D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[CreamCloud0]

No it isn’t. I’m distinguishing between “mundane” and “supernatural”- a crucial element of this discussion.

Going back to Beowulf to illustrate: As mentioned, he held his breath underwater for hours. Swimming in armor. Etc.

Professional breath hold diver Budimir Šobat's world record of 24 minutes and 37 seconds holding his breath underwater. He wasn’t swimming around vigorously in armor while doing so.

What Beowulf did was so far beyond human capabilities that it must be supernatural.

Back to one-shorting, beheadings, etc.

There’s clearly a hyped-up level of combat mayhem a mundane but heroic fighter should be able to deliver. But after a certain, as-yet-undefined point, certain combat feats are so far beyond the mundane that they are by definition supernatural.

Conan swinging a 3’ sword in an arc and beheading all within arm’s reach is hyped up, but cinematically mundane. If, OTOH, he swings his 3’ sword and decapitates everyone within 15’ of him, we’re no longer in the realm of mundane warriors.

okay, but beowulf swimming in armour holding his breath for hours, while fundamentally way beyond the capability of any real-world person, is mundane in nature if not in scale, if you're a hero in a fantasy world that could very much be something that could be done in that world without being supernatural.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In genre, even a major foe may fall to a single mortal wound, and, really, the whittling you see in D&D is uncommon, and usually happens to the hero, as a way of illustrating long battles, great bravery & fortitude, etc.

In D&D, the whittling away of abstract HP reflects the ebb & flow of combat- the feints, blocks, near misses and glancing blows- not merely major or mortal strikes landing and ending the combat.

One-shotting, in that context, is an attack so skilled and/or powerful that there is no ebb & flow because you’ve bypassed anything and everything your opponent could muster in their defense.

So within that abstract HP system, there should be increased difficulty in one-shotting powerful foes without supernatural assistance of some kind.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

*Edit: in seriousness, I think one of the difficulties in defining the Mundane vs Supernatural is the sliding scale. If one consideres cutting through a ship is just barely supernatural and fitting of a high level "mundane" fighter, cutting the heads of everyone within 15 feet probably sounds really mundane.

Agreed- that sliding scale is the problem. You can probably tell by my first post in this thread that I’d peg “mundane” far more conservatively than ship splitting or even a 15’ radius decapitation effect.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

okay, but beowulf swimming in armour holding his breath for hours, while fundamentally way beyond the capability of any real-world person, is mundane in nature if not in scale, if you're a hero in a fantasy world that could very much be something that could be done in that world without being supernatural.

Thor drinking from Uthgart-Loki’s trick cup so deeply that it caused the seas to dip is mundane in nature but not scale too.

Simply put, if you’re willing to stretch the definition of “mundane” to those lengths, we’re not working with the same vocabulary.

 

[Pedantic]

Yes, but can he cut through a ship with a sword in one hit?

*Edit: in seriousness, I think one of the difficulties in defining the Mundane vs Supernatural is the sliding scale. If one consideres cutting through a ship is just barely supernatural and fitting of a high level "mundane" fighter, cutting the heads of everyone within 15 feet probably sounds really mundane.

That precise squishiness is why I've tried to write the question off for years, and just get everyone using some agreed on power-source. You have to first solve the aesthetic problem, which you're never going to get perfect consensus on but you can probably get close enough to do design work; where is the line between amplifying a mundane trait and creating a new ability? People (including me!) generally will forgive the former, but object to the latter. Mundane abilities generally cannot be "techniques," self-contained bundles of rules that are invoked by themselves. Instead, you need to take a universal rules construct, (making attacks, climbing stuff, lifting heavy things, etc.) and amplify that.

The next problem once you've done that is the issue of generalizability. The problem you run into then is making sure the scaling is consistent; because you're not describing a discrete, self-contained action, but instead using the action to showcase a general property of a character, you need to ensure whatever ultimately ability you get is generalizable to similar situations. Lifting a large rock to do a big thrown weapon attack necessitates lifting heavy doors, necessitates stronger basic attacks, necessitates bending steel and so on.

The source material tends to fail you here. Myth and legend usually showcase specific feats of strength or ability, but don't then build on them to establish consistent truths about the character.

Thinking about it, the task would be significantly easier if the basic resolution system for mundane tasks integrated a currency from the get go. If you were spending focus or effort or exhaustion or something as part of normal skill checks, it would be much easier to expand on and appropriate the resource for use with limited high level techniques.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Thor drinking from Uthgart-Loki’s trick cup so deeply that it caused the seas to dip is mundane in nature but not scale too.

Simply put, if you’re willing to stretch the definition of “mundane” to those lengths, we’re not working with the same vocabulary.

I'm not only willing, I'm insistent.

Thing is, 'mundane' is relative to the actual supernatural. If in the setting drinking the ocean is explicitly not the result of something supernatural, then it's still mundane. Sokka in Avatar is the mundane one even though his boomerang actually returns and his sword cut through metal.

Also, I'm fairly certain Thor is like some sort of god.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's no basic mechanic that does so in any other edition that I'm aware of. You fall 100', you take hp damage. You get hit in the knee with a giant's warhammer, take hp damage.

Heck, Raise Dead takes less than 24hrs to cast.

D&D has always been a weird game. ;P We've just had more time to get used to the weirdness a given edition the longer it's been since it came out.

I've been trying to implement a wounds/injury system for a while now. Tough to sell though, because players used to 5e don't want anything that makes it harder on them. The struggle is real.

 

[Pedantic]

I'm not only willing, I'm insistent.

Thing is, 'mundane' is relative to the actual supernatural. If in the setting drinking the ocean is explicitly not the result of something supernatural, then it's still mundane. Sokka in Avatar is the mundane one even though his boomerang actually returns and his sword cut through metal.

Also, I'm fairly certain Thor is like some sort of god.

I don't think we can say the deciding factor for "mundanity" is the tag applied to the ability. For better or worse, the aesthetic has teeth, and if we insist on using it, we can't bring the audience along without respecting them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not only willing, I'm insistent.

Thing is, 'mundane' is relative to the actual supernatural. If in the setting drinking the ocean is explicitly not the result of something supernatural, then it's still mundane. Sokka in Avatar is the mundane one even though his boomerang actually returns and his sword cut through metal.

Also, I'm fairly certain Thor is like some sort of god.

Yes, Thor is an Asardian deity. And if drinking the oceans down a bit is still qualifying as “mundane”, we have no common ground to discuss mundane warriors.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've been trying to implement a wounds/injury system for a while now. Tough to sell though, because players used to 5e don't want anything that makes it harder on them. The struggle is real.

There's prettymuch two ways I've seen such systems go.
Either they're a death spiral that may be spread out over a period of time when you'd normally be at full strength - you get penalties or ability damage that don't go away just by healing hp, those penalties reduce your effectiveness, you take more wounds, etc.
Or, they're an increase in the granularity of healing magic as Cure Light Wounds works on some, Cure Serious on more serious ones, or other spells cure/heal/negate other wounds
Well, OK, or both - death spiral penalties in the near term, increased healing magic granularity as you prep & cast (or pay for) the right spells to get rid of them.

4e had a Disease Track that I tried adapting to curses and lingering wounds - it ran into the same issue (as did diseases). It could in theory drag out over days of recovery with Endurance and Heal checks, with attendant penalties, or a Ritual (Remove Affliction) could negate it, if that felt unsatisfying, there wasn't much to do but add more rituals.

Hit points actually do work kinda well, precisely because they are so abstract (narrativist/gamist) - the game just hasn't been too consistent about keeping other mechanics at similar degrees of abstraction, so you have these disquieting disconnects....