Dungeons and Dragons question. No, not your favorite edition. The Dungeons and Dragons in your head.
How many times more powerful than a level 1 character is a max level character?
If it's not the same thing, how many level 1 characters does it take to be an even match for a max level character?
If it helps, feel free to replace "max level" with "whenever people start casting 9th level spells"
>>46321566
>"whenever people start casting 9th level spells"
So nowhere near the highest attainable level one can conceivably reach in a campaign.
Got it.
>>46322152
... What?
>>46321566
I'd expect that the max level character, with no preparation or henchmen and no special items, (purely smashing statblocks together) could take on 10-15ish first level characters of the same class. A magic user might take on more as long as they didn't get ganked immediately or wrestled to the ground before they could get off a cloudkill spell or whatever.
That said, part of what makes a high level character special is all the cool shit they have and the allies they've gained, and that's really up to the player whether they develop that or not. Take two characters with identical stats, and one might be a god king, while the other is just some asshole who beats things with a stick pretty well.
>>46322152
Stop trying to troll and answer the question.
>>46322332
I dunno, powergamers or something.
>>46322509
I'm a little surprised at 10x.
I mean, my personal preference is even lower than that. But I sort of expected people to go straight for 1000x or more.
>>46321566
>max level character
No such thing. The Immortals Handbook literally has rules for characters over 9000 levels. Literally.
Okay, this is insanely weighted.
A 20th level character, or, if you prefer, a 17th level primary caster with access to 9th level spells can kill incredibly large numbers of 1st level characters. It's not at all like 10-15.
If we just look at average HP and AC for a shitty class (Fighter), you'll find that level 1 characters are only hitting on a natural 20, only confirming on a second natural 20, and only surviving an attack directed at them when the Fighter rolls a natural 1.
Average HP for a Fighter with a +10 Con mod (not at all difficult to achieve) sits around 315, meaning if the level 1 characters did an average of 7 per hit, i.e. 1d8+Str (a few characters could do more with 2-handing, but many would do less with bows, daggers, lower Str, etc.), they'd need to connect with 45 hits, which would have required 900 rolls. Statistically a couple of those would have been a 20-20, so let's say they only needed 42 hits to connect, so really 840 rolls.
With an average of one attack each, and a full 8-man surround on the Fighter, they'd need 105 rounds of combat to connect with that many attacks.
The Fighter would kill any level 1 character with any of his attacks on average, and will likely kill 5 per turn. Over the course of 105 turn, he'd kill 525 challengers, but about 26 of those rolls would be natural 1's, and statistically, one of those would be a natural 1 to confirm, so somewhere along the line something bad might happen to him, like dropping a weapon, or being attacked with an AoO or something. Hard to say how that would factor in, but regardless, 26 of his attacks would miss due to being natural 1's, so he'd kill 499 challengers in total.
This is presuming nothing even remotely special like, say, Great Cleave, or Two Weapon Fighting. This is pretty much bare bones.
And bear in mind this is one of the worst 20th level characters you can come up with.
>>46322902
If you actually were taking into account characters that could cast 9th level spells, the number of challengers you could defeat would approach numbers that exceed the number of challengers that exist on the planet/plane/reality/whatever.
Let's just keep it supremely simple and say the Wizard doesn't cast anything outlandish or high level beyond a simple Overland Flight.
For a minimum of 17 hours a day, he is now 100% immune to 80+% of challengers, as they simply can not reach him. The remaining challengers with bows/slings/etc still need 20's to hit, still do meager damage, and still would die with only one look from the Wizard.
If the Wizard didn't want to, he wouldn't even have to lift a finger. He could summon by way of Gate, Planar Ally, and more, dozens of other creatures that are each even stronger than the Fighter from >>46322902 and the Wizard could just take a nap.
If he ever, miraculously got anywhere near defeat, he could Teleport elsewhere, take a rest, and get ready to resume the fight later. There's nothing a challenger could ever possibly do about it.
He could literally just create his own Demiplane where time operates differently and 'All Challengers take 3 damage per turn at the end of their turn.' and laugh as the entire campaign bends to his will.
We're talking near-infinite numbers of challengers before he would even break a sweat.
The difference between 1 and 20 is not even remotely comparable. It's not just 20 times more, it's orders of magnitude.
Assuming they have pretty much any equipment or awareness, no number of level 1 characters could defeat a 'max' level character (Whatever that may be) on the basis of AC.
Now with DM caveat reasonably a large number of bodies hitting should slow down a character enough to make it possible but... Yeah, the scaling is off.
I mean, epic level characters are supposed to be essentially demi-gods anyhow.
>>46322902
Oh yeah, I know it's "basically infinity" in all the actual implementations of D&D.
But "Head D&D" is an interesting thing to me, since it's so frequently different from the versions in the rulebooks. Like, in Head D&D, a level 1 Fighter is a lesser baddass on his way to being Conan, while a level 1 wizard is barely Mickey Mouse from The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but some day he'll be Merlin But Better so watch out.
(And yes, Head D&D is different from person to person. I need to ask a lot of people to pull a trend out of it. So get posting, folks.)
>>46323043
alright in "Head D&D" all it takes to become a deity is to have 20 HD as an Outisder.
Therefore level 20 characters are on par with some gods.
>>46323099
You have a strange head, anon.
But I'll add it to my notes.
>>46321566
A max-level character is probably going to be almost to the status of demi-god, if not just some super powerful hero. I imagine it'd take at least a small army of level 1 characters to take down a level 20 character - anywhere from 60 to 140, depending on what sort of tactics they use and what sort of level 1s they are.
I would like to note that if you bump them up just a few levels - say, level 3 - I think the gulf between the two sides massively decreases. Then you're looking at maybe 30-80 level 3s. I'd argue this is because, where level 1 is just 'you're just starting out but there's obvious potential,' level 3 is where a character will have some experience under their belt and some skills that come from it.
I remember some article someone wrote about this, with the basis of someone joking that Einstein was a Level 20 Physicist.
The article put forth that if Einstein was a Level 20 Physicist he would be a crazy ass time traveler.
He used the Fellowship as an example. Most of them would at best be level 4 or 5, somewhere in there. A level 20 character could have skipped into Mordor while hula hooping the ring on his dick.
>>46321566
That depends on the equipment. A platoon of three tanks with 120 mm guns piloted by 3 level 1s each could waste a level 20 warrior, but in any situation where the nine level 1s are facing the one level 20 warrior with the same gear, nothing short of trickery (tricking the level 20 to fall into a very deep pit, drowning, ect.), the level 1s are boned.
>>46323513
Know anything else about the article, anon? I'd like to read it.
>>46324258
Assuming we're still operating under D&D rules those guns still have to hit the level 20, and will use the level 1's stats to do it.
>>46324280
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2
He gets pretty mechanical about things. He figures the vast majority of people you meet will at best be level 1. A few exceptional people 2-3. The professional athletes and rocket scientists of the world at 4 and the truly best of the best Einsteins and Jerry Rices are at level 5 in their profession. He puts forth that around level 6 is when people would start accomplishing super human feats.
>>46324258
Not really. My 12 level Unchained Monk totaled two of three tanks with 120 mm guns by herself taking less than half her hitpoints in damage. That was using no magic items except for the automatic bonus progression.
Rasputin Must Die was the adventure path, in case you were curious.
>>46324347
>around level 6 is when people would start accomplishing super human feats
unless you're a filthy martial
then you need to be bound by VERISIMILITUDE
>>46324328
>>46324358
It's not a perfect solution, but with the sheer damage output of each gun (10d12 backed by at least two 4d12 .50 cal machine guns) coupled with the fact that there are usually a lot more tanks in a setting that has them than level 20 fighters (or level 9+ anythings), it's a relatively cost-effective way to destroy high leveled martials without having to invest in magic.
Of course, this is assuming said high level-martial is alone, which if they've gotten to that level, they never are.
>>46324258
>>46324439
You play some pretty strange D&D.
It sounds fun, though.
>>46321566
It's certainly straightforward if a level 10 character can take on ten level 1 characters or five level 2 characters. But it means your second level doubles your power, your third adds 50%, your fourth adds 33%, and so on until levels are boring.
It's very satisfying if every level straight up doubles your power, but then you're 1024 times as strong as a level 1 character already by level 10.
I'm going to say this works exponentially, factors of... 1.25? That sounds about right, a level making you 1.25 times as strong as you were.
So a level 20 character would be 1.25^19, or about 70 times stronger than a level 1 character.
I have a rule: "When people say something is exponential, it's often quadratic."
If you assume level X makes you strong enough to beat another X level-1 characters, that's quadratic:
1: 1
2: 3
3: 6
4: 10
5: 15
6: 21
Fuck it: https://oeis.org/A000217
Level 10 is 55x and level 20 is 210x, both entirely manageable concepts.
>>46321566
Fighters?
That could easily be calculated. it takes 20 attacks for 1 hit, and I believe HP go into 200-400HP territory. Level-1 characters get 1.5 attacks per round and die at a rate of let's say 4 per round. They may deal an average of uh, let's say 5 per hit. 300/(1.5*5)*20 = 800.
Wizards?
A high level wizard will just blow up his enemies. At some point he may run low on resources, but then he'll go invisible and retreat. Return later to kill off the rest.
Clerics and druids are similar but only with prep time and not nearly as effective. They might actually get killed if they get unlucky.
Thieves? That's difficult to say. It depends heavily on the terrain and circumstances. A good thief could theoretically kill an unlimited number of enemies with hit-and-run techniques.
>>46324439
It's also ignoring any magical items they might have. Hell even the Deflect Arrows feat could arguably turn aside a single tank shell each round.
This made me think, what level/stats would the average human have today?
>>46321566
Using the encounter building and XP rules from the DMG (4e), a fair fight would be a lvl30 player against 190 lvl1 players.
>>46326193
How many people has the average person killed to collect XP?
>>46326193
Level 0
STR 10
CON 10
DEX 10
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 10
>>46326241
I've probably killed 3 mice/rats myself, and too many insects to count.
>raking in that 10xp per kill
>>46322751
Nobody gives a shit about your 3rd party splat epic levels wanking.
>>46325609
Deflect Arrows doesn't work on ballistas or artillery in general and never has.
>>46321566
The difference between a fat dude who goes "oh i started doing Muay Thai boxing a week ago because it's awesome and now i feel like i can beat up any guy at the bar" against Muhammad Ali at his peak.
It depends a lot on the class. Casters might be able to keep pretty much any amount at bay so long as they don't lose too hard on initiative or the enemy doesn't spread out too much and do a bunch of ranged attacks
For the non magic types it depends on the edition a lot more, but I'd start guessing at around about twice their hit dice since I figure they'll probably hit at most half the time and that's one dice of damage for every one of HP on round 1
Gear and more specific details completely changes everything though. Any sort of temp HP or DR in particular
>>46326354
The level ones all wear powersuits and employ rocket launchers and heavy beam rifles.
Level one characters are recruits. Level five characters are the kind of veterans you hear stories about. Level ten characters are tanks. Level twenty characters are armies.
>>46321566
There is no number of level 1 characters who can defeat a level 20 one.
A level 20 fight should - but is rarely mechanically allowed - be able to fight an modern-sized army by himself.
And so on for all the other characters.
Even including things like unlimited cleave attacks to kill them in one round, or casting blackfire to do the same with spooky magic.
>>46327122
A level 20 fighter is not entirely immune to the attacks of low-levels. The only way for him to stay alive indefinitely is if he has a regeneration or life-stealing or something of the sort.
>>46327140
Technically a level 20 fighter with damage reduction and heavy fortification will negate all damage that most level 1s can throw at him.
>>46327140
True - but I don't mean the mechanical version of the fighter who has to pretend to be realistic, I mean one who's actually equal-enough to a spellcaster.
Whether that's via items or being Hercules or some crazy anime supercombatant or whatever.
>>46327185
Guts.jpg
>>46321566
>>46324481
TBT I was pretty happy with 3.5's theoretical +2 CR = twice as strong in a "straight" fight. Add on various breakpoints for 'fuck you" abilities (flight, incorporeality, dimensional travel), and actually give every character type the tools to deal with them at the appropriate levels, and you have a setup where one high-level < squads of mid-level < armies of low-level < one high-level. Seems pretty ideal to me.
>>46321566
if you assume a human stamina pool and a need for sustenance as well as sleep, it would probably be as many as it takes before the max level collapsed from exhaustion. which depending on his race and class could be anything from a hundred to thousands of literal meat sacks running at it. my personal guess would be somewhere along the range of a thousand
>>46326193
It's a sliding scale. 10 represents human average, period. Humans are largely similar regardless of era, but some things do change. IQ is noticeably higher today than it was in the early 1900's. The average IQ was and is 100, but if you compared what was 100 on early IQ tests to 100 now those early IQ ratings would be around 80. At the same time we're far more obese and less in shape.
I'd rank it a bit like this:
Middle Ages Human Commoner: (compared to a modern human)
Str: 12 (A more physically demanding lifestyle which is typically agricultural.)
Dex: 8 (no videogames to train fine eye-hand coordination, tasks require less finesse in general)
Con: 9 (Harder life makes the survivors tougher people but no vaccines and possible damage from disease.)
Int: 8 (less education and training in general.)
Wis 8 (Less exposure to philosophy, training, and differing social values)
Cha 9 (Less exposure to people, no social training via social media or in large schools. Most people are from small towns.)
And:
Modern First World Human: (compared to a middle ages human)
Str: 8 (Less physically demanding lifestyle.)
Dex: 12 (Tasks require more finesse, from typing to crafting skills and so on.)
Con: 11 (Access to healthcare and vaccines means most people are very healthy.)
Int: 12 (Education up to a certain level is mandatory and continued education is common.)
Wis: 12 (Exposure to many schools of thought allows for a wiser person.)
Cha: 11 (A social media and urban lifestyle leads to better trained social skills.)
People are just generally better trained and equipped to face the world today. That being said a person who is even mildly athletic will reach the same levels of fitness people had in the past. People in the middle ages could be and sometimes were extraordinarily intelligent, wise, charismatic people. The average is weighted pretty differently, though, and there's a big difference in the upper limits. A 20 Int for them would only be an 18 for us.
>>46327286
Adding on, D&D has always had an issue where armies are pointless (3e mostly), or armies are everything (other editions, 5e especially). This sidesteps both of those and also gives a reason for every big bad to raise an army - because armies are the counter to a party of meddlesome PCs, which are the big bad's counter.
>>46322521
Nah, in most D&D systems you'll get 9th level spells before maxing out the spell casting class you're in. And thats not even counting prestige classes.
For example, a 5e Sorc only needs to be lvl 17 to have 9th lvl spell slots.
>>46321566
If by ''even match'' you mean ''able to put up a fight against them'' it would probably be about 16 or so. In some cases, such as a wizard, it could be nigh impossible without a lot of luck and planning.
If you mean that they can achieve the same as a max level character, yer talking anywhee from 10-20 probably, depending on the max lvl's class.
>>46321566
Wizards are laughably more powerful than the layman, Martials don't seem more powerful until you realize that they're still not dead yet and don't give much of a shit about the wizard's AOE effects that make armies fear them.
No amount of level 1s should be able to take down a level 20 martials in a reasonable amount of time, obviously you can't keep fighting day and night forever, but a level 20 should be able to fight for several days straight. Meanwhile, the wizard can get overwhelmed by numbers if the numbers are sufficiently large.
Of course, level 20 wizards have simulacrum, wish, planar binding, etc. etc. which makes D&D busted as shit.
>>46327460
Just checked it, a 5e wizard gets level 9 spell slots at level 16. Then, for 4 levels, they learn more spells, they get features that let them have some spells auto-prepared and with a free daily casting and they get a stat increase (or feat).
They get +2 spells known per level and can prepare their int modifier plus their level. For a max level wizard, this can mean 25 spells prepared, not counting freebies, as well as several level 9 spells learned.
Realistically speaking, bar an equal level wizard or a group of mid level pcs, very little can challenge a wizard since very little can reliably engage a wizard without seriously stacking the odds in their favour.
![consider-the-following[2].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/olpLSJQ.jpg "consider-the-following[2].jpg")
>>46327326
>IQ is noticeably higher today than it was in the early 1900's. The average IQ was and is 100, but if you compared what was 100 on early IQ tests to 100 now those early IQ ratings would be around 80.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Rise_in_IQ
Whether the rise in IQ also correlates to a rise in general intelligence is a rather controversial idea.
>Dex increased due to video games, was "below average" prior to video games
Do you know what Dex is?
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#dexterityDex
>hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance.
Other than hand-eye coordination all of these would be higher better among pre-modern men. And who is to say playing outside tossing a ball around isn't better for hand-eye coordination than vidya?
>Wis is lower due to less exposure to philosophy and differing social value
The former is laughable. If anything, education is getting less and less philosophical. The latter is actually what is decreasing wis, as we're becoming more and more relativist. We could argue that common sense (which is what WIS is) has become less common.
>Cha was lower due to a lack of social media
...I'm convinced you're trolling.
>Con was lower due to a lack of vaccines
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#constitutionCon
Con is health and stamina, or natural thoughness. The added resistance from vaccines does not affect this and merely provides better protection against certain diseases. In D&D terms, a circumstancial modifier.
Looks like STR is the only thing we agree on. I'd say Dex, Con and Cha are lower nowadays with Wis and Int being relatively the same.
>People are just generally better trained and equipped to face the world today.
Change that to better equipped to face the world OF today and you're right. The average modern day man wouldn't last a day in medieval Europe.
>>46328131
Not the guy you're responding to, but premodern man almost definitely had less cha than modern man. Considering that most peasantry dealt with a small number of people for their entire lives while the modern person deals with hundreds of people in a month (or more), modern people are required to have a much better working knowledge of social graces than their predecessors.
>Education is getting less and less philosophical
But it's more widespread. The average person will get some form of introduction to philosophy from various periods of history and locations, while the average medieval farmer would not.
Just because education may be lacking doesn't mean it's doing absolutely nothing
>>46328308
>>46328131
>>46327326
This also depend on the society in which we are talking about. Places like Rome at it's height or different Chinese dynasties would probably be slightly easier to attain some basic schooling, even if the average farmer doesn't know way too much. Really, I'd be willing to say that wisdom was pretty common, from clergymen to the school of hard knocks, but we might be a single point higher if that.
Int being higher would also not really be debatable, since most people can now read and think abstractly. It's been proven that things like language are the building blocks to abstract thought, and not to mention we have better nutrition which also correlates to better development. Part of the reason we're taller.
Constitution is weird. I'm willing to say that people back then were harder, even if they were some starving peasant.
I really don't understand what you mean about the dexterity thing, though. I don't believe it for a second.
Charisma, maybe. Our day to day lives probably involve more social interaction than the average peasant's would, but even then I doubt it. People have their own social skills that they develop through friends and family, so if they live in a place where they had neighbors, they probably wouldn't be different.
>>46328131
>IQ
The rise in IQ is controversial, yes. In concrete terms people are about the same in terms of, say, mathematical ability as people from the year 1900. However we have much, much higher levels of "abstract" intelligence. Flynn himself talks about it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vpqilhW9uI
Overall we simply have much better access to education as well as a provably higher level of abstract reason. We're used to dealing with things we cannot see or interact with directly.
>Dex
You'd have a point there but for one simple truth; we still have outdoor activities and sports today and they haven't disappeared. Hell, they're standard curriculum in schools. Hoeing, planting, plowing and the like don't require a lot of dexterity. Moreover sporting events were not taken as seriously then as now. Modern athletes train much more and much harder to achieve greater levels of sporting excellence. There is simply deeper and wider access to athletic training now, from gymnastics to football to hockey.
>Wis
I strongly disagree. While philosophy isn't exactly a cornerstone of normal school life it's infused into our modern entertainment. That's not a joke - TV shows and Music and Art today commonly reflect philosophical quandaries. They may not go into depth but they're better than the absolute lack of exposure people had in the middle ages to philosophy. Common sense also seems to be more common. Perhaps because we can so easily see stupid people doing stupid things on the internet all the time we're not encouraged to try those dumb things out ourselves. Violence is lower, crime is lower, and people are generally just living better.
>Cha
Social media is a kind of training tool for charisma; you can try things out anonymously you couldn't in person to see how others react to them. Punishment is rarely extreme, but when it is people are often aware of it and can see what not to do. In our normal lives we also just have a lot more exposure to other people.
>>46321566
My personal ideal would be around 10-20, depending on positioning; but I expect in most cases it would be 10-100x that in actual play.
>>46328131
Con: Constitution is affected by vaccines in a few ways. Notably if you get a disease that weakens you for life. Access to medications like aspirin to kill pain (thereby reducing stress, which affects overall health) access to clean drinking water and food, etc.
Living better DOES mean your body is tougher. The average lifespan in the middle ages was 40 for a reason. Most people died before they left childhood and those that survived one of the many illnesses of the time could be pretty messed up. That said people tended to live for similar lifespans to people today if they survived.
If you're drinking unsafe water, eating unsafe food and may have survived a few plagues and have a few injuries that haven't been properly treated I'd say you have a lower Con score. At the same time because they survived they probably had a high Con score to begin with.
As for modern people not surviving well - we definitely can. People do all the time, actually. The Peace Corps regularly sends out first world people to third world nations living in conditions that are often worse than what the average peasant or serf in the middle ages endured and we do just fine.
>>46328484
You have some good points there. Society would make a huge difference. Romans were better educated but suffered from malnutrition and suffered heavily from disease, for instance.
As for social skills I feel like someone in Rome would have excellent ones on average, but the typical country farmer not so much. Modern people just have more exposure to other people and have more practice, so they have a better charisma level in general.
>>46328308
>Considering that most peasantry dealt with a small number of people for their entire lives while the modern person deals with hundreds of people in a month (or more)
Dealing with requires very little cha. Conversely, more and more people describe themselves as lonely in spite (or perhaps because) of social media.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/the-loneliness-epidemic-more-connected-than-ever-but-feeling-more-alone-10143206.html
Medieval man would have a handful of good friends and a tightly knit network, usually through his church.
>But it's more widespread. The average person will get some form of introduction to philosophy from various periods of history and locations, while the average medieval farmer would not.
Alright, legit point. Though the problem of education is how we define it: does it increase int/wis, or does it merely allow you to express your innate int/wis? In other words, does schooling make you smarter or does your intelligence dictate how much you can be schooled?
>>46328501
For everything not adressed here: see above.
>You'd have a point there but for one simple truth; we still have outdoor activities and sports today and they haven't disappeared.
Though we can agree children today are much less likely to play outside than in the middle ages, if only because it was their only option, right?
As for the Flynn effect, I'll check out that video before commenting on it further.
>>46328619
Not to mention public speaking was a huge thing in Rome, as was fitness.
>>46321566
A high level character, say 15+ would be a warrior king, a chieftain of a numerous and powerful tribe, a high priest of a living and active god, or a master of a cabal of sorcerers. They will have armies of warriors or legions of supplicants and apprentices. They will personally know the ruler of a major realm, possibly more than one, in addition to myriad other contacts. They will have the aid of spirits and demigods, and access to vast hoards of magic, gold, and steel.
A starting character is, by comparison, poor, unconnected, and barely competent in the field they will someday distinguish themselves in. The disparity is too large and on too many levels to consider.
In terms of tossing them in a pit and having them fight to the death with whatever, about 10 or 15 to one for most classes.
>>46328576
Then DnD is probably the wrong kind of game for you.
>>46328619
>The average lifespan in the middle ages was 40 for a reason.
It wasn't though.
The people of old had 2 life expectancies. The first one is a misrepresentation. The other one was 50-70 (depending on who we're talking about). You only get to 40 when you include the huge child mortality in the statistic.
This is the big problem with DnD and it's mostly because HP.
A level 20 character has no chance of losing vs a level 1 character short of cheesing mechanics.
With something like GURPS, there's always options - slit their throat while they're sleeping, set up an elaborate maze of traps, pull an SMG on them in a crowded place. Even in a straight fight, all it takes is a lucky gunshot to the head.
>>46328624
I agree that dealing with requires very little CHA. I also agree on the unhappiness point. However, I believe modern people are more socially adept because of our broader range of interaction and experience. A middle ages peasant is unlikely to know how to deal with someone from a foreign land; modern people are more likely to be able to do so. Particularly those from multicultural societies.
>Though we can agree children today are much less likely to play outside than in the middle ages, if only because it was their only option, right?
I absolutely agree. I feel that we have finer dexterity for finnicky tasks, at least compared to men in the middle ages because of the things we do. Even typing is hard for some older people, as you might have seen. Women however were expected to do tasks that would have set them on a higher level of dexterity, running looms, spinning thread, weaving intricate patterns, etc.
Sporting dexterity is definitely more debatable just because of our lack of exercise today in general. It's still very open access, however, and anyone that wants to can go out and play a sport.
>>46328679
It was. Rome, Greece, and a lot of other nations highly valued intelligence and physical fitness. China and Korea would have had some pretty high INT scores because of their national tests allowing advancement and meritocratic society.
>>46328855
I basically said exactly that. It was 40 because of the child mortality rates. Those that survived lived similar lifespans to modern people.
>>46321566
As time goes on I've gotten fonder and fonder of the simplicity of the REALLY old-school D&D, so roughly ten or so?
With the assumption that name-level is pretty much max level, that is. (As an aside, "max level" is a pretty useless concept when you've got AD&D's tenth+-level spells and 3E's epic magic and BECMI's literal godhood. A BECMI Hierarch could probably take on an a nigh infinite amount of first-level mooks, to be honest, although a 36th-level character would be slightly more assailable since they're actually weak to hectopeasants.)
In actuality it's more complicated due to how two 1HD critters take more hits on average than one 2HD critter due to how the numbers are packed together, as well as stuff like increasing hit modifiers and magical weapons - but since the D&D of my dreams is basically just a prettied-up OD&D even the most heavily armored of knights is still going to be hit by the standard soldier on a 19.
Then again, given mass combat and whatnot that "standard soldier" might actually be ten dudes and thus you can fight relatively evenly against a stand of a hundred soldiers. Better than even, really. I'm not really sure where I stand on the subject of individual figures in mass combat, though.
>>46329018
China and Korea were Confucian societies consequently the imperial exam system didn't necessarily test for general intelligence, but how well you could memorize a small number of texts dealing mostly with ethics, social norms, and ceremony. They would probanly have high WIS as opposed to INT
>>46323290
>just starting out
A level 1 fighter is usually a veteran warrior.
>>46326305
That's like 5v1 if they all bum rush him, or 500v1 if they act like martial arts movie mooks and come at him until he's tired of punching.
>>46322902
>>46322995
>>46325200
>>46326237
>Didn't read the question
I play E6, so about 10
Dropping responses that appeal to stats, because that's not the question.
>>46322509
>>46327460
>>46328576
>>46328729
>>46329115
Linear, ~10x to 20x
Also a notable component of "But this is silly because they have a personal army" in these responses.
>>46323290
>>46324562
Low exponential, ~50x to 200x
>>46326794
>>46327122
>>46327286
>>46327317
>>46327531
High exponential, 1000x or more.
Also a notable component of "about to become a god" in these responses.
>>46329944
You mean this one?
>how many level 1 characters does it take to be an even match for a max level character?
>>46330354
> No, not your favorite edition. The Dungeons and Dragons in your head.
>>46321566
I think of it as a level 1 is a rookie cop, level 20 is batman.
>>46330600
So, what's the problem?
Evidently people were discussing the DnD that they were thinking about. What else is "in your heads" supposed to mean?
>>46330129
There's one thing about "10x, but this is silly because they have personal armies" that I have trouble with.
Say that your party, combined, controls an entire kingdom's military, a continent-spanning network of spies, a shadowy cabal of low-level wizards, and an entire forest of animated trees. Sure, sounds fun.
But to me, this is not dungeons and dragons unless there's some reason the gang would get back together, explore a dungeon, and kill a dragon. Or maybe a dracolich, but something out there is dangerous enough to warrant this. Which isn't entirely incompatible with everyone having massive numbers of henchmen. But if the King is only 10x as strong as his footmen, why is he strapping on his armor and standing in front of the High Wizard, when the two could just send 10 footmen and 10 apprentices?
>>46330607
Which Batman?
His power level depends on the writer and how many memes you've been smoking.
(Like... this could be a guy who sometimes has trouble fighting ~8 mooks, or a guy who can Just As Planned his way to a win against Superman.)
>>46327192
A level 20 fighter is never equal to a level 20 full spellcaster. You can change a bunch in your head if you want, but if you change D&D so much that a level 20 fighter can equal a spellcaster then how is it D&D?
>>46330815
I was thinking somebody who could go toe to toe with superman, All according to Keikaku.
Taking 8 mooks is more around level 15, and that's being generous since a level 3 probably couldn't deal with 2 or 3 people at once.
>>46330129
>Also a notable component of "But this is silly because they have a personal army" in these responses.
Well, in the case of my response specifically (>>46329115) they probably DO have a personal army. That's the entire endgame, there, although that mostly disappeared come later editions. (2E onwards, mostly, although Birthright had some elements of that IIRC and Basic kept the tradition going until WotC took over.)
It's just that as the leader of said personal army they can also handle ten times their number on their own. Or, well, tenish. I don't know what the actual number is, mathematically, but I like the idea of one level=one man.
>>46330642
It's your personal "ideal" Dungeons & Dragons, how you want it to be even though it might not be so. The D&D that makes you houserule other out-of-your-head editions of D&D to closer conform to it, the D&D that makes you play the game in ways that the developers didn't intend, the D&D that makes you ignore what the books say and go for what you believe to be right.
Look at >>46326237, for instance:
>Using the encounter building and XP rules from the DMG (4e), a fair fight would be a lvl30 player against 190 lvl1 players.
This isn't an argument about how they think it SHOULD be, it's a statement about how it technically IS in one specific edition. (Although I wish those 190 lvl1 players "good luck", since they're way down the scaling curve. There's a reason that 4E recommends reigning in the level variance.)
They're not saying "well, I think a max-level Fighter could probably solo a small army", it's saying "well, the math says that a max-level Fighter should theoretically have even odds against a small army".
Then again, maybe D&D "in your head" is very mathematically precise, I dunno.
>>46330771
And now you understand why people used to retire their characters and start new ones at name level.
Well, that and the bit where you need a metric fuckton of experience to level up once you're at name level.
>>46328803
Yeah. Only played 3.5, PF, 4e, and 5e; but I find them all to be way too "gamey" when it comes to combat for me to thoroughly enjoy any of them.
Got any systems you'd recommend for more interesting encounters?
>>46330839
Could be what they expected from D&D before actually playing it. The canonical "Head D&D."
Though D&D's reputation of high level warriors being outclassed by high level casters is widespread enough that anyone considering playing it has a pretty good chance of hearing it from someone.
(Class balance is one of those things that's important enough that I'd fix it even if it meant being "less like D&D," though.)
>>46330839
I want the Wizards of the Coast to go away.
>>46330950
>Taking 8 mooks is more around level 15,
No.
A level 15 fighter would wipe the floor with 8 level 1s.
>>46330997
I was assuming that the mooks were level 2 or 3. That also depends on classes and whatnot. Most of the time it's varied, and if you go by the monster manual, up to some dice rolls, so you'll have some wizards and archers in the back, and some fighters up front.
>>46330997
He'd wipe the floor with eight level 5 fighters.
>>46330955
>It's your personal "ideal" Dungeons & Dragons, how you want it to be even though it might not be so.
But the thing is, I don't like DnD a whole lot. I'll play it, but a system I actually like would work completely differently. Not DnD-like.
That's why I simply accept what is presented to me. I'm there for the game, not for the rules.
>>46321566
A max level character is a demi-god, an arch-wizard, etc.
Running around with other dudes like him challenging Orcus and Demogorgon to fights with a reasonable expectation of not being killed.
There aren't enough level 1s to challenge these people.
>>46330955
Thanks for explaining my point.
And yeah, I'm familiar with high level characters having personal armies. I started with BECMI. It's interesting to me that people who mention that all seem to think high level characters should have linear-ish growth in power, though.
You don't see exponential personal power plus a personal army, even though that might be what you actually need to have a story where the King and his pals get back together to fight a dracolich. Also having the expectation of a personal army is a really helpful tool for some character archetypes, like necromancers.
>>46327122
Right until the airforce comes in and starts strafing them; your average combat plane pilot is decidedly /not/ level 1, and he and his buddies are gonna give that high and mighty ground boy a bad time.
>>46330974
My personal preference is The Dark Eye.
Your HP will never even get close to 100. You also get 2 actions per round which you can use either for offense or defense, so being outnumbered actually makes a big difference, because there will be a lot of attacks coming in that you just can't parry. People are speaking of hundreds of soldiers that would be required to bring down a max level D&D character. In DSA ten would probably be able to do it. Mages are a different story obviously, but they are seriously gimped in comparison to D&D. In particular, combat spells are insanely expensive. Playing a DSA mage means playing a normal character (who can't touch metal) for 90% of the time and sometimes flinging a minor spell at a specific problem.
>>46331132
>Also having the expectation of a personal army is a really helpful tool for some character archetypes, like necromancers.
Yeah, no shit. Minionmancy breaks the fuck out of the action economy in modern squad-focused games, but since everyone's expected to be up to their armpits in henchmen and torchbearers and men-at-arms in the old games one guy getting a bunch of zombies or bears doesn't fuck up the game too much.
While I haven't run such a game myself, I could easily see "team up to fight the Dracolich" work out if the Dracolich also has a big army and the players need to use theirs to cancels it out before going after the commander themselves.
And, of course, for the REALLY old-school games it's more about going down into the local megadungeon so that you can actually get enough gold to level up, and you kind of need to go down there by yourself if you want any success since your mooks are going to get slaughtered. While a tenth-level character and ten first-level characters could both survive the same things, one of those might end up with nine corpses.
Also there's that old rule where monsters fight as a number of men equal to their HD against normals and thus just chew straight threw your grunts while having a tougher time against your more exceptional hirelings/PCs, but that's an entirely separate thing. It makes for an interesting triangle where PCs>Monsters>Armies>PCs, I feel.
Also, of course, PCs with lots of health work way better against AoE effects for obvious reasons. Mooks are mooks.
>>46331195
Modern /sized/ army; not an actual modern army which if d20 is anything to go by has 4d12 machine guns sticking out of the wazoo.
Though, a level 20 ranger or gunslinger could probably do some pretty crazy shit with one of those and give those plane dudes a hard time.
Level 20 is basically GIRUGAMESH, isn't it. Like imagine the scene from the lotr movie where Sauron is sending entire rows of people flying, except their bodies are disintegrating into red mist from the damage instead. And that's just the fighter who hits the dudes.
Normies shouldn't stand any chance against very powerful monsters or high level characters, even in hordes. "Stabbed to death by a hobo with a rusty fork"-RPGs need not apply.
The problem with comparing characters is circumstances and preparation. Even two lvl 20 characters vary wildly on outcome against each other because of preparation. People always say Martials are underpowered in DnD because "X can just stand this far back and nuke from orbit." But thats assuming that X starts in ideal circumstances for them. If your average lvl 20 fighter starts the fight already in melee range, the wizard is probably rolling for death by massive damage 4 times. If a rogue has time to prepare, he can basically guarantee a kill on anything. A wizard with time to prepare can accomplish almost anything. But different circumstances tend to favor one class over another. A lvl 20 wizard with time to prepare could take infinite amounts of lvl 1s. A surprised lvl 20 wizard may actually have trouble, especially if the lvl 1s attack while he is preparing new spells.
