Is D&D abstract or micromanaged?

[Ashrem Bayle]

In your opinion.

In my opinion, that starting point would most logically be the narrative flow and visuals/descriptions of fantastic media.

That means Agent Smith and Sauron cannot be mooked, no matter how long you wait to kill them in their sleep - because they are freaking AGENT SMITH and SAURON. If they go down at the end of the adventure, it's because of a titanic, thrilling life or death struggle against PCs nearly as awesome as they are.

Conan, Luke Skywalker and Terra Branford cannot be mooked, either. They're in no danger of more than cosmetic injury - unless Xaltotun, Darth Vader or Kefka show up, in which case they had better be prepared to give 100% and hopefully have other PCs of similar narrative significance to help them out.

An Imperial stormtrooper, a Mordor orc or a Stygian soldier, on the other hand, can be mooked by a PC - because they're mooks. If they survive or the PCs run away, it's because the players don't want to be bothered wiping them out.

If you are attempting to model reality rather than heroic fantasy, games designed for gameplay first and modelling heroic fantasy second are going to fail for you.

In any case, two of my explanations for potions (toughness accrued over time and tolerance for potions) fall within the range of 'real-world rules explicable,' insofar as healing potions do at all, and the other two both involve magical properties of the world - rather like 'the ability to create magical potions' itself.

You make it seem as though a heroic fantasy game with realistic rules is impossible. It isn't.

I want more realistic rules.
I want a game mechanics that flow well.
I want the possibility for heroic fantasy.

I found them all in GURPS.

In my opinion, D&D only hits two out of three.

 

[painandgreed]

And even if there is a way to explain it, it is not at all intuitive.

Sure there is, heroic fantasy character can take more damage than lesser creatures. A great hero can be run through with a sword several times and suffer wounds that would kill a novice. Why? Because it's heroic fantasy.

I put neither. I think it's a good balance and have been saying so since AD&D. People come out with more complex and realistic systems and people come out with less complicated and more abstract systems, yet they never catch on. I think that part of D&D's success is that they hit a good balance of realism and playability for an RPG on the first try.

 

[RFisher]

• I think 3e combat is a strange mismash.
• I prefer more abstract than 3e.
• Even when playing classic D&D, I tend to run combat more freely than the structure provided by the rules. Not quite Fudge story element style, but not strictly as written.
• I enjoy more involved combat systems, but I guess I'd rather play them more as wargames than as a combat system for an RPG.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

You make it seem as though a heroic fantasy game with realistic rules is impossible. It isn't.

Oh, it certainly IS possible... provided you include metagame narrative mechanics.

If it's simply a rule that Sephiroth and Conan can't get killed by some random enemy, then the rules can otherwise be as gritty and lethal (I hesitate to say "realistic" because we have historical examples of people who can fight through multiple wounds that seemingly should be fatal) as you like.

I have zero problems with such a system, provided Conan's player can spend part of a pool of drama points to simply declare "I wrench the spear from the guard's hand and spit him upon it, then turn to the rest, my eyes misted red and bloodied point before me" when he's about to get killed by a spear thrust, and the GM can give a player a drama point to declare "Sephiroth's body crumples before your stealthy attack - crumples and melts, revealing the tormented skeleton of a failed clone."

But if Conan or Sephiroth can go down to a single lucky shot (as they can in core GURPS, though of course there are ways to dial up the powerlevel in such a flexible system), it's not my idea of heroic fantasy.

 

[LostSoul]

* Try explaining why a cure light wounds potions heals a 1st level character from the brink of death, but can't do squat for a 20th level character.

Because the 20th level character is not injured, even when he's down 160 hit points.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Because the 20th level character is not injured, even when he's down 160 hit points.

Which makes no sense.

The BBEG gets a knife to the throat of one of the NPCs. "Stay back of she gets it!", he says.

The rest of the party shrugs and charges him. Because even if the DM allowed the BBEG to perform a coup de grace (which by the rules, he shouldn't), with 160 hit points, the character is still probably going to shrug it off like it was nothing.

I hate that. Even if you are going for narrative over realism, you lose the sense of urgency and dread.

 

[maddman75]

The best flavor text change I've come up with to the cure spells is that hit points are the ability to turn a greater blow into a lesser blow. It could also mean its the ability to continue functioning while taking wounds. The first level fighter takes 8 damage, taking him down to 2 hp. This is a light wound, so a cure light wounds spell will take care of him. He's not very experienced, so a light wound can take him out. A 5th level fighter who takes 8 notices the light wound, but he is far from out of it. A 20th level character is a living legend, and will barely even notice a light wound.

In short, higher level characters need more powerful spells because they are more of a hero.

I've also contemplated changing the names to Cure Peasant, Cure Warrior, Cure Knight, and Cure Hero to reflect that its the awesomeness of the character that requires more magic. Your 1d8+1 might take care of a peasant who fell off a horse, but if Sir Barnabus has been run through you're going to need some powerful blessings to get him back on his feet. Had the peasant taken that blow, he'd be pushing up the daisies.

 

[LostSoul]

Which makes no sense.

The BBEG gets a knife to the throat of one of the NPCs. "Stay back of she gets it!", he says.

The rest of the party shrugs and charges him. Because even if the DM allowed the BBEG to perform a coup de grace (which by the rules, he shouldn't), with 160 hit points, the character is still probably going to shrug it off like it was nothing.

I hate that. Even if you are going for narrative over realism, you loose the sense of urgency and dread.

I don't see a problem with it. The NPC is so skilled/cool/gifted by the gods/however you want to describe that character's hit points that the BBEG cannot possibly kill her with the knife.

He does 60 hp damage, out of a total of 160 (and she makes the massive damage save)? She twists out of the way and she comes away with a tiny scratch that doesn't break the skin. Then the cure light wounds spell might heal the scratch, but it can't bring back all of her luck, confidence, grace of the gods, dudeosity or whatever hit points mean here.

What he should use is a save-or-die spell. That will inject some urgency and dread.

If the DM does decide that the NPC can use a coup de grace (the NPC is "is bound, sleeping, paralyzed, unconscious, or otherwise at [the BBEG's] mercy"), the NPC will have to make a Fort save of 10 + damage dealt. It's likely that the BBEG is going to do enough damage to make the Fort save difficult. If he's not, I wouldn't call him a Big Bad.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Which makes no sense.

The BBEG gets a knife to the throat of one of the NPCs. "Stay back of she gets it!", he says.

The rest of the party shrugs and charges him. Because even if the DM allowed the BBEG to perform a coup de grace (which by the rules, he shouldn't), with 160 hit points, the character is still probably going to shrug it off like it was nothing.

I hate that. Even if you are going for narrative over realism, you lose the sense of urgency and dread.

A 20th level character is on par with Neo at the end of the first Matrix, with Cloud at the end of Advent Children, with Hercules. He is a MYTHIC hero, a demi-god or nearly so.

Even the BBEG doesn't hold a 20th level character hostage. The BBEG holds the 20th level character's 3rd level love interest hostage. And since the BBEG should have no trouble winning any number of grapple checks with that unfortunate NPC, he *should* get a coup de grace, because he'll qualify as pinning her.

Actually, even that is more of a 10th level scenario.

At 20th level, the BBEG holds the entire world hostage (or at least the entire city/army/region), and instead of a knife, he's holding an artifact of obscene eldritch power that, should he speak its command word, would unleash undreamt horrors chained by pre-human sorcery in the dawn ages of the world.

 

[shilsen]

Which makes no sense.

The BBEG gets a knife to the throat of one of the NPCs. "Stay back of she gets it!", he says.

The rest of the party shrugs and charges him. Because even if the DM allowed the BBEG to perform a coup de grace (which by the rules, he shouldn't), with 160 hit points, the character is still probably going to shrug it off like it was nothing.

Why does it make no sense? It makes perfect sense - in the chosen paradigm. A character with 160 hit pts is not a normal human being by any stretch of the imagination. He's far more akin to a mythological character like Gilgamesh, Cuchulainn or the like. Does it really make sense that some idiot would put a dagger to Cuchulainn's throat and it would be a problem? Absolutely not. Cuchulainn could let the guy stab him half a dozen times and then kill him with his toenail.

You may not like the fact that D&D, as soon as the PCs have a few levels, is a superhero/mythology game with fantasy trappings, but that's a different story altogether.

I hate that. Even if you are going for narrative over realism, you lose the sense of urgency and dread.

Realism? D&D has never been about realism in the sense of our world. It's about realism in a mythic/superhero sense. And if you can't create urgency or dread for your PCs in the D&D world, then you're not trying hard enough. As you may have noticed from reading the threads on ENWorld, lots of DMs are doing so very successfully.