Musings over Raw Power and Auto Progression vs. WBL

[GrayDeath]

Now a few threads about this seem to be up pretty much always, so I thought how about we put it into one thread.

Assumptions that are true for this thread (ergo this is not to be discussed^^).
1.: Optimization is reasonable, nothing endless ever works, places that allow feat gain/reallocation only do so a not easily found out number of times, and one cannot plan for everything (ergo leave a little wiggle room).
2.: This must be valid in functioning settings. Plural. Ergo if this makes it so it needs its own setting, its out.
3.: It should still be somewhat fun to play around with them/interact with them/use it.
4.: It assumes 3.P Rules, including Mythic and Epic, but both of those are EXCEEDINGLY rare (say one in 500 Members of a PC Class achieves a Mythic Level, and less than 25 in total in the world reach mythic 10, and every Level of Epic is half the number of the people before (and no, XP are no River^^).



So, under these settings I pose the following 3 things to discuss.

A: How powerful should a mortal, breeding, intelligent and not entirely "enter Alignment x" Race be for their abilities to be high enough that in general people only mess with them if they really really have to.

b.: What would auto Progression of Bonuses/gaining of Abilities have to achieve, and around what Level, for WBL to actually NEED OP to overcome it?

C: Assuming say 5000 years and multiple PC Class capable Creatures but no "out of Context Powerful" Beings like Dragons (simply aging to become more powerful) or Demons (endless) on a World, how might the end resulkt in Civilizations look?
Who would rule what? Will there even be a conflicting Empire to "The one Race that was lucky enough regarding their inborn capabiltieis"?


Discuss.

And I`m off. Late over here.^^

[icefractal]

For the sake of convenience I'm going to call these "Leshay", after the better-than-you elves from the ELH.

By "people don't want to mess with them", which do you mean?
A) An Xth level Leshay will overpower an Xth level human, both of them having access to the same classes, but only the human has WBL.
B) An X HD Leshay (no class levels, just HD) will overpower an Xth level human, " ".
C) A 1st level Leshay will overpower any level of human.

[GrayDeath]

For the sake of convenience I'm going to call these "Leshay", after the better-than-you elves from the ELH.

By "people don't want to mess with them", which do you mean?
A) An Xth level Leshay will overpower an Xth level human, both of them having access to the same classes, but only the human has WBL.
B) An X HD Leshay (no class levels, just HD) will overpower an Xth level human, " ".
C) A 1st level Leshay will overpower any level of human.

Somewhere between high 1 and low to medium 2. But for just about ANY "Leshay"

It was late so I probably didnt explain it too well.

I want that races members to be "generally powerful enough" that if they, as a civilization, dont try to get much more powerful/never take Levels in High Power CLasses/drift through life and REQUIRE People who are intending to mess with them to be both similar Level and optimized....and would like to see where this goes/what this leads to.
(Via Auto progression, SLA`s/whatever).

How are they treated, what kind of Civilization(s) does it lead to if your race are the most powerful mortals, etc.

Sadly, just got home an hour agoe, and its after mindught over here, so....Night.

[Edea]

They will probably regard other mortals as beneath their notice and not go out of their way to interact with them.

If the "superior beings" DO start interacting with the "lesser mortals", it's likely to be a species-replacement scenario in short order, unless some other factor crops up which suddenly takes the otherwise-dominant-seeming race down a few hundred pegs (like some massive, psychically-destructive incursion from the Far Realm rendering them all insane, or the gods getting mad at them and turning them into something much less offensive, etc.).

[Psyren]

I'm not sure what you're asking. Is the question "would mortals stand enough of a chance against long-lived/immortal magic-using races without some kind of divine intervention for said mortals to form civilizations?" Because the answer to that in most if not all D&D settings appears to be "no, they wouldn't."

[GrayDeath]

They will probably regard other mortals as beneath their notice and not go out of their way to interact with them.

If the "superior beings" DO start interacting with the "lesser mortals", it's likely to be a species-replacement scenario in short order, unless some other factor crops up which suddenly takes the otherwise-dominant-seeming race down a few hundred pegs (like some massive, psychically-destructive incursion from the Far Realm rendering them all insane, or the gods getting mad at them and turning them into something much less offensive, etc.).

Probably.

The musings of "What would that take, especially taking ina ccount WBLMancy" is still up there though.


I'm not sure what you're asking. Is the question "would mortals stand enough of a chance against long-lived/immortal magic-using races without some kind of divine intervention for said mortals to form civilizations?" Because the answer to that in most if not all D&D settings appears to be "no, they wouldn't."

Ah, but I am turning it around.

I am asking How would these races have to be superior to outclass mortals with class Levels and WBL (as long as both sides of course avoid any and all even semi infinite loops). :)

[Psyren]

Ah, but I am turning it around.

I am asking How would these races have to be superior to outclass mortals with class Levels and WBL (as long as both sides of course avoid any and all even semi infinite loops). :)

I'm not sure how to answer that. Baseline, the monster races are already superior - that's why the mortals need WBL and class levels to keep up in the first place.

Monsters maintaining that superiority even after WBL and class levels are taken into account depends on too many factors to speak to broadly - such as what class levels are we talking about, or what did the mortals spend their wealth on/what gear is available, and of course the strategy and tactics employed by those mortals.

Perhaps the biggest factor is numbers - in most D&D settings, overthrowing a progenitor or oppressive race (or said race causing their own collapse) usually happens when the oppressed mortal slaves reach a critical mass in terms of population. Aboleths in Golarion, for instance, reigned supreme over early humanoids until the latter advanced enough in numbers and magic to pose a threat.