Falling from Great Heights

[JamesonCourage]

I've got not objection, in principle, to a game in which falling is dangerous. But I'm not the one getting bent out of shape trying to reconcile that desire with a desire to play a game with hp-based rather than wound-based damage.

But you can do both. You just need to change some base assumptions. This sounds perfectly reasonable to inquire about as a 5e module. As always, play what you like

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There are different kinds of fiction, that's for sure. In reallistic fiction, you shouldn't be able to kill 12 guys with crossbows. However, in realistic fiction, you shouldnt be able to kill a dragon either. Becouse, otherwise, that implies that 12 guys with crossobows can kill a dragon.

D&D is a game with a fiction that states that people can kill dragons, fighters can grapple bears, and clerics can pray for miracles. You are asking for something that goes against the very foundation of the game: the leveling system. You start fighting kobolds, and finish killing Balors.

Yup, it is possible to make characters that fear a patrol of random militia with crossbows. But the cost of that, is being unable to beat dragons, demons and hydras. I doubt it is the path that WotC is going to take.

Well, in all fairness you COULD create a system where both things are possible, but it wouldn't resemble any edition of D&D very much. You can look to mythological sources for examples of how that would work. Every monster would have an 'achilles heel' or there would be ways to come up with countermagics or whatever that with preparation would defeat the dragon in some sense (Ged learns the true name of Orm Umbar and 'wins' his confrontation against it for instance). Of course it is tough to make a good game that works that way.

The other option is a system that is just incredibly swingy. 12 crossbowmen, due to their numbers, have the force of probability on their side. One of those bolts is going to prove lethal to our hero. OTOH he can equally get lucky and defeat the dragon in similar fashion. Yes, that does mean the 12 crossbowmen can beat the dragon too, but only in theory. They won't risk it, and if they do they lack the means to get near the dragon lair without being ambushed or whatever.

So, basically I agree with your central premise, you can't make a system that has the sensibilities and play style of D&D where a bunch of low level mooks can threaten a high level PC.

I wonder how this issue is going to manifest in 5e? It sort of seems like their going to run into it with their "everything remains relevant" approach. Will the game be super swingy, or will it rely heavily on PCs needing to find that one specific way to defeat the big bad monster? I'm not sure how either is going to happen and retain D&D feel...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the biggest thing people are missing is that D&D is a game. A level based game filled with all kinds of weird math.

All threats have a value. They have numbers. D&D uses damage and hit points.

The key is how do you make:
25 level 3 NPCs a threat to 4 level 15 PCs
4 level 15 PCs a threat to a adult red dragon
but not have
24 level 3 NPCs a threat to a adult red dragon?

The answer is.. you can't with just damage, hit points, and numbers of attacks. You have to make an exception rule.

The total crossbowmen's damage has to be less than dragon's health but higher than the PC's. And the dragon's damage has to be less than the heroes' health but more than the combined crossbowmen. The heroes's damage has to be higher than the dragon's health but not the combined crossbowmen's. That requires numbers to go up and down at the same time. If you slow down HP gain or raise the damage to have the crossbowmen's damage scare the heroes, you also made the dragon vulnerable. Therefore the only way the math will work is to add other aspects to the math such as DR and resistances. And the game ceases to be simple.

Or just embrace the "different rules for different situations" concept. This is what 4e did with minions and whatnot. The DM can of course supplement this with a bit of fiat, which 4e definitely encourages in terms of interactions between NPCs and other NPCs (IE the dragon vs the crossbowmen). When the fighter is cornered by a dozen crossbowmen they're standard relevant-level monsters. When they face up against the dragon they're just set dressing. When the narrative demands that the PCs blow past the crossbowmen, then they're minions.

Now, this can potentially create issues of narrative consistency, the DM needs to be careful not to go overboard if he's wanting the players to be able to judge what the threat level of a crossbowman is consistently, but it would be rather a corner case where THE SAME crossbowmen fight the PCs and then the dragon. The king's elite crossbowmen can arrest the PCs, but a group of ordinary crossbowmen get their lunch eaten by the dragon. As long as the players can tell the difference between the two then the game can function.

 

[Elf Witch]

But it didn't make that much sense, imho.
So fighting a 12 headed hydra is fair game, but fighting 12 bamdits with short swords is not. Same goes with fighting two manticores (who shoot 6 spikes each). Your hero can, at proper level, face and defeat 2 giant monsters with lion bodies and old man heads that shoot 12 spikes per turn, but he should die to 12 commoners who bought a crossbow.

I guess you can build a game like that. But it really does not hold any sense.

That might be valid for a dragon's corner case. What about giants? Manticores? evil wizards?

The problem, then, is that you are looking into level 6 or less characters. Strider is level 6, not more. He could NOT defeat a Balor (balrog). Not even close. He could not even defeat a BABY troll on his own. He needed a party, and they got beated in the process. He was able to scare a few nazguls, becouse he had a Plot Device to do so. If you want to see a high level warrior in Tolkien's books, what about Fëanor, who could defeat a platoon of Balrogs. Do you thing 20 orcs with crossbows could defeat Fëanor? Do you think 20 orcs with bows could have killed Glorfindel as they killed Boromir?

The Song of Ice and Fire is even lower level. A single frozen zombie almost kill an entire garrison. A dragon would kill all the heroes in the novel, together. Sure they can't beat a group of guards. They couldn't beat a Manticore either.

Conan defeat giant apes all the time. But dire apes are like CR 6 or so. Conan could not defeat an ancient Red Dragon, by any means.

If you want to see high level fighters, those who can defeat dragons, hydras and demons, you should take a look to Cuchulain, Beowulf, Sigfrid, Hercules or Achilles. Those beat dragons, hydras and demons. But they can defeat a patrol of guards too. Cuchulain defeated an entire army once. Achiles did too (and he wasn't invulnerable by then). Hercules breached the walls of Troy and sieged the city alone, before they managed to calm his anger.

THOSE are the equivalent of your 14th level D&D fighter. If you want to reproduce the feeling of Lord of the Rings or Conan, I suggest you to use E6 rules, where the level advancement is limited to level 6. Because it really does not make any sense that a regular fighter can survive/dodge 12 spike shots from two manticores, but can't survive/dodge 12 goblins with shortbows. It does not make any sense that a fighter can survive a Wyvern's poisoned sting, but he can't survive a regular run-o-mill cup of poison.

The heroes don't always dodge those manticore spikes they hit and sometimes they die.

Which all some of us are asking of with rules for a group of trained archers at least having a chance to hit the PCs.

The way it is now to do that you have to keep scaling the guardsmen. One of my issues is the idea that trained archers don't ever practice or use their skill so they don't level. But they do things they are not video game people standing around doing nothing until it is time to interact with the PCs.

You mentioned swords done of us did. I find it perfectly reasonable that in a sword fight the better trained person has the better chance of winning.

We are talking about ranged weapons aimed at a party who does not have magical protection up and who for the most part are flat footed. Yet every arrow misses unless its is a crit. That goes into realm of comedic action something that belongs in Order of the Stick. And this is not just a one time thing it will happen every time.

As for the poison I hate the whole idea of one fort save for that. So a high level character has now become able to handle the effects of poison better why is that. How does adventuring make you immune to poison as you go up in levels?

Unless you are routinely drinking a small amount to build your immunity it makes no sense. If your con score has not changed why would something that would kill you at first level not kill you at tenth?

I know why in metagame terms it is because as a level based game both your saves and hit points go up. And for a lot of it I can just say okay but there are some situations that make me go WTF that does make sense at all.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The heroes don't always dodge those manticore spikes they hit and sometimes they die.

Which all some of us are asking of with rules for a group of trained archers at least having a chance to hit the PCs.

The way it is now to do that you have to keep scaling the guardsmen. One of my issues is the idea that trained archers don't ever practice or use their skill so they don't level. But they do things they are not video game people standing around doing nothing until it is time to interact with the PCs.

You mentioned swords done of us did. I find it perfectly reasonable that in a sword fight the better trained person has the better chance of winning.

We are talking about ranged weapons aimed at a party who does not have magical protection up and who for the most part are flat footed. Yet every arrow misses unless its is a crit. That goes into realm of comedic action something that belongs in Order of the Stick. And this is not just a one time thing it will happen every time.

As for the poison I hate the whole idea of one fort save for that. So a high level character has now become able to handle the effects of poison better why is that. How does adventuring make you immune to poison as you go up in levels?

Unless you are routinely drinking a small amount to build your immunity it makes no sense. If your con score has not changed why would something that would kill you at first level not kill you at tenth?

I know why in metagame terms it is because as a level based game both your saves and hit points go up. And for a lot of it I can just say okay but there are some situations that make me go WTF that does make sense at all.

At which point you have a gritty game where the PCs are going to have a lot of trouble defeating most monsters, just like they'll have a lot of trouble defeating most groups of 12 crossbowmen. That's just the way it is. You can add a lot of complexity to the game and deal with some of that, but with something like poison either it is always deadly and if it gets used much then PCs will probably die a lot and you'll have a sort of gritty type game, or it will simply not be that deadly to higher level PCs. Even OLD D&D took this later route.

The problem is fundamental. Reality isn't very heroic. An arrow or some poison are deadly a high percentage of the time. There are no such things as heroes in the D&D sense. If dragons existed they would either be not a big problem to a group with the right equipment or they would be magically immune to all that and all us actual real-world type people would be helpless against them.

You just can't have both in one system. IMHO my experience with game design tells me that dropping a radically different feel on top of an existing core system with a module is going to be real ugly at best. Going from gritty survivalist mode to superhero mode is going to change practically every aspect of the game. The ramifications will be deep and will upset pretty much any other part of the rules in ways that you're going to have to deal with. AT BEST it won't be some simply swap. At worst the game will work badly in one, the other, or both modes.

I think 5e needs to pick the basic core play style it wants to support and then consider some limited alternatives. You can do something along the lines of say 2e and be able to shade down into considerably grittier or up to maybe near 4e level heroicness. You can't do both at once and at each extreme you'll be pushing things and maybe not doing it as well as systems built for that.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, Elf Witch, I believe the paraphrase, "Every time you try to apply real world logic to an RPG, God kills a cat girl" applies to precisely what you're saying.

Yes, you're absolutely, 100% right. As soon as you start breaking things down this way, you realize how utterly nonsensical D&D is. And it really is nonsensical. But, that's because you're trying to apply real world logic to a fictional construct where we are playing heroic fantasy.

You are ignoring the power of narrativium.

 

[triqui]

That may be so. I'm not trying to change your mind, just tell you what I want and how I see things.

If they have just as many attacks from different angles as 12 crossbowmen, then it should probably be just as hard to defend against.

That makes some monsters, like manticores or hydras, incredibly more powerful than others, like Gorgons or Dragons or Balors, based stricktly on the number of attacks. It's a strage assumption, imho. You can easily defeat a high level titan, becouse it only strikes once, but you are defeated by a low level octopus, becouse it has 8 tentacles.

I'm not sure where you're going with this. I think 12 crossbowmen should be dangerous to an evil wizard, as well as things that don't have the necessary natural defenses. That could apply to giants, manticores, etc. If you want giants to be immune to crossbow bolts, put them in heavy armor and give them a very thick hide. Give manticores a very thick, plated skin. If they don't have that type of skin, then yes, make them vulnerable to crossbow bolts.

I'm trying to point that "thick armor" works for a strict narrow type of monsters. Dragons fill the niche. Other type of monsters, even if they are high level, and supposed to be very powerful, aren't inmune to crossbow fire, so they'll die like flies. In your world, Galadriel is easy as pie to kill by a bunch of goblins with shortbows, but a baby rock troll is not. That makes baby rock trolls threat greater than Galadriel. It does not make sense, in the way the game is developed.

Once again, I'm not trying to say "the game doesn't function this way past a certain level." I'm saying "while I know the game functions this way past a certain level, I'd like an option to avoid that, if possible." That's all. You don't need to prove to me that more powerful warriors exist. I know that. My point is that fantasy is filled with examples where badass people can be defeated by mundane threats, and that I'd like that type of game to be able to be modeled at all levels. And with the stated goals of 5e, I think that's a fair request. As always, play what you like

My point is that what you call "badass warriors" are, actually, low level warriors fighting in low level adventures, which happen to be very nicely writen. Aragon fights a bunch of orcs, some goblins, a warg or two, and defeat (hardly) a *baby* troll. He scares of the Nazgul using a plot device, which is actually not one of his character abilities, but something the DM gave him to be used there. That's a 5th level adventure in D&D. D&D can, and does, make a wonderful job representing Aragorn. He is a 5th level Fighter/ranger. He dies if he is not careful against a bunch of orc archers. He can defeat, narrowly, a troll. And he will be toasted if he tries to fight a Balrog like Moria's or Dragon like Smaug (unless he is given a Plot device, like a black arrow).

D&D *does* work for this kind of characters. It's just that this kind of characters are not 17th+ level epic heroes. Glorfindel *IS* a 17th+ fighter. He can go toe to toe with a Balrog, and he can defeat a nazgul. He is *not* concerned about a bunch of goblins with bows. 12, or 24. He will kill them all. Probably he won't even need to. Intimidate +20 can do wonders in low level scum. If he choose to kill them, he is probably so fast that he can cover the distance among them faster than the goblins can fire. He can dodge and parry arrows, and he slices through their ranks as a hot knife in butter. There's no chance he loses against 12 goblins. Ever.

Here's the thing, though: just because 12 crossbowmen are a threat to the wizard, it doesn't mean the wizard needs to be impotent against them. Sure, maybe he can kill all of them with one spell. But, if they get the drop on him, ready an action to shoot if he's hostile, and order him to surrender, I want to be able to play the game in such a way where that threat carries some weight mechanically.

That possibility is there in D&D. A 5th level wizard can kill 12 crossbowmen with a 5d6 fireball if he acts first, but he dies if he doesnt. A 20th level wizard is another matter. 12 goblins can't defeat Gandalf. Ever.

However, I think I'll stop the argue here. I don't want to look argumentative. Play as you like, as you say. However, I still think you are mixing things. Playstyle, and level, are different things. D&D can be gritty. It can't be gritty at high levels, because it works with the central idea of characters that grow from killing goblins, to slaying demon lords. Some one who has the chance to survive a demon lord, isn't concerned by a local town guard in a tavern brawl. If you don't like high level adventures, then don't level up. E6 is a great take on this.

 

[triqui]

The heroes don't always dodge those manticore spikes they hit and sometimes they die.

That's the point. Manticores are, and should be, more dangerous than 12 militia. That's why when a pair of manticores terrorize a village, the mayor calls adventurers. Becouse the local militia *cant* take the manticores down, because they are not threat enough.

Which all some of us are asking of with rules for a group of trained archers at least having a chance to hit the PCs.

The way it is now to do that you have to keep scaling the guardsmen. One of my issues is the idea that trained archers don't ever practice or use their skill so they don't level. But they do things they are not video game people standing around doing nothing until it is time to interact with the PCs.

The problem is not that much the AC, but the HP. A naked Dex 10 fighter can take 12 crossbow guards and kill them all once he is about level 12 or so, unless they are sniping him from the top of a tower. He just take the hits, charge, and make a carnage. Yes, he will take a few more hits. But that will only make the situation less believeable. At leaste when they were failing against his full plate +3 and ring of protection +2, you could explain it as the magical armor protecting him. Naked, he just take the hits, and win.

You mentioned swords done of us did. I find it perfectly reasonable that in a sword fight the better trained person has the better chance of winning.

We are talking about ranged weapons aimed at a party who does not have magical protection up and who for the most part are flat footed. Yet every arrow misses unless its is a crit. That goes into realm of comedic action something that belongs in Order of the Stick. And this is not just a one time thing it will happen every time.

So, in your opinion, ranged weapons should be inherently superior to melee? How would that balance with the characters? Wouldn't that make archer rangers inherently superior to twf rangers (or barbarians, for that matter)?

As for the poison I hate the whole idea of one fort save for that. So a high level character has now become able to handle the effects of poison better why is that. How does adventuring make you immune to poison as you go up in levels?

Because you are high level badass. Beowulf fought a sea monster, under the sea, for a week. Holding his breath. Achilles moved a river with his *anger*. Finarfin wasn't concerned about poisonous venoms from balors, that could kill an elephant.

Unless you are routinely drinking a small amount to build your immunity it makes no sense. If your con score has not changed why would something that would kill you at first level not kill you at tenth?

*I* can't drink poison. But *I* am not an epic hero from an epic tale. Sigfrid could easily drink poison. Or Cuchulain. I'm sure a regular poison would not kill Elrond.

I know why in metagame terms it is because as a level based game both your saves and hit points go up. And for a lot of it I can just say okay but there are some situations that make me go WTF that does make sense at all.

That's because you are trying to envision high level play with a low level metagame. Aragorn is 5th level. He *wont* drink poison, because he will die. Achiles is 20th level. They needed to prepare a very specific poison to kill him (the hydra's blood), because anything else wouldn't work. Achilles is too damn high level. In Hindu epic tale, Duryodhana poisoned Bhima with poison fealed *feast* and Bhima survived just because he was to strong for the poison.

The problem is you are trying to fit Conan and Jon Snow into high level epic tales of ancient heroes. It doesn't work that way. Achilles could kill Jon Snow, the entire Night's Watch and Winterfell's guard without being touched once. Hercules could siege Aquilonia alone, as he did with Troy. Bhima killed elephant *armies* using a mace.

 

[Minigiant]

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]

That is the whole point. You can't make one system that handles heroes who have increasing skill, lower level opponents who are still threat, higher level opponent who threats to heroes but ignore much lower level foes, have falls lethal, and poisons deadly. You have to make exception rules to make the simulation you wish to see.

The only issue is which exception rules are core and which are optional.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Added: It's not even like GURPS - GURPS is set up to play fundamentally the same game with different backdrops and conceits. The core of GURPS is (intentionally, as far as I can see) essentially the same regardless what setting you use. Is this another example of using the same words for different concepts, maybe? When we say "different game styles", I see GURPS as generally supporting one game style, not several.

Yes. You can pick a different tech level in GURPS. You can lower or raise the starting points used to build the characters. You can swap out different magic systems. You can pick different optional rules. As I understand GURPS 4E by reputation, you can even make some of your own subsystem widgets to fit your vision. And if you want to simulate somewhat different worlds, even different genres, and then play GURPS in them, this will all work wonderfully. But you will be playing GURPS in all those worlds.

Where I think the "same words for different concepts" part comes in here is that for a dedicated but narrow immersionists, those are different playstyles. Because for them, as I understand it, they need basically two things to vary their "play style": 1) The world simulated with some token fidelity, especially in regards to cause and effect (as they view it, not necessarily in reality), and 2) Familiarity with the system so that it can fade into the background. If you've got a blaster in Star Wars and a sword in Conan and a fireball in D&D, you are set.

Of course, some of these people will find GURPS overly fiddly or detailed in the wrong place or whatever, because everyone has their own preferences. So they might prefer Hero or something lighter than either GURPS or Hero (e.g Runequest) or even mistake "d20" for a "universal system" on the grounds that they can play whatever they want with it, always playing d20. Same reasoning, different starting points.

This is totally different than what you, pemerton, lost soul, or several of us mean by "playstyle"--even though we also have our different preferences and distinctions within our broad agreement of what a "playstyle" constitutes.

All that said, it would be theoretically possible to build a game that will support multiple playstyles, as we mean them--especially within a somewhat less than universal genre, such as "D&D fantasy". What such a theoretical system cannot do, however, is afford useless and nonsensical mechanics that exist almost entirely for simulated illusionism. This restriction is going to necessarily exclude a certain subset of extremely dedicated immersionists, who effectively want, "Make something up that sounds about right. I can always ignore it, handwave it, or outright fudge it away when it produces results that I don't like." By definition, you can't produce tight, robust, multiple playstyle supporting mechanics, for such an audience.