Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Hussar]

One thing I think would help in clearing up some of the confusion in this thread would be if people could be very explicit at the top of their posts what edition they are talking about. We're mishmashing so many editions that a lot of us are talking to cross purposes. For example, Ariosto is talking about OD&D, Exploder Wizard 1e (I think) and a smattering of 2e and 3e references to boot.

Comparisons across editions are difficult when a reader might not know which edition you are talking about (thus the leather armor/magic armor confusion).

I would also like to thank Dragonblade for restating the discussion in a way that makes sense to me. I obviously disagree with JG Browning (and I would disagree with BryonD, I think, if he'd bother to actually explain his point without the vitriol) but, at least now I understand better where JG is coming from. I still think he's trying to have it both ways - Honestly, I'm not sure why you (JG) wouldn't just rule that minions have 2 hit points, same as you did in all other editions.

But hey, to each his own.

I do somewhat agree with Ariosto that AC didn't scale particularly well in earlier editions, but, I consider that a failing, not a feature. What it meant, at least in my experience, is that you automatically hit every single time. If baddies (other than unique ones) top out at around AC 0, then by the time a fighter type hits about 5th level, he never misses. THAC0 of 16, +2 for strength (not unreasonable IME), +1 weapon means you hit pretty much every monster in the book at least 50% and most are much, much easier to hit. Never mind if you add in things like weapon specialization (either 1e UA or 2e core).

By the time you hit name level, where you are meeting those big monsters, you never miss at all.

What's the point of having AC at all if you never miss?

 

[BryonD]

and I would disagree with BryonD, I think, if he'd bother to actually explain his point without the vitriol

Dude, my point is explained, it is your imaginary version of my point I'm ignoring.
If you missed it the first time and really care that much, it is still there for you to read again.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Well, this is a nice example - most of the time, the 23 lvl minion will win. The same can happen if you have a 40 hit point ogre against a 4 hit point Kobold. Most of the time, the Ogre will win. Exception luck can have the Kobold prevail.

The difference is the number of rounds to get there, but then - with hit points there are a lot of scenarios where I can - regardless of dice rolls - never kill a creature in one round (let alone one hit).

BTW, the difference is in the odds of success, not just the number of rounds to get there.

Rather than comparing a kobold vs an ogre pre-4e and a kobold vs. a lvl 23 minion post 4e, if you take a kobold vs. ogre in each edition, and make the ogre in the 4e a minion, the odds of success change. Use a 1e kobold vs. a 1e solar and a 4e kobold vs. the 23 lvl minion, and again you can see that the odds have changed (and the solar is not even level 23!)

So, the difference is objectively not merely the number of rounds.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

By the time you hit name level, where you are meeting those big monsters, you never miss at all.

What's the point of having AC at all if you never miss?

(1) It is untrue that you never miss at all. Even the greatest fighter in the world has a 5% chance of missing (natural "1"). However, that doesn't relate to Armour Class, so we move on.

(2) The point is both that the name level character is objectively better than Mr. Newbie, and that the play experience has changed. This is something, IMHO, that WotC has failed to grasp about the original game.

When the numbers keep cranking up, but the odds remain exactly the same, the play experience also remains roughly the same while the work to get there increases exponentially.

When one talks about a "sweet spot" in TSR-D&D, one is generally talking about a particular play experience one enjoys.....when a character can do X pretty easily, but still cannot do Y. WotC twigged to that, and tried to make every level conform to the general consensus "sweet spot". But they tried also to make it seem as though characters were rapidly progressing at the same time (another thing from their market research). The result is that, in WotC-D&D, when one talks about a "sweet spot", one is often referring to the complexity of the math, and how that affects speed of play.

There are (IMHO) a lot of good things about WotC-D&D, both 3e and 4e. Especially, I enjoyed the lively debate that WotC's analysis of 3e problems, and proposed 4e fixes, sparked. There are certainly a lot of lessons learned there which have made my gaming better. Certainly, those discussions prompted RCFG, and I didn't throw away all of WotC-D&D's ideas. Many of them are too good to throw out.

But at the same time, it became very clear to me that 3e stepped away from using a linear scale of measurment for character/creature/world features, and (IMHO) nearly all of the problems I've encountered with WotC-D&D stem from that decision, either directly or indirectly.

Coupling ideas from the 3.x SRD with a linear scale of measurment has created the best play experience I have ever had. I rather wish that WotC had done the same with 4e, which would have allowed (IMHO & IME) many of the same benefits 4e has over 3e without the same numbers creep, and without the same wonky disconnect between rules and common sense.

YMMV.



RC

 

[Fifth Element]

(1) It is untrue that you never miss at all. Even the greatest fighter in the world has a 5% chance of missing (natural "1"). However, that doesn't relate to Armour Class, so we move on.

We move on, without addressing the question?

Overly literal interpretation of posts is bad form, and leads to raised tempers and lack of communication. It doesn't help discussion, it just leads to sniping back and forth.

I submit Hussar did not mean "literally never miss", just "miss so infrequently as to be almost never a miss".

 

[Raven Crowking]

We move on, without addressing the question?

Didn't read the entire post, did you?

(1) was pedantry, (2) was the answer to the question quoted. (2) is also considerably longer than (1), so I wonder how you missed it.

Here: I'll make it easier for you:

What's the point of having AC at all if you never miss?

The point is both that the name level character is objectively better than Mr. Newbie, and that the play experience has changed.​

RC

 

[Fifth Element]

Didn't read the entire post, did you?

(1) was pedantry

Overly literal interpretation of posts pendantry is bad form, and leads to raised tempers and lack of communication. It doesn't help discussion, it just leads to sniping back and forth.

I think you'll find more people will get your point if you leave the pedantic BS out.

 

[Obryn]

Why in the world are we pitting a level 1 minion against a level 23 minion for a hypothetical death match? Didn't we already move past how silly that would be under the 4e rule set? It's a ludicrous corner-case which treats minion status as part of an objective imagined reality, rather than a rules construct used only in some combats.

If you treat minions as simulationist constructs, you're definitely going to have bizarre results, just like this. They are inherently non-simulationist, and to pretend otherwise is ... well, kind of bizarre, IMO.

-O

 

[vagabundo]

I wasn't comparing creatures in a fight, I was considering their ability to take damage in relation to all other creatures in the game system's abilities to take damage.

joe b.

In 4e, the damage depends on the level of the PC doing the damage. So the damage dealt at level ten is not comparable to the damage dealt at level three.

Unfortunately you cannot rely on hit-points as a measure of relative toughness. Level is this measure in 4e. You could work around it using house rules, or just hand wave out of combat interactions based on level or whatever other factors you believe relivant.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

By the time you hit name level, where you are meeting those big monsters, you never miss at all.

What's the point of having AC at all if you never miss?

At least in B/X, attack rolls didn't scale as fast as they did in 3E. The fighter (and demihumans) gained 2/3 BAB after first (so +2 at 4th, 7th, etc), the cleric and thief 2/4 (+2 at 5th, 9th), and the wizard 2/5 (+2 at 6th, 11th, etc). Monsters gained 1 BAB every HD.

A 9th level fighter (or cleric or thief) would have a THAC0 of 15, probably around +3 to hit for the fighter, so hitting AC 0 around 45% of the time (and hitting an ordinary AC6 orc 75% of the time). The Companion Set introduced proto-Power Attack (the Smash option), which let the fighter take a -5 penalty on his attack rolls to do more damage, AND it gave him additional attacks when he moved into that "only miss on a 1" range. So AC did matter quite a bit to the fighter. (Incidentally, the Companion Set also introduced proto-PrCs and monster templates.)

But AC wasn't supposed to be the main difference in monster defense as they leveled up any more than it was for PCs; HP were. And the difference is that HP can be whittled down. A fire giant could be easily overwhelmed and killed by the Normal Men of the town guard (especially if they had bows).