Re: [Insert relevant subject line here.] - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 27/09/2012 10:27:58 AM
Alright then, though from the sound of things later editions have different problems. Still, my preference for GURPS was formed when 2nd Ed. (or 1st) were the only available AD&D options, and reflects that to a fair degree. Again, the biggest thing I noticed from skimming the 3rd Ed. rules was that they had begun implementing point systems like GURPS, though they did not go nearly far enough with it, IMHO.
Third Edition was all about classes and multiclassing. It was heaven for munchkins, with enough splatbooks you could dip into a couple of prestige classes for synergetic abilities and have completely overpowered specialties. More importantly for me, any attempt to homebrew anything required designing classes, and I hated that.
Well, the simple solution there is to just get rid of classes....
...BONUS stat points/4 levels?! Tell me I misread/understood that, else you practically conceded my point that characters are grossly overpowered as they level.
You have not and I have not. 2nd Edition ability scores became stupidly more powerful for every point you put in beyond 18 (to speak nothing of that ridiculous Strength percentile die for Warriors), but in later Editions ability scores progressed far more linearly. And that's for 3rd Edition. In 4th Edition you gained a +1 bonus to two ability scores at 4th, 8th, 14th, 18th, 24th and 28th level, and +1 to all scores at 11th and 21st level.
Though I could say you are right in 4th Edition, as the game is pretty insistent that every ten levels, your adventure changes in scope.
Well, unless the DM encouraged munchkins, 2nd Ed. stats could not realistically rise past 20 anyway, and only get that high for demi-human characters who pushed the stat where they got a +1 bonus all the way to 19, then found an Ioun Stone and/or used a 9th level Wish spell, and any DM who will let a character with a 19 stat do that is probably running a munchkin campaign. In that case, it really does not matter what system is used, because the players will demand and the DM allow munchkin characters under any "rules" (to the extent those even remain relevant.) I will not say their extensive line of Munchkin parodies sold me on Steve Jackson Games (because Illuminati and GURPS did that,) but they did not hurt.
Fourth edition... honestly, it sounds like I would hate it, because all of the old AD&D munchkinizing tendencies are exacerbated by attempts to cater to console gamers looking for naught but XP and powerups.
Anyway, in 2nd Ed. Str bonuses to damage ranged from +1 at 15 to +6 at 18/00 (but +5 at 18/90-91, so anything >+4 was VERY rare.) The to hit bonus was +1 at 17, +2 at 18/51 and did not reach +3 until 18/00. Dex bonuses to AC went from -1 at 15 to -4 at 19 (since Elves got a +1 Dex bonus.) Con bonuses to hit dice went from +1 at 15 to +5 at 19 (since Dwarves got a +1 to Con.) With an Ioun stone or something to raise Con to 20 characters actually got to REGENERATE HP; there is a reason I ignored the bonuses. Setting that aside though, this is how it would break down with Str, Dex and Con at equal levels:
Maxxed out, the 20th level fighter has a net -1 to hit and +1 to damage when he does, but only because he is at a full 18/00.
18/91-99: -2 to hit, +0 damage; 18/76-90, -2 to hit, -1 damage; 18/51-75, -2 to hit, -2 damage. On average for exceptional stats (i.e. >18:) -1.98 to hit, -1.28 damage
18/01-50, -2 to hit, -1 damage (the attacker gets a break here because fighters could not have 18 Str, which would be -2 to hit, -2 damage.)
Straight 17s= -2 to hit, -2 damage; 16s= -2 to hit, -1 damage; 15s= -1 to hit, -1 to damage.
2nd Ed. only gave +1 damage two-handed (and only with an optional Fighters Handbook rule;) otherwise, it just changed bastard sword damage to 2d4 instead of the 1d8 it did one-handed. I THINK greatswords did 1d12 (never used them, so do not quote me;) save for a few exceptions all others did d8 or less. So unless both have straight 15s, all else being equal the 20th level fighter has -2 to hit -1 to damage (in a few cases -2) with d8 or less damage, and the 10th level fighter has 10d10 HP.
Even with a d12 greatsword the attacker gets 5.5 HP/hit, which just happens to be exactly what 10 attacks must average to drop a defender with 10d10 HP. Even at 3 attacks per round that will still take 4 rounds; given misses and the unlikelihood of the attacker wielding a greatsword, 5 or 6 rounds is more plausible. If the 20th level fighter misses even once OR has anything less than a greatsword, there is NO chance he kills the 10th level fighter with 10 attacks capped at 6 or 7 points each.
In other words, even if a 10th level fighter does not fight back, a 20th level fighter must whale on him for a full minute to kill him!
Setting that aside though, this is how it would break down with Str, Dex and Con at equal levels:Maxxed out, the 20th level fighter has a net -1 to hit and +1 to damage when he does, but only because he is at a full 18/00.
18/91-99: -2 to hit, +0 damage; 18/76-90, -2 to hit, -1 damage; 18/51-75, -2 to hit, -2 damage. On average for exceptional stats (i.e. >18:) -1.98 to hit, -1.28 damage
18/01-50, -2 to hit, -1 damage (the attacker gets a break here because fighters could not have 18 Str, which would be -2 to hit, -2 damage.)
Straight 17s= -2 to hit, -2 damage; 16s= -2 to hit, -1 damage; 15s= -1 to hit, -1 to damage.
2nd Ed. only gave +1 damage two-handed (and only with an optional Fighters Handbook rule;) otherwise, it just changed bastard sword damage to 2d4 instead of the 1d8 it did one-handed. I THINK greatswords did 1d12 (never used them, so do not quote me;) save for a few exceptions all others did d8 or less. So unless both have straight 15s, all else being equal the 20th level fighter has -2 to hit -1 to damage (in a few cases -2) with d8 or less damage, and the 10th level fighter has 10d10 HP.
Even with a d12 greatsword the attacker gets 5.5 HP/hit, which just happens to be exactly what 10 attacks must average to drop a defender with 10d10 HP. Even at 3 attacks per round that will still take 4 rounds; given misses and the unlikelihood of the attacker wielding a greatsword, 5 or 6 rounds is more plausible. If the 20th level fighter misses even once OR has anything less than a greatsword, there is NO chance he kills the 10th level fighter with 10 attacks capped at 6 or 7 points each.
In other words, even if a 10th level fighter does not fight back, a 20th level fighter must whale on him for a full minute to kill him!
Yeah, that's pretty terrible.
Nature of the beast; make characters progressively harder to kill as they advance and they soon become very difficult to kill.
OK, fine, later editions reduced that approximately one-third, partly by letting the 20th level character raise his stats 4 times (because extra attacks, HP and lower THAC0 were not already advantage enough. 
) I guess the good news for our "hapless" (but surprisingly hardy) 10th level fighter is that his opponent has not yet reached 20th level and raised Str AGAIN (is that capped, or is he in Fire Giant territory now?) That high level fighters can unleash enough firepower to level a small city does not mitigate the mid level fighters ability to absorb tremendous damage without flinching. Even in 3rd and 4th Ed. the high level fighter needs many attacks to slay a mid level fighter not even resisting. 
) I guess the good news for our "hapless" (but surprisingly hardy) 10th level fighter is that his opponent has not yet reached 20th level and raised Str AGAIN (is that capped, or is he in Fire Giant territory now?) That high level fighters can unleash enough firepower to level a small city does not mitigate the mid level fighters ability to absorb tremendous damage without flinching. Even in 3rd and 4th Ed. the high level fighter needs many attacks to slay a mid level fighter not even resisting. Fire Giants have Strength 31 in 3rd Edition, so no
. An Ogre has a Strength of 21.Oh, good; I was worried we were power-gaming.
Actually, if he's not resisting, then you can coup de grâce him. In the case of our terrible fighter build from two posts ago, we can go for a -10 Power Attack then (more than that, actually, since a defenceless character will have penalties to defence and cannot use the Dodge feat we gave him), since you only get to do the one attack in the entire round, for 2(2d6+26) for an average of 66 damage, outright killing the 55hp fighter, and even if he survived, he'd still have to succeed at a DC 76 Fortitude Save or die outright. And, just so you have an idea of what a DC 76 save means, the Tarrasque has +38 to its Fortitude save, meaning it would have to roll a natural 38 on a d20 to survive (not exactly true, since natural 20s are always successes, but you get the point). [EDIT:] Oh, and then he'd have to roll a DC 15 Fortitude Save again to avoid dying from massive damage.
Yeah, I started not to say, "not resisting," because I did not mean simply standing still awaiting a coup de grâce, just not fighting back at all. Couple things there sound familiar; Dodge is often a GURPS characters best Active Defense, because weapon skill must be fairly high before Parry is effective (most people do not use Block, because then you have to carry around an encumbering shield.) Without at least minimal armor to add a point or two of Passive Defense to those rolls combat is still (pardon the pun) dicey. The DC check sounds like the HT check, except evidently based on damage rather than HP in 4th Ed. (which actually speaks to my complaints against ever inflating AD&D HP, though the simpler solution is still to just say no character is ever "experienced" enough to survive being shot in the face.)
So mid level characters cannot ignore thrashings by high levels ones for a full minute; I guess that is some improvement. The core problem remains though: The mid level character can still absorb far more damage than a low level one; the high level character just inflicts such an overwhelming amount of damage it does no matter. Against anyone less, like the low level character or even an equal level character, we still have a scenario where even if the attacker is consistently hitting an opponent doing nothing more than trying to avoid the blows it will take a while to kill him.
Maybe in BG (though even it allows characters to advance past 20th level; the ToB XP cap was 8 million, enough for Thieves to hit 40th level!) With tabletop AD&D it was more of an unintended consequence as characters who survived long enough became omnipotent. It got kind of ugly in later years, as TSR released expansions allowing characters to reach levels as high as 50; I have no idea how DMs kept THAT "challenging." That brings up another realism issue: How plausible is it for a character to start out as a Two Rivers farmboy and end up the Dark One? Maybe for immortal elves, or even long-lived dwarves, but a human who has maybe 60 good years between maturity and decreptitude? I guess mages can become liches, but that usually ends a career as a PC.
Yeah, I never had any interest in the 'epic levels' games. But as for characters reaching epic levels, there are any number of reasons to ascend. Take a fighter. Maybe he becomes someone like Lan, a warrior of legendary skill, until even the gods take notice and grant him a place as one one of their proxies. Or he could obtain (or forge his own) magical artefact of incredible power that allows him to travel through the planes. Or maybe he bathes in the blood of a slain Dragon and gains their power and immortality. It's just limited by your imagination.
I am not saying it should never be an option, can never make sense within any gameworld, but it should not be the norm for ALL gameworlds where characters survive long enough. And even if someone like Lan took an Aes Sedais fireball to the face or got hit with balefire he would be as dead as quickly as Baerlon drover.
I always understood Paladins and Rangers as Specialist Fighters just like all the Specialist Mages were still Mages, and generally viewed Bards, Druids, etc. much the same. The only one requiring separate treatment was the Bard, because of his spellcasting. The rest were just subtypes who had more disadvantages to offset a few particular extra advantages, neither of which conflicted with their basic class. Except for priest spells at high level, there is ultimately not much justification for saying Paladins and Rangers are distinct classes but Cavaliers and Barbarians are just Fighter kits (if I understood OotS correctly, the latter is now a class of its own anyway.)
Nah, I still have my 2nd Edition PHB, so I can assure you they subdivided their classes into those four groups. Mages was specifically the generalist type of Wizard. Why did they do that? Hell if I know, I stopped trying to make sense of 2nd Edition long ago.
As for 3rd Edition, yes, they made Barabarians a standard class. Also Monks.
Makes sense; IIRC Monks were originally a separate class in AD&D 1st Ed. too, but very unbalanced.