Combat: How does it feel?

[DontEatRawHagis]

So far I have 2 different games going on at once right now. There is a classic fantasy setting and a space setting. Both use the same gameplay stats.

Ability modifier + Proficiency bonus = Attack Mod

What makes this interesting is that it doesn't matter if the players are going up against a dragon or a goblin they can always hit. This was one of the things I never got about certain systems. Why would a giant have an AC 20 when its so easy to hit?

I'm glad this happened, but taking some stronger characters against my players I started to realize that damage out puts and hp are what are scaling. Which isn't too bad in my opinion.

What do you guys think? Do you like how combat is dealt with in this edition?

[Mando Knight]

This was one of the things I never got about certain systems. Why would a giant have an AC 20 when its so easy to hit?

"Easy to hit" is not easy to injure: a real house cat has issues wounding a human unless it actually does go straight for the jugular, otherwise most scratches are just that and heal fairly quickly, but the cat has no problems "hitting" a human.

A giant with a "natural" AC (whether called out as an explicit bonus or otherwise) presumably has elephant-like hide, turning stabs from daggers into pinpricks unless positioned correctly, and a dragon has a natural scale armor, often tough as steel.

This is what AC "normally" is, only a few bonuses to AC (such as Dexterity) are "harder to hit" rather than "harder to make the blow actually count." Natural AC is a tougher hide, armor is stronger armor, magic usually enhances armor rather than your agility, and 3.5's Deflection bonus is a mystical force that turns blades and arrows aside.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The disconnect is how they explain AC.

AC shouldn't be about hitting/not hitting but about injuring (as Man do said). They should explain and get the narrative something like this.

Natural 1: Miss, total and utter wiff. No injury.

Less than AC: Your strike connects against the target but they either shrug off the strike (Nat AC or Armor) or they roll with the hit (Deflection/dodge). No injury.

AC or Greater: Solid blow that injures the target in someway.

Natural 20: Critical Hit. Always injures no matter what miss chance or effects (other than disadvantage) is on the attacker or target.

Then you can have Damage on a Miss and it makes sense because only on a Natural 1 do you normally totally miss. DoaM can allow a less than AC barely injure a creature because the target couldn't shrug off all the blow or insure the injury.

[hoplathemightly]

I agree with Mando.

Also, the new combat feels much more dependant upon strategic thinking or sheer HP outlast, rather than pumping up Attack Bonuses so that damage is always dealt. It's definitely a different breed of combat.

[Lokiare]

I agree with Mando.

Also, the new combat feels much more dependant upon strategic thinking or sheer HP outlast, rather than pumping up Attack Bonuses so that damage is always dealt. It's definitely a different breed of combat.

My experience coming from 4E was that there was less strategic thinking and an almost entire reliance on HP bloat or a single spell to end the combat or turn it into a mop up for the non-casters.

However coming from 3.5E you might get the idea that since the spells are less powerful and you get fewer of them that there might be some strategic thinking involved, namely which spell to use and where to place it, but this is an illusion. We had that back in 2E and 1E (shape morphing fireballs ftw). There is no more strategic thinking than earlier editions or spell casters that are out of their most powerful spells and have to start thinking in 3.5E.

[DontEatRawHagis]

I found that no matter what game I play it's always a race for HP to 0.

In 3.5e my DMs mainly just hand waved how much damage is. They weren't keeping track of any combat. Usually they said it was in their head but you know they were just gauging how long combat was taking.

In Pathfinder, I found that it boiled down to how much damage and if I could put out status ailments. In organized play it was number crunching, but it was good. Same feeling as how I did Next.

In 4e, it was a lot of setting up combos with the abilities. Mostly between players. A lot more focus on one guy because bloodied abilities meant that enemies never weakened if they took damage they only got stronger. I made one mook type that had stronger abilities above half health but I had to do that. HP got too high, dragons with 1000 hp just crazy to me.

In Next so far I think it's more my knowledge of the average AC and damage that I can build men on the fly.

[Lokiare]

I found that no matter what game I play it's always a race for HP to 0.

In 3.5e my DMs mainly just hand waved how much damage is. They weren't keeping track of any combat. Usually they said it was in their head but you know they were just gauging how long combat was taking.

In Pathfinder, I found that it boiled down to how much damage and if I could put out status ailments. In organized play it was number crunching, but it was good. Same feeling as how I did Next.

In 4e, it was a lot of setting up combos with the abilities. Mostly between players. A lot more focus on one guy because bloodied abilities meant that enemies never weakened if they took damage they only got stronger. I made one mook type that had stronger abilities above half health but I had to do that. HP got too high, dragons with 1000 hp just crazy to me.

In Next so far I think it's more my knowledge of the average AC and damage that I can build men on the fly.

Being able to do that is just a factor of memorization. For instance I can build a 4E monster from scratch from my head, knowing what their defenses should be, their hp, and their attack bonus and damage. Its just memorizing a few formulas. This is no different for any edition.

[Knaight]

What makes this interesting is that it doesn't matter if the players are going up against a dragon or a goblin they can always hit. This was one of the things I never got about certain systems. Why would a giant have an AC 20 when its so easy to hit?

Honestly, I wouldn't expect them to be easy to hit (with melee weapons, anyways) - they've got a reach advantage that can be used to keep enemies away, and their dodges get them a nice long distance. I'm not a fan of classic AC wherein everything from dodging to armor makes one harder to hit, but I do like it better than the Next system wherein attack bonuses barely scale and defenses practically don't.

Leaving D&D entirely, what I have seen and liked is opposed skill rolls for combat, with armor working such that it takes a pretty good hit to get past it. For instance, in Fudge* armor is straight damage reduction, and weapons straight damage addition. However, you also add the difference between rolls to damage. In effect armor adds a variable AC depending on how precise a hit you actually need, which makes a lot of sense - if you're up against someone in full mail and helmet and you've got a dagger, you're going to need to do better enough to stick the dagger in their face. If you've got a particularly heavy crossbow, you basically just need to hit at a relatively shallow angle.

Basically, the always hitting irritates me. If a completely unarmored person has a sword and is an expert in using it a novice shouldn't be able to hit them reliably at all. They can block, they can dodge, they can put enough pressure on the novice that they won't even get to attack. The 5e implementation thus really doesn't appeal to me, and I say this as someone who has always had major issues with D&D's AC in the first place (lets start with how it's apparently not any easier to hit people who don't have a weapon, and weapon skill doesn't make one harder to hit).

*Technically this is one of several options, because Fudge rarely includes less than three rules variants you can use for everything. Another one I like is that having better armor just gives you a flat bonus over your opponent, including helping you hit, as you don't have to be as careful on defense. The same thing applies to having a better weapon, though that tends to be a bit more situational, as a better weapon in a packed forest and a better weapon in a swamp are two very different things.

[Raine_Sage]

Coming in from 4ed I like the shorter more brutal combats. There's something incredibly gratifying about just mowing through several non-minion enemies like tissue paper. And the lower HP means I have to think carefully about where I put my PC, depending on their class and how much damage they can handle.

On the other hand I miss the array of tactical options available to every class. Now I imagine some of this is simply the game being so new it's not even released yet. I know a lot of the "good" stuff for 4ed wasn't a thing at launch either. At the same time I can see why Wizards thought fans were asking for a 4ed in the first place, just moving and going "I attack" gets really dull.

I miss my troll bard and their arsenal of immediate interrupts. "The goblin attacks-" "No he doesn't." "The dragon inflicts-" "No they don't." "I'm sorry but that attack missed..." "Not so fast, here friend use my roll."

I think my DM probably got a little fed up with me but it was so much fun. I have fun with my 5e bard too, just not so much in the actual fighting.

[WickerNipple]

On the other hand I miss the array of tactical options available to every class.

I suspect that years from now, people who played 4e will think back on it as a golden age for support classes.

[Sartharina]

I like the fast, brutal pace of 5e's combat and the constrained math that allows players to fight against a world (Taking on high-level threats at low level through planning, cunning, and dumb luck, while finding themselves enjoyably powerful and resilient at high levels yet still relatable, instead of 3e's high-level Rocket Tag).

The greatest change from 3e, though, has to be the changes in the action economy (Bugs caused by multiclassing aside) and feat progression (Aside from no feats at level 1). Something notable about D&D Next is that it completely destroyed the 'power creep' that has been going on with the game from AD&D. Yet, it still provides options, and no dead levels (No, Pathfinder. A +1 to a situational ability on a chassis that has it not keep up with the math doesn't make the level any less dead. Nor do numeric gains that don't keep up with the math).

In fact, all around, I like that the math isn't stuck on a power treadmill except for HP and damage. Armor is armor. A 6' steel-plated wall of muscle is always a 6' steel-plated wall of muscle.

[Gamgee]

Everything I hear about this game makes it sound better and better. Like a fresh shot in the arm, but still ultimately familiar.

[Person_Man]

I like Bounded Accuracy, the lack of fiddly modifiers, and the fact that players always have some meaningful chance against any particular monster, and that monsters always have a chance against players. I can actually just use any creature they publish if it fits the encounter I want for my campaign, without worrying too much about whether or not it will be a challenge. In most cases, combat feels fun, quick, and dangerous, all of which I like.

But because I use maps and miniatures (and not the "theater of the mind") I strongly hate the default ability for all creatures to Move, take an Action, and then continue moving. It leads to a very "wobbly" Final Fantasy style melee combat where players and monsters just take turns hitting each other. In melee comnbat, movement itself is basically meaningless, because it's impossible to prevent a creature from hitting you by making a bottleneck or using battlefield control. Part of this problem is the fact that an Attack of Opportunity is a Reaction, so you're limited to just 1 per round, and it's not that much of a deterrent. On the flip side, Move/Action/Move by default makes ranged combat and ranged spellcasting very deadly, since enemies can move out from around a corner or cover, attack, and then fall back where they can't be targeted or attacks against them have a big penalty. It took my players precisely three combats to figure this out, and then they started trying to lure every monster they encountered into ranged combat ambushes, which dramatically slowed down the game and lead to an over reliance on a single strategy.

I also strongly dislike the numerous cop-out class abilities. Gaining an Ability Score Improvement or Extra Attack is not a class ability, it's something that every class should gain at set levels. Fluffy but basically useless abilities like Slow Fall or Ever Green are not class abilities, they are just a waste.

[Sartharina]

I also strongly dislike the numerous cop-out class abilities. Gaining an Ability Score Improvement or Extra Attack is not a class ability, it's something that every class should gain at set levels. Fluffy but basically useless abilities like Slow Fall or Ever Green are not class abilities, they are just a waste.I disagree on this point - the accelerated rate of extra attacks and extra Ability Score improvements/Feats for MAD martial characters is critical difference against SAD spellcasters.

Not sure what Ever Green is, but Slow Fall is extremely useful for dungeon exploration.

[captpike]

gaining an Ability Score Improvement or a Extra Attack is something that everyone should gain at the same levels or not at all.
being able to attack again is too powerful by far to only give to some classes. not to mention issues where a level 5 fighter is amazing, but at 7 they become sub-par because that is when the ranger and rogue get their second attacks.


but Slow Fall is extremely useful for dungeon exploration.

only if everyone has it, if they don't then the other 3+ members of the party have to find a way down (that you could have used) so its net effect is not going to be much.

in the very least you should offer several options with slowfall being one of them, rather then giving out something that will hardly see any use.

[Lokiare]

I like Bounded Accuracy, the lack of fiddly modifiers, and the fact that players always have some meaningful chance against any particular monster, and that monsters always have a chance against players. I can actually just use any creature they publish if it fits the encounter I want for my campaign, without worrying too much about whether or not it will be a challenge. In most cases, combat feels fun, quick, and dangerous, all of which I like.

But because I use maps and miniatures (and not the "theater of the mind") I strongly hate the default ability for all creatures to Move, take an Action, and then continue moving. It leads to a very "wobbly" Final Fantasy style melee combat where players and monsters just take turns hitting each other. In melee comnbat, movement itself is basically meaningless, because it's impossible to prevent a creature from hitting you by making a bottleneck or using battlefield control. Part of this problem is the fact that an Attack of Opportunity is a Reaction, so you're limited to just 1 per round, and it's not that much of a deterrent. On the flip side, Move/Action/Move by default makes ranged combat and ranged spellcasting very deadly, since enemies can move out from around a corner or cover, attack, and then fall back where they can't be targeted or attacks against them have a big penalty. It took my players precisely three combats to figure this out, and then they started trying to lure every monster they encountered into ranged combat ambushes, which dramatically slowed down the game and lead to an over reliance on a single strategy.

I also strongly dislike the numerous cop-out class abilities. Gaining an Ability Score Improvement or Extra Attack is not a class ability, it's something that every class should gain at set levels. Fluffy but basically useless abilities like Slow Fall or Ever Green are not class abilities, they are just a waste.


I like the fast, brutal pace of 5e's combat and the constrained math that allows players to fight against a world (Taking on high-level threats at low level through planning, cunning, and dumb luck, while finding themselves enjoyably powerful and resilient at high levels yet still relatable, instead of 3e's high-level Rocket Tag).

The greatest change from 3e, though, has to be the changes in the action economy (Bugs caused by multiclassing aside) and feat progression (Aside from no feats at level 1). Something notable about D&D Next is that it completely destroyed the 'power creep' that has been going on with the game from AD&D. Yet, it still provides options, and no dead levels (No, Pathfinder. A +1 to a situational ability on a chassis that has it not keep up with the math doesn't make the level any less dead. Nor do numeric gains that don't keep up with the math).

In fact, all around, I like that the math isn't stuck on a power treadmill except for HP and damage. Armor is armor. A 6' steel-plated wall of muscle is always a 6' steel-plated wall of muscle.

Due to the way hp and damage scales with level, you can't actually handle an enemy that is more than a few levels higher than yourself. If you go up against said enemies, you will hit just as often, but their hp pool won't go down as fast and they will deal more damage to your characters. Thus it will be a TPK. In fact I would be surprised if you could go up against a creature more than 3-4 levels above you. 4E doesn't have this problem. HP scales at a much slower rate and every class can nova if they come up against an enemy that is more than 4 levels higher than them (I have personal experience with this, over and over and over) and players can actually defeat them. In 5E the chance of players defeating a creature that is five or more levels above them is vanishingly small and relies almost entirely on luck rather than choice of which option to use.

[SirFredgar]

My group has been testing for a while, and after multiple combat encounters combat feels decent. I am playing a Sword and Board Tactical fighter... basically a straight-forward tank build. I fought alongside a Barbarian Two-Handed DPS, because we figured I would take the hits and she would dish them out. It worked.... until she died. We realized, however, that this was mostly due to poor execution of our combat strategy, which feels more and more important as we level. Hitting for me never seems to be too much of a problem (we roll stats, and I was extremely lucky to start 19 str and and 19 con thanks to Hill Dwarf that I quickly made 20/20), but I also still feel that missing is still a real threat against certain targets. If we don't carefully use our actions/abilities normal encounters become difficult, and difficult encounters are nearly impossible.

One thing that seems to matter the most to the success of my role in the party is actions, most notably reactions. I am protection specced, so I can choose to give my opponent a disadvantage... or I can save that to possibly prevent him from moving. But if he doesn't move, I have wasted my reaction. This decision has in fact killed a few members of my party, as a monster was able to attack me into using my reaction, and then will use the movement to waltz over to our Wizard/Rogue squishies and proceed to murder with impunity. Hits that I would giggle at takes huge chunks of HP (comparatively) to them... and then we are down actions on the economy with a player snoozing at 0 on the battlefield.

Tactics seem to take a much larger role in combat with this edition, as the math is flatter. Cover bonus in 3.5? An extra 2 ac... pfft, hardly worth the effort most of the time when your overall AC is in the 40s. +1 or +2 is huge in a system when your static AC runs at about 22 if you have the right race/gear. For my light/no armor buddies, it's even more important. So the bandits killed your horse? Awesome! If you hide behind it, that buffs your 40 HP Rogues' AC by 2 to a grand total of 18!

tl:dr Like it.

[Sartharina]

Due to the way hp and damage scales with level, you can't actually handle an enemy that is more than a few levels higher than yourself. If you go up against said enemies, you will hit just as often, but their hp pool won't go down as fast and they will deal more damage to your characters. Thus it will be a TPK. In fact I would be surprised if you could go up against a creature more than 3-4 levels above you. 4E doesn't have this problem. HP scales at a much slower rate and every class can nova if they come up against an enemy that is more than 4 levels higher than them (I have personal experience with this, over and over and over) and players can actually defeat them. In 5E the chance of players defeating a creature that is five or more levels above them is vanishingly small and relies almost entirely on luck rather than choice of which option to use.If they're hitting just as often, you're doing the encounter wrong. You simply can't facetank foes higher level than you. But, if you can keep it at disadvantage, yourself at advantage, and play carefully, you can bring a mightier foe down.

[Raine_Sage]

I suspect that years from now, people who played 4e will think back on it as a golden age for support classes.

Heh you know I think you're probably right.

Granted 5ed bard probably gets better at level 5 when you learn actual 2nd level spells. Right now it's just healing word all over the place.

[Lokiare]

If they're hitting just as often, you're doing the encounter wrong. You simply can't facetank foes higher level than you. But, if you can keep it at disadvantage, yourself at advantage, and play carefully, you can bring a mightier foe down.

Even then a few good hits will KO most players. For instance if we look at the last packet A 2nd level fighter will have on average (assuming a +2 con mod): 1st level 12 + second level 8 = 20 hp. A level 6 Displacer Beast deals 1d10+4 damage (average 9.5) with two attacks that is one point less than the fighters total. All it has to do is hit twice and that fighter is down.

This is just one example of what I'm talking about. Even with disadvantage it will still hit AC 16 about 30% of the time (hhttp://anydice.com/program/1227) it gets two attacks per round, which means 1-2 rounds per character.

Then we look at hp: 51 hp. Which means in order to take it out before it takes the party out (assuming 4-5 characters) the group would have to deal 10.2 average damage per round, at level 2 that's only possible if all the casters nova, assuming they have enough resources and haven't casted any spells yet.

From the fighters side they will hit AC 12 70% of the time with advantage canceled by disadvantage (http://anydice.com/program/3c19). The displacer beast grants disadvantage to all attacks and saves which means advantage all the time will just cancel out leaving their measly 1d12 + 4 damage is going to average (9.5 * 0.65) + (16 * 0.05) = 6.975 damage per round. I sure hope the rest of the party can come up with 3.225 damage per round (with miss chance and save chance thrown in since the displacer beast grants disadvantage to all attacks.

So for reference the party has a pretty good chance of a TPK against a single level +4 creature. It gets much worse when you hit level +5/+6/+7...etc...etc... So factually, no you can't go up against a creature that is more than level +5 or higher even if it has disadvantage to all attacks as well as the players always having advantage.

[D-naras]

So for reference the party has a pretty good chance of a TPK against a single level +4 creature. It gets much worse when you hit level +5/+6/+7...etc...etc... So factually, no you can't go up against a creature that is more than level +5 or higher even if it has disadvantage to all attacks as well as the players always having advantage.

Well, a creature 4 levels higher than the party is usually considered a boss fight and it is supposed to be deadly. I don't know how this worked in 4th edition but at least in 3.5 it was expected to be so. For example here are 3 monster with CR 6 from the srd: megaraptor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#megaraptor), wyvern (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wyvern.htm) and tendriculos (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tendriculos.htm). The first one will outright kill a character during its pounce and then tank any and all damage due to his 17 AC and 79 HP, the second will grab a character and fly away to eat him, rinse and repeat until the party is dead while it will laugh at any attacks going against its AC of 18, 59 HP and great saves (against a 2nd level party) and tendriculos will just grab and kill 2 characters per turn while it regenerates anything going through its 16 AC to its 94 HP, plus it's a plant so it has a million resistances. Fighting a monster 4 levels above you must be deadly. At least in Next you have more of fighting chance if you attempt to go head on against such an opponent.

[Lokiare]

Well, a creature 4 levels higher than the party is usually considered a boss fight and it is supposed to be deadly. I don't know how this worked in 4th edition but at least in 3.5 it was expected to be so. For example here are 3 monster with CR 6 from the srd: megaraptor (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#megaraptor), wyvern (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wyvern.htm) and tendriculos (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/tendriculos.htm). The first one will outright kill a character during its pounce and then tank any and all damage due to his 17 AC and 79 HP, the second will grab a character and fly away to eat him, rinse and repeat until the party is dead while it will laugh at any attacks going against its AC of 18, 59 HP and great saves (against a 2nd level party) and tendriculos will just grab and kill 2 characters per turn while it regenerates anything going through its 16 AC to its 94 HP, plus it's a plant so it has a million resistances. Fighting a monster 4 levels above you must be deadly. At least in Next you have more of fighting chance if you attempt to go head on against such an opponent.

I just proved in the above post that in 5E, you don't have more of a chance, you just hit more often, which is instantly mitigated by the higher hit points. Bounded accuracy does not in fact allow you to fighter higher level creatures like the other poster was claiming.

[D-naras]

I just proved in the above post that in 5E, you don't have more of a chance, you just hit more often, which is instantly mitigated by the higher hit points. Bounded accuracy does not in fact allow you to fighter higher level creatures like the other poster was claiming.

Yeah I should have elaborated more. I will rephrase then. At least in Next, you can hire a bunch of men and hunt the displacer beast and other 4+ level monnsters down. In 3.5 this wouldn't work so well due to Base Attack Bonuses.

[1337 b4k4]

I just proved in the above post that in 5E, you don't have more of a chance, you just hit more often, which is instantly mitigated by the higher hit points. Bounded accuracy does not in fact allow you to fighter higher level creatures like the other poster was claiming.

And yet in another thread, we were having a discussion about how 5e allows a peasant army to take out a dragon or Asmodeus. So clearly there's something to this.

[captpike]

Yeah I should have elaborated more. I will rephrase then. At least in Next, you can hire a bunch of men and hunt the displacer beast and other 4+ level monnsters down. In 3.5 this wouldn't work so well due to Base Attack Bonuses.

except the game is not suppose to be about hiring Lv1 mooks to do all your work. with bounded accuracy that is the best way to do anything.

[D-naras]

except the game is not suppose to be about hiring Lv1 mooks to do all your work. with bounded accuracy that is the best way to do anything.

Well the game isn't about surviving fights with monsters that have 4+ levels than you either.

[Townopolis]

Let's not assume you always have advantage and the displacer beast always has disadvantage. I think that's a poor representation of "good planning," which is what is supposed to let you take on a +4 monster. Rather than the PCs somehow stumbling across free advantage/disadvantage in their favor, let's just say they get one round before the monster goes and reasonably favorable positions. This seems to me to be a reasonable, but not overly complicated, representation of what the PCs might gain through cleverness. We will also assume the party has a single healing potion as their only relevant special item.

Let's also assume that the party is going to go about 50% nova on this monster because it's tough. The mage has 3 1st level slots plus arcane recovery, so he'll use 2 1st level spells; he also has 16 int. The cleric has 3 1st level spell slots plus channel divinity. We'll assume he has the life domain because that's sterotypical. He will actually also use 2 spells, plus his channel divinity. The fighter has 20 HP, 16 Str, a greataxe, and great weapon fighting. He will be using all of his abilities because they're all per encounter. The rogue has a shortbow and 16 dexterity.

The fighter has an attack bonus of +4 and deals 1d12+3 damage. We will assume he always rolls a 6, so he deals 9 damage per hit.
The rogue has an attack bonus of +4 and deals 1d6+3 damage, with a +1d6 damage if he sneak attacks. We'll assume he always rolls a 3 for damage, giving him 6 normal and 9 sneak-attack damage.
The mage has an attack bonus of +4 with his ray of frost, which deals 1d8 damage. Assuming a roll of 4, that's 4 damage if he hits.
The cleric has a save DC of 12 and deals 4 (1d8) damage with his sacred flame.

For their first round, the party will take the following actions:

Fighter: second wind for 5 (1d6+2) temporary HP.
Cleric: Blesses the party.
Rogue: hides.
Mage: nothing.


We'll assume the bless die always comes up a 2. This gives everyone an effective attack of +6. Against an AC of 12, they only need a 6 or higher to hit, giving them a 75% hit chance. With disadvantage on all attacks, there is a 56.25% chance that they will still hit. We will round this down to 50% and assume the party always misses first, then hits. Bear in mind that the displacer beast's displacement ability stops working if it takes a hit and doesn't start working until its next round. We will be ignoring this mere technicality.

Both the cleric and the fighter have 16 AC. Because the party got "good positioning," let's say the displacer beast has to take the fighter or cleric out before he can go for the rest of the party. With a +6 to hit, the displacer beast has a 55% chance of hitting either the fighter or cleric. We will just assume the displacer beast hits all the time. We will also assume that it rolls a 6 on its 1d10+4 damage, dealing 10 damage with each hit.

First Round:

Displacer beast hits the fighter twice, dealing 20 damage. The fighter had 5 temporary hit points, leaving him with 5 remaining.
The cleric heals the fighter using his channel divinity. The fighter regains 10 HP.
Fighter swings and misses. Because he has great weapon fighting, the displacer beast takes 3 damage. (DB at 48)
The fighter uses action surge and swings, hitting for 9 damage. (DB at 39)
The rogue attacks and misses.
The mage attacks the displacer beast with Magic Missile. Rolling all 2s, he deals 9 damage. (DB at 30)

Second Round:

Displacer beast attacks the cleric, hitting twice. With 20 damage VS 16 HP, the cleric is rendered unconscious.
The cleric fails his death save.
The fighter uses the potion of healing on the cleric. The amount of healing granted is irrelevant.
The rogue attacks and hits. Because the fighter is in melee with the displacer beast, the rogue gets his sneak attack for a total of 9 damage. (DB at 21)
The mage casts Ray of Frost at the displacer beast and misses.

Third Round:

Displacer beast attacks the fighter, rendering him unconscious.
The cleric casts sacred flame on the displacer beast. The beast saves.
The fighter fails his death save.
The rogue attacks the displacer beast and misses.
The mage casts ray of frost at the displacer beast and hits for 4 damage. (DB at 17)

Fourth Round:

Displacer beast runs up to the mage and renders him unconscious with 20 damage vs 13 HP. The cleric gets an opportunity attack, but misses.
The cleric casts Spare the Dying on the fighter, moves up to the displacer beast, and attacks it with his mace. He misses.
The fighter stands up, trundles up to the displacer beast, and attacks. He hits for 9 damage (DB at 8)
The rogue attacks the displacer beast and hits. Because the fighter is in melee with the beast, the rogue gets sneak attack for 9 damage. (DB at -1)
The mage fails his death save.

Fifth Round:

The cleric walks up to the mage and casts Spare the Dying on him.


There are other ways that could go down of course. For example, the displacer beast could waste the cleric again, then eat a sneak attack and a Sleep spell. The party, being intelligent fellows, ought to have enough charges in a healing kit for the survivors to stabilize their comrades. Also, I specifically avoided having the cleric use Spare the Dying shenanigans to keep the fighter popping back up every single round (everyone spends at least one of their rounds bleeding out before they receive healing).

[1337 b4k4]

except the game is not suppose to be about hiring Lv1 mooks to do all your work. with bounded accuracy that is the best way to do anything.

Depends on your edition. Prior to 3e, hiring henchmen and men at arms was the best way to survive most dungeons since "level appropriate encounter" was not in the lexicon.

[Envyus]

except the game is not suppose to be about hiring Lv1 mooks to do all your work. with bounded accuracy that is the best way to do anything.

Taking on Monsters that are clearly way stronger with out a plan is clearly not the way to do it as well.

[captpike]

Taking on Monsters that are clearly way stronger with out a plan is clearly not the way to do it as well.

with bounded accuracy the best plan to fight anything is to hire alot of mooks to do the job, hell why hire 5 costly adventures when you can hire 100 farmers to do the job.

[Envyus]

with bounded accuracy the best plan to fight anything is to hire alot of mooks to do the job, hell why hire 5 costly adventures when you can hire 100 farmers to do the job.

Because lots of farmers will die.

[captpike]

Because lots of farmers will die.

and? if it costs less then people would still do it.

[Knaight]

and? if it costs less then people would still do it.

Why would it cost less? Equipment is pricey, food is pricey, the loss of farmed goods is pricey, etc.

Also, stealth comes in here. Getting 5 people somewhere unnoticed is easier than getting 100 people somewhere unnoticed.

It's also worth noting that there are a great many games where no PC will ever be equal to 20 people. Outside of D&D, superhero games, games where you play literal gods, White Wolf's entire line, and Mythender it's pretty common. Yet these games still get played.

[captpike]

Why would it cost less? Equipment is pricey, food is pricey, the loss of farmed goods is pricey, etc.

Also, stealth comes in here. Getting 5 people somewhere unnoticed is easier than getting 100 people somewhere unnoticed.

It's also worth noting that there are a great many games where no PC will ever be equal to 20 people. Outside of D&D, superhero games, games where you play literal gods, White Wolf's entire line, and Mythender it's pretty common. Yet these games still get played.

we are talking about D&D, where it would be much cheaper to hire 50 peons then 5 professional dragon slayers.

and stealth is only needed if you cant use brute force, with 50 peons you easily could

[Sartharina]

Even then a few good hits will KO most players. For instance if we look at the last packet A 2nd level fighter will have on average (assuming a +2 con mod): 1st level 12 + second level 8 = 20 hp. A level 6 Displacer Beast deals 1d10+4 damage (average 9.5) with two attacks that is one point less than the fighters total. All it has to do is hit twice and that fighter is down.

This is just one example of what I'm talking about. Even with disadvantage it will still hit AC 16 about 30% of the time (hhttp://anydice.com/program/1227) it gets two attacks per round, which means 1-2 rounds per character.

Then we look at hp: 51 hp. Which means in order to take it out before it takes the party out (assuming 4-5 characters) the group would have to deal 10.2 average damage per round, at level 2 that's only possible if all the casters nova, assuming they have enough resources and haven't casted any spells yet.

From the fighters side they will hit AC 12 70% of the time with advantage canceled by disadvantage (http://anydice.com/program/3c19). The displacer beast grants disadvantage to all attacks and saves which means advantage all the time will just cancel out leaving their measly 1d12 + 4 damage is going to average (9.5 * 0.65) + (16 * 0.05) = 6.975 damage per round. I sure hope the rest of the party can come up with 3.225 damage per round (with miss chance and save chance thrown in since the displacer beast grants disadvantage to all attacks.

So for reference the party has a pretty good chance of a TPK against a single level +4 creature. It gets much worse when you hit level +5/+6/+7...etc...etc... So factually, no you can't go up against a creature that is more than level +5 or higher even if it has disadvantage to all attacks as well as the players always having advantage.Hmm... a problem I'm seeing here with this example is the Displacer Beast's constant disadvantage (UNless there's a way to turn that off - there really should be). However - even then, your situation here is a case of the party fighting the beast wrong, if it's getting more than one or two attempts to hit anyone in the party over the course of the entire encounter.

If you are in a situation where a higher-level enemy can get its full attack cycle off every round against the party, you are fighting it wrong.
we are talking about D&D, where it would be much cheaper to hire 50 peons then 5 professional dragon slayers.
Where the heck are you going to find 50 people who are willing to throw their lives away against what seems to be an impossible task, in either accepting the job, or not standing in the way pissing themselves when actually given the chance to fight?


and? if it costs less then people would still do it.The farmers don't want to die. Even if you can get them to actually accept the job, once they're in front of the beast, they'd break morale, freeze/flee, and get in the way of the few who try to hold out. Even trained soldiers won't throw themselves against Certain Death that most monsters represent (Fighting other soldiers, even when in an actually hopeless situation, isn't the same because they can just focus on the enemy in front of them)

[1337 b4k4]

with bounded accuracy the best plan to fight anything is to hire alot of mooks to do the job, hell why hire 5 costly adventures when you can hire 100 farmers to do the job.

and


and? if it costs less then people would still do it.

and


we are talking about D&D, where it would be much cheaper to hire 50 peons then 5 professional dragon slayers.

and stealth is only needed if you cant use brute force, with 50 peons you easily could

Ignoring that in general PCs would never get hired for anything you couldn't send an army to do (seriously, they're already paying the army, we just ignore that fact because "the lord turns you down because he has an army" makes for crappy RPGs), as I said in another thread, I enjoy a challenge, so let's try to answer your questions. Unfortunately, the playtest has no real information about hiring and paying men at arms or domain management, and the last version to have a comprehensive form of that was RC D&D, so we'll have to go back there to get some numbers, but not to worry, we'll use an exchange rate.

In the playtest, Chain Mail costs, 75gp. In the RC, it's a mere 40gp. A standard issue short sword is 10gp to the RCs 7gp. These give us effective cost multipliers of 1.875 and 1.429, which averaged gives us a multiplier of 1.65 (not bad inflation in the D&D world). So let's start doing some math (all prices from the RC are adjusted using the multiplier).

To start, your band of 100 soldiers will require at minimum a sword and armor (the RC notes that this is mandatory hiring bonus for all retainers, and presumably your local lord wants most of his farmers back alive (we'll get to that later)). This gives us an initial starting cost of:

(75 + 10) * 100 = 8500gp

Frankly, I've seen plenty of quests started for rewards of less than that, but let's keep going. Now, let's be really generous and say that (despite all real world experience to the contrary) the governments in D&D don't pay full retail. Let's say they pay 2/3, given that they are lords of the land. That gives us (rounded) a starting cost of 5667gp.

Now, the RC notes that a peasant family is made of about 5 people. Let's assume that in drafting his peasant army, the local lord drafts 2 people from each family to reach his 100 unit force. The RC notes that each family tends to generate about 23gp worth if income for the domain. Since the local lord drafted 2 people from each family, only 50 families are needed to fill this obligation, at a total loss of 1150gp. Let's say that families with their strongest members away on military duty are half as productive as a normal family so an actual loss of only 575gp/month. Now we're up to 6242gp.

Now, let's pay them a salary for their service. We're going to assume a month of service for training, marching, hunting and killing said dragon. The RC notes that about 2gp of that previously mentioned income is from actual taxes. Let's assume the lord has a tax rate of 33% on his peasants. That means in order to hire the farmers away from their farms, they need to offer enough (after tax income) to account for at least 4gp/month in income for the peasant family. Plus there's the inherent danger involved with the mission. Let's say our lord pays his farmers a salary of 3gp/month for this mission. Include a castellan to train them (3,300gp/month) and we're looking at 9842gp for their month's service. Note that aside from the castellan, we aren't including any other chain of resources personnel in this. Also, it's worth noting the playtest does include basic cost of living expenses and puts the "poor" cost of living at 5gp / month / person

Now we start venturing a bit outside the rules outlined in the books. Let's say the lord likes his subjects and therefore would compensate the families for deaths in the line of duty. Let's say we have a generous lord and the death benefit is 3 months salary. Using the data (note different system, but similar to D&D, unfortunately FF never got around to doing the comparison with Next) found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15667493&postcount=69) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15667791&postcount=74) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15668362&postcount=83) it's safe to say dragons can be pretty darn deadly. Let's say our peasant army is unusually lucky and suffers 33% casualties. That gives us another 396gp in death benefits for a total of 10238gp.

Now that's just the upfront costs. Let us finally assume that the 33% casualties results in a loss of 20% of the families (to poverty or other domains / families). 10 families, bringing in 23gp / month gives us a total loss for the year of 2760 gp.

This brings our final cost for sending your farmers to fight a dragon to 12998gp.

The RC gives us an example of a small domain (a little over 200 families) generating 4000gp income per month. Over a year that's 48000gp in income. Assuming this isn't an independent income, 20% of that is due to the lord's liege, leaving a dotal domain income of 38400gp. That means our little dragon excursion costs the domain 33% of their net income for the year.

And it's worth noting that other than the castellan, none of this includes any of the other logistics of moving a 100 unit, untrained peasant force successfully, or accounts for stealth, assumes the lord more or less drafts the farmers and frankly assumes the dragon doesn't just pick off the army as they march using hit and run tactics.

Now I fully admit that this may be me, but I rarely see "kill the dragon" quests in D&D games come with a standing bounty of 10000gp. A few thousand is more like it. Interestingly, this suggests to me that PCs should really be asking for bigger rewards, although i suppose looting treasure hoards makes up a bit for it. But lastly, I would like to highlight this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15674602&postcount=137) from Frozen Feet from the last time this whole "peasant armies are the best way to do anything" discussion came up because I pretty much agree with everything in it:


Those "competent elements of your court" are your adventurers.

Seriously. Adventurer is a person who goes on adventure. When the king, his court magician, court chaplain, spy and three most trusted knights decide to go and slay the dragon, they become adventurers.

In older editions, "independent mercenary" phase was at level 1 when you were still no-bodies! By the time you hit level 9, you were supposed to be one of those kings or queens, with a court all of your own! Having dozens of retainers and leading armies of your own was part of the game.

Like I said: there was a reason for why early editions assumed you started in unconquered backwater boondocks, where no organized armies or kingdoms really existed. There was a reason why all those dangerous monsters default to living in ancient ruins, deep caverns, untamed wilderness and other places far from civilization.

Complaining about wise kings with strong armies acting like wise kings with strong armies should is completely missing the point. It's starting from the middle of the story. Literally. Think of Lord of the Rings, for start. Fellowship starts with a bundle of hobbits fleeing through the woods; by Return of the King, Aragorn is leading armies and Gandalf is his royal councilor, and half of the afore-mentioned hobbits have essentially become knights.

The thought that small bands of adventurers should always be solution to a problem is blind to conventions of D&D's own genre!

[Knaight]

we are talking about D&D, where it would be much cheaper to hire 50 peons then 5 professional dragon slayers.

and stealth is only needed if you cant use brute force, with 50 peons you easily could

The numbers given above already covered things on cheapness. As for 50 peons inherently making brute force work, that's not necessarily true. For instance, to use a classic scenario - there's a dragon. It's camped out on a mountain top, terrorizing the populace. There's a lot of field burning, sheep stealing, so on and so forth. The usual.

A group of 5 might be able to get up that mountain, and at least hurt the dragon. A group of 50? It's going to leave, take up camp at a nearby mountain top, and continue terrorizing the populace. That's accomplished nothing. Then there's the matter of attrition, which is an inherent issue with larger groups. If the group of 5 loses 10% of their resources, they'll be able to recover. If the group of 50 loses 10% of their resources, that's 5 people dead. That's a bit more permanent.

Again though, this is a side note - D&D and a scant few other games do emphasize individuals that get as strong as armies and such. Just about every other game doesn't, and even the very best warrior in that sort of game is probably hosed in a 1 on 20. Yet these games still frequently have party based mechanics that work just fine.

[captpike]

give how much armor costs I see no reason to use it, I would rather have 10 more men then one man with armor. you get enough mean, you line them up and say "fire" and the dragon in the back of the cave is dead. you pay each one 2-5 years pay at wherever their day job is and you then collect the bounty.


The numbers given above already covered things on cheapness. As for 50 peons inherently making brute force work, that's not necessarily true. For instance, to use a classic scenario - there's a dragon. It's camped out on a mountain top, terrorizing the populace. There's a lot of field burning, sheep stealing, so on and so forth. The usual.

A group of 5 might be able to get up that mountain, and at least hurt the dragon. A group of 50? It's going to leave, take up camp at a nearby mountain top, and continue terrorizing the populace. That's accomplished nothing. Then there's the matter of attrition, which is an inherent issue with larger groups. If the group of 5 loses 10% of their resources, they'll be able to recover. If the group of 50 loses 10% of their resources, that's 5 people dead. That's a bit more permanent.


by a certain level you could get 100 peons, give them all basic weapons and give them each two years pay and it would be cheaper then what it would cost to get 5 adventures.

even if everyone knew 30% of you were going to die, the idea of getting that much money at once would be more then enough. (and this ignores the problem with evil parties)

of course there are some situations where a small group would be better then an army, but in every situation that is not the case then you have to have a reason NOT to do this. the higher you go the easier it becomes to hire armies, and you never need to spend more gold per person because of bounded accuracy. assuming you can get it in place there is nothing in the world an army of crossbowmen cant kill.

---
both 3e and 4e had escalating gold per level and escalating power, so yes your level 10 party charges what an army would cost but your army cant take out some threats, that simply is not the cast in 5e.

[Knaight]

of course there are some situations where a small group would be better then an army, but in every situation that is not the case then you have to have a reason NOT to do this. the higher you go the easier it becomes to hire armies, and you never need to spend more gold per person because of bounded accuracy. assuming you can get it in place there is nothing in the world an army of crossbowmen cant kill.

Sure. In every situation where a small group would not be better than an army, and you actually have an army - these things take time to assemble - it makes sense to use an army. This makes perfect sense to me. That "assuming you can get it in place" bit is also pretty huge. After all, we still have small forces of elite units in modern militaries, used in lieu of huge armies in places, and I guarantee that none of them have any hope of winning a fight against a whole army.

Again, I'm not seeing the issue here. Small groups have their uses. Armies have their uses. There's room for both of them, just like the fiction D&D is based upon.

[captpike]

Sure. In every situation where a small group would not be better than an army, and you actually have an army - these things take time to assemble - it makes sense to use an army. This makes perfect sense to me. That "assuming you can get it in place" bit is also pretty huge. After all, we still have small forces of elite units in modern militaries, used in lieu of huge armies in places, and I guarantee that none of them have any hope of winning a fight against a whole army.

Again, I'm not seeing the issue here. Small groups have their uses. Armies have their uses. There's room for both of them, just like the fiction D&D is based upon.

the problem is that there are too many situations where 100 peons is better then even a full party of god-slayers. the king of demons is walking the land? send in the peons, a insane angel is killing everyone, send in the peons. a dragon is in a cave and you want it dead? send in the peons.

after all with an army of anyone (so long as you can throw something) you can kill anything.

it also undervalues the PCs, they are simply bad stand-ins for the real power in the world. they can easily be taken out by an army even if they have killed gods.

[Sartharina]

the problem is that there are too many situations where 100 peons is better then even a full party of god-slayers. the king of demons is walking the land? send in the peons, a insane angel is killing everyone, send in the peons. a dragon is in a cave and you want it dead? send in the peons.

after all with an army of anyone (so long as you can throw something) you can kill anything.

it also undervalues the PCs, they are simply bad stand-ins for the real power in the world. they can easily be taken out by an army even if they have killed gods.

How are the peons getting through the horde of demon servants of the King of Demons roaming the land? A heroic strike force can, if they have an army serving as a diversion and meat shield for the Demon's armies, maneuver around to take out the King of Demon's top lieutenants, then the Demon King himself. I've never seen demons come alone. Or sneak into the black citadel. Also - how are you getting the peasants to fight? You say "line up", and they start milling around, panicking, and running away or charging blindly. You say "Fire", and they fumble their weapons, look to their neighbor with "You first", shoot off in the general direction halfheartedly with a "Please don't pay any attention to me", etc.

For the Dragon in his lair - by the time the peasants start approaching, the dragon knows about them and can destroy the army in the open, while a band of heroes can sneak into the lair. That's assuming the Kobolds that serve the dragon (Which the mobility and individual durability of a D&D party can bypass and thwart) don't destroy them first. And, even if you do get the peasants in Dragon-slaying range, you end up with the Peasant Panic Circus above all over again with nobody wanting to be the one to get Certain Death's attention.

[Envyus]

the problem is that there are too many situations where 100 peons is better then even a full party of god-slayers. the king of demons is walking the land? send in the peons, a insane angel is killing everyone, send in the peons. a dragon is in a cave and you want it dead? send in the peons.

after all with an army of anyone (so long as you can throw something) you can kill anything.

it also undervalues the PCs, they are simply bad stand-ins for the real power in the world. they can easily be taken out by an army even if they have killed gods.

Depending on how the Math changes in the final version we don't know how that would work.

Also If the King of Demons is walking around it will be with other Demons and the Peons would be slaughtered and run away.

[Knaight]

the problem is that there are too many situations where 100 peons is better then even a full party of god-slayers. the king of demons is walking the land? send in the peons, a insane angel is killing everyone, send in the peons. a dragon is in a cave and you want it dead? send in the peons.
This is pretty much the key point here. You're presenting this as a problem with the system - it's not. It's a matter of taste more than anything. D&D can present a world wherein the entities of great power are functionally invulnerable to lesser entities, or it can present a world where numbers can prevail. These are both valid presentations, and presenting the latter as a systemic problem is questionable.

Speaking personally, I consider the 100 peons situation a good one. I am totally fine with the PCs never having the sort of brute force of a mob. For that matter, I am totally fine with the greatest warrior in the setting getting cut down by a half dozen people with little skill but the will to make the attack (knowing full well that odds are good that they, personally, are entirely dependent on luck to survive, with terrible odds).

In short, it's a matter of preferences, not a systemic flaw. I don't like how 5e implements it. Larger changes to attack and AC supplemented with much nastier rules for getting ganged up on would be my preferred method.


after all with an army of anyone (so long as you can throw something) you can kill anything.
You can kill anything that is either unable to outrun your army or unable to get into a position your army can't reach, which can include sufficiently hostile terrain. Provided that it doesn't have enough allies. This is not the same thing as being able to kill anything.


it also undervalues the PCs, they are simply bad stand-ins for the real power in the world. they can easily be taken out by an army even if they have killed gods.
The capacity to exert violence is not the same thing as power. Moreover, even if we look specifically at the capacity to exert violence, the capacity to exert brute force is not real power. If the PCs can't win a fight against an army, but can avoid one and kill political figures, their capacity to exert violence already gives them real power. If the PCs can't even do that, but can avoid said armies and incite rebellions, or find and disseminate secrets, they also have real power. This is before getting into fuzzier things like inducing cultural changes.

There's a bigger thing here though, which gets into the matter of preference - I really don't see the value of the PCs and the power of the PCs as being even slightly connected. I do think that they need to be able to influence the things relevant to the campaign, but that could be a village, or even a household. Stories of epic scale involving characters that are essentially superhuman are hardly the only thing that RPGs should be able to do, after all.

[Kurald Galain]

Again, I'm not seeing the issue here. Small groups have their uses. Armies have their uses. There's room for both of them, just like the fiction D&D is based upon.

Oh, the issue is very simple. People expect a party of heroes to be more effective than a flock of commoners, but by the rules this is simply not the case (or at least, not enough) because of the wonders of bounded acc.

It's a staple of heroic fantasy, and indeed of all earlier editions of D&D, that a party of heroes is much more effective.

[Knaight]

It's a staple of heroic fantasy, and indeed of all earlier editions of D&D, that a party of heroes is much more effective.

Compared to a full army? Hardly. 3.x hit the point where infinite commoners with some weapons weren't enough, but 1e and 2e came nowhere near that point. 4e was in between, though still nowhere near infinite commoners being a non-issue.

As for it being a staple of heroic fantasy, I'd also note that it's much more a staple that the heroes are needed because they are the only ones who can get there in the first place, which often has as much to do with figuring things out as anything else.

[Kurald Galain]

Compared to a full army? Hardly. 3.x hit the point where infinite commoners with some weapons weren't enough, but 1e and 2e came nowhere near that point. 4e was in between, though still nowhere near infinite commoners being a non-issue.

Nobody's talking about infinite commoners here. 20 or 30 would probably be sufficient in 5E (and absolutely not in 3E/4E).

[Morty]

I'm rather baffled by the reasoning that the authorities of the D&D-land need some hard economic reason to rely on adventurers. When did being sent to do things by the king, magistrate, high priest or whoever the heck else become the only possible motivation for heroes? Why does the setting break if people in charge aren't forced to rely on gangs of murderhobos adventuring parties because their own personnel can't get anything done? Like Knaight, I'm perfectly fine with a fantasy world where adventurers don't render armies irrelevant, but D&D Next goes about doing it very, very clumsily because of the designers' laziness and unwillingness to really work with the combat system.

[captpike]

there is no reason we cant have our cake and eat it too.
that is why the level system exist after all. in early levels you are little more then an above average solder, then over 20 or 30 levels you gain such power as to be able to fight the gods themselves. if you make the game well then everyone can play the game they want.

[Morty]

Because you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Being able to ignore armies above a certain level makes a statement about the nature of the default game world and disallows certain stories while allowing others. If normal societies and organizations are simply irrelevant for high-level characters, then players who don't like it can't play above a certain level, even if they have a long-running campaign.

[1337 b4k4]

Because you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Being able to ignore armies above a certain level makes a statement about the nature of the default game world and disallows certain stories while allowing others. If normal societies and organizations are simply irrelevant for high-level characters, then players who don't like it can't play above a certain level, even if they have a long-running campaign.

In addition to this, when your PCs can rise to great enough heights to make armies obsolete, that opens up it's own set of questions about the world, like "why are there even kings and queens and armies in the first place?" and "Why don't wizards run everything". In fact, I'm pretty sure we had a discussion on the implications of the frequency of high level PCs on the game world in a previous thread.

[da_chicken]

Personally, I think this just explains why evil creatures tend to inhabit relatively hidden and defensible dungeons, have lots of peon hirelings, and maintain a means of escape. Additionally, lots of high level enemies have access to area effect attacks. You're going to need a lot of commoners to deal with the necromancer who has a swarm of zombies on the approach up the steep mountain path to his fortress where skeletal archers await on his castle walls, two death knights guard the gate, plus a trio of flesh golems guard the keep, etc. Additionally, armies aren't exactly subtle to move around, don't move quickly, and aren't cheap. The bad guys will know they're coming. Maybe the necromancer sends in a dread wraith the night before the army attacks.

If you know that force of numbers is a risk, you mitigate it by finding allies and positioning yourself to give you an advantage.

Now, this doesn't mean I don't find some of the creatures that traditionally function as solo disappointing in the playtest. The dragons and liches in particular are underwhelming, IMO, but their level is much lower than I typically faced them in 3.x.

[captpike]

In addition to this, when your PCs can rise to great enough heights to make armies obsolete, that opens up it's own set of questions about the world, like "why are there even kings and queens and armies in the first place?" and "Why don't wizards run everything". In fact, I'm pretty sure we had a discussion on the implications of the frequency of high level PCs on the game world in a previous thread.

first of all I was taking about ALL high levels PCs not just casters. besides its not like you could not just say that people getting past level 10 is so rare as to be all but unheard of. or that getting past 20 has never happened before.
or for that matter that NPCs and PCs work so differently that just because a NPC wizard has been wizarding for 100 years he is not past level 4 or so. PC wizards are just plane better then him.

I dont think you understand why we have the level system to start with.

if you never increase in power then why even use XP? the reason levels exist is to say what your power level is.

you also don't have to use all of them. in 4e if I wanted a game that never got past the saving-nations and stoping-armies stage then I would never go past lv10. why even have more then a few levels if your going to gain in power?
what is the disadvantage in having a enough levels to go from village hero-godslayer. if you don't like having godslayers in your game ignore the last third or whater of the levels, and in your game world people top out at level 10

[Kurald Galain]

Because you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Being able to ignore armies above a certain level makes a statement about the nature of the default game world and disallows certain stories while allowing others. If normal societies and organizations are simply irrelevant for high-level characters, then players who don't like it can't play above a certain level, even if they have a long-running campaign.

That's precisely the wrong way of going about it.

If after level X you can do Y, and you don't want Y in your campaign, then the obvious conclusion is you should play below level X. You should not deny Y to other groups who may want it, by suggesting that Y should never be possible regardless of level. Wide support of playstyles, remember?

[da_chicken]

That's precisely the wrong way of going about it.

If after level X you can do Y, and you don't want Y in your campaign, then the obvious conclusion is you should play below level X. You should not deny Y to other groups who may want it, by suggesting that Y should never be possible regardless of level. Wide support of playstyles, remember?

Alternately it means you should play a different game with different design goals. One game is not meant to encompass all play styles, no matter how much WotC's marketing division tells us otherwise. WotC is trying to cover as much of every edition that they can. If army eclipsing doesn't happen until epic levels and you need it by level 10, then your campaign might work better in 3.x. Wide support doesn't mean perfect support.

Alternately, maybe you give out some seriously OP magic items.

[Lokiare]

This is pretty much the key point here. You're presenting this as a problem with the system - it's not. It's a matter of taste more than anything. D&D can present a world wherein the entities of great power are functionally invulnerable to lesser entities, or it can present a world where numbers can prevail. These are both valid presentations, and presenting the latter as a systemic problem is questionable.

Speaking personally, I consider the 100 peons situation a good one. I am totally fine with the PCs never having the sort of brute force of a mob. For that matter, I am totally fine with the greatest warrior in the setting getting cut down by a half dozen people with little skill but the will to make the attack (knowing full well that odds are good that they, personally, are entirely dependent on luck to survive, with terrible odds).

In short, it's a matter of preferences, not a systemic flaw. I don't like how 5e implements it. Larger changes to attack and AC supplemented with much nastier rules for getting ganged up on would be my preferred method.


You can kill anything that is either unable to outrun your army or unable to get into a position your army can't reach, which can include sufficiently hostile terrain. Provided that it doesn't have enough allies. This is not the same thing as being able to kill anything.


The capacity to exert violence is not the same thing as power. Moreover, even if we look specifically at the capacity to exert violence, the capacity to exert brute force is not real power. If the PCs can't win a fight against an army, but can avoid one and kill political figures, their capacity to exert violence already gives them real power. If the PCs can't even do that, but can avoid said armies and incite rebellions, or find and disseminate secrets, they also have real power. This is before getting into fuzzier things like inducing cultural changes.

There's a bigger thing here though, which gets into the matter of preference - I really don't see the value of the PCs and the power of the PCs as being even slightly connected. I do think that they need to be able to influence the things relevant to the campaign, but that could be a village, or even a household. Stories of epic scale involving characters that are essentially superhuman are hardly the only thing that RPGs should be able to do, after all.


Alternately it means you should play a different game with different design goals. One game is not meant to encompass all play styles, no matter how much WotC's marketing division tells us otherwise. WotC is trying to cover as much of every edition that they can. If army eclipsing doesn't happen until epic levels and you need it by level 10, then your campaign might work better in 3.x. Wide support doesn't mean perfect support.

Alternately, maybe you give out some seriously OP magic items.

I'd rather just drop in the proper module and remove the fantasy vietnam module. Of course 5E is nothing like that with swappable modules that change how the games play, despite their early promises.

[Morty]

That's precisely the wrong way of going about it.

If after level X you can do Y, and you don't want Y in your campaign, then the obvious conclusion is you should play below level X. You should not deny Y to other groups who may want it, by suggesting that Y should never be possible regardless of level. Wide support of playstyles, remember?

Yes, unless you want to use high-level material without making the rest of the setting irrelevant to your characters. Or don't want to stop gaining levels in a campaign because otherwise the campaign breaks in half. Or want to use high-level NPCs in your campaign without rendering the rest of the setting irrelevant. And so on and so forth.

Mind you, another thing I'm puzzled about is when and how it became a good thing for PCs above level 8 to be able to ignore armies, organizations and other large groups or infrastructure. It seems to be yet another element of 3e's screwed-up rules that became internalized and taken for granted.

[Kurald Galain]

Mind you, another thing I'm puzzled about is when and how it became a good thing for PCs above level 8 to be able to ignore armies, organizations and other large groups or infrastructure. It seems to be yet another element of 3e's screwed-up rules that became internalized and taken for granted.

Staple of the genre, I'd say. Classic high fantasy heroes include Milamber, Corwin, and Cuchulainn, and and people like being able to play like that at high level. Note that back in 2E, a level 8 or 9 hero gained a stronghold and his own army (depending on class).

[Lokiare]

Staple of the genre, I'd say. Classic high fantasy heroes include Milamber, Corwin, and Cuchulainn, and and people like being able to play like that at high level. Note that back in 2E, a level 8 or 9 hero gained a stronghold and his own army (depending on class).

I remember those days.

Fighter "I got a castle and my own army, what'd you get?"

Wizard "Wish, I can do anything I want and no one can stop me."

[Kurald Galain]

I remember those days.

Fighter "I got a castle and my own army, what'd you get?"

Wizard "Wish, I can do anything I want and no one can stop me."

Well you remember incorrectly, because the wizard gets his wish spell about ten levels later.

[Eulalios]

except the game is not suppose to be about hiring Lv1 mooks to do all your work. with bounded accuracy that is the best way to do anything.
Looks like next mechanics are meant to support the "endgame" of 0e. Interesting.

[Morty]

Staple of the genre, I'd say. Classic high fantasy heroes include Milamber, Corwin, and Cuchulainn, and and people like being able to play like that at high level. Note that back in 2E, a level 8 or 9 hero gained a stronghold and his own army (depending on class).

Yes, and getting them is kind of pointless if they can't even slow down a high-level enemy. The entire point behind making armies threatening is for the PCs to have a reason to gain resources, followers and infrastructure.

[Kurald Galain]

Yes, and getting them is kind of pointless if they can't even slow down a high-level enemy.

Absolutely not. The point of having a stronghold is that your character can run a country now, not that he can have his followers slaughtered to provide a speed bump for high-level enemies.

[Morty]

Except that the value of having followers, a stronghold and a country is greatly cheapened if those things are like chaff before any sort of high-level threat.

[Stubbazubba]

Absolutely not. The point of having a stronghold is that your character can run a country now, not that he can have his followers slaughtered to provide a speed bump for high-level enemies.

Why would your character want to run a country if that doesn't help him continue playing the game we are here to play?

[Kurald Galain]

Why would your character want to run a country if that doesn't help him continue playing the game we are here to play?

Because not everybody plays the game in the exact way that you play it, of course. We're talking, again, about catering to a variety of playstyles.

[captpike]

Yes, unless you want to use high-level material without making the rest of the setting irrelevant to your characters. Or don't want to stop gaining levels in a campaign because otherwise the campaign breaks in half. Or want to use high-level NPCs in your campaign without rendering the rest of the setting irrelevant. And so on and so forth.

Mind you, another thing I'm puzzled about is when and how it became a good thing for PCs above level 8 to be able to ignore armies, organizations and other large groups or infrastructure. It seems to be yet another element of 3e's screwed-up rules that became internalized and taken for granted.

you do know your not required to have all the levels in every game right? if you want to say "this is a heroic game, the max level for everything is 10" then you can.

that is why having a high number of levels is good, you can play in a 1-10 game where PCs never get to the killing armies stage, I can play in a 11-20 game where we start at that point and start plane hoping and are able to kill the lesser gods.

again there is no loss to anyone to include enough levels to do this, it would require the game designers to in fact be competent (so it might be asking too much) but there is not reason to try.



Because not everybody plays the game in the exact way that you play it, of course. We're talking, again, about catering to a variety of playstyles.

except that that the D&D game is not made to be a game of playing a stay at home king. its a game about adventures, not domain management.

it would be like a Lv1 PC wanting to open a tavern and stay there while the rest of the PCs saved the village.

do you really want a game where the fighter is a king and never joins the party in adventures? he just sits back and does the day-to-day stuff of ruling a kingdom?

[Kurald Galain]

except that that the D&D game is not made to be a game of playing a stay at home king. its a game about adventures, not domain management.

Nice straw man there, nobody mentioned "stay at home" before in this thread.

Anyway, yes, D&D has in the past been very much about domain management. I refer you to the Birthright campaign setting, the various Stronghold Builder's guides, and indeed the core rules of 1E and 2E.

[captpike]

Nice straw man there, nobody mentioned "stay at home" before in this thread.

Anyway, yes, D&D has in the past been very much about domain management. I refer you to the Birthright campaign setting, the various Stronghold Builder's guides, and indeed the core rules of 1E and 2E.

so you want to play a king who goes out on adventures, has armies but those armies are useless in your adventuring?

in that case being a king is all fluff, you dont need rules for it, you just say "I am the king of [insert useless country here]"

[Sartharina]

That's precisely the wrong way of going about it.

If after level X you can do Y, and you don't want Y in your campaign, then the obvious conclusion is you should play below level X. You should not deny Y to other groups who may want it, by suggesting that Y should never be possible regardless of level. Wide support of playstyles, remember?So how do you keep a party from exceeding level X during a long campaign, without taking away lateral progression of abilities and more things to continue to strive for?

For wide varieties of playstyles, you can, instead of having Level be the gateway between human and superhuman, use something like Pathfiinder's Mythic rules, which can be bolted on at any level.

[Kurald Galain]

in that case being a king is all fluff, you dont need rules for it, you just say "I am the king of [insert useless country here]"

Most RPGs do not subscribe to the notion that everything non-combat-related is irrelevant fluff that can be changed at need; and by the looks of the playtest, nor does 5E. Most RPG players seem to like this, after all.

Bottom line is still the same: if there's an option you don't like, don't use it, but don't prevent other players from using it. Game design is never about only supporting the options that you personally like.

[captpike]

Most RPGs do not subscribe to the notion that everything non-combat-related is irrelevant fluff that can be changed at need; and by the looks of the playtest, nor does 5E. Most RPG players seem to like this, after all.

Bottom line is still the same: if there's an option you don't like, don't use it, but don't prevent other players from using it. Game design is never about only supporting the options that you personally like.

honestly why do you want rules for it? its not like your army would be useful when your adventuring.

[Sartharina]

honestly why do you want rules for it? its not like your army would be useful when your adventuring.
Except it can be. An army is a resource. You can use it to put pressure on strategic enemies, such as drawing out the forces of Rodrom away from the Tower Of Peril that your adventuring team will infiltrate. You can use it to destroy the forces of the Evil Overlord as your party defeats him in a climactic battle atop a flying airship.

There is a LOT of stuff you can do with an army as an adventurer.

[Morty]

For wide varieties of playstyles, you can, instead of having Level be the gateway between human and superhuman, use something like Pathfiinder's Mythic rules, which can be bolted on at any level.

That would be the way I'd do it. It's easier to scale up than to scale down, I think, so optional rules for mythic-scope characters or for mooks that die in droves while engaging any moderately formidable characters might work for enabling this style of play.

[Knaight]

again there is no loss to anyone to include enough levels to do this, it would require the game designers to in fact be competent (so it might be asking too much) but there is not reason to try.

There's page count. If you're looking for stuff relevant to you, it's still there, and it is in the way. It makes the physical books heavier. So on and so forth. I could easily say that "there is no loss to anyone to also make the game handle science fiction and modern settings, it would require the game designers to in fact be competent (so it might be asking too much) but there is not reason to try". However, those pages are likely nothing but useless bulk the majority of the time, and thus should be cut.

As for the whole broad play-styles thing - that's really worth more when there are fewer games. There are approximately a bajillion games out there, it's okay for them to be specialized. You even clearly agree with this to some extent, given the focus on "adventuring", and not wanting the non-adventuring play style supported. There's some breadth still needed, as D&D really shouldn't be something like Extreme Street Luge in specificness, but it isn't a generic game and it is totally fine for it to not cover things.

[captpike]

There's page count. If you're looking for stuff relevant to you, it's still there, and it is in the way. It makes the physical books heavier. So on and so forth. I could easily say that "there is no loss to anyone to also make the game handle science fiction and modern settings, it would require the game designers to in fact be competent (so it might be asking too much) but there is not reason to try". However, those pages are likely nothing but useless bulk the majority of the time, and thus should be cut.

I could say the same thing about the lower levels, that to my group they are a waste, and should be cut because we see no reason to play village hero.

given how WoTc makes their money, its not unreasonable to put out more books, besides "I dont want it, and its mildly annoying so you cant have it" is hardly a good reason to cut anything.

there are more then enough people want to play in a larger scope then small time hero to add the later levels. and if you are going to put them in at any point they need to be at the start of the game to make sure its balanced.

added levels means adding stuff on top of what you already have, changing genre's means changing everything, it means you have to throw out half the game.



As for the whole broad play-styles thing - that's really worth more when there are fewer games. There are approximately a bajillion games out there, it's okay for them to be specialized. You even clearly agree with this to some extent, given the focus on "adventuring", and not wanting the non-adventuring play style supported. There's some breadth still needed, as D&D really shouldn't be something like Extreme Street Luge in specificness, but it isn't a generic game and it is totally fine for it to not cover things.
the practical realities are such that they cant afford to be anything but a generic game. 4e was that, was massively successful and STILL was not enough for hasbrio.

if they advertise such that its clear you can never go past the "national hero" stage sure, but that would be a big change from the last two editions.

[Lokiare]

Well you remember incorrectly, because the wizard gets his wish spell about ten levels later.

Limited wish and then wish a few levels into the fighters reign. Not to mention the other world changing spells like Wall of Iron that upsets the economy (unless the DM is clever) or Contingency + Clone that effectively makes the caster immortal. Or what they did with Elminster where he plane shifts to the astral plane into a fortress like area that is impenetrable and then casts Astral Projection to go to the normal plane and if he dies, he just returns to his body. There are hundreds of things that trump a castle and 20 1st level mooks.


Except it can be. An army is a resource. You can use it to put pressure on strategic enemies, such as drawing out the forces of Rodrom away from the Tower Of Peril that your adventuring team will infiltrate. You can use it to destroy the forces of the Evil Overlord as your party defeats him in a climactic battle atop a flying airship.

There is a LOT of stuff you can do with an army as an adventurer.

None of this requires rules.

Fighter/King "I send my troops to harry the forces of Rodrom to draw them away from the Tower of Peril so we can infiltrate it."
DM "Ok, they are drawn away, how do you try to sneak in?"

What you are describing is rules for things that work perfectly fine in roleplaying.

[Envyus]

None of this requires rules.

Fighter/King "I send my troops to harry the forces of Rodrom to draw them away from the Tower of Peril so we can infiltrate it."
DM "Ok, they are drawn away, how do you try to sneak in?"

What you are describing is rules for things that work perfectly fine in roleplaying.

The rules part involves doing the stuff to get the army in the first place. Or if you want to use it in situations that is not purely roleplaying. Anyway this is not very important.

[Sartharina]

Limited wish and then wish a few levels into the fighters reign. Not to mention the other world changing spells like Wall of Iron that upsets the economy (unless the DM is clever) or Contingency + Clone that effectively makes the caster immortal. Or what they did with Elminster where he plane shifts to the astral plane into a fortress like area that is impenetrable and then casts Astral Projection to go to the normal plane and if he dies, he just returns to his body. There are hundreds of things that trump a castle and 20 1st level mooks.



None of this requires rules.

Fighter/King "I send my troops to harry the forces of Rodrom to draw them away from the Tower of Peril so we can infiltrate it."
DM "Ok, they are drawn away, how do you try to sneak in?"

What you are describing is rules for things that work perfectly fine in roleplaying.You need rules to know how big your army is, how you can get it organized (And how that organization affects is effectiveness), when you are able to get this army, how you can retain this army's loyalty, how you might LOSE the army's loyalty, how much authority you have over the army, how effective it is in combat, how long it can last against under assault, how skilled its soldiers are, etc. A bandit chief doesn't have the same influence and military might as a High Imperial Overlord.

What you are saying is that this sort of thing must be left up to DM fiat, depriving players of agency in the world. The outcome of a battle becomes up to the DM, not on the player's side as they make meaningful choices in the arming, populating, and commanding of their armies (Especially in conjunction with D&D Next's mass warfare rules).

D&D Next allows King Schmoopy of Awesometon to march on the Poorly Illuminated Gate of Redrum and bring his army to bear against the might of the Overlord of Insufficient Niceness's armies, using intel gathered by the party ranger Jay Hatz and his small band of Men in Tights to know just how big the enemy army is and what it's made of, while his Lambert the Halfling sneaks inside the fortress, assists Jay in scaling the walls while the armies are busy fighting, then having those two call in Wizard McDowell and King Schmoopy into the throne room directly from the battlefield to confront the Overlord in battle, with meaningful player-driven (As opposed to DM-fiated) decisions in all levels, ranging from the outcome and pace of the battle at the gates, to the success of the infiltration, to the defeat of the overlord, and whether the surviving army can be ready for the next adventure, or is a now-uncontrolled menace to the world even with the death of its leader. Who knows? Maybe the King falls early in the battle, but his preparations in building and managing his army allow them to carry the day without him, and the party gets to see their army triumph over the overlord's forces because of their strategic decisions with the army, even as their own characters die by their own mistakes - and surviving Significant Members of that army (Such as the second-in-command, a particularly gruff-but-capable sergeant in the thick of the fight, a cunning scout, and an accomplished battemage) become the new PCs.

[Lokiare]

You need rules to know how big your army is, how you can get it organized (And how that organization affects is effectiveness), when you are able to get this army, how you can retain this army's loyalty, how you might LOSE the army's loyalty, how much authority you have over the army, how effective it is in combat, how long it can last against under assault, how skilled its soldiers are, etc. A bandit chief doesn't have the same influence and military might as a High Imperial Overlord.

What you are saying is that this sort of thing must be left up to DM fiat, depriving players of agency in the world. The outcome of a battle becomes up to the DM, not on the player's side as they make meaningful choices in the arming, populating, and commanding of their armies (Especially in conjunction with D&D Next's mass warfare rules).

First off, DM fiat and player agency have little to do with each other. Even if the DM makes things like this up the players can have plenty of agency in the world. They aren't opposites.

Also, just because its up to the DM doesn't mean the players can't turn the tide of battle by arming, populating, and commanding their armies. It just means the reaction is up to the DM also to judge how effective doing that is.


D&D Next allows King Schmoopy of Awesometon to march on the Poorly Illuminated Gate of Redrum and bring his army to bear against the might of the Overlord of Insufficient Niceness's armies, using intel gathered by the party ranger Jay Hatz and his small band of Men in Tights to know just how big the enemy army is and what it's made of, while his Lambert the Halfling sneaks inside the fortress, assists Jay in scaling the walls while the armies are busy fighting, then having those two call in Wizard McDowell and King Schmoopy into the throne room directly from the battlefield to confront the Overlord in battle, with meaningful player-driven (As opposed to DM-fiated) decisions in all levels, ranging from the outcome and pace of the battle at the gates, to the success of the infiltration, to the defeat of the overlord, and whether the surviving army can be ready for the next adventure, or is a now-uncontrolled menace to the world even with the death of its leader. Who knows? Maybe the King falls early in the battle, but his preparations in building and managing his army allow them to carry the day without him, and the party gets to see their army triumph over the overlord's forces because of their strategic decisions with the army, even as their own characters die by their own mistakes - and surviving Significant Members of that army (Such as the second-in-command, a particularly gruff-but-capable sergeant in the thick of the fight, a cunning scout, and an accomplished battemage) become the new PCs.

Again here you just give an example where you ignore the fact that the DM can actually judge how well those tactics work and come up with a winner and loser based on it. The real question you have to ask is "Is it worth it to create a huge set of rules for raising an army and paying them and keeping track of their loyalty and level of training, or is it rare enough that the DM can just wing it?" and the answer most of the time, because D&D is not a mass combat and army simulation game, is no.

Personally I think there are more important things they can work on like the high magic, balanced math, and tactical modules that would appeal to many, many more players.

[Stubbazubba]

Because not everybody plays the game in the exact way that you play it, of course. We're talking, again, about catering to a variety of playstyles.

D&D has to focus somewhat, though. Domain management's all great, but it should enhance the core gameplay, not try to replace it. If domain management is a big deal in your preferred playstyle, why not find a game that actually takes that as a main schtick, instead of a class ability for a minority of classes that only comes online at high level?

Next needs to focus (I'll keep speaking as if it's not already printed). Now, maybe as a supplement, a domain management system that included trade and diplomacy would be pretty cool. But I'd rather the core rules focus on navigating dungeons and fighting dragons. If a class feature doesn't help in some way with doing that, it's not really relevant to the actual game.

[Sartharina]

First off, DM fiat and player agency have little to do with each other. Even if the DM makes things like this up the players can have plenty of agency in the world. They aren't opposites.

Also, just because its up to the DM doesn't mean the players can't turn the tide of battle by arming, populating, and commanding their armies. It just means the reaction is up to the DM also to judge how effective doing that is.



Again here you just give an example where you ignore the fact that the DM can actually judge how well those tactics work and come up with a winner and loser based on it. The real question you have to ask is "Is it worth it to create a huge set of rules for raising an army and paying them and keeping track of their loyalty and level of training, or is it rare enough that the DM can just wing it?" and the answer most of the time, because D&D is not a mass combat and army simulation game, is no.

Personally I think there are more important things they can work on like the high magic, balanced math, and tactical modules that would appeal to many, many more players.The answer that rules provide over DM fiat is "How well do these work?" What if a DM is absolutely clueless about military strategy and logistics? Rules and dice allow fair and impartial arbitration of a situation. The rules are there because the DM has absolutely no clue about how much higher quality equipment would change the tide of battle, or how a high-level warrior can improve the effectiveness of a combat unit, or whether splitting an army for a flanking attack would crush a defending army or get both halves eviscerated by the unified blob of the enemy's forces, or what commands have what effect.

Without rules, you end up with heated, campaign-wrecking arguments between players and DMs over whether the charge of the Glorious Knights against the line of infantry and archers results in shiskebobs in tin cans because one person has heard of the battle of Agincourt and no details about it, or whether it would result in a scattering, shattering route of the masses of PBI. There would be arguments over whether firing flaming ballistae into the massed armies results in atrocious friendly fire, completely ineffectual Overkill of insignificant targets, or deep strikes against enemy ranks.

Your "The DM can just wing it" assumes the DM understands fantasy strategy. Without rules, you end up with massive, bull**** arguments around the table because one person is familiar with modern combined arms warfare, someone else is intimately familiar with historically accurate understanding of medieval and rennaisance warfare, someone else loves Hollywood Strategy, another has bought into historical myths, another is trying to run on Rule of Cool, and all of them are absolutely convinced they are right and the only one who actually knows what he is talking about.

We have rules for army-making and leading and mass combat for the same reason we have rules for individual combat and skill checks - argument and conflict resolution from an impartial source, instead of trying to play Calvinball. There's a reason "Diceless" and freeform systems aren't successful or popular.

[Lokiare]

The answer that rules provide over DM fiat is "How well do these work?" What if a DM is absolutely clueless about military strategy and logistics? Rules and dice allow fair and impartial arbitration of a situation. The rules are there because the DM has absolutely no clue about how much higher quality equipment would change the tide of battle, or how a high-level warrior can improve the effectiveness of a combat unit, or whether splitting an army for a flanking attack would crush a defending army or get both halves eviscerated by the unified blob of the enemy's forces, or what commands have what effect.

Without rules, you end up with heated, campaign-wrecking arguments between players and DMs over whether the charge of the Glorious Knights against the line of infantry and archers results in shiskebobs in tin cans because one person has heard of the battle of Agincourt and no details about it, or whether it would result in a scattering, shattering route of the masses of PBI. There would be arguments over whether firing flaming ballistae into the massed armies results in atrocious friendly fire, completely ineffectual Overkill of insignificant targets, or deep strikes against enemy ranks.

Your "The DM can just wing it" assumes the DM understands fantasy strategy. Without rules, you end up with massive, bull**** arguments around the table because one person is familiar with modern combined arms warfare, someone else is intimately familiar with historically accurate understanding of medieval and rennaisance warfare, someone else loves Hollywood Strategy, another has bought into historical myths, another is trying to run on Rule of Cool, and all of them are absolutely convinced they are right and the only one who actually knows what he is talking about.

We have rules for army-making and leading and mass combat for the same reason we have rules for individual combat and skill checks - argument and conflict resolution from an impartial source, instead of trying to play Calvinball. There's a reason "Diceless" and freeform systems aren't successful or popular.

All of these arguments can be applied equally to any role playing situation. They aren't very convincing. In fact just replace the armies and siege equipment references with an NPC name and their underlings and you'll see what I mean.

The idea boils down to 'is it worth the time to come up with this mechanic' and the answer is that it will rarely come up, except for a very niche play style. So the answer is no its not worth it. If they have to do it, they should do it in the DMG or even a military expansion.

[Sartharina]

All of these arguments can be applied equally to any role playing situation. They aren't very convincing. In fact just replace the armies and siege equipment references with an NPC name and their underlings and you'll see what I mean.

The idea boils down to 'is it worth the time to come up with this mechanic' and the answer is that it will rarely come up, except for a very niche play style. So the answer is no its not worth it. If they have to do it, they should do it in the DMG or even a military expansion.That the arguments can be applied to any roleplaying situation is an argument for systems to have rules to govern roleplaying situations - something the success of rules-comprehensive games over diceless/freeform systems has proven time and time again.

When you replace the "Armies and Siege Equipment" with "An NPC and his underlings", you suddenly get the character sheet for that NPC and his abilities, and statblocks for his underlings to know what they are capable of. There are also rules for handling social situations (Though they're probably pretty skimpy), requiring Charisma checks and guidelines for determining the DCs of those checks to get someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't, or whether they would do something or not on their own in the first place as part of adventure design, such as "DC 16 Charisma check to get the guy to say "Yes", using one of three potential proficiencies for a bonus, and advantage if you specify a personal particularly persuasive argument, or disadvantage if you shoot your argument in the foot", leaving the arbitration up to the dice on whether something happens or not.

[Stubbazubba]

First off, DM fiat and player agency have little to do with each other. Even if the DM makes things like this up the players can have plenty of agency in the world. They aren't opposites.

They can be. If the outputs of the mechanics are not mostly objective but based on the DM's whims or interpretation, then the player's ability to impact the world only extends as far as the DM is willing to allow.


Also, just because its up to the DM doesn't mean the players can't turn the tide of battle by arming, populating, and commanding their armies. It just means the reaction is up to the DM also to judge how effective doing that is.

It actually literally does mean that. Because if, as you say, the effect of the players' actions are entirely in the hands of the DM, then no, the players can't turn the tide of a battle by doing anything; they can describe what they want to do and then ask the DM to bless it with the desired effect. It renders the actions taken by the players far less important than the interpretation by the DM. The metagame quickly devolves into convincing the DM that your actions should have the desired effect, typically by getting bogged down in minutiae or just doing the DM a lot of favors so he likes you more.


Again here you just give an example where you ignore the fact that the DM can actually judge how well those tactics work and come up with a winner and loser based on it.

Isn't that true of any and all interactions in the whole game? Why do we use dice and rules for one subset of interactions and not another?


The real question you have to ask is "Is it worth it to create a huge set of rules for raising an army and paying them and keeping track of their loyalty and level of training, or is it rare enough that the DM can just wing it?" and the answer most of the time, because D&D is not a mass combat and army simulation game, is no.

Ah, a good point, but you're kind of strawman-ing the argument here; there are more options than just "total DM fiat" and "needs its own chapter in the core book and dozens of arcane rules from day 1." Army maintenance need not be its own mini-game, it can just be a short bit of pretty abstract rules in the core book (like the rules for Diplomacy, but let's pretend they actually work), with a full-featured Mass Combat supplement sold later for the campaigns that like LotR-style armies. And while they're at it they should make a supplement based on running "intrigue" games with less combat and more of an emphasis on diplomacy between various factions. You could even roll a bunch of these into one supplement - Mass Combat, Intrigue, Travel/Exploration, etc., etc., into the "Supplementary Rules Compendium" or something.


All of these arguments can be applied equally to any role playing situation. They aren't very convincing.

?? How do you figure? Because from where I'm sitting, if we need dice and rules to resolve the PCs' attempts to recognize random historical references (e.g. the History skill), why on earth do armies and what they can do get sent to the back of the bus?

[Knaight]

I could say the same thing about the lower levels, that to my group they are a waste, and should be cut because we see no reason to play village hero.

Sure. It's a valid thing to focus on, and a number of games do specifically do that and are better for it. There's basically no way to play a low powered hero in Exalted, and the base power level in Mythender is pretty impressive even by D&D standards. If those are cut (or increased in power), the higher level play will probably be stronger, and I'll respond by playing something else. Which is the case anyways.

[Lokiare]

They can be. If the outputs of the mechanics are not mostly objective but based on the DM's whims or interpretation, then the player's ability to impact the world only extends as far as the DM is willing to allow.

Um, that's the default for 5E in everything else, why would it be any different for armies and military?

RAW:

Player "I try to walk across the wet floor."

DM1 "Roll a balance check to see if you fall and crack your head on the brick walls and bleed out."

DM2 "Ok you walk across the wet floor."

DM3 "Roll a dexterity check to see if you slip and fall and get your clothes wet, people might look at you funny if you have wet clothes on the street in the desert."


It actually literally does mean that. Because if, as you say, the effect of the players' actions are entirely in the hands of the DM, then no, the players can't turn the tide of a battle by doing anything; they can describe what they want to do and then ask the DM to bless it with the desired effect. It renders the actions taken by the players far less important than the interpretation by the DM. The metagame quickly devolves into convincing the DM that your actions should have the desired effect, typically by getting bogged down in minutiae or just doing the DM a lot of favors so he likes you more.

See my point above. Its all in the DMs hands in 5E, why should it be any different here.

[/quote]Isn't that true of any and all interactions in the whole game? Why do we use dice and rules for one subset of interactions and not another?[/quote]

Because one subset comes up often and the other rarely.


Ah, a good point, but you're kind of strawman-ing the argument here; there are more options than just "total DM fiat" and "needs its own chapter in the core book and dozens of arcane rules from day 1." Army maintenance need not be its own mini-game, it can just be a short bit of pretty abstract rules in the core book (like the rules for Diplomacy, but let's pretend they actually work), with a full-featured Mass Combat supplement sold later for the campaigns that like LotR-style armies. And while they're at it they should make a supplement based on running "intrigue" games with less combat and more of an emphasis on diplomacy between various factions. You could even roll a bunch of these into one supplement - Mass Combat, Intrigue, Travel/Exploration, etc., etc., into the "Supplementary Rules Compendium" or something.

Sure, but again, why do all that for a corner case that many people won't even use (like most players of 3E and 4E)?


?? How do you figure? Because from where I'm sitting, if we need dice and rules to resolve the PCs' attempts to recognize random historical references (e.g. the History skill), why on earth do armies and what they can do get sent to the back of the bus?[/COLOR]

Again see above. History checks are likely to come up in many adventures that have to do with dungeon crawling in ancient ruins. Armies and military stuff are not even close to being as likely to come up. They can come out with an army supplement later. No need to take up pages in the PHB for something rare like that.

[Sartharina]

Um, that's the default for 5E in everything else, why would it be any different for armies and military?

RAW:

Player "I try to walk across the wet floor."

DM1 "Roll a balance check to see if you fall and crack your head on the brick walls and bleed out."

DM2 "Ok you walk across the wet floor."

DM3 "Roll a dexterity check to see if you slip and fall and get your clothes wet, people might look at you funny if you have wet clothes on the street in the desert."The only situation there comparable to what you're saying armies should handle like is the third one, and even then, it's simply for expediency to keep the game moving (And in line with the game's already-stated guidelines explicitly calling out "Don't call for a dex check just to cross a room". There are guidelines saying when a check is appropriate to call for). The other two say that the situation is an ambiguous one that has several highly-likely and meaningful outcomes, then relies on the roll of the die to impartially arbitrate which outcome occurs, instead of the DM dragging out the game asking the player how they're walking across the floor to compensate for its wetness, then arbitrarily declaring whether the person falls, gets their clothes wet, or busts their head and bleeds out, or succeeds based on their interpretation of the player's responses (Okay - "As you cross the floor, you slip and fall because you didn't explicitly state you were walking flat-footed to maximize contact area, and made no attempt to avoid the slicker parts of the floor." or "Okay, seeing that the floor is wet, [my character] carefully measures each step, placing his foot firmly on the ground and testing to ensure he has solid footing before taking the next step, and watches carefully... [continue outlining process for the next 10 minutes]... and..." "Actually, as you put pressure on your foot without making sure your shin was parallel to the ground, your foot slips out from under you, and you fall and crack your skull open and bleed out!" -cue hour-long argument over the ideal body mechanics and physics involved in walking across a wet floor.), which is what you are demanding military action be played out as.



Again see above. History checks are likely to come up in many adventures that have to do with dungeon crawling in ancient ruins. Armies and military stuff are not even close to being as likely to come up. They can come out with an army supplement later. No need to take up pages in the PHB for something rare like that.On the contrary, armies and military stuff come up any time a party has to assist a beleagured town's militia against a band of rampaging orcs. Armies and military stuff come up whenever the party moves to take out the Evil Overlord and his Imperial Army, leading to the dramatic confrontation at the Black Gates. Or when Asmodeus, Archduke of the Nine Hells, brings his army of demons to the material plane, and the party tries to move to bring him down with their army of peasants.

[Icewraith]

People don't run games involving, or wouldn't want to use the rules in question: "We don't need these rules! That situation never comes up!"

People who do run games involving, or would want to have the rules in question available: "We need these rules! That sort of thing happens all the time in our campaign!"

[Stubbazubba]

Um, that's the default for 5E in everything else, why would it be any different for armies and military?

Because 1) that's not an accurate description of the default anyway, and 2) because if it is that bad, we should want it improved.


Sure, but again, why do all that for a corner case that many people won't even use (like most players of 3E and 4E)?

Citation needed.


Again see above. History checks are likely to come up in many adventures that have to do with dungeon crawling in ancient ruins. Armies and military stuff are not even close to being as likely to come up. They can come out with an army supplement later. No need to take up pages in the PHB for something rare like that.

Again, you're trying to turn everything into starkly dissatisfying false dichotomies. You can put a page or two of simple mass combat rules in the PHB or DMG and then also release a full supplement later. Because people play mass combats just as often as they play, say, bards. Which is to say not a majority of tables play with one at any given time, but a significant minority do.

[captpike]

a good ruleset to control armies could easily be a book by itself.

not to mention that the number of players who would do this is probably about the same who would want to run a business, and I don't think we need to waste 20 pages on "how to run a tavern".

[Sartharina]

On the contrary, a lot of games like to use effective use of Leadership.

Player control of underlings and followers of all sorts have been a staple of D&D in every edition except 4th.

[Lokiare]

On the contrary, a lot of games like to use effective use of Leadership.

Player control of underlings and followers of all sorts have been a staple of D&D in every edition except 4th.

You can count the number of published D&D adventures and army/military books on one hand and that might go for the entire run of every edition of D&D. Just by what they published we should be able to tell how popular this kind of thing is. Which is to say, not very.

It really shouldn't be in the PHB or possibly even the DMG and should be put in a book all its own.

[da_chicken]

It really shouldn't be in the PHB or possibly even the DMG and should be put in a book all its own.

You're simultaneously asking for more books while complaining about the price of books in another thread?

I am so confused. :smallconfused:

[Lokiare]

You're simultaneously asking for more books while complaining about the price of books in another thread?

I am so confused. :smallconfused:

I'm asking for the really rarely used stuff to be put in an expansion that focuses on that stuff.

[Sartharina]

Except it's NOT rarely used, especially since high-level characters are no longer one-man-armies in their own right.

[Knaight]

Except it's NOT rarely used, especially since high-level characters are no longer one-man-armies in their own right.

That doesn't follow. There are plenty of games (read: the vast majority of non-D&D games) where high level characters are nowhere near armies. Plenty of these games still don't focus on mass combat, at all.