D&D 5E Poll: What is a Level 1 PC?

[Cadence]

Picture a master artisan, a glass-maker. HP 6, AC: 11, BaB +0, FORT +2, REF +1, WILL +1, Craft: glass-blowing +15.

She's described in 3e terms, but without using 3e's advancement procedures. Notice how much more realistic she is? There's no direct relationship between her hit points/combat ability and her ability to create really pretty glass vases?

Can anyone explain to me how forcing her into 3e's leveling scheme would make her, and, by extension, the campaign she plays a bit part in, better?

3e's leveling scheme with hp and combat tied to skills? Can't explain the logic to that at all.

In my obsessive moments I like the idea of a leveling scheme sitting around behind the scenes where I can check that my short stat-line list conforms to some underlying pseudo-reality. I completely grant that doing so could very well be a lot more trouble than its worth for a lot of DMs.

I wonder if a level set-up (not with silly HP and combat things) might make it even quicker to stock towns and keep the relative expertise of different people on par. On my list of NPCs I've thrown together I could just have listed that the town has a "Glassblower Lvl 7 - no militia experience". If the party never needed to interact with them then I don't even need to write the stat-line at all. If I do need them then a simple one page table of "Average stat-lines by Level, Combat Experience, and Notable Trait" could simultaneously give me what I need for that Glassblower, the "Historian Lvl 2 - perceptive, militia training", the "Blacksmith Lvl 5 - intimidating, combat veteran.", and every other NPC out there.

Semi-related. A paragraph in the rules about non-adventuring spell casters could allow town stocking by saying there's a "Cleric of Bast Lvl 3 - non-adventuring, no militia experience" that just means level 3 spell casting, but low hp, combat ability, and weapons/armor. Similarly for the "Wizard (Diviner) Lvl 5 - militia training" who runs the big city library.

 

[Mallus]

Player: I want Craft (Alchemy) +15. I want to make firebombs or something.
DM: You're first level. Take your skill ranks. You'll be there in a few levels.
Player: I want it now.
DM: You can't have it now.
Player: Well, how did that NPC get it then?
DM: Years of hard work and dedication.
Player: But what level is that NPC?
DM: ...
Player: If that NPC has Craft +15, I want it.
DM: No. (Or yes. Or something else. Equally problematic regardless, albeit for different reasons).

Can you really not see the difference between a alchemical bomb and an exquisite glass vase, in the context a typical D&D campaign?

Also, I don't game with willfully disruptive or stupid people.

Player: I sneak past the guard. 28 Hide, 32 Move Silently.
DM: The guard draws his weapon and raises the alarm.
Player: What, he can't be more than a 2nd level character.
DM: Yeah, but his whole job is spotting so he's really good at it.
Player: I call BS.

Can you really not see the difference between an encounter with an NPC guard and an NPC glass-blower? Hint: I'd stat the guard using class levels, because the situation warrants it.

Player: I Bluff the priest with a 35. Np, I definitely did not loot that grave. It was that halfling over there! I saw him do it!
DM: He sees right through it and claps you in irons.
Player: Wait, what? My lie was totally convincing.
DM: Yeah, but I just arbitrarily gave him +50 Sense Motive because I hate when my important NPCs get duped.
DM: Wait, did I just say that out loud?

Your hypothetical DM is just being a prick. I'm not a prick when I DM.

Though this example does raise an interesting point: why shouldn't a wise old parish priest with years of experience in seeing through villagers' BS have a good Sense Motive (not +50, but good). If he does, why should it also mean he can *raise the dead like Jesus*?

That's not a winning argument in favor of the logic of 3e's character-building framework.

The game is better because having every character built the same way balances the game, and prevents these and numerous other nonsensical and potentially disruptive scenarios.

Why do dedicated NPC craftsmen need to be 'balanced' against adventurers? What does balance even mean --practically-speaking-- in this context?

If you don't build all characters the same way, any notion of balancing them against each other is pretty much out the window.

This doesn't make sense. My rules-illegal master glass-blower is perfectly balanced against adventuring PCs: she rightly loses to one in combat virtually every time. However, she'd win nearly every juried craft show...

Also, how is it "simpler" for DMs to have to "level-up" all of their NPCs, including their glass-blowers and tailors, instead of simply assigning realtics values?

Have you gained some realism in the example above? Yes.

I agree!

But the cost to the game element of an rpg is pretty substantial.

Only if you stock your dungeons and site-based encounters with glass-blowers and tailors.

You're right that NPCs don't need that.

Agreed.

But PCs don't either.

This also makes no sense. The class/level framework is central to D&D's core gameplay. Leveling up the NPC craftsmen is not.

Or am I missing something obvious? You seem to be making the argument that "a unified character creation system is better because it's a unified character creation system".

 

[Ryujin]

No one should really need to wonder what 'level' a master artisan is, when they go into his shop to buy something. The only time that it matters is when they want to kill him, which is generally accomplished with a single thrust of a dagger.

.... resulting in the city guard and the artisan's virtual horde of clients, many of them actually high level adventurers, hunting down his killers.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Why do dedicated NPC craftsmen need to be 'balanced' against adventurers? What does balance even mean --practically-speaking-- in this context?

In this context, balance refers to how hard you have to work to reach a certain level of skill. If you take away the class system, it becomes possible for minor NPCs to have unreasonably good values in certain skills, many of which are not game-breaking, but some of which can be.

Only if you stock your dungeons and site-based encounters with glass-blowers and tailors.

What dungeons?

This also makes no sense. The class/level framework is central to D&D's core gameplay.

I completely disagree with that. I think it's tangential to D&D's gameplay.

Advanced players pick out complex combinations of abilities and routinely ignore the rules and just build their own classes. The more you play, the closer and closer you get to a de facto classless system. I could easily imagine D&D ditching the concept entirely.

Or am I missing something obvious? You seem to be making the argument that "a unified character creation system is better because it's a unified character creation system".

Well unified mechanics produce fairness and consistency, but yeah, that's about it. Nothing too complicated here.

Yours seems to be that using your judgment in creating NPC stats rather than working within a consistent set of character creation rules will produce better results for less work. I agree with this. I fudge NPC stats sometimes on the fly for NPCs I don't feel like building using the rules or didn't anticipate needing. Occasionally I give NPCs statistics that aren't easily achievable through the character creation rules, if there's a compelling reason to do so. It's fine to do that. I also think the same thing can be true for other forms of "DM cheating" like dice fudging or reskinning of mechanical elements. If these things are done appropriately, they can enhance the game.

I just don't think that the rules should be written that way. It would be like writing the combat chapter and saying that if a PC drops to negative hit points, he dies only if the DM determines he wants to kill the character. That is for some groups what happens, but it's not on the books, and with good reason. The rulebooks provide a fair and consistent foundation for players and DMs. Going off the book is the DM's choice.

 

[Hussar]

A wild boar would probably also toast you and me. The RL hunters you're getting at are probably pretty skilled, and would not be represented in D&D as commoners, nor would they remain 1st level for all that long.

And now we're back to no one being 1st level ever. Now a hunter is no longer a 1st level commoner? Good grief, who is?

We sure go through a lot of trouble to simulate things in this non-simulation game.

Combat is synonymous with heroism?

Please try to avoid putting words in my mouth. I would say that combat is pretty heavily featured in all Heroic Fantasy stories. How many heroic fantasy genre stories can you think of that feature zero combat? Let's have a contest. For every one you can think of, I'll give you two that do. We'll see who runs out of titles first.

Anything other than combat is mundane?

Mundane as in everyday people who are not putting their lives at risk on a frequent basis.

/snip
It is already the case, though. As an open-ended game, D&D already varies this much, and rulebooks either accept that or ignore it.

Hands up everyone who adhered 100% to that baseline. 90%? 50%? 5%?

What is the game about?

Heroic fantasy. Says so right on the box. And, even if groups didn't adhere to that baseline, anyone designing for the game certainly did.

Because D&D is the definitional tabletop rpg, the only one available at most vendors, the only one that even most genre nerds have ever heard of, and the only one that most of its players will ever play.

This doesn't have to always be true, and 4e has gone a long way towards raising the profile of other rpgs, but at the moment D&D is still the only game in town for most of us.

Sounds like a problem with your group then, not with the game. I find it stunningly hard to believe that people refuse to play any other RPG than D&D. Good grief, do you only play one video game or one sport? Ever?

No, Bob, we must play Pac Man, I won't learn any other video game.

 

[Hussar]

Player: I want Craft (Alchemy) +15. I want to make firebombs or something.
DM: You're first level. Take your skill ranks. You'll be there in a few levels.
Player: I want it now.
DM: You can't have it now.
Player: Well, how did that NPC get it then?
DM: Years of hard work and dedication.
Player: But what level is that NPC?
DM: ...
Player: If that NPC has Craft +15, I want it.
DM: No. (Or yes. Or something else. Equally problematic regardless, albeit for different reasons).

***

Player: I sneak past the guard. 28 Hide, 32 Move Silently.
DM: The guard draws his weapon and raises the alarm.
Player: What, he can't be more than a 2nd level character.
DM: Yeah, but his whole job is spotting so he's really good at it.
Player: I call BS.

***

Player: I Bluff the priest with a 35. Np, I definitely did not loot that grave. It was that halfling over there! I saw him do it!
DM: He sees right through it and claps you in irons.
Player: Wait, what? My lie was totally convincing.
DM: Yeah, but I just arbitrarily gave him +50 Sense Motive because I hate when my important NPCs get duped.
DM: Wait, did I just say that out loud?

***

So, we should build the game around douchebag players and DM's? The point of the rules is to protect you from bad players and DM's? I thought the point of the rules was to facilitate play. Because no amount of rules is going to prevent that sort of douchebaggery.

The game is better because having every character built the same way balances the game, and prevents these and numerous other nonsensical and potentially disruptive scenarios.

If you don't build all characters the same way, any notion of balancing them against each other is pretty much out the window. Have you gained some realism in the example above? Yes. But the cost to the game element of an rpg is pretty substantial.

There is no cost here. None. The players do not need to know any of this because it happens entirely on the DM's side of the screen. A 3e monster has Hit Dice, thus HP can vary. Do your players argue with you when an orc has 8 hp?

Well, here's the issue. You're right that NPCs don't need that. But PCs don't either. Those relationships simplify the character creation process for beginners, but I don't see why they're necessary for those of us on these boards.

So the counter question: how does forcing a PC into 3e's leveling scheme make the game better?

Because it allows options for the players. You could freeform it, a la AD&D 1ed where all you had was a description and no mechanics tied to it. But, it can be rather unsatisfying to do it that way because the player doesn't actually know how effective he is at a particular action. The player cannot make informed decisions about things he rightfully should know. If I am a trained basketweaver, I probably have a pretty good idea how good my baskets are and how long it will take to make them.

OTOH, because I cannot read the NPC's mind, I have no idea how fast he can make his baskets.

 

[Hussar]

In this context, balance refers to how hard you have to work to reach a certain level of skill. If you take away the class system, it becomes possible for minor NPCs to have unreasonably good values in certain skills, many of which are not game-breaking, but some of which can be.

What is unreasonable though? Unreasonable to whom?

What dungeons?

Well, considering the name on the box, I think that any purported D&D system that does not strongly handle dungeon crawl play is not really D&D anymore.

I completely disagree with that. I think it's tangential to D&D's gameplay.

Advanced players pick out complex combinations of abilities and routinely ignore the rules and just build their own classes. The more you play, the closer and closer you get to a de facto classless system. I could easily imagine D&D ditching the concept entirely.

This is completely opposite to my experience. If I want to go classless, I play a different system. I reject your notion of "advanced" players entirely. Sorry, but, "routinely ignore the rules and just build their own classes" is something I've never seen done at any table I've played at.

Most tables call routinely ignoring rules cheating.

Well unified mechanics produce fairness and consistency, but yeah, that's about it. Nothing too complicated here.

Yours seems to be that using your judgment in creating NPC stats rather than working within a consistent set of character creation rules will produce better results for less work. I agree with this. I fudge NPC stats sometimes on the fly for NPCs I don't feel like building using the rules or didn't anticipate needing. Occasionally I give NPCs statistics that aren't easily achievable through the character creation rules, if there's a compelling reason to do so. It's fine to do that. I also think the same thing can be true for other forms of "DM cheating" like dice fudging or reskinning of mechanical elements. If these things are done appropriately, they can enhance the game.

How is it less work to have to go through an entire character write up for a 4th level glass blower than what Mallus did? That you can ignore the rules is not a very good argument for keeping those rules.

I just don't think that the rules should be written that way. It would be like writing the combat chapter and saying that if a PC drops to negative hit points, he dies only if the DM determines he wants to kill the character. That is for some groups what happens, but it's not on the books, and with good reason. The rulebooks provide a fair and consistent foundation for players and DMs. Going off the book is the DM's choice.

There is nothing inconsistent in allowing DM's to design NPC's outside of the class framework. There's an entire book of monsters that doesn't follow the class framework after all. Are you saying the Monster Manual is inconsistent? Why is a tailor different from, say, a wild boar? After all, that wild boar has abilities that PC's can never gain (ferocity) and the stats of the creature are entirely ad hoc.

So, what's the difference? Why is it acceptable for the vast majority of NPC's to be ad hoc developed, but not all of them?

 

[pemerton]

Additionally, if you provide these classes, then presumably these classes are going to be used in the game. You then need to rejigger the game to balance against a group that is some percentage non-combat

I strongly agree with this point, and made it on the last thread that dealt with single-pillar-focused PCs (non-spell-using sages, I think, were the example in play at that time).

Player: I want Craft (Alchemy) +15. I want to make firebombs or something.
DM: You're first level. Take your skill ranks. You'll be there in a few levels.
Player: I want it now.
DM: You can't have it now.
Player: Well, how did that NPC get it then?
DM: Years of hard work and dedication.
Player: But what level is that NPC?
DM: ...
Player: If that NPC has Craft +15, I want it.
DM: No. (Or yes. Or something else. Equally problematic regardless, albeit for different reasons).

Just adding to what Hussar and [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION] had to say - the GM's answer here should be no different from the GM's answer as to why a first level PC can't start as wealthy as a first level prince or dukeling. It's a metagame constraint intended to make sure that PCs are set up in a certain way to engage with the situations that the game expects the GM to throw at them.

And this thread makes me reiterate a question I've asked you before - why the heck are you playing D&D when it seems that there are dozens of other systems that would suit you and your players better (eg Rolemaster, HARP, HERO, GURPS, Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcerery, I suspect Burning Wheel too, plus any number of other games that I don't know but am confident are out there).

On other threads you've given the strong impression that you build most of your monsters yourself. Now you're talking about every (advanced) player building his or her own PC outside the class system (something I've never done or seen done in any of the many D&D games I've played in). How exactly are you saving time and energy by sticking to D&D? I mean, obviously it's your prerogative, but I don't get it - what are you actually using out of D&D, other than the basic skeleton of the action resolution rules?

 

[Lanefan]

Sounds like a problem with your group then, not with the game. I find it stunningly hard to believe that people refuse to play any other RPG than D&D.

I don't, as in the larger sense* I'm one of those people.

Sure I'll check out other systems, but not with an eye to playing them; I'll check them out to see what ideas they might have that I can incorporate into my D&D system.

* - I'll play something else at a con or as a one-off but for my long-term games one system is all I need; and if it at first doesn't seem to work for something I'll just make it work.

Lan-"throwing brute force and ignorance at my game system since 1984"-efan

 

[Bluenose]

In this context, balance refers to how hard you have to work to reach a certain level of skill. If you take away the class system, it becomes possible for minor NPCs to have unreasonably good values in certain skills, many of which are not game-breaking, but some of which can be.

The NPCs spend years practicing their Glass-Blowing skills. The PC overtakes them because they kill lots of goblins. Right, that's not at all unreasonable, but having people excel at their profession without also being high level is.