Starting Legends

[Mixster]

Uuuh a DnD discussion!

Just one point on combat that I would like to add. A lot of real life tactics that don't really work in DnD, will work in Legends. Phalanxes and shield walls with spearmen behind, or archers who give cover/act as a distraction for flanking cavalry work great.
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Yep, suddenly because of the lack of cleave, the best strategy for a fighter ISN'T to get surrounded by the weakest of the mooks and then greater cleave them all in one go.

It wasn't in D&D either. Greater cleave was situational, since it required all opponents to be within reach, and all of them to have a maximum of ~50Hp. At level 4 where this comes online, there's like 4 levels where facing such an opposition is plausible, but still a challenge.
After that you need to ramp up the damage way more for it to be effective, and then you could just use Battle Jump and a high movement speed/multiple move actions, to jump on all the targets you want and kill them.
AoOs was the best reason to get surrounded in D&D. But then again, if you have the right build (Karmic Strike + Robilar's Gambit) you actively want your opponents to strike you so you can trip them.

In DnD it wouldn't help to roll logs unto them from a hill or collapse the balcony they're standing on either, as falling / natural causes damage are so low that even mid level characters can handle it without a sweat (I assume they designed the system such that mundane dangers wouldn't be a problem - to land on a more heroic level).

Falling damage in D&D is insane, especially objects falling on people.
A hulking Hurler that is a little optimized (read have four legs, is huge and has a strength above 30) do insane amounts of damage with thrown rocks. Like in the vicinity of 4000d8 (and who's really counting past that in a world were gods have 1000hp?).
There's a Dragonborn Obese Water Orc Build that utilizes teleport spells and falling on people, I think you can reach the 20d6 damage on falling cap on level 1.

So the environment is in some cases very dangerous in D&D, but a lot natural hazards aren't. Snakes, Crossbows, Fires, Fireballs, all the things you'd expect people to die from aren't. But falling Orcs, Boulders, And Tentacles of Doom are pretty deadly.

 

[Dan True]

There's a Dragonborn Obese Water Orc Build that utilizes teleport spells and falling on people, I think you can reach the 20d6 damage on falling cap on level 1.

So the environment is in some cases very dangerous in D&D, but a lot natural hazards aren't. Snakes, Crossbows, Fires, Fireballs, all the things you'd expect people to die from aren't. But falling Orcs, Boulders, And Tentacles of Doom are pretty deadly.

Yeah, I was talking more mundane things not requiring a build.. say, collapsing a mountain ledge or a balcony in a saloon...

 

[Prime_Evil]

Just one point on combat that I would like to add. A lot of real life tactics that don't really work in DnD, will work in Legends. Phalanxes and shield walls with spearmen behind, or archers who give cover/act as a distraction for flanking cavalry work great.

Also you can't forget the environment. Rivers or difficult terrain really hamper movement and you can find effective cover or hazards to use against enemies.

Another use of the the environment is to reduce the disadvantages associated with being outnumbered - find a defensible location on higher ground and you can have a chance against multiple opponents. Defending a narrow area where enemies can only come at you one at a time or in small groups works wonders in Legend, as in traditional adventure fiction. Even simple tactics like fighting back-to-back so an enemy can't get behind you have a meaningful place in the game.

Personally I find the use of terrain features in Legend a lot more fluid and naturalistic than in games derived from the d20 system, where the benefits and drawbacks of each feature have been codified precisely - allowing players to approach combat in a very dry and mechanistic way.

 

[Lemnoc]

Personally I find the use of terrain features in Legend a lot more fluid and naturalistic than in games derived from the d20 system, where the benefits and drawbacks of each feature have been codified precisely - allowing players to approach combat in a very dry and mechanistic way.

I've found this, too. In fact, it has become such an integral part of players' combat survival, a way to eke a little more out of their CAs, that I try to plan terrain set pieces of some kind in nearly every encounter, even if it is just a table or grassy knoll or random piles of slain adversaries. Very few battles take place on totally featureless piece of graph paper.

It's very satisfying when players begin to plan their moves based on battlefield set pieces. Of course, the bad guys know how to do this, too :wink: