The real question, is why those beings in that virtual worlds create weapons that don''t kill...

When a weapon isn''t working as good as expected it''s replaced, it''s that simple.
No matter your ''level'', a longsword will hurt you as much as anyone else. The only difference SHOULD be that you have the skill to block or dodge it, such avoiding being hit, but you CERTAINLY don''t become sword resistant..

Ahh... how rules can be dumb sometimes... It''s forgivable for a very old game, a dinosaur like DnD, but for modern computer games...

-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

A while back, there was a game called Bushido Blade was supposed to be modeled after actual combat. One hit could kill a character easily. If you hit with your weapon and didn''t get a kill, you probably injured them pretty good and getting the kill would be pretty easy.

I played that game and I thought it sucked BIG TIME.

If I wanted reality, I''d go take a martial arts class (where they DO have levels, they are called belts ). What most players want is to be big and bad-ass. Being a bad-ass is fun, exciting and "an escape". That''s what entertainment is all about.

I agree that DnD or EQ or whatever isn''t realistic, but who cares? In reality, murdering someone has severe consequences, so it is a rare thing (compared to virtual ''murder''). You can sleep pretty well at night knowing that you are safe from crazy murderers, just because of the ratio of murderers to normals people.

In a game, the consequences are almost totally removed for murder, so you have to find another way to ensure the safety of your players. The fix that seems to work the best is to give higher-level players ''immunity'' to attack from lower-levels in the form of insane HP and dodge rates.

There may be other ways to ensure relative player safety, but nothing so far has worked as well (for NPC attacks as well as PC attacks) as the level-up fix.

Maybe you could have the penalty for murdering (and being caught) be character deletion? There''s a thought...regular death is only punished slightly, but a murderer who is caught is deleted from the server. Hmmm....

Old game called Meridian 59 (the original 3D MMORPG) allowed for such combat. There were no levels, you knew you "leveled" by getting an extra hit point after killing so many monsters. The rest of your skills (magic, weapons, dodging, etc) was based of skill points that got better through use. In the end, someone could master 1 attack spell in a day, and have a chance to take out a very matured player that would have several more hp''s, mastery in many different magics, and even mastery in weapons and evasive combat. If you caught them off guard, you could take them down rather quickly too, which is very similar to AD&D. If a 20th level Wizard left no protection spells up and went to sleep with plain old robes on, a level 1 peon could slit his throat and kill him at any moment. Meridian 59 was actually quite successful as far as PvP went, unfortunately the company incharge of the game, 3DO, didn''t know how to deal with griefers, and eventually the game went downhill (although it''s back in action now).

This kind of PvP is possible, but most companies aren''t willing to invest into the research to make it viable since they''re after money, and the only people interested in this sort of gaming would be hardcore PvP''ers (ie. the minority of the online gaming community).

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Original post by Rick Scott
I agree that DnD or EQ or whatever isn''t realistic, but who cares? In reality, murdering someone has severe consequences, so it is a rare thing (compared to virtual ''murder''). You can sleep pretty well at night knowing that you are safe from crazy murderers, just because of the ratio of murderers to normals people.

In a game, the consequences are almost totally removed for murder, so you have to find another way to ensure the safety of your players. The fix that seems to work the best is to give higher-level players ''immunity'' to attack from lower-levels in the form of insane HP and dodge rates.
...
Maybe you could have the penalty for murdering (and being caught) be character deletion? There''s a thought...regular death is only punished slightly, but a murderer who is caught is deleted from the server. Hmmm....

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So you NEED to level to be ''safe'' ?
First, you''re not safe, cause other char are high level too.
Second, you mentionned 2 games, both are RPG... So what about those (like me) who don''t care about leveling but role playing ?

Does that mean my char should be easier to kill because I play the game as it''s meant to be played ?
No way.

Even the PK problem is solved with this. Since they''ll not be able to be all powerfull and somwhat immune to lower levels, they will think twice before trying to kill someone. Add to this some guards and a PC militia to frighten PKs away.


-* So many things to do, so little time to spend. *-

First of all: the 4-levels-difference-at-high-level-and-he-still-kills-me.

It was mentioned that a learning curve is exponential, thus one should gain less at higher levels. However, this is not true. Levelling from level 39 to level 40, might mean getting 10,000 XP, and that might mean killing one dragon. Going from 40 to 41 most likely will cost a lot more, 15,000 or 20,000. So the step from 40 to 41 is a lot harder then from 39 to 40. Voila, here is your learning curve The curve is the XP list, the level list is the XP curve on logaritmic paper :D

Second of all: a first level character CAN kill a 20''th level character in DnD, just not with direct damage :D Even though... Chopping of a head is considered instagib. If you sneak up to a sleeping wizard, and chop off his head, he is quite dead. Okay, you can''t do this in combat. Why not? The wizard is quite able to dodge the sword. The fact that a first level character is killed by one hit, and a wizard isn''t even dented, is because the wizard (allthough he HAS been hit), still partially dodges the blow. Instead of chopping his head off with your throw of 19 and damage of 10, the wizard ducks away and you merely scratch his arm.

Levels are bad. I vote giving, say, X skill points per kill (and it can be a decimal). When you have enough, you can buy a skill.

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Original post by PouyaCat
Second of all: a first level character CAN kill a 20''th level character in DnD, just not with direct damage :D Even though... Chopping of a head is considered instagib. If you sneak up to a sleeping wizard, and chop off his head, he is quite dead. Okay, you can''t do this in combat. Why not? The wizard is quite able to dodge the sword. The fact that a first level character is killed by one hit, and a wizard isn''t even dented, is because the wizard (allthough he HAS been hit), still partially dodges the blow. Instead of chopping his head off with your throw of 19 and damage of 10, the wizard ducks away and you merely scratch his arm.

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This argument is a little weak. As characters level, and as their dexterity increases, they can get armor class bonuses. That''s supposed to represent their ability to dodge better. Picture this: you tie up a level-1 warrior and a level-20 warrior, strip them down to their skivvies, and throw equal amounts of burning oil on them. (This is purely in the interest of scientific inquiry.) The level-1 warrior is a smoking crater; the level-20 warrior is calmly whistling. How exactly is this possible?

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How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

Bad DM

If I was leading the game, the fighter would be scarred for live, and get a tremendous penalty on his fortitude saves. He does survive though; he isn''t KILLED by it, but he won''t be happily whistling either.

well, as many as said, if the point if being "safe" do it trough dodging instead than not being hurt sooo much, then add critical hits on the mix (and in rare cases a lvl 1 will actually hit and kill that high level guy), aditionally add the "depending on the where the attack is coming" modifier and a low level guy sneaking a high level guy or getting behind him really fast have more chances, ... now if it is multiplayer punish them hard! (I like the example up there of deletion when getting caught after a major offense, I would define the major offense differently tough), ...

Most RPG''s are unrealistic to the extreme. When D&D first came out, it too had the same criticism leveled at it....why should a level 10 fighter with say 50 hit points not get killed as easily with a stab to the gut as a first level character? The GM''s rulebook slightly got around this by saying that Hit Points weren''t just a measure of a character''s stamina and health, but also a measure of experience and luck.

But I had problems with this. First off, how come fighters got to roll 1d10 for each level to increase hit points, but mages only 1d4? Afterall, luck is luck and experience is experience. While perhaps a fighter might gain better experience with rolling with punches and dodging, a mage might for example be better at poisons or magical damage due to his alchemical and wizardry knowledge. So I found that excuse lame at best.

Some games instead had a seperate "luck" pool, which you could use to change certain events to your character''s favor. I much more preferred this method because it added a certain strategic element to the game (do I use my luck now? or wait a bit?). I even GM''ed some games in which only the GM could use the luck pool at his discretion, so the character wouldn''t know when he''d "run out of luck" or instead, have a variable luck pool in which only the GM knew how many luck points the character really had.

The same went for hit points. I GM''ed most of my games towards the end with "blind" stats. Meaning that character''s had an adjective to describe their stats...like "good, "very good", "excellent", "poor", "pathetic" etc. This way, a character can''t say "well, I have a 16 intelligence, therefore I can make a deduction roll on a 13 or less! Or, "phah, that guy only has a dagger, at best he can do 6pts + a max of +6 from strength bonus for 12....I can take 5 hits without sweating". If a character''s hitpoints r life level was unknown to a precise degree, it introduced a totally differnt kind of gameplay.

I even dislike the entire concept of hit points. Let''s say you have 100 hit points, and have just been in a nasty battle and are down to 1 hit point. So your dex is bad, and you stumble a bit and stub your toe taking 1 pt of damage...so now you''re dead? A much better system is a system which takes the human ability to take damage based on the type of damage and severity of the wound. Hands down the best damage system I''ve seen for a roleplaying game (and I''ve literally played probably 50+ systems between the years of 1982-2000) comes from the Blackburg Tactical Research Center called Timelords. They make a new edition using newer rules I haven''t played yet, but if you can find the first edition, I highly highly recommend it for damage capabilities alone. They also put out an excellent gun creation supplement called 3G. These rules were partly designed by Greg Porter, who while not as famous as Gary Gygax, is still one of the old hands of the RPG world, and was influential in both the Champions system (formerly from Hero games) and in several of Steve Jackson''s games.

So experience should relate mostly to ones skills and perhaps attributes, but not ones ability to take damage per se. You can factor in luck as a seperate quantity to help simulate the more experienced character pulling off more extraordinary things. But I agree, a 20th level character should die just as easily if I sneak up on him with a cloak of invisibility and a ring of silence, and stab him in the back with a dagger as much as a first level character.