D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

CapnZapp said:

Don't be silly. No D&D based wild west game will keep the rules, character stats and class abilities exactly the same as in the PHB. Of course there will be changes.

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Literally the first post in this thread is exactly what you said doesn’t exist. Swing and a miss. The only changes were re-skinning class names, but it’s pretty much the same for intents and purposes. Same rules, same stats, etc. Even race as class is the same.

Maybe you’d threadcap less, and find yourself in fewer arguments, if you actually read the point of threads you are participating in. Shrug.

Tony Vargas said:

I'm not sure which is more out there, the denial that ranged weapons can & do kill in D&D (ask any number of imaginary orcs with imaginary elven arrows sticking out of them - the death toll over the last 45 years must have been staggering), or the denial that people /do/ close with gunmen in spite of being shot at, or even actually hit several times?

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Wow, the strawmen you are setting up are astonishing.
How many of those archers had crossbow mastery or other feats to allow them to shoot in melee. Yes, bows do kill in D&D. But mostly they do it from less than 15ft. away and only because someone else standing between the archer and the target preventing him from moving forward. Why do you think this is so? Unless you set it up perfectly, maximum range, sharpshooter if possible, rough terrain, meatshield in front of you, the enemy will, thanks to the low ranges and sequential combat, manage to charge into range in one or two turns. And he will gladly do so if he is a better melee.
Oh sure, if you hit all the attacks and also score a crit that might not work out to well, but in most cases the enemy reaches melee and starts swinging. Hopefully you have a no AoO feat for shooting or a few buddies whith whom you can juggle the melee attacker back and forth.

This fundamentally changes how guns work in D&D compared real life. Suppression isn't a thing and close combat stays viable even into western and more modern settings. A PC can charge through gatling gun fire and be 100% certain that he won't die, thanks to his HP buffer. But yes, we all know that when Wyatt Earp cleaned out Tombstone it looked like a scene from Equilibrium as thats how it would play out in D&D, right? As long as if you have enough HP, something like the Charge of the Light Brigade would work in D&D.

Derren said:

How many of those archers had crossbow mastery or other feats to allow them to shoot in melee. Why do you think this is even needed?

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In 5e, you just shoot in melee - you have disadvantage, but you can do it, and it's not an added danger over and above regular melee. It's not realistic, of course, neither are a lot of things.
It strikes me mainly as a compromise for playabilty and to make the game less tactically challenging or frustrating - faster combat, too. I suspect it'd be OK in many other settings, too, even a little less unrealistic to shoot a gun in the middle of a fist fight with just Disadvantage, than a bow, even.

Unless you set it up perfectly, maximum range, sharpshooter if possible, rough terrain, meatshield in front of you, the enemy will, thanks to the low ranges and sequential combat, manage to charge into range in one or two turns.

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The assumption here, is, I assume, some sort of 'fair fight' scenario with a similar-level character-classed enemy or CR monster. Yeah, those fights aren't over instantly. OTOH, if a bunch of much lower-CR creatures charge you across on open field, you'll be able to drop some of 'em - possibly as many as you can loose arrows in the time you have.

This fundamentally changes how guns work in D&D compared real life.

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Levels & hps fundamentally change how arrows, knives, swords, and being immolated work in D&D compared to RL, too.

Suppression isn't a thing and close combat stays viable even into western and more modern settings.

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While there's /plenty/ of close combat in a typical western or modern action adventure, the point about suppression is worth thinking about. D&D declines to model a /lot/ of viable tactics, both medieval and modern, at least, formally. (At some points, it did handle things like suppressions, but they were modestly obscure and not around long.)

A 5e DM could always go all "goal & method" on suppression fire, though: The player says "I snap off shots to keep their heads down" and the DM tells him to mark off X rounds, and narrates those enemies staying behind cover that round (or has the targets make WIS saves vs a DC based he comes up with, those who fail stay hunkered down - he chooses other actions for those who make it).

A PC can charge through gatling gun fire and be 100% certain that he won't die, thanks to his HP buffer.

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Well, the player can decide to have the PC do that, whether the PC thinks he's safe or not is a matter of RP, and whether any of his enemies think there's no way they could have killed him is up to the DM.

Tony Vargas said:

In 5e, you just shoot in melee - you have disadvantage, but you can do it, and it's not an added danger over and above regular melee. It's not realistic, of course, neither are a lot of things.
It strikes me mainly as a compromise for playabilty and to make the game less tactically challenging or frustrating - faster combat, too. I suspect it'd be OK in many other settings, too, even a little less unrealistic to shoot a gun in the middle of a fist fight with just Disadvantage, than a bow, even.

The assumption here, is, I assume, some sort of 'fair fight' scenario with a similar-level character-classed enemy or CR monster. Yeah, those fights aren't over instantly. OTOH, if a bunch of much lower-CR creatures charge you across on open field, you'll be able to drop some of 'em - possibly as many as you can loose arrows in the time you have.

Levels & hps fundamentally change how arrows, knives, swords, and being immolated work in D&D compared to RL, too.

While there's /plenty/ of close combat in a typical western or modern action adventure, the point about suppression is worth thinking about. D&D declines to model a /lot/ of viable tactics, both medieval and modern, at least, formally. (At some points, it did handle things like suppressions, but they were modestly obscure and not around long.)

A 5e DM could always go all "goal & method" on suppression fire, though: The player says "I snap off shots to keep their heads down" and the DM tells him to mark off X rounds, and narrates those enemies staying behind cover that round (or has the targets make WIS saves vs a DC based he comes up with, those who fail stay hunkered down - he chooses other actions for those who make it).

Well, the player can decide to have the PC do that, whether the PC thinks he's safe or not is a matter of RP, and whether any of his enemies think there's no way they could have killed him is up to the DM.

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And this is why D&D, and other HP/Level systems are bad for western or more modern setting. Because of the large disconnect between how the (N)PCs are supposed to behave (keep your heads down, expect a gatling or equivalent to prevent someone from charging through an area) and how the game actually plays out (don't be suppressed because it can't kill you, rather charge forward and running through gatling fire being 100% safe).
A good system would minimize this disconnect, but in D&D it only grows the more modern the setting becomes until you again reach fantasy settings (in space).

WW2 or modern settings are especially bad with D&D. You have semi-automatic weapons everywhere, but you still can easily go into melee and also have situations where you simply "eat a grenade" because you have enough HP and want to use your move action for something else. And if you are really high level you can even survive getting shot at with high caliber weapons (cannons, 20mm guns or even the main gun of a tank).

Derren said:

And this is why D&D, and other HP/Level systems are bad for western or more modern setting. Because of the large disconnect between how the (N)PCs are supposed to behave (keep your heads down, expect a gatling or equivalent to prevent someone from charging through an area) and how the game actually plays out (don't be suppressed because it can't kill you, rather charge forward and running through gatling fire being 100% safe).

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How are characters in genre supposed to behave? It's not perfectly consistent: in some sub-genres or instances they'll be /fairly/ cautious of some hazards, but much of the time they'll act boldly, take crazy risks, and survive.

Sometimes it makes little sense if you think about it too hard. The same character in a movie or TV show might counsel caution to a minor character in a hazardous situation, only to have that minor character run off and get killed, then, in a different, much more hazardous situation, that same character will take a crazy risk to save the day, and be fine. That's author force or 'plot armor' in action and that - not reality - is what hps are helping to model.

Were to model hazards "Realistically" in an RPG, you'd get characters who don't behave like they do in genre. Or who die. A lot.

A good system would minimize this disconnect, but in D&D it only grows the more modern the setting becomes until you again reach fantasy settings (in space).

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It's not really /growing/. Whether you're surviving wrestling with a dragon the size of a bus in fantasy, and surviving being clawed/clawed/bitten by something with a bite radius that'd make a great white envious, or dodging bullets in Tombstone, or outrunning an explosion in a skyscraper, or dodging laser beams, your high-level d20 character's pile of hps are providing a comparable, sometimes even genre-appropriate, disconnect from reality.

WW2 or modern settings are especially bad with D&D. You have semi-automatic weapons everywhere, but you still can easily go into melee and also have situations where you simply "eat a grenade" because you have enough HP and want to use your move action for something else. And if you are really high level you can even survive getting shot at with high caliber weapons (cannons, 20mm guns or even the main gun of a tank).

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Whether you're charging into the mouth of a dragon, cannon, or sandworm, your D&D hps aren't /actually/ soaking it up like you're some kind of super-dense Asgardian or something, rather, you're barely-escaping gruesome death by skill/luck/fate/etc.

Even here on Planet Reality, on rare occasion, people do survive charging a machine gun nest or something, it's not that what hps model is impossible or unrealistic, it's just how dependably the hero/PC does those sorts of things that's a feature of genre fiction/RPGs.

Personally, NPCs I run react in accord with the situation and their personalities, not what a system says is “safe” or not. If an NPC is running through gatling fire, it’s probably because he’s gotten a direct order or he’s desperate, not because “he knows he can’t be killed by it” unless that is the literal in campaign truth. Like, he’s a werewolf, and they didn’t load the gun with silver bullets.

And even then he may prefer to seek cover, because silver or not, those bullets may hurt.

A theme to this thread seems to be "D&D doesn't work with firearms because people won't fight because people won't approach combat the way I expect them to".

But end of the day I don't care what tactics my players use, it's up to them. I don't care if they play "the right way" as long as they're having fun.

As far as running into a gatling gun, they fire 6,000 rounds per minute. If targeted on an individual, I doubt many PCs could survive a hundred ranged attacks per round. Which is one of the things I'd have to think about from an implementation standpoint.

Ok, I’m making an official request. Can you all please take this realism discussion to a different thread. I’ll also note that saying how/why D&D sucks for genre X is threadcapping because it’s directly against the point of this thread in the OP.

Thank you.

Oofta said:

Another cool campaign idea. D&D Fallout. Magic suddenly started working in an alternate modern day which caused people to panic and let the nukes fly. In this new version of reality radiation really is magic. I don't think you'd even need to change much. Fallout already uses HP, armor, melee weapons, magic healing, mini-nukes. Well, maybe not mini-nukes but meteor storm is about the same. You could always re-flavor spells as tech if you wanted to, but I don't think you need to.

I may have to run some mini campaigns to play with some of these ideas.

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A few years ago, I started work on this project and I just never got around to more than the outline and concept art I commissioned. But I’ve really been thinking of apply 5e rules to this setting. Sentient machines as PCs? Yes please

77IM said:

(I'm not directing this at any one person. I'm just trying to point out that the damage mechanic needs to encompass more than just "shootout at high noon." Also, as an aside, the protagonist, who is a PC, always wins the shootout at high noon, so attack and damage mechanics are already secondary to what's happening there.)

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It is, perhaps, appropriate that the mechanics you would want are found in Oriental Adventures. It's a ranged iaijutsu duel.