D&D 5E 5e Dragonmarks thematically problematic?

[Remathilis]

I argue nothing about CR, because CR is irrelevant to the topic at hand. I'm arguing that a given priestess of novice ability can be represented as either a level 1 Cleric, or an acolyte with 2 hit dice. The world still contains the same types of people, whether you use PC rules or NPC rules to represent them.

Given that it's impossible to represent a level 1 Halfling PC with the appropriate Dragonmark, it must also be impossible for that same Halfling to have that Dragonmark if you write it up using NPC rules. Otherwise, it means that NPCs are in-game distinguishable from PCs, with all that entails.

Why doesn't the Acolyte have Channel Divinity? Because he's not a PC. Why does the Gladiator have Brutal as a trait? Because he's not a PC. See how this works?

Your PCs are going to interact with the halfling with a dragonmark two ways: the first is via service ("the halfling uses his mark, you are healed 12 hp") In this scenario, it doesn't matter if the NPC has 1 HD or 100, is CR 0 or 30, or has 1 hit point of 1 million. He's an NPC providing a certain service. Done. The other is if the PCs opt to get into combat with said halfling. At that point, all that matters is that "he's a non-combatant healer, with little more than some knowledge and a magic mark" that the PCs will kill probably in one round. Now, if your PCs comment that "the halfling healer they killed only had 4 hit points and that at minimum, he should have 18 since he should have 4 HD to be equal with a fourth level PC and get a feat", you have a bigger problem than the dragonmark rules.

In essence: any group that can't accept a non-combatant halfling with the mark of healing might be less than equal to a fourth level PC is a group I don't want anything to do with.

 

[Jester David]

Yeah, that's... not cool. The players aren't going to audit your NPCs, because they trust you as a DM to not just be making up numbers. All numbers have meaning, and they kind of lose their integrity when you don't at least try for them to make sense.

Maybe some players won't mind if you play fast and loose with the rules, though. YMMV.

The numbers mean nothing in 5e. There is no connection between anything that the DM doesn't will. A creature with 5 Int can cast spells with a DC 17 if that's the appropriate DC based on the chart from the DMG (page 274).
Look at the gladiator in the Monster Manual. 15 hit dice. That's a 15th level fighter. So it should have a proficiency of +5. But, since it's an NPC, it only has a +3. The rules of reality warp when it ceases to be a PC.

The DMG gives you two options for NPCs: build them like players or build them like monsters (page 282). It's not cheating to make a monster with 5HD and high spellcasting, so it's not cheating to make an NPC that can do the same.
It's not possible to play "fast and loose with the rules" so long as I award the appropriate xp and calculate the challenge appropriately.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why doesn't the Acolyte have Channel Divinity? Because he's not a PC. Why does the Gladiator have Brutal as a trait? Because he's not a PC. See how this works?

That's simply not true. The Acolyte doesn't lack Channel Divinity because it's an NPC; the Acolyte lacks Channel Divinity because it's a complicated ability that's unlikely to matter during the period where we're modeling its activities. (Also, because you don't get Channel Divinity until level 2, and the Acolyte is mimicking a level 1 Cleric.) The Gladiator has Brutal because it gives much the same effect as the Battle Master's superiority die, but is less bookkeeping to manage.

If those characters joined your party for any length of time, they would deserve full write-ups, as Cleric and Fighter (Battle Master) respectively.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The numbers mean nothing in 5e. There is no connection between anything that the DM doesn't will. A creature with 5 Int can cast spells with a DC 17 if that's the appropriate DC based on the chart from the MM (page 274).

The numbers mean nothing to you. Not everyone is so cavalier about such matters. Just because you are incapable of seeing the blindingly obvious, that doesn't mean the players are so oblivious.

Again, this is something you should talk over with your group, before the game starts. You might even think you're doing nothing wrong, but if the other players expect better of you, then it's going to lead to conflict of some sort down the line.

 

[Jester David]

double post. ignore

 

[I'm A Banana]

I really like this approach, but I don't think aberrant marks should necessarily be considered more "rare" than the other marks (even if they really are less common). Aberrant marks are basically cursed--magic with a major drawback, i.e.: characters known to possess an aberrant mark will be treated as pariahs by most people from the Five Nations, as well as hunted mercilessly forever by the dragonmarked houses (not to mention groups like the Chamber and the Lords of Dust).

A cursed magic item would probably be the perfect fit then!

 

[Jester David]

The numbers mean nothing to you. Not everyone is so cavalier about such matters. Just because you are incapable of seeing the blindingly obvious, that doesn't mean the players are so oblivious.

Again, this is something you should talk over with your group, before the game starts. You might even think you're doing nothing wrong, but if the other players expect better of you, then it's going to lead to conflict of some sort down the line.

Please pick up your copy of the 5th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and turn to chapter 9 and re-read the section on creating monsters.

According to the "the rules" you don't even need ability scores on your monster. Just AC, hp, attack bonus, damage, and save DC. The rest is optional. Even when building a full statblock it often says "use the table" and provides the option to calculate based on rules similar to PCs.

Monsters do not use the same rules as PCs. They can but that is not even the default.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You get a greater sense of the world as a consistent place which follows immutable natural laws, regardless of what those laws may be. It becomes more of a world, and less of a story. Your characters become more real, since their abilities reflect their place in the world rather than their place in the narrative.

First point: none of those are objectively good things, and, at the very least, depend on an individual group's goals.

Second point: The average on-screen lifespan of the vast majority of creatures the party encounters is something like 1-5 combat rounds. That is the entire duration that their statistics and capabilities are on display and relevant. That is not enough time to get much of a sense of anything aside from a relative measure of "easy to kill" and "will kill us easily." Even if you create an NPC using precisely the same rules, if the players never see that NPC take a short rest or gain a level or whatever, it's not relevant to the play experience.

Third point: It is not necessary to use equivalent mechanics for NPC's to give players a sense of their characters' place in the world.

The monster construction guidelines exist so that you can determine an accurate CR for a creature. It's descriptive, rather than proscriptive. You look at this creature, and it has Strength X and natural weapons Y and a total of Z Hit Point because that's what the creature is, and then you use the DMG to figure out what the CR for it should be.

It can be used both ways, y'know. That little chart defines what the CR for a given value of offense and defense is. You can start with the CR and then determine a relevant offense and defense just as easily as you can start with an offense and defense and figure out what it's CR would be.

But super-powerful-wizard-with-no-hit-points doesn't describe anyone in the world, because every path to super magic involves gaining a bunch of HP in the process.

I wouldn't go assuming that class mechanics are necessarily universal. A super-powerful-wizard-with-almost-no-hit-points perfectly describes, say, the young child whose soul is entwined with the half-resurrected spirit of a powerfully evil archmage who is using the little girl as a mobile pawn to gather the remaining bits of their shattered soul to eventually rise to true prominence.

There's no need to think through how a PC would do that in order to put that in the game. I can just make a critter with 2 hp and meteor swarm and figure out what it's CR would be and put it in an encounter and it'll be swingy and volatile and rocket-taggy as heck, but it will function just fine for all that.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

According to the "the rules" you don't even need ability scores on your monster. Just AC, hp, attack bonus, damage, and save DC. The rest is optional. Even when building a full statblock it often says "use the table" and provides the option to calculate based on rules similar to PCs.

The whole point of NPC stats is that it gets you to a close approximation of your target, without all of the work involved in getting there. You could build a level 9 Fighter (Battle Master), or a gladiator with 15 hit dice and Brutal, or a dude with two attacks (melee +7 for 15 damage) and 90 Hit Points. Those are all the same character, with different degrees of detail.

What you can't do - or at least, what you shouldn't do, without expecting shenanigans to be called - is describe any sort of normal humanoid with five attacks (melee +12 for 7 damage) and 10 Hit Points, or one attack (melee +2 for 35 damage) and 400 Hit Points. Neither of those sets of stats are equivalent to any class/level of any class.

Because all numbers mean something, and your players know that those stats don't correspond to anything within the possible range of humanoids.

 

[Jester David]

The whole point of NPC stats is that it gets you to a close approximation of your target, without all of the work involved in getting there. You could build a level 9 Fighter (Battle Master), or a gladiator with 15 hit dice and Brutal, or a dude with two attacks (melee +7 for 15 damage) and 90 Hit Points. Those are all the same character, with different degrees of detail.

What you can't do - or at least, what you shouldn't do, without expecting shenanigans to be called - is describe any sort of normal humanoid with five attacks (melee +12 for 7 damage) and 10 Hit Points, or one attack (melee +2 for 35 damage) and 400 Hit Points. Neither of those sets of stats are equivalent to any class/level of any class.

Because all numbers mean something, and your players know that those stats don't correspond to anything within the possible range of humanoids.

This assumes the only way for humanoids to advance is class levels. No NPCs in the Monster Manual have any class levels.
(And, really, to get above challenge 10, they'll need more than 20 hit dice.)
And there's NPCs that wouldn't have class levels. An old, wise king might be challenge 4 or 5 but not have a single class level and powers that resemble no class ability.

That's assuming you even make a new statblock. A dragon statblock could easily be reflavoured into a sorcerer, or a magical siege weapon, or an elemental charged golem by changing the creature type.