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Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.
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<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4490467" data-attributes="member: 5143"><p>I don't believe it is observable by the PCs. The PCs observe: "I swung at the monster, it parried the attack at the last second....if only I'd been a bit faster." That's all they observe. I don't believe every PC has a probability detector that lets them know that THIS time they only had a 35% chance of hitting instead of the 40% they had last time. Nor do I think that PCs look at an Ogre and think, "Wow, something has to be wrong, the last Ogre I fought I killed easily and THIS one is hard, even though I've gotten better. This world is totally inconsistent, all Ogres should fight exactly the same."</p><p></p><p>All those ideas are entirely metagame thinking. They have nothing to do with in game consistency and everything to do with out of game consistency.</p><p></p><p></p><p>It is if you have 1st level characters involved in the fight. And even then from the characters point of view all they know is that the guards fight better than the blacksmith or an average goblin. On the other hand, in the average D&D game where all the PCs are the same level and the action revolves entirely around them, no one should notice.</p><p></p><p>Luck being what it is, sometimes less skilled opponents beat more skilled ones. Most people accept that as a fact and are willing to accept that the town guard managed to get a lucky shot in on the dragon because they closed their eyes, pointed their sword in the direction of the dragon and it charged in and didn't see the sword in time. It happens rarely, but I don't think anyone in my group would be yelling at me for a lack of consistency if they were able to beat the guard. There's no good in game way of measuring "skill".</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 4490467, member: 5143"] I don't believe it is observable by the PCs. The PCs observe: "I swung at the monster, it parried the attack at the last second....if only I'd been a bit faster." That's all they observe. I don't believe every PC has a probability detector that lets them know that THIS time they only had a 35% chance of hitting instead of the 40% they had last time. Nor do I think that PCs look at an Ogre and think, "Wow, something has to be wrong, the last Ogre I fought I killed easily and THIS one is hard, even though I've gotten better. This world is totally inconsistent, all Ogres should fight exactly the same." All those ideas are entirely metagame thinking. They have nothing to do with in game consistency and everything to do with out of game consistency. It is if you have 1st level characters involved in the fight. And even then from the characters point of view all they know is that the guards fight better than the blacksmith or an average goblin. On the other hand, in the average D&D game where all the PCs are the same level and the action revolves entirely around them, no one should notice. Luck being what it is, sometimes less skilled opponents beat more skilled ones. Most people accept that as a fact and are willing to accept that the town guard managed to get a lucky shot in on the dragon because they closed their eyes, pointed their sword in the direction of the dragon and it charged in and didn't see the sword in time. It happens rarely, but I don't think anyone in my group would be yelling at me for a lack of consistency if they were able to beat the guard. There's no good in game way of measuring "skill". [/QUOTE]
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Justifying high level 'guards', 'pirates', 'soldiers', 'assassins', etc.
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