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

[Vaalingrade]

Except in the fction, they're supposed to be the same monsters,

Wait no.

They're the same species, but they're individual dudes. Some of those dudes are just sad goons who will dies quickly.

Like in-universe, there's not some vetting society that drops ogres from varying heights to determine how many HP each and every ogre should have. Some will fall fifty feet and be fine, some will trip on a gap in a brick and break their neck. This insistence on 'consistency in fiction' actually make things very inconsistent with how things would happen.

Some folks are just unlucky and die easy. There's probably dragons in-universe that die from pneumonia regardless of what the average Fort save says in the stat block.

 

[Oofta]

I find the second paragraph confusing since I've not proposed any specific change to the paradigm thus far.

What I have proposed is that the monsters' hp and PC class damage should be considered in concert from the perspective of what the 'time to kill' should be for monsters at various CRs vs. PCs at various class levels.

The same question would apply to the rogue and the fighter without necessarily changing their damage distribution relative to each other.

When designing the fighter they had to make decisions on how the fighter would work. Go for single attacks that dealt a lot of damage or a lot of attacks, more than any other class. That's the basic concept. From there you have to then look at the big picture, all of the classes, monster assumptions and design goals. You can't give fighters massive damage without also taking away multiple attacks, fighters are already the DPR kings.

Combine all that with how long fights "should" last and you get overall design. In most 5E games combat seem to last around 3-6 rounds in my experience. You can't just look at fighters in isolation, you can't just look at .01%* of fantasy fiction ever published and find a tiny fraction of that fiction and build a game around it.

They do allow for this type of scenario, it's why we have bounded accuracy. It's only when people set up strawman scenarios that it fails. No game can emulate every possible scenario, especially when the opposing monsters are arbitrarily chosen to fail the vision.

It's not that the high level fighter has a problem killing the ogre or were-hyenas in one round. They can typically kill multiple ogres in one round. What they won't do is kill them with 1 hit because they're X levels higher. Because the core concepts of D&D simply aren't designed to do that. It would feel just as out of place in D&D to me as minions did.

This is an incredibly weird niche people want filled. Especially because taking out multiple enemies in 1 round, typically with each enemy only requiring 1 hit is already eminently possible without changing a single rule.

*As with 48.5% of statistics this number is completely made up. But I believe it is close enough.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Wait no.

They're the same species, but they're individual dudes. Some of those dudes are just sad goons who will dies quickly.

Like in-universe, there's not some vetting society that drops ogres from varying heights to determine how many HP each and every ogre should have. Some will fall fifty feet and be fine, some will trip on a gap in a brick and break their neck. This insistence on 'consistency in fiction' actually make things very inconsistent with how things would happen.

Some folks are just unlucky and die easy. There's probably dragons in-universe that die from pneumonia regardless of what the average Fort save says in the stat block.

So you think minion status is diegetic? That a minion ogre is genuinely some super sickly ogre barely clinging to life? Because I'm pretty sure that is not the intention.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In fiction, monsters often do undergo that sort of non-metamorphosis, from a terrifying threat that the hero fights desperately against, to a gang of mooks she dispatches easily, while still being 'the same monster.' The hero gets more powerful, but also gets better at dispatching that particular monster. Also, the story of one desperate battle after another against the same sort of antagonist doesn't stay that interesting, so authors up the ante.

So you think minion status is diegetic? That a minion ogre is genuinely some super sickly ogre barely clinging to life? Because I'm pretty sure that is not the intention.

There's definitely examples of that sort of minion. The Ogre Thug and Ogre Warrior are both 11th level monsters, the thug is a minion, the warrior is a standard, they're decidedly different Ogres that could be in the same encounter.

It's also perfectly reasonable for the exact same monster to be a standard at lower level, yet be a minion at much higher level.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In fiction, monsters often do undergo that sort of non-metamorphosis, from a terrifying threat that the hero fights desperately against, to a gang of mooks she dispatches easily, while still being 'the same monster.' The hero gets more powerful, but also gets better at dispatching that particular monster. Also, the story of one desperate battle after another against the same sort of antagonist doesn't stay that interesting, so authors up the ante.

Yes. But like you said, "the hero gets more powerful", their stats increase allowing them to actually beat the same monsters easier. Having a double mechanic to represent that same thing is just unnecessary and confused.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes. But like you said, "the hero gets more powerful", their stats increase allowing them to actually beat the same monsters easier. Having a double mechanic to represent that same thing is just unnecessary and confused.

I mean, it clearly was necessary, since it delivered and the usual linear-fighter leveling consistently has not.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Or give non-reach weapons other desirable weapon properties (e.g. more damage, some kind of status effect on hit, defensive bonuses, etc.)

I’ve thought for a while that despite the amount of weapons in 5e there’s very little variance in the options they provide.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

So you think minion status is diegetic? That a minion ogre is genuinely some super sickly ogre barely clinging to life? Because I'm pretty sure that is not the intention.

Hit points are a gamist and narrative construct. They exist as a function of game and story. They don't simulate anything, so why does it matter why this particular ogre whose game and story purpose is to get one shotted has 1 hp?

 

[Oofta]

Hit points are a gamist and narrative construct. They exist as a function of game and story. They don't simulate anything, so why does it matter why this particular ogre whose game and story purpose is to get one shotted has 1 hp?

HP indicate how tough a creature is, how many hits they can take before going down. That shouldn't change just because the PCs have changed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Hit points are a gamist and narrative construct. They exist as a function of game and story. They don't simulate anything, so why does it matter why this particular ogre whose game and story purpose is to get one shotted has 1 hp?

First, I don't think HP are purely a gamist and narrative construct. Whilst abstract, they represent something diegetic. Some things being harder to kill is a thing that actually exists in the game world, or at least that's how I'd run it.

Second, I'm not really a fan of such predestined purpose. That seems railroady to me. Ogre is an ogre, and what their purpose is, if any, will emerge in play. Their stats are assigned to represent who they are, not to fulfil some predestined narrative role.

And third, as a player, does it feel to you that you defeated a powerful monster if you kill a one HP monster? Because it doesn't to me. Basically the minion argument is circular. We want heroes to able to kill powerful monsters, so we nerf the monsters so that they're easy to kill, but then they cease feeling like powerful monsters... So what was gained?