Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5491969" data-attributes="member: 22424">The key difference is that we're not asking &quot;who won this competition&quot;, but &quot;who won the World Record&quot; - what are the conditions of the best ever result. Since no-one has done better in 20 years, that really suggests to me that it has to be a '20' on that roll.Joe has a hard limit to how far forward his foot can be. Indeed, given the requirements of leverage, he's actually better not having his foot &quot;over the line&quot;.This is true, but I'll bet that World Record jumper didn't land standing on his feet. Per RAW, Joe does.This, however, is true, and is a point I will concede.However, even given this, Joe is still superhuman. That World Record jumper was an extreme specialist in that one event. Joe can swim, climb, run (and high-jump) just as well as he can long jump. He doesn't even need to rest between these many feats.Now, the game doesn't support these extreme specialisations, and rightly so. The more narrow the categories become, the more things get excluded (since there isn't infinite page count). But it does give rise to the problem that 1st level characters aren't just &quot;a cut above&quot;. They really are superhuman.And Joe isn't even a terribly unusual 4e character. The game assumes that an '18' in the primary stat is the norm, with a '20' being common. So we get a game where every Fighter is The World's Strongest Man, every Wizard is an Einstein, every Bard is an Elvis, and every Warlord is a Julius Caesar. And all this at 1st level, before they've done anything! (Still, I suppose that does negate those &quot;1st level Warlord&quot; arguments we had back in the day.)So, yeah, I'm going to stick with my assessment that this sort of performance by 1st level characters is an absurdity in the rules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="delericho, post: 5491969, member: 22424"] The key difference is that we're not asking "who won this competition", but "who won the World Record" - what are the conditions of the [i]best ever result.[/i] Since no-one has done better in 20 years, that really suggests to me that it [i]has[/i] to be a '20' on that roll. Joe has a [I]hard[/I] limit to how far forward his foot can be. Indeed, given the requirements of leverage, he's actually better not having his foot "over the line". This is true, but I'll bet that World Record jumper didn't land standing on his feet. Per RAW, Joe does. This, however, is true, and is a point I will concede. [i]However[/i], even given this, Joe is [i]still[/i] superhuman. That World Record jumper was an extreme specialist in that [i]one[/i] event. Joe can swim, climb, run (and high-jump) just as well as he can long jump. He doesn't even need to rest between these many feats. Now, the game doesn't support these extreme specialisations, and rightly so. The more narrow the categories become, the more things get excluded (since there isn't infinite page count). But it does give rise to the problem that 1st level characters aren't just "a cut above". They really are superhuman. And Joe isn't even a terribly unusual 4e character. The game assumes that an '18' in the primary stat is the norm, with a '20' being common. So we get a game where [i]every[/i] Fighter is The World's Strongest Man, [i]every[/i] Wizard is an Einstein, [i]every[/i] Bard is an Elvis, and [i]every[/i] Warlord is a Julius Caesar. And all this at 1st level, before they've done anything! (Still, I suppose that does negate those "1st level Warlord" arguments we had back in the day.) So, yeah, I'm going to stick with my assessment that this sort of performance by 1st level characters is an absurdity in the rules. [/QUOTE]

Verification