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Talakeal
2014-02-12, 06:46 PM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters* or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?

As an example; in my homebrew OSR game this is the current list of combat maneuvers. If you have a moment please look it over and tell me if it has anything missing or something that doesn't belong:

All of these abilities are available to all martial characters. Each can be used without penalty once each round, and a character can perform multiple maneuvers in a given round a limited number of times per combat. Feats can be taken to improve any of these maneuvers, but they all perfectly viable without doing so, its a bonus not a requirement. Some moves require a certain weapon type or receive bonuses if a certain weapon is used.

Trade damage for increased accuracy.
Trade accuracy for Increased damage.
Trade movement for increased damage or accuracy.
Disarm enemy
Shove enemy
Stun enemy
Trip enemy
Sunder enemy's equipment
Sneak attack an unaware foe for increased damage or accuracy.
Called shot to a specific body part imposing ability penalties or status conditions based on the location.
Charge
Cheap Shot
Cleave though multiple enemies with one attack
Smash through an obstacle
Incur bleeding damage over time
Hold a helpless hostage
Feint
Strike at an enemies weapon as they attack with a longer reach
Attack multiple enemies at once
Defend against a particular maneuver on the opponent's part
Grapple
Gruesome Blow which intimidates enemies
Guard an ally
Weaken an enemy so that an ally can strike the weak spot
Spring Attack
Lunge for a temporary bonus to reach
Guard an area
Draw an enemy's attention
Form a Phalanx with allies
Pommel Strike
Trade AC for increased accuracy or damage
Parry for a temporary boost to AC
Shield Block for a temporary boost to DR
Throw Weapon
Volley with a bow
Struggle without any free limbs
Attack recklessly into a crowd


*: By this I mean giving them blatantly paranormal abilities or artificial meta-game limitations like semi-vancian abilities that come in levels and can be used once per day and are then forgotten.

Morty
2014-02-12, 06:53 PM
It largely depends on the power level and realism the game is supposed to be shooting for. But in general, at least a few different ways of getting past enemy defences and prevent the enemy from doing the same are a minimum, for me. How the system accomplishes that is a different question altogether.

Scow2
2014-02-12, 07:36 PM
Well... to me, there are two archetypes of Mundane Combatants: Fighters and rogues.

A fighter should be able to lock down a battlefield by engaging everyone at once, and punishing people who try to disengage (Who he doesn't want to disengage) Whether this is the sword+board fighter who holds the line against his foes, the two-handed brute always on the lookout to see who he can cut down next, or the battledancer that throws himself into the fray, gracefully dodging attacks that focus on him, and cutting down anyone who takes their eyes off of him. Or, the archer that covers the entire battlefield in arrows unless his foes take cover, raining death on anyone who dares to be in the center.

A fighter also needs more direct means of control - knocking people around, down, and interrupting actions (And forcing them to actually lose an action) A fighter also needs ways to "Just Say No" to spells and control effects. In some ways, he's also comparable to a cleric in this regard, by being able to increase party survivability of big threats.

A rogue, on the other hand, should be able to flit around a battlefield as a slippery, impossible-to-pin-down combatant... and also be good at control as well. However, instead of controlling the battlefield by knocking people around or engaging them, his control is in painfully punishing people for making mistakes and leaving themselves open... and those that do leave themselves open find themselves quickly dispatched. The rogue is supposed to be a force multiplier, like a more flexible but less raw power Wizard, able to pull out just the right wildcard on the enemies to screw them over when he needs it.

Not coincidentally, I find the 4e Fighter and 5e Rogue to both be excellent.

Tengu_temp
2014-02-12, 07:57 PM
By "turning them into re-fluffed casters", do you mean "giving them ToB-style maneuvers"? Because that's both faulty terminology (there's nothing magical about maneuvers except the misconception that anything non-standard has to be magic) and honestly the best way to make sure warrior-types are fun to play if you ask me.

Talakeal
2014-02-12, 08:16 PM
By "turning them into re-fluffed casters", do you mean "giving them ToB-style maneuvers"? Because that's both faulty terminology (there's nothing magical about maneuvers except the misconception that anything non-standard has to be magic) and honestly the best way to make sure warrior-types are fun to play if you ask me.

Its a continuum. War Blades and 4E fighters are certainly closer to magic users than previous melee characters, what with having multiple levels of powers that they forget after use, but they aren't magical.

Some of the ToB maneuvers are certainly "magical" such as teleporting conjuring fire, or healing people with bursts of holy energy, arguing that they are not magical because they are not defined as "spells" is purely arguing semantics. They are also called "Blade Magic" and (mostly) go away in an anti-magic field, so the author of the book seems to consider them magic.

One could certainly go further than ToB or 4E did, for example mimicking spells exactly and slightly changing the fluff; say giving a fighter the fireball spell and saying it is caused by him stomping his foot so hard it creates an explosion or allowing him to teleport by cutting a whole in the fabric of space, or even allowing him to shoot magic missiles and say he is channeling his Ki.


But what do you mean by "non-standard"?

If you mean supernatural abilities that blatantly violate known laws of physics or impose artificial meta game impositions on characters than it seems to me you are saying that the best way to make a mundane character fun is to make them no longer a mundane character that isn't really a helpful solution.

While playing such a character might be fun for you, I assure you it isn't fun for me, people have different tastes.
I have one friend who loves RPGs, but flat out refuses to play one where you can't be a wizard like Alternity or Aces and Eights because he can't wrap his head around a mundane character.
At the same time my father loves action movies, but won't watch super-hero movies or urban fantasy movies because "Its all a bunch of bull****."

OverdrivePrime
2014-02-12, 08:35 PM
I totally agree with Tengu_temp and Scow2 regarding TOB and being able to 'just say no' to magic. Iron Heart SURGE - it's not just a maneuver, it's a way of life.

To extend the list:
Move quickly to interrupt an enemy's attack
Ignore pain in order to fight efficiently
Become nigh-impervious to pain and torture
Break through magical barriers with either strength, precision, or pure disdain
Shake off mind control
Shake off poison
Coordinate battlefield tactics
Inspire allies
Cow foes
Go berserk
Appraise weapons and armor
Repair weapons and armor
Care for battlefield animals
Look awesomely heroic while getting beaten down
Ignore death long enough for a last speech
Ignore death long enough for a retributive strike
Specialize in a signature technique
Create new fighting styles
Excel at combating certain kinds of foes
Recognize foes by their fighting style

Have something useful to contribute when the fighting's over

Mr Beer
2014-02-12, 09:30 PM
"mundane" how? Realistic in a real world sense or over the top but just not "magical"?

Thrudd
2014-02-12, 09:31 PM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?

As an example; in my homebrew OSR game this is the current list of combat maneuvers. If you have a moment please look it over and tell me if it has anything missing or something that doesn't belong:

All of these abilities are available to all martial characters. Each can be used without penalty once each round, and a character can perform multiple maneuvers in a given round a limited number of times per combat. Feats can be taken to improve any of these maneuvers, but they all perfectly viable without doing so, its a bonus not a requirement. Some moves require a certain weapon type or receive bonuses if a certain weapon is used.

Trade damage for increased accuracy.
Trade accuracy for Increased damage.
Trade movement for increased damage or accuracy.
Disarm enemy
Shove enemy
Stun enemy
Trip enemy
Sunder enemy's equipment
Sneak attack an unaware foe for increased damage or accuracy.
Called shot to a specific body part imposing ability penalties or status conditions based on the location.
Charge
Cheap Shot
Cleave though multiple enemies with one attack
Smash through an obstacle
Incur bleeding damage over time
Hold a helpless hostage
Feint
Strike at an enemies weapon as they attack with a longer reach
Attack multiple enemies at once
Defend against a particular maneuver on the opponent's part
Grapple
Gruesome Blow which intimidates enemies
Guard an ally
Weaken an enemy so that an ally can strike the weak spot
Spring Attack
Lunge for a temporary bonus to reach
Guard an area
Draw an enemy's attention
Form a Phalanx with allies
Pommel Strike
Trade AC for increased accuracy or damage
Parry for a temporary boost to AC
Shield Block for a temporary boost to DR
Throw Weapon
Volley with a bow
Struggle without any free limbs
Attack recklessly into a crowd


Far too long of a list for an old school game, IMO, at least if you intend all these things to have specific mechanics associated with them. We're delving into 3e/4e territory with an entire book full of feats and abilities and combats which take hours to play out due to all the options and rules for specific actions. Also, the disassociated mechanic of specifying a limit on maneuvers per encounter and per round is not something you'd find in an OSR game.
Not that it is wrong to do this, but this feels more like a hybrid 3e/4e thing versus going back to AD&D and BECMI (which is what OSR is).

I can see the argument to give non-magical combatants more tactical options. It is certainly possible to do this on an OSR framework, but I feel like less is more in this case. Many of the things you describe are things that don't need mechanics to describe them (guarding an area, fighting in a phalanx, hold a hostage, draw an enemy's attention). Certainly have rules for knocking down/immobilizing opponents, pushing/forcing opponents to move where you want them, nonlethal combat, attacking gear/equipment, but they shouldn't be limited per encounter or per day. The only limit should be the actual physical ability of the character (and the number of actions you can make in a combat round per the game rules).

Another question to consider is also the scale and detail which you want the rules to handle. It wasn't until 3e that the game changed to assume that each roll of the dice represented a single movement or action of the character.

In AD&D and Basic, the combat round is meant to include many inconsequential feints and parries and springing and lunging and blocking activities during which one decisive action will occur. So to include martial maneuvers in an OSR game, you would want to describe them as a general goal the character is trying to achieve over the course of the combat round (which can be up to 1 minute long).
"Attack to do damage" is the default goal, and the roll of the die determines whether you're successful at it. We can add more to the list of actions/goals that will be keyed to the characters' fighting ability, like "push them back", "keep them from moving", "knock them down", "sunder the weapon", "disarm". There is already the "parry" action which lets you defend instead of attacking, and "do non-lethal damage (which could be pommel strike, flat of the blade, kicking and punching, whatever way you want to describe it).

Some other actions could be keyed to specific weapons or weapon types, and allow either additional types of actions or one-time use abilities. Already there is the ability to set a spear or polearm against a charge, giving you extra damage, as well as the polearm's extra reach and ability to attack first against a shorter weapon. Another might be the "spinter shield" rule we were talking about in another thread, where you can choose to sacrifice your shield to cancel a successful attack. You could even let a fighter use this ability on an ally that is close enough to them. We might be able to think of a few other weapon specific abilities or modifiers to combat, like extra damage in specific situations or the ability to break another weapon.

My goal would be to use no disassociated mechanics (per day/per encounter abilities, spending points or interacting with any meta-game constructs the characters themselves would not be aware of), while giving more tactical combat options that let fighters control the battle.

erikun
2014-02-12, 09:36 PM
What should a character with a mundane sword be able to do? They should be able to kill an opponent within their weapon range with a single strike. They should be able to pin down an opponent's weapon and defense with the right maneuver. They should be able to, with enough skill and accuracy, fire a shot that that would ignore dodge and armor on an unaware opponent.

Of course, D&D tends to be a game where killing a target in one hit is frowned upon. Even if it would be reasonable.

As for the game, you probably want: move opponent, knockdown opponent, stun opponent, pin weapon/shield (or both). I'd also give them some method of repositioning (i.e. five foot step) as part of an attack, specifically so that spellcasting doesn't get the benefit from it. I'd be inclined to possibly allow the "spend a round aiming and ignore armor AC when attacking an unaware opponent" in some manner, which might make both Fighters and Thieves happy.

There might also be worth allowing the Fighter class to learn different weapon arts as part of their training. That is, while the Cleric can pick up a sword and swing/stab with it, the Fighter is actually skilled with using the weapon. Not sure if martial arts is something that you're interested in working out, though.

Talakeal
2014-02-12, 09:40 PM
"mundane" how? Realistic in a real world sense or over the top but just not "magical"?

Someone who would classify under:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal

Someone along the lines of Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Madmartigan; a pulp hero like James Bond or Indiana Jones, or a comic book character along the lines of Batman or Captain America (in their more down to Earth incarnations).


List of Good Stuff

I agree that all of those are necessary things for a mundane character to have, although not necessarily on the same character. Some of them scream monk, barbarian, or marshal rather than pure "fighter", and I don't think they are necessary for ALL melee combatants to have.


Far too long of a list for an old school game, IMO, at least if you intend all these things to have specific mechanics associated with them. We're delving into 3e/4e territory with an entire book full of feats and abilities and combats which take hours to play out due to all the options and rules for specific actions. Also, the disassociated mechanic of specifying a limit on maneuvers per encounter and per round is not something you'd find in an OSR game.
Not that it is wrong to do this, but this feels more like a hybrid 3e/4e thing versus going back to AD&D and BECMI (which is what OSR is).


OSR it hard to define. My system plays like a cross between 2E WHFRP and 1E Exalted. It is certainly has a pre millennial feel to it, and thus most people call it old school, but such a debate tends to sidetrack threads, so I just label it OSR and let it go for the time being.

OverdrivePrime
2014-02-12, 09:51 PM
I agree that all of those are necessary things for a mundane character to have, although not necessarily on the same character. Some of them scream monk, barbarian, or marshal rather than pure "fighter", and I don't think they are necessary for ALL melee combatants to have.

Most definitely. No one should be able to do *all* of that. That would lead to terrible Chuck Norris jokes about one's character, and that is so very, very 2009.

But a mundane warrior should have the option to add those to his repertoire, either as a tree of abilities, or ala carte.

Scow2
2014-02-12, 10:48 PM
Its a continuum. War Blades and 4E fighters are certainly closer to magic users than previous melee characters, what with having multiple levels of powers that they forget after use, but they aren't magical.It's not that they "Forget" their powers after using them, as much as they can only get the ability off a few times in battle before either the trick can't be used to full effect again (4e), or they need to reset their stance and posture (ToB)


That said, I like D&D Next's old Expertise Die mechanic, which should have been expanded instead of scrapped.

Ceiling_Squid
2014-02-12, 11:27 PM
Of course, D&D tends to be a game where killing a target in one hit is frowned upon. Even if it would be reasonable.



If that were true, "save or die" spells wouldn't be a thing. Wizards wouldn't be able to drastically alter or obviate combat within a very short series of actions.

The DnD double-standard says that killing in one hit with "non-magical" means is frowned upon. :smallfurious:


It's not that they "Forget" their powers after using them, as much as they can only get the ability off a few times in battle before either the trick can't be used to full effect again (4e), or they need to reset their stance and posture (ToB)


I took a different track with my group (who like the tongue-in-cheek meta-narrative rather than "realism"). Why use your coolest move every single round? That would make it boring! Save it for when its dramatic!

Then again, we like pulpiness.

Knaight
2014-02-13, 01:47 AM
Some of the ToB maneuvers are certainly "magical" such as teleporting conjuring fire, or healing people with bursts of holy energy, arguing that they are not magical because they are not defined as "spells" is purely arguing semantics. They are also called "Blade Magic" and (mostly) go away in an anti-magic field, so the author of the book seems to consider them magic.

It's probably best to restrict this to Warblade manuevers, plus the Crusader ones that aren't Devoted Spirit, as the Swordsage and Devoted Spirit ones are actually meant to be magical:

As for your list - it has guard an area on it. It doesn't have anything about being able to actively parry attacks aimed at allies. That seems relevant to the list.

I'd also recommend branching out a bit, and looking at some games you might not be familiar with. Burning Wheel's Fight! matrix is a thing of beauty, and worth looking into - as is how the rest of the system handles. It's also something that is pretty modular, in that it could be adapted (with a fair amount of adaptation) wholesale, which makes it a better resource to look into. The Riddle of Steel is also good, but acquiring it is an expensive pain in the rear while enough is available online to understand the Fight! matrix for free legally.

Martin Greywolf
2014-02-13, 02:36 AM
One problem with this question is the lack of context. What should a fighter be able to do as compared to what? At what level? If you look at DnD, power levels are roughly divided like this:

1-5: Heroic fantasy (based on Tolkien, who based it on old sagas), things like LotR or Seven Samurai belong here. There are very few if any supernatural or superhuman abilities, swordplay is... well... realistic-looking to an untrained eye, any dude with a pointy stick is at least semi-serious threat

6-10: Epic myths, think Labors of Hercules, Rurouni Kenshin and so on. Here realism goes out of the window, things like rerouting a river BECAUSE MUSCLES and hitting a guy in 8 places at once (which is neither necessary nor practical in real life) can and do happen. Normal people are a threat only in large groups, such as mobs or armies.

11-15: Wuxia/Superhero (weaker ones): Avatar: The Last Airbender, Hero, Bleach (at first), Iron Man (movie version, one without nanobots). Here normal people cease to be a threat unless equipped with something special, be it martial arts training with an old master or a superpower.

16-20: High-powered Superhero: Superman, Flash, DBZ. Here you take reality and tell it to bend over. Normal people are only a threat if they posses your weakness (kryptonite, for one).

With that in mind, you can now start to sort of catalogue your expectations. Should Aragorn be able to fly? Probably not. Should someone in wuxia? Well, you probably saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Should someone be able to make thrown things change direction mid-flight in wuxia? Yup, see House of Flying daggers, or Sokka and his shenanigans with boomerang in A:tLA. In myths, not so much, unless your characters' schtick is thrown weaponry.

Also, keep in mind that system and what you do with it are, or should be, two mostly unrelated things, kinda like a game engine and a game (look at how different Fallout: New Vegas an Skyrim look, yet they both use ESCK - which is actually a lot more than just an engine).

Using vancian slot system is, consequently, not a mistake in and of itself, no more than using it for magic is, although you can have more hand-waving with magic (why? because wizard did it).

Why you can use something only once per combat has an easy and reasonably realistic explanation - if you use the same trick twice on the same guy/in the same fight, he will be ready for it the next time. Found that one out the hard way by trying the left-handed stab on the same guy twice in a bout (I lost).

Best example of mechanic-fluff separation are systems like Window or Fate that use one mechanic plus description for everything, and i do mean everything, from social contests to ship-to-ship battles. One such system, Dračí Doupě (czech system, unfortunately untranslated), uses 2d6 + level (0-5), beat 9 or opponent for both, say, fire magic and sword-fights. Here the things you list a fighter should do, like attract attention to himself, etc. are all handled by you describing your action.

Knaight
2014-02-13, 03:23 AM
With that in mind, you can now start to sort of catalogue your expectations. Should Aragorn be able to fly? Probably not. Should someone in wuxia? Well, you probably saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Should someone be able to make thrown things change direction mid-flight in wuxia? Yup, see House of Flying daggers, or Sokka and his shenanigans with boomerang in A:tLA. In myths, not so much, unless your characters' schtick is thrown weaponry.

Nobody actually flies in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. There's a lot of jumping in which gravity appears to be consistent with a much less massive earth (or one with much higher radius), but no actual flight. It's one of those limits that tends to persist fairly well, and as such one ability that should probably be kept out of the hands of mundane characters* in almost any genre, with the notable exception of superheroes. That said, certain fantasy games could probably afford to dial it down for magic using characters as well.

*Things like "hot air balloons" and "airplanes" change this.

Erberor
2014-02-13, 03:27 AM
I personally find that a purely martial character should be able to do some crazy stuff by virtue of sheer skill, power and determination. Stuff like, say, stopping a charging rhino is its tracks. That falls right into the place of appearing impossible by normal means, but not so much so that it breaks the image of the martial character.

A wizard reaches level 20, the peak of power (barring epic shenanigans) by thoroughly mastering the arcane arts, unlocking incomprehensible power.

A martial character reaches level 20 by ascending to a level of skill and physical might that simply boggles the mind. Their skill allows them to accomplish acts that almost surpass the bounds of reality.

Waar
2014-02-13, 04:42 AM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters* or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?


*: By this I mean giving them blatantly paranormal abilities or artificial meta-game limitations like semi-vancian abilities that come in levels and can be used once per day and are then forgotten.

My ideal fighter, the character in a group of equals most focused on combat, needs (some comination of): the ability to have most impact on comabt, to best survive combat and to look the most awesome during combat, (giving the top spot in all three to the same chracter might not be a good idea thou)

Are you willing to let a "mundane" character do any/all of these in a world with magic/supernatural powers? (this is where some fantasy games fail :smallwink: ) if so, great, but if not you might need to suplement your "mundane" character with more abilities such as:


flight
super strength/speed
dr
Health regen
magic resistance/immunity
other high tech gadgets
etc


One other option is to claim that pcs aren't mundane and just give them acces to superpowers/magic/whatever.

Finaly you could let "mundane" characters get/acquire gadgets/magic items/high tech stuff/relics as part of their mechanical character advancement.

In summary a combat focuse PC should be able to kick opponent *** mundane or not.

TuggyNE
2014-02-13, 05:43 AM
Trade damage for increased accuracy.
Trade accuracy for Increased damage.
Trade movement for increased damage or accuracy.
Disarm enemy
Shove enemy
Stun enemy
Trip enemy
Sunder enemy's equipment
Sneak attack an unaware foe for increased damage or accuracy.
Called shot to a specific body part imposing ability penalties or status conditions based on the location.
Charge
Cheap Shot
Cleave though multiple enemies with one attack
Smash through an obstacle
Incur bleeding damage over time
Hold a helpless hostage
Feint
Strike at an enemies weapon as they attack with a longer reach
Attack multiple enemies at once
Defend against a particular maneuver on the opponent's part
Grapple
Gruesome Blow which intimidates enemies
Guard an ally
Weaken an enemy so that an ally can strike the weak spot
Spring Attack
Lunge for a temporary bonus to reach
Guard an area
Draw an enemy's attention
Form a Phalanx with allies
Pommel Strike
Trade AC for increased accuracy or damage
Parry for a temporary boost to AC
Shield Block for a temporary boost to DR
Throw Weapon
Volley with a bow
Struggle without any free limbs
Attack recklessly into a crowd

Too long, didn't read. Could you reformat into an organized list instead of leaving flat? (I was going to do it myself but found it a little overwhelming :smallredface:)


Move quickly to interrupt an enemy's attack
Ignore pain in order to fight efficiently
Become nigh-impervious to pain and torture
Break through magical barriers with either strength, precision, or pure disdain
Shake off mind control
Shake off poison
Coordinate battlefield tactics
Inspire allies
Cow foes
Go berserk
Appraise weapons and armor
Repair weapons and armor
Care for battlefield animals
Look awesomely heroic while getting beaten down
Ignore death long enough for a last speech
Ignore death long enough for a retributive strike
Specialize in a signature technique
Create new fighting styles
Excel at combating certain kinds of foes
Recognize foes by their fighting style

Talakeal
2014-02-13, 04:17 PM
Too long, didn't read. Could you reformat into an organized list instead of leaving flat? (I was going to do it myself but found it a little overwhelming :smallredface:)



What exactly do you mean an organized list? Like grouping it by manuever type?

TheCountAlucard
2014-02-13, 04:25 PM
Depends on the game, obviously, and what people want out of said game.

Talakeal
2014-02-13, 04:33 PM
My ideal fighter, the character in a group of equals most focused on combat, needs (some comination of): the ability to have most impact on comabt, to best survive combat and to look the most awesome during combat, (giving the top spot in all three to the same chracter might not be a good idea thou)

Are you willing to let a "mundane" character do any/all of these in a world with magic/supernatural powers? (this is where some fantasy games fail :smallwink: ) if so, great, but if not you might need to suplement your "mundane" character with more abilities such as:


flight
super strength/speed
dr
Health regen
magic resistance/immunity
other high tech gadgets
etc


One other option is to claim that pcs aren't mundane and just give them acces to superpowers/magic/whatever.

Finaly you could let "mundane" characters get/acquire gadgets/magic items/high tech stuff/relics as part of their mechanical character advancement.

In summary a combat focuse PC should be able to kick opponent *** mundane or not.

In my system at least flight and super strength speed are not mundane abilities, although a non human warrior or one with access to artifacts or potions could achieve them. They are also not really necessary to overcoming obstacles as in combat flight is nowhere near as prevalent or useful as d&d.

DR is possible for a mundane character. Regeneration is not possible, but mundane healing skills are a lot better than d&d.

Magic resistance is easy. Magic immunity is possible, but doing so will cut off friendly magic as well.

High tech gadgets are a definite possibility, although most are rare and poorly understood as it is an apocalyptic setting.

Seerow
2014-02-13, 06:11 PM
Someone who would classify under:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal

Someone along the lines of Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Madmartigan; a pulp hero like James Bond or Indiana Jones, or a comic book character along the lines of Batman or Captain America (in their more down to Earth incarnations).

To represent basically anything along these lines, you need low grade reality warping. Whether it's James Bond "I have a gadget for that" or Indiana Jones improbably surviving something that should kill any normal person, you need something along the lines of Action Points, Edge, whatever, with Mages explicitly giving up access to that sort of thing for their magic. Let the Mundanes be exceedingly lucky and retroactively have that thing they didn't think of 5 sessions ago when you were in town.


Other things a mundane character in general should have in a world filled with magic:
-Extraordinary mobility. If you have levels, a high level character should be faster than a low level character. If you don't, then mobility should be something a character can invest in, with Magic actively working against that in some way.

-Extraordinary survivability. Mundane Heroes in fiction are the guys who shrug off the spells that kill mooks. Whatever your saving throw equivalent for ignoring spells is, a mundane character should be the highest. For all forms of it. In D&D terms if your base line "I'm a mundane action hero" doesn't have good AC, DR, HP, Saves, and Spell Resistance, he's probably not going to be cutting it without supernatural aid.

-Versatility. If you can stat up a high end mundane character in your system and think "I can do things this guy possibly can't", or "I know how to do more things than this guy", even if he is massively better than you at one thing, you've failed horribly. A Mundane warrior is not a dumb jock, but even if he was jocks frequently have charisma and have people skills. In fact, if you are separating the Warrior and Rogue archtype fundamentally, you are probably (not necessarily, but very likely) doing something wrong already.

Jay R
2014-02-13, 06:15 PM
I prefer the old-school approach that a fighter above 10th level or so is now a Lord, with an army of fighters with him, and the advantages of a keep and lands supporting him.

The reason a general can do more than a private is that a general is leading an army.

Seerow
2014-02-13, 06:20 PM
I prefer the old-school approach that a fighter above 10th level or so is now a Lord, with an army of fighters with him, and the advantages of a keep and lands supporting him.

The reason a general can do more than a private is that a general is leading an army.

This really doesn't translate well to a game designed around skirmishes for small teams (read: Nearly every RPG in existence).

Like you may as well say at level 10 retire, and switch to playing Warhammer or something.

Mr Beer
2014-02-13, 06:38 PM
To represent basically anything along these lines,
<post explaining this>



Yep, this detail explains exactly why Mundane heroes like Conan can go toe-to-toe against wizards and other supernatural creatures.

Vitruviansquid
2014-02-13, 07:09 PM
The problem with "mundane combatants" in games like DnD 3.5 is that they are thought of as "mundane." If you want games where characters have extraordinary magic, you need to think of the characters without that extraordinary magic as having an extraordinary something else.

Fighters should have extraordinary strength or extraordinary weapons expertise, rogues have extraordinary speed and skill, and so on. Those characters need to be capable of doing things that aren't possible for most, even all actual humans (though I'm constantly surprised by what actual humans can do). You are not going to be able to "power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters or shonen anime characters" because that would make them weaker than those casters who have extraordinary abilities by definition.

To phrase this in another way, imagine that someone drops a big boulder on your party in an RPG. The wizard player might well say he wants to cast a fireball to blast the boulder away so it doesn't land on the party. The DM and other players sitting around would tend to permit that because they understand that a fireball is a forceful, explosive thing, but they don't have any magical fireball in real life to compare it to, so they'll acknowledge the potential of a fireball to knock the boulder away. In other words, the fireball is powerful because it is extraordinary - it is something the players have no real-life comparison to.

Now, let's say in this same situation, the monk player says he wants to leap up into the sky and kick the boulder away or the fighter says he wants to use his shield to knock the boulder away when it lands on the party. The DM and other players would tend not to permit that because, no matter how strong or high level those characters are, the players are comparing the characters to actual people - professional athletes, circus strongmen, and so on. When the fighter or monk player argues that their characters should be able to do something great, the accusation that they want to transform their character into a semi-magical or shonen anime character will then arise, and the DM will say "sorry, but you can't do that because it doesn't fit in with the campaign world because this isn't a superheros or shonen anime type game."

My point is, you can never meaningfully power up "mundane" characters until you acknowledge that they should be able to accomplish extraordinary, "unrealistic" feats because the fact that a feat is extraordinary and "unrealistic" is what makes it powerful in an RPG to begin with.

neonchameleon
2014-02-13, 07:45 PM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters* or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?

1: Able to kill any opponent that isn't about as skilled in six seconds or less with a sword, dagger, or arrow straight through the brain. D&D PCs in any edition don't wield swords, they wield nerf bats.

2: The ability to shrug off hostile magic and cut through spells by using cold iron. And the ability to wear normally magic repelling iron and steel. (This includes illusions.

3: The ability to use the "Fighter's counterspell" - if the wizard stops moving for long enough to cast a spell anywhere in clear line of sight of the fighter and the fighter isn't in melee, the spellcaster gets caught in the throat or eye with an arrow or thrown dagger before they are more than three words into their spell.

4: A wide range of very effective skills. The sort of range a modern professional soldier has.

If we're going to have genuinely mundane fighters in D&D (which would be a first time) then make them match up to real world warriors. Rather than flailing ineffectually at monsters the size of nine year olds for a minute or more (going by o/AD&D rules) before they can kill them.

The only reason wizards should survive on the battlefield without a wall of fighters in front of them is that the fighters are fictional/cinematic rather than mundane and lethal, and knowing they are walking into death ground whenever facing a spellcaster.

Failing that, we simply make every single attack by the fighter Save or Die - and make magic unable to affect the enemy unless you've first whittled their hit points and thus their magical protections away. After all, people don't survive swords through the brain. Magic just follows whatever rules the author decides.

Talakeal
2014-02-13, 07:45 PM
My point is, you can never meaningfully power up "mundane" characters until you acknowledge that they should be able to accomplish extraordinary, "unrealistic" feats because the fact that a feat is extraordinary and "unrealistic" is what makes it powerful in an RPG to begin with.

I think that is an overly broad statement. While it may be true in some games like exalted or high level 3e d&d it is by no means universal.

In early editions of d&d i never noticed fighters or rogues falling behind for lack of super powers, mortals in shadowrun or world of darkness are not significantly left behind without paranormal abilities, alternity and aces and eights characters played fine with no extraordinary abilities at all. There are also games like warhammer, call of cthulhu, or dark heresy where characters with paranormal abilities are at an advantage, but have enough downsides that it is by no means an optimal character choice, let alone a necessity.

Seerow
2014-02-13, 07:54 PM
I think that is an overly broad statement. While it may be true in some games like exalted or high level 3e d&d it is by no means universal.

In early editions of d&d i never noticed fighters or rogues falling behind for lack of super powers, mortals in shadowrun or world of darkness are not significantly left behind without paranormal abilities, alternity and aces and eights characters played fine with no extraordinary abilities at all. There are also games like warhammer, call of cthulhu, or dark heresy where characters with paranormal abilities are at an advantage, but have enough downsides that it is by no means an optimal character choice, let alone a necessity.

AD&D and earlier is a debatable point. I've seen arguments that AD&D was MORE caster focused than 3e. Sure magic had more drawbacks, but magic was also generally capable of more crazy stuff too. I don't necessarily have a horse in that race, but things weren't all sunshine and roses in AD&D, it was just easier to ignore because a lot of things that were codified in 3e were not in AD&D (wealth/magic items primary among them. Fighter too weak? He finds an artifact sword. What's the Wizard getting? Who cares he's the wizard, that's fighter loot!)

And I can say for certain that mundanes are overshadowed in Shadowrun, despite the more down to earth nature of casters relative to D&D, they still have a lot of advantages over mundanes (infinite growth potential, ease of picking up new tricks, cheap and VERY effective minions, and fewer necessary skills to operate are the big ones).

squiggit
2014-02-13, 08:09 PM
And I can say for certain that mundanes are overshadowed in Shadowrun, despite the more down to earth nature of casters relative to D&D, they still have a lot of advantages over mundanes (infinite growth potential, ease of picking up new tricks, cheap and VERY effective minions, and fewer necessary skills to operate are the big ones).

Plus most mundanes don't stay very mundane for long. Your "fighter" archetype in shadowrun gets to run up cliffs and slice bullets in half with a sword around the same time the mage is getting his cool spells.


CoC and Dark Heresy I don't think are the best examples because those games are basically built around the idea of mortals up against overwhelming darkness.

They also tend to be worlds with more down to earth magic (as weird as that is to say about cthluhu). And even then psykers in 40k are rather brutal.

neonchameleon
2014-02-13, 08:38 PM
AD&D and earlier is a debatable point. I've seen arguments that AD&D was MORE caster focused than 3e. Sure magic had more drawbacks, but magic was also generally capable of more crazy stuff too. I don't necessarily have a horse in that race, but things weren't all sunshine and roses in AD&D, it was just easier to ignore because a lot of things that were codified in 3e were not in AD&D (wealth/magic items primary among them. Fighter too weak? He finds an artifact sword. What's the Wizard getting? Who cares he's the wizard, that's fighter loot!)

Ah, wealth was codified a bit in AD&D - with the treasure tables being strongly skewed to fighter-only equipment. Wizards and clerics didn't wield swords (the primary bit of loot - and swords went up to +5). Of course wizards got their own cool loot (spells) - but this meant that all spells in 1e were under the control of the DM. But there are three primary reasons the game got skewed to the wizards in 3.0. First that wizards got to pick their spells (they'd been able to a little in 2e if specialist casters). Second with the changing of the saving throw system. And third, critically, the removal of the soft level cap round level 10. In AD&D the game changed at level 10, with the fighter getting a small army. The tier list is compiled for level 13 I think - add an army to the fighter's capabilities and things change a little.

oD&D is actually skewed against fighters. But that's because the primary fighter player (Rob Kunz) was awesomely skilled and that skewed the playtest. Which is why Gygax added Weapon Specialisation and a seemingly broken set of martial classes in Unearthed Arcana.

Incanur
2014-02-13, 09:35 PM
Someone along the lines of Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Madmartigan; a pulp hero like James Bond or Indiana Jones, or a comic book character along the lines of Batman or Captain America (in their more down to Earth incarnations).

Well, book Boromir routed dozens of orcs basically alone and even took twenty some with him once finally defeated by a force of over a hundred. Bats or Cap could do the same on an average showing. This strikes as stretching plausibility if you assume human-level (even peak-human) mental and physical stats, but it fits the trope.

Contrary what other have written, I'd recommend that a so-called mundane warrior in a magical world excel at approximately everything. Peak-human comics heroes like Bats and Cap are examples of this. Does Batman have to choose between being the world's greatest detective, or an amazing acrobat, or an A-list unarmed martial artist, or a nigh-invisible stealth expert? Hell no; he's all and more at once. In core 3.x D&D terms, think fighter/rogue gestalt with monk saves. Which leads to another valuable lesson from comics: heroes nearly always possess tremendous willpower.

TuggyNE
2014-02-13, 10:28 PM
What exactly do you mean an organized list? Like grouping it by manuever type?

Yeah. Or any other categorization scheme, really.

Dienekes
2014-02-13, 11:18 PM
In my opinion, assuming a 20 level spread, a mundane combatant should learn all the basics of what a real combatant can do by level 3 at the latest.
For swords: parrying, side-stepping, feints, ripostes, proper stance, hitting harder, hitting faster, attacking legs, arms, forcing your opponent to follow a pattern, observing an opponents weaknesses, forcing them back, tricking them with a fake opening, block for the guy next to me.

This is all stuff I can do. And I am a terrible swordsman. One of the worst. If it takes a fighter level 15 to be able to do all of that (or never being able to do that) then something has gone very, very wrong.

Beyond that, I think it depends on the scale of the game. In 3.5 you start as peasants and end as gods able to control whole planes of existence. Honestly, it's too much for me which is why I generally stick to gaming up to level 10 or so. But in any case, you have to determine what power you want the game to play at and then make abilities to match. If your PCs are world shapers by level 15, then I expect your mundane warrior to be able to level mountains and bash their way through castles Juggernaut style. If, instead, your wizards never really get much past the magic level of say, a Jedi, then the mundane abilities should be scaled down to match. They can still be amazing and fun, but less obviously physics breaking.

Talakeal
2014-02-13, 11:27 PM
Well, book Boromir routed dozens of orcs basically alone and even took twenty some with him once finally defeated by a force of over a hundred. Bats or Cap could do the same on an average showing. This strikes as stretching plausibility if you assume human-level (even peak-human) mental and physical stats, but it fits the trope.

Contrary what other have written, I'd recommend that a so-called mundane warrior in a magical world excel at approximately everything. Peak-human comics heroes like Bats and Cap are examples of this. Does Batman have to choose between being the world's greatest detective, or an amazing acrobat, or an A-list unarmed martial artist, or a nigh-invisible stealth expert? Hell no; he's all and more at once. In core 3.x D&D terms, think fighter/rogue gestalt with monk saves. Which leads to another valuable lesson from comics: heroes nearly always possess tremendous willpower.

I agree on that one. IMO that's the main problem with 3.X martial classes, they have terrible skills and saving throws, and most builds are only good at 1 or 2 tricks. I would be perfectly content with playing a fighter who had ranger skills, monk saves, and got the first feat in each of the combat chains for free; at least as long as we are staying in a low op environment and banning the handful of truly broken spells.

Gettles
2014-02-13, 11:45 PM
For the sake of clarity, I'm assuming in a standard D&D setting (high fantasy level based)

Fighter

Level 1: Local tough, cannon fodder soldier

Level 5: Highly skilled real world swordsman

Level 10: Comic Book Peek Human fighter, Captain America style tricks can outrun horses, carry roughly a ton without strain, and trip up or judo throw gorillas and similar.

Level 15: Blatantly Super Human: Can jump multiple stories into the air, carry around multi-ton loads with no difficult and reflect magic back at the caster. Comparable to Dante from Devil May Cry, or Cyborg Raiden from MGS. Given the time and incentive will reliably solo an army of lesser foes.

Level 20: Engine of destruction: Pretty much The Juggernaut, The Hulk, or Kratos. Throws castles, suplexes dragons, punches the ground to cause earthquakes, pile-drives gods all while unarmed and butt-ass naked.

Rouges:
Level 1: That guy you know that always sneaks up on you without meaning to.

Level 5: James Bond, Assassins Creed protagonists, standard ninjas

Level 10: Catwoman, The Prince of Persia, can climb smooth, vertical surfaces, wall run across large chasms, do Mario style super jumps, pick any lock ever made an disrupt magical protections with a paper clip and do that Batman "you turn around for half a second and I'm already gone".

Level 15: Can crawl along smooth ceilings, sneak though shadows, can effectively disappear if they so decide to.

Level 20: Carmen San Diego, can steal a landmark and sneak through time to hide it for a bit.

Arbane
2014-02-13, 11:55 PM
Another one for the "things heroic non-casters should be able to do" list:

Multitask. You should be able to keep one guy in a headlock while kicking his pal in the head, or balance a priceless tea-set in one hand while fighting three ninjas off with a stepladder. (Yes, I am a Jackie Chan fan, why do you ask?)

zionpopsickle
2014-02-14, 12:09 AM
I think a very basic summation of many of the ideas in this thread is that a high level mundane should be able to do cool things that aren't just hitting things really hard with a sword.

By level 10 a Wizard is telling space-time to get f-ed, can chuck all the cannon fodder out of a building with a single spell, and gain nigh immunity to almost any natural hazard the world can throw at them.

By level 10 a fighter should be doing similarly cool things within their own milieu and by level 20 should be a veritable juggernaut of combat awesomeness.

Basically, if a wizard can confuse reality into giving him what he wants with some silly handwaving and magic words then a fighter should be able to punch reality in the face until it does the same.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 12:14 AM
If your PCs are world shapers by level 15, then I expect your mundane warrior to be able to level mountains and bash their way through castles Juggernaut style. If, instead, your wizards never really get much past the magic level of say, a Jedi, then the mundane abilities should be scaled down to match. They can still be amazing and fun, but less obviously physics breaking.

Alternatively or additionally, you can make mundane warriors a threat to even extremely potent casters if spells require concentration and time, thus leaving casters vulnerable to physical attacks. A peak-human hero with a heavy composite bow shooting light arrows, for instance, should be able to reliably hit a stationary target at 100+ yards in about two seconds. Thus, even with a spell that takes only three seconds to cast, the caster could be basically helpless against against the archer at this distance. Taken to extremes, this dynamic makes for a setting where casters can't get by without warriors but warriors plus casters stomp warriors alone. Various established fantasy settings have approximately this dynamic.

Gettles
2014-02-14, 01:46 AM
I think a very basic summation of many of the ideas in this thread is that a high level mundane should be able to do cool things that aren't just hitting things really hard with a sword.

By level 10 a Wizard is telling space-time to get f-ed, can chuck all the cannon fodder out of a building with a single spell, and gain nigh immunity to almost any natural hazard the world can throw at them.

By level 10 a fighter should be doing similarly cool things within their own milieu and by level 20 should be a veritable juggernaut of combat awesomeness.

Basically, if a wizard can confuse reality into giving him what he wants with some silly handwaving and magic words then a fighter should be able to punch reality in the face until it does the same.

I think thats about it. Everyone should be of the same scope. If the height of magical power is creating your own dimension so you can Astral Project while laying waste to a city with a single spell, and the height of martial power is "swing a sword almost once a second" then the two characters have no way to exist on the same squad.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-02-14, 02:19 AM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters* or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?

As an example; in my homebrew OSR game this is the current list of combat maneuvers. If you have a moment please look it over and tell me if it has anything missing or something that doesn't belong:


*: By this I mean giving them blatantly paranormal abilities or artificial meta-game limitations like semi-vancian abilities that come in levels and can be used once per day and are then forgotten.

Two questions:

Why is that something to be avoided? In many games the casters reach ridiculous levels of power that would be appropriate to that genre. Why shouldn't "mundane" characters be able to do the same, at least within the same game?

Why is paranormal to be avoided? Even in 3.X D&D, where the mundanes are -completely- outclassed by their caster contemporaries, mundane characters regularly perform actions that physics simply would not allow a real person to do, regardless of training. I can understand wanting to avoid flashy supernatural effects but I don't see the problem with things being merely inexplicably beyond the normal to the point of: (slack-jawed) "how the heck did he do that?"

I'm also not sure what the problem with a system of discreet, fire-and-forget type powers is, so long as it's not excessively limited in its use. I don't really expect a solid response to this one beyond, "some people just don't like the way that feels."



Outside of that, and I really hope this doesn't cause a derailment, you need to review your ToB. Only desert wind and shadow hand maneuvers are magical in nature and not even all of them. The entirety of the other 7 disciplines is entirely non-magical, in spite of the fact there are a -few- maneuvers that probably shouldn't be.

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 02:49 AM
Two questions:

Why is that something to be avoided? In many games the casters reach ridiculous levels of power that would be appropriate to that genre. Why shouldn't "mundane" characters be able to do the same, at least within the same game?



Because I am wondering what "mundane" combat abilities a combat system should model. Once you give them paranormal abilities they are no longer mundane. Doing otherwise would be a bit like bringing a fighter jet to a car race; it will almost certainly win, but you no longer have a car race.

As to whether that is a necessary thing, well that depends on the genre. If we are playing a game set in The Matrix, then it would be really out of place for a high end warrior to stick to mundane abilities, while if we were making a Rambo RPG it would be out of place to give our hero paranormal powers.

In a kitchen soup RPG like D&D I think you should probably have both characters be viable options.



I'm also not sure what the problem with a system of discreet, fire-and-forget type powers is, so long as it's not excessively limited in its use. I don't really expect a solid response to this one beyond, "some people just don't like the way that feels."


Personally I don't like arbitrary limitations. I don't like vancian casting for wizards, but at least there you have the "a wizard did it!" excuse for the arbitrary limitations. If my friend and I go out in the yard and wrestle we will be able to shove, trip, grapple, push, disarm, etc. one another over and over again. Both ToB and 4E have severe limitations on the number of options a given character can have at a given time or how often they are able to repeat them.



Outside of that, and I really hope this doesn't cause a derailment, you need to review your ToB. Only desert wind and shadow hand maneuvers are magical in nature and not even all of them. The entirety of the other 7 disciplines is entirely non-magical, in spite of the fact there are a -few- maneuvers that probably shouldn't be.

Yeah, the Warblade maneuvers don't seem overly magical to me, although they also don't seem particularly special for the most part. Most of them are just variations on the maneuvers I listed in my OP with a slight mechanical difference. As I said above though, I don't like arbitrary limitations on my characters.

The Crusader maneuvers bug me however. They are listed as EX, but produce effects that clearly have no relationship to the material world, and twist the metaphysics of the setting into something I am unable to wrap my head around, without even a token explanation like "punching reality so hard they tear a whole into the elemental planes."

Knaight
2014-02-14, 03:15 AM
As to whether that is a necessary thing, well that depends on the genre. If we are playing a game set in The Matrix, then it would be really out of place for a high end warrior to stick to mundane abilities, while if we were making a Rambo RPG it would be out of place to give our hero paranormal powers.

Rambo is chock full of ridiculous stuff like that. Moreover, there are 'power' systems I've seen that model action movies and not reality. A homebrew Fudge system for action movie style gunfights had powers such as being able to quick draw even heavily concealed guns that you really should not be able to quick draw, jumping through plate glass windows and drawing a hail of gunfire towards you from every generic mook in the room that is guaranteed to miss, and reloading with grace, precision, and enough speed that it wasn't a big deal. In a strictly realistic setting these are all out of place. With action movie style mundanes, they fit beautifully despite being powers of a sort. This sort of thing would also fit with Rambo.


The Crusader maneuvers bug me however. They are listed as EX, but produce effects that clearly have no relationship to the material world, and twist the metaphysics of the setting into something I am unable to wrap my head around, without even a token explanation like "punching reality so hard they tear a whole into the elemental planes."
Devoted Spirit is pretty much the poster child for "should be marked Su", so this isn't surprising. Stone dragon's fine for the most part, as it just represents powerful strikes from a strong stance.

zionpopsickle
2014-02-14, 04:01 AM
One thing I notice often in these debates is that the logic that is applied to casters is often working in the opposite direction of the logic that is being applied to mundanes and this reversal of logic is the primary reason that there is so much trouble reconciling the two paradigms.

For casters the logic starts from a basis that anything is possible, if you use enough magic. But for mundanes it seems to go that everything is impossible unless it can be justified via my perceptions of what the human body can do. Not only does this logic present a major problem, it is in fact horrifically inconsistent with the nature of reality in D&D itself. In most D&D settings magic is so intimately intertwined with the fundamental nature of reality that not interacting with it in some way would be extremely aberrant, not mundane. Mundane humans in D&D are a veritable six-demon bag seriously made of wind, fire, all that kind of thing. Animals grow to sizes that would break their bones and cause them to suffocate on their own internal organs. Hell, a completely mundane character with a high-enough escape artist check can literally fit themselves in places that have a smaller volume than they are which is straight up nonsensical and paradox inducing.

I can understand that realism can be a valid complaint if we are looking at mundanes through the lens of the real world. But D&D settings are so utterly different from the real world that using those assumptions would be the same as assuming that my car keys should start any car in a parking lot, since "hey they're all cars and car keys start cars right?" So the question is not, what is realistic within the real world, but what is realistic for a mundane to be able to accomplish in the world of D&D without resorting to actual manipulation of magical energies. When you phrase the question this way, you see that the answers are far less mediocre than what is often suggested and generally are actually a hell of a lot cooler.

Sith_Happens
2014-02-14, 08:06 AM
Someone who would classify under:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal

Someone along the lines of Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Madmartigan; a pulp hero like James Bond or Indiana Jones, or a comic book character along the lines of Batman or Captain America (in their more down to Earth incarnations).

In that case you're more or less looking at anything a low-to-level Fighter or initiator in D&D 3.5 can do (minus the (Su) maneuvers, of course), and probably most of what they could do at high levels if you took away their magic items. Probably also with Action Points to make sure they can pull things off when it counts, like someone else mentioned. EDIT: And with better action economy and per capita breadth of ability, which was also said.

Whether that's balanced then comes down to what your magic and other supernatural/paranormal abilities look like. Or you can cave and throw in some Charles Atlas Superpower (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharlesAtlasSuperpower).

Jay R
2014-02-14, 12:11 PM
This really doesn't translate well to a game designed around skirmishes for small teams (read: Nearly every RPG in existence).

Like you may as well say at level 10 retire, and switch to playing Warhammer or something.

It's one of many changes in role-playing that have improved wizards relative to fighters.

The biggest one is that the games are less lethal. When characters die a lot, the ones with the fewest hit points die first. That was always the great equalizer in old-school games.

Edit: So the real answer to "What should a mundane combatant be able to do?" is survive the area effect attacks.

Knaight
2014-02-14, 12:17 PM
It's one of many changes in role-playing that have improved wizards relative to fighters.

If by role-playing you mean D&D, sure. I can easily list a whole bunch of games which don't have this issue, including very traditional games. Even GURPS doesn't and they do it by not having magic capable of the ridiculous things it is capable of in D&D over the ridiculously short time periods they are performed in D&D. Then there are a number of games where combat magic pretty much comes down to picking either effective or quickly available. Take REIGN - the quickly available combat spells are just sad most of the time, and when they aren't they are horribly unreliable. There's remarkably effective battle magic, but that tends to involve something like ritual dancing for nine hours while the entire population for miles around detects the influx of magic immediately.

squiggit
2014-02-14, 01:10 PM
If you want to stick to "mundane" in DnD play e6 or e10.

This whole "completely normal person and epic level wizards must be on par" isn't reconcilable. You either have to discard this notion of 'mundane' (which is a silly restriction in the first place when the setting is one explicitly not mundane by design) or you have to drag the wizards down to the same level by either vastly weakening their spell lists or making everything ritual magic. Or both.

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 02:57 PM
I think I may not have been clear enough in my initial post.

I was not talking about trying to balance mundanes against magic or how to buff a fighter class in d&d or any other system.

I was merely asking what sort of combat maneuvers / abilities a game system would need to make a fully fleshed out combatant who is roughly as versatile as a real world soldier can be.

if said warrior needs to gain super powers on top of it to keep up with the other archetypes then so be it, but i wanted him to establish a base of mundane abilities to build off of first.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-14, 03:07 PM
I was merely asking what sort of combat maneuvers / abilities a game system would need to make a fully fleshed out combatant who is roughly as versatile as a real world soldier can be.

Ah, in that case...use this as a benchmark (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/army/a/afpt.htm). "Be hardy", "lift weight", "use weapons", and "reliably win a fight" are real-world soldier traits. That's about where it stops. That said, very few non-magic types in legends and folklore stop at that. Beowulf swam across an ocean in full armor for six days. (He also claims that he killed nine sea monsters in that time; take it as you will.)

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 03:20 PM
Ah, in that case...use this as a benchmark (http://usmilitary.about.com/od/army/a/afpt.htm). "Be hardy", "lift weight", "use weapons", and "reliably win a fight" are real-world soldier traits. That's about where it stops. That said, very few non-magic types in legends and folklore stop at that. Beowulf swam across an ocean in full armor for six days. (He also claims that he killed nine sea monsters in that time; take it as you will.)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=29FXtcCY8C0

Waar
2014-02-14, 03:38 PM
I was merely asking what sort of combat maneuvers / abilities a game system would need to make a fully fleshed out combatant who is roughly as versatile as a real world soldier can be.


There are two things that (Imo) many games lack:
Suppresive fire and a mundane high damage low odds attack. The ability to make the oppontens keep their heads down/keep their distance/focus on the figther, enforced by a very real risk of massive damage/death (this might be hard to pull of properly, but would be very nice :smallsmile:)

additional (vague :smalltongue:) things include some mechanic/ability related to:

Leadership
Morale
Dicipline
Tactics
Flanking/Ambush

Kaiu Keiichi
2014-02-14, 04:19 PM
If you can be Merlin, then I should be able to be Beowulf. No one should be mundane in epics and myth, which is what I want from my gaming.

Also - 'realism' is a red herring. Most real world physical combat is boring, and I doubt anyone here on this thread has killed anyone with a bladed weapon. Setting emulation and story fidelity should be what is aimed for. Most presumptions I notice are tropes taken from TV and movies, if anything.

For folks who want a high degree of physical simulation, I urge examination of Chaosium's old RuneQuest line. D&D is largely a narrative game, imposing artificial narrative structures on character roles by way of OOC structures like class and alignment. If you want truly hard core simulation, eject class and D&D's vague, narrative hit points. The Chaosium derived BRP games have never been subject to these kinds of debates, in my recollection.

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 04:21 PM
If you can be Merlin, then I should be able to be Beowulf. No one mundane in epics and myth, which is what I want from my gaming.

Did beowulf ever do anything super natural aside from hold his breath for a really long time?

Kaiu Keiichi
2014-02-14, 04:26 PM
Beowulf literally tears monsters apart with his bare hands (http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-three-examples-beowulfs-superhuman-strength-276106), amongst other things. These are things which I am forbidden to have my fighter do in D&D without the aid of wizard magic.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 04:52 PM
Most real world physical combat is boring, and I doubt anyone here on this thread has killed anyone with a bladed weapon.

:smalleek:

Boring? That strikes me as one thing that it's most clearly not, unless you're including the tedium that accompanies combat (guard duty, marching with a heavy pack, etc.).

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-14, 05:04 PM
Did beowulf ever do anything super natural aside from hold his breath for a really long time?
Not just hold his breath; being able to swim that far and long in full armor requires immense physical endurance; you're fighting against a lot of forces just to stay afloat.

And if we keep going? Hercules...oh, Hercules. He chased the Ceryneian Hind (a beast rumored to be swift as an arrow) for a full year before it dropped from exhaustion, rerouted a pair of rivers to wash out the Augean Stables, and overpowered Cerberus, Hades' three-headed watchdog, with his bare hands.

We're just getting started on the "mundanes". (Which is really a term that doesn't work very well for non-magic folk. They are anything but mundane. They're certainly not bound by any sort of realism.)

Do we have an index somewhere of superhuman feats accomplished by legendary non-magical characters?

Morty
2014-02-14, 05:14 PM
To be fair, I wouldn't call Hercules "non-magical". He was a demigod, much like many of Hellenic heroes. That was the source of his strength. I'm not sure just how many formidable mortals the Greek myths include.

And the term I like to sometimes use for this sort of character is "ostensibly normal". They're "normal" in that they don't use anything outwardly magical and/or don't tap into whatever supernatural power source a given setting has - but they do things which aren't normal by any scientific metric.

Red Fel
2014-02-14, 05:15 PM
I think the point is that if we're just trying to make your typical mundane as effective and versatile as his real-world counterpart, we're going to be underwhelmed, really fast.

Yes, real-world trained fighters, soldiers, and special operatives have skills far superior to the average citizen. Lots of skills, applicable to lots of situations, not just combat.

But at the end of the day, that's just not sufficient for your more typical "heroic" settings. It's fine for a realistic RPG setting, like a spy-tech or a war-sim type game. But once you get into something like D&D or the more high fantasy settings, the "real-world counterpart" isn't the right basis of comparison.

When you're dealing with spellcasters who can raise armies of the undead, mentalists who can levitate continents, massive monstrosities that belch fire and fly miles above, Seal Team Six - impressive though its members may be - is no longer your benchmark for "mundane" heroism.

Your "mundane" heroes become Conan, Beowulf, Achilles, and Heracles. You want Sun Wukong's legendary mastery of the size-changing staff. You want Arthur and his Excalibur, a blessed blade without equal. You want heroes with a level of strength, stamina, and fortitude of body and spirit that simply does not exist in real life. These people, "mundane" by their settings, are magnitudes beyond the most capable of Olympic athletes.

"Non-mundanes" can be constantly updated and upgraded to be consistent with their settings. "Mundanes" should similarly be defined by their settings, not by reality.

Thus, in response to the original question, I think the answer is "Whatever would be impressive and appropriate for a person who lives in that setting, given training and time," not "Whatever a realistic person could do, given training and time."

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-14, 05:33 PM
To be fair, I wouldn't call Hercules "non-magical". He was a demigod, much like many of Hellenic heroes. That was the source of his strength. I'm not sure just how many formidable mortals the Greek myths include.
Is his dad responsible for his strength? I thought it typically derived from achieving godhood and being on Mount Olympus? (Could be wrong, at that.)

You'd also find a lot of formidable mortals in the Iliad, too, as I recall.

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 05:38 PM
I think the point is that if we're just trying to make your typical mundane as effective and versatile as his real-world counterpart, we're going to be underwhelmed, really fast.

Yes, real-world trained fighters, soldiers, and special operatives have skills far superior to the average citizen. Lots of skills, applicable to lots of situations, not just combat.

But at the end of the day, that's just not sufficient for your more typical "heroic" settings. It's fine for a realistic RPG setting, like a spy-tech or a war-sim type game. But once you get into something like D&D or the more high fantasy settings, the "real-world counterpart" isn't the right basis of comparison.

When you're dealing with spellcasters who can raise armies of the undead, mentalists who can levitate continents, massive monstrosities that belch fire and fly miles above, Seal Team Six - impressive though its members may be - is no longer your benchmark for "mundane" heroism.

Your "mundane" heroes become Conan, Beowulf, Achilles, and Heracles. You want Sun Wukong's legendary mastery of the size-changing staff. You want Arthur and his Excalibur, a blessed blade without equal. You want heroes with a level of strength, stamina, and fortitude of body and spirit that simply does not exist in real life. These people, "mundane" by their settings, are magnitudes beyond the most capable of Olympic athletes.

"Non-mundanes" can be constantly updated and upgraded to be consistent with their settings. "Mundanes" should similarly be defined by their settings, not by reality.

Thus, in response to the original question, I think the answer is "Whatever would be impressive and appropriate for a person who lives in that setting, given training and time," not "Whatever a realistic person could do, given training and time."

Agreed. However, conceptually, those guys you listed start with mundane skills and then dial them up to eleven. Excalibur is stronger than any sword and can cut through steel like butter, but it is still a sword. Achilles may be the greatest warrior who ever lived, but he is still a warrior. Hercules may be as strong as a titan, but he still uses his muscles to exert force on the world. Beowulf can hold his breathe for days, but he still has lungs that take in oxygen. Atalanta is the fastest women who ever lived, but she still runs by using her legs to push off the ground, orpheus may be able to make music so beautiful its makes Hades cry, but he is still doing so with by plucking the strings of a lyre.

None of these guys are flapping their arms to fly away, or shooting lasers from their eyes, or reversing gravity by doing a dance, clapping so hard their enemies turn into newts, or reciting a poem so lovely that it makes trees grow from concrete.

Read / watch The Lord of the Rings, Conan, The Iliad, excalibur, or even classic D&D fiction like Dragonlance or Icewind Dale, you have plenty of heroes doing heroic things without ever resorting to magic or abilities that fall outside of possible real world physics (albeit highly unlikely in many places). Heck, even the vast majority of RPGs that aren't Exalted or High level D&D can manage well enough.

Morty
2014-02-14, 05:41 PM
I'm not terribly familiar with the Iliad, but I'm pretty sure Hercules's strength is a result of his being Zeus's son. He did strangle a pair of large serpents while still in the crib.

Also, I'd like to stress that a setting in which non-magical people are constrined by reality's rules and magicians can do wonders is perfectly valid. It's just that if you run a tabletop RPG this way, it gets tricky if you try to put both Muggles and magicians in the same group. The World of Darkness deals with it by not expecting mixed mortal-supernatural groups. Ars Magica deals with it by having each player run a mage, the mage's competent normal retainer and the mage's low-rank henchmen. The Riddle of Steel deals with it by... well, warning Seneshals that they mix sorcerers and non-sorcerers at their own peril. But as much as I love TRoS for its combat model, its way of dealing with magic isn't too good.

Seerow
2014-02-14, 05:50 PM
To be fair, I wouldn't call Hercules "non-magical". He was a demigod, much like many of Hellenic heroes. That was the source of his strength. I'm not sure just how many formidable mortals the Greek myths include.


Most magic users of myth tend to fall under this category as well. Everyone just seems to forget that when it comes to combining all of these demi-god magic users together into a single class.

Morty
2014-02-14, 05:59 PM
That's true. Mythical heroes do tend to have a special origin of some sort, often in the form of a divine parentage, regardless of what sort of power they use.

squiggit
2014-02-14, 06:56 PM
Also, I'd like to stress that a setting in which non-magical people are constrined by reality's rules and magicians can do wonders is perfectly valid. It's just that if you run a tabletop RPG this way, it gets tricky if you try to put both Muggles and magicians in the same group. The World of Darkness deals with it by not expecting mixed mortal-supernatural groups. Ars Magica deals with it by having each player run a mage, the mage's competent normal retainer and the mage's low-rank henchmen. The Riddle of Steel deals with it by... well, warning Seneshals that they mix sorcerers and non-sorcerers at their own peril. But as much as I love TRoS for its combat model, its way of dealing with magic isn't too good.

Settings like Ars Magicka and WoD I don't think follow the same pattern though because those are ones explicitly where the magic users trump mortals.

It's perfectly valid because it's the expectation of the setting (though WoD mages have the same problem when comparing themselves to other supernaturals). The problem is a lot of these settings present no expectation of "X is better than Y" at all.


I'm also not sure what the problem with a system of discreet, fire-and-forget type powers is, so long as it's not excessively limited in its use. I don't really expect a solid response to this one beyond, "some people just don't like the way that feels."
Well how you feel is a big deal here. It's one of the main driving forces behind the discussion.

That aside, the idea of "once per day" abilities for fighters starts to cross the line a bit for some people. For mages you can sort of explain it away by shouting "Vancian!" and waving your arms madly. For a fighter or rogue it feels like you're starting to see the strings and walls.

Some good ideas I've seen around it are either describing them as effects you need to prepare in advance: Executioners in 4e DnD get to brew special poisons as dailies. These poisons take time to make and have limited uses so the 'once a day' schtick starts to make sense. Rogues by comparison get the ability to knock someone out as a daily power and the idea that you can only hit someone with your sap once a day feels weird by comparison even if it is mechanically sound and balanced.

The idea of "This technique is so intense and exhaustive I can't use it over and over" is a logical one but still one the system doesn't express very well because being exhausted should impede more than just that one action.

You could probably express that with some sort of 'fatigue bar'. Normal actions don't fatigue you but these special high end combat maneuvers would (say you have 10 fatigue points and this special once a day maneuver eats 6. Then some lesser technique eats 2 and you use it twice to eat up your expenditures for the day). Admittedly it's just a reflavored MP bar but I feel like it's a more tolerable abstraction of the concept.

Thrudd
2014-02-14, 07:28 PM
As a side note, Vancian casting is a part of the default D&D setting which is not really "hand waving" away limits on magic. It is an in-world construct that is a part of how magic works in this world. I'm sure it was chosen as a convenient way to limit the power of magic users, but it is based on a pre-published fictional setting. If you have Vancian magic in your game, magic users in-world are meant to be aware of the "spell-slots" that they partition in their minds to allow the casting of spells. Their training teaches them how to do that, and they are aware of the choices they can make regarding how many spells to prepare, etc. In other words, the character's knowledge and choices are identical to the player's knowledge and choices in this regard.

For fighters, or non-spellcasting classes, it is indeed "hand-waving" to say that a certain ability is strictly limited in it's use based on encounter or day. The player knows they can only use the ability once. The character would not know that, they know they have the ability to perform a maneuver and should be able to try it any time they want. To simulate the idea that the combat trick doesn't work as well on an opponent more than once, you would need to create a mechanic where there is a chance that an ability will fail to work on subsequent uses against the same opponent or an opponent that has observed the character using it. The character should be able to attempt the maneuver as many times as they want, with the knowledge that overuse may result in failure.
To simulate fatigue being a limiting factor on maneuvers, you would need to introduce a fatigue mechanic into the game, whereby each action drains a certain amount of fatigue points (and resting or refraining from action for more than one round without being attacked returns them), and when fatigue points are drained, a fatigue penalty applies until taking an out-of-combat rest. The fatigue points are then returned to their total, and if they are drained a second time, an additional penalty is added. Or after certain numbers of actions there is an increasing chance of fatigue penalties, which can add up and result in an attempted maneuver failing.
Fatigue points are not the best from the point of view of having no disassociated mechanics since the fighter isn't aware of the points, but they do represent the fighters' awareness of how tired they are and whether they have the energy to perform a particular action. There is nothing stopping the fighter from attempting any action despite their level of fatigue, there are just increasing penalties that increase the chance of failure.

I'm not saying such a system would be ideal, it actually is too much to keep track of in my opinion. But if your game is all about combat and you want to simulate combat conditions and cool abilities of fighters without the per round/per encounter/per day mechanic, it could be done.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 08:17 PM
When you're dealing with spellcasters who can raise armies of the undead, mentalists who can levitate continents, massive monstrosities that belch fire and fly miles above, Seal Team Six - impressive though its members may be - is no longer your benchmark for "mundane" heroism.

It strikes me as a complicated question. A big problem when comparing roleplaying games to popular fiction is that most fictional characters, especially the more powerful ones, don't behave like even remotely mechanically savvy players. They make haphazard and simplistic use of their abilities the vast majority of the time. The needs of the plot determine what happens, with little attention given to consistency. Because of this, a well-played mundane in the peak-human sense (see below) could do surprising well in magical and high-tech settings as they're portrayed. Potterverse would be an example: as potent as magic is, house elves with kitchen knives and punches from scrawny teens remain a credible threat to wizards. Optimized might HP wizards/witches might be nearly invincible, but as they appear in the book a mundane-badass-type character would do fine alongside them.

Comic books take this to extremes and have supposedly not-quite-superhuman characters like Bats and Cap on the same team as Superman, Thor, Silver Surfer, etc. It only works at because a) the cosmic characters basically stand there drooling and b) the mundanes periodically perform inexplicable feats. See Cap vs. King Thor, Cap vs. Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet, various Bats vs. Superman fights, etc. Cap vs. Molecule Man was so well done it was almost plausible for a peak-human dude to kayo an incompetent opponent with cosmic power but a weak mortal frame.


Thus, in response to the original question, I think the answer is "Whatever would be impressive and appropriate for a person who lives in that setting, given training and time," not "Whatever a realistic person could do, given training and time."

This thread has gone beyond strict realism from the beginning. What the original poster appears to want I would call peak-human heroes, characters who exaggerate known human potential without becoming dramatically superhuman.


Also, I'd like to stress that a setting in which non-magical people are constrined by reality's rules and magicians can do wonders is perfectly valid. It's just that if you run a tabletop RPG this way, it gets tricky if you try to put both Muggles and magicians in the same group.

As mentioned above, house elves with knives and Harry's punches do fine in Potterverse as written. Badass normal could work in such a setting. Because of the great cultural and symbolic importance of the punch and the blade, so many scifi and fantasy settings lend themselves to badass-normal characters. (Star Trek is an especially egregious example of this. Energy weapons with widebeam settings capable of vaporizing boulders and GUNS THAT SNIPE THROUGH ALL OBSTACLES AT HUNDREDS OF METERS coexist with human-wave tactics, swords, and the old left hook.)

If you want setting appropriate, just have the badass-normal character punch people out because it's cool. This works for lots of setting. :smallmad:

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 08:45 PM
This thread has gone beyond strict realism from the beginning. What the original poster appears to want I would call peak-human heroes, characters who exaggerate known human potential without becoming dramatically superhuman.


That's the level I prefer to play at true; but not strictly what the thread was about. I was more curious about how one would mechanically simulate the full range of options a real world combatant would possess in an RPG, either for a purely mundane character or as a base to build an extraordinary character upon depending on the setting.


...See Cap vs. King Thor, Cap vs. Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet...:

Um, you must be reading a different comic than I was; this is what I remember of that fight:

http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/6-part-1-258x400.jpg

http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/6-part-2-260x400.jpg

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/6/63715/1873291-667010_thanos_super.jpg

Still, Captain America did come out of the conflict looking significantly more heroic than Thanos, if not (anywhere close to) more powerful; which is about as great a victory as one could hope for in such a situation.

Frankly, once we are dealing with beings with power on that level any sort of traditional narrative (and most game mechanics) are already mostly meaningless. I would probably prefer someone like Captain America with Charisma, Willpower, and Intelligence in my corner than someone with power like Thor or Silver Surfer if I had to go up against a ni-omnipotent foe.

squiggit
2014-02-14, 08:51 PM
It strikes me as a complicated question. A big problem when comparing roleplaying games to popular fiction is that most fictional characters, especially the more powerful ones, don't behave like even remotely mechanically savvy players. They make haphazard and simplistic use of their abilities the vast majority of the time. The needs of the plot determine what happens, with little attention given to consistency. Because of this, a well-played mundane in the peak-human sense (see below) could do surprising well in magical and high-tech settings as they're portrayed. Potterverse would be an example: as potent as magic is, house elves with kitchen knives and punches from scrawny teens remain
The problem there is twofold though. A mundane in that setting tends to win with a bit of subterfuge and surprise. A lot of people aren't willing to act that way with their fighter. They don't want to be right under the villain's nose or sneak through the shadows. They want to storm the keep. Also as pointed out the villains tend to act in a kind of dumb fashion, which isn't always desirable either. Plus HP wizards are still kinda low powered compared to some of the shenanigans in dnd.

Red Fel
2014-02-14, 09:05 PM
Agreed. However, conceptually, those guys you listed start with mundane skills and then dial them up to eleven. Excalibur is stronger than any sword and can cut through steel like butter, but it is still a sword. Achilles may be the greatest warrior who ever lived, but he is still a warrior. Hercules may be as strong as a titan, but he still uses his muscles to exert force on the world. Beowulf can hold his breathe for days, but he still has lungs that take in oxygen. Atalanta is the fastest women who ever lived, but she still runs by using her legs to push off the ground, orpheus may be able to make music so beautiful its makes Hades cry, but he is still doing so with by plucking the strings of a lyre.

None of these guys are flapping their arms to fly away, or shooting lasers from their eyes, or reversing gravity by doing a dance, clapping so hard their enemies turn into newts, or reciting a poem so lovely that it makes trees grow from concrete.

Read / watch The Lord of the Rings, Conan, The Iliad, excalibur, or even classic D&D fiction like Dragonlance or Icewind Dale, you have plenty of heroes doing heroic things without ever resorting to magic or abilities that fall outside of possible real world physics (albeit highly unlikely in many places). Heck, even the vast majority of RPGs that aren't Exalted or High level D&D can manage well enough.

Valid. And I agree, the classic epic heroes and heroines aren't doing anything superhuman in terms of the type of actions they perform. What is superhuman about their actions is, as you describe, the fact that these actions are "dialed up to eleven."

That, I think, is the key. No infant could strangle serpents in his crib; no warrior alive could shrug off arrows without the aid of armor; no sword could cut through steel as if it were paper without ever needing sharpening; no mighty man in pants could rip the jawbone off of a donkey and beat a lion to death with it; and so on. This is what makes epic mundanes distinct from realistic ones - not a difference in type of ability, but a profound difference in scale. A profound difference.

And that's the problem. High fantasy mundanes don't achieve that sense of scale the way epic heroes do. No epic-level Fighter can rip a Balor in half with his bare hands. No Barbarian, no matter how powerful his rage, could suplex and snap the neck of an Ancient Wyrm. The abilities don't scale.

A mundane combatant, at the level of a Heracles, should be able to hold the world on his shoulders; a mundane performer, at the level of Orpheus, should be able to bring the gods themselves to tears; a mundane hunter, at the level of a Fionn mac Cumhaill, should be able to track a falcon on a cloudy day across miles of terrain, and take down a demigod giant with a single spear. This is what they should be able to do. The question is whether a system offers mechanics that let them.

I agree again; these are not new or clever abilities. A first-level combatant can throw a spear or wrestle. But a mundane combatant in an epic setting should ultimately be able to throw a spear that can pierce mountains, or wrestle with the ocean itself. I have yet to find a system (barring maybe Exalted or Feng Shui) that adequately conveys that sensation of absolute, epic, mindblowing power progression.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 09:08 PM
Um, you must be reading a different comic than I was; this is what I remember of that fight:

No, that's what I remember too. It's silly for Cap to be there at all assuming he's just peak human as described. Top-tier Marvel characters destroy planets, survive black holes, and so on. Cap should have been obliterated by the mere collateral damage from the various top-tier characters fighting Thanos, shield or no shield. (This would be true even without the IG.) You can partially explain it as Thanos screwing around, which he was, but it's still a peculiar comic-book conceit to have somebody like Cap remotely relevant in the battle. Top-tier comics characters on higher showings and often in written descriptions move, think, and react many times faster than light. (Even big old Thanos avoided Silver Surfer zooming in from light years away.) Logically, Cap or Bats would be less relevant to a top-tier fight than ants are to U.S. military engagements. But this disconnect is part of what gives comics their bizarre charm.

GMing protip: Don't give some PCs Cap's powers and others Norrin's powers and expect it to work out the way it does in comics. And if you do, don't ever let the cosmic players visit the CBR forums. :smallannoyed: ("I phase in at 200 trillion c and obliterate the planet in a nanosecond while surrounded by a swirling shield of adamantium. I'll stop on the other side of the galaxy to look back and see if anybody survived. If so I'll reverse time and try again.")

Kelb_Panthera
2014-02-14, 09:22 PM
Agreed. However, conceptually, those guys you listed start with mundane skills and then dial them up to eleven. Excalibur is stronger than any sword and can cut through steel like butter, but it is still a sword. Achilles may be the greatest warrior who ever lived, but he is still a warrior. Hercules may be as strong as a titan, but he still uses his muscles to exert force on the world. Beowulf can hold his breathe for days, but he still has lungs that take in oxygen. Atalanta is the fastest women who ever lived, but she still runs by using her legs to push off the ground, orpheus may be able to make music so beautiful its makes Hades cry, but he is still doing so with by plucking the strings of a lyre.

Hold it. Excalibur is -not- just a sword. It goes -way- beyond what mere steel, no matter how well forged, can do. Its ability to choose who wields it also suggests that it's an intelligent item.

Heracles may have used his muscles but those muscles were infused with divinity. The man was half a god. Again, hardly mundane.

The others were mundane enough but pushed themselves -way- past anything that's even remotely possible in reality. They definitely reach into the preternatural; which some might even call paranormal.


None of these guys are flapping their arms to fly away, or shooting lasers from their eyes, or reversing gravity by doing a dance, clapping so hard their enemies turn into newts, or reciting a poem so lovely that it makes trees grow from concrete.

True enough. Still -way- beyond reality though. There are certain limitations to the flesh that they -do- seem to simply ignore, save Orpheus' musical ability.


Read / watch The Lord of the Rings, Conan, The Iliad, excalibur, or even classic D&D fiction like Dragonlance or Icewind Dale, you have plenty of heroes doing heroic things without ever resorting to magic or abilities that fall outside of possible real world physics (albeit highly unlikely in many places). Heck, even the vast majority of RPGs that aren't Exalted or High level D&D can manage well enough.

Here's the thing; those are stories in which the heroes all but explicitly beat overwhelming odds. That works fine in stories because the odds are irrelevant. The plot goes how the author says it will go. In a game, however, the odds -are- relevant and most of those heroes would have been killed well before the points where the stories reached their published conclusions. Drizz't, Wulfgar, or Tanis should've been killed a dozen times over before they got through the -first- trilogy they were in. Hell, Drizz't probably shouldn't have ever made it to adulthood, much less become the drow hero of Icewind Dale, statistically speaking.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 09:36 PM
Here's the thing; those are stories in which the heroes all but explicitly beat overwhelming odds. That works fine in stories because the odds are irrelevant. The plot goes how the author says it will go. In a game, however, the odds -are- relevant and most of those heroes would have been killed well before the points where the stories reached their published conclusions. Drizz't, Wulfgar, or Tanis should've been killed a dozen times over before they got through the -first- trilogy they were in. Hell, Drizz't probably shouldn't have ever made it to adulthood, much less become the drow hero of Icewind Dale, statistically speaking.

Well you can always pull a Robert Jordan and make character shields (http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Ta%27veren) an explicit part of the setting. :smallsmile: Some degree of destiny and/or extraordinary luck strikes me as appropriate for games in which you want to so-called mundane characters to excel. This tends to conflict with gritty aesthetics, so chose whatever you're going for.

Red Fel
2014-02-14, 09:45 PM
Hold it. Excalibur is -not- just a sword. It goes -way- beyond what mere steel, no matter how well forged, can do. Its ability to choose who wields it also suggests that it's an intelligent item.

Heracles may have used his muscles but those muscles were infused with divinity. The man was half a god. Again, hardly mundane.

The others were mundane enough but pushed themselves -way- past anything that's even remotely possible in reality. They definitely reach into the preternatural; which some might even call paranormal.

True enough. Still -way- beyond reality though. There are certain limitations to the flesh that they -do- seem to simply ignore, save Orpheus' musical ability.

To be fair, in most classical myths, legends, and other forms of ancient folklore, heroes were supernatural simply by being heroes. Truly mundane human beings didn't depart from their daily lives, because that wasn't their place; to even start down that path, a person had to be beyond the ordinary. Heroes occupied a liminal space - not mortal, but not spirit. Heracles is a classic example - he was a demigod. Gilgamesh earned and rejected the love of a goddess. Samson was sworn to his deity from birth. Arthur was chosen by a wizard, and a fey spirit, and possibly by a divine miracle in some tellings. Almost all classic heroes were superhuman before they became heroes, in part because normal people wouldn't even try. It was unthinkable.

So if we're going with the template of the epic, we have to accept that "mundane" is a sliding scale. As long as a character is performing actions that can technically be performed by a human being, even if they draw power from divine parentage, a blessed super-sword, a holy oath, or similar, that character is "mundane" by the standards of the epic. As long as they're not throwing fireballs, or levitating, or turning into a dragon, we have to accept them as mundane, because classically speaking, there were virtually no "epic heroes" without some supernatural spark to their stories. Even Jason and Odysseus dealt with divine intervention in their quests, and they were otherwise extremely mundane, albeit intelligent and strong-willed.


Here's the thing; those are stories in which the heroes all but explicitly beat overwhelming odds. That works fine in stories because the odds are irrelevant. The plot goes how the author says it will go. In a game, however, the odds -are- relevant and most of those heroes would have been killed well before the points where the stories reached their published conclusions. Drizz't, Wulfgar, or Tanis should've been killed a dozen times over before they got through the -first- trilogy they were in. Hell, Drizz't probably shouldn't have ever made it to adulthood, much less become the drow hero of Icewind Dale, statistically speaking.

But that's just it. The definition of a hero involves overcoming overwhelming odds. If the odds were in his favor, there would hardly be anything heroic about it. We're not talking about the risk of death to the hero; they risk death simply by existing, they're practically magnets for supernatural hijinx and monstrous adventures. It's not about how likely the hero is to die, but how epically he can wage the fight before he goes down.

Besides, the odds are still odds. Odds of 100:1 still give a 1% chance of success. A player can always land a lucky dice roll. The point is that he should have the chance to make that roll.

Incanur
2014-02-14, 09:59 PM
In Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532), pretty much all the main characters operate at peak-human level or above without any explanation that I recall. Olando himself is blatantly superpowered, blessed with impenetrable skin and tremendous strength. (At one point he rips trees out of the ground.) I'm not as familiar with earlier romances, but I think there's a precedent for mighty warriors with little or no overt supernatural connections.

obryn
2014-02-14, 10:02 PM
If that were true, "save or die" spells wouldn't be a thing. Wizards wouldn't be able to drastically alter or obviate combat within a very short series of actions.

The DnD double-standard says that killing in one hit with "non-magical" means is frowned upon. :smallfurious:
Uh huh.

It's silly that Save or Die is a thing that bypasses hit points, when a sword can't just "Behead" and do the same.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-02-14, 10:23 PM
But that's just it. The definition of a hero involves overcoming overwhelming odds. If the odds were in his favor, there would hardly be anything heroic about it. We're not talking about the risk of death to the hero; they risk death simply by existing, they're practically magnets for supernatural hijinx and monstrous adventures. It's not about how likely the hero is to die, but how epically he can wage the fight before he goes down.

Besides, the odds are still odds. Odds of 100:1 still give a 1% chance of success. A player can always land a lucky dice roll. The point is that he should have the chance to make that roll.

The problem is that there are no rolls in storytelling. Nominally, they overcame overwhelming odds. Factually they were guaranteed success by the author. In a game, overwhelming odds have an unfortunate tendency to overwhelm.

You don't get a good game by letting players roll 1:100 chances because 99 times out of a hundred they're going to lose. You get a good game by letting them roll 50/50 or even as much as 70/30 odds that would be 1:100 for people who aren't the story's protagonists. Whether you accomplish this by having them be just that good or by giving them some mechanic that represents unnatural luck or the hand of fate is irrelevant.

A 10th level fighter beating a juvenile red dragon isn't amazing because he beat 100:1 odds. He's amazing because he killed a creature that was a match for small armies. The fact that his odds were around 50/50* is what makes a good game. The fact that it would've been 100:1 for most anybody else makes it a good story.


*Nominally; CR10 creature vs level 10 character. The odds are quite likely stacked a little more in the dragon's favor in reality.

Talakeal
2014-02-14, 10:52 PM
Hold it. Excalibur is -not- just a sword. It goes -way- beyond what mere steel, no matter how well forged, can do. Its ability to choose who wields it also suggests that it's an intelligent item.


Of course not. Excalibur is much more than just a sword. But in combat it is still wielded like a sword, held in the hands and used as a wedge to cut the opponent. It does not, for example, shoot missiles from the hilt or allow the wielder to fly by swinging it in the air like a helicopter, or allow the wielder to travel great distances by cutting a wormhole in the fabric of space-time.

And even if a sword did do some or all of these things, it would be the "magic" of the sword doing it rather than some sort of spell cast by the wielder.

Red Fel
2014-02-15, 09:13 AM
The problem is that there are no rolls in storytelling. Nominally, they overcame overwhelming odds. Factually they were guaranteed success by the author. In a game, overwhelming odds have an unfortunate tendency to overwhelm.

You don't get a good game by letting players roll 1:100 chances because 99 times out of a hundred they're going to lose. You get a good game by letting them roll 50/50 or even as much as 70/30 odds that would be 1:100 for people who aren't the story's protagonists. Whether you accomplish this by having them be just that good or by giving them some mechanic that represents unnatural luck or the hand of fate is irrelevant.

A 10th level fighter beating a juvenile red dragon isn't amazing because he beat 100:1 odds. He's amazing because he killed a creature that was a match for small armies. The fact that his odds were around 50/50* is what makes a good game. The fact that it would've been 100:1 for most anybody else makes it a good story.


*Nominally; CR10 creature vs level 10 character. The odds are quite likely stacked a little more in the dragon's favor in reality.

Granted, that in fiction - and in epics - the hero is often guaranteed something resembling success. (But see the Greek tragedies, and concepts like the Pyrrhic victory.) The thing to remember, however, is that success served sunny-side up with no hitches or speed bumps is poor dramatic tension. If our only options are "hero succeeds" and "hero fails," of course the hero will succeed. No tension whatsoever.

Good writing, as with good roleplaying, adds dimensions to victory. One method is to out the binary nature of success into multiple variables. Here's an example I read once, concerning dramatic tension in movies: The spy-hero is trying to reach and protect an intelligence asset before the villain can reach her. There is a car chase. If the options were success or failure, the hero would succeed. So we break it out. Does the hero get there in his car? Is there some reason he has to switch to a foot chase? Does he get there alive but fail to save her? Does he get there, but only as she's dying? Does she survive long enough to tell him the information he wanted to protect her for?

That's where the drama comes from - the degrees. In tabletop games, that tension is there too - how successful will the heroes be? But if anything, we then add the dramatic layer of the possibility of failure.

And here's another thing. It's entirely possible to get halfway through a story of epic heroism, only for the protagonist to be destroyed; then we realize that it was actually another character, who was being built up along the way, who was intended to be our protagonist. A great example of this in modern media isTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in which the first part of the series consists of the epic adventures of the incomparably awesome Kamina and his awkward but optimistic buddy Shimon... And then Kamina dies. Suddenly we realize that Kamina was a hero, but he was never the protagonist - in retrospect, it becomes clear that Shimon was being built up as the protagonist all along.
In a similar vein, sometimes a PC in a tabletop game gets killed, without success and without resurrection. It happens, and you roll a new character. Clearly, this new character was meant to be the hero all along, and the old one was merely the opening act, the inspiration, and so forth.

Just saying it happens. And probably rambling, too.

TheCountAlucard
2014-02-15, 10:51 AM
…no mighty man in pants could rip the jawbone off of a donkey and beat a lion to death with it…Assuming you're making a reference to Samson here, you're conflating two of his actions - he did once kill a lion, but he did that with his bare hands. He picked up that jawbone and killed an army with it.


High fantasy mundanes don't achieve that sense of scale the way epic heroes do.Exalted.

No epic-level Fighter can rip a Balor in half with his bare hands.You should try out Exalted!


No Barbarian, no matter how powerful his rage, could suplex and snap the neck of an Ancient Wyrm.…maybe try Exalted?


A mundane combatant, at the level of a Heracles, should be able to hold the world on his shouldersSeriously, it's by Onyx Path; they should have the new edition out in a few months.


a mundane performer, at the level of Orpheus, should be able to bring the gods themselves to tears; a mundane hunter, at the level of a Fionn mac Cumhaill, should be able to track a falcon on a cloudy day across miles of terrain, and take down a demigod giant with a single spear.Not just for combat, either, Exalted does these things too! Ever seen a human be epic at bureaucracy? You will!


The question is whether a system offers mechanics that let them.And there is one! Give it a look!


I have yet to find a system (barring maybe Exalted or Feng Shui) that adequately conveys that sensation of absolute, epic, mindblowing power progression.…oh, wait, you heard of it.

Then why are you asking?!? :confused:

Red Fel
2014-02-15, 02:04 PM
Exalted! Exalted! Exalted? Exalted!

I wasn't asking. But yes, you're right; Exalted is pretty gosh-darn epic. I note, however, that it can easily blur the line between character who performs mundane feats turned up to 11, and character who can fly and hurl fireballs. I further note that, despite an intense desire to play a mighty man in pants who sunders the planet with his fists, I have never actually played Exalted. (Almost got to play Scion once; not quite the same thing.) As such, I can't say authoritatively whether it satisfies the inquiry at hand.

And thank you for the correction on Samson. Most embarrassing blunder on my part.

TheCountAlucard
2014-02-15, 05:24 PM
I wasn't asking.Oh?


The question is whether a system offers mechanics that let them.Sure seems like you were.


I note, however, that it can easily blur the line between character who performs mundane feats turned up to 11, and character who can fly and hurl fireballs.Sure, but that's always a choice you, the player, make. You choose how you spend your XP and which Charms you buy. I have never made a character who can fly accidentally, nor have any of my bars gets stumbled backwards through the sorcery door.


I further note that, despite an intense desire to play a mighty man in pants who sunders the planet with his fists, I have never actually played Exalted.I advise you give it a try once the new edition comes out!


(Almost got to play Scion once; not quite the same thing.)Onyx Path is handling the new edition of that one as well.


As such, I can't say authoritatively whether it satisfies the inquiry at hand.If Hercules, Samson, Odysseus, or Batman count as "mundane," it absolutely does.

Kelb_Panthera
2014-02-16, 12:14 AM
Granted, that in fiction - and in epics - the hero is often guaranteed something resembling success. (But see the Greek tragedies, and concepts like the Pyrrhic victory.) The thing to remember, however, is that success served sunny-side up with no hitches or speed bumps is poor dramatic tension. If our only options are "hero succeeds" and "hero fails," of course the hero will succeed. No tension whatsoever.

Tragedies often have an element of teaching a lesson by example. People don't want the games they play for recreation to be used to force a particular moral agenda on them. That is, tragedies and gaming are often, perhaps even typically, at cross purposes.


Good writing, as with good roleplaying, adds dimensions to victory. One method is to out the binary nature of success into multiple variables. Here's an example I read once, concerning dramatic tension in movies: The spy-hero is trying to reach and protect an intelligence asset before the villain can reach her. There is a car chase. If the options were success or failure, the hero would succeed. So we break it out. Does the hero get there in his car? Is there some reason he has to switch to a foot chase? Does he get there alive but fail to save her? Does he get there, but only as she's dying? Does she survive long enough to tell him the information he wanted to protect her for?

That's semantics. If you've had a partial success you've also had a partial failure. More importantly, many of your examples don't come from mechanics but from decisions made by the gm. Whether the goal is reachable exclusively or only partially by vehicle, whether the villain being chased chooses to remain in his vehicle or not, even the condition of the asset upon arrival; these things are largely or entirely outside of the players control and even when they within player control it's more a function of their ability to succeed or fail at prior goals than any particular mechanic.

Any given failure does not preclude the possibility of future success unless it results in the protagonist becoming unable to continue; final failure; and any given success does not preclude the possibility of future failure unless it meets the final goal of the plot; final success. There are a series of successes and failures that ultimately lead to a final success or failure, each with their own odds of success. "Partial success" and "partial failure" are just a semantic simplification of this.


That's where the drama comes from - the degrees. In tabletop games, that tension is there too - how successful will the heroes be? But if anything, we then add the dramatic layer of the possibility of failure.

As I said, in any given goal there is a chance of either success or failure. "How successful" they are can only be determined at the end when the results of -all- of the goals have been determined; though it can often be projected with greater and greater accuracy as they progress toward the final goal.


And here's another thing. It's entirely possible to get halfway through a story of epic heroism, only for the protagonist to be destroyed; then we realize that it was actually another character, who was being built up along the way, who was intended to be our protagonist. A great example of this in modern media isTengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, in which the first part of the series consists of the epic adventures of the incomparably awesome Kamina and his awkward but optimistic buddy Shimon... And then Kamina dies. Suddenly we realize that Kamina was a hero, but he was never the protagonist - in retrospect, it becomes clear that Shimon was being built up as the protagonist all along.
In a similar vein, sometimes a PC in a tabletop game gets killed, without success and without resurrection. It happens, and you roll a new character. Clearly, this new character was meant to be the hero all along, and the old one was merely the opening act, the inspiration, and so forth.

Just saying it happens. And probably rambling, too.

That -really- doesn't work in gaming. There are typically a group of protagonists of roughly equal importance and their replacements are -rarely- foreshadowed or even introduced before they're needed.

I actually wasn't at all surprised and, in the moments leading up to it, saw it coming. The narrative focus on Shimon and his growth during that early portion of the show acted as an immense amount of foreshadowing. To be fair, I'm often far too genre savvy for my own good. :smalltongue:

neonchameleon
2014-02-17, 09:08 AM
It strikes me as a complicated question. A big problem when comparing roleplaying games to popular fiction is that most fictional characters, especially the more powerful ones, don't behave like even remotely mechanically savvy players. They make haphazard and simplistic use of their abilities the vast majority of the time.

If you think that's a problem with RPGs then you are playing the wrong ones. I recommend My Life With Master (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_with_Master), Fate Core (http://www.evilhat.com/home/fate-core-downloads/)/Dresden Files (http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/), Smallville (http://dconstructions.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/les-mis-smallville-style/) (spoilers for Les Mis), Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Heroic_Roleplaying), Monsterhearts (http://www.flamesrising.com/monsterhearts-rpg-review/), and Fiasco (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXJxQ0NbFtk‎) for games in which mechanically savvy players make their characters play like fictional characters. Most RPG characters are a specific sort of deconstruction of their style of fiction - which is easier than creating RPG characters and games that behave like their style of fiction.

Jay R
2014-02-17, 12:07 PM
As a side note, Vancian casting is a part of the default D&D setting which is not really "hand waving" away limits on magic. It is an in-world construct that is a part of how magic works in this world. I'm sure it was chosen as a convenient way to limit the power of magic users, but it is based on a pre-published fictional setting.

I think you're missing (part of) the point of how D&D was originally written. I doubt if it was chosen merely to limit the power of magic. It was also written because they wanted to play out the books they had been reading. Like so much of original D&D, it was used because it is based on a pre-published fictional setting.


For fighters, or non-spellcasting classes, it is indeed "hand-waving" to say that a certain ability is strictly limited in it's use based on encounter or day. The player knows they can only use the ability once. The character would not know that, they know they have the ability to perform a maneuver and should be able to try it any time they want.

I don't see why. When I go to work with an energy bar in my bag, I know I can stave off hunger at my desk exactly once that day. As a 58-year-old SCA fencer, I know that I can press my opponent hard, pushing him back and keeping pressure on him once per encounter. But it's hard on my legs and breath. Until I get to rest, I can't do it again. It's a once-per-encounter move.

One stunt I use is to slow down the pace of the fight, and often my opponent will slow down with me. Then I can often get him by speeding up and striking before he speeds up as well. But if I try it on him once and it doesn't work, he'll know it's coming, and it can't work again on him that encounter.

Back in my twenties, when I had recently taken tumbling classes, I could fall backwards, do a complete backwards somersault, and come up attacking. It was pretty much an at-will action. I can still do it, but my back and knees will protest, and I couldn't do it again the same day.

There really are once-per-encounter and once-per-day combat actions.


I'm not saying such a system would be ideal, it actually is too much to keep track of in my opinion. But if your game is all about combat and you want to simulate combat conditions and cool abilities of fighters without the per round/per encounter/per day mechanic, it could be done.

Agreed. But you are throwing out the easy and effective way to simulate it for no benefit except increased paperwork.

You can run essentially the same fight by allowing some things once per encounter and some things once per day. If you really want somebody to be able to try it again, use a simple mechanic. For the backwards somersault, let me try it, but I have to make a DEX roll the second time, and two DEX rolls the third time. For the long hard press, do the same thing with a CON roll. But based on my own actual fighting experience, you need to make the roll hard enough that the character would be very likely to fail (as is the case for me), in which case, he simply won't try it because it's stupid.

And there you have the mechanic you want, which in play would be identical to a once-per-encounter action.

GungHo
2014-02-17, 02:02 PM
Contrary what other have written, I'd recommend that a so-called mundane warrior in a magical world excel at approximately everything. Peak-human comics heroes like Bats and Cap are examples of this. Does Batman have to choose between being the world's greatest detective, or an amazing acrobat, or an A-list unarmed martial artist, or a nigh-invisible stealth expert? Hell no; he's all and more at once.
He's all and more at once because he has to be. Batman is the party. Even if you add Robin, he still needs to be the party, because Robin's running around terribly underleveled (and it shows the second Robin gets alone). The only time Batman isn't the whole party is in Justice League... in which case Batman is the rogue in a team of wizards, druids, and clerics. He is running around, hiding in shadows and just at the time he gets a chance to do something, the Flash takes the boss out while Superman superbreaths all the mooks and then out comes the Lasso of Truth to speak with the dead.


Did beowulf ever do anything super natural aside from hold his breath for a really long time?
He tore Grendel's arm off and then beat him to death with it. You don't see that every day.

Granted, I'm not sure how we would account for that in a game. Sure, improvised weapon rules exist... but what do you save against to keep your arm?


That's true. Mythical heroes do tend to have a special origin of some sort, often in the form of a divine parentage, regardless of what sort of power they use.
That's because the Greeks also understood that it'd be a bit of a stretch for Aragorn to become Pai Mei and kung fu fight Sauron in outer space just because he gained a couple of levels in hero.

Doug Lampert
2014-02-17, 02:08 PM
You can run essentially the same fight by allowing some things once per encounter and some things once per day. If you really want somebody to be able to try it again, use a simple mechanic. For the backwards somersault, let me try it, but I have to make a DEX roll the second time, and two DEX rolls the third time. For the long hard press, do the same thing with a CON roll. But based on my own actual fighting experience, you need to make the roll hard enough that the character would be very likely to fail (as is the case for me), in which case, he simply won't try it because it's stupid.

And there you have the mechanic you want, which in play would be identical to a once-per-encounter action.

Yeah, once you admit that repeating a move is harder and likely to be less effective, you may as well go with a simple implementation. On the other hand I'd like to give a fighter a LOT of possible powers and let him pick which ones to use each fight. This can be done by giving the fighter a resource, call it expertise dice or mojo or chi or fatigue or inner power or adrenaline surge or whatever.

Now I can spend expertice dice or mojo or whatever to use ANY of the fancy manuevers you include in the system, or even for stunts not actually in the rule-book, and I don't need a laundry list of powers on the sheet.

You could have two pools of mojo, one refreshes on a few minutes rest up to a maximum of 4 or so times a day, one refreshes on a longer scale. The encounter pool of mojo has enough to use one per round in a typical combat starting at level 1, the longer recovery pool has about twice as much.

Alternately you could get rid of the longer scale pool and allow a character to "expend" one point of mojo so it's not recovered till a long rest, and by doing so he doubles or triples its effect. But I'd rather go with the greater flexibility of two pools so people won't be as panicked about crippling their character by spending their long term pool.

Manuevers cost mojo. Simple repeatable stuff costs 1 mojo (sprinting at unusual speed, making an attack that's about twice as effective as normal, whatever), complicated stuff costs more, "non-repeatable" manuevers (if any) triple cost for every use after the first in an encounter, so yeah, you can do it, but it better be important.

Thrudd
2014-02-17, 09:50 PM
I think you're missing (part of) the point of how D&D was originally written. I doubt if it was chosen merely to limit the power of magic. It was also written because they wanted to play out the books they had been reading. Like so much of original D&D, it was used because it is based on a pre-published fictional setting.

I agree, that was part of my point.



I don't see why. When I go to work with an energy bar in my bag, I know I can stave off hunger at my desk exactly once that day. As a 58-year-old SCA fencer, I know that I can press my opponent hard, pushing him back and keeping pressure on him once per encounter. But it's hard on my legs and breath. Until I get to rest, I can't do it again. It's a once-per-encounter move.

One stunt I use is to slow down the pace of the fight, and often my opponent will slow down with me. Then I can often get him by speeding up and striking before he speeds up as well. But if I try it on him once and it doesn't work, he'll know it's coming, and it can't work again on him that encounter.

Back in my twenties, when I had recently taken tumbling classes, I could fall backwards, do a complete backwards somersault, and come up attacking. It was pretty much an at-will action. I can still do it, but my back and knees will protest, and I couldn't do it again the same day.

There really are once-per-encounter and once-per-day combat actions.


I can't agree with you. Nothing actually stops you from trying again (besides awareness of your own limits and abilities), and nothing which says for certain that you would fail, inspite your experience. Therefore it is not really a once per encounter or once per day ability. Being hungry does not strictly limit you to performing certain actions, you might just be at a less than optimal level of energy for sustained physical activity. Which is where the mechanics for tracking fatigue come in, rather than using per encounter/per day.




Agreed. But you are throwing out the easy and effective way to simulate it for no benefit except increased paperwork.

You can run essentially the same fight by allowing some things once per encounter and some things once per day. If you really want somebody to be able to try it again, use a simple mechanic. For the backwards somersault, let me try it, but I have to make a DEX roll the second time, and two DEX rolls the third time. For the long hard press, do the same thing with a CON roll. But based on my own actual fighting experience, you need to make the roll hard enough that the character would be very likely to fail (as is the case for me), in which case, he simply won't try it because it's stupid.

And there you have the mechanic you want, which in play would be identical to a once-per-encounter action.

I agree, that probably would be a better way to do it than introducing a new point mechanic to keep track of. You don't even need to bother calling it "once per encounter", just have the mechanic which makes subsequent attempts of a maneuver on the same or observing opponents more difficult.
I don't believe there is or should be any such thing as a combat ability that is "once per day". What type of trick or maneuver is so draining and strenuous that you couldn't perform it again later on the same day, after a short rest?

Ideally, a majority of abilities can be written such that they are not overpowering or game-breaking even when being available at-will. Then there would be no need for any limiting mechanic.

Qwertystop
2014-02-20, 01:14 PM
One problem that keeps coming up is equating "non-magic" to "mundane".

Mundane implies boring, dull, everyday. There's a reason D&D has Extraordinary abilities.

Thrudd
2014-02-20, 02:04 PM
One problem that keeps coming up is equating "non-magic" to "mundane".

Mundane implies boring, dull, everyday. There's a reason D&D has Extraordinary abilities.

Yes, but should every action of every character be some sort of extraordinary ability?
This is fine for a game where that is the premise...that the players have characters which begin the game as extraordinary heroes with abilities far surpassing that of normal people. However, this is not always the premise of a game.

Maybe we should use the word "non-magical" instead of "mundane". That is what is meant, of course. None of the abilities described should require supernatural or magical explanations (nor superhuman physical abilities, IMO).

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-20, 03:32 PM
I can't agree with you. Nothing actually stops you from trying again (besides awareness of your own limits and abilities), and nothing which says for certain that you would fail, inspite your experience. Therefore it is not really a once per encounter or once per day ability. Being hungry does not strictly limit you to performing certain actions, you might just be at a less than optimal level of energy for sustained physical activity. Which is where the mechanics for tracking fatigue come in, rather than using per encounter/per day.

This sounds like a divide between the theoretical notion of something (how you conceptualize activity) and the practical experience of it (how it works in the real world). Personally, I think a game is wasting its time if it seeks to be 100% theoretically accurate. Either do a good approximation of verisimilitude or else abstract away for the sake of decent mechanics.

I mean, when you get to a certain point, the rules just become pedantic. i.e., because it doesn't technically work that way, the rules are "bad", even if they do an excellent job of providing a reasonable approximation of things.

Yes, but should every action of every character be some sort of extraordinary ability?
This is fine for a game where that is the premise...that the players have characters which begin the game as extraordinary heroes with abilities far surpassing that of normal people. However, this is not always the premise of a game.
I think this notion is key to what happened in D&D: setting creep. D&D started as sword-and-sorcery fantasy, but it's long since morphed into High Fantasy, which means that all of the characters are larger than life and awesome. Not everyone has noticed this.

So, I would say that in later editions, the premise of D&D includes "every action of every character is extraordinary to some degree", moreso after you reach, say, Level 5 or so. When everyone's past Level 10, there should be nothing ordinary about anyone's capabilities.

Maybe we should use the word "non-magical" instead of "mundane". That is what is meant, of course. None of the abilities described should require supernatural or magical explanations (nor superhuman physical abilities, IMO).
"Normal" might be a good compromise. The magicians and other casters are abnormal, deriving might from a source other than their own heroic nature.

Thrudd
2014-02-20, 04:36 PM
I think this notion is key to what happened in D&D: setting creep. D&D started as sword-and-sorcery fantasy, but it's long since morphed into High Fantasy, which means that all of the characters are larger than life and awesome. Not everyone has noticed this.

So, I would say that in later editions, the premise of D&D includes "every action of every character is extraordinary to some degree", moreso after you reach, say, Level 5 or so. When everyone's past Level 10, there should be nothing ordinary about anyone's capabilities.

"Normal" might be a good compromise. The magicians and other casters are abnormal, deriving might from a source other than their own heroic nature.

Absolutely. I want to reign in the setting creep, and have my swords and sorcery game back.
I have no problems with the ideas of character "tiers", that upon achieving certain levels a new range of abilities becomes available. But those abilities could also be made optional, so the game could remain "normal" throughout a characters' career if so desired.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-20, 05:42 PM
The best spot for reining in setting creep is definitely the OSR. The movement's very much into bringing back the old-school aesthetics with improved rules.

Talakeal
2014-02-20, 06:13 PM
I always hear this about how D&D is now an ultra high magic game about demigods doing impossible things, but I just don't see it.

Aside from the abstract nature of HP giving high level characters insane survivability, there is very little in the game that I feel falls outside the realm of human possibility, at least as far as non supernatural abilities go, either in the D&D rules or the novels they are based on; atleast outside of the ELH and ToB.

Can someone give me some examples of this? When I read my players handbook I see something a lot more akin to LoTR than any of the high power high magic games people describe online, which is not the case when I read a game that actually seems designed for it like Exalted.

obryn
2014-02-20, 06:39 PM
Aside from the abstract nature of HP giving high level characters insane survivability, there is very little in the game that I feel falls outside the realm of human possibility, at least as far as non supernatural abilities go, either in the D&D rules or the novels they are based on; atleast outside of the ELH and ToB.
You've spelled out the problem.

Fighters are playing LotR.

Wizards are playing Exalted.

Fiery Diamond
2014-02-20, 06:40 PM
Oh?

Sure seems like you were.

You misunderstood. It wasn't "the question is whether a system exists that does this," it was "the question is whether a given system that you're using does this."

Thrudd
2014-02-20, 06:41 PM
The best spot for reining in setting creep is definitely the OSR. The movement's very much into bringing back the old-school aesthetics with improved rules.

Yep, that's where I'm at.

squiggit
2014-02-20, 06:43 PM
Can someone give me some examples of this?

There's skill DCs for swimming up waterfalls and walking on clouds in 3.5


at least as far as non supernatural abilities go
Part of the issue though is that some people feel like this is part of the problem. The idea of "regular characters" and "supernatural characters" being this line in the sand in the first place.

Talakeal
2014-02-20, 06:43 PM
You've spelled out the problem.

Fighters are playing LotR.

Wizards are playing Exalted.

Oh, yeah, I definitely agree there. But a lot of people talk about how nothing in D&D is mundane and that high level martial characters are demigods who routinely do the impossible and that EX abilities and mundane skills can do things that are as out there as most magic which is something I just don't see in published material outside of ToB and ELH.


There's skill DCs for swimming up waterfalls and walking on clouds in 3.5


Both of which are in the ELH. I already said the ELH has a lot of this sort of thing, but it (and to a lesser extent the ToB) is very much the exception rather than the norm.

Dienekes
2014-02-20, 06:44 PM
I always hear this about how D&D is now an ultra high magic game about demigods doing impossible things, but I just don't see it.

Aside from the abstract nature of HP giving high level characters insane survivability, there is very little in the game that I feel falls outside the realm of human possibility, at least as far as non supernatural abilities go, either in the D&D rules or the novels they are based on; atleast outside of the ELH and ToB.

Can someone give me some examples of this? When I read my players handbook I see something a lot more akin to LoTR than any of the high power high magic games people describe online, which is not the case when I read a game that actually seems designed for it like Exalted.

A high level fighter can swim through lava, fall from space, and can fight an entire army of orcs by himself, can jump 80 feet. If properly specced he can kill a dragon in one hit.

A high level rogue can turn anyone he sees into a best friend in 6 seconds, even his worst enemy, or make someone believe they were once a kangaroo, or balance on a cloud.

And a high level wizard can tell time itself to sit down and shut up.

The fluff reads like a typical fantasy, but the mechanics don't support that outside low levels. And even then it doesn't really model reality very well.

Seerow
2014-02-20, 06:45 PM
You've spelled out the problem.

Fighters are playing LotR.

Wizards are playing Exalted.

Yeah. Imagine if instead of current wizards, the Wizard class was restricted to no more than 3rd level spells. And any given Wizard is generally restricted to only one school of magic. To gain a second school of magic, they only got up to 2nd level spells. To gain a third, you only get 1st level spells. Ever.

That's about what you're looking at in terms of overall power level for casters if you want to tone D&D down to a swords and sorcery game rather than high fantasy. You might need to bring those low level spells' damage up so evocation wizards aren't so screwed, but overall it's a pretty apt comparison.

Talakeal
2014-02-20, 07:08 PM
A high level fighter can swim through lava, fall from space, and can fight an entire army of orcs by himself, can jump 80 feet. If properly specced he can kill a dragon in one hit.

A high level rogue can turn anyone he sees into a best friend in 6 seconds, even his worst enemy, or make someone believe they were once a kangaroo, or balance on a cloud.

And a high level wizard can tell time itself to sit down and shut up.

The fluff reads like a typical fantasy, but the mechanics don't support that outside low levels. And even then it doesn't really model reality very well.

Yeah, as I said damage is abstract. Real people CAN survive falls in lava or from terminal velocity, but high level D&D does assume that is the norm rather than the exception.

Killing a dragon in one hit requires a build put together from multiple splat books as well as magic items. Still, I don't see how that is too unrealistic, Bard does it in the Hobbit, and people irl one shot Elephants and Whales.

Killing an army of orcs is not easy without a lot of magic items or a crazy build from multiple books. But still, its nothing that Rambo, Roland, or Cyrano De Bergerac haven't done in fiction without the aid of magic.

Aren't all those rogue skills out of the ELH which, as I have said in the last two posts, is the exception rather than the norm when it comes to crazy abilities for mundanes.

Yeah, wizards do some crazy stuff, but it is by definition with the aid of magic.

Edit: My point is not to fight about or nitpick over specific issues. I am just trying to say that, as far as I can tell, the designers of D&D and the authors of the novels did not visualize a crazy high powered world where everything is "supernatural" and over the top (at least pre epic).

Seerow
2014-02-20, 07:21 PM
Yeah, as I said damage is abstract. Real people CAN survive falls in lava or from terminal velocity, but high level D&D does assume that is the norm rather than the exception.

Killing a dragon in one hit requires a build put together from multiple splat books as well as magic items. Still, I don't see how that is too unrealistic, Bard does it in the Hobbit, and people irl one shot Elephants and Whales.

Killing an army of orcs is not easy without a lot of magic items or a crazy build from multiple books. But still, its nothing that Rambo, Roland, or Cyrano De Bergerac haven't done in fiction without the aid of magic.

Aren't all those rogue skills out of the ELH which, as I have said in the last two posts, is the exception rather than the norm when it comes to crazy abilities for mundanes.

Yeah, wizards do some crazy stuff, but it is by definition with the aid of magic.

Yeah sure. D&D perfectly represents Lord of the Rings if you dismiss everything that D&D characters can do that disagree with you.

Talakeal
2014-02-20, 07:29 PM
Yeah sure. D&D perfectly represents Lord of the Rings if you dismiss everything that D&D characters can do that disagree with you.

No need to be nasty. I Never said it perfectly matched lord of the rings, i just said that d&d fluff outside of the elh (which is an optional module that only applies to characters over level twenty and is so imbalanced that ever most TO masters ignore it) does not represent an over the top world where magic is everywhere and even mundane heroes regularly perform seemingly supernatural feats.

Qwertystop
2014-02-20, 07:38 PM
Yeah, as I said damage is abstract. Real people CAN survive falls in lava

Um. Citation please? Pretty sure you'd have serious burns before you even touched it. Also, it's sticky. If you fall on lava ("in" would require hitting hard enough to sink despite bouyancy), you're going to get major burns by the time you can register it, and continue getting major burns after you get pulled out (if that manages to happen) until something that's not going to near-instantly melt brushes it off.

Starbuck_II
2014-02-20, 07:38 PM
Yeah. Imagine if instead of current wizards, the Wizard class was restricted to no more than 3rd level spells. And any given Wizard is generally restricted to only one school of magic. To gain a second school of magic, they only got up to 2nd level spells. To gain a third, you only get 1st level spells. Ever.

That's about what you're looking at in terms of overall power level for casters if you want to tone D&D down to a swords and sorcery game rather than high fantasy. You might need to bring those low level spells' damage up so evocation wizards aren't so screwed, but overall it's a pretty apt comparison.

I see it as more:
1) Wizard class was restricted to no more than 3rd level spells. And any given Wizard is generally restricted to only three schools of magic.

2) To gain a fourth school of magic, they only got up to 2nd level spells

One is too few, but three is just right.


3) To gain a fifth, you only get 1st level spells.

Two Geologist in Hawaii did fall in lava and survive.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/m-saccaro/2013/09/4-people-who-fell-into-volcanoes-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/

Seerow
2014-02-20, 07:39 PM
No need to be nasty. I Never said it perfectly matched lord of the rings, i just said that d&d fluff outside of the elh (which is an optional module that only applies to characters over level twenty and is so imbalanced that ever most TO masters ignore it) does not represent an over the top world where magic is everywhere and even mundane heroes regularly perform seemingly supernatural feats.

But magic IS everywhere. Literally anybody in the world can become a wizard by studying hard. Magic in D&D isn't a special thing that only the .001% have access to. It's something that any joe schmoe off the street can learn by reading some books. Literally.

All those crazy things high level wizards are doing? They're being done by completely normal humans. Yes, the things those normal humans can do are ridiculous. But people say it's okay "because magic". But try to say anybody else can do awesome things without waving their fingers and chanting funny, and it's no longer acceptable. That is the double standard that you need to wrap your head around.


You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and go "na na na I can't hear you!" when people tell you why D&D is considered a high magic setting. And that is EXACTLY what you are doing by ignoring 90% of the game and focusing on the extremely narrow niche of classes with no magic or supernatural abilities. Then further narrowing that down by ignoring specific sources that do give them access to more stuff. And narrowing that down even further by disregarding the effects of the few things the characters who fit within that remaining criteria do get. Yes when you strip away the vast majority of the game all thats left is a chasis of some attack bonuses and tiny bits of damage. But that's being incredibly disingenuous. It doesn't represent what the game is all about at all.

Eulalios
2014-02-20, 07:44 PM
1: Able to kill any opponent that isn't about as skilled in six seconds or less with a sword, dagger, or arrow straight through the brain. D&D PCs in any edition don't wield swords, they wield nerf bats.

....
Failing that, we simply make every single attack by the fighter Save or Die - ...

Hmmm. What if we make that "successful melee attacks" and give the Save a DC of Attack Roll + BAB ?

I can already hear people screaming out "that's OP!"

But that's exactly the reason why none so few of us are dumb enough to start something with a thick guy holding a pool cue. Cause we instinctively recognize that MUSCLE + IMPROVISED WEAPON = potentially one-hit fatal event.

Talakeal
2014-02-20, 07:53 PM
But magic IS everywhere. Literally anybody in the world can become a wizard by studying hard. Magic in D&D isn't a special thing that only the .001% have access to. It's something that any joe schmoe off the street can learn by reading some books. Literally.

All those crazy things high level wizards are doing? They're being done by completely normal humans. Yes, the things those normal humans can do are ridiculous. But people say it's okay "because magic". But try to say anybody else can do awesome things without waving their fingers and chanting funny, and it's no longer acceptable. That is the double standard that you need to wrap your head around.


You can't just stick your fingers in your ears and go "na na na I can't hear you!" when people tell you why D&D is considered a high magic setting. And that is EXACTLY what you are doing by ignoring 90% of the game and focusing on the extremely narrow niche of classes with no magic or supernatural abilities. Then further narrowing that down by ignoring specific sources that do give them access to more stuff. And narrowing that down even further by disregarding the effects of the few things the characters who fit within that remaining criteria do get. Yes when you strip away the vast majority of the game all thats left is a chasis of some attack bonuses and tiny bits of damage. But that's being incredibly disingenuous. It doesn't represent what the game is all about at all.

I don't know what we are arguing about then because i am in complete agreement with everything you said there. I agree that magic is ridiculously prevalent in d&d, no argument from me there. I am only disagreeing with the assumption is that magic is ubiquitous and that the game does not and should not have any place for non magic characters and that even the most basic fighter is going to be using paranormal abilities on a regular basis.

Also, my op was not about d&d or any one rpg system. I was trying to establish a baseline for how one would model the tactical options available to a combatant in an rpg, and we only got on this subject when the majority of the responses boiled down to "dont even try, just add magic instead".

AMFV
2014-02-20, 08:11 PM
I don't know what we are arguing about then because i am in complete agreement with everything you said there. I agree that magic is ridiculously prevalent in d&d, no argument from me there. I am only disagreeing with the assumption is that magic is ubiquitous and that the game does not and should not have any place for non magic characters and that even the most basic fighter is going to be using paranormal abilities on a regular basis.

Also, my op was not about d&d or any one rpg system. I was trying to establish a baseline for how one would model the tactical options available to a combatant in an rpg, and we only got on this subject when the majority of the responses boiled down to "dont even try, just add magic instead".

Well fundamentally it depends on what sort of system and power level you actually want, as several people have pointed out. The problem is that even the fantasy characters you've been mentioning aren't remotely realistic, I may have a higher standard for verisimilitude (having done actual combat related training and such in my life), but the problem is that at a mundane level, every fight is potentially lethal to any person involved in the fight. A Lt Col is almost as likely to die as a LCpl (I would say that if you factor in experience against the likelihood of being directly targeted it definitely is close to breaking even) in a firefight, combat is lethal and brutal, and people die. The end goal of a fight in the real world is getting your enemy to not fight anymore and that's usually not accomplished by slaughtering them outright (that wastes resources and then might bring more enemies for revenge), but by making them too tired or breaking their spirit.

So are you looking for gritty realism or are you looking for Heracules? Because the former can be done with Mundane (as you call them) means, the latter absolutely can't.

Kane0
2014-02-20, 08:15 PM
A wizard reaches level 20, the peak of power (barring epic shenanigans) by thoroughly mastering the arcane arts, unlocking incomprehensible power.

A martial character reaches level 20 by ascending to a level of skill and physical might that simply boggles the mind. Their skill allows them to accomplish acts that almost surpass the bounds of reality.

Or better yet, pushing the bounds of reality to perform those seemingly impossible tasks without simply ignoring those bounds like a wizard.

Seerow
2014-02-20, 08:17 PM
I don't know what we are arguing about then because i am in complete agreement with everything you said there. I agree that magic is ridiculously prevalent in d&d, no argument from me there. I am only disagreeing with the assumption is that magic is ubiquitous and that the game does not and should not have any place for non magic characters and that even the most basic fighter is going to be using paranormal abilities on a regular basis.

Also, my op was not about d&d or any one rpg system. I was trying to establish a baseline for how one would model the tactical options available to a combatant in an rpg, and we only got on this subject when the majority of the responses boiled down to "dont even try, just add magic instead".

Note: I had no problem with your OP. In response to your OP, I actually made a post early in the thread with what I think is needed in response to what you asked.

The problem came in when you started asking "Why do people consider D&D high magic/fantasy?" and when people answered you, you kept narrowing the definition to the point where it was completely unreasonable. That was what got me involved in the argument. D&D is high magic. If you want to talk about a hypothetical lower magic system, where casters have almost no power and walk side by side with mundane characters with no supernatural capability, that's fine. But trying to say D&D is not high magic because if you ignore all of the rules you can make a character not capable of supernatural feats is stretching your credibility beyond all reason.

Edit:
As for people saying a mundane needs supernatural abilities, you need to keep a couple things in mind.
1) Most people here are most familiar with D&D. Without regular reminder, they will default to the D&D mindset, in which a mundane does need supernatural capability to compete.
2) Your given examples were characters like Conan, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Batman. These characters may be allegedly mundane, but the things they accomplish with regularity exceed a typical mundane RPG character. Refer to my first post in the thread talking about what's needed to model these sorts of characters.

Qwertystop
2014-02-20, 08:24 PM
Two Geologist in Hawaii did fall in lava and survive.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/m-saccaro/2013/09/4-people-who-fell-into-volcanoes-and-lived-to-tell-about-it/

None of those people fell in lava. The last one didn't even fall.

For 1 and 3: Mt. St. Helens is not a mountain with an open pool of lava in the crater. They fell from and landed on rock and/or snow.
For 2: He fell 25 feet and landed on a ledge. No lava. Not even any steam, since there was neither rain nor runoff at the moment.
For 4: He sat or stood near an eruption, so certainly closer to lava than the previous three, but he didn't fall into it, he was wearing what I would assume is protective gear, and he did not make contact with any amount of lava large enough to be visible.

EDIT: Also, only one of those stories is from Hawaii and that kid wasn't a geologist. Of the other three, one was in Italy, the other two were at Mount St. Helens. I don't know the occupations of Slemp or Bohlig (the linked news says he was a climber), but Mackley is a freelance photographer. So every part of your statement is false, or at best lacking evidence, making the reasonable assumption that the link was supposed to be evidence of your statement and not a nonsequitur.

AMFV
2014-02-21, 01:26 AM
None of those people fell in lava. The last one didn't even fall.

For 1 and 3: Mt. St. Helens is not a mountain with an open pool of lava in the crater. They fell from and landed on rock and/or snow.
For 2: He fell 25 feet and landed on a ledge. No lava. Not even any steam, since there was neither rain nor runoff at the moment.
For 4: He sat or stood near an eruption, so certainly closer to lava than the previous three, but he didn't fall into it, he was wearing what I would assume is protective gear, and he did not make contact with any amount of lava large enough to be visible.

EDIT: Also, only one of those stories is from Hawaii and that kid wasn't a geologist. Of the other three, one was in Italy, the other two were at Mount St. Helens. I don't know the occupations of Slemp or Bohlig (the linked news says he was a climber), but Mackley is a freelance photographer. So every part of your statement is false, or at best lacking evidence, making the reasonable assumption that the link was supposed to be evidence of your statement and not a nonsequitur.

The end point is that it doesn't matter if you could survive those things as a freak incident, a 20th level warrior could survive them EVERy time, if you go around jumping into lava lakes, you're going to die eventually from it, a 20th level warrior never will. If you jump off the Empire State building, you may live once, but a 20th level warrior could do it every day, twice a day, and walk away from it every time (depending on healing abilities, although by 20th level he should have some). That's significantly above normal human abilities.

Talakeal
2014-02-21, 02:26 AM
Note: I had no problem with your OP. In response to your OP, I actually made a post early in the thread with what I think is needed in response to what you asked.

The problem came in when you started asking "Why do people consider D&D high magic/fantasy?" and when people answered you, you kept narrowing the definition to the point where it was completely unreasonable. That was what got me involved in the argument. D&D is high magic. If you want to talk about a hypothetical lower magic system, where casters have almost no power and walk side by side with mundane characters with no supernatural capability, that's fine. But trying to say D&D is not high magic because if you ignore all of the rules you can make a character not capable of supernatural feats is stretching your credibility beyond all reason.

Edit:
As for people saying a mundane needs supernatural abilities, you need to keep a couple things in mind.
1) Most people here are most familiar with D&D. Without regular reminder, they will default to the D&D mindset, in which a mundane does need supernatural capability to compete.
2) Your given examples were characters like Conan, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Batman. These characters may be allegedly mundane, but the things they accomplish with regularity exceed a typical mundane RPG character. Refer to my first post in the thread talking about what's needed to model these sorts of characters.

I don't think I am progressively narrowing the field at all or stretching my credibility. I gave my criteria when I first made the statement and stuck to it. The three criteria are:

1: Not from the ELH (or the parts of the ToB that should be SU but are for some reason labeled as EX)
2: Not stemming from the abstraction that is the HP system.
3: Not a mechanics only gimmick creating by abusing a rules loophole or combining powers from a dozen different splat books by different authors.

My point is simple though; the assumption that everyone in D&D MUST be super magic person isn't supported by the fluff of either the game books or the novel lines, or as a direct result of the crunch*. If you WANT to play in such a game you certainly have the tools to use it, but I am not seeing how it is the default, and I am not sure if it is even possible in a "core only" game of any edition except maybe 4e.


Also, I don't know why you say you need a wizard with "almost no power" to make a balanced game. In the campaign I am currently running the magic user PC is capable of blowing up entire cities, enslaving the minds of nations, traveling across the galaxy in an instant, turning into living fire, traveling through time, raising the dead from thousand year old dust, living forever, killing armies with a word, summoning literal gods to aid in battle, conjuring over a dozen tons of solid gold, or creating new life from nothing, along with a thousand other feats.

Yet at the same time, she still occasionally loses to "mundane" enemies and still genuinely relies on the rest of the party to accomplish her goals. Its not that hard to make a system where both magical and mundane characters can accomplish amazing feats.

*: Again, by picking through the rules you can come up with all sorts of crazy stuff, I admit this. But the authors of the books don't ever acknowledge any of it. You don't see NPC jumplomancers statted up or read the story of the cancer mage who destroyed the world with his infinite strength. Nor do you see such craziness as the result of a single rule, for example there is no "Cut a mountain in half with your sword" feat.

neonchameleon
2014-02-21, 08:31 AM
2: Not stemming from the abstraction that is the HP system.

Hit points aren't an abstraction. They are a purely gamist pacing mechanic to encourage Erroll Flynn style duels and resource management. An abstraction would be Arneson's system where every attack was Save or Die. The only version of D&D that turns them into a practical abstraction is 4e - and that by using action movie physics throughout.

Seerow
2014-02-21, 09:57 AM
I don't think I am progressively narrowing the field at all or stretching my credibility. I gave my criteria when I first made the statement and stuck to it. The three criteria are:

1: Not from the ELH (or the parts of the ToB that should be SU but are for some reason labeled as EX)
2: Not stemming from the abstraction that is the HP system.
3: Not a mechanics only gimmick creating by abusing a rules loophole or combining powers from a dozen different splat books by different authors.

You also forgot the restriction of "No supernatural at all".

But seriously, your restrictions literally cut out 99.9% of the game. You are ignoring the vast majority of classes and abilities characters have access to. You are ignoring the few nice things the remaining classes have access to. And then you are ignoring the core mechanic that makes everyone eventually superpowered. Because yes, supernatural survivability is totally a superpower. See: Dozens of superheroes who have "You can't kill me" as their primary power.

High level player characters are not Lord of the Rings characters. The only way to get a character who is that low on the totem pole in terms of utility and capability is to willfully try to make yourself as useless as possible.

{{scrubbed}}


Also, I don't know why you say you need a wizard with "almost no power" to make a balanced game. In the campaign I am currently running the magic user PC is capable of blowing up entire cities, enslaving the minds of nations, traveling across the galaxy in an instant, turning into living fire, traveling through time, raising the dead from thousand year old dust, living forever, killing armies with a word, summoning literal gods to aid in battle, conjuring over a dozen tons of solid gold, or creating new life from nothing, along with a thousand other feats.


{{scrubbed}}

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-02-21, 10:05 AM
Whirlwind Attack, Cleave, Blind-Fight, the Sunder feats...those are pretty good places to start. Feats that you can take from fairly low levels. Pathfinder has barbarian rage powers that include low-light vision, darkvision, and scent. All marked as merely Extraordinary abilities. (Not to mention that the barbarian class fluff explicitly states that they have no combat knowledge, and yet are capable of being a battlefield terror because RAGE.) Realize that these are available at 2nd level. Pretty darn low.

That's from a relatively mundane class.

Another fun point is how an avalanche or a forest fire is rated as a pushover challenge for a party at 8th level or above. That's just in the core book. Mull over that for a moment.

(I don't own anything from 3.5 or D&D proper, but Pathfinder is close enough.)

Dienekes
2014-02-21, 10:07 AM
Yeah, as I said damage is abstract. Real people CAN survive falls in lava or from terminal velocity, but high level D&D does assume that is the norm rather than the exception.

Killing a dragon in one hit requires a build put together from multiple splat books as well as magic items. Still, I don't see how that is too unrealistic, Bard does it in the Hobbit, and people irl one shot Elephants and Whales.

Killing an army of orcs is not easy without a lot of magic items or a crazy build from multiple books. But still, its nothing that Rambo, Roland, or Cyrano De Bergerac haven't done in fiction without the aid of magic.

Aren't all those rogue skills out of the ELH which, as I have said in the last two posts, is the exception rather than the norm when it comes to crazy abilities for mundanes.

Yeah, wizards do some crazy stuff, but it is by definition with the aid of magic.

Edit: My point is not to fight about or nitpick over specific issues. I am just trying to say that, as far as I can tell, the designers of D&D and the authors of the novels did not visualize a crazy high powered world where everything is "supernatural" and over the top (at least pre epic).

Well the skill checks aren't from ELH (except the cloud one) for the most part I was just using the skill rules from the handbook which are entirely possible to get without magic items. The rules for Diplomacy and Bluff are pretty insane.

Killing an army I orcs requires 2 things high hit points and Great Cleave. That really it. Sure you can do it better with items and magic as you can do everything better with them but that is not what I was going for. Dragon killing does require several feats from various sources, but the only real magic item you need is a high enough bonus to your sword which the wealth by level rules pretty much guarantee you can have, easily.

And yes the hit point system counts. Abstraction or not you can be stabbed repeatedly (and have each attack actually hit you causing bleed or fire damage or whatever) and keep chugging. When you reach the point where you can completely submerge yourself in lava for 12 seconds and come out no worse for ware you are no longer following a Tolkien heroic model.

Now probably nome of that was intended. But it's a result that the rules do not follow real world physics very well. Or even movie physics, or anything really. It's an insane hodgepodge of game mechanics that when taken together creates an alien environment that can only be called D&D.

Perseus
2014-02-21, 10:12 AM
I have seen a number of threads talking about where exactly the line should be drawn for a mundane character. How to power them up without turning them into re-fluffed casters* or shonen anime characters. What (in combat) abilities would you give your ideal fighter?

As an example; in my homebrew OSR game this is the current list of combat maneuvers. If you have a moment please look it over and tell me if it has anything missing or something that doesn't belong:

All of these abilities are available to all martial characters. Each can be used without penalty once each round, and a character can perform multiple maneuvers in a given round a limited number of times per combat. Feats can be taken to improve any of these maneuvers, but they all perfectly viable without doing so, its a bonus not a requirement. Some moves require a certain weapon type or receive bonuses if a certain weapon is used.

Trade damage for increased accuracy.
Trade accuracy for Increased damage.
Trade movement for increased damage or accuracy.
Disarm enemy
Shove enemy
Stun enemy
Trip enemy
Sunder enemy's equipment
Sneak attack an unaware foe for increased damage or accuracy.
Called shot to a specific body part imposing ability penalties or status conditions based on the location.
Charge
Cheap Shot
Cleave though multiple enemies with one attack
Smash through an obstacle
Incur bleeding damage over time
Hold a helpless hostage
Feint
Strike at an enemies weapon as they attack with a longer reach
Attack multiple enemies at once
Defend against a particular maneuver on the opponent's part
Grapple
Gruesome Blow which intimidates enemies
Guard an ally
Weaken an enemy so that an ally can strike the weak spot
Spring Attack
Lunge for a temporary bonus to reach
Guard an area
Draw an enemy's attention
Form a Phalanx with allies
Pommel Strike
Trade AC for increased accuracy or damage
Parry for a temporary boost to AC
Shield Block for a temporary boost to DR
Throw Weapon
Volley with a bow
Struggle without any free limbs
Attack recklessly into a crowd


*: By this I mean giving them blatantly paranormal abilities or artificial meta-game limitations like semi-vancian abilities that come in levels and can be used once per day and are then forgotten.

Anything, and I mean anything, can be explained as an extraordinary ability.

Because this is a Fantasy Game.

I'm making a Fighter class (catch all name as of right now) that eventually can gain a breath weapon (level 7 or so) where they can breath out forcefully.

The effect is essentially a better damage form of gust of wind. But it is explained and design to be the Fighter just being that damn strong.

Powerful Lungs
30' Cone
Fortitude Partial
DC: 10 + 1/2 Fighter Level + Con Mod.
Effect: Push back (Con Score x 2.5 feet)and 2d6 + 1d6/2 Fighter levels bludgeoning damage.
Fortitude negates push back and halves damage.
Flying Creatures take a -4 to this save.
This effects creatures of any size.

(Note: I may fix the math with CMB/CMD and make this an CMB versus CMD roll)

Essentially you have a class that has ability scores that are insanely high... And yet can't perform feats of Extraordinary proportions? Pshaw.

Nargrakhan
2014-02-21, 10:14 AM
You've spelled out the problem.

Fighters are playing LotR.

Wizards are playing Exalted.

Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. You are reading my mind, sir.

There's a clear double standard.

It's why there's the saying, "Martials can't have nice things."

***EDIT***
To add a bit more: there's nothing stopping your traditional Caster from being a DBZ character, other than presentation style.

Kamehameha? Fireball. Ki Flight? Overland Flight. Masking Power Level? Nondetection. Rapid Fire Punching? Haste. This isn't even my final form? Polymorph. The legendary Dragon Balls? Wish.

So forth and so on. Wizards are already anime.

Meanwhile the Fighter is just the comic relief of Mr. Satan (aka Hercule).

Knaight
2014-02-21, 01:11 PM
Aside from the abstract nature of HP giving high level characters insane survivability, there is very little in the game that I feel falls outside the realm of human possibility, at least as far as non supernatural abilities go, either in the D&D rules or the novels they are based on; atleast outside of the ELH and ToB.

Evasion lets you dodge a fireball that fills the room you're in completely without so much as moving five feet. Damage reduction 5- makes you almost completely immune to being punched out by a stronger than average person who isn't trained in unarmed combat (13 strength, no unarmed combat feats, no power attack) even if they spend a good long time doing it. Then there's the capacity to just wreck huge groups of people in melee combat - realistically, even if you are really good a two on one is a problem, and something like a six on one is you being completely hosed most of the time.

Then there's the supernatural stuff on top of that, which is where it gets ridiculous. There are unabashedly high fantasy games where mages are explicitly highly powerful and potentially highly dangerous people who have a reputation for singlehandedly turning the tides of battles. Said systems tend to have magic systems which are completely outclassed by D&Ds.

Seerow
2014-02-21, 01:22 PM
Evasion lets you dodge a fireball that fills the room you're in completely without so much as moving five feet. Damage reduction 5- makes you almost completely immune to being punched out by a stronger than average person who isn't trained in unarmed combat (13 strength, no unarmed combat feats, no power attack) even if they spend a good long time doing it. Then there's the capacity to just wreck huge groups of people in melee combat - realistically, even if you are really good a two on one is a problem, and something like a six on one is you being completely hosed most of the time.

Eh 13 strength guy with unarmed strike can deal a maximum 8 points of damage on a crit. Give him long enough and he can punch you out (though realistically he would wear himself out long before dealing enough damage.

Damage reduction not just makes you immune to the guy untrained in unarmed combat. Even the guy with improved unarmed strike + proficiency is dealing the same damage. You can even give him another 2 points of strength (15 being pretty well above average) and he still can't hurt you with a punch without critting. And if we're talking about non-crit damage, a guy can stab you with a knife or punch you with spiked gauntlets all day and never actually hurt you.

And don't forget Combat Vigor. As long as you're in combat, gain Fast Healing 4 as an (Ex) ability from a common splat. Now you can have a guy literally hacking at you with a longsword all day long and you will heal back the damage he deals on average. Toss in the damage reduction on top of that and a normal person literally can't ever deal enough damage to hurt you before you heal it back. You literally are Wolverine. The only reason players don't actually use this is because they don't fight regular people, they fight monsters and other characters as strong as they are, that deal damage that makes what an ordinary person is capable of look laughable.

Knaight
2014-02-21, 01:44 PM
Eh 13 strength guy with unarmed strike can deal a maximum 8 points of damage on a crit. Give him long enough and he can punch you out (though realistically he would wear himself out long before dealing enough damage.

That would be where the almost comes in. You'll still shrug off some of the crits completely, and it will still take a good long time for them to do anything.

Lets take a typical level 20 barbarian here. Say Con 14, Dex 14 (neither of which are impressive), average hit points, no armor, no defensive feats. This gives us:
HP: 175.5
DR: 5-
AC: 12

Now, lets say that they are getting pounded on by a level 1 warrior, and not doing much of anything about it. Said warrior deals 1d4+1 damage on a non crit (so, 0), and 2d4+2 damage on a crit. That's an average of 2.0525 getting past damage reduction. It takes 85.5 crits on average to bring down the barbarian. They also have an attack bonus of +1. They need an 11 or higher on their confirmation roll to hit, and a natural 20 before that to provoke a crit, so that is 1/40.
Attack: +1
Damage per Crit: 2.0525
Crits Needed: 85.5
Crit chance: 2.5%
Average Damage Per Round: 0.0513125
Average Rounds taken: 3420.3
Time in Hours: 5.7 (5 hours and 42 minutes).

Keep in mind that this isn't an extraordinary barbarian, they have no armor, they have no magic items, and they aren't even remotely aimed towards defense. With a high con or dex it takes longer. Combat Expertise alone (say the attack rolls are at a nearby tree, because attack rolls are needed) doubles the time.

EDIT: The damage dealt is actually a d3, not a d4. This drops the expected damage to 1.111, and the average time to 10.53 hours. I didn't bother to recalculate rounds taken or damage per round. This makes it pretty easy to spend all day getting beat on before dropping.

Seerow
2014-02-21, 02:02 PM
Combat Expertise alone (say the attack rolls are at a nearby tree, because attack rolls are needed) doubles the time.

Not to mention the Barbarian will likely finish turning the tree into mulch before the Warrior drops him below half HP.


Also note that while combat expertise doubles the time, it's not the only defensive feat that will do it. Combat Vigor will turn it into infinite time. Roll With It or whatever other DR boosting feat will also quickly boost it to infinite time. Even the lowly dodge feat, or taking full defense actions will make it much harder for our poor warrior to confirm his crits and get any damage in. Improved Toughness even will add another hour or so onto the time. Though I agree with your premise of using as little defensive tuning as possible to demonstrate the point.

Perseus
2014-02-21, 02:24 PM
I see the problem, they balanced martials against normal commoners and wizards against gods.

Nice

:smallmad:

DR 5/- at level 20 is nothing... Hell you can get resistance and immunity to elemental descriptors through magic... I would like to see the same scale applied to piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning (resistance and immunity).

Knaight
2014-02-21, 02:34 PM
I see the problem, they balanced martials against normal commoners and wizards against gods.

It's enough to throw off realism though. The martial characters in D&D are extremely powerful by high levels. It's easy to get an archer who can snipe people from 300 yards with a mundane bow. It's easy to get a melee combatant who can get wailed on for literally an entire day without issue - the example non-defensive barbarian can put on armor, fight defensively, and then do that without issue against actual weapons. It's just that the casters are even more ludicrous.

To use a literary example - it's the difference between the characters in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. Three Kingdoms features things like Dian Wei getting ambushed in a forest while unarmed and unarmored, encircled by cavalry with polearms who charge him - he manages to throw them and their horses around for a good long while, but is eventually brought down. Dian Wei is an incredibly powerful character. Journey to the West features Sun Wukong, who flies around at thousands of kilometers per hour, wielding a staff that weighs as much as a large whale, to whom Dian Wei isn't so much as an inconvenience. Sun Wukong is the D&D caster, and that he is stupidly powerful doesn't make Dian Wei somehow pathetic. Though it's worth noting that the difference is somewhat exaggerated in the example.

Qwertystop
2014-02-21, 02:52 PM
Another thing to note: Let's say the Barbarian has low Wis, and no ranks in Spot or Listen. Uncanny Dodge means that despite not knowing the commoner is there (let's say he's really concentrating on that tree he's chopping, and the Combat Expertise is in case a branch falls on him), the barbarian still dodges more than half of the commoner's attacks, and doesn't have any reason to notice what does hit (no damage) until a crit happens.

Perseus
2014-02-21, 03:43 PM
Another thing to note: Let's say the Barbarian has low Wis, and no ranks in Spot or Listen. Uncanny Dodge means that despite not knowing the commoner is there (let's say he's really concentrating on that tree he's chopping, and the Combat Expertise is in case a branch falls on him), the barbarian still dodges more than half of the commoner's attacks, and doesn't have any reason to notice what does hit (no damage) until a crit happens.

See, the biggest problem here is that the commoner shouldn't be the threat in which you measure the Barbarian to.

This game and isn't about going out to fight commoners bit about going out and fighting fantastical creatures for whatever reason.

erikun
2014-02-21, 03:55 PM
The point of the exercise, I think, is not to determine if a 1st level commoner is a threat to a 20th level barbarian. It is if the 20th level barbarian is really endangered by threats to "mundane" characters, such as the 1st level commoner. Something that is a large danger to a 1st level commoner - or even a 5th level barbarian - such as being repeatedly punched/stabbed with no defense, is not even a concern to the 20th level barbarian.

Seerow
2014-02-21, 04:16 PM
The point of the exercise, I think, is not to determine if a 1st level commoner is a threat to a 20th level barbarian. It is if the 20th level barbarian is really endangered by threats to "mundane" characters, such as the 1st level commoner. Something that is a large danger to a 1st level commoner - or even a 5th level barbarian - such as being repeatedly punched/stabbed with no defense, is not even a concern to the 20th level barbarian.

Yeah. The point isn't to say the Barbarian is fine. It's to dispute the claim that mundane characters in D&D are still in the realm of ordinary people. Comparing a 20th level character to the actual average (the 1st level commoner) helps demonstrate that point beautifully.

Talakeal
2014-02-21, 05:57 PM
Wow, that combat vigor thing is drazy. Good points about evasion and barbarian DR. I will concede the point that setting creep in d&d is a very real thing and that mundane characters have no place in the current game.

I was never a huge d&d fan, and havent played a serious game of d&d in over a decade, but I still keep up to date with it as i love the rpg hobby and d&d is sort of a lingua franca amongst gamers. I can admit i was wrong and that my knowledge of the game is sorely lacking and clouded by my memories of "the good old days" of 2e when my fighter was considered the most op thing in the game.

I dont agree that this is or should be the case with all games, but at this point the thread has become so hostile that I really dont feel like debating the point anymore.

Dienekes
2014-02-21, 06:04 PM
Wow, that combat vigor thing is drazy. Good points about evasion and barbarian DR. I will concede the point that setting creep in d&d is a very real thing and that mundane characters have no place in the current game.

I was never a huge d&d fan, and havent played a serious game of d&d in over a decade, but I still keep up to date with it as i love the rpg hobby and d&d is sort of a lingua franca amongst gamers. I can admit i was wrong and that my knowledge of the game is sorely lacking and clouded by my memories of "the good old days" of 2e when my fighter was considered the most op thing in the game.

I dont agree that this is or should be the case with all games, but at this point the thread has become so hostile that I really dont feel like debating the point anymore.

Man, I don't even think it should be the case with all games. Hell, I don't even think it should be the case in D&D, if I could take a giant nerfbat to everything to make it play like an actual heroic fantasy I would (or at least close enough with all the classes appearing cool and roughly balanced).

Seerow
2014-02-21, 06:25 PM
Man, I don't even think it should be the case with all games. Hell, I don't even think it should be the case in D&D, if I could take a giant nerfbat to everything to make it play like an actual heroic fantasy I would (or at least close enough with all the classes appearing cool and roughly balanced).

Right. The big point is you can't have mundane characters alongside


the magic user PC is capable of blowing up entire cities, enslaving the minds of nations, traveling across the galaxy in an instant, turning into living fire, traveling through time, raising the dead from thousand year old dust, living forever, killing armies with a word, summoning literal gods to aid in battle, conjuring over a dozen tons of solid gold, or creating new life from nothing, along with a thousand other feats.

It doesn't work. Letting the game get to the point where that was the norm for the magic user was problem #1. Until you accept that scaling that back is number one necessity, you're going to meet a lot of resistance from people who want a more balanced game.



Also, the D20 system in general lends itself to exponential growth. Compare the level of growth from any D20 system ever to the level of growth from D6/D10 systems (ie Shadowrun, anything from Whitewolf, etc). The d20's range simply makes it so you by necessity outgrow things very quickly. A +3 bonus to your d20 roll is noticeable, but not great. +3 dice in a dicepool game is boosting success rates dramatically and giving you access to whole new tiers of stuff you can do.

Even Exalted doesn't have the same range of power that D&D has. Exalted has some over the top stuff, but it still sits on the same core system most of the rest of white wolf has, it just has the fluff cranked up to 11 and characters are given a lot of "I'm immune to non-exalts" type abilities. If you play a D&D Wizard for a year and a Exalted Solar Exalt for a year, the Exalt will start out much stronger, but by the end the D&D Wizard will have at least as much power/capability, and far more versatility, while the Exalt will not have changed very much.

INoKnowNames
2014-02-22, 03:12 AM
Brief Question: How off is my view on Mundane? Consider these my examples of Badass Normal (or near normal, anyway) "mundane" characters:

An Unarmed Monk, admittedly with some Ki Powers. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn8nNdaH2rk)

A Sword&Board Fighter with a Bow as a back up, and EWPs in Whip and Musket. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMFgb1AUi48)

... some variant, anyway, of Ninja. Again, lot of Ki Powers at use. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83y8JK9f8qI) Maybe some ranks in UMD, or a leadership variant.

Your standard Archer Ranger. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZhUWIZK6mM) With a cohort.

And an Unarmed Barbarian focused on grappling. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gImpF0uTnx0)

Jayabalard
2014-02-23, 03:49 PM
Yep, this detail explains exactly why Mundane heroes like Conan can go toe-to-toe against wizards and other supernatural creatures.magic in Hyboria is very different than in D&D. It comes at a pretty serious cost, and much of the really reality warping stuff requires long rituals.

And as I recall, many (if not most) of Conan's opponents weren't wizards.


One problem that keeps coming up is equating "non-magic" to "mundane".Blame Piers Anthony.

Mr Beer
2014-02-23, 04:08 PM
magic in Hyboria is very different than in D&D. It comes at a pretty serious cost, and much of the really reality warping stuff requires long rituals.

Yeah, I'm not equating Conan to D&D, Hyborian magic is clearly extremely underpowered in comparison.

I am saying that Conan is "mundane" but actually more omni-competent than any real life person.

In the Howard canon at least, he's stronger than any man he ever meets in the course of a very long adventuring life meeting very strong men and out-strengthing them. On one occasion the bad guy's whole thing is strength - he's a strangler who can break a bull's neck with his bare hands or something like that - and so rather than simply stabbing him or whatever, Conan kills him with strength. Because he's that strong.

He is extremely quick, as far as I can recall he doesn't meet any mortal faster than him. He can run for 3 days straight or something ridiculous like that. So he has maximum human ST and probably DX and CON as well.

He is an awe-inspiring warrior, basically he simply can't be beaten by humans if he can put his back against a wall and they have to come to him with melee weapons. If half a dozen armed and armoured men break into his bedroom and he has to wake up, grab a sword and defend himself, then those 6 guys are going to get wrecked.

Add to that his numerous other capabilities, for example he only needs to glower sulkily at any woman in order to seduce her. On one occasion, I forget the exact situation, I think he was captured by a pirate captain or something, an adversary declines to have him on the crew. His reasoning is that in the course of a medium length voyage, Conan will certainly turn his entire crew against the captain and thereby run a successful mutiny. That's how good a leader he is.

So there are credible threats against Conan, but they require stealth, missile weapons or the supernatural. He's definitely not realistic, but he is "mundane".


And as I recall, many (if not most) of Conan's opponents weren't wizards.

I'm not saying he exclusively fought wizards, he was Conan the Barbarian/Captain/Prince of Thieves/King, not Conan Wizardslayer after all. I remember the Bad Guy often being a wizard, that's all. It's years since I read the books though so maybe there weren't many wizards after all.