To be fair if you don’t make it clear to the party that they can’t take the creature or some other kind of warning there’s no way for them to know if they can handle it without metagaming.

I the player know a level 2 can’t take on a giant, but does my character know that

When you stand next to water for too long and mud crabs converge on your location.

If you’re playing a character that foolhardy to see a creature anywhere from 2x to 10x their size and think tbey can fight it, then let them die. It’s not metagaming to see something large and make the reasonable assumption that it could crush you.

Can you beat an orca in a fight? How can you assume that without metagame knowledge of its stats?

Edit: quite a few people have very low opinions of a reasonable person’s self-preservation instincts. Or assume every PC is the type of internet person that says they could fight a lion mano-a-mano.

Kinda hard to stay fat when you’re on the move all the time, both marching around and fighting for your life. It’d take a conscious effort to overeat (and/or a relatively sedentary work situation) to stay fat.

If you’re really fat, it takes quite a while to get the weight off. In BG3 specifically, you’re not (necessarily) an adventurer before the game, but get picked up randomly in a city. I see no issue with a fat level 1 wizard, and even for martials you can just say they trained for a couple of years and then stopped training once they got a job in the city. They probably should get some kind of penalty, but on the other hand you should also get a penalty for being small (i.e. gnome or halfling) and BG3 just threw that out completely. If a gnome can wield a two-handed sword made for adult humans without penalties, a fat dude can have the same stamina as a thin dude.

I played the demo a year ago or so and it seemed promising. Would you say it’s more Skyrim or Oblivion in terms of character stats/skills and “crunchiness?” Is there a dedicated speed stat?

Older editions had stuff like “small characters are harder to hit, so they get +1 AC. But then it’s weird they have a hard time hitting each other, so they get a +1 to-hit, too”.

Trying to simulate reality gets wacky real fast, and quickly becomes more work than it’s worth.

Ah, the ol’ Skyrim Space Program.

To be fair humans did take down wooly mammoths at some point

I don’t know man I can cast fire from my hands. That’s pretty over powered. Plus Steve over there can channel divine energy into their weapon. I think we can take a giant. It’s just like a really big human right? And there’s 4 of us.

That’s not an unreasonable viewpoint for inexperienced adventurers.

Now if your character is a little more familiar with monsters and other adventures they would know better.

To your Orca example I’m just a guy. I have no abilities. A commoner wouldn’t try to fight a giant. Now if you give me the ability to shoot lighting from my hands and 3 other people with similar abilities, I could reasonably believe I could fight an Orca.

Friendly reminder that 6% of Americans think they can beat a grizzly bear in a fight. A shocking 17% think they could beat a chimpanzee. These are just regular people without special skills.

Surprising Number of Americans Feel They Could Beat Wild Animals in a Fight

Newsweek spoke to experts about some of the most fearsome animals to see whether these Americans were right.

Newsweek (www.newsweek.com)

Can you beat an orca in a fight?

If I was a magic robot that could throw fireballs or kill something by simply touching it IRL, probably.

Yeah, but you’re not that at level 2.

Well, not fireball; but being a Warforged isn’t level dependent, it’s a race, and Touch of Death is a level 2 spell for a Death Domain cleric.

Again, if you want to play a character that doesn’t think well, that’s fine. But 6% (or even 17%) is not a majority of people and when a person sees something taller than most houses looming over them, I assume the average person would correctly adjust their chances of success.

This is about the need for a GM to establish for PCs that they can’t engage a giant in combat. Most people don’t do a year of BJJ and think they and 3 mates can wrestle down an elephant. I just have a higher opinion of people’s self-preservation instincts, especially when they haven’t been as far removed from nature as most people on the internet are. People used to be afraid of forests and the wilds, and I think that level of society is closer to RPGs than we are.

Wasn’t familiar with “Touch of Death”; I don’t play clerics often. But it’s just a smite.

Assuming average HP on level up and +3 CON mod: Barb: 25; Fighter: 22; Cleric: 19.

And Touch of Death does +9 damage at level 2.

I’m only breaking out numbers to get a better idea of what the users of the ability would be seeing, and what level of lethality they would come to expect from repeated usage. And that’s not killing anyone with a touch except commoners, and level 1 wizards and sorcerers.

My only point is: people who have had to risk their life to even get to level 2 (unless they’re reckless or an idiot) probably wouldn’t have an overly big head over middling magical abilities. They might be feeling themselves and think they can fight a group of thugs at 4 to 1 odds but it’s bonkers to pretend a normal adventurer would need some ex machina explanation to warn them off fighting something like a giant or a dragon at level 2.

i do enjoy walking around with a big ol crowd of skellies tho. by mid-act 2 i have so many godsdamned summons

You missed the point those 6 to 17 percent are just regular people. They don’t shoot fire from their hands.

Remember even a level two adventure is a very very small percentage of the world’s population. Most people are way weaker in DND. Being a level 2 adventurer is way beyond a year of BJJ

real DM wouldn’t allow that

This is an actual military doctrine used by the people of Afghanistan to kick the shit out of most of the biggest imperial powers of the world with a staggering win rate since basically forever, by TE Lawrence (kinda) to take out the ottoman empire, something similar by horse nomads since bows were invented, and by one part of the Vietnamese resistance during the american invasion(also I think to kick the French in the dick).

It has an extremely good record for doing exactly what it does in the game, and for ruining morale of the big guy getting shoot-twice-then-run’d in addition.

I have spoken to people who fought against it, and even a decade later they’re still pissed. It is absolutely bullshit and it absolutely works. Ask an afghan war vet about their nightmares.

Small characters in older edition used different equipment; a small sized weapon used smaller dice, rules for number of hands between sizes were pretty much what you’d expect, which lead to crazy shit like feats that let you use a larger size category weapon, a small size suit of armor wouldn’t fit a medium character, carrying capacity multipliers, +/- to hit, and all kinds of shit.

Pathfinder still has them.

It requires extra design consideration (how do we balance loot across character sizes, which many players would never deal with and all would feel at least a bit of fomo about; your small size tank can’t use the best heavy armor, your medium rogue can’t wear the best light armor) and doesn’t add much. Plus, fat sits differently on different bodies, jiggles when running, adds complexity to animations like holding yourself against wall or getting stabbed, and have you ever been camping for more than a week without modern gear or tasted hard tack+pemmican?

I can see why they dropped it, but you may enjoy a more rules heavy system.

You are making the mistake of setting your fantasy character up against a normal animal.

You as a real life human would be fighting the orka, not your fantasy character. They would be fighting a Chimera. Which can do all those things you mentioned as well.

And if you think your fantasy character can beat a Chimera with their weapons and magic, that would be the same as you thinking you can beat an orka with your bare hands.

Unless you are some elite high level special ops in the military, you will not win against an orka.