The Worst Statblock in D&D
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2024
- There's a problem with commoners. They have stats. This has huge metagame implications, slows the game down unnecessarily, and breaks immersion. Let's fix that.
#dnd5e #dnd #gamedesign #hitpoint
"If it -bleeds- has stats, we can kill it"
~ -Predator- Murder Hobos
The funniest part is that the Guard statblock has 11 HP. Realistically the average guard is a random commoner with a spear.
Not random. The average person who'd become a guard is often a fit and athletic man in his prime. Then, who gets some degree of combat training.
A commoner is potentially anyone of any age/physical condition and with zero combat training.
You say that, yet a group of 5 guards beat 2 vampire spawn with no deaths, yet my players nearly TPK'd on one xD
Gaurd is a level 2 charecter with some better ability scores
@@misterdad490 No just no.
@absolutleynotanalien8096 is literally the 5e guard stat block
5:29 the issue is, some effects do treat HP as "meat points" (see: poison, on hit effects).
They explicitly say "you got hit, stuff happened because of that".
Sure, the luck/badassery/plot-armour/stamina angle is implied but the abstraction falls apart on its own.
As for the dagger/club/frying pan/fall being deadly...
Getting a metal spike all the way through someone can be deadly. Same as a hit with something heavy, or a bad fall.
DnD in general (and 5e in particular) lacks the granularity.
Moreover, DnD is also, in no small part about superhumans. There's really only so much you can argue against this, and the game doesn't like it in a lot of ways (Most of the stuff around strength scores, for example), but high level characters can jump off of cliffs and be absolutely fine. Fall damage is capped at 20d6, which is around 70 damage. This is more than enough to kill a commoner, and most every mundane creature in the game quite easily. You know who won't be practically hurt by it? A level 20 barbarian, who with 24 con, has 269 (nice) hit points, who's only inconvenience is having to spend half their move speed getting up, nary a broken limb. Hell, a level 20 (or a few levels less) geriatric Wizard will probably be fine since if they sport a positive con score and had 6 hours of sleep last night. Moreover, this barbarian can comfortably have a bath in literal lava for 12 seconds - 30 seconds if they happen to be a Tiefling or the right kind of Dragonborn. The DMG notes that being submerged in lava is 18d10 damage, for reference. And of course, this Barbarian can go up against an Angel or a prince of the Abyss and have significantly non-zero chances of winning with backup. These guys are highly trained soldiers or peak athletes.
But we're supposed to believe that, outside the abstractions of the game, any commoner with a knife could stab them in the jugular and they'd die instantly?
The main problem is D&D plays fast and lose on the difference between "wounded" and "bruised". It's not unreasonable a dagger, can take out someone in single hit. But the house cat doing it is.
"Oh dear. It seems that I've gotten a fourth paper cut today. Guess I'll just die now."
I used to have a few low level fighter char sheets around (change weapons to appropriate stuff like dagger/knife or blacksmiths hammer etc, and they aren't trained so never really used fighter skills)
but honestly, after a while of having slightly murderhobo-y players that start combat with random townsfolk (they were new to DnD). it was too much work to get a sheet, do some quick mental gymnastics to quickly figure out appropriate weapons etc.
I decided to basically handwave most of it. I'd nudge their rolls to something that felt like it made sense, and they never had HP, they just took as many hits and as much damage as I felt would make sense for them.
obvi, the towsfolk talked, trade caravans spread the word and the PC's soon learned that there's a lot of reason NOT to kill random townsfolk. the townsfolk might not kill them, but the pcs also won't be sleeping in the good rooms in any inns (rather the rat infested cellars), will be paying double at every trader, and if they got their beers they were always lukewarm ...that is if they got any service at all xP
Commoners are just Pokémon who merely need to be popped onto the counter of the local free medical center after getting knocked unconscious.
One of my homebrew is that instead of a 1st HD, all creatures start with HP= Constitution Score. Then extra HD increases it normally from there.
It doesn't change most creature's total by a huge amount. But it does tend to set a floor of approx 10ish HP to be expected for just about anything.
Anything that would have less should probably also have a lower Con, anyway.
Fun fact, I love to give an extra 10 HP at level 0 SO a comoner HP is 10+1d8+c when an adventurer is 10 + Full Class Dice+ C
I just bump the commoner stat block to 6 hp and then let them roll death saves. Like yeah maybe it’s too high but I’d rather have villagers feel too capable than have them be made of tissue paper.
I mean, it's 1d8, so you can just assign the fit people 8 hp and still be raw.
I have my own rule on Death Saves.
1. Heroes go to 3, as is standard.
2. Important beings go to 2.
3. Commoners and minor beasts go to 1.
When the players win a battle, they get to check the fallen for whether they still live.
Good video, I am stumbling over this conumdrum in my musing every once in a while, too.
What else can be done: Even if a commoner does not die outright or falls unconcius immediately, it is reasonable to say that almost any damage that causes a loss of hitpoints will cause the person to curl up in a ball and be basically stunned.
And cat striking you does not cause a loss of hitpoints. That only occurs, when said cat tries to actively murder you by biting out your throat or whatever. And yes, two cats in such a mood would have a chance to succed against someone like me, I guess...
Other then that, I am trying to reduce 'real combat' between NPCs if their loss of HP is not really relevant for the moment. They drop out of the fight at moments that are convinient. A mob is in a tavern brawl? One or two of them, by chance if you will, go down every turn. Some of them end up grappled or prone. Doesn't matter to much who, no real roles needed until the players themselves engage at which point it becomes more of a skill challenge, then a real fight. I they wanted, the characters could probably kill the entire tavern at every moment. Their real issue likely is to resolve the situation without doing that (at least most of the time).
A line of soldiers is holding back a tide of kruthiks? Some of them fall every game turn, no need to roll to hit or anything. You get the picture.
I think you're underestimating an adult human; we aren't fantasy badasses IRL, but an adult human is still a relatively large ape. If two cats and a generic modern human adult got into a fight to the death, and the human was willing to fight lethally, as were the cats, the human could easily hurl the cats, or pick them up (definitely suffering some injury in the process) and smash them into a nearby hard object. The "commoner" isn't like, a guard, but they're also not like, a morbidly obese person either; they're just random joes off the street.
@@LashknifeTalon According to some sources (the DMG even?) HP represent "the will the fight" among other things. I am no fighter, most commoners are not fighters and I'd wager that my will to fight would actually be exhausted rather quickly.
I am a middle aged male, far from obese and do regular 'maintenance sports' (ie not for the gains but to stay in a somewhat healthy shape as my job does not require a lot of moving around). And I have seen how nimble even a fat cat can be.
I will not say that I would definitively loose that fight, but injury might very well lead me very fast to the point that "picking them up" is not a viably option anymore.
Mind you, this is without any sorts of weapon or protective gear. You have to bring your hands close to those really sharp claws to do that. And a cat can easily dodge most kicks a regular person could throw at them.
Grapple cat. Use as improvised club. Throw "club" thirty feet up. Watch cat die from falling damage. Repeat.
@@Gerendiell except the mechanics treat HP as "meat points" (for example, poison, or even better venom. When a venomous creature succeeds in biting another creature, it, first deals damage from the bite attack, and then either automatically injects venom, that then does its thing or can inject venom, that then does its thing. If the venom's effect is a bonus to damage (which I vaguely recall happening, might have been homebrew) then you can't really have "barely dodged that one" or "it managed to nick me" since the character had been bitten (and therefore took N hp damage from being bitten)and got injected with venom (that did it's thing)).
The abstraction of "will to fight"/stamina/plot armour kinda falls apart on its own...
Technically, even 4 crabs can kill a commoner. lol
Just to add this, in fairness to the statblock, Commoners dont have 4 HP, they have 1d8+Con mod, HP, which leads to 4 on average, since they rarely are more than a 1hit die monster (using the AD&D meaning of the word) with a con mod of 0.
This means changing the statblock, such as making them more "seasoned" and thus a higher hit die monster, and/or making them "naturally tougher" and thus giving them a higher con mod, gives them a higher HP pool. Or lower, if you subtract from those things. I recommend downgrading the die instead of the con mod, but starting with an already dead NPC can be a plot point. Then again, and I am sure you know this, but thats why the Monster Statblocks are generally considered templates instead of hard rules, and why the DMG has the math that they use to calculate the CR and create monsters on pages 273-283.
I actually estimate that a level 1 PC is about the equivilent to a level 2-3 Commoner, but with a hit die increase and knowledge and ability increases, instead of just... more hit dice, though because things stand a little low for my taste, with that ruling, I allow level 0 characters to keep their Commoner hit-die when they level up to level 1 adventures.
This is all true, and I mention some of it in the vid, but the very idea of figuring out the stats and modifiers of each important NPC (especially improvised ones) just rankles so horribly for me. Fair enough if the crunch is enjoyable, but for me it breaks the flow.
1rst level characters have the full die to hitpoints. A very quick way to fix the commoner problem is to simply emulate this on them. A level one commoner would then have 8 hit points on average maybe 9 if they are especially healthy. I'm not sure why the designers of this game made some rules for players and others for monsters but the Beauty of DnD is that ultimately the DM has creative control over the game. Hell, I add abilities to monsters my players are fighting all the time to shake things up.
I don't think there is inherently anything wrong with the characters knowing they can kill most commers by stabbing them with a sword.
This is the expected outcome for stabbing a dude with a sword.
There is no issue here. People are fragile. Very, uncomfortably, fragile. My great aunt died when she fell. That's it, not any distance, just knocked prone and is dead because of a 0ft fall.
There is literally nothing wrong with 4hp average for commoners. It is expected. The players should know it, too.
Honestly I agree.
Sorry about your aunt btw
yea definitly. you could absolutly kill a person with a frying pan or any blunt object if you hit them good. one high damage hit and they are done for.
A man I went to high school with went to prison for killing a man in a fight in the parking lot of our local movie theater. He punched him once, dude hit his head when he fell, and it was lights out. Bashing someone with a well-made ale tankard could absolutely send them to The Big Naptime.
This is largely a problem with people not understanding the purpose of the rules.
Combat rules should only get used during combat. Punching someone in a bar is not combat. And hitpoints in 5e aren't wounds. To quote the PHB - "Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck"
This is kind of where I'm at for this. Like we probably just overuse combat mechanics for mundane situations; the reality is that if you, a person with combat training, is actively trying to kill a normal person without combat training, it is and should be exceptionally easy. Bashing someone over the head with a heavy stick as hard as you can is enough, never mind a weapon actually designed to kill people. Same goes for many animals, if they are actively trying to kill a normal person then yeah it makes sense for them to be able to do so with relative ease.
The issue then becomes more how we narrate/resolve faux-combat, or even serious fighting where the intent is very much non-lethal. And to a lesser extent yeah it's an issue of how we describe actual combat and a tendency to describe ever attack that hits as piercing flesh for no adequately explored reason. Also, honestly to some extent it is just a small integers problem because we can't deal fractions of a point of damage.
@@Vael221 My general view is that PCs (at least in 5e) are exemplars - they're not normal people - they're fledgling heroes. Narratively resolving these things should really just be "what's reasonable here?"
If the fighter says "I'm going to knock out the drunk guy" - it just happens (unless the drunk guy isnt just a drunk guy). No attack rolls, no hit points. At worst, maybe an ability/skill check for a caster. I only go into combat rules if there's legitimate risk for the PCs.
"I attack the ducks with my cross bow" gets "You kill a bunch of ducks. The townsfolk are horrified".
"Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck"
I want it to be that way, but it doesn't always work. For example, a character with a bow shot inflicted 4 damage to a goblin. What exactly happened? Did the arrow hit the target or not? Where did the arrow hit? In the leg? In the next round, the Goblin remains alive and defeats another character without any problems.
@@cpazmatikus3752 That's where it's the DM's job to get descriptive. Real people get shot with real guns, sometimes repeatedly, and continue to fight. Sometimes they even survive the ordeal with good medical care, and that's in a world without magic. An enraged goblin with an arrow in its belly could be wounded, in pain, even dying, and still be very much a threat.
@@cpazmatikus3752 I'm literally quoting the rules.
4 damage is a reduction in survivability. It's not implicitly a wound. It's fatigue, or minor wounds, or morale. A "hit" doesn't mean the arrow is lodged in flesh. It's an abstraction - it could mean the goblin dives out of the way and sprains an ankle and is now closer to being mortally wounded. It could be the mace hit his shield and his arm is numb.
4e did a good job of making this clearer with the bloodied condition - characters/monsters above half hp specifically weren't damaged at all.
Great points! I will make sure to do this in my Havoc game later this week!
My go-to is to give adult commoners 8-10 hp and children 4-5 hp. Doing this typically allows the commoner to survive one or two hits from a low level monster and children could occasionally survive one hit from the same.
This is only for niche situations such as an invasion of a village. Commoners realistically shouldn't be seeking out combat and will rarely need to be statted out at all. But if the fight comes to them, 10 HP and they will typically be fleeing
so commoners are stronger than/as strong as level 1 adventurers with way higher stats than them? that doesn't really make any sense to me.
@@Tupadre97How bad are your adventurer characters?
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:(
But have created 12 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group. All have at least 8 HP and have at least 10 AC.
Finally; look at real life many "Blue-Collar" Workers & Farmers in a fight would defeat a "White-Collar" Worker or well-to-do individuals. The Blue-Collars & Farmers generally work hard manual labor building more muscle then average.
So in D&D/Fantasy it makes sense for most commoners to be reasonably tough.
@@morrigankasa570 level 1 adventurers have way higher stats than commoners and have class features commoners dont have access to, they're literally not comparable at all.
@@Tupadre97 It is comparable, they all exist in a Fantasy World. Monsters and dangerous creatures can pose a threat to Farms & Villages. So without an Adventuring party/group of warriors being there, they have to defend themselves. So an actual town/village would likely have local militia/guards, while Farmers may be able to rely on that local militia but most likely have to defend themselves.
Beyond that it also depends on the World Building/DM & how they want to design the world. I think even in official lore they acknowledge that the vast majority of High Elves have magical capabilities. Sure that's only 1 specific Race, but at least amongst Elven society even Commoner Elves could logically use Magic to help defend themselves. They also tend to have a natural affinity for Sword Fighting and Archery.
@@morrigankasa570 if commoners defended themselves they'd level up and have higher hit die and stats than just 1d8 and 10 flat across the board. commoners aren't strong because they literally have the lowest health and stats possible for humanoids.
4 cats can kill a commoner :D
watch out for the wrath of the crazy cat lady and her trained cats :D
Maybe have to have magical sherlock holmes batman character who can be the same level as and end game boss. So it feels like you have to be accountable for the evil action
Most civilians outside of the the generic peasant I assign a different stat block to for this reason specifically
As I see it, this is a problem with D&D's system as a whole. PCs in D&D are far closer to cartoon superheroes in power level than to even most characters in fantasy novels - and as a result, your players can decide to play supervillains just as easily. Superman's "World of Cardboard" speech from JLU comes to mind. If you don't want that, use a different system with a less steep power differential.
To make it funny I just give commoners 10 hp so that all their stats are 10.
A level 5 Druid is the settlement faith leader. That way the farms get Plant Growth to double the amount of output. So, the citizens are faithful, follower Sidekicks, also of Level 5. They have 27 hp with proficiency in light armor and simple weapons, also 5 skills, two of which are expert. You're welcome!
Well, none of the statblocks for any of the creatures in the game define hit point maxima, so I default to the only place in the entire game that does -- the character creation rules. NPCs might be non-players, but they're certainly characters! I also dislike using the default flat hit point totals in the heat of combat, so I use the alternative (dice expressions, MM p.7) in most immediate situations (like getting hit).
So, Commoners have 1d8 hit points, out of a maximum of 8. They also get full access to the Dropping to 0 HP rules (no Monsters and Death at my table), so they need between 9 and 16 damage to suffer Instant Death.
But wait! It gets better. I assume that well-rested individuals spend their 1 hit die at the start of each day, as they take an hour to warm up and eat before heading out. So that commoner actually had 1-4 (usually 4) extra hit points today. That's 13-16 damage needed for Instant Death on the first hit (5-8 to be knocked unconscious)!
And Commoner doesn't really cover skilled individuals like sailors and blacksmiths. Acolyte, Bandit, Cultist, Guard, Noble, and Tribal Warrior all establish that 2d8 is actually pretty common for anyone that's not a basic labourer. And that's not even getting into the point that you're meant to apply racial bonuses to those templates! And you can give them whatever proficiencies they need to do their jobs, or just assume that they're competent enough to do it reliably.
None of this addresses your core point, though... that's why I lean on another rule that's overlooked! You only have hit points in "dangerous situations" (PHB p.12) -- "danger" being distinguished from "hazard" in that danger is orchestrated by a malevolent or domineering will that you oppose. A person who cannot or does not oppose danger doesn't have hit points! ...which means they cannot be reduced to 0 hit points! ...which means they cannot suffer Instant Death! They just take a failed death save, are unstable (but still conscious), and need fairly immediate aid. Thankfully, most people will engage with the danger after being put into such a state, which means they suddenly have hit points, which means they don't roll death saves (yet)! Commoners will typically flee immediately, so they are almost never killed outright unless someone's actually trying to kill them (by hitting them a bunch of times before they get their first turn). They may bleed out, if another fleeing commoner doesn't help them to stabilise themselves quickly, though.
Because any commoner can hit a DC10 Medicine passively, but doing first aid on yourself is more difficult (disadvantage), having someone nearby when you fall down the stairs is literally a life-saver. Friendship is a prerequisite for survival.
As a DM the stats give me a structure to build my world around. If I don't have numbers I am just playing pretend. This is like the people who think monsters should die when the DM feels like it. Why do players' role die in the first place? Commoners are meant to be weak victims. The stat block gives a lot of insight into who an NPC is. For example, commoners, bandits, tribal warriors, berserkers, and knights have no skills, making them unskilled laborers. They all make 2 sp a day based on RAW. The only thing any of them have to move up in life is combat which most will die from before they gain skills and become a high CR creature. If you treat proficiency as a skill set they can all make a 2 GP a day for fighting. Those that want to make something of themselves as warriors will need to take risks or they will be forever fought for the monsters. No NPC below a CR of five is anything special. A knight only has 52 hit points and they are professional soldiers. These low numbers are why the world needs heroes. They are the few with the skills and training to fight back the darkness. If the average person was not weak they would not need heroes. That and the crunch is why I am the DM. I love the story that comes from the numbers. lol
I would elect to give NPC's a number of "Wounds", from 1 to 5 based on how hardy they are, if you need a hard metric by which to institute NPC damage without writing up a stat block for them. They can take that many hits from a player or monster before dying. Damaging spells deal one wound per spell level.
But I tell my players straight up that I'm cheating. As DM, when I run, monsters have as many HPs as they need to, deal as much damage as I decide they do, and that every stat block is custom and I make them up either during planning between games or on the spot as needed. The rules that apply to monsters and NPC's are not necessarily the same as the ones that apply to PC's. Y'all agreed to game with me and that means uncertainty and the unexpected.
I DON'T cheat, for the most part, but it's important to cultivate the belief that I can and will if I need to, and that it's always done with the player's experience, the story, or both in mind.
I gave my average commoners 10hp with a +3 to hit no special class abilities. Kids still have 4 but I want an adult to hold up to a goblin potentially.
All of those things can kill people in real life.
Absolutely true, but with an over 25% chance?! Either way, I hope it's a fun entry point into the discussion
Two cats but? Either the average commoner has hemophilia or the cats are the particularly large stripey variety
@@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462lol. Cats should deal 0 normal damage. Sure, they can cause an infection, but the wounds they inflict are just cosmetic, if painful, surface lacerations.
Yeah, I'd give a cat 1 damage on a crit.
Honestly it's utterly alien to D&D but in my ideal system nobody has HP. Attacks deal status effects ranging from something like mildly distracted to in a bind with swords to prone to bleeding to broken bone to pneumothorax to traumatic cardiac failure to chunky salsa. You could add abstractions and levels of different effects but there's pretty much no reason you need hit points as such.
One reason I like this over the concept of HP is that it means that stubbing a dragon's toe to death or a domestic cat biting through someone's skull is not big concern, and meanwhile, taking your +3 rapier and shoving it directly into the dragon's eye can still do something meaningful.
would you say that this would handle poison better than dnd?
I have a similar idea.
3 types of wounds:
A) Bleeding: Every creature would have a certain amount of available blood, depending on what it is and how tough it is. For each separate bleeding wound, a creature would lose as much blood, as would be the value of the wound, then each would would decrease by 1. The less blood a creature has, the greater maluses to everything stuff it has. Once it goes below a certain threshold, it goes unconscious.
B) Pain: Pain would be non-lethal. The total amount of pain you have suffered would again cause maluses to any activity, eventually knocking you unconscious. The total amount of pain would have a lower bound at the total amount of Structural damage you have. Each minute, your pain would reduce by your total number of wounds, until it was at that lower bound.
C) Structural: Structural damage would inflict maluses on using a specific bodypart. Enough structural damage would disable a bodypart entirely, further would destroy it. Destroying the torso or the head on most creatures would kill them.
Of course, a single strike could inflict damage in multiple categories. The spread would depend on the damage type in question. For example, Bludgeoning would inflict mostly Structural and Pain, while Fire would do a 30:60:10 spread.
Unfortunately, this is complex enough to require a computer to run in order to have any fun.
On the other way , a commoner having only having 4 hp is reasonable as it represent that it is realistic killable and even guarantee kill by strong beast
You are not wrong, but only because 5e is missing very key tables from older editions. commoners do not have 1hd. they have 1HD per level of the adventure. Not in 5e. but in 3e and 3.5, and PF 1, there are tables that denote the stat blocks of npcs based on the level of the adventure. so a level 5 town would have (and i'm just going off memory here, so its not exactly accurate) something like 5HD. or about 23HP per commoner. 5e does not have any of that, which is both hilarious, and a stark reminder that 5e is missing important things.
That just sounds silly.
it is, but i'm pretty sure we are talking about two different things. I'm going to chooose to believe that you are saying the missing scaling is silly. :)
I remember a neat alternate way to show health in games I saw a while go. Call it "luck" instead, instead of taking damage you lose luck, essentially, you avoid every hit by the skin of your teeth except the one that kills you.
Commoners should have 8 hit points because thats what the classes that would have average physical ability has at level 1, wizards and sorcerers have 6 because then are less physically actuve than average.
Commoners actually do have a D8 hit dice. But since they have "zero" levels they don't get the full hit points.
*Complains that a dagger can kill a normal human*
Hit Points for commoners is something you should feel entirely comfortable improvising
The fact is that an ordinary person in this world can die from one punch from an ordinary person 😅
I mean, having a 25% chance of dying if hit with a bit enough stick or frying pan is realistic enough. Head injuries are a _bitch._ (Plus, while it isn't standard for encounters, you can have them roll (or "roll") death saving throws afterwards, having even more survive.) And dying to 2 (probably determined) cats is also... fairly realistic. Remember the excerpt from a veterinary handbook: "Handling: General Considerations. The cat is faster and has sharper teeth and nails than you do. It has no 'code of ethics' or considerations for it's own future. *In a fair fight it will win.* 1. DON'T FIGHT A CAT. 2. USE YOUR BRAIN. 3. USE DRUGS."
I do regularly "upgrade" quite a few "commoners" in my games (with some pre-made statblocks), even those that are mostly there for flavour. Just in case.
No, no. A cat isn't going to seriously injure an adult human. Unless they later get an infection and die. Their attacks should be like 1d1-1 damage. And even that might be too much.
Put that commoner in plate armor and they still die to a handful of cats almost every time.
I just want to say... man, I fricking hate that Hyenas are so disrespected by the game, alongside Commoners. They were the bane of humanity throughout prehistory, and are reduced to laughing stocks. v.v
These are related issues, I think. The most "mundane" creatures are reduced in threat level, to the point that even the largest dinosaurs aren't very high in CR rating. Even elephants, which seem to be relatively tough with their 76 average HP, in reality have significantly less staying power than you'd think because of the fact that they have 12 AC. 12, when elephant's 1 inch thick skin, the only animals that can seriously harm it are the rhinoceros and big cats that rely upon strangulation to kill them. Their chance to knock a creature prone when trampling them is a ridiculously low DC 12, as well. Truly ridiculous.
When dealing with bar fights, a lot of people will just narrate it away since "no one should get killed". I think when it comes to dealing a group of commoners or a single one, maybe treat it more like they are a part of a lair or skill challenge. Places have laws when it comes to such things. Yeah, the blacksmith won't go down after one punch generally but if you give an old lady a haymaker, there should be a reaction. The 'lair' recognizes a threat. It's like in some games where you draw a weapon and the guards get tipped off and start gathering. I feel like too many people get caught up the numbers to remember that this is a society with laws and things can escalate. Every citizen is important so the HPs don't matter. You punch anyone whether or not they can take it, you will have consequences. HP isn't the only thing stopping you from accomplishing your goals. I enjoy combat but I put other ways for my players to be able to solve things. Talking and building goodwill goes a long way beyond just smashy smashy with fists. People can be useful beyond their HP or skills. If you punch the mayor's elderly mother, you are going to have huge problems.
If you throw 4 pebbles at someone in 1 throw, they’ll be fine. If you throw them all separately over 30 seconds, you are a murderer.
Would having death saves for NPCs fix this?
Ok. I thought the clickbait title meant they were strong with 4 horsepower, not wimps with 4 hit points.
I think this is a bad way to do commoners, i think pathfinder 1e NPC classes was a better way of handling it. lets you give them 2-3 hit die without them ever outshining the PCs.
Them having a stat block can easily be used in any evil campaign. If a rogue rolled low on there attack they want to know the exact ac and hitpoints they need to hit because missing could ruin thire plans
Okay, to be fair, I think evil campaigns are their own beast; I feel like them being tissue paper works in the evil party's favor because there is probably at least one point where they're gonna want to slaughter a LOT of people.
Horseshoe theory but it's for gods and peasants, nice
In my campaign, most NPCs have 3-5 hit die, depending on several variables of course. 1 hit die feels like a child, or small animal.
Wait, _two_ house cats? Have commoners gotten beefier in 5e or have housecats gotten weaker, because from my recollection it was a single housecat back in 3.5e.
(But, more seriously. I tend to run lighter games where what you're describing is either the default, or for the slightly heavier ones where statblocks are more of a thing where the statblocks templates for ordinary humans aren't as... Frail... compared to the PCs as in D&D. Where I'm happy to assign that system's DC equivalent to a roll for something where if I had a statblock in front of me. NPCs only get stat blocks if I expect them to need them, until that point they're names with a description. Things that are more a focal point of the game I'm more likely to give statblocks to - NPCs players are likely to get into combat with, monsters even if combat feels unlikely for them and I doubt that would change if I wound up running D&D or Pathfinder)
You can do the trick of not statting things out for a lot of things. Want to have an enemy use a special ability but don't really have the time or patience to make a new statblock for it? Just make it up on the spot. "Why yes, that goblin was always a specific 'knife hucker' variant."
"Uh huh, this orc is going to pick up the table and hit you with it, I guess they've got a +6 on their other attacks, might as well use it here too, and it's basically a greatclub so 1d8+3 damage."
The issue isnt the HD because even goblins and Kolbalts have the same amount of HD as a commoner. Its about how youre viewing the game as a whole. 5e is about super heros and power fantasies comparatively to editions 1-3 your 1st and 2nd level characters were still alot more relative to the commoners. Also you have to keep in mind that D&D is durrived from wargames and as such the inherrent battle mechanics of the game will not always make sense to the narrative or story thats presented. If you want to find a way that adresses it then cool but keep in mind the moment you give a commoner more HD then youre giving PCs less HD and setting the standerd that adds to one of 5e horrible problem of health bloat.
Alternatively, we change the understanding of the leveling system and get rid of “raising hp” as a result of experience.
We can use the Call of Cthulhu type system of every human having a similar hp.
We can have babies have 4 hp.
Toddlers have 2 + 1d8 hp
Children below 10 years old: 1 + 2d8
Teenagers below 15 years old: 4d8 + 4*(Con modifier)
Everyone else below the age of 60: 6d8 + 6*(Con modifier).
Above 60 years old: (6d8 + 6*(Con modifier)) reduce by 1 hp per year above 60, or slower for a longer lived commoner.
Then, by getting rid of the hp increase on level-up system, we can put more focus on armor by reducing the amount of damage taken per hit depending upon the amount of armor and any enchantments on armor; with the exceptions being force damage and psychic damage.
Thus, a legendary fighter can suddenly feel legendary by being so skilled with his armor that he can be hit with an unskilled sword attack but yet take no damage.
Then we have the AC statistic be focused on special class abilities to avoid getting hit (starting with 10+ dexterity modifier) like a Wizard’s mage armor (+3 to AC), a Barbarian’s extra toughness (add the constitution modifier to AC), and a monk’s wise defense (add the wisdom modifier to AC). Changing up AC to work this way is consistent with the fact that a man wearing full plate armor who gets targeted by the tail of an ancient dragon will definitely take less damage than if he was wearing no armor, but his armor is definitely not helping him to avoid getting hit in the first place.
Furthermore, changing up armor to work that way allows for more people to wear armor without breaking the game. Sure, now shooting multiple arrows per turn at the arriving knights is pointless unless you have learned how to hit harder with your arrows, but you can know for certain that your ability to hit them in the first place is not being supernaturally impacted by their armor, it is rather impacted by the class abilities they have trained in like Mage armor or a Barbarian’s toughness or a Monk’s wise defense.
to be fair, all the examples you have brought can kill any human and they have far more than you might think, in the real world(yes even the 10ft fall is an overkill in some cases for a real human) heck there might even be someone out there who has met his demise by the hands of two measly cats! just sayin...
Lol. I think the two cats is the only unrealistic one. They're just too small.
There have been multiple people killed by single cats actually
@@Idiotdragon8 From wounds? Not from diseases after the fact. Or people that were helpless.
@@DanielMWJ Well yeah, usually it was attacking people that were laying down. But they did die from the wounds
a 10 ft fall *can* kill, but only in a worst-case scenario.
same with most of the 1d4 weapons.
a dagger *might* hit something vital, but it might just hit flesh, or hit glancingly.
I think if you look at violent crimes, real people have like 2d8 HP.
again, not badass normals. People you'd assume have no adventurer levels and no armor class besides natural dexterity.
So the way it works in Pathfinder is, most random NPCs are 2nd level, 3rd if they're a bit older and more experienced. 1st level shoule be raw recruits, apprentices, and teenagers mostly.
And maybe your murder Hobos are the reasons why and npc or group of npcs stronger. The robber killing batman's parents.
Honestly just buffing to more reasonable stat blocks for archetypes is a simple enough solution.
You know of the list of things that can kill a commoner all of them can also kill you, is pretty realistic actually, I mean a dagger can kill a man? how shocking the fact that the monsters can kill them is also more that reasonable, I would say that the only problem is that small animals and such just do too much damage since house cat has no businesses doing the same damage as a man with a dagger.
To be fair, in 5e at least, a cat can only deal 1 damage with a +0 to hit and no 3.x-style multi-attack, which is significantly less than the 1d4 of a dagger. That said, I agree that this has more of an issue with the D&D game conceit of any combatants dealing a minimum of 1 damage on a hit than with this verisimilitude of commoners only having 4 hp. Commoners are supposed to be regular, common, average people. And regular people are fragile.
@@FireclaveExcept commoners are also farmers, blacksmiths, ship crewmen, miners, hardly as fragile as the "average" person.
@@whiskeyhound None of those people is better at "Taking a knife wound" but since they have 1d8 of hp you could give it even maximum hp for a very big and strong commoner, but really if you want a more realistic game just don't give hp with the levels then witch weapon is the character using would matter a lot more and stuff like that, you know the kind of thing that RUclipsrs like this usually complain but in reality most people don't want that and thus the modules and such usually are not created like that since a knight can just ignore a dagger wound... you know the thing that was made for killing them in real life.
But re-adjust your expectations and just use everyone at level 1just giving proficiency and a bit of an stat bust when needed (you know the lumberjack probably has 14 in str and is proficient in athletics) and now the guy is going to win pretty much any contest against a abridge commoner but still dead after one or two stabs.
@@freischutz898Considering most of those guys should have a +1 or +2 con modifier due to their incredibly physical jobs, they should be better at taking a knife wound than some merchant who just walks for maybe a mile a day and then stands at a stall waiting for customers.
@@whiskeyhound not that much better I mean the commoner has what 4hp and a guy with let's say +2 con and let's be generous 6 original hp still is likely to die from a 1d4+2 of a bandit (assuming just a commoner with proficiency as the bandit) in two hits, sure he maybe could take the one hit more, but he is in no way good at it even at max hp of then that only guarantee him to live one hit in all but a Max damage crit, so maybe tanking on more hit of the weakest of common weapons is not very significant.
One of the most important lessons no taught to DMs by the books is that you can use just about any stat block for any npc.
Ever play a video game where one of the chickens or cows in the starting zone has more hit points than any of the end game bosses?
If a commoner doesn't even have a name or job the PCs can interact with then they don't need a stat block. If the commoner needs to do anything in combat then I give them the bear or warlord stat block. If the npc needs to advance in any way they get sidekick levels tied to whichever PC is the closest related to them. Rivals from your back story level with you while the barmaid your buddy has been flirting with levels with them. I also mostly use the XP system from Cypher System games. Let's players track and dictate advancement.
My players learn quickly that there's no way for them to tell if I've given the bartender the commoner stat block, the warlord stat block, or even the storm giant stat block. It makes the "Find Out" phase of the social encounter way more interesting.
see, the whole reason commoners being fucking fragile works AT ALL, is the game assumes you're actually playing a good person and willing to RP that properly. even 'evil' games assume you're going to be at least a little selective about your reign of terror
I'd just have it that an able-bodied person fights on the level of a cultist or bandit (CR 1/8). The PCs will still be well beyond them even at level 1 (CR 1/4 is meant to be a "medium" fight for one, and pretty under tuned for a given definition of medium). There's still plenty of opportunities for heroism without people dying when even the most basic monsters coyly glance at them, and really not having to individually take down every zombie means they can focus on their source.
This is just a personal thing I like to do, not a judgment on your idea - I actually like making bandits rather scary. A professional criminal, especially one who is an out-of-work mercenary or a soldier who deserted from their army, should be much more dangerous than the average able-bodied person. Bandits aren't just thieves, after all ; these aren't people who sneak into houses in the middle of the night to make off with the family jewels. They're strong-arm criminals who rely on intimidation and brute violence to get what they want, and a man who's made his living forcibly taking wealth from others (and often defeating their guards to do so, in a fantasy world) should be a daunting foe. Especially when he's surrounded by his mates and they've all decided that they want what you have.
People saying they give level 0 and above some extra HP remind me of 4e
I don't find it too odd.
Commoners also applies to children, the elderly, the sick and frail. I would expect the healthy fit adult to be above average.
And inmost editions a wizard or sorcerer would have a d4.
I find it pretty normal that a hit with any weapon can easily kill a commoner. That's what weapons do. The only one of the things that wouldn't kill a commoner if used by another commoner is the punch. Unarmed strikes deal 1+Str_Mod Bludgeoning. That means that a commoner with 10 Strength will need 4 hits to knock or kill out another commoner.
5:20 Hitpoints are quite solid when it relates to stuff that can't be dodged. When you are hit with a Fireball, then you are hit with a fireball. The only way you are not being burned is with Evasion. And that doesn't take HP to use.
When you are hit with something that has a direct secondary effect on hit. If HP before being knocked down was just abstraction, then why does it take more to counteract poisoned arrows than clean ones? Why does Carrion Crawler's bite poison and paralyze you, when it should do nothing until it actually pierces the skin?
My take on HP is basically a measure of a body's toughness, that goes well beyond what would be possible in the real world. When the barbarian gets hit with a sword and it only removes 5 out of his 150HP, it's because his muscles literaly stopped the sword and it got no further.
It is a magical world. It is entirely possible that the will to fight and kill actually infuses individuals to be physically tougher and harder to kill.
Commoners aren't killers though. And as such, they are not magically tough.
4HP is the average of a d8 roll.. So wouldn't the lowest effort fix just be to roll the d8 if/when that commoner enters a combat situation? Or maybe rolling that d8 can help you determine what the NPC's physicality looks like... lower HP means slimmer build, higher HP means sturdier build.
I quite like that commoners are as squishy as people actually are, as my group is mostly nurses (with one of them working as an ambulance nurse). Their professional experience means the easiest way for me to instantly break their immersion is to describe damage as too severe.
As such, anything that is not 0 hit points (die/faint) is not an injury at my table. It's wear and tear in the form of hits on armor, like rough blocks and parries that tire you out, or dents in your gear you need to knock/mend out next time you take a rest, scratches, scrapes, or a slight burn that costs you some hair and/or causes you to recoil as if you just touched something too warm but not "instantly melts your flesh"-warm, or someone making a hole in your clothes and so on.
With monsters I have some greater leeway, but in general the same limitations apply. It's honestly a fun challenge to describe around, even if I mess it up sometimes. 🤓
I have not had the chance to hit them with a regenerating monster yet. Given my descriptive style, something actually getting properly injured only for it to nearly immediately heal should hopefully really mess with them and have them questioning if they've picked a fight they can't win.
Try plastic baseball bat fights or foam weapon/ shield larp fights. Teenagers and young adults still in their twenties.
Most sport injuries are ankle and arm from wrist to shoulder with the shield being bump/kick into your body.
Hip point/ dexterity stamina to avoid or roll with the hit. Once exhaust sets in, then you cannot avoid or dodge the lethal hit requiring a death save.
I also grew up with football/ rugby so I know how bad rolling across your leg/knee at the wrong angle across dirt. Now being fired at and you have to dodge roll, jump and dive for low cover across stone concrete floors or steel deck plating.
That is hitting the ground twice with getting up from Prone and dexterity tumble check for cover.
Fast pace requires one roll on dexterity, while a number crunching wargamers will impose six or more rolls. Damage being anywhere from lost of breath/temporary hp dmg to twisting your joint causing stander hp dmg requiring a few days rest. Then fail your constitution roll and serious twist/swelling of joints for a couple of weeks to, yup its broken.
2.) Dodging gun fire with near misses result in temporary hp dmg for becoming short winded jarring your knee at the wrong angles during running caused your joint becoming numb. Not to mention applying pressure to your foot pinching a nerve. Resulting in movement penalties giving a dexterity penalty of some kind. So make sure your foot wear fits properly.
Like the movie " Die Hard," ...
5:51 not true. any amount of hp is an objective fact that exists in the world specifically because of how damage works. so if i'm a level 1 monk with 1d4 hit die for my unarmed strikes with a +3 bonus then that means that literally every time i land a hit on a commoner with 4hp they should die (or get knocked out if i attack non-lethally). and if i hit some one else with that same attack and they live then i would know for an objective FACT that that person is objectively stronger than the average commoner and that for some reason they are more durable and can survive an attack that would be lethal for 99% of regular people. if such a thing is the reality of how damage works in dnd then the hp that exists in statblocks absolutely must be an objective part of the reality of any dnd setting even if my monk doesn't know exactly how to calculate it except to compare it to how many hits it takes to kill them vs a regular commoner.
7:30 or do and just allow commoners to "level up" like how in bg3 regular npc's will have levels and higher stats than a level 1 npc or to just change their statblock into an npc statblock later on like for example turning a commoner -> guard statblock once they've finished their training to become a guard.
[Sorry for the wall, I just have lots of thought on this specific matter 😂]
My setting has “The Nature of Power” as a theme. Political power and violent power are one in the same for me, so I want my games to explore that. Who has it, what can it be used for, and what happens when the difference in individual ability to cause violence between those in power and those under power is greater than real life. In real life, everyone dies to an good arrow shot or sword blow, and the balance of power reflects this because the king can always be overthrown by the people. But what if that wasn’t the case? What happens when the king is an immortal god-king who’s 25 feet tall, can fly and cause earthquakes, and has skin capable of completely ignoring nonmagical damage? That’s an empyrean and one rules one of my main city states; one example of power being explored in my setting. There’s nothing normal folk could do that opposes the will of such a lord, unless there were those among them capable of growing past those limits and becoming capable of greater and greater amounts of violence (aka player characters).
This also means that I want the players to almost immediately feel out of line with the rest of humanity. I want them to internalize that, yes, even the weakest among them (a wizard/sorcerer with 8 con) is still tougher than the average person. I want them to internalize that a single punch from the fighter with 16 strength could kill the average person. Because knowing all this let’s them understand the attitude most people have toward adventurers, which is fear and the desire for them to move on as quickly as possible. Imagine talking to some in real life when you know they could, at any moment, cave your skull in with their bare hands or conjure a bolt a fire that burns you alive. You’d never be able to have a normal conversation with someone like that because that knowledge would always be in the back of your mind, the power difference is too great for interactions to ever be on a level playing field. Like having a conversation with your employer.
This is why I like commoners having only 4 hit points. Because it makes normal people the ground floor of power, and I as the DM get to explore towering mountains of power that exist in dnd and what implications they would have on the way normal people live their lives.
Being beat up, awake, but unable to stand is just not a condition in DND5E...and maybe it shouldnt be.
But deathsaves is kinda supposed to be that state..? Npcs should be given a deathsave effect more often. Maybe enemies too
It is definatly not a narative state i have ever seen used any actualplay shows or my own limited 1 campeign of playing.
to all the "daggers can kill people" comments, of course they *can*, but that's no guarantee that they *will*. if you pull out a knife and try to stab someone, they aren't just going to stand still and take it, they'll try to get out of the way, meaning your attack has a good chance of just not hitting anything vital.
All the things you named that can kill commoners, including the absurd things, can absolutely kill regular people in real life, though. Two dedicated house cats can absolutely kill a person. Like, it doesn't happen often, but it can happen. 4 hp is perfectly reasonable for a 1st Level commoner. But most commoners shouldn't be 1st Level. That's a misconception. 1st Level shouldn't be average. 2nd should. 3rd is, then, for experienced people, and 4th is for exceptional people. Past that you're getting into historically and legendarily competent people.
I have used sleep on a bar at it was rad
I mean, if I stab you with a dagger, you will probably die
HP is not abstraction. Your characters ARE demigods in D&D. The PHB claiming otherwise is, itself, incorrect. There are other systems where HP IS an abstraction, like Savage Worlds or Mutants and Masterminds, ironically games with a more superhero theme.
Example: FALL DAMAGE. Unless the DM is going to rule that fall damage over 20ft is fatal, a human cannot realistically survive and casually walk away from a fall from upper-atmosphere without something like a parachute like a lv.4 character can, let alone a level 10 barbarian. (Minimum of 20 damage, maximum of 120). PHB p.183.
I think that you may be overestimating the average D&D player’s ability to do maths - even passively. I do agree with your analysis though, the abstraction(s) involved in "hit points" are messy to say the least, and it's a little exasperating how player's often interact with hit points as a metagame abstraction - not because of metagaming, but more failing to embrace the abstraction appropriately. There's a need for a little metagame understanding to make the abstractions flow nicely...
I don't agree that you 'shouldn't stat them out. Unlike a god that represents the limitless ability to do or know anything the plot demands with only mcguffins to threaten it, statting out a commoner doesn't limit the application of a commoner it expands on it. Suddenly encounters open up to angry mobs, saving witches from pyres, or rescuing people from more active danger. It's also useful to note how your players compare to common people though I tend to reject the idea that a '10' is an 'adult human average ability score' just as much as I hate the 4 hp average of a commoner. I often find players describe con 12 characters as being thin and dex 10 as being very clumbsy and hell 1 point in strength bellow 10 is 'so weak you can't hurt a child with a punch'. And other creatures with explicitly average human like or lesser physical or mental capabilities like cloakers int, gorrilla or bear dex, large dog's strength, usually have stats well above 10 especially for dex, con, charisma and strength. Not to mention the lowest stats of most humanoid monsters whose abilities don't improve those stats. And a second hit dice is all it takes before harmless stuff starts having good chances at one shooting people
An 'Average person' is somewhere around 12 12 12 10 12 11 just looking at what an average human ability usually sits on based off the rest of the book, and 12's across the board would make more sense than 10s. But i expect a manual laboror would be more like, 15 12 14 9 10 10 with an extra hit dice and a merchant more like 10 12 12 13 14 15. Stuff you could feesibly make with point buy with less points and stats not getting above a 16 until you start looking at adventurers.
The commoner statblock was designed to be easy to memorize because it comes up rarely, not to accurately depict a human farm worker. But such a stat block can be surprisingly useful if you made one.
Much of this is understandable whether I agree with it or not, but manual laborers having 15 strength? Do you realize that is the same as a Wyrmling, Black Bear, or Crocodile, and stronger than a Mule or a Panther?
Oh hey, a fellow diabetic DM? Neat.
Nice spot! Yep I am.
@@Grungeon_Master cheers! I was diagnosed a year ago
Honestly, this seems like a waste of a video. Much ado about nothing.
What's Coco doing in that thumbnail?
Hp is suppose to represent willingness to fight more than actual blood loss. Dropping someone to 0 can be death, unconscious, or even just running away at that point. When you are dealling with "commoners" than just ask "does it make sense" answer it and move on.
Ah yes, the "let's just ignore or handwave this mechanic from the system because it just doesn't make sense" strategy.
D&D players do everything in their power to cling to their archaic mess instead of just trying out a system that doesn't have it's problems.
What system do you recommend then?
@@whiskeyhound Literally anything else that isn't a bloody d&d copy?
Like, mate, even warhammer fantasy role playing system is better that it, and it was made by greedy corpo trying to get into ttrpg scene with barely any experience from their wargaming era.
Otherwise go play genesys, legends of the five rings, burning wheel, or anything "powered by apocalypse". Even dragon age's system is more palatable than this corpse most players are de facto forced to play with.
@@kovi567Thanks for the recommendations, I was half expecting you to recommend pathfinder 2e since that's basically all I see recommended when people express a dislike of 5e, I'd rather cobble together some collection of d&d rules that do exactly what I want than pay for a knockoff that's gonna be a shittier version of 3.5.
@@whiskeyhoundAh yes, the fake non-d&d players that play off-brand d&d.
The only thing I can respect in the pathfinder community is that they at least tried (and miserably failed) to play something else.
h