I have no idea what any of that means.

But…cat scratch fever, perhaps? ;)

Shamus, that was absolutely amazing. However, the only flaw I see in the logic is that I would assume a level 1 Wizard would be a meager young apprentice. So not a full grown adult. And if it were a rather vicious alley cat, I could see difficulties against it in a fist fight if you have no skill in such.

Anyway, if he could get off a Magic Missile, I don’t think it would improve his odds that drastically, because he’d still only have a 50% chance of dealing lethal damage to the cat (-1, bleeding to death). (1d4+1) Did you also account for the chance of them making a stabilization roll to get back to 1 hp? It seems like the cat would have a better chance of this than the wizard, if it had the initiative to roll it before the wizard could coup de grace.

Anyway, now I’m probably overcomplicating this and wasting even more time… But it is an interesting exercise!

I’m just picturing Garfield putting the hurt on Harry Potter. Not D&D, of course, but an amusing mental picture nonetheless.

If you THREW the cat at the wizard, I imagine it could do a hell of a lot of damage!

You know you are forcing me to dig up my Melee and Wizard rulebooks just to check this out, right? RIGHT?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantasy_Trip

“He’s fighting bare-handed (1d4 damage)”

Just FYI, unarmed damage for a medium creature is 1d3 ^^;;

Um, folks, have you ever tried Grappling a cat? It’s not as easy as it looks.

“I want tasty wizard liver
Melee, melee, please deliver…”

It’s conversations like the one above that keep me coming back.

That and Shamus.

Massively important thing you are leaving out: cats don’t have any melee reach, which means that they don’t get attacks of opportunity.

So, Mr Wizard (who has a high intelligence score, right?) takes a swing, then BACKS AWAY so the cat only gets to attack once instead of 3 times.

Also, Mr Wizard could start a grapple with no AoO from the cat as well.

Once in a grapple, the poor cat will get SQUISHED.

Run the numbers again with those.

Also, most people far very poorly going UNARMED against a cat – people use weapons.

(Actually, I think it’s still silly, but that’s basically a fault of the granularity of the system… cat attacks should do about .2 HP, but you can’t do that…)

It could be worse – they could have given the cat a Rake attack as well. Anyone who had every tangled in a serious manner with a housecat knows that the rake is a significant attack, but D&D only gives it to the larger Great Cats (lion & leopard but not cheetah, etc.)

The reason its non-sensical is that a 1st level character is pretty rare in the real world.

Most of us passed first level in junior high school. Mostly we are NPC Experts, but if you are a martial artist with say a black belt you might also have a few levels of warrior (NPC class again!)

So… if you look at it that way most people have the hit points to survive an encounter with a house cat. Also I can attest that the grapple size advantage actually works. Having been attacked by a rabid cat, I didn’t start punching and kicking it, but rather grabbed it.

Oh, and lastly don’t underestimate animals. Fluffy might seem harmless, but these are very deadly predators.

“I’m having a hard time picturing a cat dealing lethal damage to an adult…”

Tell that to my mother, who in five seconds was dealt deep enough cuts and bites to require 40 stitches. This from a friendly, small cat named Hercule that can’t be bothered to chase anything… but got spooked by something or other and latched onto her arm. A couple of inches over and she would have had a suicide-type of rip on her forearm, and she easily could have bled out.

I usually played it as Cat vs. Commoner, since a Commoner is mechanically a Wizard without spells (with Spot as a class skill!).

Giving the Wizard a dagger swings the odds to favor the wizard slightly (that 5 ft reach makes a difference!) so that average results would yield a very wounded wizard landing the final blow on the cat in Round 2.

Giving the Wizard the Toughness feat for 3 extra HP is about as effective as giving him a dagger. A dagger-wielding wizard with Toughness will almost certainly win!

ccelizic:
Good stuff, just a few little things to add.

A quick little bit of info, I’ll be assumeing fairly standard 10 str, 12 dex, and 12 con for the wizard.

Just one more thing to make grappeling an even worse option, is the fact that the cat can attack useing its claws and bite while in the grapple, albed at a -4 but thats still more likely then winning a grapple check against you. So the grapple option goes like this:
Touch attack against the cat (AC 14 with a -4 to attack) is a 15% chance of success.
Opposed grapple check with the cat (-12 v 0) is a roughly 60% chance of success (I think, I’m not great with prob of opposed checks).
Then if that works, you must do enough damage to take down the cat. 33% chance it stays at 1hp, 33% chance to bring it to 0 and thus stagger it, and 33& chance to actualy knock it unconcious. (note unconcious, the cat isn’t bleeding because its taken no leathal damage, only non-lethal)

So overall grappling has a roughly 3% chance of actualy takeing out the cat, 3% chance to stagger the cat, and a 3% chance to leave it at 1hp, oh and a 91% chance to be totaly inifective.

I may have to try asking Sage about wizards being proficent with unarmed attacks (new Wizards rules question guy) but assuming that the wizard does in fact take the -4 penelty (and is at least smart enough to take a 5-foot step to not take AOO from the cat for useing them) then the Wizard’s attack works like this:
Attack roll (AC 14 with a -4 to Attack) is a 15% chance of sucess.
Damage for the unarmed strike as above.

So overall you have an 85% chance to do nothing, a 5% chance to bring it to 1 hp, a 5% chance to stagger it, and a 5% chance to actualy knock it unconcious.

So odds are highly against the wizard for takeing the cat out in any given round useing either method, lets see how the cat similarly fairs.

Ok, so wizard has backed away from the cat 5 feet to do his unarmed attack, no problem because the cat can use the same 5-foot step rule to get close enough to attack the Wizard without loseing his option to get a full attack. So cat gets his full attack each turn, which works out something like this:
Each claw (AC 11 with a +4 attack bonus) has a 70% chance to hit, thus doing 1 damage.
His one bite (AC 11 with a -1 attack) has a 45% chance to hit, thus also doing 1 damage.
So his odds look something like this: 22% chance to do 3 points of damage, roughly 50% chance to do 2 damage, and somewhere around 23% chance to do 1 damage, and a meger 5% chance to miss compleatly.

So giving max HP at first level for the wizard, and his +1 con, he has 5HP total, and given the above %’s the cat has 0% chance to win in round one, 15% chance to win in round 2, The cats chance of winning in round 3 jumps up to an astounding 98% chance to win. (I could be wrong about these numbers, working with the large variance of damage over a higher HP range is kind of odd.)
(I’m counting staggered as a win)

Wizard on the other hand has numbers like this.
On round 1, he has a 10% chance to win, on round 2 he has a 28% chance to win, on round 3 it is 39%, 48%, 56%, 62%, 68%, 72%, so on and so forth

So overall things look very poor for our wizard, with him winning this theoretical battle somewhere in the 28-39% of the time range, based on who wins inititive. With something like a 99.75% chance to have taken at least one damage from the encounter.

You can throw in the tactic of attacking, then running away 30 feet if you want, which admitidly improves your chances a good deal, up to somewhere around 91% actualy, but still with a very high chance of takeing at least a point or two of damage in the mean time.

As for everyone that is talking about blasting the cat with magic missles, or useing armor, shield, fear, ect. to deal with this situation, just think about it a moment, your talking about a cat, if you really need to burn multipul spells (if going with the armor shield and fear idea) or even just one spell to deal with it, what the heck good are you going to do when there is a real threat, like say an orc, comeing against you, that would be the big reason you don’t use your spells, as someone said, it’d be like useing a gun on the cat. Of course it could also be that you’ve already used up your spells, or perhaps you where in town and had various non-combative spells prepared (unseen servent for example) and so couldn’t simply blast it.

As for not useing weapons, perhaps you don’t happen to have any, maybe they where stolen, maybe you where robbed, maybe you where taken prisioner (which could also be why you have no combat spells ready).

The overall point of this little experiment is to show just how pathetic wizards are when it comes to some things (granted even a warrior would have a bit of trouble if he was unarmed as well, though not nearly as much). So next time your wizard has used up all his spells, lost his weaopns, and is faced with an angry cat in a 10′x10x area, you better start praying, because odds are against him. (otherwise simple hit and run tactics virtualy garentee victory with only a few points of damage).

I’m still really curious about wizards taking a -4 on unarmed strikes due to unproficency though, definatly have to ask Sage.

Anyway, good fun doing all these calulations, I’m sure they are slightly off, but I figure if you have a program numbers crunch them you’ll come out with something fairly similar.

P.S. Don’t grapple cats, simple unarmed strikes work much better, despite all things.

On the subject of grappling, I’m not sure you get the -4ab when attempting a touch attack. It is not a specific weapon so should not have penalties applied.

Specialising in “wrestling” would be the improved grapple feat path which brings bonuses of it’s own as you no doubt already know.

Doesn’t the -4ab penalty only apply when attempting to do lethal damage whereas subdual would be most appropriate in this case, and indeed as effective? The AoO would still apply to anything threatening though.

This may well mean that if simple weapon proficiency is required that the wizard attempting lethal damage to the cat would in fact be at -8ab for not being proficient and attempting lethal damage (-4 each) however if the proficiency is a universal one then they’d be at +0ab due to being proficient and only inflicting subdual damage.

The above would either hugely widen the gap or massively reduce it.

Also on threat ranges, as long as a zero threat range creature is in your square and engaged wouldn’t they then gain the AoO possibility and would they lose the AoO for attacking their target?

Either way there is an argument for the potential of striking oneself, akin to the grapple and cover rules and for the rules for closing a creature with a reach weapon.

Too many possibilities here for this one to be cut and dried but in a standard slug out where trading blows toe to toe is the key then the cat would have the edge every single time.

Deoxy,

Your right, I didn’t mean to put the -4 to make the touch attack for starting the grapple, but the fact is that it still only has about a 20% or so chance to actualy keep the cat in the grapple, after which the cat gets a full attack at -4, and -then- the wizard has to beat the cat in another opposed grapple (not that hard, but still…) before the pin starts, so is still is a worse option then simply trying to punch the cat.

Also I made mention of the wizard moveing back after each attack instead of just standing there (which would only happen if the player was stupid or there wasn’t enough room to move around), and that increases his chance of victory to well over 91%, but still gives him good odds of takeing about 2-3 damage from the encounter.

Clothing really doesn’t help much with cat claws (and not at all for the bite), being a cat owner I can attest that unless your wearing jeans, cat’s claws go right through clothing (well, actualy most pants are thick enough to help out, but most shirts arn’t). But if you really wanted to include something like that, you’d have to include the fact that a real cat will litteraly latch onto you durring the fight, meaning you couldn’t run away from it, as its along for the ride.

This is what drove me crazy about D&D while growing up(early 1980′s Advanced D&D rules.)
The assumption that a magic user must be a complete wuss and that he could become a magic user for the first time at either age 8 or 80 and will still only have 1d4 hitpoints to start drove me up the wall.
I always understood the diehards who insisted that a Magic user with 18 INT and anything more than 10 ST would unbalance the game in their favor but I insisted that this was closer to real life than most would realize.
I was also considered a swell D&M in that I insisted on a set of rules I called the ‘Discipline’ factor.
It meant that no max characteristic could be more than +3 points above the lowest chracteristic and all starting hit point totals were calculated based on the constitution score no matter what the class.
Magic users could wear non-platemail armor cause I’ve personally had the opportunity to try on real chain mail, splint and banded mail, and had no problems with arm movement or other requirements.
I also insisted that since I myself had a 3.95 GPA, loved physics and Chemistry, and was a letterman on my highschool football team, that I could cast Magic missile, Gate in a type III demon and throw a hand axe as good as any dwarf.

But take these rules outside of our own inner circle and they would be denied by other DMs which is why I was the one everyone went to to manage their campaigns.

MYOB’
.

While I don’t deny that an angry cat can really make you wish you hadn’t made it angry, I’m having a hard time picturing a cat dealing lethal damage to an adult male of average strength, slightly better than average dexterity or constitution, and high intelligence.

It is clear to me that you have never met my wife’s cat :-)

JeremyDM said: It could be worse – they could have given the cat a Rake attack as well. Anyone who had every tangled in a serious manner with a housecat knows that the rake is a significant attack, but D&D only gives it to the larger Great Cats (lion & leopard but not cheetah, etc.)

You’re right, house cats issue vicious rakes in their tussles. (So do bunny rabbits, actually. Bucks can and occasionally do kill each other with their hind claws, vicious little diggers that they are.) But cheetahs’ claws are geared for running, not fighting: It is biologically appropriate that they weren’t given a rake attack because their rear claws are dull – much more effective as cleats than weapons.

And I officially can’t believe I’m contributing to this conversation…
;-)

Why does everyone assume the mage has just finished memorizing all his spells.. what if he’d was sans spells.. The error in the cat vs. mage as I see it is: A cat is a hit and run attacker.. it’ll scratch, bit, cling.. then get the hell out of dodge.. people tend to forget that any animal wants to live.. so they do damgage to make an escape possible.. so the mage would be bleeding and would get an AoO as the cat disengaged and hid…

To me one of the beautiful things about D&D is how people will debate for days about something like this.. I have a buddy that talks about a time they made a mace and coated it with chopsticks.. I guess the DM allowed each chopstick to have its damage.. DMs need to remember they are to use the rules.. but not be bound by them… The DM is always right.. therefor he doesn’t have to let the cat kill the mage… and he shouldn’t.. it doesn’t make sense… but it sure is fun to debate.

Mouse:

We’re assumeing the wizard is at least able to take a five foot step outside of the cats square so he doesn’t take the AOO from the attack, but otherwise what you just did was a less in depth version of what I did a few posts ago. (And maybe somewhat easier to read, it was late when I posted that.)

There’s a variant rule I picked up somewhere about this sort of situation. Probably at Sean K. Reynolds’ site now that I think about it…

Any critter with more strength penalty than damage on their attack gets relegated to doing non-lethal damage.

The cat still wins but the wizard also survives the encounter.

And whenever this discussion comes up it assumes that the wizard is solo which is very much the exception in typical D&D.

Unrealistic though it may be (I still have scars on my forearm that people occasionally mistake for suicide), the non-lethal rule at least shifts the game closer to a *typical* kitty vs. person encounter.

I’m not sure if anyone pointed this out already or not (so many comments…) but a human’s unarmed strike only deals 1d3 points of nonlethal damage. Not 1d4. The wizard could take a –4 penalty on his attack rolls to deal lethal damage if he wanted to, but it’s rather pointless.

Also, the cat doesn’t get to make an attack of opportunity when the wizard attacks it unarmed, as the cat doesn’t have the reach to do so. Rather, the cat must enter the wizard’s square to attack (which doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity, since the wizard is unarmed).

The point about cats normally running brings up a sore point with me. All the DMs I’ve dealt with handle combat the same way— regardless of situation or circumstance, the combat monster attacks, and attacks, and attacks, until either your team is dead or it is. Even if it’s grossly outnumbered or outranked. Even if it has no motivation for attacking you in the first place. (“Six cats attack you” indeed.)