D&D 5E WotC's Stats for Zaknafein Do'Udern

[TheCosmicKid]

Despite the general trend of people disparaging rolling and assuming any PC with high scores cheated on the rolls, sometimes, the legitimately roll well.

Sure. But then you've got the guy who has somehow "rolled" at least one 18 on every character he's made for the past forty years. The Forgotten Realms is that guy.

 

[NaturalZero]

It's never going to affect any game I run or play in, so I don't care that much, but it just feels corny. It's like when someone tells me how great their character was in some game from years ago when they "rolled" a bunch of 18s and the DM let them have a load of magic items.

The funny part about this stat block is 2 fold though:
1. He's a legendary opponent but i can see a level 16 party dismantling him easily in one round.
2. In old editions. especially 3.5, they'd try to make characters like Drizzt seem so badass by giving them hokey ability arrays and special features that normal PCs couldn't access but they were STILL chumps compared to min/maxed character following all of the rules. At least this time around, he's more than a match for many solo 16th level characters.

 

[Dioltach]

I think one of the issues here is that Zaknafein is a secondary character, and he's still more powerful than most PCs.

 

[Zaukrie]

Because players, especially those playing in an established setting like the Forgotten Realms, are at the table to play the same sorts of adventures they read about Drizzt and Co. having. These NPCs are not gods or monsters; they're adventurers supposedly just like any PC. So if rules come out for them and they're impossible or nearly impossible for PCs to compare to, the question arises what that's supposed to mean. Are the rules for PCs generating only some sort of minor-league hero? If so, why? Why are we playing with those rules? Can we play with the rules that generate actual heroes instead?

EDIT: Note that 5E character creation rules literally use Bruenor Battlehammer and Artemis Entreri as examples.

Not one of my players has ever read the novels. I'm guessing that's true of most people that started playing in the last couple years.

I doubt we'll agree on this, there is, imo, no reason NPCs and PCs should play by the same rules.

I'm still confused as to why there wouldn't be NPCs more powerful than PCs.. But, we are likely just talking past each other at this point, so I'll bail out.

 

[Weiley31]

Not one of my players has ever read the novels. I'm guessing that's true of most people that started playing in the last couple years.

I doubt we'll agree on this, there is, imo, no reason NPCs and PCs should play by the same rules.

I'm still confused as to why there wouldn't be NPCs more powerful than PCs.. But, we are likely just talking past each other at this point, so I'll bail out.

I think what it is, is that there is this perceived notion that DND is about the PCs only and everybody else is of little consequence. Instead, DND is a communal story based activity in which people, together in harmony, tell and contribute to an ongoing story narrated by the DM. And while the stories of the PCs are important, the idea of "just" the PCs stories mattering and not the "whole story," along which it's other characters/NPCs seems strange to most players.

And some players get really defensive about it for some strange reason. Like, holy crap I ran over your dog mad defensive.

 

[Coroc]

Ah, yes, Forgotten Realms NPC ability scores. Because we wouldn't want players to get the mistaken impression that the PCs were actually important.

Reminds me of the time i defeated Drizzt and his party twice in BG1 and again in BG2. In BG1 (not the expanded version) his gear was pretty uber.
In BG2 it was rather mediocre. But back to the point, so i killed hi mthe second time then some time later some Harpell dude showed up and demanded i hand over his gear. So i killed that Harpell dude also and thought to myself: Can't i play the game once with an all evil party without getting pestered unfairly by NPCs. In BG it was the flaming fist mysteriously appearing out of nowhere in BG2 it was this Harpell dude, and he was really tough because yo umet him unprepared.

 

[Morrus]

I think what it is, is that there is this perceived notion that DND is about the PCs only and everybody else is of little consequence. Instead, DND is a communal story based activity in which people, together in harmony, tell and contribute to an ongoing story narrated by the DM. And while the stories of the PCs are important, the idea of "just" the PCs stories mattering and not the "whole story," along which it's other characters/NPCs seems strange to most players.

And some players get really defensive about it for some strange reason. Like, holy crap I ran over your dog mad defensive.

I mean, it's a game played by a group of people, and the people who matter are the the people playing the game and their characters. Because they're the ones playing the game.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I think what it is, is that there is this perceived notion that DND is about the PCs only and everybody else is of little consequence. Instead, DND is a communal story based activity in which people, together in harmony, tell and contribute to an ongoing story narrated by the DM. And while the stories of the PCs are important, the idea of "just" the PCs stories mattering and not the "whole story," along which it's other characters/NPCs seems strange to most players.

And some players get really defensive about it for some strange reason. Like, holy crap I ran over your dog mad defensive.

I haven't seen a single person here say that the PCs should be the only characters of consequence. The argument is that they should be among the characters of consequence. And that when NPCs of consequence look like this Zaknefein does, the message is that the PCs are not in the same category.

 

[cbwjm]

I haven't seen a single person here say that the PCs should be the only characters of consequence. The argument is that they should be among the characters of consequence. And that when NPCs of consequence look like this Zaknefein does, the message is that the PCs are not in the same category.

I don't think that's true, the PCs are among the characters of consequence due to the simple reason that they are the stars of the adventure. Zak here isn't the star of the show, he's a supporting character, it will be up to the players to solve the situation in icewind dale, not him.

 

[Marc Radle]

There was a game that came out in the early 90s called Aria that was focused on "telescopic" role play, where players played entire kingdoms and people within it, that took a different approach to bonuses. If I remember correctly, there were ten or more attributes,and each skill, including combat, had a list of attributes that you could draw from to get bonuses.
But I digress...

Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth (Last Unicorn Games) has a very special place in my heart!