5e GMs - Why or Why Not Wandering Treasure?

[Lanefan]

And there's no options like Cleave from earlier editions.

Cleave as written in 3e wasn't bad, but I'd have preferred that each cleaving made the swing a bit less controlled - say, -2 to hit for each opponent killed already on this swing, and if the die roll altered by the minus goes to 1 or less you can fumble.

Even AD&D 1st had a somewhat buried rule (in the DMG?) that when faced with hordes of weakness a high level fighter should be able to kill as many as they had levels.

After the first round (the assumption being that it took a round for a fighter to realize she was up against mere peasants, and-or to hit her stride) the fighter got one attack per level per round provided all the foes were less than 1 HD. The attacks each still had to hit and then roll damage, so in a given round a fighter could easily kill three, hit a fourth for not enough damage to put it down, and miss a fifth outright.

 

[S'mon]

The 5e DMG has an optional Cleave rule.

Personally I have no problem with PCs killing 'only' 2-5 orcs per round each using the 5e RAW. It seems plenty enough to me. One thing I will do is run 10 combat rounds at a time if the enemy are very weak.

Theoretical max kills/round by RAW is 6 for a Ftr 20 - 4 attacks, bonus & reaction. But in practice 2-5 is likely; with 4 most common - 2-3 attacks, bonus & possibly a reaction.

 

[Sadras]

What's the problem?

In the 4e MM the lowest level Ogre minion is 11th level. And the highest level goblin is a 4th level elite. That ogre is liable to be cut down by paragon heroes. That goblin is a powerful foe against heroes of low heroic tier.

I've played both scenarios. There was no problem.

Hence I said in the way Saelorn was defining (hit points) and not yourself.

I can appreciate or should I say understand the D&D supers/wuxia-style play, as I refer to it, but it is not my first preference for fantasy D&D.

 

[pemerton]

a one h.p. orc would simply not survive to adulthood.

How many 1 hp orcs are there in B2 KotB? I haven't gone to check, but I'm pretty sure it's more than zero (after all, over the long run of play one in eight rolls of the hit die for a 1 HD monster will give you 1 hp). And there's a strong implication that those are all adult orcs.

 

[Lanefan]

How many 1 hp orcs are there in B2 KotB? I haven't gone to check, but I'm pretty sure it's more than zero (after all, over the long run of play one in eight rolls of the hit die for a 1 HD monster will give you 1 hp). And there's a strong implication that those are all adult orcs.

As written, there are some.

And it doesn't wash there either, for two mechanical reasons and one realism reason.

The first mechanical reason: 1e for some unknown reason doesn't give monsters the benefit of their physical stats. The average constitution of an Orc is fairly high, if one extrapolates from what a part-orc PC gets, but they never get any h.p. bonus from it. Giants etc. are even more egregious examples of this. Long ago fixed in my games but it took until 3e for official D&D to catch up.

The second mechanical reason: in 1e as written death comes at 0 h.p., meaning a 1 h.p. creature will die on any significant injury even if such isn't life-threatening e.g. a broken arm. Using the optional die-at-negative-10 rule sorts this out, though one has to house-rule in means for creatures without access to magical healing to recover from significant but non-life-threatening injuries.

The flavour reason: as previously noted, a typical medium-size (or worse, large-size) creature has to have a bit more going for it than just a single hit point in order to realistically survive to adulthood. We fixed this by giving all creatures what we call "body points" (some other games would call these "wound points") which are rolled once and then locked in*. The normal hit point rolls done by classed and-or levelled entities e.g. PCs, or from monsters' hit dice, go on top of these as "fatigue points" (a.k.a. "vitality points"); with the total of b.p. + f.p. being your hit points. This gives an average-size average-con creature about 2-4 hit points plus whatever it gets from its hit dice, thus the weakest of orcs will still have at minimum 3 h.p. (2 b.p. + 1 f.p.), allowing in the fiction and backstory the creature to have survived an occasional significant injury.

Your race determines your b.p. roll and your con, if anything other than pathetic, sets a minimum value. A human rolls d5 for b.p. with con 7 or better giving a minimum of 2 (i.e. if you roll 1 it becomes 2) and con 15 or better giving a minimum 3. A dwarf or part-orc rolls d6. An elf or hobbit rolls d4. Etc.

A typical giant might have 10-20 b.p. just from sheer size and bulk. A leprechaun would almost always have just 1 b.p. as they're so small and spindly; though a really tough one might have 2.

* - unless something very unusual happens that can permanently affect b.p., e.g. loss of a limb.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

a 1 h.p. creature will die on any significant injury even if such isn't life-threatening e.g. a broken arm.

<snip>

We fixed this by giving all creatures what we call "body points"

You are pointing to your house rules to argue an interpretation about what 1 hp means!

Gygax's DMG gives plenty of human 1 hp (eg look at the rules for non-combatant hit points on p 88). Plenty of 1st level PCs can have only 1 hp (especially thieves and magic-users). But they don't die when they break their arms. AD&D actually has no rule for adjudicating a broken arm, because under the hp rules either a person is unhindered or is dead or hors de combat. (Eg a broken arm can't be used to wield a pole arm. But a PC with 1 hp remaining can wield a pole arm.)

Likewise an ogre minion doesn't die from a broken arm. But that ogre does die if a PC cuts off its head!

 

[S'mon]

Likewise an ogre minion doesn't die from a broken arm.

He would die from a 10' drop though.

When I run 4e I have to give minions some hp just for versimilitude - I settled on 1/4 Standard hp, which worked well. I never found that 1 hp minions speeded up play (all those Fireball attack rolls!) - low hp can actually be *faster* than the 4e minion rules!

 

[pemerton]

He would die from a 10' drop though.

My first thought is that if you're setting up your paragon scenarios with only 10' drops you're doing it wrong!

My second thought is that an ogre who starts with 100 hp and has fought for a couple of rounds will be vulnerable to dying from a 10' fall too. So whatever it is that makes that 10' fall fatal to that ogre (maybe it landed on its head?) is probably what kills the minion also.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Low HP orc would not survive to adulthood - counter points.

1. Subdual damage is not killing damage.
2. Damage done in cuts and sprains outside of combat is not damage done in combat and HP are abstractions.
3. If big orc wants to maul little orc.. well that's a social hazard of being an orc and I as the "god" of my world am too busy to care about little orc. I'm going to spend time thinking about the big white one with no right hand and a maul prosthesis. That's why he's not the minion.

4. Anyone normal that falls 10 feet is going to screw themselves up and without medical care is going to die. Anyone normal that falls more than 10 feet is probably dead on impact. The 10' drop for 1d6 is a herring argument and used so much that I houserule a medium creature falling 20 feet or more without some sort of breakfall or damage mitigation is dead.

Of course this is for a human sized creature. Bigger or smaller affects this.

 

[S'mon]

My first thought is that if you're setting up your paragon scenarios with only 10' drops you're doing it wrong!

Only time I've fought a 1 hp minion-11 ogre, our 4e PCs were 2nd level!

Yeah that GM was not the best...