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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5892798" data-attributes="member: 42582">In some ways (surprise, surprise!) this resembles the falling damage discussion in the other thread.I've got nothing against those who - for whatever reason - want to interpret class, levels etc as having ingame as well as metagame signficance, and therefore want "rules as physics" symmetry in the build rules for PCs and NPCs. In saying that I've got nothing against them, I should add that I don't really understand it within the context of D&D. Given that PCs aren't built via lifepaths, and given that PC level gain and development doesn't meaningfully correlate to the causes of personal development within the fiction (eg training, practice, the passage of time, etc), I don't really understand what it means to treat classes and level gain as "physics of the gameworld". (Whereas for a system like Runequest this makes perfect sense - but the issue of Whirlwind Attack won't come up in Runequest, because an orc has a different lifepath from any of the PCs, just like the wealthy but feeble-in-combat NPC merchant or king.)Even though I don't really understand it, though, I've got nothing against those who want to play that way. Whatever floats their boats!But I'm sceptical of the claim that this sort of mechanical approach can be easily implemented in a system and leave its suitability for other styles of play unaffected.Now you may be correct that there's no inherent reason to build NPCs in the way that I do. But there are good reasons. (I don't have a strong view on whether or not they're inherent, but I do have a strong view that they're good.) They have to do with action economy, combat pacing, etc. Other game designers are aware of the problem, or at least some aspects of it - in Rolemaster, for example, most high level opponents are given some form of area/multi-target attack (via breath, via spells, via multiple appendages etc). The Burning Wheel designers, as I noted upthread, tackle the issue in the Adventure Burner with advice on how to stop important but unaccompanied monsters being creamed by the action economy and helping rules of that game.My concern is that desigining a game so that its monster build rules, and its PC rules, support 3E-style integration of the two mechanical systems, has the potential to get in the way of the game supporting alternative approaches (including my preferred approach) to monster and encounter design. (Eg by making me give the monsters/NPCs more hit points than is good for pacing - currently, when I want a minion I use a minion, when I want an elite I use an elite.)</blockquote>

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