To all the other "simulationists" out there...
- Thread starter Ashrem Bayle
- Start date
Thanael
Explorer
Ashrem Bayle said:
Depends on the guard. I sincerely doubt that just about anyone can sneak up to a Navy Seal and take him out in one shot unless. If you approach his kind of skill then sure it's possible but i daresay not at all reassured.
You keep saying it is possible in the real world. Sure, but by anyone? Hell no.
Rog10 problem solved.
LostSoul
Adventurer
pawsplay said:
It's assumed in the module that the guard is important. He's a challenge to be overcome, so he's a reasonably tough opponent. It was purposely designed that he have too many hit points to be killed in one-shot by a 5th-level Rogue's sneak attack.
When you approach a module intended to deliver gamist play with a simulationist agenda, you can get problems.
JDJblatherings
First Post
mhensley said:
I've been hit in the head with a baseball bat durng a fight. Hurt lke hell, got my attention, didn't knock me down and certainly didn't take me out of the fight. Technically I wasn't surprised so maybe if i'd just been standing there and gotten hit in the head i'd have flopped over. Of course these days over 25 years later, I'm noticing some hearing loss in the ear on that side of my head, could be related.
It's amazing what punishment people can suffer and not be taken out of the fight right away.
Sure, but you're hardly guaranteed to survive any one baseball bat hit, but simultaneously guaranteed to go down to any two hits. The problem with D&D's hit points is not that high-level fighters can survive multiple hits, but that they cannot drop to any single hit. (Naturally we layer rules on top of the basic system to try to get around this, but they don't quite work the way people'd like.)JDJblatherings said:
roguerouge
First Post
So... to model this one-shot dynamic in DND, the rogue needs a mismatch in level and surprise. The less of a mismatch in ability between him and his target, the less likely the rogue is to be able to pull this off, eventually needing a successful critical on top of sneak attack damage.
I really don't see what the issue is here.
If you're asking why can't a rogue be able to do this one-shot trick to an equal level fighter, I guess I'd ask you to take the viewpoint of the fighter. The player of the fighter's going to say to the DM who sets up these rules, "OY! My ability is my toughness in a fight, my ability to take a licking and dish out punishment. But this rogue sneaks up on me and that toughness vanishes? Completely? Forget this! Every caster has instant death capability and now the rogue does too? Why didn't you tell me playing a fighter was going to be like playing a bard?" Put me down for this kind of rule set up as making the game unfun for some players.
A lot of players facing these "one-shot death from the shadows" rules will figure out that the game's real simple: it's an arm's race between the rogue's ability to move silently and hide vs. everyone else's ability to spot and listen. And guess which side has the advantage: the rogue's. And once that becomes clear, then the player's going to wonder why rogues don't rule the world between their nigh-invulnerability and their skills. The DM's going to have to talk very fast to retain narrative plausibility.
This concept is not fun from a gaming perspective or from a narrative perspective and the benefit is fixing a very limited problem that I've yet to be convinced is a problem anyway.
I really don't see what the issue is here.
If you're asking why can't a rogue be able to do this one-shot trick to an equal level fighter, I guess I'd ask you to take the viewpoint of the fighter. The player of the fighter's going to say to the DM who sets up these rules, "OY! My ability is my toughness in a fight, my ability to take a licking and dish out punishment. But this rogue sneaks up on me and that toughness vanishes? Completely? Forget this! Every caster has instant death capability and now the rogue does too? Why didn't you tell me playing a fighter was going to be like playing a bard?" Put me down for this kind of rule set up as making the game unfun for some players.
A lot of players facing these "one-shot death from the shadows" rules will figure out that the game's real simple: it's an arm's race between the rogue's ability to move silently and hide vs. everyone else's ability to spot and listen. And guess which side has the advantage: the rogue's. And once that becomes clear, then the player's going to wonder why rogues don't rule the world between their nigh-invulnerability and their skills. The DM's going to have to talk very fast to retain narrative plausibility.
This concept is not fun from a gaming perspective or from a narrative perspective and the benefit is fixing a very limited problem that I've yet to be convinced is a problem anyway.
mhensley said:
If hit points are partly a measure of your "herosity" (not a realistic concept; but then the original design was not meant to be totally realistic) then that isn't necessarily true. Either you would never fully get the drop on Chuck or you'd do your worst and then your last thought would be "How did he survive that!?" as he roundhouse kicks you into the afterlife.
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