D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[pemerton]

While that sounds like a good idea, it does not need minionizing. You can attribute the instant kill on the black arrow and vulnarability in that certain spot.
Question is: how do you treat the attack roll? Is it harder to aim on tge weak spot? Seems totally anticlimatic to win the skill challenge just to miss with the arrow...

Help action? Inspiration? Bard*ic inspiration?
Or just leacer the to hit roll out? This would turn the dragon fight in just a story.

4e doesn't have rules for aiming at weak spots, beyond the use of relevant powers. Which would certainly help in a skill challenge to minion-ise the dragon!

I don't know of any other process in 4e for achieving an instant kill against an Ancient Dragon.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

4e doesn't have rules for aiming at weak spots, beyond the use of relevant powers. Which would certainly help in a skill challenge to minion-ise the dragon!

I don't know of any other process in 4e for achieving an instant kill against an Ancient Dragon.

I have not seen a skill challenge that minionizes solo enemies either...

 

[Maxperson]

So if you want to interpret "abandoning the class" as "losing abilities", which abilities do you lose, exactly? ASI's are class abilities according to the chart, do you lose those? Do they lose Fighting Style? Extra Attack? You gain 1d10 Hit Dice per paladin level, according to page 84. Do I lose all my proficiencies granted by my class?

Strange that if this was ever the intent, that the PHB couldn't be bothered to outline which abilities should be lost by "abandoning" the class, instead of forcing the DM to make a ruling about each one. Or does a classless character become an NPC, like the Soldier or Gladiator? Do you stop being able to play your character entirely because you violated your Oath?

If that was the case, the PHB could certainly have explained these things. Or the DMG could have a section about it.

The 3e PHB had a section for classes that could "lose" their abilities in the class description. If there's no guideline explaining how to massively rewrite a character due to failing to meet some obligation, I'm going to go with Occam's Razor on this one and assume the simplest version; ie, you have to change your Oath/God/Patron or start taking levels in some other class.

If I were to do lost abilities, I'd say that the paladin loses are things granted by the divinity. Lay on hands, aura of courage, divine spellcasting, smiles, etc.

In order not to gimp the paladin into uselessness, the best way to do that is just say that the paladin becomes a champion fighter of the same level. It's not a perfect solution, because the PC will suddenly develop the ability to Action Surge and such, but it's a better option than turning the paladin into something much worse than a fighter.

 

[Oofta]

There is a real difference in what we're talking about here though.

With science fiction, problems tend to get solved by Facts and Logic, backed by some amount of personal bravery and often genius logical leaps.

With fantasy, problems tend to get solved with Courage/Heart/Perseverance and Self-Sacrifice. Facts and logic rarely come into it.

Sure there's significant and increasing crossover, and SF often also has courage and sacrifice, but the classic example of the clash is "Why didn't the Eagles just fly the Hobbits to Mt. Doom?!". Whilst there are a bunch of decent reasons that people can dig up, the real reason is that fantasy, and Tolkien aren't about "facts, logic, optimization, doing it right" or the like, but about the people, and who they are, and what they believe, and how they act and so on. Doing an illogical/suboptimal-but-self-sacrificing thing is often the right thing in fantasy (which annoys the hell out of some people, for semi-understandable reasons - when I was younger it used to annoy the heck out of me).

I'm we're generalizing a lot here but there really are different approaches.

I'd also add that the "Owned by Facts and Logic" stories are often actually not very realistic. Even if they stick to relatively hard SF, the portrayal of the behaviour of humans or how the world works in a lot of that kind of sci-fi is often pretty bad and more about wish-fulfilment than how people really operate.

I guess I've just never seen that much of a distinction. There have been plenty of both genres that go either way. Sci-fi or fantasy, it's just a setting for a story. Sci-fi is more likely to have the protagonist be a scientist, but many times they're just doing what I would call magic science. In other words they're throwing around some pseudo-science words but in reality it's no more "real" than casting a spell. Some authors try to base their fiction on science such as Andy Weir, but even then they get a lot wrong while relying on what can be best called speculative science.

Even fiction The Expanse, which gets a lot right such as how to create the sense of gravity by using acceleration or a giant rotating generation ship still has to invent a techno magic propulsion system for people to zip around the solar system. Then of course there's the alien technology that just breaks physics.

But in the end it's still just down to a group of scrappy heroes to save the day and drive the story. Just like in fantasy. The trappings are different but the stories and results bear more similarities than differences.

 

[Maxperson]

No darkcvision in 5e is designed to obliviate the need for light. This just does not happen often & the vast majority of things that might make the passive perception matter tend to make the GM look adversarial & trigger player vrs gm.

If 5e darkvison was designed to negate the need for light, the designers failed miserably. They put in a rule that visual perception checks are at disadvantage when relying on darkvison. Passive perception gets hit with a -5(I think that's the result of disadvantage).

Light still gets used, because the players don't want to get surprised, miss secret doors and get hit by traps. Or for that matter, miss clues and treasure.

 

[Maxperson]

Ranged attacks have disadvantage over a certain range. The dragon also does not have to attack in the bright light of the day but in the night.

So most probably it takes not 20, but 400 peasants for a single hit of 9 damage.

So now dragons have to hide in darkness out of fear of the peasants? Some "mighty" dragon that is.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it is a feature, not a bug. This way, there is a reason why men group up in villages and can still exist. Protection from wild animals has always been one of the reasons for grouping up.

Animals. Not dragons.

 

[Redwizard007]

Thank heavens, a dragon minionizing skills challenge did not make it into 5e rules...

100% with you on this one.

Minions are not really needed in 5e thanks to bounded accuracy.

Completely disagree here. Using minion-esque enemies allows the fantasy of cutting through mobs of mooks, and it allows adding more monsters to an encounter without turning combat into a slog. In those aspects, no other edition was superior to 4e. (Yes, I did just vomit a little after admitting that.)

Instead of minions, I'd rather have a minion rule that you deal double weapon damage against enemies that are of CR < Level - 5 or so. Should always have been this way.

That is also an elegant solution to the same issues that minion rules solved, but isn't it just easier to say that they die after 1 hit?

 

[Maxperson]

Then you are fighting a strawman.

The claim being tested is “an ancient dragon cannot reliably take out an average town of 10,000 people”.

Which they absolutely can, to the extent that it is necessary to load the claim with assumptions to provide a counterpoint:

• the dragon will attack during the day despite having darkvision;
• the townspeople will all have longbows;
• the townspeople will be able to organize an attack in the time between the dragon is sighted and the moment it begins breathing fire on the town;
• despite having genius-level intelligence, the dragon will not use “tactics” whereas the townsfolk, despite having to coordinate among 100+ people, will.

So the dragon has to cower under the cover of darkness and then flee before the armed groups can gather.

Some "mighty" dragon that is.

 

[Maxperson]

What strawman? I rejected your idea that lords have never had an armed citizenry. Historically there have been exceptions. The reason the populace would be armed and trained in effective weaponry may change in a fantasy world, especially one with a sufficient number of monsters running around.

I also stated that it's likely that small villages and towns would be hard pressed to defend themselves. I've never stated otherwise so this supposed strawman goes poof like it never existed. Because it didn't.

On the other hand, just because we don't have real world anti-dragon weaponry it doesn't mean they wouldn't have been invented in a world with dragons. In addition if a dragon becomes too much of a threat to a kingdom I see no reason why it wouldn't be considered war. A dragon will likely not survive an attack by an army given a sufficient number of archers. That has nothing to do with an individual town defending itself, it's a kingdom protecting it's own.

So this supposed strawman is of your own construction.

I also love how "d&d has different physics" and "d&d is fantasy" are the mantras up until this debate, and then it suddenly changes to "d&d peasants won't be armed or trained because real world peasants weren't." Despite the fact that d&d monsters would necessitate it since kingdoms couldn't afford a standing army large enough to protect every village and town.