D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Minigiant]

I mean a horde of orcs or gnolls will probably just murder you at low level.


They are not useless. But yes, if you want to run a horde of powerful foes then you have to accept that they might take more than one strike to kill.

Then the rules don't fulfill the fantasy.

 

[Gammadoodler]

In a 6 second round? Not for me.

10’ maybe. That’s a pretty good striking range for a lunging swordsman IRL. And striking that many foes at that range in 6 seconds would still be a bit beyond the capabilities of even an elite normal person, so meets the minimal threshold of being a heroic level action. That warrior would still be a virtual tornado of steel.

Suppose it was..

Dervish strikes- "take the dash action and attack (or decapitate I guess for consistency sake) any foes within your reach during that movement"

Not sure you could quite get to 32 squares of effect using a non-reach weapon under those parameters, but I imagine you could get close, maybe by cheesing how D&D treats diagonals. With a reach weapon it'd be a cinch considering you start out with like 24 squares threatened just standing still.

Ultimately kinda trying to find the line where you think 'mundane' stops.

You don't like attacking a largish fixed area maybe with some abstracted movement baked into the description.

Is discrete, mechanically-defined movement paired with attacks for anyone in range an issue?

Fundamentally, martials have almost zero mundane ability to do damage in an area. It sounds like you'd be on board for some version of area attack. It's just a matter of size and description.

 

[Oofta]

You're mistaking what I'm saying.

You're saying why I'm ignoring an optional rule.

I'm saying the optional rule given is bad and doesn't actually work.

It's not an optional rule, and it works just fine when I've used it. It doesn't fit your specific niche vision but I don't care, the game has to make all sorts of assumptions on what it will support and it doesn't support this particular thing to your liking. So? Anything else on this to discuss?

 

[Manbearcat]

I said it felt like cheating, not that it was cheating. A lot of my problem with 4e was how it felt to me. And monsters designed with one hit point so you can mow through tons of them, and the idea that a specific creature has different statistics depending on how powerful its opponents are, felt very artificial to me, in a way that creatures that are just pretty weak don't. That's all. I'm not misrepresenting anything, and I never chugged potions by the palette outside of video games. Nor have I ever used healing wands. That is misrepresentation of me.

Did you notice that I didn't quote and/or attribute anything regarding healing potions or healing sticks to you?

Of course you wrote it "feels" that way. "Feels" don't arrive magically out of nowhere like a stork dropping off a baby at your doorstep. I'm inviting you to reveal your mental model that illustrates why your conception of the subject at hand generates these feelings. I'm extending to you the courtesy of believing that your feelings aren't just arbitrary; that your mental model that generates these feelings is demonstratable. You obviously feel its cheating because something about it connotes actual cheating. So what is that and what about AD&D 1e/2e's version of this exact thing provides exemption from your "feels like cheating" mental model? You've called yourself a D&D player with old school sensibilities aplenty. From recollection, you weren't big on either B/X or RC D&D. So that leaves AD&D. What about AD&D's (original and iterated off of Chainmail) version of "minion rules" exempts it?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then the rules don't fulfill the fantasy.

Whose fantasy?

But what do you suggest? Do you want a fighter to deal sixty points of damage per one hit and still have three or even four attacks? Because I'm pretty sure that would be hella broken.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What if, 'mundane' were simply taken as "not magical?" Instead of whatever subjective line you're drawing with these ultimatums?

The only line I have drawn IS “not magical/supernatural”. The problem is there’s little agreement on what that means.

I’m saying that certain abilities are- by definition- supernatural. Like cleaving a ship in two with a single blow, holding your breath for hours, and so forth.

It’s not that the action itself- cleaving a target in half, holding one’s breath- is inherently supernatural, because it’s not. Those hints happen every day IRL.

It’s that those actions described in the epic poems, legends, myths, etc. are so far beyond human capabilities that they cannot be mundane. It’s a matter of degree.

To put it differently, Superman breathes. That’s normal. Superman emits a puff of air to blow out a candle on a cupcake, that’s normal, too. But when Superman blows hard enough to knock down an oak tree, that’s NOT mundane, it’s superhuman.

Is cutting someone's head off with a sword necessarily magical?

I don’t know how to explain to you I’ve said that it is not, several times in this thread.

Degree doesn't really matter, the act of decapitation via a weapon like a sword or ax is mundane.

I have never said it wasn’t.

And that's essentially saying you can't have a high level 'mundane' warrior, because it can never match the power of high-level supernatural.

No, it isn’t. Not by mere definition.

The abilities of a mundane high level warrior might be different from a supernatural one, but not necessarily inferior.

 

[Pedantic]

What if, 'mundane' were simply taken as "not magical?" Instead of whatever subjective line you're drawing?

Is cutting someone's head off with a sword necessarily magical? The same way twiddling your fingers & chanting to conjure a fireball out of nothing is magical?
No.
Degree doesn't really matter, the act of decapitation via a weapon like a sword or ax is mundane.

If that was an uncontroversial take, we wouldn't be having these discussions. "Mundane" has aesthetic obligations over and above just labeling things and being done with it, and the hashing out of those obligations is the entire argument.

And that's essentially saying you can't have a high level 'mundane' warrior, because it can never match the power of high-level supernatural.

I have long argued this is true (and I'm more used to a version of this debate where I argue we should just stop having a Fighter at all), but I've recently been trying a more open-minded stance, and try to figure out what the actual limits of mundanity aesthetically are. So far, I've got something like this set of principles:

1. Avoid creating class-specific rules systems.
2. Amplify universally accessible abilities whenever possible.
3. Avoid creating resource systems, unless you're expending a resource universal to all characters.
4. Avoid action at a distance, outside of ranged attacks.

That sits on top of standard D&D norms, like forward causality of action, and actions being self-contained.

 

[Minigiant]

It's not an optional rule, and it works just fine when I've used it. It doesn't fit your specific niche vision but I don't care, the game has to make all sorts of assumptions on what it will support and it doesn't support this particular thing to your liking. So? Anything else on this to discuss?

DMG optional rules are optional rules.
Feats in 5e are optional rules.
Multiclassing is optional rules
Magic items are optional rules.


A high level 5e fighter cannot cleave through a gang of multiple orcs without optional rules. The math isn't designed for that.

If you are stating that some optional rules become base rules, we are in agreement.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Is discrete, mechanically-defined movement paired with attacks for anyone in range an issue?

The post you quoted demonstrates clearly it is not.

Again, it’s not a question of the intrinsic act, it’s a question of the degree to which the act becomes impossible to a normal human.

Running is mundane. Running 21mph is Olympic level athleticism, but still mundane. Running 30mph is faster than any known human has ever run, but could still be considered mundane. Heroic, but not necessarily superhuman. 40MPH and we’re getting into the realms of fantasy…but at just “twice as fast as a fast runner”, it’s arguably still merely “heroic”

Running 200mph unassisted is not mundane. (At least, not for a human.)

 

[Manbearcat]

Oh no! I'll try to help, I think this is my fault!


Of course there is no actual "cheating", but the system is setting up easily killable stooges for me to slay so it will never feel particularly satisfying or earned.

Let's have an example. At early levels characters encounter a bunch of monsters of certain type. They have a tough fight, are badly beaten and barely manage to escape alive. Perhaps even one of the characters dies. Later in the campaign when the characters are higher level, they encounter the same monsters again. Oh no! But this time they defeat them with ease! The characters have become more powerful!

Now the fiction was system agnostic, but do you think the system being used would affect the players' perception of the situation?
Option 1) The monsters use the same statblocks both times.
Option 2) The monsters use statblocks with full hit points at the first time, but have only one hit point the second time.

Because to me it would matter, and I seriously doubt I'm remotely alone in this. With the option one it would actually feel we're beating the same monsters that were such a menace earlier and the victory would feel earned, with option two it wouldn't feel we're really fighting the same enemies and the GM is just giving us the win because they've decided this is the narrative they want to have here.



I don't want rules to be arbitrary. But to me the same (or similar) fictional entity being represented by completely different stablocks depending on GM’s whims is hella arbitary. The first principle I want, is the rules to represent the fictional reality, and that requires consistency. Otherwise we have just arbitrary rules and numbers that do not really represent anything, and have no real connection to the fiction. I have no interest in that. YMMV and all that.

But, actual "cheating" is about the actual tactical and strategic layer of a game. Insofar as a game actually cares about this (and they don't all do that), what matters is that the particular mechanic in question engages with and preserves one or both of these layers. And the 4e minion rules, and the AD&D originals, do so as long as there isn't any user error. Neither of these mechanics are there exclusively for color or genre tropes. They are both of those things, but they get there via engagement with and preservation of that tactical and strategic layer of the game.

Minion rules don't exist in isolation. So like in 4e, you have to consider them holistically along with the rest of the game engine and the best practices instruction on how to generate a compelling tactical and strategic layer of the game along with strong color and coherent genre tropes. So you start with (1) Encounter Budget > (2) Battlefield Array > (3) Team Monster Roster within those Encounter Budget constraints and synergizing both within Team Monster and with respect to the Battlefield Array.

Minions are a part of that last piece and they can easily be either (a) the pivot point for threat in a conflict (due to what they can do alone, do to what they can do in concert with respect to other components of the roster or the terrain, or due to how they can make difficult a Win Con alternate from "kill all the HPs dead") or (b) merely an amplifier of threat due to their interactions/synergy with the rest of the roster or the terrain. Which is to say, when using the system as its design, Minions are multivariate threats that engage with the tactical and strategic layer and that must be legitimately overcome to achieve whatever the Win Con is of the combat (whther that be "Kill Team Monster" or "Escort NPC Safely" or "Escape the Waves" or "Stop the Ritual" or "Exorcise the Demon Before it Kills the Host" etc).