To all the other "simulationists" out there...

[Ashrem Bayle]

What DM would ruin a perfect opportunity for some drama and some PC badassery by making a simple guard a high-level fighter?

Mine.

Still, we were using the rules correctly. The sneak attack didn't do a lot of damage, and he missed with his second sneak attack attempt. The AoO, if I remember correctly, just did very little damage.

 

[WheresMyD20]

I've also taken a hard look at Rolemaster and Burning Wheel but judged them as being too difficult for me to actually run. With Rolemaster, I hate looking stuff up on charts and the percentile math.

My friends and I played tons of Rolemaster back in the day. We only used charts for combat and resistance rolls. Skills checks were made by the GM setting a difficulty number, usually 101, that your skill + d% check needed to beat. The combat charts are all in one book (two if you count elemental spells) and they're easy to use with a little practice. We got around the percentile math by calling out our skill bonus, d% roll, and modifiers and having one player on calculator duty. The Rolemaster system can seem daunting at first, but it's actually pretty easy once you get used to it.

 

[Cadfan]

Wolfspider-

Level 6 Rogue, with a +1 weapon, probably does around 4d6+3 damage on a sneak attack with a shortsword. Average damage is 17.

A warrior has a d8 hit die, and if he's constructed with a standard ability score block, probably a +1 hit die.

If you set him at level, lets say 4, his hit points will be 22. So that's too high. You want the rogue to probably kill in one hit. So lets set him to 3. Now his hit points are 16.5. Hmmm... probably still too high, because between the attack roll and the damage roll the rogue will have less than a 50% chance of killing the guard. Drop him to level 2. Now he's got 11 hit points. This seems reasonable. The rogue will almost definitely get his kill.

But wait! At this level, a wizard does 3d4+3 with magic missile, for an average of 10.5. The fighter will do 2d6+7 or so with a greatsword, averaging 13. Only the cleric is really left out of the game.

So hit points at this level mostly determine whether it will take 1 or 2 hits from these pcs to kill the guard. The idea that the guard will require 3 hits to die is almost unheard of.

So... you've created a mook. Why not just use mook rules and save yourself some time, particularly as mook rules let you give the guard a better attack bonus so that, if the rogue doesn't succeed at his sneak attack, he can have an honest (if brief) fight?

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

The Rolemaster system can seem daunting at first, but it's actually pretty easy once you get used to it.

I've never played Rolemaster, but I can say that statement holds true for GURPS.
GURPS looks horribly complex when I first started getting into it, but with some good prep, it isn't really bad at all.

It's really just a matter of putting together the options you're going to use and learning how them work together.

 

[Crosswind]

To be perfectly polite, any system where you have to have a player on calculator duty is not "pretty easy".

-Cross

 

[Wolfspider]

Wolfspider-

Level 6 Rogue, with a +1 weapon, probably does around 4d6+3 damage on a sneak attack with a shortsword. Average damage is 17.

A warrior has a d8 hit die, and if he's constructed with a standard ability score block, probably a +1 hit die.

If you set him at level, lets say 4, his hit points will be 22. So that's too high. You want the rogue to probably kill in one hit. So lets set him to 3. Now his hit points are 16.5. Hmmm... probably still too high, because between the attack roll and the damage roll the rogue will have less than a 50% chance of killing the guard. Drop him to level 2. Now he's got 11 hit points. This seems reasonable. The rogue will almost definitely get his kill.

But wait! At this level, a wizard does 3d4+3 with magic missile, for an average of 10.5. The fighter will do 2d6+7 or so with a greatsword, averaging 13. Only the cleric is really left out of the game.

So hit points at this level mostly determine whether it will take 1 or 2 hits from these pcs to kill the guard. The idea that the guard will require 3 hits to die is almost unheard of.

So... you've created a mook. Why not just use mook rules and save yourself some time, particularly as mook rules let you give the guard a better attack bonus so that, if the rogue doesn't succeed at his sneak attack, he can have an honest (if brief) fight?

1st level warrior with 5 hp = mook. It didn't take me complicated calculations to come up with that equation.

The challenge of the encounter comes not from guard's hit points but from his ability to ring the bell and alert the tower and bring more powerful enemies to the scene.

 

[Saishu_Heiki]

Character had to be evil to be an assassin. He wasn't. Again, the DM was avoiding house rules.

Actually, WotC released a web enhancement that gave a non-evil version of the Assassin:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a

So it is legal as official WotC product and does not require houseruling.

 

[The_Gneech]

Insert plug for my sword-and-sorcery SWSE conversion here. Nonheroics FTW!

In the case of RHoD, there was a lot of experimenting with class-level monsters going on in there. Without knowing which tower specifically the hobgob was on, I would guess that he was a War 3, which is pretty buff for a mook -- but the mooks in that module were War 3 and up because it was a 5-10 (or 6-11 depending on if you read the cover or the text) module.

Still, a coup de grace is automatically a critical hit (plus sneak attack), and then the opponent still has to make a hefty Fort save or die anyway. If this hearty hobgob really survived all that from a 5th+ rogue, it is impressive.

-The Gneech

 

[Wolfspider]

To be perfectly polite, any system where you have to have a player on calculator duty is not "pretty easy".

-Cross

I played MERP--which uses the Rolemaster rules--for years and years and never had to break out the calculator. I'm a English major-type, so you know my math skills are poor.

 

[Voss]

The Minion rules can change that - if you use them for your sentry guards, that is. (Which might sometimes be forgotten). The difference between a 3E "mook" (e.g. a low level NPC) and a 4E Minion is that a group of Minions can still be an actual threat to the PCs.

The individual Minion has no chance to survive a surprise attack. But if he alerts the other Minions, they together can still contribute considerably to the ensuing combat.

After watching a group of 1st level PCs *erase* a half-dozen 6th level minions backed up by a 4th level 'artillery' spellcaster (the human mage), I'm not terribly convinced by this premise.

It doesn't seem significantly different from using a monster several levels lower. In fact, considering what a lot of the 4e low level monsters are capable of, they would be more dangerous.