Combat Terrain

When I think about the majority of my D&D career, most combats have taken place in dungeons: ten foot wide corridors leading into 30 foot square rooms (at best!). Manuevering and actual terrain features have rarely featured.

Every so often, we'd get into a ballroom (see Whispers of the Vampire's Blade), and we'll have the swashbuckler climbing down the curtains and swinging from the chandeliers, that sort of thing. (And the wizard hiding in a corner wondering what all the fuss was about).

Most of these experiences were without miniatures, as well. On occasion we'd use them - but mostly just to show party order. About a year ago, a friend of mine bought me an erasable battlemat. This allowed me to represent the rooms much easier. Then Wizards brought out the Fantastic Locations maps.

It has been my experience that my players (and I regularly see about 15 in three separate games) greatly prefer the use of miniatures and the battlemat; and they're also very enthusiastic about the Fantastic Locations maps. (I've been reusing them without any trouble).

From my point of view as the DM, having larger spaces that combat takes place in means the monsters are more interesting with their manuevers. It also has emphasised the effect of speed: the dwarves and heavy armour fighters actually notice the drawback of having a 20 foot speed.

The comment from one of my players last night was that the maps sped up the combats. Personally, I think they take about as much time as normal (which, for my groups, isn't long in any case). However, that perception probably shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

I've really begun to hate 5 foot wide corridors with a passion. (Why does Dungeon Magazine persist in using them? They are Not Fun in groups of 5+ PCs.) I enjoy having multiple corridors intersect at a location - lots of avenues for monsters to approach, to escape down, and to thus split up the party.

Of course, D&D Minis mean I finally have enough minis to represent things (even if I still proxy them!)

Last night, I ran two contrasting combats. One was a group of 9 fire beetles approaching the party along a 10' wide corridor. As one might expect, it was dull - only two of the PCs could engage, only two of the beetles could attack. The other was a group of 9 goblins in a large cavern with chasms, difficult terrain, and multiple corridors leading to and from the area. The PCs were torn between chasing the goblins and splitting up the party (for the goblins had gone down different places), or staying together and letting some escape. More interest for my players and me.

I still don't use miniatures in every fight. Sometimes I'm lazy, sometimes there isn't enough space for the battlemat, and sometimes the combat is so trivial it isn't worth it. However, I'm feeling that, more and more, I should be using minis and more interesting terrain.

The failures of the "You can do that with multiclassing" argument

One of the more annoying arguments I see coming up again and again on the various D&D boards I visit is that base classes should be "generic" and that you can create most new classes through multiclassing.

To which I say: Rubbish!

The purpose of a base class is not to be "generic" (for the paladin and monk surely are not!), but rather to give a particular suite of abilities [i]from level 1![/i] This is terribly important. It's very nice to say you're a swashbuckler, but when the mechanics don't back that up, we're back in the bad old days, the days that 3e with its options was meant to leave behind.

The 3e multiclassing system can be clunky at times, but through a combination of classes, prestige classes, substitution levels, modifier feats and suchlike, it allows a wide variety of characters. It allows the approximation of many concepts. However, there comes a time when those approximations are but a pale shadow of what could be created with a new class.

In theory, some of the abilities of new classes could be made into feats and acquired thereby. However, it doesn't take long for such abilities to overwhelm the feat structure.

Consider the Swashbuckler of Complete Warrior. While I don't consider it to be the best class, it does add together a few abilities that would not be properly gained through multiclassing:

* d10 Hit Die
* 4 skill points per level
* Balance, Bluff, Climb, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Tumble (plus a few others) as class skills
* Full Base Attack progression
* Bonuses when using light weapons (through Insightful Strike)
* Prime abilities scores Dexterity and Intelligence

The only way to get the skills is as a Rogue (or Bard?). The only way to get the Hit Die and Base Attack is as Fighter. And, unfortunately, the more Fighter levels you take, the worse your skills become, and the reverse applies to the Rogue.

At first level, the Swashbuckler can have good skills in Diplomacy, Tumble and other swashbuckley type of skills, and be a decent combatant (in a front-on capacity). A first level fighter just couldn't even approximate the Swashbuckler; a first level rogue is quite different in focus (and a combatant that then relies on Sneak Attack... again quite different!)

There is definitely a reason for the Swashbuckler to have those first five levels. It creates an identity that mere multiclassing would obscure.

Where, perhaps, the imagination of the D&D designers has failed them is in justifying a reason for certain classes to exist past the first five to ten levels.

Prestige Classes (which might well be termed as Advanced classes, as I believe they are in d20 Modern) provide options for higher levels. Base classes provide options throughout all 20 levels. Perhaps certain classes should only be Entry classes, with only the first 5-10 levels detailed?

That some concepts can be represented as both prestige and base classes should also not be contested - consider the Prestige Paladin of UA. I do not think that one option should preclude the other. It is options, not restrictions, surely?