The concept of level

[ubernoob]

//

[MGuy]

Again, as I wrote in that thread. That was part of YOUR restrictions on what makes and doesn't make a fighter. I will say here what I've been saying there only once. A warforged can be seen as a fighter. There is no reason that fighters have to be strictly human.

[ubernoob]

//

[MGuy]

Because a portion of your explanation on what can be seen as a fighter restricts other races from being seen as fighters? Hard to believe seeing as though that has nothing to do with level and is just an example of why your explanation on what is seen as fighters doesn't work. In either case I'm not gonna rant with you about that thread here. Just wanted to clear that one thing up.

[Username17]

If there is any choice anywhere in the game that means anything at all, then your game has some amount of RPS in it. Definitionally. Some games have milder RPS (pick the right pill and get +3 on your percentile roll!) and some have stronger RPS elements (get into a Scissors vs. Paper fight and you win without rolling dice). And the degree to which that's operating as intended and/or a good thing depends on your game, its design goals, and blah blah blah.

But if you think RPS elements are irrelevant to the question of how often specific character A should beat specific character B at some arbitrary power level, you need to get your head out of your ass. Because it's obviously so far up there that you may suffocate. But sure, let's give some solid examples in the fantasy genre using random number generators, because that's apparently all you can focus on without eyestrain.

Let's say you have a WoW style dungeon party. And you have four dudes who are all contributing. And one of them is contributing by healing allies so they don't drop, one of them is actually dropping an enemy every two seconds, and the other two are engaged in crowd control antics to keep ither of the first two from being swarmed and overwhelmed. All four are contributing and necessary for the team to make progress. But if for some reason they ever went PVP on each other, the DPS guy could apparently gank all three of the other guys in 6 seconds. That doesn't make him over powered, and indeed since nothing apparently happens to the party when he doesn't do his job except a lack of forward progress (as opposed to character loss and negative progress if anyone else fails to do their job), you can make a very valid case that Mr. DPS is the weakest character at his level.

But sure, let's talk about a game where PVP is for some reason considered important. And we have three characters: Knights, Generals, and Noise Marines. Knights are tough and hit hard. Generals give bonuses to nearby allies. And Noise Marines blast groups of enemies near to each other. And right away you can see the developing metagame based around getting groups big enough to take advantage of General bonus without pushing it to the point where the enemies all field noise marines and chain nuke your super groups out of existence. And that could very easily be balanced to the point where people were satisfied with all three classes - and Knights would still wtfpwn either of the other classes in one on one.

Indeed, the very moment you take into account multi-target attacks or buffing at all, your basic premise is total and obvious horseshit. A fireball hits more than one enemy, so it must be smaller, or more expensive, or slower, or less reliable, or something when compared to a single target attack like a crossbow. Right? And yet, in a one on one battle, the Fireball is getting absolutely nothing from its status as a a multi-target weapon. So the crossbow is going to massively outperform it in the one-on-one battle if those two options can be confused for balanced even in poor lighting. Or let's take the good old standard of the buffing aura. If you give a bonus to all your allies, you'd better have a smaller personal bonus than someone who doesn't, right? And yet, if "all" your other allies is "zero people" then you just paid for a very real power that doesn't do shit.

It's not just that Fire is strong against Ice type. RPS matchups are so pervasive that "being in one-on-one combat" actually is one of the situations that one character can be expected to excel at more than another character. The fact that DPS beats Crowd Control or Healer doesn't mean that DPS is overpowered or higher level. It doesn't even mean that they are particularly good. It just means that if characters are allowed to be different in any way then they will be differently effective in different situations. And one-on-one cage matches are a situation. And usually a fairly minor one in most games.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Okay Frank, since everyone else in the fucking thread wants to argue RPS.

What the original post is about is not Fire strong versus Ice. It explicitly about "level = power" and how characters of the same level need to be as powerful in total.

The fact that uber made one misspoken statement about individual combat that isn't the point of the thread, and then everyone including you decided to argue about that instead of the actual topic, and uber doesn't feel like admitting to making a mistake by including a reference to something he wasn't talking about, shouldn't ruin this thread.

Please just let RPS die. That's not the issue. The issue is claims by people, like Mguy, that some characters should be better all the fucking time 100% of the time, because they are combat classes.

[Sunwitch]

I'm not sure where JE picked up the idea that challenges of your own level in CR are "mook" characters. According to the CR guidelines a CR 7 character should be about equal in ability to a level 7 character. Which means that if you're dwarfing CR 7 characters at level 7 100% of the time (rather than beating roughly 50% like is the ideal), you're totally out of line with what is expected of you at that level. Something of your level in CR should not be a "mook", it is supposed to be just as good as you are.

...Are people still seriously arguing that the idea of "combat guys" versus "skillmonkeys" or "roleplaying characters" is a good idea?

[violence in the media]

The impression I'm getting from ubernoob's resistance to the RPS argument in relation to his level argument is that he doesn't want a level 8 Rock to be able to beat a Level 10 Scissor or something. Being higher level needs to overcome any inherent weakness to being "off type" versus any opponent lower level than you are. Am I right correct about this, ubernoob?

If so, how are lower level people supposed to trump higher level people? Do 4 level 8s get to beat 1 level 10? Do they need to use the proper RPS match up to do so? Does a level 10 Paper get to beat a level 10 Rock 100% of the time? 75% of the time? 66.66% of the time? Can you only level up by pounding on equal level opponents at best?

[tzor]

No. Wrong. In an RPG with levels, level is explicitly a measure of your power. If it is not, then your RPG has no concept of balance and is a shitty RPG that shouldn't be using levels. End of discussion. QED.

According to that definition 1E AD&D should never have had levels. I mean when we used to talk about "balance" in 1E we practically started using differential equations in the discussion. At any given level, both the power potential and the rate of advancement of any one class compared to another class could not be easily compared for any semblence of balance.

No, it's easier to throw vagueness on the whole process; levels make one better in definable quantum units. Being balanced is a better idea, levels should be balanced, but they don't have to be. They are not a standard for "balance" in and of themselves any more than the current grade of school you are in determines your balance relative to others in that grade. (In other words not all MA's are equal or balanced.)

[Hicks]

I'm not sure where JE picked up the idea that challenges of your own level in CR are "mook" characters.

While a cage match between two equal CRed opponents is supposed to represent a 50/50 chance of either winning, an equal CRed opponent against a party of 4 or more adventurers is just going to be curb-stomped, always. The party (on average) has 4 or more times the HP, Actions, and Positions of their single equal CRed opponent; and will be lucky to get the party to expend 20-25% of their resources.

You see, CR is not based on the effective party level, but average party level. If a party of 4 level 6 heroes encounters a mirror match of 4 CR 6 Doppelgangers, that encounter is not CR 6 but CR 8, and that means the party has to sit up and take notice or they are all gonna die. Likewise, a party of 4 level 6 heroes walks around like a CR 8 encounter, and a CR 6 monster is a mook to a CR 8 encounter.

---

OH, and Kaelik: Judging__Eagle said this:

Fights [as in combat between two or more individuals] by nature are not balanced.

NOT this:

"All fighters [as in the class] should be imbalanced."

[Apalala]

I think the main issue is role protection. Characters the fill similar roles at the same level should be about as powerful. The upset in balance is obvious when you look at classes like the Fighter and Monk compared to the Warblade and Swordsage. The former are obviously worse than the latter in pretty much every way, while doing virtually the same thing.

Then you have classes that have different methods, but achieve the same result. A bard uses diplomacy while the wizard casts charm person. Both persuade X to do Y.

So then, when you compare classes, you can look at the RPS matchups they have. So and so can do this really well, but he's not match for whatsherface at that.

So you can look at the Fighter and compare him to, say, the druid or cleric. Whatever the fighter can do, he isn't going to be able to do it as well as them, and there is plenty that they can do that he can't. So, when you have a situation where a class is losing, completely failing, against one class at something that it is supposed to do well, then you have a shitty game, or at least a very shitty class.

[Sunwitch]

While a cage match between two equal CRed opponents is supposed to represent a 50/50 chance of either winning, an equal CRed opponent against a party of 4 or more adventurers is just going to be curb-stomped, always. The party (on average) has 4 or more times the HP, Actions, and Positions of their single equal CRed opponent; and will be lucky to get the party to expend 20-25% of their resources.

I get that. The CR guidelines tend to sort of ignore the fact that linear increase in quantities of fighting men means a quadratic increase in fighting power. I normally think of "mooks" as being vast in quantities however.

You see, CR is not based on the effective party level, but average party level. If a party of 4 level 6 heroes encounters a mirror match of 4 CR 6 Doppelgangers, that encounter is not CR 6 but CR 8, and that means the party has to sit up and take notice or they are all gonna die. Likewise, a party of 4 level 6 heroes walks around like a CR 8 encounter, and a CR 6 monster is a mook to a CR 8 encounter.

Actually, it'd be CR 10, which is 4 higher than the average level of this four-person party. Which by the CR guidelines means it's presumably a 50/50 match; it could go either way at equal probability. Though I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here.

[Kaelik]

Hicks, the problem with your analysis is that JE doesn't think that a party should easily defeat a CR 7 encounter at level 7, he thinks that a single individual, IE his character, should easily defeat a few CR 7s without breaking a sweat.

So yes, according to his own logic, he expects a single level 7 fighter to be able to singlehandedly beat 3-4 level 7 fighters with the exact same stats, feats, and magic items.

[Mask_De_H]

RPS game design is fundamentally stupid in table RPGs for the exact same reasons that disadvantage abilities that you trade for real power are generally pretty damn bad in RPGs.

What? You can have characters that are strong against some enemies and weak against others and still be on the same level. That's one of the consequences of having roles. It's what the Same Game Test and general playtesting points out.

But don't even TRY and argue that here because Franky likes his RPS and no amount of reason on the topic will change that or change the opinions of the but kiss brigade.

You make a nothing connection and then throw out ad hominems? Candle sniffing fuckfence, go climb a wall of dicks.

On topic, making RPS work would be to simply do it like Pokemon; your attack types get Rock, Paper, or Scissors and hitting on type/off type incurs some sort of numerical change. Making someone a Rock type is not good, giving somebody Rock moves is good.

EDIT: Yeah, having someone of Level X being able to mow down enemies of CR X singlehandedly does not seem like a good idea, unless we determine that Level has more weight than CR.

[Username17]

Hicks, the problem with your analysis is that JE doesn't think that a party should easily defeat a CR 7 encounter at level 7, he thinks that a single individual, IE his character, should easily defeat a few CR 7s without breaking a sweat.

So yes, according to his own logic, he expects a single level 7 fighter to be able to singlehandedly beat 3-4 level 7 fighters with the exact same stats, feats, and magic items.

I honestly can't tell what JE thinks is going on. I'm pretty confused. But Ubernoob's point is pretty clear. So is PhoneLobsters. Both of them are specifically saying that every arbitrary challenge should be accomplished with equal proficiency by every character listed at the same arbitrary power level. That's not ambiguous or hidden in a TL;DR wall of text, these are very short, very transparent, very "axiom" driven statements. They really seriously believe this. And it's wrong.

JE is not explaining himself clearly and I don't know whether I agree with him or not. I don't agree with the characterization you have made of his opinion, but I honestly cannot tell if you are condensing his actual argument or strawmanning him up one side and down the other.

But Ubernoob and PhoneLobster are clear, concise, and clearly, concisely, and completely full of shit. As long as there are any mechanical differences between any two characters, their goals cannot be achieved. Which means that the only way to make the game, or any game, work the way they claim to want to make it work is to remove all semblance of difference and choice from all characters. That's not a goal that makes any sense for an RPG to even list on the "to-do-later" list.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

Isn't the idea that a CR 7 character has a 50% chance of defeating a CR 7 opponent?

[Hicks]

D'oh! Thats what I get for not double checking.

---

What I'm trying to get at is this: The game is inherently unbalanced in favor of the PCs. It has to be, otherwise there is no continious narrative as there are no continious characters, because they are all dead. A 4 pack of CR 6 characters in a party has a 50% chance of death against a CR 10 encounter. That is not a "50% chance of resource expenditure" but a "50% chance of Death". A 50% chance of death is insane, and if one thinks any rewards are worth flipping a coin to see whether one lives or dies is fair, one is insane.

While a 50/50 shot at success is fair in the context of a competetive game between two people, as the point of competition is for it to be an equal chance of success for both parties to see which party has the most skill, it is unfair in the context of a continious narritive, because the whole point of a continious narrative is for the story to continue, and for the story to continue the players must be able to participate and interact with the story. A 50/50 chance of success may even be realistic but it is unfair and furhermore damaging and orthagonal to the goals of a continious narrative.

Having said that, Players in D+D are to participate in combat as a party, and they bring as much firepower to bear as an encounter 4 more than their average party level. If a 6th level party faces an encounter with a CR equal to it's average party level, the difficulty is analogus to a single member of that party fighting a single Large Mostrous Spider. There is no ammount of whupass that monster can pull from its thorax to threaten a 6th level character. It is a mook. It cannot hit a 6th level fighter's AC, cannot adequatly pierce the fighter's DR, and explodes if the fighter so much as gives it a harsh look. A fighter can literally cleave through any number of them as an attack action, and more than that if he chooses to whirlwind. The Spider cannot target a 6th level wizard, who through Illusions or buffs is unhittable, and the wizard is a silent, minor, or major image away from totally winning the encounter. Likewise an encounter with a CR equal to the Party's average level is a mook in comparason to the party (action and placement advantage being what they are) and will pretty much die in one round.

Ergo, A party treats an encounter equal to it's average party level as if it was a mook.

---

At Kaelik: So what? If a character fights in a manner that is advantageous to them, that character has the advantage. I got no problem with a [insert character here] taking on an equaled CR encounter and dominating it deliverance style, as long as [insert same character here] is fighting to their advantage. The Barbarian fights in melee, and dominates melee, his whole character concept is that in melee, his numbers are bigger. The only way for you to beat a barbarian in melee is to have a higher level barbarian melee the lower level one. Outside of melee... the Barbarian falls behind; Rage can only be used in melee, and no Rage means no damage reduction, no immunities, no fast movement, no rage dice. Yeah, they can get a bow... but that is not their focus, that is not their area of advantage, especiallyif all their feats and items are tasked to making them the meanest melee machine they can be.

Sometimes the advantage is of position (melee vs. ranged), but of type (Fire vs. Ice or RPS). Its like a Charazard's Fireblast being Super Effective against equal CRed venusaur, I expect the charazard to dominate. Now where I get my shorts in a twist is when that same Charazard can shrug off Thunders from a Jolteon.

[Apalala]

I honestly can't tell what JE thinks is going on. I'm pretty confused. But Ubernoob's point is pretty clear. So is PhoneLobsters. Both of them are specifically saying that every arbitrary challenge should be accomplished with equal proficiency by every character listed at the same arbitrary power level. That's not ambiguous or hidden in a TL;DR wall of text, these are very short, very transparent, very "axiom" driven statements. They really seriously believe this. And it's wrong.

JE is not explaining himself clearly and I don't know whether I agree with him or not. I don't agree with the characterization you have made of his opinion, but I honestly cannot tell if you are condensing his actual argument or strawmanning him up one side and down the other.

But Ubernoob and PhoneLobster are clear, concise, and clearly, concisely, and completely full of shit. As long as there are any mechanical differences between any two characters, their goals cannot be achieved. Which means that the only way to make the game, or any game, work the way they claim to want to make it work is to remove all semblance of difference and choice from all characters. That's not a goal that makes any sense for an RPG to even list on the "to-do-later" list.

-Username17

I think what Judging Eagle is trying to say is that he wants to play a Fighter who can win 95% of all encounters in one round or so with little threat to himself, by himself. He thinks he is entitled to this because 1.) that's exactly what he wants to play and 2.) he isn't breaking any rules, he's just using a Races of War Fighter right out the box while picking the standard feats and such.

"Having mooks last more than two rounds against equal level PCs means that they mooks have some sort of special defense (puzzle monster); or the game has it's Heroism setting all the way down to "Warhammer Fantasy RPG"; where the PCs are barely capable rat-catchers and scullery maids. "

In his mind, that's what dungeons and dragons is all about, and he really isn't too far off. The problem is when he builds a character like that, either everyone has to or tag along as lackeys to his hero, and either solution is little fun.

[Hicks]

Isn't the idea that a CR 7 character has a 50% chance of defeating a CR 7 opponent?

Generally speaking, Yes that is true. However:

A 7th level barbarian has a 100% chance of destroying a Griffon Archer Knight in melee, and a 7th level Griffon Archer Knight has a 100% chance of destroying a Barbarian at range. Both the Barbarian and Griffon Archer Knight have a 100% chance of destroying any equal CRed encounters if they fight where it is advantageous for them to do so.

Advantages can trump levels in certain situations, as they are a force multiplier to be applied to your power in a given situation.

[Username17]

Isn't the idea that a CR 7 character has a 50% chance of defeating a CR 7 opponent?

Yes. However in actual play, level 7 characters benefit from:

• Artifacts and other equipment boosts.
• Intelligence about future opposition.
• NPC assistance.
• More concentration in min/maxing than the DM on a per-character basis.
• DM pity.

So in actual play, most level 7 characters will beat a CR 7 opponent they happen to meet. Even if that CR 7 opponent is just a doppelganger of themselves - because the player spends more time thinking about the capabilities and limitations of their character than the DM does and the DM doesn't want to kill their character as much as the player wants to kill the opponent.

By high levels, actual characters can indeed solo several monsters of their own level. In part because the high level monsters are really poorly designed and have huge gaping (and rather obvious) weaknesses in many cases. But also because a Rogue does not go to the Black Tower without making a DC 30 Gather Information check first and packing accordingly. And of course most campaigns involve people getting artifacts, special permanent stat changes, touchstone licks, and whatever else to give them genuine power that doesn't count against XP or GP totals.

The Level 15 Same Game tests are just there to test a class in the abstract. In a real game you'd mop the floor with all of them using even a half-way decent class, just because asymmetries accumulate in D&D to such an intense degree. No character in a real game is going to be phased by the Lava Forest at 15th level, because foreshadowing, gather information, prisoner interrogation, plot points, or even ham fisted divining is going to let the players know about it far enough in advance that even a 15th level Commoner is going to just shill out the cash to get elemental immunity cast into a Ring of Spellstoring.

I do wish that at some point K and I had actually gone through with making our "encounter paradigms at high level" segment for the Book of Gears. The high level adventuring world is... not the way a lot of people think it is.

-Username17

[Roy]

The problem with what JE is saying is that he's right to a point. If mooks are living longer than 2 rounds, you got some serious fucking Padded Sumo going on. The trouble is he sets the bar for mook too high, and also assumes one man army is the default and not merely a means of ensuring your own character's survival when you KNOW everyone else is incompetent.

Because if I ever had the misfortune of being stuck at the table with a bunch of gimp builds, you better believe I would make a do it all character because it is blatantly obvious that if I do not do it no one will. And I would drag the gimps through the routine encounters that would otherwise be impossible for them. But I would not go and make balance claims around this, or wank off constantly to my group salvaging measure.

[Apalala]

The problem with what JE is saying is that he's right to a point. If mooks are living longer than 2 rounds, you got some serious fucking Padded Sumo going on. The trouble is he sets the bar for mook too high, and also assumes one man army is the default and not merely a means of ensuring your own character's survival when you KNOW everyone else is incompetent.

Because if I ever had the misfortune of being stuck at the table with a bunch of gimp builds, you better believe I would make a do it all character because it is blatantly obvious that if I do not do it no one will. And I would drag the gimps through the routine encounters that would otherwise be impossible for them. But I would not go and make balance claims around this, or wank off constantly to my group salvaging measure.

Gimp is relative. Literally. Spider-man is gimp compared to Green Lantern, who is gimp compared to Superman, who is gimp compared to Flash. And yet, all four can tell decent stories. Read the Spider-man/Superman crossover though. It's Superman lightly tapping people while Spidey cracks jokes in the background. They're from two different worlds and they really don't mesh all that well.

Same with trying to use core 3.5 material and Tome. You can have a perfectly fine game using either system, but you can't mix them and expect things to turn out well.

[Roy]

The problem with what JE is saying is that he's right to a point. If mooks are living longer than 2 rounds, you got some serious fucking Padded Sumo going on. The trouble is he sets the bar for mook too high, and also assumes one man army is the default and not merely a means of ensuring your own character's survival when you KNOW everyone else is incompetent.

Because if I ever had the misfortune of being stuck at the table with a bunch of gimp builds, you better believe I would make a do it all character because it is blatantly obvious that if I do not do it no one will. And I would drag the gimps through the routine encounters that would otherwise be impossible for them. But I would not go and make balance claims around this, or wank off constantly to my group salvaging measure.

Gimp is relative. Literally. Spider-man is gimp compared to Green Lantern, who is gimp compared to Superman, who is gimp compared to Flash. And yet, all four can tell decent stories. Read the Spider-man/Superman crossover though. It's Superman lightly tapping people while Spidey cracks jokes in the background. They're from two different worlds and they really don't mesh all that well.

Same with trying to use core 3.5 material and Tome. You can have a perfectly fine game using either system, but you can't mix them and expect things to turn out well.

Ok. Except we're talking about normal humans trying to do Spider Man's job, so the face Green Lantern can do it better, and Superman still better is nice and all, but the point is each person needs to at least be a Spider Man, and when none of the rest of em are you have to be a Green Lantern or even a Superman to make up for it.

[Kaelik]

I implore you to reread this part of the OP:

Level is an indication of power. If someone is more powerful than someone (not powerful in different ways, but meaningfully more powerful) that means they are higher level.

While he did make a single statement about PvP stuff, that was not the fucking point at all.

The part you've been arguing against was just a restatement that mischaracterized his point.

Hicks:

1) I agree that it is heavily waited in favor of PCs. But I say the way it is thus waited is that you have four CR 7 people on your side, and each one is individually 50/50 against a generality of CR 7 monsters, but then you only face one CR 7 monster most of the time, so you have a 99% chance of winning.

JE is saying that the way it should be weighted in favor of the PCs is that you have 4 CR 7 people on your side, and each one is individually capable of destroying like 8 CR 7 monsters, but you are "only" facing 16 CR 7 monsters at a time, and so each character kills approximately one a round and the fight ends in two rounds with 99% of the time, victory for the PCs.

What I am saying is that PC advantage as I outlined is fine, but as JE outlined requires completely redoing at the very least CR and redefining the CR of class leveled enemies.

Because the idea that a single level 7 fighter can easily defeat more than one level 7 Fighter is the idea that A = ~A.

2) The point is not that people are fighting in a manner advantageous to them.

The point is that JE feels like a Fighter who is a melee machine, should out melee any group of four Fire Giants, who are four melee machines.

Even though his CR is equal to their CR.

That is not getting the advantage by fighting advantageously, that is just being straight better at melee than melee machines.

[Apalala]

Ok. Except we're talking about normal humans trying to do Spider Man's job, so the face Green Lantern can do it better, and Superman still better is nice and all, but the point is each person needs to at least be a Spider Man, and when none of the rest of em are you have to be a Green Lantern or even a Superman to make up for it.

The PCs aren't the ones who pick the job. It's the GM. And again, things are relative. What can be an exciting combat encounter for one party can be over in a single round when you add the munchkin. So, if a GM wants to have an exciting encounter, he has to build towards the munchkin, which ruins everyone else's fun. Party balance actually does matter, which is the same reason you don't have games where one character is level 5, another 15, and the rest are 8.