Be honest, how long would it really take you to notice all of this stuff...?

[TwoSix]

So why judge, man? If they're harshing your groove in an actual game, sure, but if they're in their own room, doing their thing, I'm not going to look down on them.

Honestly, I judge because the stereotype of the overprepared DM can be actively harmful to allowing new people to DM, if that stereotype is the expectation of some of the players. It's perfectly okay NOT to have a deep world all defined for the players.

Plus, are "onanistic" and "wanker" all that pejorative? Everybody does it, man.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Plus, are "onanistic" and "wanker" all that pejorative?

Umm, yeah. Very much so in some circles.

 

[Pickles JG]

Lan-"it just shouldn't be possible for someone named Terry the Butcher to have a decent Diplomacy skill"-efan

He used to play for England in the 80s
Terry Butcher

 

[Savage Wombat]

What are you talking about?

My example was of a constant threat yours was of a one time threat now a joke


What level do you think a wizard can one on one an Oger in melee in 3e... My beat is long before 11th

The fighter can dance through an army provoking I'll attacks singing "can't touch this" by that point but the minons are still a threat

Well, I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your point. If you meant that the same monster is still a threat despite a massive power shift among the PCs, I don't find that any more "believable". But in this case the issue is less about HP and monster construction, it's about how most versions of D&D don't handle the continuing threat of the same monster well.

Personally, I'd rather model that directly by the monsters getting tougher over time (in the fiction) to match the PCs, rather than saying it's the same monster but I changed the stats so he's still a challenge. Although I'm reading my own sentence and I don't think I'm explaining myself well. Oh well.

 

[Lanefan]

So a 25th level Fighter is no better at placing blows to bypass the opponents defences than a 3rd level one. They can't possibly land blows from directions the frost giant can't predict and avoid and which land in critical places so the giant is put out of the fight by one blow.

Obviously the 25th-level type is better at what he does than his 3rd-level self; and the combat will be shorter. But"shorter" doesn't necessarily equate to "one-hit kill" and nor should it (I'll ignore critical hits for this discussion); if the Giant has 95 h.p. and Toughnose the Fighter-25 hits it for 36, that Giant's still around and (in 4e terms) isn't even bloodied yet. Chances are ol' Toughnose is only going to miss on a '1' so the Giant's chance of survival is mighty close to nil, what matters is how long the Giant hangs around to clobber Toughnose - sure his AC might be in the lower stratosphere but Giants tend to hurt you when they hit you and the more chances they get the more likely Toughnose's nose might get a little bent.

Lanefan

 

[TwoSix]

Umm, yeah. Very much so in some circles.

Now that's funny!

 

[Pickles JG]

This is just flat out wrong. Math uses root -1 right? It's a very, very important part of math. Try to find that in reality.

Try to find Pi or even 1 in reality. The numbers do not exist but its a lot easier to find real world analogues if your field of mathematics stretches only as far as arithmetic with positive whole numbers than anything involving square roots &c.

If a theory uses maths that predicts something the physicist cant find than the theory is wrong but may be good enough for practical purposes like building computers. See newtonian mechanics for macroscopic entities.

 

[Lanefan]

He used to play for England in the 80s
Terry Butcher
View attachment 62465

That's hilarious!

Lan-"is footballer the next adventuring class?"-efan

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This is just flat out wrong. Math uses root -1 right? It's a very, very important part of math. Try to find that in reality.

There's a difference between the way mathematicians and physicists are using math. For a mathematician, it is very possible to have a number show up that doesn't make sense in the physical world. Nonsensical numbers don't impinge the validity of pure math.

Physicists, OTOH, are using mathematical models of the real world to understand how the RW works. Their number originate in and are confirmed by experimentation. So if something shows up in the math that does not show up in reality, the model is wrong. Ditto if something occurs that is NOT predicted or modeled by the math.

 

[Hussar]

You're missing my point about reification [MENTION=5875]dan[/MENTION]nyA. The problem comes when physicists try to treat math as having direct, real world existence. They are trying to make the abstraction real. It doesn't work because math is full of stuff that is really useful in math but has no real world existence.

The same thing generally applies to this hp issue. The only thing hp model is how hard it is to kill something. That's it. It might be for any number of reasons but all hps model is how hard it is to kill something.

But people try to reify hps to mean all sorts of things and them try to claim that this is what hps represented all the way along. It's a very shakey house with virtually no actual supporting evidence.