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Originally Posted by Eugerome
Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Eugerome

I am pretty sure you would be ok fighting humanoid NPC both at level 2 and level 20. Why aren't you ok fighting monsters that scale.


Because playable humanoid races are SUPPOSED to cover the entire range of power in the scale, from the common villager to the legendary hero or the ascending demigod, while monsters are supposed to have their own consistent level of threat and that consistency is important for the believability of the setting.


Who said that monsters are "supposed" to be consistent? Even the monster manual says that "you can do with these monsters what you will" - the stat blocks are clearly more of guidelines that set in stone truths.

I for one think not modifying monsters detracts from the believability - so the party's fighter can hit the gym hard enough that he can take on a Fire Giant one-on-one, but not a single Fire Giant can go above or below his stat block in the Monster Manual?


So, the arguments that quote the book saying that the rules dont dictate the game, there are guidelines, and DMs are ultimately in control of the world are not justifications for pushing the books off the table, placing Han Solo and Chewbacca on the table and say that youre running a modified version of 5e that more closely resembles Edge of the Empire than D&D because, hey! the book said DMs can do that!

Its usually better to just debate the merit of keeping or changing the rules than gesturing vaguely into the sky and saying "change is technically ok, so..." and then trailing off without a real point.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Originally Posted by Tuco

And I'm saying it because that consistency is important in making them believable. When my party will spot for the first time a couple of trolls, I want to know that these are real trolls, not their gimped parody.


So you are saying only WotC can decide how strong trolls are in all DnD games are and deviating from that is bad?

Last edited by Eugerome; 30/10/20 10:59 PM.
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Originally Posted by Eugerome
Originally Posted by Tuco

And I'm saying it because that consistency is important in making them believable. When my party will spot for the first time a couple of trolls, I want to know that these are real trolls, not their gimped parody.


So you are saying only WotC can decide how strong trolls are in all DnD games are and deviating from that is bad?


Are you saying that anyone can decide how strong trolls are in all D&D games and that deviating them from is good? Make a point man, quit setting up straw man arguments.

Last edited by Orbax; 30/10/20 11:04 PM.

What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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Originally Posted by Eugerome

So you are saying only WotC can decide how strong trolls are in all DnD games are and deviating from that is bad?


I'm saying that once you define what is a troll, that should be consistent across the entire game.
Sticking faithfully to the official source is not a concern of mine, but then again if you are going to make arbitrary changes about it, better to have a fucking good reason.


Anyway, I'm honestly starting to wonder if you even have a proper point or if as I said you are just being petulant for the sake of it.

What's your end game exactly? Do you have ANY good reason to defend the two aspects criticized here? Which as a quick reminder are respectively:

1) inconsistent representation that leads to an incoherent mismatch between what the game tells and what the game shows
2) unnecessary transparent numbers that feel "gamey" and serve virtually no purpose aside from breaking immersion (and apparently mislead people, too).

Mh?
Do you? Because if that's the case I haven't heard it yet.

Last edited by Tuco; 30/10/20 11:09 PM.

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Originally Posted by Orbax
Originally Posted by Eugerome
Originally Posted by Tuco

And I'm saying it because that consistency is important in making them believable. When my party will spot for the first time a couple of trolls, I want to know that these are real trolls, not their gimped parody.


So you are saying only WotC can decide how strong trolls are in all DnD games are and deviating from that is bad?


Are you saying that anyone can decide how strong trolls are in all D&D games and that deviating them from is good? Make a point man, quit setting up straw man arguments.


I am saying that as a DM I can scale trolls whichever way I like in a 5e game, and I don't see why Larian shouldn't do so in BG3.

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Originally Posted by Eugerome
I am saying that as a DM I can scale trolls whichever way I like in a 5e game, and I don't see why Larian shouldn't do so in BG3.

In your games, do you include trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 1 and trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 10 in your game, without changing how you describe such a troll to your players?

As a player at very least I'd want a different description: "This troll is much larger than you faced, standing 3 feet taller, has bigger muscles, and better armor compared to past trolls you've faced." Else I would be very surprised when a troll that once did 1d8+7 damage is now doing 3d8+15

Similarly, if Larian wants to include red dragons for us to face at party levels 4 and 10, they should distinguish them by more than just HP.

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Originally Posted by Tuco

What's your end game exactly? Do you have ANY good reason to defend the two aspects criticized here? Which as a quick reminder are respectively:

1) inconsistent representation that leads to an incoherent mismatch between what the game tells and what the game shows
2) unnecessary transparent numbers that feel "gamey" and serve virtually no purpose aside from breaking immersion (and apparently mislead people, too).



1) I don't see that there is a problem with inconsistent representation, because I don't agree idea that once a monster stat block is defined once it cannot be changed.
2) They do feel "gamey", but they serve a purpose to indicate the threat the enemy poses. Particularly to people who never played DnD 5e and don't want to read the Monster Manual to figure out if they should start a fight with a group of monsters.

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Originally Posted by mrfuji3
Originally Posted by Eugerome
I am saying that as a DM I can scale trolls whichever way I like in a 5e game, and I don't see why Larian shouldn't do so in BG3.

In your games, do you include trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 1 and trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 10 in your game, without changing how you describe such a troll to your players?

As a player at very least I'd want a different description: "This troll is much larger than you faced, standing 3 feet taller, has bigger muscles, and better armor compared to past trolls you've faced." Else I would be very surprised when a troll that once did 1d8+7 damage is now doing 3d8+15

Similarly, if Larian wants to include red dragons for us to face at party levels 4 and 10, they should distinguish them by more than just HP.


Yes, I do describe them differently, but for me this comes at no extra cost. If I had to spend money to create new textures/models for each monster I mod I would resort to levelling monsters, which is exactly what we see.

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Originally Posted by Eugerome
1) I don't see that there is a problem with inconsistent representation, because I don't agree idea that once a monster stat block is defined once it cannot be changed.
2) They do feel "gamey", but they serve a purpose to indicate the threat the enemy poses. Particularly to people who never played DnD 5e and don't want to read the Monster Manual to figure out if they should start a fight with a group of monsters.



1) Oh well, then we have literally nothing to agree on, because I will die on this hill and I will always despise a master/game designer breaking this internal consistency.
2) I simply can't accept excuses like "they serve the purpose" or "they are a necessary evil" or whatever bullshit variation on the theme, because they all simply ignore the fact that we have more than 30 years of computer adaptations for D&D that never made this a necessity.

If we were taking a stab in the dark, wondering what could work and what not... But we are not. We have countless examples of games that did not mark levels on their creatures and they were all better for it.









Last edited by Tuco; 30/10/20 11:30 PM.

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Originally Posted by Eugerome
Originally Posted by mrfuji3
In your games, do you include trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 1 and trolls that you've adjusted to be CR 10 in your game, without changing how you describe such a troll to your players? *snip*
Yes, I do describe them differently, but for me this comes at no extra cost. If I had to spend money to create new textures/models for each monster I mod I would resort to levelling monsters, which is exactly what we see.

Reasonable point: it does cost resources. Then my preference would tend toward just using different (already modeled) monsters for that encounter. Instead of an under-leveled troll, they use gnolls or an ogre or some other creature they've included somewhere else in the game.

Failing that, at the absolute minimum, I'd like different names. (Troll Commander, Young vs Old Mindflayer, etc). That would add more memorability to encounters than "level 10 troll"

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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by Eugerome
1) I don't see that there is a problem with inconsistent representation, because I don't agree idea that once a monster stat block is defined once it cannot be changed.
2) They do feel "gamey", but they serve a purpose to indicate the threat the enemy poses. Particularly to people who never played DnD 5e and don't want to read the Monster Manual to figure out if they should start a fight with a group of monsters.



1) Oh well, then we have literally nothing to agree on, because I will die on this hill and I will always despise a master/game designer breaking this internal consistency.
2) I simply can't accept excuses like "they serve the purpose" or "they are a necessary evil" or whatever bullshit variation on the theme, because they all simply ignore the fact that we have more than 30 years of computer adaptations for D&D that never made this a necessity.

If we were taking a stab in the dark, wondering what could work and what not... But we are not. We have countless examples of games that did not mark levels on their creatures and they were all better for it.



The only changes I make when I am DMing is kobolds are throughout the region but youre leveling at the same time. I'll just add 1d6 poison or something to their attacks and you'll start finding they use poison or fire, and the AC / HP may have been bumped but its clear youre in a new region, new tribe, they look different and wear leather instead of just being bare chested, stuff like that. Overall, though, it is what it is and changes are made from the base and it's clear when its an uber troll for a boss. CR Tables are just generally used as they are more than adequate to handle necessary increased in enemy lethality. If the entire campaign is kobolds that makes it hard. I, however, have NEVER run into a situation where I was unable to use the MM et al to create justifiable environments and inhabitants in full accordance to the books and players can metagame if they want, its still going to be a hard fight. Making a habit of modifying creatures is unnecessary work and your efforts are usually better spent dedicated to make the encounter interesting as opposed to giving a troll 50 more hp to drag it out longer.


What is the problem you are solving? Does your proposed change solve the problem? Is your change feasible? What else will be affected by your change? Will your change impact revenue? Does your change align with the goals and strategies of the organizations (Larian, WotC)?
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+1. Also why level 5 Druid can cast spells in wild form if that is level 18th druid trait. So is it level 5 druid or 18.

This game is so messed up. It's not DnD at all.

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Feel like I fall somewhere in the middle here. I definitely believe there should be a sense of progression and accomplishment, and thus just "down-leveling" every monster to be able to be killed by the party at any time feels a bit like a cop-out. Nothing has made me bored with RPGs (e.g. TES4/5, ME, Dragon Age, so on) quicker than feeling like every battle is the same but with palette-swapped enemies. Occasionally the story can override that feeling, but I don't think a party-based RPG will ever be so immersive that combat can be mostly ignored in that way.

Beyond that, I feel it kind of sucks because it takes away some of the potential variety in a playthrough. If you're immediately fighting all the "cool" and showy late-adventure monsters, what really do you have to work up to? It seems like the MM is large enough to circumvent this, but it is a thought that crossed my mind given how horrendously this has been applied to other examples in the genre. I also don't love the barrelmancy/hoardermancy stuff. There's way too much dependency on surface and environmental effects and it really does make BG3 too "game-y" by a half. For comparison, I was playing Solasta today and even though it's a lot rougher in terms of the shiny stuff, I found combat to be a lot more enjoyable.

That said, I also don't think things should be made difficult for the sake of it. The reason QoL adjustments have been so prevalent across the video game world is because gaming is now a mainstream hobby/interest. Most people don't want to go diving through manuals or the internet to figure out the minutia of a system like I did 15-20 years ago. And, honestly, sometimes I don't really want that either. The problem becomes how to balance QoL and a sense of challenge and "discovery," so to speak. Naturally some things will be sacrificed. If you balance/design the game around the fact that players will know creature levels beforehand, then it doesn't make a bunch of sense to plow resources into making sure every encounter has enough visual/cinematic cues to make it apparent (to people who are just casual gamers/don't have the background D&D knowledge) what is and isn't a challenging encounter. If you design it the other way, you're naturally going to be losing something somewhere else.

I'm also not sure that there is a perfect marriage of the two. If you make level indicators toggleable, it's quite likely you'll be sacrificing some of the work on visual cues and so really it'll just be a tacked-on feature for the hardcore set. I find myself gravitating toward this option but I also hate features that are just plopped on top of a finished product instead of carefully designed to fit with the rest of the game.

This feels rambly, but yeah. I think it'll be interesting to see if Larian can find a happy medium or if this is going to end up being a case where by trying to satisfy too many preferences you end up with something that's not great for anyone.

Last edited by Dan Quail; 31/10/20 12:19 AM.
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Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by mrfuji3

Some type of "enemy danger indicator" is a must, especially for people not familiar with d&d and typical monster difficulties. I agree that this doesn't necessarily have to be a level indicator. But I worry your suggestion could be difficult to implement...could you tell the difference between a level 7 vs 17 fighter from a cutscene?

I strongly disagree. Let the context suggest which characters should be a poor idea to cross. And let the player pay the price if he goes out of his way to ignore the warning signs.

It worked flawlessly for years. Not sure why D/D would now suddenly need to flag enemies by levels.



100%

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Originally Posted by Ole Draco
Originally Posted by Tuco
Originally Posted by mrfuji3

Some type of "enemy danger indicator" is a must, especially for people not familiar with d&d and typical monster difficulties. I agree that this doesn't necessarily have to be a level indicator. But I worry your suggestion could be difficult to implement...could you tell the difference between a level 7 vs 17 fighter from a cutscene?

I strongly disagree. Let the context suggest which characters should be a poor idea to cross. And let the player pay the price if he goes out of his way to ignore the warning signs.
It worked flawlessly for years. Not sure why D/D would now suddenly need to flag enemies by levels.

100%

Yo that quote is like 4 pages old. Since then I've become more convinced that an "enemy danger indicator" isn't necessary (on low difficulties it probably should be there: why not?)

BUT. A level indicator is necessary if there are no graphical differences between a "level 4" red dragon and a "level 15" red dragon. If, as I said in more recent posts, stronger red dragons look different and/or have different names, then that's enough of a signal to the player.

Again, D&D works because the stats of monsters don't change between encounters, and if they do, the DM tells you "this monster looks stronger, meaner, etc"

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