Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?

[nightwyrm]

No, it's like this.. in 3E you have to guess how tough the blacksmith is based on his blacksmithing skill, telling you that he probably has at least that BAB and at least that many HD (which might be too high, and if I were using a homemade NPC class it would be known by the players). In 4E you've no idea - you have to sense the DM's motive, guess how he will handle your attack on the blacksmith, discern what combat abilities he might have given this blacksmith (or indeed, whether he will give you a tough encounter or not on the fly).

But this is exactly what makes no sense for me and violates my sense of versimilitude (since everybody loves that word so much ). Blacksmithing ability (or underwater basketweaving ability for that matter) and combat ability should not be correlated. When I go talk to my head computer tech guy in my workplace, I don't expect him to be able to throw darts really well or resist poison really well just because he's good at computers.

The whole idea of classes (essentially having a bunch of correlated abilities) is inherently versimiltude-breaking. It's a useful model for making PCs and for balancing when designing games but to apply it to everything and everybody in the gameworld seems to me to be an over-application of the model.

Basically, what happens when you apply a class model to the entire world is that adventurer abilities becomes over-correlated with non-adventurer abilities. Singing ability becomes correlated with hitting ability, with spellcasting ability, with toughness (hp), with ability to shrug off disease etc. etc.

 

[Gryph]

No, it's like this.. in 3E you have to guess how tough the blacksmith is based on his blacksmithing skill, telling you that he probably has at least that BAB and at least that many HD (which might be too high, and if I were using a homemade NPC class it would be known by the players). In 4E you've no idea - you have to sense the DM's motive, guess how he will handle your attack on the blacksmith, discern what combat abilities he might have given this blacksmith (or indeed, whether he will give you a tough encounter or not on the fly).

In either system I would feel mighty pissed off if the blacksmith's skill wasn't supported by the same mechanical structure I used - if he had a smithing skill beyond his true level I would be annoyed if I challenged him to a hammer-off, and I'd be equally annoyed if his combat prowess was way higher than I might expect for his smithing. The DM has fiat though, and where in 3E, if he did either of these things I'd understand he was violating the mechanics, in 4E he just can, and I have to deal with it. In my opinion, 'a wizard did it' style DMing violates the social contract of the game, and is no fun (unless it's for a laugh, of course). 3E let's me be pissed off at the DM, 4E tells me to shut up and go back to my player mechanics where I belong.

Obviously an ideal system would be more nuanced, and the amazing blacksmith would have skills based on his age and experiences. As a player I would be able to discern his level, and in turn recognise that by investing all that time in smithing he probably wasn't terrible in combat, but he wasn't as good as me, a guy who did that all his life instead of smithing. He definitely hasn't had time to read up on arcane lore though, or even learn to walk a tightrope.

I guess it's a style thing; but, the one player practice that irritates me to know end is trying to use knowledge of game mechanics to reverse engineer a monster or NPC.

There is a wide range of stories that could generate a master blacksmith. He could be a serf, effectively chained to his forge who was never allowed to swing his hammer in anger who eventually escaped and opened his own forge.

He could have been a traditional apprentice trained from a youth who engaged in a few youthful tussles but still has no meaningful combat skill.

Maybe he was a march lords retainer and spent some time manning the walls against particularly vicious attacks but mostly was too valuable to take from the forge repairing arms and parts for the seige engines.

He could have been the armorer for a mercenary company and fought in skirmishes and battles almost as much as he smithed until he left the troop.

He could even have been a Perrin Goldeneyes type who started as an apprentice and destiny forced him to adventurer for a time before he returned home to take up his hammer again. In which case he is much more dangerous than anyone would expect from a blacksmith.

Any of those various smiths could now be at the anvil in the town where the adventurers meet him and I don't want the fact of his status as a master smith to imply anything else about him. If the players want to gauge whether he might be competent in combat they can explore the world and find out or they can take their chances and pick a fight. If they pick a fight assuming he's just a craftsman than a lot of times they will be right and sometimes they will be brutally disabused of their assumptions.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: when the world follows a rigid sort of mechanical structure, one where the players can and should make conclusions from very small mechanical facts, there is very little incentive to discover the world around him. The effect at its simplest is Troll lets use fire and acid (at least rooted in legend). At its worst its, he can easily make masterwork weapons he must be a level 10 or 11 expert careful guys he can kick our asses. (not rooted in the fiction)

I appreciate when a game allows me to easily create an npc who looks a lot like a character. I like using pc-like villains in my games. I don't care to have the game require me to build every npc and monster like it was a pc. The pc rules are good at building adventurers they get twisted and broken trying to build commoners.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Edit: I will add one thing though.. If your master blacksmith has an incredible smithing skill, I think it's reasonable that the PCs have some expectation of his level, in the UNLIKELY EVENT that they want to murder him. Again, that's open world physics, rather than the gamist, CRPG style of shopkeepers you can't kill.

My PCs can kill almost any of my shopkeepers. If they actually need to kill them I'll stat them as a low level minion or simply say "You killed him. The witnesses scream and rush off to fetch the guard. Now what?" (Note: Does not apply to Cadric the One Armed of Cadric's Adventuring Supplies, the retired fighter who sells equipment of the sort he wishes he'd had before he lost his arm, Marcus the Blind Seer who sent an illusion to take his place because he foresaw the attack, or other people with equivalent backstories).

The PCs are professional and practiced killers. The NPCs in question are probably unarmed and unarmoured, and normally at the outside are part of the militia. The only question is whether the NPCs can run away. The idea that Bob The Baker should be able to beat up the PCs just because he makes the best cakes in the kingdom is IMO silly.

In either system I would feel mighty pissed off if the blacksmith's skill wasn't supported by the same mechanical structure I used - if he had a smithing skill beyond his true level I would be annoyed if I challenged him to a hammer-off, and I'd be equally annoyed if his combat prowess was way higher than I might expect for his smithing.

And I'd be confused why you think that his level is something I'd know about in game. For a hammer-off he has whatever level the DM wants based on his reputation. I'd be pissed if he didn't match his reputation in the hammer-off or think that something weird was going on (either's possible). But level measures something about adventurers and combat - I really don't get the idea that the best way for Tim the Sage to learn to use a sword is stay in the library and read more books.

 

[GreyICE]

Yeah, I mean maybe the Blacksmith is a pacifist, who never attacks anyone, and is forced to make weapons due to the king threatening his family. He might be the best blacksmith in the world, distraught that his talents are being turned to violence, and absolutely incapable of taking on a random skeleton that wanders into his forge.

I can't believe it's actually being argued that having proficiency in combat tied to proficiency in EVERY OTHER SKILL IN THE ENTIRE WORLD is a GOOD SYSTEM. I mean if someone has 24 ranks of diplomacy he should have a BAB of at least 10?

WHY?


Why should a master diplomat have a better chance to hit a monster than a 5th level warrior. I get he's been around a LOT. But he's a goddamn diplomat. You could possibly rationalize him being good in combat, but to say that every master diplomat ever MUST be good in combat is absurdist.

Complaining that 4E lets the DM build characters they want to build is complaining about a GOOD THING.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Complaining that 4E lets the DM build characters they want to build is complaining about a GOOD THING.

Maybe this is a bunch of players complaining about why they don't get the same privilege. This whole line of argument seems to be about how a class system is BAD THING, that adventuring abilities shouldn't be tied to nonadventuring abilities, etc.

The underlying problem is that the character creation rules are how people see the world. The class system is indeed limiting and illogical, but it's the paradigm D&D works within. If one character (or a party of characters) are created with (or without) classes, then all characters should be.

 

[slobster]

I'd be equally annoyed if his combat prowess was way higher than I might expect for his smithing. The DM has fiat though, and where in 3E, if he did either of these things I'd understand he was violating the mechanics, in 4E he just can, and I have to deal with it.

Nope. In 3.x you could easily have, within the rules, a blacksmith whose combat abilities far exceed his blacksmithing abilities. Say, a level 9 fighter who never took any craft skills, who later retired and grabbed one level of expert for 3 ranks in craft (blacksmith). That is a completely by-the-rules NPC.

You could, of course, do a similar thing in 4E.

In either case your problem isn't with the game system itself. Your problem is with the GM, who (maybe) is abusing his role as arbiter of the world to surprise you with a character who has far more combat proficiency than you had expected.

At it's worst, this sort of thing could happen as a vindictive "take that" from an annoyed GM. "Oh you attack the blacksmith for not selling at a discount? It turns out he's a retired soldier (post hoc justification) who kicks your ass!" At its best, this sort of thing is a way to add texture to NPCs who otherwise don't get a lot of attention. "As the goblins break past the barricade you are surprised to see the blacksmith step from his forge, swinging a bastard sword in one hand and his forge hammer in the other. 'Makes me feel young again!' he calls out at you, as he begins plugging the hole in the defensive line."

So I agree that it's important to have a good GM, one you trust. That's never really been in doubt. But giving the GM tools to run his campaign doesn't hurt the game, it's GMs who make mistakes that do that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

We really got off track here, but all I want is a system that lets me make Monsters that will challange my PCs and NPCs that make sense.

And I want it to be easy and fully explained. No hiding rules and mechanics in fluff

 

[slobster]

The underlying problem is that the character creation rules are how people see the world. The class system is indeed limiting and illogical, but it's the paradigm D&D works within. If one character (or a party of characters) are created with (or without) classes, then all characters should be.

It's pretty clear that the GM and the players aren't on a level playing field. For instance, if my warrior wants to kill a goblin he rolls a d20 and goes through the familiar motions of resolving an attack. If the GM wants to kill a goblin she could summon forth Great Cthulu to rip the goblin's soul out through its belly button, and dance a merry jig on the ashes of its homeplane. Or any number of other things.

I know, you're talking about NPC creation following a social contract where the GM is given the same toolbox as the players, but a greater freedom to use that toolbox. Is that correct? (my post above was half for humor, but half a serious point)

That's a valid way to approach GMing, but so is my way, which is that the GM is in charge of the game and is given pretty much unlimited power to run that game. It's advisable that she stay within the bounds of a limited toolbox, for a whole host of reasons. But if she decides that the fun would be enhanced by "breaking the rules", then her players should trust her to make that decision. In my experience, this leads to the best playing experience for everyone involved. So that's how I GM.

In other words, players use the character classes to generate characters because there needs to be a baseline for common power levels and because it's an enjoyable minigame. The GM uses the known capabilities of those character classes over the course of the game (i.e. monster creation guidelines) to create interesting opposition, but at some point reaches the system mastery and competence to start stepping outside the bounds of the monster creation guidelines when it would enhance the game. And she can do that, 'cuz she's omnipotent.

 

[Obryn]

The class system is indeed limiting and illogical, but it's the paradigm D&D works within.

Some editions of D&D, not all. 3.x is actually the outlier here, so saying it's the paradigm "D&D" works in is unwarranted. Obviously, 4e does it differently, but it's far from alone. If you look at (for example) T1, you'll see a wide variety of NPCs who break the class/level rules. Check out the Tailor and his knives.

If you want to talk about the paradigm 3e works in, that's fine, but 3e is not the entirety of D&D.

If one character (or a party of characters) are created with (or without) classes, then all characters should be.

Why?

-O

 

[D'karr]

And I want it to be easy and fully explained. No hiding rules and mechanics in fluff

Can't XP but this, a million times this. Looking for mechanics inside fluff is the most time wasting effort while gaming.