Doing away with "Bigger Fish" problem.

[Meophist]

An idea I had:

Keep the Fighter's BAB progression, or something like that, have some decent hit point progression, but keep AC mostly static, increasing minimally, throughout the game. Instead, make it so that for every 5 or 10 you beat the opponent's AC by, you roll the damage dice again and do extra damage.

Something like that may allow the progression to be significant, at least enough to be noticeable, but make it so that power level is overall "flatter". Weaker enemies still pose a threat and you stand a bit more of a chance against something that's higher level.

...I think.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

Well, if the idea of complexity modules work for characters I don't see why not giving things like domain management (lair management) for monsters to allow them larger resources to handle higher level PCs.

 

[howandwhy99]

Here's the thing. I think some may be confusing flat with flattened. Zero advancement progression isn't the suggestion here, at least by my reading.

Here's some more on OD&D's bell curve + linear combat progression.
[sblock]Die AC
20 0
19 1
18 2
17 3
16 4
15 5
14 6
13 7
12 8
11 9[/sblock]Die rolls have a 50% chance to hit the average unimproved human. As combat rank increases, 1 for 1 for the best combatants: fighting-men, this % decreases to 5%. They have a 5% miss chance on the same figure at 10th level.

However, at 1st level they have a 5% chance to hit the average unimproved 10th level opponent. Neither the low end nor the high end ever receive automatic hits or misses.

This is flattened without being flat. There is improvement and a diminishing top end to it, but no opponent is ever absolutely irrelevant. Nor is any opponent absolutely impossible to beat. Even group additions in mass numbers stop this. The system works at both ends too, but the die roll odds always diminish down to levels not worth gaming. The play of the game itself becomes about increasing or decreasing roll probabilities, never an "I win" by declaration.

How does this work out with improvements? What modifiers do is shift the roll average, not the result. Let's look at AC and to hit modifiers. Chainmail +1 gives a -1 to an attack roll. An axe +1 gives a -1 penalty to AC for an opponent. By moving the roll average in this way the referee rarely, if ever, needs to worry about odds smaller than 5%.

If you do need to worry about hits above 20 or misses below 1 on a roll, then make another d20 roll or a percentile one. Here's the start of the sequence, to get started.
[sblock]AC & consecutive rolls:
21 = 20 +25%
22 = 20 +11%
23 = 20 +6%
24 = 20 +4%
25 = 20 +2%[/sblock]

 

[Yora]

If we flatten this out, it takes away from the PC's being special. If everyone in the world scaled to the PCs in relative strength throughout a large swath of levels, then everything is the same. Post 4e, you could have the same effect, but it was much easier to scale NPCs and monsters to fit your needs.

Which is the main reason I want it. PCs don't have to be special. If you want them to be special, play at higher levels or double the XP they get from every encounter. This seems preferable to me than having to cut XP in half when I want to play a campaign with PCs who are not special, because that means it takes really long time for players to learn new abilities and spells.

 

[trancejeremy]

The trouble with scaling stuff up, even with something like templates or themes, you are still fighting the same thing.

I play LOTRO. At level one, you fight orcs, goblins, wolves, bears, boars.

All the way up to the level cap you mostly fight orcs, goblins, wolves, bears, and even the occasional boar. It gets old. Really old.

When you're higher level, it's simply a lot more fun to fight more exotic creatures. It makes you feel more powerful to take on a Balrog (or Type VI Demon) than a really really tough orc or goblin.

 

[Hassassin]

1) I would like to see a "static" world, where an orc is the same at both 1st and 10th level, but an orc chieftain is something else at both.

2) I would like to see linear, instead of exponential growth. If 1 orc is a decent challenge at 1st, then at 10th you should be able to handle about 10, not 100.

Corollary: Both attack and damage cannot have linear growth, nor can both AC and hp.

 

[Aeolius]

If we flatten this out, it takes away from the PC's being special.

As the DM, the NPCs are my characters. I want them to be special too.

With my current campaign, I started by designing the BBEG. Then I fleshed out a few of her followers, the followers' minions, the minions' underlings, etc. When the campaign began, the PCs encountered the underlings. At Level 10, they have yet to meet the BBEG. As the PCs adventure and advance, so too do the NPCs. That helps keep a sense of continuity to the campaign.

 

[StarFyre]

This is something I really don't like. My players don't want me to use the same enemies again as it gets boring for them...

they would rather have the occassional special orc character (like king obould), but otherwise, the adventures we do go beyond the stuff with orcs, or ogres anyways unless they are very unique ones.

Sanjay

 

[Astrosicebear]

As the DM, the NPCs are my characters. I want them to be special too.

With my current campaign, I started by designing the BBEG. Then I fleshed out a few of her followers, the followers' minions, the minions' underlings, etc. When the campaign began, the PCs encountered the underlings. At Level 10, they have yet to meet the BBEG. As the PCs adventure and advance, so too do the NPCs. That helps keep a sense of continuity to the campaign.

Continuity is fine, but you could do that in any edition. Whichever edition you play determined how long it took. In 3E if your party advanced more rapidly, you might have to take some time to adjust. In 4E you might just be able to do it on the fly. This is a DMing style and a campaign style, and edition independent.

What we are really talking about here is the power gap and curve that exists in a fantasy setting. And after reading through the posts, I find myself questioning if anything really has to change?

Regardless of the scaling power of monsters, and the ease at which the mechanics make that possible, there will always be a bigger fish. Flat=stale. If the PCs are just as capable as anyone else in the world, whats the point? If a fighter PC gets beaten by a master trainer NPC, in a normal situation the fighter PC must train and gain experience to beat that master, becoming a master himself. Its character growth. But if everything is flat, that PC can beat the master x/10 times just through good rolls and luck. Wheres the drama? Wheres the impetus?

The issue is in designing a system in which monsters 'can' be scaled if desired, and generally remain a threat longer than some previous editions. If the system is designer properly, any DM can run any game they wish, with whatever rules and monsters they wish, at whatever pace they wish. Previous editions accomplished this, but as said, the gap differed greatly.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I dunno. I still don't see any problem. I see people searching for a problem that doesn't really exist. As the PCs get stronger, I don't see it as any sort of "shaky motivation" that they would get recognized as a potential threat for the bigger fish. If there are any role-playing or plot issues, the problem is with the DM (and players), and not with the game mechanics. I don't quite honestly understand that some of you have a problem with putting up, say, 1st-level orcs against the 10th level heroes. Why would you feel the need to make them 10th-level orcs? If you have 10th-level orcs, okay, go for it, and justify why they're stronger. You don't need a change in game mechanics to do that. If not, and the story line calls for orcs, then use what you have! If, in a 10th-, 20th-, or even 25th-level story arc you require 1st-level orcs, then use it! For crying out loud, what rulebook is requiring you to conduct combat should the PCs even encounter them? If you have such an encounter, just roleplay it. Ask the players to describe in words how their PCs handle this encounter. Stop wasting their time.