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Jun 7, 2012 -- 1:31AM, edwin_su wrote:

I think they want to go to a system where a high level character surpasses mortal men becouse of the awsome abilities he has.
not becouse his to hit bonus just happens to be 5 points higer.

You are SO missing the point.  The POINT is that from CHAINMAIL, high level characters in DnD were special and could do things that mere mortals (and lower level characters) couldn't even attempt just because they were that good....as measured in character level.  This is WHY level was introduced at all.  An extra +5 to hit is the smallest part of what makes a high level wizard special in early editions but it IS a part...it means that a high level wizard can actually fight a veteran soldier on equal terms AND cast magic...completely intentional.  High level wizards were that special (high level anyone was supposed to be that special).


Bonded accuracy IMHO betrays the very soul of what it means to be DND.  We may discuss how much and to what degree high level characters should scale, but they SHOULD scale and they SHOULD scale on the most fundamental levels for their class (i.e. the ability to hit, ability to defend themselves, and the ability to perform as their class should including skills associated with that class) and ultimately to be true to DND, a high level character should laugh at things that would be impossible for mere mortals.


-Polaris   

Jun 6, 2012 -- 8:33PM, Warrant wrote:

Jun 6, 2012 -- 7:42PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Yet Michael Jordan is INFINITELY better at basketball than random joe off the street.

No, that's not true at all. Any joe off of the street and michael jordan can still shoot the exact same ball from the exact same place on the court into the exact same hoop and make it. Michael jordan has put more points into his basketball skills than joe so he is bound to make more of the shots, but both are attainable by the first level joe and the 20th level jordan. It's not like jordan needs a 15 foot basketball hoop to keep him from dominating.

Jun 6, 2012 -- 7:42PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

As for the challenge thing, YES, that is the idea, though as I said you can decide what the scale is. Aside a couple of things like jumping and which doors have what DCs (which you can trivially change in 5 seconds) the scale could be that top level PCs are only challenged by the "uber door" or maybe they're plenty challenged by the rugged steel door of a vault (IE a realistic tone where nobody can bash down a vault door). It is all up to you.

As for me, yes, I want to not have to worry about the mundane and semi-mundane things anymore. The PCs just walk past them and the DM narrates. So what? There's some big interest in perpetually facing the same challenges?

The problem here is that then all of the sudden you have to up the difficulty of the dungeon and it's no longer static. If they go to undermountain at 5th level and the doors are DC difficult for them and described as "wooden" then when they go back at level 25 the doors all of the sudden are just "magically" more difficult, or the DM has to have the dungeon suddenly filled with adamantine doors or have it just be "trivial" even though it shouldn't just be trivial to a set of adventurers (unless you are into super-hero gaming and want to play He-Man or the Hulk or something that ISN'T classic D&D)

That's really what it comes down to. Bounded accuracy ensures that the characters are above average and exceptional but not super-heroic. Consistent increases assumes your characters are becoming super-heroic with feats on par with superman etc.

NOOOO!!!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Where did this idiotic myth come from!!!??? A wooden door in 4e has a specific DC to overcome, ALWAYS. If the 25th level PCs go into level 5 Undermountain they JUST BASH ALL THE DOORS without any problem. That's the WHOLE POINT!!!! Where is this 'shifting DC' ever described in 4e???!!!! It isn't, because it DOESN'T FREEGIN EXIST! You're railing against some bizarro-world strawman system that is not the system we're even talking about. Please open your 4e DMG to page 64, READ IT! Gaaahhhh...

And yes, level 5 Undermountain IS TRIVIAL for 25th level PCs. That's why it is level 5 Undermountain and not level 25 Undermountain. The real question is why would the PCs even be wandering around in a level 5 dungeon when they are epic tier characters? If the players really seriously want to just rove around bashing doors automatically and ganking whole encounters in one round with no danger, and collecting treasures so small they're meaningless to them, well, that's between the players and the DM. You could do that in any edition and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to.

And finally I disagree with you about what 25th level PCs are. They are not "above average and exceptional but not super-heroic." A level 25 hero is as powerful as the exarchs of many gods. He is on his way to true immortality (or some other equally weighty destiny). He's the stuff of myth and legend, one of a handful of figures in the whole history of the world that has ever attained that level of power.  He's Hurin standing up to 100 trolls, Hercules doing 10 impossible things before breakfast and then holding up the sky, Cuchulain slaying armies, or Elric summoning up and slaying the very lords of chaos. If you want "above average and exceptional" that's like 3rd level in AD&D. There's nothing wrong with low level gritty campaigns, but there's no need to turn high level play into Ponies and Peasants to have that, it already exists. Exactly what level you stop at is kinda up to you, but there's nothing stopping you from doing it.

Heck, I played in a 1e (maybe it was 2e, I forget) campaign where no PC ever made it past about 7th level. It was great. We played that game for like 2 years. It worked fine, we just used slow advancement and there was a pretty decent rate of character death (it was an evil campaign, you know how it goes).

Jun 6, 2012 -- 8:51PM, Warrant wrote:

Jun 6, 2012 -- 8:43PM, Polaris wrote:

Jun 6, 2012 -- 8:33PM, Warrant wrote:

No, that's not true at all. Any joe off of the street and michael jordan can still shoot the exact same ball from the exact same place on the court into the exact same hoop and make it. Michael jordan has put more points into his basketball skills than joe so he is bound to make more of the shots, but both are attainable by the first level joe and the 20th level jordan. It's not like jordan needs a 15 foot basketball hoop to keep him from dominating.

Now I just know that is false.  People like Michael Jordan are prodigies and are inherently better at something than others.  MJ was a blue-chip 'b-baller' from the time he was in high school.  Why do you think North Carolina recruited him.

Given the same training and same age and other factors, MJ will blow pretty much anyone else out of the water.


-Polaris     

Not so much so that he can dunk on 20ft rims and never miss a shot and never have the ball stolen or a shot blocked. He isn't a super-hero, rather he is a talented athlete and there are tons of "peasant" kids that could give him a serious run for his money back in the day. He is still under the rules of bounded accuracy. He always has the same chance of missing, although due to his skills he will have a higher probability of making shots than I would. I would expect anyone whose "class" is professional basketball player to be better at hitting shots than someone whose "class" is engineer.

Just like Ranger should have a better chance to hit a dragon with a bow than farmer. But the disparity shouldn't be on the scale of Hulk vs. Beeker.

Except D&D is FANTASY. It is larger than life. Just look at the types of situations that the game is designed to present. Even in 1e, which is probably the most 'gritty' version of D&D out of the box, what are the PCs expected to do? FIGHT DRAGONS. They fight dragons! A 7th level AD&D fighter is expected to be able to go at it using a sword with a 500 year old 5 ton flying lizard with a breath that can melt steel, and have a serious chance of winning.

It isn't a game of simulating NBA basketball games. In terms of the real world Michael Jordan is 'epic', but in D&D terms he's a 0 level commoner with training in Athletics and a big background bonus for anything to do with basketball. No, it is not REALISTIC that 5th level fighters or 25th level wizards can beat him in a game of basketball. That isn't the point of D&D at all. It isn't built to portray epic heroes interacting with unimportant NPCs.

I'll note that beyond this 4e is exceptionally maleable. You could simply give your 'Michael Jordan' a huge bonus in basketball. The game doesn't even TRY to create a structure to portray the specific abilities of NPC characters. It gives good general default guidelines for them so you can easily tell how good the average orc is at jumping, but if you want an NPC Athlete that is the best ever at X, or an NPC Sage so wise he knows stuff the PCs can't possibly figure out you just DO those things. They are story elements and the whole point is for the rules to GET OUT OF THE WAY of story. Likewise if the DM wants to make some specific action to require specific training etc to even attempt he can do that too.

There are also problems with the simplistic presentation and argument here. 4e for example has SCs for a REASON. Michael Jordan might not shoot freethrows THAT much better than any old person that has practiced that a bit. Now PLAY BASKETBALL with the guy. You won't even ever touch the ball. The total skills required aren't just one little thing. When you have some monumentally difficult and significant task to accomplish it isn't all just boiled down to a toss of the dice. Skills used in the context of the game work fine in 4e.

I don't hate (in fact I like) the sort of concept of a system that lives within a range of numbers. The problem is that D&D covers a huge range of ability from "I'm a peasant that just picked up a sword" to "I'm an epic hero that will live forever in myth and legend as soon as I finish offing Tiamat." Putting all that onto the range of a d20 is asking a LOT, and IMHO it isn't going to work well.