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Problem here is that current editions allow superheroics and some people like that and some don't, which is fine.
Hp cap and some other strategically placed handbreaks would allow the players to keep the gaming style as deadly and human-like as they would have wanted without forcing the players who don't want to be restrained that way to play more invulnerable characters. But lo! The human limits crowd wants the number bloat as well without challenge escalation? What for? E6 has already shown that a cap system that wrks fine for this. Why should the D&D throw the superhuman abilities out of the window when it's already proven that they can be restrained pretty easily?
Why did we add them in as default, when 2e Skills & Powers etc showed they could be added pretty easily?
Because having it all in one book for one price is better than in two?
P.S. How much support would higher level game get if it was a separate module? ;)
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Because having it all in one book for one price is better than in two?
P.S. How much support would higher level game get if it was a separate module? ;)
Remember we are not talking restricting levels here, that's a sad way to approach the issue. I DM'd throne of bloodstone for 1e AD&D, that was for levels 18-100. It was fun, I would rather have my man bits crushed in a vice than attempt to DM level 18+ 3e+ characters! High level 3e+ play is like playing Doom with the god cheat on - heaps fun for a little while but ultimately pointless.
Keeping in mind that under 1e if a fighter had multiple attacks ONLY if they missed would the Magic-User then get a chance at an initiative roll to try to cast their spell. Give no DEX mod or armor the Magic-User was relying solely on luck when meleeing with a fighter (with multiple attacks). Even then depending on the speed factor of the weapon and casting segments of the spell it was not a certainty. In short Magic-Users in melee were sort of poked no matter the level. Who cares if the MU can do a 20d6 fireball and the fighter only 1d10+6 when the fireball is very unlikely to ever be cast yet the sword will swing each and every round.
Separate say like the Epic level handbook of 3e?
S.
With hp cap you'd have the toughness of 1st and 2nd level editions back. With fighter gaining 2-3 hp per level after the cap and caster 1 you'd be getting something - spell slots, feats and other things BUT not the hp bloat. 1 and 2E worked with the caps and did what you describe, 3E and 4E allowed their shtick via hp bloat. Both games could be in one book via single simple optional alternation. Why cutting it all in half?
Perhaps the adventure you describe could work fine with lvl 18 heroes with cap set on lvl 8. two sentences about character assumptions at the beginning of the adventure and you're golden.
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With hp cap you'd have the toughness of 1st and 2nd level editions back. With fighter gaining 2-3 hp per level after the cap and caster 1 you'd be getting something - spell slots, feats and other things BUT not the hp bloat. 1 and 2E worked with the caps and did what you describe, 3E and 4E allowed their shtick via hp bloat. Both games could be in one book via single simple optional alternation. Why cutting it all in half?
So many things come off hp's - 3.5e/PF damage etc and monsters hp's all are based on these assumptions. Won't we need every feat to have a purpose in the 1e/2e-like games and the 3e/4e-like games? Monsters suffer from hp bloat too. Seems almost like 2 games, or one huge confusing game with multiple descriptions under each feat/spell/power.
Imagine RAGELANCEPOUNCE in a hp-capped game, auto-kill against anything.
S.
Well, since 4E introduced tiers you could easily set these assumptions into packs. First 5 levels could be very real-like, next 5 levels would make heroes into lords akin to old editions, next would slowly push the boundaries to 3E and godhood. Not allowing higher level feats can easily stop combos relying on them.
Ragelancepounce was a bit cleared here BTW (and I doubt that 5i would return to 3E-style iterative attacks one attack per turn will be the norm IMO).
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Months. It took YEARS to get to 20th level back in the day. I had an 18th level paladin that took me seven years to get that high, playing just about every weekend. That was a feeling of accomplishment. And he had to be raised twice, with the resulting Con loss.
Taking a few months to reach 20th level is exactly the kind of "instant gratification" stuff that turns a lot of us old schoolers off about new jack players.
That's what I love about Kirthfinder. I've been playing my rogue/fighter for almost three years now, and we're just up to eighth level. If we played all the time, I'd probably be about twelfth.
We've been playing our current 4e campaign for four years. The characters have just hit level 22, but given the changes to levelling that's roughly equivalent to level 14 in 3e. We meet about once every two weeks and play for five hours or so, so that's a fairly significant investment in time. While some people play faster and some slower, I think it gives the lie to the notion that 4e is somehow designed for people with ADHD. One of the reasons I'm a bit irritated about 5e is its coming along before I've got a decent crack out of 4e.
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Wow me and my friends must really suck at DnD in all the years I've played I've only ever made it to level 11 :(
this made me laugh... Who would get so worked up over a silly game? <_< ... >_>
I don't need to know the situation. Anyone that takes a silly game that seriously needs a shrink.
Like I said, neither of you know the situation. In the group I play in I've had two players give it a break for a period of up to a year because of personal issues. So, yes, maybe in a game that's supposed to be recreational being reminded of stuff like that isn't ideal. So if it's friends and you have any shred of empathy as a human being it's not much fun being at the table, or indeed running the game, when that happens - it wasn't fun for anyone.
And more generally, a lot of players like to plan forward or simply identify with their PCs, so it can be a downer to lose a PC. I've certainly never had it be "fun" to kill or lose a PC, at least on a permanent basis. The player is disappointed, at the least, and then you have the in-game issue of introducing the replacement. In the end, you are guided as a DM by what your players enjoy from the game.
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Well, since 4E introduced tiers you could easily set these assumptions into packs. First 5 levels could be very real-like, next 5 levels would make heroes into lords akin to old editions, next would slowly push the boundaries to 3E and godhood. Not allowing higher level feats can easily stop combos relying on them.
Ragelancepounce was a bit cleared here BTW (and I doubt that 5i would return to 3E-style iterative attacks one attack per turn will be the norm IMO).
Well, one of the epic destinies in 4e (something you choose at lvl 21 as you enter epic tier) is Demigod, which sort of makes that point.
Indeed. As long as the damage and hp can be slided together it could make the game roughly ballanced on certain tier, but by employing things one or two tiers above you could have deadly effects (Which was kinda the point I was making during our previous debate about lava - you had epic-tier hazard is +/- deadly to heroic tier heroes. Now if we had more tiers it could allow somewhat better stratification).
Sorry Aubrey. My comment was supposed to highlight how worked up we all get on these boards sometimes over our 'silly game'. Character death is not a fun thing.
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Sorry Aubrey. My comment was supposed to highlight how worked up we all get on these boards sometimes over our 'silly game'. Character death is not a fun thing.
That's OK. I fully appreciate there are styles of play - Iron DMs, that sort of thing - who take a different view on it. I think, however, it boils down to knowing the group or groups you play with regularly, and the individuals therein, and what is fun for them (or not). For example, trying to do a sort of Game of Thrones sort of game would upset a lot of people with the pitiless violence to all sorts of vulnerable people, and some people would love it.
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Indeed. As long as the damage and hp can be slided together it could make the game roughly ballanced on certain tier, but by employing things one or two tiers above you could have deadly effects (Which was kinda the point I was making during our previous debate about lava - you had epic-tier hazard is +/- deadly to heroic tier heroes. Now if we had more tiers it could allow somewhat better stratification).
Yes - and in the context of the other conversation, it's a good point. It's a bit less explicit in previous versions of D&D.
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We've been playing our current 4e campaign for four years. The characters have just hit level 22, but given the changes to levelling that's roughly equivalent to level 14 in 3e. We meet about once every two weeks and play for five hours or so, so that's a fairly significant investment in time. While some people play faster and some slower, I think it gives the lie to the notion that 4e is somehow designed for people with ADHD. One of the reasons I'm a bit irritated about 5e is its coming along before I've got a decent crack out of 4e.Months. It took YEARS to get to 20th level back in the day. I had an 18th level paladin that took me seven years to get that high, playing just about every weekend. That was a feeling of accomplishment. And he had to be raised twice, with the resulting Con loss.
Taking a few months to reach 20th level is exactly the kind of "instant gratification" stuff that turns a lot of us old schoolers off about new jack players.
That's what I love about Kirthfinder. I've been playing my rogue/fighter for almost three years now, and we're just up to eighth level. If we played all the time, I'd probably be about twelfth.
I was actually referring to how quickly characters seem to level in 3x. I haven't played enough 4e (I only got to level five in the game I was sitting in on) to have an informed opinion of whether it levels too quickly or not.
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I was actually referring to how quickly characters seem to level in 3x. I haven't played enough 4e (I only got to level five in the game I was sitting in on) to have an informed opinion of whether it levels too quickly or not.
In retrospect, levelling may have been quicker in 3e. Certainly this 4e game is by far the longest campaign I've DM'ed and while it was the intention to play from 1st to 30th it still does feel quite extended compared to the 3e campaigns we played (we got from 1st to maybe 18th in about two or so years on a couple of occasions). That said, I've never really considered the rate of levelling to be a problem - I prefer faster levelling as a DM as it means I get to play with the bigger monsters quicker.
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Some Greek heroes were demi-gods. Not all, or even most. They're also hardly the only examples of mythical warriors of extreme power. Would you like to explain why Roland, Lancelot, Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Beowulf, Finn Mac Cumhail, Ilya Muromets or Yoshitsune were such badass figures? It's not because they were the children of gods.
... and many of these character didn't survive the ordeal they faced. We don't really know how "superhuman" of a warrior (paladin?) Rolland was. He failed to vanquish the vanguard army and died blowing a trumpet. Beowulf doesn't survive his (only) fight with the fire dragon. Most versions of the Arthur legends depict Lancelot du lac as protected by / enchanted by /the child of the lady of the lake. At any cases he still screw things up and wasn't above "human emotions".
Many such heroes die of drowning, starvation, choking, poison, etc. Crossing the desert, the frozen plains, the swamps of 1001 diseases etc are still big ordeals otherwise there wouldn't be anything heroic in succeeding them. They avoid death with skills, knowledge and luck but their bodies are still just as easily destroyed by "ordinary" things. It doesn't make them less "badass" for that, and D&D has to potential to provide really badass characters that still have to eat, sleep once in a while and look behind their back when they cross a dark alley. Perhaps older iteration have failed to do so, but this tread is about something the OP would like in the new iteration that's presently in the making.
As for your thief cutting the throat of bad guys, I thinks that's partially the idea behind capped hit points. My opinion is still unmade about capped hps, but I hope D&D will move away from this "anything past 6th level is superhuman / divine, don't try to reason with anything". D&D has to do fiction, and it can get pretty pulpy past a certain point. Between realistic simulation and superhuman suspension of belief, there should be, well, D&D...
... and many of these character didn't survive the ordeal they faced. We don't really know how "superhuman" of a warrior (paladin?) Rolland was. He failed to vanquish the vanguard army and died blowing a trumpet. Beowulf doesn't survive his (only) fight with the fire dragon. Most versions of the Arthur legends depict Lancelot du lac as protected by / enchanted by /the child of the lady of the lake. At any cases he still screw things up and wasn't above "human emotions".
Many such heroes die of drowning, starvation, choking, poison, etc. Crossing the desert, the frozen plains, the swamps of 1001 diseases etc are still big ordeals otherwise there wouldn't be anything heroic in succeeding them. They avoid death with skills, knowledge and luck but their bodies are still just as easily destroyed by "ordinary" things. It doesn't make them less "badass" for that, and D&D has to potential to provide really badass characters that still have to eat, sleep once in a while and look behind their back when they cross a dark alley. Perhaps older iteration have failed to do so, but this tread is about something the OP would like in the new iteration that's presently in the making.
As for your thief cutting the throat of bad guys, I thinks that's partially the idea behind capped hit points. My opinion is still unmade about capped hps, but I hope D&D will move away from this "anything past 6th level is superhuman / divine, don't try to reason with anything". D&D has to do fiction, and it can get pretty pulpy past a certain point. Between realistic simulation and superhuman suspension of belief, there should be, well, D&D...
Agreed, and pretty much the point I was trying to make.
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Let me just address Beowulf. There was the crazy monster, Grendel. He ran roughshod over an entire kingdom, killing all of it's heroes save one, whom it merely continually humiliated. None of the warriors can do a thing about it.
Beowulf shows up. He kills Grendel with his bare hands. Then, just to rub it it, he kills Grendel's mom.
F'ing badass, man.
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For example, trying to do a sort of Game of Thrones sort of game would upset a lot of people with the pitiless violence to all sorts of vulnerable people, and some people would love it.
Slightly off-topic. Guardian of Order need a d20 version of the Game of Thrones (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11866.phtml).
This has a great (best?) idea I have seen to rein in hp's in the d20 system. If anyone is interested I'll post how they went about this.
I think ultimately from a rules design point of view it would be easier to make a base 'D&D' that is aimed at the lowest power (i.e. 1e) and then have options that ADD to this to give a 3.5e feel, rather than having the reverse and requiring a whole raft of printed exceptions.
Cheers,
S.
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Let me just address Beowulf. There was the crazy monster, Grendel. He ran roughshod over an entire kingdom, killing all of it's heroes save one, whom it merely continually humiliated. None of the warriors can do a thing about it.
Beowulf shows up. He kills Grendel with his bare hands. Then, just to rub it it, he kills Grendel's mom.
F'ing badass, man.
If we (and this is bad to do) set Beowulf as a 1e 4th Level fighter (let's give him 18/50 STR, he's freak'n strong) and Grendel as an Ogre (4+1 hit dice [average 19], 18/00 STR) then without any 'super-powers' other than being a 4th level fighter (which is pretty darn super with 6 x d10 + CON hp [let's say an average 30 hp] & a THAC0 of base 17) we can recreate the myth. A big red dragon would still cut Beowulf a new one, but it would be a fight for sure.
In 1e the strong fit male person had no more than 8 hp, an entire castle would perhaps have a 3rd level fighter leading 1st level fighters.
I think 1e could do the Beowulf myth justice.
In 3.5e ed, I can't even think how I would go about setting this up? Grendel would need some serious character levels to even survive against the local 10th level Expert Baker - and gods help Grendel if the Blacksmith found him - or worse the local town 20th Wizard who sits around waiting to PC's to get them to make magic items.
S.
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See, I think your problem is that you're assuming that Grendel is just your average D&D ogre.
I'm probably influenced by having read John Gardner's Grendel.
I think a Grendel based on that interpretation of the character definitely WOULD have some serious class levels...as well as a base form that would put an ogre to shame.
Speaking of Game of Thrones as an RPG, Green Ronin has this.
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See, I think your problem is that you're assuming that Grendel is just your average D&D ogre.
I'm probably influenced by having read John Gardner's Grendel.
I think a Grendel based on that interpretation of the character definitely WOULD have some serious class levels...as well as a base form that would put an ogre to shame.
Speaking of Game of Thrones as an RPG, Green Ronin has this.
If we consider the general 4-5 hp population and +6 damage from a 'standard ogre' then who he hits he kills with one blow. That sounds pretty darn bad-arsed to me. I believe Ogres were AC 4, so we are looking at a 17+ for Joe-average to hit the darn thing, compared to about 5+ for the ogre to hit them. That makes Grendel 1e AD&D style pretty impressive and destructive in my books. If the DM is playing the townsfolk as 'real' then much running and screaming would occur. The local 2 or 3 town milita (1st level fighters) would make a futile stand - then enter from the end of town our 4th level fighter Beowulf hero (que music). That is awesome in my gaming world.
Sort of my point of this thread - by making the townsfolk have 37 hp each and the Ogre have 12 Class levels dealing d10+2d6+15 damage with 3 attacks possible and having 133 hp doesn't really make the scene any more exciting really.
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I have seen the Green Ronin version, and while Warhammer 2e was a triumph of an RPG, the Guardian of Order did Game of Thrones better (well I think so).
S.
It would work with stops if the game had clearly defined tiers. 1E and 2E had the stops built-in and it worked for low levels. 3E and 4E removed the stops and allowed the game to progress beyond what 1E and 2E allowed. Now you want the game to keep the hp bloat and remove the things that resulted from it. How do you want to add 4E power levels then? Printing exceptions? I'd rather keep the system consistent and robust and use only a part of it (less counting and stuff) if I want to stay gritty than to heap more power on already bloated numbers.
Beowulf could be a 4th level pally specialized on grapling as far as Nye's book is concerned. His liquid light burning enemies could easily be smite evil in action. Most people could be lvl 1 NPC classes and Grendel could easily eat quite a few lower leve warriors in 3E as well.
Let me just address Beowulf. There was the crazy monster, Grendel. He ran roughshod over an entire kingdom, killing all of it's heroes save one, whom it merely continually humiliated. None of the warriors can do a thing about it.
Beowulf shows up. He kills Grendel with his bare hands. Then, just to rub it it, he kills Grendel's mom.
F'ing badass, man.
Off course it's badass and it needs to remain as such! (although I thought Grendel killed most warriors while they where asleep/drunk, which doesn't necessarily say much on the relative strength of the monster). But that's my whole point; the fact that Beowulf couldn't survive the fire dragon's breath doesn't take anything away from that badassery.
Heroes need the "stuff" that makes them heroes, but they don't have to be invulnerable or superhuman in any ways. There are humans in our world who can wrestle a grown-up crocodile or have killed a bear/bobcat with a knife or some improvised weapon (some even survived the ordeal!), so we can easily imagine a fictitious character who can.
The system can provide tools that make improbable things possible without having us throw believability in the air saying "don't fuss, they're freaking superhumans".
'findel
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It would work with stops if the game had clearly defined tiers. 1E and 2E had the stops built-in and it worked for low levels. 3E and 4E removed the stops and allowed the game to progress beyond what 1E and 2E allowed. Now you want the game to keep the hp bloat and remove the things that resulted from it. How do you want to add 4E power levels then? Printing exceptions? I'd rather keep the system consistent and robust and use only a part of it (less counting and stuff) if I want to stay gritty than to heap more power on already bloated numbers.
I don't quite agree about 'stops' in 1e AD&D the progression chart for Magic-Users went up to 29th level. The only 'stop' was that hp's didn't track upwards at a random rate. This was in effect the human-limit that some have talked about. By having this limit it means you don't need spells/feats/power that do 30-squilzillion points of damage. HP does not equal power unless you then introduce (as 3.5e+ did) things that take away massive amounts of hp's - then you need to increase hp's, enter the viscous cycle - now Wizards need d6/level rather then d4/level. Unnecessary game design.
But you don't start bloated - throw out the formulas that 3.5e arrived at and put in the 1e ones. Start there, best a fighter would be rolling is d10+6 (against M) for damage. Easier to start with a simple skeleton and hang bits off it rather than attempt to take bit off. Bloat is a condition of the d20 game NOT the d20 mechanics.
S.
How lethal do you want DnD next to be?Have a vote!
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How lethal do you want DnD next to be?Have a vote!
Thanks for the link. Seems I'm not alone in the 'style' of game I would like (52%). Nice to be 'one of the crowd' in this case.
Cheers,
S.
By low levels I meant low levels of power and endurance. If the cap was for both damage and hp you could have 1E style fighter or wizard and play that style all the way to lvl 20 and still be clubable to oblivion by ogres and dissolvable by acid vats OR you could take it without stops and play a game where you can survive being dipped in lava pool for 12 seconds and deal blows that can cut hill giant in two. 4E showed the central damage table per level that could be used to help that. What if the monster statblocks for example contained things like this
Red Dragon
HD d10
Firy aura (lvl 10+) - light fire damage
Claws - moderate damage
Bite - heavy damage
Tail (lvl 5+) - moderate damage three adjecent targets
Furious assault - make 2 Claw and one Bite attacks
Breath - lvl/2 sq cone moderate fire damage lvl+1
So the dragon would deal damage appropriate to the level on which you'd want to make it and be easily scalable. You just look in the table for damage on appropriate level and you have ballanced damage. With caps in game you'd just take damage appropriate to the cap and from there added 2 hp per level and +1 damage to the attack per two levels (or whatever) and you're there! Now add some abilities to make the monster interesting and throw in a sample dragon and tadaah...
Similarly spells could be scalable this way Fireball yould be wrten as doing moderate fire damage to burst 5 and you have spell useable all the way to lvl 20 no matter whether you use the caps or not.
Does everything look the same to you? Offer alternative dice variants to the core table perhaps, or just place average damage and offer DM advice to use average die results to place as many or as few dice as convenient in the roll. If there is average 35 damage for level X then you can make it to 10d6 or 4d8+17 or whatever... variation from there is really simple like that, You want to make attacks deadlier? Huse higher level value. If there was a table of monster abilities to add you could have a kit to portray anything in a minute.
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If we (and this is bad to do) set Beowulf as a 1e 4th Level fighter (let's give him 18/50 STR, he's freak'n strong) and Grendel as an Ogre (4+1 hit dice [average 19], 18/00 STR) then without any 'super-powers' other than being a 4th level fighter (which is pretty darn super with 6 x d10 + CON hp [let's say an average 30 hp] & a THAC0 of base 17) we can recreate the myth. A big red dragon would still cut Beowulf a new one, but it would be a fight for sure.Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike
and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel. Everybody said
there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time proofed blade
that could cut his brutal blood caked clawThat's a pretty hefty amount of damage resistance for an ogre.
Please note, Grendel spent twelve years terrorising the Danes, and killed warriors who were waiting for him. Other heroes hadnt been able to kill him. Beowulf boasts of killing five giants and a sea monster, when he first gets to Heroot. And Grendel is regarded as a step above that. Ogre doesn't seem adequate.
AC 4 is Scalemail - that would seem darn tough to a 'normal man', so I think that fits. As to the 'boasts' - anyone actually see him do these feats of daring-do? Not saying Beowulf lied, just saying perhaps he 'enhanced his CV'.
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Telling tall tales was sort of a popular passtime in meadhalls, wasn't it?
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If we consider the general 4-5 hp population and +6 damage from a 'standard ogre' then who he hits he kills with one blow.See, I think your problem is that you're assuming that Grendel is just your average D&D ogre.
I'm probably influenced by having read John Gardner's Grendel.
I think a Grendel based on that interpretation of the character definitely WOULD have some serious class levels...as well as a base form that would put an ogre to shame.
Speaking of Game of Thrones as an RPG, Green Ronin has this.
But Grendel is renowned for killing heroes. not mead wenches. Your assumption only works if you think the best heroes the Danes can offer are 1st level warriors.
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Let's say that they were lvl 3 warriors (Hey! At least twice as tough as common man from the start), lvl 5 pally is a great hero among them and Ogre (especially ogre warrior 1) is terrible adversary...
But Grendel is renowned for killing heroes. not mead wenches.
Was he?
In what I remember of the poem, Grendel attacks were happening in the middle of the night in a mead hall while the warriors were drunk out of their wits...
Prior to 3E, D&D handled gritty and realistic fantasy just fine.
D&D has never been particularly realistic. For example, fighting a heavily armored warrior with a sword.
So, because it was harder in an earlier edition means it still isn't hard now? Getting to level 20 takes months at the standard system.
Also, not hating the XP system like you do does not make me a whining preschooler.
Months. It took YEARS to get to 20th level back in the day. I had an 18th level paladin that took me seven years to get that high, playing just about every weekend. That was a feeling of accomplishment. And he had to be raised twice, with the resulting Con loss.
Taking a few months to reach 20th level is exactly the kind of "instant gratification" stuff that turns a lot of us old schoolers off about new jack players.
That's what I love about Kirthfinder. I've been playing my rogue/fighter for almost three years now, and we're just up to eighth level. If we played all the time, I'd probably be about twelfth.
So, no, really, taking "months" isn't hard. You don't even have tome to really know you character. And anyone that attached to a piece of paper (this is for Malbrey) really should find another hobby. Taking a role playing game so seriously that the death of a character causes a mini "Blackleaf" episode and drives someone away for six months indicates some serious perspective issues.
I don't want it to take years to level up a character. I could never play a character for that long.
D&D has never been particularly realistic. For example, fighting a heavily armored warrior with a sword.Not sure I follow your point. Fighting heavily armed warriors with swords was pretty standard a thousand years ago. Armor has never been able to stop all damage, and swords have been used because they work.
Where's the lack of realism?
When I say heavily armored, I refer to full plate, which is what every heavily armored D&D warrior ends up with. A longsword is a very, very poor weapon against somebody in full plate. They can't hack through it, and they aren't particularly good at stabbing through it unless you get really lucky and hit a weak point. A two handed sword is a bit better, but I'd rather have something like a hammer or halberd, which is what was used in real life for this sort of fight. In D&D, however, you see longsword versus plate armor fights all the time, because longswords are awesome. The fact that, realistically, they can't do much to full plate never comes up. Hell, the fact that full plate was only common for about a century, during the pike and shot era and not the "classic" Middle Ages, never comes up. If you wanted to be realistic, longswords would have to be made to suck against plate and similar armors, such as dragon hide.
How lethal do you want DnD next to be?Have a vote!Thanks for the link. Seems I'm not alone in the 'style' of game I would like (52%). Nice to be 'one of the crowd' in this case.
Cheers,
S.
I think I voted the same as you did:
"Character death is uncommon, but the threat of death should always be present."
Well, almost everybody buys full plate eventually, so I used it as my example since it's so prevalent. You are, of course, correct about everything, despite our disagreement on what is heavy armor.
Heh.. it's not realistic, but you can always limit the realistic armour and armament by era availability - enter chainmail, spears and longswords etc.
But you have a point. The D&D armor system is not realistic. That has always been a sore point with me, that wearing so much metal, leather and linen that you can't bend down easily makes it harder to hit you. Utter stupidity (no matter what sort of "rational" explanation people use to justify it).
Which is why a Damage Reduction system would be awesome if it was printed at the same time, in the same book as regular AC defenses. At first I hated the idea of armor as DR, but looking at it, it just makes more sense. Sure, it's not hard to hit a guy with 40+ lbs of steel on, but it IS hard to damage tissue, muscle, and bone through it.
It's pretty easy to use Arms Law (from rolemaster) in D&D if you're interested in heavily armored foes being easy to hit and hard to damage. It also does a good job of modelling different weapons strengths against different armor types. Plus you get free critical tables (although you can simplify that if you're not interested in the random deaths).
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It's pretty easy to use Arms Law (from rolemaster) in D&D if you're interested in heavily armored foes being easy to hit and hard to damage. It also does a good job of modelling different weapons strengths against different armor types. Plus you get free critical tables (although you can simplify that if you're not interested in the random deaths).
Even easier when you remember they were written as an alternative to the D&D combat system originally.
Yeah, that's what first got us into rolemaster. When 2nd edition AD&D came out we switched entirely.