If there's one criticism I have about D&D in general...

>Cant you just add class levels?

Ah yes, the "very large point buy" model of class levels. This never worked.

>Or templates? Did they cut that from 4/5e?

Templates are for making themed encounters, not just tougher ones.

Rolemaster my friend
-Even the mightiest can still fall to (or get permanently crippled by) trash mobs on a bad day
-Levelups don't mean guaranteed stat increases due to the stat-potential system (hard caps are rolled alongside stats, can end up with a starting stat that is already capped, can also lose stats)
-Professions (in place of classes) are purely skill point discount sets with the exception of allowed spell lists where relevant. Everything detailed in the "No Profession" profession is the baseline.
-Due of the above, tailoring single mobs to the party is really simple
-Magic development vs power curve is slow as molasses and PCs will probably die before they can do whatever insane shit DnD allows

...

user...

You could play epic 6?

Try Savage Worlds, there's not a huge gap between a starting character and one who's been through a full campaign and even weak enemies can get a lucky shot in and btfo a strong PC

This is one of my complaints about RPG's in general. Especially ones with level systems (it seems).

D&D 5e seems to do a decent job of it with bounded accuracy. Although 1e/2e had limited HP which helped a good bit as well (I'd have had hit points end at 10th level for 5e myself).

I dislike the suggestions of just powering up the monsters. So that goblin had 2 HP at first level, but now that you encounter that same tribe of goblins they have 20 HP instead. That just seems silly to me.

>I can't stop shitposting

You probably could if you drank whatever bottles you found beneath your kitchen sink.

What level is required to hunt and kill people?

Is it higher or lower than what is needed to hunt a lion or crocodile?

But that's because the last thing you said is total bullshit?

If you're going back to the same exact place, of course they'll be the same level. But, for example, if you encounter the elite goblin guardians of some dark lord, or a group infused with demonic power, then it's easy to take the templates and power them up to make them fit.

When people talk about scaling monsters, nobody is talking about taking the exact same monster and having them be arbitrarily more powerful for no good reason. That's just fucking stupid. But any halfway competent GM can easily find a way to explain the disparity if there's a monster they want to use.

>senior citizens

Don't be mean.

World/Chronicles of Darkness is pretty good for this.

Does it not bother you that you're rendering the players' progression moot? Or alternatively that you're trivialising the world-building aspects?

It just seems like kind of a cheap-shot to have your 12th level party fighting dire owlbears or blue mega-orcs. I hated the level scaling in the Elder Scrolls games for similar reasons.

See It's only a problem if you're a shitty, uncreative GM.

>there's a way you can do this that's awful
>but there's plenty of ways that aren't awful
>shut up, I'm going to ignore those and pretend the only way to do it is the dumbest way

Are you a troll or an idiot.

>the world-building aspects?

Nope, DnD's world-building is total shit.

>Look mommy, I shitposted again!

Awwww....

>And here is the infinite plate of salt, where the salt-goblins live. THEY MUST BE LEVEL 3 OR THE GAME IS RUINED.

>you're a shitty, uncreative GM if you think demon-powered versions of low level monsters are dumb.

There's more than one person posting, genius.

>i am a troll AND an idiot

Okay.

Literally just Exalted and maybe Anima? I don't know enough about the second one.

I really don't feel like you are fooling anyone.

"Oh this isn't a goblin, it is an ELITE goblin"

Yeah, ok.

Look, I'll agree with a one off. Some one oddity sure.

But if you really want to have players encounter lower level monsters and have them mean something then this doesn't work. It is silly that all of a sudden all of the orcs vanished from the realm as soon as the players made 10th level, only to be replaced by elite orcs.

You can get away with this in a one off. But not as a theme, at least not for me.

Tuckers kobolds? Sure. But not normal kobolds, then they all become Tuckers, then after that they are all elite kobolds. Any justification of that is just trying to justify things that don't make sense.

But I'll agree for a one off.

>you're a shitty, uncreative GM if you think demon-powered versions of low level monsters are dumb.

99% of the DnD universe by volume is dedicated to ranches that breed magic-powered versions of low-level monsters.

But that's retarded and not implied by the concept at all? You're literally creating a stupid situation to complain about, when any half decent GM can see the obvious way around it. What's wrong with you?

>Look how stupid I am

What is wrong with you. It's like you have no imagination whatsoever, and can't even think along the simplest paths of logic.

A human can reach level 10. What is stopping an orc from doing so. Why is the party even concerned with what low level orcs are doing, when they should be fighting orc chieftains.
For literally every single imaginary non-issue you're trying to conjure up, there's a simple solution even a toddler could come up with that appeals to the players' sensibilities, doesn't compromise the setting, and is mechanically appropriate.

You literally need to be the dumbest sack of shit to even continue your line of argument, and you'd need to have never actually played any roleplaying games to actually think the problem you've imagined is anything even close to a real issue for any GM that even has half a brain.

You really aren't considering the fact that, as the power level of the players grow, so will the scope and danger of the challenges they will seek out and be confronted by.

At level 1, the characters could take a job protecting a caravan, and if they did so, they'd be attacked by low level goblins. Makes sense.

At level 10, if they took that same job, they would also be attacked by low level goblins. But why would they take that job? They're veterans of combat and experienced adventurers. They're more likely to attack the goblins in their mountain fastness, where the greatest goblin warriors live and train towards the day when they will march forth and conquer.

Essentially I'm asking you why the characters are in a situation where the power level of their foes isn't completely justified and logical.

>What is stopping an orc from doing so
Monsters can't take levels?

Levels don't exist in-universe.

OK, you have successfully insulted me. I am literally shaking. You win.

Now perhaps you could try and address the points?

I agree you can "Just meddle with the CA, HP and attack/damage bonuses" and call it elite or some other special thing and give a reason - and that is fine for a one off.

Depending on edition, they can.

>Someone asks you a genuine question hoping to understand your position on something they disagree with.
>Jump straight to name-calling and accusations of trolling.

I know this is Veeky Forums, but could you at least attempt civilised conversation?
Oh, who am I kidding, I had managed to convince myself that the 4e shitstorms were just because people were being defensive in the face of hostility, but it was always like this, wasn't it.

>It just seems like kind of a cheap-shot to have your 12th level party fighting dire owlbears or blue mega-orcs

Just seems like a lack of creativity that you can't make this stuff work.

You don't need blue mega-orcs to scale up a threat. Just be more creative with how you introduce opponents.

Untrained wild creatures are easier low level encounters than trained or magically enhanced creatures of the same kind. A young orc in the wild is a whole different encounter than a military trained/horde trained armored badass.
Also positioning can make an encounter different. Orcs on the high ground, raining down missiles onto the party. Or traps/terrain that damages or manipulates the party into a disadvantage.
Or managing party breaks better. Throwing a low level encounter at the party while they try and take a long rest, meaning they haven't recovered and are fighting at 10% HP (and most of their spell slots spend) can be a game changer.
Or disarm/disable their weapons or magic. An anti-magic field/item/plant in the right position could turn a fight entirely on its head as the party loses access to all magic items, and spells (both offensive and healing).

In my campaign I held off plane travel as long as I could for the specific reason of being able to introduce old threats in entirely different ways. Wild magical mutations in the fey wilds. Or elemental enhancements of the fire/water planes

>genuine question

No, no one could actually be this stupid.

See this? It looks like this guy is genuinely an idiot, but all he's doing is ignoring everything the previously guy wrote specifically to just prolong the argument. He already has all the answers, he's just deliberately being obtuse.

That's how you can tell he's a troll. Because, the only other explanation is that he can't read, and that's not possible because he managed to type up a reply, as mangled and idiotic as it is.

The whole point with Tucker's Kobolds isn't that they're scaled up, it's that they're being controlled in a manner and in an environment in which their piddly hp and damage output don't matter because they still kill the hell out of you. You don't necessarily need to scale up the monster itself sometimes, just set them in an environment that severely favors them and complicates things for the party.

Hell, let's take the Owlbear that you posted. To most higher-level parties, they're a pretty negligible threat. But then in a scenario say where the party has been drugged, kidnapped, and left buck naked on a private island at the behest of a deranged ranger with favored enemy human who's wanting to enact The Most Dangerous Game with the heroes of the land, and suddenly an Owlbear is a much bigger problem, nevermind the dens of them he's got all over the island alongside other dangers. Different situations can turn low level monsters into fucking nightmares if done well. After all, trying to fight off an owlbear while a ranger snipes at you from the underbrush with his own level-appropriate gear while you're buck ass naked is going to be a hell of a danger.

Except that you're assuming that they're exactly the same, which is only something shitty GMs do, as was already said. Instead, you're supposed to give them new abilities and appearances, or refluff them entirely so that they're not even the same thing.

Besides, how is it "cheap" to fight giant crabs at level 5, only to find their brood mother much later on while scouring the same coastline? The giant crabs are now minions, while the miasma spewing, half-rotting colossal crab matron is a boss encounter. No, I'm afraid I really don't see the problem with that. If anything, that's explicitly worldbuilding, especially when the reason the crabs were attacking people in the first place and the reason why the crab mother is half-dead already are the exact same, while also being related to the quest the party had undertaken to track and locate a seemingly 'high tech' naval ship that has passed through the bay a few months prior.

>You really aren't considering the fact that,

Of course I am. One I am considering is world building.

What you suggest is fine. But it essentially comes down to 'throw more at them'. Which is OK; I guess. If the situation allows.

Now I'm fine with the players going passing through the 'orc woods' later in level and just walking through the orcs there like nothing - where before they had problems. But it would be nice if there was a system that retained those same orcs as a threat in later levels.

Without falling back on 'just call them elite' or 'just have more of them'.

Something closer to a Conan type game. Where powerful Conan was the only one that defeated the giant snake or other monster, but still had to run from the city guards.

That is not modeled well by most RPG's. And the work arounds are pretty obviously gimmicks.

>Wizard experiments result in mutated owlbears
>literally whatever possible results you think would be fun or powerful against your group

I mean cmon

You're looking for e6. It's a variant of D&D where you don't level up past level 6, but you still gain lateral abilities as you gain experience.

>a scenario say where the party has been drugged, kidnapped, and left buck naked on a private island at the behest of a deranged ranger with favored enemy human who's wanting to enact The Most Dangerous Game with the heroes of the land

Gonna try to get my DM to throw this somewhere in our campaign. Thanks for this.

And all of those sounds like gimmicks. Good gimmicks, but gimmicks just the same.

The orcs aren't really a threat, just the rather contrived scenario that the DM created was.

The only thing contrived here is how much effort you're putting into prolonging this argument.

>Something closer to a Conan type game.

DnD has always, always been shit at Conan. Try the new Conan system I hear it's good.

D&D is great at Conan though. Hell, it was modeled in part after his stories, and it does a better job of reflecting the ridiculous things Conan goes through than it does imitating reality.

>If I railroad you into fighting an Owlbear Naked, they're TOTALLY dangerous
>Where are you all going?

You have never read Conan.

>You're looking for e6. It's a variant of D&D where you don't level up past level 6, but you still gain lateral abilities as you gain experience.

I'll take a look at this. Interesting.

I have the same problem, obviously, as OP did. Except that I'm not looking for a one off way to do it. But a way for those lower level monsters to remain a threat - without changes - throughout the entire characters career.

So here's a distinction: The crab mother and same-giant-crabs-as-minions is fine in my opinion. You've got the same creatures filling a different role, and then the crab mother as a singular example that previously existed but now the PCs are ready for it.

On the other hand, I would object to fighting 5 giant crabs at level 1 and then 5 crab mothers at level 10. In that example the roles are similar and it's more of a treadmill.

This is the problem I have as well.

As long as you have a sliver of intelligence, you can train, duh. How did previous edition even justify the fact that somehow hobgoblins could create armies and citadels but they couldn't just sit down and take levels in wizard by studying a dumb book or in fighter by actually learning how to brandish a weapon.

I actually just finished listening to A WItch Shall be Born the other night, and have read almost all of Howard's stories. I haven't really bothered with other authors though.

I won't say that D&D is better than Conan than the actual Conan system, but it does a great job at it and I'm actually struggling to see how a person could have difficulty with it. I definitely think this is one of those "Have you considered the problem is with you?" moments.

And none of that is implied in the idea of scaling monsters. That's just shitty and uncreative encounter design.

Editions*

D&D does Conan OK, until higher levels. It especially did Conan well when gold = xp. Back then I used the rule that if you wanted the xp you had to give up the gold 'somehow'.

Which meant that Conan (PC) had a pretty good reason to bring back a sack of gold and yet be adventurer poor come the next few days - mechanically he gave up the gold for xp, narrative he drank and gambled it away.

But higher levels break down. While Conan would tear through other human opponents, for example, they were never not a threat. And if outnumbered he ran, and ran rather often.

A higher level character does not have that issue. Not unless you pull the 'oops, the sergeant of the guard in this town just happens to be a retired level 20 Paladin, hohoho guess you are in for it'.

>without changes

You're fucked then. Even E6 lets you smash infinity goblins.

Pretty much every suggestion implies exactly that - with a tissue of an excuse. One that hopes that the players don't really ask 'why did we not see this thing earlier'.

It can work if the players do not care. But unless you got stupid players they are going to wonder why the werewolves just three in game months ago were alone and now they have a pack of dire wolves with them whenever they show up.

Again, you just keep imagining retarded any half decent GM can effortlessly avoid. What's wrong with you?

OP said:
>they're low-level threats and most of them don't work well in mobs to justify introducing them later on as part of larger groups
And a bunch of people said 'just scale them up'. Which implies using a single, say, owlbear and giving it better stats.

>I mean, I think every version of D&D has rules for scaling up monsters to be higher level threats?
5e doesn't. lol.

I'll still take a look.

Every way I have thought to do it is way too complicated. I suppose it really doesn't matter. Players don't usually pick up on campaign inconsistencies or seem to care that much anyhow. But it would be nice if there was a decent system that would model it.

Have not seen one suggestion yet, outside of the crab one, that wasn't a gimmick. Fine for one off encounters, sure. But not for keeping lower level monsters relevant through a characters career.

It isn't an issue really for most situations. I'll grant. But it is for those monsters that a character might encounter in a routine way.

You're looking at the game as this inflexible monolith, and that there's a hypothetical default you need to adhere to, rather than a tool set that you can adjust to suit your needs and desires.

You're right. Higher levels requires more changes, and certain things stray further from what you might expect from the Conan stories. But, these are all easily remedied by recognizing that Conan gained experience much, much slower than typical adventurers, at a rate of a few levels over decades. Just adjusting the rate of experience gained is enough to make an entire campaign fit neatly within the span of a few levels, if it isn't already planned for those few levels or uses a level-cap variant like e6.

>just the rather contrived scenario that the DM created was.
>contrived

I would argue the exact opposite.
It would be contrived that every single creature is the exact same and poses the same threat.
Humans can range from toddlers to UFC fighters. Animals can be trained and armored, or even just come in different shapes and sizes (a pack leaders vs some stray). And not every encounter should be in a clearly outlined 50x50 square.
There are rules for cover, there are rules for traps and lair actions and terrain, etc. There are even suggestions on how to customize monsters and encounters from the monster manual. If you're not using these things, you're just a lazy DM.

>Besides, how is it "cheap" to fight giant crabs at level 5, only to find their brood mother much later on while scouring the same coastline?
If they just happen to encounter the high-level versions only when they are high level adventurers, even though the exact same kinds of environments only contained low level monsters when they were low level, then this will feel like a TES game with auto-leveled mobs. But if you're running the kind of campaign where players can encounter all sorts of threats appropriate to the environment and not PC level, then this can work. The players will just have to be careful and run from things they can't beat yet.

Hackmaster is good at this. Die penetration (a variant of exploding dice) for damage rolls ensures that every attack is potentially lethal. The game is also very punishing when facing multiple foes, and the HP progression is more bounded. There is also a chance of being taken out of combat by non-lethal but high amounts of damage that pass a certain threshhold, which means death seconds later in many situations.

>environments
Do you even know how tabletop RPGs work.
Have you ever played one before.
I don't think so, because it sounds like you think players keep backtracking over the same 500 yard stretch of beach over and over again like its a video game.

I do rather slower progression. Milestone really (at least this campaign). But you can't really slow it down too much, players want to progress. Which is natural.

Even freezing them hypothetically at sixth level (about what I think the sweet spot is) isn't really an answer. I WANT them to take on those bigger monsters.

But I also want them to still find the orcs band to be a challenge without making them all elites 'because' or just so having them ambush the players in the right location or just so happening to attack while they are resting etc etc.

This campaign won't really be a problem. I'm more thinking about two or so campaigns down the line. One that will be human and city focused - so town guards need to be relevant as threats throughout. And I'd rather not have it be 'now when you run in to a couple of guards one happens to be a retired adventurer'. None of that stuff happened when the players were levels 1-3 and encountered those guys. Now the same city suddenly has a bunch of level ten (or whatever) guards and some mages on call.

hes right tho

>literally can't stop

Someone call the WAAAHmbulance, this case of butthurt shitposting sounds serious.

If you're an idiot, maybe.

A decent GM would use the statblock, bump up the numbers and then find a cool, fitting way of justifying it that makes sense in the setting.

It sounds like you want e6.

"Kinds of environments" was clearly in reference to the "same coastline" in the post I replied to. It's in the bit I quoted. I was even being charitable to the poster in allowing for different but similar coastlines, but as explained the same problem still rears its head. Please work on your reading comprehension or stop posting.

>Fine for one off encounters

Wait wait I think I found the core problem here: All encounters are inherently one-off encounters. You campaign against the goblins for a couple levels, and then you're done with goblins. If goblins reappear later as some sort of callback arc, it's the goblin king, and the grunt-level goblins with the slings stay the same strength as they were at level 2 in order to show off how much better you are than when you first fought goblins.

It's not 1982 anymore, we have computers. You are not a procedural generation engine. How to rationalize the increased danger of the wandering werewolves attacking the camp at night at level 12 vs. level 2 is not a real problem, except in that you invented it for yourself by A. running random encounters B. cheapening werewolves into random encounters instead of fearsome mysteries and C. leaving the party in the same neighborhood for 10 goddamn levels.

Stop fundamentally fucking up on multiple levels and this isn't a problem.

>Travelling in the same region more than once is like a video game
>Moving to a different zone every level is not like a video game

>But I also want them to still find the orcs band to be a challenge

Yeah, a band of mundane orcs is not a challenge to someone who can solo a dragon, nor should it be. It is the core conceit of the game that leveling up gives you (more) superpowers until you leave your humble beginnings in the dust.

Have you ever heard of random encounter tables for different environments? If you tailor those tables to the level of the PCs you literally have level-scaled enemies like in Skyrim.

I read it, and you make it sound like you are concerned with everything that the players don't encounter when you should be focused on what they do.

Of course there's giant killer crabs that could kill the PCs in a single hit. But, that doesn't mean the players are going to encounter them.

It's as much as story as it is a game, which is something I don't think you really understand just yet.

>I would argue the exact opposite.

I don't think so. I suspect we are closer than you think.

>It would be contrived that every single creature is the exact same and poses the same threat.

And they shouldn't. In my opinion the world should be laid out and more or less static - changing as the players impact things and as the 'plot' happens. So it is perfectly reasonable in my opinion to have some monsters wandering around that are too powerful for the characters.

What I disagree with is if the players pass through the swamp at level one and they encounter two to three lizardmen (for example) or something of that level. Four levels later when they pass through the swamp they only encounter elite lizardmen. And so on. At some point someone is going to start asking questions.

I'm fine with those characters in that swamp encountering a black dragon (and then having to run/hide). I'd just like a system where when they later encounter those lizardmen and the characters are higher level that they can just ignore the lizardmen - I'd like them to still be a fight (if even if easier), but a fight that at least should be paid attention to.

>Four levels later when they pass through the swamp they only encounter elite lizardmen.

Presumably because the baby lizardmen learned to stay the fuck away after they went through the swamp the first time.

...and? Are you implying that's a bad thing?
If you think it is, don't do it, but it actually sounds sensible, since you want the players to have fun and encounter things within the range of "Easy fight" and "we need to run" and not "A waste of time" and "instant death we can't escape."

Fantasy Crafy has scaling npcs, your party can fight a dragon at level 1 or goblins a level 20, no problem

Let me guess, you're playing 4E where every encounter needs to be a level-scaled fight or skill challenge. There's a reason this type of game failed. TTRPG players don't want to feel like they're playing a video game.

>Let me guess,

Why is this always the start of some piss-poor strawman argument?
You guessed wrong. Sorry you wasted your rant.

Why are your PCs running around in an area where they run a significant risk of encountering inescapable insta-death threats in the first place? Why aren't those creatures leveling all the towns in the area? Proper world building means that weak human settlements aren't located in areas where Dragons are roaming around, unless the Dragons are sleeping in deep caves or are supplicated by regular offerings by the townsfolk or something.

You are a human not a computer. If you do not pretend to be a computer you don't have to worry about resembling a shittily-programmed computer.

I think with the structure of D&D, it's more catered towards a power-fantasy gameplay style than you're looking for.

Since it's fantasy and youre able to encounter these magical and fantastical things, you end up encountering many magical and fantastical things. And it piles up, they become boring mechanically, or you end up steamrolling.

So at lower levels, dangers are more down to earth encounters. Your effectiveness ramps up exponentially as you level up, and things need to become more "extreme" as you encounter them to keep them the same amount of interesting.

If youre looking for a more deadly game, and want to use D&D, talk to your players so they know what kind of game you want to run, and make sure theyre cool with it.

Then say "fuck it" about the XP. Level up based on story progression, do it slowly, and build those encounters around being dangerous. So in a months time, maybe they havent leveled up. There's other ways of showing progression than through XP or amassing a bunch of gold.

Or dont use D&D, find something Low-fantasy where the fantastical elements really are big "Woah what the fuck" things.

>TTRPG players don't want to feel like they're playing a video game

I would suggest that a good number of the responses here imply exactly that.

Which other edition has leveled encounter tables? I can open any MM and find random encounter tables for environments which produce anything from high to low level threats. Are you going to insult everybody's intelligence when you're this easy to see through? Hell from the first post where you talked about the 'minions' of the mother crab your edition of D&D was obvious. It's also obvious that be that as it may, you're failing to adress the argument. Leveled random encounter tables = video game world.

Event based progression is best progression.

I don't actually think you know anything about TTRPGs if you think the players have magical knowledge of what the parameters behind their potential encounters are.

All they know is the fluff you tell them. They're not going to be able to look up your encounter tables and determine that they have a certain percentile chance of meeting a creature outside of their power scale. Hell, you might not even ever use an encounter table, because those are for the most part a rather outdated concept from primitive simulationist minds.

Regardless of the insults thrown around, I don't think anyone really disagrees with what you said. It is more a debate about how to make the lower stuff still matter later on and not be steamrolled and how that might best work.