ELs, balance, and metagaming
- Thread starter jgbrowning
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Victim
First Post
Re: Re: ELs, balance, and metagaming
On the other hand, I've found that sometimes parties can clash with enemies above their level and come out ahead. "Overpowering" enemies sometimes have weak spots that less powerful characters can exploit, or something.
Any way, at higher levels, death becomes more "normal" since PC abilities greatly reduce its impact. The death of a PC might be expected in certain situations, without a super difficult fight, because when characters can come back from the dead, they effective have far more resources. When the halfling rogue dies again because he tumbled into a bunch of enemies to get sneak attacks and is then True Ressurected at the end of the fight, the party has expended 5000 GP and a high level spell - very little resources have actually been expended.
In other words, I find that scale of encounters and the descriptions of rather dubious value.
Umbran said:
Interestingly, it's false metagaming, insofar as the rulebooks say that you aren't supposed to be able to beat everything you come across.
DMG, pg 56, concerning Difficulty of encounters:
15% of encounters should be "Very Difficult: One PC might very well die."
5% of all encounters should be "Overpowering: The party should run. If they don't, they will probably lose."
So, if folks (be they DMs or players) have the perception that the characters should always be able to win, they haven't read very carefully.Not that this should be a long-term problem. Most players learn very quickly that the charcaters can and will occasionally die, if you actually kill some of them...
On the other hand, I've found that sometimes parties can clash with enemies above their level and come out ahead. "Overpowering" enemies sometimes have weak spots that less powerful characters can exploit, or something.
Any way, at higher levels, death becomes more "normal" since PC abilities greatly reduce its impact. The death of a PC might be expected in certain situations, without a super difficult fight, because when characters can come back from the dead, they effective have far more resources. When the halfling rogue dies again because he tumbled into a bunch of enemies to get sneak attacks and is then True Ressurected at the end of the fight, the party has expended 5000 GP and a high level spell - very little resources have actually been expended.
In other words, I find that scale of encounters and the descriptions of rather dubious value.
Creamsteak
Explorer
As far as raising the dead goes, my solution was posted in Edena's recent thread on 'DnD heroics.' Here it goes again,
creamsteak said:
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
All I have to say is - wow. Guess my party must have been hella lucky against that roper (or else the GM missed something out...). Our party just beat it to death (with a 5 person party, containing 3 fighter-types, a rogue and a sorceror)
In general, it is bad practise to stage an encounter which fulfills the following:
* The players cannot defeat the enemy in combat
* There is no option other than combat. Good examples are 2nd edition ad&d, where it seemed like there were no monsters willing to negotiate, and also no monsters which would move slower than the average party...
OR
* The players cannot reasonably be expected to know there is an option other than combat. For instance - the roper in that adventure immediately attacks without provocation, and makes no serious effort to communicate (it just makes the sort of "I'll eat you all" threats which are standard to relentless monsters). It's never made clear that the players could do anything except fight the monster, and since typically one of their number will (at least seem to) be destined for certain death unless they fight, they'll almost always do so.
OR
* The fight is necessary for the progression of the game, and there really aren't any alternatives. Telling the players that they have to kill an insurmountable foe will tend to just get them all killed off (or just exiting your scenario to the nearest pub for another job).
In general, it is bad practise to stage an encounter which fulfills the following:
* The players cannot defeat the enemy in combat
* There is no option other than combat. Good examples are 2nd edition ad&d, where it seemed like there were no monsters willing to negotiate, and also no monsters which would move slower than the average party...
OR
* The players cannot reasonably be expected to know there is an option other than combat. For instance - the roper in that adventure immediately attacks without provocation, and makes no serious effort to communicate (it just makes the sort of "I'll eat you all" threats which are standard to relentless monsters). It's never made clear that the players could do anything except fight the monster, and since typically one of their number will (at least seem to) be destined for certain death unless they fight, they'll almost always do so.
OR
* The fight is necessary for the progression of the game, and there really aren't any alternatives. Telling the players that they have to kill an insurmountable foe will tend to just get them all killed off (or just exiting your scenario to the nearest pub for another job).
Ranes
Adventurer
I'm replying out of curiosity. As a DM, I infrequently run encounters that only terminally stupid characters would attempt to resolve by force. Nevertheless, I stage such encounters carefully (fairly, if you like) and I do consider them valid encounters. My players, as far as I can tell, are not under the impression that they can engage in hostilities to resolve any given encounter in their favour. Thus far, they have taken the hint, as it were, when these situations have arisen but they have acted in character, rather than metagamed. Perhaps that's so because of the staging (that's what the staging is there for).
Why, JG, are you under the impression that 3E in particular fosters a belief in players that they can do otherwise? (From your fourth paragraph... "this is my biggest complaint with 3E.") I would agree that knowing when to make yourself scarce is a valuable skill but isn't that the case with any rpg? I feel like I've missed something. It wouldn't be the first time...
Why, JG, are you under the impression that 3E in particular fosters a belief in players that they can do otherwise? (From your fourth paragraph... "this is my biggest complaint with 3E.") I would agree that knowing when to make yourself scarce is a valuable skill but isn't that the case with any rpg? I feel like I've missed something. It wouldn't be the first time...
Re: Re: Re: ELs, balance, and metagaming
Yep. That's why they try to be clear that the whole CR/EL thing is a guideline. The DM is supposed to look at the thing, look at his party, and use his brain to find such loopholes and take them into account.
And, of course, sometimes the PCs are about to outthink the Universe. That's okay. Cleverness is an important part of heroic fiction.
Victim said:
Yep. That's why they try to be clear that the whole CR/EL thing is a guideline. The DM is supposed to look at the thing, look at his party, and use his brain to find such loopholes and take them into account.
And, of course, sometimes the PCs are about to outthink the Universe. That's okay. Cleverness is an important part of heroic fiction.
Victim
First Post
That's my point. Once a certain threshold is crossed, there is usually no clear distinction between the tough fight that the characters can win, and the fight that they need to run from.
There are 3 ways of looking at the situation: a metagame "what does the DM want? I think he wants us to surrender and get taken captive and then we'll perform a service for the giants to get out freedom." PoV, a mechanics based point of view - "
Are you nuts?! Those giants have over 200 HP, reach, and 3 attacks starting at +35. Plus, the leader is using an unusual weapon, so he probably has a some fighter levels?" - and finally an In Character view, "Don't be stupid Thurgar. You got killed twice the last time we fought giants. These guys look even bigger. Besides, I've heard rumors of an giant tribe with an unusual degree of civilization in the area, so we'll probably be okay."
As characters advance in levels and grow in power, many of the cues that might be useful indicators of how to procede stop having value.
These new giants are bigger yes, but not that much bigger than Hill Giants you defeated easily on your last quest. Also, your mighty band of heroes has never been defeated, or just killed a decent size dragon, etc.
Mechanically, players often won't know an enemies stats. Even if they do, players might not act on the information because the characters wouldn't know. "I have knowledge: the planes +2, are you sure I don't know that Balors explode? No? Then Paladin Guy has no reason not to cream the evil demon. It's a shame we took so much damage from its Firestorm that failing the save will kill us. Sorry."
Aside from initial constraints that make the game more enjoyable for the players and DM, I consider approaching in game problems on a metagame level rather distasteful. Ideally, game situations shouldn't be considered in this way. Still, as characters become more powerful, it's harder to tell if something is intended as a tough battle or something to chase you off.
At the other end of the scale, 1st level characters are pretty clueless.
There are 3 ways of looking at the situation: a metagame "what does the DM want? I think he wants us to surrender and get taken captive and then we'll perform a service for the giants to get out freedom." PoV, a mechanics based point of view - "
Are you nuts?! Those giants have over 200 HP, reach, and 3 attacks starting at +35. Plus, the leader is using an unusual weapon, so he probably has a some fighter levels?" - and finally an In Character view, "Don't be stupid Thurgar. You got killed twice the last time we fought giants. These guys look even bigger. Besides, I've heard rumors of an giant tribe with an unusual degree of civilization in the area, so we'll probably be okay."
As characters advance in levels and grow in power, many of the cues that might be useful indicators of how to procede stop having value.
These new giants are bigger yes, but not that much bigger than Hill Giants you defeated easily on your last quest. Also, your mighty band of heroes has never been defeated, or just killed a decent size dragon, etc.
Mechanically, players often won't know an enemies stats. Even if they do, players might not act on the information because the characters wouldn't know. "I have knowledge: the planes +2, are you sure I don't know that Balors explode? No? Then Paladin Guy has no reason not to cream the evil demon. It's a shame we took so much damage from its Firestorm that failing the save will kill us. Sorry."
Aside from initial constraints that make the game more enjoyable for the players and DM, I consider approaching in game problems on a metagame level rather distasteful. Ideally, game situations shouldn't be considered in this way. Still, as characters become more powerful, it's harder to tell if something is intended as a tough battle or something to chase you off.
At the other end of the scale, 1st level characters are pretty clueless.
Victim said:
Well, the book says that for 5% of encounters, the party should run. The book does not say that the party should know which encounters comprise that 5%. If the party were supposed to easily tell which encounters were deadly, there'd be no reason to have the enounters. They'd know, and run, and you could delete the whole exercise. There's supposed to be a certain amount of risk.
That being said, if the old cues stop having value, you simply need to find new cues. If all you tell them is "It's a giant", yes, they don't have enough information to tell the giant they can handle from the one they can. If you tell them, "It's a giant, with biceps bigger than any you've seen before", they can glean more information. If you tell the party the giant is busy ripping flesh off a bone with it's massive shearing teeth, they get one message. If you tell them the giant is busy with a huge pen and parchment, apparently working out the engineering on a bit of stonework, they get a totally different message.
Generally speaking, I find that if you consistently and accurately use description of what the party can see, and what they know they'll get the hint on what to pay attention to.
jgbrowning
Hero
Ranes said:
Well, i honestly didn't expect anyone to ask why i felt that way. this is kinda like opening up a big can of "dear lord, i have to tell someone what i think and that's just going to create a big mess (flame) on a board where i'd prefer not to". Hrm.
Well lemme preface by saything that this is obviously just my opinion, so lets keep the flaming down...
It my biggest complaint with 3E because other things are my biggest complaint as well... was just being a bit hyperbolic. Here's my run down of thought to how i got to my above statement.
1. 3E promotes faster leveling (than old dnd) and wants characters over 10th level to be not unsusal. PC are expected to reach level 20 in around 18 months.
2. Creating a coherant fantasy world where there are appropriate challanges for 20th levelers and 1st levelers is difficult. Big monsters (15-20th level)eat a lot/ would have giant smaug like areas of control/ be famous and legendary. Mid level encounters (6-12th) would have to be fairly common given the distribution of levels in the DMG demographics section.
3. Realism is assumed to be stopped because the players are 1st level. ie.... players will only face fights that are appropriate to their level although there must be hundreds and hundreds of challanges for 3-9th level parties.
ie. when a group of 1st level adventurers enter a "haunted graveyard" you know they aint gonna be meeting a group of 3 shadows, more the less a lich. Although a group of 3 shadows is not in any form or fashion unreasonable in a world where such creatures exist given the "haunted graveyard" setting.
4. The players know this. Regardless of wether or not they role-play their reasons, the players know that when they create 1st level characters, I as DM, won't send them out to get slaughtered in their first fight. Although by all rights of logic and world coherancy, they should probably get slaughtered
5. Because of this the players are more willing to fight than what i think a person in a real fantasy world with all those parameters would be willing to fight. When your 1-3rd level, you'd avoid fighting if at all possible, because more than likely you would simply die.
--------------
All of the above are not unique to 3E. But i think 3E exacerbated the situation when it decided to speed up the leveling process.
Most of my complaints stem from the problem of creating a coherant world given the variables presented in the system. Ie. if my players go from 1-20th in 18 months why would there not be other groups of people doing the same thing?
Answer: there isn't one outside of the "players are heros" bit. My players are definitely not the heroic types..
And there would surely be many other heros besides my 6 in a big world.Ok well, i think i've gone on far enough to make my point. Again these are just my opinions (most of them not necessarily against 3e).
Enjoyed hearing all of your responses so far..
joe b.
