> playing D&D > player gets held at crossbowpoint by

>>49013941
>run high level
>bitches characters are superhuman

If that bothers you, run first to third level games.

Hit points are explicitly an abstraction representing your ability to avoid serious harm through luck, stamina or minor magic. This has been spelled out in every DMG I've ever read, and any GM or player who doesn't know it is an idiot.

HP damage is used when there's a chance you might survive. Being shot in the head at point blank range or falling an incredible distance are likely to be fatal.

Then again, these are heroic characters we're talking about. They might survive a fall of a cliff, or being run over by a cart. Getting shot in the head is kind of a sticking point, though.

Please just ignore this butthurt troll.

Please, please just ignore him, /tg/. Do it for me.

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>>49013941
One thing that you need to drill into a player's head, there are always people who came before you who are stronger than you.

One way I've implemented this in my games is that there are roving groups of the Holy High Church who go on pilgrimages to defend the many people of the land scouring it for ne'er do wells. The group(s) consisted of a few paladins, a cleric, an Inquisitor, and a witch of holy power (This took place in pathfinder). So if the party started to get into evil shit the church with the help from local governments would be after them.

You need to reinforce the thought to them that there is always someone stronger than them, this however does not mean to make a DMPC nor is it gunboat diplomacy.
>>49013996
Sorry comrade, it is too late....

>>49013941
> playing D&D
> player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
> "lol I have 75 hit points"
> lol I have Bolts of Slaying

Fixed.

D&D is about fantasy superheroes. That's just its "thing". It isn't Mongoose's Legend, it isn't WFRP, and it most certainly isn't Runequest. If you were looking for ordinary heroes, then D&D is not the place to go, and that's not a strike against it. You don't use a pickaxe to brush teeth.

>>49014279
>look mom, i'm trolling again!

Low level D&D was already mentioned. So, stop with your "D&D can't do something everyone knows it can already do" bullshit.

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>>49013941
You may want to consider looking into massive damage rules. There's a number of variations, but it's usually when they take either half their hp or 50+ damage (whichever you prefer) they make a fort save or just die. This usually helps with things like the falling off a cliff or getting run over example, while the guard one is usually rectified by similar coup de grace rules. Strictly speaking they took the coup de grace out of 5e, and for good reason, but feel free to add at least a low DC fort save to crits on a helpless target. Not sure why you can't spend a round slitting a guy's throat, but who am I to question the infinite wisdom of WotC?

Point is HP is designed to be a measure of the amazing things your fantasy heroes can do. If you feel a certain challenge or obstacle should not be able to be bested solely by their hardy obstinance instead tie it to a save vs debuff or, in more drastic cases even death. Fighting toe to toe with an ogre makes sense and is a good adventure, but when it comes to complete refusal to remove one's head from beneath a cart or a complete disregard for gravity perhaps some punishment needs to be divvied out. Remember that the rules are only a guideline after all, feel free to adjust the game slightly if the rules are making the world less realistic as opposed to more.

>>49013941
Check out gurps op. Might be what you're looking for.

In my campaign if we displayed such arrogance towards our DM we would be in for a poverbial bitch slapping.
I play a life cleric in full plate and after I take a good hit or two my ass get scared.
Held at crossbow point would mean you are going to start rolling death saving throws if your an asshole.

>>49014279
>playing RQ6
>held at crossbow point
>Evade, outmaneuver, run away
>Use mysticism to climb building to safety
>Luck point attack rolls away
"High level" RuneQuest is when your primary skills are inching closer to 150% and your a living legend. That shit gets ridiculous fast.

Just don't fall a few stories, fight a dragon, or get caught in a trap which are death blows you walk away from in D&D.

>>49014332
Coup de Grace is out because you can just die - get your throat cut and die, get hung and die, touch lava and die, rocks fall and die, etc. But yeah, I use massive damage and lingering injuries all day erry day.

Like in the Chris Perkins Curse of Strahd stream when he no save killed a player. It actually happens (again) this edition when you are against a wall.

>>49013941
Because nerds will always confuse the rules of the game for the game itself.

>>49013941
>No one and nothing can die dramatically

I think you mean that it's hard for a character to die SUDDENLY. Dramatic death is more than possible, but sudden death is very difficult to pull off. That's not a bug, that's a feature: D&D posits that it is not fun for characters to die before they have a chance to do anything to defend themselves; or from "boring" or "mundane" ways like falling or getting hit by a cart (or rather, *just* that. Falling off a cliff and dying after an extended battle is just fine - see what I said about the difference between "dramatic" and "sudden").

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Honestly I just want to know what people find so appealing about Dungeons and Dragons over GURPS, Runequest, WHFBRPG, 40k RPG's, Degenesis, etc.

>>49015165
DnD actually gets played

>>49015165
1) Accessibility. D&D is easy to find, both content and players.

2) Fantasy Heartbreakers. Every single fantasy RPG on the market - and quite a few non-fantasy RPGs - are defined against D&D and, their strengths and weaknesses expressed in terms of comparison to D&D. Quite a few of them miss no opportunity to even take potshots at D&D (V:tM springs immediately to mind). So one then wonders...why not just play D&D, the thing that everyone is compared to?

3) It's good enough. Related to (2), D&D might not be the best at everything - or even necessarily the best at anything - but it's broadly good enough in every area to make up for its faults, and it's definitely not BAD at anything.

4) Brand loyalty. It's the same reason I drink Coke, not Pepsi.

>>49013941
Falling off a cliff and getting run over will still hurt like fuck.
and with the crossbow, it's not the bolt that kills you but the fight after you tank the bolt.

>>49015313
5) It's better than nearly everything else on the market, because nearly everything else on the market is garbage like GURPS, Runequest, WHFBRPG, 40k RPG's, Degenesis, etc.

>>49015313
But the system seems to be irrevocably tainted with horrible mechanics and just a bad culture in general. IMO it's better to sweep the whole slate clean, start the group with something nobody has any experience with and everybody has to learn while playing. GURPS is good for this (especially homebrews), its only flaw is that it runs into terrible crunch with the cheat sheets being books themselves. My main problem with D&D though is that it always seems to run into the problem of rollplaying versus roleplaying. Players get too wrapped up in what is 'optimized' or not, and while not nearly as bad as the 'lul kill everybody for XP' memes, it still isn't that good and is mostly combat orientated. I've tried running games with it, but I find that I have to houserule it so damn much it practically becomes another system altogether. Better to choose a really complex system with lots of choices like GURPs, or a simple system that I have to tack more onto.

>>49015313
>>49015313
>4) Brand loyalty. It's the same reason I drink Coke, not Pepsi.

What's it like being a drooling stooge?

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>>49015356

>>49015633
This image actually made me laugh out loud.

>>49015479
>But the system seems to be irrevocably tainted with horrible mechanics

What's horrible about rolling a d20 and adding a modifier to it?

>and just a bad culture in general.

D&D is far too broad to refer to it as a single culture of gamers, except if you broadly include "high fantasy gamers", but that definition is broad enough to include stuff like FantasyCraft, Dungeon World, and so on.

>GURPS is good for this

GURPS is okay for anything but good for nothing. It succeeds at its goal of being generic, but attaining that very goal has come with the cost of it failing to stand out in any way. A few people probably really enjoy it, making the general statement of "GURPS is no one's favorite RPG" is true enough to not be called out.

>rollplaying versus roleplaying

False dichotomy; your ability to optimize your character has nothing to do with your ability to roleplay him or her well.

>>49015516
Constant, dependable, tasty, and easy to find.

>>49016053
I just realized I used "broad" three times in a single sentence. Mea culpa, I'm tired.

>>49013941
>the guard grapples you
>you fail the save
>you forgot to put on your armor so your AC is piss poor
>you get shackled and detained

Ez pz

>>49013993
The 5e DMG literally lists the HP damage you take for being submerged in lava. What about that has to do with luck or stamina?

>>49017867
5E is garbage, what'd you expect? I don't even understand why 4E and 5E are even called as such. They're so mechanically removed from all previous versions of the game.

>>49016053
GURPS legitimately excels at some types of games. It remains one of the best options for modern tactical shooting and many kinds of historical games. It's also got some excellent magical systems, especially for dungeon crawling. The idea that because GURPS is a generic system, that it cannot stand out at anything is ludicrous. The quality of mechanics do not rely on theme or flavor. The way that GURPS actually works makes the whole idea even more silly, as GURPS is not one set of rules that can do literally everything. It is a set of rules that can have large segments of the rules completely removed and replaced with an entirely different system tailored to the kind of game that you want. Often, these systems are just as setting or flavor dependent as the rules for systems made for those settings or flavors. GURPS when used to run a dungeon crawl is a very, very different game from GURPS used to run a modern tactical RPG. They will feel very different and not the same sort of generic system.

This ultimately has little to do with the quality of D&D, or this thread as a whole. I'm just sick and tired of GURPS being dismissed out of hand because people have gotten a warped idea of how it works and plays. If the build your own RPG thing isn't your jam, that's one thing. Misrepresentation of how it plays is another.

>>49017961
>I'm just sick and tired of GURPS being dismissed out of hand because people have gotten a warped idea of how it works and plays

Perhaps the same could be said of all systems talked about on /tg/.

>>49017974
I'm convinced that nobody has actually played any game, and just barely remembers a negative review they read about whatever they're talking about which forms the foundation of their entire opinion. Literally every game, from D&D to GURPS to obscure indie RPG's from a decade ago which were printed in batches of fifty and distributed exclusively in the greater Boise area has the same sort of distortion going on and someone to loudly state their opinion.

>>49018016
Also, fuck you autocorrect for inserting an apostrophe after every possessive s in my writing. You probably have some shit opinions too.

>>49013979
terrible, terrible suggestion.
even if we allow levels 1 to 6... how much mastery in skills can my characters achieve? how many feats can they learn? how many other cool but not overpowered class abilities are locked to them because of this premise?

no, no. your advice amounts to bad shoehorning. can it be done? yes. will it please many people? no.

>>49013993
We know what it says. It's just a shitty rationale for having a simple, unified mechanic, instead of having seperate stats for luck and meat points.

>Being shot in the head at point blank range or falling an incredible distance are likely to be fatal.
Ah, yeah? Why doesn't my luck bail me out here, hmmm?

>>49018122
There's E6, which caps stuff like HP, but still let's you gain feats and the like so that while you do continue to advance, you remain somewhere in the same tier of humanity.

>>49014302
i suggest you start studying games in which the character advancement is focussed on taking pcs from humble beginnings to hero-but-not-superhero status, to understand the deficiencies of a D&D campaign limited to low levels

>>49018158
I suggest you take your head out of your ass.

>>49017931
>5e is mechanically removed from the previous versions

Confirmed for only playing 3.0/5/p

....

Are people really that unconcerned about unneeded damage getting yo them?

Sure, an attack might take 10% of your health and you will.be fine, by being at low HP can randomly get you randomly dead.

>>49014332
>>49014433
But these posts contain an implicit admission that hit points are a bad mechanic that mix completely seperate things: divine favor and toughess. If the D&D system had 2 different stats... say 15 points toughness and 60 points divine luck, it would be very easy for the GM:

Crossbow to your head? Sorry, luck can't help you here, the damage goes straight to toughness points. Oops, you're dead now.

D&D's HP bloat is just a shitty mechanic. Same reason why AC is bad (mixing ability to not get hit with ability to shrug off hits).

D&D is and remains a very mediocre system with legacy mechanics, despite of what its fans claim.

>>49018171

... Given how much 5e inherits from 3.x's understanding of the game, I think you hit it on the head. Knowing more about other games males it easier to see the similarity between D&D additions.

(Despite being 4e loyalist, I can know the implementation of the AC goes up to get get better, as well as a decent narrative round time... which may or may not be in older version of D&D.)

>>49018210

Why is it bad to mix the two?

Having one die roll to determine hit and another to determine damage makes easier to make sure that every hit is meaningful.

>>49014933
Published RPGs are System + Setting. And in some cases just either of those. When we're saying that a game we bought is bad, then we're referring to System/Setting.

>>49015110
Avoiding sudden death is a Gamemastering issue, not a System Design issue.

>>49015165
The brand and the resulting large player base. It's like being a fan of the New York Yankees.

>>49014084
>One thing that you need to drill into a player's head, there are always people who came before you who are stronger than you.
Why aren't they saving the world and going on adventures?

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If a player is bound and weakened to the point that they could simply have a crossbow held to their temple, surely they weren't at full HP.
They had to have been somehow incapacitated before that point, taking minor injury, exhaustion, and plot armor damage, and thus being reduced to "low enough exp" that the crossbow could finish them.

>>49017961
>GURPS legitimately excels at some types of games. It remains one of the best options for modern tactical shooting and many kinds of historical games. It's also got some excellent magical systems, especially for dungeon crawling.

I am honestly NOT a GURPS fan but it does excel at a modern hacking (see GURPS Cyberpunk) subsystem as well. So, yeah, GURPS has its place.

>>49018242
>Avoiding sudden death is a Gamemastering issue, not a System Design issue.>>49015165 #

The game should have tools to support this.

Generous knocked out but not dead yet rules.

>>49018267
Jesus, this shoehorning to defend a bad mechanic makes me cringe.

Why can't you just admit that D&D is neither realistic nor in conformance with 98% of heroic tales out there in this regard and just move on?

D&D hit points are a very inaccurate reflection of mythical heroes, much less real life people of legends.

Just admit that and that other systems provide a more accurate reflection and we're good.

>>49018282
Let's take 40K Roleplay as an example. (And let us ignore that it isn't entirely realistic either because a starting PC does survive a bullet to the head. I admit that but that is beside my point.)

If your character takes a fatal wound to the head, you can burn a Fate Point (of which you have 1 to 5), to get "knocked out but not dead yet". Your wound points are at 0, you have received critical damage points but you're still alive, albeit knocked out.

This seperation of toughness and luck gives a GM far better control over play than D&D's hitpoints. Not only that, the players themselves have better feedback on whether their characters are so survivable because of their toughness (20 Wound Points, 1 Fate Point) or their extraordinary luck (8 Wound Points, 5 Fate Points). It gives the PCs (and NPCs) better definition.

>>49018122
Cap hitdie at 10, all other levels grant no benefit to HP

>>49018227
I'd rather attack rolls worked like initiative, so it's not IF you hit, it's WHEN you hit

>>49018292
Honestly, it's for dramatic purpose. Or you end with situations where characters can survive a point blank crossbow bolt to the head just because they have enough HP to get away with it. You either lean on narrative or simulation side.

>>49013941
A fighter with 16 con would need to be around level 7 to have 75 hit points. Level 7 surpasses anything humans can do and is essentially a superhuman level which in this context means it makes perfect sense one crossbow bolt or one bad fall wouldn't kill you, because your character at this level is the equivalent to Hercules or Conan.

There's a great article called 'Calibrating your Expectations' on The Alexandrian which goes into detail with this and shows how examples like the crossbow fail to take into account that the game is designed for 1-5 to be the human levels with 5 being the maximum any human has ever achieved, with characters like Aragorn and Boromir being level 5. Note at these early levels especially a harsh fall or a crossbow is deadly, players tend to just skip past these levels fast because they're 'boring' and then complain when the game doesn't make sense as somehow they should be high level but low level threats should still be deadly?

Beyond that you're into super heroic levels and beyond that you're essentially demigod then god like. Hence why you can fight dragons which no normal person could.

>>49013993
>this meme again
Reminder that meat points are the most logical and consistent interpretation of the rules. See >>49017867
and the like. (falling, poison blades, lava, etc.) Anything else is pure headcanon. You have to bend over backwards to explain things away when the luck and stamina argument gets repeatedly BTFO.

>>49018332

The problem with burning a fate point is that it literally makes your character worse to do so.

A lucky character will be a burned out husk of a man after a few unlucky events.

Also, NPC will never burn fate points, because the cases in which it could matter (NPCs regains control of the area) it doesn't matter (party is wiped)

>>49018348
That's pretty much what ye olde AD&D did. Stop getting HD at level 9, beyond that you just get a flat bonus (usually +2/level)

>>49018355

Please, tell me a system in which that is done.

... And isn't just INT tests with guanteed damage.

>>49018374

And recognize that the simulation of HP assumes that all characters are in a condition to fight, and that coup de grace moves suggest that you should just throw out hp when a character is completely in control of a situation.

>>49018430
ORE.

>>49013941
This got me thinking of how a DM can get around these.
> player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
> "lol I have 75 hit points"
>They are backed up by more guards with man-catchers. Start making STR checks

> character falls off of a cliff
> "lol I have 75 hit points"
>You also broke several bones. Disadvantage/fixed numerical penalty/can't use some limbs until they've healed

> character gets his head run over by a cart
> "lol I have 75 hit points"
>You also have a fractured skull and a concussion. Disadvantage/fixed numerical penalty until you've recovered

No rocket surgery or brain science.

okay, let's /thread/ this

The DnD critics have one this thread, see you next friday for a rematch.

>>49018447

Can you give me more detail than a common acronym?

>>49018448
The rules very clearly lay out that the penalty for falling is just damage. You can add houserules all you want but that doesn't make the system not shit.

>>49018448

Honestly, stapling riders on to more events is a way to fix the issue, while not having the (you gotta go to zero hp) event

>>49018459
One Roll Engine. The thing that runs Godlike & Wild Talents.

You roll your pool and look for matches. Height (number on the die) controls hit location, Width (number of dice in the match) controls damage, the two of them together control initiative (resolve widest to narrowest, with height breaking ties).

>>49018420
This is a matter of implementation. My point was that a separation of luck and toughness is superior. The same way a separation of the ability to avoid hits and the ability to shrug off hits is superior to D&D's AC.

Both hit points as well as armor class are simply legacy mechanics from the days of early roleplaying. Not that it matters for people who play D&D because of the brand and size of the community.

>>49013941
Have you tried playing D&D at levels where being held at crossbowpoint is deadly?

Because here's how you sound:
>playing high level D&D
>characters have become demigods who walk the earth
>"why do they not feel intimidated by crossbows?"

>>49018462
True, but it puts a curb on turds who think they can "win" with numbers.
House rules and homebrew content are the heart of D&D, even Gygax and his friends made house rules all the time. Look up AD&D Unearthed Arcana

I like how Ryuutama explicitly points out how HP also represent stamina and endurance, having situations like using a Minstrel's Music ability, or using a weapon you are untrained in costs 1 HP to use every time.
Just today, I was in a situation where my character's shiv broke in battle against a pirate, so I kept attacking him with any improvised weapons laying around. I knocked myself out from the exertion. I had 5 hp left at first, and over the course of five turns I kept swinging and missing him.

>>49018485

... Friggin' dice pools.

Static Defenses as default is the least annoying way to resolve combat.

>>49018192
>Are people really that unconcerned about unneeded damage getting to them?

>Sure, an attack might take 10% of your health and you will.be fine, by being at low HP can randomly get you randomly dead.

You know what happens when random damage might kill you? Characters start behaving like people and the world starts making more sense.

I totally get the appeal of playing superheroes in gory hack and slash sessions, but I think that pen and paper role-playing games are seriously the worst method of doing that. The only edge role-playing games have over other types of games are immersion, escapism and customization, it's retarded to use them to play skyrim without graphics.

>>49018512
>if I ignore the rules of the game I can beat my players

>>49018494
Even without getting into stuff like immersion and suspension of disbelief you run smack into the issue of how limiting it is to play low-level characters in D&D.

There are games that are FUN where you still have to think about whether or not it's worth the risk to get into a fight, rather than just crunching the numbers and realizing that you have a big enough HP pool to take on anything.

OP is a faggot for playing D&D if he want a game where the characters act in a way that's even remotely human, but this thread is also full of butthurt fanboys who insist that D&D can be used for everything imaginable as long as you stick to the right level, when everyone with half a brain knows that it's shit for anything except fantasy superheroes.

>>49018542
>I must adhere to the rules as DM because they are set in stone

Also, I never said I was trying to "beat" my players. These house rules make the game more challenging so that the problems in OP's post don't bog the game down. D&D is not competitive unless one or more of the players has issues with narcissism.

>>49018542
Every system has wiggle room for GMs to adjust the system all they want, nothing is perfect out of the box. If you actually played a game you'd know that.

>>49018487

I'm not a fan of havng a dedicate stat that represents the times you can get knocked out of a combat before you die, which seems to be what you are advocating.

(That 40k role play ties rerolls to not spending those resources just makes it worse)

And given I'd played game in which the check for damage is separate from the check for meaningful contact from the weapon, and felt extremely pissed off whenever I made contact and my attack did nothing, and there was no work around... It seems like you are just advocating more dice rolls for the no effect, or are trying to make armored character suck (because the drawback from getting hit are so bad, and they have no way to avoid getting hit).

>>49013941
>> player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
A player at that level should not fear guards, he's basically a heroic badass who could kill them by the dozen.
>> character falls off of a cliff
Even 75 hit points would not let 20d6 (average 70) feel very good. Death is quite possible, severe injury is certain.
>> character gets his head run over by a cart
Again, heroic badass. How many fantasy heroes do you see die to being run over by a cart? Probably has a helmet too.

>>49018561
deendeefags also seem to not understand that just curbing on pc hitpoints isnt enough. once you start messing with pc stats on such a magnitude, you need to adapt the stats of every npc and every monster too because they are geared to superhero style. otherwise you cant stand a crossbow bolt to the head but THEY can.

really, if you dont want something other than fantasy superheroes, your best bet is playing something other than d&d.

>>49018462
>The rules very clearly lay out that the penalty for falling is just damage. You can add houserules
Permanent injury from severe damage is an alternate rule in the DMG, not a houserule.

>>49018591
Please tell me the diff between decreasing hitpoints versus decreasing a luck stat (like fate points)?

>playing any Warhammer RPG
>player does wildly suicidal thing for the third time
>"lol I have 5 fate points"

>>49018708
spotted the first pc to die in the 10-adventures-spanning campaign

>>49018682

Hit points represent your ability to remain in the fight.

Not your ability to not die when violently removed from it

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>>OP
>>49018292

>>49018725
Probably, but that's still a whole lot of tension lost to the get of jail free card. At least I can threaten that guy with 75 hit points

>>49018731
"Luck points" do not necessarily have to just mean avoiding death, that is a matter of implementation, fate points are just one incarnation.

Let's not get sidetracked here: my original assertion was that seperating luck (in whatever form) and toughness is superior to combining both in hit points.

>>49018763
Underscores my point nicely.

>>49018783
I have played both and they are equally not-tense. Both have the premise that the PCs are the heroes that should have a high degree of survivability.

Plus, when I ran a Deathwatch game, I had a PC lose 3 Fate Points within 5 hours. 2 of them because the group's psyker accidentally summoned a Daemon Prince. Shit happens.

>>49018763
he just marked off 48 of his 59 hit points and continued fighting unaffected

>>49018805
Not at all. Boromir had ti be hit with multiple arrows any one of which would have killed an ordinary man to finally fell him. He is a legendary hero which is exactly what D&D emulates at higher levels.

>>49018443
>coup de grace moves suggest that you
Still uses HP. Explicitly still uses HP. Grants you a bigass bonus to damage, but never once says you should just throw out HP.

>>49018267
I originally saw that thumbnail as a skeleton in a wheelchair.

I now want that as a thing in an RPG.

>>49015356

Sadly more truth to this than people will ever acknowledge. My group loved Dogs in the Vineyard and Microscope and are contemplating MonsterHearts and Cat at some point, but right now it's 5e because to them 5e is "Better Pathfinder" and everything else just looked like pointless change for its own sake.

I can't imagine we're alone.

>>49018408
>what does surviving a fall or poison have to do with luck?
I don't think you know what luck is...

>>49018408

I've always wandered why some GMs throw a hissy fit over the idea that there's a lvl 1 spell that can stitch up actual damage when there's a lvl 2 spell that can regrow eyes, a lvl 7 spell that can re-attach severed limbs, and a lvl 9 spell that can "fix" not just death but a completely destroyed body.

My group is a-ok with PC's being badasses with a ton of meat points and Cure Wounds actually, you know, curing wounds.

>>49019236
I've never heard of a GM complaining that Cure Light Wounds doesn't make sense.

I think far more have an issue with any character being able to essentially cast it on themselves relative to their Hit Dice by expending a healing surge/HD or just curing everything after one sleep.

>>49019157
Yeah if you want to play a fantasy RPG then D&D is where it's at. Most other systems are just fantasy heartbreakers.

Obviously if you want to play in any other setting then all the other options becone viable.

>>49018448

I'm actually okay not solving 2 and 3. My players are supposed to be badasses who walk into dragonfire for a living. Their all highly-trained in their fields or inheritors to spiritual legacies that give them access to the miraculous, why should they worry about wagon carts?

1 is more my style, though. The problem with taking on a group of soldiers is that you'll never actually "win." Either you'll lose the fight and get charged with 15 counts of everything in the book or you'll win the fight and they'll just send more soldiers. The bigger a nail you make yourself the bigger a hammer they're going to swing.

>>49013979
This

>>49018927

LG Lich who was involuntarily converted because he was useful to the BBEG of old, who used dark magic to hide his phylactery. The combination of the unwilling res, the lack of phylactery access,and the incompatibility of lichdom and his natural inclinations towards law and goodness left him a physical cripple but his mind intact.

He's now the parties primary patron in their battle against the descendants of the original BBEG, now a wide-spread organization. Primarily he's out to seem them defeated and the realm free of their malignancy, but if anyone could find and destroy the phylactery so that he could return to Mount Celestia he would also appreciate that greatly. He misses his wife.

>>49013941
>>player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
Depends on the number of guards, but if the guy has 75 Hit Points and he doesn't worry about damage he also probably has enough AC to laugh at their attacks and dodge them even when he's being held at point blank, so HPs are not so much the problem

>>character falls off of a cliff
Max 20d6, average those are 70 damage on average, I'd worry, also massive damage rules

>>character gets his head run over by a cart
Dunno how many damage is that, can't form an opinion

>>49018857
>a single arrow hit kills an ordinary man
Srsly? No one will dispute that it can but... ordinary people can be shot multiple times and still remain in action.

>He is a legendary hero which is exactly what D&D emulates at higher levels.
That's not in dispute, plenty of fantasy RPG system capture that.

>>49019277
>Yeah if you want to play a fantasy RPG then D&D is where it's at.
Only if I don't mind the gamist play style that D&D promotes. If I wanted less leveling up, magic items spam and character optimization, then I would look at other systems. WFRP, Harnmaster or Runequest - depending on details of the setting and overall theme.

>>49019316
No, not this. It limits character growth and the range of monsters. If I want clever, skillful human beings, below the level of superhumans, to take on a dragon and win, I need more than such a simplicistic answer.

>>49019359
>Depends on the number of guards, but if the guy has 75 Hit Points and he doesn't worry about damage he also probably has enough AC to laugh at their attacks and dodge them even when he's being held at point blank, so HPs are not so much the problem

Pure cringe.

>>49019622
High level characters laugh at mundane threats what did you expect? that Aragorn died against a goblin? no, he fought against 100 Orks and Uruk Hai and literally walked away unharmed

>>49019766
yes and the dwarves in AUJ also walked right through the goblins, which was also completely cringeworthy, given that they werent even soldiers.

the influence of heroic bloodshed on hollywood has turned out to be pure cancer. everybody senses were the next attack is coming from and dodges it easily. although it has to be said that in heroic bloodshed the protagonists at least get bloodied badly. but these hongkong-style over-choreographed combats are complete BS, no no suspension of disbelief whatsoever.

/rant

>>49019863
>Hollywood
I meant the book, anon.

>>49013941
High level D&D is not for trying to intimidate PCs with guards. By 75 HP, you have to depart completely from low fantasy and start venturing into high fantasy terrain instead: that means Dragons everywhere, Beholders, Demons and all kinds of nasty stuff. By these levels, PCs are superheroes, so you have to throw in supervillains, not just mooks.

>>49014084
>One thing that you need to drill into a player's head
In addition to the crossbow bolt?

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>>49018408
>Anything else is pure headcanon.

I gots me a core rulebook says different. 5E PHB, pg. 196.

Hit points are a *combination* of physical and mental durability. They are meat points when it is convenient for them to be so, and they are lucky dodges, near-misses, and der wille zur macht when it is convenient for them to be so.

That is not headcanon, it is written fact. You don't have to like it. You do have to accept it.

>>49013993
>Getting shot in the head is kind of a sticking point, though.

people have survived being shot in the head

>>49020187
People have also survived falling an incredible distance (without parachute).

I also can't for the life of me find it, but there's a video on YouTube somewhere of a guy who's leg partially gets submerged in lava, but he pulled it out fast enough that he got only minor burns.

Weird shit just happens sometimes. And when you're an action movie star, it happens a lot. And that's what a D&D character is.

>>49018600
Even Conan the Barbarian knocked himself out by running into a low doorframe. And he was king at that time.

Having this kind of mundane accident makes heroes feel more down to earth, not untouchable. it makes them feels more rounded and likable in my opinion.

>>49020644
>Even Conan the Barbarian knocked himself out by running into a low doorframe. And he was king at that time.

...when?

>>49020754
I missremembered if he was really king at the time, but in the stories "Rogue in the House", Conan runs away from some guard while drunk and knock himself out on a doorframe.

Here's the link to the story : http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600781h.html

And the part that I'm talking about :
Waking to stupefied but ferocious life when they seized him, he disemboweled the captain, burst through his assailants, and would have escaped but for the liquor that still clouded his senses. Bewildered and half blinded, he missed the open door in his headlong flight and dashed his head against the stone wall so terrifically that he knocked himself senseless. When he came to, he was in the strongest dungeon in the city, shackled to the wall with chains not even his barbaric thews could break.

>>49020869
Well, I mean, he's drunk at the time. That sounds like some downtime activity shenanigans. Hell, I have an entire PDF for stuff like that.

Plus you'll note that Conan was still able to fight - disembowling a captain and bursting through assailants (which would all get opportunity attacks on him). And Conan at that point is still a fairly fresh adventurer besides, according to the chronology; it takes place around the same time as "Tower of the Elephant", when Conan is in his late teens or maybe early 20s, after coming down from Asgard/Vanaheim but before he's ever led any raiders or bands of thieves or the like.

>>> Critical hits do damage to CON.

>>> Crossbow to head autocrits.

Problem solved.

>>49013941
Last game I was in, one of the other players had a character with so many hit points, whenever a battle would start, he'd pull out his gun, put it to his temple and pull the trigger multiple times as he charged the enemies in order to intimidate them by showing off how tough he was.

>>49021005
Nice fucking up of game balance. Guess I need a rapier now.

>>49021153
You know, I consider that a failing on the part of the GM. If a character shoots himself in the head they're dead regardless of hit points. They should inform the player of their ruling first, of course.

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>>49020070
Have from E1, too.

>>49018784

I'd rather any complicated health system have interesting play.

4e's healing surges represent the potential for second winds, and lets healing be per encounter on the healers behalf, but still have healing.

Video games with health and ablative armor systems makes high damage attacks just eat your health directly, and require that you do more to recover health.

Luck as a separate (something should have killed you but just knocked you out) stat doesn't make for particularly interesting play.

Hell, it feels like a character with high luck points but low toughness points is going to faint a lot.

.... Actually, why the hell is toughness the thing that gets hit first?

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>>49021451

>>49013941
Well, assuming you're the DM, you can make dramatic actions (outside of combat) more damaging. Make it clear to the players that if something happens that they couldn't possibly survive, they die. Opt to fall 7000 ft? Dead. Opt to take a crossbow shot point blank the the face? Dead. Don't be unreasonable but don't let the rules prevent you from running an enjoyable game.

>>49015313
Number 3 is the reason why. It's not great for intrigue, investigations or horror, or even combat, but it's alright for all of them.

>>49013993
Ah yes, GM fiat instantly killing a player despite the fact that people have survived far worse things in real life, is completely logical and no player could be justified in being angry at such an asspull
Thanks for your great advice!

>>49023179
Problem is, that has to cut both ways. BBEG is immobilized for a second and shot in the head? Dead.

>>49025693
That's why you need to be clear and upfront about consequences. It's not that hard if you're not a dick.

>>49022263
So in AD&D 2E hit point were explicitly meat points. But in 3E they're just "how hard your character is to kill", while 4E and 5E are explicitly a combination of factors, not all of which is raw damage-taking ability.

>>49013993
People have survived being shot in the head.

Just look at New Vegas.

>>49025762
Not him, but that's kind of the point.

If the players manage to get themselves into a situation where they have the BBEG dead to rights, then by all definitions, they have defeated him. That was their objective, they have accomplished it, and you can't punish them by denying what they earned, just because it derails the campaign a bit.

Come up with a reason why the players should continue on.
>Killed evil necromancer who planned on raising an army and taking over the kingdom
>1) Have local sheriff or lord or what have you congratulate the players but tell them he fears the necromancer might not have worked alone due to the sheer scale of the project
>2) Have the players discover that the plans have already been set into motion and they either need to deal with his zealous underlings, or destroy his lair in order to break the spells he's been preparing
>3) Have the players actually successfully thwart this threat for the time being, get into a new adventure, only for then after the new adventure it to be revealed that some other wanna-be world ruler decided to pick up the pieces they left behind after killing the necromancer pre-maturely without completely revealing his plans, and now, having worked in the shadows, most of is work already done, this new foe shows and even greater threat

Some variation of one or more of these should resolve most of these situations.
It's not overly straight forward, bu that's the price of running a game where the players have agency, and parading the BBEG infront of them.

>>49025762
When playing SpyCraft 1.0, I built a sniper character that could hit a fly on the diamond of an Ace at more than a kilometer away. It was well within my ability to headshot and one-hit kill *anything*. But I had a gentleman's agreement with my GC that I would never do this to anything other than mooks, with the explicit understanding that the GC would similarly limit himself and make sure that he never one-hit killed any of us.

>>49025984
I'm arguing that something so easily inducible by magic or very temporary measures shouldn't count as someone being "dead-to-rights"

It''s not that it doesn't make for a good story, it's that
A) It's nonsensical as it vastly overstates the power of very mundane tools
B) It makes any other tactic completely pointless

Think further than just the immediate situation and you'll realize why it's a completely retarded idea. And it's incongruous as hell as well, because what happens when something that's incredibly tougher than a human gets shot like that, but obviously doesn't die?
He takes the same damage as he would in normal combat, because you only created two extremes, neither of which make sense for an attack against someone unawares

>>49025826
Being clear and upfront about stupid things doesn't make them less stupid

>>49025984
Spell that inflict stun, he's frozen for a round, fukk'n dead.

>>49022175
I said luck points do not necessarily mean turning Death into K.O.

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>>49026140

>>49027899

You have only mentioned one system with luck points (the FF Warhammers system)

Can you mention another one that has an implementation you like?

>>49030088

Savage Worlds.

>>49026217
Stunned=/=Helpless for a reason.
It doesn't imply that he literally can't do anything, it's just that he's a bit physically out of it and doesn't have proper motor control.

If the character is in a helpless situation, that's what I'm talking about.

>>49034842
Also meant for >>49026121.

The stunned and similar conditions are generally misunderstood, the same way people think an attack a round means that's the one time the fighter swings his sword, while really that's just an attempt to see if he manages to deal a proper blow in 6 seconds of back and forth.

Stunned creatures take only a (-2+Dex) AC penalty, which leaves most unarmored targets with 8 AC.
You mean to tell me that you still have a 40% chance to miss a peasant who cannot move, even as a first level fighter?

If the BBEG is stunned, that's bad, but he may have the sense to get a chained gauntlet for that sort of situation so he doesn't drop his stuff. Or if he insists on going up against adventurers and mages instead of having his minions take care of that business, he better be prepared with countermeasures for palaryzation too, be it a potion, an abjuration spell, magic armour or a big badass hulking personal guard who can simply grab him and book it if it comes to that. Otherwise he's not fit to be a BBEG.

>>49013941
>player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
>"lol I have 75 hit points"
>"ok the guard coup de graces you, take 16 and make a dc 26 fort save vs. instant death"
>"I rolled 18 lol I beat it"
>"ok the next guard also coup de graces you, take 15 and make a dc 25 fort save"
>"ok I rolled a 12 I'm dead lol"
>"lol"
>lol

>>49034979
>ok the guard coup de graces you
Why the fuck are the guards holding me at crossbow point if I'm fucking unconscious

>>49035032
you can CDG any character who is 'helpless,' which is defined as 'paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy.'

>>49035085
So why would the guards be holding me up if I'm already at their mercy? It seems like a waste of effort.

>>49035114

Holding you up IS putting you at their mercy.

>>49035114
god d&d players are dense.

>>49035145
>Holding you up IS putting you at their mercy.
Only if you accept being held up and submit.
Otherwise, it's just a very usual pointing your weapon at them whereupon you are not helpless in the least and cannot be coup de grâced.

>>49030088
It's not about liking a particular implementation or not. It's about the advantages of having separate stats for toughness and luck, which have been mentioned earlier in this thread.

Other mechanics to look at are FATE's fate points, Shadowrun's Karma, Star Wars Saga's Force and Destiny Points, etc.

The latter is of course a D&D derivative which has now luck baked into its HP bloat AND on top of it 2 luck stats. Not exactly grand RPG design but it's still playable.

Also
>>49031694

>>49035361
I don't think you're getting the spatial implications of what the anon is saying.
He's not talking about a couple guards standing in a 10-15 foot circle around you.
He's talking about someone holding you up to a wall as guards stand right next to you holding their crossbows straight up in your face and/or abdomen.

To illustrate the difference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFKLxAQBbc

>>49035501
Nigga AC is universal having your crossbow pressed to a dude's ballsack does not improve your chances to hit. You are either willing to fight or not, which decides if you are helpless or not.

>>49034842
If not stunned, then asleep or paralyzed.

>>49034966
>You mean to tell me that you still have a 40% chance to miss a peasant who cannot move, even as a first level fighter
No, I mean D&D is a shitty abstraction of (heroic) "reality", it makes no serious attempt at reasonable probabilities, which invalidates your argument wholesale.

>>49035361
Guys, you're missing the actual problem here: the Coup de Grace mechanic is just a plug to seal the leak in the ship's hull. It is meant to rectify the biggest problem with D&D's legacy hitpoint mechanic.

Now, WOTC could of course admit that some of their core mechanics are unpolished leftovers from the early days of RPGs. But that would mean admitting a core flaw and require some rebuilding from scratch to come up with a clean design.

OR they could simply add a stop-gap mechanic and continue pretending everything is okey-doke because they have a legion of brand-loyal retards that will defend even the biggest bullshit they are pushing.

Guess what they're going to continue to choose?

>>49035582
>implying there has ever been any form of accurate and detailed system of endurance measurement
Torchbearer notwithstanding because Torchbearer is a game about perfectly normal mortals suffering.
also nobody plays Torchbearer it's basically a thought experiment.

It's not "pretending everything is okey-doke" when you're the one with the flawed preconception; that D&D players are supposed to be limited by conventional humanity. Conventional humans do not go past level 5.

>>49025693
>people have survived far worse things in real life
True, but that doesn't make it likely to happen. If you line up 100 real-life people and shoot them in the head with crossbows at least one will probably live, but most will just die.

If you line up 100 DnD human warriors and shoot them in the head with crossbows every single one lives.

>>49035637
The whole point of hit points as a mechanic means that none of those warriors actually get hit in the head. Unless you're ruling it as a coup de grace, of course.

>>49035576
It's universal unless you automatically hit, which you do with a Coup De Grace.

You spouting "willingness to fight" won't change that the rule states "or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy."
At this point you're just wilfully deciding that a character not only wants to fight with crossbow bolts poking against his gut ready to shred their way through, but could totally avoid them without dying.

You're not only ignoring that the books describe taking damage not as each wound being potentially fatal, meaning every crossbow bolt you take in regular combat goes through your gut, and rather most of the time are just glacing blows or ones hitting unimportant parts, but you're also stating that whoever this guy is, he's also either single greatest knuckle dragging 3 Int 3 Wis moron who ever lived, or whoever is playing them has the roleplaying ability of Tommy Wissau. Because I don't care if you're Robin Fucking Hood, you're not fighting back when you're in that situation unless you lack the capacity to think.

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>It's an OP complains about D&D thread

>>49035689
>You spouting "willingness to fight" won't change that the rule states "or otherwise completely at an opponent's mercy."
You are not at someone's mercy because they are within your physical proximity. You can still move and attack, which means you are not helpless. Even if they attack you instantly, in what would be a critical area, you cannto possibly be considered helpless, you fucking moron, because you are not at their mercy if they are not inhibiting your ability to react (with something more substantial than the threat of violence, you clod).

>>49013941
D&D (modern editions, at least) is designed around big damn heroes doing big damn hero stuff, like falling off of cliffs and surviving.

If you don't like that design choice, go find another game more suited to your tastes. Don't try to pretend that D&D is inherently bad just because you don't like one of it's design choices.

I'm not commenting on whether or not D&D is bad, I'm just saying "characters shouldn't be able to die super quickly at mid-high levels" doesn't mean it's bad.

>>49035714
I throw a regular person into a pit with perfectly smooth and slippery walls and no other way out except the way he went in. I'm am also holding a switch that will flood the pit with magma.
That person is not at my mercy, because he has the capacity to impotently claw at the wall and pretend like he can climb out.

Great reasoning.

Really dude, I'd rather not go through my entire collection of Dragon Magazine just to find every time they clarified what Helpless means for people who can't comprehend that being at someone's mercy means in any remotely realistic scenario you'd be dead in 5 seconds if they wanted it. You're not fighting 5 crossbowmen at once while all they have to do is pull a trigger.

Now if you have a spell or magic armour that can protect you in a situation like that, some sort of abjuration thing? Then maybe you aren't at their mercy. But otherwise? You're dead.

>>49035784
Good job moving the goalposts uselessly.
No, he is not at your mercy, because he can move and react. There is no reason that just because he is in your deathtrap, that you should be able to shoot him unerringly with an unbalanced wedge of cheese.
You are mistaking the abstract concept of "at one's mercy" and the literal situation of "unable to resist one's efforts", you oblivious moron.

>>49035784
>Now if you have a spell or magic armour that can protect you in a situation like that, some sort of abjuration thing?
What if you have completely normal armor that the crossbow may be pointing at? Nobody said it was leveled at his bare throat.

>>49035806
He's not at my mercy in regards to being hit by a wedge of cheese, the same way that you're not at the mercy of the 5 crossbowmen holding their crossbows at you, to be hit by the swords they have on their hips at the moment.
They are not immediately capable of using those swords, they are not the immediate threat that is going to end your life if you do something stupid.

All this comes down to, is that you decided that D&D is bad and doesn't have a solution for this, and when there is a clear solution you'll just cross your arms, turn around and go "lalalalalala that doesn't work like that because I don't want it to work".

>>49035832
Good point actually. If the guy is wearing a full suit of armour, then he could probably fight back too, as a DM I'd accept that as reasoning on the player's part.
But again, as a DM, I'd probably not have the 5 crossbowmen even attempt to pull this against someone who's wearing a small fortress around himself, so to me the situation implies that the guy's vital parts are vulnerable and that's where the crossbows are held.

>>49035865
>He's not at my mercy in regards to being hit by a wedge of cheese, the same way that you're not at the mercy of the 5 crossbowmen holding their crossbows at you, to be hit by the swords they have on their hips at the moment.
>They are not immediately capable of using those swords, they are not the immediate threat that is going to end your life if you do something stupid.
And this is where the specifics of the coup de grace feature matters, because "Helpless" is a condition. A person is either Helpless, receiving all the negative associations that comes with it, or they are not, and not vulnerable to coup de graces.
If they are Helpless, invariably they are treated as having a Dexterity score of 0 and melee attacks against them receive a +4 bonus. These cannot possibly fucking apply to a dude who is in a pit but otherwise unable to escape from it, as nothing is interfering with their dexterity or their ability to dodge melee attacks.

>>49035906
Look at it this way:
If suddenly the 5 crossbowmen put down their crossbow to pull out their swords, then the cause of the guy being helpless would cease, therefore, he's not helpless against them doing that.

Now if only one of the 5 crossbowmen does this, then he's still helpless against that one guy, because he still is held there at the mercy of the other 4 while the fifth one is messing around with his sword.

Do you get it now?

>>49035865
>>49035832
>>49035806
>>49035784
>>49035714
You are both doing it wrong. The D&D game loop works like this:

Describe a character's general action -> roll dice -> describe the action specifically and elaborate on the results

You cannot skip straight to the last step and backtrack from there. The game WILL break down. As soon as you've described the guard as "holding a crossbow to the 9th level fighter's head", you've already made an ass out of yourself.

Competently GM'd, it looks more like this:
>The guards cautiously surround you and level their crossbows in your direction. What do?

If the player decides to fight:
>One guard looses a bolt straight towards your head. Swiftly, you bring an arm up to defend your vitals. Take 10 damage.

Or, if he surrenders, THEN you can say:
>Good choice. With their crossbows pressed to your skull, it would be unwise to fight back.

>>49035932
>If suddenly the 5 crossbowmen put down their crossbow to pull out their swords, then the cause of the guy being helpless would cease, therefore, he's not helpless against them doing that.
>Now if only one of the 5 crossbowmen does this, then he's still helpless against that one guy, because he still is held there at the mercy of the other 4 while the fifth one is messing around with his sword.
Conditions do not work this way. You are not conditionally helpless to one thing and not helpless to another. You are helpless, to literally everything, or aren't, because it is a on-going effect that is affecting the character.
I get what you are intending, but D&D does not function like that. Conditions are not circumstantial.

>>49035941

Ah, the DungeonWorld "whether or not there are bears behind that door depends on whether you fail the roll" school of GMing.

>>49035941
1st and 4th guy here and I agree.

I'm talking about a situation where this already went down, and the player decided to surrender, where to me, it seems like the other guy is arguing that the PC can still up and decide he's not having any of that and fight back, which unless they have a huge trick up their sleeve like a specialized abjuration spell or the like, it nonsense.

>>49035959
Read it again.
You are helpless to people holding you at crossbow point.
If all of them decide to put their crossbow down, you aren't.
If 1 out of 5 decides to put down their crossbow, you still are being held at crossbow point so you are still in the condition of being helpless.

>>49035989
Can he take actions? Then he's not helpless.

>>49035975
That's another beast entirely. That kind of GMing breaks the logic of cause and effect by decree of the GM. Guess what else breaks the logic of cause and effect? The GMing decreeing that an effect is so before consulting the player's action or the dice -- in this case, the "cause".

>>49035989
>I'm talking about a situation where this already went down, and the player decided to surrender, where to me, it seems like the other guy is arguing that the PC can still up and decide he's not having any of that and fight back, which unless they have a huge trick up their sleeve like a specialized abjuration spell or the like, it nonsense.
Ah, sorry, didn't read well enough. In that case, I'd say it's probably grounds to rule as a coup de grace unless the guards are momentarily distracted -- either by another PC, or a trick from the player, or maybe a bluff check if you're feeling generous.

>>49035975
1: Dungeon world is inspired by D&D, so that method is obviously from D&D first.

2:
>"whether or not there are bears behind that door depends on whether you fail the roll"

what?
How is that related to anything?
Going straight to "guard points a crossbow at your head" straight up is dumb because it assumes that the character just stood still while waiting for the guard to do that obviously dangerous action.

3: Trying to use "dungeon world does it so that means it's bad" is dumb. Dungeon world also uses dice, does that means all games that use dice are bad too?

>>49036045
A bound character can take actions (escape artist checks are actions you know) and yet they are considered helpless.

>>49035989
>You are helpless to people holding you at crossbow point.
>If all of them decide to put their crossbow down, you aren't.
>If 1 out of 5 decides to put down their crossbow, you still are being held at crossbow point so you are still in the condition of being helpless.
And this makes no sense whatsoever. Why, because one person has a crossbow trained on you, should you be helpless? Because he will fire? You can still react and dodge. Crossbows are not instant hit laser cannons. Even a gun held point blank can be reacted to in less than a second, diverted before the trigger is pulled, though it takes extreme reflexes (you know, like those of a well trained superhuman warrior) and even though you'll have a good chance of taking a bullet anyway, it will not necessarily be where it was previously aimed and therefore could not be a coup de grace. Same for a crossbow bolt, yet moreso.

>>49035989
I've seen plenty of action movies where the hero straight up disarms a goon pointing a gun to his head

if he's not literally immobilized, I don't see why the fighter should be considered helpless there.

>>49036067
A bound character can take specified actions only. That' why he's helpless. Someone with crossbows aimed at him is not helpless.

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>>49036077
Who needs a movie?

>>49036076
>And this makes no sense whatsoever. Why, because one person has a crossbow trained on you, should you be helpless? Because he will fire? You can still react and dodge.
>>49036077
>Disarm one goon
Read the fucking thread.
1) Not one person has a crossbow at you, rather one person does not in an effort to take out his sword, and 4 do, one trigger pull away from scrambling your guts or piercing your brain
2) They aren't aimed at you, they are literally poking it against your gut, inches away
>>49036054
>unless the guards are momentarily distracted -- either by another PC, or a trick from the player, or maybe a bluff check if you're feeling generous.
Yeah this is fair.
Again, if the player actually has some sort of defence in the situation, be it a completely concealing suit of armour (then again why did the guards even try this?), a spell, a distraction, or something of the sort, it is a situation you can get out of. But if it's literally just you getting pushed up at a wall with no way out and no ability to convincingly bluff and distract them? Then that's the situation where you're helpless.

>>49036143
>1) Not one person has a crossbow at you, rather one person does not in an effort to take out his sword, and 4 do, one trigger pull away from scrambling your guts or piercing your brain
>2) They aren't aimed at you, they are literally poking it against your gut, inches away
And you can still twist your entire body because you don't actually have a dexterity of 0, meaning you are able to divert the prerequisite lining up and preparing of a coup de grace (which I will remind you is a 6 second full-round-action, and cannot be Readied). At best, they would have a large circumstantial modifier to their to-hit.

>>49036179
>System specifically designed to override combat
>It doesn't work, because that's not what would happen in combat

>>49019600
>If I want clever, skillful human beings, below the level of superhumans, to take on a dragon and win,

If you want this, what you want are very smart players. Mechanics can't help you. Dragons are the size of a house, have scales like plate armor, can breathe fire that's instant death at range, can fly, and frequently have a grab-bag of various one-shot superpowers granted by magic spells. They're ungodly powerful monsters and six unexceptional humans trying to take a dragon either pull off something brilliant (because they are being run by very smart players) or they flat-out die. There is no option three.

>>49036330
>>System specifically designed to override combat
>>It doesn't work, because that's not what would happen in combat
Yeah, two alert individuals having a violent disagreement is what I'd call combat, buddy. No circumvention here. "Roll for initiative, his readied action means he shoots you (with a perfectly normal arrow attack) before combat begins" is precisely how any sane DM would rule there.

>>49023179

Asking a character who can throw down with a t-rex and expect to win by merit purely of his strength and skill to treat a mall cop with a crossbow as a serious threat is unreasonable. Whether you think HP represents the ability to bounce crossbow bolts off of your skull or dodge a crossbow bolt at point-blank range, it sure as Hell represents *something* that ordinary humans cannot do.

>>49036143
>what is equilibrium?
there you have your movie. want more in which a ridiculously agile character is not helpless in this situation?

>>49036179
Look, I actually get what you're tying to say, but you're abstracting this very far.

The game is round-based for the sake of running it smoothly. It doesn't mean that while you take your turn, every other combatant is just sitting there frozen in place.
You might take your actions while being surrounded by crossbows, but let's not forget the reason it's a fullround action:
The warrior takes a stance, aims his weapon for something vital, and then thrusts his sword.
That is what Coup de grace implies. That's why it's a full round action.

These crossbowmen already took their stance, they already aimed at vital organs before initative was even rolled if you decide to fight back, all that remains is pulling the trigger which is at most a swift action, if we want to put a statistic to it.

What do you imagine is happening while your character does a pirouette amidst crossbows?

The DM's responsibility is to apply the rules in whatever way makes sense for the situation.
Everything that makes the full-round action be a full-round action has already occurred.

If you're going to rules lawyer this away, you might as well not have a DM and just program the rules into a computer.

>>49036427
>equating a talented rogue in D&D with someone who seemingly his access to Time Stop at will.

>>49036349
Smog died from a single arrow. Well count 2 arrows.

>>49013941
Get better players.

Use GURPS.

>>49036349
A. Dragons have various sizes and capabilities.
B. There is magic and magic items.
C. Heroes at the edge of human capabilites can be astoundingly capable.
D. But, yes, they need a good plan, good gear and good stats. That is the point.

However, all of this requires that dragons are not D&D's overpowered beasts and PCs are neither D&Ds superheroes nor low-level D&D characters with insufficient capabilities.

>>49036406
peasants can, by sheer luck, overcome the mightiest heroes

>>49036435
>You might take your actions while being surrounded by crossbows, but let's not forget the reason it's a fullround action:
>The warrior takes a stance, aims his weapon for something vital, and then thrusts his sword.
>That is what Coup de grace implies. That's why it's a full round action.
No, warriors do that in the midst of combat all the time. A coup de grace is one step further. It's more like, the assassin takes a few moments to line up his dagger with your heart, then plunges the blade down. This occurs all at once, and would not be possible if you could any way interfere with his lining up the dagger (thus, requires the target to be Helpless). It actually consumes seconds and concentration, to the point where a person can't so much as pick up an object at the same time.

>These crossbowmen already took their stance, they already aimed at vital organs before initative was even rolled if you decide to fight back, all that remains is pulling the trigger which is at most a swift action, if we want to put a statistic to it.
That's a readied action, which is impossible to perform coup de graces with. You can only ready standard or move actions. The simple act of an unrestrained alert person shifting around would throw off the precision required for a coup de grace.
>What do you imagine is happening while your character does a pirouette amidst crossbows?
As said, gets attacked by a normal readied action, same as they're getting shot at by crossbows at any other time. They can get lucky, they can use their extreme reflexes and skills to divert the attacks to less harmful locations or miss entirely, or they can indeed still take crossbow bolts to the kidneys if their AC was insufficient, but that would not be a coup de grace because the precision aiming at a vital location was disrupted.

>>49036451
Hey, it wasn't me who claimed that PCs in D&D are superheroes. It seems to me like D&Dfags are switching their story at convenience. If they are superheroes, 5 crossbows aimed at their head at point blank range means they are not helpless. Not if recent Hollywood movies are any measure.

>>49036509
As I said, just send your DM packing and get a computer.
Both of you will be better off.

>>49036528
That's precisely what I'm saying they aren't.

Hell, an ordinary warrior between levels 1-20 gains not much more than the ability to easily best less experienced soldiers and endure poisons that would kill lesser men.

They are not demi-gods, and I don't understand where this concept of them being that comes from, just because they manage to score more than one damaging blow in the midst of battle where swords were swinging left and right since level 1.
All they gain is a better grasp of combat.

Wizards too only ever get as powerful as people complain, if the DM completely ignores the part of the rules where the wizard gains his spells through study, not divine intervention. The aren't demi-gods either that just know their spells at no personal cost. They are meant to invest downtime into research or join a guild with expectations and limitations to gain those powers, if they are worthy of them.

It feels like somewhere along the road DMs let go of the wheel and now we're in a world where people think their characters are straight out of the upper crust of DC Comics.

>>49036528
Anyone past level 6 is superhuman.
OP's example is someone with 75 base HP, which implies a level 6 Barbarian who is ridiculously stacked (rolling max HP nearly every level) at the very least, or more likely a level 10-11 Fighter who would be decidedly superhuman.

>>49036616
>As I said, just send your DM packing and get a computer.
>Both of you will be better off.
You're treating coup de graces (a precision strike to one's vitals against someone who could not possibly prevent the attack) as something that can be readied and fired at a swift action, which is invalid both by the rules and by common sense. You cannot take precise aim at someone's heart if they are moving around. You will shoot at their heart and maybe hit their ribcage or maybe they twist their body entirely and you hit nothing.

>>49036503
>by sheer luck
By sheer numbers. Who cares that Johny and his son died during ambush on werewolves. Thats nothing compared to 20 silver pieces wither asked for this job. We still have taxes to pay.

>>49036616
>Hell, an ordinary warrior between levels 1-20 gains not much more than the ability to easily best less experienced soldiers and endure poisons that would kill lesser men.
A level 20 fighter can be immersed in magma for 18 seconds and walk out of it alive.

>>49036452

A single magic arrow that killed literally everything Bard ever fired it at, yes.

>>49036673
no, I meant by sheer luck. a mighty hero, an experienced warrior of countless fights, can fall to a single lucky strike by a peasant with a heavy branch. that is the stuff oy myths and legends.
not the type of stuff you want to pull on your pcs, granted

>>49036729
If you want to do that, play Rolemaster, not any version of D&D.

>>49036503

Yes, with sufficiently lucky die rolls zero-level punks can overcome mid-level (or even high/max-level) opposition. So what?

>>49018016
That's likely true for a portion of the posters about every game. It's not that no-one plays games, but every game has people who haven't played it.

>>49013993
Sure HP is an abstraction, but it's kind of abstraction.
The heal spells are called cure WOUNDS.
Poison and other such effects do their thing when they damage HP.
Stoneskin gives you damage resistance.
Precision is represented by attack and raw destructive power is always represented by high damage.
In the rules damage is always linked to some kind of actual harm despite that one tiny bit that says that it isn't.

It's a wildly inconsistent system that doesn't do a good job of reflect what it's intended to reflect. A hit is when you take damage, the rules call it hit, the rules handle it as a hit. In one paragraph it says it isn't actually a hit.

And if I remember right there isn't anything in the book about not using HP for getting shot at point blank range. At the most it has some crazy brutal damage multipliers and crits and shit but with 75hp he could still be in fighting shape when his turn comes around.

You can houserule it otherwise. It would probably be a pretty good houserule too. The RAW could definitely benefit from some good houseruleing.
because it's handling of HP is silly.

But I would say anyone who is confused by HP in D&D is totally justified in their confusion.

entire thread tl;dr
you can interpret your level 20 jackass who can survive 4 cannon balls to the face as either literally being durable enough to survive 4 cannon balls to the face, or having a running plot armor that drains out every time a cannon ball "misses" them, it doesn't really matter, D&D is a setting with magic and both work.

>>49036685
Rather unlikely, considering even 1 round immersed in lava deals 20d6 damage you take 10d6 damage afterwards for 1d3 rounds and if you take more than 50 points of damage from a single hit (that a reasonable DM might rule standing in liquid damage being the same elongated hit) constitutes Massive Damage.

>>49036658
The way you say it, heavily implies that in your view, hitpoints are "meat points".
Maybe in your games that is fine, but in every game I've ever played, the "its a sum of luck, fighting spirit and other factors thing" was used heavily.
No blow outside the final one has the potential to be fatal. You gather scars, cuts, even semi-serious injuries throughout the fight if you get a critical, but none of it will kill you if left unattended beyond a bandage.

None of the crossbow bolts you take at range will hit you anywhere near your guts, they will cut your arm, jam into your armour and pierce your skin, but it's not until the final shot that you get your lung pierces straight through, or your jugular cut, even if that blow deals 1 points of damage and each one previously dealt 20.

Having a fighter casually walk around with an arrow sticking out of his brain and looking for another fight would be ridicolous, and people pointing out stuff like >>49036685 is basically them having decided that they don't want the game to make sense, so they'll just go ahead and ignore that the DM's entire purpose is that he's to fix unforeseen complications.

You can call it a shit system because the DM actually has to rationally think through what the situation entails, even - dare I say - discuss with the players how the world he's running works, and curb nonsense that might occur on his own, with little aid from a book that would be more expansive than the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, were it to be prepared for any complications on its own. But some of us take that as the price of admission for running a game that is accessible for players.

>>49036811
What exactly is a good alternative to hit points then? Especially if you want to maintain verismilitude?

I mever saw it not making sense myself. If you shoot an ordinary man with a crossbow he's going to die or be badly wounded. The rules follow this as a commoner has 6 HP and average damage of a Crossbow is 6.

If you shoot a dragon with a crossbow it's going to sting it but be able to shrug it off , hence needing to fire multiple volleys into it to being it down.

If you shoot a crossbow at Conan the Barbarian it's going to hurt but he's a level 6 barbarian with 75 HP so he's going to keep on fighting happily until multiplw blows can bring him down.

Personally I also use a called shot system which allows the likes of headshots which can incapictate somebody with enough luck.

>>49013941
Give the PCs maximum hp for the first level, then nothing after that. Do this for the monsters and important NPCs too. Keep everything otherwise the same.

That way you can enjoy competent heroes slaying monsters, that can still be felled with a single hit from a crossbow. Let the good times roll!

>>49013941
Play old school.

>>49036811
This I agree with.

It is confusing, but I think it's so specifically to make it easy to adapt depending on what you want to do.
The DM is explicitly given a lot of leeway, tons of optional rules and encouragement to make more.
If they want to run the game where HP is meat points, as much as it won't really make sense outside of a comic book-like setting, it's possible. If they want to abstract it, they can with the right narrative changes that they can discuss with players.

The greatest fault with D&D is that it relies on DMs to take it and fix it, because in general, it IS broken. But all the framework is there to make it into whatever you want and have a game that's accessible on the player level. And that - as unfair and difficult as it can be - what makes it a powerful system in the right hands.

>>49036915
>Rather unlikely, considering even 1 round immersed in lava deals 20d6 damage you take 10d6 damage afterwards for 1d3 rounds
And a level 20 fighter will have somewhere around 220 HP where 20d6 deals an average of 140, +70 for the round after. Fine, make it 6 seconds. It's still beyond humanity to walk away from that.
>constitutes Massive Damage.
Level 20 fighters have very high fortitude saves.

>>49036921
I've always just kept HP as a measurement of your narrative importance. As you get higher in level you have less of a chance of being punked, you are never considered defenseless if you want to fight.

Guy is standing over you while you sleep with a sword stabbing for your heart? You manage to snap awake at the last second and turn enough to not get gutted. That sort of shit. So no, you can't punk a level 20 with a commoner if that level 20 wants to stay alive.

Now, for the silly scenarios where a player is simply trying to bullshit the system then they are forgoing their defenses, they aren't trying to struggle so if they wanna die they can.

>>49036991
>Level 20 fighters have very high fortitude saves.
Actually, I have to give you that.
Been playing with the same group so long, forgot that our rule about it being a flat Con save was a house rule.

>>49036811
The beauty of hp as a system isn't apparent until you consider the range of creatures D&D covers.

With a more direct wound system, creatures like hill giants are either unstoppable meat slabs or feel like paper mache due to having way too few wounds or way too little soak. And it just gets worse from there, as you get into colossal creatures, constructs, ghosts, and so forth. With abstract hp, creatures can be tanky for different reasons and tankyness can be represented as a single stat. You don't NEED a bunch of subsystems that say, "this is damage avoided from skill, this is damage avoided from luck, this is damage absorbed, etc." because hp covers it all.

>>49036915
>The way you say it, heavily implies that in your view, hitpoints are "meat points".
>Maybe in your games that is fine, but in every game I've ever played, the "its a sum of luck, fighting spirit and other factors thing" was used heavily.
>No blow outside the final one has the potential to be fatal. You gather scars, cuts, even semi-serious injuries throughout the fight if you get a critical, but none of it will kill you if left unattended beyond a bandage.
It's a mixture, this means that yes, sheer "how much blood you have remaining" is a factor. Not the sole factor, and indeed in this very equation you may be getting nicked by bolts here and there (because I conceded they'd get free attacks, just NOT coup de graces) or just worn out from dodging them.
Either way this dodged the point. Crossbow bolts from range can spear your gut, that would be a critical hit. A crossbow bolt from point blank can miss, because the dude was fucking fast like >>49036135 or something.

>>49018210
>If the D&D system had 2 different stats... say 15 points toughness and 60 points divine luck
>Same reason why AC is bad (mixing ability to not get hit with ability to shrug off hits).
Look up Fantasy Craft. It's like 3.X, but with viable non-combat/non-magic classes, Vitality for divine favour points and Wounds for meat points and Defence for ability to take a hit while Armour is DR.

>>49037060
Also, forgot to add: There are Terminal Situations for times when a guy can just slice your throat or something out to instantly kill you and Critical Hits go straight to wounds

>>49037023
>A crossbow bolt from point blank can miss, because the dude was fucking fast like >>49036135 or something.
I'm not sure if I'd accept that as a good example because for one, clearly this was setup as a demonstration, so the guy was neither was ever going to pull the trigger, nor was that gun loaded, and on top of that, it was a single opponent instead of a group.

Still, you make a decent argument, and again, my point is that the DM has to figure something out.

Being in a situation like this as a wizard, is different than being in this situation as a level 20 monk.
The way I DM, I often directly discuss rule applications when it's not clear. Sure Acid Flask doesn't say it can do it, but I'd let a character try and melt a lock with it, with a roll depending on the material used because it's a clever idea to get out of a situation on the player's side.
If they could make a reasonable argument for why their character could pull a stunt like that (level 20 monk for example), I'd give it to them, with the warning that if it fails they're in a very bad spot.


Still an aspect of this we never really mentioned is that why would the character even be fighting in this situation? Unless they've already established themselves as an untouchable god, why would the character, in character, think it's a smart idea to do this?
Why would the character know that coup de graces are a full round action, and he has a high AC, so he's completely safe from those 5 bolts just begging to puncture his innards?

That's kind of the bigger issue with OP's argument in my opinion. The idea that the PC even tries something this stupid just because the OOC rules allow for it to be possible, is a big part of this.

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>>49037094
>I'm not sure if I'd accept that as a good example because for one, clearly this was setup as a demonstration, so the guy was neither was ever going to pull the trigger, nor was that gun loaded, and on top of that, it was a single opponent instead of a group.
The dude's also not a trained master of combat who can easily contend with a dragon. Even if you want to consider a fighter to be real-world human, you must consider them to be the peak of humanity, among the greatest combatants to ever live. Because they are the heroes who behead the jabberwocky and go galumphing back. They are not some farmer who was given a chain shirt and spear and told to watch the gate.

>>49036482
>Dragons have various sizes and capabilities.

Yes, you can technically have a horse-sized reptile with wings and fire breath and unexceptional natural armor for a creature of that size and it will technically be something like a dragon. If that's what you meant by "dragon," it is extremely misleading to just say "dragon" with no further elaboration.

>There is magic and magic items.

Either the magic and magic items make the PCs into superheroes, in which case this is just a slightly different method of reaching the exact same conclusion (and one that probably fucks fighters over for no reason) or else they don't, in which case they're insufficient to kill a dragon.

>Heroes at the edge of human capabilites can be astoundingly capable.

Not when facing creatures who are explicitly several measures beyond the edge of human capabilities.

>But, yes, they need a good plan, good gear and good stats. That is the point.

"Good gear" and "good stats" are either making the PCs into superheroes, in which case you've contradicted yourself, or else they are not making a difference because the dragon is way too fucking strong. A good plan is something your players supply. The system cannot help you with it.

So we're exactly where we started: If you want heroes to be able to kill a dragon without their players personally being very smart, they need to be superheroes, full fucking stop. Your entire post is conceding that every premise is incorrect while engaging in obfuscatory bullshit to pretend the conclusion is somehow still valid. It's not. Either your characters are superheroes or they will die to a dragon.

>>49037094
There's two guys in that video that are pointing guns at the guy, they are obviously volunteers, and are obviously surprised at how fast he moved.

In any case, high-level D&D characters can move at least that fast, considering that, for example, in a 6-second period they can (with high enough BAB) loose 2+ aimed arrows at different targets, strike at 2+ different targets in melee, whatever. And while I can buy it being a CDG if the PC sits there and takes it, if they move first I can't see the surrounding guards being able to react in literally a split second in order to deal the kind of damage with precision a CDG implies.

>>49037140
>>49037151
You're assuming that we're talking about a level 8+ fighter here, more like level 12.

Let's not forget that it's a dude who got himself surrounded by crossbowmen who were more than eager to take him on up close.
By the same argument as yours, we can dismiss the entire situation as impossible under those circumstances, because those same crossbowmen would have long heard of this great warrior, and would prefer not to walk that close to him.

That, or those crossbowmen are equally exceptional warriors and believe they can take him on.


The argument is by its nature situational, and it not applying in some situations doesn't mean it doesn't apply in any situation.

>>49037196
>You're assuming that we're talking about a level 8+ fighter here, more like level 12.
It's unlikely for anyone less to have 75 HP, unless they took the Improved Toughness feat (lol)
In fact, level 9 is where I'd expect your average fighter to pass 75 HP.

>>49020225

>lava
>submerged

No. Lava is still stone, and there's no way a human being of any weight could "sink" into it seeing as how (even plastic and hot) it's still denser than the human body.

>>49037278

It can be poured in around you.

>>49037316

This is a weird thread to ask in, but sure, let's do this. How much experience do they have with vidya RPGs, and which ones do they enjoy? What kind of media are they into in general?

>>49037290
Technically speaking, you(r ashen remains) will float to the top in short order. Though that does depend on the viscosity.

>>49037316
It depends a bit.
Have they already made their characters?

The way I like to go, is start with a mystery. If their characters aren't the cold and disciplined kind, you could have them wake up in the common room of an ink, hungover a bit, finding a cryptic note in one of their pockets and then having to re-trace their steps from last night, to figure out who gave them this message and why (it could be a lead-in to the first proper adventure too).
Alternatively, you could have them accidentally walk into a crime scene, or if one of them has a military/guard background for their character, maybe have them be deputized to figure out a crime.

>>49018512
This is really the best answer. Nothing wrong with the rules for tournament play, or while you're learning a new system, or hell even if you're just a wargaming autist who mistakenly got tricked into thinking the rules are necessary for accurate combat.

But for a group of guys like in my group, we do so much shit outside of what the rules covers, or we might want to do a couple sessions where for instance we're leading a large army. The Paladin has decided to stay back and direct the overall forces, with officers given wands of colour spray to use for communication. Meanwhile the rogue is leading a squad of sappers, and chose to have less sneaky for more stab and boom. The Cleric is front-line with the elites to buff and heal, as well as the Warlock who is there to be the "hidden dagger" for enemy elites or high value targets they encounter - alternatively an explosive covering fire for retreating.

Fuck using D&D rules for that shit. Screw Unearthed Arcana. If we wanted to play a wargame, we would.

So instead we have the players make a plan. Then our DM breaks it into a series of steps and plots his "challenges". Depending on how the players want to resolve the challenge, that affects how they roll. The rogue wants to stealth kill some sentries? Fuck rolling combat, it's going to happen. Get more dudes to help for a bonus to kill them quickly and be able to take another action but risk getting caught, or go solo and have them wait to act.

Shit like that. Almost a narrative system at that point.

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>>49037368
Look on children, and look well, for you see here an example of that most elusive and rare beast of our day:
The TTRPG player who knows what he's doing.

10/10 group

>>49037148
> So we're exactly where we started: If you want heroes to be able to kill a dragon without their players personally being very smart, they need to be superheroes, full fucking stop. Your entire post is conceding that every premise is incorrect while engaging in obfuscatory bullshit to pretend the conclusion is somehow still valid. It's not. Either your characters are superheroes or they will die to a dragon.

We call this "When to use NPCs". Your players aren't picking up your subtle hints? Well fuck, then give them a hand.

They have to kill a dragon but can't come up with a plan. But hey! There's an old tale about a dragon that was killed, the problem is that the one the locals know doesn't have the details.

So they track down where the tale originally came from. There they find a descendant, or a shrine, or some shit like that which gives them more details.

I would personally make it vague here still. Maybe there are two interpretations of what happened and nobody knows which is correct, or the descendant can be recruited but needs (x) done or to be convinced somehow whatever. Or they need tools for the plan they don't have, and have to figure out a work-around or wait for them to be forged or something.

Meanwhile the Dragon is causing more damage. So they have to choose between getting a more solid plan/unique items or trying to wing it and risking failure.

Of course, that's also something I'm assuming is a possibility. That you aren't just simulating a CRPG so there's the possibility of the players FAILING to kill the dragon, having a risky plan that doesn't work, or using false information, or not having enough men or macguffins but not being willing to wait.

You should definitely reward innovative players, or smart players, and hell even players who are just willing to risk it all. But for that to work you need to give them something to play off of.

>>49037456

You are still not describing anything to do with the system, and therefore not at all backing up your claim that D&D is a bad system. Like, yes, powerful opposition can be turned into a mystery to solve rather than a straight combat challenge. You can do that in almost any system under the sun, including D&D, because that is a GMing tactic, not a mechanical option.

>>49037436
This >>49037456 is also me.

We round robin our GM every narrative arc as well, so we don't have a "forever DM". Me and another guy are alternating a low-fantasy Conan style game that's 100% homebrew.

Players picked a "combat style" - Sword and Board, 2 Handers, Dueling, Discrete, and Archery. That gives them "basic" experience and +10 in any weapon that falls under that. Then they got to pick specific gear to have trained with which they started with nothing but could increase throughout the game.

Sword and Board allows shield maneuvers, 2Handed weapons had specific abilities, Dueling and Discrete were the only ones that gave crits and allowed weapons at all times - Dueling also had an extra +5 to1v1 that could be increased to +15, and then either another final+10 or apply to up to 3 foes. Discrete was always assumed to be concealable, and could be daggers, or saps, or darts, blowguns etc. They could also be poisoned.

Archery was obvious.

Anyways. The idea was to have vague classes that were focused less on "how much damage" but more "how do you fight".

Magic items give lateral effects and are rare. A stone that gives off light, tattoos that help you sneak, an idol whose facial expressions match the inner feelings of whoever you're talking to etc.

Social is Blather, Intimidate, Charm, Seduce and has it's own resolution tree where you can spend points to get them to accept a point or to ignore one of theirs, and you need to get (x) points resolved to succeed.

Honestly we tried to keep it vague so that everything is 1d100 with bonus/malus or narrative structure.

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>>49019600

Then D&D isn't a good system.

Try GURPS dungeon fantasy or some sort of FATE/Savage World.

Runequest will also work I guess.

Early edition dnd or retroclones cap health, so they might do it if you wanna stay within dnd. You can also do an essential 6 dnd run (players don't progress past level 6, but they continue gaining feats).

One interesting thing you can do with dnd fifth edition is that you stop health progress and spell progress at level 6, but you let skills, to-hit, feats, class features, etc continue to progress. This is sort of essential six but probably a bit smoother. You can allow spellcasters to buy higher level spells using feats. You can rework how spell slots work to better scale with the new leveling system.

>>49037456
>>49037651
Still gotta say, love the group setup.

I'm personally kind of stuck being a Forever DM, since I'm running a campaign which is centrally built around the concept of the players not knowing what's going on.

Basically imagine The Apocalypse Stone, except it's playing out extremely slow, the players are not the ones who set the whole thing in motion, and they slowly need to figure out what DID do it, what this means and what they can do about it.

>>49037496
Not that guy, for one thing. That's a stupid argument anyway. If that's your argument, then D&D is a perfectly fine system because it has a CR and direct combat is designed to work within the framework specified by using D&D stats for Dragons and PCs. It's bad GMing to throw a Dragon again non-superhero PCs because that's not how the combat system is supposed to work.

I was really just contesting you needing "smart" players to kill a Dragon in D&D without making them superheroes.

If I wanted to argue that D&D was a bad system in regards to how you kill Dragons, I would say that it is because it gives enemies like that statistics at all. I would much more prefer that instead it gave them weaknesses, strengths, abilities, and common tactics with the qualifier that older or more experienced dragons might do things differently. This would allow for PCs from a large range of classes and skills and levels to defeat one by various means other than attacking until it runs out of HP.

Even then, if your character is high enough level, you could just duke it out and dodge or tank the hits until you had killed the dragon. Or whatever other high level encounter.

TL;DR D&D is a "bad" system because it doesn't have rules or a resolution system for solving encounters outside of direct combat.

But then again, D&D is a "good" system because it doesn't forbid using alternative GMing tactics to resolve encounters without using direct combat.

Is your glass half empty or half full?

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>>49013941
I like HP when they are done right, but they are best suited to games where the PC's are the protagonists of an action movie. Action movie protagonists don't die instantly from things like that unless it's the conclusion to a large action scene.

>character falls off of a cliff
Action heroes frequently dive off of cliffs and come back... because action heroes. If it WOULD kill the hero, but they have HP left, they lose some of those HP in order to latch on to the cliff dramatically at the last moment.

>Character gets his head run over by a car
If you're not out of hit-points, then you're not disabled/unconscious enough for your head to be squashed by a car.

Think of it this way, any TRUE telling blow will kill a PC, but they spend a meta-resource called "hit-points" that represent an action-heroe's plot-shield, in order to dramatically negate thee hits, either by dodging at the last minute, grabbing a the edge of the cliff at the last moment, or by sheer luck. If you fully accept the action-movie rules, HP work.... though lots of HP systems try really hard to be simulationist, so yeah, that doesn't work so well.

>>49037820

My problem with that is that healing spells and healing potions...does what? with this sort of health explanation.

>>49037831
Replenishes a reservoir of stamina, banishing exhaustion, and returns them to fighting form.
Maybe have people call them "potions of fortitude" or something.
How do people use names of spells in-universe, anyway? Maybe Cure Moderate Wounds is better known as "Replenish Strength [medium]".

>>49037788
>If that's your argument, then D&D is a perfectly fine system because it has a CR and direct combat is designed to work within the framework specified by using D&D stats for Dragons and PCs. It's bad GMing to throw a Dragon again non-superhero PCs because that's not how the combat system is supposed to work.

This has fuck all to do with what I said, which also describes the last post you made. Seriously, what the fuck.

>I was really just contesting you needing "smart" players to kill a Dragon in D&D without making them superheroes.

And you contested that by instead making smart NPCs who create the plan for the PCs and then feed it to them one bread crumb at a time. That doesn't rebut the point I was making at all, only the exact phrasing of it, which is a semantic argument.

>If I wanted to argue that D&D was a bad system in regards to how you kill Dragons, I would say that it is because it gives enemies like that statistics at all. I would much more prefer that instead it gave them weaknesses, strengths, abilities, and common tactics with the qualifier that older or more experienced dragons might do things differently.

You are either describing freeform roleplay or you do not know what "statistics" are. If the former, you're bitching because D&D is bad at being something it was never trying to be, which is unsurprising enough as to be an insipid non-contribution to the conversation. The latter is ignorant to the point of parody.

>D&D is a "bad" system because it doesn't have rules or a resolution system for solving encounters outside of direct combat.

Have you ever read a D&D book? Every single edition of D&D has had rules and a resolution system for solving encounters outside of direct combat since at least AD&D 1e. Some editions' non-combat rules are a dumpster fire, but they exist and they are usable.

>>49037831
Not him, but the way I do it, every hit hurts you, but it's only the final blow (however low a roll compared to everything else) that is a potentially fatal blow.
Every other blow just leaves you with cuts and bruises of various levels.
Cure spells and potions are less of a "magic patch" that heals serious wounds that would kill most people, and rather they are something that close wounds and work as kind of a painkiller/adrenaline boost mix.

It's houseruled a bit, but it works, and I tend to roll on a custom critical table if anything truly outstanding happens (like them getting bellow 0 hit points, or going through 3 fights in a row getting knocked near zero... Or you know, receive a critical.)

>>49036758
Been there, done that.

>>49036890
You've missed a vital part of the debate though: the part where we discuss if having two seperate stats for luck and toughness is superior to D&D's hitpoints.

>>49036921
Separate "meatpoints" and luck into 2 stats.

>>49037739
Well, a large part of how our initial DM got away from being a forever DM was by getting us to each write a brief story that would be 4 arcs. We all agreed ahead of time to this, and planned to work with the person to move it along so that we could do one arc in a night.

Since they were short arcs, the plan was to just have that person pre-gen characters and he would help check to make sure they could do what the person wanted them to do for their role.

Well that was irritating so that's when we went with the rule of 5 instead.

> Who are you (Big and Fast but Weak, Small and Smart but Scared, essentially two positive traits and a negative trait),

>What do you do ( Sneak and Stab, MAGIC MOTHERFUCKERS, Smite and Shield, honestly we pretty much used D&D classes here but more vague),

> What do you want (Players filled this in, we aren't autists or assholes so this worked okay),

>Who do you fear (Help make antagonists, or background organizations. Yes, one guy did the whole prisoner forced to fight thing, which let the party decide whether or not he earned his freedom at the end. Well, we actually ended up killing his Parole officer but I digress)

and

> Who do you know (Family, business or school connections, part of a knightly order etc)

Essentially we ended up doing everything backwards, where the DM-to-be wrote a vague setting like "Pirates trapped on a series of inland lakes" was one, "Drunkards looking to become the best barroom brawlers in the county" was another, "Wizards in applied Academia" was the third, and I can't remember the actual name but the fourth one was a western clint eastwood style.

I mean, all this took us about 6 months to put together while running our main campaign. And we tuned the dice system between each one because we would do things in the first that gave the second guy more ideas.

>>49036993
Again, my points throughout the thread has been that D&D's hitpoints are a bad, legacy mechanic because they mix luck and meatpoints. The superior approach is having two stats because
a) you know whether a character just has been wounded or just consumed a portion of his luck
b) you help definining characters better by having tough but not very lucky heroes or meek but incredibly blessed guys.

>>49037018
>With a more direct wound system, creatures like hill giants are either unstoppable meat slabs or feel like paper mache due to having way too few wounds or way too little soak.
This is a problem of proper statting. Or are you saying a balanced design is impossible? If so, I require eveidence.

>>49018252
i'd assume because either they already have and are now dead, because they feel some other calling is more worthwhile to take up, or perhaps because they're just lazy.

>>49037148
Bullshit. They need means to survive long enough to get X wounds in. X depends on the size of the dragon and the quality of their (magic?) weapons.

Fuck it, Siegfried did it all by himself before he bathed in the dragon's blood. Seriously, guys, lay it off.

>>49018512
>>49037368
>>49037436
This. Does not. Excuse. Bad system. Design.

>>49037948
Continuing.

Anyways, what I'm trying to describe is that it wasn't just one DM trying to teach one guy, or having someone run through modules, or making a sprawling setting and not knowing what to do with it.

It was a group effort to work together, with a set timeline IRL, to get everyone in the group used to making a setting and then using it.

They knew what kind of characters the other guys wanted to play, and the other guys knew what kind of setting it was going to be, Yeah, it was more "on rails", but that was so everyone could take their turn DMing.

Lots of conversation afterwards, and bouncing ideas off of each other.

So if you want to move away from being a forever DM I suggest trying something like that. Get everybody to do a rules-light game or just fake it with some dice and descriptions of skill. Get everyone to do a couple of sessions so that they can change how things work between them instead of doing just oneshots, and get both the new DM and other players to be on the same page about what they want to play and write.

I mean, we now run very different games. There's six of us, our original DM still runs DH, another guy runs PF and is slowly coming around to trying 5E, Me and another dude do our Conan 1d100 bullshit in short arcs, one guy only does occasional funny one-shots and one guy doesn't like doing it at all.

>>49037820
See >>49037982

>>49037148
>Either the magic and magic items make the PCs into superheroes, in which case this is just a slightly different method of reaching the exact same conclusion (and one that probably fucks fighters over for no reason) or else they don't
Every fucking person is magic in D&D. Magic supersaturates the settings. Every single being has magic that courses through their veins, magic surrounds them and suffuses them at all hours of the day.
At any level up, a person can suddenly take Sorcerer as a level, meaning they realize the latent magical potential within them and learn to channel it. They can also take the Draconic Heritage feat, suddenly realizing that they are of the (long-distant) progeny of the dragon-gods Bahamut or Tiamat. This is because dragons are compatible with every living race and breed with mortals fairly often, so it's entirely reasonable for every single person on the planet to have a far-flung draconic ancestor that they may not have even known about.
Every last life form in D&D is magical.

>>49038014
Nigga Siegfried had a magic sword and got coached by Allfather Odin chieftan of the aesir etc. etc.

>>49038037
I think you miss, that the larger point here is not that D&D is perfect, but that D&D is easy to get into, and a DM can with a bit of effort and communication make it into something great.
Is it great on its own? No.
Would it be nice if it was? Yes.
Does that stop anyone who's already willing to put hours of his life every week into setting up a fictional world and running it, from ironing out the problems so that it chugs along at the pace and in the way they want? No.

It's a mess, but it's the kind of mess where you know where everything is.
Call it shit all you want, you're not wrong.
But you being right doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

>>49038014
>They need means to survive long enough to get X wounds in. X depends on the size of the dragon and the quality of their (magic?) weapons.

See:

>Either the magic and magic items make the PCs into superheroes, in which case this is just a slightly different method of reaching the exact same conclusion (and one that probably fucks fighters over for no reason) or else they don't, in which case they're insufficient to kill a dragon.

Siegfried killed Fafnir with the sword Gram, which is powerful enough to cut an anvil in half. Siegfried's superpowers came from his sword (and later from Fafnir's blood, but at the time he was killing Fafnir, just from his sword), but he still had superpowers.

>>49038075
>Every fucking person is magic in D&D.

So, I'm the guy you're responding to, and I can't tell. Are you disagreeing with me? Because if so it's not clear how.

>>49038092
I'm saying yes everyone's a ""superhero"" past level 6-ish.
Magic is everywhere including in the PC's bloodstream.

>>49038075
>Every fucking person is magic in D&D. Magic supersaturates the settings. Every single being has magic that courses through their veins, magic surrounds them and suffuses them at all hours of the day.
So basically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMUKGTkiWik ?

That can be played a lot of ways though. When magic is everywhere, the mundane is powerful. Han doesn't need ancient weapons and hokey religions with a good blaster by his side, even if said blaster, on some level, is affected by the Force.

That's kind of how I like to think of magic in D&D, simply more organized and structural by the nature pushed on it by the gods, which is why Wizardry is so complicated.

>>49038144
>Han doesn't need ancient weapons and hokey religions with a good blaster by his side
Han couldn't possibly defeat Luke in a fight by episode VI so considering them to be equal members in a party is dumb.

>>49017931
3.5 also had damage for being in lava. After a point in D&D your just a super hero and petty things like lava just don't do it.

>>49038178
If you honestly think that who could defeat who in a fight is a measure of their equality merit or value, then I don't know what to tell you.

>>49038088
Bullshit. Siegfried is not a superhero. Siegfried is just a hero, a classical medieval heroic figure with a magic sword. Nobody uses the prefix super- to distinguish Siegfried from other heroes of myths and legends.

>>49038220
It's comparing an NPC to a PC in other words justifying OP's dude. Luke was superhuman.

>>49038097
Pretty sure arguing with this guy is pointless.

>>49038079
This right here. Every system is going to be flawed or sacrifice accuracy in some way, because it's just a representation of reality.

When you start saying (x) isn't detailed enough = bad design because the DM shouldn't have to do it, you fall right into (x) is bad because it's not an accurate representation.

D&D is designed to be played a certain way, and mainly to provide balance to combat encounters based on character levels.

The majority of it as well I would say is designed to be played from level 3 to level 12 or so, and even then at level 3 your character is supposed to be an exceptional person much more skilled than the average bloke.

By the time you're killing dragons and shit, you SHOULD be fucking superheroes. Tell me the last time you heard the tale of Chaz the barrel maker who killed Sirmugh the Worm of the Woods in single combat.

That being said, the setting is explicit in by giving everything statistics, from HP to DR to AC and all those lovely acronyms and representations, that it opens up the possibility of Chaz the Barrelmaker to go off while all the other brave heroes are facing the dragon and dying in brave combat, make some sort of trap and get his friend Dave who's dumb but strong and his friend Steve who's a clerk in the castle and has a liberal attitude towards the concept of personal property, to help him set it up. So the dragon chases Dave into a trap set by Chaz that uses all the random kitchen knives Steve could swipe from the castle, tied to weights, to pierce and tangle the dragons wings so it can't fly.

Have this set up in a dry gully littered with large rocks pushed in and small pits dug, so there's shitty footing for the dragon.

Then Chaz knocks the block out of the dam that was built to power the sawmill, and the dragon is washed into the lake since it can't fly away and drowns all tangled up in the knives and shit tied together.

>>49038238
>and even then at level 3 your character is supposed to be an exceptional person much more skilled than the average bloke.
Says who?

>>49038220
>>49038237
Not really in this case particularly. Unless Luke is the NPC. He's the "chosen one" who is guided by the force, so he doesn't actually have to roll to succeed. When he blew up the Death Star, it wasn't because of his exceptional piloting skills or precision with the weapons of the X-wing.

It was literally just him letting the Force use him, and him not actively aiming or anything.

Han on the other hand had no such thing. When got by through his skills as a fighter and a pilot (and a ladies man woo woo) and when he tried to step up against the big bad he got smacked the fuck down because he was just a normal dude.

Sadly Star Wars is pretty big on the Jedi/Force wank, especially without the AU.

HK-47 was a much better example of how a PC would exist in the star wars universe. Even killing Vader or Palpatine would have been conceivable in the KOTOR universe, if exceptionally difficult due to their positions and sensitivity. So you would have to limit the people involved, the people deliberately not involved, and somehow still draw them into a situation where you have enough firepower to kill them that you didn't assemble for that purpose etc.

But yeah. Luke is a DMPC and Star Wars the movies is a shit campaign on hard rails.

>>49018165
>pot calls the kettle black
>being this anal about fantasy games

>>49038238
>So the dragon chases Dave into a trap set by Chaz that uses all the random kitchen knives Steve could swipe from the castle, tied to weights, to pierce and tangle the dragons wings so it can't fly.
D&D doesn't have rules to support this kind of thing. You're houseruling it entirely from scratch. That may be fine with you, but I'd rather not spend time and effort on literally making up mechanics to make shit work under D&D. I'll just play a system that supports that kind of creativity from the get go.

>>49038248
I refer you to

>Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies, By Bill Slavicsek, Richard Baker

They go into it in detail, including specifically pointing out that in D&D a PC IS A SPECIAL PERSON. Or we can look at the statistics for a Guard

Armor Class 16 (chain shirt, shield)
Hit Points 11 (2d8 + 2)
Speed 30 ft.

STR
13 (+1)
DEX
12 (+1)
CON
12 (+1)
INT
10 (+0)
WIS
11 (+0)
CHA
10 (+0)
Skills Perception +2
Senses passive Perception 12
Languages any one language (usually Common)
Challenge 1/8 (25 XP)

Compare that to a level 3 Fighter who will have rolled 1d10 for hp 3 times and so an average of 15hp. Not accounting for the fact that NPCs usually have slightly higher HP for their CR as opposed to HD for monsters. And your fighter will hopefully have better stats than that guard., and will have many more skills and abilities already and will be looking at specializing into a martial archtype.

So while the Guard is also a trained professional, at level 3 your PC is inherently physically better, more skilled, and possessing unique abilities that allow him to do extra damage or prevent damage etc.

I don't mean to come off as confrontational if you were seriously asking, but that's the intent behind PCs. By all means, you can use Rule Zero and make your NPCs equivalent to PCs, but as they are laid out in the books they are just not as good.

>>49019600
>I want players smarter than the smartest creatures in the Monster Manual with 40 or so to Int.
Players shouldn't be able to outsmart Dragons, justs saying.

Why are the players breaking the railroad, we need more realistic narrative systems where people die when I tell them to

t. faggot DM

>>49036135
Staged as fuck, the guy behind him is rising his arms surprised even before the fatty turns. Either he's a precog (in which case why not come up with a better solution if you can see the future) or staged.

>>49038321
> Making up mechanics is super fucking difficult.

Tell you what, you can argue D&D not having rules or mechanics for resolving this sort of shit with

>>49037876

and his

> Every single edition of D&D has had rules and a resolution system for solving encounters outside of direct combat since at least AD&D 1e. Some editions' non-combat rules are a dumpster fire, but they exist and they are usable

I mean, I'm describing what's *possible* since there are rules for drowning damage and the dragon has HP and so you can technically kill it. As opposed to a system that says "Dragons are invincible" or that their scales can only be pierced with a unique sword, or has them be unable to leave a certain area, or other shit like that.

Or another example is killing the Lady of Pain. Can't be done, fuck you, no exceptions. Ignore Vecna, don't respond to Vecna posts, discredit known Vecna advocates in all other posts.

But yeah, they had to specifically not give her any stats so people wouldn't try bullshit like killing or imprisoning her just because there were numbers.

Seriously. "Mechanics are hard to make up".

Get your players to break down building the trap into a series of set actions. Roll against whatever stat seems appropriate and add any skills or whatever modifiers to see how successful they are, if they fail make them roll again and charge them time, if they fail badly make them fuck it up and either break/lose material or hurt themselves, or ruin something beside it.

Do this until the trap is set, or they've fucked up too much and run out of material or ruined the area.

For the encounter, use the combat rules until the Dragon and bait get to the trap. If they do, Roll for the Dragon to spot the trap. If it fails, roll for the trap do be sprung at the right time with your DEX and hit the dragon against its DEX . Roll damage fir the knives, say 1d4 per 60 knives needing to do 120 damage to cripple the dragon.

>>49038454
>Staged as fuck, the guy behind him is rising his arms surprised even before the fatty turns
Because he just flipped quickly.

Give your players XP for realistic and good roleplay. It's in the rules, you can (and should) do it.

Your "I have 75 HP lol" player might respond better to that kind of incentive.

>>49013941

hit points does not simply discribe one's ability to soak in damage
That element in fact corresponds only to a small margin of that growth
Hit Point corresponds to one's ability to survive damage. Say, one's experience to danger and thus avoid getting hit by blows that would have hit him before, but costs him some concentration required to dodge that next one.

Which is also why clerics and bards are decent healers, rather than medics. It's not just their wounds that they're recouping, but their ability to rally back

>>49017931

In third edition, a ballista bolt dealt 3d8 damage.

It also listed damages for falling off cliffs, being dunked in lava, and other shit that should kill you, but doesn't, because you have enough meat points.

>>49038518
>Hit Point corresponds to one's ability to survive damage. Say, one's experience to danger and thus avoid getting hit by blows that would have hit him before, but costs him some concentration required to dodge that next one.
This isn't true. There are damage numbers for being submerged in lava. Keep up with the discussion, senpai.

>>49013941
>Doesn't like D&D
>Dislikes D&D so much that he makes a tread about how much he hated D&D instead of just not playing D&D
>Hates D&D players that don't hate D&D who post in his D&D hate thread and fail to hate D&D like he hated D&D
>???
>Kindly fuck off.

>>49014206

>Random no name guard has bolts of slaying

Shit like this should get you banned from GMing.

"Oh, you want to shake down this guard, well congrats, he's a level 20 Fighter with DR/10 and regeneration, have fun :>"

>>49038548
I can guarantee 99% of people whining about "meat points", magic and other stuff in D&D are the the kind of DMs who do shit like that. They're control freaks who get butthurt when people actually play a game instead of spectating a novel.

>>49038464
Continuing, because this shit ain't hard.

For every extra 10 damage over 180, give a bonus to the net tangling up the Dragon. Alternatively, for every 1d4 that comes up a 4 give a bonus. All you're doing is having the dice represent how much success there is from having the net not only tangle on it's own, but from having the knives pin it in.

Roll against the dragons STR+DEX for getting tangled, either breaking the ropes or slipping them. Adult Black Dragon is 23 STR and 10 DEX, so out of 60 1d4 you're going to need at least 13 1d4s on a D20.

Maybe your players thought about this, and wrapped the rope with wire or some shit, give them a plus 2 bonus. Statistically there's a one in 4 chance of getting a 4 so you should get around 15 of them on 60 rolls.

PC up by the dam knocks it down at this time. Are they opening it? Don't roll. Are they chopping at the supports? Sure, give it a reasonable HP and roll damage but not to-hit because it's a fucking dam. If they're smart they would have prepared it though so no need for a roll.

Anyways, the dam breaks. Flip a coin, either roll again for the dragon breaking the net or for him trying to get out of the way of the water. Normal movement rules, I'm sure there's rules for being in a net as well. Or just normal movement if he got free, in which case I would give the PC the choice to try and distract him from the breaking dam and risk themselves or just bail.

Dragon gets one turn to escape, or get free. If it tried and succeeded getting free earlier, roll against it's STR+DEX to escape the water. If it didn't get free, roll against its STR alone now to try again.

Dragon hits the lake. One last STR+DEX to escape to shore if free of the net, one last STR to get free if not, and if that STR check to get free succeeds it gets one last STR+DEX to swim to shore.

Otherwise it fucking drowns, and three jackasses saved the day.

I feel that would be a reasonable resolution.

>>49038568
D&D's problems mainly bother me as a GM not because the players are so unbalanced that I can't kill them with anything, because the disbalance can crop up in the party itself, wherein one player can do everything while the other can do nothing. The fatal mistake is made as easily as picking one of the core classes presented in the rulebook. The rest of the poorly thought out system seems to work in tandem to make this issue worse.

>>49038424
Curiously enough this anon would be the first to bitch and moan if their character died to some stupid accident, because it would be "bullshit".

>>49013941
Divide hit points up between 'Meat' and 'Morale'. 3 Morale for every point of Meat. Natural hazards, critical hits, traps, and otherwise unavoidable hazards inflict Meat damage directly. Everything else reduces Morale first. There, done.

>>49038639
>""""""""accident"""""""

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>>49038464
>>49038582
Do you honestly believe that the dragon won't make any of its checks against some shitty trap a bunch of peasants made? Why the fuck are you making the dragon roll something as bizarre as STR+DEX in order to escape when there are three save values provided by the system for this exact purpose?

>Roll damage fir the knives, say 1d4 per 60 knives needing to do 120 damage to cripple the dragon.
>For every extra 10 damage over 180, give a bonus to the net tangling up the Dragon. Alternatively, for every 1d4 that comes up a 4 give a bonus. All you're doing is having the dice represent how much success there is from having the net not only tangle on it's own, but from having the knives pin it in.
What the fuck am I reading? This is the stupidest shit I've ever seen. A simplistic trap made out of knives and nets isn't going to cause hundreds of damage. Otherwise every random ass goblin or kobold cave would have things like these annihilating fucking everything.

Your houserules are retarded. Telling people to make up houserules to salvage a shit system is also retarded. How much nonsense are you going to spout to get people to believe that it's they who are in the wrong and not D&D?

>>49038548
On the other hand,

> Lol I have 75 hp
> Player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
> Given the players high level, he's reasonably well known for past deeds and exploits
> Alternatively, reasonably well equipped and the Guard takes note of dudes in full plate or wielding enchanted weapons etc.

So at this point you have a few more realistic but still related choices.

> GuardS surround him, namely enough that it's not just one crossbow bolt he's shrugging of but a bunch with the possibility of crits being a real concern.

> They aren't "random no-name guards" but are in fact the Special Weapons and Tactics team called in to deal with their badass self. And part of the special weapons are arrows of slaying.

> This group of guards is merely the first responding force and the fantasy SWAT is on their way.

There's no need to be a bad DM about it. Unless it's some yokel village, in which case you make a little note and after they massacre the guardsmen, a group of youths starts on their own journey to see justice done. If another player is cool enough, have them run it for the group as a side story where the Guards being killed happens offscreen and the killers are described vaguely or secondhand without specifics that immediately detail the party.

Have them travel in the party's wake, making it seem like they're going after a group of the BBEG or are even trying to find the main party to ask their help, doing side quests and cleaning up loose ends or left-over enemy forces etc.

Timeskip a lot so it's a fun "extra" to the main quest, and when the time is right or you get bored or whatever have them meet the party and try to gain their revenge.

I personally would prefer to not artificially level them. Have them be woefully weaker and unprepared but determined to see justice for their parents death. Maybe they all die, maybe one breaks and runs, maybe one stays behind and sacrifices themselves so the survivors can escape.

Savour the woe.

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>>49038682
>They aren't "random no-name guards" but are in fact the Special Weapons and Tactics team called in to deal with their badass self. And part of the special weapons are arrows of slaying.
>fantasy SWAT
>There's no need to be a bad DM about it.
Excuse me? Where did they get those? How come I came across no countermeasures to these "arrows of slaying" during my adventures, especially since they're so common? How come I've never heard of these guards being in possession of these things? This is some stupid shit, GM. I can't help but feel like you're making this up on the fly just to counter me.

>>49038682

>GuardS surround him, namely enough that it's not just one crossbow bolt he's shrugging of but a bunch with the possibility of crits being a real concern.

Okay, I have enough HP to soak up a fall at terminal velocity and (assuming I'm a high level adventurer) a reliable means of making any damage I receive negligible thanks to regeneration or DR granted from special enchantments or materials.

Even then, are you seriously going to make me devastate the entirety of a village's militia just to take me down a peg?

>They aren't "random no-name guards" but are in fact the Special Weapons and Tactics team called in to deal with their badass self. And part of the special weapons are arrows of slaying.
>This group of guards is merely the first responding force and the fantasy SWAT is on their way.

Why haven't I heard about them once since my adventure? Fantasy SWAT seems like shit that would spread once the plebians found out about it.

Also, arrows of slaying aren't cheap, nor are they readily available to own, so where the fuck are they getting this shit from?

I'm halfway tempted just to get captured so I can break out and steal their loot away from them honestly.

>>49038680
60 * 1d4

60 - 240 damage.

It ain't trying to stab its chest, but rip the wings and get caught up in it, sticking in and shit.

Even then, you aren't rolling "damage" against HP, but to see if enough damage is done to ruin the wings and have the knife net stick to it. You'll notice I didn't make any fucking mention of the dragon's HP or wearing that down or anything. We're going off the rails onto some home-made mechanics here.

And hey, you giant fucking faggot, if there are three save values provided then go the fuck ahead and use those. You were the one bitching that "There aren't any mechanics in D&D to handle this".

Anyways, I picked STR+DEX because those seem like reasonable stats to use, either pulling apart or slipping out of a net or some combination.

Also, like I said about 15 of the 1d4 rolls for the knives should come up as a 4, so rolling a d20+ ~15 gives a pass against the STR+DEX of 33 so you have to roll an 18 to tangle the Dragon on average. If you get 12 or less 4's, then the Dragon breaks free regardless. Unless your players tried to reinforce the rope somehow to jew other bonuses. So it's possible, but barring good rolls at some point unlikely because yeah it's a fucking dragon and a net made from knives. That once again isn't even about hurting the dragon, because fucking kitchen knives, but enough sticking in to have the net work and hopefully keep the Dragon from getting free right away.

Then you have several points where the Dragon can try again to get free, and if so avoid the trap, along with the possibility of the Players having agency to accept more personal risk to resolve failed rolls, possibly from damage from the Dragon or having to challenge rolls against actions.

So yeah I'm satisfied. The mechanics are relevant, reasonable, affectable, and flexible enough to describe the situation with multiple levels of success/failure without being a cutscene or a coin toss.

>>49038638
>I don't play D&D but I regurgitate things I've read about it

OK.

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>>49038789
>Literally make up a bunch of overpowered nonsense houserules to prove a humanity fuck yeah tier point
>So yeah I'm satisfied.
Typical.

>>49038680
I have to agree with this.

Also, most dragons have DR. Your fucking knives are literally not going to overcome it. They are going to skid off and break.

This is a whole lotta of retardation for a whole lotta nothing.

>>49038789
There are NOT any mechanics in D&D to handle this stupid shit, you fucking retard. You pulling stupid, bullshit overpowered houserules out of your ass isn't D&D.

Every step of this is stupid. YOU are fucking stupid, and ignoring how the rules ACTUALLY work, like the DR which means the dragon laughs off the pathetic dumbass shit you are trying to claim is an actual idea.

>>49018210

>Crossbow to your head? Sorry, luck can't help you here

Why not? Have you never seen a movie where someone spots an assassin at the last second and barely avoids getting their brains blown out?

>>49038789

You do realize that dragons have DR right?

Actually, you don't know, because like many shitters who construct houserules, you either don't know shit about the rules, don't know shit about game design, or both.

>>49038735
> Where did they get those
From the royal Artificer. Where do you get yours, do they just spawn out of nowhere?

> How come I came across no countermeasures to these "arrows of slaying" . . . they're so common?

They're not common, they wouldn't use them on a regular guard or a drunk peasant holding a goat hostage because it cheated on him with his brother. Your high-level ass with your fancy armour and suspiciously muttering sword is another issue, especially since you're known to be a warrior of repute who is tough as well as deadly. Indeed, it's less "where are the countermeasures to these arrows" so much as "these arrows are the countermeasure to your armour/magical protections/mystical healing" etc. bullshit.

> How come I've never heard of these guards being in possession of these things?

Did you bother to find out? You think Jackass McCoy down at the bar, sells turnips mainly and turnip preserves, he's secretly a master fletcher who can recognize not just an enchanted arrow, but the enchantments themselves?

Hey, you decided to walk around in full gear, swinging your dick in town the past couple of months. Killing monsters, guarding caravans, and working for one of our own Nobility as . . . bodyguards? Investigators? Private security forces? Making a name not just among the villages but in court.

You're surprised that when the call goes out to take you in to be questioned that they're going to bust out special equipment to deal with you?

I mean, do you think we're monsters, that we would just try to drown you in men?

OOC - I mean, having A guard catch you somewhere doing something is one thing. No reason for him to be some bad dude, and honestly I wouldn't even blink at 75hp saying fuck it. But if you have a bunch of Guards pinning you down, you have to assume they are prepared for you, and if you're at 75hp they're going to break out the big and expensive weapons. Does your GM make every enemy fight to the death as well or something?

>>49038802
I'm not even that guy and I can agree that's a valid problem of 3.X.
The monk cannot compare to a druid. Druid has a class feature that is stronger than the monk. At 8th level a druid can accomplish anything a monk can, better, without using a single spell slot, just by taking the appropriate wild shape. And still use spells, as Natural Spell is a 5th level feat.
A Fighter will never really match a Barbarian, either. Barbarians have most/all the strengths of fighters (multitudes of fighter-feats are not that great of a strength to begin with), but have actual features and are much more durable in practice, as they don't require expensive and restraining armor.

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>>49038880
>Hey, you decided to walk around in full gear, swinging your dick in town the past couple of months. Killing monsters, guarding caravans, and working for one of our own Nobility as . . . bodyguards? Investigators? Private security forces? Making a name not just among the villages but in court.
>You're surprised that when the call goes out to take you in to be questioned that they're going to bust out special equipment to deal with you?
Oh, so they're even apprehending me for no other reason than to shake their dicks of slaying at me and make me remember whose game it is that I'm playing? You know what, I think I'll go join Steve's game instead.

>>49038880
So, yes, it's you pulling it out of your ass because 'bad players'.

Fuck you.

>>49038825
I mean, I'm assuming you're a troll.

>>49038844
Which is why the knives aren't damaging the Dragons HP, but instead they are trying to do damage specifically to the wings which aren't scaled. I'm having it not deal with the DR at all.

I mean, DR isnt a magical field that surrounds the dragon and says "Hmmmm" with a nasal tone while it checks its book and rolls a dice. It's a mathematical representation for the general, well, resistance to damage.

Heck, once again, I'm not even using the rolls to reduce the Dragons HP/"damage" it

Just to see if a) enough of the knives stick in to catch the net on it, and b) to see if enough knives stick in so that instead of just having to spend an action and shake it off, the Dragon has to try and either break the rope or pull it off.

The DR doesn't come into effect here, because the knives and the entire point of the net made from them, isn't to cause damage to the dragon.

Sorry if I explained that poorly by having a 1d4 roll to see if the did enough "damage" to the dragons wings.

Try to remember however, that things like HP and "damage reduction" are concepts represented by numbers, not actually explicit states themselves like it's some sort of computer game.

Or maybe that's how you imagine your games, literally like that. Why don't you make some shitty webcomic out of it, without words because I'm sure you hate those, you can call it "Order of the Dick" not so much to insinuate you're personally a dick, but because I'm pretty sure you're just not very good at non-literal concepts and are probably creatively bankrupt in general.

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>>49038964
>he's still going

>>49038964
The autism is delicious.

>>49013941
Think that your player is Jackie-chan
Until he's at 0 hp its not about how deep does it pierce, but how close does it graze him

>>49038981
I've not been back to /tg/ in years.
The last three days I've been dipping into random threads.
This colossally autistic 3aboo seems to be in all of them. Regardless if it has anything to do with any edition of D&D.
He seems to be a constant to the board these days.
Why hasn't he been fucking permabanned for trolling so damn much?
Is this the shit a post moot 4chan has become?

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>>49013941
>No one and nothing can die dramatically
Your lack of imagination is not our problem.

>>49038964
DR covers the whole of the body, nigger. Every inch.

You don't get to bypass it. That's what DR/- MEANS.

Your retarded houserules only get stupider the more you try to defend them.

Holy shit

You fucking 3aboo autists are still going

Someone points out the flaw in your game, and you have no ability to accept it. You just backpedals for days.

Dnd sucks

> playing D&D
> player gets held at crossbowpoint by guards
> "lol I have 75 hit points"

Nothing wrong with that. He's a kickass character who probably wipe the floor with swarms of mooks on regular basis. It's like complaining about Conan and his friends battling an army by themsleves in the Conan movie. Being held up is just an excuse for the heroes to break out the kick assness and look good doing it.

> character falls off of a cliff
> "lol I have 75 hit points"

Why did he laugh? He could have easily died. Average for a fall like that is 70 HP (20d6). It's fucking easy go over 75 with those dice rolls!
Unless it was a smaller cliff?

> character gets his head run over by a cart
> "lol I have 75 hit points"

Could make for a good comedic moment. Character gets his head run over into the mud (to explain how he could survive something like that) and he gets up with an earth facial while dizzily exclaming that he's alright.

>>49038964
You can climb up the dragon's butthole with a DC 80 escape artist roll and stab it in the heart. It'll still have DR.

>>49038964

Oh my god, you're seriously this fucking retarded.

DR affects the entirety of a creature's body and even if it didn't, you're trying to argue that a knive that's effectively the size of an ant to a dragon and a rope that might as well be dental floss is going to do anything to a creature that's THE apex predator of the MM that isn't a diety or outsider.

Every post you make just makes you look more autistic, just stop.

>>49039055
20d6 are 200ft at least, that isn't that big of a cliff.

>>49039052

The 3aboos have gotten really bad these last few weeks.

They invade threads that have nothing to do with D&D because someone ITT mentioned D&D in an unfavorable light in passing.

>>49038921
> Oh, so they're even apprehending me for no other reason than to shake their dicks of slaying at me and make me remember whose game it is that I'm playing?

Yeah yeah, it's always "I dindu nuffin" with you Lancer types. I'm sure that if we were to pull you in and cast a field of truth that we would find out that you're a devout follower of Pelor and that this is just your fathers sunday armor, and you only have that sword for self defense against Sabers, even though everyone knows they're Lawful Good,

No, we've had our eye on you for a good while now as a possible problem. You aren't even part of a knightly order, or the Nobility, and clearly your latent rebellious nature is showing through now that you're resisting the rightful and Royally ordained law by refusing to come with us to the point we had to draw on you.

You will come to answer to the Royal Court about your intentions here, your relationship with one Count Robillard, your involvement in possible disruption of the Bugbear clans to the South East that you apparently were previously hired to subdue, and are now claiming to be awaiting a groom to replace the one, suspiciously like yourself, that they claim was first eaten by ghosts, then kidnapped, and eaten again leaving only your voice trapped in a box that they opened and let it get eaten by the ghosts as well who had at this point taken your form and had to be scared off before it did that to their King.

Fucking . . . . Fucking Bugbears AND Lancers.

Now. You might think I'm bluffing. You might think that these are normal arrows and your armor's shine alone is enough to stop them. Only one way to find out.

Damn, wish I had just done a short Dirty Harry skit where it turns out the Guards are just bluffing that they have arrows of slaying and really it's just a picture of Darrens cock with "Open wide" carved underneath it.

>>49038921
Good riddance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8EM6uhqcB4
I guess we have a quantic impossibility here. Someone call the army, this dude must be an alien, no human can survive this stuff.

>>49039073
>>49039075

Y'know, all of this could've been avoided if you didn't play a game where health was meaningless.

>>49039071
It's a pretty flawed system, but what OP mentioned are not really flaws of the system. D&D is a superhero system on a medieval fantasy setting, that's not per se a flaw.

>>49039071
>They
The issue is, it isn't a they.
From what I've observed, its ONE DUDE.