Falling from Great Heights

[triqui]

I think the best answer is to scale the archers. After all they are not sitting on their tushes knitting while the PCs are out fighting goblins. So it makes sense that they level too.

This. This is completelly the solution and the way to go, imho. Goblins with crossbows won't threat High Level PC.

But Ranger 4/rogue3 goblins with poisoned crossbows? That's another matter.

And if your players don't know which goblins are garbage and which goblins aren't, they will be wary in front of those 12 crossbows. Because yes, if those are lvl 1 CR 1/4 goblins, this is a feast. If they pack 3d6 sneak attack and have favourite enemy human, that's another matter.

4E style won't give them class levels, but will use higher level goblins. They are not "filthy goblins" but "fell goblins" or "killer goblins" or whatever.

This is the solution. Not making 12th level warriors weak enough so anyone with 35gp can buy a crossbow and challenge them.

 

[BryonD]

In these discussions, I'm always reminded of a an old Dragon Magazine comic where the evil barbarian is tied to a tree in front of a firing squad of archers. He's festooned with arrows and a scribe off to the side is calling out, "Load up again boys, he's still got 30 hit points left!"

This is a very valid point.

But in all seriousness, I believe it is important to take into account that there are a great number of us out here who could really laugh at a comic like that and also see it as making fun of taking the rules literally.

I mean, do you really need to go to an old issue of Dragon?

May I suggest that Order of the Stick, particularly in its earlier portions, was built around mocking the 3E rules in specific and RPG tropes in general?
I love OoTS and my 3E loving friends (in general) do as well.

A key point is being able to see the great humor in how such a tiny application of common sense makes the difference between the absurdity of that comic and the awesomeness of a great game.
I remain a firm believer that the scope of RPGs is such that no ruleset can ever achieve greatness without presuming that a thoughtful GM will intelligently adapt the spirit and intent of the rules on a regular basis. And any time the rules try to bypass that synergy, they end up achieving less.

So you end up with excellent rules that can easily be isolated from that quality GM they presume and instantly become ready fodder for absurdity based comics. And yet when not isolated from the context they deserve, they remain outstanding.

 

[pemerton]

You can do this in 3e. There's absolutely no reason you can't do this in 3e. About the biggest difficulty from an adventure design standpoint is the amount of work it takes to make 14th level NPC's. Not my idea of a fun time, but, it's certainly doable.

What 3e would generally have a problem with is all the world implications. If you play 3e in a certain way, and I believe there are people here who do - where the rules of the game have a fairly direct correlation to the in-game reality, then scaling NPC's doesn't make any sense. After all, just how did you get 20x12th level fighters in your city guard? Why aren't they ruling the city?

It doesn't handle it well at all. My players are okay with it but when my son and his players found out I do it they went on and on about how the game is not supposed to run that way and that it breaks the world building.

Interesting that the main problem isn't mechanical as such, but the mechanics/fiction interaction.

Another reason I like 4e is that it takes a much more relaxed approach to the mechanic/fiction interface.

Rolemaster is more like 3E in this respect, but because of its open-ended dice rolls, and its crit system, even modest attack bonuses with a bow can still be a threat to a high level PC.

Which is why I have hope 5E may be the game for me. Especially if it adds some of the improvements from 4E with the things I liked about past editions.

I hope you get a game you like!

 

[Hussar]

So you end up with excellent rules that can easily be isolated from that quality GM they presume and instantly become ready fodder for absurdity based comics. And yet when not isolated from the context they deserve, they remain outstanding.

I would describe the HP mechanic as a lot of things. Simple, fast, easy to use, but outstanding? Not so much.

It's easy to make HP look silly because, at their heart, they are silly. We're assigning a numerical value to something that has absolutely no qualitative measure for the purpose of allowing our fictional heroes to get smacked around like a pinata and keep on trucking.

But, then again, I have no problems with something being silly. I spend several hours a week pretending I'm an elf. Silly isn't something that comes even remotely close to bothering me.

 

[BryonD]

I would describe the HP mechanic as a lot of things. Simple, fast, easy to use, but outstanding? Not so much.

OK

It's easy to make HP look silly because, at their heart, they are silly. We're assigning a numerical value to something that has absolutely no qualitative measure for the purpose of allowing our fictional heroes to get smacked around like a pinata and keep on trucking.

But, then again, I have no problems with something being silly. I spend several hours a week pretending I'm an elf. Silly isn't something that comes even remotely close to bothering me.

You are mixing two very different meanings of silly there to make a connection that doesn't apply.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Interesting that the main problem isn't mechanical as such, but the mechanics/fiction interaction.

Another reason I like 4e is that it takes a much more relaxed approach to the mechanic/fiction interface.

Rolemaster is more like 3E in this respect, but because of its open-ended dice rolls, and its crit system, even modest attack bonuses with a bow can still be a threat to a high level PC.

I hope you get a game you like!

Yeah, it is very much a "this violates my notions of how games should be played" thing. I also really appreciated 4e's relaxed attitude towards how fiction and rules interact. Of course you can do pretty much ALL the same things with 3e that you can do with 4e. It just goes against the 'feel' of what the designers were after (and sometimes it is a bit harder, but honestly not much).

 

[BryonD]

If I may, I think ya'll are taking a pretty corner case issue (crossbow mooks vs. great dragon) and then applying some vague comments from two people and drawing some really sweeping generalizations about game design.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If I may, I think ya'll are taking a pretty corner case issue (crossbow mooks vs. great dragon) and then applying some vague comments from two people and drawing some really sweeping generalizations about game design.

I think the same logic generally applies to any situation. Either the PCs are capable of things that ordinary people aren't, in which case logically they have a unique place in the world and it is logical that THEY are the ones doing the adventuring. OR they do not have any really special capabilities and either big bad monsters don't figure into things, or anyone can kill them, or the PCs can't kill them any more than the town guard can.

It isn't a 'corner case', it is a capsule summary of the entire mathematical concept of a system. Does it HAVE to work perfectly? No, but if it doesn't then there's always that strange question in everyone's minds about what the heck the PCs can actually do, or you have to postulate bizarre properties for armor etc, or make somethings highly abstract in an attempt to obscure the issue. You can DO it, and you can even justify it in a purely gamist sense, but IMHO you won't make most players like it. Has 4e not taught people about gamist mechanics?

 

[Dour-n-Taciturn]

If you're concerned with a grittier approach to falling, massive damage or wound effects module (based on size threshold) could impose a save or die or at least a horrendously crippled effect.

As for mooks vs. heros, the swarm concept, seen in 4th ED for one, may effectively allow large numbers of weak opponents to scale, thereby providing a challenge without stretching "believability" too much.

 

[El Mahdi]

I think the same logic generally applies to any situation. Either the PCs are capable of things that ordinary people aren't, in which case logically they have a unique place in the world and it is logical that THEY are the ones doing the adventuring. OR they do not have any really special capabilities and either big bad monsters don't figure into things, or anyone can kill them, or the PCs can't kill them any more than the town guard can...

Yes. Both are true. It depends on the type of game you want to play. D&D has been able to be played both ways since it's creation. Though mechanically, different editions have made this easier than others, and all have been mechanically weighted away from the ordianry hero style.

I'm certianly hoping that 5E is designed in a way that both can be supported equally...which is really the point of this whole, long, circular discussion.

However, I think your characterisation of the differences between the two styles is a little misleading. Sure, in the ordinary hero style, it is true that anyone can kill the big bad monsters. The difference is that the hero's actually have the audacity or insanity to try...while the rest of the ordianary people, and the town guard, do not.