Theories regaurding the change in rules of D&D.

[Irda Ranger]

I can challenge a party with creatures whose CR was lower than APL. I'm sure you could too. Therefore, if you need creatures whose CR = APL, you are using your monsters ineffectively.

This has been my experience too. Since the PC's are usually the invaders, the monsters have home turf advantage. You can bet that they use it too. Unless they're completely mindless (like vermin or zombies), even animal-level intelligence has an instinctive understanding of its strengths and weaknesses (although very limited in its ability to judge threats other than "big" and "lots of teeth"). Most monsters are smarter than that, however, and will use "every trick in the book" to bring the hurt.

Too often GM's seem to treat monsters as mook props to be killed. I don't. I'm pretty sure they want to live (or un-die, as the case may be). I don't use GM's knowledge to give them any information they can't observe for themselves, but simply assuming the correct point of view always seems to get the creative juices flowing and make a real challenge out of something below the expected / published CR. PC's in my campaign should usually assume that assaulting a Kobold lair should be at least as difficult as laying siege to a castle defended by human Warriors (1 - 4 HD). Sure Kobolds are small and weak, but you think they don't know that? They've kept the Bugbears and Orcs at bay all this time, after all...

But that's a whole different thread ...

This is no different than saying "DMs who have to use high-CR monsters to challenge PCs even a bit are usually using them ineffectually" with the exception that I catagorized "high-CR" monsters as "monsters whose CR = APL or higher".

(The same problem occurs with "The fittest survive" because there is no criteria for which creatures are the "fittest" except that they "survive" making the statement meaningless outside of its own recursive logic.)

RC

To be nit-picky, the phrase "survival of the fittest" is no more recursive than any other definition of an adjective. "Survival" is something you do, while "fitness" is a quality that you demonstrate by surviving. It's no different than saying someone who "lifted" 500 lbs is "strong." Actions vs. descriptive qualities, proved by the action.

 

[Mark]

My comment was tongue-in-cheek -- and made a few years ago, before Knowledge: Religion had so many formally defined uses in the game.

The point still stands that the game tempts players to min-max their skills when they are forced to choose between "useful" skills and "background" skills.

That depends on the player, the game they are going to play, and their level of awareness of what benefit one approach or another might be to them.

 

[Numion]

The problem is that, while this sort of reasoning makes sense, it only makes sense in the recursive logic of the statement itself, because the terms that would refer beyond the statement (what is ineffective use) relies on the statement itself.

So, if there was a 1E game going on (no CR system), and a 3rd level party kicked a great wyrm dragons ass, you couldn't bring yourself to say the dragon was ineffectually played? (Because only way you can define and understand ineffectually played monster is .. CR system, right?)

I get a feeling you're prone to nitpicking, which makes communication between us ineffectual, heh heh

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, if there was a 1E game going on (no CR system), and a 3rd level party kicked a great wyrm dragons ass, you couldn't bring yourself to say the dragon was ineffectually played? (Because only way you can define and understand ineffectually played monster is .. CR system, right?)

I don't believe that the CR system is even a better method of determing relative monster strength than the 1e XP/Monster Level system, so I'd never clame that the CR system is the only way you can define and understand ineffectually played monsters.....or even the best way to do so.

I define, for my own purposes, the ineffectual play of monsters as occurring when the monsters do not act as they should (subjective criteria there!), regardless of whether that makes them more or less effective in combat. If the ogre acts like a genius, because doing so gives him a tactical advantage, that just seems "wrong" to me. Likewise, when a smart-but-weak monster stands toe-to-toe, that seems wrong.

Not the best basis to write a game on, perhaps, but IMHO "effectual" monster use is monster use that "feel" right. But, then, I'm not overwhelmingly gamist, I suppose.

I get a feeling you're prone to nitpicking, which makes communication between us ineffectual, heh heh

Sometimes. I definitely get in moods.

To be nit-picky, the phrase "survival of the fittest" is no more recursive than any other definition of an adjective. "Survival" is something you do, while "fitness" is a quality that you demonstrate by surviving. It's no different than saying someone who "lifted" 500 lbs is "strong." Actions vs. descriptive qualities, proved by the action.

With respect, I disagree. "Survival of the fittest" is used to imply that the term "fittest" has some meaning apart from and causative to "survival". It implies a meaning beyond its definition, while offering nothing more than "A = A" in terms of meaning.

Likewise Numion's statement about using monsters ineffectually.

RC

 

[Irda Ranger]

With respect, I disagree. "Survival of the fittest" is used to imply that the term "fittest" has some meaning apart from and causative to "survival". It implies a meaning beyond its definition, while offering nothing more than "A = A" in terms of meaning.

1. Creatures that survive have fitness.
2. The fittest creatures survive.

1. High-CR monsters are Dangerous.
2. Dangerous monsters are assigned a high CR.

The above paired statements appear to be axiomatic; "A = A". But they're not.

The truth is that both of first statements are false.

Fitness is a quality that all creatures have, indepdent of the observer. They merely demonstrate this quality by surviving. Is it no more axiomatic than saying that "birds with certain pigments appear blue to human eyes." Some people are confused by the fact that there's no way to demonstrate fitness except by surviving; but this no more troublesome than the fact that the only way to demonstrate blueness is to bounce sunlight off your feathers and on to the retina of a human.

CR is just the opposite. CR was an attempt by D&D 3e's designers to boil down all variables to a single number, sort of the way that the stock market boils down all financial variables to the (single) market price. Monsters have HD, and attacks, etc. These are intrinsic qualities. Put them all together (including synergies between them and likely circumstances), and you get CR. It's an output formula. It's simply shorthand; an attempt to save the "newb" GM from having to look at the full stat block and synthesize all that information himself. There's no one other number which equals CR; there's no "A = A" here. A = HD * BAB * Movement type * (proprietary formula)

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

With respect, I disagree. "Survival of the fittest" is used to imply that the term "fittest" has some meaning apart from and causative to "survival". It implies a meaning beyond its definition, while offering nothing more than "A = A" in terms of meaning.

To be very nitpicky, I politely disagree.

Survival is a description of a result.

Fittest is an adjective that can (and usually does) refers to a combination of a multiplicity of independent potentially measurable or perceivable factors of an individual or individuals.

"Survival of the fittest" therefore more properly translates into "That which survived had a combination of traits that served particularly well under those circumstances (and this action iterates through time and varying circumstances)." One can see why a shorthand phrase is desirable.

This formulation openly begs scientifically interesting questions such as "I wonder how well those identifiable traits serve the individual under slightly different circumstances?", "I wonder what other as yet unidentified traits tend to matter under similar circumstances?", "I wonder what traits tend to serve the individual under very different circumstances?", etc.

To translate "Survival of the fittest" into "A=A" removes all context and hides all interesting questions.

Furthermore, you are logically incorrect on another level because you are taking "survival of the fittest" too literally.

It happens this summation is sometimes wrong. Sometimes particular individuals survive because no factor attributable to themselves, like blind luck as to which continent gets directly scorched by the asteroid.

Or would actually suggest that pure unpredicatable luck is an attribute of "fittest"?

 

[Raven Crowking]

1. Creatures that survive have fitness.
2. The fittest creatures survive.

1. High-CR monsters are Dangerous.
2. Dangerous monsters are assigned a high CR.

The above paired statements appear to be axiomatic; "A = A". But they're not.

I can break down the factors that make monsters dangerous regardless of whether or not they have a high CR. In fact, when I create new monsters, I must do this to assign them a CR.

Hence, I can say that while it is true that high-CR monsters are dangerous (if CR is applied correctly ), and that dangerous monsters are assigned a high CR (in general; goblins can sometimes be dangerous), I can also point to the factors that lead any particular monster to have a high CR independently of that CR rating itself. More importantly, I can make a prediction about what CR a monster that lacks one should have.

Conversely, while one might claim that "fitness is a quality that all creatures have, independent of the observer" and "they merely demonstrate this quality by surviving", any attempt to determine exactly what is meant by "fitness" breaks down almost immediately. Moreover, while I can use the measured wavelength of light to predict what colour you are likely to see, and the attributes of a designed monster to determine what CR it should have, I am unable to use "survival of the fittest" to make any sort of meaningful prediction.

Something will survive for some amount of time. That thing is fittest because it survived. I can seldom predict what would survive ahead of time, although I can determine why something died retroactively.

The problem with "survival of the fittest" is that there is no "fittest". "Fittest" is in fact a multitude of traits which may, or may not, contribute to overall success in both the short term and the long term, either individually or in totality. Sometimes "fittest" means "luckiest". Sometimes "most intelligent". Sometimes "strongest". Sometimes "most adaptable". Prior to actual testing, (i.e., who survives and why) there is no way to determine what "fittest" means in any particular context.

It is a mental placemarker for an idea that is itself so nebulously defined as to make it difficult to grasp when presented, and it is a placeholder without any real meaning of its own. This, in turn, can cause people problems when the idea it is placeholding is presented.

The idea can be presented as: "If some creatures live, and some creatures die, there must be some reason that the creatures that lived survived, and the creatures that died did not, although that reason is not always the same from case to case, nor can we draw any but the most general predictions from it. For example, we can draw the conclusion that a comet striking the Earth is probably not going to make anyone happy, nor is the advent of a nuclear war."

The problem with "ineffectual" monster use is the same. The CR system is presented under a set of assumptions, and those assumptions are actually pretty well codified in the core ruleset. Excepting, perhaps, exactly how the designers imagine that the creature in question is to be used (and if our WotC articles about changing Ogre Magi, Beholders, and Rust Monsters are indicative of things to come, this will change). If you follow those assumptions, then the CR system works very much as advertised.

However, those assumptions include the makeup of the ideal party, and as more materials for the game are devised, it becomes easier and easier for players to stray from the assumptive baseline (for higher or lower power levels).

It has always been true that one must take the characters into account when determining how dangerous an encounter is. CR is intended as a system to make this easier, but it can become a mental shorthand for a complex idea, and as shorthand alone it doesn't work. You might discover, for example, that you need to use higher-CR monsters than normal not because you are less effective than average at designing tactical challenges, but because your players are more effective than normal at responding to those challenges. Thinking of CR in terms of its recursive shorthand placeholder doesn't help the DM determine where the problem is coming from, or how to resolve it.

This is no different, IMHO, to kids not understanding evolution because they are taught a placeholder that is easy to dismiss instead of (rather than in addition to) the more complex and robust ideas that "survival of the fittest" stands in for.

YMMV.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

To be very nitpicky, I politely disagree.

Perhaps, but it seems to me that we are disagreeing more about language than about substance.

If you read "survival of the fittest" and it calls to mind a more meaningful phrase, then that's wonderful. However, my experience is that the phrase itself doesn't carry that meaning. I do, however, like the energy you propose that the phrase has. Perhaps I have just talked to too many people who view evolution as farsical based upon the popular mental placeholders.

RC

 

[Irda Ranger]

I do, however, like the energy you propose that the phrase has. Perhaps I have just talked to too many people who view evolution as farsical based upon the popular mental placeholders.

RC

I'm glad Ridley's Cohort was able to express what I meant.

"Survival of the fittest" is a very compact, meaningful phrase. Like "E=mc^2" or "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time", it is very meaningful if you have the tools to unpack it. It's loaded with meaning, and I actually see the processes it describes happening around me all the time, like the color green or the effects of gravity.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss theories on how D&D has changed over the years, not WrongBadFun.

Heh. Would you characterize Prestige Classes as an Intelligent Design, or a mutation?

I'd be interested in a thread that discussed:
1. The evolution of silver pieces from "hoped for reward" to "assumed mechanic." Wealth has changed in D&D from being a question of "the potential of unlimited riches" to "the guarantee of what the average gamer should expect; no more, no less."

2. The slow expansion of Skills from "none" to "necessary for your class, but your character's additional knowledge is roleplayed" to "all possible skills." We've touched on this already, but I would really like to focus on how certain Skills are not "skills" at all (like Jump), and subject to physical limitations, while others (like Knowledge) are very much Skills. Also, if most Skills are untrained, does it make sense to say that someone who has "maxed out" on a skill is only 20% better at it then someone who's never even "cracked open a book"?

3. In OD&D a Fighting-Man had 1d8 HP and swords did 1-6 damage. There were no bonuses. Now a two-handed sword can do 2d6+7 (~5% chance of double that), while HP have only advanced to 1d10+Con. The "arms race" has favored damage output over survivability, it seems.

4. In a day and age where Feats and Prestige Classes are playtested and forum-tested to within an inch of their lives, it seems like all choices are "equally valid." That sounds awfully politically correct, doesn't it? Has D&D evolved to reflect the (perhaps unconscious) political values of the recent generation of writers?

5. It's fairly easy to judge how dangerous goblins are. A "newb" GM (in any addition) doesn't need CR to tell him that. CR is really useful for "newb" DM's when judging the more dangerous critters. However, was CR necessary because of the advanced level progression? In an older edition where you leveled slowly, the GM would have time to grow into his role and be able to better judge what his party can and cannot handle. Now, with parties leveling every third session, there's no time to adjust. Has D&D evolved to create a generation of GM's that cannot (as) accurately judge threat and ability? Is this the wrong board to be asking this on, since EN World attracts the older crowd?

Perhaps some more thoughts later.

 

[Scribble]

I'd be interested in a thread that discussed:
1. The evolution of silver pieces from "hoped for reward" to "assumed mechanic." Wealth has changed in D&D from being a question of "the potential of unlimited riches" to "the guarantee of what the average gamer should expect; no more, no less."

Eh... I'm not sure it's really that... In a lot of the games I run, and a lot of the games I'm in, the wealth level doesn't follow the book. Sometimes there's more wealth sometimes less.

3.5 above all seems like it's doing its best to make things easier to judge for the DM. When I DM, every so often I look at where the wealth level "should be..." I then adjust things either to give out more treasure (if I've been stingy) or less (if I've been too generous...)

Not because the book says I have to, but because it does a pretty good job judging that stuff...

The older versions just said, don't be monte hall, but don't be stingy... No real tips or advice there...

2. The slow expansion of Skills from "none" to "necessary for your class, but your character's additional knowledge is roleplayed" to "all possible skills." We've touched on this already, but I would really like to focus on how certain Skills are not "skills" at all (like Jump), and subject to physical limitations, while others (like Knowledge) are very much Skills. Also, if most Skills are untrained, does it make sense to say that someone who has "maxed out" on a skill is only 20% better at it then someone who's never even "cracked open a book"?

Well... you know a goodly portion of my feelings on this I assume... However, skills are simply another way to challenge a player (aside from simply saying, make a dex check, or make a str check... (which i routinely did in previous editions because I didn't make my own house rules for skills...) So what does it matter? It's dungeons and dragons not dungeons and fish mongers... so what if realisticaly a fish monger should have a better skill at mongering fish... Does it really matter? How will it effect my game? The only time I see it becoming an issue is when someone tries to sneak a bonus because of his lengthy backstory about a long family line of fish mongers.

3. In OD&D a Fighting-Man had 1d8 HP and swords did 1-6 damage. There were no bonuses. Now a two-handed sword can do 2d6+7 (~5% chance of double that), while HP have only advanced to 1d10+Con. The "arms race" has favored damage output over survivability, it seems.

Didn't everything do 1d6 damage if I remember correctly? Also stats were routinely much lower right? because of the roll 3d6 in order? Shrug.

4. In a day and age where Feats and Prestige Classes are playtested and forum-tested to within an inch of their lives, it seems like all choices are "equally valid." That sounds awfully politically correct, doesn't it? Has D&D evolved to reflect the (perhaps unconscious) political values of the recent generation of writers?

I think it's more that they don't want people to start playing something then decide "this game sucks" because their character never gets to really do anything except watch another character shine... Then they'd loose a player, aka money.

5. It's fairly easy to judge how dangerous goblins are. A "newb" GM (in any addition) doesn't need CR to tell him that. CR is really useful for "newb" DM's when judging the more dangerous critters. However, was CR necessary because of the advanced level progression? In an older edition where you leveled slowly, the GM would have time to grow into his role and be able to better judge what his party can and cannot handle. Now, with parties leveling every third session, there's no time to adjust. Has D&D evolved to create a generation of GM's that cannot (as) accurately judge threat and ability? Is this the wrong board to be asking this on, since EN World attracts the older crowd?

I think CR is useful for many more things then simply telling what level it should be used at.

For one, it allows monster "categories" more easily... Just scroll through and find one that fits the CR you need...

It helps see the relative power level over all of an adventure...

It helps if people want to be that monster... etc...



Personally I think most of the changes were done to fit around how people play the game, or wanted to play the game.

Games should fit the players... Players shouldn't be forced to modify their tastes to suit... That's like saying I should only watch TV on a 12" screen because Motorola doesn't want to make soemthing bigger...