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

[Vaalingrade]

So I kinda have feeling people don't quite appreciate how the CR works (sure, rather badly, but that's not what I mean this time.) CR 2 might not seem like a big deal to higher level characters, but people are wanting the fighter to dispatch like six ogres with ease. Six CR 2 monsters is a CR 10 encounter, so a fair fight for four level ten characters and still a deadly encounter for a lone level 15 character. It is not a trivial challenge, so being able to solo that is rather big deal. It is same than soloing a young red dragon. And ultimately this is group game, so characters will rarely be fighting against anything alone, so I'm not sure how necessary it is for the a lone fighter to be able to super quickly kill ogres.

You've identified what a lot of us are describing as the problem.

The system wants the sad sacks who should be dependable on to both suck and die easily to still be a challenge at higher levels. We want them to suck and or die easily.

Killing ogres or giants or freaking dragons easily is what we want precisely. At 20th level, I want to be giving noogies to adult dragons and making them admit they still suck their thumb at night. I was going to add 'as a bard', but that's entirely possible if I pump fake them three times to get rid of their cheats.

 

[Minigiant]

So I kinda have feeling people don't quite appreciate how the CR works (sure, rather badly, but that's not what I mean this time.) CR 2 might not seem like a big deal to higher level characters, but people are wanting the fighter to dispatch like six ogres with ease. Six CR 2 monsters is a CR 10 encounter, so a fair fight for four level ten characters and still a deadly encounter for a lone level 15 character. It is not a trivial challenge, so being able to solo that is rather big deal. It is same than soloing a young red dragon. And ultimately this is group game, so characters will rarely be fighting against anything alone, so I'm not sure how necessary it is for the a lone fighter to be able to super quickly kill ogres.

I just want 2 ogres felled without resources expended.

6 at a time is goblins and town militia.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I find it bizarre that the fighter is the worst at fighting,

I find it bizarre that someone can suggest that's something approaching the thing I said when it's right there in the quote above it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why is that a good thing?

Why is consistency and predictability good thing? I guess it isn't if you don't think it is. I generally appreciate it.

And how is that different than having an ogre champion and a regular old ogre? Differentiation in monster stat blocks already exists and isn't ever really cited as a problem.

Because they're representing a diegetic difference, not a narrative one.

The GM always has to decide what monsters to use. It's no different in that regard.

It is in a sense that if the same fictional entity can be represented by a different stat block due their narrative role, you don't only need to decide what the creature is, you need to also decide its role.

The high level PCs helping low level town guards need not be a problem either, depending on how you handle it. If the GM is actually rolling attacks for all those extra characters, then they can just track damage as normal for any minion not killed by a PC. I usually just narrate those amounts of extra characters myself. I don't want the players to sit there and watch as I play D&D by myself.

I don't think "I just ignore the rules and do whatever" is a terribly convincing argument for the rules being solid!

This kind of justification is no more or less diegetic than the minion rules.

This ogre is a greater threat, so his stats are changed to reflect that. These ogres are less of a threat, so their stats are changed to reflect that.

Difference is whether the difference in stats is representing a difference that exists in the fictional world.

You talked about predictability being desirable, so I was pointing out that this can all be player-facing, so predictability is a non-issue.

I see. But then this is meta information, as if minions only exist as narrative conceit, it is not something the characters could know.

It is the mechanics controlling the world rather than serving the world.

It is them being in sync.

I mean, the housecat wouldn't be able to kill the ogre in my living world. Because I don't feel the need to be a slave to the mechanics.

I place the world above the mechanics.

Again ignoring the rules. I rather have rules that actually represent the world so that they give results that are fitting to the world and I don't need to ignore them.

No offense to @Quickleaf because it's a perfectly fine suggestion, but to say it's more elegant than simply lowering enemy HP to 1? Come on now.

Of course it is. With it you don't need to be constantly ignore rules like you seem to be doing to get sensible results.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've identified what a lot of us are describing as the problem.

The system wants the sad sacks who should be dependable on to both suck and die easily to still be a challenge at higher levels. We want them to suck and or die easily.

Killing ogres or giants or freaking dragons easily is what we want precisely. At 20th level, I want to be giving noogies to adult dragons and making them admit they still suck their thumb at night. I was going to add 'as a bard', but that's entirely possible if I pump fake them three times to get rid of their cheats.

Then the whole scaling of the game is completely off for your tastes. But you can basically emulate the effect you want by reskinning lower CR enemies as higher CR ones. Say it is an adult dragon but use young dragon stats etc.

Personally I appreciate that monsters remain usable across a larger level range.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then the whole scaling of the game is completely off for your tastes. But you can basically emulate the effect you want by reskinning lower CR enemies as higher CR ones. Say it is an adult dragon but use young dragon stats etc.

Which still have way too many HP for the purpose. Like again, BA is designed to make your solution not work for this purpose. Not ever gets appreciably easier to take out past the 'rats in the basement' stage.

If only they were set to 1HP with effectively Evasion... Maybe with their damage averaged for efficiency of play...

 

[Tony Vargas]

You've identified what a lot of us are describing as the problem.

The system wants the sad sacks who should be dependable on to both suck and die easily to still be a challenge at higher levels. We want them to suck and or die easily.

TBF, while still being a meaningful threat.

Like you could build an encounter entirely out of minions. Like 4 or more of 'em per PC, depending on Tier. It would be an encounter that highlighted the controller, particularly and frustrated the strikers a bit, but it'd be a legit encounter and a threat.

And, really, that's what 5e was going for with BA. It just didn't work out so well, because, while it solved the issue of many low-level foes being a non-threat due to AC/attack differences (indeed, in larger numbers, it went too far the other way), it didn't do anything about 1/2 damage save and die rendering them trivial to sweep away, and there's not really room to balance mutli-attackers shifting from single target DPR vs AE attackers needing to do adequate single target DPR....

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which still have way too many HP for the purpose. Like again, BA is designed to make your solution not work for this purpose. Not ever gets appreciably easier to take out past the 'rats in the basement' stage.

If only they were set to 1HP with effectively Evasion... Maybe with their damage averaged for efficiency of play...

Sure, do that then. Give adult dragons one HP, knock yourself out.

 

[Tony Vargas]

knock yourself out.

just give yourself 1 hp

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh?

The debate has the same basic structure as the one, among AD&D or 3E players, of whether a PC can tell that the person they just met is 0-level or a commoner or a 10th level fighter or whatever. It's a debate about whether a difference in power is a perceivable phenomenon.

But a minion version of a creature is distinguishable from a normal version of equal power (level) only when one attempts to hit it with something. In other words, such a difference is a narrative conceit, and says nothing about the creature outside of these particular PCs current violent interactions with it. This is what I object to.