D&D 5E adventurers in your world: common or rare?

[The Crimson Binome]

I realize that some people play up as meat, but that has never been RAW. A high level fighter can dodge a boulder from a catapult that would have flattened a lesser man, exhausting himself and his luck in the process (and he might also get hit by some shrapnel if you prefer to as partial meat). IMC, if a high level fighter decides to stand there and let a rocket launcher score a direct hit on him, he's dead. Admittedly, no one's been crazy enough to try.

Even going by Gygax, Hit Points have always included an aspect of meat. I think his specific breakdown was that everything you had at level 1 and everything you gained from Con bonus all represented your structural integrity, and everything else was skill at dodging and luck and magical protections.

That could mean that the boulder bounces off of your high level fighter because they were wearing +3 armor, and the magic of the armor meant that you only lost a third of your HP instead of just dying outright. It relies on the assumption that a high level fighter will be wearing magic armor, but from a practical perspective, that's usually a safe bet.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Even going by Gygax, Hit Points have always included an aspect of meat. I think his specific breakdown was that everything you had at level 1 and everything you gained from Con bonus all represented your structural integrity, and everything else was skill at dodging and luck and magical protections.

That could mean that the boulder bounces off of your high level fighter because they were wearing +3 armor, and the magic of the armor meant that you only lost a third of your HP instead of just dying outright. It relies on the assumption that a high level fighter will be wearing magic armor, but from a practical perspective, that's usually a safe bet.

That would be hp as partial meat (which I never said wasn't RAW).

Gygax also attributed hp to luck, stamina, divine intervention, and (yes) magic. I can quote it for you if you like.

You weren't going to survive a siege weapon with your level 1 hp.

A high level fighter wasn't guaranteed magic armor in the least. I mean, it was likely he would find some at some point, but rust monsters... Easy come, easy go. I don't recall any rules that a high level fighter who had an unfortunate run in with a rust monster would be reduced to level 1 hp.

According to Gygax, the hp of a high level fighter were primarily NOT meat.

You can play an anime style game where your character is so tough that boulders and swords just bounce off of him, but it is by no means the default assumption.

A high level fighter is not an Abrams tank.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A high level fighter wasn't guaranteed magic armor in the least. I mean, it was likely he would find some at some point, but rust monsters... Easy come, easy go. I don't recall any rules that a high level fighter who had an unfortunate run in with a rust monster would be reduced to level 1 hp.

As far as I can tell, Gygax really just didn't care. If you were wearing magic armor, then the boulder might hit you directly and you lose a third of your hit points instead of dying. If you take off the magic armor, then you're so light on your feet that you can luckily dodge the boulder but you get tired.

I'm sure that we both know the relevant quotes, since they're thrown around so frequently, but what he said about Basic or 1E has little bearing on the state of 3E or 5E.

 

[S'mon]

I feel like a mortal who can take a direct shot from a siege cannon, fly, and destroy waves of ordinary humans in seconds is the equivalent of a tank.

She identifies as an Attack Helicopter.

 

[Mirtek]

Low-level (1-5) are absolutely all over the place, the poor, the rich, the bored, the hungry and those who just don't mesh well with civilized society. Most of the adventurers here are young. "The Party" is likely to run into these guys in any given dungeon (either as corpses, prisoners or competitors).

Mid-level (6-10) are moderately rare. These are people who've figured out how to make a living out of what they do (think Indiana Jones), or are addicted to the rush and haven't stumbled into some bad juju yet. The wealthy and the bored are almost entirely gone from here. Even many of the poor have made it "big" and settled down. What's left are the glory hounds, the adrenaline junkies and the anti-socials.

Upper mid-level (11-15)are very rare. These are either heroic figures who have survives harrowing events or the anti-socials who are two steps away from being the target of the next adventuring party. The adrenaline junkies are usually dead now and the glory hounds have either changed their ways or retired.

High-level (16-20+) are exceedingly rare. You can count how many of them there are in the world on your fingers and have a hand left over. These people are the heroes that heroes look up to. Legendary figures who have done something incredible. (They are often also the villains).

This. There are even whole towns springing up just to support adventuring if a certain region is discovered to have a lot of old tombs. Like the gold digger towns during the gold rush. Some adventurer groups camp together for shared security, more and more join, the camps get more elaborate, yadda yadda yadda you suddenly have a small town.

 

[Mephista]

I feel like a wizard in a robe of the archmage and bracers of defense certainly qualifies as the D&D equivalent of a tank.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Okay, so no single wizard is going to have all of the specialty stuff, and the PHB presents eight specialties to choose from because those are the best ones. That means we don't know what those other specialties are, which presents a failure of the system to tell us how the world works. If the MM is anything to go by, those specialties are too insignificant for us to care about; essentially, they specialized in "nothing", because they're under-achievers. That's not a terrible way to look at it, but it does essentially mean that all NPC mages are part of the wizard class, at least as I see it.

That's what I've been saying all along.

This might be the core disagreement in perspective between us. When I play an RPG, I want the rules to tell me how the world works. The imagination aspect of an RPG is all in what you do with that world, after you know how it works.

I don't think this is the core disagreement between us. In fact, I'm having a lot of trouble understanding where this statement is coming from. Insofar as the rules tell us how the world works, they tell us that NPC mages have spellcasting and no other wizard class features. It seems very strange for you to assume that these characters have features which the rules do not say they have, and then tell me that we disagree because you like to stick to the rules while I make things up.

 

[Lanefan]

Naw, going by official published 5e FR material, the only individuals with character class levels are the PCs themselves.

Well, in that case official published 5e FR material can go jump in a lake. I'll explain why in a moment...

I feel you're applying 3e & earlier norms to a game which doesn't work that way. PC-class NPCs aren't even a good way to challenge high level PCs - they don't work that well even in 3e/PF.

Why not? As long as you take the stance that there's always a (school of) bigger fish, there's no reason at all* not to use a party of PC-class NPCs as opponents.

* - well, except one: those battles are a blaming fitch to run.

And 5e by default doesn't use them.

I hear that lake calling again...

Now, to explain my response to the very first line here:

You've got a party of PCs. In most normal campaigns one or more of those PCs is going to at some point die and not come back, requiring a replacement. So, another PC is brought in. All's good so far, right?

But consider this: that PC that was just brought in as a replacement has, in the game world, always been out there somewhere waiting for her turn on stage; she didn't just grow a class and levels overnight. Which immediately means that by default the active PCs in the party are not the only classed and levelled people in the game world, if only to account for any replacements - or party NPCs, or henches - the party might require later. Not an issue, of course, if one doesn't care about internal consistency in the game world...but some of us do.

Further, consider this: if you're using training rules, who or what is providing the training if not other classed and levelled people who are better at what they do than the PCs are?

I've always seen it that in a typical D&D game world there's going to be lots and lots of wanna-be adventurers, some of whom (including PCs) make it and a lot of whom (including PCs) die trying.

Some people have used sports and athletes as an analogy, so let me try the same: in North America there's millions and millions of kids playing minor league sports - little-league baseball, midget hockey, weekend soccer - those, along with all the grown-up beer-leaguers everywhere, are your very-low-level adventurers. Some of those kids make it to intermediate level in their sport - Junior A hockey, high school or even small-college ball, etc. - those are the mid-level types. Some of those make it close to the big leagues - triple-A baseball, AHL hockey, second-tier soccer, etc. - those are the high-level types. And a few make the bigs, and those are the rockstars - the very high-level types around whom stories are written and franchises built.

Lan-"and there's all kinds of perfectly good in-game ways to explain non-adventurers earning levels also"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

This might be the core disagreement in perspective between us. When I play an RPG, I want the rules to tell me how the world works.

Where I (as DM) want the rules to suggest to me how it can work and then have said rules get out of my way so I can determine how it does work.

The imagination aspect of an RPG is all in what you do with that world, after you know how it works.

From the player side, perhaps. But from the DM side the imagination aspect lies in coming up with the world in the first place, and determining what makes it tick.

If I wanted to make up new ways for a world to work, I wouldn't use D&D to do that. As a DM, it seems kind of... cheap... to introduce NPCs or monsters that don't work in any way that the players could possibly have predicted. I would rather introduce an entirely new thing that couldn't possibly be mistaken for something that already exists, instead of new and innovative ways for an existing thing to work. At least that way the players know that they don't know what they're dealing with, rather than think they understand it when they actually don't.

I'd rather be able at any given time to do both, or one, or neither, depending on the situation and context.

As for keeping the players (and-or characters) guessing, there's been huge great discussions in here on that aspect as well regarding player knowledge and metagaming and so forth, which is directly where this can o' worms will lead if opened.

Lan-"guidelines, guidelines, all guidelines"-efan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't think this is the core disagreement between us. In fact, I'm having a lot of trouble understanding where this statement is coming from. Insofar as the rules tell us how the world works, they tell us that NPC mages have spellcasting and no other wizard class features. It seems very strange for you to assume that these characters have features which the rules do not say they have, and then tell me that we disagree because you like to stick to the rules while I make things up.

It's coming from your previous post, where you said, "But why should we assume there isn't a difference? That seems like we'd be shooting our imagination in the foot."

My position is that they have all the standard class features, but we don't care whether or not they have Arcane Recovery or whatever else, because those features add complexity to the stat block and are unlikely to ever come up, so they just aren't written down. If you want to say that NPC mages represent a distinct reality from proper members of the wizard class, because they actually have nothing beyond what is listed, then I don't see why you would appeal to imagination in order to make that argument; it doesn't take a significant amount of imagination to posit the lack of an ability. If you had instead been arguing that NPC mages have other abilities, and could potentially do any number of non-combat-relevant things, then that would make more sense as an appeal to imagination. That seems to be where your argument was losing me.