D&D 5E Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[The Crimson Binome]

It's simple extrapolation. If HP loss can represent making a wound less serious by making it into a small cut or scratch, then it can also represent making it even less serious than the cut or scratch. It's a simple straight-line progression.

Okay. Thanks for answering the question.

 

[pemerton]

4e doesn't have natural armor bonuses. Clearly we were talking about 3e.

Let me have another go.

In 3E big dragons can have natural armour bonuses of +30 or more. Suppose we relabelled them as "level adjustment" bonuses - would 3E become, in actual play, any less simulationist? My contention is no, it wouldn't, because natural armour doesn't actually mean anything in the fiction. All it is is a big number to balance against the big attack bonuses of high level PCs. (Contrast, say, Rolemaster, where dragons have armour that does have ingame meaning: hides as tough as tortoise shells, as mail, as plate, etc., with bonuses that can be meaningfully correlated to the sorts of bonuses that magic armour gives.)

That's the point of my reference to 4e. In 4e, monsters have a level adjustment bonus to AC. Suppose we relabelled that as a "natural armour" bonus? Would that make 4e into a more simulationist game? Again, I don't see how it would.

 

[pemerton]

He was talking about poison damage, not hit point loss.

He's talking about the relationship between a "hit" and injury.

Damage is not actually sustained - at least in proportion to the number of hit points marked off in most cases. The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill, and perhaps a scratch - this is a comment about hit point loss. This is why you get the saving throw vs poison. If the save is succeeded, then the scratch from the hit was not venomous, or perhaps there was no scratch at all (no such wound). If the save fails, then there was a scratch (or worse) and venomous poison was injected.

 

[Tony Vargas]

First of all, I want to say I'm sorry that I'm not quite taking this topic seriously. I am saying it. I don't really feel sorry, 'cause it's actually kinda fun, but I'm guessing it's the polite thing to say, anyway.
Sorry about that.

Let me have another go.

In 3E big dragons can have natural armour bonuses of +30 or more. Suppose we relabelled them as "level adjustment" bonuses - would 3E become, in actual play, any less simulationist?

It wouldn't be meaningfully less susceptible to rules-as-laws-of-physics, no (since my point wasn't that it was simulationist, but that it presented rules in such a way that it might seem natural to use them to define the fiction: rules-as-laws-of-physics). It might mess with Touch AC, depending on how it was defined, too...

My contention is no, it wouldn't, because natural armour doesn't actually mean anything in the fiction.

It means the critter is harder to hit with attacks that target AC (like fighters - I mean swords), but not any harder to hit with Touch attacks. Not any harder to hit with Vampiric Touch means something in the fiction. 'Ouch' or 'Ahhhh' depending on which side of the spell formulae you're on.

That's the point of my reference to 4e. In 4e, monsters have a level adjustment bonus to AC.

They /just/ had an AC. It wasn't broken down into components so you could strip it down to Touch AC, Flat-footed AC, Shieldless AC, Non-Corporeal-Touch-Attack-AC, Flat-Footed-Shieldless-Non-Corporeal-Touch-AC, etc...

Which, yeah, maybe a little bit less prone to rules-as-laws-of-physics. Maybe. It is pretty arbitrary.

Suppose we relabelled that as a "natural armour" bonus? Would that make 4e into a more simulationist game? Again, I don't see how it would.

Just re-labeling all of it's AC from AC to Natural AC, no, I don't see it, either. Breaking it down so certain attacks would be much more likely to hit than others - to and past the point of overwhelming the randomness of the d20, though, that could do it.

You're treating the characters as though they are fictional characters in a story, rather than real people in a real world.

It's treating the PCs as though they were PCs in an RPG.
Because that's exactly what they are.

Real people, even in a fantasy world where the gods are real, wouldn't have to deal with the shenanigans of a malevolent outsider bent on making their lives interesting.

Unless there was a malevolent outsider bent on doing so. Which, in could well be the case. The DM & Players could even literally /be/ those entities. In the every creative act creates a quantum reality trope. Or if the DM said so. It's his setting, afterall.

 

[Hussar]

He was talking about poison damage, not hit point loss. And specifically why poison was either no damage or death. Of course if death then there must of been a scratch so at least contact with the body so no death by poion on a miss.



Healing should be proportional to the amount of power used rather then the person being healed. That never made any logical sense to have a 1st level acolyte healing almost as much as a Demi-God.

Missing the point.

You can take damage from an attack that includes poison, then make your poison save. So, were you wounded or not? You took damage, but, weren't poisoned - so, it logically follows that you actually weren't hit, since the merest scratch should result in your death. So, right there, not all hits actually cause physical damage.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, it's treating the PCs as though they were PCs in an RPG.
Because that's exactly what they are.

In direct violation of the premise of the activity, which is that you are playing real people who actually live within the world-setting, and which is the only reason their choices actually matter.

Treating a PC as though it is a PC in an RPG, rather than treating it as you would treat any other (non-player) character, is blatant meta-gaming which is forbidden. Literally, it's like rule #2 of tabletop role-playing games: Thou shalt not meta-game!

 

[Tony Vargas]

In direct violation of the premise of the activity, which is that you are playing real people who actually live within the world-setting

There is no such premise. In fact, the premise is that they are most certainly not real, otherwise what kind of morally reprehensible monster would you be, creating a parade of real people and sending them into horrific danger for your own amusement? ;P

Literally, it's like rule #2 of tabletop role-playing games: Thou shalt not meta-game!

In what rule book? And, really, for what bizarro definition of 'meta-gaming.' Meta-gaming is using player knowledge contrary to PC knowledge. For instance, if you ran a published adventure 10 years ago, and now you're playing in it, and you happen to remember which of three chests in a room is actually a mimic.

It's not meta-gaming for the DM to use a PC's backstory.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It's not meta-gaming for the DM to use a PC's backstory.

It's meta-gaming whenever any character (PC or NPC) makes use of knowledge which it should not otherwise possess, such as knowing which spells the party had cast upon itself earlier in the day (for the purpose of bypassing those spells with an appropriate effect), or guessing that there must be a secret passage in a certain area based on the way the DM has oriented the map.

When a goblin decides to kidnap the PCs mom instead of some unrelated person, or even to attack the PC's home village instead of some other village, that is a meta-game decision which the DM is not allowed to make. Any action by any character, if it takes into consideration that the PCs are PCs, is invalid. That is information which cannot be possessed by anyone within the game world.

 

[Hussar]

It's meta-gaming whenever any character (PC or NPC) makes use of knowledge which it should not otherwise possess, such as knowing which spells the party had cast upon itself earlier in the day (for the purpose of bypassing those spells with an appropriate effect), or guessing that there must be a secret passage in a certain area based on the way the DM has oriented the map.

When a goblin decides to kidnap the PCs mom instead of some unrelated person, or even to attack the PC's home village instead of some other village, that is a meta-game decision which the DM is not allowed to make. Any action by any character, if it takes into consideration that the PCs are PCs, is invalid. That is information which cannot be possessed by anyone within the game world.

Wow, that's a recipe for the most boring campaigns, like, ever. Basically, what you're saying is that NPC's may only be generated randomly (since the DM making any decision that takes the PC's into consideration is invalid) and may only take randomly generated actions. No thanks. That's a completely nonsensical campaign.

After all, we cannot design adventures based on the PC's levels (which D&D has done since day 1), cannot design adventures based on character backgrounds (which D&D has done since day 1) and cannot have the NPC's pro-actively thwart the PC's (again, done since day 1) since all of those are based on the consideration that the PC's are PC's. We cannot even attack the PC's home town, unless it occurs randomly, because doing so will always take the PC's into consideration.

I would love to watch your campaigns. It would be such an eye opener for me to see how you can possibly pull this off.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Basically, what you're saying is that NPC's may only be generated randomly (since the DM making any decision that takes the PC's into consideration is invalid) and may only take randomly generated actions. No thanks. That's a completely nonsensical campaign.

No, NPCs are perfectly allowed to make decisions based on what they know about the world, even if that includes the PCs; they just can't make decisions that take into consideration that the PCs are PCs.

After all, we cannot design adventures based on the PC's levels (which D&D has done since day 1), cannot design adventures based on character backgrounds (which D&D has done since day 1) and cannot have the NPC's pro-actively thwart the PC's (again, done since day 1) since all of those are based on the consideration that the PC's are PC's. We cannot even attack the PC's home town, unless it occurs randomly, because doing so will always take the PC's into consideration.

Again, no, you're looking at this in entirely the wrong direction. Characters can engage with each other as individuals, based on what they do know. Some particular group of adventurers can be sent off to explore a certain region, or complete a specific quest, based on the estimated difficulty of the task at hand at hand; you don't send a bunch of rookies out to map Dragon Island, but maybe you send them to get rid of a goblin infestation.

As a DM, what you cannot do is to replace all of the dragons on Dragon Island with kobolds, just so you can send the rookies there, because that would be meta-gaming.

I would love to watch your campaigns. It would be such an eye opener for me to see how you can possibly pull this off.

It's not hard, as long as you avoid meta-gaming. Don't let anyone make a decision based on information they don't have.

The PCs in my current game are world-saving heroes. Almost everyone has heard of them. Sometimes they get requests, based on their reputation. Sometimes they get assassins. It works out just fine.