D&D 5E 2024 D&D is 2014 D&D with 4E sprinkled on top

[Scribe]

Why can't a "mundane martial" lead a party of companions down through the depths of the earth to a chasm that leads into the hells. Or to the top of a mountain that is so high, and cloud-wreathed, that it allows stepping through the gates of heaven?

Assuming its a literal physical path, he can.

Assuming he needs to somehow 'open the path' he cannot, because he is not magical in nature.

KTHX

 

[pemerton]

4E fighter wasn't that powerful and still couldn't alter reality in any significant way.

They nerfed the other classes and the monsters. It's basically a 10th level fighter in any other edition at level 29.

Comparatively it's one of the weaker D&D fighters. 2E would be top of the heap. I saw one of them solo a lich, dragon and marilith in 3 rounds each one lasted 1 round.

4E fighter basically sucked and was pigeon holed into being a defender. It was a better defender than a fighter.

What you describe doesn't fit my experience at all. For instance,

When the PCs then took their Tower to confront the tarrasque, that was indeed what they found. Upon arriving at the tarrasque's location they found the tarrasque being warded by a group of maruts who explained that, in accordance with a contract made with the Raven Queen millenia ago, they were there to ensure the realisation of the end times, and to stop anyone interfering with the tarrasque as an engine of this destruction and a herald of the beginning of the end times and the arrival of the Dusk War.

<snip>

I wasn't sure exactly what the players would do here. They could try and fight the maruts, obviously, but I thought the Raven Queen devotees might be hesitant to do so. I had envisaged that the PCs might try to persuade them that the contract was invalid in some way - and this idea was mentioned at the table, together with the related idea of the various exarchs of the Raven Queen in the party trying to lay down the law. In particular I had thought that the paladin of the Raven Queen, who is a Marshall of Letherna (in effect, one of the Raven Queen's most powerful servants), might try to exercise his authority to annual or vary the contract in some fashion.

But instead the argument developed along different lines. What the players did was to persuade the maruts that the time for fulfillment of their contract had not yet arisen, because this visitation of the tarrasque was not yet a sign of the Dusk War. (Mechanically, these were social skill checks, history and religions checks, etc, in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)

The player of the Eternal Defender PC made only one action in this skill challenge - explaining that it was not the end times, because he was there to defeat the tarrasque (and got another successful intimidate check, after spending an action point to reroll his initial fail) - before launching himself from the flying tower onto the tarrasque and proceeding to whittle away around 600 of its hit points over two rounds. (There were also two successful out-of-turn attacks from the ranger and the paladin, who were spending their on-turn actions in negotiating with the maruts.)

The invoker/wizard was able to point to this PC's successful solo-ing of the tarrasque as evidence that the tarrasque, at least on this occasion, could not be the harbinger of the end times whom the maruts were contracted to protect, because it clearly lacked the capacity to ravage the world. The maruts agreed with this point - clearly they had misunderstood the timing of celestial events - and the PCs therefore had carte blanche to finish of the tarrasque. (Mechanically, this was the final success in the skill challenge: the player rolled Insight to see what final argument would sway the maruts, knowing that only one success was needed. He succeeded. I invited him to then state the relevant argument.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why, in a game of fantastic mediaeval miniatures, would we use a modern-era action movie as our index, rather than - say - Beowulf or the Iliad?

What difference does it make? Action movie physics extends mundane beyond reality, but you can still see it from there. That's as far as I want mundane to go. That it's a modern analogy is irrelevant. It's not like D&D or most games similar to it are medieval in any real sense of the term.

And Beowulf and the heroes of the Iliad were supernaturally-powered martials. I'll die on that hill.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This isn't accurate for 4e D&D. The use of inherent bonuses, of grandmaster training, etc permit a PC to have all the (necessary and assumed) build elements that magic items provide, without having any magic items.

All that was bolted on after the fact though, I suspect in response to requests/complaints. The core game required magic items for the math to keep up, just like 3e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You do realise that Conan can crush the skulls of were-hyenas with his fists, can survive being crucified in the desert, etc. So by your standards is a magical character.

Those sound like action movie moves to me. Still in my "mundane" wheelhouse then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why can't a "mundane martial" lead a party of companions down through the depths of the earth to a chasm that leads into the hells. Or to the top of a mountain that is so high, and cloud-wreathed, that it allows stepping through the gates of heaven?

No reason that I can see, since the actual magic is outside the character.

 

[TwoSix]

Past a certain level, the tropes of leveling require a character to leave the mundane behind.

A “high-level mundane” is an oxymoron.

 

[pemerton]

I have no problem with non-magic being cool. I just want it to make sense to me. If something exists in real life, I want my game to mirror its actual properties as much as is practical. I will not apologize for that, and if you want to judge me or my playstyle for it, so be it.

But there is nothing about damage on a miss that doesn't make sense - the notion of a relentless attacker (eg Conan, or Aragorn when he is angry) is not senseless.

The way that is then spelled out in game design - eg whether the system uses to hit rolls, or damage rolls, or X number of attacks per round, or some combination of the above - is about technicalities, but not the "sense" of the fiction.

Miss still means "not hit" to the majority of humanity. Why would something without a blast radius have an effect if it doesn't hit?

Maybe because, by having to dodge or block the attack (and thus not get hit), I wear myself down?

I mean, this is a thing that happens in real life. So why wouldn't it happen in the world of D&D?

But the point being made earlier is that it is impossible not to have an effect with such a weapon, which means if the enemy hp is low enough it's impossible to swing a sword at them and not kill them. This is a problem for some people.

This depends on design. In 4e D&D, for instance, no creature has hit points low enough to be killed by the damage on a miss of the first at-will attack that does such damage (because at-will damage on a miss is based on stat bonuses). So lethal damage on a miss occurs either at the end of a fight - and so is not anti-climactic - or when using a limited-use ability - and hence is not anti-climactic.

I do understand that Hit Points are not "Meat Points." I understand that not all damage has to be physical for a character to lose HP. And calling it Automatic Damage doesn't make anything better. It is Automatic Damage that I don't like!

Say you have had a long fight and your characters are running low on HP. The bad guy moves in with his giant "automatic damage" sword. There is no tension. There is no chance he is going to miss. He is either going to do a lot of damage and drop you are a little bit of damage and drop you. There is no reason even to roll! I want there to be at least some chance that a character can miss and do no damage.

<snip>

But Fireball!

Yes, that is why Fireballs and other area of effect spells are terrifying. If you know that the bad guy can cast Fireball you are in trouble.

I don't really see how the game is made better by having fireballs that are terrifying in this fashion, but not having relentless warriors who are terrifying in a similar way.

 

[pemerton]

All that was bolted on after the fact though

What does this mean? It was obvious at launch. So obvious that people started doing it pretty much straight away.

Those sound like action movie moves to me. Still in my "mundane" wheelhouse then.

So surviving crucifixion in a desert is "mundane", but holding one's breath for hours is not?

I'm not seeing what the standard is here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But there is nothing about damage on a miss that doesn't make sense - the notion of a relentless attacker (eg Conan, or Aragorn when he is angry) is not senseless.

The way that is then spelled out in game design - eg whether the system uses to hit rolls, or damage rolls, or X number of attacks per round, or some combination of the above - is about technicalities, but not the "sense" of the fiction.

Maybe because, by having to dodge or block the attack (and thus not get hit), I wear myself down?

I mean, this is a thing that happens in real life. So why wouldn't it happen in the world of D&D?

This depends on design. In 4e D&D, for instance, no creature has hit points low enough to be killed by the damage on a miss of the first at-will attack that does such damage (because at-will damage on a miss is based on stat bonuses). So lethal damage on a miss occurs either at the end of a fight - and so is not anti-climactic - or when using a limited-use ability - and hence is not anti-climactic.

I don't really see how the game is made better by having fireballs that are terrifying in this fashion, but not having relentless warriors who are terrifying in a similar way.

I thought that getting hit on a successful attack roll is what wears you down, since hit points are mostly not meat?