At 1st level, how powerful would you say PCs are in any edition of D&D?

[S'mon]

S'mon, you might be interested in my Lairs system - basically it's a group of monsters built with enough XP to raise a party of 5 at the Lair's level to the next level. A level 1 Lair has 5000 XP worth of monsters, for example. At a certain point I start treating monsters as minions, so high-level goblin lairs will have 300+ of the little bastards. (Minions are not included in the XP calculations.)

That's sort of in the 4e DMG under "Super Adventures", where they recommend each lair within the milieu (they don't say milieu) have enough XP to level up the party. I don't like that as a design parameter, I tend to think lairs should either be single-encounter or one night of play; the latter means about 1/3 the XP to level up the party.

I think the problem with treating the min-2 Rabble as novice combatants, the level 2 Bandit as 'trained', and level 3 Guard as 'experienced' is that the Bandit is the equivalent of 4 Rabble in combat, which is super-heroic by real world standards. It's as if every Bandit is the Grey Mouser, every Guard is a Master-of-Arms. IMO the power leap is much too great. For realism you would need to stat the typical peasant farmer as a level 1 Brute or somesuch, and not use minions at all.

Another way to look at it is to reject simulationism entirely, say that NPC stats only exist in relation to the PCs, and minions exist for dramatic reasons, not representing anything in the game world. In which case the GM stats a bunch of peasants as min-2 so the 1st level PCs can beat them up easy, or as brute-1 so the PCs can struggle with them in a muddy bloody knock-down drag-out fight, or as a high level Swarm so the PC Frankenstein can flee their vengeful pitchforks! I'm certain that's what WotC intend, but I'm a simulationist, it's in my blood.

 

[JohnBiles]

Any edition before 4E, you are better than Joe the Peasant Ordinary Guy but you can die very easily.

4E, you're better than Joe the Peasant and don't die easily, though you're still not anywhere close to where you'll eventually get for power.

 

[pemerton]

Another way to look at it is to reject simulationism entirely, say that NPC stats only exist in relation to the PCs, and minions exist for dramatic reasons, not representing anything in the game world. In which case the GM stats a bunch of peasants as min-2 so the 1st level PCs can beat them up easy, or as brute-1 so the PCs can struggle with them in a muddy bloody knock-down drag-out fight, or as a high level Swarm so the PC Frankenstein can flee their vengeful pitchforks! I'm certain that's what WotC intend, but I'm a simulationist, it's in my blood.

What you describe is how I tend to do it (though the rules are a bit ambivalent - I think a Decrepit Skeleton, for example, really is meant to be understood in a simulationist vein in accordance with its name).

Also, LostSoul's comment about toughness of different races is true to this extent - the lack of minion gnolls gives a different flavour to an extended sequence of gnoll encounters. I don't know if that's deliberate or not, but I certainly noticed it.

 

[pemerton]

Any edition before 4E, you are better than Joe the Peasant Ordinary Guy but you can die very easily.

To some extent it depends upon what "easily" means. In AD&D, it takes somewhere close to a minute of combat for a PC to be killed. It's just that the outcome of that minute is resolved with a single roll.

In 3E, I think the idea that one die roll corresponds to one swing is more deeply entrenched.

 

[Hussar]

Any edition before 4E, you are better than Joe the Peasant Ordinary Guy but you can die very easily.

4E, you're better than Joe the Peasant and don't die easily, though you're still not anywhere close to where you'll eventually get for power.

I'd agree with this by and large. Although, it should also be added that the curve in pre-4e D&D was very steep. By pretty low levels you could be facing pretty much anything in the book and holding your own.

If you look at the 4e monster building rules, the difference between a 1st level Fighter and a 1st level Soldier (monster type) is pretty small. Yes, the fighter has a daily, but, then again, the Soldier can have rechargeable powers. Overall, their attack bonuses, damage output, defenses and hit points are pretty close.

The largest difference is the Second Wind - the fighter can heal himself 1/combat.

Of course, if you give your Level 1 Soldier a potion of healing, it's pretty close to a wash.

Relative to the challenges that they face, I'm not convinced that a 4e character is actually more powerful than an earlier D&D character.

 

[pemerton]

If you look at the 4e monster building rules, the difference between a 1st level Fighter and a 1st level Soldier (monster type) is pretty small. Yes, the fighter has a daily, but, then again, the Soldier can have rechargeable powers. Overall, their attack bonuses, damage output, defenses and hit points are pretty close.

The largest difference is the Second Wind - the fighter can heal himself 1/combat.

Of course, if you give your Level 1 Soldier a potion of healing, it's pretty close to a wash.

Relative to the challenges that they face, I'm not convinced that a 4e character is actually more powerful than an earlier D&D character.

I can see where you're coming from here, but I think there is a noticeable gap.

When I compare the fighter in my game to equal level soldiers, he has comparable defences, hit points and damage, but better control. The strikers compared to a skirmisher have better damage. And of course the party as a whole synergises better.

I'm not really disagreeing, just obvserving that there is a certain je ne sais quoi to 4e PCs which is a little hard to pull out of the stats, but shows itself when the game is actually played - and the healing is part of it but not all of it.

 

[S'mon]

I can see where you're coming from here, but I think there is a noticeable gap.

When I compare the fighter in my game to equal level soldiers, he has comparable defences, hit points and damage, but better control. The strikers compared to a skirmisher have better damage. And of course the party as a whole synergises better.

I'm not really disagreeing, just obvserving that there is a certain je ne sais quoi to 4e PCs which is a little hard to pull out of the stats, but shows itself when the game is actually played - and the healing is part of it but not all of it.

I think Hussar was comparing the 4e DMG PC-class NPCs to the Monster Manual NPC 'monsters'. The DMG PC-class NPCs are weaker than PCs of the same level, they're intended to lose.

My first 4e campaign, I believed the hype that 4e 1st level PCs were "equivalent to 4th level PCs in prior editions", which it turns out is not true and caused me considerable difficulty as I converted Vault of Larin Karr (3e starting level: 4th) over to 4e. I should have started the 4e PCs at 4th, just like in 3e.

 

[Hussar]

I was just noting that if you look at the 1st level soldier stats in the Monster building section of the DMG (with errata obviously) and a 1st level fighter, they're not hugely different. Yes, the fighter's got a bit of an edge, but, it's not enormous.

What really makes the difference, as Pem notes, is the synnergy between characters. When you've got the fighter locking someone down and then the warlord granting extra attacks while the warlock is giving the baddy all sorts of debuff style attacks, it makes the group as a whole much, much stronger.

Baddies generally don't have that many synnergy effects. There are some, but, by and large, baddies are not granting extra attacks, debuffs, buffs and possibly other effects all in the same round.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I was just noting that if you look at the 1st level soldier stats in the Monster building section of the DMG (with errata obviously) and a 1st level fighter, they're not hugely different. Yes, the fighter's got a bit of an edge, but, it's not enormous.

What really makes the difference, as Pem notes, is the synnergy between characters. When you've got the fighter locking someone down and then the warlord granting extra attacks while the warlock is giving the baddy all sorts of debuff style attacks, it makes the group as a whole much, much stronger.

Baddies generally don't have that many synnergy effects. There are some, but, by and large, baddies are not granting extra attacks, debuffs, buffs and possibly other effects all in the same round.

So the good guys don't win because they're inherently better, but because of teamwork!

Or.

Dare I say...

...Friendship.

 

[Hussar]

I'd agree with that Prof C. One thing 4e has gone out of its way to do is make the group a much more powerful entity than the individuals in that group. A lone PC is pretty much a tasty snack for an even leveled monster. But 5 PC's walk through 5 even leveled monsters without breaking much of a sweat and then go out and do it again ten minutes later.