Falling from Great Heights

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred

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.

Sure, I agree. Where we might part ways perhaps could be in how doable it is to 'modularize' that feel. IMHO it is only possible within a moderately narrow range. I mean you COULD for instance have 'gritty heroes' that only get 1 hit point a level and who's 'powers' are pretty much mundane. You could do superheroes that gain 6 hp/level and get all kinds of crazy physics defying stunts as they go up in levels and can slay armies.

Can you do both in one game? What in that context are the proper values of damage bonus for a feat? Clearly it isn't going to be nearly the same in both cases, thus your hit point power curve system has now caused you to have to also change your feats. The same will be true of items, powers, etc. The monsters will all need to be different, etc etc etc. In some sense you might retain the same core mechanics, but if these two options basically can't share any material there's not much point in having them between the same two covers and called the same game.

Of course that doesn't prevent the possibility of a RANGE of games. I've seen d20 based FRPGs that go the full gamut from the very gritty to the totally heroic. However they're not really compatible with each other except in a very general way. Knowing the rules to one may be helpful in learning the other, but there's little in the way of material or setting you would share between them and they're certainly not ever marketed as being variations of the same game.

 

[Elf Witch]

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.

That is just so much BS everyone of has things that make us go no way sorry that is making it impossible to suspend my disbelief.

There are a lot of fantastic things I can accept without to many questions like dungeons and the fact they they even exist and what about the wonky ecology of them and what have all those creatures been eating before the PCs came wandering in.

I can buy a human going to toe to toe with a dragon because he is that good and has magical protection up.

I know that a game can never ever really reflect combat.

But three things just bug the crap out of me one is falling from terminal velocity and always walking away just because you have the hit points. A fall should be the same no matter what level you are.

Second poisons unless there is a reason why you get better immunity as you go higher then your level should not matter.

Third is the whole ranged weapon thing.

I liked to point out that many people find coming back from the dead to be a WTF and take it out of their game.

 

[Elf Witch]

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.

I disagree that a modualr system can't do this. Take poison you can do it the standard way or you can add an optional rule that makes it more deadly for everyone.

Certain things should always be a threat no matter the level and I think it would be easy to add supplemental rules to do this.

As Jameson pointed out several post ago the design team is saying they want the game to support a wide variety of play styles. There are a lot of groups who want a more realistic and gritty game so why not give them some tools to play it instead of forcing them to either use a different system or try and work around the RAW.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree that a modualr system can't do this. Take poison you can do it the standard way or you can add an optional rule that makes it more deadly for everyone.

Certain things should always be a threat no matter the level and I think it would be easy to add supplemental rules to do this.

As Jameson pointed out several post ago the design team is saying they want the game to support a wide variety of play styles. There are a lot of groups who want a more realistic and gritty game so why not give them some tools to play it instead of forcing them to either use a different system or try and work around the RAW.

Well, we don't entirely agree. Sure, you can make a 100 tweaks to all aspects of the game and maybe sort of go from really gritty to full on high fantasy epic Hercules-type heroes, but it isn't going to be any kind of simple drop-in. It is going to be a thorough reworking of every aspect of the game. It will involve EVERY element of the game, not just one or two. Compare and contrast systems at each end of this scale and you'll see what I mean.

As I said, there are d20 based systems at all points along this spectrum. There isn't ONE d20 game, that I know of, that does all of them within one set of covers. Again, the reason is because there's just not that much value in it when you need a different magic system, a different beastiary, different rules for practically every other subsystem, different healing, action economy, etc etc etc to do it reasonably well.

Of course I remain willing to be convinced, but the entire history of RPGs of which I'm aware IMHO denies that there is any likelihood of this succeeding. I wish the 5e design team well in their endeavor. I don't believe they can do it any more than anyone else has ever been able to in the last 38 years of RPG design.

 

[Elf Witch]

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.
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.

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)?
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.

*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.

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.

And that suspends my belief that a naked man faced with dozens of archers on high ground can just keep taking hit after hit to the point of sheer comedy or even worse can stand there stick his tongue out and dare them and never take a hit all. That is not believable. Even Achilles could be killed if hit with an arrow on his heel.

The town militia may not be able to defend against a manticore because they do not have the training and there archers never practice or go hunting that is believable but a city with an elite cadre of archers is not the same.

High level PCs are not gods are half gods are divine creatures. They are highly trained at what they do but I have never read anything that supports that these PCs are now some kind of gods . A lot of the heroes you mentioned have the blood of gods running through them or are gods themselves.

Now if you want to say high level PCs slowly become more divine like and get special favor which makes them harder to kill with poison or falling and they can't be touched my mortal men only other godlings then fine. That is certainly one way to play and I may even run a game that way in the future.

But you could also run a game where high level PCs are just better trained the fighters have reached the pinnacle with their weapons and have learned to dodge and parry blows. Mages have found stronger spells and harnessed the ability to use magic for great feats of glory.

But naked stripped of their gear and dropped by a dragon from 500 feet should be something that scares the crap out of them and it takes either a miracle or luck to live through that.

The same with a dozen well trained archers firing at them with them having no cover and nothing to stop the arrows.

I can buy that dwarves for example are immune to poison or that an assassin builds up a tolerance for it. I can't buy that a wizard whose con has never changed and has never faced poison before could be killed at lower levels but not higher levels.

With a few tweaks you could still play high level characters that fight dragons and manticores but still have certain things be a threat.

 

[Saagael]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in 20 pages, but on the subject of "realistic" falling damage (and this can be adapted to poisons and other aspect you want to make more gritty):

Damage no longer deals a dice amount of damage, but a percentage of a character's total health. Falling can deal 5% of a PC's health every 10 feet, capping out at death after falling 200ft. To up the level of grit, just add more percentage. 20% hp every 10 feet means you die after falling 50ft. That sounds good.

Did your player just drink some poison? Make a Con save, and for every point below the DC for resisting the poison, the PC takes 20% of his health. Got a really deadly poison, or the player just chugged some battery acid? Just increase the DC, and you're sure to kill some one.

Players surrounded by guards? Treat it like a hazard, or a "poison by puncture wounds". Players make an ability check to try and fight their way out, and take 20% of their hp damage for every point under the DC. Are the players really, really outnumbered? Just up the DC. Its super simple.

With this brand new system, players will still feel the sting of low level threats, and puts the control of those threats purely in the DM's hand, while still maintaining normal combat procedures with your classic use of hit points. Kind of like the dichotomy of skill challenges and combats in 4e, except using the same numbers for both.

* Disclaimer: For those that feel slighted by my silly tone, it's purely silly and not in any way trying to belittle or poke fun at those asking for more believable damage expressions for certain parts of the game. With the way D&D works, you're not going to get both sides of this argument in one system, and this is a relatively simple system that works side-by-side a combat system (maybe, not sure what 5e will bring though).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And that suspends my belief that a naked man faced with dozens of archers on high ground can just keep taking hit after hit to the point of sheer comedy or even worse can stand there stick his tongue out and dare them and never take a hit all. That is not believable. Even Achilles could be killed if hit with an arrow on his heel.

The town militia may not be able to defend against a manticore because they do not have the training and there archers never practice or go hunting that is believable but a city with an elite cadre of archers is not the same.

High level PCs are not gods are half gods are divine creatures. They are highly trained at what they do but I have never read anything that supports that these PCs are now some kind of gods . A lot of the heroes you mentioned have the blood of gods running through them or are gods themselves.

Now if you want to say high level PCs slowly become more divine like and get special favor which makes them harder to kill with poison or falling and they can't be touched my mortal men only other godlings then fine. That is certainly one way to play and I may even run a game that way in the future.

But you could also run a game where high level PCs are just better trained the fighters have reached the pinnacle with their weapons and have learned to dodge and parry blows. Mages have found stronger spells and harnessed the ability to use magic for great feats of glory.

But naked stripped of their gear and dropped by a dragon from 500 feet should be something that scares the crap out of them and it takes either a miracle or luck to live through that.

The same with a dozen well trained archers firing at them with them having no cover and nothing to stop the arrows.

I can buy that dwarves for example are immune to poison or that an assassin builds up a tolerance for it. I can't buy that a wizard whose con has never changed and has never faced poison before could be killed at lower levels but not higher levels.

With a few tweaks you could still play high level characters that fight dragons and manticores but still have certain things be a threat.

Nobody is arguing with your sensibilities or taste. What we're saying is simply that you want a specific type of game. That's only ONE type of game that people may want. D&D traditionally IMHO DOES range from pretty gritty at low level to verging on mythological and definitely in the epic high fantasy range at high levels OOTB.

I'm just not sure you can tweak one system to do both well across the full range of levels. A completely 100% always gritty system IMHO is best served by a completely different core structure than D&D. I don't think this is a matter of modules or anything like that. It is the core structure of the game that matters when you get this extreme.

I have no idea what way 5e will elect to go. My best guess is that they'll do what AD&D did and low level PCs will be glass and run from everything if they're smart except weak mundane monsters, and at high levels they will laugh at most anything that isn't almost godlike in power. SOME tweaking will probably be possible, but I'll guess more on the low end where you can make things less gritty. High level level-based play is VERY unlikely to ever work as a gritty system.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not sure if this has been mentioned in 20 pages, but on the subject of "realistic" falling damage (and this can be adapted to poisons and other aspect you want to make more gritty):

Damage no longer deals a dice amount of damage, but a percentage of a character's total health. Falling can deal 5% of a PC's health every 10 feet, capping out at death after falling 200ft. To up the level of grit, just add more percentage. 20% hp every 10 feet means you die after falling 50ft. That sounds good.

Did your player just drink some poison? Make a Con save, and for every point below the DC for resisting the poison, the PC takes 20% of his health. Got a really deadly poison, or the player just chugged some battery acid? Just increase the DC, and you're sure to kill some one.

Players surrounded by guards? Treat it like a hazard, or a "poison by puncture wounds". Players make an ability check to try and fight their way out, and take 20% of their hp damage for every point under the DC. Are the players really, really outnumbered? Just up the DC. Its super simple.

With this brand new system, players will still feel the sting of low level threats, and puts the control of those threats purely in the DM's hand, while still maintaining normal combat procedures with your classic use of hit points. Kind of like the dichotomy of skill challenges and combats in 4e, except using the same numbers for both.

* Disclaimer: For those that feel slighted by my silly tone, it's purely silly and not in any way trying to belittle or poke fun at those asking for more believable damage expressions for certain parts of the game. With the way D&D works, you're not going to get both sides of this argument in one system, and this is a relatively simple system that works side-by-side a combat system (maybe, not sure what 5e will bring though).

You could do falling and poison and any sort of 'SoD' type thing that way, sure.

I don't think it would work for 'mooks' like crossbowmen. It would imply that all your lich needs to do in order to be rid of the threat of adventurers is employ a bodyguard of 10 or 20 low level orcs with crossbows. Heck, make the skeletons, they never sleep or get bored etc. Of course the PCs might work around that, but fundamentally the end result is two totally different systems that overlap. I'd think if you're going ot do that, just cut off hit point growth or make the growth very shallow (1 or 2 points per level say). You now have a gritty (or at least high lethality) game.

 

[Saagael]

You could do falling and poison and any sort of 'SoD' type thing that way, sure.

I don't think it would work for 'mooks' like crossbowmen. It would imply that all your lich needs to do in order to be rid of the threat of adventurers is employ a bodyguard of 10 or 20 low level orcs with crossbows. Heck, make the skeletons, they never sleep or get bored etc. Of course the PCs might work around that, but fundamentally the end result is two totally different systems that overlap. I'd think if you're going ot do that, just cut off hit point growth or make the growth very shallow (1 or 2 points per level say). You now have a gritty (or at least high lethality) game.

Right, and I get that. The real heart of the issue I was alluding to is that you can't do both "threatening masses of low-level mooks" and "threatening ancient dragons" in the same hp-based system. The closest I've ever seen it come to working as intended is with 4e's swarm and minion rules.

Outside of that, you either have 2 systems that are not easily swapped, or two systems that work in tandem.

 

[Minigiant]

I think I know how [MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION] want D&D to play.

The problem is the numbers.

Hit Points, attack rolls, Armor Class, and damage can't do what Elf Witch wants.

You need

A HP cap so falling damage is always higher than max HP.

Auto kill poison and change poison saves to Reflex/Dexterity to spit out poison fast enough.

All hits are Save or Die when unarmored so a normal man can skewer an unarmored high level hero with an arrow.

Anti dragon armor so a dragon could deals minor damage to a high level hero but massive damage to a militia man.

Range attacks ignore regular armor but not natural armor to make crossbowmen a threat.

None of those have ever been part of D&D.. sorta...