Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7524136" data-attributes="member: 42582">I can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse, or just completely missing the point.(1) The toughness is established in the fiction. The mechanics are subsequent to the fiction, nor prior to it. They are a device for resolving conflict between the ogre and a PC which reflect the relative toughness of ogre and PC.(2) In mechanical terms, a creature in D&D has many components - AC and other defences/saving throws, hit points, special resistances, to hit bonus, damage on a hit, number of attacks per round, etc - all of which contribute to its toughtness. Roughly speaking, if you step up a creature's defence while stepping down its hp, and step up its to hit bonus while stepping down its damage on a hit; or, alternatively, step down its defence while stepping up its hp, and step down its to hit bonus while stepping up its number of attacks per round; then you can model a constant toughness in various mathematical ways.(3) Of the various mathematical options, which to use? 4e says: Vs a low level party, use the one with many attacks per round and high hp but low defences. That is a solo. Vs an upper heroic party, use the one with one attack per round and modest hp and defences. That is a standard. Vs the mid-paragon Sir Lancelolt, the one with one attack per round at a higher bonus but lower damage, and higher defences but 1 hp. That is a minion.You use the word fiction without thinking about what it means. Being 18th level isn't a property of a knight in the fiction; its a mechanical representation. Having 73 hip left isn't a property of an ogre in a fiction; it's a mechanical representation.So your question, restated in terms of the fiction, is this: a group of low level PCs are fighting an ogre and a high-level knight rides by and offers to help. How to resolve this? And the answer is - the GM can do this in a number of ways, drawing on the various mechanical tools available.One way, and to my mind the most natural: the presence of the knight turns the context from a combat to a non-combat one, where the players (as their PCs) beseech the knight for aid. If they succeed (eg via a Diplomacy check or skill challenge or however the GM frames it) then the GM just narrates the knight killing the ogre.Another way, which to my mind is less interesting because it involves the GM playing with him-/herself, is to stat the 18th level knight up as a low-level solo with 4 strong melee attacks per round. Now the knight can kill the ogre in one round with 3 or 4 solid hits.A third way, if the GM is using the knight as a rescue device to save the PCs from a TPK, is just to narrate the knight riding in and beheading the ogre.(It's always worth remembering that there is no such thing as a knight just wandering along. No edition of D&D has rules for making wandering monster checks during the course of a melee. So the timing of this knight's arrival is the GM's choice, for whatever reason.)With respect to 1, that's a matter of taste. Is it more fun to play 2 or 3 rounds of combat in which the ogre does nothing interesting except on a roll of 20? Or to play 2 or 3 rounds of combat in which a gang of ogres might whittle away Sir Lancelot's hp while he beheads them? Tastes differ; 4e made a call.With respect to 2, once again you seem unable to distinguish fiction from mechanics.Whether or not you like the design is a completely separate thing from what the design is.And using the same mechanics for a certain process, or pretending that events that occur in the fiction that are sheer narration were in fact yielded by mechanical process A or mechanical process B, has nothing to do with the internal consistency of the fiction. It's a type of mechanics fetishism.You've got this backwards. It's fiction first. Those who can't envisage the touhgness of an ogre without knowing what it's real hp total is are the ones who put mechanics first.</blockquote>

Verification