The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[The Little Raven]

In 3.5e, the 20th level fighter of the group was dealing circa 200 points of damage (or more) per round against a lone enemy. The Wizard was doing nowhere near that much damage. Sure, the Wizard had "save or die" type effects, but the fighter was more reliable.

Could you also break this down for me? In my experience, the last two iterative attacks (at -10 and -15 compared to your BAB) weren't really that effective, and since the fighter's damage was based on the concept of him getting four attacks, it didn't work as well in practice as it did in theory.

Not perfect, but it was better than (say) 1e.

Oh, I'll never argue that point. Each edition of D&D balances things more and more, but that's no reason to stop the evolution.

 

[Henry]

These things you're talking about is exactly what they've been lacking up until now... more options that fit their theme and role. And this is exactly what they're putting in the game. Abilities that let a fighter knock someone down with a successful blow, or slow their movement, or stun them (all adds on the Defender role).

And those would be fine to me, as long as they don't get into "running on arrows" and "walking on air" territory like many Wuxia films as a default behavior. Splatbook options, cool: In the core PHB1, they proscribe a default D&D where the fighters are as miraculous as the demon-summoning and fireball-spitting mages.

What is it about Saga PCs that you think is over-the-top for D&D characters to have?

I mentioned some of them in a previous post, but:

1) Powers of the nature of Force Grip, Force Lightning, or Move Object, with results for 6 dice of damage and up at 1st level. A 1st level Jedi, thanks to virtue of the low DCs, could pick up a tank and flip it on top of someone for somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 8 dice of damage with a halfway decent dice roll. A destiny point puts it in the 14 dice range. For a level one character. Force lightning is about as bad -- 8 dice of damage will cook any opponent at first level (ignore the dark side points a moment, because not only does D&D not have them, but you can get rid of them as a free action with a force point.)

2) The hit points combined with the force point usages to save someone. Not only could said soldier survive 4 blaster hits that could kill anyone else, he can spend a force point on that last hit to just go unconscious for the rest of the fight. With a single talent, he can move himself completely back up the condition track for that matter if he chooses to. (not that he needs it, he can just rest for 30 seconds and get the same amount of improvement.)

I would also say destiny points as a whole, but I like them at their core; I like every player to have one point or so to completely rewrite things if he needs it. However, the Star Wars PCs get one of those boogers at every level!!! Not one maximum, but one per level! A whole five or six person party has enough Destiny to rewrite the movie trilogies!

EDIT: just noticed this:

Yeah... that's "don't-die-from-a-single-shot-from-a-one-eyed-goblin" heroic. That's the ability to take a couple wounds before succumbing. Heroes that die from a single hit from a weak goblin aren't really heroes... they're just pretending.

In some ways, they're the cooler heroes to me.. the ones who know that they could die any time from a lucky rusty goblin sword, but they do what has to be done, anyway, to complete the task (save the town, save the princess, whatever). Or, to look at it another way, it's fun to risk stupid death raiding some goblin lair who never did you any wrong just for loot and treasure, and getting pasted against the wall by a pipsqueak you wouldn't have expected could kill you.

Look at it this way: Some of D&D's best war stories come from both spectacular failures, as well as from snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. I don't remember any of the cakewalks... but my group does remember the battle where the deep dragon turned one PC into puddly goo in his own boots before dying, as well as when the wizard ran out of spells and had to resort to fisticuffs to save the party's bacon, of the 1st level PC who inexplicably tried to take on an Umber Hulk by himself, and got bisected for his attempt at glory.

 

[The Little Raven]

1) Powers of the nature of Force Grip, Force Lightning, or Move Object, with results for 6 dice of damage and up at 1st level. A 1st level Jedi, thanks to virtue of the low DCs, could pick up a tank and flip it on top of someone for somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 or 8 dice of damage with a halfway decent dice roll. A destiny point puts it in the 14 dice range. For a level one character. Force lightning is about as bad -- 8 dice of damage will cook any opponent at first level (ignore the dark side points a moment, because not only does D&D not have them, but you can get rid of them as a free action with a force point.)

I agree that this would be a problem in D&D, but this is a Star Wars-specific thing. When we have quotes from the property like "Don't be too proud of this technological monstrosity of yours. The power to destroy a planet is insignificant to the power of the Force." it makes sense to make the Force really powerful in the game, even if the imbalance in the system makes the game designer in me sad.

Remember, Star Wars opts to emulate the movies, and unless D&D suddenly strives to emulate the Star Wars movies, I don't think this is a problem.

2) The hit points combined with the force point usages to save someone. Not only could said soldier survive 4 blaster hits that could kill anyone else, he can spend a force point on that last hit to just go unconscious for the rest of the fight. With a single talent, he can move himself completely back up the condition track for that matter if he chooses to. (not that he needs it, he can just rest for 30 seconds and get the same amount of improvement.)

Is this so different from Inigo Montoya taking a tri-bladed dagger to the guts, sinking to the ground as if dying, then finding the strength to staunch the blood and win the fight (the book tells you that he's dying and it's his father and his mentor's spiritual prodding that allows him to live)? Or so different from Boromir defending Merry and Pippin to his last breath, despite being riddled with arrows (the description the book gives)?

I would also say destiny points as a whole, but I like them at their core; I like every player to have one point or so to completely rewrite things if he needs it. However, the Star Wars PCs get one of those boogers at every level!!! Not one maximum, but one per level! A whole five or six person party has enough Destiny to rewrite the movie trilogies!

Destiny points are a particular mechanic that I doubt we'll see in D&D, since technically, every hero should have a cool destiny in store for him (which is why epic destinies exist).

 

[Henry]

Is this so different from Inigo Montoya taking a tri-bladed dagger to the guts, sinking to the ground as if dying, then finding the strength to staunch the blood and win the fight (the book tells you that he's dying and it's his father and his mentor's spiritual prodding that allows him to live)? Or so different from Boromir defending Merry and Pippin to his last breath, despite being riddled with arrows (the description the book gives)?

To me, the Die Hard feat modeled that pretty well (and both men definitely deserved having that feat!)

I really don't even have a problem with second wind; but if a hit reduces you to negatives before you can use it, not even second wind might save you all the time. As it is in Saga, it'd be kind of unwise not to use your second wind after you dropped to half hit points or so. You've got 20 or so odd hit points as a buffer, so no one attack is going to kill you; but with less hit points, it's a lot less sure when to use it if you're only down one or two points.

 

[The Little Raven]

To me, the Die Hard feat modeled that pretty well (and both men definitely deserved having that feat!)

Well, I can see Inigo using Diehard, but I don't see Diehard helping Boromir, as he was continually peppered with arrows... to me, the only thing that could really keep him going would be additional hit points, represented by Second Wind, so he could keep taking arrows and keep fighting.

 

[Zurai]

Well, I can see Inigo using Diehard, but I don't see Diehard helping Boromir, as he was continually peppered with arrows... to me, the only thing that could really keep him going would be additional hit points, represented by Second Wind, so he could keep taking arrows and keep fighting.

Boromir's last stand is a textbook example of the Immortal Fortitude stance from Bo9S.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

20 per hit... 2d6 + 8 without factoring in Strength or anything like that? A Grandmaster got a +8 to damage automatically?

My books are in moving boxes, but it was roughly +50% damage for Skilled, +100% for Expert, +150% for Master, and +200% for Grand Master. For example, the normal sword (longsword in 1E) went from 1d8 to 1d12 to 2d8 for the first 3 tiers. So 1d10 (base 2-handed sword) went to about 20, I think. Each tier gave another +2 to hit, and some special abilities.

There were also a couple of buffing spells (like the clerical spell Striking and the ever-overpowered Haste) in BECMI. Haste DOUBLED your attacks (but not spellcasting), and you could stack Haste from two different sources (such as spell and potion) for quadruple-speed. Furthermore, there were weapon enhancements that went up to +10 (e.g. Sword +5, +10 vs. dragons) and some ways to do double damage (Potion of Growth, or the Extra Damage power for an intelligent sword). I don't recall if this doubled base damage or total damage. Meanwhile, there were no ways to increase spell damage.

And 4 attacks? Really? 1e/2e had stuff like 5/2 for high level characters, maybe 3/1 at the top end, but 4/1?

2 attacks per round at 12th level if you could hit your opponent on a 2, 3 attacks per round at 24th, 4 attacks per round at 36th. Fighters could very often hit on a 2, especially with the Weapon Mastery bonuses. AC had a hard cap of -10 (equivalent to 30) for PCs and for everything except for the oldest of dragons IIRC. Fighters could also use Smash -- take a -5 to hit and add Str score to damage. Kind of like an early version of Power Attack. I can't recall if you could use Smash with Multiple Attacks.

A 36th-level wizard would probably be using "save or die" spells and be outclassing that Grandmaster with his insta-kills.

Anything involving a save was very unlikely to work against tough opponents in BECMI. A 9th-level spell from an 18-Int wizard was no harder to save against than a 1st-level spell from a 9-Int wizard. I don't recall there being any no-save insta-kills other than the Power Word spells, which have their HP caps, or Death Spell and Cloudkill, which had HD caps.

 

[JohnSnow]

While true, I've always preferred that stage of D&D's life cycle where the PCs weren't those guys; they were more like the guys from The Black Company instead, where occasionally the main characters died, but were replaced and the Company still went on. That's the D&D I grew up with, and it has definitely gradually left the building (to many cheers, I might add).

To me, there's a big difference between durability (hit points and Second Wind rules) and characters having "over-the-top" abilities. You're talking about the latter Henry.

Characters from The Black Company were able to accomplish feats that are impossible for a D&D character. There's no way a couple low-level fighters could get the drop on two of the most powerful wizards in the world (as Croaker and Raven do). To account for that, Green Ronin altered the way hit points worked in The Black Company campaign setting. Moreover, to truly mimic that scene, you have to use the optional gritty rules. As that scene shows, characters in the Black Company don't get tougher at higher levels the same way D&D characters do. Of course, they also don't fight dragons...

Now maybe you have no problem with high-level characters being able to get tail-slapped by a dragon and live. But if that's so, it's not the level of "realism" that's the problem. It's that you think being fragile at the start of their careers makes the game more "realistic" even though it doesn't last. That switch is a pretty uniquely D&Dish notion.

I'll say it again. To me, hit points are mostly heroic luck. It's because of hit points that the low-level character is lucky enough to survive all those arrows that get shot at him. They might nick him (if it's needed for believability reason, like an arrow being poisoned) but for the most part, they aren't solid hits. And even when they are, they might not be lethal hits. An arrow passes straight through the meat of your arm, for example. In the Black Company novels, Croaker is a PC and so are some of the other characters, as are many of the wizards. Many of their comrades are not. Survivability is the defining characteristic of a low-level hero. Yes, he might die, but only if he's in truly dire straights or gets very unlucky.

Is it possible to stand in the middle of "enough arrows to block out the sun" and not get hit? Yes. Certainly, it's not likely, but it is possible. Luck tends to run in the PCs favor.

You can certainly decide that survival past the low levels is dependent on luck favoring the player, but 4e takes the position that fortune usually favors the character. Saga does this for a reason. It has the advantage of not requiring Luke Skywalker to already be a seasoned adventurer (3rd-level) just to survive his adventure in Star Wars. With the Saga rules, Luke can start as a 1st-Level hero. And to me, that's a definite advantage.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Sure I can. In my favorite version of D&D, no PC, no matter how high level, can have an ability score exceeding 18. Just like NPCs.
The PCs might be more skilled, but they're still fundamentally human.

Fighters, Paladins and Rangers could have 18/xx scores in STR, which were truthfully the equivalents to the 19-23 range in 3e. So, uh, not entirely accurate.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Fighters, Paladins and Rangers could have 18/xx scores in STR, which were truthfully the equivalents to the 19-23 range in 3e. So, uh, not entirely accurate.

No, it IS entirely accurate. I'm referring to BECMI, which didn't have that ludicrous Exceptional Strength rule.