Calibrating Expectations

[elmo_iscariot]

Philmo shares an article by Justin Alexander from 2007 that shows me I've been thinking about D&D all wrong for a very long time:

D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations

There’s a common fallacy when it comes to D&D, and it goes something like: Einstein was a 20th level physicist. So, in D&D, Einstein - that little old man - has something like a

Comments

[elmo_iscariot]

Sure, you COULD model him as a "worst possible HP and stat rolls" character, but why should you have to?

Note that my ellipsis cut off Alexander's full statement:

This 5th level Einstein can also be modeled with as few as 5 hit points - 1 per hit die. Even if he rolled an average number of hit points on each hit die (3 each), as an old man his average Constitution of 10 will have dropped two points. With the resulting Constitution penalty, he still only has 10 hit points. This is the other reason why the hit point argument holds no water.

That's only for hit points. I don't have a position in general on... ah, combat for non-combatants in D20. My games tend to be very, very light on combat, and my NPCs are almost never full builds with levels (they only rarely have all six ability scores). They just have the handful of skills or stats I think they'll need, since I can wing the rest. The way I use it, D20 meets my needs across genres; I don't doubt that there are better systems for other styles of gaming. My takeaway from the article was all about what the levels actually mean, presupposing that I'm using D20.

And, I mean, this is still a system where a blacksmith can't make a living without at least 4 levels (because he will lose more money on failures and "take 20s" than he can make by seilling his output)...

I'm not sure that's true. The PHB I have handy is 3.0, so it's possible this changed in 3.5. But as of this edition, the DC for creating a "typical item" is 10. The example given is an iron pot, which is a threshold high enough to cover the kitchen wares, fasteners, and horseshoes that your bone-standard blacksmith pays the bills with. If he has even one rank in Craft, a bumbling town blacksmith can take ten (which has no consequences and can be done "when you are not in a rush and not being threatened or distracted"), and never have a failure. If I calculate the time rules correctly, his take-10 will give him an iron pot every seven and a half hours, working alone. If that's all he does in a day, he'll make just about three and a half SP on the deal. Since the same section says "Untrained laborers and assistants can earn an average of one silver piece per day," that doesn't sound unrealistic for somebody who slept through most of blacksmithing school.

And that's assuming the bare minimum. With just two ranks in Craft, he can take 10 to make simple weapons and bows, acting as the town's armorer at the same profit margin. And if he _isn't_ incompetent... Well, Alexander talks specifically about first-level blacksmiths who have their acts together:

You’ll see this same fallacy trotted out whenever someone insists that the local blacksmith "must" be at least 10th level in order to be competent in their profession. In reality, the typical village blacksmith is probably only a 1st level character. At 1st level the average blacksmith’s Craft (blacksmithing) skill looks like this:

+4 skill ranks
+1 Intelligence bonus
+3 Skill Focus
+2 from an assistant or apprentice helping them

That’s a +10 bonus on their checks. This bonus allows them to take 10 and craft masterwork-quality items. By 3rd level an experienced blacksmith can do that without the help of an assistant.

Even less capable 1st level blacksmiths (without an assistant or the Skill Focus feat) still have a +5 bonus to their skill. This lets them take 10 and craft high-quality items (the only things they can’t handle are exotic weapons and complex items).

Again, not going to say the system's perfect. And if you read Alexander's broad defense of D20, several of his examples are pretty weak. But on this specific point, I think you're a bit off base.