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

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes. Once it is established that the Ogre is powerful (compared to the village blacksmith) but laughable (compared to the demi-god) that remains established.

This has no implication, in itself, for how the Ogre is statted. The version of D&D that I'm familiar with that best expresses the fiction I just described is 4e D&D, where the Ogre is statted as an Elite (when being fought by the mid-Hero PCs) and as a minion (when being fought by the upper-Paragon PCs).

And when the demigod and the blacksmith decide to face the ogre together? What then?

For completeness: that an Ogre has 1 hp or 100 hp or whatever is obviously not a setting fact (unless your setting is some fourth-wall breaking comedy thing). It's a mechanical state of affairs that is only relevant to game play.

Hit points are representing the resilience of the creature, which is a setting fact.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's not monsters die fast because WOTC wants the DM to waste time managing 4d6 goblins when the level 20 party is fighting the Tarrasque.

I don't understand what this means. Also goblins have seven hit points, so characters that are in tarrasque fighting business will reliably oneshot them.

Let's talk about another one.

The high level fighter's unarmed strike is too weak. Fighters should be able to kill stuff with punches. But like the poor monk, unarmed Strikes are poorly supported. The high level fighter has to take a feat and still takes a dozen punches and 5+ turns to punch something out

Fighter is not the unarmed combatant class of D&D. They will kill a commoner with one strike though. If you're fighting a dragon or even an ogre, you might want to bring a weapon though. Our barbarian beat alone an ogre in a fistfight though. I think it was at fifth level and the ogre was boosted quite a bit as it was a pit fighting champion.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No, not at all. Ogres certainly can have different stats, but I want those differences represent things that are diegetic. And whilst we could imagine a super sickly ogre that's at death's door and thus has just one HP, I doubt that is what minion ogres are generally meant to represent.

It represents and ogre that's there to die when he gets hit. Narratively.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It represents and ogre that's there to die when he gets hit. Narratively.

Yes, exactly.

And this is the sort of prescribing narrative I don't care for. The ogre is an ogre that has an objective existence. Maybe the PCs fight it, maybe they befriend it. Maybe they win, maybe the ogre wins. Maybe they leave it alone, but re-encounter it several levels later. None of this should affect the ogre's stats.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't understand what this means. Also goblins have seven hit points, so characters that are in tarrasque fighting business will reliably oneshot them.

I mean high level party shouldnt be fighting goblins.

But the only way to fulfill the fighters cleaving fantasy and the wizards AOE fantasy is to waste the DM's time using brainpower on goblins who aren't threats because everything CR 2 or more in 5e is a hit point sponge.

 

[pemerton]

No, but it is undesired by some.

OK? All sorts of things are undesired by some. I'm not arguing about what is or should be desired or undesired. I'm arguing against the assertion that using minion stat blocks is "arbitrary" and/or does not represent anything in the fiction.

It is reasoned, and the reasons are grounded directly in a crucial element of the fiction, namely, the relative power of the PC and the NPC/creature.

Hit points are representing the resilience of the creature, which is a setting fact.

Not in 4e D&D. Hit points represent resilience relative to an opponent. In 4e D&D the closest to an "atomic" representation of power is the XP value of the creature, which is a function of level and solo/elite/standard/minion status.

What would be codified would be something like this: "If a character whose level is at least ten more than the challenge rating of the enemy, hits that enemy with an attack, and the enemy is not immune of the damage type of that attack, the enemy is reduced to zero hit points, no damage roll needed."

Minion rules are not like that. They are supposed to represent the characters being more powerful than the enemy, but what "more powerful" actually means is not codified, it is arbitrary.

Why is codification better than GM judgement?

Also, X is not codified does not imply X is arbitrary. There is no code that dictates when I eat my lunch (I'm an academic and so mostly set my own schedule of work and breaks). But that doesn't mean when I take my lunch is arbitrary - it reflects all sorts of relevant reasons (hunger, and does anyone else want to join me now for lunch? being two recurring ones).

But it is confused way to do it. We already have stats that measure the creature's power, and they go up as characters level. Having the enemies also downscale (when the GM thinks they should) to represent the same thing is just messy. If you want high level characters to kill ogres with ease, then just give them stats that let them do it. No need to variable ogres, no need for GM to ponder what version to represent the same fictional entity they should use.

I didn't find it remotely confused. I found it quite straightforward and easy to implement. I've never seen a successful version of what you propose, and so I infer that it is actually not all that easy to do.

For instance, in AD&D for the high level fighter to cut through phalanxes of hobgoblins we need to go to Battle System, which (I assume) has rules for heroes-as-units which require giving the PC fighter a different mechanical representation from the ordinary. OD&D used Chainmail for mass combat - and a Hero in Chainmail has different mechanical representation from a 4th level D&D fighter. Rolemaster used War Law, which changes the combat tables and changes the way crits are implemented. I've never seen Swords & Spells - which was a late supplement for OD&D and is also mentioned in Gygax's DMG, but I am pretty confident that it also uses different stat blocks for both PCs and NPC/creature units, compared to their ordinary ones.

We also don't know what happens to ogres when they face foes of varying power? To whom they scale then?

And when the demigod and the blacksmith decide to face the ogre together? What then?

4e is clear that its mechanics assume the PCs are of the same level. So a PC demigod and a PC blacksmith is outside the scope of the game.

If the PC demigod has a NPC blacksmith hanger-on, the game offers various mechanical options. I never had to deal with that particular case, but when an epic-tier PC temporarily had a squad of drow hand-crossbowmen under his command, they gave him a minor action AoE attack (as they unleashed their quarrels on the PC's command). A NPC blacksmith hanger-on seems like they might give some sort of minor action or immediate reaction buff.

 

[Minigiant]

Fighter is not the unarmed combatant class of D&D. They will kill a commoner with one strike though. If you're fighting a dragon or even an ogre, you might want to bring a weapon though. Our barbarian beat alone an ogre in a fistfight though. I think it was at fifth level and the ogre was boosted quite a bit as it was a pit fighting champion.

Blade killed a bunch of vampires with single punches and kicks. And he is just a dhampir with high states within the human range.

I wanna be Blade. Blade is cool.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes, exactly.

And this is the sort of prescribing narrative I don't care for.

Okay, but I do because I'm trying to tell a narrative.

The ogre is an ogre that has an objective existence.

Not to me. The ogre is an obstacle for the main characters of the story. He will die. The purpose he will die for is up to me by deciding which stat block he has. The means of his demise is up to the players be that sword, or bow or eighty years later after an overdose of Gramma Moonbeam's Spiced Apple Pie if the players decide to save him from the fate he was created for.

None of this should affect the ogre's stats.

So here's the thing:

Why does the ogre have stats?

Is it because he's an element of the game that needs to reference those stats, or is it to somehow simulate an actual creature for no specific purpose and it doesn't matter if those stats are at loggerheads with its place in the game?

 

[pemerton]

goblins have seven hit points, so characters that are in tarrasque fighting business will reliably oneshot them.

And this is the sort of prescribing narrative I don't care for. The ogre is an ogre that has an objective existence. Maybe the PCs fight it, maybe they befriend it. Maybe they win, maybe the ogre wins. Maybe they leave it alone, but re-encounter it several levels later. None of this should affect the ogre's stats.

What is the difference between the goblins in the first post, and the ogre in the second post?

Statting up creatures or NPCs has consequences for what will happen, in the fiction, when the players declare actions for their PCs that relate to those creatures or NPCs. If we give the 5e goblins 7 hp, it becomes true that high level fighter who hit them will kill them. If we make the 4e ogre a minion, because the PCs it is fighting are high level, it becomes true that if one of those PCs hits it, it will die. I don't see how one of these is "presecribing narrative" but the other is not.

As to whether or not the PCs fight or befriend a goblin or an ogre, this has nothing to do with whether or not it has 7 or 1 or 100 hp.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Having monster stats be "atomic" (as they mostly are in AD&D) rather than "relational" (as they mostly are in 4e D&D) has nothing to with whether or not the game world has an "objective" existence. The hobgoblin phalanxes in my 4e game, marching in formation and maintaining discipline even as paragon heroes cut their way through their ranks, were as verisimilitudinous as anyone's 15th level D&D game is going to get.

You seem to be confusing objective with verisimilitudinous. Whilst personally I feel objectivity of the setting and robust rule-fiction coherence is beneficial for verisimiltude, I accept that you might feel otherwise. In fact I'd be highly surprised if you didn't.

As to what counts as a "proper" combat system, I don't know of any RPG or wargame that meets your criteria for that. AD&D certainly doesn't - it uses a special rule for fighter attacks-per-round vs less than 1 HD foes (this is just like a minion rule, except it changes the PC stat block rather than the NPC/creature stat block); and it uses Spells & Swords or Battle System or similar for mass combat.

3E doesn't: the "peasant rail gun" is just one illustration of the point. And as far as I understand it, 5e permits the "peasant rail gun" also.

I really don't care to reminiscence prehistoric editions, but so far 5e seems to work just fine for me, thanks. And no, I am really not going to worry about completely hypothetical nonsense like peasant rail guns. Like if that's an example of issues with a system then I'd say the system is in pretty excellent shape!