Why must numbers go up?
- Thread starter Meatboy
- Start date
LostSoul
Adventurer
That's true.
I'm talking about access to status-imposing effects. That generally increases by level.
clearstream
(He, Him)
You may be thinking more of 4ed and perhaps combat. Many skills have flat target numbers that gradually are more predictably overcome, for example jumping up 3'. Both high and low level characters can make the jump, but the low level character relies on the random component and can't reliably tell you how many jumps he will take to do it.
For crafts and professions, there is a definite sense that a high level practitioner can rely more on their base skill with less (relative) spread from their dice roll. For example, when predicting how long it will take them to craft an object of a given value. The resulting graphs convincingly demonstrate what I am discussing.
So while I concur with your reasonable point that in many cases (and especially in combat) the numbers are all about what you have to roll on your d20, with the goal being to hit around the same probabilities all the way up (and hence we see design moves like the 4ed flat saving throws); 3ed and non-combat situations include cases where the relationship between a d20 (1-20) and the level-based value (a number) results in a change in experienced gameplay over levels. These kinds of changes are probably worth having, for instance it is probably worth being able to say that a master violin-maker can tell you with a high-degree of confidence how long he will take to make a violin of a given quality, while an apprentice is just guessing.
-vk
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vonklaude, fair enough.
The encounter design principles of 4e suggest that higher-level encounters should be designed in such a way that 3' jumps are treated as colour rather than challenges, and that if you want a jump to play the same function that a 3' jump did at 1st level, make it bigger (and the pit deeper).
I agree that a high-level crafter can make a better violin - but the challenges a high level (PC) crafter faces should require better violins (or, perhaps, more violins made more quickly).
The encounter design principles of 4e suggest that higher-level encounters should be designed in such a way that 3' jumps are treated as colour rather than challenges, and that if you want a jump to play the same function that a 3' jump did at 1st level, make it bigger (and the pit deeper).
I agree that a high-level crafter can make a better violin - but the challenges a high level (PC) crafter faces should require better violins (or, perhaps, more violins made more quickly).
ExploderWizard
Hero
I am fine with challenges being more difficult. The difficulty should be determined by factors connected to the game world and what makes sense therein rather than some sort of schedule based on the level of the one attempting it.
Hey guys, has anyone else noticed that since we hit 10th level flying creatures have suddenly spawned in the world and someone came and changed all the doors into ironwood and steel?
I sort-of agree, but also sort-of disagree, because you're drawing a distinction here that I don't think has to hold. That is, it is possible (and I think 4e tends towards making this the default) for the gameworld to be one in which this "schedule" of challenges does make sense.
Of course it's possible to parody. Maybe it's more like "Hey guys, has anyone noticed that the evil overlord has been able to recruit a squadron of griffon riders, and has much tougher doors than the goblins he was paying to make skirmishing raids on the homesteaders?" That's still pretty hackneyed, but not absurd, and non-absurd hackneyed is about the best I expect from a game where none of the participants is a professional fiction writer or actor.
Hussar
Legend
I am fine with challenges being more difficult. The difficulty should be determined by factors connected to the game world and what makes sense therein rather than some sort of schedule based on the level of the one attempting it.
Hey guys, has anyone else noticed that since we hit 10th level flying creatures have suddenly spawned in the world and someone came and changed all the doors into ironwood and steel?
See, here we're running into the whole sim debate again. Are the rules the "physics" and science of the game world? We've been hashing this out for ages and I don't think there's any resolution.
To me, it's not that flying creatures and ironwood doors have suddenly appeared. It's that these things have ALWAYS been there, it's just that you didn't meet them. For exactly the same reason that your 2nd level character doesn't meet a Balor - it's not going to be much fun.
You certainly could go out and hunt flying creatures in Heroic if you wanted to, but, you'd almost certainly die. Kobolds and goblins (what you are likely facing in Heroic) don't have the resources to make an entire lair filled with ironwood doors. But, some high muckitymuck priest does.
To me, it's simply making fairly explicit what was always implicit in D&D. Challenges scale by level. Whether it's the random monster tables in the 1e DMG or 4e's approach, encounters have always scaled by level.
Fifth Element
Legend
Always good to set your standards at a reasonable level.
Doug McCrae
Legend
D&D's always been game first, world second. Hit points, classes, demi-human level limits, weapon and armor restrictions.
