General Rants

[Arc]

Alright, Sera and I have been discussing the nuances of Dungeons and Dragons rules in a thread not for that purpose, so if we're going to, I might as well make a new thread for it. By the way, anyone else can pop in and give us their 2 cents.

[Arc]

Seraphine said:

Oh and one other thing I'd like to comment on when it comes to playing Roles. It's always been something I hated about D&D and always compared to White Wolf.
When you buy a White Wolf game, about half to two thirds of the book is fiction and plot. When you buy a D&D book, most of it is stats and how those stats affect combat. The monster manual needs to be a creature manual. Cuz right now all it has are stats, a little description paragraph, and a slightly longer paragraph on how they respond to combat.

It erks me. D&D needs to be less books on stats and more books on plot ideas and fiction. WW puts out books with nothing but plot suggestions sometimes, D&D makes books with campiegn settings but they always have stats for monsters and stats on loots. oy!

Seraphine said:

Speaking of rolling dice, never let your players know what your rolled. Infact, never let your players know any of the numbers of anything if possible. That way you can always change what your rolled, and it forces you to describe a lot more. Ever find yourself saying, "You do 8 damage." when you really should be saying, "Your arrow flies past your compatriot's ear, sending a twinge through his neck and eyes, and grazes the bandit's shoulder, tearing away flesh and spilling some blood on the soft dirt." Granted that may be a lot to say for one combat action but I prefer combat to go faster than most people run them. D&D gives too many hp to everything, no human could take more than three arrows before dropping dead, no matter how much combat training they have.

Aeos said:

"Hit Points are a measure of a character's ability to turn a potentially fatal wound into a less severe one." -DMG

First off, D&D is not a realistic setting. It isn't even really intended to be. D&D is intended to represent a fictional world in which the players are heroes (or antiheroes) of their own story.

Imagine that a normal person is wounded by three arrows. An arrow doing 8 damage to an opponent of low level probably hit his torso, perhaps thighs or upper arms. To a high level character, unless the damage is very great, most wounds indicate that perhaps the character had fended off almost the entirety of the blow, making it a grazing strike, hardly effecting him at all. 8 damage to a high level character may have simply scratched his wrist. It by no means indicates that the arrow is totally lodged into his body.

At any rate, Combat is best done fast, I agree wholeheartedly. Also, Keeping numbers to yourself as a GM is not only good for keeping battles flexible, it also adds an element of confusion to battle. Its best to keep the descriptions of specific attacks in combat short, and bring more details in for Critical hits and other spectactular events.

As for Plot ideas and Fiction, that is exactly what we are here to provide for our fellow gamers.

Seraphine said:

In retaliation to the explaination to hit points:

First of all if that were true how come the same magic missle doesn't do the same kind of damage? Or does the ability to redirect damage also apply to magical damage even though the recieing character may have no magical training of any sort?

Secondly the damage on weapons don't go up along with leveling. Strength may but at a rate of 1 per four levels, which means you won't get a +1 to damage until 8 levels.

That second point is also one of the things that bothers me, your attack roll doesn't influence your damage roll at all. The only way an attack roll can influence the damage roll is if you crit, and that onlyl happens how often? That's right about 1 or 2 out of 20 swipes. Rouges get backstab and you can improve your critical range through feats but there is no marginal improvement even though a fighter may be getting more and more experienced.

But these are my qualms with D20.

[Arc]

Magic damage: It does do the same kind of damage though. Even though a Spell's power is level based, it still deals an ammount of damage that has some relation to the opponent's hit points. They simply do more damage in general.

Weapon damage DOES go up on occasion, Weapon Specialization, Power Attack, Power Lunge, Setting to Recieve a Charage, Rage, All these things raise damage.

the "combat training" you speak of makes it sound like a fighter of 10th level has spent ten levels fighting fighters, and working in a martial field. Its assumed in D&D that characters have experienced a broad range of dangers and therefore know how to avoid them more easily with age.

I would agree that damage is a little low for upper end high level characters in relation to their HP, but this is something to be overcome by building more deadly killers. Almost anyone of a high level has had to stay alive. Not everyone has tried to kill everything they see, though.

There is a strong case for upping general weapon damage as level goes up. Unfortunately, it seems a rather difficult area to rule, what's to prevent a Sorcerer with some of the most powerfull evocation spells in the game from picking up a sword that gives him the same bonuses the fighter needs to match the sorcerer for damage. then you've got a Sorcerer who can deal 24d6 with a spell, and smack the fighter for 20d6 (hypothetically) while the fighter has the same weapon for 20d6 and can maybe whirlwind attack or Improved Critical. I'd say the Sorcerer has the advantage. I'd say that there need to be some feats high up that blow the weapon damage out the window for fighting types, so that the ballance of power is roughly equal.

That being said, perhaps there is a reason NOT to correct the balance of power. You hardly hear of a mysterious fighter who has an entire world to plot with against the characters. A spellcaster naturally makes a better adverary at massive levels. They simply have more control over a situation. Is that bad? Maybe for players. Its also a very often used plot device.

Consider also that I have seen clever fighters take down adversaries oh, four to five levels higher in a single round, due to tactics, planning, and some hefty use of feats. Hit Points remain high because there's hardly a chance for a vilian to retalliate if he doesn't survive for more than one round. Thats the essence of pack fighting. Perhaps there ought ot be more games where the heroes are small groups or individuals who are fighting worse odds AND more powerfull adversaries. (ahh the days of Arcandio's earlier adventures) Perhaps we should look closely at the Hitpoint problem in context before we do anything at all about it. I'm reminded of the Bosch Battle in BESM White City Bastion, last year. The Archvilian, Bosch, had an almost innumerable ammount of supernatural abilities. However, when the PCs got ahold of him, I was forced to MORE THAN DOUBLE his Hp. I've almost always played the 3/4 HP rule, giving everything a little more of a fighting chance. Perhaps I (or others) should run 1/2 Hp or even 1/4 Hp games to give them a "grittier" edge.

D&D is a High Fantasy setting, default. This means its built to accomadate larger than life heroes, massively destructive dragons, and more spells than you can successfully shake an treant at. D&D isn't a gritty sort of game (usually) and when I run Gritty games, they tend to be steeped in dangerous allies and enemies, social deception, and lots of double crossings. I'm beginnings to be happier with the way I DM these days; I've been wanting to get back to m old school twisted plot days, and I'm finally starting to take it back up a few notches.

All in all, I think HP and Damage should be considered in situation before alterations are made. That's what I've been saying about D&D 3.5 since its inception, as well.