D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Sulicius]

Here's a question.

Would it be fair to state in A Song of ice and Fire/Game of Thrones each member of the Kingsguard would be a CR 10 humanoid Warrior?

Even with bad appointments, there would still be 7+ no name generic knights and lords able to be national celebs and storied swordmasters with inflated stats. Maybe double or triple that.

Each member? Not the impression I had.
Maybe more like half of them?

 

[Minigiant]

Each member? Not the impression I had.
Maybe more like half of them?

Even if you count for appointments there are replacements walking around who are valid enough to be members.

Even with 3 being jokes, there are 6-10 other knights and lords walking around good enough to be. 10-20 during times of peace

 

[tetrasodium]

I mentioned it a bit later in another post, stuff like spectral wings or respeccing after a long rest. 2024 does pretty much everything to have features not have downsides and / or build decisions never have the player stuck with something that is not all that useful in whatever situation they find themselves in.

That respec after a nap thing does a whole lot more than the "just makes it easier to CharOp" kinda thing that some folks are writing it off as and it's a big problem. When a PC can do something like be energy resistant and change the energy type on a rest it means that PC can never exist outside of a blind one naughty word where the player doesn't know and couldn't know anything about what they might encounter. The PC in question just be limited to one shots like that because in an ongoing campaign where some or all of that could often trivially be discovered it means that mercurial energy resistance is elevated to become universal energy resistance while still being balanced as a low level feature with low to no opportunity cost rather than a freaking high tier epic boon.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here's a question.

Would it be fair to state in A Song of ice and Fire/Game of Thrones each member of the Kingsguard would be a CR 10 humanoid Warrior?

Even with bad appointments, there would still be 7+ no name generic knights and lords able to be national celebs and storied swordmasters with inflated stats. Maybe double or triple that.

I haven’t read the books, but based on the show I would definitely not put the king’s guard at CR 10. They’re good, but I don’t see them going toe-to-toe with a young dragon. I’d probably put them around CR 5. Good enough to solo a troll, which is quite impressive, but still within the bounds of “highly capable normie.”

 

[Minigiant]

I haven’t read the books, but based on the show I would definitely not put the king’s guard at CR 10. They’re good, but I don’t see them going toe-to-toe with a young dragon. I’d probably put them around CR 5. Good enough to solo a troll, which is quite impressive, but still within the bounds of “highly capable normie.”

Young dragons arent that tough.

A fully kitted knight of the highest caliber facing off and killing a dragon is the young dragon.

A young dragon is the same size as a horse or a troll. It's their scales that make them tough. You need accuracy or raw strength to damage it. But if you can, it's just a fiery horse.

But I think Prime Jamie, Prime Barristan or Mountain could off a young red.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

NGL, given how precious little actually differs between 5.0 and 5.5e, this reads to me like the way Brennan Lee Mulligan (claims that) his old philosophy professor described how beliefs work: "Humans have feelings and then construct philosophical frameworks to support them and justify them."

It's "this isn't the same, so there has to be some reason, some external flaw, which makes me dislike it" leading to creating a rationale long after the dislike was already formed.

 

[Mephista]

Of course 20 vs. 21 wouldn't make it "perfectly fine" for me. But I admit that the 21 does annoy me, meaningless though it might be. Maybe because it's meaningless -- they can't have made this NPC superhuman for gameplay purposes, because it barely affects gameplay. So then why is this dude theoretically the strongest humanoid on the planet? Isn't that a least a smidgen weird?

I think they build these guys using standard PC rules first, then convert them to a more simplified MM stat block. The guy has 19 HD, which means that he qualified for an Epic Boon, which lets you go over 20 in a stat. Whatever feat they picked was irrelevant for a fight, so it was removed, but the stat increase stayed.

I don't think its any more complicated than that. He's a level 19 Fighter that's been simplified. Military folks, such as guards, soldiers, generals, etc are Fighters. They figured 19 was a good level to make a challenge for a party on the verge of tier 3.

I suppose then a fair question would be what it says about the default world building assumptions if we have level 19 people running around for the party to challenge, but that's a completely different discussion than what's going on here.

That respec after a nap thing does a whole lot more than the "just makes it easier to CharOp" kinda thing that some folks are writing it off as and it's a big problem. When a PC can do something like be energy resistant and change the energy type on a rest it means that PC can never exist outside of a blind one naughty word where the player doesn't know and couldn't know anything about what they might encounter.

As far as I know, the only one who can respec resistance is the Fiend warlock, and that's been there since original 5e. It was originally playtested back in 2013 or so to be resistance to EVERYTHING, even better than totem barbarians. The playtest called it as waaay OP, so twas dialed down to this.

So, that's not really something new for "easier to Char Op" but a lesser version of allowing the Fiend Warlock to do their thorn-tank thingy.

 

[Remathilis]

Players will always outnumber DMs, so their feedback will always weigh heavier in surveys. They’ll not usually vote against PC empowerment.

Absolutely this.

Take the berserker. You got a powerful boon (a third attack) at a tremendous cost (exhaustion). There was a risk/reward element to much of the barbarian kit, but none so much than that. But the vast majority of players did not jive with that and wanted more consistent and reliable, but no less powerful. No risk, all reward. That played out time and time again during the playtest. Wizards didn't want to give up their monopoly on good spells. Paladins on multi-smite novas. Druids on abusable wild shape options.

 

[TwoSix]

Here's a question.

Would it be fair to state in A Song of ice and Fire/Game of Thrones each member of the Kingsguard would be a CR 10 humanoid Warrior?

Even with bad appointments, there would still be 7+ no name generic knights and lords able to be national celebs and storied swordmasters with inflated stats. Maybe double or triple that.

GoT was very much a low-level D&D type of setting, to me. (Although I think D&D would be a poor system for GoT.)

Barristan Selmy at his peak might have been something equivalent to level 10; I'd put Jaime Lannister somewhere around level 6 or 7.

 

[Sulicius]

I think they build these guys using standard PC rules first, then convert them to a more simplified MM stat block. The guy has 19 HD, which means that he qualified for an Epic Boon, which lets you go over 20 in a stat. Whatever feat they picked was irrelevant for a fight, so it was removed, but the stat increase stayed.

You'd think that! It's pretty clear they don't build monsters this way. Looking at most other NPC statblocks will tell you this. CR6 mages have 18 HD. HD are no longer connected to class level in any way. CR is no longer connected to class levels in any way. Monsters are not connected to class levels.

There is nothing in 5e24 that suggest this. They just make monsters that are right for their CR, which is why the game works better now.

Keith Ammann, however, does not appreciate this.