Martials Need Time: Low Level Magic

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 3:35 pm

Conan specifically, no. But similar VAHs get rebuilt by OCP, Godo the Blacksmith, Arthas/Nerzhul, or the like into things that clown on closet trolls easily. While maintaining qualities of their former VAHness that made them endearing in the first place.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:06 pm

Conan totally does kill various big monsters in hand-to-hand. Such as Frost Giants. There is a specific Conan story where he kills two Frost Giants with his sword.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:00 pm

name_here wrote:And I also seriously question the idea that Aang and Archer are fourth level.

Well precise levels are going to depend on edition and rules toggles, as well as which point in the story for characters who gain abilities.

As for Aang, in the late series he's the most powerful character in the setting -- but early season 1 Aang is mainly mobility and evasion used to fight mooks, aside from being able to knockdown at range, and the episode Season 1, episode 3 reveal of the Avatar State, that's a First level Tome Monk. In 3e terms, he probably starts out 2nd or 3rd level and gains about 2 or 3 levels a season.

Archer is either a guy who is a James Bond knockoff, which is pretty firmly VAH territory or, as is more likely the one you were talking about: a guy who is good with a sword, better with a bow and has a big damage AoE ranged supermove, which you later find out has selectable special effects. That basically makes him a level 5 ranger in 4e terms.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:02 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: For the sake of argument, sure. Conan can kill two dozen orcs as a mundane character without violating his idiom or breaking the fourth wall. Now tell me why this character concept shouldn't top out at a metaphorical level 3/campaign prologue. What genre or gameplay imperative do we have that states just because a pre-ascension's Conan feats of badassery includes slaying a contingent of castle guards means that he can take on an ogre or a dire tiger or a flesh golem?

Genre: As name_here said, this is exactly the sort of thing that Conan does all the time.

Gameplay: The transitive property, pretty much. If Conan is capable of kicking enough ass to be recognizably Conan, he is also capable of defeating CR-appropriate physical threats. Note that both the dire tiger and the flesh golem are in the upper range of what I'd expect him to handle, meaning he might not want to go it alone with them.

Now, how is gameplay improved in any way by telling the Conan-players of the world "If our game allowed you to, you could keep playing Conan for another 3-5 levels, there wouldn't be any problem With it. But I don't like Conan so you don't get to. You must play Thor instead." Because from what I can see, that's pretty much explicitly your position.

infected slut princess · Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:13 pm

Lago doesn't know jack about Conan.

Fact: Conan is fucking awesome. Lago is a whiner.

infected slut princess · Mon Jan 19, 2015 6:38 pm

Dogbert wrote:Okay, then let's see Conan sneak past a BEHOLDER.

What the?? In 3e, Beholders are like CR 13 or something crazy. This is just like you saying "LOLOLOL CONAN CAN'T KILL A PIT FIEND." You are just being dumb.

Look, I am anti-fighter-fapper, but these anti-fighter-fapper threads have officially jumped the shark, with Lago and Dogbert saying Conan can't be in D&D anymore because Conan can't kill pit fiends and dire tigers.

Dogbert wrote: P.D: No, Conan never seduced anyone. He gives or takes, but "seduction" is on a level of social subtlety he finds abhorring. Please read the books.

You don't know shit about Conan. Your "please read the books" statement is hilarious because you obviously have not read the 'books' (the real Conan is mostly short stories btw, there is one legit novel).

And you obviously don't know shit about seduction. Conan is seduces all the bitches because he oozes so much supreme manly awesomeness out of every pore and doesn't give a shit about anything other than being awesome, so women get wet just by hanging around him for five seconds. He doesn't even have to try. You are probably a 40-year-old virgin.

LeadPal wrote:I'm not convinced Conan is viable at level 5, even if he's a match for fifty orcs. Instead of just orcs, he could be fighting locust swarms or an invisible archer.

What the hell is wrong with you. OMG, seriously, an invisible archer! Well that's pretty much just the first Predator movie, and Arnold was like level 1 in that. Invisible archers are seriously no big deal. Locust swarms are easy to deal with. Heck, a level 1 commoner can deal with that. You are a goddamn moron.

Btw, Conan started with 18 in all his stats.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:16 pm

Part of the problem with picking Conan's niche is that there is a variety of sources. Movies, comics, Howard's stories and other author's as well.

This discussion makes me want to go through the various Conan stories by Howard and list his opponents.

Off the top of my head a few the scariest are a gorilla-man, a giant lizard, a mind controlling wizard and a vampire.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:26 pm

Hasn't it already been determined that in the context of D&D, Conan is a rogue?

I can vouch from personal experience of two Iron Heroes campaigns. It is possible to run a D&D game where the players are nothing but fighters with mediocre numerical buffs and only barely enough magic in their swords to stab a ghost at all, without low-balling the CR. It requires care with monster choices (no medusa, no god wizards, etc), but they can still fight vrocks and purple worms and efreet. Exotic locations are essentially palette swaps because of the reliance on fiat to reach them.

However, those experiences have taught me that they will still want at least some magic. Even if it's just a dagger that does ice damage, or a McGuffin shield; their presence improves interest in the game, even if the magic doesn't at all improve their ability to overcome challenges.

One can certainly make the argument that a cherry-picked monster manual means you don't truly advance from low levels, but Skinner's Box is a thing, and it does wonders to prolong a campaign. Even a numerical treadmill has been sufficiently engaging to have them not worry about (or possibly even notice) the fact their 3rd level fight against mongols isn't fundamentally different from their 14th level fight against frost giants riding war-rocs while on a flying ship.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:46 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:
As for Aang, in the late series he's the most powerful character in the setting -- but early season 1 Aang is mainly mobility and evasion used to fight mooks, aside from being able to knockdown at range, and the episode Season 1, episode 3 reveal of the Avatar State, that's a First level Tome Monk. In 3e terms, he probably starts out 2nd or 3rd level and gains about 2 or 3 levels a season.

Aang novas super hard but is also a notorious sandbagger because he's a playful tween who was raised by pacifist monks. Good luck convincing people to agree on his starting level with that package.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:52 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote: Archer is either a guy who is a James Bond knockoff, which is pretty firmly VAH territory or, as is more likely the one you were talking about: a guy who is good with a sword, better with a bow and has a big damage AoE ranged supermove, which you later find out has selectable special effects. That basically makes him a level 5 ranger in 4e terms.

No, that makes him the same class as a level 5 ranger. He can fight intangible foes, flying foes, foes with super-high DR, and foes who have withdrawn into personal demiplanes he's outside of.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 8:27 pm

Just to make sure we're on the same page...

By "Archer", you mean this guy, right?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:24 pm

Yes, him.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:59 pm

Theoretically, archer has a "copy any magical weapon he ever sees" ability, but in practice he just uses the exact same two generic magical swords for melee and for ranged he just turns generic magical swords into even more generic magical arrows and occasionally into even more generic magical bombs. He never actually takes advantage of his ability to copy the magical properties of other people's shit. But combat-wise, he has range supremacy, he penetrates DR, and he can hit you when you're intangible. There are very few fights he couldn't contribute to. Non-combat-wise, basically every servant has the ability to turn invisible and intangible to everyone except mages/other servants. And when I say every servant, I mean it's one of those things the canon says about servants and then half of the servants in canon either explicitly cannot do that or just happen to never be seen doing it. He also has jump-powered flight, the limits of which I am unaware of because I haven't paid enough attention. Archer is totally a post-Conan character, but not by a lot. His concept really doesn't have an upper limit, because magical weapons can do fucking anything and if your defining feature is the ability to pull arbitrary magical weapons out of your ass you're golden for life.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:17 pm

infected slut princess wrote:Btw, Conan started with 18 in all his stats.

Actually, according to TSR Conan has multiple stats below 18: Int: 16 Wis 10 Con: 17 Cha: 15.

He is also a fighter of the 15th level and has the abilities of a level 9 thief.

infected slut princess · Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:35 pm

erik wrote: This discussion makes me want to go through the various Conan stories by Howard and list his opponents.

Off the top of my head a few the scariest are a gorilla-man, a giant lizard, a mind controlling wizard and a vampire.

The most hardcore opponent of Conan was probably the demon from "Xuthal of the Dusk", which technically Conan defeated although he suffered mortal injuries in the process. He only survived because the hot babe of the story gave him a magic healing potion to save his life.

But if Conan is hardcore enough to kill that thing, he is hardcore enough to be a D&D character up to level 5. After that, he upgrades to Barbarian Giga Cock and makes volcanoes erupt just by punching people in the face.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:53 am

Ancient History pointed out in another thread that one of the problems of D&D is that there isn't a big enough floor for sub-heroic characters to exist. A problem which I agree needs to be attended to. What's more, fixing this problem automatically means having a bigger playspace for the Conans and Madmartigans to exist in -- either by having negative levels for commoners or increasing the level span. Meaning that I'm just going to have to get over my jihad.

Goddamn fucking housecats, undermining my hate-filled whinefests.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:30 am

infected slut princess wrote:You don't know shit about Conan. Your "please read the books" statement is hilarious because you obviously have not read the 'books' (the real Conan is mostly short stories btw, there is one legit novel).

Several short stories of which you have obviously not read any if you think he "seduces" people (either that or you don't have an idea of what seduction entails).

Do you also think he's some "noble savage" too, by chance, or you're just in the habit of bitching over semantics like it was going out of fashion?

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:04 am

I think it's fair to say he "seduces" just by exuding manliness, since there isn't a good single word for kicking ass and having panties subsequently thrown at you. Or if there is a good word for that then I wish to add it to my vocabulary. It'd probably be a German word since they make words out of phrases (Höschenmagnet?).

Lago, you don't have to end your Jihad, just immerse yourself in Earthdawn. At level 1 onwards every adventurer is required to have magic in their pants. They go overboard with it to the degree that even learning shit like climbing or reading is done magically, as it's a fucking pain to learn to do things non-magically. Maybe it will appeal to you, or maybe it will gently rob you of your desires.

I'm on board with having level 1 characters able to duke it out with a bear mostly because I want level 1 characters to be comparable to trained soldiers with modern rifles. However, I do acknowledge that this is not everyone's cuppa.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:07 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:either by having negative levels for commoners or increasing the level span.

I vote for "negative levels," it carries the implication that Madmartigans play in their own sandbox separate from the actual game.

Sakuya Izayoi · Post by **Sakuya Izayoi** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 4:15 am

Exuding seductive manliness sounds like a good psionic power. Same as being an exceptionally good leader - psionics would explain why your army's keikaku is better than the wizard with SAD Intelligence's keikaku.

infected slut princess · Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:18 am

Dogbert wrote: Several short stories of which you have obviously not read any if you think he "seduces" people (either that or you don't have an idea of what seduction entails).

This statement is further evidence that you are 40-year-old virgin. I am an expert in seduction. And I am an expert of Conan also. I have read every real Conan story (Robert E Howard stuff) like 20 times each. Trust me, I know what I am talking about. You have probably only read shit Conan, like those Robert Jordan loser Conan stories or some Conan comic book. Or maybe not even, maybe you just saw that shitty COnan movie and fapped all night to the scene when Arnold fucks the witch.

Dogbort wrote:I vote for "negative levels," it carries the implication that Madmartigans play in their own sandbox separate from the actual game.

Why do you keep saying such dumb things.

D&D needs johnny tier for Conan and Mad Martigan so people can play at that tier and fight squads of orcs, wolves, bandits, and such... and maybe have some ogre captain or minotaur dude as a boss fight.

The great thing about D&D is that it gives you starting point of low-level johnny tier, where you are just a bit better than regular losers, and then you work up through heroic tier, legendary tier, and ultimately get to Epic Tier where you punch Great Wyrms and Demogorgons in the dick and they die. Without all these tiers, you are not capturing the glory of the ideal D&D campaign. If you say Conan and Mad Martigan are so lame they can only be represented with "negative" levels and are beneath the level that players can play, you are the enemy of D&D. Why do you hate D&D so much? Your ideas are not helpful. Negative levels should only be for retarded children or housecats, which do not register on the level scale at all (maybe House Cat Swarm could be CR1).

The main problem with fighter-fappers is not johnny tier fighters. Johnny tier fighters are basically acceptable. The problem is fighter-fappers who want to fap to fighters at level 20, which is retarded.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:15 am

More seriously...

There obviously need to be levels of competence beneath whatever PC's are supposed to start at, because starting PC's should be better than commoners. And whatever PC's are expected to start at should just be called "1," because it would be stupid to start counting PC levels at anything other than 1. And so it follows that you're going to have to call your commoners level 0, level -1, level 1/2, CR 1/2, or fucking something. But those levels aren't for PC's and you're supposed to start the game already past them, even if you are just a "plucky rookie adventurer." And then over the next 2-4 levels you should transition rapidly from "plucky rookie adventurer" to "implausibly competent mundane," which currently takes too long. Level 5 fighters are honestly not that impressive compared to the fiction, and level 5 is basically the end of the fighter's career. That's a problem.

D&D would benefit heavily from front-loading its progression such that the first five levels cover a wider range and everyone gets a bunch of interesting abilities really quickly and then progression slows down. And then that pattern should repeat at the 5->6 transition, or wherever you think the tier transition should be, as people drop their old concept in favor of a more appropriate one.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 8:33 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:there isn't a big enough floor for sub-heroic characters to exist.... fixing this problem automatically means having a bigger playspace for the Conans and Madmartigans to exist in...Meaning that I'm just going to have to get over my jihad.

Nailed it. Admittedly the 10 level playspace I allotted for it last post may be too large but probably not by much given how truly insane D&D's leveling speed is. The "two months till level 20" problem means that if we're going to keep the kills for xp model then there does need to be a good sized space allotted for starting concepts before they zoom past it on a tide of corpses.

Obviously the real solution is that we should drop kill based XP and 1-20 levelling entirely for a tier system where you only change tiers when your DM says so or by achieving some mission objective or another and the rest of the time you just get horizontally better within your tier E6 style.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 6:56 am

What I normally do when I run games is have people gain levels based on number of sessions completed. As in, each session grants your level x 1000 exp.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:34 pm

Dogbert wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:either by having negative levels for commoners or increasing the level span.
I vote for "negative levels," it carries the implication that Madmartigans play in their own sandbox separate from the actual game.

Using 3E terms, it would be really easy to come up with zero and negative levels for NPCs.

Must be an NPC class.
Considered to have 1 HD for determining HP and all effects relating to HD.
Does not have the 1st level feat.
Applies a penalty to all d20 rolls, AC, and save DCs equal to the negative level.
Applies a penalty to starting HP equal to the negative level.

Although, unless you apply this sort of thing to monsters with warrior levels (orcs, hobgoblins, and the like), it doesn't really change much in game play other than making the PCs able to murder commoners and soldiers easier.