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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6861413" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Not so much the protagonists, but definitely a lot of minor side characters. It was interesting to hear their take on wild magic and Vancian casting and the like. I'm not really a fan of such high magic settings, in general, but I do appreciate how well Salvatore was able to stick to the rules.In 2E, classes hewed very close to obvious archetypes. You can tell the Ranger from the Paladin because the former is dressed like Robin Hood and the latter is loudly proclaiming the virtues of whatever. Fighters and Thieves could be determined by their weapons and armors, if they weren't one of the above.Level could be inferred from a variety of details, and skilled combatants might have a reputation, but it was also possible for a reputation to be exaggerated. The only sure sign of level was to actually hit someone, and see how they reacted - if you stab someone in the back, and they don't even flinch, then you're in for a tough fight.I'm not a fan of the CR mechanic, because of how it interacts with proficiency bonus, so I'm fairly certain that you can't calculate a CR for an individual PC. And even if you could, your CR can change if you swap the armor or weapon you're wearing, which creates a big circular headache.I'm also not a big fan of Save-or-Die abilities, but the Intellect Devourer demonstrates one of the fundamental flaws of 5E - namely, that status effects work equally well, regardless of level. Weak characters with status effects contribute disproportionately to their supposed-level or CR. That's somewhat tangential to my point, though, which specifically correlates toughness to martial fighting ability as an observable reality within the game world; an Intellect Devourer or Mind Flayer is more like a spellcaster, in that their offensive potential is much higher than their martial ability or toughness would indicate.I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The jury is out on 5E. It's probably trying to be close to the way 2E did it, but PC classes have grown so much more complex that the differences are kind of overwhelming. You can kind of squint and see that a NPC Mage is supposed to be the same as a level 9 PC Wizard, but if I want to create an NPC Warlock (for example), then I don't have any rules for which abilities it should have or what should be glossed over. It's kind of just vague "make something up" advice, which isn't useful to me in determining what the one true representation of those abilities (with scaled down resolution) should actually be.</blockquote>

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