Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.

[S'mon]

Laughing at your own joke? How indulgent.

Er, no. Laughing at Irda Ranger's comment, which I quoted. You're not paying attention.

 

[Snoweel]

Er, no. Laughing at Irda Ranger's comment, which I quoted. You're not paying attention.

Forgive me. I assumed that anyone laughing so heartily at such a banal comment can only have been the author.

Either that or you're an Irda Ranger fanboy. Or you just want to build the illusion that I GOT PWN3D!!!!!

Whatever makes you happy.

Anyway, you didn't answer my question.

 

[S'mon]

Yet another strawman S'men?

Nice. On the ignore list you go.

 

[Rel]

You guys are invited to stop sniping at each other immediately.

 

[Snoweel]

Looks like we reached an impasse.

Rel, I'll paypal you fifty bucks if you make him agree with me.

 

[Rel]

Looks like we reached an impasse.

Rel, I'll paypal you fifty bucks if you make him agree with me.

I DO appreciate the attempt at bribery. Given the state of the economy, the Australian dollar goes far and your offer is tempting. However I've now seen that there was an earlier moderator instruction to "keep it civil" and I've read some of your subsequent posts.

As such I've decided that you are doing more harm than good in this thread and I'm kicking you out. This assumes that your bribe cannot be substantially increased of course.

I further urge you to post carefully if you post at all in the near future. Not that I'll be following you around, examining your every word (I'll most likely be drinking coffee and watching porn). But if word gets back to me that you went into another thread and snarked up the place, I shall be vexed.

Do not vex me, Snoweel.

 

[Snoweel]

This is an outrage!

 

[Rel]

This is an outrage!

Yes, well I figured you wouldn't take it lying down. Enjoy the vacation.

 

[GlaziusF]

I completely disagree with this. The idea of a paragon or epic rogue who has been wall climbing for half his career having any trouble at all with a ladder, looks incredibly stupid to me. How can he scale the icy cliffs of the Fortress of Frost if he risks falling off a ladder in town?

Are heroes never gonna learn anything? If they can't tie their shoelaces as toddlers, they can't tie their shoelaces as heroes? What about the bully from recess? Will he always be a threat, even to the epic PC?

Part of becoming a hero is outgrowing some challenges. A ranger who can shoot three arrows into the three eyes of a god during a hailstorm shouldn't be challenged in a archery competition held in a small farm, where the best archer is a peasant doing some hunting at the side.

Hey man, you don't know what that ladder's been up to! It could have been adventuring in the Elemental Chaos and getting ethereal rungs and a frame made of elemental water!

But seriously, just like the classic Oblivion Scaling -- which might actually have gone unnoticed if not for like the second plot event where the guards could help unless you got up to like level 10 at which point they were horribly outmatched -- with great number-tweaking power comes great number-tweaking responsibility. As long as your PCs are doing things and going places they couldn't have seen, done, or eaten before, the quick and easy difficulty curve will stick together.

But this isn't to say you can't use the same difficulty several levels apart. In fact, I could see a situation where near the end of paragon tier the PCs come back to the same castle town they kicked around in at early heroic tier. To stop a giant demon-summoning ritual at the center of town. That's slated for midnight. And they just entered the gates. And the clocktower just started striking the hour, so grab your skills and run like hell.

And when the rogue fails his acrobatics check to get over the rooftops in a reasonable amount of time (defined as 2.6 seconds) then that old rickety ladder Old Man Findlay forgets to take in on Tuesdays can't put up with the guy who climbed the Ice Fortress of Jarl Slipovich racing up it at speeds usually reserved for firework launches, and the rogue gets dumped into the same old fountain basin he did when he was just a little cutpurse. It's like nostalgia except the county might get pulled into the churning elemental maw of chaos!

 

[Phaezen]

Back on topic,

I did a quick comparison in the stats between a Human Guard, LV3 Soldier (MM) and a Human Soldier, LV 15 Minion (Sea Reavers of the Clouded Crags), to see how comparible a high level minion is to a normal human.

If you were to swap xp equivalent 2 Guards for 1 Soldier, the guards need 20's to hit and are hit on everything but a 1 by 15th level characters, they do on average 8.5 hps on a hit, seeing as they can only crit they end up doing 17 per crit. I estimate they should be able to survive 3 to 4 basic hits or at will hits each. This compared to the soldier who has more chance of hitting (22 vs AC) doing 7 damage, better defenses (AC30) so the party might miss him once or twice before he goes down (from one hit).

From a simulationist point of view you would be more comfortable with 2 Guards, as this would make more sense in a structured world, even though they provide less threat but need more work to get through. From a gamist and a narrativist(sp?) stand point, the minion provides a bit more of a threat if he is ignored, but can be dealt with more easily, which I think should provide a more interesting fight with a meaningful decision to be made.

So yes, I think I can live with high level humans.

Phaezen