What is a good challenge?

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Assuming kobolds with slings (1d4) and that the 20th level fighter has a total AC of 12 and 150 hit points, the kobolds need to hit him about 60 times. We'll give him Expertise as well, so his effective AC is 17. A level 1 kobold warrior has an attack bonus of +3 with a sling, and thus needs 14+ to hit (35%) for an average of .875 damage/rd/kobold.

We will put him up against 30 kobolds. We will assume they are reasonably intelligent, and thus somewhat dispersed, so the fighter only kills two per round. We will give the fighter first attack.

What an excellent (if not entirely unbiased) analysis. And if the Kobolds have daggers, he kills how many? Would you say . . . lots and lots and lots?

:)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Zowie. Hrm. I wonder what one could do with (say) a 750point warrior build like that.

Abuse the hell out of it. Without serious limits on how points are spent, you could pretty much be a god. Whatever else I took, it would include 100 points in Super Luck, 60 points in Ridiculous Luck, and 15 points in Daredevil. Not to mention 100 points or so of Wealth so that I can afford super-extra-mega-nice armor with enchantments galore and a ring of Lesser Wish on each finger. Hell, I'd pierce a few softer body parts so I could carry more rings of Lesser Wish, and try to finagle the GM into giving me +1 DR for all the metal in my hide. (Insert "ring male" joke here.)

[Anthony]

For what it's worth, I figure the rough point equivalent of a d20 character in GURPS is about 50-100 pts +25 pts/level.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Anthony

For what it's worth, I figure the rough point equivalent of a d20 character in GURPS is about 50-100 pts +25 pts/level.

I'd hear the slope of that argument before (25/level). I wonder, though, since in 4e the physical skills are half price, and even the stats are cheaper at the very high levels that you can attain with this point total, if the slope should be shallower, on the order, perhaps of 15/level.

Still, you've got 350-400pts to spend. Ook.

I did some templates of a 1000-pt 4e Combat Op, and they're...effective. Of course, I used a lot of Wild-Card skills. And nothing like Kromm's Daredevil/uber-lucky combo.

I need to reread the luck rules, but it would seem to me that that unless the rules say different, that's some of the "critical hit protection" he'll need.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

For a 20th level fighter? 500-1000.

That's about what I'd assume, too. My (very rough) rule of thumb for low level characters is 75 + 25 x D&D level, and I'd expect the point value per level to rise at the high end.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I'd hear the slope of that argument before (25/level). I wonder, though, since in 4e the physical skills are half price, and even the stats are cheaper at the very high levels that you can attain with this point total, if the slope should be shallower, on the order, perhaps of 15/level.

A D&D fighter type gets +1 to their weapons skills per level. Assuming only one melee and one missile weapon are kept up to speed in their GURPS equivalent that's 8 points per level right there. They get better at avoiding fireballs and making will saves every third level, so that's at least +2/level there (for the extra will). They also get better Fort saves every second level, which probably means at least +1 HT! every second level, so another 1/level. Then there's hit points, however we choose to measure them, and skill points which could reasonably, IMO, be converted to GURPS at 1-to-1 (they buy more in D&D because there are fewer but broader skills, but skill mean less for most characters so it sort of balances), so that's another 2/level. Then there's feats. Assuming that the Weapon Focus > Weapon Specialisation > Greater Weapon Focus > Greater Weapon specialisation chain is roughly equivalent to Weapon Master each feat is worth about 5 points. A fighter gets about 1 per two levels, and everyone gets a little over 1 per 3 levels, so our fighter gets 4-5 points per level from them. Then we have a stat advance every four levels, and I figure that a D&D stat is roughly 10 points worth of GURPS stat (Dex is more, Cha is less), so that's another 2.5/level. That's an easy 20 points a level, and we haven't allowed for hit points at all.

EDIT: Actually a D&D stat is probably worth 1/2 that - I forgot that I claculated the value of a +1 stat bonus, not +1 to a stat. Still, that's 17.5 points/level without hit points, and arguably a fighter is one of the weaker classes at high levels. Certainly they'll get the snot kicked out of them in a melee fight with a barbarian - a fighter's fortes are consistency and versitility, which my quickie conversion didn't really show because I only assumed two weapons, etc.

Oh yes - this also ignores the value of wealth. A D&D fighter starts with wealth roughly equivalent to $1500-2000 in GURPS terms, and by 5th level expects to have 60 times this (by 10th that's x735, and by 20th ~x5000). Thus they start as Comfortable wanderers, go to being Flithy Rich at 5th, Multimillionaire 1 before 10th, and by 20th Multimillionaire 2. That's 10 points/level to 5th, 5/level to 10th, and 2.5/level to 20th.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Assuming kobolds with slings (1d4) and that the 20th level fighter has a total AC of 12 and 150 hit points, the kobolds need to hit him about 60 times. We'll give him Expertise as well, so his effective AC is 17. A level 1 kobold warrior has an attack bonus of +3 with a sling, and thus needs 14+ to hit (35%) for an average of .875 damage/rd/kobold.

We will put him up against 30 kobolds. We will assume they are reasonably intelligent, and thus somewhat dispersed, so the fighter only kills two per round. We will give the fighter first attack.

Before dying, the kobolds get 28+26+24+22+20+18+16+14+12+10+8+6+4+2 attacks, or 182 attacks, for a total of, on average, 159 damage.

If you prefer melee attackers, kobolds are obviously inferior, let's go with humans. Humans Warrior-1s with long spears do 1d8+1 with an attack bonus of, likely, +3 (assume attack focus). Their ideal dispersal results in 16 of them being able to attack at once, and the fighters gets to kill 3. If that happens, of course, the fighter is flanked, and he's taking 40+ damage per round.


For a 20th level fighter? 500-1000.

I would assume a 20th level fighter has armor. Probably an AC of 20 Dex factored in, sans magic. He also has a Con of 16 or higher by that level.

On average he would have 110 hp (20d10) plus 60 for con for a total HP of 170. 159 pts of damage doesn't do the job.

If we are going to assign the ideal feat to all of your warriors the 20th level fighter has picked up Greater Evasion and ferghedabowt those flank bonuses.

The scene being emulated by D&D has a successful hit being made and the illusion that you are hurting the foe because points are subtracted. that the D&D opponent dodged or blocked or parried all damage is sort of glossed over.

GURPS is honest about this which results in "I hit!" "My defense negates your hit!" being done and repeated through the combat. Subtracting the abstracted hp gives the attacking player comfort. When you factor in DR, the GURPS character is even more resilient. A 15- Dodge roll and DR 4 produces a character who is not going to go down very soon in melee combat. The Mechanics of play make the effects of such combats relentless and repetitive. It chases off newbies who think they do damage each round to a foe in D&D.

Thus a 5 minute combat takes 300 turns in GURPS vs 50 rounds in D&D. In both cases the single foe can be very effective against the mob of enemies. However GURPS GMs may try to avoid such combats in their game because they are so monotonous. This produces the idea that GURPS isn't for 'epic' adventuring.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

I would assume a 20th level fighter has armor. Probably an AC of 20 Dex factored in, sans magic. He also has a Con of 16 or higher by that level.

The poster Anthony was replying to said 'naked with ordinary sword'.

If we are going to assign the ideal feat to all of your warriors the 20th level fighter has picked up Greater Evasion and ferghedabowt those flank bonuses.

Not a core feat. Great Cleave is likely, though.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Zowie. Hrm. I wonder what one could do with (say) a 750point warrior build like that.

the important things, I'd think are

1. some sort of protection from criticals. This is what can end a fight on an otherwise impervious foe

2. Some soft of protection from flanking/rear hex attacks. Dancing shield(s)? Dancing weapons?

3. Any sort of thing that would allow you to dispatch more than one opponent in a round.

1) Armor. The 'bypass armor DR' result is pretty rare even on a critical hit.

2) With a point budget like that Basic speed (Dodges only) 13 is in reach. Dodge score is a base 16-. Assuming a base HT & DX provided 6.50 you'd only need to spend sixty five CP to get the FULL basic speed of 13. Obviously it's cheaper to take the limitation!

3) Weapon Master, a good FP supply and Flurry of Blows (Characters, page reference not listed in the index grumble) lets your character take a rapid strike at -1/-1 and defend. Assuming a ST of 14, swing attacks and a skill of DX+2 or higher, you're doing 2d +4 plus any inherent damage bonus for the type of weapon.

Edit: I appear to have assigned the cost of Basic speed at 2.5 pts per 1/4 level. It should cost 130 pts, not 65.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The poster Anthony was replying to said 'naked with ordinary sword'.


Not a core feat. Great Cleave is likely, though.

Which is NOT the typical case for either D&D OR GURPS. His scenario is thus irrelevant to any practical comparision between the games.