Alexandrian's Calibration article [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Gamebird

2007-03-15, 09:35 AM

The article in question: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/d&d-calibrating.html

Winterking said
The Calibration article is quite good. I realize now that my objection is not to D&D's rules vs reality at high levels, but rather to the extreme range beyond the norm that is capable/expected/automatic for D&D characters. Fighting a relative handful of opponents is enough of a life experience to drive an exceptional individual into superhuman territory?
I don't think that it mirrors reality very well for PCs (and indeed, most NPCs at high levels, if the PCs are not simply to be Gods walking the earth) to be so far beyond the imaginable range of heroism. If Aragorn, as the article suggests, is little beyond level 5, how do we even conceive of level 20 characters? The experience point arrangement also seems a little off: soldiers, for example, if they survive, are likely to kill a great many enemy (equal cr to level) in combat--that experience should be driving them to levels of power well beyond anything seen by historical soldiers who killed a great many foes.
Additionally, such Calibrated expectations place a huge range of human variety within a mundane 10-11 ability score and a single class. Many people I know are consistently more talented at given tasks than others who specialize in said tasks (ie, both have "skill focus" and the relevant skill)--they certainly aren't exceptional or genius-level, but there is a real, qualitative difference. That difference gets losts when 95% of humanity is mashed into a single space.
Finally, the structure of levels, and in particular, combat feats, suggest that many maneuvers which would be taken for granted in the real world actually require godlike power--spring attack, a common fencing trick, needs half a dozen feats before it can be taken; improved feint and other swashbuckly skills require higher levels than the average plucky pirate; Leadership, the ability to draw others to follow you by sheer force of personality, requires level 6.

So how do we fix this? Alexandrian clearly indicated his preference at the end of the article, which was to slow down level advancement, perhaps to 1/10th the normal rate. I've been in a PbP game for ... I dunno, seems like two years now and we all post very regularly, 3-10 posts per player per week. We're 3rd level. It's a fun game and I haven't missed the leveling up. I'm in a tabletop game right now where we'll have game 8 this weekend and we're still 1st. These being 4-8 hour gaming sessions. I haven't missed it there either.

But slow leveling up presents a problem for acquiring feats and combat manuevers. I thought maybe re-doing the level system might help:

Level 1 - Average hit points, round down, just like MM does for monsters. Average array for stats. BAB=+0, all saves=+0. Full casters get to cast 1 cantrip per day (no stat bonus spells). Max skill ranks of 1/skill and you only get your class' base skill ranks+INT modifier (so a dwarf Fighter with INT 12 gets 2+1). You have all racial abilities (humans get their racial feat). No special abilities from classes.

Level 2 - Same hit points, but now you get +3 stat points. BAB=+0, all poor saves=+0, good saves=+1. Full casters get 2 cantrips per day (no stat bonus spells). Max skill ranks of 2/skill. Everyone gets their special abilities from their classes for 1st level (Barbarians can Rage, Fighters get an extra feat, bards can use bardic music, etc.)

Level 3 - Max hit points on your hit die. Get +3 stat points. BAB=+0, all poor saves=+0, good saves=+1. Full casters get a first level spell, but no domain, specialty or stat bonus spells. Max skill ranks of 3/skill. Everyone gets their starting feat, the one they normally get for 1st level in the PHB progression.

Level 4 - Same hit points, but you still get +3 stat points (raising you to the Elite array). Anyone with full BAB gets their +1, poor saves=+0, good saves=+2. Full casters now get all the extra spells they usually get for 1st level and they progress from here on out like the PHB lists. Max skill ranks of 4/skill. Essentially, you're a first level character.

Levels 5-10 are as per PHB levels 2-7. At the end of level 7, you're done with the game.

Although with this, you're still very, very slow for getting feats that represent various combat manuevers. And you're very, very fragile compared to most monsters. You are, truly, no more than a commoner and a very unskilled one at that, to start with.

Jalil

2007-03-15, 11:16 AM

Hmm. Remarkable article. I've heard of people who prefer D&D at lower levels, and this models it well. Most interesting.

PnP Fan

2007-03-15, 11:55 AM

I've not read the Calibration article, but the quote from Winterking is pretty much an apt description of level based systems everywhere (of which D20 is a predominant one). Real people don't develop sets of abilities in the way that level dependant systems force them to. The versimillitude (sp?) breaks down horrendously throughout the entire game, actually. In the past folks have pointed to things like hit points being a measure of actual damage being ridiculous, the confusion over things like AC being a function of how tough your armor is, and then some creatures getting things like DR on top of it, because they have "tougher skin/armor/scales/etc." It's just part of playing a level based game, and the abstractions involved with that type of game.

If you are looking for a game with a greater connection to reality, try GURPs. You can get more realistic characters that way, that develop some skills more than others, in a fashion that is considerably more realistic. Just be ready to never do the heroic things that folks want to do, like slay dragons and demons. Not without a number of experience points that breaks versimilitude, at least.

I personally choose not to worry about it too much (just a game, after all). But if your players dig a grittier campaign, and like your mods, go for it!

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 12:12 PM

Well, as to Winterking's concern about feats being required for combat maneuvers—I think the feats are intended to demonstrate an extremely specialized mastery of those maneuvers. So many of these maneuvers that are taken for granted can be represented through a character's BAB.

For example, ou don't need Improved Feint, or even any ranks in Bluff to feint as is typically intended by the term. That's just a matter of getting your opponent to look right for even just half a second while the blow comes in from the left. The Feinting maneuver in D&D, however, is is a complicated maneuver designed to so thoroughly fake your oppenent out that he is wondering where that latest cut came from for the rest of the fight. It's so complex it takes several seconds (i.e. a Standard action for folks without any sort of specialization) just to condition your foe into watching his right flank instead of his left.

It's still largely a matter of realizing the scale on which these abilities work.

Sampi

2007-03-15, 12:26 PM

I did not think that the calibration article was an argument for only playing D&D at low levels - jsut a way of pointing out that after level 5, the characters are superhuman. That the game from that point on should be played as a superhero game, with equally little problems from mundane dangers such as falling from heights et cetera.

D&D is a game, with preset rules which may or may not be absolutely balanced at every imaginable point in the game. I think it's a good point that the writer makes, stating the change in the underlying paradigm, from human heroes to superhuman superheroes. It's just not quite written that way in the basic set.

Just by reading the rules, we make the assumption that the game stays the same from level 1 to level 20. It does not, and the calibration article demonstrates that very well.

Swordguy

2007-03-15, 01:04 PM

Rumda

2007-03-15, 01:33 PM

I've been doing this crap for over a decade. But I can't model myself in D&D, and what I do isn't all THAT hard. How can this be rectified?
as Shhalahr said the problem is a matter of scale just because you can shoot or use a sword does not mean you have weapon focus for them all, it just means you are proficient with them and have a decent BAB for your level which you could model with a first level fighter. And your entire range of talents could be moldeled as a 2ed or 3rd level fighter with a decent int dex and str,

Tobrian

2007-03-15, 01:42 PM

If Aragorn, as the article suggests, is little beyond level 5, how do we even conceive of level 20 characters?

Sorry, what? How did the author arrive at that conclusion?? :smallconfused: I always took it for granted that characters like Aragorn, Legolas etc are all epic under d20 rules. I mean, there's the new Lord of the Rings RPG, we could check in there... I don't own it myself (alas), but I assume stats for the Fellowship are in there. And I'm pretty sure Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas and Elrond are to Middle Earth what Mordenkainen is to World of Greygawk. They're larger-than-life heroes. Far beyond the league of ordinary PCs.
---

Personally, if I wanted to draw up a character sheet for myself, I'd use GURPS. Far more skill points available. And disadvantages.

CharPixie

2007-03-15, 01:45 PM

If you are doing a low-levelled game, you are certainly throwing out a lot of the levelling guidelines. What I'd recommend is that you treat skills, feats, and the such as trainable things; you may need fighter4 to qualify for specialization, but after that level of experience is attained, you can train with any number of weapons. All you need is time.

Wizards already have a similar ability. They can learn more spells than the 2 per level they gain at level up. Why not extend it to other classes as well? It's not hard to imagine other folk learning new abilities. Yes, there should be limits; not every fighter knows every feat in the PHB. But it's not unreasonable that every heavy fighter has learned Power Attack at some point. And maybe someone shouldn't be able to train up Toughness 15 times in a row, but perhaps there's a special style that lets you take it twice.

Giving out abilities without having class justification may run against balance, fairness, and the other holy grails of modern day D&D, but if a group wants to play at low levels they already want to deviate from modern day D&D (what, you don't want level 10 of a PrC?!). Abandoning the restrictions on feats, skills, and equipment seems like a reasonable way of furthering the deviance. You could even relax spellcasting somewhat; allow casters to memorize higher level spells if they do hard rituals or quest. A higher caster level Delayed Blast Fireball could be something quite worth a lot of effort, and could turn the tables against a mighty foe.

Rumda

2007-03-15, 01:48 PM

Swordguy

2007-03-15, 01:55 PM

as Shhalahr said the problem is a matter of scale just because you can shoot or use a sword does not mean you have weapon focus for them all, it just means you are proficient with them and have a decent BAB for your level which you could model with a first level fighter. And your entire range of talents could be moldeled as a 2ed or 3rd level fighter with a decent int dex and str,

If shooting a perfect score for 6 straight qualifications isn't indicative of weapon focus, what is? What about 8 years of 4 times a week shooting with the 226? Where do you draw the line between someone having the feat and not having it? Those aren't all the weapons I'm proficient in, just the ones I'm best at. (God I sound like an internet tough guy. Please understand, I'm trying to make a point, not blow my own horn here.)

We have a similar thing going on in homebrew while trying to model Spartans. Specifically, if they have any feat at all, they have the Formation Fighting Tactical Feat. Unfortunately, that's a minimum 6th level Fighter you're looking at to get it. It's way too high a level by almost any stretch of the imagination for a rank-and-file fighter (fighter 3 I'd buy), but the feat accurately models what the Spartans were the best at.

The mounted combat tree is another one. Any cavalryman will have the Mounted Combat and Ride-by-attack feats at a minimum (as those are kind of the point of being on a horse), and a nobleman/knight should have the Mounted Archery and Spirited Charge feat as well.

Don't get me wrong - I agree with quite a bit of the article. It's just the feat distribution that messes things up. You need a large number of feats to do what a basic fighter should be able to do, but don't get them at a believable level.

Mike_G

2007-03-15, 02:20 PM

The way I see it, the problem inherent in this are the feats.

You have to be a minimum level to use a number of feats that any basic warrior should be able to use as a matter of course. Lvl 1 mounted Warrior, anyone? I use myself as an example, because fighting (and presenting fights in a theatrical enviornment) is my job. I have, at the minimum, these feats:

Improved Unarmed Strike
Improved Grapple
Improved Disarm
Dodge
Mounted Combat
Ride-by Attack
2-Weapon Fighting
Off-hand defense (+1 to AC with an off-hand dagger)
Improved Buckler Defense
Weapon Finesse (Rapier)
Weapon Finesse (Smallsword)
Weapon Focus (Longsword)
Weapon Focus (Katana -kenjutsu)
Weapon Focus (Katana - Iaijutsu)
Weapon Focus (Shield)
Weapon Focus (M-16A2)
Weapon Focus (M249 SAW)
Weapon Focus (SIG P226, M9)

That's NINETEEN feats, just to model the stuff that I can do. I an most emphatically not a 20th lvl Fighter, but to model myself I'd have to be.

What do I do?
I'm a jouster with the Knights of the Golden Dawn in Ohio.
I'm an Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (certified in Smallsword, R&D, Sword/board, single sword, quarterstaff, knife, unarmed, and broadword)
I hold basic certifications in every weapon offered by the American Academy of Stage and Screen Combat Choreographers (see above for weapons)
I've been a Knight in the SCA in Midrealm for heavy weapons prowness.
I held the rank of Free Scholar with ARMA.
I served in the US Army and shot sharpshooter (40/40) with the M-16, and expert with the 249 and M9.
I hold an Ichidan (1st degree black belt) in Eshin-ryu Iaijutsu, Kempo karate, and Kendo.
I hold a Brown belt (2 steps below black) in Judo.
I've been shooting with a SIG P229 for 8 years. It's my baby, and groupings are within 2" at 50 yards on a range (6" groupings at combat distance on a draw).

I've been doing this crap for over a decade. But I can't model myself in D&D, and what I do isn't all THAT hard. How can this be rectified?

I don't doubt anything you can do, I'm just not sure that all your abilities would really rate as the Feat in D&D.

Weapon Finesse you take once and it applies to everything. Weapon Focus just gives you a plus one to hit. You can use any of the weapons you listed without it. TWF just reduces penalties. If your Str and Dex are high, you could easily hit a lot with your weapons and not have the Focus Feats.

Improved Grapple, Strike, Disarm, etc are mostly just bonuses, or allow you to avoid an AoO. You can be very good at grappling without Improved Grapple. Can you hoestly say that a guy with a sword wouldn't get an AoO on you as you punched him or tried to grapple him?

You don't really need all the mounted feats if you have a high Ride skill, which I assume you do.

I feel your pain. I was in the Marines, was a nationally rated Sabre fencer, did theatrical fighting and choreography, got two degrees, did plumbing, and now I'm a Paramedic. It'd be hard to model all the stuff I can do with a PC under 5th level, but I look at the Feats as things only the best can do, and the rest of us use the untrained version.

If we call you a 3rd level Fighter, you'd have 5 Feats, a higher BAB than most people, and, assuming your Str and Dex are high, you could model yourself fairly well. Take Mounted Combat, Improved Unarmed Strike, maybe WF on one or two weapons, and TWF. That would make you a pretty feared opponent, which, if the Uruk Hai ever invade Ohio, you would be.

D&D's not for the real world. D&D is fine for modelling cinematic heroic quests where the PCs are a cut above, and most of the world are average mooks. The 1st level Warriors are the guys who die in droves fighting Errol Flynn or Schwartzenegger or Jackie Chan. D&D works if you consider Conan to be a 5-7th level PC and most of his foes to be 1st level warriors. If you consider him to be 20th level, then it gets silly because he can leap from the top of Everest and not die. But all his accomplishmenst in the books or films could be done by a 7th level Barbarian/Rogue/Fighter, which he really was in the literature.

That's all the article is saying.

Gamebird

2007-03-15, 02:25 PM

If shooting a perfect score for 6 straight qualifications isn't indicative of weapon focus, what is?

See, the funny thing about Weapon Focus is it doesn't give you very much. A 1st level Fighter with Weapon Focus has the same attack bonus as a 2nd level Fighter without it. So to model yourself, you could give yourself a slew of Weapon Focus feats, or just bump yourself up ONE level to account for all of them.

D&D also doesn't model not having proficiency in certain weapons for fighter types. Say, your fighter spent all his time training in ranged weapons, unarmed combat and sword play. By that, you shouldn't have any skill with an axe, or at least you should take a penalty. Same with a quarterstaff or dagger. But in order to be simple, D&D says that all Fighters are proficient with all simple and martial weapons. Though I'd assume the DM would be within their rights to declare a weapon exotic for their particular campaign - maybe saying that rapiers are exotic to everyone and axes are exotic for everyone except orcs, half orcs and dwarves.

Where do you draw the line between someone having the feat and not having it?

Somewhere near the line between one level and another. If you can show me where that is, then I'll extrapolate to the other. :smallwink:

We have a similar thing going on in homebrew while trying to model Spartans. Specifically, if they have any feat at all, they have the Formation Fighting Tactical Feat. Unfortunately, that's a minimum 6th level Fighter you're looking at to get it. It's way too high a level by almost any stretch of the imagination for a rank-and-file fighter (fighter 3 I'd buy), but the feat accurately models what the Spartans were the best at.

Honestly, 6th level for 300 elite fighters of a nation doesn't seem too off-kilter to me. Kalamar (I think) had a system for granting regional feats to everyone of a certain class from a particular region. It lined it out as a means for the DM to model the armed forces of each area and it designated what the soldier's Fighter bonus feats went into. To model real-world forces, I'd just say it was a "racial" feat and give it to them. In the real world we're all humans, but in the game they have no problem giving feats or feat-like bonuses to certain races. So the Spartan "race" gets Formation Fighting for free at, say, Fighter 3, without needed to meet the prereq.s. Not a big deal.

The mounted combat tree is another one. Any cavalryman will have the Mounted Combat and Ride-by-attack feats at a minimum (as those are kind of the point of being on a horse), and a nobleman/knight should have the Mounted Archery and Spirited Charge feat as well.

In real life, a cavalryman can't prevent damage to his mount via special manuevers. Yeah, you can guide it out of reach and do your best to cut down your enemies near it, but it's not that different from fighting next to an ally. Whereas in D&D, if that ally is your mount, then you can defend it.

Ride-by-attack is the same. All you're getting with the feat is immunity to an AoO, which is tough to define in real life. I don't remember what Mounted Archery gives, so no comment there. As for Spirited Charge, how do you tell if they did x2 or x3? Following the Calibration article, the average soldier is all of maybe 2nd level as a warrior or maybe a fighter. In either case, about 15-20 hp. A successful charge does 2d8+4, assuming a STR 14. You've got a decent chance of putting him down on a hit, though if you had Spirited Charge it would be nearly guarenteed. I imagine that people can be hit lightly with a lance and still be standing. This is a flaw of the abstract hit point and attack system, not of feats.

Krellen

2007-03-15, 02:26 PM

I have, at the minimum, these feats:
[Long List]
Not to belittle your accomplishments (if you really are that good, you're probably one of those 3rd or 4th level characters he described, compared to us lowly 1st and 2nd levels), but you might be mistaking feats for skills. Stagefighting, for instance, is skill-based, not feat-based.

Your competence with a wide range of weapons speaks actually not for Weapon Focus, but against it. No one has seven Weapon Focuses; they just have a good BAB. Skill with fencing weapons also does not mean Weapon Finesse (do you think your more agile than you are strong?) and even if you have it, Weapon Finesse applies to all melee weapons, not specific ones (they fixed it in 3.5).

You also don't need feats to Trip, or Grapple, or Disarm, they just show a clear mastery, nearly unmatched skill, at doing so - and again, the feats would only count if you're doing these things in real combat situations, rather than scripted stage combats. Your martial arts training probably means you simply have a level or two of monk - a far simpler method for acquiring those abilities than a slew of feats.

Even Two-Weapon Fighting isn't required for dual-wielding weapons. It's only required for attacking nearly simultaneously with them. (Parrying with an off-hand dagger, incidentally, is so common, I don't understand the Two-Weapon Defense prerequisites at all.)

Honestly, I'd peg you as a Mnk 1/Ftr 2, Maybe Mnk 2/Ftr 2 or Mnk 1/Ftr 3. Most of your ability boils down not to feats, but to BAB.

Matthew

2007-03-15, 02:28 PM

A good article, well thought out and presented. Pretty much describes most of the D&D games I have ever played, low level affairs that they usually are.

As Gamebird, Sword Guy and Winter King say, slow levelling up does present a problem for Feats if you view them as necessary for competance and that has long been my beef with the D&D 3.x system. It looks more customisable, but Feats, because they are related to levels and because what they accomplish is not always very great, are a trap.

Shhalahr and Mike G represents the other side of the view well here, as it is possible to argue that things like Weapon Focus are the sorts of things that represent mastery, rather than proficiency. However, this does not generally carry over with regard to things like Mounted Combat and Ride By Attack.

Basically, it comes down to the old 'all Feats are not equal' problem. The easiest solution, in my opinion, is to provide 'Free Bonus Feats' where necessary or else to consider granting Level 1 Characters access to more initial Feats (I don't agree that Formation Fighting is necessary to model Spartans, I must point out, but I do agree that it is an odd Feat to have to wait until Level 6 for).

My biggest problem with this issue, though, is Character Level versus Encounter Level. If I want the party to face anything above Encounter Level 7 or so, I either have to modify the Monster(s) considerably or accept that Characters need to reach Level X to face Challenge Y.

By way of example, the last long term campaign I ran was a House Ruled (A)D&D game where the Characters advanced from Level 1 to 6 over the course of about three years and ninety sessions. At Level 5 they faced an (A)D&D Banshee, if we were playing RAW D&D 3.x, that simply would have not been a productive encounter...

Gamebird

2007-03-15, 02:34 PM

The tabletop DM I'm playing under right now has an idea that he'll allow us to "buy" an extra feat every three levels. So we get our normal feat at 3rd, and if we want to we can spend ___ XP to get another feat. He's still debating the cost, but is tentatively putting it somewhere around 1000 xp for the first one, 2000 for the second (at 6th), 3000 for the third (at 9th), etc.

I don't know how that's going to work out. A lot of the mechanical power in D&D derives from feats or feat combinations, so allowing more feats allows a faster rise in power, which is important when you're calibrating your expectations.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 03:05 PM

Potential problem with slow levelling:

Wealth by Level. If it takes you longer to level up, you'll gain more treasure in doing so.

Potential Solution:

Reduce treasure amounts by the same proportion you reduce XP.

Problem with Treasure Reduction:

You have to make sure you don't reduce the treasure too much. Few people would become adventurers if it were easier and quicker to get rich by being a blacksmith or any other mundane occupation.

Somewhere in there is a happy medium.

Matthew

2007-03-15, 03:15 PM

Interesting you should say so Shhalahr. I don't think reducing treasure is a big deal, certainly not bigger than reducing levelling rates, once that has been done. It's a good question, though, how much stock do players put in their 'shinies'?

For me, it's never been an issue and I would expect a D&D 3.x game to have its experience and treasure be in line with one another, whatever the rate of advancement.

If you are reducing Experience to 1/10, then making every Gold Coin a Silver makes reasonable sense to me...

Mike_G

2007-03-15, 03:46 PM

I like the idea of slower levelling. We played our first 3.0 campaign and rose to about 17th very quickly. So quickly that we had a hard time keeping track of our abilities and getting used to them.

I think a half speed XP rate lets you get comfortable with your new feats and features as you gain levels.

I look at Feats as exceptional stuff you can do. Not mundane stuff everybody can do.

If we look at a soldier new to his unit as a Warrior 1, you can figure that Boot Camp plus Infantry Training has given him two feats (Say, Weapon Focus: Machine Gun for a SAW gunner, or Skill Focus:Move Silently and Alertness for a point man/scout) and a handful of skill points. A few ranks in Profession: Soldier would cover all the basic knowledge, from whom to salute to how to care for his equipment to what to do and where his position is when the squad leader shouts "Skirmish Right!" The other skill points can be divided among Hide, Climb, etc.

Figure that veterans, NCO's, and instructors are 2nd-3rd level, and elite troops would maybe be PC class Fighters or Rangers instead of Warriors, and you have a workable system for modelling modern troops.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 04:33 PM

If you are reducing Experience to 1/10, then making every Gold Coin a Silver makes reasonable sense to me...
Well, that's what I'm saying. To keep wealth by level in line, you're gonna want to reduce both treasure and XP to a similar proportion. It's just that you have to make sure you don't slow the wealth gain too much. If your PCs are motivated to adventure by riches, but the local blacksmith makes more in a week by smithing than they do in that same week adventuring, it just doesn't make any sense. If they want money, they should be smithing instead of adventuring.

Matthew

2007-03-15, 04:40 PM

Not if they aren't skilled black smiths...

Saying that, though, what is a reasonable rate? Isn't it something like [0.5 x Profession Check] Gold Coins per week? So, say about 10 GP a week or 520 GP a year? I don't think there's much chance of Player Characters being outearned, even if you reduce treasure to 1/10. Just acquiring a Masterwork Weapon would be a huge chunk of yearly income.

The D&D Economy doesn't make sense anyway, but what kind of scenario did you have in mind?

LotharBot

2007-03-15, 04:50 PM

I hold an Ichidan [in] Kendo.

If you're ever in Seattle, stop by the Meadowbrook dojo and say hi. (I'm unranked and regularly get smoked by rokkyu, so don't expect a decent challenge from me...)

Swordguy

2007-03-15, 05:00 PM

If you're ever in Seattle, stop by the Meadowbrook dojo and say hi. (I'm unranked and regularly get smoked by rokkyu, so don't expect a decent challenge from me...)

Hey, it'll be awhile, but if I'm ever up there I'll give ya'll a shout. It's a long way from Cincinnati to Seattle, after all.

BTW, have you ever bought anything from e-bogu.com? I'm in the market for a new men and kote set (my do's still pretty), and they've got decent prices.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 05:09 PM

Saying that, though, what is a reasonable rate?
Well, here's where we do run into trouble. A blacksmith's rate of income can easily be measured by the week. Adventuring income rate, on the other hand, is measured in "encounters". There really is not a whole lot in the way of guidelines for translating "encounters" into weeks. A lot depends upon your DM and campaign's play style. However, for a "realistic" encounter rate, you should plan on a fair amount of downtime between adventures. Adventuring is intense stuff. You'll want a chance to reast to enjoy the fruits of the loot. Unfortunately, in my experience, most campaigns are a lot more rapid fire, with the PCs constantly fighting. They don't really go that direction...

However, the Character Background generator in DMG2 does. It suggests an active character would take 1d6 months to gain a level. If we slow that rate to 10%, it becomes 10 to 60 months, with an average of around 3 years. If a 1st level adventurer only gains 900 gp over the course of those three years, you wind up with 660 gp less than the blacksmith.

Granted, in the following years, you begin to pick up the slack. But then adventuring is no longer "get rich quick".

Matthew

2007-03-15, 05:15 PM

Ah, but that's just a Character's wealth 'at that point' not how much wealth a Character has earned over those 10-60 Months. Are the Blacksmith's earnings Net Profit or Gross Profit, I wonder?

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 05:18 PM

Well, you specifically earn half your check in gp without any regards to material cost. So that should, like the PC wealth by level, represent net profit. Otherwise, the skill description would mention the additional costs.

[hr]Edit:

You know what, there is an issue with the consumables, affecting the net totals.

We're assuming that the only thing we are changing is the reward for defeating the encounter, right? We aren't saying, "Just send them after kobolds instead of orcs," but instead saying, "Orcs are now only worth 1/10th as much xp."

Well, in that case, adventurers would go through 10 times the resources, including consumables. This would further reduce the net value of adventuring income.

Note also that, according to the sidebar on pg. 54 of the DMG adventuring net income per character is about 90% of the gross income. If we increase expenses 10 times, then adventurers just barely break even.

Raum

2007-03-15, 05:42 PM

I think Alexandrian may be a bit disingenuous when it comes to assigning the Skill Focus feat to all of the skills he uses as an example. The feat is required to make the numbers support his thesis, but what happens when you start looking at athletes who are good at more than one skill? Do world class triathletes really have three to four feats? (Skill Focus: Ride, Skill Focus: Swim, and Endurance or potentially Run)

But even if you allow for the feats, skills aren't really where D&D loses realism. It's more fundamental. The disparity of power levels caused by the level system (and specifically HD, AB, & Saves) is simply too large. Even if you limit your "human" range to the first five levels, hit dice alone make a fifth level fighter nearly unkillable to any first level character. Then add the Fort save bonus and your fifth level character will survive far more diseases and poisons than the first level...even if they have the same general health / constitution.

Mind I'm not advocating making the game extremely deadly, I just dislike the fact that getting hit by the same crossbow bolt hurts more or less depending on your level. Even when both hit. With a melee weapon it's even worse, now the attacker's level (via Power Attack) also makes hits with the same weapon very different.

Beleriphon

2007-03-15, 05:49 PM

The way I see it, the problem inherent in this are the feats.

You have to be a minimum level to use a number of feats that any basic warrior should be able to use as a matter of course. Lvl 1 mounted Warrior, anyone? I use myself as an example, because fighting (and presenting fights in a theatrical enviornment) is my job. I have, at the minimum, these feats:

Bu you don't fight with any of the following for a living, at least not really fight. If you're job is largely stage fighting then you are an expert with Perform as a chosen skill, and maybe a level or two as a warrior for those few extra feats that you actually need.

Improved Unarmed Strike
Improved Grapple
Improved Disarm
Dodge
Mounted Combat
Ride-by Attack
2-Weapon Fighting
Off-hand defense (+1 to AC with an off-hand dagger)
Improved Buckler Defense
Weapon Finesse (Rapier)
Weapon Finesse (Smallsword)
Weapon Focus (Longsword)
Weapon Focus (Katana -kenjutsu)
Weapon Focus (Katana - Iaijutsu)
Weapon Focus (Shield)
Weapon Focus (M-16A2)
Weapon Focus (M249 SAW)
Weapon Focus (SIG P226, M9)

That's NINETEEN feats, just to model the stuff that I can do. I an most emphatically not a 20th lvl Fighter, but to model myself I'd have to be.

What do I do?
I'm a jouster with the Knights of the Golden Dawn in Ohio.
I'm an Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors (certified in Smallsword, R&D, Sword/board, single sword, quarterstaff, knife, unarmed, and broadword)
I hold basic certifications in every weapon offered by the American Academy of Stage and Screen Combat Choreographers (see above for weapons)
I've been a Knight in the SCA in Midrealm for heavy weapons prowness.
I held the rank of Free Scholar with ARMA.
I served in the US Army and shot sharpshooter (40/40) with the M-16, and expert with the 249 and M9.
I hold an Ichidan (1st degree black belt) in Eshin-ryu Iaijutsu, Kempo karate, and Kendo.
I hold a Brown belt (2 steps below black) in Judo.
I've been shooting with a SIG P229 for 8 years. It's my baby, and groupings are within 2" at 50 yards on a range (6" groupings at combat distance on a draw).

I've been doing this crap for over a decade. But I can't model myself in D&D, and what I do isn't all THAT hard. How can this be rectified?In most ways I would suggest a Exp 2/War 2, with an above average dexterity, strength and charisma. You have taken a weapon focus in Long Arms and your primary weapon is probably masterwork. Thats at least as far the rules go. As mentioned knowing how to use a weapon effectively (represented by proficiency) and Weapon Focus are two different things. The only ones that you might call strictly necessary are two weapon fighting, and its off shoots. If you felt so inclined you could just replace the levels of warrior with fighter and you'd be set. Heck if you really felt like it you could even do ranger if that was you're cup of tea.

I'd also suggest that stage fighting, or choreographing stage fights, is a function of a Perform check. You're acting, you aren't really in a fight, no matter how good it looks. As for mounted combat all you need are a decent dexterity and ranks in ride. I'd even wager that as far as mounted combat goes you don't have the feat Mounted Combat. The reason being that anybody who currently participates in any form of medival recreation isn't actually fighting in the sense of a fight. They aren't out to kill the other guy, thats what all of the combat feats represent, specialized skills that make it easier for you to kill the other guy. Stage fighting and the SCA aren't going to teach you that.

Matthew

2007-03-15, 05:51 PM

Well, you specifically earn half your check in gp without any regards to material cost. So that should, like the PC wealth by level, represent net profit. Otherwise, the skill description would mention the additional costs.

Well, Living Costs was more what I had in mind, but saying that, a Player Character's overheads are likely to be much greater than a Black Smith's, even if only in terms of Potions of Healing. Hmmn. I can't decide whether this is worth exploring or not.

Raum:
Yeah, the Feat to level thing is a problem for D&D 3.x.
I'm not sure I would agree that the disparity is that great between Level 1 and 5, even Full BAB and Saves don't make for a huge difference, but I think I know what you are driving at.
Hit Points are always going to be a problem because of their abstract nature. Even so, it's not that the Bolt hurts less, as I think you well know.

Raum

2007-03-15, 06:11 PM

Yeah, the Feat to level thing is a problem for D&D 3.x.Yeah. An off the cuff thought...would it be overpowered to have a fighter earn the same number of feats as a wizard has castable spells? And at the same rate... Maybe overpowered isn't the right word, spells are more powerful than feats.

I'm not sure I would agree that the disparity is that great between Level 1 and 5, even Full BAB and Saves don't make for a huge difference, but I think I know what you are driving at.The AB difference shows up most when used in concert with Power Attack. All else being equal, a fifth level fighter will mow through first level fighters at a phenomenal rate just because of the AB difference applied to Power Attack. But saves are worse. Given a DC of 20, why does a level 5 fighter with the same stats as a level one fighter have a ten percent higher chance of surviving the poison?

Hit Points are always going to be a problem because of their abstract nature. Even so, it's not that the Bolt hurts less, as I think you well know.Yes they're abstract, that's not really my issue. I couldn't stand the extremely detailed systems with hit location and damage to various limbs, etc. What I dislike is simply an average level one fighter doesn't have a chance against an average level five fighter. I generally prefer systems like SR where getting hit by a weapon hurts...no matter who the attacker.

Winterking

2007-03-15, 06:13 PM

Hmm.
Thanks for moving this thread, Gamebird.

Interesting that the part of my response that I feel least strongly about is being most discussed--the feats.
The biggest problem I have with assuming that all the world (except for a handful of exceptional heroes) is below level 5 is the massive difference in ability/potential/talent between such godly super-beings as L15-20 characters. It doesn't seem very realistic, to me, to have even only 5% of the population so far beyond the comprehensible norm that fictional characters who we consider epic (Conan, Aragorn, Gandalf) are comparative weaklings. How, in roleplaying, do you imagine your L15 Wizard thinking if even Einstein can't approach your genius? How do you comprehend the combat talents of a L20 fighter-type, if US Special Forces aren't far beyond L4? It's ridiculously outside the range of human experience--if we're all L1-3, then a L20 might as well be beyond a God.

I prefer to think that, while most people don't get to anything near PC power, a lot of experienced craftsmen, commoners, civilians, and etc, have little difficulty acheiving L5-6 over their lifetime, and that 'normal' humans are not necessarily exceptional for proceeding higher. Plus, it lets me (as a DM) have human NPCs that actually matter--at all--once the PCs are beyond L6.

Swordguy

2007-03-15, 06:16 PM

Bu you don't fight with any of the following for a living, at least not really fight. If you're job is largely stage fighting then you are an expert with Perform as a chosen skill, and maybe a level or two as a warrior for those few extra feats that you actually need.

Erm...learning to fight with all sorts of medieval weaponry is in fact my job. The jousting, especially, is completely real. The only difference is that there aren't points on the end of the lances, and the lances are made to give before someone actually dies. ARMA uses padded wasters (which is what everyone throughout history has practices with) and full-body full-contact techniques (armor required). I could keep going. Yes, the stage combat is what mostly pays the bills, but the training I'm getting and have gotten is just as much and just as accurate as people throughout history have gotten.

And what about the stuff in the Army? Throw on MILES gear and it is real. You just don't end the day with holes in you. I've been really shot at, and returned fire. That's doing it for a living.

And yes, if it matters, I really have been in real non-Army fights too, so I can legitimately sat I've gained some XP. One 2 on 1 knife fight during the race riots about 6 years ago in Cincinnati. Three sword fights, one after Iai class in the dojo when my gf's ex came after me (he studied there too), and two at the Ohio Renaissance Festival (one against same gf's ex after hours and one during Student Day day when a football player type tried to rape one of our street wenches backstage). Numerous unarmed altercations from when I was a bouncer at the Hole in the Wall Bar at Miami University (Oxford, OH). One non-military exchange of gunfire during an attempted drive-by on New Years Eve three years ago - to say nothing of my time in the Army.

(Not trying to blow the horn here, just giving you a short rundown of stuff so you can relate to my situation.)

I enjoy fighting (point: fair fights. 2 v 1 crap and getting shot at don't really count). It's why I do what I do. I'm not particuraly big, nor strong, although I'd like to think I've got decent hand-eye (ice hockey goalie), and my Con is way down after this last year due to lack of exercise (medically discharged from the Army for getting lots of sharp metal bits in my leg).

I suppose the question come down to: how do you define feats? I look at it and I see a feat that negates an "untrained" penalty that anyone without training/the feat would take. As I am "trained", I would assume that I have the appropriate feat. And that's where the problem comes in...

EDIT: I just realized I completely missed my own point: If someone with the training and experience I have doesn't have the feat, then who would? Or what about real people who were quite skilled in several different varieties of weapons (George Silver, Tallhoffer, DiGrassi, etc.)? They're training was even broader and more in-depth than what I do, or probably any of the "regulars" on the RW Weapons thread. Yet giving them the number of feats they probably deserve puts them far over what anyone would call a sane level.

Sampi

2007-03-15, 06:27 PM

Swordguy: I don't want your life. I'm very happy with being a first-second level expert.

But sheesh, you have bragging rights. Officially.

Krellen

2007-03-15, 06:31 PM

The biggest problem I have with assuming that all the world (except for a handful of exceptional heroes) is below level 5 is the massive difference in ability/potential/talent between such godly super-beings as L15-20 characters. It doesn't seem very realistic, to me, to have even only 5% of the population so far beyond the comprehensible norm that fictional characters who we consider epic (Conan, Aragorn, Gandalf) are comparative weaklings.
But 5% of people aren't above level 5, even by the RAW. Even in a metropolis, with many high-level NPCs, the characters over level 5 make up, at most, 0.1% of the population. That's about the powerlevel you'd see in your average superhero game, which was the article's point: after level 6 or so, D&D becomes a superhero game, and should be viewed through the lens of such.

So of the most "epic" characters you outlined - Conan, Aragorn, Gandalf - only one, the Wizard, even begins to approach ability that would be on par with the standard superheroes of comic fare. Your 10th level fighter isn't Conan any more: he's the Thing, just like his friends are the Human Torch, Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic.

Swordguy

2007-03-15, 06:49 PM

But 5% of people aren't above level 5, even by the RAW. Even in a metropolis, with many high-level NPCs, the characters over level 5 make up, at most, 0.1% of the population. That's about the powerlevel you'd see in your average superhero game, which was the article's point: after level 6 or so, D&D becomes a superhero game, and should be viewed through the lens of such.

I would be perfectly fine with expanding the range of abilities from lvls 1-5 to become, say, lvls 1-10 or 15, and save the superhero-type stuff for post lvl 15 games.

Or say "the heck with it" and start having mid-to-high level NPCs become more common. Make your basic soldier a 3-4th lvl warrior instead of a 1st, his sergeant is a 5-7th lvl, and the officers are 3-5 lvls in warrior and 3-5 lvls in aristocrat or expert.

That and expand the DC ranges of stuff (so MW items and things aren't so blasted easy to make) and it'll fit better.

Figure out that you want the average, say, blacksmith to be a 4th lvl NPC. Figure out what his smithing "take 10" score would be (should be somewhere around a 19-20) and set crafting DCs based on that, as opposed to a 1st level (apprentice) type. That way a really good smith is level 10 instead of level 3.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 07:18 PM

I was thinking about suggesting something similar, Swordguy. You beat me to it. :smallwink:

Diggorian

2007-03-15, 07:24 PM

Off the cuff: I just about fully agree with Alexandrian's article.

Most D&D characters are fantastically above real world folk. I reason this way, despite what you may have trained for in life, strap on some armor and kill an adult male African lion (CR 3) with a sword. Kill several. If it was, on average, merely tough to do then you're level 5 :smallwink:

My group plays with a slow leveling style not by dividing XP but by describing lower (more common) encounter levels intimidatingly. The elite guard of the evil king who dressed in black demon-stylized breastplate with gnarled edge longswords and claw-spiked shields may only be level 3 fighters. Add smart tactics and they can seem a threat.

We also use ad hoc training time too before leveling up.

Really the best way to model Modern folks like us is with a skill points system IMHO.

Dervag

2007-03-15, 07:28 PM

Sorry, what? How did the author arrive at that conclusion?? :smallconfused: I always took it for granted that characters like Aragorn, Legolas etc are all epic under d20 rules. I mean, there's the new Lord of the Rings RPG, we could check in there... I don't own it myself (alas), but I assume stats for the Fellowship are in there. And I'm pretty sure Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas and Elrond are to Middle Earth what Mordenkainen is to World of Greygawk. They're larger-than-life heroes. Far beyond the league of ordinary PCs.If you read the article, this becomes very clear.

His point is that even a fifth level character can do things that only the greatest real-life people can accomplish. For example, a fifth-level expert who specialized in a Knowledge skill would probably be able to duplicate the works of Einstein. A fifth-level character who specialized in athletics would reliably be able to duplicate the achievements of Olympic athletes. And so on.

In real life, if even the most skilled swordsman in the world gets into a fight with, say, twenty opponents (assuming that all equipment is equal), he doesn't stand a chance. In D&D, a tenth-level fighter is practically guaranteed to take down twenty first-level opponents, even with equal equipment. Whereas a fifth-level fighter would surely be killed.

Thus, the author concludes that D&D characters above fifth level are superhuman[i]. They can achieve things outside the range of what is physically possible for normal, real-world humans. Even high-level noncasters using purely mundane equipment can do things like shoot several arrows with devastating accuracy and power in six seconds, walk on a greased tightrope, or smash down a barred wooden door with a few blows.

Now, in the Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, [i]specifically, does not display superhuman abilities. The enemies he fights (like orcs) are depicted as being roughly equivalent to ordinary human warriors by D&D standards. He isn't cutting down giants and trolls left and right, the way that an extremely high level D&D character could.

Thus, the author argues that Aragorn can be modelled as a 5th level character... and he can, too. Pretty much everything Aragorn does (fight off some orcs, skillfully lead the hobbits through the wilderness to Rivendell, and so on) could reasonably be achieved by a fifth-level character with the proper build.

Now, characters that really are superhuman, like Gandalf, who's supposed to be some kind of demigod in human form, are harder to model. But the author makes a very good case that you can describe pretty much any person who's ever really lived, and most fictional characters outside of D&D settings, using 5th level as a guideline.

If shooting a perfect score for 6 straight qualifications isn't indicative of weapon focus, what is? What about 8 years of 4 times a week shooting with the 226? Where do you draw the line between someone having the feat and not having it? Those aren't all the weapons I'm proficient in, just the ones I'm best at. (God I sound like an internet tough guy. Please understand, I'm trying to make a point, not blow my own horn here.)Well, if you model yourself as being, say, 2nd or 3rd level, then the improvement in weapon skill simply comes out as a consequence of your improved base attack bonus.

Weapon Focus is should probably be reserved for people who have achieved what we in the real world would consider extraordinary skill, bordering on legend, with a particular weapon.

A normal person can practice and become very competent with half a dozen weapons or more over a decade. But competent and legendary aren't the same thing. Nmatter how good you are with a rifle, you're probably never going to shoot like Annie Oakley. Annie Oakley had Weapon Focus: Rifle. You probably don't, simply because Weapon Focus represents the difference between good and legendary. Now, if you make it into Olympic marksmanship competition, then you could make a good case for having Weapon Focus: Rifle. But very few riflemen ever manage that,

We have a similar thing going on in homebrew while trying to model Spartans. Specifically, if they have any feat at all, they have the Formation Fighting Tactical Feat. Unfortunately, that's a minimum 6th level Fighter you're looking at to get it. Yup. You're right, that is a problem. Maybe if we want to model real-world fighting styles, we do have to collapse the feat tree a little and make feats more accessible. But I don't think that you would be best modelled by nineteen feats.

The mounted combat tree is another one. Any cavalryman will have the Mounted Combat and Ride-by-attack feats at a minimum (as those are kind of the point of being on a horse), and a nobleman/knight should have the Mounted Archery and Spirited Charge feat as well.They should have those feats to make an effective D&D character. But real-world people can't match the skill level of a mid-level D&D character.

Knights need Spirited Charge to kill giants, but they don't need it to kill first-level human footmen. In historical medieval battles, they didn't have to kill giants or demons. So the fact that they don't do triple damage on a lance charge isn't really a handicap; nothing they actually had to fight could survive more than a few hits even without the feat.

Now, medieval European knights definitely needed Mounted Combat and Ride-by-Attack. However, they were human, so they got two feats just to begin with. Now, even adopting the standards of 'Calibration,' we can reasonably argue that medieval knights would be 2nd or 3rd level, with remarkable individuals being 4th level or even 5th level. Since they were definitely fighters, that would give them access to anywhere from two to four additional feats to customize their own combat styles. That doesn't sound so bad to me.

Don't get me wrong - I agree with quite a bit of the article. It's just the feat distribution that messes things up. You need a large number of feats to do what a basic fighter should be able to do, but don't get them at a believable level.You define what a basic fighter should be able to do too broadly. As in the example of feinting, every swordsman can feint. Even a 1st-level warrior can fake an enemy out and attack them. But to become such a legendarily proficient feinter that you can catch your enemies totally flatfooted on a regular basis (which the Improved Feint feat allows you to do), you have to be something pretty special.

In general, I would argue that any feat that includes other feats as a proficiency, with a few exceptions like Mounted Archery, represents an additional, abnormal level of competence good enough to make you especially renowned for your ability in that area.

I feel your pain. I was in the Marines, was a nationally rated Sabre fencer, did theatrical fighting and choreography, got two degrees, did plumbing, and now I'm a Paramedic. It'd be hard to model all the stuff I can do with a PC under 5th level, but I look at the Feats as things only the best can do, and the rest of us use the untrained version.Well, maybe you are, say, a 4th level character. Especially since your talents are divided between combat skills (improved by fighter levels) and noncombat skills like Profession:Plumbing (improved by expert levels).

Now, if you'd put all those levels into fighter, you'd be really really good as a fighter; (like, say, Patton). Or if you'd put all those levels into expert, you'd be really really good at a few of those noncombat specializations.

Problem with Treasure Reduction:
You have to make sure you don't reduce the treasure too much. Few people would become adventurers if it were easier and quicker to get rich by being a blacksmith or any other mundane occupation.
Somewhere in there is a happy medium.Remember, most people do engage in mundane occupations, and very few people are adventurers.

You know what, there is an issue with the consumables, affecting the net totals.

We're assuming that the only thing we are changing is the reward for defeating the encounter, right? We aren't saying, "Just send them after kobolds instead of orcs," but instead saying, "Orcs are now only worth 1/10th as much xp."You're right.

But in that case, we just reduce the gold reward by less than the XP reward (enough to cover the cost of extra consumables). So most fights the PCs get into only give them enough gold to cover their operating expenses, plus a little. Only in rare cases would they find treasure valuable enough to significantly increase their wealth (the total gp value of their possessions).

Note also that, according to the sidebar on pg. 54 of the DMG adventuring net income per character is about 90% of the gross income. If we increase expenses 10 times, then adventurers just barely break even.Well, then we can crank down prices a little (and correspondingly crank down the income earned by doing mundane tasks), or we can say that it does make sense for that to happen.

Maybe adventurers should just barely break even most of the time, except when they find some specific and valuable treasure (like the magic sword they've been questing for). This encourages them to do things for money and means that they may need to rely on patrons (such as a wealthy merchant who can give them a loan) most of the time. That can be a good thing, in my opinion.

Drama is created by conflict. If there's no conflict, there's no drama. And the constant need for money to make ends meet creates a lot more drama in the non-combat side of the game. Characters will actually care about wasting money, because they know that it isn't an unlimited renewable resource available to them in quantities greater than they could ever realistically hope to spend.

Given a DC of 20, why does a level 5 fighter with the same stats as a level one fighter have a ten percent higher chance of surviving the poison?If I had to guess:

Because a fifth level fighter is more closely attuned to the condition of their own body. They start noticing that they're dizzy or tired or that everything seems a little dimmer than it should earlier than the first level fighter. They probably know at least a little more about poisons, which gives them a better chance of knowing what to do to counter a specific poison.

So if there is anything a human being can do to improve their chances of not being killed by a particular poison, then the fifth level fighter is going to be a little more likely to do it than the first level fighter.

Have you seen the new Bond movie, Casino Royale? In it, Bond gets poisoned at one point. As soon as the poison starts hitting him, he immediately rushes off to the bathroom and downs a glass of salt water (to induce vomiting). That improves his chances of survival by a bit right there.

I wouldn't know to do that. I probably wouldn't even notice that I had just been poisoned until it was too late to do anything about it.

The difference isn't all that dramatic. A deadly poison is a deadly poison. But people with a high general level of training and competence are more likely to be able to do anything that might reduce the poison's effects.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-15, 07:51 PM

Remember, most people do engage in mundane occupations, and very few people are adventurers.
Indeed.

But the reason for that is in a large part due to the risk vs. reward ratio. For them, it's too risky. For those willing to take the risk, you still need a reward that justifies it. If you drop the reward level, the ratio begins to pay off less and less. Eventually, the only adventurers are the people that either have no choice (maybe because the fate of the world hangs in the balance, maybe something more personal) and the people that are certifiably-nuts adrenaline junkies.

Beleriphon

2007-03-15, 08:03 PM

EDIT: I just realized I completely missed my own point: If someone with the training and experience I have doesn't have the feat, then who would? Or what about real people who were quite skilled in several different varieties of weapons (George Silver, Tallhoffer, DiGrassi, etc.)? They're training was even broader and more in-depth than what I do, or probably any of the "regulars" on the RW Weapons thread. Yet giving them the number of feats they probably deserve puts them far over what anyone would call a sane level.

My point is that you don't need a stack load of weapon focus to be able to attack effectively with a weapon. Even one or two levels of warrior, or better fighter, combined with a moderate strength and dexterity gives you a pretty damn good attack bonus, and procifiency with a variety of weapons. That means you know to use a weapon in high effective manner (ie. being able to hit). You don't need weapon focus, or half the feats you mention to model yourself or anybody else given what, and more importantly who, you'd be comparing yourself to.

As for the untrained bit, taking a single fighter or warrior levels makes you trained in the use of all martial weapons. Some of the other feats give you extra abilities, for example Mounted Combat. Can you negate a hit on your horse just by riding really well? If you can't then you don't have that feat. Again, my point is you don't need all of those feats to do you what you know how to do, a few of them is more then enough to cover the necessary skill set. It gets better with skills, since you're requisite ability modifier combined with a five or six ranks can produce some pretty impressive results.

Solo

2007-03-15, 08:08 PM

Its just a game. Realism doesn't matter that much.

I mean, who's going to complain about Starcraft or Command and Conquer being "unrealistic?"

You're just supposed to have fun playing the thing!

ps. My feelings towards this thread can be summed up in my sig.

pps. Not the gun, the text below it.

LotharBot

2007-03-16, 01:50 AM

It is "just a game". But it helps to temper our expectations of what's possible in the game and how that compares to real people.

In terms of specific power at a single task, level 5 seems to be the dividing line between "pro" and "legendary".

But in terms of broad abilities, you need perhaps 10-15 levels to capture what some very normal people do in their lifetimes.

That makes it really hard to properly calibrate our expectations. My level 8 fighter is a better combatant than Conan... but still can't pull off simple maneuvers like "step up, whack the guy, and step back before he can react". Whereas I, personally, can pull that maneuver off despite being like a level 2 expert with all my skill points invested in math and video games. So on the one hand, a level 8 character is legendary... and on the other hand, you need a ton of feats to properly model what normal people can do.

Swordguy

2007-03-16, 08:06 AM

Its just a game. Realism doesn't matter that much.

I mean, who's going to complain about Starcraft or Command and Conquer being "unrealistic?"

You're just supposed to have fun playing the thing!

Modeling realism is the point of the article and the thread. It's a discussion board. We're discussing.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-16, 09:10 AM

I just realized I completely missed my own point: If someone with the training and experience I have doesn't have the feat, then who would?
Who would? Well, Someone that has gone beyond the training and experience and developed "heroic potential" with the ability/maneuver. That's the criteria used to describe whether or not you have any ranks in a skill (see the sidebar on pg. 62 of the PHB), and I would have to assume it goes triple for the much more rare and powerful feats.

That makes it really hard to properly calibrate our expectations. My level 8 fighter is a better combatant than Conan... but still can't pull off simple maneuvers like "step up, whack the guy, and step back before he can react". Whereas I, personally, can pull that maneuver off despite being like a level 2 expert with all my skill points invested in math and video games.
You sure that what's happening isn't, you step up, attack, your opponent counterattacks on his turn, missing (maybe through a natural 1—in such a way that you don't even realize he made an attempt attack...), and then you move back?

In what situation are you doing this kinda thing anyway?

elliott20

2007-03-16, 10:01 AM

damn swordguy, your gf's ex sure was persistant wasn't he?

Swordguy

2007-03-16, 10:29 AM

damn swordguy, your gf's ex sure was persistant wasn't he?

Heh, you have no idea. He's especially pissed at me now, seeing as how I've stabbed him twice and married his ex.

The cops know about him, and I have a concealed-carry permit. They've specifically informed me that if for some reason he ends up with rounds from my sig in him, they're more than willing to look the other way (he's had jail time in another state for assault w/deadly). No big deal.

Heck, my wife's more likely to shoot him that I am. :biggrin:

On-topic: so the consensus is that feats are what separates the mundane from the heroic? In general I agree (or I can at least concede the point), but the feats that specifically negate penalties due to lack of training still irk me.

EXAMPLE: Anyone can try to disarm their opponent. Bob the Impaler has trained specifically to disarm opponents, while Mark the Red has not. Should Bob get the feat (thus modeling his extensive training in that particular aspect of combat)? If not, what's the point in training in it?

Oh, and on Mounted Combat - you really can do what it says. Part of training is learning how to avoid taking hits to your mount. In history, it's cause mounts are bloody expensive. Nowadays, it's because PETA will sue you into oblivion if a horse gets scratched. Different reasons; same result. Learn to keep your horse safe.

Krellen

2007-03-16, 10:50 AM

[S]imple maneuvers like "step up, whack the guy, and step back before he can react". Whereas I, personally, can pull that maneuver off despite being like a level 2 expert with all my skill points invested in math and video games.
One step doesn't take you out of reach. Five feet is a lot further than you think.

elliott20

2007-03-16, 10:53 AM

damn, you stabbed him twice AND married his ex? wow, that's pretty harsh. :smallbiggrin:
I take it a restraining order did nothing huh?

oh well.

Anyway, I feel that the difference between a Weapon focus FEAT and a BAB point is only in the training.

After all, they're both just a +1 bonus to BAB. That's hardly mastery or legendary stuff.

However, I think the difference lies in how you make this training stand out from the other things you do. In that, the net effect of a weapon focus is that you got that +1 on that one weapon over other weapons that you also know how to use.

Now, in the real world, we don't become better at other weapons and other forms of fighting in general just because we shoot a gun a lot. A guy who spends his entire life shooting a rifle is not going to know SQUAT about swinging a sword. (at least, no more than the average joe whose never picked up a weapon at all.) That's why the very concept of BAB in and of itself is a flawed one. It assumes that by fighting a lot, you're automatically a more proficient fighter in all spheres of armed conflict. And any special training you've had? it gives you only a small small edge. One that is quite insignificant when you're of high enough level.

Include the fact that weapons are now in groups by martial, simple and exotic, you have an even stranger situation where by learning how to swing a sword, you somehow have figured out how to shoot a bow too. (Despite their application to be quite different) The two weapons are not even related either!

If you'd want to portray real life more closely in the game, then the concept of character levels would have to be thrown out the door because people don't grow in real life as a packaged group. People all grow in very specific and individualistic ways, one that the d&d system, even in all of it's customizable glory, is not ready to handle.

When you've swung a sword enough, you don't automatically get better at taking hits or at shooting a bow, you just get better at swing that sword.

But in the game world, in order to not bog down the game with too much details, we purposely streamline reality to the point that sometimes situations become absurd. That is the result of simplifying reality down to a system.

Variable Arcana

2007-03-16, 10:56 AM

That makes it really hard to properly calibrate our expectations. My level 8 fighter is a better combatant than Conan... but still can't pull off simple maneuvers like "step up, whack the guy, and step back before he can react". Whereas I, personally, can pull that maneuver off despite being like a level 2 expert with all my skill points invested in math and video games.
Nonsense.

You can step up to a guy who knows you're fighting each other (and is trying to hit you), slug him, and step back, and have left the other guy no time to even take a random jab at you?

Certainly if you walk up to someone who doesn't expect it, you can do this quite reasonably -- as can your level 1 commoner. It's called attacking in the surprise round, winning initiative, and using a 5' step or withdraw.

What I dislike is simply an average level one fighter doesn't have a chance against an average level five fighter. I generally prefer systems like SR where getting hit by a weapon hurts...no matter who the attacker.
You may dislike it -- but it's not unrealistic.

The average graduate from your local police academy is not going to stand a chance against a special forces combat instructor. Unless he shoots him from surprise at close range. (According to the DMG, a critical hit with a revolver could do 32 points of damage -- which will equalize things quite nicely.)

Sorry, what? How did the author arrive at that conclusion?? I always took it for granted that characters like Aragorn, Legolas etc are all epic under d20 rules. I mean, there's the new Lord of the Rings RPG, we could check in there... I don't own it myself (alas), but I assume stats for the Fellowship are in there. And I'm pretty sure Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas and Elrond are to Middle Earth what Mordenkainen is to World of Greygawk. They're larger-than-life heroes. Far beyond the league of ordinary PCs.
You should read the article.

His point is that a fifth or sixth level character *IS* of epic power compared to normal people.

Think about the fights in Moria:
(1) a party of nine adventurers against a dozen orcs and a troll. And a party-member nearly died. (A twentieth-level fighter should have finished off most of the orcs in the first round, and don't get me started on what a twentieth-level wizard should have been able to do.)
(2) a party of nine adventurers against one balor. This should be a challenging fight -- but here, the party just takes off in headlong flight. Only the incarnated demigod Gandalf even tries to bar the demon's way, and then it's an epic struggle that kills him.
A twentieth-level party (ignore the hobbits, if Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were twentieth level that would be a full party-of-four) is just right for facing a Balor (CR:20) -- so how do you explain Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli running away and leaving Gandalf to die, rather than helping him in an average, ordinary, level-appropriate encounter -- the kind they often face three to five times in one day?

Gamebird

2007-03-16, 11:14 AM

Oh, and on Mounted Combat - you really can do what it says. Part of training is learning how to avoid taking hits to your mount. In history, it's cause mounts are bloody expensive. Nowadays, it's because PETA will sue you into oblivion if a horse gets scratched. Different reasons; same result. Learn to keep your horse safe.

This is kind of unrelated, but if this is possible and accurate, then why isn't there a feat for doing the same thing to/for your human ally? Some sort of "Back to back" feat where you and an ally can make parry attempts for one another?

I think there isn't such a feat because it's too good. It's too good for a horse too, but I think D&D doesn't want you going through horses all the time. Horses were awful expensive in history, but they were often one-shot combat machines. It was expected that most of them would be lost if they actually engaged. That's part of why they were so expensive. If they were uniformly reusable, then they wouldn't cost as much.

Shhalahr Windrider

2007-03-16, 11:16 AM

If you'd want to portray real life more closely in the game, then the concept of character levels would have to be thrown out the door because people don't grow in real life as a packaged group. People all grow in very specific and individualistic ways, one that the d&d system, even in all of it's customizable glory, is not ready to handle.
Or, you know, because the design theory behind the game is that it makes things ridiculously complicated to try to handle. It's a game. It's a very, very large abstraction. It's a pain for most people to record every little detail about the character that has little to no significance in the actual mechanics of game play. This is especially true for people that prefer a kick-in-the-door style of play, as such players tend not to give their characters a lot of detailed background. And, indeed, for their style of play, it's probably best they don't. It also would be troublesome for the DM if he or she felt the need to provide such relatively miniscule details for every NPC despite their limited "screen time".

Now, if you do happen to be the type that wants a character that was, say, better with an axe than a sword when fighting, you can still do that. And you don't even need the Weapon Focus feat. Just make sure your character carries an axe and not a sword. The number of times you'll be forced to use a weapon other than your trusty axe should be next to 0. As such, the game will never really betray the secret that your character sheet actually depicts you as being equally proficient in both sword and axe. Heck, you could even luck out and have a string of bad rolls when you are forced to use the sword.

That D&D makes it quick and easy to generate characters is a strength of the system. That's part of what gives it its unique playing style. And to keep that strength of style, there is a large level of abstraction. You just keep track of what's significantly different and let the miniscule stuff take care of itself through RP.

Swordguy

2007-03-16, 11:30 AM

damn, you stabbed him twice AND married his ex? wow, that's pretty harsh. :smallbiggrin:
I take it a restraining order did nothing huh?

oh well.

Y'know, I did mention that he was trying to kill me at the time. Most folks would take that as sufficient justification.

We have a restraining order. We had a restraining order after the incident that the dojo. A restraining order does nothing to stop someone from getting to you. It simply means the police can punish someone for doing so after the fact.

If you want protection, protect yourself. That's the way the world works.

Oh, to Gamebird. I think there is that effect, just not as a feat. The Knight Protector PrC gives you that kind of ability, IIRC.

It's also very hard to fight back-to-back with weapons. You tend to hit each other with your backswings or moulinets if you aren't very careful or too far apart as to no longer qualify as being "back-to-back".

elliott20

2007-03-16, 11:34 AM

Or, you know, because the design theory behind the game is that it makes things ridiculously complicated to try to handle. It's a game. It's a very, very large abstraction. It's a pain for most people to record every little detail about the character that has little to no significance in the actual mechanics of game play. This is especially true for people that prefer a kick-in-the-door style of play, as such players tend not to give their characters a lot of detailed background. And, indeed, for their style of play, it's probably best they don't. It also would be troublesome for the DM if he or she felt the need to provide such relatively miniscule details for every NPC despite their limited "screen time".

Now, if you do happen to be the type that wants a character that was, say, better with an axe than a sword when fighting, you can still do that. And you don't even need the Weapon Focus feat. Just make sure your character carries an axe and not a sword. The number of times you'll be forced to use a weapon other than your trusty axe should be next to 0. As such, the game will never really betray the secret that your character sheet actually depicts you as being equally proficient in both sword and axe. Heck, you could even luck out and have a string of bad rolls when you are forced to use the sword.

That D&D makes it quick and easy to generate characters is a strength of the system. That's part of what gives it its unique playing style. And to keep that strength of style, there is a large level of abstraction. You just keep track of what's significantly different and let the miniscule stuff take care of itself through RP.
and I believe that is precisely the point of the system. Abstraction is merely the product of simplicity. I guess that means that really, all the holes that you'll find in the system will require the use of RPing to plug.

But I think I'm digressing.

Back to feats. do not forget, things like feinting and what not are all still options to the level 1 fighter. He's just... not going to be stellar at doing it. And if you ask me, that makes a lot of sense to me. Giving someone a feat is not just saying that he's capable of the move. It's saying he's actually spent some serious training time, dedicated to a regime to specifically learn a skill that relates directly to this particular aspect of combat. Thus, somebody with an improve trip isn't just capable of tripping someone, they've actually spent a degree of time dedicating their training to specifically how to trip someone.

Now, the problem with porting this to reality is that there is no such thing as a "general training" for combat. In real life, when you learn combat, it is an accumulation of tricks, systems, and specifics. It's not just a flat "I know how to smack someone better" growth. (Or rather, you don't just get better at hitting somebody because you've done it tons. you get better at it because you've learned to see patterns, learned skills and tricks that you can apply to your system of fighting) this essentially brings to question what is BAB? Is it just raw skill from knowing intimately well how a person reacts and moves to physical threats? Is it in the confidence that you have when you step into a swing, regardless of how well you actually know your weapon?

The answer of it is not really all that important, but the fact that it is such a nebulous concept means you'll have situations like Swordguy's arising, where his proficiency in weapons are the result of him spending extensive amount of time studying each. And by virtue of that very specialized training, he SHOULD have weapon focus simply because he has dedicated a good amount of time to learning each of these specific skills. However the lines of specialized skills and general combat skills begins to blur when you're talking about reality. And I think that's where much of the confusion comes from.

Y'know, I did mention that he was trying to kill me at the time. Most folks would take that as sufficient justification.

We have a restraining order. We had a restraining order after the incident that the dojo. A restraining order does nothing to stop someone from getting to you. It simply means the police can punish someone for doing so after the fact.

If you want protection, protect yourself. That's the way the world works.

Hey, I ain't faulting you for protecting yourself. I just thought it was mildly amusing that this guy kept on coming after you after having been on the receiving end of an ass whopping so many times. (well, okay, I only found it amusing because I'm not in the situation, but still...)

CharPixie

2007-03-16, 11:50 AM

Prestige classes bug me. If we adjust our outlook as the article suggests, then PrCs can only be take by people who are absolutely amazing in their abilities. We could view Prestige Classes as a way for the best to become diversified, but there's a problem that doesn't fix. Often these classes are associated with organizations. Yes, membership in the Assassin's Guild doesn't require being an Assassin, but what about the Red Wizards and their spell sharing?

Tobrian

2007-03-16, 11:52 AM

Why does everyone get so hung up about a stupid article? Sheesh. Normal D&D level go from 1 to 20. Feat trees imply that the feat that stands at the lowest rung isn't superhero stuff.

You should read the article.

His point is that a fifth or sixth level character *IS* of epic power compared to normal people.

What does "normal people" mean? Does that author think all normal people in D&D are level 1? That's nonsense. Even NPC experts need several levels under their beltto be professionals just to get enough skill points and one or two feats like skill focus. Level 5 in d20 D&D is nowhere near "godlike"... it's at the border between low- and mid-level. A level 5 wizard can cast ONE level 3 spell per day, or two provided he has an INT of 16+. That's hardly "epic". :smallyuk:

Look at the Mentor/Apprentice system in DMG2, the NPC mentor must be at minimum level 5 or above.. he's basically a teacher selling his knowledge for money so he can eat. Look at sample NPCs in various rulebooks, they list for example the captain of a city guard as a level 6 or 7 fighter and the basic town guards as level 2-3, and all those sample NPCs with PrCs are usually level 8+. Anything above level 10 is exceptional and stands out, true, but it's hardly epic. When you hit level 15+, then you start to resemble action movie character, but epic characters (20+) are more like the protagonists in those Hongkong kungfu movies like Hero or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

When I start a campaign, I let the players usually start with characters at level 4 so their characters are at least semi-proficient in what they do when they start.

Raum

2007-03-16, 12:24 PM

You may dislike it -- but it's not unrealistic.I don't think your version of reality and mine coincide.

The average graduate from your local police academy is not going to stand a chance against a special forces combat instructor. Unless he shoots him from surprise at close range. (According to the DMG, a critical hit with a revolver could do 32 points of damage -- which will equalize things quite nicely.)A lucky critical with a gun shouldn't be necessary. And even the maxed damage critical you seem to be showing won't drop all fifth level fighters. With a +2 Con bonus, max HD at level one, and average rolls for levels 2-5 a fighter will have those 32 hit points...and that's comparing an average level 5 fighter to the damage you describe.

When they're both aware of the upcoming combat low level D&D models reality fairly well. What it doesn't model well are ambushes, multiple attackers, or the effects of wounds. The police academy graduate in your example should have a chance of taking out said special forces guy with a baseball bat if he manages to get surprise.

Golthur

2007-03-16, 12:31 PM

Yes they're abstract, that's not really my issue. I couldn't stand the extremely detailed systems with hit location and damage to various limbs, etc. What I dislike is simply an average level one fighter doesn't have a chance against an average level five fighter. I generally prefer systems like SR where getting hit by a weapon hurts...no matter who the attacker.

Right. I use a modified (read mostly as "more lethal") VP/WP as a "happy medium". A single level 5 fighter against a level 1 fighter would mop up. Against four or five, he'd likely have trouble - not because they're really much of a challenge, but because one lucky shot can potentially take him down. Combine that with my homebrew swarming rules, and a large number of peasants with pitchforks are still a threat, even to a 10th or 15th level character. Not much of a threat, true, but they could get lucky - and if they do, you're down for the count.

As for the "characters become superheroes at level 6" thing, well, I agree that it's likely that way in practice - it seems to fit with the underlying mechanics.

Do I like it flavour-wise? Heck, no. I tend to compensate by adopting homebrew rules (like the above) that make it more likely even higher level characters can get trounced. I usually adjust skill DCs slightly, as well, and tend to use opposed rolls rather than fixed DCs wherever possible.

If you were going vanilla D&D, hit points alone would cause you grief trying to calibrate the system differently, never mind feats. A 6th or 7th level character simply has too many hit points to even be threatened by a peasant, or a fall, or anything else that doesn't drain Con or cause death if they fail a save.

You'd need to do as Gamebird suggests, and spread out hit points by levels (her 1/4 scale seems fine on casual inspection). I'd suggest (plug, plug) tying combat feats and abilities to skills instead of pure levels to address the low number of feats/maneuvers problem. You advance a combat skill - you get more combat abilities - or, at least, access to more powerful ones. This would let you change the scale somewhat, without unbalancing things.

This might work very well, since you'd automatically be downgrading casters somewhat, and boosting warriors at the same time.

Tobrian

2007-03-16, 12:51 PM

When they're both aware of the upcoming combat low level D&D models reality fairly well. What it doesn't model well are ambushes, multiple attackers, or the effects of wounds. The police academy graduate in your example should have a chance of taking out said special forces guy with a baseball bat if he manages to get surprise.

The point why a low- or mid-level D&D character can't beat an higher level character unconscious with a baseball bat during a surprise ambush is not due to any problems with the level system (and god knows I'm not a fan of level-based systems and would love to get rid of them in D&D but there you are), the problem stems from the lack of rules for knock-out blows to the head and that you need to take special feats or PrCs to be able to effectively overwhelm and subdue enemies nonlethally, while simply slaughtering them is easy-peasy. It's a deliberate design flaw choice by the D&D designers, they admit so in the DMG, because they wanted to close off all avenues by which a normal NPC could knock out a higher-level PC in a single blow. :smallannoyed:

As for the untrained bit, taking a single fighter or warrior levels makes you trained in the use of all martial weapons.

Well, the system kinda assumes that your first level in fighter (or any other class for that matter) is your character starting level as ayoung adult. Meaning that first level of fighter (or wizard or whatnot) was preceeded by years of training during your youth. That's why you get four times the skill points. Your starting level is more than just a single level.

Of course this breaks down when you multiclass - and the system is clearly geared towards multiclassing, otherwise you wouldnt be able to access some PrCs at all. It's just one of those inconsistencies that Vaarsuvius ranted about (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0126.html).

Weapon Focus is should probably be reserved for people who have achieved what we in the real world would consider extraordinary skill, bordering on legend, with a particular weapon. (snip)

It's just a +1 bonus to BAB. That's nothing extraordinary.

Given a DC of 20, why does a level 5 fighter with the same stats as a level one fighter have a ten percent higher chance of surviving the poison?
Because a fifth level fighter is more closely attuned to the condition of their own body. They start noticing that they're dizzy or tired or that everything seems a little dimmer than it should earlier than the first level fighter. They probably know at least a little more about poisons, which gives them a better chance of knowing what to do to counter a specific poison.

So if there is anything a human being can do to improve their chances of not being killed by a particular poison, then the fifth level fighter is going to be a little more likely to do it than the first level fighter.

Have you seen the new Bond movie, Casino Royale? In it, Bond gets poisoned at one point. As soon as the poison starts hitting him, he immediately rushes off to the bathroom and downs a glass of salt water (to induce vomiting). That improves his chances of survival by a bit right there.

I wouldn't know to do that. I probably wouldn't even notice that I had just been poisoned until it was too late to do anything about it.

The difference isn't all that dramatic. A deadly poison is a deadly poison. But people with a high general level of training and competence are more likely to be able to do anything that might reduce the poison's effects.

Such as what? The first FORT save is an instant PHYSICAL reaction of your body to the poison. Throwing up (which doesn't help against anything not ingested) or binding off the limb when something nasty bit you to stop blood flow are Heal skill checks. Nothing to do with FORT.

The advice to induce vomiting when someone has swallowed something poisonous (unless the substance is caustic) or giving milk or active coal in other cases to neutralize acids and poisons is something you can find in every household first-aid book.

Come to that, the way poisons work in D&D isn't realistic either, but let's not start a discussion about that.

A FORT save has nothing to do with knowing anything about poisons, otherwise it would be a skill check. Please don't try to come up with convoluted explanations just to adapt game rules to reality. If the game assumes that higher-level characters are tougher, have better reflexes and stronger will, OK I can accept that because it's Heroic Fantasy.

My personal metagame explanation as a gamemaster is that player characters are more adept at accumulating and channeling the raw life essence/positive energy and luck/possibility energy of the game world, which results in them gaining a lot of life force (hitpoints) and gaining strong resilience of body and mind (saving throws), and it makes their wounds heal faster. NPCs and retired PCs do likewise, but are less potent (therefore they gain levels more slowly). Undead and outsiders try to suck this "essence" from people, while negative energy spells and curses diminish the hero's essence. D&D worlds are after all steeped in magic, why shouldn't all living creatures have evolved to make use of it? Sorcerers, Wizards and magical creatures have learned to weave magical energies into distinct patterns (spells and supernatural effects), monks directly infuse their bodies with psionic/magical energies, while clerics can channel the positive and negative energies directly to heal or cause wounds and resurrect the dead - that bit is even supported by the rulebooks. So why shouldn't warriors have their own mojo and be able to tap into the Great Pool of Life Energy better than, say, wizards? ( Who gain fewer hitpoints but learn to steel their mind better). Barbarians are closest to the raw force of nature, and they get a d12 instead of a d10. *shrug* Works for me.

Diggorian

2007-03-16, 12:56 PM

We use vitality/wounds for D&D also, it works nice. An even more lethal/realistic system is in D20 Modern where damage you take equal to your Con score forces a Fort save, failure take ya to -1 HP. Really, that's the game that should be compared to real life.

I think the apparent mundaneness of higher than 5th lvl PC's comes from failure to accurately describe their regular superhumanity. Attack roll 15 hits AC 14 and roll 26 beats AC 25; both are often described as merely "you hit" but the 26 should be described alot more amazingly than the 15.

D&D PCs arent medieval people, they're medieval fantasy characters whom benefit from a bit of script immunity by being the protagonists.

LotharBot

2007-03-16, 02:46 PM

One step doesn't take you out of reach. Five feet is a lot further than you think.

I didn't say "one step". I know how to get out of range of my opponent's sword. It's the one thing I'm actually good at in kendo ;)

You can step up to a guy who knows you're fighting each other (and is trying to hit you), slug him, and step back, and have left the other guy no time to even take a random jab at you?

Not "slug him", no. Hit him with a sword.

Better stated, I can step up to the guy, take a swing at him, and get some distance, without leaving him with a good opening in which to swing at me above and beyond what he'd get for his "turn" of combat (ie, stepping up and swinging at me.) An attack of opportunity implies I've given the guy an extra chance, above and beyond the chances he'd have during the rest of the combat round, to hit me.

And spring attack isn't just about avoiding the AoO -- you need spring attack just to split your move action. Which is simply nuts. During real combat, you can step in, swing, and move past or step back all within a few seconds. And by "step" I mean well beyond reach. You might provoke an AoO, but you can at least get some distance on the guy.

Matthew

2007-03-16, 02:50 PM

What does "normal people" mean? Does that author think all normal people in D&D are level 1? That's nonsense. Even NPC experts need several levels under their beltto be professionals just to get enough skill points and one or two feats like skill focus. Level 5 in d20 D&D is nowhere near "godlike"... it's at the border between low- and mid-level. A level 5 wizard can cast ONE level 3 spell per day, or two provided he has an INT of 16+. That's hardly "epic". :smallyuk:

No, what he is saying is that in the real world most people are Level 1 and 'High Level' is Level 5. D&D is not the real world, but when calibrating your expectations you have to bear that in mind.

When I start a campaign, I let the players usually start with characters at level 4 so their characters are at least semi-proficient in what they do when they start.

Well, that really is a result of your own perspective as to what constitutes 'semi proficient'. Given that all the humanoids presented in the Monster Manuals I are listed as Level 1 Warriors, though, it doesn't seem a very generous view.

It's just a +1 bonus to BAB. That's nothing extraordinary.

Actually, Weapon Focus is only a +1 to AB, not BAB. At High levels it's not much, but a lower levels [i.e. Level 1, for instance], it is a big deal. A typical Level 1 Warrior might have 2 AB (BAB 1 + Strength 13), with Weapon Focus he has 3 AB. The proportional increase is much more significant in that context.

Krellen

2007-03-16, 03:25 PM

During real combat, you can step in, swing, and move past or step back all within a few seconds. And by "step" I mean well beyond reach. You might provoke an AoO, but you can at least get some distance on the guy.
Unless you're getting ten feet away in that "step", you're not utilising Spring Attack. You're utilising normal combat rules: two people dueling use up a 5' by 10' area (roughly half of that being the "space" of each combatant.) Any movement within that space is not a move action. I rather suspect you are not withdrawing that far from him (most martial art "rings" aren't much larger than that, 10'x10' at most), thus you're not actually utilising the feat.

LotharBot

2007-03-16, 06:09 PM

Unless you're getting ten feet away in that "step", you're not utilising Spring Attack.

I am using spring attack, provided I move (5' or more), attack, and then move (5' or more) again. Because, according to RAW, you can't move, attack, and then move again unless you have spring attack. (You can't take a 5' step if you used your move action to actually move.) I normally don't move much beyond 5' because I don't want to have to turn around and move yet another 5' to get back in reach, but I *could* and I do so on occasion if I want to get the other person to chase me. (And no, you can't "move for free" within that 10x5 space by RAW; if you moved to attack, you stay in the square you attacked from. You can't circle or move past once you've taken your attack unless you have the feat.)

I'm not utilising every single aspect of spring attack, but I'm doing something that I technically need spring attack for.

Anyway, this is turning into a sort of forest-for-the-trees argument. The point is, it's hard to calibrate your expectations in D&D because, on the one hand, you can model legends like Einstein, Aragorn, and Conan as level 5 or 6... and on the other hand, a level 15 fighter still might not have a feat that lets them do things a level 2 commoner like myself learns over the course of a year of martial training.

Krellen

2007-03-16, 06:13 PM

Anyway, this is turning into a sort of forest-for-the-trees argument. The point is, it's hard to calibrate your expectations in D&D because, on the one hand, you can model legends like Einstein, Aragorn, and Conan as level 5 or 6... and on the other hand, a level 15 fighter still might not have a feat that lets them do things a level 2 commoner like myself learns over the course of a year of martial training.
Except it's not, because you never actually left your square. All that 5' moving you've done was movement within your own space. People aren't 5'x5' squares; the 'space' rules are intended to cover just this sort of movement that takes place during every combat.

The rules describe perfectly what you describe, because none of the movement you're doing actually takes any movement, not even a 5' step.

LotharBot

2007-03-16, 06:22 PM

you never actually left your square. All that 5' moving you've done was movement within your own space.

If I move straight forward and straight back the way I came, sure. If I move past my opponent and turn to face them from the other side, or if I strike and circle 90 degrees, I've left my 5' square. But by RAW, I can't do that (except possibly by taking a 5' step, which I can't do if I had to move any distance to reach them in the first place.)

By RAW, I can't enter their square to swing at them without provoking an AoO, and I can't keep moving after I've tried to strike unless I have Spring Attack. In real fighting, there's a good chance I'll get up close to them (ie, in their square) and then one or the other of us will back away into an adjacent square which is not necessarily where I started. The only way to reproduce that effect in game is Spring Attack.

Rigeld2

2007-03-16, 06:26 PM

By RAW, I can't enter their square to swing at them without provoking an AoO, and I can't keep moving after I've tried to strike unless I have Spring Attack. In real fighting, there's a good chance I'll get up close to them (ie, in their square) and then one or the other of us will back away into an adjacent square which is not necessarily where I started. The only way to reproduce that effect in game is Spring Attack.
Cause... its not possible to fight no the edge of a 5' square, and then retreat to the other edge of it. Just because youre right next to them, doesnt mean youre in thier square. Touch attacks do not require you to enter the opponents square.

So unless youre retreating 6-10 feet away from the contact point, you dont need spring attack.

Krellen

2007-03-16, 06:26 PM

The only way to reproduce that effect in game is Spring Attack.
Actually, making your opponent back out of his square can only be replicated by a Bull Rush, not Spring Attack.

Jarawara

2007-03-17, 12:05 AM

I found this article to be quite interesting and well thought out, especially the part about the skills, since I hadn't tried to run the numbers myself (and didn't know where to start). I always run low level games, and I was concerned I'd have to do alot of redesigning in order to get realistic skill levels in a variety of non-combat skills (the blacksmith, master craftsman, etc). This article shows how they can be properly reflected at low level, enough so that I don't have to redesign the game system other that for flavor purposes. I'm highly encouraged by this.

As for the whole debate of what is epic and what is not (how best to reflect Aragon's level in D&D, for example), this article again is well writen, but not original. Nothing really new about this idea. Look back in the old Dragon Magazines, probably in the first 10 or so back in 1980, and there's a good article titled 'Gandalf was a 5th level Wizard'. The author of that article goes through the list of spells Gandalf cast and comes to the conclusion that nothing he cast was every anything higher that a 3rd level spell, and he only seemed to cast those rarely.

In previous debates of what constitutes 'epic', I've often heard someone bring up LotR, saying "We can all agree that LotR could not be played with epic level characters". What? No. We cannot all agree on that. In fact, I find it hard to believe that anyone would think LotR *could* be played with epic level characters. A party of people averaging significantly over 5th would make the encounters rediculously easy, to the point of breaking the story. They've got to be low enough level to be encouraged to hide, to run, to actually worry about the negative effects of a peice of metal being jabbed into their flesh. Even watching the Peter Jackson movie, in which many of the monsters had clearly been hitting the steroids to get their acting roles, I still don't see Aragorn needing to be much higher than 5th, Gimli and Legolas probably 5th or lower, and the Hobbits were all 1st level to start, no higher than 3rd by the end.

"Epic" is what you do, not some numeric value to your character sheet.

And in other debates of the need for high levels in D&D, people often tell me how none of the really cool monsters could be used in a game unless you have high level characters. Rubbish. Most of the high level monsters used to be weaker in the earlier editions. They increased the monster's power in order to compete with the uber characters of 3rd edition. Scale them back if you want to use them. Who says that Demons are automatically powerful monsters? If I were to stat out a Demon, without ever having seen the D&D system, I would make it physically weak, but tricky and hard to find. Demons are things that haunt families, twist them against each other, and ruin lives. But if the housewife could find the Demon and force a confrontation, I'd put my money on the housewife who's protecting her kids. I don't see the housewife as being a 15th level Warrior with the Prestige Class of 'Duster'. I see her as a 1st level commoner - yet I also see her beating the Demon.

"But wait", you say, "I'm not talking about some goofball poltergeist, I'm talking about the Balrog, a CR 20 encounter!" Uhh... no. You're talking about a Balrog, which is a powerful entity from LotR, which is only classified as a CR 20 encounter because someone decided to list it as a CR 20 encounter in a game system they decided to design with a range of CR 1 to CR 20. If I were to design the game system, I'd see little to no reason to need a CR range above 10, so let's put that range from 1 to 10. Then I'd look at what I know about the Balrog, and I'd place it somewhere on that scale. But where on that scale?

Hmmm... this is where it gets tricky. The initial thought is the Balrog is the toughest thing you'd ever fight outside Sauron or Saruman himself... but why do we think that? Then we realize Gandalf fought and defeated him single handedly, (though he died in the exchange), so the Balrog is reasonably the same CR as Gandalf. Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard... but he's so much more than that. I'd have to guess, based on that limited information, that the Balrog has the same power as Gandalf, but both of them have nearly limitless life energy, far more damage absorbtion than damage production. If that doesn't make sense, ask yourself who'd win in a swordfight between Gandalf and Aragorn. I'd put my money on Aragorn, except that I don't see how he could actually kill Gandalf. The Balrog was something that Aragon couldn't kill, though I'd not be surprised if Aragorn could 'defeat' the Balrog in a swordfight. And since Aragorn is somewhere a bit higher than 5th level, the Balrog is clearly not a CR10 creature, just an unkillable CR 6+ creature.

"Now wait", you say, "That's just utter nonsense. Just watch the movie and tell me the Balrog is only CR6." Well, as I already said, Peter Jackson is a great moviemaker, but he clearly prescribed steriods for all his monsters. In the books, the Balrog is described as coming through a doorway, filling the whole of the doorway. Previously, the Orcs are described as coming through that doorway as fast as they can, two to three at a time. So, ah, the Balrog is 2-3 times the size of an Orc? Oh, they are listed as Goblins, generally viewed as smaller than Orcs. So the Balrog is described as 2-3 times larger than *small* Orcs. I'd guess that puts him to about Ogre size. What's the CR of an Ogre again?

I won't bother with the debate on whether or not the Balrog has wings, you can find that elsewhere if you want, but I will admit to the internal and obscuring smoke and flaming whip and all that. And besides, he's essentially the same as Gandalf, sort of like an angel, but fallen. Not something I want to fight, personally, and not something Aragorn could destroy. But just the same, it was not the uber demon that was shown on film, nor was it the uber demon portrayed as a Balor in D&D.

So if you scale down your Demons, and alot of your other monsters that you wish to use, you *can* use them in a low level game, which is exactly what I've been doing now for 27 years. It's been one heck of an epic storyline, and I've never had characters higher that 5th level in all my years of gaming. We'll soon be going beyond 5th level in our current game, and maybe then the characters will finally be ready to quit running from the Balrog, and actually turn around and face it down. Care to place bets on who wins?

*~*~*

One last thought: Some monsters really should be more powerful that CR10. Dragons, for example. I had 3rd edition Dragons way back in 1st edition. Some things just should be *that* hard to defeat! :smallamused:

Dervag

2007-03-17, 01:10 AM

'Gandalf was a 5th level Wizard'. The author of that article goes through the list of spells Gandalf cast and comes to the conclusion that nothing he cast was every anything higher that a 3rd level spell, and he only seemed to cast those rarely.On the other hand, he was also a proficient combatant, much more so than a 5th level Wizard should be. And he took out a Balrog. Whatever a Balrog's stats should be, considering that they're terrifying demons from the distant past that could empty an entire kingdom like Moria, that should take more than a 5th level character.

Maybe Gandalf is a 5th-level wizard who multiclassed.

Scale them back if you want to use them. Who says that Demons are automatically powerful monsters? If I were to stat out a Demon, without ever having seen the D&D system, I would make it physically weak, but tricky and hard to find. Demons are things that haunt families, twist them against each other, and ruin lives. But if the housewife could find the Demon and force a confrontation, I'd put my money on the housewife who's protecting her kids. I don't see the housewife as being a 15th level Warrior with the Prestige Class of 'Duster'. I see her as a 1st level commoner - yet I also see her beating the Demon.That's based on a specific interpretation of what a demon is.

This interpretation may be true of some demons and not of others. For instance, have you ever heard the phrases "fight like a demon," or "demonic strength?" Both precede the D&D system, and both imply that at least some demons are far stronger than any ordinary human.

"But wait", you say, "I'm not talking about some goofball poltergeist, I'm talking about the Balrog, a CR 20 encounter!"I'm not defining the Balrog as CR 20, I'm defining the Balrog as tough enough to empty Moria. The Morian dwarves couldn't defeat the Balrog any more than the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain could defeat Smaug. So these monsters must clearly have had CR high enough that 'merely human' characters could not realistically defeat them. That wouldn't require CR 20, but it would definitely require a CR rather higher than 5. If the Balrog were, say, CR 5, then why were the well-armed Moria dwarves unable to defeat him? Why couldn't Durin, a legendary dwarven king wielding powerful dwarven-made weapons, defeat him?

Then we realize Gandalf fought and defeated him single handedly, (though he died in the exchange), so the Balrog is reasonably the same CR as Gandalf. Gandalf is a 5th level Wizard... but he's so much more than that. I'd have to guess, based on that limited information, that the Balrog has the same power as Gandalf, but both of them have nearly limitless life energy, far more damage absorbtion than damage production.Well reasoned.

If that doesn't make sense, ask yourself who'd win in a swordfight between Gandalf and Aragorn. I'd put my money on Aragorn, except that I don't see how he could actually kill Gandalf.Not necessarily so well reasoned.

Look at the encounter in The Two Towers where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli encounter the resurrected Gandalf. They mistake him for Saruman and attack, but are all easily disarmed. They would have lost the encounter handily. This suggests that Gandalf (who doesn't clearly gain a lot of power after his resurrection) is not a level-appropriate challenge for three L5 melee types. If anything, he's probably tough enough to kill them all, which suggests that his CR is something like 8 to 10, possibly higher.

The Balrog was something that Aragon couldn't kill, though I'd not be surprised if Aragorn could 'defeat' the Balrog in a swordfight. And since Aragorn is somewhere a bit higher than 5th level, the Balrog is clearly not a CR10 creature, just an unkillable CR 6+ creature.Is an unkillable CR 6 creature really CR6?

Remember that a challenge of CR X is supposed to use up 20% of the resources of a four-person Xth level party. If I can dump all my resources into a single opponent, cast every spell I have at it, fire every arrow, and fight it in melee until everyone is down to low hit points, and still not kill it... it isn't CR 6. Because it's still alive, and it will be able to kill me after I've given it my best shot.

So, ah, the Balrog is 2-3 times the size of an Orc? Oh, they are listed as Goblins, generally viewed as smaller than Orcs. So the Balrog is described as 2-3 times larger than *small* Orcs. I'd guess that puts him to about Ogre size. What's the CR of an Ogre again?An ogre is 'only' Large size, but so are a lot of other D&D monsters that could (literally) eat an ogre for breakfast. There's no direct correlation between CR and size, because monsters have lots of ways to be powerful that have nothing to do with size.

One last thought: Some monsters really should be more powerful that CR10. Dragons, for example. I had 3rd edition Dragons way back in 1st edition. Some things just should be *that* hard to defeat! :smallamused:Yes, and ancient demons that destroyed entire kingdoms should be among them.

I guess my argument is that most of the Fellowship, and most of the things they encounter, can be modeled as being level 5 or less and CR 5 or less. But Gandalf can't. The Balrog can't. Smaug can't. And so on. Some of the threats in the Lord of the Rings really are superhuman in power. As such, they deserve superhuman levels or Challenge Ratings.

Jarawara

2007-03-17, 02:15 AM

Is an unkillable CR 6 creature really CR6?

Remember that a challenge of CR X is supposed to use up 20% of the resources of a four-person Xth level party.

I knew I'd be called on this. Kudus for you to see my fallacies. Truth is, I don't know alot of the basic terminology of 3rd edition. So as for the second post, yes, the CR should be higher than 6, as the fight would clearly be a type of grand finale fight, not just another challenge for the group. I don't know where it should be, appropriately, but enough to challenge the maximum resources of a 6th level Aragorn, 5th-ish levels Gimli and Legolas and Borimir, and an undefined Gandalf (presumed at 5th level, but as you say, a multiclassed, unkillable 5th level).

As for the first point, clearly an unkillable CR 6 creature is much more than CR 6, and Gandalf is much more than a 5th level anything - but the assumption often put into challenge ratings is that the power to kill increases with the power to be unkillable. Put an unkillable monster into Moria, and I can see it destroying the Dwarven kingdom there (remember, the bulk of them died at the hands of the Goblins, not just the Balrog). But in D&D, if you rate the CR of a Balrog at 20, then it's presumed it can kill other CR 20 creatures - and I don't necessarily follow that assumption. I say it *could* be detailed as a CR 6 creature, with the power and attacks and capabilities of a CR 6 monster, but with the caveat of it being unkillable. That's not the same as CR 20.

But I was also being presumptive of placing the Balrog at CR 6 - I really can't tell. My point was that it need not immediately be placed at CR 20, but there's nothing to say it can't be there either. And as such...

I guess my argument is that most of the Fellowship, and most of the things they encounter, can be modeled as being level 5 or less and CR 5 or less. But Gandalf can't. The Balrog can't. Smaug can't. And so on. Some of the threats in the Lord of the Rings really are superhuman in power. As such, they deserve superhuman levels or Challenge Ratings.

... I would agree with your logic. Gandalf can be placed at CR 20. Or 30. Or, something beyond measurement. He's an NPC anyway, so it's not like he's going to break the game at whatever power the DM grants him. It's the rest of the Fellowship that I'm most concerned with, as that's where the game is. Approximately 5th level works for me.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I'm heading off to sleep, which right now feels like only a CR 1 challenge to me

marjan

2007-03-17, 02:44 AM

As for Gandalf you can just say that he was well optimized 5th lvl character.

Beleriphon

2007-03-17, 02:48 AM

No, what he is saying is that in the real world most people are Level 1 and 'High Level' is Level 5. D&D is not the real world, but when calibrating your expectations you have to bear that in mind.

The actual commentary is more about stating that you don't need absurdly high levels to to meet impressive, but thoroughly mundane, tasks. I'm particularly fond of the Einstein example. A maxed out intelligence, age increases, and five levels of expert wields an incredibly knowledgeable character.

kamikasei

2007-03-17, 03:35 AM

The actual commentary is more about stating that you don't need absurdly high levels to to meet impressive, but thoroughly mundane, tasks. I'm particularly fond of the Einstein example. A maxed out intelligence, age increases, and five levels of expert wields an incredibly knowledgeable character.

Before someone else argues that this is inaccurate because Einstein was actually fairly young when he made his most famous discoveries, let me point out that the article doesn't actually factor aging bonuses to mental stats into the calculation. The aging effects are only mentioned in the context of his having a low constitution, and therefore hitpoints, when he's the stereotypical old man of popular culture.

kamikasei

2007-03-17, 04:34 AM

Who says that Demons are automatically powerful monsters? If I were to stat out a Demon, without ever having seen the D&D system, I would make it physically weak, but tricky and hard to find. Demons are things that haunt families, twist them against each other, and ruin lives. But if the housewife could find the Demon and force a confrontation, I'd put my money on the housewife who's protecting her kids. I don't see the housewife as being a 15th level Warrior with the Prestige Class of 'Duster'. I see her as a 1st level commoner - yet I also see her beating the Demon.

Jarawara, by any chance is English a second language for you? I ask because the way you describe a demon here sounds so unlike my own idea of one that I suspect some sort of cultural or translation issue is to blame - what you describe sounds more like, as you say, a poltergeist, or an evil fairy of some sort. I can't think of anyone I know who would call such a thing a demon, if it were described to them.

"Now wait", you say, "That's just utter nonsense. Just watch the movie and tell me the Balrog is only CR6." Well, as I already said, Peter Jackson is a great moviemaker, but he clearly prescribed steriods for all his monsters. In the books, the Balrog is described as coming through a doorway, filling the whole of the doorway. Previously, the Orcs are described as coming through that doorway as fast as they can, two to three at a time. So, ah, the Balrog is 2-3 times the size of an Orc? Oh, they are listed as Goblins, generally viewed as smaller than Orcs. So the Balrog is described as 2-3 times larger than *small* Orcs. I'd guess that puts him to about Ogre size. What's the CR of an Ogre again?

The distinction between "goblins" and "orcs" in LotR is not really very clear. Indeed I think the consensus is that they are two words for essentially the same thing, and that though there may be different breeds, there are not two distinct races. To say therefore that the "goblins" in Moria were Small creatures on a par with the hobbits is not really justified.

I won't bother with the debate on whether or not the Balrog has wings, you can find that elsewhere if you want, but I will admit to the internal and obscuring smoke and flaming whip and all that. And besides, he's essentially the same as Gandalf, sort of like an angel, but fallen. Not something I want to fight, personally, and not something Aragorn could destroy. But just the same, it was not the uber demon that was shown on film, nor was it the uber demon portrayed as a Balor in D&D.

Let's see - what capabilites did the Balrog actually display? As you say, he is of the same order of being as Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron: a Maia. However, there is considerable variation among Maia as to power, so this doesn't necessarily tell us a huge amount. I would not doubt that the Balrog is much less powerful than Sauron, for example.

The Balrog has a "blade like a stabbing tongue of fire" and a "whip of many thongs".

It may or may not have wings, but it apparently can't fly.

Before they actually see the Balrog, it breaks open the door where Gandalf is apparently casting Hold Portal. It apparently used a "counter-spell", and Gandalf says that he has "met [his] match, and nearly been destroyed". Apparently magic use is risky in LotR...

Gandalf fights it on the bridge. It makes one swing with its sword; Gandalf parries and breaks its sword. Before the Balrog gets another strike in, Gandalf breaks the bridge beneath it (and breaks his staff in the process, which seems like it'd be a big deal).

The Balrog apparently is on fire, or can be so at will. When they fell Gandalf describes "his fire was about me. I was burned." They fought on the mountaintop, apparently with magic:

Those that looked up from afar thought that the mountain was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning, they said, smote upon Celebdil, and leaped back broken in to tongues of fire... A great smoke rose about us, vapour and steam. Ice fell like rain.

In the end it doesn't add up to all that much. The main point about the Balrog is that he was enough of a challenge that Gandalf was either killed or otherwise spent in fighting him, and none of the others stood a chance. This could reasonably be represented by giving him DR x/magic that only Gandalf could penetrate (so far as I know even Anduril wasn't actually magic, the way that, say, Merry's knife from the Barrow-downs was that hurt the Witch-King; even if it was, you could just make the DR x/holy or something equivalent). A handful of special qualities, a gish or gestalt fighter/caster build, and a CR equivalent to Gandalf would suffice to make the Balrog an appropriately terrifying encounter for the Fellowship, without Gandalf's CR needing to be all that high. (And remember, we can always give both a +x LA to model their outsider abilities.)

Variable Arcana

2007-03-17, 08:29 AM

Better stated, I can step up to the guy, take a swing at him, and get some distance, without leaving him with a good opening in which to swing at me above and beyond what he'd get for his "turn" of combat (ie, stepping up and swinging at me.)
And he absolutely never... not even a few percent of the time... manages to get a swing at you?

And if he were a kendo world grand master he still wouldn't be able to strike you some of the time?? Because that's what the spring-attack feat means. It means that if you are facing the world champion fencer, you can jump in, try to hit him, and jump away with *NO* chance that he will find an opening to exploit.

An attack of opportunity implies I've given the guy an extra chance, above and beyond the chances he'd have during the rest of the combat round, to hit me.
Remember that D&D combat, like everything else in D&D, is an abstraction.

An attack roll that misses isn't necessarily a "swing-and-a-miss", though we usually describe it that way for cinematic flavor. It just means that the attacker failed to find an opening to exploit -- whether that involves three feints that failed to pull the defender out of position, a massive swing that the defender dodged under, or just standing en guarde while the defender managed to leave no openings you could detect.

And spring attack isn't just about avoiding the AoO -- you need spring attack just to split your move action. Which is simply nuts. During real combat, you can step in, swing, and move past or step back all within a few seconds. And by "step" I mean well beyond reach. You might provoke an AoO, but you can at least get some distance on the guy.
Yes... but "split" between what? Rounds are also game abstractions. When you run across the room, strike, and run across the room again... how do you know when the "round" break was?

The idea of not splitting movement at the attack is that unless you are super-human (i.e. have flyby-attack, ride-by-attack or spring attack) your opponent will have *some* chance to act when you approach, even if it's just a failed attempt to find an opening.

Certainly, it might be more realistic to let the opponent take that "attack" as an immediate action when the opportunity arises, but "taking turns" simplifies the combat simulation considerably -- and combats already take long enough! If you want more complicated combat rules, there are plenty of other games that provide them -- but the tradeoff is that they take longer to adjudicate.

Matthew

2007-03-17, 08:37 AM

The actual commentary is more about stating that you don't need absurdly high levels to to meet impressive, but thoroughly mundane, tasks. I'm particularly fond of the Einstein example. A maxed out intelligence, age increases, and five levels of expert wields an incredibly knowledgeable character.

Indeed, but I was answering a particular query about what was being said in the article, rather than seeking to characterise the article itself.

Gandalf was not a Level 5 Wizard. If anything, he was an Outsider...

Variable Arcana

2007-03-17, 08:40 AM

I am using spring attack, provided I move (5' or more), attack, and then move (5' or more) again.
No.

Again, you're missing the abstraction. You can dance a jig, do a handstand, and jog around in circles until you collapse from exhaustion. If you stay within the 5'x10' area of the melee then you haven't "MOVED" by the RAW.

"Movement" is a technical term of the game referring to any time that little lead miniature of your character has to be moved to a different location on the combat grid.

Matthew

2007-03-17, 08:42 AM

This Spring Attack discussion seems like it needs its own thread.

To my mind, all it is, is the ability to move, attack and move in 6 seconds, which it is sillly to require a Feat for, but there you go.

Variable Arcana

2007-03-17, 09:02 AM

Gandalf is a red herring.

He's essentially a GOD who has agreed to pretend to be mortal for all sorts of good and worthy reasons. He's basically there to give the mortals a fighting chance against the other demigods who have turned against their morality -- to counteract Saruman's twisting of Theoden; to counter the Nazgul somewhat at the siege of Gondor; to prevent Sauron's direct intervention at the gates of Mordor...

At the very least he needs a high LA template (half-celestial might be a good start) -- and doesn't he have one of the three elven Rings of Power? And, hey, he's a servant of the Secret Fire -- that sounds like a kick-*** prestige class. (Prereq: must be an immortal demigod)

Krellen

2007-03-17, 11:52 AM

Gandalf (who doesn't clearly gain a lot of power after his resurrection)
I just have to correct this:

Gandalf gains a lot of power after his resurrection. He is, essentially, freed of most of the restraints placed upon him, allowing him to exercise his power as a Maiar for the first time since he set foot on Middle Earth. The Valar judged him as the only Istari to actually remain true to his mission, and he was given power - or, rather, had restraints removed - to compensate for the rogue Wizards he now had to deal with.

That's why he could suddenly beat Saruman with little to no effort after his resurrection, and why Saruman became afraid of him.

LotharBot

2007-03-18, 01:09 AM

he absolutely never... not even a few percent of the time... manages to get a swing at you?

Of course he swings at me sometimes, if he's focused on me. The point is, I'm not providing him with additional openings when approaching and moving past in comparison to the openings I'd provide if we were standing and fighting, or circling and fighting, or if I charge up to him and then back off and then he charges up to me. There's no extra opportunity, so no point in having AoO's on top of his normal attacks, which he can take if he charges me or readies an action or whatever. (You describe the "die roll = opening, not swing" abstraction correctly in your next paragraph.)

Rounds are also game abstractions. When you run across the room, strike, and run across the room again... how do you know when the "round" break was?

I don't. I fully acknowledge that the "round" break is an abstraction. But in normal sparring, I move in, move past the guy, get him to approach me, move in and swing, retreat, move in again, retreat to the side, move in, push him back, etc. over the course of maybe 20 seconds. We train on a basketball court, and use 30+ feet of length pretty regularly. I have a hard time modeling that sort of movement in the D&D system without using spring attack and readied actions.

If you stay within the 5'x10' area of the melee then you haven't "MOVED" by the RAW.

It's 5'x5'. If I move into his square and he moves into mine, we moved. We have to, because flanking and a number of other things change. But even if I accept the 5'x10' setup... I'm spending time all over a 5'x30' or 10'x30' or 20'x20' area (depending on the exercise and how many other pairs are training alongside us), as is my opponent. Sometimes I make him back up by closing to melee (not using a bull rush -- not pushing or ramming him backwards, just he happens to move as a result of our striking at each other.) Granted, we're not wearing platemail, but we still move across a lot more space than 5'x10'.

Now, again, I don't mean to get too stuck on this particular point. I mean this only as an illustration of the larger point Swordguy brought up -- on the one hand, you can model most legendary humans as level 5 in terms of the most impressive tasks they performed, whether in combat or academics or philosophy. (That's the point of the original article, and I don't think anyone has disagreed with it.) But on the other hand, in order to get the diversity of abilities some people have, you have to grant a fair number of feats or skill points or other random bonuses that low-level characters don't normally have. I'm not legendary; I'd put myself at level 2. Swordguy, with all his training, might be up there at level 3 or 4. And that might describe both of us very well if you gave us swords and stuck us in combat against some guy in plate mail. But the model is going to fall woefully short of covering all of the real-world abilities (in and out of combat) that we both have.

Edo

2007-03-18, 04:49 AM

Is an unkillable CR 6 creature really CR6?Yes, it is, as long as it's defeatable by a party of four level-6 characters.

(As proof, I cite the Soul-Locked template from Heroes of Horror, which makes a monster immune to staying dead. "Even though being soul-lockd makes a creature almost impossible to permanently destroy, it does not increase the monster's Challenge Rating, since it is no harder to defeat the monster in any given encounter.")

If there's no way to reach some kind of solution to the problem posed by said CR 6 creature, though, then it's probably worthwhile to peg the CR a bit higher.

Dervag

2007-03-18, 05:54 AM

an undefined Gandalf (presumed at 5th level, but as you say, a multiclassed, unkillable 5th level).I would argue that Gandalf has roughly five levels of wizard, possibly more, and several levels of other classes. For example, he fought fairly well in hand to hand combat, indicating levels of some melee class.

As for the first point, clearly an unkillable CR 6 creature is much more than CR 6, and Gandalf is much more than a 5th level anything - but the assumption often put into challenge ratings is that the power to kill increases with the power to be unkillable.Not really.

A monster that has the exact same hitting power but takes twice as many attacks to bring down will have (or should have, at any rate) a higher CR than a more vulnerable monster. The reason is simple: the more shots you have to pump into it to bring it down, the longer it can beat on you and the more harm it can cause you, forcing you to expend more resources and take more risks to defeat it.

Also remember that as long as you have some kind of useful attack, the power to resist being killed is the power to kill, which is why heavily armored fighters tend to be deadlier in melee than lightly armored fighters. Heavily armored fighters can be more aggressive, and can afford to ignore some of their opponent's attacks rather than being forced to dodge or parry them. This gives them a big advantage in combat.

Put an unkillable monster into Moria, and I can see it destroying the Dwarven kingdom there (remember, the bulk of them died at the hands of the Goblins, not just the Balrog).But if it were unkillable and no stronger than an 'ordinary' CR 5 or CR 6 creature, then the dwarves should have been able to defeat it. For example, they should have been able to trap it or to chain it up.

The goblins only came into Moria after the dwarves had been driven away by the Balrog which, again, proves that the Balrog was way too powerful for the dwarves to be able to hold him off. To explain the emptying of Moria, the Balrog must be much tougher than any individual human or human-type warrior. So much tougher that a guy with a sword doesn't stand a chance of killing it.

But in D&D, if you rate the CR of a Balrog at 20, then it's presumed it can kill other CR 20 creatures - and I don't necessarily follow that assumption.Yes, I know, but I'm not making that assumption and neither is anyone else, necessarily.

I say it *could* be detailed as a CR 6 creature, with the power and attacks and capabilities of a CR 6 monster, but with the caveat of it being unkillable. That's not the same as CR 20.No, it isn't, but an unkillable creature with the attacks of a CR 6 creature is a lot higher than CR 6, because a CR 6 party can't hope to kill him.

Remember that defining rule about challenge rating: a CR X monster should be able to put up enough of a fight to force a four-man level X party to use up 20% of its resources (most of its resources, like hit points and spells, are renewable on a day-to-day basis). This assumption also goes into a lot of encounter tables and assumptions about how to pace encounters- if PCs run into four or five level-appropriate encounters in one day, there's a good chance that one of the last ones will finish them off.

even if it was, you could just make the DR x/holy or something equivalent). A handful of special qualities, a gish or gestalt fighter/caster build, and a CR equivalent to Gandalf would suffice to make the Balrog an appropriately terrifying encounter for the Fellowship, without Gandalf's CR needing to be all that high. (And remember, we can always give both a +x LA to model their outsider abilities.)Again, working on the assumption that Aragorn and the other 'heroic but human' warriors of the Fellowship are approximately 5th level, I estimate that Gandalf can't be lower than CR 8 himself, because he was able to easily 'defeat' Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in what amounted to one round of combat by disarming them when they attacked him by mistake.

Note that this is a lower bound, not an upper one.

This Spring Attack discussion seems like it needs its own thread.
To my mind, all it is, is the ability to move, attack and move in 6 seconds, which it is sillly to require a Feat for, but there you go.
The problem is that there isn't enough middle ground.

On the one hand, we have the 'normal', non-Spring-Attack warrior who cannot move from one square to another, attack, and then move from one square to another during a six second round, no matter what. However, since the individual squares allow for a lot of what one might call small-scale 'movement', that may not be a big deal. I can do a fencing style advance-lunge-recover-retreat without ever leaving my 5 ft. by 5 ft. square.

On the other hand, we have the 'exceptional' Spring Attack. A Spring Attacker can do that advance-lunge-recover-retreat maneuver easily, can even advance and retreat by ten or fifteen feet, while leaving no opening for a counterattack to any normal enemy, all within six seconds.

The problem is that Spring Attack models an attack style that hardly any real person could possibly use- one in which you leap ten feet forward, stab, and leap ten feet back, all without exposing yourself to an attack of opportunity.

Gandalf gains a lot of power after his resurrection.Oops. You are definitely right. My mistake.

So that Challenge Rating of 8 is a lower bound on the power of Gandalf the White, not Gandalf the Grey. However, I would say that even Gandalf the Grey cannot be modelled by a CR 5 and still be powerful enough to defeat a Balrog (even in a 'double kill' scenario).

Yes, it is, as long as it's defeatable by a party of four level-6 characters.Easily defeatable.

A monster that can just barely be defeated by a four-man party of level-6 characters is probably CR 7 or 8; a party like that should be able to tackle a CR 6 monster and then do it again two or three times in one day without bothering to restock their resources.

(As proof, I cite the Soul-Locked template from Heroes of Horror, which makes a monster immune to staying dead. "Even though being soul-lockd makes a creature almost impossible to permanently destroy, it does not increase the monster's Challenge Rating, since it is no harder to defeat the monster in any given encounter.")Here's the key.

If a creature is nearly unkillable strategically (in the sense that its body will rebuild itself in a week's time no matter what, or in the sense that its mind transfers to a cloned body in some distant laboratory whenever it gets killed), that won't increase its CR.

But if a creature is nearly unkillable tactically (in the sense that hitting it with a sword or blowing it up with fire won't kill it, no matter how hard you try), that will increase its CR, because the only way to do that is to use things like damage reduction and regeneration.

The Balrog may or may not be tough strategically, but if it wasn't tough tactically then it's hard to see why the Fellowship ran away from it or how it emptied Moria. So my point is that even if the Balrog's offensive capabilities are equal to those of a 6th level fighter, it must have defensive abilities far greater than those of a 6th level fighter to be alive after all it's done. And those defensive abilities give it an increase CR, just as does a demon's damage reduction or a golem's spell immunities.

kamikasei

2007-03-18, 06:30 AM

Again, working on the assumption that Aragorn and the other 'heroic but human' warriors of the Fellowship are approximately 5th level, I estimate that Gandalf can't be lower than CR 8 himself, because he was able to easily 'defeat' Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in what amounted to one round of combat by disarming them when they attacked him by mistake.

Note that this is a lower bound, not an upper one.

One thing we have to bear in mind on this is that the Fellowship had absolutely terrible party structure. They only ever had one caster, no healing beyond Heal checks from their Ranger, and no clear Rogue. They had almost nothing in the way of equipment: each had a weapon, most of which were masterwork or +1 at best. Aside from their (possibly enchanted) weapons and a handful of utility items, none had any magical gear.

Given this it doesn't seem hard to believe that a 5th-level caster could incapacitate a trio of poorly-equipped fighter types. All Gandalf actually did there was:
- cause Gimli's axe to drop from his hands
- cause Aragorn's sword to become hot enough that he drops it
- cause an arrow Legolas fires off at random (not aimed at him) to catch fire
And he does this after a while spent talking to them, during which time they all feel very odd; it's not out of the question to say he had been using some mind-affecting magic on them to keep them from turning hostile and impose penalties on them. A protective buff or two and a readied spell (maybe his staff is a Metamagic Rod? :smalltongue:) adding up to disarming a handful of opponents doesn't seem too overpowered to me.

Now consider that had a standard D&D party (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) of 5th level been in the Three Hunters' place, they would have had some spellcasting ability, magical weapons and gear, their own wards and buffs in place...

And of course, this is Olorin more than Gandalf at this stage, which change could be modeled by the addition of one or two Outsider HD or an LA-boosting template granting some special abilities quite as well as by adding class levels.

Variable Arcana

2007-03-18, 07:20 AM

Re: Gandalf...

Hmmm.. I always assumed that all the fire magic Gandalf did was by virtue of his ring (whereas counteracting Saruman in his control of Theoden was Wizard stuff). Narya was the "Ring of Fire" whatever that means... It's never really explained, of course... (unless it was somewhere in the appendices or follow-on books...)

(The ring may also help to explain how he was able to overcome the Balrog -- it's "Fire and Shadow" after all..)

Re: Spring Attack...

You're probably right that D&D doesn't model a no-armor combat very well. On the other hand, it's also possible that there's more running around in the particular martial arts style that you practice than there would be in a genuine duel-to-the-death. (I know it's heresy to suggest that -fill-in-the-style- isn't exactly the same as a no-rules fight to the death, but it really never is, and small, sensible rules can dramatically alter the final form.)

I've never seen anyone run past an opponent in western-style fencing, that I can recall... lunge and retreat, yes (though not without leaving an opening if the lunge doesn't hit)... not that fencing is even a good model of how two people trying to kill each other with rapiers would behave...

Big Picture:

At the end of the day, the point of the D&D combat system is to find a happy medium between being so simple it's not fun (You are a level 7 fighter, the monsters have a Challenge Rating of 5. You kill them, taking seven hit points of damage, according to Table VI-2.) and being so detailed that it's not fun ("I move the tip of my sword blade three centimeters to the left, leaving a tiny opening, while readying an attack action to parry the expected strike and stab his forearm if he takes the bait.")

It seems to me to do a pretty good job of that.

kamikasei

2007-03-18, 08:10 AM

Re: Gandalf...

Hmmm.. I always assumed that all the fire magic Gandalf did was by virtue of his ring (whereas counteracting Saruman in his control of Theoden was Wizard stuff). Narya was the "Ring of Fire" whatever that means... It's never really explained, of course... (unless it was somewhere in the appendices or follow-on books...)

(The ring may also help to explain how he was able to overcome the Balrog -- it's "Fire and Shadow" after all..)

Firstly - that doesn't really make sense, since as we all know, an evil outsider with the Fire subtype would be vulnerable to Good and Cold, not to more Fire :smallbiggrin:.

Secondly, and seriously, that's an interesting idea that had honestly never occurred to me. I had always just assumed that his specialty in fire and light was a Maia thing. However, note that only one other ring-wielder displays an elemental ability, when Elrond commands the river to drown the Nazgul - and Elrond had the ring of Air, not of Water. Ultimately I think the Three Rings didn't give their wielders much personal power of the flashy, damaging sort; rather I imagine Gandalf used Narya in much the same way as the Elrond and Galadriel used the other two, to preserve some part of the old world against the ravages of time, except in his case it was memory of the past and hope for the future that he was keeping kindled among all peoples, rather than protecting a particular place.

Variable Arcana

2007-03-18, 08:45 AM

I'd been thinking of it more as protecting Gandalf from most of the damage the Balrog would usually do... but...

You're definitely right that magic is more thematic and big-picture in Tolkein than the concrete and specific magic spells of D&D. Even the direct effect on Theoden can be seen that way, with the King as one with the land and so on. Gandalf's use of the dawn to blind the orcs at Helm's Deep might not have been magic at all.

The only time it ever seems like Gandalf has cast a magic spell is when he hurls fire at the worgs in the Hobbit.

Back on the subject of rings... I'd always wondered whether Galadriel's Mirror, for example, was powered by her ring, and whether Elrond's commanding of the river was powered by his. The elements not lining up correctly is clearly a problem... *shrug*

kamikasei

2007-03-18, 08:55 AM

So, after a couple of replies nitpicking on people's interpretations of Lord of the Rings, I figured I'd actually address the topic...

I thought the article was good. The point about what a first- to fifth-level character is actually capable of was well made and thought provoking. The unfortunate implication that, by level ten or fifteen, characters are not just heroic but insanely superheroic, was not really welcome but hard to avoid.

How to get around it?

Well, as I see it the spread of power would ideally be a little more evenly distributed over the levels; if "ordinary people" were levels 1-5, "exceptional but mundane people" (like Einstein, the Olympic athlete, or Amakuni the Japanese swordsmith) were 6-10, and levels above 10 were for the truly legendary, it would be a bit more palatable. You could still have a lot of fun at the lower levels by virtue of being PCs with class features and abilities that make you more powerful than a random guy off the street - but you wouldn't necessarily be performing truly superhuman feats, just being heroic, skilled and lucky.

The other side of that is one that the author sidesteps a bit. He mentions how people object to the idea that you'd need to model Einsten as 20th level, and therefore give him lots of hitpoints and so on. He says that, well, he'd only be 5th level, he'd only have a d6 hit die and he'd probably have a Con penalty because he's old. This misses the point that he had to have had fewer hit points when he was a 1st level physicist, and somehow gained five levels' worth simply by becoming better at physics. That doesn't make any sense. This is the fundamental problem as I see it with level-based systems - the factor may be different for each ability between classes, but if one of your abilities is to increase, all your other abilities have to increase in lockstep. For Einstein to go from 1st to 5th level physicist, he somehow has to also become better at dealing and absorbing/avoiding damage, in strict proportion.

Similarly, it doesn't make much sense to say that, for a fighter to learn a new style of fighting, or a new weapon, he has to become overall better at fighting (increased BAB/HP from gaining a level to get that EWP or other feat). There's no terribly good way in D&D to represent a dilettante - a guy who gets up to second-grade belt in ten different martial arts, say. Fighters (and rogues) seem to be the stumbling block because spellcasters can be handwaved away as needing to become more connected to the essence of magic, or whatever. One way around this might be to allow a fighter of fixed level to learn new maneuvers (in ToB style) the way a wizard can learn new spells without having to gain a level.

Overall, I think the best way to resolve the aspects of the article that people don't like is to somehow separate versatility (having lots of skills) from power (how much you can do with any one skill) and from such physical traits as are represented by BAB and HP. A world in which a novice and veteran fighter are each as vulnerable to having a knife slipped between their ribs, though the veteran is far better at avoiding it, and knows twenty times as many ways to kill you with his pinky - and in which a learned wizard is just as squishy as an apprentice, but has spells to keep anything from touching him and spends half his time made out of adamantine - sounds like it could be reasonably entertaining.

Saph

2007-03-18, 09:30 AM

A world in which a novice and veteran fighter are each as vulnerable to having a knife slipped between their ribs, though the veteran is far better at avoiding it, and knows twenty times as many ways to kill you with his pinky - and in which a learned wizard is just as squishy as an apprentice, but has spells to keep anything from touching him and spends half his time made out of adamantine - sounds like it could be reasonably entertaining.

If that's all, couldn't you just use the Vitality Point / Wound Point system? That models exactly what you're describing pretty well, with vitality being 'ability to avoid danger'.

- Saph

kamikasei

2007-03-18, 09:39 AM

If that's all, couldn't you just use the Vitality Point / Wound Point system? That models exactly what you're describing pretty well, with vitality being 'ability to avoid danger'.

- Saph

Possibly, though I have concerns about how certain spells would interact with that (things like magic missile, which always hit - should they go straight to WP?) However, that still leaves us with the issue that, in order to gain in skill and ability, the character has to also gain in level and VP/WP or HP, which doesn't entirely make sense. (Also, when I refer to the veteran fighter being able to avoid having a knife slipped between his ribs, I'm referring to his having higher AC/Initiative/BAB etc. to avoid being hit, avoid being surprised, and kill the guy first.)

It especially doesn't get around the idea of needing to be an exceptional or legendary fighter in order to be capable of two quite ordinary things that merely good fighters could manage individually (the feat issue mentioned by others).

Krellen

2007-03-18, 09:48 AM

A world in which a novice and veteran fighter are each as vulnerable to having a knife slipped between their ribs, though the veteran is far better at avoiding it, and knows twenty times as many ways to kill you with his pinky
Hit points are, by RAW, supposed to be a reflection of both physical toughness and the ability to reduce the severity of incoming blows (PHB, pg. 145). So the fifth level fighter being far better at avoiding a knife to the ribs is reflected by his higher hit point total. He's also going to be physically tougher, since he's virtually guaranteed to be in better shape than the 1st level fighter; you don't get to 5th level without some effort, after all.

It especially doesn't get around the idea of needing to be an exceptional or legendary fighter in order to be capable of two quite ordinary things that merely good fighters could manage individually (the feat issue mentioned by others).
What two things specifically?
The Spring Attack idea has been, I think, wholly debunked; Spring Attack requires far more movement than described. (It's still a Bull Rush, LotharBot, even if you didn't plow into him The rules don't say anything about having to actually physically collide; "push" has connotations other than "place hands on shoulders and shove".)
Also, at 4th level, Swordguy has enough feats to have the feats he actually needs to represent himself; he simply does not have 7 Weapon Focuses. He just has a high BAB.
Those are the two "ordinary things" I saw brought up, so which ones are you talking about?

Matthew

2007-03-18, 10:11 AM

Not wholly, since it is still ridiculous that a Character cannot move 5' attack and then move 5' in a 6 Second Round without the Spring Attack Feat.

Krellen

2007-03-18, 10:23 AM

Not wholly, since it is still ridiculous that a Character cannot move 5' attack and then move 5' in a 6 Second Round without the Spring Attack Feat.
But they can, because 5' of movement isn't actually "movement" by the RAW. It doesn't involve leaving your square at all.

Matthew

2007-03-18, 11:26 AM

Well, then 10'. Whatever the precision of this, a character cannot [Move, Attack, Move], but can [Attack, Move, Attack] or [Attack, Move] or [Move, Attack].

Rigeld2

2007-03-18, 11:49 AM

Well, then 10'. Whatever the precision of this, a character cannot [Move, Attack, Move], but can [Attack, Move, Attack] or [Attack, Move] or [Move, Attack].
Actually, only A+M or M+A. You explicitly cannot move (more than a 5' step) in the middle of a Full Attack, which is the only way to get multiple attacks.

Matthew

2007-03-18, 11:53 AM

Sure about that, are you?

Full Attack
If you get more than one attack per round because your base attack bonus is high enough, because you fight with two weapons or a double weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#doubleWeapons) or for some special reason you must use a full-round action to get your additional attacks. You do not need to specify the targets of your attacks ahead of time. You can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.
The only movement you can take during a full attack is a 5-foot step. You may take the step before, after, or between your attacks.
If you get multiple attacks because your base attack bonus is high enough, you must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest. If you are using two weapons, you can strike with either weapon first. If you are using a double weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#doubleWeapons), you can strike with either part of the weapon first.

Diggorian

2007-03-18, 12:09 PM

With melee combat I assume that two foes engaging each other are doing a lot more than what their miniatures show. They dance around each other doing all the testing strikes and parrying we'd expect in a real duel, but cant do anything telling until their turn. It's part of the abstraction.

Matthew

2007-03-18, 12:18 PM

Sure, but the point is that they can move 30' and make an Attack, but they can't move 10', make an Attack and then move 10'. D&D has a lot of abstraction, but it also has a lot of precision, especially with regard to movement. It's an odd mix, but there you go.

Rigeld2

2007-03-18, 12:23 PM

Sure about that, are you?
...
Isnt that exactly what I just said?

Matthew

2007-03-18, 12:30 PM

Eh? Yeah, it seems so, but it's also exactly what I was saying. You can Attack, Move 5' and then Attack again, unlike the case of Cleave, where you cannot take a 5' Step between Attacks... which was the difference I was meaning to highlight.

Theodoxus

2007-03-18, 12:53 PM

Not that anyone will read this...

But this whole issue was taken care of in the True20 system, which derived a lot of it's final form from the d20 Modern setting (which, as was noted on page 2, iirc) is a lot more 'realistic to our reality' than classic D&D d20.

No more HPs (a 'toughness' saving throw and a wounding table keeps track of how hurt you are, and how impaired you've become because of them). Feats gained every level, for every class - oh, and only three classes: Warrior, Expert and Adept (heavily modified versions of the same from the UA). Spells are generalized and you can choose any spell at any level - your level determines the spells power and effect.

And best of all - especially for this particular discussion - no more XP! The GM decides when the characters have learned enough to garner a new level (the basic guideline is 1-2 game sessions, but it can be more). This allows people to level through Role playing interaction rather than only combat. It's built for fluffier campaigns, but doesn't hamper crunchy ones one bit.

Its something that anyone trying to wrap their head around inconsistancies with real life and D&D should check out. (plus it's usable with any genre, not just fantasy or modern.)

www.true20.com (http://www.true20.com)

Theo

kamikasei

2007-03-18, 01:43 PM

And best of all - especially for this particular discussion - no more XP! The GM decides when the characters have learned enough to garner a new level (the basic guideline is 1-2 game sessions, but it can be more). This allows people to level through Role playing interaction rather than only combat. It's built for fluffier campaigns, but doesn't hamper crunchy ones one bit.

While the rest of what you describe sounds quite interesting, I feel I must point out that you get XP for overcoming challenges, not for combat; and challenges may be of a great many sorts and overcome in a great many ways. The XP system doesn't inherently prevent roleplaying, and removing it doesn't inherently scupper combat.

MeklorIlavator

2007-03-18, 01:58 PM

Theo

Wait, your God? Hey, I'm a big fan of yours.

Krellen

2007-03-18, 05:49 PM

Sure, but the point is that they can move 30' and make an Attack, but they can't move 10', make an Attack and then move 10'.
I'd like to see you do all that in 6 seconds. And actually hurt someone.

Video evidence would be nice.

Matthew

2007-03-18, 06:31 PM

What? What possible difference would that make. I'd like to see video evidence of somebody shooting five arrows from a Long Bow in six seconds and actaully hurting someone.

D&D does not model real life. It is obviously ridiculous that a Character can [move 30' and attack], [attack and move 30'] or [attack, move 5' and attack again], but cannot move [10', attack and move 10']. I'm pretty certain that the last could be accomplished in 6 seconds, especially if the opponent was killed.

Swordguy

2007-03-18, 07:03 PM

Matthew

2007-03-18, 07:07 PM

Yeah, 1.5 Seconds is the quickest I have heard of, but I don't know how much draw can really have been done.

Diggorian

2007-03-18, 07:47 PM

Swordguy

2007-03-18, 08:28 PM

*trips over littered catgirl corpses*

What's Conquest? A one foot stationary target fifty feet away with a longbow is AC 3, right?

I'm now also wondering what the implications in-game would be if the move-atack-move option was made a regular part of combat, no longer feat enabled abilities.

Conquest was a TV show that aired on the History Channel several years ago that tried to educate the viewer about the reality of ancient weapons and armor. While there were several blatant inaccuracies in the show, it's tough to fark up a guy standing there with a repo longbow with clothyard shafts stuck in the ground in front of him and actually shooting a target.

And AC 3? By D&D game rules, maybe. It's really much harder than that firing that fast. D&D assumes 1 shot per 3-6 seconds (as opposed to melee combat, which models an exchange of blows over a short time) because you don't expend lots of arrows per "attack". Firing one shot every 1.5 seconds (ish) is a LOT harder.

As a GM, I'd be putting it near the AC 20 range.

EDIT: Oh, and I have no problem with killing catgirls. Look at my sig...

Diggorian

2007-03-18, 09:27 PM

Ah, that Conquest. Yeah, I remember a longbowsman at 30 ft shot an arrow through a steel breastplate on that show. Sank deep into the wooden dummy too. I prefer DR armor myself from such demonstrations.

AC 3 by D&D games rules confirmed. Base 10 - 2 tiny target -5 effective Dexterity modifier for stationary. As a DM, I'd put the penalty on the shots for being rushed and not having Rapid Shot: -2 Rapid shot -4 non-proficient feat use -2 per extra shot beyond the second = -10 overall to all four shots in a round.

marjan

2007-03-19, 01:42 AM

That's actualy AC7 10+2(tiny size)-5(DEX 0). And you already have penalty to subsequent attacks in the round.

Diggorian

2007-03-19, 05:48 AM

Duh ... yer right, marjan. AC 3 for a 20ft target (huge). Mighty AC 7 it is.

Subsequent penalty already? So you'd do -5 for shot three and -10 for four on top of the -6?

Swordguy

2007-03-19, 07:21 AM

That's actualy AC7 10+2(tiny size)-5(DEX 0). And you already have penalty to subsequent attacks in the round.

Ahhhh...we've come full circle. The article mentions that there's no way a "normal" human can be level 20, which is what it would take to get those 4 shots off in a round. If he's a once-in-a-lifetime fighter (as in the article), he's got a BAB of +5. No extra attacks (Rapid shot notwithstanding). We're back to real-world humans able to demonstrate abilities that the RAW don't cover.

Clearly someone should point out to him that what he's doing isn't possible for a human, and if he'd be so kind to please stop and only fire one arrow every six seconds like his base attack bonus indicates...

Krellen

2007-03-19, 10:09 AM

We're back to real-world humans able to demonstrate abilities that the RAW don't cover.
The RAW don't cover non-combat uses of combat abilities. He was firing off arrows at a stationary target, alone and without distraction, with arrows arrayed before him in easy to snatch locations, rather than in an easy to carry quiver. The RAW don't cover his situation at all.

Gamebird

2007-03-19, 10:41 AM

Reminds me of a group who assigned treasure by "shares" equivalent to your number of levels. My old character died and the new one claimed a higher number of shares than her level. This caused the party to dispute the claim, in game and attempt to disprove her by some sparring duels. She critically hit and disabled her opponent with the first blow. It was so funny I agreed to drop the claim and go back to the "correct" number of shares.

Swordguy

2007-03-19, 10:42 AM

The RAW don't cover non-combat uses of combat abilities. He was firing off arrows at a stationary target, alone and without distraction, with arrows arrayed before him in easy to snatch locations, rather than in an easy to carry quiver. The RAW don't cover his situation at all.

It seems pretty self-explanatory to me. He's firing 4 arrows in the span of 1 combat round (timed onscreen as 5.7ish seconds). RAW says you can't do that at under 5th level. There's not really room for interpretation there. BAB doesn't help. Having the target at AC (absurdly low number) doesn't help. You don't get to draw and fire that many arrows in a round at a "realistic" level, RAW.

BTW: Complete Warrior mentions arrows stuck in the ground in it's mass combat section, IIRC. It's exactly the same as if they're in a quiver for purposes of combat.

Diggorian

2007-03-19, 12:34 PM

elliott20

2007-03-19, 01:22 PM

It's raining dead catgirls!!!

Swordguy

2007-03-19, 01:42 PM

D&D doesnt model real-life perfectly, or even greatly, is news to you?The archer on Conquest also doesnt have to poop according to RAW.

The article is just about showing power benchmarks between D&D and real life, not translating D&D into real life.

I'm afraid you are mistaken, my sad, deluded spartan friend.

From TFA:

"So what I want to do, rather than just making my claim, is to take a look at a few rules, actually run the numbers, and demonstrate how effective D&D really is at modeling the real world...It’s just really, really good. And part of what makes it really, really good is the fact that it does this simulation casually. It doesn’t make you do the math. It’s worked the math into the system. All you’ve got to do is roll the dice and handle some basic arithmetic."

" It’s going to typically take five or six really solid kicks for the average person to get through such a door.
Again: This matches our real life experience."

"...it becomes impossible for the average person to simply throw their shoulder against the door and break it open.
And, again, this matches the real world. Breaking a six-inch thick beam would be nearly impossible for all but the strongest among us."

etc. (physics), etc. (jumping), etc. (blacksmithing), etc.

The point of the article is to mention that D&D does a reasonable job at modeling reality at lower levels. I agree. However, there is an inherent disconnect between what people are able to do in real life and what they are able to do in the game. These disconnects occur almost exclusively when relating to combat skills. In more or less every other aspect, it models things with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Some of us wish that the rules could correctly (or at least more reasonably) model combat as well as skills/attributes. The RAW are inconsistent in this, and among those of us who do the real thing for a living, it can be annoying.

BTW, since the logical response to that is "well, it's your game - house-rule it!", I point out that A) we shouldn't have to, B) we may not want to, and C) this is a discussion board. We're discussing. Being snippy with people "...is this news to you" will only make them far more sarcastic than you could ever imagine.

Oh, Elliott20?

It's raining dead catgirls!!!

It's like Godwin's Law. The thread is inherently about the failure's of D&D to model real life, therefore dead catgirls don't come into it. If this had been a thread about, oh, I don't know, doing spell damage, and some nut came up with a thermonuclear detonation justified by a suprious interpretation of RAW, then the catgirls start dropping. :biggrin:

Diggorian

2007-03-19, 03:06 PM

I'm afraid you are mistaken, my sad, deluded spartan friend.

Mistaken?

Everything you quote is his showing a comparison between D&D abilites and real life expectations of ability, as I said. What you need to show I'm mistaken is the the part where the articles says: "An army sniper with 5 years of experience would be X level in Y class with feats 1, 2, and 3." You see, that's a translation.

The annoyance that those devoted to combat in real life feel towards D&D combat is silly, because

... D&D is a game. Its systems are abstracted and streamlined in order to keep things simple and, more importantly, fun. So, yes, there are compromises ... The game is not a physics text. Nor is it without flaw.

Those with expectations that all real possibilites (like arrow fire rate) be accurately represented in this 'flawed' game could be said to have persistently false beliefs maintained despite indistputable evidence to the contrary.

In short, they're deluded. :smallwink: But, ofcourse, they have a right to post their disappointment in the flawed game being flawed for discussion.

Just so you know, Swordguy, I'm not really from Sparta, Greece; I didnt go through martial training at 7. I went to a school with Spartans as a mascot, so I'm a Spartan that way. I'm also a Phoenix, but dont be afraid of getting burned :smallbiggrin:

Swordguy

2007-03-19, 04:26 PM

Just so you know, Swordguy, I'm not really from Sparta, Greece; I didnt go through martial training at 7. I went to a school with Spartans as a mascot, so I'm a Spartan that way. I'm also a Phoenix, but dont be afraid of getting burned :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, I know. I read your sig. It was just kinda funny.

Mike_G

2007-03-19, 04:30 PM

The point of the article is to mention that D&D does a reasonable job at modeling reality at lower levels. I agree. However, there is an inherent disconnect between what people are able to do in real life and what they are able to do in the game. These disconnects occur almost exclusively when relating to combat skills. In more or less every other aspect, it models things with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

I agree completely, ut D&D combat is very abstracted for ease of use. You could go nuts with combat rules, and I've seen some impressive systems, but they are all fairly complex.

Levels will always be an issue, but they're too intrisic to D&D to untangle them It would be great of you could put experience into skills, OR increasing HP OR learning feats, Or getting new spells, OR increasing your resistnace to stuff, but the level system is a useful abstraction for the game 5th level charcters are better at everything that 1st level characters. This makes the DM's job easier, as far as challenges.

Some of us wish that the rules could correctly (or at least more reasonably) model combat as well as skills/attributes. The RAW are inconsistent in this, and among those of us who do the real thing for a living, it can be annoying.

Once again, those games exist, but they are comlex. We made a homebrew combat sytem to model rapier fighting, with specific manuvers like Point In Line, Feints, Beats, Offhand Parry granting a bonus to Main Hand Counter attack, etc, each taking certain amounts of "actions" in a roundless system. It worked great for Swashbuckling type campaigns, but was a lot of work, and not well suited to fighting dragons or oozes.

The article even points out that some systems work better for low level stuff, but fall dow on high level, or vice ersa. It's point is that D&D works for both, if you see "normal" humans as 1-3, with exceptional humans as 4-5th. The stuff taht 16th evle characters can do is superhuman, since they pretty much are.

BTW, since the logical response to that is "well, it's your game - house-rule it!", I point out that A) we shouldn't have to, B) we may not want to, and C) this is a discussion board. We're discussing. Being snippy with people "...is this news to you" will only make them far more sarcastic than you could ever imagine.

Well, D&D as a system was not written by Olympic archers or fencers or professional swordsmen, or Navy SEALs. The game is meant to quickly and fairly simply simulate combat, and is abstract enough to work if you think that way.

For a grittier, more realistic sytem, you do have to house rule it.

As far as the article, the point is that D&D is believable if Conan is 6th level. All the stuff he ever does in any of the stories could be done by a 6th level PC with levels of Barbarian, Rogue and Fighter. A 20th level Conan by D&D rules is far far tougher than any charcter in any book, and is in fact, pretty much a superhero. Same with Aragorn or Fafhrd or The Grey Mouser, or whatever. Fictional wizards are harder to portray unless the story using a D&D style of magic, which isn't very common, so we simply can't say "Gandalf was a 10th level Wizard." If he were, he'd have Teleported to Mount Doom, and Telekenesed the Ring into the fire, and then gone home.

I think the article is a good perspective on how you can look at D&D.

Swordguy

2007-03-19, 05:47 PM

Overall I think the article is a good perspective on how you can look at D&D.

I agree with this sentiment completely.

I just makes it REALLY hard to do "avatar" games.

The thing that sucks about high-level play is that there is no frame of reference outside of comic books besides high-level play itself.

Yahzi

2007-03-19, 09:55 PM

Mounted Combat
Ride-by Attack
<buncha stuff that adds to AC>
<buncha stuff that adds to attack>
You're a 3rd level human fighter with horse riding training, a STR of 16, and a DEX of 14.

There.

Modeled.

:smallbiggrin:

I mean, you have practiced with so many weapons it begs to be modeled as simply BAB. You get a +2 with all weapons. Ya, that sounds good to me.

Edit: Bah! I see this was already said. <mumble grumble>

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-28, 03:49 PM

I originally wrote a much longer reply to multiple points made in this thread, but it got eaten when I tried to post it. :smallfrown: So, instead, I'm just going to hit a couple of highlights that have been overlooked:

The mounted combat tree is another one. Any cavalryman will have the Mounted Combat and Ride-by-attack feats at a minimum (as those are kind of the point of being on a horse), and a nobleman/knight should have the Mounted Archery and Spirited Charge feat as well.

A note on Ride-by Attack, because it's so typical of people's deflated expectations: Anyone can get on a horse, charge somebody with a lance, and then continue riding. It will take them two rounds, but they can do it without any problem whatsoever. The only thing Ride-by Attack lets you do is do all of that without ever giving the other guy a chance to take a swing at you.

Oh, and on Mounted Combat - you really can do what it says. Part of training is learning how to avoid taking hits to your mount. In history, it's cause mounts are bloody expensive. Nowadays, it's because PETA will sue you into oblivion if a horse gets scratched. Different reasons; same result. Learn to keep your horse safe.There are options in the core rules which will help you defend your mount. The Aid Another option for one.

(I'm actually working on a mounted combat supplement right now. Is fighting defensively while on a mount covered in the core rules or is that something I added? The more I think about it, the more I'm sure I added that.)

We have a similar thing going on in homebrew while trying to model Spartans. Specifically, if they have any feat at all, they have the Formation Fighting Tactical Feat. Unfortunately, that's a minimum 6th level Fighter you're looking at to get it. It's way too high a level by almost any stretch of the imagination for a rank-and-file fighter (fighter 3 I'd buy), but the feat accurately models what the Spartans were the best at.The splatbooks have an unfortunate tendency for statting up maneuvers which anyone should be able to try and, instead, making them feat-only. This abandons the laudable principle in the core rules of allowing people to try anything they should reasonably be able to try, while offering a feat to make them even better at it.

That being said. I think you'd be better off looking at the Phalanx Fighting feat from Complete Warrior instead of the Formation Fighting tactical feat if you're looking for a feat to model Spartan phalanx fighting.

I think a half speed XP rate lets you get comfortable with your new feats and features as you gain levels.

This is what I've been using for a couple of campaigns now with great success.

Even though I fully understood the reasons behind the XP advancement changes in 3rd Edition (the ability to get from 1st to 20th level in a typical campaign as determined by WotC's exhaustive marketing survey), I was still shocked to see what was happening: Levels gained essentially every session.

I've long held the campaign structure of THE MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP as really ideal: Completely open, with the PCs charting their own course. This structure proves impossible with 3rd Edition advancement mechanics: When presented with two different forks, by the time the PCs finish one fork the other option will have become a complete cake walk for them.

And, at the same time, the players themselves were never given a chance to adjust to their characters new abilities. The paradigm really does shift in D&D, and with such rapid advancement the paradigm was literally shifting ever 2-3 weeks.

I think Alexandrian may be a bit disingenuous when it comes to assigning the Skill Focus feat to all of the skills he uses as an example. The feat is required to make the numbers support his thesis, but what happens when you start looking at athletes who are good at more than one skill? Do world class triathletes really have three to four feats? (Skill Focus: Ride, Skill Focus: Swim, and Endurance or potentially Run)

Why not? As a 4th level human you're going to have three general feats. Why wouldn't we assume that an Olympic athlete is going to have those feats dedicated to their sport?

But even if you allow for the feats, skills aren't really where D&D loses realism. It's more fundamental. The disparity of power levels caused by the level system (and specifically HD, AB, & Saves) is simply too large. Even if you limit your "human" range to the first five levels, hit dice alone make a fifth level fighter nearly unkillable to any first level character. Then add the Fort save bonus and your fifth level character will survive far more diseases and poisons than the first level...even if they have the same general health / constitution.A 5th level character, remember, is Miyamoto Musashi. They really are nearly unbeatable by a 1st level character. Put a 1st level character into the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammed Ali in their prime: The 1st level character isn't going to stand a chance.

You'll also find that physical fitness will improve your odds against most diseases and poisons (above and beyond your natural resistance as indicated by your base Constitution score). It would make for an interesting article to see how well +4 to +6 skew in Fortitude maps to real world values.

Prestige classes bug me. If we adjust our outlook as the article suggests, then PrCs can only be take by people who are absolutely amazing in their abilities. We could view Prestige Classes as a way for the best to become diversified, but there's a problem that doesn't fix. Often these classes are associated with organizations. Yes, membership in the Assassin's Guild doesn't require being an Assassin, but what about the Red Wizards and their spell sharing?

I don't know of any Red Wizards sharing spells in the real world, off-hand, so I'd say you'd be pretty safe assuming that Red Wizards are all well beyond the ken of the mortal world. :smallwink:

If I move straight forward and straight back the way I came, sure. If I move past my opponent and turn to face them from the other side, or if I strike and circle 90 degrees, I've left my 5' square. But by RAW, I can't do that (except possibly by taking a 5' step, which I can't do if I had to move any distance to reach them in the first place.)People seem to get caught up by the artificial distinctions of the combat round.

Here's what actually happened: You moved up to him and attacked on one round. Then, on the next round, you moved past him and attacked again. You may have thrown a Tumble check in there to avoid the attack of opportunity you generated.

Spring Attack is a much more amazing feat than that. Spring Attack says that you're so amazingly good at moving around on the battlefield that no one -- literally no one -- can ever take a swing at you while you're moving around. If you're in a duel with Cyrano de Bergerac, he still can't take a swing at you. If you've got Spring Attack, you're just that good.

I don't want to disparage your skills, but I feel fairly confident in saying that you're not that good.

I would argue that Gandalf has roughly five levels of wizard, possibly more, and several levels of other classes. For example, he fought fairly well in hand to hand combat, indicating levels of some melee class.

Calibrate your expectations.

Let's put aside Gandalf for the moment, because he's clearly not a 5th level wizard: He's a demigod cloaked in human form, and the exact parameters of his powers are never truly defined in LOTR. How much of his limitations are a part of the form he has assumed? How much is because of rules of engagement beyond our mortal ken? How much because he feels it to be important for the mortal races to succeed or fail on their own merits? Impossible to say and easy to argue a dozen different ways.

But is a 5th level wizard really all that bad at combat? He's a got a +2 BAB. That's as good as a 2nd level fighter. And the rest just comes down to a question of how resources are allocated.

Ahhhh...we've come full circle. The article mentions that there's no way a "normal" human can be level 20, which is what it would take to get those 4 shots off in a round. If he's a once-in-a-lifetime fighter (as in the article), he's got a BAB of +5. No extra attacks (Rapid shot notwithstanding). We're back to real-world humans able to demonstrate abilities that the RAW don't cover.There has to be some acceptance that the mechanics are abstracted. I mentioned this at the very beginning of the essay.

In this case, you're looking at Rapid Shot. And you're looking at a difference between a combat system which, for playability reasons, looks at what people can accomplish at a pace they are capable of maintaining instead of what they could accomplish in short bursts.

This guy did four arrows in 6 seconds. Could he keep that pace up for thirty seconds? A minute? Two minutes? Or would he slow down to the point where his average is closer to the two arrows per 6 seconds that a low-level D&D character can accomplish consistently over and over and over again?

In my own house rules I include optional rules for "extra effort" -- representing those short bursts of extraordinary effort, in exchange for which the character becomes fatigued -- in order to compensate for this particular abstraction of the system.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

EDIT: Removed unnecessary snark. The sarcastic humor was not translating well over the textual medium upon rereading it.

Gamebird

2007-03-28, 04:12 PM

Wait a second... you're the guy who wrote the original article? Wow, coolness!

Hey, you looking for a game in St. Paul?

LotharBot

2007-03-28, 04:16 PM

Here's what actually happened: You moved up to him and attacked on one round. Then, on the next round, you moved past him and attacked again.

Except that, over the course of a minute (10 rounds) I move past the guy, around the guy, across the room, whatever way more than 10 times. You've got to really work to somehow shoehorn what I actually do into D&D without certain feats.

Spring Attack says that you're so amazingly good at moving around on the battlefield that no one -- literally no one -- can ever take a swing at you while you're moving around.Using Spring Attack, your movement "does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the defender you attack, though it might provoke attacks of opportunity from other creatures, if appropriate." (Mobility, one of the prereqs, gives you a +4 to AC against AoO's caused by movement, but it doesn't block the AoO's entirely.)

And, of course, the other guy can take swings at me using his round worth of actions or readied actions. Avoiding AoO's doesn't mean you don't get swung at -- it just means the other guy doesn't get EXTRA chances to hit you above and beyond what he gets from his normal attacks. (Speaking of the "artificial distinctions of the combat round"... has anyone even attempted to address this one? Why does the guy get extra chances to do damage if I come in, swing at him, and pull back, vs. if I come in, swing, and stay there?)

-----

It's easy to sit here and argue about a single feat or a single skill or whatever, and there's a lot of that going on. The point, though, is not really to get too caught up in that individual feat. The point is that, when you're trying to calibrate your expectations, it's hard because a lot of the game world says "once-in-a-lifetime" types are level 5, but there are certain things ordinary people can do that are tough to model at that level. The system does a great job of mapping the "most impressive" thing a character can do, and "level 5 = once-in-a-lifetime hero" fits really well there... but the system does a much poorer job of mapping the breadth of tasks individuals can succeed at in their lifetime.

Have you ever seen those threads where people try to model themselves as D&D characters? In my experience, they tend to list themselves as level 10 or 12 -- not because they think they're better than Aragorn, but because they can't find enough skill points and feats to demonstrate the things they're able to do until they've taken that many levels. That's a shortcoming of the system, and it's the main reason why people have a hard time understanding the article's simple, correct message. It's true that a level 5 character with the right focus would be a once-in-a-lifetime whatever... but they won't have enough skill points or feats left over to have any hobbies they're better than average at.

EDIT: I see you're the guy who wrote the article. Let me say this as clearly as I can, then: I'm not disagreeing with the article. In fact, I agree 100% with the main conclusions of the article, and with every example given. All I'm saying is, the D&D system as a whole doesn't account for the breadth of abilities non-adventurers generally have, which is why people's expectations are so far off that they need recalibrated in the first place.

Gamebird

2007-03-28, 04:43 PM

One of these problems with scaling is that the system only works in one direction. If the average joe is 1st level, then one wonders how to represent a child. If a level 1 wizard with average CON has 4 hp, one wonders why a 1 pound rat has 1 hp.

Etc. The system represents people as the basic starting point and then gets more powerful with higher levels, dragons, monsters, etc., which confounds the mind when you try to apply it to the real world, where people are the toughest there is (excepting niche circumstances) and dogs, cats, lions and horses go down from there in ability.

Truwar

2007-03-28, 05:00 PM

A 5th level character, remember, is Miyamoto Musashi. They really are nearly unbeatable by a 1st level character. Put a 1st level character into the ring with a Mike Tyson or Muhammed Ali in their prime: The 1st level character isn't going to stand a chance.

Your basis of logic is flawed here. Let’s take Musashi for example. If you accept that a lv 1 samurai is a newly minted green bean that has received training but never seen a real fight in his life or is as incompetent as it is possible to be and still be called a samurai, you could not possibly say Musashi (i.e. the BEST samurai) is only lv 5. Your scale is simply too short. There are plenty of samurai out there that could beat the “new kid” (the lv 1 samurai) with out breaking a sweat that would not stand a chance against guys Musashi could beat on a regular basis. Heck you could probably spread that out even further.

Maybe it would be easier if we took Muhammed Ali. At the bottom of our scale is an lv boxer that has just finished his boxing class at the local community college. He now knows enough to almost always beat the average Joe Schmoe off the street in a boxing match.

A step up the ladder is the amateur competitive boxer. He fights fairly regularly and wins a lot of the time. Mr. Community College is going to get eaten alive by this guy is they step in the ring together. But he would in turn get crushed by…

The Golden Gloves boxer. This guy is pretty dang good; he has talent and has won quite a few fights. He may be good but he does not stand a chance against…

The Pro Boxer. This guy is a bruiser he is good enough to make a living boxing and is probably close to an Olympic level athlete. But these guys get beat all the time by…

The Contender. This guy is one of the best out there. He chews up and sits out about twenty or thirty pro boxers to get where he is but he still always loses to…

The Champ. This guy IS the best. There is nobody that can beat him in the sport right now. He regularly crushes former Olympians and really good pro boxers. Pro Boxers that could easily destroy golden gloves boxers (who could crush Mr. Community College easily) are not even considered worth his time; in fact fans would be outraged by such a boring match up.

The thing is the champ is not even Ali or Tyson. Those guys (in their prime) were Legendary Champs. They were so much better than the run of the mill champs that people talked about them for years afterward.

Five levels are simply not enough to cover that large a divide in skill.

Krellen

2007-03-28, 05:01 PM

Well, I could certainly build myself with about 2 levels of Expert - sure, I don't have a Bacheleors, but I do have an Associates and five rather vital technical certifications, plus multiple years of work experience. People are probably overestimating themselves if they feel a need to be level 10 or 12.

Dervag

2007-03-28, 05:23 PM

Calibrate your expectations.

Let's put aside Gandalf for the moment, because he's clearly not a 5th level wizard: He's a demigod cloaked in human form, and the exact parameters of his powers are never truly defined in LOTR. How much of his limitations are a part of the form he has assumed? How much is because of rules of engagement beyond our mortal ken? How much because he feels it to be important for the mortal races to succeed or fail on their own merits? Impossible to say and easy to argue a dozen different ways.I think you misunderstood my point slightly.

My point was that Gandalf cannot be modeled as having less than five levels in wizard plus (probably) some extra levels in other classes.

If a 5th-level character represents the limit of realistic human ability, then this makes sense. A demigod in human form should have a combined level higher than five. I don't know what his actual level is, but it should be higher than five.

We know that Gandalf the White could easily have mopped the floor with Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas combined in the Two Towers. We know that he could stalemate in a debate with Saruman, who clearly had a Diplomacy skill pushed beyond the limits of what is possible in ordinary humans. Et cetera.

Now, if we lived in a world where powerful 'mortal' characters routinely reached level 15-20, we'd probably have to model Gandalf as being low epic-level. But we don't. So what I'm saying is that the lower bound on Gandalf's power has to be such that he is higher level than any normal human: six or more character levels. Since pretty much every bit of actual magic that Gandalf does can be modeled as a spell of third level or lower, it seems reasonable for him to have five levels of wizard plus some levels of something else.

Sure, he could have powers vastly in excess of anything he ever displays in the book, except for being hinted at in his duel with the Balrog. But if he can be satisfactorily modeled as, say, a Wizard 5/Fighter ?, why worry about that?

But is a 5th level wizard really all that bad at combat? He's a got a +2 BAB. That's as good as a 2nd level fighter. And the rest just comes down to a question of how resources are allocated.Well, Gandalf is proficient with a sword that in D&D terms would probably be a long sword. If he were being modeled in D&D, that would require a specific feat for a wizard. I don't know which feats Gandalf would have, but I think it would make more sense to say that he has at least one level in fighter or some prestige class that grants martial weapon proficiency, rather than requiring him to spend a special feat to use his sword.

Again, he's superhuman, so he has more than five levels to burn.

Incidentally, I'm inclined to second what Trewar says about the shortening of the scale. Very few of those supremely talented real people focus so singlemindedly on one thing that they're incompetent at everything else, which is what it takes to reach legendary skill levels at the fifth character level. However, I don't think you have to stretch the scale past, say, level 8 to remove the problem.

Gamebird

2007-03-28, 05:26 PM

Five levels are simply not enough to cover that large a divide in skill.

But it's stranger than that. The d20 of random chance makes a huge difference at any point where there's not much other difference between foes. And +5, in terms of D&D probability, isn't much difference. A master can be pretty easily beaten by a lucky novice. Does that fit our understanding of real life? For combat, it's hard to prove decisively, but your boxing example is a good one. These guys fight lots of bouts and the difference in skill is clear, present and observable.

It certainly doesn't hold up in realms that are easily controlled and repeatable, like skill checks. Einstein will be out-smarted by total n00bs to physics quite a bit and moreso when posed with a particularly difficult problem he actually has to roll for.

Can Kasparov be beaten more than 1% of the time by unskilled players?

Jacob Orlove

2007-03-28, 05:40 PM

Well, Gandalf is proficient with a sword that in D&D terms would probably be a long sword. If he were being modeled in D&D, that would require a specific feat for a wizard. I don't know which feats Gandalf would have, but I think it would make more sense to say that he has at least one level in fighter or some prestige class that grants martial weapon proficiency, rather than requiring him to spend a special feat to use his sword.

Again, he's superhuman, so he has more than five levels to burn.
Outsiders (which Gandalf most certainly is) actually get those martial weapon proficiencies for free if they have at least two racial hit dice (one die would get replaced by their first character level). Gandalf should be just fine as an Outsider 2/Wizard 5.

And on the boxing analogy, keep in mind that differences in ability scores can model a lot of the variation that you'd otherwise have to ascribe to levels.

The real counterpoint, though, is that combat is the central abstraction of D&D, and as such the rules promote good gameplay and elegant mechanics above perfect realism. Note that combat also suffers from the majority of the game's remaining legacy mechanics.

Jarawara

2007-03-28, 07:15 PM

I have to agree with Truwar's boxing analogy - five levels simply are not enough to reflect the range of skill from the new entry into the world of boxing, and the defending champion. GameBird adds to that analysis by pointing out the d20 luck probabilities, to the point that if Tyson was a fifth level boxer, I could go in and get lucky, and KO him on the first round!

And for that reason, I am certain we need a system of 20 levels of skill, where Ali would be 20th level, Tyson somewhat lower but with a high strength score, and the rest on the way down the scale. (I'd be honored to actually be 1st level on that scale, but I think they'd have to put 0 level characters back into the system to properly reflect me.).

Problem is, the current d20 system does not reflect Ali at 20th level. If Muhammed Ali were 20th level, he'd be a demigod who could defeat an entire US army battalion (knocking laser guided smart bombs out of the sky with his fast reflexes), then as the grand finale fight go mano e mano against Godzilla (even the martial-arts fighting Godzilla!), and be the last man standing. He'd also have legendary listen checks, instead of being partially deaf (from being hit in the head so many times).

Ali is still best reflected as a 5th level individual - we just need more levels between 1st and 5th. We need a 20 level system where the 20th level individual is on par with the average D&D 5th level character - then we'll have the flexibility to show the various levels of skill, without making demigods.

Thoughts?

Mike_G

2007-03-28, 09:39 PM

You guys are way underestimating the difference in power here.

Sure, were only talking 4 points of BAB....

But no 1st level fighter can beat a 5th level Fighter. Ever.

+4 more to BAB isan't all that much -- as a to hit bouns-- but it's 4 more points to Power Attack with. Plus 5 times the HP means you can avoid and roll with five times as much abuse before dropping. You have three more feats. You can have Weapon Specialization, which is an extra 2 points of damage every hit. And you have an extra stat point that you earned at 4th.

With the +2 from Weapon Spec, and the +4 for Power Attack over the 1st level fighter, + you normal STR bonus, you should only need to hit the first level guy once.

In addition, your max ranks in any class skill are 8, versus his 4.

5th level is insanely more poweful than first, And that's Fighter, probably the worst scaling PC class.

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-29, 12:23 AM

Except that, over the course of a minute (10 rounds) I move past the guy, around the guy, across the room, whatever way more than 10 times. You've got to really work to somehow shoehorn what I actually do into D&D without certain feats.

What style of combat are we talking about here? If you're talking regularly about covering more than 100 feet per minute (after discounting minor adjustments which fall either into the purview of a 5-foot step or no action at all), then this is some style of combat I'm utterly unfamiliar with.

Look at boxing for example. The ring is generally only 20 feet across. I don't see boxers running literally from one end of the ring to the other 5 times every minute.

WWE wrestling, maybe, but that's more a use of the Perform skill check than the combat mechanics. ;)

Have you ever seen those threads where people try to model themselves as D&D characters? In my experience, they tend to list themselves as level 10 or 12 -- not because they think they're better than Aragorn, but because they can't find enough skill points and feats to demonstrate the things they're able to do until they've taken that many levels.

These threads are actually something I thought about discussing in the essay. They aren't all that useful for gauging the actual reality modeled by the system because people come to them with a false expectation of both the system and their own capabilities.

One variant of logic I've been seeing ever since my FidoNet days goes something like this: "I'm really smart, so I must have an Intelligence of 18. But if I've got an Intelligence of 18, that must mean that Stephen Hawking has an Intelligence of 20 or more."

EDIT: I see you're the guy who wrote the article. Let me say this as clearly as I can, then: I'm not disagreeing with the article. In fact, I agree 100% with the main conclusions of the article, and with every example given. All I'm saying is, the D&D system as a whole doesn't account for the breadth of abilities non-adventurers generally have, which is why people's expectations are so far off that they need recalibrated in the first place.

Give me an example. I mean, Experts get 6 skill points per level. How many people really have professional level competence (equivalent to a master blacksmith) in more than six skills (without a higher-than-average Intelligence to account for this polymathic achievement)?

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-29, 12:27 AM

One of these problems with scaling is that the system only works in one direction. If the average joe is 1st level, then one wonders how to represent a child.

STAR WARS included children and young adults on their Aging Effects table (I dunno why this wasn't picked up for 3.5):

Child: -3 to Str and Con; -1 to Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha
Young Adult: -1 to Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha

If I was doing it, I'd probably give the child a bigger wallop to Intelligence (since this has the nice ancillary benefit of lowering their skill points). But since the goal of Star Wars in including these guidelines was probably to make playable child heroes (ala Anakin in Episode I), realistically nerfing the kids would probably not work.

But for a 1st level character, that -1 penalty to Intelligence represents 4 skill points. And as I hopefully showed in the essay, those 4 skill points make a big difference: Something as simple as a +2 bonus really does make a 1st level dwarven blacksmith a master craftsman compared to a 1st level human.

Etc. The system represents people as the basic starting point and then gets more powerful with higher levels, dragons, monsters, etc., which confounds the mind when you try to apply it to the real world, where people are the toughest there is (excepting niche circumstances) and dogs, cats, lions and horses go down from there in ability.

This depends on what abilities you're talking about. We're not nearly as strong as a horse and our natural weapons are not nearly as deadly as a dog's.

If a level 1 wizard with average CON has 4 hp, one wonders why a 1 pound rat has 1 hp.

First, a disclaimer: Trying to precisely analyze hit points is a fool's errand. The system is a very well-designed abstraction which compiles every natural talent or characteristic which would help minimize, mitigate, or withstand damage and throws it all into one big pool.

This is great for gameplay: It's effective, simple, and produces fun combats. But it's absolutely worthless if you want some sort of mechanic to tell you exactly what a particular blow was like: The system won't tell you whether you survived the blow because you're good at sucking up damage; too stubborn-minded to fall unconscious; skilled at turning a blow aside; blessed by the gods; or just plain lucky.

IMO, this abstraction is great: Not only does it streamline gameplay, it also leaves the field wide open for whatever description seems appropriate and dramatic at the moment.

Now, with all that being said:

A rat has 1 hp; a wizard has 4 hp. That means that the wizard can take a blow 4x as powerful as a blow which would incapacitate a rat.

This is actually a significant difference. Take a typical dagger thrust from a person with average strength. It causes 1d4 points of damage. Any solid blow from this dagger will leave the rat disabled or dying. But for the wizard, while a single thrust of the blade still poses a meaningful risk (even without a critical, it can still leave them disabled and in danger of bleeding to death), most of the time they will not suffer a mortal wound.

The more deadly the weapon, the less likely there is to be a difference in result, of course. For example, if you shoot the two of them with a hunting rifle (2d10 according to D20 Modern), they're both pretty likely to die -- but that's just because the hunting rifle is likely to leave an impressive hole in the wizard's chest while leaving nothing but a bloody smear where the rat was. (I exaggerate slightly here.)

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-29, 01:11 AM

Maybe it would be easier if we took Muhammed Ali. At the bottom of our scale is an lv boxer that has just finished his boxing class at the local community college. He now knows enough to almost always beat the average Joe Schmoe off the street in a boxing match.

I'm going to snip the bulk of your post, but you seem to be looking for a rung which looks like this:

Joe Schmoe
Community College
Amateur Competitive Boxer
Golden Gloves Boxer
Pro Boxer
Contender
Champ
Legendary Champ

Five levels are simply not enough to cover that large a divide in skill.Fortunately, we're not limited to merely levels.

Joe Schmoe is a 1st level Commoner. He's got an attack bonus of +0 and 2 hp. His AC is 10.

Community College is a 1st level Warrior. Maybe he's a tough bruiser who's got a high Con (+1 bonus to hp) or maybe he relies on a strong right hook (+1 Strength modifier) or maybe he's just a little bit quicker on his feet (+1 Dex modifier). He's a pretty average guy, though, so only one or two of these things can be true (see the essay). Let's say that he's got the strong right hook. So he's got an attack bonus of +2 and 4 hp. His AC is 10.

Running the Numbers: Joe Schmoe is doing 1d3 points of damage when he hits (1.5 on average). Community College is doing 1d3+1 points of damage when he hits (2.5 on average). This means that Joe Schmoe will need to hit Community College an average of 4 times to knock him out and he can't knock out Community College in a single blow no matter what. Community College, on the other hand, will only need to hit Joe Schmoe once on average to knock him out (he will never have to hit him more than twice).

Once you add in the fact that Community College is also more likely to hit Joe Schmoe, the outcome becomes pretty clear: He's going to win almost every single time.

Amateur Competitive Boxer is a 2nd level Warrior. He's got a strong right hook (+1 Strength modifier) and he can take a punch (+1 Constitution modifier). He has an attack bonus of +3 and 11 hp. His AC is 10.

Both Community College (CC) and Amateur Competitive Boxer (ACB) are doing 1d3+1 points of damage when they connect (2.5 on average). CC needs to hit ACB an average of 5 times to knock him out, while ACB needs to hit CC an average of 2 times to knock him out.

This more than 2-to-1 advantage in required punches, however, doesn't translate into ACB merely winning 2 out of every 3 matches. It means that ACB wins nearly every single time.

A full analysis is beyond the time I have available right now, but you can get an inkling of ACB's advantage thusly: Imagine that you flip a coin four times. After flipping it four times, you have a 75% chance of having flipped two or more heads.

(You can look at http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56664.html for a full probability tree if you don't believe me, although you should note that they're solving for a different problem there.)

So, dealing with strictly average damage, if ACB had only a 50% chance of hitting (actually he has a 65% chance of hitting), he would have knocked CC out 75% of the time before CC ever had a chance to knock him out.

Similarly, after two rounds, ACB already has a 42% chance of knocking CC out -- and, not taking critical hits into account, CC doesn't have any chance at all of doing that.

I can go on like this: GGBs are 1st or 2nd level fighters with a supporting feat. Pro Boxers are definitely 2nd level and dedicate all their feats. Contenders are 3rd level and get the elite array. Champs are 4th level. Legendary champs are 5th level and get better than the elite array of stats.

Hit points are also likely to begin trending above average. And it should be noted that there are multiple ways to model these fighters -- different combinations of feats and ability scores and the like to model different fighting styles and strengths and weaknesses.

(Finally, a disclaimer: Like a lot of competitive sports, the D&D combat system is not going to be very effective at modeling a boxing match out of the box. For example, there is no convenient way of modeling someone being knocked down. D&D has a similar problem with jousting: It's modeling lethal combat and chooses its abstractions accordingly. These abstractions do not always account for the subtleties which lead to scoring in competitive sports.)

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-29, 01:23 AM

But it's stranger than that. The d20 of random chance makes a huge difference at any point where there's not much other difference between foes. And +5, in terms of D&D probability, isn't much difference. A master can be pretty easily beaten by a lucky novice. Does that fit our understanding of real life? For combat, it's hard to prove decisively, but your boxing example is a good one. These guys fight lots of bouts and the difference in skill is clear, present and observable.

The trick in combat is that hit points are ablative and, as a result, small differences in AC, attack bonuses, and hit point totals will significantly shift the typical outcome (see my previous post).

It certainly doesn't hold up in realms that are easily controlled and repeatable, like skill checks. Einstein will be out-smarted by total n00bs to physics quite a bit and moreso when posed with a particularly difficult problem he actually has to roll for.

If it's a physics problem that Einstein actually has to role for, then the "total n00b" will never be able to achieve that result.

For example, Einstein (+15 Knowledge bonus) would need to be looking at a DC 26 check before he couldn't take 10 (and he'll still succeed 50% of the time). The "total n00b" would need at least a +6 Knowledge bonus to even have a chance, and they'd still only know the answer 5% of the time. This means that this "total n00b" (who actually has a considerable base of knowledge, since he can take 10 on DC 15 questions) only has a 2.5% chance of knowing the answer to a DC 26 question that Einstein doesn't know the answer to.

And given what such dice rolls represent, this may suggest nothing more than that the "total n00b" was reading an article about this particular bit of esoterica yesterday.

Can Kasparov be beaten more than 1% of the time by unskilled players?

A game like Chess is not well-represented by a single check. A full game of Chess actually represents several successful skill checks accumulated over time.

I have to agree with Truwar's boxing analogy - five levels simply are not enough to reflect the range of skill from the new entry into the world of boxing, and the defending champion. GameBird adds to that analysis by pointing out the d20 luck probabilities, to the point that if Tyson was a fifth level boxer, I could go in and get lucky, and KO him on the first round!

That is... well, that's just not possible. There is absolutely no way for a 1st level character to walk into a ring and land a single lucky punch on a 5th level fighter that knocks them out: The 5th level fighter has too many hit points.

Another 5th level fighter with the proper training? Maybe. But it would be one heckuva lucky shot.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Cyborg Pirate

2007-03-29, 01:30 AM

What style of combat are we talking about here? If you're talking regularly about covering more than 100 feet per minute (after discounting minor adjustments which fall either into the purview of a 5-foot step or no action at all), then this is some style of combat I'm utterly unfamiliar with.

Look at boxing for example. The ring is generally only 20 feet across. I don't see boxers running literally from one end of the ring to the other 5 times every minute.

WWE wrestling, maybe, but that's more a use of the Perform skill check than the combat mechanics. ;)

Boxing is a very poor example. As are most modern sports.

In a fight with weapons, the best angle for attack is often at a near 45 degree angle away from where you approach (as seen from your opponent´s point of view). People may not move completely past each other during evey fight, but they will usually move Around each other during the course of a fight. Most good martial training also have it in their basic program to teach you how to attack someone and end up on the other side of their person, allowing you to either easily walk away or easily reach whatever that person was guarding.

DnD also badly portrays the dynamic of a fight. In a fight, it's a game of initiative. You're trying to reach your opponent by attacking and moving forward and then trying to make your second attack or third attack fast enough to hit your opponent. Your opponent in return is expecting that first attack, and it hoping to be able to counter fast enough to hit you instead.

This initiative game means that often one of the two might not commit to the fight yet if one of the two does not feel secure that he's concentrated enough for an attack/counter, and can lead to the pair practically 'dancing' all over a room in a matter of seconds trying to gauge the right time to move in.

Moving back and forth and around one another is in my opinion just very badly done in DnD. A fighter shouldn't be standing on the spot hitting someone infront of him all the time, a fighter should be entering a whirling dance of death that takes him all over the room when he enters combat.

And while were near that subject, something that always bothers me: Why on earth is it strenght to hit in DnD? How do you guys al rationalise that when just looking at that basic mechanic screams "WRONG" in every bone in your body?

Don't get me wrong Justin, I liked reading your article and it's quite good for calibrating one's expectations for the game, but I don't agree that DnD can accurately model people at lower levels.

One question I'm left with tho: If lvl5 is supposed to represent near superhuman, how on earth am I supposed to envision lvl10 and above?

Jacob Orlove

2007-03-29, 02:13 AM

One question I'm left with tho: If lvl5 is supposed to represent near superhuman, how on earth am I supposed to envision lvl10 and above?
You basically have to switch genres and start looking at the characters as superheroes, in terms of what they can accomplish.

its_all_ogre

2007-03-29, 04:35 AM

backing up justin (you beat me to the differing classes too :-( )
remember that in real life we 'restructure' ourselves rather like the phb2 retraining model.
like you hit 20 and get into fitness and that leads to martial arts, in the next three years your stats change as you get fitter, you probably reassign your 'feats' to compensate, meanwhile you get a bit rusty on things that used to be your hobbies, represented by lowering ability scores that pertain to that area and loss of feats/skill points.
boxing also has bluff and sense motive skills attached, dummy feats etc.
IRL physical exercise changes your base stats. i prefer to think of all people as having 10 in all stats and then they way you live your life changes that, an extreme manner of living (physical or mental) accesses the elite array otherwise you have the 8-13 array.
if you think of it in the rebuilding yourself way it works better.
especially when the very best athletes suffer serious drops in performance from just a short time not training (losses in str/dex/con or skill points).
dnd is very static in this regard.

JadedDM

2007-03-29, 05:22 AM

One variant of logic I've been seeing ever since my FidoNet days goes something like this: "I'm really smart, so I must have an Intelligence of 18. But if I've got an Intelligence of 18, that must mean that Stephen Hawking has an Intelligence of 20 or more."

Man, ain't that the truth. I remember once my players and I tried to stat ourselves out. I think of myself as being fairly intelligent, although I wouldn't say I'm a genius or anything. I gave myself a 14 for INT and a 15 for WIS, although I felt that may be a little generous on my part. One of my players, though (who was like 10 years younger than me) gave himself 18 INT and 17 WIS. When I questioned him on this (as he was not only implying he was a genius but also significantly smarter than me, despite the fact he had not even finished high school yet), he claimed it was perfectly reasonable and I was simply short-changing myself. :smallamused:

marjan

2007-03-29, 05:29 AM

Well actualy you would be very close (if not already) to genius with 14 int and 12 int is above average.

JadedDM

2007-03-29, 05:49 AM

Actually, this was all in 2E, where 14 is considered 'highly intelligent' and 18 is considered 'genius', at least according to the MM. But that was my point anyway. I felt that giving myself a 14 might be a little big-headed of me, but then this kid gives himself an 18.

Gamebird

2007-03-29, 09:32 AM

As a tangential note, I've been happier playing in a game where I've advanced one level after 8 games than I was before advancing 3 levels in the same time. I like actually getting used to a level before having to redo character sheets.

Saph

2007-03-29, 09:39 AM

And while were near that subject, something that always bothers me: Why on earth is it strenght to hit in DnD?

Because in D&D hitting represents not only being on target but also bashing through your opponent's armour and defences.

- Saph

its_all_ogre

2007-03-29, 09:43 AM

saph beat me to it. also it is an attempt to some degree at keeping stats roughly equally useful (barring cha many would argue)
if dex was to hit for all attacks then barbarians would lose out somewhat and most melee warrior types would do less damage over all.

Justin_Bacon

2007-03-29, 10:42 AM

In a fight with weapons, the best angle for attack is often at a near 45 degree angle away from where you approach (as seen from your opponent´s point of view). People may not move completely past each other during evey fight, but they will usually move Around each other during the course of a fight. Most good martial training also have it in their basic program to teach you how to attack someone and end up on the other side of their person, allowing you to either easily walk away or easily reach whatever that person was guarding.

5-foot steps and Tumble checks.

DnD also badly portrays the dynamic of a fight. In a fight, it's a game of initiative. You're trying to reach your opponent by attacking and moving forward and then trying to make your second attack or third attack fast enough to hit your opponent. Your opponent in return is expecting that first attack, and it hoping to be able to counter fast enough to hit you instead.

This is all abstracted into the die rolls. I can understand the desire that someone who's really interested in swordfighting can have in modeling a more complex dynamic when it comes to swordfighting, but that doesn't mean that the abstract system isn't accurate -- it's just more abstract.

And the reasons D&D chooses that more abstract system is because D&D isn't just modeling a swordfight: For easy and relatively non-complex gameplay, D&D subsumes all types of combat into essentially a single resolution mechanic.

Moving back and forth and around one another is in my opinion just very badly done in DnD. A fighter shouldn't be standing on the spot hitting someone infront of him all the time, a fighter should be entering a whirling dance of death that takes him all over the room when he enters combat.

In my experience 5' steps are frequently taken in practice in attempts to achieve flanking positions. This means that a typical combat will range over at least a 20' square area. That's actually a fairly huge area.

And while were near that subject, something that always bothers me: Why on earth is it strenght to hit in DnD? How do you guys al rationalise that when just looking at that basic mechanic screams "WRONG" in every bone in your body?

It's important to remember that the typical "to hit" roll in D&D is better understood to be a "to damage" roll: You're not checking to see whether you made physical contact, you're checking to see if you connected with another physical force to actually inflict a meaningful (and potentially lethal) blow on the other guy.

Strength, obviously, factors into that.

Now, there are a couple of arguments that can be made from this:

1. Shouldn't Dexterity figure into it, too? Sure. And you could try to accomplish this with something like adding half your Dex modifier and half your Strength modifier to the attack roll.

There are two reasons the game doesn't do this: First, the complexity of it. (It's not horrendously complex in a conceptual sense, but it will have a noticeable impact when it comes to the on-the-fly running of the actual game.) Second, game balance. They don't want fighters to have to invest themselves into three different stats (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) in order to be effective with a sword.

2. What about touch attacks? Here you've got a perfectly valid argument. There is absolutely no reason why touch attacks shouldn't be resolved with Dexterity and not Strength. I have absolutely no explanation for why this isn't already the case.

In fact, I'll go one step further and make a radical suggestion: Ditch the Weapon Finesse feat. Let character use either their Dexterity or their Strength to make an attack roll (with the decision representing a distinction in how they fight).

This doesn't seem to have any meaningful impact on game play. Strength isn't going to become a dump stat because you still need Strength for the damage roll.

One question I'm left with tho: If lvl5 is supposed to represent near superhuman, how on earth am I supposed to envision lvl10 and above?

How do you envision Gandalf or Superman or Reed Richards or Zeus?

Zeus is more than level 10, but his powerful elements aren't exactly intellectual. Which is where the problem comes in: It's easy to imagine what it would be like to be the Hulk. It's more difficult to imagine what it would be like to be possessed of superhuman intellect.

Vernor Vinge talks about the Singularity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity) and about how difficult it can be, as a writer, to deal with intelligences literally beyond human comprehension -- where a difference in quantity literally becomes a difference in kind.

This is something that the hardcore cutting edge of science fiction has been trying to cope with for at least a couple of decades now. And there are no easy answers. Most of the partial solutions which have been found deal can be aptly summed out as "by indirections find directions out" (to quote Polonius).

Fortunately, I don't think you're quite running into the inexplicable ineffability of a Singularity at high-level play. Rather, you're dancing along the scrum of it. You're in the playgrounds of the gods.

I highly suggest reading Vinge's A FIRE UPON THE DEEP or Charles Stross' SINGULARITY SKY. Also, if you can find them, the Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman MARVELMAN/MIRACLEMAN comics.

And the rules will come to your assistance. It may also be valuable to realize that this is merely a question of scale: Even at 1st level, most people will be capable of playing characters with intellectual capacities far in excess of their own.

Don't get me wrong Justin, I liked reading your article and it's quite good for calibrating one's expectations for the game,

And just so were' on the same page, I'm not here to defend my essay from critics (although I will answer questions and concerns). I simply find this type of discussion innately valuable in understanding the game, because multiple points of view shed light on it from directions I would never anticipate.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net