D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[EzekielRaiden]

Except it is one singular creature in the fiction. Why would it not have the same stat block?

"6. If your abstractions do not match your fictional world, de-abstract until they do."

I don't care if you don't want to use a demonic ogre in a straight up fight against level 1 characters, that doesn't have anything to do with what the monster is. The party should be avoiding a straight up fight against something above their pay grade.

Want a creature appropriate for a level 1 party? Pick a level 1 CR monster. Maybe that ogre has goblin followers. Want to use an ogre against a higher level party that wouldn't be threatened? That's when it gets demonic blood. Don't believe in CR? Maybe D&D isn't the game for you.

You are demanding that the fictional world hew to the abstraction, rather than the other way around.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But the issue is that those CR 20 ogre minions (or whatever CR they are) still have sky high AC, attack bonus and damage. Far, far more than a standard ogre. The entire concept of the creature changes but it's still an "ogre" for gamist reasons.

No. The concept remains exactly the same.

It is the abstraction which changes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It wasn't a request for perfection. It was pointing out that the specific thing you speak of is, in fact, part of the current system and I've never once seen you complain about such a thing before today.

I don't--at all--demand perfection in simulation. I am perfectly comfortable with imperfect simulation. But if your stance is that the game does not permit non-diegetic alterations of one's character, the plain and simple answer is no, it absolutely does.

There is no diegetic reason why Fighters should have greater potential for physical or mental growth than anyone else. They just do.

Fighters don't have any greater potential than anyone else. Where are you getting that from? In any case, anyone can become a fighter if they want to.

 

[Maxperson]

This reminds me of a debate I once had several years ago with someone about the tactical options that PCs use when assaulting a dungeon complex (in the context of D&D).

I'd posited that, for a stronghold where the native monsters were both intelligent and unified (in the sense that they were working together) they'd have some sort of alarm system in place—regardless of how rudimentary it might be—which the rest of the denizens would react to by preparing themselves for danger. So, for instance, the guards in the first room of a dungeon complex would immediately hit a gong that had been set up in the corner to let everyone else know when they were being invaded, to which everyone else would drink potions, cast buff spells, set up defensive checkpoints, etc.

The guy I was arguing with insisted that this would make the monster weaker.

When I expressed disbelief, he explained that canny PCs would invade, let the monsters sound the alarm, and then they (the PCs) would immediately fall back. Then, after waiting an hour or two—letting those buff spells and defensive potions, etc. all wear off—invade again, at which point the monsters would have expended their short-term defenses, and would now be easier to deal with.

Naturally, I was skeptical that the dungeon denizens would be quite so static (i.e. that they'd send out trackers and skirmishers of their own in response to an alarm being sounded after the PCs were reported to have left), and derided his line of thinking as a "booga booga tactic," a name that—to my chargin—he found hilarious, and apparently still uses when discussing this type of scenario.

I mean, you're both right. Setting off alarms can use up resources. And yes they would scout and use other tactics. At which point the PCs could go on an extended set off the alarms situation to wear down the enemy, and they'd try to take counter measures to that.

That's how strategy and tactics work. It's a bunch of counters and actions and hopefully yours are better than theirs.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Fighters don't have any greater potential than anyone else. Where are you getting that from? In any case, anyone can become a fighter if they want to.

Fighter 6: Ability Score Improvement
Fighter 14: Ability Score Improvement

Fighters are literally better at improving their physical and mental capacities than any other profession. Rogues are slightly better, as they get an additional ASI at Rogue 10. No diegetic explanation is given for this. They're just better at making their physical or mental capacities increase.

Barbarians, at least, have the paper-thin excuse that they achieve beyond-mortal-limit strength and endurance by completing their training, learning everything there is for a Barbarian to learn--if you squint, anyway. There isn't a diegetic reason actually given, it's just a thing that happens.

 

[Maxperson]

The problem is that unless you've already got a second defensive perimeter around the "dungeon", that still favors the attackers; they drop back and set up ambushes to pick off the trackers and skirmishers. That's just a consequence of the fact the attackers only have to be prepared when they're ready to attack, where the defenders either have to be ready all the time, or at least have rotating response units that can do so quickly--but quickly is a relative term. And D&D and its close kin are very vulnerable to resource depletion if you expend them setting up a response unless you're absolutely sure you can engage. It makes hit and run tactics disproportionately effective; you need to have serious, serious number superiority as a defender before its not a problem.

Maybe. Home field advantage is a term for a reason. The PCs aren't going to know the ins and outs of the terrain like the monsters will.

 

[AlViking]

Don’t the normal stat blocks do that better?

Like I don’t have a particular issue with minions from a gameplay perspective, but they do seem to crap all over the sim perspective. In fact they probably make better gameplay.

I was definitely more concerned with gamism back when 4e was introduced so I get that perspective but minions don’t typically make sense from a sim perspective and I get that too.

Which is my point, it's a gamist perspective when other editions all took a more sim approach that I prefer. I understand the gamist approach, I don't care for it and the adjustments made (AC, attack bonus, damage) don't make sense from a sim perspective.

 

[clearstream]

And yet it is--very much--part of the expected experience for D&D-alike games that one grows so great in power that things which were previously a major threat become so trivial, you swat them away like flies.

The non-minion ogres in 4e all have around 100 hitpoints. A rogue paragon could be dealing nearly that with a daily. I'm not really convinced that the "swat ogres away like flies" play you're envisioning would be at all common, barring literal minions.

The price paid was that statblocks aren't absolute...which they never truly were anyway.

What do you mean by "aren't absolute"?

 

[clearstream]

i was imagining an unarmed fighter (who hadn't specced into that), i don't know if either of those would apply in that situation, but yes while it might be possible to one-shot a goblin but as soon as you start looking at anything else slightly more durable it quickly stops being possible to defeat them instantly with your least effort.

I do agree (see my latest reply to @EzekielRaiden )

 

[Umbran]

Which is my point, it's a gamist perspective when other editions all took a more sim approach that I prefer. I understand the gamist approach, I don't care for it and the adjustments made (AC, attack bonus, damage) don't make sense from a sim perspective.

As is usually the case, that depends on what you are simulating.

If you are simulating most published fictions, even those not tied to RPGs include increased scope/risk, and attendant character power increase, as properties continue.