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

[Aldarc]

I don't think so, no.

I think so, yes.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Isn't "powerful" a relative notion? Eg were-hyenas are powerful when fighting ordinary soldiers. But they are not all that powerful when fighting Conan (who I am putting forward as a paradigm of a "mundane" high level fighter).

If a FRPG based on levels doesn't permit a high level fighter to emulate Conan's feats, then I think it has failed.

There are many possible mechanical formulations that can avoid this sort of failure. But in this thread, I am mostly just expressing a view as to what the mundane high level fighter looks like. That fighter looks like Conan.

It is not about number of words, it is about having to use this sort of feature that doesn’t represent anything that exists in the fictional world to patch the fact that your combat system doesn’t scale properly.

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.

The minion stat block used in 4e D&D does represent something that is part of the setting, part of the fictional world - namely, it represents the relation between the PC and their foe. It represents that capacity of the PC to kill the foe with a single blow.

This is one of the possible mechanical formulations I mentioned just above.

 

[pemerton]

I think so, yes.

The view I stated was (i) a prediction based on extrapolation from these innumerable threads, and (ii) a sardonic prediction.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm almost at the point where I think characters should not get a bonus to HP from Constitution.

That should be a Fighter, Barbarian, and Dwarf trait. Or for select monsters. Or people with the Tough Feat. Or poeple wearing special magic items.

This would lower HP across the board.

Now the Orc has 9 HP, and a level 15 Fighter can kill 3 orcs a turn 90%.

In return, PCs could start with a bonus HD.

A Fighter's Hit Points at 1st Level: 1d8+ 10 + your Constitution modifier
A Cleric's Hit Points at 1st Level: 1d8+ 8
A Rogue's Hit Points at 1st Level: 1d8+ 8
A Wizard's Hit Points at 1st Level: 1d8+ 6

 

[pemerton]

Thanks to bounded accuracy, you can just throw 30 level one dudes at a high level person! Huzzah

Yeah, minion rules did not have the desired effect for me or my players. It felt cheap, like I was playacting the combat and scoring a hit was the director telling an extra to lie down.

This seems to be similar to how hp attrition combat feels to someone who, in the 80s or 90s, decided that RM or RQ is a more serious game than D&D. "Level one dudes", "hit points", "armour class", all just seem like set dressing and the GM or the game designer putzing around with numbers.

The whole minion problem is that it undermines that fantasy. The model has to be consistent for the fantasy to be fulfilled.

The fantasy lives in imagination.

When I was GMing 4e, how did I assist my players to imagine their mid-paragon PCs as Conan-esque in their power? By statting up hobgoblin swarms that could heal themselves by "absorbing" adjacent hobgoblin minions. When the shared fiction is of (eg) a Dwarven warpriest of Moradin carving his way through a hobgoblin phalanx, the fantasy is not in doubt.

The game solved the problems with AD&D that I described just above (as reasons for playing RM and RQ instead), and one non-accidental aspect of that was providing a working model of a high level but "mundane" fighter.

Minion rules always seemed just designers giving up. "We want our heroes to be able to oneshot foes, but the normal combat rules we have designed and the hit points we are assigned to the enemies don't allow it. Well, lets just say that sometimes enemies arbitrarily have one hit point, problem solved!"

Why is it arbitrary? It's deliberate - deliberate on the part of the GM, to represent the power dynamic of the fantasy world as that pertains to this creature and these protagonists.

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.

@Manbearcat gave a full post about the "win" - that depends entirely on the GM's ability to use the encounter building rules. When the mid-paragon PCs in my 4e game tackled the hobgoblin phalanxes, one of them died. The point of the minions, and the swarms (phalanxes), is not to "give the players a win". It is to accurately represent the fantastic fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Sure doesn't. One of the many advantages of TSR era/OSR D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Isn't "powerful" a relative notion? Eg were-hyenas are powerful when fighting ordinary soldiers. But they are not all that powerful when fighting Conan (who I am putting forward as a paradigm of a "mundane" high level fighter).

If a FRPG based on levels doesn't permit a high level fighter to emulate Conan's feats, then I think it has failed.

There are many possible mechanical formulations that can avoid this sort of failure. But in this thread, I am mostly just expressing a view as to what the mundane high level fighter looks like. That fighter looks like Conan.


The minion stat block used in 4e D&D does represent something that is part of the setting, part of the fictional world - namely, it represents the relation between the PC and their foe. It represents that capacity of the PC to kill the foe with a single blow.

This is one of the possible mechanical formulations I mentioned just above.

That's not a thing in the world. That's a game state at the table.

 

[Minigiant]

Sure doesn't. One of the many advantages of TSR era/OSR D&D.

TSR era/OSR D&D didn't have bounded accuracy.

WOTC decided to bound accuracy and AC in 5e. But a level based progression system needs progression. And feats were optional. So they progressed damage and bloated HP to hell.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This seems to be similar to how hp attrition combat feels to someone who, in the 80s or 90s, decided that RM or RQ is a more serious game than D&D. "Level one dudes", "hit points", "armour class", all just seem like set dressing and the GM or the game designer putzing around with numbers.

The fantasy lives in imagination.

When I was GMing 4e, how did I assist my players to imagine their mid-paragon PCs as Conan-esque in their power? By statting up hobgoblin swarms that could heal themselves by "absorbing" adjacent hobgoblin minions. When the shared fiction is of (eg) a Dwarven warpriest of Moradin carving his way through a hobgoblin phalanx, the fantasy is not in doubt.

The game solved the problems with AD&D that I described just above (as reasons for playing RM and RQ instead), and one non-accidental aspect of that was providing a working model of a high level but "mundane" fighter.

Why is it arbitrary? It's deliberate - deliberate on the part of the GM, to represent the power dynamic of the fantasy world as that pertains to this creature and these protagonists.

@Manbearcat gave a full post about the "win" - that depends entirely on the GM's ability to use the encounter building rules. When the mid-paragon PCs in my 4e game tackled the hobgoblin phalanxes, one of them died. The point of the minions, and the swarms (phalanxes), is not to "give the players a win". It is to accurately represent the fantastic fiction.

As I've said many times before, I am far more interested in simulating a consistent imaginary world than I am in representing fantastic fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR era/OSR D&D didn't have bounded accuracy.

WOTC decided to bound accuracy and AC in 5e. But a level based progression system needs progression. And feats were optional. So they progressed damage and bloated HP to hell.

I'd be fine with getting rid of bounded accuracy.