Quote from: Svenhelgrim on September 30, 2023, 02:42:37 AM
MeganovaStella, you should look into a system like Chaosium's Rune Quest/Basic Role Playing, where characters have the same amount of hit points throughout their life.  What got better was their ability to block and dodge attacks. 

With bravery and ingenuity humans can still overcome large creatures.  Just like Roman Legions overcame Cartheginian elephant cavalry by forming channels for the elephants to run through while the legionaries attacked the sides and flanks of the elephants.

A single hero would have to lure a creature like a dragon into a trap, sort of like how Luke Skywalker dropped a portcullis onto the Rancor's head in Return of the Jedi, or how Sigurd of the Volsungs hid himself in a pit and waited for the dragon Fafnir to slither overhead then thrust his sword in between its scales from below. 

Beowulf was a superhero who could rip the arm off of a troll and wrestle with whales, so maybe he did actually step up to face a dragon to-to-toe.  He still died though.

Then there's magic and technology.  A sword or spear might not do much to a fifty foot long dragon, but a bolt of lightning, or a ballista might take it down.

I actually looked into it a while ago for use in playing out a world that I liked (it was a very grounded work made by someone who knows real life Japanese swordsmanship). I know that Mythras is based on it, and I love Mythras.

Yeah, bolts of lightning and ballistae make perfect sense for killing dragons and other large nasties.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM
Do you know what humans did when they wanted to hunt megafauna (rhinos, lions, tigers, elephants, etc)?

Did they:

1. Fight it upfront in a head-on battle
2. Lay traps, bleed it out, generally avoid direct conflict where possible

No 2. is how humans have hunted elephants, mammoths, and other megafauna during our time on Earth. No 1. is suicide and anyone who did it would soon perish. An elephant would kill medieval knights, let alone Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

And yet DND and other games in its vein have you fight dragons and other creatures who could easily kill any real-world megafauna (even blue-whale sized Sauropods) in No 1. style.

Right, because they are HERO'S.  You didn't know that about "D&D" type games?   

Quote from: Lunamancer on September 30, 2023, 01:17:39 AM
It's the dragon that doesn't want a straight-on fight.

Especially against Lord Arrago the Axe right? 

I always felt that most of the early RPGs started off with too weak characters. A lot of people don't have time to start lengthy campaigns to build up their strength (and stash of items). Of course, there's a certain satisfaction when you do just that, but since many campaigns go nowhere in the long run, people spend a lot of time playing weaklings when they want to play Beowulf.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM
Do you know what humans did when they wanted to hunt megafauna (rhinos, lions, tigers, elephants, etc)?

Did they:

1. Fight it upfront in a head-on battle
2. Lay traps, bleed it out, generally avoid direct conflict where possible

No 2. is how humans have hunted elephants, mammoths, and other megafauna during our time on Earth. No 1. is suicide and anyone who did it would soon perish. An elephant would kill medieval knights, let alone Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

And yet DND and other games in its vein have you fight dragons and other creatures who could easily kill any real-world megafauna (even blue-whale sized Sauropods) in No 1. style. Confusingly, they also say that martials- the people expected to walk up to and kill these monsters by essentially whacking them and withstanding getting whacked until one dies- are normal humans who couldn't lift a ton without magical gear.

This is implausible. Either you are a normal human, and so have to resort to indirect means to kill a dragon (for instance, poisoning their food, making pit traps that collapse into a bed of spikes when they land, using magic to weaken them, staying far away and so on) or you can kill a dragon in an upfront battle, in which case you are superhuman. Generally, the bigger and nastier relative to real-world animals the monsters are, the more unbelievable that normal humans can do anything to them. It would make for a boring RPG if done poorly.

'You encounter a dragon.'

'I attack!' *rolls die*

'Your sword bounces off its steel-hard scales and is bent to uselessness. It squashes you and the rest of your party with one stomp.'

Even if the fighter had a supernatural sword- unless it has some sort of ability that ignores physical size and strength (poison that always works, sending people to other dimensions, being able to cut through anything) they'll be limited by their normal human strength.

This could work in a game where you're expected to either run away or talk things out most of the time or other underhanded methods...this is not the game DND and its derivatives are. The solution (in my eyes) is to basically recognize the consequences of superhuman strength (or durability, or speed), and build your challenges around those constraints. Dungeons should be built for people who can withstand being smacked around by an Ankylosaurus, who can punch through stone walls (as a result of having the strength to cut up megafauna).

  Regarding elephants...the Greeks and romans had to fight against them in head on battles.  Fire was used to panic them and in later encounters specialized infantryment with heavy axes were deployed who flanked the elephants and chopped into their hind legs crippling them.   An elephant is as hard a land animal to beat/kill as humans have ever faced and it was done on a consistent basis.   I agree with the ideas of your post when we scale up the creatures...but every rpg I have ever played in fantasy games the characters are all capable of superhuman feats...just having a party member who can buff everyone kicks that right into gear.   

   I used the elephant example though because people learn and adapt to what they have to overcome.   The anti-elephant units developed to respond to the elephants.  I think fantasy parties would respond as well to things like dragons...to that end I think a creature having weak points (joints in the leg, wings, eyes, etc) makes overcoming such a monster more realistic...but I can also say things like AC and HP can represent the person finding that weak point in their attack. 

  If you are looking for systems to emphasize the sorts of things it takes to beat the big baddies as mentioned Mythras is very good, I think GURPS is as well.   Fights against large dangerous creatures play out a good deal differently in those systems often coming down to scenes similar to Smaug going down versus any back and forth between the party and the monster.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 08:20:39 PM

Quote from: Tod13 on September 29, 2023, 08:16:30 PM
I have two different responses. Feel free to skip to the second one as being more useful. 

The first one is: if you're writing fairy tales, don't quibble about talking teddy bears. (That's a [mis]quote.)

The second one is: in our homebrew, one option you can take for your character is "act on large scale". Most characters are "small scale". Acting on Large Scale lets you do kaiju-sized movement and kaiju-strength attacks.

my first response is that this is totally fair. i wouldn't bring this up in a casual conversation. but for people that care about the consistency of their worlds like I do (not implying that this is either good or bad), it might be useful for them.

the second response is that I want to see your homebrew, I'm curious. DM me please.

I will do so. We're in the middle of editing our novel and some more short stories for submittal, so work on the RPG has slowed sadly.

I'm reminded of the anecdote where a player in a Palladium system game would have his character shoot himself with a revolver point blank in the head to demonstrate how tough they were.
Which is totally possible and downright easy to do in the Palladium system. Until Siembedia got his panties in a bunch and made a custom, specific, rule to address this quirk of the system.

Likewise in D&D, damage and hit points do not work like real life wounds and real life tactics tend to fall apart. A 9th level fighter can literally stand there in street clothes and have another warrior stab him in the chest with a sword and not die. Ever. It's not possible to kill a 9th level fighter with a single sword blow.

So yea, this is a stick in the ass issue where you have to make some concessions for it being a game with rules that only approximate real world features and also tries to emulate heroic fiction.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 10:30:04 PM
I brought this up because the people here tend to talk about how 'wokeness' makes a game world not make sense. I thought- what about other things not as politically heated?

The issue with the wokesters is that they tend to browbeat you with their ideology until all the fun is sucked out of the room and you're left with a flat game while they eat each other over who is the biggest victim of oppression. The world not making sense is just one side effect.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 30, 2023, 11:03:09 AM
Likewise in D&D, damage and hit points do not work like real life wounds and real life tactics tend to fall apart. A 9th level fighter can literally stand there in street clothes and have another warrior stab him in the chest with a sword and not die. Ever. It's not possible to kill a 9th level fighter with a single sword blow.

Perhaps that is true in pseudo D&D (those games published by WotC). But in AD&D magically sleeping or just bound opponents of any level  may be automatically slain.  No hacking necessary.  Thus anyone who wanted to allow attacks without any hint of defending can also be slain by a "stab him in the chest with a sword ."

Quote from: Scooter on September 30, 2023, 12:06:15 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 30, 2023, 11:03:09 AM
Likewise in D&D, damage and hit points do not work like real life wounds and real life tactics tend to fall apart. A 9th level fighter can literally stand there in street clothes and have another warrior stab him in the chest with a sword and not die. Ever. It's not possible to kill a 9th level fighter with a single sword blow.

Perhaps that is true in pseudo D&D (those games published by WotC). But in AD&D magically sleeping or just bound opponents of any level  may be automatically slain.  No hacking necessary.  Thus anyone who wanted to allow attacks without any hint of defending can also be slain by a "stab him in the chest with a sword ."

The most used rule in our games of AD&D: "Incapacitated creatures may be killed at the rate of one per round"

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM
This could work in a game where you're expected to either run away or talk things out most of the time or other underhanded methods...this is not the game DND and its derivatives are. The solution (in my eyes) is to basically recognize the consequences of superhuman strength (or durability, or speed), and build your challenges around those constraints. Dungeons should be built for people who can withstand being smacked around by an Ankylosaurus, who can punch through stone walls (as a result of having the strength to cut up megafauna).

I disagree with the idea that humans need to be superheroes with superabilities to deal with megafauna.  I addition to the historical examples provided by others, there's a standout example in fiction, Batman.  Just a guy, with a few wonderful toys, but he takes on bad guys and things that would destroy any normal human.  He does so by fighting smart, but more than that, he's just really good at fighting.

I think of D&D martial as being along the same lines.  Yes the dragon claw would squash them, but when it comes down, they aren't there.  You don't need supernatural strength or quickness to avoid that, you just need to see it coming far enough a head of time and make the right move.  And for "steel hard scales," no real animal has those.  And it they're actually present in D&D it's no reach to say that the fighter is hitting vulnerable spots.

I see no reason to remake the world and martials to fit this vision when it's a lot less work to just use the current version and it's a better match for the fiction we like to emulate, to boot.

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM

This could work in a game where you're expected to either run away or talk things out most of the time or other underhanded methods...this is not the game DND and its derivatives are.

You are ignorant of the game D&D.  Much player advice from the creators has centered around non-combat solutions to encounters.  Are you new to the game?

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM
Do you know what humans did when they wanted to hunt megafauna (rhinos, lions, tigers, elephants, etc)?

Did they:

1. Fight it upfront in a head-on battle
2. Lay traps, bleed it out, generally avoid direct conflict where possible

No 2. is how humans have hunted elephants, mammoths, and other megafauna during our time on Earth. No 1. is suicide and anyone who did it would soon perish. An elephant would kill medieval knights, let alone Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

And yet DND and other games in its vein have you fight dragons and other creatures who could easily kill any real-world megafauna (even blue-whale sized Sauropods) in No 1. style. Confusingly, they also say that martials- the people expected to walk up to and kill these monsters by essentially whacking them and withstanding getting whacked until one dies- are normal humans who couldn't lift a ton without magical gear.

This is implausible. Either you are a normal human, and so have to resort to indirect means to kill a dragon (for instance, poisoning their food, making pit traps that collapse into a bed of spikes when they land, using magic to weaken them, staying far away and so on) or you can kill a dragon in an upfront battle, in which case you are superhuman. Generally, the bigger and nastier relative to real-world animals the monsters are, the more unbelievable that normal humans can do anything to them. It would make for a boring RPG if done poorly.

'You encounter a dragon.'

'I attack!' *rolls die*

'Your sword bounces off its steel-hard scales and is bent to uselessness. It squashes you and the rest of your party with one stomp.'

Even if the fighter had a supernatural sword- unless it has some sort of ability that ignores physical size and strength (poison that always works, sending people to other dimensions, being able to cut through anything) they'll be limited by their normal human strength.

This could work in a game where you're expected to either run away or talk things out most of the time or other underhanded methods...this is not the game DND and its derivatives are. The solution (in my eyes) is to basically recognize the consequences of superhuman strength (or durability, or speed), and build your challenges around those constraints. Dungeons should be built for people who can withstand being smacked around by an Ankylosaurus, who can punch through stone walls (as a result of having the strength to cut up megafauna).

Well, yes. In old school D&D, half a dozen cavemen have no chance against an elephant, let alone mammoth.

Believe me, I tried:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-hd-game.html

What you call "normal humans" are 0-level characters. But as they level up, they become "heroes" and "superheroes".

(There are attempts at more "realistic" campaigns stopping at level 6, usually called "E6")

They don't just "stand there", they are supposedly dodging and moving around. And as they hit, they are not just whacking, but putting the animal in a bad position until they can give them a big cinematic stab to the eye.

D&D PCs cannot kill elephants with a single blow, even at higher levels.

It is the HP discussion all over again.

Think of Conan, the death of Smaug, or even Legolas in the movies, etc. These are not supposed to be realistic.



With that said, I prefer giving such creatures hioher die sizes for their HD (e.g., d12s for elephants).

Most 2e dragons already have lots of HD, however. You are unlikely to kill them without magic weapons anyway.

"Red Nails" is the classic example.

I have a hard time reproducing the Smaug scene even with critical hits TBH.

Another example from comics (kazar):

Quote from: Mishihari on September 30, 2023, 03:04:48 PM

Quote from: MeganovaStella on September 29, 2023, 07:23:07 PM
This could work in a game where you're expected to either run away or talk things out most of the time or other underhanded methods...this is not the game DND and its derivatives are. The solution (in my eyes) is to basically recognize the consequences of superhuman strength (or durability, or speed), and build your challenges around those constraints. Dungeons should be built for people who can withstand being smacked around by an Ankylosaurus, who can punch through stone walls (as a result of having the strength to cut up megafauna).

I disagree with the idea that humans need to be superheroes with superabilities to deal with megafauna.  I addition to the historical examples provided by others, there's a standout example in fiction, Batman.  Just a guy, with a few wonderful toys, but he takes on bad guys and things that would destroy any normal human.  He does so by fighting smart, but more than that, he's just really good at fighting.

I think of D&D martial as being along the same lines.  Yes the dragon claw would squash them, but when it comes down, they aren't there.  You don't need supernatural strength or quickness to avoid that, you just need to see it coming far enough a head of time and make the right move.  And for "steel hard scales," no real animal has those.  And it they're actually present in D&D it's no reach to say that the fighter is hitting vulnerable spots.

I see no reason to remake the world and martials to fit this vision when it's a lot less work to just use the current version and it's a better match for the fiction we like to emulate, to boot.

Batman is not in fact, 'just a guy'. He's narratively meant to be at the peak of human ability- but the peak of human ability in the real world is wayy, wayyy, WAYYYY below whatever Batman does. Numerically, I mean.

I think your point, along with Eric's- that DND martials don't fight with monsters head on, but fight them in a way that is maybe slightly above what the strongest and fastest human can do in our world, is a valid way of looking at things. In this case, I concede.

Quote from: Scooter on September 30, 2023, 12:06:15 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 30, 2023, 11:03:09 AM
Likewise in D&D, damage and hit points do not work like real life wounds and real life tactics tend to fall apart. A 9th level fighter can literally stand there in street clothes and have another warrior stab him in the chest with a sword and not die. Ever. It's not possible to kill a 9th level fighter with a single sword blow.

Perhaps that is true in pseudo D&D (those games published by WotC). But in AD&D magically sleeping or just bound opponents of any level  may be automatically slain.  No hacking necessary.  Thus anyone who wanted to allow attacks without any hint of defending can also be slain by a "stab him in the chest with a sword ."

That's a fine hair to split. The 9th level fighter in my example isn't sleeping or bound. The point is, the D&D combat system of any edition is very game-ey and creates certain situations that are counter-intuitive. Like a 9th level fighter can count on not dying before taking X "hit points" of damage, and may make plans and tactics accordingly.