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

[Crimson Longinus]

Perhaps this is true, but it's also disappointing (imo).

I mean I think people tend to care more about killing cool boss monsters like mind flayers, liches and dragons than killing some goons.

 

[pemerton]

The statistical description of a thing in an RPG meaningfully is the thing, it is the closest we can get to assigning it physical properties that players can go interact with.

This claim is very controversial to me.

For instance, in the last session of Torchbearer that I GMed, the PCs piled scrap metal onto a magically-conjured floating disc. Presumably this falls under the metaphor of the players "interacting with" the scrap metal. But the scrap metal had no statistical description.

The PCs also drank water (no statistical description required), lit a fire (no statistical description required), and journeyed from a ruined tower to a forgotten temple complex (no statistical description required). Their journey was hindered by blustery winds, whose relevant statistical characterisation was +1 toll. The PC with a cloak was able to reduce the toll for the journey, based not on anything statistical but on common sense reasoning about the fiction.

In general, the way we assign physical properties to things in the fiction is by describing them. And those descriptions then provide the context for the players to declare actions for their PCs. Only in some contexts of action resolution do we need game mechanical statistics, and those statistics are generally relative to a particular game play context (like penalty to the toll from a journey).

Whether you minionise an enemy or not will affect how easy it is to defeat, which indeed is the whole point of system!

Does it? Have you done the maths for every instance of minionisation?

In 4e D&D, a 1st level standard NPC has AC around 15, hp around 30, around +5 to hit for around 9 damage. A 9th level minion NPC has AC around 23, and around +13 to hit for around 9 damage. Whether that minion is easier or harder to defeat is not obvious at all. For a 9th level ranger with +13 to hit (+5 stat, +4 level, +2 enhancement,+2 proficiency) and AC 24 (Hide +2, +4 DEX, +4 level, +1 sundry), it will take two attacks on average to hit (and kill) the minion. The minion may get in one attack, with an expected damage of 4 to 5.

Assuming the ranger does d10+2 on a hit (weapon +2 enhancement), it will take around three hits to kill the 1st level standard NPC: 16.5 (weapon dice) +6 (3 hits) +7 (two lots of Hunter's Quarry). In that time, the NPC will get in (say) two attacks, with an expected damage of about 1 per attack, or 2 overall.

Of course other examples will come out a bit differently, as the possible variety is pretty significant, and the level of the PC relative to the NPCs will affect the maths quite a bit. But I think this illustrates that the general effect of minionisation is not to make an enemy easier to defeat, but to make the maths of the game more workable. (Ie the exact opposite of your "kludge" claim.)

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.

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.

Actually, in 4e D&D how tough a creature is and how hard they are to kill is represented, statistically, by the combination of AC (or other defence) and hp. And these are adjusted relative to the power of the PCs, in order to make the maths work smoothly. If all you know of a 4e stat block is the number of hp, but not the level of the creature (and hence its AC and attack bonus), you don't know how hard that thing is to kill, how tough it is.

This is a very obvious feature of 4e D&D.

Except in the fction, they're supposed to be the same monsters, that's the problem. But they don't feel like the same monster. Being able to defeat a bunch of fully statted werewolves actually feels like you beat some tough monsters, beating balloon variants of them really doesn't feel like that.

I'm not sure if you ever played 4e D&D, but it sounds like maybe you missed the rules for level scaling of to hit, AC, damage etc. You seem to be assuming that "minionisation" leaves the stat block unchanged but for the creature hit points. But that's not the case (as my example just above illustrates).

But it doesn't feel like it! Mechanics matter. This genuinely cannot be that hard to comprehend, even if you personally wouldn't feel this way.

Mechanics do matter. Changing the stats of the creature/NPC, to reflect the relative power of it and the PC, so as to make the maths of the game work smoothly, does affect the feel. In my experience, that is a good effect. Just as one instance, it tends to reduce spike damage from weaker foes - the scaling of minion attack bonuses together with the flattening of their damage numbers makes them more "even" in their contribution to the combat. (Whereas using a lower level standard means they mostly whiff, but very occasionally hit or crit for less "flat" damage.)

This helps support the Conan-vs-pack-of-were-hyenas feel.

"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.

It's not confused. Nor confusing, at least in my experience. It is one solution to the problem of using a relatively uniform mechanical resolution framework, and a reasonably linearly scaling PC build framework, to handle both a hardy young squire fighting off a bandit or two and a demi-god fighting off a flight of Vrock demons. I don't know of any other version of D&D that handles these things particularly well.

the biggest problem I have with a 1 hp ogre is because what it means in the context of everything else going on in the game world. If an ogre has 1 hp, then it can be killed by a housecat rather easily (insert MU joke here).

I can’t speak for everyone naturally, but I suspect a whole lot of people view mechanics in context with everything else. If a player realized it only takes 1 pt of damage to kill an ogre, they are going to wonder why. Why don’t the commoners just kill it?

Assuming the players understand the rules of the game, they know that the Ogre's stats reflect its power relative to their PCs. Being immersed in the fiction (presumably, if we're successfully playing a RPG) they will appreciate that the Ogre would kill commoner's willy-nilly.

The same reasoning applies to the Ogre who steps on the cat's tail.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I feel this claim has already been refuted multiple times. But here's another go around.

In AD&D, a 12th level fighter can survive up to 100 rounds. And so can withstand a horde of 50+ Ogres.

To be clear, that battle lasts over an hour and a half? (1 min rounds)

(say what you like about AD&D, but "hold them off for a few minutes!" was often a lot more doable than in most other systems)

For comparison, a fireball from a a 12th or 13th level wizard will tend to kill every Ogre in its radius

and that's one round of spellcasting?

In 5e D&D, the 12th level fighter can defeat an incoming horde of around 30 Ogres.

and that's in 30 rounds? (3 minutes)

For comparison, a fireball from a 12th level wizard can do 8d6 to 11d6 (6th level slot). It has virtually no chance of killing an Ogre, though it can give one a nasty burn.

and that's one round of spellcasting?

Mechanics do matter. Changing the stats of the creature/NPC, to reflect the relative power of it and the PC, so as to make the maths of the game work smoothly, does affect the feel. In my experience, that is a good effect.

Some of this boils down to encounter building. In 4e, encounter building guidelines worked fairly well an supported quite range of combat types that might be seen in genre. In other WotC editions, they don't work so well, and there are some genre bits that don't work so well, and some contrary to genre outcomes can be hard to avoid. In TSR editions, there were no guidelines, and outcomes would be whatever happened, with intervention by a good DM a very real option.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Good analysis, and these are what seemed the salient bits to me. Being able to solo 30 ogres seems pretty damn badass to me! And as comparison it is important the wizard isn't that great at this. So this actually seems pretty fine to me.

Gotta be careful with the survivability assumptions. Both analyses appear to rely on two incoming attacks per turn.

This number would very easily get surpassed in play. Heck it's probably not that appropriate for the sim, considering that ogres have a ranged attack on their statblock, and even in melee, all that would need to happen to get more attacks in would be for the ogres in front to get out of the way of the ogres behind them.

Fortunately, since ogres are large, they're quite good at getting in each other's way.

But every incremental attack brings a significant decrease in survivability. Add 2 more attacks a round coming in, and the fighter lives for half the time (or less since they're getting less time to kill attackers to reduce incoming damage). Add 4 more attacks (for a total of 8..out of the 30 ogres doing more than nothing on their turn), and cut survivability in half again. Now our fighter kills 7ish ogres and so on.

A more accurate description of what the fighter is accomplishing in the sim would be to say that the fighter can win 15 consecutive 1 v 2 battles vs. pairs of ogres. Yes, this is still a certain kind of impressive, but it's not really "soloing 30 ogres"

This kind of thing happens very often in these threads where someone goes to demonstrate what a 5e fighter can do vs. massed enemies..and it pretty much always relies on most of the enemy doing nothing until it is their turn to be killed by the fighter.

Ogres aren't bright so it's more tolerable here than most places, but I do not think it is a good representation for how the fighter could be expected to perform in play.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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?

I've been DM'ing FAR too long to really pretend there isn't a man behind the curtain anymore. That dragon that lasts 3 rounds at 8th level is no more powerful than the large frog that lasts 3 rounds at 2nd. It's all an illusion. One shotting ogres adds a bit to the illusion without the hassle.

What I don't want, is a hassle on pointless busywork, which is what tracking non-boss hit points is and I feel the game as a whole would be better off without it.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I mean I think people tend to care more about killing cool boss monsters like mind flayers, liches and dragons than killing some goons.

I think it'd be nice to accommodate more variety in the types of genre conflicts the system can effectively emulate.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I don't understand this claim.

For a start, in 4e D&D two NPCs/creatures of the same level are not of equal power if one is a minion and the other not! The constant measure of power, in 4e D&D, is XP value. (Think of it as the analogue to the space-time interval in special relativity.)

And there is nothing that says a PC has to attack someone to perceive their power. That is entirely on the GM's narration.

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.

I don't understand this either. The fact that a creature is statted as a 9th level minion tells us plenty about it outside of these particular PCs' current fight with it. It tells us that that creature is notably less powerful than near-Paragon heroes. It tells us that it is around about as powerful as a heroic villager or wizard's apprentice (or similar sort of 1st level PC archetype).

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I can see how someone might want to narratively put ogres as one-shots because it fits their vision. But I can see the opposite too. For example, the biggest problem I have with a 1 hp ogre is because what it means in the context of everything else going on in the game world. If an ogre has 1 hp, then it can be killed by a housecat rather easily (insert MU joke here).

No, it really can't. The DM is the one that calls for rolls. Why are you calling for rolls that you don't want? The Ogre minion never dies to a house cat unless you decide to let it die to one. It kills town guards without rolls, and gets to shrug off their attacks, just like you don't need to roll for the ogre's boss to tell him to go kill the town guard.

NPC's just do stuff unless it impacts the PC's and it is in question. Ever had a murder mystery? No one rolled to see if the victim died before the PC's got on the scene.

 

[pemerton]

"There are many ogres in this room. One towers above... Mord, the pit fighter. He has large shields strapped to his arms and legs like greaves and wields a great maul. The others are rank and file ogres, dangerous, but not nearly as threatening as Mord."

<snip>

What it requires is the addition of a bunch of new rules or calculations that need to be done, rather than just going the minion route, which is incredibly easy to track at the table and doesn't require any kind of calculation.

I clicked "love" rather than "like" because of these two points.

The first complements my reply to @Micah Sweet not far upthread: the notion that the PCs can't tell how powerful a foe is, by observation, is highly contentious. You provide a perfect example of how they can do so.

The second complements some of my replies to @Crimson Longinus over several pages of this thread: the assertion that it is easier to use complex damage multiplication etc rules, than to use minion rules, is not obvious to me at all, and actually seems somewhat implausible:

For instance:

I cannot speak for Crimson and Micah and others who find minion 1 HP monsters objectionable, but in other conversations where this comes up it usually comes down to whether the "minion-ization" happens on the monster side or on the player side.

You can effectively minion-ize certain monsters by implementing class features for a fighter that turn out to be much less objectionable (at least so far IME) than 4th edition style minions.... For example...

Deathbringer. When your attack would reduce a creature to 6 hit points or less, you may instead choose to reduce the creature to 0 hit points with a finishing move. At 5th level, this affects a creature that you reduce to 12 hit points or less, at 9th level 20 hit points or less, at 13th level 30 hit points or less, and at 17th 42 hit points or less.

<snip>

Rather than a reflection of the narrative intent of the monster, this mechanic transfers the narrative focus to the fighter's skill at dispatching foes.

The notion of "narrative intent" of the monster is in my view a red herring: I mean, by placing an Ogre (with 59 hp) rather than a Goblin (with 7 hp), is the 5e DM manifesting a "narrative intent" for the foe (to not be one-shottable, killable by fireballs, etc?). This notion that 4e D&D encounter building involves some distinctive element of "narrative intent" seems like nonsense to me.

But turning to the suggested mechanic, how is this easier to use than minions? Instead of putting the work up front, during the GM's encounter design, it makes it matter during play, requiring the GM to share hp totals and requiring the player to make a choice. It also causes weirdness in the play: either the fighter is getting an additional action (their "finishing move") outside the normal action economy; or the fighter player is getting to retcon their attack into a finishing move ("dissociated mechanics"!).

I don't see how jumping through all these hoops in order to preserve invariance of monster statblocks relative to the PC statblocks makes for a better game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In general, the way we assign physical properties to things in the fiction is by describing them. And those descriptions then provide the context for the players to declare actions for their PCs. Only in some contexts of action resolution do we need game mechanical statistics, and those statistics are generally relative to a particular game play context (like penalty to the toll from a journey).

What I want is the fiction to rules connection to be objective. If certain fictional element is the game world is always paired with a certain rule element, then it makes a lot easier for me to assign rules to the fiction. Similarly this connection allows me to consistently extrapolate fiction from the rules. If it instead is a relative case-by-case variable then it makes things harder for me and more confusing to the players. I appreciate that other people might think these things differently, but this is how my head works and I have found that this is not at all uncommon.

Does it? Have you done the maths for every instance of minionisation?

In 4e D&D, a 1st level standard NPC has AC around 15, hp around 30, around +5 to hit for around 9 damage. A 9th level minion NPC has AC around 23, and around +13 to hit for around 9 damage. Whether that minion is easier or harder to defeat is not obvious at all. For a 9th level ranger with +13 to hit (+5 stat, +4 level, +2 enhancement,+2 proficiency) and AC 24 (Hide +2, +4 DEX, +4 level, +1 sundry), it will take two attacks on average to hit (and kill) the minion. The minion may get in one attack, with an expected damage of 4 to 5.

Assuming the ranger does d10+2 on a hit (weapon +2 enhancement), it will take around three hits to kill the 1st level standard NPC: 16.5 (weapon dice) +6 (3 hits) +7 (two lots of Hunter's Quarry). In that time, the NPC will get in (say) two attacks, with an expected damage of about 1 per attack, or 2 overall.

Yes, I know this is how it actually was in 4e, I played it a lot. But people seemed to ignore that aspect and focused on the one shot kills in this context of brainstorming solutions for 5e. And that it works like this just makes it worse to me. None of these stats represent anything anymore. Same thing can be represented by high AC and low HP or vice versa! To me it is just madness.

Of course other examples will come out a bit differently, as the possible variety is pretty significant, and the level of the PC relative to the NPCs will affect the maths quite a bit. But I think this illustrates that the general effect of minionisation is not to make an enemy easier to defeat, but to make the maths of the game more workable. (Ie the exact opposite of your "kludge" claim.)

I mean it absolutely is an awkward kludge to patch the fact that the maths of the game do not work otherwise.

Actually, in 4e D&D how tough a creature is and how hard they are to kill is represented, statistically, by the combination of AC (or other defence) and hp. And these are adjusted relative to the power of the PCs, in order to make the maths work smoothly. If all you know of a 4e stat block is the number of hp, but not the level of the creature (and hence its AC and attack bonus), you don't know how hard that thing is to kill, how tough it is.

See, "to make the maths work smoothly". A kludge. Just make the maths work smoothly in the first place.

This is a very obvious feature of 4e D&D.

Feature, bug. One of those.

It's not confused. Nor confusing, at least in my experience. It is one solution to the problem of using a relatively uniform mechanical resolution framework, and a reasonably linearly scaling PC build framework, to handle both a hardy young squire fighting off a bandit or two and a demi-god fighting off a flight of Vrock demons.

And once that squire joins those demigods to fight the vrocks, the system breaks down.

I don't know of any other version of D&D that handles these things particularly well.

I'd say any other edition handles it better.

Assuming the players understand the rules of the game, they know that the Ogre's stats reflect its power relative to their PCs. Being immersed in the fiction (presumably, if we're successfully playing a RPG) they will appreciate that the Ogre would kill commoner's willy-nilly.

The same reasoning applies to the Ogre who steps on the cat's tail.

And again, when the characters fight the ogres alongside the commoners the system breaks down.