D&D 5E (2014) What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?

[pemerton]

double post deleted

 

[pemerton]

As [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is so quick to bring up when book characters are used against him, characters written for a book are very different from ones in an RPG.

I don't think you'll find me saying that.

The process of authoring a RPG is (obviously) different from the process of authoring a book: most obviously because the audience is also the author, and there is both the real-time dimension to that and the consequent lack of editing.

I think Galahad is an excellent example. On a slightly related note, on of my favourite things about 4e is that a paladin can be played either as Lancelot (STR) or Galahad (CHA).

While it's true that you get XP for defeating foes, it's absurd in the extreme to think that you would reach 10th or so level without killing anything.

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Are you really suggesting that the king's champion came out of the womb at 10th level? If not, then he had to earn those levels somehow, and that how is via exp. That's the mechanic by which the fighter class gains levels, PC or not.

Also, in the DMG when you create an NPC using classes and levels, you can create them as you would a PC. That means that the NPC has experience points that he had to earn somewhere. You also have adventuring NPCs that are run like PCs.

Level means something and the measure used to get those levels is XP.

All this stuff about XP is nonsense and not borne out by the text or practice of any edition of D&D. Levels are a device for measuring a certain dimension of character puissance. NPCs can have levels (at least in most versions of D&D). But there is no suggestion that (say) the 6th level fighter who comes to serve an AD&D fighter who builds a castle earned those 6 levels by defeating monsters and acquiring treasure. Gygax himself notes that this is a conceit of gameplay - it's not a weird causal law that governs offscreen NPCs!

And as far as raising to 10th level without killing - and putting to one side the completely arbitrary stipulation that a king's champion must be 10th level - why not? The player of that character is never obliged to narrate the final blow as fatal. I GMed a paladin in a RM game who didn't kill anyone until about 5th level, but death in RM is to a significant extent a function of chance (crit tables - the first death was a 00 decapitation result). In a system like 5e which allows the player to choose the outcome this paladin might have reached 10th level without killing anyone. A fighter could be played the same way.

 

[Arilyn]

Levels are a really weird. They can be fun, but totally gamey and abstract.

It's totally believable that in a kingdom at peace, the king's champion might have a lot of training without having engaged in deadly conflict. The untested warrior...

 

[Lanefan]

Levels are a really weird. They can be fun, but totally gamey and abstract.

It's totally believable that in a kingdom at peace, the king's champion might have a lot of training without having engaged in deadly conflict. The untested warrior...

Very true.

I've had it in mind, but never fully codified it, that non-adventuring NPCs can slowly gain levels in a class just through spending years at doing what they do; be it lab mage, street thief, stay-at-home temple cleric, militia or guard, or whatever.

 

[Arilyn]

Very true.

I've had it in mind, but never fully codified it, that non-adventuring NPCs can slowly gain levels in a class just through spending years at doing what they do; be it lab mage, street thief, stay-at-home temple cleric, militia or guard, or whatever.

Yes, cause why do wizards gain more arcane knowledge through killing stuff, and not, you know, actual study?

 

[pemerton]

Levels are a really weird. They can be fun, but totally gamey and abstract.

It's totally believable that in a kingdom at peace, the king's champion might have a lot of training without having engaged in deadly conflict. The untested warrior...

Levels in themselves are weird (and "gamey") because of the way they group together, and homogenise, various elements of human capability.

Ability scores are similar in this respect (eg there are at least some human beings who have good reaction times but don't actually move very fast, and/or have poor balance; but in D&D these traits all tend to track one another via DEX). But it's especially notable in respect of levels - all those wise mages also tend to be at least reasonable knife-fighters!

(The gaining of hp and saving throws with level is a more complex matter because those things are also "meta" aspects of the mechanics - Gygax in his DMG (pp 111-12) describes increased hp and saving throws of manifestations of divine intervention.)

But as well as levels, there is also the issue of XP - and D&D XP are much more obviously a gameplay device. From Gygax's DMG (p 85):

Players who balk at equating gold pieces to experience points should be gently but firmly reminded that in a game certain compromises must be made. While it is more "realistic" for clerics to study holy writings, pray, chant, practice self-discipline, etc. to gain experience, it would not make a playable game roll along. Similarly, fighters should be exercising,
riding, smiting pelts, tilting at the lists, and engaging in weapons practice of various sorts to gain real expertise (experience); magic-users should be deciphering old scrolls, searching ancient tomes, experimenting alchemically, and so forth; while thieves should spend their off-hours honing their skills, "casing" various buildings, watching potential victims,
and carefully planning their next "job". All very realistic but conducive to non-game boredom!​

Gygax's PHB also tackles this (p 106):

Gaining experience points through the acquisition of gold pieces and by slaying monsters might be questioned by some individuals as nonrepresentative of how an actual character would become more able in his or her class. Admittedly, this is so, if the existence of spell costing clerics, druids, magic-users, and illusionists is (unrealistically) granted; likewise,
dwarven superheroes, paladins, elven thieves, half-orc assassins, and the like might gain real experience from altogether different sorts of activities. This is a game, however, a fantasy game, and suspension of disbelief is required. If one can accept the existence of 12' tall giants, why not the rewarding of experience points for treasure gained? While praying and
religious-oriented acts are more properly the activities for which a cleric would gain experience points, this is not the stuff of exciting swords & sorcery adventure. So too, fighters need physical training and weapons practice, magic-users long hours of study in tomes of arcane lore, and thieves the repetition of their manual skills and discernitory prowess; but none of this is suitable to gaming. It is, therefore, discarded and subsumed as taking place on a character's "off hours".​

Ultimately, in AD&D XPs are victory points. And there's no reason to extrapolate this player-side victory condition to NPCs. Gygax's DMG even allows for levelled NPCs incapable of gaining levels (eg mercenary officers - see pp 30-31). In these cases level is a measure of ability, but it is disconnected from the gameplay activity of earning XP by succeeding at the game.

I don't profess to understand what exactly XP are in 2nd ed AD&D, 3E or 5e - clearly not a measure or marker of any ingame causal process, but not exactly victory points either given the way those games are to be played (at least as their rulebooks present them). In 4e XP aren't victory points either - they're clearly a pacing device, accrued not by winning but simply by playing and engaging the situations with which the GM confronts the PCs (and, thereby, the players). Needless to say, in 4e a King's Champion NPC could be of whatever level seemed fitting (by default low-to-mid paragon would seem right) and could have whatever background seemed applicable. XP would have nothing to do with it.

It is possible to have "simulationist" XP - Rolemaster has a version of this - but of course in this case they are earned in quite different ways from AD&D (eg not for treasure gained; and for a whole range of successful endeavours, not just fighting). But the most obvious route for a "simulationist" game to take is to drop level and XP altogether in favour of discrete measures of discrete capabilities - which is what RuneQueset, Traveller and Burning Wheel all do. In any such system, a king's champion NPC would need to be presented in a fashion that accords with the game rule's conceits about how people learn; but there would be no assumption that s/he "levelled up" by raiding dungeons, killing orcs and taking their treasure!

 

[Maxperson]

All this stuff about XP is nonsense and not borne out by the text or practice of any edition of D&D. Levels are a device for measuring a certain dimension of character puissance. NPCs can have levels (at least in most versions of D&D). But there is no suggestion that (say) the 6th level fighter who comes to serve an AD&D fighter who builds a castle earned those 6 levels by defeating monsters and acquiring treasure. Gygax himself notes that this is a conceit of gameplay - it's not a weird causal law that governs offscreen NPCs!

So in 1e henchmen gained experience points for killing things, but other NPCs didn't?

And as far as raising to 10th level without killing - and putting to one side the completely arbitrary stipulation that a king's champion must be 10th level - why not?

Dunno. I never said that they had to be 10th level exactly. I said 10th level or so. A king's champion is probably not going to be a single digit level putz, though I suppose 8th or 9th is possible. Kings have powerful enemies, so they need powerful champions.

The player of that character is never obliged to narrate the final blow as fatal. I GMed a paladin in a RM game who didn't kill anyone until about 5th level, but death in RM is to a significant extent a function of chance (crit tables - the first death was a 00 decapitation result). In a system like 5e which allows the player to choose the outcome this paladin might have reached 10th level without killing anyone. A fighter could be played the same way.

Up until 5th edition(or maybe 4th. Don't know that one well) PCs didn't have the ability to time travel and make a lethal hit non-lethal AFTER damage was dealt and they realized that they just dropped the enemy to 0. That's the one rule that is already gone from my game. In the current game I am a player in, we decided unanimously that the rule was a stupid one and that it should be changed.

 

[pemerton]

Up until 5th edition(or maybe 4th. Don't know that one well) PCs didn't have the ability to time travel and make a lethal hit non-lethal AFTER damage was dealt and they realized that they just dropped the enemy to 0.

You seem to have confused a player declaration of effect with an ingame event. (And this rule is from 4e - one of many aspects of 4e that carry over into 5e.)

That's the one rule that is already gone from my game.

OK. But that hardly seems relevant to interpreting the game rules. I ask again - do you regard it as RAW that a king's champion must mete out death, or must have meted it out, such that a PC fighter whose player uses the drop-to-zero rules such that the PC doesn't kill anyone is implementing a house rule, or breaking this fighter rule, or whatever?

To me that seems to be the implication of the particular way you are interpreting class flavour text and background ideas. Which I personally regard as an obvious reductio on your interpretation.

So in 1e henchmen gained experience points for killing things, but other NPCs didn't?

I already posted some examples upthread - mercenary soldiers (pp 30-31 of the DMG).

 

[Hussar]

So in 1e henchmen gained experience points for killing things, but other NPCs didn't?

Yup. Heck, it worked in 3e too. Followers from the Leadership feat didn't gain XP but the cohort did. I'm pretty sure there were other examples too. \edit to add the appropriate quote of the 3 rules:

Number of Followers by Level

The character can lead up to the indicated number of characters of each level. Followers are similar to cohorts, except they’re generally low-level NPCs. Because they’re generally five or more levels behind the character they follow, they’re rarely effective in combat.

Followers don’t earn experience and thus don’t gain levels. However, when a character with Leadership attains a new level, the player consults the table above to determine if she has acquired more followers, some of which may be higher level than the existing followers. (You don’t consult the table to see if your cohort gains levels, however, because cohorts earn experience on their own.

Dunno. I never said that they had to be 10th level exactly. I said 10th level or so. A king's champion is probably not going to be a single digit level putz, though I suppose 8th or 9th is possible. Kings have powerful enemies, so they need powerful champions.

That's going to be very, very campaign specific. In my Thule game, for example, 10th level is about the highest anyone gets. Lots of people have classes, but vanishingly few would ever reach double digits. And, since we're referencing other editions, I'd point out that there were entire races that would never hit double digit levels in most classes in 1e.

Up until 5th edition(or maybe 4th. Don't know that one well) PCs didn't have the ability to time travel and make a lethal hit non-lethal AFTER damage was dealt and they realized that they just dropped the enemy to 0. That's the one rule that is already gone from my game. In the current game I am a player in, we decided unanimously that the rule was a stupid one and that it should be changed.

Sorry but after all the hullabaloo that you've gone through about RAW and following the rules and nit picking every single example, you most certainly don't get to cherry pick rules now. Stick to the game not your house rules.

 

[pemerton]

What happens when a non-hencman NPC in 1st ed AD&D gains an XP bonus (eg from looking through a Deck of Many Things) or suffers an XP penalty (eg from reading the wrong magical book)? The rules don't provide a straightforward answer - the GM has to extrapolate and make a ruling.

What happens if a mercenary captain loses a level to a wight? Can s/he - who is normally "capable of working upwards" in level (DMG p 31) able to regain the lost level? And if so, by what means? Again, the GM has to make a ruling.

Which is not a weakness of AD&D - I personally would suggest that this flexibility with how levels and HD serve multiple purposes in the game counts as one of its strengths! It's one of those strengths of classic D&D that 4e then recovered and repurposed in its own way! (Compared to the emerging tendency in 2nd ed AD&D, which became much more marked in 3E, to try and treat these things as models of in-fiction causal processes.)