E.G.G. On Realism & Combat

[Hautamaki]

Are you being serious? If 5th to 6th level represents the peak of "reality" then some of us should be able to throw a fireball by now.

Tons of people can, all you need is a flame thrower =p

But in all seriousness, as I'd hope you'd be able to figure out, I was really referring to the skill system and, to a lesser degree, the physical combat side of things, although the number of 'mooks' a 5th level character can handle simultaneously and singlehandedly might be pushing the limits of what actual great swordmasters of the past, even the Cyranos and Musashis, were capable of.

 

[NoWayJose]

Aside: Using the word 'Verisimilitude' tends to placate the jokesters and detractors, compared to "realism" with or without quotes.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

and yet at the same time has dissassociated room searching and trap detecting and disarming. Whereas before, battling the goblin was a simple matter of rolling a couple die a few times and letting the DM provide fluff details, now battling the goblin is broken down into 5 second rounds with pages worth of options for unique attack maneuvers. Now, to find and disarm a trap, the rogue makes his search check and then his disarm check, and the DM fills in the fluff details.

I suspect that this is because "searching a room" can very easily devolve into "Here's my list of the things I look at and the order in which I review them. Let me know when I find something."

And then, for instance, you'll miss the emergency scroll that was glued to the underside of the table, and you add "check the bottom of all tables" to your list of "Things to Search."

Similarly, searching a door for traps results in you not finding any, opening the door, and getting hit by the scything blade that was hidden in the floor in front of the door. So, your "Standard Door Search Checklist" expands to include "Floor right in front of the door." And then, later on, "Knob of the door, "doorjam," "welcome mat," and "hinges."

Combat, at least, tends to have varied terrain and monsters which lets decisions there be meaningful, rather than just part of a checklist.

 

[Hautamaki]

I suspect that this is because "searching a room" can very easily devolve into "Here's my list of the things I look at and the order in which I review them. Let me know when I find something."

And then, for instance, you'll miss the emergency scroll that was glued to the underside of the table, and you add "check the bottom of all tables" to your list of "Things to Search."

Similarly, searching a door for traps results in you not finding any, opening the door, and getting hit by the scything blade that was hidden in the floor in front of the door. So, your "Standard Door Search Checklist" expands to include "Floor right in front of the door." And then, later on, "Knob of the door, "doorjam," "welcome mat," and "hinges."

Combat, at least, tends to have varied terrain and monsters which lets decisions there be meaningful, rather than just part of a checklist.

Yup, and it all gets monotonous and tedious by the second or third dungeon, so the decision to turn it into a dice roll was not totally unjustified. The way I handle it now is by having the search dice roll, if it is a success, give the player's a 'funny feeling' that something is there to be found. They still have to figure out how to find it or what to do about it if its found. When it comes disarming traps or disabling devices, dice rolls are generally reserved for things where physical precision is required.

 

[NoWayJose]

And then, for instance, you'll miss the emergency scroll that was glued to the underside of the table, and you add "check the bottom of all tables" to your list of "Things to Search."

I think that hidden traps and secret treasures are/were way over-used in D&D (plus in many cases, lack verisimilitude, and mostly belong in plush castle chambers of ultra-wealthy villians) and more annoying than fun to discover. I think it's a sacred cow that the game can generally do without.

 

[ExploderWizard]

But in all seriousness, as I'd hope you'd be able to figure out, I was really referring to the skill system and, to a lesser degree, the physical combat side of things, although the number of 'mooks' a 5th level character can handle simultaneously and singlehandedly might be pushing the limits of what actual great swordmasters of the past, even the Cyranos and Musashis, were capable of.

Ok leaving magic out of the rules, the reality part is still elusive if not completely absent.

That realistic 6th level D&D fighter can jump off a 6 story building and just walk away. Ever increasing vitality linked to progress in a career path (HP) is a game construct designed to work with the vague abstraction of early D&D combat.

Once you begin breaking down that combat and try to quantify every detail action by action with specific mechanics then the abstract artifacts such as HP and static defenses are brought under the microscope and end up not looking too good.

In order to simulate anything in detail, the system structure needs to support it at the ground level.

As far as skills are concerned, lets remember that that the philosophy of early D&D was that dice were rolled when the outcome was uncertain. Every action didn't require a die roll. If there was a treasure sewn into a pillow and a player announced that he was cutting it open then the treasure would be discovered. Using a complex skill system like 3.X has takes the player away from the situation. The player just endless repeats "I search" (roll). If the roll isn't good enough then it doesn't matter what the player does. If the party suspects they might have missed something then the old " I take 20" gets trotted out. In this case they usually automatically find everything so the whole skill roll mess was a waste of time anyway.

 

[NoWayJose]

That realistic 6th level D&D fighter can jump off a 6 story building and just walk away. Ever increasing vitality linked to progress in a career path (HP) is a game construct designed to work with the vague abstraction of early D&D combat.

Not sure which edition is being discussed but hitpoints != vitality in modern D&D. The 6th level fighter might have landed on the fabric roof on a street shop which cushioned his fall, using up some of his luck/destiny, thus substracting hit points.

Perhaps more importantly, people aren't jumping off cliffs in the usual D&D game, so it's tolerable or forgivable. Like the joke about the housecat being able to kill a 1st level 1e mage, yes, it's absurd, but it could and was swept under the rug because that scenario rarely or never came up in play.

Giving up on striving to achieve verisimilitude because of cliff-jumping, etc. is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not sure which edition is being discussed but hitpoints != vitality in modern D&D. The 6th level fighter might have landed on the fabric roof on a street shop which cushioned his fall, using up some of his luck/destiny, thus substracting hit points.

Edition doesn't matter. The point is that the HP model is abstract. Mechanically it doesn't matter if the fighter fell into a wagonload of goose down or onto a pile of rocks, the damage is the same.

In any event the circumstances surrounding the fall should be easy to determine based on where and how it occured in the game world. An abstract mechanical system just rolls with the punches and keeps going.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I loved those early issues of White Dwarf. They definitely favored a much more grim and gritty feel than The Dragon did back then, so it's no wonder they disagreed with EGG.

I expect that you mean White Dwarf - although I also liked the early issues of White Wolf

Wolves, dwarves, and dragons; those were the days.

Complaining that D&D is flawed because it didn't support detailed, simulationist combat is like being dissappointed in a naval battleship that can't fly.

My favorite battleship flies (and is a submarine too)! (Space Battleship Yamato did have some custom features.)

 

[Hautamaki]

Edition doesn't matter. The point is that the HP model is abstract. Mechanically it doesn't matter if the fighter fell into a wagonload of goose down or onto a pile of rocks, the damage is the same.

In any event the circumstances surrounding the fall should be easy to determine based on where and how it occured in the game world. An abstract mechanical system just rolls with the punches and keeps going.

I have to agree that HP and falling damage are two serious abstractions... for myself, falling damage is handled according to the actual 9.8m/s^2 and results in falling damage escalating to 22d6 by 80 feet and still increasing geometrically from there... in other words, only proper super humans are going to survive a fall like that.

But in general, HP isn't that bad. Like it says in the original rulebooks, a 5th level fighter isn't actually able to absorb more physical punishment then a couple of warhorses. It's that the 5th level fighter is able to 'roll with the punches' and be affected by lucky breaks/fate, that keep him alive when the same blows directed at said warhorses would have already felled them. Now that D&D4 has incorporated the 'bloodied' condition a mechanic is specifically built in to show how accumulated damage can cause a reduction in capability.

Healing is another great example of how abstract HP is a problem. Why should a cure light wounds fully heal a near-death low level character, but barely be sufficient to close a shaving scratch on a high level character? I got around this by house-ruling that healing effects cure a percentage of total HP. A cure light wounds potion will recover 1 or 2 HP on a low level character, but would recover 10 or 20 to a higher level character with a lot more HP.

The reason they didn't do this in the first place is that the original idea was to make healing get more expensive for higher level characters as a balance issue (I suppose). But if you do away with that conceit I think that HP works just fine.