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

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, not the point.

The minion's purpose isn't to make you feel like you beat a powerful monster, it's to make you feel that these guys are nothing against me.

Then why they need to be ogres? You can already do that with a bunch of lower CR monsters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Feel is subjective.

Of course. I have said numerous times that I understand that not everyone feels the same way. But I think my reaction to minions is far from uncommon. It is an extreme expression of the poor connectivity of the rules to the fictional reality that was a feature of 4e, and I believe the big reason the edition got so resoundingly rejected by a lot of people. The complaints about "disassociated mechanics" and all that were basically about the same thing. And I think WotC knows this and will be careful with introducing this type of mechanics, so I wouldn't expect minion rules to reappear anytime soon.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then why they need to be ogres? You can already do that with a bunch of lower CR monsters.

1) Because they're busting up an ogre street gang. Kinda weird if the low level goons were all goblins that graduate to ogre when they get jumped in.

2) What makes you feel cooler? When a sad kobold that was nothing to you before is extra nothing now, or when the big strapping brutes fall to the tip of your blade in one swing?

 

[Gammadoodler]

A lone 2nd level fighter is going to have an issue with an ogre, the ogre will likely smash them into goo. A 12th level fighter will chop multiple ogres to bits in one round. The PCs attacks already represent more of a hazard to that monster. Without doing weird minion logic that has 0 in-world justification.

Minions were that not only easier to kill, their stats were contradictory. An Ogre Thug was a level 11 minion with AC 23, +14 to hit and did 8 damage. An Ogre Warhulk was a level 11 elite brute, with AC 25, +14 to hit, averaged 15 damage and knocked prone with 286 hit points (talk about HP inflation!). If that Ogre thug is just some lackey, why do they hit so often? Why are they so hard to hit in the first place? Looking at the descriptions they didn't wear any armor. There was no way to come up with any in-world justification for the distinction.

If you approach D&D from a pure gamist perspective then it doesn't matter. If you want to have your D&D world at least make a passing attempt at emulating a logical fantasy world it makes no sense.

So..only 10 levels later..more than half the game in and near the point where many folks stop playing, the fighter can finally take down multiple of these CR 2 beasies in a turn

And by 'multiple'..I assume we mean that the fighter can take down..2..with action surge and spending resources? Maybe a third if they score a lucky crit and positioning works out?

And by level 20, 8 levels later, that fighter can take down maybe...4 ogres with action surge and resource expenditure? Maybe a 5th with a crit (though good luck getting 5 large creatures positioned such that a Fighter can get to all of them in a turn)

So some classes get access to more and/or better spells every level up. Fighters get the ability to maybe kill one additional CR 2 monster a turn every...4 levels?

At the end of the day, my position is that an easy way to help a mundane fighter without running afoul of the "that's supernatural and I dont want it" crowd is to make fighters significantly more lethal in more circumstances.

The in-world justification is dead simple given that fighters were already assaulting creatures with sharpened and/or heavy chunks of metal. That they should be significantly better at killing things with those sharpened hunks of metal at high levels than low levels would seem likewise narratively consistent with expectations.

Would it need to be tuned? sure Could it be tuned by adjusting both monster hp and PC damage? also sure. Does the adjustment to either monster hp or PC damage need to reflect anything objective beyond the relative threat of one creature to the other, I don't think so, but as a matter of preference, I'd rather keep things consistent over time.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

2) What makes you feel cooler? When a sad kobold that was nothing to you before is extra nothing now, or when the big strapping brutes fall to the tip of your blade in one swing?

Whichever had the real hit points.

But you're contradicting yourself. You said it was not about beating about tough monsters, but now it again is. So which is it?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Of course. I have said numerous times that I understand that not everyone feels the same way. But I think my reaction to minions is far from uncommon. It is an extreme expression of the poor connectivity of the rules to the fictional reality that was a feature of 4e, and I believe the big reason the edition got so resoundingly rejected by a lot of people. The complaints about "disassociated mechanics" and all that were basically about the same thing. And I think WotC knows this and will be careful with introducing this type of mechanics, so I wouldn't expect minion rules to reappear anytime soon.

The problem is that you keep ignoring what they're there for an insist they do things they aren't meant to do.

They're not there for realism, they're not there to represent some naturalistic state of a monster. They're there to serve a narrative purpose.

What you're doing is asking why this blender doesn't have a deep fat fry function. And I'll tell you what the poor lady at Macy's told me after half an hour: 'It's not supposed to. This is not a flaw, and if it were even possible, it would not be a feature either."

 

[Bluenose]

There’s a huge difference between freely dashing in more or less in straight line and maintaining that kind of speed when changing direction to cover more or less of a circle, especially when being opposed by persons intent on stopping you from doing whatever it is you intend.

Would you take 56m in 10 seconds while fending off two attempted tackles and dodging three others as reasonable? That's beyond what a D&D Fighter could do, but recorded on camera.

Appendix N characters are now optional content because adjusting the basic rules to accommodate them is forbidden.

The D&D fighter no resembles anything.

Someone may like the D&D fighter but it doesn't resemble anything in any media anymore.

What the 5e fighter resembles is a platonic ideal of what a D&D Fighter should be like in the minds of people who think it should obviously be inferior to spellcasters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So..only 10 levels later..more than half the game in and near the point where many folks stop playing, the fighter can finally take down multiple of these CR 2 beasies in a turn

And by 'multiple'..I assume we mean that the fighter can take down..2..with action surge and spending resources? Maybe a third if they score a lucky crit and positioning works out?

And by level 20, 8 levels later, that fighter can take down maybe...4 ogres with action surge and resource expenditure? Maybe a 5th with a crit (though good luck getting 5 large creatures positioned such that a Fighter can get to all of them in a turn)

So some classes get access to more and/or better spells every level up. Fighters get the ability to maybe kill one additional CR 2 monster a turn every...4 levels?

At the end of the day, my position is that an easy way to help a mundane fighter without running afoul of the "that's supernatural and I dont want it" crowd is to make fighters significantly more lethal in more circumstances.

The in-world justification is dead simple given that fighters were already assaulting creatures with sharpened and/or heavy chunks of metal. That they should be significantly better at killing things with those sharpened hunks of metal at high levels than low levels would seem likewise narratively consistent with expectations.

Would it need to be tuned? sure Could it be tuned by adjusting both monster hp and PC damage? also sure. Does the adjustment to either monster hp or PC damage need to reflect anything objective beyond the relative threat of one creature to the other, I don't think so, but as a matter of preference, I'd rather keep things consistent over time.

The thing is that actual maths say that fighters are already really good at dealing damage. You might be able to increase it a bit and not break the game, but I am doubtful that a massive boost like some here envision is warranted or good for the game.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I can’t speak for everyone naturally, but I suspect a whole lot of people view mechanics in context with everything else. If a player realized it only takes 1 pt of damage to kill an ogre, they are going to wonder why. Why don’t the commoners just kill it?

That relationship and context with other things in the game beyond the combat encounter matter to a lot of people because it sets up immersion. Which is important in a role playing game.

For me, reducing monsters to 1 ho seems really gamist and breaks immersion.

Fair enough.

Then don't give them hp at all. Just say that one successful strike will bring them down. They have 59 hp that, after PCs reach a certain level, can be bypassed entirely because the PCs are just that awesome.

Make it a trait in the statblock "Minion 17" or something. "Any PC at or above the minion level listed in a creatures stat block can kill that creature with one successful strike"

 

[Pedantic]

So..only 10 levels later..more than half the game in and near the point where many folks stop playing, the fighter can finally take down multiple of these CR 2 beasies in a turn

And by 'multiple'..I assume we mean that the fighter can take down..2..with action surge and spending resources? Maybe a third if they score a lucky crit and positioning works out?

And by level 20, 8 levels later, that fighter can take down maybe...4 ogres with action surge and resource expenditure? Maybe a 5th with a crit (though good luck getting 5 large creatures positioned such that a Fighter can get to all of them in a turn)

So some classes get access to more and/or better spells every level up. Fighters get the ability to maybe kill one additional CR 2 monster a turn every...4 levels?

At the end of the day, my position is that an easy way to help a mundane fighter without running afoul of the "that's supernatural and I dont want it" crowd is to make fighters significantly more lethal in more circumstances.

I would love to see the Venn diagram of people who object to fighter abilities on aesthetic grounds, but don't object to minion rules. That may actually be an even smaller group of RPG players than people who share my quite specific skill system preferences.