Unintended(?) Consequence of No More X-Mas Tree?

[Raven Crowking]

It depends. In the context of this game, I'd say that "balance" doesn't mean "2 minutes of combat and 6 days of rest", for example. Or that it doesn't mean "make a DC 31 fort Saving throw or die. Too bad you'd only succeed on a 20, even though it's your good saving throw.".

Not sure what the relevance of this is supposed to be.

In other words, both pc and monsters should have a decent % to overcome what the rules deem a commensurate challenge, and the PCs should be rewarded accordingly if they do.

Not sure I agree with this, either. There is nothing unbalanced or wrongbadfun about making gaining levels harder the higher level you are. As you get closer to the pinnacle of achievement, it is harder to surpass where you are. This is not unlike increasing velocity -- the faster you are going, the harder it is to go even faster.

Show me how AC compares to BAB at high level, without magic. Show me how saving throws compare to DCs.

Surely this information is in the PHB. If you have no PHB, it is in the SRD.

Show me how you can run a mid to high level campaign without healing magic being common and without spending 3 days in bed after every combat, and you might have a point.

After every combat?

That's pretty bloody simple, isn't it? If you know that you cannot get healed magically on a regular basis, then any level of attrition becomes more significant. As a result, seriously under-CRed opponents can still deal wounds which, while not significant in and of themselves, may become significant in the long term. As a result, one needs only populate a static world, where the CRs of things don't scale with the players (you'll find this option in your DMG) and allow the dice to fall where they may.

Eliminate easy access to magical healing, and no monster becomes irrelevant.

You may think that having realistic consequences to combat are unfun, or wrongbadfun, but please do not confuse this with unbalanced.

Why not? Crack open your DMG, page 135:

"The baseline campaign for the D&D game uses this "wealth by level" guideline as a basis for balance in adventures."

To me this reads a lot like "we call it a guideline, but you'd better follow it or balance is thrown out of whack".

Which makes it a guideline, and not a rule. And all it throws out of whack is the CR system, which many people (including the 4e designers) think is unbalanced in practice anyway, especially once one reaches higher levels.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Resting in bed might be fun, but it's not the focus of the game. If people play D&D they expect, you know, to explore dungeons and fight dragons.

Yes, because "You rest up for three days, and are now at full hit points" takes so long to say that there's really no point in playing any more that day.




RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

It seems simple to change one thing and assume that it won't cause problems. And some games will not even notice the problems since they don't focus on that part of the rules.

Ah, but this is not an assumption, and it is very easy to test. The DMG baseline guidelines (CR & WPL) go out the window very quickly, but since the numbers are now so much easier to manage, any DM who is halfway competent mathematically can easily get a feel for what sorts of encounters are still viable.

Better yet, so long as you follow this simple houserule, you can easily err on the side of weaker opponents while still having those battles be meaningful. Combat is a heck of a lot faster, too.

RC

 

[Njall]

Well, then, I would say that no change to the rules could be "balanced" from that perspective. Indeed, I would argue that the rules themselves are not "balanced".

RC

I'd say that they're not perfectly balanced anyway, but in some cases they come close.
If I know that a monster has an AB of +15 and deals an average of 16 damage/hit, and I know what's the AC and Hp of my front line fighter, I' ll have a rough idea of how hard the combat will be.
Thus, a CR 9 monster will be (roughly ) balanced in terms of combat prowess with the AC, HP and average damage output of a 9th level group, so that it can provide a meaningful challenge.
Of course, this balancing process is far from perfect, but it still works to an extent.

Now, the monsters in the MM series are balanced with the assumption that the PCs have the "right" amount of magic items on them.
As the monster rise in power, they improve both in AB, AC, HP, damage output and DCs for special abilities.
PCs, however, only improve their AB, HP in a comparable way. Their damage output is tied to BAB rather than level, and the higher the level, the lower the average damage gained from the "last" iterative attack; without magic, the DCs of their special abilities and spells depend only on caster level and their primary stat, while the monster's DCs are generally tied to their racial HD ( and thus scale much better ).
What happens when you strip a character of his magic items is that to find a monster whose AC is a challenge to hit for his scaling AB, you have to use one that won't have any trouble hitting the PC's AC, and thus dealing more damage than intended.
Either this, or you'll have to resort to monsters that, while having some trouble hitting the PCs, will not have enough AC and HP to pose a credible threat.

 

[Njall]

And Faramir.

Faramir was more like an NPC

 

[Raven Crowking]

If I know that a monster has an AB of +15 and deals an average of 16 damage/hit, and I know what's the AC and Hp of my front line fighter, I' ll have a rough idea of how hard the combat will be.

And this remains true whether or not you look at the CR of that monster.

You can easily look at the AB, AC, damage, powers, hit points, etc, of any monster and compare them to your PCs. In fact, if you follow my houserule, this becomes easier, not harder, because there is less to keep track of.

You seem to think that it is necessary to balance things on a razor's edge for them to be balanced. This is, simply put, a fallacy of 3e.

If monsters can damage PCs, and PCs have no easy recourse to magical healing, then they are a credible threat in the long term...due to attrition if nothing else...even if they have "some trouble hitting the PCs". In fact, you have a fairly good representation of 1e gamestyle while otherwise using the 3e rules.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Faramir was more like an NPC

After meeting Old Man Willow, the hobbits rest at Tom Bombadil's. Since hit points mean more than wounds, it is quite possible that they were recovering there despite not being "blooded". After Moria, the entire Company rests in Lothlorian. They mention being weary, and both Sam and Frodo are injured. Aragorn & company cannot immediately ride to Mordor after the Battle of Pelanor Fields, and when they do ride, they cannot bring every knight with them due to injuries. Faramir, Eowyn, and Merry all end up in the Houses of Healing.

RC

 

[Njall]

Not sure what the relevance of this is supposed to be.

Not sure I agree with this, either. There is nothing unbalanced or wrongbadfun about making gaining levels harder the higher level you are. As you get closer to the pinnacle of achievement, it is harder to surpass where you are. This is not unlike increasing velocity -- the faster you are going, the harder it is to go even faster.

[/quote]

0xp =/= growing slowly.
0xp = not growing at all.

Surely this information is in the PHB. If you have no PHB, it is in the SRD.

I'm sure you understand that I meant " could you provide some proof that said numbers assume that the implied checks (namely, AB vs AC and ST vs DCs ) work even without magic"?

After every combat?

Yes. After every combat.
For the average fighter, AC caps at around 23, with a tower shield.
This means that hitting him is a trivial task for just about anything in the MM, after CR 5.

That's pretty bloody simple, isn't it? If you know that you cannot get healed magically on a regular basis, then any level of attrition becomes more significant. As a result, seriously under-CRed opponents can still deal wounds which, while not significant in and of themselves, may become significant in the long term. As a result, one needs only populate a static world, where the CRs of things don't scale with the players (you'll find this option in your DMG) and allow the dice to fall where they may.

You cannot just scale CR back. Monsters scale much better than PCs in regards to AC and AB. I addressed this in my last post

Eliminate easy access to magical healing, and no monster becomes irrelevant.

Yes, some do. Some monsters can be virtually "one shotted" everytime you meet one. They don't pose any credible threat.

You may think that having realistic consequences to combat are unfun, or wrongbadfun, but please do not confuse this with unbalanced.

HP in D&D are not assumed to be a measure of physical health.
You might have lost 30 HP, but this doesn't mean you're hurt, maybe you've simply turned a potentially lethal blow in a near miss, or avoided the blow (BTW, this has been in the game for the past...3 editions, IIRC. Don't have my OD&D books here to check right now).
I don't know you, but whenever I parry a blow with a sword or a staff I don't need to rest in bed for a day to regain my "lost HP".
This is not a "realistic consequence", it's just silly.

Which makes it a guideline, and not a rule. And all it throws out of whack is the CR system, which many people (including the 4e designers) think is unbalanced in practice anyway, especially once one reaches higher levels.


RC

If you're going to stick to semanthics, I'll do the same: it's in a rulebook, nowhere in the book it says it's more optional than anything else in the book, then it's a rule.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The game is called "Dungeons and Dragons", not "Bandages and Pillows", you know? Else, we'd have "Chapter 7: Bedrest" after "Chapter 6: Combat" in the PHB

Thank goodness I have Pajamas +3 vs. Bedsores. And then there was the EL4 encounter with the half-orc nurse who came in to give me a sponge bath. That was a truly frightening challenge.

 

[Njall]

And this remains true whether or not you look at the CR of that monster.

You can easily look at the AB, AC, damage, powers, hit points, etc, of any monster and compare them to your PCs. In fact, if you follow my houserule, this becomes easier, not harder, because there is less to keep track of.

You seem to think that it is necessary to balance things on a razor's edge for them to be balanced. This is, simply put, a fallacy of 3e.

If monsters can damage PCs, and PCs have no easy recourse to magical healing, then they are a credible threat in the long term...due to attrition if nothing else...even if they have "some trouble hitting the PCs". In fact, you have a fairly good representation of 1e gamestyle while otherwise using the 3e rules.

RC

Yeah, I said it was not a precise science.
Now, would you please address the rest of my post?
And no, as I said, there are monsters that just are not a credible threat due to their poor defenses. They just don't live enough to scratch the PCs.
There's a point where you can't just scale back CRs, because if the monster is difficult enough to hit he'll be too good at hitting the PCs, while if it's not autohitting the PCs, it will be too easy to take down.