D&D 5E Poll: What is a Level 1 PC?

[S'mon]

Really? You've never used alternate class features? More strangely, you've never had a player proudly present you their homemade class? Or just straight-up ask to change a class ability to something else?

I don't recall players ever doing any of these things. In particular "proudly present you their homemade class"?! That's just hilarious. I'd probably boot that player, unless they were a good friend, in which case I would mercilessly mock them for years. [MENTION=326]Upper_Krust[/MENTION] still mocks me regularly because 20 years ago running 1e I miscalculated Lolth's doubled hp at 122 instead of 132, in a game he wasn't even playing in...

 

[S'mon]

As far as skill (or xp) acquisition, I would argue that it isn't doing the same old thing that gives you a meaningful increase in skill, its doing things that expand your limits (like a runner who hits 10 minute miles and makes that their life-long pace vs. one that keeps trying to push it).

A mile in 10 minutes isn't a run at all, it's a hustle!
Walk (at base speed 6/30') is mile in 20 minutes.
Hustle (x2 base speed) is mile in 10 minutes.
Run (x4 base speed) is mile in 5 minutes, rather more plausible.

Mile in 10 minutes is about what I do 'walking' 25 minutes to Wimbledon.

 

[Lanefan]

But, there's a difference here Lanefan. AFAIK, you're not advocating completely rewriting the basic premises of the game, abandoning wholesale most of the mechanics

I'd say I've mostly already done all that. My pie-in-the-sky dream would be to drag the rest of the game along with me, but I'm not holding my breath... But the game I play now has but a passing similarity to the 1e D&D it started as in terms of rules or system; though the 1e high risk-high reward spirit is alive and well.

I know you fiddle with the advancement rules, but, I've never seen you talk about turning D&D into a classless system, or building every single creature from the ground up.

Classless? Never. Build every creature from the ground up? I'd love to, if I ever had the time. Instead I've been thinking of ways to split apart some of the things that make a creature tick - right now its level (if NPC) or HD (if monster) define a lot of things that would be better served by being separate: Combat skill, hit points or hit point range, saving throw capabilities, skills and abilities, to name some.

I'd prefer to be able to have an NPC Sneaky-type, for example, with the Thieving skills (open locks, pick pockets, etc.) of a 6th level Thief but the combat abilities of a commoner and the saving throws of a 9 HD monster. Now one could easily say it's my game and I can do what I want and it would be true, but the internal consistency of the game world falls apart unless I can define it all somehow.

For PCs this split would open up a bunch of options as well, which again would require an extensive re-design.

If I was constantly rejiggering the game to the degree that is being suggested here, I'd certainly never try to claim that this isn't a bucketfull of work.

It is a bucketful of work. But it's just a big a bucketful to learn a whole new system and then tweak that to suit what I want, so it simply becomes a choice of which work I'd rather do.

Lanefan

 

[Bluenose]

Player is being a jerk. He can't be the King of Nyrond or a Huge Ancient Red Dragon, either. This is no different.

Putting "King" down as your career/class doesn't have to mean great power. It just has to mean you're a King. With a low ranking in your "Kinging It" skill, which means your taxes don't arrive on time (or even at all), your feudal levies turn up late, complain about everything they're asked to do, expect to be paid out of the taxes they didn't send in, your officials deceive you and plunder the royal treasury, and generally having the title king without the skill to go with it is rather a problem. D&D isn't exactly an ideal system for this, mind you.

 

[Lanefan]

Ok, given this chart how would I decide on the skill values for an area of my sandbox campaign that I want to design as a 5th level challenge? You see creating a 5th level NPC allows me to do this... arbitrarily assigning a number really doesn't.

The problem is that being 5th level in order to present a decent cooking challenge to the party means he's also 5th level in every other way - hit points, saving throws, BAB or combat ability, etc., etc., in whatever class you decide - you've had to add all that other baggage in just to make him a decent cook. The game as written doesn't allow you to divorce cooking skill (or anything else a character can do) from the levelling system, but it should. In 1e you can fake it, sort of, by assigning "secondary skill - cook" to a non-adventurer and then either rolling or choosing how proficient he is; in 3e you can't.

Lan-"I don't cook, I unintentionally inflict poison"-efan

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ok, given this chart how would I decide on the skill values for an area of my sandbox campaign that I want to design as a 5th level challenge? You see creating a 5th level NPC allows me to do this... arbitrarily assigning a number really doesn't.

By creating a 5th level NPC you are:

• Semi-arbitarily assigning him a level.
• Arbitrarily assigning him a class.
• Arbitarily allocating his stat points.
• Arbitrarily allocating his feats.
• Semi-arbitarily allocating his skill points.

That's two and two half arbitrary decisions just to get the baking skill for our baker. And a whole lot of allocations.

With the 4e system I:

• Semi-arbitrarily assign him as a level 5 due to this being a level 5 area.
• Semi-arbitrarily designate him an expert (i.e. hard DC) rather than inept or proficient by level 5 standards.

Done. That took me all of a few seconds. And was IMO a lot less arbitrary than your way.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't recall players ever doing any of these things. In particular "proudly present you their homemade class"?! That's just hilarious. I'd probably boot that player, unless they were a good friend, in which case I would mercilessly mock them for years.

I've got piles of classes and even accompanying rules systems that players have pitched me over the years. Frankly, when I started homebrewing, it was sort of to catch up with them.

These days, the real question for some of them is: who will custom design their class, me or them?

 

[Neonchameleon]

And this brings up an assumption I freely admit to making: that generating a PC is dirt simple to do. If it isn't, I'll twist the system until it is.

Fair enough. Does your system even have serious rules for NPC-stuff? Or is it mostly fiat/roll off?

It doesn't have AC 16 either.

Doh! AC4 - Chain + Shield

Player: I want Craft (Alchemy) +15. I want to make firebombs or something.
DM: You're first level. Take your skill ranks. You'll be there in a few levels.
Player: I want it now.
DM: You can't have it now.
Player: Well, how did that NPC get it then?
DM: Years of hard work and dedication.
Player: But what level is that NPC?
DM: ...
Player: If that NPC has Craft +15, I want it.
DM: No. (Or yes. Or something else. Equally problematic regardless, albeit for different reasons).

DM: You're being a dick.

Player: I sneak past the guard. 28 Hide, 32 Move Silently.
DM: The guard draws his weapon and raises the alarm.
Player: What, he can't be more than a 2nd level character.
DM: Yeah, but his whole job is spotting so he's really good at it.
Player: I call BS.

Player: You're being a dick.

Player: I Bluff the priest with a 35. Np, I definitely did not loot that grave. It was that halfling over there! I saw him do it!
DM: He sees right through it and claps you in irons.
Player: Wait, what? My lie was totally convincing.
DM: Yeah, but I just arbitrarily gave him +50 Sense Motive because I hate when my important NPCs get duped.
DM: Wait, did I just say that out loud?

And the moral of this story is: Don't be a dick and don't play with dicks. At least not at the D&D table.

The game is better because having every character built the same way balances the game, and prevents these and numerous other nonsensical and potentially disruptive scenarios.

No it doesn't. Not in any way, shape, or form. If the DM wants to be a dick (as he was in your system) he can do so whatever. Arbitrarily slapping on twenty levels to the guard. And the first problem only appears in a system where NPCs and PCs are built the same way.

If you don't build all characters the same way, any notion of balancing them against each other is pretty much out the window.

And this is false as well. You need to balance the outcomes not the inputs.

Have you gained some realism in the example above? Yes. But the cost to the game element of an rpg is pretty substantial.

Or utterly non-existant. As 4e demonstrates. PCs need to be balanced against PCs. They need to compete with NPCs on roughly level ground. The two are not the same thing. (And that's not even going into the spectacular balance failure that 3.X or, for that matter, GURPS is).

So the counter question: how does forcing a PC into 3e's leveling scheme make the game better?

You mean the theoretical version or what actually happened? Levels are meant to be effective packages that reinforce archetypes and can be controlled for synergy and balance.

 

[Ryujin]

Putting "King" down as your career/class doesn't have to mean great power. It just has to mean you're a King. With a low ranking in your "Kinging It" skill, which means your taxes don't arrive on time (or even at all), your feudal levies turn up late, complain about everything they're asked to do, expect to be paid out of the taxes they didn't send in, your officials deceive you and plunder the royal treasury, and generally having the title king without the skill to go with it is rather a problem. D&D isn't exactly an ideal system for this, mind you.

There are plenty of times in history that someone without adequate "kinging it" skill sat on the thrown. After all, they have people for that sort of thing. Thing is that usually those people eventually get all uppity and decide that they'd make better rulers.

 

[Lanefan]

Fair enough. Does your system even have serious rules for NPC-stuff? Or is it mostly fiat/roll off?

I think I already (unintentionally) answered that a few posts up from this one.

Or utterly non-existant. As 4e demonstrates. PCs need to be balanced against PCs. They need to compete with NPCs on roughly level ground. The two are not the same thing.

I maintain they are the same thing, or at least should be; as the PCs also need to be balanced against the game world.

In other words, for any NPC the party interacts with I need to be able to answer "What makes this NPC tick in the event it suddenly either joins the party or attacks it?". And it's way easier to answer that question quickly if NPCs and PCs are built the same way.

Note this does not mean you need to stat everything out ahead of time; 95% of the time you'd be wasting effort. But you always need to know what it is - peasant, 3rd-level Thief, militia type, whatever - as a starting point. If need be, stat it up later or on the fly.

Where the disconnect seems to be coming is there should and must be NO DIFFERENCE in the above case between a statted-up party member NPC and the same at-the-time-irrelevant NPC you met yesterday when she served your ale in the tavern*. Just because she joins the party changes absolutely nothing in the game world - she is exactly what she was, and must be; otherwise internal consistency goes out the window. Ditto for if she never joins the party - she still is what she is.

* - e.g. Dragonlance's Tika Wayland

Lanefan