The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[AllisterH]

If you knew the system I was referring to, you'd know that the high-level fighter had the option of multiple attacks and three different means of doing extra damage (Smash, the asterisked numbers on the hit rolls chart, and Weapon Mastery). And yet he would never be stronger than the strongest "ordinary" human.

Which I believe is a fundamental problem with D&D in pretty much all incarnations.

In your example, even you admit that a fair amount of the damage comes from "outside" the character itself, namely magic weapon and magic spells. This is basically the system saying, "Yeah, fighter do suck, so here's some help".

A fair number of people want to model Aragorn/Conan/Black Company yet they use a system where two of the 4 main classes laugh at that.

Seriously, I think this is why the fighter has always been seen as boring. The character at 20th level is basically the same character at 1st level, only difference being you can hit more often.

Why can't we have for a BBEG, the fighter but must always default to the evil MU?

 

[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.

Ironically, GR's Black Company game is one of my favorite d20 products of all time.

...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.

And yet, even Croaker dies (sort of), and other Annalists come on and tell the story. But you're making an assumption here that they're the PCs; what if ALL of the Black Company characters are Player Characters, and it's just the players rotating through different characters as theirs are killed off? The person playing the Lady so to speak was earlier playing Raven, and playing TomTom before that?

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.

How about stand in the middle of enough arrows to blot out the sun and swat them all away? Still possible? I hate to harp on my earlier question, but it illustrates my point that there's a difference in the "level of miracle" that the PCs are pulling off, here. One's more in line with previous D&D versions until recently, the other one is not.

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.

...and earlier versions did not take this stance, or took it with much less favor. That's the divergence I'm getting at.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Well, ability scores is neither here nor there. In 3e, NPC's didn't have ability scores exceeding 10 unless they were somehow heroic themselves -- JoeBob the Town Guard had 10's across the board. So even an 18 is SUPERHUMAN. Heck, a 12 is superhuman -- that's what the racial bonuses get you. No mere mortal has a +1 ability score bonus!

I wasn't talking about 3E. I was talking about BECMI. Where it was my understanding that every single individual in the world had an ability score between 3 and 18 for each stat. But I believe a Town Guard in 3E would be modeled as a War1 with the "non-elite array" of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

In your example, even you admit that a fair amount of the damage comes from "outside" the character itself, namely magic weapon and magic spells. This is basically the system saying, "Yeah, fighter do suck, so here's some help".

The fighter in BECMI, even without any magic items or spells, and with "merely human" strength, can STILL do an outstanding amount of damage.
Let's see... 20 base, +3 Str, no magic, 4 attacks per round: 92 damage per round through skill and training. Still more than Magic Missile or Fireball, no save, and he won't run out of sword swings. It looks like magic accounted for a whopping 20 points of damage in my initial example.
If Smash can be used on multiple attacks (not sure), that's +18 on each, for 164 points of damage per round.

What magic (particularly Haste) does is to boost the fighter's damage into the stratosphere (by BECMI standards). Even without Haste, the high-level fighter in BECMI was a powerhouse.

 

[JohnSnow]

Ironically, GR's Black Company game is one of my favorite d20 products of all time.

I'm quite fond of it as well. I find I love its magic system for example. However, I wouldn't want to face dragons with a PC operating under the rules from The Black Company.

I don't really want to get into how to best model a novel. But I'll say this. Despite their high levels, characters in the novels never seem to become immune to death. Would you agree with this?

Because of that, it's very hard to properly model the dramatic flow of a story in a game. In classic tales of Robin Hood, for example, he beats many situations seemingly more dire than the one that eventually resulted in his death. You can't exactly make that work in D&D terms...

How about stand in the middle of enough arrows to blot out the sun and swat them all away? Still possible? I hate to harp on my earlier question, but it illustrates my point that there's a difference in the "level of miracle" that the PCs are pulling off, here. One's more in line with previous D&D versions until recently, the other one is not.

...and earlier versions did not take this stance, or took it with much less favor. That's the divergence I'm getting at.

The first is largely, in my opinion, a flavor issue. I'll give you what I think is a good example, stealing from Star Wars.

Han Solo (6th-level scoundrel 4/soldier 2) is targeted by blaster fire. Han barely manages to avoid being hit, even though some of the shots come close enough to nearly singe his hair (loses several hit points). "Luck," he thinks, "just luck."

Obi-Wan Kenobi (6th-level Jedi) is targeted by blaster fire. Obi-Wan manages to avoid being hit, deflecting many of the shots but the effort tires him out (loses several hit points). "The force is with me," thinks Obi-Wan.

Mechanically, what's the difference? None. It's all flavor. Han just "got lucky," whereas Obi-Wan "deflected shots with his lightsaber."

There's a difference between this situation with Obi-Wan and the one where he deflects blaster bolts effortlessly. The latter is covered by the Jedi talent "Deflect" whereas the former is hit point loss.

In Star Wars, actually getting hit by a blaster bolt is usually lethal. In fact, only two film characters are ever hit by one and "just wounded." (That's Chewie and Leia, both in Return of the Jedi).

I realize you like the added lethality, but hit points can represent "just luck." I know 4th Edition building that into the system at 1st-level is a change from earlier versions, but IMO, it could be a very good one. I'd rather see a variant rule whereby a solid hit (half the character's total hit points in one shot?) provokes, say, a persistent condition of "bloodied." That could be handy at ALL levels.

But that's just my preference.

 

[chitzk0i]

I think it's important to note that 4e will have a different "level of miracle" the PCs are able to pull off based on what level they are. Epic-tier characters will likely b able to accomplish much more fantastic feats than Heroic-tier ones. Just look at the differences in the paladin smites. The basic first level one grants an AC bonus to one ally, whereas the epic one doesn't allow the monster to attack anyone but the paladin.

I doubt that characters will be able to avoid a hail of arrows that blocks out the sun in the heroic tier. But I'd pretty much expect that for the epic tier.

 

[Shadeydm]

Sorry to disappear mid discussion yesterday but my group had a rare saturday game scheduled yesterday.

Anyways yes the crusader outheals the cleric for a variety of reasons including but not limited to his ability via crusader strike to heal at range while the cleric needs to move around the battlefield trying to avoid aoos and other combat hazards. Also by stance he is healing someone for 2 points on top of the crusader strike healing every few rounds. Further these abilities do not run out unlike the cleric's spells.

As far as out damaging the other melee classes and the wizard the crusader uses a Great Axe and every few rounds gets to add 2D6 dam via Foehammer.

Combine these factors with the crusaders ability to soak/delay 5 pts of damage every round and he is truely one of the most powerful and dynamic low level PCs I have ever witnessed.

Again I am not complaining nor are any of the other players. As the DM I showed the Bo9S to the player and told him I would allow him to make a Crusader because I wanted to observe some 4E mechanics first hand. The Crusader has allowed the PCs to turn the tide of battle on several occasions and has allowed the party to continue adventuring in situations where another party would have been forced to stop and rest so the healer could recover some spells.

From my perspective therefore the Crusader experiment has been win win in that we are all getting a sneak peek at some 4 E comcepts and the party's ability to heal and deal damage has been enhanced. But if I had to give an opinion right now at 3rd level I would absolutly say not balanced. Only time will tell if the gap closes with further advancement.

In yesterdays game we wrapped up a string of adventures and the group has just started the Barrow of the Forgotten King which seems like its going to be lots of fun!



Again right now the PCs are still only 3rd level

 

[glass]

If you saw Wuxia in the real world, you would be shocked and awed and consider it magical based on your frame of reference.

Yes, but what real-world martial artists can do is shocking too. Hell, what Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo do can be awesome, but there abilities assuredly aren't supernatural.


glass.

 

[hopeless]

Regarding this

One of the things that has puzzled me about the 4e PR (and there are many) is the reference to Bo9S being one of the "preview books" of 4e and that WotC felt it "worked" due to its popularity.

The popularity claim rang hollow with me when I first read it. Going only by my personal experience, I've seen the book only once in a bookstore while I've seen most of the other WotC books multiple times (presumably because they were purchased and restocked). I don't know any D&D gamers who actually own it.

Obviously, I don't have access to sales figures, so the only "empirical data" I could find were Amazon.com sales figures. In terms of book sales rankings, I found the following:

PHB 3.5 - #7,208
Complete Mage - #21,919
Complete Arcane - #22,369
Complete Adventurer - #22,369
Libris Mortis - #36,563
PHB II - 39,910
Complete Warrior - #43,101
ToB: Bo9S - #90,074!!!
Heroes of Horror - #99,074

While I can certainly see how one could argue the sales #s for Complete Mage as validation of the warlock (debatable but a case could be made), can they really make the case that Bo9S was truly popular?
Granted this is only one measurement and only WotC has the true numbers but it hardly seems like it was such a runaway success that it warranted being a prime source of 4e inspiration.
Anyway, I found it odd. I was just curious if others had similar experiences/opinions or if Bo9S was some cult classic that just didn't appeal to me.

Of all of these books the Tome of Battle is the only one I have never bought.
And no buying the Complete Mage isn't an endorsement of the Warlock which to my point of view still should have never been nything more than a prestige class.

I have to admit I am curious to see if anyone would post a poll as to who has actually bought that book to see if there are grounds to wonder if its popularity is truly a myth.

 

[Jim DelRosso]

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.

Not sure how relevant it is, but the fact that you need to spend an action on your turn to take a Second Wind can make a huge difference. The first Sith my players ran up against (3rd level, while they were 1st level) got dropped without using his Second Wind because the hit that took him below half his HP and the hit that took him out happened between his turns.

While I'll grant that things like Force Lightning feel somewhat wonky if they come into play at 1st level, my experience running a game in which 3 1st level PCs tussled with the aforementioned Sith and some pirate minions using the "Thug" stats from the book did not leave me with the impression that the PCs were all that over-the-top. We almost lost the soldier in a fight with two pirates, and the final encounter with the Sith and the last two pirates felt like it could've gone either way.