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Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7523814" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>But they're not equally tough at all!</p><p></p><p>One has a pile of hit points, one has a lesser pile of hit points, and one has one. Please tell me how that's in any way 'equally tough' in the greater not-involving-PCs fiction. Take yer time, I've got all day; but I expect your answer to be applicable to PC-facing fiction and background exactly the same as it is for out-of-sight fiction and background. If it isn't the same, please keep working until it is. Thank you.</p><p></p><p>The fiction has to - read this carefully: HAS TO - be consistent within itself. Otherwise it's useless for building a believable story on, which is the usual reason for its existence in these situations in the first place.</p><p></p><p>Saying an ogre has 100 h.p. when it's encountered by someone and then 1 h.p. when it's encountered by someone else - or even by the same person, a few years and many levels later - is not consistent. If it has 100 h.p. in one encounter it has 100 in the next*, no matter who encounters it.</p><p></p><p>* - let's just assume it had time to recover its h.p. between encounters, shall we?</p><p></p><p>Or even worse: a party of low-levels are fighting a 100 h.p. ogre and have managed to beat it down so it "only" has 73 left. An 18th-level knight rides up on her horse during the fight and asks if the PCs need any help; they say "we sure do, thanks!". The ogre still has 73, it doesn't suddenly drop to 1 just because someone more powerful showed up; yet there's no way that knight can reliably give out 73 points of damage in one attack.</p><p></p><p>And I'm saying this is horrible awful terrible design! An ogre is an ogre; and no matter who meets it or when or why, internal consistency of the fiction absolutely demands that it still have the same stats.</p><p></p><p>Flip it around: does your 3rd-level PC suddenly drop to 1 h.p. when it walks into the Giant King's lair by mistake? Of course not. You still has whatever hit points you had a few moments ago, and the Giant King still has to get through those if he wants to kill you...which admittedly might not take long, but it gives you a bit of a buffer if nothing else.</p><p></p><p>Why aren't monsters - all monsters - given the same consideration?</p><p></p><p>Wrong. We assume, in the name of internal consistency, that the fight uses the same mechanics as it would if it were in fact played out, even though it's not in fact played out at the table.</p><p></p><p>At the table the GM can do what she wants. In the fiction, the underlying mechanics have to match. If ogre 1 is a minion when it meets the PCs then it's a minion when it meets ogre 2.</p><p></p><p>No, it shows an understanding that while the game might work fine as just a game, it works very badly in providing a consistency within the setting fiction and thus completely undermines itself.</p><p></p><p>If the PC in the fiction is that much tougher than the ogre then in theory it shouldn't matter whether the ogre has 1 h.p. or its usual 100: the PC is very likely going to chop it to bits in short order. But if it has 100 h.p. two very good things happen:</p><p></p><p>1. The fight with the high-level PC will take a number of rounds appropriate for said PC to chop through 100 h.p., giving time for other things to happen and-or for the dice to do something nasty e.g. the ogre scores a series of crits.</p><p>2. The ogre remains comsistent with itself within the fiction vs any other time it's been encountered, whether by PCs or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7523814, member: 29398"] But they're not equally tough at all! One has a pile of hit points, one has a lesser pile of hit points, and one has one. Please tell me how that's in any way 'equally tough' in the greater not-involving-PCs fiction. Take yer time, I've got all day; but I expect your answer to be applicable to PC-facing fiction and background exactly the same as it is for out-of-sight fiction and background. If it isn't the same, please keep working until it is. Thank you. The fiction has to - read this carefully: HAS TO - be consistent within itself. Otherwise it's useless for building a believable story on, which is the usual reason for its existence in these situations in the first place. Saying an ogre has 100 h.p. when it's encountered by someone and then 1 h.p. when it's encountered by someone else - or even by the same person, a few years and many levels later - is not consistent. If it has 100 h.p. in one encounter it has 100 in the next*, no matter who encounters it. * - let's just assume it had time to recover its h.p. between encounters, shall we? Or even worse: a party of low-levels are fighting a 100 h.p. ogre and have managed to beat it down so it "only" has 73 left. An 18th-level knight rides up on her horse during the fight and asks if the PCs need any help; they say "we sure do, thanks!". The ogre still has 73, it doesn't suddenly drop to 1 just because someone more powerful showed up; yet there's no way that knight can reliably give out 73 points of damage in one attack. And I'm saying this is horrible awful terrible design! An ogre is an ogre; and no matter who meets it or when or why, internal consistency of the fiction absolutely demands that it still have the same stats. Flip it around: does your 3rd-level PC suddenly drop to 1 h.p. when it walks into the Giant King's lair by mistake? Of course not. You still has whatever hit points you had a few moments ago, and the Giant King still has to get through those if he wants to kill you...which admittedly might not take long, but it gives you a bit of a buffer if nothing else. Why aren't monsters - all monsters - given the same consideration? Wrong. We assume, in the name of internal consistency, that the fight uses the same mechanics as it would if it were in fact played out, even though it's not in fact played out at the table. At the table the GM can do what she wants. In the fiction, the underlying mechanics have to match. If ogre 1 is a minion when it meets the PCs then it's a minion when it meets ogre 2. No, it shows an understanding that while the game might work fine as just a game, it works very badly in providing a consistency within the setting fiction and thus completely undermines itself. If the PC in the fiction is that much tougher than the ogre then in theory it shouldn't matter whether the ogre has 1 h.p. or its usual 100: the PC is very likely going to chop it to bits in short order. But if it has 100 h.p. two very good things happen: 1. The fight with the high-level PC will take a number of rounds appropriate for said PC to chop through 100 h.p., giving time for other things to happen and-or for the dice to do something nasty e.g. the ogre scores a series of crits. 2. The ogre remains comsistent with itself within the fiction vs any other time it's been encountered, whether by PCs or not. [/QUOTE]
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