The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Do you think they'll do a D20 version of this?

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Abstruse:
I don't like level-based character advancement.  One moment these Orcs are driving me nuts and I'm having problems in a one-on-one fight with them, then the next night I can start bashing them three at a time.  Big jumps feel really unrealistic, and advanced characters leave less advanced characters in the dust.  A 5th level character and a 15th level character can't run around together on adventures without the 15th level getting bored or the 5th level getting in maybe on or two good hits before having to run and hide.  It also makes it impossible to set up circumstances in which a peon can kill a great warrior.  A first level anything can figure out a way to completely tie down and immobilize a 20th level fighter, have a knife, and plunge it directly into a critical area after taking several minutes to make sure it's the right spot, and the 20th level character will NOT die 19 times out of 20.

Maybe I'm just jaded because my first experiences roleplaying were with systems like Shadowrun and BattleTech's d6 systems and with Vampire: The Masquerade's d10 system...

The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.

Set:
The other down side to a lot of D20s is that the characters look the same, just about.
Certain classes always have a certain high stat. Certain skills. Etc...
I just hope you guys get some reasonable variety in the world.

Slife:

--- Quote from: Abstruse on December 27, 2006, 08:21:18 PM ---I don't like level-based character advancement.  One moment these Orcs are driving me nuts and I'm having problems in a one-on-one fight with them, then the next night I can start bashing them three at a time.  Big jumps feel really unrealistic, and advanced characters leave less advanced characters in the dust.  A 5th level character and a 15th level character can't run around together on adventures without the 15th level getting bored or the 5th level getting in maybe on or two good hits before having to run and hide.  It also makes it impossible to set up circumstances in which a peon can kill a great warrior.  A first level anything can figure out a way to completely tie down and immobilize a 20th level fighter, have a knife, and plunge it directly into a critical area after taking several minutes to make sure it's the right spot, and the 20th level character will NOT die 19 times out of 20.

--- End quote ---
By the time you're level 20, you're a demigod in all but name.  A level 20 wizard, for example, has control over time and space, and is able to bend angels and demons to his will with a mere flick of a hand.  Why would you expect Joe Blow the farmhand to be able to kill him?

A coup de grace takes only six seconds to deliver.  And a knife really isn't the best tool for executions.


--- Quote from: Set on December 27, 2006, 08:40:58 PM ---The other down side to a lot of D20s is that the characters look the same, just about.
Certain classes always have a certain high stat. Certain skills. Etc...
--- End quote ---
Honestly, that hasn't been my experience.  But YMMV and all that jazz.

Abstruse:
Level 20 fighter...this would be an Arthur or Launcelot or someone like that.  Tie him up bare-ass naked in ropes that he cannot move, then give a 12 year old with little experience any weapon you choose -- knife, sword, ax, whatever.  He has a 1 in 20 chance of killing this person.  In combat?  No chance in hell.  It's horribly unrealistic.  Something like Shadowrun is much better IMO because a 10 year old with a derringer has a chance of killing even the strongest cybertank character with a lucky shot.  I just think it works better, especially for something with a more real-world feel like the Dresden series.  A d20 Butters could never be able to sneak up behind someone and bash them over the skull to knock them out, for example.  The d20 system only works for unrealistic "board game" style adventure games where realism is thrown out the window and the game plays more like a board game...kick in the door, kill the baddies, loot the bodies.  If you try to get anything realistic into the game, it falls apart.

The Abstruse One
Darryl Mott Jr.

Samldanach:
RE:  level advancement.  I find this to be a peculiar argument, personally, but maybe it's because I grew up with D&D and other level-based games.  I do understand that some people find the discrete jumps in power "unrealistic."  Personally, I'm a fan of the way Rolemaster did it, in that you spent your points for the next level when you levelled up.  This allowed you to see what your character was working on learning, so that you could really work it into your roleplay.  But, I actually find the level-based advancement more satisfying as a player, much easier for bookkeeping, easier to balance, and not significantly more jarring than any other artifact of abstraction in a game system (such as, in WoD, being able to break all of human capability down into six levels, ranging from the complete inability of 0 dots to the Olympic quality of 5 dots).

However, I find the power gap argument to be rather specious.  Every game has a power gap.  Vampire, Shadowrun, Amber, whatever.  If the game allows advancement then, pretty much by definition, experienced characters are better than non-experienced characters.  And, most games deliberately allow characters to have a wide range of power levels, to allow the same game to be played several different ways.

The argument about the relative invulnerability of high-level characters is a solid one, especially in core D&D.  Unfortunately, it's very difficult to craft a system in which a knight can eventually go toe-to-toe with a dragon or survive a fireball, but a peasant with a dagger is still a credible threat.  The vitality/wounds system does that pretty well (the basic idea being that you have a number of wounds equal to your Con score that represent real body damage, and critical hits go directly to those, but vitality soaks up standard hits with luck, minor bruises and scratches, etc.).  M&M's damage save concept is interesting, in that there's pretty much always at least a 1-in-20 chance that the hero will go down from any appreciable damage.

I actually find that d20 adds a huge amount of variety to characters.  Especially once you open up a few supplements.  2nd Ed AD&D did have a serious problem with characters being mechanically identical.  But, with a variety of well-balanced base classes, a solid skill system, the infinite customization of feats, and the wackiness of prestige classes, I could easily make a hundred fighters that were all dramatically different, both mechanically and in personality.

Now, I will definitely admit that one of the weaknesses of d20 is that it assumes that everyone in the party is of the same relative power level.  It doesn't deal well with the kind of mixed bag of "experienced operatives" herding "normal people drawn into extraordinary circumstances" that you see in most literature.  So, putting Susan (especially Storm Front Susan) and Butters in a party with Harry and Michael wouldn't really work.  There are a couple d20 flavors that handle this reasonably well, but they do so by giving journalists and scientists their own mechanical advantages, which isn't really an ideal solution.

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