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

[chaochou]

That's fair, as far as it goes.

Hmm. Metagaming. Class is metagame, level is metagame, the numerical value of all your skills are metagame, your hit point totals, armour class, number of spell slots. All metagame. Real people aren't aware of numbers associated to arbitrarily assigned 'skills' and 'statistics' which somehow 'represent them'.

But according to Captain One True Way, you're not allowed to know or use this stuff to play the game. That would be bad and evil and you'd be playing wrong. It's literally the second rule of roleplaying. No, I mean, literally. Not figuratively. Literally.

It's eye-opening, hilarious and tragic all at the same time.

 

[Maxperson]

Hmm. Metagaming. Class is metagame, level is metagame, the numerical value of all your skills are metagame, your hit point totals, armour class, number of spell slots. All metagame. Real people aren't aware of numbers associated to arbitrarily assigned 'skills' and 'statistics' which somehow 'represent them'.

But according to Captain One True Way, you're not allowed to know or use this stuff to play the game. That would be bad and evil and you'd be playing wrong. It's literally the second rule of roleplaying. No, I mean, literally. Not figuratively. Literally.

It's eye-opening, hilarious and tragic all at the same time.

You can use that stuff. The PC can't use and know that stuff. Also, you should remove spell slots from that list. While the PC might not know the term spell slots or 1st level spell, second level spell, etc., he will know how many times he can cast certain spells.

He's going to know that the "1st level spells" are take a bit of power and he can do that X times per day, and that spells that are a bit more powerful "2nd level", can be cast X times per day. He's also going to know that as he grows in magical power "levels up", he can cast more of those spells and sometimes grow into spells that are a bit more powerful than he could previously cast.

Unlike hit points, armor class, level and so on, spell slots are something that really is measurable and knowable by the PC.

 

[hejtmane]

I add PC's with levels it is nice to escalate combat and change the dynamics of combat; I have even thrown a Multiclass build at the players before. I also use the default stuff in the MM. Generally when I am introducing a NPC with character levels they are the top bad guys and they have henchman from the MM or they are the ultimate bad guy they are chasing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

In 2E, unless you were playing with the Death's Door option, there was no point in finishing anyone off because unconscious was synonymous with death; and even if you were using that option, they weren't going to come back into the fight.

I seem to remember the consequences of negative hps softening in 2e. 2e's the edition I remember in the murkiest detail, though, since I never played it unmodified. 1e I familiarized myself with before applying all sorts of variants, 2e I just adapted to those variants.

In 3E, performing a coup de grace maneuver provoked an opportunity attack, which meant there was a good chance that trying to finish someone off would get you killed before you could accomplish anything. (And healing spells were all touch range, unless you added in supplements, which meant that healing a downed ally wasn't always easy anyway.)

Yet both things could quite easily happen. And, there was no longer the week of helplessness following being reduced to 0, so getting someone back up and into the fight was entirely reasonable. And, what's more, healing was common. Any sentient critter might have levels in a class with healing magic, and there were generous make/buy rules and open markets in cheaper magic items like healing potions. So enemies getting up in the middle of a fight would logically (particularly using the kind of logic you seemed to favor in these discussions) be something that's only to be expected - and prevented, by ganking the healers and putting that extra shot into the fallen.

It's only in 4E and 5E, since the advent of Healing Word, that it would really make sense to kill someone who was already unconscious and dying.

Access to leader powers was much more a PC thing, so it'd be logical (again) for most enemies to be surprised by the kind of wackamole dynamic PC parties were capable of. Maybe not never adapt to it, particularly recurring villains, but surprised at least the first time. The DMG specifically advised that most enemies wouldn't try to finish the fallen. (For one thing, dead heroes don't make good protagonists!) So, no, Healing Word didn't change everything the way you imply.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Why would you CdG a 3e character at negative HP? Just hit him and he dies.

In case you've forgotten, it's entirely possible to miss with an attack against an unconscious character. Moreso in 4E than 2E or 3E, but it's still a waste of a turn that could otherwise be used to try and KO the healer. (It's also possible, in 2E or 3E, for an attack to not take someone from -2 to -10 in one go.)

But, you're changing your argument. Your argument has always been that NPC actions should be informed by the mechanics of the game. The entire world and everything in it should be informed by the mechanics of the game. Which means, in any edition where Death's Door rules are used, opponents should automatically try to kill any downed PC. But, they don't. Why not? Because it wouldn't be fun.

No, my argument has always been that the rules of the game reflect the nature of the game world, which means they can be equally understood by anyone who lives in that world. If you're playing in a world which is represented as 2E with the Death's Door option, then anyone who has seen healing magic in action will know equally well that there's no point in finishing off a downed opponent, since it's a non-combatant either way (the only point in healing a downed ally was to prevent bleeding out; they couldn't contribute to the fight until they'd had serious rest and recovery).

If you're playing in a world which is represented as 5E with the default settings, then both sides are likely to know that you should finish off a downed opponent immediately if the other side still has a healer active. If the PCs make use of that option, but you play the NPCs as ignoring that option, then you aren't playing the NPCs to their intelligence; you're role-playing poorly, and that isn't fair to the players.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think that counts as GM meta-gaming.
[...]
I don't understand why I can't do it
[...]
I also don't understand why I shouldn't do it.

If you don't understand that meta-gaming is inherently bad, given the fundamental nature of role-playing, then there's nothing I can say to you.

 

[Satyrn]

. . . Captain One True Way. . .

If I had a time machine, this would now be my user name.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you don't understand that meta-gaming is inherently bad, given the fundamental nature of role-playing

You can pack a lot of judgmental condescension into one sentence, I'll grant you that.

If you're playing in a world which is represented as 5E with the default settings, then both sides are likely to know that you should finish off a downed opponent immediately if the other side still has a healer active. If the PCs make use of that option, but you play the NPCs as ignoring that option, then you aren't playing the NPCs to their intelligence; you're role-playing poorly, and that isn't fair to the players.

It's not fair to the players to maybe softball things just a little (not to mention in a way that's entirely faithful to genre - heroes get 'left for dead on the battlefield' all the time), so they're not making new characters every week?

Ookay.

 

[chaochou]

You can pack a lot of judgmental condescension into one sentence, I'll grant you that.

Step away, step away! Don't provoke Captain OneTrueWay!

You don't have a weapon to defeat its shield of narrowmindedness!

Or any defence from its aura of moronic repetition!

For the love of God, just step out the way and it will railroad itself into the the Well of Irrationality and be lost forever in the Mists of Fate (points).

 

[Tony Vargas]

For all that we each think the other's probably crazy, I think Saelorn & I get along OK. I've never felt the need to block him, anyway, and I can still see his posts.