D&D Gordon Freeman

[AvatarVecna]

I'm trying to figure out what level the One Free Man should be. My current method is to play through the Half-Life games, figure out the CR of the encounters he faces, and calculate XP that way. The issue is that I need to know the approximate CR of each enemy to calculate this.

If anyone can direct me to existing 3.5/Pathfinder/d20 stats, or can give an estimate based on their own understanding, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

[Xaroth]

Just go for 20 if you're not sure.

[sonofzeal]

Calculating xp gained is going to be an exercise in frustration. Instead, look at what he can do. Scientist, high Int, ranks in knowledge skills, sure. He does very little actual science in the course of things, mostly just solving the various mechanical puzzles along the way, and I don't remember much that demonstrates any special talent beyond what it'd take to get hired by Black Mesa in the first place. Physically, he's got great cardio but otherwise unexceptional athletic ability, never to my knowledge carrying anything I don't think I could carry myself, and with fairly mediocre jump/climb/swim. That doesn't really mean anything because a lvl 20 Wizard can still have a +0 to jump, but it also gives us no reason to raise his level very high.

I'd say Gordon Freeman is likely somewhere around lvl 3 - he's got basic competence and can take a few hits, but is well within the normal range for human possibility. He's got maybe 16+ Int though, and probably 18 Con. Decent Dex too, since he's a pretty good shot. Charisma's definitely the dump stat. Class is probably Expert.

[Z3ro]

How could one man have slipped through your force's fingers time and time again? How is it possible? This is not some agent provocateur or highly trained assassin we are discussing. Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who had hardly earned the distinction of his Ph.D. at the time of the Black Mesa Incident.

This is a great assesment of the free-man.

[GPuzzle]

Gordon Freeman can carry a crowbar, a Glock, a Magnum, crossbow, a shotgun, an MP5, a rocket launcher, a Gluon Gun, a Tau Gun, an alien's hand, grenades, tripmines and remotably detonable bombs at the same time.

That's some preety spiffy armor.

[ArqArturo]

Weapon Focus (Crowbar).

[AvatarVecna]

Calculating xp gained is going to be an exercise in frustration. Instead, look at what he can do. Scientist, high Int, ranks in knowledge skills, sure. He does very little actual science in the course of things, mostly just solving the various mechanical puzzles along the way, and I don't remember much that demonstrates any special talent beyond what it'd take to get hired by Black Mesa in the first place. Physically, he's got great cardio but otherwise unexceptional athletic ability, never to my knowledge carrying anything I don't think I could carry myself, and with fairly mediocre jump/climb/swim. That doesn't really mean anything because a lvl 20 Wizard can still have a +0 to jump, but it also gives us no reason to raise his level very high.

I'd say Gordon Freeman is likely somewhere around lvl 3 - he's got basic competence and can take a few hits, but is well within the normal range for human possibility. He's got maybe 16+ Int though, and probably 18 Con. Decent Dex too, since he's a pretty good shot. Charisma's definitely the dump stat. Class is probably Expert.

Ultimately, XP gain is the reason for raising his level up high. The guy faces down countless horrors throughout his career, ans guns down a fair number of them. As for attributes, I'm thinking 12/16/14/18/14/10 or something around there. What's you argument for Con 18, his survivability? High levels and the HEV suit can better simulate that without giving a nerd the Hulk's endurance.

Also keep in mind that this guy carries tons of weapons without being weighed down too much, all while he's walking/climbing/swimming/jumping at decent levels. Also, the HEV suit, mechanically, is probably hi-tech (magical) heavy armor, which is still very heavy regardless.

Thanks to everyone for replying. I'll probably go with Xaroth's suggestion and just take him to 20, but I can be a bit stubborn sometimes...

[Slipperychicken]

I'd put him at a low level, since he can't take that many hits before going down (even with the HEV suit), especially on higher difficulties.

[The Oni]

I think Gordon Freeman is high Int, High Wisdom, low or average Charisma, & physicals nothing to write home about; it's pretty much implied most or all of his combat capability is the HEV. He's likely an expert or a particularly tanky Rogue, just based on his sheer breadth of knowledge.

If you're trying to do this RAW (or homebrew from existing), this might be the basis for the HEV suit:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070212a

Also might want to grab a Heward's Handy Haversack for carrying all those wonderful toys. The gravity gun probably replicates a certain spell, not sure which.

If Pathfinder is allowed, PF says that a crowbar is considered an improvised weapon dealing damage equal to a club of its size (but I'd guess by the end of the game, he's not improvising with it anymore). Shame Vow of Silence is only for monks...

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe he'd have some kind of mute flaw.


The gravity gun probably replicates a certain spell, not sure which.


Telekinesis (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/telekinesis.htm), at max CL might do it. Maybe a higher weight capacity?

[toapat]

This is a great assesment of the free-man.

breen is underselling Freeman in that speach. He actually designed the spectrometer at the beginning of HL1 and the technologies of the teleporters in both games are based on Freeman's theories from college. its just that we never see him doing anything and Freeman himself isnt part of the Lamda project.


as far as being superhuman, the HEV is civilian powered battle armor with supercapacitors and significant environmental shielding.

[Jacob.Tyr]

Definitely a low level expert, benefiting from the DM throwing WBL rules out the window by giving him obscene gear. Also a ton of DM Fiat to keep him alive and on the railroad the DM set up. He also has a bunch of help from NPC's, so I'm guessing he has leadership or the DM needs to learn how to better handle DMPC's.

[AvatarVecna]

Low-level, because he can't take many hits, even with the HEV suit?
Just started up HL2 and stood right in front of a CP with a pistol; Health is at 100, suit is at 7.
On easy, it took 69 shots to kill me. On normal, it took 36. On hard, it took 24.

To clarify: hardest difficulty. Pistol. Close enough to hold it to my face. 24 shots to kill me at full health with a little bit of powered armor.
...
But he can't take that many hits, so he must be low-level. Ok.

[AvatarVecna]

Definitely a low level expert, benefiting from the DM throwing WBL rules out the window by giving him obscene gear. Also a ton of DM Fiat to keep him alive and on the railroad the DM set up. He also has a bunch of help from NPC's, so I'm guessing he has leadership or the DM needs to learn how to better handle DMPC's.

I agree with the WBL needing to be dumped into the sea. Giving the HEV suit to a 4th level character is obscene: it's got to be powerful high-tech (magic) armor.
Also, the NPCs aren't as capable or useful as your giving them credit for. They act stupid (okay, it's because it's AI, but still), they can't take too many hits, and they can't aim. I think, once he's actually joined the resistance sometime in the mid- to late- levels, Gordon would take Leadership with Alex/Barney/the Vort acting as his cohort while any other combat assistance he gets can be attributed to his followers.

DM fiat comes into play a lot...or more accurately, G-Man fiat. That railroading son of a

Anyway, as this is meant to be a more capable than average person (this guy has a kill count in the hundreds, and before Black Mesa, he designed the spectrometer), I was leaning towards PC classes. Even if he didn't have PC classes before the resonance cascade, he must have after. Ranger, for sure. Maybe Fighter. Anyway, I was thinking about Savant or Factotum for the lead in. Any thoughts?

Also, about his combat capabilities mostly coming from the suit, I'll agree that his defensive capabilities come from it, but his offense? This wasn't designed with combat in mind: it's a full body suit of high-tech (magic) armor that's made to withstand radiation, counteract poisons, administer morphine when injuries are suffered during testing, and generally shield the wearer from energy-based attacks. That it's bullet resistant is a by-product, not the design intention. It doesn't make him stronger, or give him a soldier's skill with firearms, it just makes him really difficult to kill. His offensive abilities come from his arsenal and his level (via BAB and class abilities).

[Slipperychicken]

To clarify: hardest difficulty. Pistol. Close enough to hold it to my face. 24 shots to kill me at full health with a little bit of powered armor.
...
But he can't take that many hits, so he must be low-level. Ok.

My memory must be going. I need to go back and play those games again.

[AvatarVecna]

It's not a problem; it's a little ridiculous when you think about it. Freeman can step on grenades, run straight at a large turret without worrying, and win against a squad of trained superhuman soldiers wielding nothing but a crowbar. Thinking about it too much causes immersion issues.

[ellindsey]

I'm pretty sure that the suit is implied to at least somewhat increase the wearer's strength. The Gravity Gun is supposed to be really heavy, and every time someone who isn't Gordon uses it they struggle to lift it. It's given to Gordon to use partly because the suit lets him lift it easily.

[ryu]

I'm pretty sure that the suit is implied to at least somewhat increase the wearer's strength. The Gravity Gun is supposed to be really heavy, and every time someone who isn't Gordon uses it they struggle to lift it. It's given to Gordon to use partly because the suit lets him lift it easily.

Plus the dude is regularly seen performing relatively impressive feats of lifting long before getting the gravity gun. For example the sheer scale of things he breaks with his crowbar are significantly more impressive than you'd expect and done much faster than you'd expect.

[AvatarVecna]

You both make good points; I'll give the clockwork armor more consideration.

[ryu]

You both make good points; I'll give the clockwork armor more consideration.

For an example of what I was talking about go to pretty much any of the hallways blocked by improvised wooden blockades. Break your path through with just the crowbar, then attempt to replicate a similar stunt in real life. Also we can assume his crowbar is mundane since Barney just found it lying around to give you a spare weapon.

[Raimun]

You can't convert Gordon Freeman to D&D.

To do that you would have to record his stats to a character sheet. As we all know, Gordon Freeman lacks character and therefore, he's not a real fictional character. Ergo, he's not eligible to a character sheet, because those are for the stats of actual fictional characters. Like "ubercharger build #137".

[Jacob.Tyr]

Anyway, as this is meant to be a more capable than average person (this guy has a kill count in the hundreds, and before Black Mesa, he designed the spectrometer), I was leaning towards PC classes. Even if he didn't have PC classes before the resonance cascade, he must have after. Ranger, for sure. Maybe Fighter. Anyway, I was thinking about Savant or Factotum for the lead in. Any thoughts?

Also, about his combat capabilities mostly coming from the suit, I'll agree that his defensive capabilities come from it, but his offense? This wasn't designed with combat in mind: it's a full body suit of high-tech (magic) armor that's made to withstand radiation, counteract poisons, administer morphine when injuries are suffered during testing, and generally shield the wearer from energy-based attacks. That it's bullet resistant is a by-product, not the design intention. It doesn't make him stronger, or give him a soldier's skill with firearms, it just makes him really difficult to kill. His offensive abilities come from his arsenal and his level (via BAB and class abilities).
Well, his strength is definitely augmented by the suit. The weapons he uses are either advanced alien tech, black ops tech, or carried by guards at a top-secret research facility, I doubt they're off the shelf. They're at least Masterwork, some of them are definitely better than that.

Further, he's using guns so he's targeting touch AC, anyone can hit touch AC! The only enemies hard to hit with his weapons are head-crabs, and that's because they're small sized. I doubt any of the soldiers are using anything more than the elite array, so hitting their touch isn't going to be very hard. Heck, he even gets cone attacks (shotgun) and blasts (rocket launcher)! Those are a reflex save for half, so he doesn't even need to roll to hit with them.

I'll agree with Ranger, urban ranger specifically, he probably takes that for his 5th level. I don't think he took fighter, though. He definitely used his first level feat on Endurance, which normally would make me sad but actually turned out to be incredibly useful to him.

[AvatarVecna]

Well, his strength is definitely augmented by the suit. The weapons he uses are either advanced alien tech, black ops tech, or carried by guards at a top-secret research facility, I doubt they're off the shelf. They're at least Masterwork, some of them are definitely better than that.

Further, he's using guns so he's targeting touch AC, anyone can hit touch AC! The only enemies hard to hit with his weapons are head-crabs, and that's because they're small sized. I doubt any of the soldiers are using anything more than the elite array, so hitting their touch isn't going to be very hard. Heck, he even gets cone attacks (shotgun) and blasts (rocket launcher)! Those are a reflex save for half, so he doesn't even need to roll to hit with them.

I'll agree with Ranger, urban ranger specifically, he probably takes that for his 5th level. I don't think he took fighter, though. He definitely used his first level feat on Endurance, which normally would make me sad but actually turned out to be incredibly useful to him.

Can you tell/show me where it say in the 3.5 DMG that firearms attack Touch AC? I know that's the case in Pathfinder, but I'm using the 3.5 rules.

[Zombimode]

breen is underselling Freeman in that speach. He actually designed the spectrometer at the beginning of HL1 and the technologies of the teleporters in both games are based on Freeman's theories from college.

Uhm... can you provide any material to back up those assertions?
Because to my knowledge, this isn't stated anywhere within the games. And anything not in the games is non-canon.


To the topic at hand: I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavor. Gordons "stats" remain the same over the course of the game. His power increases by getting better weapons and by the players increasing experience.

[AvatarVecna]

To the topic at hand: I don't think this is a worthwhile endeavor. Gordons "stats" remain the same over the course of the game. His power increases by getting better weapons and by the players increasing experience.

In D&D, leveling up represents familiarity with the skills/movements involved in a particular activity, whether it's swinging a sword, casting a spell, picking a lock, or whatever it may be.

Part of it's pure, physical repetition; doing something the same way over and over and over results in your brain recognizing the importance of this action; whenever you think about doing that action, your brain recognizes it and speeds up the process, resulting in what's normally called muscle memory.

Another part of it is the mental process involved in learning: in the case of combat, by participating in a number of combat situations, you learn to anticipate how foes move, when they might attack, when their defenses are open to attack, and so on. This shows especially when players start meta-gaming: the wizard PC might have failed his knowledge check against the black dragon, but the player still knows that acid spells will be useless against it. That's not a sign of the PC leveling up, but of the player leveling up in real life, in regards to playing that game, with that character.

In any video game that doesn't have a built-in leveling up system, this is present: the player get better at playing as a character, despite the fact that the character's abilities haven't improved at all. Does this mean you can't represent it with a normal leveling up system, like D&D? No, it doesn't. In-game, without getting all meta like you are, Gordon Freeman is gaining experience fighting soldiers and monsters, solving puzzles. In-game, the players skill improving is the mechanics, while Gordon Freeman improving because of his experience is the fluff. Yes, his abilities never get better in game.

This is sort of diving into what exactly D&D terms represent in the real world, especially the mundane ones. Real-world veteran soldiers might be high-level (here meaning maybe 4th level) Fighters. In-game, they'd have 4d10+(4xCon mod) HP. In the real world, maybe 10 HP represent the actual wounds they can endure without going unconscious; the rest represent, as they do in D&D, the close calls one suffers during a difficult fight. Did you watch the movie "Prince of Persia"? Every once in a while, they'd slow down the shot to show something just barely missing the actor; this is something that, in-game, take away from HP while, fluff-wise, not actually hitting them. It takes energy dodging attacks, and while more experienced combatants are more skilled in enduring that energy expenditure, they can't do so forever. Too many hits turned near misses, whether in real-life, or in-game, and it starts taking away from the HP that actually represent your health.

In a video game, the character may not have gained any more skill at dodging, but the player has learned how to manipulate the controls to allow attacks that would've hit them to miss. It's the same thing here, but the in-game explanation is that the character gained experience, leveled up, and got more HP.

TL; DR
If a character becomes easier to play as in a game, the player leveled up. In-game, the fluff is that the character has become more experienced, even if it was actually the player who became more experienced. Even if the character's abilities haven't improved, the player's ability to play the character has improved, and the in-game explanation is the character leveling up.

[Slipperychicken]

Can you tell/show me where it say in the 3.5 DMG that firearms attack Touch AC? I know that's the case in Pathfinder, but I'm using the 3.5 rules.

3.5 firearm rules are garbage. PF gun rules are practically canon at this point.

[AvatarVecna]

I'm aware they suck, especially in comparison, but it's what I'm using. Pathfinder is a last resort for if I can't make 3.5 work, and I can make it work for this.