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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by LordCdrMilitant View Post
    At the very minimum, if a restless retired soldier with a greatsword, a hobo with a pointy stick and stolen crossbow, an interant evangelical firebrand preacher, a college lass/lad unable to get hired after graduation, and a young noble born with magic power having a "you don't understand my powers MOM" moment, or any other half-common character archetype can see off companies of soldiers, what's to stop literally anyone from from just deciding they don't want to pay taxes today? Anyone with a couple of years of being a murderhobo under their belt would be able to found kingdoms or overthrow them singlehandedly, and the world would be total chaos.
    That's a reversal of causality. Any of those backrounds is not the reason these individuals have exeptional skills. Having exeptional talent, education, training or a supernatural connection coupled with ambition or drive is. Leaving ordered society won't give you superpowers or the potential thereof. The vast majority of individuals with such a backround will end their lives in poverty, crime or death. The player characters are part of the minority (maybe even its full extend) of those who do have the skills for an adventurous life. In any case, the PCs are outliers, not the norm.

    The vibe I'm getting from your post is that you have a problem with powerful player charcters in general. If so, any reason why?

  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by Zombimode View Post
    That's a reversal of causality. Any of those backrounds is not the reason these individuals have exeptional skills. Having exeptional talent, education, training or a supernatural connection coupled with ambition or drive is. Leaving ordered society won't give you superpowers or the potential thereof. The vast majority of individuals with such a backround will end their lives in poverty, crime or death. The player characters are part of the minority (maybe even its full extend) of those who do have the skills for an adventurous life. In any case, the PCs are outliers, not the norm.

    The vibe I'm getting from your post is that you have a problem with powerful player charcters in general. If so, any reason why?
    I mean kinda, but the point I was making is that superpowered PC's like Sauron smashing singlehandedly through the elven battleline aren't really the default interpretation from the rules until like high level, and can also be justified from a lore perspective.

    As for any reason why I don't like superpowered PC's? As mentioned, it doesn't make sense to me how the nation would remain stable, since why would people consent to being treated like dirt, exploited for profit, and shoveling s***/begging for breadcrumbs for a living if they could take a stick and whack some goblins for enough XP to take levels in Fighter and then just keep going from there. If there's little further to fall because you're a medieval serf, there's no harm trying, and it's not actually that hard for a peasant with the NPC statblock and a staff, club, or spear in to take on a goblin. Do it 6 times, now you're a fighter and you can do it with way less risk of dying. Thus, I come to the conclusion that having class levels does not intrinsically make you an awesome superhero who can take on platoons and companies of soldiers.

    As a further note, I don't believe in chosen ones or people who are just better, so I have no incentive to change the base way the game works or justify their specialty with fluff to make that assumption true.
    Last edited by LordCdrMilitant; 2020-03-30 at 07:29 PM.
    Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades!

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by LordCdrMilitant View Post
    if they could take a stick and whack some goblins for enough XP to take levels in Fighter and then just keep going from there.
    That's assuming NPCs can XP and take PC classes. If you look at high level NPCs figthers and mages, they lack most of the class features of a PC classes [e.g priests NPCs from the MM have 3rd level spells but no turn undead].
    (Not to say level up does not really fix abilities which are significantly lower for the average NPC than for a PC.)

    While the rules does not force you toward having "chosen ones". It definitely pushes you toward a world where some peoples are gifted in very significant ways compared to others. Not everyone has an enough affinity to magic to become a spellcaster, and not everyone has enough affinity with fighting to ever become a fighter.

    And about stability of such a society: a society where everyone can level up as easily as PCs (even 5e PCs) is indeed not stable at all. Unless for some reason you need to kill [and feed yourself of their soul?] your enemy to get the XP and not just defeat him, it would be pretty easy for an army to make soldiers level up quite quickly, and the world to be ravaged by wars between super-soldiers way stronger than "Veterans" from the MM.
    Well, you can probably build a stable universe where everyone can level up, but that will not be a low-level one.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    I got a pretty stable society by postulating that there are about 500 people of level 16+ in the world, and about 10000 of level 11+ (plus a few noncombatants), and a lot more in the 5-10 range. And about half of those high level people would be genuinely loial to something (a nation, a religion, a cause) and fight for it even without much reward, while the other half were for hire, for those who could afford them. I further postulated that it is possible to make a safe room that high level people cannot break in, no matter how hard they try. at least, not a small group and not in a short time.

    this way, a single high level adventuring party cannot overtake a kingdom. they could certainly waltz into a throne room and kidnap a king (the safe room is not the throne room; too many people getting in and out. and the high level people are not on guard. too few of them to stay on 24/7 duty). but the kingdom has certainly mechanisms in place to keep functioning without the king. and you can't get the tresaury - that's what into the safe room. you also can't kill their higher level combatants - they also generally sleep into the safe room. so, the nation has full strenght to retaliate. and it has an army of mid level casters to cast divinations, and lots of spies to gather information in a way that's more mundane, but also more difficult to block with magic. and while the kingdom cannot field anyone who's individually as powerful as you, it can field 50 to 100 people of level 11+; still strong enough to hurt you. Plus, since it still has money, it can also hire more high level adventurers if needed. It can call on allies, and allies will come, because absolutely no nation likes a group of rogue adventurers messing with governments. And all you have for your effort is the king. who won't be any use because the kingdom will just appoint a new one if needed. and if he cannot be resurrected.
    You could try the subtle approach of using compulsion on important people instead, but that's so easy to discover with even low magic security that it's not even worth mentioning.

    On the other hand, in my world nobody uses conventional armies anymore. when both sides have access to a few dozens high level people with scry and die tactics, a bunch of grunts who need to march on their legs and will die by the scores for a single spell are not worth their cost. golems are used instead. expensive to make, but they will keep on forever without need to eat or getting paid, and they are strong enough to bother even high level people.
    The regular people that would otherwise end up in your army? you put them back to work. if they can raise the funds to pay for one more golem, or to hire one more high level freelancer, they ended up more useful that they'd ever have been wielding a pointy stick
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    The only way I could see it having a chance (and even then only some chance, as conventions will often be ignored), is if the PC are part of a significant Guild/faction, which is expressly neutral in the current conflict, such that neither side would wish to antagonize the underlying Guild by attacking the PCs, so long as the PCs strictly adhere to their organizations neutrality (and the org would kill the PCs themselves if they violated the neutrality).
    A neat custom class for 3.5 system
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616

    A good set of benchmarks for PF/3.5
    https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2...y-the-numbers/

    An alternate craft point system I made for 3.5
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t-Point-system

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by zlefin View Post
    The only way I could see it having a chance (and even then only some chance, as conventions will often be ignored), is if the PC are part of a significant Guild/faction, which is expressly neutral in the current conflict, such that neither side would wish to antagonize the underlying Guild by attacking the PCs, so long as the PCs strictly adhere to their organizations neutrality (and the org would kill the PCs themselves if they violated the neutrality).
    The org doesn't have to kill them, that's a little extreme probably, but it could detain them, sanction/chastise them, or restation them to antarctica
    Guardsmen, hear me! Cadia may lie in ruin, but her proud people do not! For each brother and sister who gave their lives to Him as martyrs, we will reap a vengeance fiftyfold! Cadia may be no more, but will never be forgotten; our foes shall tremble in fear at the name, for their doom shall come from the barrels of Cadian guns, fired by Cadian hands! Forward, for vengeance and retribution, in His name and the names of our fallen comrades!

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    So why are the PCs there, if both sides are not related to their interests and are both not liking what they are doing then they should just leave them.
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  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by LordCdrMilitant View Post
    As for any reason why I don't like superpowered PC's? As mentioned, it doesn't make sense to me how the nation would remain stable, since why would people consent to being treated like dirt, exploited for profit, and shoveling s***/begging for breadcrumbs for a living if they could take a stick and whack some goblins for enough XP to take levels in Fighter and then just keep going from there. If there's little further to fall because you're a medieval serf, there's no harm trying, and it's not actually that hard for a peasant with the NPC statblock and a staff, club, or spear in to take on a goblin. Do it 6 times, now you're a fighter and you can do it with way less risk of dying. Thus, I come to the conclusion that having class levels does not intrinsically make you an awesome superhero who can take on platoons and companies of soldiers.

    As a further note, I don't believe in chosen ones or people who are just better, so I have no incentive to change the base way the game works or justify their specialty with fluff to make that assumption true.
    I don't think there's a version of D&D (or any RPG, for that matter) in which NPCs gain XP at the same rate as PCs. Back in Basic, retainers got half the XP of PCs, and hirelings got none. So right off the bat, some dude tagging along to stab a thing with a sword didn't level up at all and a moderately skilled adventurer working with the players took twice as long to level up, until a player inhabited them (PCs could take on retainers as their new PC if their original died), at which point they started powering up faster.

    3rd Edition D&D says that having an NPC in your party reduces how much experience the PCs get, but also says that only PCs gain XP. I'm pretty sure that 4E and 5E say the same thing, but if anyone has a specific reference I'd take it.

    With that in mind, no, most characters can't go stab six goblins and level up, because the spotlight isn't currently on them. It's not even that the PCs are inherently special characters; if the game fast-forwards a year, by default you don't get any XP for the war your fighter won, even if you say that he killed a dragon during it. XP is generated by a character being under the spotlight with a player controlling them.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
    I don't think there's a version of D&D (or any RPG, for that matter) in which NPCs gain XP at the same rate as PCs. Back in Basic, retainers got half the XP of PCs, and hirelings got none. So right off the bat, some dude tagging along to stab a thing with a sword didn't level up at all and a moderately skilled adventurer working with the players took twice as long to level up, until a player inhabited them (PCs could take on retainers as their new PC if their original died), at which point they started powering up faster.

    3rd Edition D&D says that having an NPC in your party reduces how much experience the PCs get, but also says that only PCs gain XP. I'm pretty sure that 4E and 5E say the same thing, but if anyone has a specific reference I'd take it.

    With that in mind, no, most characters can't go stab six goblins and level up, because the spotlight isn't currently on them. It's not even that the PCs are inherently special characters; if the game fast-forwards a year, by default you don't get any XP for the war your fighter won, even if you say that he killed a dragon during it. XP is generated by a character being under the spotlight with a player controlling them.
    At the very least, in my 5e game, the way I'm running it, NPCs don't gain XP but take a share of it anyway if they participated in the encounter. The one NPC for whom this matters is a level 2 cleric in a party of level 5 adventurers. I'm basically keeping him at half their level, round down. I may decide to change this to their level-2 if I decide I really want them to have higher-level cleric spells on-hand.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by LordCdrMilitant View Post
    A army of 100 Human Archers fought as a single encounter with no class features or feats, just proficiency:
    STR 12, DEX 14, CON 13, INT 11, WIS 10, CHA 9
    Longbow: To hit: +4, 1d8+2 [7] Piercing

    Vs.

    a level 8 party with a "classic" loadout of 1 cleric [AC16, HP60], 1 wizard [AC13, HP45], 1 rogue [AC16, HP60], 1 fighter [AC16/18, HP75]

    If the archers split evenly, then about 10 hits are registered on each PC, resulting in 20+10d8 [70] damage to them dropping all outright except the fighter, who will certainly die in the next salvo.
    If the archers split their fire a little more tactically and count on averages, moving shots from the squishy wizard to the fighter, they can drop everybody in a single round.
    If the archers play it safe, they can just outright execute the cleric and the wizard, preventing any chance of blast effects reducing their number beyond the 3 that can be killed by the fighter and rogue or healing un-doing any of their work, and then execute the remaining two on their turn.

    Even if the PC's go first, and open with fireballs or other large blast effects, they don't deplete the NPC archers anywhere near fast enough to avoid just being shot down in about 3 turns with maybe a dozen or two dozen people killed.

    This isn't an unexpected result, since even with these like CR1/8 or 1/4 guys the encounter CR is like 17-25, which is way too high for a level 8 party even considering that CR is questionably accurate on the best of days.

    The only real survival course of action for the party is to run. There aren't really that many tricks they can pull, but they can at least D-Door into the long range bracket, hope that the disadvantage causes enough misses that they don't get shot down, and then run from there.
    Um, are we just assuming that adventuring party isn't casting spells like Invisibility, and Fly, to stay at maximum range for the archers? At 8th level, they'll fly in, float above them invisible, drop a Fireball and then move to where they're shooting back at -10, or they could use a Heightened Invisibility to get a whole minute of dropping hostile spells on them before retreating out of reach. That's before you even start summoning Swarms of low level bugs that are effectively immune to Piercing damage.

    A level 8 Wizard, given some time, should be able to deal with them all solo. Maybe not in a single day, but he'll manage eventually, without taking damage. Even if time is limited, he'll do ridiculous damage, probably enough to sap their morale and scatter them. The rest of the party can stay home, or juice up on Potions of Flight and Invisibility if they feel they have to.

    All this is before you simply fly above them dropping rocks or alchemist's fire on them.
    Last edited by bluntpencil; 2020-05-21 at 08:54 AM.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    I honestly hadn't even noticed that breakdown. It has... some issues. I'll accept that they're saying "in one encounter" rather than "over a few days", but even discounting the "cast Fly" option, there are a lot of ways a Level 8 party could shatter and scatter the archers, provided they don't try the tactic of "line up in an open field and stride confidently towards the enemy."

    For a start, the adventuring party doesn't seem to be doing any buffing before the entire army arrives. They have no magic items and no mundane preparations. There's no cover and no planning. No one has any passive abilities from their class or race.

    I can, without much work, design a dozen scenarios in which the adventurers could win that fight. Heck, I could possibly get a build together for a single swordsman to pull it off, with the right cover and tactics, and assuming that the archers aren't robots and will start panicking if a guy starts carving them up.

    *EDIT* I just noticed that the suggested tactic to escape is to dimension door into long range and hope for the best, which means that this is a fight that posits four adventurers are just standing around cleaning their nails when they look up and realize that a hundred archers are now a hundred feet away from them, nocking their bows.

    *EDIT 2* Okay, I don't think I can actually build a Level 8 fighter who can solo a hundred archers. I forgot that cover gives an AC boost rather than providing disadvantage, the way most things do; because of that, once the fighter is in the middle of the archers they can still keep firing into the melee and rely on crits to drop her, provided that they're okay shooting a bunch of their own people along the way.
    Last edited by Friv; 2020-05-21 at 11:54 AM.
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  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
    I honestly hadn't even noticed that breakdown. It has... some issues. I'll accept that they're saying "in one encounter" rather than "over a few days", but even discounting the "cast Fly" option, there are a lot of ways a Level 8 party could shatter and scatter the archers, provided they don't try the tactic of "line up in an open field and stride confidently towards the enemy."

    For a start, the adventuring party doesn't seem to be doing any buffing before the entire army arrives. They have no magic items and no mundane preparations. There's no cover and no planning. No one has any passive abilities from their class or race.

    I can, without much work, design a dozen scenarios in which the adventurers could win that fight. Heck, I could possibly get a build together for a single swordsman to pull it off, with the right cover and tactics, and assuming that the archers aren't robots and will start panicking if a guy starts carving them up.

    *EDIT* I just noticed that the suggested tactic to escape is to dimension door into long range and hope for the best, which means that this is a fight that posits four adventurers are just standing around cleaning their nails when they look up and realize that a hundred archers are now a hundred feet away from them, nocking their bows.

    *EDIT 2* Okay, I don't think I can actually build a Level 8 fighter who can solo a hundred archers. I forgot that cover gives an AC boost rather than providing disadvantage, the way most things do; because of that, once the fighter is in the middle of the archers they can still keep firing into the melee and rely on crits to drop her, provided that they're okay shooting a bunch of their own people along the way.
    With a spellcaster, it's easy, with a fighter, I reckon it's possible, but would require more system mastery than I've got. Enough potions, particularly Invisibility, and maybe a horse is likely to help, though.

    Scale and Splint armour is probably the way to go though for Champions- with magical enhancements and specialisation it gains resistance to piercing damage (it's easy to get Resistance 4 at level 8 - if Barkskin stacks, which is very debatable, you can get 6). An adamantine shield with Shield Block will soak up a lot of damage, too, negating one hit per round (Two if a Fighter or Champion with Quick Shield Block). You'll definitely make it into melee, and start hacking away, due to Invisibility potions, too. If you're not Hasted on top of this, you're doing it wrong.

    Two Champions, with Quick Shield block, Retributive Strike, and magical Splint Armour will be very resistant to damage, and will be getting free attacks quite often, too. They'll also be turning up in the middle of the enemy, due to Potions of Invisibility. Such Potions also make retreating easy once HP starts to go low.

    Of course, then you've got Rangers with Far Shot playing keepaway, etc. etc.
    Last edited by bluntpencil; 2020-05-22 at 06:09 AM.

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by bluntpencil View Post
    With a spellcaster, it's easy, with a fighter, I reckon it's possible, but would require more system mastery than I've got. Enough potions, particularly Invisibility, and maybe a horse is likely to help, though.

    Scale and Splint armour is probably the way to go though for Champions- with magical enhancements and specialisation it gains resistance to piercing damage (it's easy to get Resistance 4 at level 8 - if Barkskin stacks, which is very debatable, you can get 6). An adamantine shield with Shield Block will soak up a lot of damage, too, negating one hit per round (Two if a Fighter or Champion with Quick Shield Block). You'll definitely make it into melee, and start hacking away, due to Invisibility potions, too. If you're not Hasted on top of this, you're doing it wrong.

    Two Champions, with Quick Shield block, Retributive Strike, and magical Splint Armour will be very resistant to damage, and will be getting free attacks quite often, too. They'll also be turning up in the middle of the enemy, due to Potions of Invisibility. Such Potions also make retreating easy once HP starts to go low.

    Of course, then you've got Rangers with Far Shot playing keepaway, etc. etc.
    So, when I was running my own math, I was assuming that we couldn't rely on really strong magic items; according to the math I pulled up, a Level 8 character probably has a couple of uncommons, and may or may not have a single rare. That's pretty much limited to low-end magic stuff, so adamantine or enhancements, not both. I could cancel the crits, but they would still be hits, and that would be 35 damage per round.

    If the fighter has a spellcaster buffing them up before the battle begins, it is a whole different story. A buffed-up wizard is in danger, largely because if something goes wrong they are just instantly dead, they can't fly high enough to be arrow-proof, and flight is a Concentration spell so they don't have great self-buffing options. But wizardy or clerical buffs on top of Fighter invulnerability or Rogue super-stealth, I think, could do the trick.
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    Default Re: Staying neutral during a siege

    Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
    So, when I was running my own math, I was assuming that we couldn't rely on really strong magic items; according to the math I pulled up, a Level 8 character probably has a couple of uncommons, and may or may not have a single rare. That's pretty much limited to low-end magic stuff, so adamantine or enhancements, not both. I could cancel the crits, but they would still be hits, and that would be 35 damage per round.

    If the fighter has a spellcaster buffing them up before the battle begins, it is a whole different story. A buffed-up wizard is in danger, largely because if something goes wrong they are just instantly dead, they can't fly high enough to be arrow-proof, and flight is a Concentration spell so they don't have great self-buffing options. But wizardy or clerical buffs on top of Fighter invulnerability or Rogue super-stealth, I think, could do the trick.
    Yup. If you have a team of four, they should be acting like a team and buffing each other. They certainly shouldn't be letting 100 archers shoot them.

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