Troll Lord Games

Had a discussion with someone about Castles and Crusades. The person comes from the early 80's E. Otus basic and experts, as well as 1E AD&D. Also played 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4E. Either way, he owns the C&C corebooks. His biggest problem the game is the Siege Engine. His opinion as follows....
My problem with the Siege Engine is the way it's designed so you never actually get any better at your abilities. In fact, considering that you increase in levels, you will continually face creatures and challenges more powerful than yourself(so as to challenge your whole party)the odds of you actually succeeding at your chosen abilities becomes even less likely. It's the only game where going up makes you suck more. More to come in a sec....

The basic premise is flawed.

Sure, as you advance, you face some more powerful challenges, as you're supposed to, but the majority of the world remains flat. That lock you found at level 1 that you couldn't open, its difficulty is still 3. The monster with 5 HD that almost killed you still has 5 HD. You may encounter more of them, and there may be some tougher creatures.... but that's how it goes.

This argument is stupid.

Pt. 2...disclaimer...This is no flame war, and I myself am a huge fan of the game. Just wanted to hear from the C&C gurus. Back to my acquaintance's comments....

And if you're trying something where you can't add your class level to your roll, you might as well not even bother. I got the feeling either nobody actually plays the game as written, or they play at low levels where difficulty ratings(the number added to the 12 or 18 roll to get the total target number)are relatively low. By the game's own examplesm something of moderate difficulty is an 8. that means someone with the correct prime stat, at 8th level will still fail 50% of the time. If it's a non-prime stat... TO BE CONTINUED...

Here's pretty much the final part of my friend's observances....

Heck, look at the challenge rating for intelligent weapons. The weakest kind of intelligent weapon, the barely empathic kind, has a challenge rating of 17. *he goes on to say* I'm curious how others run it. I have a feeling most people don't use the challenge rating(or whatever they're called)at all except in exceptional cases.
Tylermo here again. Just trying to get some input. My friend isn't the edition war trouble maker type. Just an old fantasy gamer since the early 80's. Thanks for your input. I'll share it with him

I haved played C&C at most levels (mostly levels 1-8, and then 20+).

The saving throws you make are generally against the HD (or level) of the opponent. If you are always going up against opponents that are the exact same level as you, the chances are that the challange will be the same across the board. Nobody I know plays C&C (or D&D) that way. In this argument, there is ano accounting for attribute bonus. Most enemies do not have an attribute bonus, and even if they do, the saving throws against their effects are always based on HD or level, not attribute. PCs get to add those attribute bonuses in to the roll.

In every situation that involves a saving throw, the PC gets to add his level to the roll. In fact, in almost every situation in the C&C game a character gets to add his level to the roll to see if he succeeds. When in doubt, always add your level. The ONLY exception is when the PC makes a check against some ability that is part of another class.

This is the foundation of the C&C game, and is slightly different in thinking when comparing C&C to other versions of D&D. I think these foundations need to be fully understood by people who make the argument such as your friend does Tylermo.

Are these checks harder then in other versions of D&D? I think so, generally speaking. The Siege Engine enforces these archtype characters/abilities by design. And also by design, no wizard, cleric, illusionist, etc. is ever a push over. Spells and magic are things to be feared or respected, even at higer levels. Other versions of D&D make these things less and less relevant as levels increase in my opinion.

~O

I think parts of his argument is flawed and the other part is perhaps, well he has just not played the game. There is always a big difference between theory and application. The hardliner By the Book DM is generally a rare beast, yes you must be flexible like the bamboo grasshopper. We all know this so when the rules arguments start my eyes glaze over. My advice is run it and do what you know and feel is right. Rigid thinking will kill your game.

-Mike

I don't understand how you can add your level but not be improving?

The other side of the coin is that in other editions / games, as you level up you also fight tougher monsters so it's half of one and 6 dozen of the other anyway.
what i mean is it's the same as any other game.

This argument has come up many times on these forums in the old days, and even by a few people I know. It seems that most of these criticisms come from people who have not played the game. They look at the mechanic, formulate a quick theory or opinion (based on how other D&D games play), and then dismiss the Siege Engine for the above mentioned reason.

Well that's fine and good, but until you actually play the game and see how it works, the argument has little merit. The Siege Engine has always suffered from this, and has been hard to convince people who haven't played/CK'd.

~O

I know he has played in at least one session, and has owned the books for a couple of years(?). He was enamored of Peter Bradley's artwork, and actually bought them from the man himself.

So the arguments seem to be:



1) "SIEGE is designed so you never actually get any better at your abilities"


This is an odd idea. Don't all games scale their challenges (and rewards)? As mentioned above, the mundane world stays the same, so if you want to return to your childhood village and rob the mean old blacksmith and you are now a 10th level rogue, you should have little difficulty.

This argument seems rather akin to saying: when I started playing piano I found "chopsticks" to be very difficult, and now after playing for 3 years, I find Beethoven really difficult, so I did not get any better!

A good way to think about SIEGE is to compare it to what it is not. It's not 1st ed. with the DM making an on the spot guess as to the probabilities, and it's not 3rd ed. where the minutiae of builds produces a certain answer to every probability (after 25 minutes of looking through 14 splat books)

Instead, SIEGE says (very roughly): your chances are either excellent, fifty-fifty(50%), dicey (20%), or slim. Then it generally ignores the first and last one. Class, race and relative level will move you around a bit on that chart, but those are the rough categories.

So no finely honed gradations of builds, and no "DM-may-I?" of 1st ed.. Instead you get a rough and ready 50% chance, or 20% chance. Your job (especially if you are a spellcaster) is to make sure you roll mostly the former and your opponents roll mostly the latter

The beauty of SIEGE is its simplicity. Players can play entire sessions without opening a single book!





2) "If you're trying something where you can't add your class level to your roll, you might as well not even bother"

This is somewhat true (but intentional) and somewhat false. It is true that those outside of the class often fail when they try cross class challenges but this is the point of the archetype system.

Almost all rolls you make are general skills, your own class skills, or saving throws, to which level is always added. In fact C&C is a bit too generous in this regard, in that a 9th level ranger is much better at swimming, horseback riding, and juggling, etc. than he was at 1st level even though he may never have done some of these activities during any of his nine levels.

Oddly enough SIEGE has a bit of a problem in the other direction. Because of the power of primes at low levels, low level rogues (for example) making a non prime class skill roll often find their special class abilities overshadowed by amateurs with an "18" stat and a prime in the required stat. The most annoying example being the supposedly ascetic novice cleric who gets a +9 to search checks (+6 prime, +3 stat, +0 level) while the trained rogue is getting perhaps +1 (+0 non prime, +0 mediocre stat, +1 level). It can lead to a shortened life span for your average smug cleric, I can tell you! This is why some attempts at using other classes skills are not allowed.



3) "It's too difficult to succeed at medium TNs"

As I have noted elsewhere, the challenges are misnamed in the book, giving a mistakenly easy name to relatively difficult challenges. As I wrote elsewhere on these boards:

Aramis wrote:As noted by others, for most challenges you use the HD of the opponent. As a corollary, the adventure itself will be set at a certain "level", tied into the level of the PCs. Thus, challenges of a standard difficulty (e.g what kind of trap on the door?) should be around the level of the PCs. A more difficult one would be higher, and so on. In other words, locked chests (etc.) are more difficult in a 10th level dungeon than a dungeon aimed at 1st level characters. This can be rationalised by the better quality goods hidden within, etc.

However, a problem arises with more generic challenges. Is a slippery tree a 10th level challenge in a 10th level dungeon, but only a 2nd level challenge in a lesser dungeon? Why would a chasm jump have a +10 difficulty just because it is in a 10th level dungeon?

For these more generic challenges, I prefer to use a scale like:

CL 1-5 Standard

CL 6-10 Expert

CL 11-15 Olympian

CL 16-20 Superhuman

These classification titles allow me to think about the kind of person required to beat the challenge. An Olympian challenge could only be completed by that rare super athletic person (or brilliant person, for non athletic challenges). A superhuman one could not be completed by any normal man, and should only be attempted by your Conans and Gandalfs

This also somewhat answers the question about how some things scale (better locks on more valuable treasures), and some things don't scale (a slippery tree is still a slippery tree, whether you are 1st or 15th level, so it should get much easier)



As far as intelligent weapons goes, in my 5 years of playing C&C, reaching "teen" levels on occasion, no player has ever found an intelligent weapon! So the game might be a bit different than what you are looking for. Or perhaps my DMs have rightly feared that any intelligent weapon would soon prove itself more intelligent than most of the PCs in the party, and we would be reduced to a henchman role to various Stormbringers and the like

Yes, some challenges are always going to be at or around your level. Saves against even level foes, for one. Or an opposed skill check against similarly leveled foes. Things should be a challenge between even-leveled foes, should they not? Making a save against a charm person spell by a 2nd-level wizard should be easier than that of a 9th-level wizard casting the same spell. the one thing that bothered me a little about 3.x was lower level spells became, eventually, a trivial matter. In C&C, they remain a challenge.

Speaking of challenge, I think that's what the Trolls have said on previous occasions. Looking back at older saves (I keep using saves as an example, because it's such a good one), they got really easy at the higher levels (looking back to 1e and 2e). They wanted to make the system so that the characters still had things to fear. Which makes sense to me, personally - the PCs are good at lots of stuff, but there's still some things to be afraid of.

About not adding level to checks make the checks worthless? If I have a fighter, with dex prime, I'll still have a hard time picking that lock, even at higher levels. CB 12, and I'll even give a +1 for my dex. Add in a CL of 4 for the lock, and you have a small chance to open it (even though as CK, I'd rule that without tools, it'd be impossible ). But actually, that's not impossible. And the nice this about this system - and this example - is that levels don't magically give those without the class skill proficiency in that skill. Change my example to a non-prime and it's a TN of 24, with a +1 to your roll. A non-dextrous lug of a fighter shouldn't have a prayer to open that lock (even though I'd let it happen on a natural 20 ).

But yeah, that kind of makes sense what he's saying, to be honest -
"If you're trying something where you can't add your class level to your roll, you might as well not even bother" and I agree 100%, actually. I don't try to paint a masterpiece or solve 5th order partial differential equations - I don't have the skill. But I might try to play a guitar or cook lobster thermidor.

It's not personal, tyler, but I think the issue is more the friend's problem than problems with the system.

Logic dictates that, in a nutshell, as the PC's increase in power (gain levels), the range & variety of options presented by the siege engine format actually increases. It does not remain static as the OP's friend suggests.

As you level you still face those low level challenges (a CL2 jump is still a CL2 jump. A 2hd beasty is still 2HD) but now the range varies from many beasties below your level; to roughly even challenges; to the odd far greater challenge.

This last one is important, mid/high level pc's have more resources at their disposal so you can actually challenge them with the odd beasty which is singly far more powerful (many HD) than they, which you can't do so readily with low level pc's.

I'm going to point some people to this very thread, as I've heard similar opinions from people about how they don't like the Siege Engine because of "(insert argument here)", and I've lacked the ability to clearly and concisely say "No, see, that's BS, and this is why."

A lot of what I'd heard was how the Siege Engine would either break down or become flatly unplayable at higher levels (ostensibly because level is added to every roll, and therefore on a prime it becomes +6 prime,+2 attribute, and say +8 level, or about 80% success rate). When I responded that there are challenge numbers added in to balance it, based on the difficulty of the adversary, adventure level or individual challenge itself, I was told that was just an arbitrary number thrown in to keep the game playable.

At that point, I just shrugged... I know that some people simply want to have an issue with the Siege Engine; maybe it's because it is so simple and elegant that people can't believe you don't need more. Whatever the reason, it has nothing to do with whether or not the system actually works: I've seen high-level games that work just fine, I've seen low-level games that work just fine. In fact, the only times in our game it hasn't worked was because I made an error in judgment as a CK-- I didn't have the players add level when they should have, or I allowed them to add level when it was not their class skill (I've done that on occasion for our elf druid, when trying to follow tracks, for instance).

I know people who have sat there and tried to show me the math for why it "won't work", too. And I find it funny, because experience with the system has completely shown me otherwise.

ArgoForg wrote: ...When I responded that there are challenge numbers added in to balance it, based on the difficulty of the adversary, adventure level or individual challenge itself, I was told that was just an arbitrary number thrown in to keep the game playable. ....

You make a good point. The challenge level isn't arbitrary, it's something that was easy or hard all along, and the higher level characters finally have a chance to succeed. it's like a little league batter can't hit off Mariano Rivera, but Don Mattingly could. (Little leager is Level 1, Don Mattingly is level 15, say).

It would be a good example to play a campaign where the PCs return to a challenge several times throughout their career. I mean, you could attack 1st level characters with a beholder, but they'd cry that it was too hard. (so run away, dumb ass).

So my point is I agree, it's not arbitrary. I'm glad someone else uses the word "elegant" to describe the Siege engine. My first few readings of the rules, I too was like, ... where's the rest? but if you empty your cup and honestly give it a shot, it "clicks" at some point.

tylermo wrote: I have a feeling most people don't use the challenge rating(or whatever they're called)at all except in exceptional cases.

This is more or less how it should be done. Rolls really aren't needed save in the case of the exceptional (pass or fail). Yes, over all, the challenge may equate to party level, but that's not the whole story. It should be noted that just because the over all adventure rates a challenge equal to the party, it doesn't mean that individual encounters have too. Some may be easier, some much harder. And its in the latter case that the equity disappears. You may have some super easy challenges to begin with, but the final encounter may be beyond the power level of the party. In the end, all the challenges of the adventure should average to the level of the party though.