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

[Tony Vargas]

5e sought to make low level PCs not squishy and no prone to accidentally unlucky instant death. In doing so, they inflated HP past 1st level.

It did? By reducing first level PC hp across the board?

 

[Gammadoodler]

There are optional cleave rules in the DMG that, if you take a monster from unhurt to 0 and your attack would have hit an enemy within melee range you can carry over the damage. It's what I'd consider using if I were setting up that kind of scenario and didn't want to do my own custom house rule. The only time it's come up in my game was with zombies and for those I created a custom swarm for it instead.

I imagine that would be better than nothing. Still seems pretty marginal and mostly inapplicable for creatures beyond CR 2, which seems like way to low a place to set that bar (IMO).

 

[Minigiant]

It did? By reducing first level PC hp across the board?

More than 0e to 3e. Only 4e had higher starting HP.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's WOTC being lazy with Constitution and making as an HP Inflation device to make the stat matter.
+CON mod to HP was a mistake.
There are many way to make CON than inflating HP. Only WOTC Era D&D does this.

This doesn't quite scan for me.
CON has added to hp in every edition, it's added it's modifier to HD in every edition that had HD.
In 1e, you could have 14, 15, 18 even 19 HD.
CON adds the exact same HP to a 5e character as it did to a 3e character - the 3e character just wouldn't've been capped at 20 CON.
It's not a 5e or even WotC mistake... only 4e didn't do it (and, let me tell you, that tripped up every long-time player I ever saw roll up a 4e character for the first time, myself, included)

More than 0e to 3e. Only 4e had higher starting HP.

But, like, starting with max hp was a commonplace variant back in the day.
In 3e it was official.
So, your first level fighter having 10+CONmod hp, was just 'bout normal, traditional, even. (You could start with Toughness in 3e, if you really wanted to, for a few more, but it was a bad idea for your 20-level build, because no retraining.)

 

[Oofta]

I imagine that would be better than nothing. Still seems pretty marginal and mostly inapplicable for creatures beyond CR 2, which seems like way to low a place to set that bar (IMO).

I guess I just don't see the issue. Minions had issues, if you want to have a horde of monsters you can cut down like scything wheat there are options. No system is going to be perfect or handle every possible fictional scenario.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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).

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.

As you know, every other version of D&D expresses that differently from 4e.

This is pointless; your way works for you, my way works for me, and we're both aware of the others' position. Let's just leave it at that.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I guess I just don't see the issue. Minions had issues, if you want to have a horde of monsters you can cut down like scything wheat there are options. No system is going to be perfect or handle every possible fictional scenario.

What I, personally, would like for fighters is more aggressive scaling in decreases to 'time to kill' on monsters.

That the full population of 'threshable' creatures does not extend beyond CR 2 (and barely extends to there) is crazy to me.

 

[Scribe]

What I, personally, would like for fighters is more aggressive scaling in decreases to 'time to kill' on monsters.

That the full population of 'threshable' creatures does not extend beyond CR 2 (and barely extends to there) is crazy to me.

Is this partly bounded accuracy's fault? In an effort to keep everything within range, but HP keeps marching, even the lowbie critters just kind of keep being an irritation?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's fine.

But the truth is that it is exceedingly unlikely that the game will change to perfectly suit your tastes. I have my gripes about the game too, and I'm sure I've voiced them often enough. But I also have houserules to fix most of them.

I don't expect any game to be perfectly suited for me, and I can't remember a single RPG I'd have run during my adult life that I wouldn't have houseruled to some degree. That's the only way to get what I want and still easier than writing a whole system from scratch. Which I have done too a few times.

Yup. Still don't know why people won't fix their own games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean,, it SHOULD be desired by old school players. 1E Ogres had about 19 HP and high level fighters using a 2 hander were hitting for 3d6+10 or so (gauntlets of ogre power, +2 sword, specialization). 5E fighters are chumps in comparison.

Making them minions just reduces the busywork.

Not every ogre is being attacked by a high level fighter.