The Tragedy of Flat Math

[triqui]

Greg Stolze might like a word with you.

That does not make his sentence being true. He said some people would regard Robin Law as the best contemporary RPG designer, and some people does.
Some others would name Jonathan Tweet, or Robert J Schalwb. Some even would say Rob Heinsoo and the guys who made 4e. All of them have a big reputation, and a decent amount of fans and critic acclaim for their RPG (even if some other people dislike them)

Heck some people would say that I am the best RPG designer. Mainly my mom, and people I've paid.

 

[D'karr]

Heck some people would say that I am the best RPG designer. Mainly my mom, and people I've paid.

What's the going rate? I might join your fan club, "if the money's right."





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[AbdulAlhazred]

Ey, you did it again with the slight prod about intelligence! I am only commenting on it since I think it detracts from your otherwise sound arguing.

Anyway, I do agree that D&D needs quite a lot of scaling, but I don't think it should be done the way 4e did it. It might come from the around 50% hit and to-be-hit chance everyone had. Somebody mentioned somewhere on this forum that it's more "fun" with a system with 70% chance to hit. Sounds good to me since the difference in +1 bonus to hit is less important in a d20 system if you hit on a 7 instead of on a 11. AD&D and 3E was a lot closer to the 70% to-hit mark than 4e was in my experience.

I don't know what the optimum hit probability for max fun is, but I'd note that actually relatively few systems IME average anywhere near 70%. AD&D generally isn't even close to that. My recollections are that needing anything less than a 14 to-hit was a pretty good day, and you were often facing 17+ situations. While I have some issues with AD&D it was certainly a fun game. Honestly I think things can get too easy. It may give immediate satisfaction, but I think in the long run when you cross past 50/50 things start to seem cheap at a certain point. It isn't success you earned anymore but just something you expect.

 

[triqui]

AD&D generally isn't even close to that. My recollections are that needing anything less than a 14 to-hit was a pretty good day, and you were often facing 17+ situations.

At what level? 1-2? Because once you started to level up, that wasn't true anymore. I remember hitting most enemies with 2+ at higher levels.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've never seen that unless you're talking about very high level PCs doing some kind of cake-walk. Frankly I'd say in AD&D the game is tuned to serious opponents require about a 15 to-hit. On the 1e fighter table that takes you from AC6 at level 1 to AC -10 at level 17+. Clearly (and IME) only the most superior opponents even matter to a 17th level PC. In that sense it is a very different game.

 

[pemerton]

Greg Stolze might like a word with you. Also Neko and Florrent, and Francisco Nepitello.

Sure. Or, if I were to display some more of my own familiarity and prejudices, Vincent Baker, Paul Czege or Luke Crane.

That does not make his sentence being true. He said some people would regard Robin Law as the best contemporary RPG designer, and some people does.
Some others would name Jonathan Tweet, or Robert J Schalwb. Some even would say Rob Heinsoo and the guys who made 4e. All of them have a big reputation, and a decent amount of fans and critic acclaim for their RPG (even if some other people dislike them)

More good designers there.

My real goal - which I hope was clear - was not to particularly laud Robin Laws, but rather to point out that there are RPGs designed by leading contemporary designers which adopt the approach of relativising DCs/target numbers/antagonists' bonuses to the numbers on the players' PC sheets; and which then expect the GM to narrate the situation in line with the allocated numbers, so as to preserve immersion, verismilitude, genre expectations, the integrity of the fiction, etc.

That's not the only tenable approach for a contemporary game - Burning Wheel, for example, uses "objective" DCs. But it's just absurd to claim that it is inimical to roleplaying per se.

I have played 4e and I played it like a RPG, but for me it doesn't encourage role playing.

<snip>

Somehow 4e did not bring what I thought it would bring to the table, and instead made me think about the math and how many magic items the players needed to keep up with the gear treadmill and the ever increasing correct DC's for traps, doors, and so on.

I don't doubt that you are truly reporting your own experiences.

I also agree that there can be more elegant ways to handle "flat maths" than the 4e approach - although I think it does a reasonable job of reconciling flat maths with the traditional D&D expectation of scaling attack bonuses, bonus weapons etc.

But this doesn't show (i) that 4e emphasises the maths rather than the fiction, nor (ii) that it is not, or tends not to be played as, an RPG.

In my own experience, the relatively flat maths of 4e (relatively flat because the scaling is rlatively constant throughout the system) tends to make the fiction more important, not less, because what is significant about (for example) Orcus is not that he's impossible to hit - by the time the PCs meet Orcus, the scaling makes hitting Orcus perfectly viable - but that he's Orcus!

 

[pemerton]

I'd note that actually relatively few systems IME average anywhere near 70%. AD&D generally isn't even close to that. My recollections are that needing anything less than a 14 to-hit was a pretty good day, and you were often facing 17+ situations.

At what level? 1-2? Because once you started to level up, that wasn't true anymore. I remember hitting most enemies with 2+ at higher levels.

AC 5 is a very common AC in AD&D. At 1st level, a fighter hits that on a 15. (Less any bonuses).

ACs below 2 are fairly uncommon. At 5th level a fighter hits AC 2 on a 13, and more realistically, once specialisation (if used), magic, stats etc are taken into account probably on a 10.

In B/X, though, ACs are pretty similar to AD&D whereas fighter to hit progression is slower.

And in all versions of classic D&D, clerics and thieves have noticeably slower progression.

Then there are NPCs, who will routinely have ACs below 0. In D3, any number of drow have ACs well into the negatives - drow magic armour was Gygax's version of 3E's "natural armour" bonus, a veneer of fiction pasted over the need to scale ACs in order to maintain the challenge of combat.

 

[triqui]

AC 5 is a very common AC in AD&D. At 1st level, a fighter hits that on a 15. (Less any bonuses).

ACs below 2 are fairly uncommon. At 5th level a fighter hits AC 2 on a 13, and more realistically, once specialisation (if used), magic, stats etc are taken into account probably on a 10.

In B/X, though, ACs are pretty similar to AD&D whereas fighter to hit progression is slower.

And in all versions of classic D&D, clerics and thieves have noticeably slower progression.

Then there are NPCs, who will routinely have ACs below 0. In D3, any number of drow have ACs well into the negatives - drow magic armour was Gygax's version of 3E's "natural armour" bonus, a veneer of fiction pasted over the need to scale ACs in order to maintain the challenge of combat.

Add str bonus, magic items (include str magic items such as gauntlets of ogre power), speialization, buffs like bless...
Plus the game does not end in lvl 5. I remember having a Character that had negative Thaco. If I remember well, I was a lvl 16 fighter with -3 or -4 Thaco, in AD&D 2e. That character was hitting appropiate level enemies with 2+ for half of his career.

In AD&D, thaco increased a lot, while armor was much more static. That's why at levels 1-2 you suffer to hit vs a half decently armored enemy with a shield. But at lvl 8-9, you hit fairly often against most enemies.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Interesting discussion about AC.

For 3E, the to-hit chance was typically +6 with AC 13-18 at first level being quite typical. But, as you got higher in level the to-hit chance scaled a lot faster than AC and I remember fighting Dragons and having to roll 2 to hit. With Haste it was typically not until my target numbers where often something like 2, 2, 5, 10, 15. For lesser foes, I often couldn't miss. (Level 17 cleric with lots of fun buff spells).

In 4e they tried and more or less successfully kept the to hit rate around 50% in my experience (I have played up to level 9).

 

[slobo777]

With Haste it was typically not until my target numbers where often something like 2, 2, 5, 10, 15. For lesser foes, I often couldn't miss. (Level 17 cleric with lots of fun buff spells).

The fighter's multi-attack was supposed to work like that if I recall. It pretty much meant you could count on 2 hits per round, and a minimal amount of damage, and the "exciting" bit was seeing if you could get your 3rd and 4th hits in, which would make a difference to how quickly you could destroy the opponent. There was also those extra chances of criticals.