to toe with the two wizards and the cleric. Ogres hit for about 16 pts. of damage around...average.

And that was me playing the zombie ogre stupid (which it is). Imagine such a creature if it knows how to cleave, disarm, flank, or take advantage of attacks of opportunity.

Though every combat is, in essence, some variation of the "chop the monster down" tactic, relying solely on such a tactic is likely to become a bloodbath fairly quick--and for both sides. I think that's what happens when you make both "warrior characters" barbarians, or when you base all of your combat tactics on who can hit the hardest.

What do I recommend instead? Well, first of all, the wizards aught to notice that more than half of their spell list has combat applicability. By keeping a variety of spells, the wizard produces tactical situations for the party that might otherwise go overlooked (including avoiding combat altogether). At any given point from now on, the major battles will be won or lost by the wizards. If the wizards aim is to simply annoy while the fighters do their job, then you miss out on some of the truly heroic powers of magic. Personally, I like "web" with "fireball" at your level, but "monster summoning" plus "haste" is also nice." Play around a bit; I'm sure you'll find some nasty combination I haven't seen as of yet.

Second, though I think any "warrior character" aught to be able to hold their own in combat, I think that there are a number of ways to do this. You could be the hardest character to hit (using a variety of tactics to produce this affect such as super dodginess or big armor). You could have access to the greatest finesse; if you look at the combat section of the players handbook under Special Attacks, you'll see a variety of combat options of which a fighter, with their additional feats, is sort of designed to take advantage. You could master a kind of combat that forces your enemies to rethink their simple tactics by using an extremely long weapons, or by mastering ranged weapons. Lastly, you could work towards or take a prestige class to make your fighter more specialized and threatening. If the barbarian can rage, how about a character who can disarm or who can make enemies easier to hit when the barbarian rages. There's only so many bull's strength spells to go around.

And of course, I always recommend taking advantage of a good thief. A good thief can draw monsters into ambushes (yes, you can ambush the monsters too); a good thief can set traps to screw the monsters up; hell, thief...thieves steal things like weapons and magic items before the battle even begins.

Lastly, clerics are good because no matter what goes down, they can aid, and if their aid isn't needed, so much the better: monster summoning, arms and armor, cause light and moderate wounds. Plus, in the right circumstances, the cleric alone can stop the undead horde.

Here's what I'm saying in a nutshell. It's good to begin the game with an eye towards figuring out how to hit the monster and do damage, but you will eventually have to move into more complex ways of thinking about combat or the monsters who are better at this simple tactic will run you into the ground. I think a good way to prohibit yourself from this kind of thinking is to choose the simple route of big weapons that do big damage or obvious spells that always do damage (and which do nothing else).

And, of course, I'll say what I'm always going to say in this circumstance: what kind of character do you want to play? When the intrigue part of the game happens, where do you want to find yourself in it? What kind of character do you envision, because in the end, it isn't about combat at all but about having fun, and the more you like your character, the more fun you'll have.