D&D 2E/3.5E numbers question

[tussock]

It's up to the DM how much of it you destroy when it's a very large object, they assign hit points per whatever size section they wish. With a small boat you could just say it's no longer water tight, because that's all we care about anyway.

Which is fair, the Hags claws hit as hard as a big axe, and you should be able to sink a small wooden boat with an axe.


As to the thread: 3e is far more in each players control as to staying in range of the d20. In 2nd edition, you took your fighter, you specialised in longsword, you only got a couple of small stat mods, and you just took what items the DM gave you (which eventually fixed your stats to the same as everyone elses). In 3e you also have to take useful feats, upgrade your own items and weapons, and avoid all the other traps like multi-classing, monster races, and prestigue classes.

It's pretty hard to screw up your 2nd edition character when you're new at it, because there's a lot less to do that means anything. T here doesn't even know everyone needs 14+ Con in 3e yet.

The other way around though? In 2nd you can totally break the game with all of one splatbook, PHBR1, double attacks for double damage, w00t! In 3e you've got to know the game pretty damn well and mix and match from all over to break anything with a Fighter.

[RobbyPants]

Holy crap, do the rules really say that 10'x10' section gets destroyed? I thought it was bad enough that you could 'chop down' a door with a bow and a couple of arrows.

It says that for walls, but that's where they list material HP by inch of thickness. Other specifics are up in the air.

Yeah, these rules have a lot to be desired. Chopping down doors with arrows is one thing. Pickaxes not being able to penetrate stone without a high-Str user is another.

[T]

tussock - thanks for the input. Points taken. Can you enlighten me about the 14+ Con though? Why not 16+ or 12 +

RE: walls - I see now where it says 10'x10'. It's still kind of retarded that it's 10'x10'. Can you imagine how long it would take to remove a 10'x10'x1' section of stone or wood wall in real life with a hand tool? I know D&D isn't realistic, but damn yo.

[...You Lost Me]

In D&D, lots of things have lots of HP. A decent attack deals 1d6/level, which is 3.5 damage per level. A wizard comes with a d4 hit die, for only 2.5 HP per level, meaning they will die from a single fireball if they fail the save. Getting 9 Con is driving yourself off a cliff because then your wizard gets 1.5 HP per level, and even a successful save will kill them.

As the game goes higher in levels, higher amounts of damage become the norm. Disintegrate deals 2d6/level (7/level average), so a tank with d12 hit dice (6.5 HP per level) can get one-shotted on a failed save. Harm deals straight-up 10 HP/level, so now you need a tank with at least +4 Con to come out alive on a failed save. And those spells are commonly dubbed weak.

A +1 Constitution modifier is easy enough to get (average hero stat), and since Constitution is very very important, putting extra resources in is usually worthwhile, which means +2 ConMod (or 14-15 Con). A 16 in Con is actually quite nice, but if you have the choice between 18/14 or 16/16, you will want to pick 18/12, because that +4 to your primary stat (intelligence for wizards, charisma for fire mages) tends to make a much bigger difference.

[ishy]

Many of these new players get frustrated during the game because they don't realize that as a fighter, CON is the 2nd most important score.

Maybe, just maybe if they are new to the game, they should read their goddamned class description. Here I'll quote it for you since you clearly haven't read much about the system you are criticising:

ishy, this is kind of a weak argument.

It is? You said that people playing fighters get frustrated because they don't know con is important, and I pointed out it says so right there in the class: fighter section.
I'm not seeing any reason why anyone new to the game wouldn't know that con is important for a fighter, unless they didn't read the fighter class description. But how would they have created a fighter character then?

[Ice9]

tussock - thanks for the input. Points taken. Can you enlighten me about the 14+ Con though? Why not 16+ or 12 +

RE: walls - I see now where it says 10'x10'. It's still kind of retarded that it's 10'x10'. Can you imagine how long it would take to remove a 10'x10'x1' section of stone or wood wall in real life with a hand tool? I know D&D isn't realistic, but damn yo.

This cuts both ways though. In "real life", going into melee against a solid iron creature (such as an Iron Golem) is going to be pretty much pointless and fatal.

If you say that characters can physically defeat stuff like that, then it follows that they can do the same thing to walls - more easily, in fact, as the wall won't be trying to kill them.

[shadzar]

Is that fighter penalized more or less in 2e or 3.5e for a dumb choice? That's the question I've been interested in.

2nd, the fighter is punished by players abusing the system, aka minmaxing/optimizing other classes to make the fighter redundant, and DMs allowing that and ignoring the DM control that counters it.

3.x: ALL classes are punished for not making the RIGHT choice. many of the feats are bloat for flavor, considering MOST people optimize them, and there is mathematically "bad" choices.

so the majority of people playing 3.x play the rules/numbers not the game...where a major problem comes from.

[koz]

T: Protip - ignore anything shadzar says. You can save yourself a massive amount of sanity damage by simply putting him on pre-emptive ignore, and then never reading anything he says.

[erik]

tussock - thanks for the input. Points taken. Can you enlighten me about the 14+ Con though? Why not 16+ or 12 +

Mostly that very specific number comes from point-buy allocation for attributes.

You can buy attributes up to 14 at a cheap rate of 1:1, whereas at 15 it goes up to 2 pts per 1 attribute bump.

So it is cost effective to get as many 14's as you can, and ignore/dump the unnecessary stats in order to raise your primary stat as high as you can afford. Con is a very important secondary stat and as such almost always merits being bought into at 14 pts (which makes it 16 for dwarves/gnomes, 12 for elves).

If you are rolling stats then obviously you cannot be that specific since you never know what you are gonna get, but Con is still on the short list for every class just after primary attributes.

[angelfromanotherpin]

It's true. Every time I break discipline and read shadzar's posts it turns out that he is, in fact, still producing tl;dr word semi-salads that all revolve around the one thing that apparently echoes through his mind day and night. I then have to grit my teeth and not engage his bullshit because all it does is encourage him.

You don't ever have to read a shadzar post, all you need is that image macro of the kid who's mad about people liking things he doesn't like. Maybe look at it more than once to simulate the pointless length of his diatribes.

[koz]

It's true. Every time I break discipline and read shadzar's posts it turns out that he is, in fact, still producing tl;dr word semi-salads that all revolve around the one thing that apparently echoes through his mind day and night. I then have to grit my teeth and not engage his bullshit because all it does is encourage him.

You don't ever have to read a shadzar post, all you need is that image macro of the kid who's mad about people liking things he doesn't like. Maybe look at it more than once to simulate the pointless length of his diatribes.

When I think of shadzar, I see this.

[T]

Mostly that very specific number comes from point-buy allocation for attributes.

You can buy attributes up to 14 at a cheap rate of 1:1, whereas at 15 it goes up to 2 pts per 1 attribute bump.

Got it.