Trying to make sense of stupidity

[lord_tenrai]

So, a level 1 peasant goes up against a house cat...

House cat wins... flawless victory... peasant-ality

(You can all thank Tsukinoware for the second sentence and skurtchasor for bringing up the old topic in sentence 1)

Now... in a world where this can happen... how can any of the game mechanics / laws of physics be taken seriously

Comments

Peasant can win!

[snipafist]

Let's assume our peasant is average in every way (straight 10s). He can still beat the housecat! The housecat begins the fight by leaping from the bushes onto the poor peasant with a +6 to hit for charging. The peasant is hit for 1 damage. The peasant is down to 5, oh no! The peasant takes a step back and rounds on the housecat, initiating a grapple check to pick up Mr. Fluffyclaws. Mr. Fluffyclaws gets an attack of opportunity on the simple peasant, dealing an extra 1 damage. The peasant has a 40% chance of grabbing the housecat (8 in 20) to initiate a grapple. Let's assume that he fails. The next round, the housecat takes a 5 foot step to to bring its full assortment of deadly weapons to bear. He gets 2 claw attacks at +4 and a bite at -1. On average, each claw will hit 75% of the time (5 in 20 chance of missing AC 10) and his bite will hit 45% of the time, so I think it's fair to say he hits twice for a further 2 damage, bringing the peasant down to 2 HP. The peasant goes in for another grapple, which earns him another cat thwack,

[phoemeister]

I don't know why, but this poorly-drawn comic I made about working at the farm really made me think you would get a kick out of it:

http://www.geocities.com/tribble80/goodneighbor.jpg