Armour Dilemma: Am I Wrong Here?

[Darkness]

3E has no inherent class based dodge level

It has: Hit points.

 

[D'karr]

It has: Hit points.

Which don't do much good when you start losing levels faster because you keep getting hit by the vampires. Two levels with every hit sucks. It's worse with a critical, which incidentally are easier to accomplish with low AC.

 

[fusangite]

I'm not going to take you through exactly what each and every NPC did for the 18 rounds that the battle took but everything was precisely timed. I timed every single action -- every spell, every attack, every foot of movement, etc. according to the rules.

Changing how long different actions take is changing the rules. While I can accept some people's viewpoint that I shouldn't have designed an encounter to maximize my NPCs' effectiveness, I do not accept the argument that it should take my NPCs longer than an attack action to cast a spell or attack an opponent. I spent hours designing the NPCs' plan.

The length of time the combat took was not, in fact, determined unilaterally by me: it was determined by what the players who arrived at the combat did to thwart the NPCs' plan.

 

[Darkness]

(wise things)

*nods* Right, but that goes farther than my point. Which was to point out the mechanic D&D uses for this purpose.

I'd prefer it to be otherwise (e.g., like in Star Wars d20), but I guess I can live with hp measuring more than just how many blows to the head you can survive.

 

[mmu1]

I'm not going to take you through exactly what each and every NPC did for the 18 rounds that the battle took but everything was precisely timed. I timed every single action -- every spell, every attack, every foot of movement, etc. according to the rules.

Changing how long different actions take is changing the rules. While I can accept some people's viewpoint that I shouldn't have designed an encounter to maximize my NPCs' effectiveness, I do not accept the argument that it should take my NPCs longer than an attack action to cast a spell or attack an opponent. I spent hours designing the NPCs' plan.

The length of time the combat took was not, in fact, determined unilaterally by me: it was determined by what the players who arrived at the combat did to thwart the NPCs' plan.

How about the whole "getting the Duke's help" issue? That was accomplished inside 108 seconds? You haven't answered anyone who brought up the point that the time it'd realistically take anyone to coordinate, talk, convince, direct, etc. in a situation like this would have been more than enough for the PCs to put on their armor.

 

[Tsyr]

Alternatively, you can attempt to explain to the player that occasionally being at a disadvantage can heighten the drama, increase the challenge, and make for a fun evening. If the player can be made to get past the feeling that it's somehow personal, I'm sure he could have fun in such a situation.

No, you can't, actualy.

Oh, sure. You can make empty words... "This is fun!"...

But in truth, you can't explain WHY something should be fun and magicly make it fun for people. It either is or it isn't. If it isn't, it just isn't... period.

 

[D'karr]

I'm not going to take you through exactly what each and every NPC did for the 18 rounds that the battle took but everything was precisely timed. I timed every single action -- every spell, every attack, every foot of movement, etc. according to the rules.

You don't have to explain every action. From your perspective everything was carefully handled. But many actions that were not part of the combat seemed to happen instantaneously.

Getting to a battle scene should take time (4 rounds - 24 seconds sems like an appropriate number). Assessing what is happening should take time and I don't mean one round (I'd say at least another 30 seconds.) In the whole chaos that was going on vampires are casting spells and herding people. How long does it take to herd 100 guards? I'd say another 10 minutes to herd. Is that an unreasonable time? That is where our opinions differ and it is just a matter of opinion. But what you are doing is assuming that you can get 100 people into a tower that has only 1-2 entrances at a rate of 25-30 a round. That is highly improbable even with dominated thralls.

Then going to get the Duke, and this is probably where I see the biggest hole on the timeline, seems to happen almost instanteneously.

A PC traveled to where the Duke was. (Let's say another 5 rounds). Apparently he didn't encounter any of the Duke's security forces or personal guards. Then he wakes the Duke from a dead sleep (another 30 seconds to a minute) He explains the trouble that is going on (I'd say another minute if not 5 minutes at least). Then the Duke agrees to help. How long does it take the Duke to get ready (I imagine he doesn't sleep in his armor either) and get to the action?

The problem I see here is that some actions in your timeline seem to take a lot less time than they would take at any reasonable pace. I believe that getting to the Duke and getting him involved and at the combat would have easily taken at least 5 minutes. And that is even a fast time.

A round is 6 seconds. A conversation is going to take a lot more than one round.

Like I said it is a matter of opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

I will just agree to disagree with you on this carefully crafted timeline.

Changing how long different actions take is changing the rules. While I can accept some people's viewpoint that I shouldn't have designed an encounter to maximize my NPCs' effectiveness, I do not accept the argument that it should take my NPCs longer than an attack action to cast a spell or attack an opponent. I spent hours designing the NPCs' plan.

The length of time the combat took was not, in fact, determined unilaterally by me: it was determined by what the players who arrived at the combat did to thwart the NPCs' plan.

I agree that changing how long actions take is changing the rules. But making actions a lot shorter in time for the NPCs than it would take for the PCs is also changing the rules.

According to the numbers I posted above the group that was donning armor would have arrived at the combat before the Duke. The assessment of the situation would have taken longer than just a cursory look of one round. The herding of the guards would have taken a heck of a lot longer than 4 minutes. And the conversation with the Duke would definitely have taken longer than just one round. So out of your players you would have had 3 donning armor and one talking with the duke. Leaving the remainder to handle the vampires.

I just don't see how the time adds up. Like I said we will have to agree to disagree on that point.

You decided to boil your plan to combat actions in rounds. There is nothing wrong with that. But a lot of the actions that you described had to take a lot longer than one or two rounds. Specially the conversation with the Duke.

 

[D'karr]

*nods* Right, but that goes farther than my point. Which was to point out the mechanic D&D uses for this purpose.

I'd prefer it to be otherwise (e.g., like in Star Wars d20), but I guess I can live with hp measuring more than just how many blows to the head you can survive.

And I agree heartily with you on this one.

 

[Valiantheart]

The problem I see here is that some actions in your timeline seem to take a lot less time than they would take at any reasonable pace. I believe that getting to the Duke and getting him involved and at the combat would have easily taken at least 5 minutes. And that is even a fast time.

A round is 6 seconds. A conversation is going to take a lot more than one round.

Like I said it is a matter of opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

I will just agree to disagree with you on this carefully crafted timeline.

This was the point i was alluding to earlier in my time speech that everybody glossed over. A round does not always have to be six precise seconds. Measuring combat in rounds can be fine but measuring real world events like conversations, armor donning, determining the nature of the disturbance in terms of rounds just doesnt work properly.

That i think is the ultimate failure of the encounter.

 

[Valiantheart]

It has: Hit points.

D20 Modern has HPs and class based dodge bonuses. A smoother system all around.