Please no monster class levels

[herrozerro]

I love monster books - in 3rd I had about 20 +

In those situations, I just grab an unmodified monster.

that may be true, but with 4e i can just have a 3x5 card with all the math needed to run any monster i deem fit. dont need to scramble through books or prepare random encounters beforehand.

 

[pemerton]

I see absolutely no reason that is inherently better why an NPC should be capable of having a mechanical ability that PCs can't (eventually) have.

Because (in some circumstances) it would break the game? An NPC who can both do brilliant weapon play and brilliant spellcasting is interesting. A PC who can do both is (frequently) overpowered. An NPC who gets free attacks against enemies starting adjacent to him/her is a viable foe against multiple PCs. A PC who has such an ability is (frequently) overpowered. Etc.

Of course there are other ways of designing encounters or making NPCs viable. But 4e has a reasonably good system for it. (And it's interesting to note that in the Burning Wheel Adventure Burner - which is the game's "GM's guide", or the closest thing to it - the designers note problems that the game's highly simulationist action economy and build rules can cause for monsters, and suggests a range of workarounds. And in the bibliography they note they've been playing some 4e, and that it's influenced the advice in the book.

"playing by the same rules" is often never defined well. Even in 4th edition monster play by alot of the same rules, they all have HP, defenses, Actions, Action points, etc..

The only difference is that they are not created like normal characters are in order to provide a level of challenge for the PCs of the game.

<snip>

and in my opinion there are rule separations that are made purely for the purpose of balance and need to exist.

Right. It can make play easier and more transparent if both NPCs/monsters and PCs use the same action resolution rules. (Although other options, like "players roll all the dice" - 4e skill challenges use this - can also work.)

But there is no obvious reason why they should be built using the same rules. As I posted upthread, even games that are very austerely simulationist in their PC building rules - Runequest, Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel - don't go this far. The only non-points-buy game that I'm aware of that does take this approach is 3E. (And in points-buy, of course, you can just give the NPC/monster the number of points you need to get it to do what you want it to do. So the currency becomes somewhat meaningless outside the context of PC building.)

in most point buy games, the only constraint on what perks and abilities are available to the PCs is their points budget, which is decided on a metagame level before play even starts.

<snip>

The whirlwind attacking orc is simply ignoring the rules of the game. The prodigy is (in most point buy systems at least, including M&M, Shadowrun and GURPS, but possibly not all), a meta-game consideration. The only reason you can't have one PC that's vastly more points than the others is that the other players would presumably object. If you can make it work, go ahead! But the analogy to this is having one PC that's higher level than the other PCs (or is a king, wealthy merchant, or whatever) -not having a PC who can do things that other characters of the same class, race and level can't. Because that breaks the deepest foundations of the game system.

<snip>

I personally care much more about the rules reflecting a coherent reality

<snip>

Class levels reflect kind and degree of training and/or experience.

<snip>

A fighter is a fighter. The troll has 6 HD, which reflects a certain in-game reality: A troll is innately tougher and fiercer than an ogre, but not as tough as a hill giant.

The way you think about points buy - as metagame - is the way I think about class and level.

Otherwise, I have to posit a world in which everything in human development is tied to everything else. In 1st ed AD&D this reached extreme limits in relation to the thief class: I cannot be an expert pick pocket unless I'm also an expert climber. I'm not even sure this is true as a generalisation of tendency across modern urban life, and it's certainly not a natural law about human developmental capacities. (An even more extreme example is that no PC who is not already a competent climber and pick pocket can learn to decipher languages.)

So if I build a monster or NPC who is an experte pick pocket, though at best an adequate climber, I am giving that monster an ability that no PC can attain - but I don't think I'm thereby breaking down the reality of the gameworld. I'm just recognising that whatever the metagame reasons were for making thieves progress simultaneously in all abilities don't apply to this particular NPC/monster.

It's interesting that 2nd ed AD&D decided to introduce more flexibility into the thief skills (but kept the obviously metagame-driven restriction on wizard's use of swords), and 3E pushed this even further with its skill system. But 3E chose to keep a few abilities, like Whirlwind Attack and Weapon Specialisation, on a level-based leash. Why? For purposes of world simulation, or for purposes of the same (metagame) kind as motivated the design of AD&D thieves? I assume the latter: PCs who can attack multiple foes will be too strong below a certain level. Whereas an NPC or monster who can attack multiple foes is not as such too strong at any level (it depends how the encounter is designed) - even the housecat gest a claws & bite routine!

If someone asks how come the 3HD orc has already mastered Whirlwind Attack, "he had a better trainer, or is just more vicious than you, or is blessed by Gruumsh" all seem like viable answers to me. But I find it hard to imagine the question even coming up, at a table in which it is understood that the distribution of abilities by level is all about preserving the integrity of play at the metagame level.

As to "a fighter is a fighter" - is there no one in the world who is an adequate combatant (ie low level), has mastered plate armour (ie has heavy armour proficiency), but who knows little about fighting with polearms (ie does not have proficiency in all martial weapons)?

Is there no one in the world who is young, not especially bright, certainly not a duelist or assassin, but charming and skilled in many crafty matters? (This would be someone with 8 skill points per level without INT bonus, but not a rogue.)

Unless you go to full points buy, the class and level system will impose constraints which cannot be justified on an ingame, fictional basis - they must be metagame. Once you go full points buy, then the metagame character of the currency for PC building becomes transparent.

At least in my view.

 

[Asha'man]

Because (in some circumstances) it would break the game? An NPC who can both do brilliant weapon play and brilliant spellcasting is interesting. A PC who can do both is (frequently) overpowered. An NPC who gets free attacks against enemies starting adjacent to him/her is a viable foe against multiple PCs. A PC who has such an ability is (frequently) overpowered. Etc.

There's no reason why it would break the game.

An NPC who's brilliant at both swordplay and magic (as good as the party fighter in melee and the wizard in a spellbattle, say) is simply higher level than the PCs. I would say obviously. Since he's managed to hone his skills in two separate fields enough to match a resourceful, battle-hardened specialist (i.e the PC), he's clearly got more experience, more intensive training or both under his belt.
And then you don't need to contrive powers that exist only for gamist reasons to make him hold his own against the party in a fight, it comes quite naturally.

You don't start with spesifications for a challenging encounter and design how the world works from there. You start with what's in the world, then design challenges using those elements. That's why I don't think 4e has a reasonably good system for designing encounters. Or rather, it does, but it gives up far too much to get it, so you end up with a game that for my purposes is total garbage.

But there is no obvious reason why they should be built using the same rules. As I posted upthread, even games that are very austerely simulationist in their PC building rules - Runequest, Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel - don't go this far. The only non-points-buy game that I'm aware of that does take this approach is 3E. (And in points-buy, of course, you can just give the NPC/monster the number of points you need to get it to do what you want it to do. So the currency becomes somewhat meaningless outside the context of PC building.)

The obvious reason why they should be built using the same rules is that from an in-universe perspective, there's not supposed to be any way to tell a PC from an NPC! As a corollary to this, if you use the same rules for everything, it's a lot easier to handle situations where characters end up doing something other than what you've designed them for.

My example got kind of long, so I spoilered it:
[sblock]For example, in my last 3e campaign, in an early adventure the party fighter ended up sparing a random kobold warrior's life and taking him on as a henchman. Because he worked exactly like a PC, it was no problem to have him tag along, define what he could do or learn besides stabbing people with his shortspear, calculate how much XP he got from the adventures he participated in and decide how he would advance.

In 4e? Most likely he would have been a Minion, and having him do anything at all besides soak up attacks would be an exercise in frustration. Even if he were a normal monster, he would stick out like a sore thumb in the party with his monster statblock. If I converted him to PC rules or something like it, the kobold warrior they fought would end up totally different from the kobold warrior who joined them. Instant loss of immersion.

In another game a PC got transformed into a dragon as part of an ill-worded Wish. How would you even do that in a game where a dragon, as an NPC monster, has a completely different kind of stat-block than a PC? Would you keep the PC but give him some kind of "dragony" powers? Then what when the party runs into a real dragon with entirely different powers?[/sblock]

The way you think about points buy - as metagame - is the way I think about class and level. Otherwise, I have to posit a world in which everything in human development is tied to everything else.

<snip>

I'm not going to defend the AD&D skill system. I agree that it creates bizarre results and I would not use it myself.

I agree that the motives of the designers of the PHB in assigning feat prerequistes were probably mostly concerned with game balance and not simulation (although there's some element of simulation too, otherwise why would Dodge require a Dex bonus or Combat Expertise an Int bonus? They're hardly the most powerful feats).

That doesn't mean that I can't interpret what they made for my own, simulationist purposes and conclude that, e.g, Whirlwind Attack is a highly complicated technique that only veteran combatants with great quickness and technical skill can master. Which doesn't even invalidate the metagame reasons for having those prerequisites in place! PCs who can attack multiple foes will be too strong below a certain level and, if nottherefore, Whirlwind Attack is a highly complicated technique that only veteran combatants can master. The rules inform the fiction. In fact, the book seems to bear this out, since the other, more straightforward ways to get multiple attacks (Two-weapon fighting, monk abilities, rapid shot, playing a character with natural weapons) ARE available at lower level, as low as 1st in several cases, but carry more drawbacks and limitations than Whirlwind Attack.

As to "a fighter is a fighter" - is there no one in the world who is an adequate combatant (ie low level), has mastered plate armour (ie has heavy armour proficiency), but who knows little about fighting with polearms (ie does not have proficiency in all martial weapons)?

Is there no one in the world who is young, not especially bright, certainly not a duelist or assassin, but charming and skilled in many crafty matters? (This would be someone with 8 skill points per level without INT bonus, but not a rogue.)

There certainly should be, and in a class-based game there are two basic ways of ensuring you can create a sufficiently broad variety of characters: Either classes must be sufficiently spesific (and numerous) that you can find an appropriate class, or they must be sufficiently flexible. In my own games I chose the latter, since I like minimalism. I'm defending the structure of 3e here, not every spesific detail of the implementation.

Unless you go to full points buy, the class and level system will impose constraints which cannot be justified on an ingame, fictional basis - they must be metagame. Once you go full points buy, then the metagame character of the currency for PC building becomes transparent.

Any constraints can be justified on an ingame, fictional basis. It's just a question of what constraints you're willing to deal with and what kind of justification you can accept. (I could probably play 4e in my preferred simulationist style, but the ingame reality would be so bizarre that I doubt it would be very enjoyable.) This is why, for example, it doesn't bother me that you can't develop your skills above a certain level without also increasing your BaB and HP. The level of skill that can be attained by low-level characters is high enough that I am comfortable saying anyone significantly above that is in some way of heroic stature.

(In fact in my home games I house rule a lot of the things about feat and class progressions that don't make sense to me, like the inability to have a skillful character who is not also a budding assassin, but that's not really germane to this discussion.)

 

[herrozerro]

[MENTION=52424]Asha'man[/MENTION]

Personally, I believe that the methods you are proposing especially in a heavy system mastery kind of game all this oversimulation does is arbitrarily hamper a DM's ability to run a game.

on the magic fighter NPC example. the only way to do it in the simulationist persepctive is to give him more levels. which in any level based system is a problem. as the need for the plot elements grows the power of the NPC would have to grow faster then the Party could ever hope to defeat.

A level 10 party, facing a magic fighter of equal skill to both the party fighter and mage would have to be a level 20 creature! and in most level based systems this kind of scaling doesnt work well.

and a side effect of having the PC rules for NPC's in a heavy system mastery system is that players dont have to go far to metagame. running across an NPC fighter? bam the players already have the NPCs abilities right there in the PHB. and dont dare try to pull anything funny or your players will call you out on it.

With the kobold ally example. i dont see why it's such an immersion breaker. what i'd do is just turn him into a companion character, adjust the statblock a bit so he'd fit with the party and there you have a kobold companion with all of his same powers and abilities that you just encountered.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

that may be true, but with 4e i can just have a 3x5 card with all the math needed to run any monster i deem fit. dont need to scramble through books or prepare random encounters beforehand.

Cool.

Each has their styles.

 

[pemerton]

There's no reason why it would break the game.

An NPC who's brilliant at both swordplay and magic (as good as the party fighter in melee and the wizard in a spellbattle, say) is simply higher level than the PCs.

In a points-buy system this makes sense - ie the NPC just has more points.

In a level-based system, though, it causes problems. Does the NPC in question therefore have level-appropriate hit points? AC? saving throws? magic items? (I'm aware that not all of these things scale with level in all editions of D&D - but in all editions of D&D at least some of them scale with level.)

That's what breaks the game. From the point of view of encounter design, you can't build the NPC you need, because (for example) the saves will be too good and the wizard PC will therefore be pointlessly nerfed. From the point of view of PC design, if I build the NPC I want - ie with the saves, hp etc that will make my encounter work - then a PC built on the same numbers will not work - it would be analogous to a points-buy PC who has (let's say) spent all the points on offence and not defence. Whereas part of the point of a level-based game like D&D is to prevent those sorts of tradeoffs in PC building.

You don't start with spesifications for a challenging encounter and design how the world works from there. You start with what's in the world, then design challenges using those elements.

Who does "you" refer to in this sentence. It doesn't refer to me - as in, you are not describing how I run my game.

I start with the world, I then look at the build tools I have - including the guideolins for challenging encounters - and I build the encounter that will reflect the scenario/situation I want to set up. At low levels, I used the MM entries for my hobgoblins. Now, I am building my own "hobgoblin phalanx" monsters, which are Huge mid-paragon swarms. I also recently build and used some "hobgoblin wyvern riders", which were mechanically single minion monsters. (Question: what would I have done had a PC done something to push a rider of his wyvenr? Answer: I don't know, but I was fairly confident that it wouldn't come up, because I was fairly confident that no forced movement would occur without also dealing damage that would eliminate the minions' 1 hp. And as it turned out, I was right about that.)

A combat involving 1 15th level PC vs 20 3rd level hobgoblins would be tedious and boring to resolve. The combat involving the Questing Knight holding of a hobgoblin phalanx for a round or two, and then - after they surrouned him - besting them with fire and sword, was a dramatic one that was a lot of fun to resolve.

The obvious reason why they should be built using the same rules is that from an in-universe perspective, there's not supposed to be any way to tell a PC from an NPC!

From an in-universe perspective, there's no such thing as level, hit points, or (in my view, at least) character class.

if you use the same rules for everything, it's a lot easier to handle situations where characters end up doing something other than what you've designed them for.

This is about action resolution. It has nothing to do with character build, as far as I can see.

the party fighter ended up sparing a random kobold warrior's life and taking him on as a henchman. Because he worked exactly like a PC, it was no problem to have him tag along, define what he could do or learn besides stabbing people with his shortspear, calculate how much XP he got from the adventures he participated in and decide how he would advance.

In 4e? Most likely he would have been a Minion, and having him do anything at all besides soak up attacks would be an exercise in frustration. Even if he were a normal monster, he would stick out like a sore thumb in the party with his monster statblock. If I converted him to PC rules or something like it, the kobold warrior they fought would end up totally different from the kobold warrior who joined them. Instant loss of immersion.

4e has multiple ways of handling this. There are the companion rules in DMG2, but I've never used them. There are the hireling rules in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium. I've used a version of these.

In my own game, the dwarven warrior-priest recruited some dwarven NPC allies. As NPCs they had not stat blocks when I introduced them into the game, just some ingame fiction. They became servants of the PC when he showed he could knock them all flat with a single sweep of his polearm (this was a culmination to a skill challenge, and didn't require the NPCs to have stats.)

When they got in a fight with some hobgoblins and their pet behemoth, I gave the NPCs a level 10 appropriate AC and minion-level hit points. Several died. One in particular survived, and is not the PC's herald. After lobbying from the PC, I gave the herald a special ability - if he takes damage, he gets a saving throw (4e standard ie 10+ on d20) to avoid being killed.

How does he advance? Arbitrarly, in this context, given that he is closer to set dressing than a fellow protagonist. If he were another defacto PC, then he could get a standard share of the XP and be advance appropriately (and he would also have to be statted up as a companion rather than a minion).

That doesn't mean that I can't interpret what they made for my own, simulationist purposes

<snip>

in a class-based game there are two basic ways of ensuring you can create a sufficiently broad variety of characters: Either classes must be sufficiently spesific (and numerous) that you can find an appropriate class, or they must be sufficiently flexible. In my own games I chose the latter, since I like minimalism. I'm defending the structure of 3e here, not every spesific detail of the implementation.

<snip>

In fact in my home games I house rule a lot of the things about feat and class progressions that don't make sense to me, like the inability to have a skillful character who is not also a budding assassin, but that's not really germane to this discussion.

I personally don't understand why one would want to use 3E to run this sort of thing. If there are going to be so many classes that every profession is viably represented, what is the point of the classes? Why not go to a mixed class/point-buy game like RM or HARP? Or to a flat-out simulationist game like Runequest (which, it should be noted, still doesn't use the same rules for building NPCs and monsters as PCs)?

But to keep it to 3E - you seem to be saying that to make the system work I have to put a simulationist spin on game mechanical features introduced primarily for balance reasons, and/0r I have to add classes or houserule the existing classes. Why would I do that, when I have a perfectly good reading of the D&D class and level mechanics - they are a metagame structure for building PCs - that doesn't cause any headaches, and doesn't make it any harder to estimate the challenge of an encounter.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Monsters/NPCs have never been built the way PCs are until 3rd, and it looked great on paper, in actual play, not so much, IME.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Because (in some circumstances) it would break the game? An NPC who can both do brilliant weapon play and brilliant spellcasting is interesting. A PC who can do both is (frequently) overpowered. An NPC who gets free attacks against enemies starting adjacent to him/her is a viable foe against multiple PCs. A PC who has such an ability is (frequently) overpowered. Etc.

Yes, but I said inherently. There is absolutely no reason that you need to inherently make NPCs in the way you've described. In fact, having that double standard is precisely what certain people are complaining about (as they feel it breaks a certain amount of suspension of disbelief or consistency within the game world). But, like I said, I was never one to have NPCs run a "destroy the world" plot, either. I also think that Asha'man is right when he says:

An NPC who's brilliant at both swordplay and magic (as good as the party fighter in melee and the wizard in a spellbattle, say) is simply higher level than the PCs. I would say obviously. Since he's managed to hone his skills in two separate fields enough to match a resourceful, battle-hardened specialist (i.e the PC), he's clearly got more experience, more intensive training or both under his belt.

If you need to have that type of NPC, he must be higher level (or has more points, etc.). There's nothing wrong with that approach, either.

In a points-buy system this makes sense - ie the NPC just has more points.

In a level-based system, though, it causes problems. Does the NPC in question therefore have level-appropriate hit points? AC? saving throws? magic items? (I'm aware that not all of these things scale with level in all editions of D&D - but in all editions of D&D at least some of them scale with level.)

That's what breaks the game.

We'll see how the next edition turns out. Their saves seem to be based on their attributes (roll a Con save!) versus the check of the Wizard (roll an Int check to set the DC!), and I'm not sure it scales with level. We'll see.

HP is a valid concern, but I imagine the mage levels aren't going to give him a ton more. And, if he's that powerful in both areas, why doesn't he have more "mojo"? Or, more appropriately, what's wrong with him having more "mojo"?

I think my main dispute with you is in the "what breaks the game" area. You seem to have determined that, whereas I'm talking from a much less solid viewpoint on how the game is even played. HP does not need to scale quickly, or based on level. It probably will, mind you. I'm talking about theoretical game design (perhaps in application to the next edition, based on what they've said), but there's no need for these things to break the game. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

There is absolutely no reason that you need to inherently make NPCs in the way you've described. In fact, having that double standard is precisely what certain people are complaining about

<snip>

HP is a valid concern, but I imagine the mage levels aren't going to give him a ton more. And, if he's that powerful in both areas, why doesn't he have more "mojo"? Or, more appropriately, what's wrong with him having more "mojo"?

I think my main dispute with you is in the "what breaks the game" area. You seem to have determined that, whereas I'm talking from a much less solid viewpoint on how the game is even played.

In some ways (surprise, surprise!) this resembles the falling damage discussion in the other thread.

I've got nothing against those who - for whatever reason - want to interpret class, levels etc as having ingame as well as metagame signficance, and therefore want "rules as physics" symmetry in the build rules for PCs and NPCs. In saying that I've got nothing against them, I should add that I don't really understand it within the context of D&D. Given that PCs aren't built via lifepaths, and given that PC level gain and development doesn't meaningfully correlate to the causes of personal development within the fiction (eg training, practice, the passage of time, etc), I don't really understand what it means to treat classes and level gain as "physics of the gameworld". (Whereas for a system like Runequest this makes perfect sense - but the issue of Whirlwind Attack won't come up in Runequest, because an orc has a different lifepath from any of the PCs, just like the wealthy but feeble-in-combat NPC merchant or king.)

Even though I don't really understand it, though, I've got nothing against those who want to play that way. Whatever floats their boats!

But I'm sceptical of the claim that this sort of mechanical approach can be easily implemented in a system and leave its suitability for other styles of play unaffected.

Now you may be correct that there's no inherent reason to build NPCs in the way that I do. But there are good reasons. (I don't have a strong view on whether or not they're inherent, but I do have a strong view that they're good.) They have to do with action economy, combat pacing, etc. Other game designers are aware of the problem, or at least some aspects of it - in Rolemaster, for example, most high level opponents are given some form of area/multi-target attack (via breath, via spells, via multiple appendages etc). The Burning Wheel designers, as I noted upthread, tackle the issue in the Adventure Burner with advice on how to stop important but unaccompanied monsters being creamed by the action economy and helping rules of that game.

My concern is that desigining a game so that its monster build rules, and its PC rules, support 3E-style integration of the two mechanical systems, has the potential to get in the way of the game supporting alternative approaches (including my preferred approach) to monster and encounter design. (Eg by making me give the monsters/NPCs more hit points than is good for pacing - currently, when I want a minion I use a minion, when I want an elite I use an elite.)

 

[JamesonCourage]

Even though I don't really understand it, though, I've got nothing against those who want to play that way. Whatever floats their boats!

See, that also seems to be a fundamental disconnect during these discussions. I at least understand where you, Hussar, etc. are coming from in these discussions. I keep getting "I don't get it" from Hussar (and now you). I think the discussion would be clearer if both sides could at least understand the other. Is there any way I can clear things up, on my end?

But I'm sceptical of the claim that this sort of mechanical approach can be easily implemented in a system and leave its suitability for other styles of play unaffected.

I'd heartily agree that class-based systems make this harder.

Now you may be correct that there's no inherent reason to build NPCs in the way that I do. But there are good reasons.

I'd argue there are good reasons to use the same tools to fundamentally build both (even if you can use a cheat sheet with strong guidelines to save time). But, that's where our opinion seems to differ. Of course there are good reasons to build PCs and NPCs differently. It just depends on perspective and goals. I think we differ in both of those areas.

They have to do with action economy, combat pacing, etc. Other game designers are aware of the problem, or at least some aspects of it - in Rolemaster, for example, most high level opponents are given some form of area/multi-target attack (via breath, via spells, via multiple appendages etc). The Burning Wheel designers, as I noted upthread, tackle the issue in the Adventure Burner with advice on how to stop important but unaccompanied monsters being creamed by the action economy and helping rules of that game.

I've found that higher numbers help offset this (or even negate it), but action economy is a big concern. I don't much like the "AC is low, HP needs to be whittled down" approach to combat pacing that D&D has always used, so my opinion on combat pacing is going to be largely divergent from what you or other people may want in a system.

My concern is that desigining a game so that its monster build rules, and its PC rules, support 3E-style integration of the two mechanical systems, has the potential to get in the way of the game supporting alternative approaches (including my preferred approach) to monster and encounter design. (Eg by making me give the monsters/NPCs more hit points than is good for pacing - currently, when I want a minion I use a minion, when I want an elite I use an elite.)

Disagree on a fundamental but theoretical level. I could easily accomplish this with my system, but it is point buy. I think I could rig a class system to do this, too, though. But, really, we've got different goals. As always, play what you like