Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Hussar]

Mr. Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?

I'm sorry but your wild generalization is vastly removed from reality.

Really? 25% of all humans in 1e have 1 hit point. How is that different? You can fiat it away and ignore it, somehow wiping out massive numbers of the population, ignoring the fact that doing so would result in mass extinction, ignore all the small animals who, in every edition, had 1 hit point, which you also apparently kill, thus wiping out much of the biomass of your world.

But, apparently this is a wild generalization.

YOU are the one insisting that the rules inform world building. I'm simply holding you to your own standard. If you ignore the rules to make a believable world, which I imagine that you and every other DM out there does, then why does having an explicit type of monster suddenly become a major stumbling block?

That is what everyone does. The only difference is where the cut off is. They are all arbitrary based upon preference.



I said rarely. Please actually respond to what I say, the fact that you translated "I rarely had 1hp creatures in my worlds in prior editions and at a much lower % than indicated by the raw dice. I'd just kinda assumed most of the 1hpers in the world had already died off, resulting in only a few 1hpers being around" into a response based around NEVER makes me think you're not really talking to me, because you're surely not responding to what I'm saying.



I don't fiat them to ignore them, I fiat them because I assume most of them have suffered 1hp of damage and therefore they're dead.

So, you wipe out 25% of the population of your worlds? Or somewhere to that effect? What do you do with all the creatures that actually only have 1 hit point? Oh, that's right, you ignore the rules.

First: since I fiated out most 1hp humanoids, doesn't that mean I was bothered by them?

You couldn't possibly have fiated out most of the 1hp humanoids. You'd still have to wipe out massive numbers of population in order to get "most".

You ignore the rules, same as everyone else.

Second: You're confusing 1hp creatures with minions, that is not the case. Minions are explicit mechanical constructions that exist outside the normal scale of creature toughness for the explicit purpose of dying quickly and making player's feel tough while providing a mechanical role in combat. A creature with 1 hp in 4e isnt like a creature with 1hp in prior editions because having 1hp in one edition is different in design than having 1hp in others. I've already gone over this, but since you don't seem to be reading what I'm posting, I'll repeat it here, "I suspect the major difference is one of scale. In 1e, hp varied from 1 to about 100 for normal creatures (not uniques). In 4e that has increased from 1 (only minions) to the weakest creature in the world (outside a minion) having around 20hp while the strongest reaching close to 1,400hp. A minion, is about 1/20th as tough as the next weakest creature in the world. The difference of scale is dramatically larger, and that increase results in it being increasingly harder to ignore an issue, IMO.

In more words, a 1hp bandit in a pre-4e editiion (where bandits had 1-6hp - 1e) would have the equivalent of around 4-6hp in 4e, if that bandit was not a minion were one to scale creature strength across editions and if one assumes the listed bandit in the 4eMM is the strongest. If you assume the listed 4eMM bandit as being average instead of strongest, a 1e bandit with 1 hp would then scale into a 4e bandit with about 12hp.

Minions are not like 1hp creatures in other editions.

Why not? Why is there this vast gulf? Just because there is a higher "high end", why does it make any difference when the starting point is EXACTLY the same. A 1 hit point humanoid or creature dies when he takes 1 point of damage. Full stop. There is no difference.

Methinks you should just talk to me as opposed to be snooty. I'm a real human person. Talk to me like you'd talk to someone sitting next to you on the bus.



Your statement is based upon the belief that minions existed in prior editions. I believe they didn't as minions are more than only 1hp creatures - they are 1 hp creatures in context with all the other creatures in the game. A 1hp creature in 1e non-4e D&D is different than a minion because of the relation between a 1hp creatures and the toughness of non-1hp creatures.

Also, your statements are based upon the faulty assumption that I didn't seem to have problems with 1hp creatures in prior rules, even though I explicitly fiated most of them away because I did have problems with them.

joe b.

Look, we're not going to convince each other here. Really, we're not.

I just think that your entire line of argument is specious. You are insisting on a difference that doesn't exist. A minion has 1 hit point and is not the only member of a given race that exists, and thus represents some part of the whole. A 1 hit point 1 HD creature, of any stripe, is not the only member of a given race that exists and thus represents some part of the whole.

Your solution in earlier editions was to basically ignore the problem. You didn't use 1 hit point creatures in adventures, and that's fine, but, you certainly did not just kill them off because, if you did, you would have nothing alive in your world. You would have mass extinctions. A 25% mortality rate before accidental death or disease = everyone dead very quickly.

You are claiming that a 1 hit point bandit in 1e suddenly gains more hit points in later editions. But, that's not the point. We're not transplanting here. Raven Crowkings radioactive Africanized killer butterflies still kill your bandit in 1e same as he kills the minion in 4e.

If you could essentially ignore the problem for 30 years, I find it very curious that suddenly having higher hit point limits makes it difficult to believe. Hell, 3e monsters ran into mid range triple digits and it didn't bother you. Suddenly, because there are epic challenges in the Monster manual, it becomes a major mental stumbling block?

I'm just not seeing it.

 

[BryonD]

YOU are the one insisting that the rules inform world building. I'm simply holding you to your own standard.

Hussar, I stopped debating you months ago when your pattern of building every single debate solely on the premise of inventing absurd distortions of the other guys position and trying to force the conversation to center on those misrepresentations became boring.

Two replies to me in and you are true to form.

If you honestly think that my standard has anything to do with what you have described, then you don't grasp the debate well enough to merit my time.
If not, you are being intentionally deceitful.

 

[BryonD]

If I caused confusion, my apologies.

Now come on, lets play fair.
Go back and read the posts I responded to.

In one you are strongly praising that minions are not screwed.
In another you are strongly praising that defenses increase.

Now you are playing a shades of grey game.
I like the shades of grey game.

But that position is not the one you presented before.
If it is what you meant and you said it badly, then that is cool. But you said it very badly. Twice.

Clearer?

Yeah, 3E and 4E both allow balanced and lop-sided encounters.

re: Gear and level.
Using that as an opener, and regarding the half-level aspect of 4e, again personally it suits me.

Whenever we did the classic "strip the party of the gear" scenario, I don't mind the loss of power in the classes (which was the point of the scenario), I just didn't like HOW MUCH gear meant to the character.

Remember vaguely once that our 1e DM did that scenario and we ran into the people that were wearing our gear and we absolutely got stomped of course, finding out that they were vastly lower than us was a true kick in the pants.

Cool.
3E suites me. At least compared to 4E. There are other methods I also like.
But no need to argue pure preference of style there.

 

[Hussar]

Hussar, I stopped debating you months ago when your pattern of building every single debate solely on the premise of inventing absurd distortions of the other guys position and trying to force the conversation to center on those misrepresentations became boring.

Two replies to me in and you are true to form.

If you honestly think that my standard has anything to do with what you have described, then you don't grasp the debate well enough to merit my time.
If not, you are being intentionally deceitful.

Hey, I can only argue with what you write. If I am misunderstanding you, I apologize.

Are you not saying that minions do not work in a world building sense because they have only one hit point and thus would die by butterfly wing?

If that is what you are saying, my question to you is how did you design your worlds in EVERY OTHER EDITION when every other edition had 1 hit point animals and people.

In every edition, 1 hit point is 1 hit point. When you take damage, you take at least one point of damage (barring some corner cases). How did you get around 25% of your population having 1 hit point? And, why does that work around not apply now to minions?

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Not all bonuses of course but the vast majority of the ones that exist simply to scale up everything yes. Byron D was right in his assessment that all the higher numbers are just window dressing.

If attacks, defenses, and hit points scale more or less equally for PC's and monsters then there isn't really much noticeable improvement in terms of actually improving as an adventurer against a worthy foe of equal level.
You end up with a base level of competence at 1st level that stays on a roughly even track. In 1E defenses didn't scale anywhere near as fast resulting in an actual increase in hit percentage as levels increased providing more actual improvement.

All the character build choices and escalating bonuses do is provide fodder for the character tweaking mini game. This can be a lot of fun for some people on it's own but after all is said and done, at the actual table the result of all that tweaking is a wash if the world scales along with you.

"Always fighting orcs" as I believe it's called.

 

[BryonD]

If that is what you are saying, my question to you is how did you design your worlds in EVERY OTHER EDITION when every other edition had 1 hit point animals and people.

You are presuming I favored other editions of D&D.
In 1E my world building sucked, but I was a kid playing kid style orc killing D&D.

In 2E I became unsatisfied and left for better systems.

 

[Hussar]

You are presuming I favored other editions of D&D.
In 1E my world building sucked, but I was a kid playing kid style orc killing D&D.

In 2E I became unsatisfied and left for better systems.

And 3e? Which I know is your preferred edition and I also know that you are heavily into world building with?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not all bonuses of course but the vast majority of the ones that exist simply to scale up everything yes. Byron D was right in his assessment that all the higher numbers are just window dressing.

If attacks, defenses, and hit points scale more or less equally for PC's and monsters then there isn't really much noticeable improvement in terms of actually improving as an adventurer against a worthy foe of equal level.
You end up with a base level of competence at 1st level that stays on a roughly even track. In 1E defenses didn't scale anywhere near as fast resulting in an actual increase in hit percentage as levels increased providing more actual improvement.

All the character build choices and escalating bonuses do is provide fodder for the character tweaking mini game. This can be a lot of fun for some people on it's own but after all is said and done, at the actual table the result of all that tweaking is a wash if the world scales along with you.

Considering that we now have "spell-like" effects for everyone - powers - it makes more sense then ever to remove most "level scaling" bonuses.

Of course, some scaling still exists, but it is found in the amount of damage you can inflict. The rest of scaling is based on conditions inflicted by powers.

Maybe a Modern 2.0 or D&D 5 will actually do that. (And then, just to annoy everyone, it will also remove the to-hit roll and use a similar role just to determine a damage multiplier or modifier.)

 

[Hussar]

Not all bonuses of course but the vast majority of the ones that exist simply to scale up everything yes. Byron D was right in his assessment that all the higher numbers are just window dressing.

If attacks, defenses, and hit points scale more or less equally for PC's and monsters then there isn't really much noticeable improvement in terms of actually improving as an adventurer against a worthy foe of equal level.
You end up with a base level of competence at 1st level that stays on a roughly even track. In 1E defenses didn't scale anywhere near as fast resulting in an actual increase in hit percentage as levels increased providing more actual improvement.

All the character build choices and escalating bonuses do is provide fodder for the character tweaking mini game. This can be a lot of fun for some people on it's own but after all is said and done, at the actual table the result of all that tweaking is a wash if the world scales along with you.

Yes and no.

Yes, if everything the PC's interact with in the world scales with them perfectly, then the bonuses will be a was. That's 100% true. However, in play, that's not going to happen. Or at least, it probably shouldn't. You (and I mean this in the non-specific you, not you personally) would design adventures using opponents and challenges that are going to run a range of levels both above and below the party's level.

IIRC, the DMG actually talks about challenges in an adventure should range from about -5 to +5 of the party level (or am I misremembering that? It could have been something I read on the boards). Which means the scaling is going to matter a great deal. It's only a wash when opponents are equal leveled.

And, again, this was fairly true in other editions as well. A CR 10 opponent in 3e is going to have an AC around 20-25, probably about 100 hit points and is likely going to have a +15 attack bonus. Give or take a few, but, that's probably pretty close. The reason you can peg a creature at a given CR is because of scaling. Earlier editions were perhaps not so rigorous as this in determining challenge level, but, the basic idea was certainly there.

Yes, if you only use equivalent challenges, then the scaling is a net wash. But, since in play that's extremely unlikely (and very, very boring), not to mention very limiting, it's not going to come up.

 

[jgbrowning]

I'm just not seeing it.

That's obvious. I suggest you just ignore me. Your posts have made it clear that I should ignore you.

If it makes you feel better, just think of me as an idiot. As someone just can't see how correct you are and can't see how incorrect I am. Someone who has many major mental stumbling blocks because I fundamentally misunderstand gaming systems.

joe b.