Hmm...ok, but, aside the fact that in your game you should scale up the CR of flying creatures, I was thinking about the country bandits with crossbows.
Let me quote myself: why do you call it "metagaming"?
If Mike Tyson thinks that he can easily defeat a dozen of 4 years old kids in a boxe fight, is he applying "metagame rules", or does he simply know what he can achieve?
Because the situation is ridiculous? We're trying to discuss credible threats. He doesn't need to metagame, in-world knowledge tells him that 4 year olds aren't trained in fighting in any way, they have little strength and conditioning, have no tactics or strategy, and aren't even wielding threatening weapons. How can they be considered a threat?
The Snatch feat in 3.5 states:
A snatched opponent held in the creature’s mouth is not allowed a Reflex save against the creature’s breath weapon, if it has one.
This means that a frigging colossal dragon could hold a high level monk, with no armor whatsover, in his/her mouth, and breath acid/fire/youchoosewhat right on his face, with no saving throw allowed, and most high level PC would survive this attack.
Now, in
this link I read that the maximum potential bite force of
T. rex is between about 183,000 and 235,000 N for a bilateral bite (!), which is less than an ancient colossal wyrm, since the Trex bite is listed a 3d6, while the latter is listed as 4d8.
Personally, I find this snatch/bite ability to be, on a believability scale, to be very lacking. Seriously. If nothing else, the snatched monk should be helpless and take crit damage from the ongoing bite and the breath weapon. He'll probably still live, because I find a lot of damage ratings on certain attacks to be out of whack with how they really should be, and are scaled so that everything is at the proper level of challenge. How does this get justified? Well, the same way we have the person who survives a fall from an airplane, or lives through an inferno. Luck, chance, fate, what-have-you. Really, once trapped in the bite, he really should be crunched in a round or two. But this isn't fun in a game sense, and so concessions are made to give characters a chance.
But our high level PC could reasonably face the bite/grapple damage of the colossal dragon (of course including his Str modifier to damage), looking at the damage sustained after being bitten several times, no matter being held in his mouth.
Now, this high level PC should also have suffered several crossbow bolts / bow arrows hit in his career, even direct hits while he was helpless, and would know what damage he could reasonably expect from them, and he could compare them to the cited dragon.
Now, I really can't see why his experience with the dragon and the bolts/arrows should be seen as metagaming.
Because playing with experiences from the past isn't metagaming.
And sure, PCs should have a very good knowledge of how bows and crossbows work, heck, someone in their party likely uses one. And they've seen their pal shoot some poor mook through the neck, killing him instantly.
At low levels, this really should be a "holy f*&^" moment. The realization that one arrow can kill. And the characters see this_all_ the time. It should be all but ingrained in their heads that arrows = danger. Sure, they survived encounter after encounter, taking arrows to the arms (or dare I say knee?), and lived. But the character should never feel that an arrow is never dangerous to them (unless of course it really wouldn't, like having damage resistance or high level magical protection). They've spent months, even years, seeing the plain evidence that arrows fired by trained marksmen are indeed dangerous (notice also we're talking trained guardsmen here, not as some are suggesting peasants with no training, or 4 year old children, but credible threats).
So when the PCs come up to that town with a dozen bowman on the walls with nocked arrows, shouldn't the characters (not players, the characters) at least give pause to the potential threat?
Again, that works for a strict small niche of creatures (those with damage reduction). A fire giant does not have DR. A flight of Manticores do not have DR.
No, but giants are huge. I totally buy into them having a ton of HP to absorb damage. A giant twice as big as a human has 8 times the mass. Eventually, yeah, even a giant could be brought down by a troop of militia, but likely the giant will have rampaged through them and sent them scattering before them. Hence the heroes arriving on the scene, and through their dogged determination, beat back the giant and save the day.
As for manticores, sure, a bunch of them attacking a town should win. They're injuring and killing multiple guards a turn, probably routing them in short order, though likely losing a couple of their own. But individually, no, I don't think they should be immune to guards. There's nothing overly special about them (beyond flying and the spikes). Should the town guard be overrun by a pride of lions, say?
If 12 crossbow bolts shot by peasants are so deadly as to have decent chances to kill a level 12 player and burn a level 12 fighter hp, then they have the same chances to get through a CR12 monster and burn his HP. If such thing happens, then 12 militia with crossbows can kill a Fire Giant, a Manticore, or whatever other mid-to high level monster that is not impervious to normal damage. If 12 have a chance, 24 will cut through them easily, and 50 will be unable to fail.
Really? You find it unbelievable that 50 trained men could kill a giant, or even a flying man-headed lion? If this isn't the case, how the heck are there even towns and cities with the humungous number of monstrous threats in the world?
Again, I'm not suggesting that 12 guardsmen should be the ultimate hero killers. When and if the gauntlet drops, I fully expect the PCs to win the day. I'd just prefer it to not be from the thinking that beause they have so much HP, that there isn't a threat.
In terms of D&D? It's 5th level, and no more. A Troll, which is a credible CR4-5, is a tough enemy for him. He can't probably defeat it alone, he needed the help of his party. If he would face a Giant (roughly a CR 10 enemy), he wouldn't have a chance to survive. Any dragon (who are roughly CR 13-15), even the lowliest ones, will just make him flee. They see a kraken (CR18), and they flee. They see wraiths, and they flee. They face, mostly, orcs (who are a low level CR, and so they kill them by droves), gobllins (in Moria), a few wargs (which are about CR5, and give him a run for his money). The toughest thing he kill is probably a wight (CR4-5)
Again, really, this could be argued back and forth, as it depends on the rules being used, and the preferences of the gaming group. I passed on 3E, it just wasn't my cup of tea at the time, and couldn't get the enthusiasm to try when 3.5 was developed. I eventually played in some 4E Encounters, which turned out to be fun enough to continue playing in actual games. I could just as easily say that the troll faced in Moria was a Fell Troll (level 20 elite) over a regular troll (level 9). The only dragons left in the world seem to be ancient wyrms, so they're epic enemies. The Kraken? They fought enough to free the hobbits, and sure, they ran. It was a humungous threat to them, and it's not like they had to fight it to continue on their quest. And, in the movie at least, it was the dragging over the cliff that took Aragorn out of the warg fight.
I really don't buy into a character who's been adventuring for around 50 years to have gained only 4 or 5 levels (even giving a span of 1-20, leaving out the epic tier). Now if you're only playing heroic tier, or this E6 variant, I could probably agree.
The point is, 12 mooks targeting him did not get him sleeping. He can move, and act. He would dodge all the arrows, turn them into lesser hits, block with his armor and combat experience and so on (that's what hp are for). See Brad Pitt's Achilles in Troy when attacking Apollo's temple. He just dodges and parries all the arrows and spears thrown at him. He is, in all intents and purpose, untouchable (he even dodges Hector's javelin effortless). Glorfindel will be like that, or better. There's no chance 12 (or 50, for that matter) orcs with bows can kill him. At all. (And let's not start with Fëonor. I doubt any number of normal arrows can kill him. And yes, I mean taking him flat-footed. That guy fought platoons of Balrogs.
Sure, once the fight starts, and the character starts using his abilities and battle knowledge, then all the rules for combat and fighting come rushing in, and it makes 'sense' for such a skilled character to avoid blows and dodge arrows and massacre a dozen or even a dozen dozen foes. And this is D&D's strength, to make encounter combats interesting and exciting, where all kinds of factors influence the coarse of battle. Where it has always been weak is in the extremes. There's really no way to emulate a sucking chest wound in D&D (well, perhaps as high damage and on-going Stun), or getting an arrow to the face. Even the coup de grace rules are lacking in believability. Partly this is due to it being a game, and we play games for fun. It's not so much fun when your character gets ganked and killed in one hit, so the game makes concessions in believability in favour of increasing the fun-factor.
The Troy Achlles is rather a special case. The character and fight scenes were designed to give a 'believable' reason for the legend of Achilles' invulnerability, without actually bringing in the supernatural to explain it. So he becomes so skilled that he's never hit, and as word gets around about his legendary ability to not be wounded, why, he must have been invulnerable to mortal weapons!
But I could concede the point, that if a character is so skilled that he never gets hit, even by high level threats (such as Hector), then I could buy into them not being threatened by a bunch of mooks with bows. I doubt, however, that any PC could say they've never been hit over the span of a dozen or two levels.
And yes, I will also concede that a character of such a level that can take on a dozen lvl 27 elites readily by themselves, they are likely beyond being concerned over a few mundane bows pointed at them.
But if they are threatened by 12 militia, then they are highly threatened by 18 militia, and will probably die to 25 militia. 25 goblins are NOT, and should not, be a threat comparable to a pair of manticores. Local militia can, and should, be able to kill a bunch of goblins, with proper numbers. They should run terrorized from a pair of manticores, because those are the realm of heroes. And the reason 12 mundanes spkies tossed are a threat, but 12 mundane bolts aren't, is *level*. D&D functions as a level-based game (and I hope it keeps doing so). The 12 spikes are +15 to hit, the 12 goblins arrows are +3 to hit. I can see a game with a flattened math. That's nice, I'll buy that. But that game will still have things to keep those 12 goblins being goblins, and that manticore being a manticore. That's the full purpose of level. To make the PC a group of heroes. People capable of doing uncanny feats. They can face and match manticores, chimaeras, giants, dragons, demons. Things that ordinary man run in terror from. To be able to fight a Balor, and survive, you need to be *tough* as a Balor. Someone who is tough as a Balor, can't be really threatened by a bunch of goblins with pointy sticks. Or city guards with proficiency in simple weapons and 35 gp crossbows.
Well, you sort of hit things on the nail for me with some of what you've said. What makes a hero a hero is their ability to accept the dangers in front of them, and to push on regardless. What makes the common folk quail with fear, the hero stands firm against. But they do so knowing the danger, and doing it anyway. That's why the two dozen city guard fail, because they likely don't have the experience to face down a flight of manticore diving out of the sky at them, hailing down a rain of spikes. And oh god Guardsman Jacen just took a spike through the eye and crumpled to the ground what are these monsters they are everywhere got to get away!
I suppose a lot of it comes down to roleplay too, on both the players' and DM's part. It's difficult to hide the mechanics of the game, especially in the later editions where we're constantly adding up bonuses and modifiers and crunching math.
Most of my D&D years were spent with Advanced and 2E, and though we got to high levels, we never felt that we were demigods beyond the mortal ken. We had flashier weapons and armour, but we still felt mortal and vulnerable. I'm not saying we couldn't have eventually taken on gods (well, statted ones that are really just high level monsters), but more that it didn't occur to us, as we usually portrayed gods as statless surpreme beings. I've yet to play in the epic tier of 4E, so not sure how that feels compared to past experience. So all my experience and enjoyment of D&D has been grounded with a sense of believability and character mortality, and would like for that feeling to be incorporated in some way in 5E.
. Something along the lines of Optional Rule: Grittier falling damage - Fort Save DC 10+1/10 feet fallen - failed save=all damage is tripled. Something like that anyway.
