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

[Minigiant]

With great weapon fighting it is about the average damage. But sure, not every hit will kill an orc. Some do, some don't. And you're not guaranteed to hit either. But the point is that you can cleave through several orcs, not that you're guaranteed to. Your suggestions do not guarantee success either, and I don't think a rule should. We roll the dice for a reason after all.

Still no. If you're not reliably doing 15 damage you're not reliably killing multiple orcs in a turn.

If you're not killing multiple orcs every turn you're not fulfilling the fantasy of killing multiple orcs every turn.

OSR games which are even more gritty and "realistic" are willing to have base rules that fulfill this fantasy.

 

[pemerton]

complaining that a wizard is better at killing things instantly is kinda like complaining a main battle tank is better at killing things instantly than an infantryman. They play different roles.

Huh? In REH's stories, if I want a soldier killed dead right quick I call on another soldier, not a sorcerer.

How does it strengthen the verisimilitude of D&D that, in many of its iterations, the opposite is true? And what do tanks vs infantry soldiers even have to do with this at all? In this context, those are concepts from wargame design (eg Chainmail), not concepts from verisimilitudinous fantasy fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Conan killing “mooks”- possibly even multiples- with a single swing is fine. But- barring a prophecy or curse- the more powerful the foe, the less likely the probability of one-shotting it without supernatural boons of some kind.

I have absolutely no problem with any of those as mundane. I don’t know why you’d think I would.

If were-hyenas count as "mooks" - as opposed to "more powerful foes" - then I don't understand what the qualifications in your post are referring to.

 

[pemerton]

Is it possible that a high level mundane fighter in D&D would have a mix of preternatural combat prowess and magic items?

I don't think so, no.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't see how this connects to anything written in my post to any degree. Your reflex, after reading my post, is "Manbearcat of the internet is trying to make me like minion rules (or 4e's combat engine)?"

Let me be clear: I hold absolutely no illusion that such a thing could ever come about and I'm totally disinterested in trying to convince you otherwise.

What I am interested in is precisely what I wrote in the post you quoted.

1) What is going on in your mental model that churns out "feels like cheating?" Simply, what is happening in your head that substantively compels you to feel that way. Its not magic. Its thoughts that lead you to that place. What are they? Are they just idiosyncratic "feels" or is there more?

2) Why is AD&D (1e or 2e) exempt from those thoughts?

There is has to be some kind of interesting conversation there. Something about the mechanics of 1e or 2e gating of minion-status via HD vs 4e's iteration of the same...or something else.

1) minions in 4e are explicitly designed for the purposes of creating a type of monster that can be threatening but easily dispatched. It does so not be having it be a different monster (orcs vs. not orcs, for example), but by using the same in-universe creature with different statistics based on how it is used at the game level. The literal same creature in the fiction of the setting has multiple mechanical expressions based on nothing having to do with what it is in-setting. This is a problem some people (including me), because we want the mechanics to model the narrative, and here they don't. You are bypassing the setting layer to use these rules, which can feel like "cheating".

2) 1e and 2e may have many creatures that have a similar gamist purpose to 4e minions, but those creatures have a single mechanical expression reflecting their place in the setting (not just in the rules), or if they have more than one there are in-universe reasons for it. That is why they "get a pass" by this metric.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Still no. If you're not reliably doing 15 damage you're not reliably killing multiple orcs in a turn.

If you're not killing multiple orcs every turn you're not fulfilling the fantasy of killing multiple orcs every turn.

OSR games which are even more gritty and "realistic" are willing to have base rules that fulfill this fantasy.

A lot of that has to do with reducing hit point totals.

 

[pemerton]

Just because another universe portrays something narratively different in their story, it doesn't mean it fits into current D&D mechanics.

My point is that good mechanics, in a mainstream level-based fantasy RPG like D&D, will enable a high level fighter to emulate Conan's feats. And Conan is able to "one shot" were-hyenas.

 

[Bluenose]

I've been trying to implement a wounds/injury system for a while now. Tough to sell though, because players used to 5e don't want anything that makes it harder on them. The struggle is real.

It's not exactly a "Wounds" system, but BECMI weapon Mastery rules allow weapon users to deliver quite a variety of SFX to people they target. Something like the Slow effect could easily be described as inflicting an injury to limbs/legs or arms.

 

[Minigiant]

A lot of that has to do with reducing hit point totals.

Bounded accuracy, inflated hit points, and level progression come together in a package.

Something has to go up and if you demand that attack and AC doesn't, then damage and hit points will.

And there are drawbacks to that.

Any gameplay, narrative , or simulation fantasy that relies on having low damage or low hit points doesn't work in 5e without additional rules.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not talking about Gnolls I'm talking about the demonic hyenas in the REH story Queen of the Black Coast:

When dawn spread its white veil over the river, there were no men to be seen: only a hairy winged horror that squatted in the center of a ring of fifty great spotted hyenas that pointed quivering muzzles to the ghastly sky and howled like souls in hell. . . .​

​

Something moved in the blackness under the trees. Etched abruptly in the rising moon, Conan saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders, brutish in outline. And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low—twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangs flashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes ever blazed.​

​

Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack, after all.​

Still sounds like gnolls to me... But I really don't get twaht your point here is. It is not a book about D&d, there is no "correct" D&D statblock to attach to these creatures.

But FYI, 20 gnolls are a challenge rating 13 encounter in 5e, 20 werewolves are a challenge rating 24 encounter, and they are immune to non-magical, non-silvered weapons.

I guess I just don't get this at all. Hit points aren't a concept in any fiction I'm aware of - but their function in a RPG is to mediate and structure the creation of fiction. If the hp rules - as these are spread out over build rules and action resolution rules - don't underpin the creation of sensible fiction, then what are they for?

The idea that, when playing a RPG, I would just forget about the fiction for minutes or tens of minutes at a time, and play a board game, and then switch back into the fiction once the board game is finished, is to me completely at odds with the goal of verisimilitude.

You are correct on of the purposes of rules is to facilitate creating fiction. HP are intended to create fiction where defeating a powerful entities takes some effort. If that is not the sort of fiction one wants to create, then it is a wrong system to use.