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Cat Vs Commoner
- Thread starter Bloodstone Press
- Start date
Celebrim
Legend
Can't really give you laughs for that one because, well, "Ouch". But yes, interesting footage for the age old cat vs. commoner debate.
My main position on the cat versus commoner debate has been less that cats shouldn't beat up commoners, but more that domestic cats should have a harder time inflicting lethal damage.
The fundamental problem is that up until 4e, there was a very low level of resolution at 1st level due to everything from a wasp to a person having a single HD (and differing mostly by number of hit points, if that). D&D doesn't really deal in fractions, there is no dealing a 1/4 h.p. of damage. Even the general notation '1/2 HD' or '1/4 HD' mainly just refers to fewer h.p. and not really any other meaningful change. Cat versus commoner could equally be called cat versus wasp or even wasp versus commoner. Your average 1HD creature is only a few unlucky rolls away from being killed by a single hornet.
This problem is exacerbated by gross inflation of CON in 3e, more or less across the board. Cats are relatively fragile creatures as it is, being the 'sports car' of the animal world (high performance, but always in the shop), and tiny creatures generally and cats specifically probably shouldn't have above about 4-6 CON (smaller doses of poison are lethal, for example). Healthy humans have one of the highest constitutions for their size in the animal world IMO, matched really only by dogs, horses, and certain herd animals. In general that means to me that non-magical medium sized creatures should probably average about 11 CON, and large sized ones about 15 CON. The actual numbers are typically 4 higher than that.
4e introduced the idea that 1st level is equal to 3HD, which in my opinion is the single best idea in all of 4e, and virtually the only idea I found inspirational. However, my take on it was slightly different. Instead of making 3rd the new 1st, I came up with the idea of bonus hit points based on size. So, for example, all medium sized creatures got 8 bonus hit points, whereas a tiny sized creature only got 2 bonus hit points, and a fine sized creature none. The result of that and several similar refinements to the rules largely ended the cat vs. commoner problem, at least at the level of verisimilitude (in my opinion, nothing can strictly fix it in a hit point based system, you'd need wound tracks or something similar to really fix it). Additionally, fixing the cat vs. commoner problem fixed the problems with 1st level, extending gameplay options and making 1st level very much part of the 3.X 'sweet spot'.
At first I was very pleased with myself, but after a few days I noticed I'd created nearly as big of a problem, which is most succinctly put as, "How does a hunter hunt white tailed deer?" Your average game animal now has about 13 hit points. Your average bow now does 4-5 damage on average. There is no way for the average hunter to add 8 additional average damage to his bow shots (the problem is made worse by my earlier assessment, particularly in 3e play testing, that D&D poorly balanced melee and missile, making missile too attractive of a specialization). The only way to take down a deer now is with a critical hit, and even only about half of those are effective. These means that your average 1st level hunter has only about a 1 in 160 chance of killing a deer with an arrow. Granting that in the real world, it's very difficult to drop a deer with an arrow quickly, it's not that difficult. The problem becomes two fold. First that weapons clearly don't do enough damage, but if I up the damage it eliminates low levels from the 'sweet spot' again. Secondly, the main reason arrows are lethal to anything is shock and blood loss, but D&D generally avoids modeling pain and blood loss to avoid the sucky unavoidable death spirals seen in games trying to be more realistic.
For now, I've erred on the side of good gameplay rather than upping damage from a short bow to d12. However, if you are strictly into realism, adding bonus hit points while also increasing the base damage of medium sized weapons provides you a lot more granularity and makes cats - if not more scared of commoners, at least have more reason to be.
My main position on the cat versus commoner debate has been less that cats shouldn't beat up commoners, but more that domestic cats should have a harder time inflicting lethal damage.
The fundamental problem is that up until 4e, there was a very low level of resolution at 1st level due to everything from a wasp to a person having a single HD (and differing mostly by number of hit points, if that). D&D doesn't really deal in fractions, there is no dealing a 1/4 h.p. of damage. Even the general notation '1/2 HD' or '1/4 HD' mainly just refers to fewer h.p. and not really any other meaningful change. Cat versus commoner could equally be called cat versus wasp or even wasp versus commoner. Your average 1HD creature is only a few unlucky rolls away from being killed by a single hornet.
This problem is exacerbated by gross inflation of CON in 3e, more or less across the board. Cats are relatively fragile creatures as it is, being the 'sports car' of the animal world (high performance, but always in the shop), and tiny creatures generally and cats specifically probably shouldn't have above about 4-6 CON (smaller doses of poison are lethal, for example). Healthy humans have one of the highest constitutions for their size in the animal world IMO, matched really only by dogs, horses, and certain herd animals. In general that means to me that non-magical medium sized creatures should probably average about 11 CON, and large sized ones about 15 CON. The actual numbers are typically 4 higher than that.
4e introduced the idea that 1st level is equal to 3HD, which in my opinion is the single best idea in all of 4e, and virtually the only idea I found inspirational. However, my take on it was slightly different. Instead of making 3rd the new 1st, I came up with the idea of bonus hit points based on size. So, for example, all medium sized creatures got 8 bonus hit points, whereas a tiny sized creature only got 2 bonus hit points, and a fine sized creature none. The result of that and several similar refinements to the rules largely ended the cat vs. commoner problem, at least at the level of verisimilitude (in my opinion, nothing can strictly fix it in a hit point based system, you'd need wound tracks or something similar to really fix it). Additionally, fixing the cat vs. commoner problem fixed the problems with 1st level, extending gameplay options and making 1st level very much part of the 3.X 'sweet spot'.
At first I was very pleased with myself, but after a few days I noticed I'd created nearly as big of a problem, which is most succinctly put as, "How does a hunter hunt white tailed deer?" Your average game animal now has about 13 hit points. Your average bow now does 4-5 damage on average. There is no way for the average hunter to add 8 additional average damage to his bow shots (the problem is made worse by my earlier assessment, particularly in 3e play testing, that D&D poorly balanced melee and missile, making missile too attractive of a specialization). The only way to take down a deer now is with a critical hit, and even only about half of those are effective. These means that your average 1st level hunter has only about a 1 in 160 chance of killing a deer with an arrow. Granting that in the real world, it's very difficult to drop a deer with an arrow quickly, it's not that difficult. The problem becomes two fold. First that weapons clearly don't do enough damage, but if I up the damage it eliminates low levels from the 'sweet spot' again. Secondly, the main reason arrows are lethal to anything is shock and blood loss, but D&D generally avoids modeling pain and blood loss to avoid the sucky unavoidable death spirals seen in games trying to be more realistic.
For now, I've erred on the side of good gameplay rather than upping damage from a short bow to d12. However, if you are strictly into realism, adding bonus hit points while also increasing the base damage of medium sized weapons provides you a lot more granularity and makes cats - if not more scared of commoners, at least have more reason to be.
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