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

[Prism]

Except that 4E says nothing either way on the subject of whether to level-up random city guardsmen to keep pace with (or partly keep pace with) the PCs. The question is not a new one and has nothing to do with the 4E rules.

Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension. At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it

 

[S'mon]

And by doing so you open yourself up to a host of other issues (for instance, melee PC's which can't stand toe-to-toe with powerful melee monsters --like giants-- which now hit on every iterative attack, instead of just the 1st) . 3e is built around the assumption that stats get boosted and magic items get acquired (and traded in/upgraded).

Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take work.

In my 3e campaign I solved the too-powerful-monsters problem by using Classic/pre-3e D&D monster stats instead. This instantly solves the paper-bag-Fighter-PC problem.

 

[Dausuul]

Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension. At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it

That's a bit different, though. The solo/elite/regular/minion system is designed on the idea that, power-wise, a 1st-level solo equals a 6th-level elite equals a 10th-level regular monster equals an 18th-level minion. (Whether this is actually true is left as an exercise for the reader.) So a guardsman who was a 1st-level regular monster can be "abstracted" into a 9th-level minion; his power level isn't changing and he still presents the same level of threat to the PCs. He's just been simplified for DM convenience.

This thread seems to be more about what happens and how it's justified when you run into a guardsman who's a 9th-level regular monster, not a minion.

Well, for starters, the thread was actually about high level humanoid NPCs in adventures as threats to the party, not levelling up the town watch so that they can always incarcerate the players. It has nothing mechanically (directly speaking) to do with the 4E rules (again, mechanically) but everything to do with how 4E's design philosophy of 'Whatever is good for the story'. It is 100% Straczynski 'Traveling at the Speed of Plot' (Traveling At The Speed Of Plot - Television Tropes & Idioms). If a good story calls for it, go for it. I happen to think the adventure that prompted this Thread is the best written for 4E yet, and thus I wholeheartedly approve.

Hmm... as long as one bears in mind that when a story breaks the reader's suspension of disbelief, that's not generally good for the story. Traveling At The Speed Of Plot is a very handy technique and I use it regularly; but it is also dangerously seductive, because it can lead you to get increasingly careless about details until suddenly the PCs say, "Hey, wait a minute. It took us three days to get to the Darkhold last time and all we had to do was walk down a level road. How come now it's a five-week journey and there's a mountain range in the way?"

NPC power levels are similar. You can fudge them to some extent for the convenience of the game. But if you do it too much, and too extensively, it will break suspension of disbelief. At least in my experience, players expect a certain consistency in the world. Epic-level heroes expect that if they have trouble with it, it's an epic-level threat, with everything that entails in terms of its impact on the game world.

Moreover, as a DM, consistent NPC power level is a useful tool. If I send a band of 15th-level non-minion assassins at my PCs, and I've established that I am consistent with power levels, they won't shrug it off as just another fight. They'll say, "Holy crap, those guys were good. Way too good for a bunch of hired thugs. Somebody big is out to get us." I've just created dramatic tension and a plot hook, simply by using high-level foes. Every time you sacrifice consistency for story, you're sacrificing a chance to drop clues like that - chances for the PCs to figure out something about your game world. Call it the Worf Effect.

None of this is to say the NPCs mentioned by the original poster are suspension-of-disbelief-breaking. I haven't read the adventure, so I can't say; and I can certainly imagine situations where it would be wholly appropriate to have the party attacked by 15th-level assassins. But if I were a PC in such a group, I would have the above reaction: "Holy hell, those guys were bad-ass. Where did they come from?" If the adventure didn't offer a reasonably satisfying answer eventually, I would feel cheated.

 

[Prism]

This thread seems to be more about what happens and how it's justified when you run into a guardsman who's a 9th-level regular monster, not a minion.

You're right that in the thread some people are talking about minions and other are not. As for the original post, the adventure includes (without giving too much away) a high level assassin squad of non minions which I have no problem with and all the other high level human fodder when they do appear are minions. There are some named NPC types too, but I guess we aren't really worried about types like that. If an encounter included lets say 5 15th level human archers (non minions) I would have a problem with that as an encounter

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

You're right that in the thread some people are talking about minions and other are not. As for the original post, the adventure includes (without giving too much away) a high level assassin squad of non minions which I have no problem with and all the other high level human fodder when they do appear are minions. There are some named NPC types too, but I guess we aren't really worried about types like that. If an encounter included lets say 5 15th level human archers (non minions) I would have a problem with that as an encounter

Why is there an issue with fighting five 15th level Shadar-Kai and five 15th level Human archers? Or for that matter, five high level Orc chieftains or five dragons or five demons or five Remorhaz?

There really isn't much of a difference, unless the flavor of your game is man versus monster, as opposed to man versus foe.

 

[Prism]

Why is there an issue with fighting five 15th level Shadar-Kai and five 15th level Human archers? Or for that matter, five high level Orc chieftains or five dragons or five demons or five Remorhaz?

There really isn't much of a difference, unless the flavor of your game is man versus monster, as opposed to man versus foe.

To expand, I wouldn't have a problem if those 5 archers had a name/reason/explanation of some sort. I would like to think that those 5 archers were reasonably unique. If those 5 archers are 5 random hired thugs or 5 standard city guards then players are going to start to wonder where they came from. The encounter itself might be fun but the story isn't going to fit. They are going to question why the city guards in one city were weak (the ones they encountered 3 years ago at 3rd level and beat) whereas these ones are rock hard

In 3e we played an adventure from the FR moonsea book which had an encounter in a cave with 4 high level barbarian ogres which caused the party more problems than the previous room with an elder elemental in it. It just didn't feel right. We were wondering why 4 of the hardest ogres we had ever met (having fought plenty of ogres before) been in a room together in a dungeon. So the fight itself was challenging and fun but the adventure would have been better without it at all. If we had been playing 4e and those 15th level ogres were minions along with some other stuff I doubt we would have even worried about it

If you can come up with a reason why 5 orc chieftans are hanging in a room and its a good fight and thats whats important, then go for it. From experience I have found encounters similar to that very disappointing campaignwise

 

[pemerton]

The way I (and my friends) prefer D&D, yes it does.

<snip>

I wasn't being derogatory, just trying to describe the style of play. In our style actions which would be "cheating" are obviously not cheating in other styles.

To me, though, that seems to confirm my initial view, that statting up foes in a way that is, to some degree or other, relative to the PCs, might be distasteful but is not nonsensical. It makes sense given certain views about what is desirable in play. It's just that you don't desire those things.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Except the minion rules in 4e add a new dimension. At lower levels you can use a standard creature and at higher levels the same creature is a minion and worth the same xp. No leveling up is needed as such assuming 'level' has no real relevance in 4e. In 3e the only way to change the difficulty was to increase CR and therefore to increase level. In 1e and 2e we just used the change the stats as needed without a care in the world since there were no rules at all about it.

Where you see a "new dimension" I see muddying the water between D&D and RuneQuest.

Put a bit less cryptically, in previous editions of D&D you strove to become Achilles (a God among men). A 20th level character only had to worry about CR15+ monsters (or their OD&D/AD&D peers). But in 4E you have to worry about level 6 brutes that have been promoted to level 15 Minion. Minions are a way for the DM to say "You're not so tough after all - these orc pirates can hit you. You know that AC 25 you've spent 10 levels builting up to? Well it's not worth anything to me 'cause I got more minions where that came from."

I'm exaggerating of course.

There are fundamentally two different games here. To use terms from last year I'll call them the "Classic D&D Progression" where you go from Gritty --> Heroic --> Wu Xia --> Supers, and the "E6 Progression" where you stop at Heroic. In the Classic D&D Progression Kobolds just aren't a threat past a certain level. Neither are pirates or city guards. But in the E6 Progression you stop getting better after a certain point and city guards are always dangerous (even if "less" dangerous).

Do you see how that's what Minions do? They prevent the PCs from being Wu Xia and Super. "What do you mean pirates can hit me? I'm Superman in full plate!!"

You should also notice that in E6 there is no need to justify high level guards and pirates. Regular old 2nd level Pirates can still hit your AC and do a bit o' damage, so pile enough of them on and they will eventually cause you to "Pull a Boromir." Being 16th level doesn't mean that you can't be hurt by 2nd level characters, it just means you take more of them with you before going down.

Now that's a perfectly fine way to play, but many of the problems that have arisen in this thread arose from the fact that some people really ought to be playing* E6 instead of 4E, but since they're playing 4E they find a way to justify high level opponents to get the effect they're looking for. That's an admirable goal, but you're going about it a bit backwards.

If you really want to allow for Kobolds and Orcs to be a threat at all levels, just remove the +1/2 to Attacks and Defenses from the game. Strip it out of monsters and PCs. Really, it gets you the effect you're looking for and it's much easier than fussing with Minions and all the headaches of justifying monsters that suddenly warp between 5th level brute and 12th level minion depending on which cardinal direction they're facing.



*By which I mean the rules were written to achieve your goal, and no shoe-horning is required, so you "ought to" in the sense that it's just easier and smart to use the proper tool for the job you've chose.

 

[pemerton]

I posted earlier: Once one doesn't allow the "standard" buff spells, and the tons of magic items, you don't need minion rules in 3E to have evne low level NPC pose a threat - the AC of the PCs won't reach such heights as to make them invulnerable.

Sure, any given group can work around this, but it will take work.

In my 3e campaign I solved the too-powerful-monsters problem by using Classic/pre-3e D&D monster stats instead. This instantly solves the paper-bag-Fighter-PC problem.

I don't fully see how it's a defence of an issue with 3E that there is a way of rewriting significant parts of the game (eg spell lists, magic items, monster stats) under which the problem goes away.

By analogy - in many ways HARP plays more smoothly than Rolemaster, I think. That's not a point in favour of Rolemaster, regardless of the fact that HARP heavily follows Rolemaster's design paradigm.

 

[pemerton]

Where you see a "new dimension" I see muddying the water between D&D and RuneQuest.

<snip>

There are fundamentally two different games here. To use terms from last year I'll call them the "Classic D&D Progression" where you go from Gritty --> Heroic --> Wu Xia --> Supers, and the "E6 Progression" where you stop at Heroic. In the Classic D&D Progression Kobolds just aren't a threat past a certain level. Neither are pirates or city guards. But in the E6 Progression you stop getting better after a certain point and city guards are always dangerous (even if "less" dangerous).

Do you see how that's what Minions do? They prevent the PCs from being Wu Xia and Super.

As I said upthread, by compressing the gaps in the gameworld, relative to the gaps in the numbers on the statblocks for PCs and monsters, you make the game less gonzo.

You should also notice that in E6 there is no need to justify high level guards and pirates. Regular old 2nd level Pirates can still hit your AC and do a bit o' damage, so pile enough of them on and they will eventually cause you to "Pull a Boromir." Being 16th level doesn't mean that you can't be hurt by 2nd level characters, it just means you take more of them with you before going down.

Now that's a perfectly fine way to play, but many of the problems that have arisen in this thread arose from the fact that some people really ought to be playing* E6 instead of 4E, but since they're playing 4E they find a way to justify high level opponents to get the effect they're looking for. That's an admirable goal, but you're going about it a bit backwards.

Well personally I agree with Snoweel that it's the other way around:

It's functionally the same as what the E6 guys have tried to do, without making things grim'n'gritty'n'dull.

That is: the notion is one of having non-gonzo play without grim & gritty. Runequest can't deliver that. E6 can't. 4e can.