The Immortals Handbook

[Anabstercorian]

I was referring to the 3 HD medium sized creatures and the drastically under-damaging crossbow comments, actually, but nonetheless I feel better.

 

[Fieari]

I was under the impression that the discussion was about trying to figure out an extensible system for determining scaling situations, finding that there was one in place but that for some reason WotC made all these exceptions that don't make sense. The discussion wasn't about removing the exceptions, but rather about determining the system for scaling. Although, if you WANTED you could remove the exceptions, but that really wasn't the issue.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

I was referring to the 3 HD medium sized creatures

Well I actually stand by those comments, although I'm not going to bother changing any Monster stats to take this into account so it won't have any impact on anything.

and the drastically under-damaging crossbow comments,

Again, this is simply a known fact. X-bows in D&D have always been the stuff of nonsense and I'm sure they'll make a mess of them again in 4th Edition.

Where are the repeating X-Bows from the Hawk the Slayer movie; thats what I want to know. Either that guy was a 200th-level X-Bow specialist or his repeating X-Bow was firing about a dozen bolts in about 2 seconds.

In fact I am just wondering if you could create a minigun like repeating X-Bow for those "I ain't got time to bleed" moments.

actually, but nonetheless I feel better.

Hey, I'm always here if you have any questions or queries dude.

 

[Anabstercorian]

I still don't see why a crossbow would do dramatically more damage than an arrow shot...

 

[S'mon]

Something I've been reading in this thread that's been making me leery of the final product, frankly, is the willingness to push WoTC's design decisions aside when they strike you as inferior to your own.

I'm not involved in writing the Immortals Handbook*. Certainly I think many WoTC design decisions suck & will happily push them aside in favour of my own superior house rules, but that's irrelevant to the contents of the IH.

*OK, a bunch of stuff in the IH like Worship Points originally comes from my old AD&D campaign, but that long predates WotC's acquisition of TSR , never mind 3e!

 

[S'mon]

I still don't see why a crossbow would do dramatically more damage than an arrow shot...

Given the same draw weight a crossbow will do slightly less damage than a longbow, not more. But the most powerful historical longbows have draw weights around 130lbs, while x-bows can have arbitrarily high draw weights and 300lb+ was common. The useful draw weight of a longbow is limited by the strength of the wielder; with a winch crossbow it's only limited by the strength of the materials. So you can easily make a crossbow that does ten times the damage of a longbow - but it'll only fire 1/10 (or less) as often. IRL that's usually overkill, in D&D though it might be quite handy.

 

[S'mon]

BTW I reckon 3HD might be the average for medium non-humanoids, and 1hd for medium humanoids? IRL humans are far weaker than other animals of similar size, about 1/6 as strong as chimps, say. It wouldn't be unreasonable to factor that in to hit dice.

 

[S'mon]

Verbeegs, they must have been so easy I forgot them.

I had them all - the whole clan - beautifully statted out in great detail (by 1e standards - nothing like 3e statblocks of course!) and you just killed them all with Cresswell's Gaseous Breath Weapon of Mass Destruction!

They were too young to die... *sob*

 

[CRGreathouse]

Again, this is simply a known fact. X-bows in D&D have always been the stuff of nonsense and I'm sure they'll make a mess of them again in 4th Edition.

If you criticize the damage, surely you also see problems with the rate of fire, no?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey S'mon!

BTW I reckon 3HD might be the average for medium non-humanoids, and 1hd for medium humanoids?

1 HD for medium sized anything is a bit silly given the fundamental laws of the system.

IRL humans are far weaker than other animals of similar size, about 1/6 as strong as chimps, say.

Well thats strength though, not Hit Dice. Though you could probably make a case for using strength bonus as damage reduction maybe.

As for chimps they are not in the same proportion as humans so that (often used) comparison is invalid.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to factor that in to hit dice.

Well (as per the rules I proffer in the CR/EL doc.) squat creatures (like Dwarves and Fire Giants...and Gorillas) have x1.5 HD over the base 1 HD/2 ft. tall/long. So a 4ft tall Dwarf would have 3 HD, and a 6 ft tall Gorilla would have 4 HD, a 12ft tall Fire Giant would have 9 HD etc.