D&D 5E Poll: What is a Level 1 PC?

[Libramarian]

Swimming upthread because this is interesting.

Totally disagree with this. If you try to make a lethal game easier, without simply fudging your way through it, it's very, very difficult. The entire game is balanced a certain way, and if you remove that limitation, then game balance goes straight out the window.

It's, IMO, much easier to go the other way. You want to make a game more lethal, add three more monsters to the encounter, give the monsters a surprise round (or at least the chance of one, give the monsters better equipment, focus fire with the baddies, any number of other things. You don't even need to tinker with the mechanics to achieve your goal.

To go the other way requires rewriting the mechanics.

I see your point but I think you are overstating it (in many cases you can remove monsters and remove equipment to make an encounter easier just as easily). You also did not really acknowledge my point, which has more to do with the social contract aspect of the game than the mechanics.

Rules lawyering happens when the DM has to nerf things in order to achieve the difficulty they want in the campaign. By contrast, if the DM is modifying rules to make things easier, then typically no arguing occurs. I think this is the primary reason that rules lawyering doesn't happen as often in pre-3e games. People think it's because "old school" D&D has a different "culture" of unquestioned DM authority, but I think the real reason is more straightforward: you don't argue with the DM because the DM is usually kinder than the rules, lol.

 

[Hussar]

I see your point but I think you are overstating it (in many cases you can remove monsters and remove equipment to make an encounter easier just as easily). You also did not really acknowledge my point, which has more to do with the social contract aspect of the game than the mechanics.

Rules lawyering happens when the DM has to nerf things in order to achieve the difficulty they want in the campaign. By contrast, if the DM is modifying rules to make things easier, then typically no arguing occurs. I think this is the primary reason that rules lawyering doesn't happen as often in pre-3e games. People think it's because "old school" D&D has a different "culture" of unquestioned DM authority, but I think the real reason is more straightforward: you don't argue with the DM because the DM is usually kinder than the rules, lol.

Ok, for one, if you think rules lawyering is somehow a new thing, you weren't sitting at any of the tables I ever sat at. IME, rules lawyering went from consuming significant percentages of every single session to being a minor blip on the radar after 3e. All because you went from vague, obscure and often conflicting rules to clear, concises and well presented rules.

And, again, from my experience, when DM's start softballing encounters, players know it and it sucks all the drama out of the game. They know that the DM is just going to lob easy balls at them and you wind up with games where low level characters are killing dragons. There's no challenge to it. There is a healthy middle road there.

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JC - I look at it like this. The goal for the DM is to create an NPC with a certain skill level. He's a blacksmith, so, he needs X blacksmithing skills. But, that's all he needs. You don't need his stats because they won't come up. In 3e, or even with your chart method, you're going through all these steps to achieve an end. Why bother? Why not just say, "assign your NPC the applicable skills" and be done with it?

If you really, really want to generate all the stats, knock yourself out. There's nothing stopping you and an entire PHB right there to do so. But, don't make that the baseline. The baseline should be, "Assign stats to NPC's as needed" with a sidebar saying that if you want a full character, go right ahead.

And, looking away from D&D 3e for the moment, that's generally the way it's done in a lot of RPG's. Savage Worlds, for example, does exactly that. As does every version of D&D other than 3e. Other games do the same. Jumping through all these steps to get to the goal does not add anything to verisimilitude because the players never see these steps. It's pointless complication.

 

[JamesonCourage]

JC - I look at it like this. The goal for the DM is to create an NPC with a certain skill level. He's a blacksmith, so, he needs X blacksmithing skills. But, that's all he needs. You don't need his stats because they won't come up.

This varies, but is often true (as I'll imply at the beginning of my next paragraph). Sometimes his stats will come up. I've had many NPCs end up spending a lot more time around or with the PCs than I thought they would. One was recently in the party for 4-5 months real time (and years game time), and only left when another PC did. I had no plans for this to happen; they met him, liked his personality, arranged to meet up, and convinced him to follow them. His stats came in handy (though I didn't need them right away).

Though, you can be sure I didn't have them when they met him. I just wing stuff (as I outlined how: estimate hit die based on description, give him relevant skill levels based on focus in those skills). This might come in handy if, say, they decided that they didn't like a particular antagonistic NPC, and decided to persuade / lie to / attack him, or the like. Now his stats are handy, and those charts have been amazingly convenient for me when these types of situations have come up.

In 3e, or even with your chart method, you're going through all these steps to achieve an end. Why bother? Why not just say, "assign your NPC the applicable skills" and be done with it?

This is advocating the "no system" approach, which is fine. But if that's what you want to do, why not just ignore the guidelines and do that? Why buck against them being there for people that want them?

If you really, really want to generate all the stats, knock yourself out. There's nothing stopping you and an entire PHB right there to do so. But, don't make that the baseline. The baseline should be, "Assign stats to NPC's as needed" with a sidebar saying that if you want a full character, go right ahead.

And then there's the middle, which is what I talked about.

And, looking away from D&D 3e for the moment, that's generally the way it's done in a lot of RPG's. Savage Worlds, for example, does exactly that. As does every version of D&D other than 3e. Other games do the same. Jumping through all these steps to get to the goal does not add anything to verisimilitude because the players never see these steps. It's pointless complication.

It breaks my players' verisimilitude when they used to investigate it, and find out "you can't do that, because [contrived reason]." The same way forced plots or heavy-handed NPCs break their suspension of disbelief. When everything works the same, and it's intuitive, they don't really question it; "oh, that's how that works." When it's "he used GM device X to do it" then it hurts their fun. It hurts my fun. It's just how we're wired.

So, to answer your first paragraph to me, "why bother with the steps?" Well, they help us enjoy the game. They make sense, it's more intuitive for us (looking at rules as physics), and with proper guidelines (like my charts) you can get a good feel for someone is at other skills as well ("well, he has a hobby in fighting, but he's not really focused on it... He's hit die 10, so I'll give him +4").

You always have the option to say, "Bob the Blacksmith, Smithing +X" regardless of any other system; I just don't see that as persuasive for why there shouldn't be guidelines. As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

Lots and lots to catch up on in this one.

First, the difference between commoner and 1st-level in the various editions:
- 1e had 0th level as a "bridge" between the two; not perfect, but it was something. 4e has what appears to be a bigger gap and no bridge mechanism at all

4e's gap isn't actually much bigger than 3e's. First level commoners in combat are almost as irrelevant as minions; one simple weapon, d4 hit points, and no armour does not a relevant threat make.

- I've never bought in to the idea that NPCs should have different-but-similar classes to PCs. A 1st-level NPC Warrior should be exactly the same as a 1st-level PC Fighter - what difference does it make to the character in the game world whether or not it has a player attache dto it?

It doesn't make a difference to the character in the game world. But as DM and as player I don't want to pay as much attention to the third goblin spear carrier on the left as I do to the PCs.

Second, the combat comparison between editions of 1st-level Fighter vs. commoners is not the comparison to make. The difference between editions shows up much more clearly when you compare how long it takes when the battle is a 1st-level Fighter vs. another 1st-level Fighter. In 1e that combat would be pretty short. In 4e it'd take a while.

Would you mind not re-writing the rules to make your arguments please? In 1e, each combat round was one minute. I'd expect a fight between two 1st level fighters to be the first to a hit or two depending on whether the fighters were using shields or two handed weapons. And they'd need about a 12 to hit. This is going to take about three or four rounds - or in other words three or four minutes.

4e combat, by comparison, is blindingly fast - combat was sped up literally by an order of magnitude when the combat round moved from AD&D's entire minute to six seconds. A 4e fight between equally matched foes is not going to take ten rounds (unless we have pacifist clerics or zero damage wizards) - so the longest a 4e is going to take is less time than a 1e round.

Now 3e is, at low levels, faster than 4e. The battle between first level fighters will probably take 12-18s in 3e, half a minute in 4e, and several minutes in AD&D.

Or by "short" do you simply mean that you'd elide several minutes of life and death struggle into just a couple of die rolls with limited chance to meaningfully change what the PC is doing?

Third, how good a blacksmith someone is should have no relation to how good a fighter they are. The NPC class level system of 3e is fine but combat abilities need to be divorced from it.

What does level actually mean at that point? What does it measure?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I see your point but I think you are overstating it (in many cases you can remove monsters and remove equipment to make an encounter easier just as easily). You also did not really acknowledge my point, which has more to do with the social contract aspect of the game than the mechanics.

Rules lawyering happens when the DM has to nerf things in order to achieve the difficulty they want in the campaign.

Thank you for this appeal for balance in game design which allows the DM to pitch to the difficulty desired without having to nerf or buff things. One of the many reasons all the 2e groups I played with rules lawyered and it was endemic in 3e - but is very very rare in 4e. The other reason is clearer and more consistent rules so there are fewer gaps to hide in.

To rules lawyer you need the classic trinity of means, motive, and opportunity. You're right in that the motive is greater in harder games. But the means are presented by the rules, and the opportunity happens when the rules are woolier than a herd of sheep or large, complex, and have odd interactions. No one rules lawyers in Dread although the game is lethal - there are almost no rules. Few rules lawer in GURPS other than bonus-scrabbling - the rules are large but relatively transparent and consistent. And that's more lethal than D&D.

 

[Lanefan]

4e's gap isn't actually much bigger than 3e's. First level commoners in combat are almost as irrelevant as minions; one simple weapon, d4 hit points, and no armour does not a relevant threat make.

Perhaps, but I was thinking about 1e where a 0th-level type often has at least a chance against a 1st-level type of the same class. And even -1th level types (i.e. true peasants) can pose a threat at times.

The way I see it, there's something wrong with the system if a torch-and-pitchfork mob can't run a low-level party out of town.

It doesn't make a difference to the character in the game world. But as DM and as player I don't want to pay as much attention to the third goblin spear carrier on the left as I do to the PCs.

And, unless you're obsessive about statting everything that moves, you never have to. But on the off-chance that the 3rd goblin on the left decides (or is ordered) to throw his spear at the party cleric I want a quick-and-nasty framework for what makes him tick; and as I've already got all the info handy about what makes PCs tick why not just use the same stuff?

Would you mind not re-writing the rules to make your arguments please? In 1e, each combat round was one minute. I'd expect a fight between two 1st level fighters to be the first to a hit or two depending on whether the fighters were using shields or two handed weapons. And they'd need about a 12 to hit. This is going to take about three or four rounds - or in other words three or four minutes.

4e combat, by comparison, is blindingly fast - combat was sped up literally by an order of magnitude when the combat round moved from AD&D's entire minute to six seconds. A 4e fight between equally matched foes is not going to take ten rounds (unless we have pacifist clerics or zero damage wizards) - so the longest a 4e is going to take is less time than a 1e round.

Now 3e is, at low levels, faster than 4e. The battle between first level fighters will probably take 12-18s in 3e, half a minute in 4e, and several minutes in AD&D.

I wasn't thinking about in-game time, I was more thinking of comparing number of rounds - and a round is a round in any edition regardless how many in-game seconds it might represent.

A peasant vs. a peasant and a 1st-level Fighter vs. her equal should take about the same amount of (rounds) time to resolve. In 1e this is about the case. In 4e there's no real way to tell as (at least from the 4e stuff I've seen) there's no rules for minion vs. minion combat.

The other comparison - F-1 vs. F-1 in 1e as as opposed to 4e - I still think the 4e version is going to take more rounds than the 1e version - which means more real-world time is required to resolve it.

What does level actually mean at that point? What does it measure?

Now this is a good question, and something I've been half-heartedly waving at for years. I think it's actually 4 things in one that might need to be sub-divided.

Right now a character's level drags a bunch of assumptions into itself:
- its "fight level", or how good it is at combat
- its hit points, or how much punishment it can absorb before collapsing
- its proficiency at various skills dictated by class
- its proficiency at various skills and abilities that may have nothing to do with its class

In 1e the first two are true for monsters as well as defined by their HD.

Class-proficient skills, i.e. skills that are part of what you do as an adventurer, I have no problem with. But as for the other three, out-of-class skills (this to me includes almost all non-adventuring skills) should be divorced from level and either chosen by player as in "before adventuring I was a blacksmith" or randomized as in "roll a d10 to see how good a natural swimmer you are".

Hit points for monsters can easily be divorced from level/HD - just assign a number and have done with it.

Fight level - now there's the tricky one. For non-adventuring NPCs of any kind and for all monsters it's again easy to divorce fighting ability from level/HD; I've done this many times in the past - an example might be a demon that starts with 24 h.p. but fights like a 15 HD monster, or a reigning king who can't fight worth a damn and has no real class abilities other than he knows how to rule but in effect has about 100 h.p. But for adventuring types this gets very tricky, to the point where I've never even tried it.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

This is advocating the "no system" approach, which is fine. But if that's what you want to do, why not just ignore the guidelines and do that? Why buck against them being there for people that want them?

Because if you have the system as the baseline, then every published adventure has to go through these steps. Which adds in mistakes and needlessly bloads adventures. That's one reason. The other is you have people who insist that going through the steps somehow adds to believability. We've seen that in this thread. Additionally, new players do not have the ability to be able to say when they can ignore rules or just wing it. Why dump all that work on a new DM?

Why not have, as you call it, a "non-system" set of advice and then tell people that if they want to do the work, go for it.

 

[Hussar]

The other comparison - F-1 vs. F-1 in 1e as as opposed to 4e - I still think the 4e version is going to take more rounds than the 1e version - which means more real-world time is required to resolve it.

I'm not sure the difference would be huge. After all, the fighter cannot heal, other than a single second wind, and it's quite possible the fight wouldn't last much more than 6 rounds in 4e. In AD&D, given average characters and average damage and fairly average equipment, it's going to be a lot of rounds of missing, which will likely result in about 5 or 6 rounds. It would possibly be MUCH quicker because of the swinginess of AD&D, although it could be much longer with poor rolls. OTOH, between Action Points and Dailies, it's quite possible the fight would be over in the first or second round in 4e. I mean, a 4e fighter is running about 35 (ish) hp at 1st level. A Brute Strike does 3[W] damage + strength mod, resulting in possibly 30+ damage in a single hit. Add in an action point and the fight is over in 1 round.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Because if you have the system as the baseline, then every published adventure has to go through these steps. Which adds in mistakes and needlessly bloads adventures. That's one reason.

The charts mean it takes about 5 minutes to make something. If you're the type of person to do so beforehand, is this much worse than making monsters in 4e? And if you're not the type to do so beforehand, isn't it useful to pick hit die, level of focus, and get a useful number?

The other is you have people who insist that going through the steps somehow adds to believability. We've seen that in this thread.

Then your "no system" will be completely unsatisfactory to them anyways.

Additionally, new players do not have the ability to be able to say when they can ignore rules or just wing it. Why dump all that work on a new DM?

Make it explicit that you can pick a method. Go into the ups and downs of each, and let people pick.

Talk about burnout from writing everything up in detail, but how it can let you see a full NPC and let you play "fairly" with PCs. Talk about the ups of shortcuts (my charts), including on the fly NPCs/Monsters or just saving time, but the lack of detail (feats, etc.) that means you lose a lot of details. Talk about how just giving an NPC a bonus in something is sometimes all that is required (or even appropriate) and that it won't waste a lot of your time you could be spending on something else, but that it leaves little room for the NPC to contribute in other ways (though you can always flesh it out later).

Just make it explicit, and more in-depth than what I just wrote up.

Why not have, as you call it, a "non-system" set of advice and then tell people that if they want to do the work, go for it.

You can do exactly that? I'm just proposing a middle ground, too. You have "no system, just pick what you like", "shortcut to writing everything out, but will be less detailed", and "write everything up yourself, and get maximum detail". I'm just not convinced that "no system only" is somehow superior.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, no, I agree with that. "No system" only isn't probably the best way to go. The trick is, as it stands, with 3e, you have "Massive system with about a dozen steps" and that's it. There's no advice as to what can be ignored and what effects there are for ignoring things.