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Dec 20, 2012 -- 1:17PM, Zaramon wrote:

As far as I know they've never been statted. But they would have to be capable of killing entire armies solo for their stat blocks to be accurate.

Actually, there was a lot of this kind of thing back in the AD&D days.  Pulling out my old Deities & Demigods(1e) shows:

Cu Chulainn as an 18th level Ranger/12th level Illusionist/8th level Bard 

Bellerophon as a 10th level Ranger

Heracles as a 15th level Ranger/3rd level Bard

Odysseus as a 13th level Fighter/9th level Thief

Elric as a crazytastic 19th level Magic-User/15th level Fighter/10th level Cleric/10th level Assassin/10th level Illusionist/5th level Druid

Fafhrd as a 15th level Ranger/13th level Thief/5th level Bard

Grey Mouser as a 15th level thief/11th level Fighter/3rd level Magic-User

 Note:  Multiclassing didn't work quite as additively as it does in 3.5.  It was more like, "You're your old class, but plus new class features, after considerable hassle"  I'm also not sure how most of these characters work within the AD&D multiclassing/dualclassing rules.  I highly suspect that they simply don't.

And just for kicks, in Dragon #5, all the way back in '77, there was an article placing Gandalf as a 5th level Magic-User.

Dec 20, 2012 -- 1:04PM, wrecan wrote:

JacobSinger, there's no need to be obnoxious. I was civil to you. The least you could do is be equally civil to me.


Quote: Sure poisons will have DC's and targets will have varying levels of resisting such things, but what does that have to do with the ATTACKER?

Response: Again, we have seen no rules about attacking with poison.  So you're assumption that it will use AC as the target is completely unfounded.  You're just inventing scenarios and complaing that thescenarios you've entirely imagined out of whole cloth will be problematic.  Why not wait for actual poison rules to be presented before complainign about how awful they are?


Quote: But Rogues and whatnot shouldn't be hitting as often as Fighter-types with regular attacks.

Response: Why not?  Both are trained combatants.  Rogues are simply trained at a different style of combat than fighters.  Both should be hitting about evenly often.  (And since fighters get more bonuses to attack than rogues, they do in fact hit more often.)


Quote: The problem is that with bounded accuracy we have to roll damage ALL THE TIME for virtually everyone (even including weak monsters that shouldn't be hitting nearly that much). Not only does this not make ANY sense, but it is a total pain.

Response: As I said, if you don't like rolling dice, then, yes, the game presente dint he playtest is not for you.  I am willing to guess that your view is a minority view.  Most people I know enjoy rolling dice.  It's why diceless systems tend to sell more poorly than dice-ful systems.

Actually the assassin Rogue has a poison trick and there is poison in the equipment section, so you are factually wrong on that count.

To me Rogues should have a better chance of hitting, but only under special circumstance which they set up. Gaining advantage for feinting, sneaking, flanking, and sand in the eyes is how they should do it, some of which is reflected in this packet.

I gotta agree with him, whether you like rolling the dice or not, that much rolling is going to slow down the game...

Regardless of how it's implemented or used in DnD Next, I feel like it's good to have a survivability trait that both high and low characters can closely relate to each other on.

I've played systems that give characters fairly variable defenses and attacks, but keep them all at a same low amount of hit points. Higher level characters still become harder and harder to kill, but stay grounded near the rest of humanity at the same time. DnD Next goes the other way - heavily scaling hit points and low flat defenses - but it accomplishes the same thing. It gives weak characters and powerful characters a meaningful distinction, but leaves them able to interact with each other.

In high-HP, high-defense systems, there's really no meaningful interaction between characters of extremely different levels. There's no grounds to engage each other on.

Let's take a minute to really examine this "BA lets me fight low level monsters" idea that people keep bandying about.  I'm not sure how far back the idea goes, but for a long time and certainly in 5e, everyone hits automatically on a 20.  Doesn't matter what the AC was.  So let's take the extreme example of a monster that hits you only on a 20 in a rapidly scaling math system.  He hits you 1/20 times for let's say 1/5 of your total hit points (ultimately the numbers are irrelevant, because they can be scaled to suit).  No we switch to a flat math system where that monster still hit's you, let's say 50% of the time but now he only does 1/50th of your total HP because we've shifted all the power scaling into HP.  You can say it would be more than 1/50th of his HP, but then it's because you've slowed down power scaling not because you've slowed down AC scaling, I'm trying to keep the power scale even here.

Is there any reason why the flat math world is a more interesting fight than the steep math world?  The challenge level is the same.  Yes, the monsters almost never hit, but do you really give a crap if they hit your for 1/50th of your total HP?  Do you really find it more exciting to have to knock off 2 HP 5 times a round than it is to actually have a bit of a worry that it will hurt if they roll well?

Dec 20, 2012 -- 1:03PM, Seerow wrote:

Dec 20, 2012 -- 12:59PM, wrecan wrote:

Dec 20, 2012 -- 12:33PM, Garthanos wrote:

Except the story was according to the 2e players handbook supposed to let me play fighters inspired by Herakles

 
Heracles was taken out with poison.  A really vicious poison made from centaur blood, but poison nonetheless. Even Heracles couldn't ignore poison. So if you're saying that legendary heroes can shake off poison, I'll disagree.  The very legendary hero you cited was laid low by poison.

Sounds to me like Heracles was targetted by a higher level poison because he was a more powerful character. Which is basically what people expect.

The argument that was being made was that everybody should fear basic poisons because it's poison. Which is not exemplified with that story.

Seerow,

I don't care who you are pretending to have been addressing. You made a clear blanket statement that is both inane and ludicrous. Don't try backpedaling and acting like you only meant it under some narrow criteria that existed nowhere in your post. Not to mention you responded to me, not the post you claim to now be addressing.

You clearly stated that high level play has no place for mortal PCs. Not sure how else that can be taken.

And that means you are still wrong.

My post was following a very clear line of communication which you decided to try to take out of context to score some cheap points. If you do not want to have an intellectually honest conversation, then please stop posting. 

Yeah, seriously.