Is 4e worth getting? [Archive] - Page 3 - Giant in the Playground Forums

Oracle_Hunter

2009-02-28, 03:52 AM

3.X spells are meant to be used when mundame means just won't cut it. And they actually work in this role, allowing you to reliably solve problems by expeding spell slot or monetary resources. This is perfectly balanced against mundane means, because mundane means are free and the part of your resources consumed by magic solutions becomes insignificant only when the problem as a whole becomes insignificant (no one cares about Knock that much, when the melee dude can obliterate several square meters of stone with a single hit, etc). Rituals in 4E (with exception of a few crazy-good ones, that either do thing that nothing else does, like by raising the dead or wholly remove the mundane problem, like by enchanting items; as well as a few train-ticket rituals, like water breathing) don't work at all. They eat your monetary resources, which you can put in various good stuff, and often eat alot of them, but some of them simply have no conceivable use and others still work only as good or worse as mundane means.

Quick calculus:
Desirability of a course can be determined by multiplying the chance of success by the cost of the action; (chance of success) x (cost).

This should then be weighed against the cost of failure and the risk of failure; (cost of failure) x (chance of failure)

Mundane Skill: (>100%) x (free) - (significant) x (1 - [>100%])
Magic: (100%) x (spell slot) - (significant) x (0%)

Now, spell slots are common, renewable resources. In general, you need only sleep for 8 hours to regain all of the ones you have spent; also, most characters have a surfeit of spell slots, thanks to the combat power of individual spells. Plus, you can substitute spell slots with items like Pearls of Power or Wands & Scrolls. As such, I say the value of an individual spell slot is not very high.

Even if we assume that a mundane skill have a high chance of success (75%, let's say), the fact that you risk some substantial penalty if you fail makes magic a far more attractive option. As such, magic becomes the "go to" solution for any significant problem, rather than skill usage.

This is not true, of course, for Skills which are 100% effective (Tumble) or for situations which have an insignificant cost of failure.

I'm also confused about your statement of gold being a non-renewable resource. DMing aesthetics aside, you know that, by the book, the majority of your magic is going to be "given" to you in Treasure Packets. You do not need to horde gold to afford the magic items you so desperately need; gold is meant to be spent on adventuring needs - ale & wenches, inn rooms, Ritual components, bribes, and the like.

Asbestos

2009-02-28, 03:58 AM

So, not allowing players to do something as intuitive as hacking the Blue door apart, because in the world 4E you need to work your behinds off for Blue Key to open the Blue Door, is "being unreasonable"? Wow. Just wow.

Yup, nothing more intuitive to me than grabbing a pipe and trying to beat down a reinforced steel door. Nope.

FatR

2009-02-28, 04:26 AM

It might be worth pointing out that you do not permanently depower your character, and you should not see it as such. 4e is designed so that you don't have to bring the entire kitchen sink to be 'effective'. Any magic items beyond the three basic ones will prove useful, but they will be basically trivial for level-appropriate characters - and while they are always permanent, they are usually severely limited themselves. 4e healing itams actually tire your character out, for example, and are way less effective than the powers that can achieve the same effect.

TL;DR version: Any income past the cost of an enchanted implement, armour and a cloak is basically disposable (the 4e Batman notwithstanding)
It is only disposable, if you dispose of it carelessly and the game isn't really challenging. Otherwise it can and should be put to good use, by decking your character in good items. Look at CharOp 4E characters. Note, that they are covered in magical stuff from head to toes. "You need only implement, armor and cloak" is a myth. Benefits from other items are considerable, particularly if you actually optimize your selection. Trading them for miniscule benefits, that most rituals provide, makes no sense.

4e also assumes much less of a magic item economy than 3e. There are no magic shops in 4e (unless your spellcasters are this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0135.html) stupid). So you also have the problem of actually finding whatever magic item you wanted unless you get someone to make it for you.
This already has been answered. You don't have magic shops in 4E, because you don't need them, crafting the stuff you want for yourself have never been faster or easier. Even by comparison with 3.X, where you were required to spend your precuious feats and XP.

FatR

2009-02-28, 04:35 AM

Yup, nothing more intuitive to me than grabbing a pipe and trying to beat down a reinforced steel door. Nope.
Stop twisting my arguments. Anyway, despite your attempts of sarcasm (through misinterpretation), beating down a reinforced steel door with a pipe or one's boot is a perfectly intuitive and realistic course of action for a character that can reliably defeat an ogre in single combat. Weaker ones can, you know, take cue from real-life ways of assaulting appartments and use "universal key" (that might double as their primary weapon).

AgentPaper

2009-02-28, 05:02 AM

Stop twisting my arguments. Anyway, despite your attempts of sarcasm (through misinterpretation), beating down a reinforced steel door with a pipe or one's boot is a perfectly intuitive and realistic course of action for a character that can reliably defeat an ogre in single combat. Weaker ones can, you know, take cue from real-life ways of assaulting appartments and use "universal key" (that might double as their primary weapon).

You can beat the door down with your foot, or fist, or pipe or whatever. It's called a strength check, versus the door's break DC.

FatR

2009-02-28, 05:13 AM

Quick calculus:
Stop using calco-babble to defy both practical game experiences and real theory. In practice, almost no one ever used 3.X Knock or Hold Portal. When they were used, this was due to lack of alternatives, or because the party got a wand/scroll in the loot. Just ask, like, anyone, who actually plays 3.X.
In real theory...

Now, spell slots are common, renewable resources. In general, you need only sleep for 8 hours to regain all of the ones you have spent; also, most characters have a surfeit of spell slots, thanks to the combat power of individual spells.
...this is wrong, as you would have understood, if you have actually attempted to figure out a typical payload of a real low-mid level wizard (at high levels spells that overcome mundane obstacles do not matter, because mundane obstacles do not matter). When you have, say, 5-6 2-nd level slots and 4 3-rd level slots (you need to be focused specialist wizard to have more, and people don't play them often), you must provide both your real offense and real defense from these slots and all your best defenses last 1 min./level at best (this usually means "one encounter"), you don't have a surfeit of spell slots even if you use a single attack spell per encounter. Which is usually not enough. Pearls of power for necessary levels and other spell-increasing stuff have prohibitive prices at that point. Only after getting your 4-th level spells can you even consider using spell slots of 2nd-3rd levels for utility purposes. This, of course assumes a dungeon raid where you aren't guaranteed a safe rest (but if you are, 4E stops working even worse than 3.X).
Technically you can use optimization to have more spellcasting resources/use them more effectively, but you also can use it to get ridiculous skill modifiers.

I'm also confused about your statement of gold being a non-renewable resource. DMing aesthetics aside, you know that, by the book, the majority of your magic is going to be "given" to you in Treasure Packets. You do not need to horde gold to afford the magic items you so desperately need; gold is meant to be spent on adventuring needs - ale & wenches, inn rooms, Ritual components, bribes, and the like.
Main adventuring need of my characters is things that allow him to stay in one piece. In 4E, these things are magic items. Therefore hoarding gold for them is superior survival option, particulalrly if DM is adversarial enough to force PCs to stay in inn rooms and pay for them, as opposed to being housed by grateful (or/and afraid) townspeople. In other words, money still mean power.

FatR

2009-02-28, 05:15 AM

You can beat the door down with your foot, or fist, or pipe or whatever. It's called a strength check, versus the door's break DC.
It is calling attacking the door and, as already outlined above, rules both as written and as intended allow that.

AgentPaper

2009-02-28, 05:24 AM

You don't use lock and hold portal in 3.5, because you're reducing your combat capability if you do. Rituals don't keep you from casting spells, so they're more useful. A lockpick or really strong guy will open doors better than you, yes, but that's the point. If you don't have a really strong guy, or a lockpick, or if they can't open this really hard to open door, knock becomes useful. It takes time, but you can open harder doors with it.

As for rituals de-powering you, no, you don't need to be decked head-to-toe in magic items to fight. You can do just fine with weapon/armor/cloak. The other items, help, sure, but not much. Plus, rituals don't cost THAT much. Expensive enough to make you think before you use? Yes. So expensive that you're better off not even doing it? No. At the most you might put yourself a level or so behind what you normally would have, and that's not going to effect you in a fight.

It is calling attacking the door and, as already outlined above, rules both as written and as intended allow that.

I thought that before as well, but not-quite-as-above, it was pointed out that you can't attack an object with most powers, as they specify "Target: Creature". This is most definitely RAW and RAI, as certain powers, such as Force Orb and Disintegrate, specify "Target: Creature or Object". You can rule as DM that other powers can also attack objects, but that's houseruling. For the most part, brute forcing a door or wall down is a strength check. By RAW, you can't actually break any objects other than doors and walls, except with Force Orb and Disintegrate, (the only two powers in core that target objects) but RAI is probably that the DM decides how stuff works there.

Sebastian

2009-02-28, 10:28 AM

3.X has explicit rules for not punching down metal doors. They do have hardness in 3.X, and these values are given. Players do play this way without houserules, and it has certain sense to it. If you want to hack apart a door with a bunch of swings, it has very clear rules on this.

With the interesting consequence that if you are badass enough you can punch down a steel door barehanded, or you can see if a certain door would be enough to stop i.e. a raging dragon, and for how long, without the need for the DM to handwave things (most of the times, at least), a thing that always annoy me either if it is in my favor or against me.

ericgrau

2009-02-28, 10:59 AM

Most doors are wooden because you don't want to protect a room with a door that's worth more than what's in the room. The rules say specifically that iron doors tend to be used for protecting valuable things like vaults. The break DCs for all doors are fixed, not that high and, given enough time, it's fairly easy for just about anyone to break through one. If anything most doors should be considered something to slow the PCs down not an impassable barrier.

Hacking: Wooden doors have hardness 5 and 10-20 HP. Stone and iron have about twice the hardness and 60 HP. But if you're on the hinge-side then the hinge has 30 HP. Locks can also be hacked at and have similar resilience. Internal locks are intricate so most locks are not internal. The lock could be on the other side of the door, sure, but not if the monsters actually use it.

Forcing Open: Break DCs (strength check) range from 13 to 28. And you can take a 20. Once you hit strength 26 not even a portcullis or iron door is a permanent obstacle. A portable ram or crowbar gives a +2. The ram allows another player to assist for another +2, dropping the necessary strength to beat any door to 18 and making wooden doors a 1 or 2 round obstacle at worst.

Open Lock: DCs range from 20 to 40, though usually 30 is the upper limit. You can take a 20 on these checks. Like doors these can get expensive and there better be something important behind the door to pay so much for it. A rogue with MW tools and dex 15 can take a 20 to get a check of 27 + level without feats or magic items. With dex 26 that's 33 + level. Taking a 10 to do it in a single round makes that 17 + level and 23 + level respectively.

And there's the knock spell of course, though this usually isn't worth the spell slot given the large number of doors in a dungeon and the large number of other ways to pass a door. And the desire to prepare other 1st level spells. But if there isn't another means available then a wand of knock would do, except at very low levels. It's almost as if they wanted most doors to be easy for any class to open. I really don't see how doors are a measure of anything.

Artanis

2009-02-28, 12:01 PM

I mean, true, but look at the base HP for a door: 20 HP. Even with fists, that's going down fast.
Whether or not it works well is irrelevant to my point. My point in the quoted post is merely that it is NOT houseruling for the DM to say "no, you can't shoot down the door with arrows" :smallsmile:

Oracle_Hunter

2009-02-28, 12:32 PM

Therefore hoarding gold for them is superior survival option, particulalrly if DM is adversarial enough to force PCs to stay in inn rooms and pay for them, as opposed to being housed by grateful (or/and afraid) townspeople. In other words, money still mean power.

You think a DM is "adversarial" if he makes you pay for your rooms? :smallconfused:

Clearly, we come from two different gaming universes.

Also: "calco-babble" or not, this is a common form of Cost-Benefit Analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_benefit_analysis). I guess I just don't see why, if you had a Beguiler, you'd ever open your mouth without Glibness up.

tsuuga

2009-02-28, 01:08 PM

Ah. I see now. There was never a debate between 3e and 4e. The debate is between strict-RAW 3.5, and Whatever Seems Logical. But hey, if thinking "Maybe my +5 axe is capable of harming metal objects" makes me a rules-lawyering metagamer. Then sure. That's what I am.

Not that the ability to harm a door with fists or arrows was even relevant to the argument. I note you haven't addressed using, say, swords, axes, hammers, or spells which still take down the door as fast or faster. Your epic-level Arcane Lock still takes four rounds to beat.

3.x without houserules: World still kind of works. Creatures are capable of finding, killing, and eating food. Shooting a bow at a door is not going to break it anytime soon. Magic Item Crafters have heard of this odd concept of profit. Communities have a quantifiable amount of currency.

4.x without houserules: Wizards learn kung-fu despite putting no effort into it(and 1d3+15 really ought to qualify as a karate chop). You also learn, for example, better lockpicking skills by killing orcs, even if you don't care and have never even met someone who knew how to do it. Around 30% of the population would die if they ever got slapped. If you learn how to stab people in the kidneys and how to direct people on a battlefield, it somehow prevents you from sitting through a church service (or prevents a god from giving you stuff). Despite magic items being rare, the one you want happens to be close by and for sale, "in general".

[QUOTE=AgentPaper]You can beat the door down with your foot, or fist, or pipe or whatever. It's called a strength check, versus the door's break DC.Oh. So your "Logical Universe" rule does let you punch a door until it breaks. Hint: If you can break a door with an unarmed attack in one round, as you just claimed, you can of course break it over several rounds.

You can rule as DM that other powers can also attack objects, but that's houseruling. For the most part, brute forcing a door or wall down is a strength check. By RAW, you can't actually break any objects other than doors and walls, except with Force Orb and Disintegrate, (the only two powers in core that target objects) but RAI is probably that the DM decides how stuff works there. Haaaaaahahahahahahaha. Oh boy. It's RAW that you apply the exact opposite of the breaking an item rules, but it's a houserule that you can attack things that don't move?

"The designers were too lazy to include verisimilitude, so rules only exist when they're not broken" is one of the weakest positions I've ever seen someone take. Thanks for lowering the bar. I'm no longer even willing to try 4e; the arguments for it have been that bad.

Artanis

2009-02-28, 01:15 PM

Not that the ability to harm a door with fists or arrows was even relevant to the argument. I note you haven't addressed using, say, swords, axes, hammers, or spells which still take down the door as fast or faster.
It is VERY relevant to the problem of attacking objects. Hacking down a door with an axe that averages X damage a hit is a lot more believable than breaking a door just as quickly by shooting it with arrows that do X damage per hit.

4.x without houserules: Wizards learn kung-fu despite putting no effort into it(and 1d3+15 really ought to qualify as a karate chop).
I assume you mean at level 30, when the 1/2 level bonus gives +15 to the attack roll. It does NOT give +15 to the damage roll.

Sebastian

2009-02-28, 01:45 PM

Just because the GM can fix it, doesn't mean it is not broken.

Even if the game explicitly says "this is broken, fix it" don't matter, it is still broken.

But in this case replace broken with "stupid"

Artanis

2009-02-28, 01:56 PM

Except that there are varying levels of stupid, and even whether something is stupid in the first place is entirely subjective.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's worthless.

Da Beast

2009-02-28, 02:03 PM

Advocate

2009-02-28, 02:06 PM

By the way, 'apply boot to adamantine door' is a DC 29 strength check. I know Advocate never mentioned adamantine in his dungeon, but perhaps he can relate to the humor of needing a +9 strength modifier and a natural 20 to replace a 10 minute ritual.

Only if you wanted to break it in one hit. Otherwise, you just attack and do damage to it.

For my dungeon, which of course is 3.5... there aren't even break DCs for Adamantine doors listed. Iron is DC 28 though. In any case, one of the party members has a +15 to Strength checks, +20 if he uses an ability first. So assuming you can't just break it down, which wouldn't be hard given that it'd have hardness 20, and around 80 HP or so so it'd go down in 3-4 hits...

Also, taking 20 would take 2 minutes. Boot to the door is 5 times faster and completely free. Is that the humor you meant?

@Advocate: Do the alarms in your dungeon count as part of the encounter? It seems to me that they are basically traps that, if triggered, spawn another encounter. Assuming what I remember of 3.5 DMing, a CR X is an appropriate encounter for a party of level X.

If the alarm triggers a similar encounter, counting it as a trap makes the total encounter CR X+2, right?

If the alarm triggers three similar encounters (you did say four level appropriate encounters, right?), is that CR X+4?

Basically, I have been reading this whole thread over several days for entertainment. I was just wondering how you could think an entire fortress swarming the party with mere rounds in between could be seen as more than one large encounter. Looking at your dungeon that way, wouldn't the sensible thing to do be come back to the fortified keep when you are at the appropriate level?

Sorry for the rambling post.

Maxwell.

Why would something as simple as a gong go raising the CR? You hit it, and that makes other people hit more gongs and so forth until the entire place is alerted. Reason why one gong doesn't just spread through the place is its a recommandered cave. Several feet of stone block sound pretty well. Also, it makes it easier for them to get to an alarm station. It takes several rounds for the entire place to be alerted, so it's more likely to be several encounters in rapid succession. Intelligence does not raise CR. Stupidity does lower it.

Also, it doesn't bring the whole base on your head. Just the patrolling undead, and the dispatch team. That is at most, two encounters, one of which is pretty easy. The golems won't, and can't move from their rooms, and will attack any living, corporeal creature inside or any creature that attacks them. The Roper won't move, and since it's off in a side room that clearly looks 1: Unimportant and 2: Dangerous you can just close the door quickly and not be bothered. Most of the rest of the enemies wait in the room with the BBEG, and use the warning to buff up. Going after the PCs is something that won't work well due to the close quarters. They'd end up dividing and conquering themselves that way. And the security patrol, and dispatch team try to escape if beaten up enough, to pass on intel accordingly.

As for coming back... if you go in, and then leave expect to be harassed constantly by disposable forces, such as animated undead, perhaps created by killing the subjects of Planar Binding. Though the forces themselves may not leave that room (they're guarding important stuff there) they will happily send created help after you. They will also happily do things like assault friends and family members and such, then animate them to teach the PCs a lesson.

And as for 3.5 Knock... no one ever used it because an Adamantine Bolt is cheaper than a single charge from a Knock wand, available as early as level 1 as a starting character, and it automatically slices through the lock via 'ignores hardness'.

If you ignore hardness, it effectively has a hardness of 0. Which means it's like slicing through paper. As an experiment, hold up a piece of paper. Take a decently sharp knife, and lightly apply it to paper. Observe results. Now consider that an actual weapon is likely to be sharper than your kitchen cutlery.

Which means it works just fine until you get into adamantine locks, which means 3k+ just on the lock. And assuming the hinges and door didn't get the same treatment you can just take an adamantine weapon, which costs 3k of your more abundant PC wealth and cut a hole in the door, or cut it off the hinges.

By the time NPCs can actually afford to make the whole adamantine you can just break an adamantine door in one hit anyways.

Hold Portal works the same way, but in reverse. It is done far better by completely free and mundane means, so as to never justify the spell slot.

Adamantine Bolt also replaces OL. Which was already replaced by DD anyways, but given how high OL DCs are, even the Rogue is best served saving his points, and buying a 'key'.

Yakk

2009-02-28, 02:58 PM

4.x without houserules: Wizards learn kung-fu despite putting no effort into it(and 1d3+15 really ought to qualify as a karate chop).
Huh? A level 30 wizard would do 2d3+str bonus from a punch. 1/2 level doesn't add to damage. It just adds to d20 checks.

If you want a simulation based explanation for the +1/2 level to d20 checks, one can presume that the character is cheating. The wizard gets better at jumping over chasms because ... the wizard uses a minor cantrip to jump better.

It's trivial fluff.

As an aside, I do want to run the 'you attack the castle, the alarm (maybe) goes up, and you have to fight the entire massed enemy guard'. I figure some minion-swarm mechanics would make it more than doable (where I use a minion to represent an entire swarm of enemies).

Advocate

2009-02-28, 03:29 PM

*yawn* What is it with all the people trying to gimp actual challenges into uselessness, as if it still made the same point?

If a fingerpoke can kill you, you quite literally Fail At Life. Note that as actual people don't have 1 HP with no negative baseline, this is directed at characters. No metagaming!

Artanis

2009-02-28, 03:38 PM

Is having realistic doors really that important to people? There's several pages here of debate about doors. I've never found myself thinking "well this is a fun game, but the lack of realistic door breaking mechanics has totally killed the verisimilitude." Maybe 4E's rules for doors could use some work, but that doesn't make it a bad system. 3E has it's bugs too, but that's never stopped anyone from having a good time with it.
I was looking at the DMG for a post in another thread, and I think that the object breaking/"killing" rules aren't that bad once you run the numbers. A lot of the problems go away as long as you keep in mind the DM's ability to say "no" to the player.

krossbow

2009-02-28, 04:10 PM

Advocate

2009-02-28, 04:23 PM

Fluffy was on the design team. Killing Joe Commoner wasn't enough.

Artanis

2009-02-28, 04:25 PM

Are you being serious or are you joking?

I'm asking honestly because it makes a very large difference in what the appropriate reply would be.

krossbow

2009-02-28, 04:32 PM

Are you being serious or are you joking?

I'm asking honestly because it makes a very large difference in what the appropriate reply would be.

Return Question: Would my intent truly matter in such a situation? 1 in 20 kittens (at least) kills an orc! house cat's have to be cheaper than hiring mercenaries!

NPCMook

2009-02-28, 04:35 PM

Well Roland, I think you can lock this thread, as it seems to have served its purpose.

Advocate

2009-02-28, 04:42 PM

Return Question: Would my intent truly matter in such a situation? 1 in 20 kittens (at least) kills an orc! house cat's have to be cheaper than hiring mercenaries!

Also, a horde of beggars with rocks is Ultimate Power. Certainly, they are far more capable than you.

Next question: How effectively would this power level the cats? That is a lot of free XP, after all.

Would they start evolving into lions and tigers?

arguskos

2009-02-28, 04:43 PM

Well Roland, I think you can lock this thread, as it seems to have served its purpose.
Dude, don't lock this thread! It's just now getting good! They're discussing the Ultimate Power(tm) of Housecats, meaning another Good Cat thread might evolve here! :smallcool:

krossbow

2009-02-28, 04:45 PM

Also, a horde of beggars with rocks is Ultimate Power. Certainly, they are far more capable than you.

Next question: How effectively would this power level the cats? That is a lot of free XP, after all.

Would they start evolving into lions and tigers?

Well obviously they'd evolve into holycat (http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/25/holy-kitten-has-evolved-into-holycat/) and ascend to the upper planes.

Artanis

2009-02-28, 04:48 PM

Return Question: Would my intent truly matter in such a situation? 1 in 20 kittens (at least) kills an orc! house cat's have to be cheaper than hiring mercenaries!
Yes, it would matter, because 1 in 20 kittens doesn't kill an orc due to the fact that things don't work that way in 4e.

This isn't 3.5 where everything in the entire world must have hp and must have an attack. This is 4e, where things work differently, something that many people do not seem to completely grasp, even while bemoaning it. In 4e, if a horde of kittens attacks a batch of orc minions, they don't start making attack rolls. The DM says, "the orcs kill the kittens easily, because they're freakin' kittens."

FoE

2009-02-28, 04:48 PM

Hmm... thinking about this...

It might be interesting to train an army of housecats and send them at the heavily armed goblins and orc minions. haha, just watching them all fall before the feline might would be worth it as their 1 hp is shredded by tiny claws.

Indeed, my kitten hordes shall tear a swath of destruction through mine enemies.

:smallsigh: Minions only exist through DM fiat. They represent monsters that are no longer a significant challenge to the PCs because they've advanced far beyond them. I realize you're making a joke, but on the off chance you aren't, it wouldn't work.

krossbow

2009-02-28, 04:51 PM

The DM says, "the orcs kill the kittens easily, because they're freakin' kittens."

So basically plot armor is the TRUE power of PC's then? :smalltongue:
My familiar mr. flufferson shall be most dissapointed that he won't be an onslaught of doom.

Morty

2009-02-28, 04:53 PM

Yes, it would matter, because 1 in 20 kittens doesn't kill an orc due to the fact that things don't work that way in 4e.

This isn't 3.5 where everything in the entire world must have hp and must have an attack. This is 4e, where things work differently, something that many people do not seem to completely grasp, even while bemoaning it. In 4e, if a horde of kittens attacks a batch of orc minions, they don't start making attack rolls. The DM says, "the orcs kill the kittens easily, because they're freakin' kittens."

:smallsigh: Minions only exist through DM fiat. They represent monsters that are no longer a significant challenge to the PCs because they've advanced far beyond them. I realize you're making a joke, but on the off chance you aren't, it wouldn't work.

Of course, such a level of abstraction and handwaving is something that irks very many people about 4ed and it would continue to do so even if minions weren't a failed idea to begin with. Just sayin'.

FoE

2009-02-28, 05:09 PM

Of course, such a level of abstraction and handwaving is something that irks very many people about 4ed and it would continue to do so even if minions weren't a failed idea to begin with. Just sayin'.

Is animal cruelty/desecrating a corpse no longer illegal? I can't see any other reason why you haven't been charged for continuing to beat that dead horse. :smalltongue:

Look, we'll always disagree on minions, Mort, but don't say it's a "failed idea" because you and a few others don't like the concept. I mean, New Coke was a failed idea. Minions haven't even approached that pinnacle.

Decoy Lockbox

2009-02-28, 05:11 PM

After playing through 1e, 2e and 3e/3.5, I am enjoying 4e very much. I don't actually care about convincing other people that its good/great/the best though, just thought I would provide my personal experience with 4e for anyone who hasn't actually played the system.

I was extremely leery about 4e when it first came out, but after 8 years of 3rd edition, I (and most of the people I played with) had explored every nook and cranny of the system and grown to loathe it. When we first switched from 2e to 3e, the increased freedom and balance (as compared to 2e) seemed exhilarating, but after 8 years we had grown to know the system a bit too well, and it's ugly faults had begun to ruin our fun. So we had the choice: either switch to 4e, switch to another system, modify 3e (as many players had done with 2e and 1e), or create a new system; many of our players are amateur game designers who have made several workable systems in the past.

We decided to give 4e a spin, and the reviews were mixed. Our DM liked not having to worry about the party doing overpowered/ridiculous things, and he liked having battles that lasted longer than the standard 1-3 rounds that 3e gave us. However, our DM overall was not a huge fan of the system, for a number of complicated reasons that I will not get into here (mainly stemming from his personal philosophy of game design). One of our players, who normally played a cackling, morally ambiguous wizard in the past editions, was dismayed about the virtual castration that the class underwent in 4e, but recognized that it was necessary to ensure balance. He would have liked there to be more utility options available to casters, but overall was pleased with the new changes. I and one of the other players, who had learned to powergame quite well in 3.5, found the system very enjoyable. I can't speak for the other player (since he himself isn't very talkative), but I will get into my reaction later. Lastly, our resident anti-powergaming player also enjoyed the system, because it allowed him to create a character within an hour or so that could make a meaningful contribution to the team. Needless to say, this guy was a bit of an AD&D grognard, and one of the many, many things that had pissed him off about 3e/3.5 was how long it took to create a decent character character.

Anyway, like I said earlier, here is my personal reaction to 4e:

Stuff I like
- Non-casters have much more stuff they can do
- Combat is more tactical, and lasts longer than a few rounds
- Multiple skills rolled into one omnibus skill (like athletics)
- Overall game balance is excellent, with some exceptions (see 4e CharOp board (http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=867))
- Character creation time much shorter than 3e, but not as stupidly brief as 2e/1e (making a fighter in those editions was literally as simplistic as "roll stats", "pick weapon", "roll hitpoints", "select name").
- Gulf between optimized characters and un-optimized characters nowhere near as large as it was in 3e.
- System much more newbie-friendly than past systems (though playing, say, a fighter in AD&D was pretty darn easy for newbs). Now, whether or not this is a good thing varies from person to person...
- System encourages class-based identity. Now, you can say "I'm playing a fighter", rather than "I'm playing a fighter 2/barbarian 3/ranger 1/frenzied berserker 5". I'm not opposed to multiclassing, just the kind of excessive multiclassing (especially with prestige classes) that occurred in 3e.
- Less classes. I felt that by 2008, there were far too may classes in the game. The fact that many of them were terrible was pretty annoying too.
- Less feats. I think the official count of 3rd edition feats is up to something like 3,200 at this point...and I'm guessing only about 10% of them are even worth taking.
- Overall power of spells toned down. Earlier editions of the game had this mentality that spells should be outrageously powerful, to the point of being game breaking. The supposed justification was that spellcasters were less physically adept than fighters and their ilk, but 3e proved that to be blatantly false (CoDzilla anyone?). In 2e/1e, a lvl 20 wizard could very well have only 40 hp or so, and it only took a single point of dmg to disrupt a spell as it was being cast. However, it was much, much harder to stop a properly played spellcaster in 3e.
- Healing is proportional to a character's total HP.
- Static hit points remove chance of characters being screwed when leveling up. This was especially true in 1e/2e when most characters did not get a bonus to HP from con (since you had to have a 15 to do it).
- Fighters are good now! Never though I would see the day. They can do stuff that no other class can do, and they can kick out the jams even while keeping their AC high and doing defensive tricks. I had a lot of fun with my lvl 11 fighter/warlord/swordmaster during my first 4e campaign.

Stuff I don't like
- Casters have much, much less stuff they can do
- Multiclassing system needs some work. As is, its kinda wonky.
- Weapon users have a really easy time doing lots of damage, whereas implement users have a harder time. This wouldn't be an issue, but some of the implement classes are "strikers", i.e. people with a focus on doing damage. You can make a rogue do 3d8+16 dmg a round at lvl 6, but I think you would be hard pressed to say that about a warlock.
- Characters don't have enough powers at the lower levels. It is for this reason that I like to start 4e games at 6th level; players have 2 at-wills, 2 utilities, 2 encounters and 2 dailies, in addition to racial and class-based powers (i.e. eladrin teleport, cleric's healing word).
- For characters, damage and healing come fast and furious; I've seen a character go from full health to negative hp and back up to full health during round 1 of a combat. Now, it was an unusual situation, but it still bears repeating.
- Too hard to up your so-called NADS (i.e. fortitude, reflex and Will). As opposed to AC, which is, in my experience with playing 4e fighters and paladin, very easy to do.

So thats my experience with 4e. Your mileage may vary. But I will say this: if you are looking for a high-fantasy roleplaying game that features balanced, tactical combat, 4e is the game for you.

Artanis

2009-02-28, 05:11 PM

So basically plot armor is the TRUE power of PC's then? :smalltongue:
My familiar mr. flufferson shall be most dissapointed that he won't be an onslaught of doom.
One word: swarm.

An individual kitten isn't a threat to...well, to pretty much anything, really. But a sufficiently large number of them with sufficiently murderous intent could fit in as a swarm :smallbiggrin:

Of course, such a level of abstraction and handwaving is something that irks very many people about 4ed and it would continue to do so even if minions weren't a failed idea to begin with. Just sayin'.
Oh, I agree that many people dislike it, and are completely justified in their opinion. But if that's the way it works, that's the way it works :smallwink:

Morty

2009-02-28, 05:11 PM

Is animal cruelty/desecrating a corpse no longer illegal? I can't see any other reason why you haven't been charged for continuing to beat that dead horse. :smalltongue:

Isn't this entire thread a dead horse graveyard, as is convincing people that 4ed is abstract, as if the haven't noticed it for themselves?:smalltongue:

Oh, I agree that many people dislike it, and are completely justified in their opinion. But if that's the way it works, that's the way it works

Yeah, and this is why those discussions will never end. Because we all feel this weird need to say the same things over and over again.

FoE

2009-02-28, 05:16 PM

Isn't this entire thread a dead horse graveyard, as is convincing people that 4ed is abstract, as if the haven't noticed it for themselves? :smalltongue:

Yeah, you pretty well hit the nail on the head. We've all been giving that poor dead warhorse a whack with the stick.

Morty

2009-02-28, 05:22 PM

Yeah, you pretty well hit the nail on the head. We've all been giving that poor dead warhorse a whack with the stick.

It's more of a stain on the ground than a horse by now.

krossbow

2009-02-28, 05:29 PM

We're going to need an epic level necromancer to reconstitute a recognizable undead out of it now.

Sebastian

2009-02-28, 06:22 PM

We'll just make a horse ghost. Now with 4e you would not even need magic weapons to beat it. ;)

mrmaxmrmax

2009-03-01, 12:01 AM

Only if you wanted to break it in one hit. Otherwise, you just attack and do damage to it.

Given the choice of the ritual or breaking down the door, can you advocate a reason you might use the ritual? Let's say your dungeon had one entrance and it was a locked door. If they were trying to avoid the gong show waiting for them inside, wouldn't they choose the ritual if picking the lock failed?

Why would something as simple as a gong go raising the CR? You hit it, and that makes other people hit more gongs and so forth until the entire place is alerted.

The dungeon you originally described as showing why 4e was not worth getting made it clear that it was impossible for the party to avoid alerting all enemies unless they were acting irrationally. From your interesting post:

PCs enter, and almost immediately have a chance of alerting the BBEG if they handle a trap wrong. Short answer is that the correct answer is to intentionally trip this trap, and not avoid it or disarm it.

In 4e, I could easily create a situation where the players need to do something against their best interest immediately for best results. I don't think it'd be much fun for the players during the session or after when I let them know the best course of action was to do what seemed like an option not on the table.

Regardless of what happens here, they find themselves at the very fortified front door, in the cross hairs of the guards. At the guard station, there are two alarm gongs, and there are more alarm gongs scattered throughout the complex. Barring multiple Silence spells, the alarm will be raised, and spread throughout. In under 1 minute, the entire base will have heard the alarm and began preparing for the intruders, assuming that this hasn't already happened. As a result, the PCs can expect to fight many fights in very rapid succession until they either destroy all of the occupants, retreat, or die. Further, any intelligent foe the PCs fight that gets hurt enough but doesn't die falls back to the main chamber for one massive epic BBEG fight. They also have inflict traps set up, that they can deliberately trigger on themselves to recover, and so forth.

Now, here's the problem in 4.0. In that system, this sort of thing just isn't possible.

First, in 4e, I could easily guide my group into entering a complex that had guards with gongs. If I, as a DM, was interested in the possibility of the gongs not being sounded, I would create a very simple battle here. If the enemies first response is to sound the gong, nothing in any system is going to stop them short of successful coup de grace before their turns. What you describe here is very clearly a case of deciding what fight the PCs will have on their hands before hand. I can just as easily railroad a party in 4e, so I think this sort of thing is possible.

Second, if I wanted to simulate a bunch of fights in rapid succession in 4e (without minions, because I can't bear to hear you overuse the dying in a stiff breeze comparison again), I would make sure that the fights were below the party's level. In 4e, the encounter system is such that a level X encounter is a fair challenge of a level X party. When I was running 3e, I remember a level X party cake-walking through most every CR X encounter. I responded by increasing the CR. Perhaps the reason you think that your party can handle this dungeon is because of that one difference in encounters between the two systems: 4e expects that a level equivilent battle should be a challenge to the party where 3e makes a level equivilent CR trivial. Perhaps you could let us know more on the specifics of the dungeon; I would like that private message you offered earlier, but I'd much rather have it in the sunshine.

Third, 4e assumes that there will be some fights that are a huge challenge for the party. Having swarms of enemies back up to combine with the boss doesn't mean they are separate encounters; that changes the level of the whole fight. In 4e, the boss room on its own might be a level X + 2 fight to show that it is a tough final battle, but throwing in an additional 10000 XP worth of monsters that fled their fights will overwhelm a party. If I was interested in playing as a DM against the players instead of playing as a DM like a faciliatator of the game, I would say that this sort of battle is very possible in 4e.

I guess what I am rambling is that this dungeon you speak of is very possible in 4e, but it is very unlikely that the players will emerge victorious. In 3e, their chances may be better due to changes in the system, but I think run by intellegent monsters, a 3e party would fare equally poorly.

Oh yeah, and there's something in the DMG along the lines of 'please don't play enemies smart by having them know basic things about their world's physics, as our system breaks in half the moment anyone uses it intelligently'.

I'd like a citation on this one. Please don't let me down; you are the reason why I started reading this threat, Advocate.

Intelligence does not raise CR. Stupidity does lower it.

In the Monster Manual for 4e, every creature has a tactics section that tells you the extent of what the monster is interested in doing. There is no intelligent / non-intelligent monster designation to argue about in 4e; there are only tactical recommendations (or commands if you see them that way) for you to work with.

Also, it doesn't bring the whole base on your head. Just the patrolling undead, and the dispatch team. That is at most, two encounters, one of which is pretty easy. The golems won't, and can't move from their rooms, and will attack any living, corporeal creature inside or any creature that attacks them.

In 4e, you fight the patrolling undead and dispatch team as a wave encounter (four rounds in or so, the dispatch arrives). Afterwards, you take a short rest while nervously keeping watch for another dispatch team. Hey, now the party has their encounter powers back!

The only way the 4.0 encounter paradigm actually works is if enemies nicely sit in their room and wait their turn to die, happily ignoring the carnage next door.

The only way the Advocate dungeon encounter paradigm actually works is if enemies nicely sit in their room and wait their turn to die, happily ignoring the carnage next door. Luckily, that is exactly what you said the golems do. Every dispatch team the boss sends reduces his total resources. If he has no more dispatch teams or patrols and the golems are unwilling or unable to leave their rooms, your dungeon seems to be based around the wrong system's paradigm as you put it.

So, after clearing out one room of golems, the party rests again and reaches a milestone for another action point and another use of a daily magic item power. Yay!

The Roper won't move, and since it's off in a side room that clearly looks 1: Unimportant and 2: Dangerous you can just close the door quickly and not be bothered.

Since you can also close doors quickly in 4e, your dungeon continues to work well.

Most of the rest of the enemies wait in the room with the BBEG, and use the warning to buff up. Going after the PCs is something that won't work well due to the close quarters. They'd end up dividing and conquering themselves that way. And the security patrol, and
dispatch team try to escape if beaten up enough, to pass on intel accordingly.

Boss characters can use rituals, too, so this would be a good chance for the boss or lesser ritual casters to prepare magic circles and other buffs since the players did take at least two short rests (about ten minutes) plus battles.

Then, a big boss fight! Ta da! It turns out you've described a dungeon that works swimmingly in 4e. Thank you so much, Advocate.

And as for 3.5 Knock... no one ever used it because an Adamantine Bolt is cheaper than a single charge from a Knock wand, available as early as level 1 as a starting character, and it automatically slices through the lock via 'ignores hardness'.

You are wrong. I know because I have run game where someone used a knock spell. At fourth level, I had a player use it to open a chest when the party's rogue missed a session. Maybe he just wasn't as good of a D&D player as you are. As I've proven above, you are a pretty good dungeon master since you are adept at creating 4e dungeons as well as 3.5 dungeons.

Let me know if I'm wrong. I am staying up way to late just to write to you, Advocate.

Maxwell.

miserable

2009-03-01, 02:08 AM

I think 4E is worth getting.

3.x wasn't bad in the beginning , but it became a monster in the end.
Yes there were thousands of options , but most were wrthless, broken, overpowered , or just plain stupid design.

I agree that 4E isn't the greatest system ever .{Scrubbed}

Which system is a failure when one lets you destroy everything in an undead keep and one will probably get you dead trying that? Neither really , but they ARE different systems. My opinion is that you shouldn't be able to accomplish something like this with one group of adventurers . But 3.5 lets you build characters (casters) that are so overpowered that you can do it.
I wish I could find the post about the city destroying spell... :)
And Pun Pun??? wow !

Regarding destroying doors. You can't destroy doors with weapons or fists, or arrows , or your boot in 4.0. . The reason you can't is because
(4.0 PHB pg11) specific beats general. If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins.

Items having hitpoints and the ability to be destroyed is a general rule, HOWEVER , the 4.0 system has specific rules regarding breaking down doors, opening portcullises, and breaking through walls. Any time you encounter this in the game you must use THOSE rules.

If you want to get through a locked door , you MUST either pick the lock , use the knock ritual or roll a strength check , period. If a DM lets someone get away with someone kicking down a door then hes just a bad DM . If a player says but but but the rules say I can destroy a door, then he should say ok punch it to which he should then say something to the effect of

" You stand if front of the door, pull your arm back and then with as much strength as you can muster throw your fist at the door, there is a loud "THUD" , and an astounding "crack" sound. The door seems undamaged but you realise the crack sound came from the bones that are now broken in your hand, take 1d6 damage . Your hand is slowly swelling to twice the size of normal .you won't be able to use it for a few days or untill magically healed"

If a player says "well I an going to hack the door apart with my sword!"
The DM should say something like:

" You look over the door a few seconds to try to determine any weak spots , but see nothing that looks as such. It is quite a sturdy looking door. You draw your sword and attack the door a few times as if it were trying to kill you ! However , you don't seem to be doing much damage with your weapon , which is now quite dull , it does one damage dice less damage until you have it sharpened. .Do you wish to try to pry it open with your weapon? if so make a strength check"

If a player says " BAH well my character will try to knock it down"

DM " Fine , make a strength check please " Which he would then check against the doors DC to break down and IF the player rolls high enough he suucceeds. " You grit your teeth , emit a barely audible gutteral sound , glare angrily at the door then take a few steps back and rush forward , slamming your full weight into the door using your shoulder like a battering ram. You hear a few cracks and do it again . You definitely feel the door starting to budge . On the third shoulder ram maneuver the lock cracks apart and the door flies open , you stumble forward a few feet off balance" Roll an acrobatics check to see if you fall to the floor at the feet of the group of Orcs who've been listening to your parties sad attempts to murder a door.

That is how it works. Don't complain that a general rule says you can do something that is contradicted by a specific one .

If you want to complain that WoTC has a really bad knack of badly wording things in a lot of their material then I'll be behind you %100 . Because that is an absolute FACT. It happened in 3.0 , 3.5, and yes many things in the 4.0 books are poorly described , or vaguely implemented. I don't think they proof read half of their work before publishing it , and I doubt everything in 3.0 or 4.0 was playtested . There is a crapload of errata for 3.x so it wasn't a perfect system at allin the beginning either.

Blasting 4.0 for not having certain classes at the beginning , so therefore it is inferior to 3.x is not a valid complaint . The amount of material in the 3.x PHB was hardly a scratch of what would come in supplemental material.
Sure you can be sad that gnomes weren't around , or druids , and I was too , but that doesn't make 4.0 "bad".

Blasting 4.0 for not having roleplaying elements is just well ... dumb. There is plenty in the 4.0 PHB to get you started in regards to how a race generally behaves, how alignments might be played , what classes tend to do. You just have to be willing to read , and really roleplaying comes from the heart and mind , not the page and picture.

I can say though that there are some things which are missing which made me think " what the...! WHY not?"" Like for instance crafting skills but then again its not game breaking . and whats to stop you from saying " hey I apprenticed as a blacksmith for two years before being bitten by wanderlust!"

I think I might homebrew a system for it similar to rituals. For instance ,Create a feat called "crafting" which would give you the choice of one trained crafting skill , one of which might be smithing , then make smithing weapons ,armor , or whatnot into rituals , only call them procedures . I'll bet WoTC will do something about it eventually though.

I will also be creating a lot more rituals , magic items, and such .
I do want more things to do out of combat and rituals are the answer .
I'll bet they come out with a ritual book too if they haven't already.

That doesn't mean 4.0 is crap though by any means.

I certainly don't hate 3.x but I do like the new system better.

its_all_ogre

2009-03-01, 05:08 AM

{Scrubbed}

the most applicable point in this whole thread :smallsigh:

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-01, 05:15 AM

You also learn, for example, better lockpicking skills by killing orcs, even if you don't care and have never even met someone who knew how to do it. Around 30% of the population would die if they ever got slapped. If you learn how to stab people in the kidneys and how to direct people on a battlefield, it somehow prevents you from sitting through a church service (or prevents a god from giving you stuff). Despite magic items being rare, the one you want happens to be close by and for sale, "in general".

Isn't that a good description of 3E, or really any edition of D&D?

You can learn Profession (Farmer) by killing orcs, most peasants die when faced with a house cat, being lawful prevented you from using singing magic, and magic items were "in general" for sale.

I don't mean to sound snide, but aside from the Object Damage problem (noted and accepted) your points aren't exactly unique to 4E.

MartinHarper

2009-03-01, 07:07 AM

If you learn how to stab people in the kidneys and how to direct people on a battlefield, it somehow prevents you from sitting through a church service (or prevents a god from giving you stuff).

Not sure what you're saying here. You can make a 4e rogue or 4e warlord who is religious and goes to church. A god can grant them divine power if they take cleric or paladin multi-class feats. A god can also grant them other things, such as quest rewards.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 08:40 AM

Or you can just make a 1 HP damage sandstorm to pop the minions, and 30% of the world's population. Whatever.

I'm detecting a lot of snark here, but will reply anyways.

Given the choice of the ritual or breaking down the door, can you advocate a reason you might use the ritual? Let's say your dungeon had one entrance and it was a locked door. If they were trying to avoid the gong show waiting for them inside, wouldn't they choose the ritual if picking the lock failed?

The ritual takes 10 minutes, and would have to be performed right in front of 5 guards with high Perception checks without them somehow noticing you, despite being right out in the open... wait no. That doesn't work. Even if it didn't make any sound, how do you plan on crossing an open area past observant guards without being seen? So no, that would just waste cash, and ensure they get the gong show anyways.

In 4e, I could easily create a situation where the players need to do something against their best interest immediately for best results. I don't think it'd be much fun for the players during the session or after when I let them know the best course of action was to do what seemed like an option not on the table.

Ok. Except this is basic cleverness in dungeon design. It doesn't interfere with the inhabitants at all. Even if an inhabitant triggered the second, and real alarm, all that does is alert the BBEG. Which means if somehow, one of the other guys screwed it up, the misunderstanding could be sorted out, as opposed to say... it blowing up his own forces. If it wouldn't be 'fun' for your players to encounter basic signs of intelligence, I worry for your games. Also, Inflict Critical Wounds is trivial at the level... 4d8+7, Will DC 16 half. Which means you take 25 damage, or 12.5 95% of the time. That's barely over 1 Lesser Vigor charge. Yawn. It's not as if it were an actually dangerous trap.

First, in 4e, I could easily guide my group into entering a complex that had guards with gongs. If I, as a DM, was interested in the possibility of the gongs not being sounded, I would create a very simple battle here. If the enemies first response is to sound the gong, nothing in any system is going to stop them short of successful coup de grace before their turns. What you describe here is very clearly a case of deciding what fight the PCs will have on their hands before hand. I can just as easily railroad a party in 4e, so I think this sort of thing is possible.

PCs get 1 full round, + the gong ringer's initiative to react as it takes him 1 round to get to, and pick up the hammer, making his intent clear. If, as a 3.5 party you cannot deal with a single enemy with very low defenses and only just over 100 HP in more than 1 full round, you have issues. No railroad about it. Of course they'll keep trying until they succeed, and the wandering patrols will hit it if they notice anything is up, but really. This is just basic defensive measures.

Second, if I wanted to simulate a bunch of fights in rapid succession in 4e (without minions, because I can't bear to hear you overuse the dying in a stiff breeze comparison again), I would make sure that the fights were below the party's level. In 4e, the encounter system is such that a level X encounter is a fair challenge of a level X party. When I was running 3e, I remember a level X party cake-walking through most every CR X encounter. I responded by increasing the CR. Perhaps the reason you think that your party can handle this dungeon is because of that one difference in encounters between the two systems: 4e expects that a level equivilent battle should be a challenge to the party where 3e makes a level equivilent CR trivial. Perhaps you could let us know more on the specifics of the dungeon; I would like that private message you offered earlier, but I'd much rather have it in the sunshine.

3rd edition expects that such a battle be a challenge to the party as well. Just, it isn't, because the smart way to play was far different, and better than the WotC way. In 4th edition... the smart way is still far different and better, thus it is likely that A = C. With that said... The reason why I think they can handle the dungeon is both because they actually did so, and because they are smart, and didn't go entering a caster's home with low saves, or more to the point a necromancer's home while vulnerable to negative energy, energy drain, and death magic. So the fact nearly every undead had Destructive Retribution? Still annoying, because it means enemies are healing each other even on death, but that's countered by focus fire. Doesn't hurt the PCs though. The BBEG throwing Destructions with high DCs about? Doesn't matter, party is preemptively immune to his best moves. And so on.

Third, 4e assumes that there will be some fights that are a huge challenge for the party. Having swarms of enemies back up to combine with the boss doesn't mean they are separate encounters; that changes the level of the whole fight. In 4e, the boss room on its own might be a level X + 2 fight to show that it is a tough final battle, but throwing in an additional 10000 XP worth of monsters that fled their fights will overwhelm a party. If I was interested in playing as a DM against the players instead of playing as a DM like a faciliatator of the game, I would say that this sort of battle is very possible in 4e.

Ain't no DM against the players about it. Enemies who are defeated, but not destroyed and are not prevented from falling back do so. Again, very basic tactics, that you yourself admit don't work in 4.0. Also, level + 2 for a boss? Still easy. Level + 4 is standard for bosses, because level + 4 is what it actually takes to be evenly matched.

I guess what I am rambling is that this dungeon you speak of is very possible in 4e, but it is very unlikely that the players will emerge victorious. In 3e, their chances may be better due to changes in the system, but I think run by intellegent monsters, a 3e party would fare equally poorly.

Except that my party handled it. Only the weakest party member died, and she got revived and healed immediately, before combat was even over.

I'd like a citation on this one. Please don't let me down; you are the reason why I started reading this threat, Advocate.

After learning what a disappointment 4.0 was, I trashed the books. Check your DMG for stuff about focus fire.

In 4e, you fight the patrolling undead and dispatch team as a wave encounter (four rounds in or so, the dispatch arrives). Afterwards, you take a short rest while nervously keeping watch for another dispatch team. Hey, now the party has their encounter powers back!

Except that you're probably dead by now. Also, they both arrive at about the same time, because the dispatch team enters the scene on round 7 or so, and the patrol team enters on round 6 or 7, depending on positioning. Level 19 encounter, collectively, for a level 16.3 party that is prepared? Good mini boss fight in 3.5. Apparently not workable in 4.0.

The only way the Advocate dungeon encounter paradigm actually works is if enemies nicely sit in their room and wait their turn to die, happily ignoring the carnage next door. Luckily, that is exactly what you said the golems do. Every dispatch team the boss sends reduces his total resources. If he has no more dispatch teams or patrols and the golems are unwilling or unable to leave their rooms, your dungeon seems to be based around the wrong system's paradigm as you put it.

Golems are mindless, and being Huge size cannot fit through 5 and 10 foot wide passages. All the incorporeals and Medium sized dispatch team members though? No problem. There is one dispatch team, and they simply retreat if beat up too much, recover, and so forth. No resources lost. Same with the patrols, but they stay a bit longer. Are you saying I should have made the place a little less cramped, and put in lots more Medium and Large sized creatures to harass the PCs?

So, after clearing out one room of golems, the party rests again and reaches a milestone for another action point and another use of a daily magic item power. Yay!

Ok, you've spent at least 10 minutes scratching yourself by now. Expect to encounter a fully buffed up and ready to go final room, where everyone knows your exact capabilities, via the enemies that observed you relaying the information. Take too much longer, and you can expect to see completely disposable forces (not a part of his main team) coming after you.

Since you can also close doors quickly in 4e, your dungeon continues to work well.

If you know what to do. If you think something is hidden there, you'll try to go in and get surprise rounded by the high Stealth creature. If you discuss what next, surprise round. Just stand there, surprise round.

Skipping the rest, as there is way too much snark and baiting there.

I'm also not replying to that long post that can basically be summarized as 'No, you can't damage objects, you need the Blue Key to open the Blue Door.' Seriously, that doesn't even make any sense. Your sword can clearly handle metal armor, or else it would be unable to handle attacking opponents that wield said armor. Yet it can't handle wood? *yawn* Blue Door, Blue Key little handwave to explain critical flaws away. You're doing a great job of undermining 4.0 for me though. Keep it up. No sarcasm, I'm enjoying watching even the pro 4.0s shoot it down hard.

Sebastian

2009-03-01, 09:48 AM

I just noticed a loophole that would make knock and other rituals from useless to interesting, or even broken.
If you really want to bring the rule-lawyering up to 11 there is nothing in the knock ritual about a range, there is nothing either in the general rituals description or in the Knock description that say you must be in front of the door and not, for example 2 Km away to cast it, unlike other rituals like animal messenger or detect secret door, for example, that specify a distance of some sort either as a range or as a line of sight.

So, in Advocate's example the PC could scout the fortress, see the door, move to somewhere safe and cast the ritual, if they succeed the door unlock but glow amber for a instant, roll perception against the guard to see if they notice it, and knowledge(arcana) to see if they know what it means, etc.

Would it really works like that or did I missed something?

Advocate

2009-03-01, 09:57 AM

For starters, if you can see the door, the guards can see you.

Noticing a door glowing right next to them is not hard at all. They may not know what it means, but it's not hard to deduce that magic did it, to make the connection between that and the guys who popped in and ran away 30 minutes ago (and are now being harassed by the aforementioned disposable mooks) and get suspicious. Not like checking the door is hard.

What's that? A guard took 1 second to relock the door? Oops! Because ya know, there'd also be a check to hear the click, and see the mechanism move.

Yeah, go ahead and do that. You'll keep getting harassed by enemies, while accomplishing nothing.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-01, 12:07 PM

Well Roland, I think you can lock this thread, as it seems to have served its purpose.

Seriously. Does it really take 19 pages to figure out that some people like 4e, and some people like 3e? Good lord.

"Is 4e worth getting?"
You do realize this question is entirely opinion based, and there is no correct answer, right? People can claim everything about every system is broken, but if people are enjoying the damn game, good lord, who cares?

Artanis

2009-03-01, 12:09 PM

Regarding destroying doors. You can't destroy doors with weapons or fists, or arrows , or your boot in 4.0. . The reason you can't is because
(4.0 PHB pg11) specific beats general. If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins.
The DMG explicitly gives HP for doors just a page or two after it gives break DCs for doors. Incidentally, they come out to about the same amount of difficulty and time required (both being "not very much" for a level-appropriate door).

The listed walls, on the other hand, can't be destroyed by attacks since there's no hp listed, only break DCs. So you're correct, there is no explicit mention of how to "kill" a wall. However, the break DCs are for very thick walls, and it tells the DM that, since they obviously can't list everything that might come up, he should try to use what he's got. Various door hp values would work for thinner walls under that "rule". For instance, the wooden door to my computer room is about an inch and a half, maybe two inches thick. So the hp for a wood door would be reasonable for the amount of damage required to blast a door-sized hole in a 2" thick wooden wall.

krossbow

2009-03-01, 12:38 PM

If you want to get through a locked door , you MUST either pick the lock , use the knock ritual or roll a strength check , period. If a DM lets someone get away with someone kicking down a door then hes just a bad DM . If a player says but but but the rules say I can destroy a door, then he should say ok punch it to which he should then say something to the effect of

" You stand if front of the door, pull your arm back and then with as much strength as you can muster throw your fist at the door, there is a loud "THUD" , and an astounding "crack" sound. The door seems undamaged but you realise the crack sound came from the bones that are now broken in your hand, take 1d6 damage . Your hand is slowly swelling to twice the size of normal .you won't be able to use it for a few days or untill magically healed"

If a player says "well I an going to hack the door apart with my sword!"
The DM should say something like:

" You look over the door a few seconds to try to determine any weak spots , but see nothing that looks as such. It is quite a sturdy looking door. You draw your sword and attack the door a few times as if it were trying to kill you ! However , you don't seem to be doing much damage with your weapon , which is now quite dull , it does one damage dice less damage until you have it sharpened. .Do you wish to try to pry it open with your weapon? if so make a strength check"

Wait wait wait. My character has a Enormous magical battle axe charged with the primal energies of the cosmos itself that cuts through Golems, essentially giant walking WALLS with no trouble, and yet I can't slice through a non-magical door ( or inflict any damage whatsoever) simply because the DM can't be bothered.

yeah, GREAT system there. I greatly prefer a non-abitrary system, where its not a binary "Yes/no" from the DM rather than my actions actually having an effect on the world.

Hell! you didn't even have them roll damage ect.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 12:55 PM

Wait wait wait. My character has a Enormous magical battle axe charged with the primal energies of the cosmos itself that cuts through Golems, essentially giant walking WALLS with no trouble, and yet I can't slice through a non-magical door ( or inflict any damage whatsoever) simply because the DM can't be bothered.

yeah, GREAT system there. I greatly prefer a non-abitrary system, where its not a binary "Yes/no" from the DM rather than my actions actually having an effect on the world.

Hell! you didn't even have them roll damage ect.

Now where's the damn bow smiley when you need it? Have a cookie sir.

Knaight

2009-03-01, 01:04 PM

Regarding destroying doors. You can't destroy doors with weapons or fists, or arrows , or your boot in 4.0. . The reason you can't is because
(4.0 PHB pg11) specific beats general. If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins.

Items having hitpoints and the ability to be destroyed is a general rule, HOWEVER , the 4.0 system has specific rules regarding breaking down doors, opening portcullises, and breaking through walls. Any time you encounter this in the game you must use THOSE rules.

If you want to get through a locked door , you MUST either pick the lock , use the knock ritual or roll a strength check , period. If a DM lets someone get away with someone kicking down a door then hes just a bad DM .
What? Even if these rules didn't exist, allowing somebody to chop through the door wouldn't be being a bad GM. Not allowing that because the rules don't explicitly state it would be worse. I'm reasonable sure that given an axe I could get through the front door of my house eventually. Refusing to use GM fiat when necessary, because something isn't explicitly included in the rules is just dumb.

Inyssius Tor

2009-03-01, 01:07 PM

We're going to need an epic level necromancer to reconstitute a recognizable undead out of it now.

But we're going to keep whacking 'till that damn horse moves!

Dublock

2009-03-01, 01:33 PM

you know...I think a few people's problems is thinking that 4E is an upgrade. It is not an upgrade of the system from 3.5E.

3.5 was an upgrade from 3, as the name suggests. They saw a few things they wanted to fix, so they fixed them and released version 3.5.

But they were done with the 3.5 system, so instead of upgrading or updating it, they moved on to a whole new system with different design goals and ideals that was not apart of 3.5, specifically the mistakes that were made in 3.5.

This is why it is called version 4. Different number, different system. Is everything thats in AD&D in all future systems? I don't know, but it would not be unreasonable to take a few things out like they did for 4. Just because one thing fit for one system does not mean that it fits for other systems.

Now if version 4e is a different system, how is it called D&D? Because they share some common traits, still have common rules, still have your move action, standard action, still d20 based, still have skills influenced by different means, etc.

To make a 3.5 dungeon for a 4e group would be unfair because they're different systems.a There are differences, if you like the differences, thats another story. However I think it is unfair to declare it horrible because of that one situation.

4e was never meant to be an update of 3.5, so please stop thinking it. 3.5e and 4e are two different systems.

Edit: I fixed a bad sentence on my part.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 01:47 PM

Except that every other edition has improved on the last.

Artanis

2009-03-01, 01:51 PM

Except that every other edition has improved on the last.
Have you forgotten all the 2e vs. 3e flame wars? I think you also may have confused the definitions of "subjective" and "objective".

Morty

2009-03-01, 01:51 PM

Except that every other edition has improved on the last.

There are many people who'd argue that relentlessly, at least few of them post here.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 01:59 PM

Except that every other edition has improved on the last.
Every other?

That's highly debatable. D&D has always been a wargaming sim about a bunch of dungeon-crawling scoundrels. That focus has shifted to a more Tolkien-esque high fantasy bent, but the influence of the pulp fantasy is still obviously there.

The older editions were hands-on, which is why skills didn't exist. You didn't find traps by rolling to see if you found a trap. You asked the DM for details and described your actions. You poked at the ground with a ten foot pole to find pit traps. In other words, traps were actually puzzles. Not skill checks.

This more "point-and-click" style actually appeals to people who preferred the old editions. The system was more free-form and emphasized very real attrition and risk. Magic items, were likewise ambiguous and open to interpretation. So they actually seemed magic. This got softened over the years expecially with 3e taking a stab at "simulationism."

At any rate, I think I actually overall prefer how magic worked in 2e than how it worked in either 3e and 4e. (Can't speak for older editions though). Largely because casting was easier to disrupt and actually had more built-in costs. (Fireballs fill to expand an area -- meaning that you had to be careful with it in narrow areas. Fly spells don't have in-built "feather fall" mechanics.)

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 02:14 PM

Is animal cruelty/desecrating a corpse no longer illegal? I can't see any other reason why you haven't been charged for continuing to beat that dead horse. :smalltongue:

Look, we'll always disagree on minions, Mort, but don't say it's a "failed idea" because you and a few others don't like the concept. I mean, New Coke was a failed idea. Minions haven't even approached that pinnacle.
I don't get what's wrong with minions. They seem to follow the same philosophy as the Stormtroopers in SWRPG. Higher level Stormtroopers can still hurt you (better defenses and attack in the case of minions), but they still go down like Stormtroopers. The players get to feel epic wubblies for cutting down Stormtroopers.

Meek

2009-03-01, 02:15 PM

Is 4e worth getting?

I think so. It's been a joy for me to add material to at least. It prompted me to start my own RPG blog just to brew for it, and has gotten me a lot of valuable contacts and opportunities, aside from just being a hellishly fun game, so yes, I would say it was, at least for me, definitely worth getting.

*walks out of thread*

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-01, 02:27 PM

At any rate, I think I actually overall prefer how magic worked in 2e than how it worked in either 3e and 4e. (Can't speak for older editions though). Largely because casting was easier to disrupt and actually had more built-in costs. (Fireballs fill to expand an area -- meaning that you had to be careful with it in narrow areas. Fly spells don't have in-built "feather fall" mechanics.)

Hey that explains a lot for me. I discovered d&d just after the release of 3e, mostly through novels whose authors I enjoyed, and in going back and reading a lot of the older novels, but having only played 3e on up, I was often confused by some of the effects of some of the magic, and wondered why some things were reflected so well in game, and some things, some as fireballs in tunnels weren't at all. anyway yeah, another thread I would imagine.

Anyway, back to the debate. "Is 4e worth getting?" It all really depends on you. I haven't really decided which I prefer, 3.5e or 4e. There are a lot of things from each I love, and there are a lot of things I hate. As a wizard in 3.5, i HATED casting a spell on a target, and not being able to roll against that target. Not any kind of touch attacks obviously. Phantasmal killer for instance. I could not stand the idea that I was casting the spell on the target, essentially attacking them, and they got to roll for defense rather than me rolling against their numbers. But it's bittersweet, just like everything else. There are plenty of times playing 4e when I miss rolling for saves, as opposed to the set defense more similar to AC. But I can't say one is better than the other. They are just parts to different systems.

4e is an extremely balanced system, that is more user-friendly. It's much much harder to screw up a character with bad choices, such as feats or powers or whatever. Sure, you can still do it, if you just put a blindfold on point to a feat maybe, but it didn't take long for a character to fall behind in 3.5 if he was newer, or just didn't spend as much time in the books as the rest of his group.
For some that balance is great, for others not so much. You no longer have a wizard or cleric, ending the fight against the BBEG in the first turn of the first round; which again, is bittersweet.
These are the things gamers, in my opinion, really have to experience for themselves to make an educated decision over.

Just understand that it's not 3.6, it's 4e.

edit: some bad grammar.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 02:38 PM

Morty

2009-03-01, 02:39 PM

I don't get what's wrong with minions. They seem to follow the same philosophy as the Stormtroopers in SWRPG. Higher level Stormtroopers can still hurt you (better defenses and attack in the case of minions), but they still go down like Stormtroopers. The players get to feel epic wubblies for cutting down Stormtroopers.

There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but I, personally, have two huge problems with them. First, they break the suspension of disbelief into tiny little pieces, as one goblin withstands several blows and the other dies from a papercut. Second, and it's more important, they're designed solely so that players can cleave through them like a breeze just so players can feel "epic". And not only I don't like making rules for players' ego boosting convenience but I also despise the Stormtrooper theme that makes the Heroes cut through throng of supposedly combat-trained enemies. It's annoying enough in movies and it's even worse in a game. Not to mention that it doesn't really feel badass to kill a minion in one blow when you know perfectly well that it'd die if the wizard tossed a dagger at it. I hope that explains it.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 02:44 PM

There's nothing inherently wrong with them, but I, personally, have two huge problems with them. First, they break the suspension of disbelief into tiny little pieces, as one goblin withstands several blows and the other dies from a papercut. Second, and it's more important, they're designed solely so that players can cleave through them like a breeze just so players can feel "epic". And not only I don't like making rules for players' ego boosting convenience but I also despise the Stormtrooper theme that makes the Heroes cut through throng of supposedly combat-trained enemies. It's annoying enough in movies and it's even worse in a game. Not to mention that it doesn't really feel badass to kill a minion in one blow when you know perfectly well that it'd die if the wizard tossed a dagger at it. I hope that explains it.
Yes, but the wizard throwing the dagger is pretty bad at it (no proficiency and unoptimized stat). Minions tend to have better-than-average defenses for their level, so a wizard is better off using their at-wills to attack anyway, especially since they get fiery burst.

Yes minions are combat-trained, but the adventurers are supposed to be that much better at it anyway.

THAC0

2009-03-01, 02:45 PM

Every other?

That's highly debatable. D&D has always been a wargaming sim about a bunch of dungeon-crawling scoundrels. That focus has shifted to a more Tolkien-esque high fantasy bent, but the influence of the pulp fantasy is still obviously there.

The older editions were hands-on, which is why skills didn't exist. You didn't find traps by rolling to see if you found a trap. You asked the DM for details and described your actions. You poked at the ground with a ten foot pole to find pit traps. In other words, traps were actually puzzles. Not skill checks.

This more "point-and-click" style actually appeals to people who preferred the old editions. The system was more free-form and emphasized very real attrition and risk. Magic items, were likewise ambiguous and open to interpretation. So they actually seemed magic. This got softened over the years expecially with 3e taking a stab at "simulationism."

At any rate, I think I actually overall prefer how magic worked in 2e than how it worked in either 3e and 4e. (Can't speak for older editions though). Largely because casting was easier to disrupt and actually had more built-in costs. (Fireballs fill to expand an area -- meaning that you had to be careful with it in narrow areas. Fly spells don't have in-built "feather fall" mechanics.)

1e is way better than 2e. :smallbiggrin:

NEO|Phyte

2009-03-01, 02:45 PM

Also, you could start playing in 1st edition, and update all the way to 3.5... but there is no update to 4.0 button. So in addition to being a non improvement, it also manages to say '**** your long term characters, **** your campaign, go do something completely new for the sake of being new'. Um, no.
Hypothetical situation for you:

You're in a 2e Dark Sun game, playing a thri-kreen.
3.0 just got released!
Using only the PHB, DMG, and MM, upgrade your character over to the new edition.

Morty

2009-03-01, 02:48 PM

Yes, but the wizard throwing the dagger is pretty bad at it (no proficiency and unoptimized stat). Minions tend to have better-than-average defenses for their level, so a wizard is better off using their at-wills to attack anyway, especially since they get fiery burst.

Of course the wizard is better off using his at-wills, but the point is, if the wimpy wizard throws a dagger and hits, the minion will die. But yes, it's a hyperbole. But it doesn't make minions better. And yes, I do realize that people like them and will do so no matter how much do I massacre that poor dead horse. But you said you don't know what do people see in minions that's bad, and I answered.

Yes minions are combat-trained, but the adventurers are supposed to be that much better at it anyway.

Which is another thing that's wrong about 4ed that I won't go into because it'd be 666th discussion about it.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 02:48 PM

1e is way better than 2e. :smallbiggrin:
My impression was that 1e is virtually the same thing as 2e. The way I understand it, ignoring certain bits of flavor and some specific rules would get you a game virtually indistinguisable from 1e.

THAC0

2009-03-01, 02:50 PM

THAC0

2009-03-01, 02:51 PM

My impression was that 1e is virtually the same thing as 2e. The way I understand it, ignoring certain bits of flavor and some specific rules would get you a game virtually indistinguisable from 1e.

They are very similar. The issue I have with it is that pretty much all the bits that make it different from 1e are crappy and need to be thrown out (in my opinion).

Advocate

2009-03-01, 02:52 PM

Hypothetical situation for you:

You're in a 2e Dark Sun game, playing a thri-kreen.
3.0 just got released!
Using only the PHB, DMG, and MM, upgrade your character over to the new edition.

Irrelevant, as I wouldn't actually do that.

NEO|Phyte

2009-03-01, 02:57 PM

Irrelevant, as I wouldn't actually do that.
This is hypothetical, I'm not claiming you actually would. Basically, I'm making the point that 4e is HARDLY the first instance of screwing character shifts. Sure, TODAY you could make the conversion of a 2e thri-kreen to 3.x, but 3.x has had a few years to churn out sourcebooks.

Artanis

2009-03-01, 02:57 PM

Irrelevant, as I wouldn't actually do that.
Let me get this straight.

You make a statement as though it was fact. When it's shown that it's not fact, you say, "I don't care, it's still fact."

I see no further reason to give credence to any statement you make, since you appear not to care about actual facts.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 03:01 PM

So basically, by metagaming it. Now, there's actually a difference between player and character knowledge. So yes, improvement. Also, you could start playing in 1st edition, and update all the way to 3.5... but there is no update to 4.0 button. So in addition to being a non improvement, it also manages to say '**** your long term characters, **** your campaign, go do something completely new for the sake of being new'. Um, no.
If you measure "improvement" by the nonexistent standard of "realism" then sure, it's an improvement. The thing is that 3e isn't any more or less realistic than the other systems because game rules always has to rely on abstractions.

This is why the complaints about healing surges seem pretty silly to me. 3e had the same "reason" for hit points that 4e did. It measured stamina and endurance as much as it represented actual physical damage. You just managed to stave off any real injury right up until you got dropped under a zero. This abstraction is a "necessary evil," so complaining about healing surges misses the forest for the trees.

The 2e puzzle solving got handwaved as "adventurer's luck" or "experience." Your character could be a genius, but that doesn't count for squat unless the guy behind the controls actually applied himself. It was a great way to directly involve the player in roleplay and problem solving. You don't just roll dice. You see trap. You examine it. And you come with a course of action to either circumvent or disarm it. (Thief class abilities got around this though.)

Secondly, 3e isn't backwards compatible with 2e. Not in any meaningful fashion. Levels meant different things to different classes. And casters would all inevitably get power upgrades from switching over. Spells would be much more powerful than their 2e counterparts. Fighters would end up sucking. Not to mention that the average stat was a 9, not a 10, in 2e.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-01, 03:46 PM

Advocate

2009-03-01, 04:10 PM

If you measure "improvement" by the nonexistent standard of "realism" then sure, it's an improvement. The thing is that 3e isn't any more or less realistic than the other systems because game rules always has to rely on abstractions.

Among other things, I measure it by how much it actually handles problems instead of just handwaving it. If I wanted to just pull some random thing out of thin air, I can do that myself, for free. Why would I buy a system that can't do anything more than I can for free? Exactly?

Later editions handle such things more comprehensively than their predecessors.

Then we take a huge step back, with the edition all about horse archers = win, that can't even handle basic things like breaking the door down without handwaving BS, and where you can easily genocide a large part of the world simply by raising an army of Fluffies to attack people once for massive free XP and loot. Or just creating a 1 damage sandstorm. Either way.

Sebastian

2009-03-01, 05:01 PM

This is hypothetical, I'm not claiming you actually would. Basically, I'm making the point that 4e is HARDLY the first instance of screwing character shifts. Sure, TODAY you could make the conversion of a 2e thri-kreen to 3.x, but 3.x has had a few years to churn out sourcebooks.

Your is not really a fair example, using a very specific setting and race like dark sun thri-kreen. if you used i.e. forgotten realms the transition would have been really easy from 2ed to 3ed, and still hard to impossible (depending on which class you played) from 3ed to 4ed (even WotC suggested to player to conclude their campaigns before to start a new one, after all there more than one hundred years between the two timelines.
And what if I was playing a wizard summoner? or a diviner? there are many concept in 3ed that are almost impossible to recreate in 4ed and other that would be so different to be essentially different character. I doubt we will ever see a good illusionist wizard for 4e (yes, I've read the dragon article, it is an awful implementation of illusion IMHO) or a diviner, or a summoner, or many many other, and this without even counting prestige classes. The same wizards in the two edition are so different from each other to be the same class in name only.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 05:09 PM

Kinda like FF11, am I right?

hamishspence

2009-03-01, 05:10 PM

miserable

2009-03-01, 05:11 PM

The DMG explicitly gives HP for doors just a page or two after it gives break DCs for doors. Incidentally, they come out to about the same amount of difficulty and time required (both being "not very much" for a level-appropriate door).

Yes , it does give HP and DCs for destroying a door, and if the PCs ever enter a storage room full of unused doors , then they can feel free to start hacking away at them . But every time they want to break down a door , they need to follow the specific rule for breaking down doors, which calls for a strength check. The rule is , Specific rules beat general rules every time. And in the paragraph describing object HPs it says it is a general rule.
If you want to follow the rules exactly as worded then you need to follow ALL the rules exactly as worded in which case you cant kill a door , you have to roll a strength check to break it down.

Wait wait wait. My character has a Enormous magical battle axe charged with the primal energies of the cosmos itself that cuts through Golems, essentially giant walking WALLS with no trouble, and yet I can't slice through a non-magical door ( or inflict any damage whatsoever) simply because the DM can't be bothered.

In that case Id say , so you want to use your uber axe to knock down the door? Fine roll a strength check to see if you can hack through it. If you wanted to try using an uber magical dart though , I wouldn't allow it. the Axe seems like a feasible way to explain a door breaking maneuver.

What? Even if these rules didn't exist, allowing somebody to chop through the door wouldn't be being a bad GM. Not allowing that because the rules don't explicitly state it would be worse. I'm reasonable sure that given an axe I could get through the front door of my house eventually. Refusing to use GM fiat when necessary, because something isn't explicitly included in the rules is just dumb.

It is included in the rules. Fanatics are just choosing to ignore the Specific vrs General rule and attacking the system by saying everything is broken because you can punch a door down with your bare fist faster than any other method of getting through. It is nonsense and once breaking down a door is played correctly , then you will see that the other methods are NOT useless. .
And sure , you probably COULD get through the front door of your house with an axe eventually, IF you are strong enough , roll a strength check to find out. If you pass you break through , if you fail, then you were not strong enough .

Advocate

2009-03-01, 05:41 PM

*headdesk* And there is a specific rule for destroying doors via HP damage!

No, you must not get the Blue Key to open the Blue Door. This isn't Legend of Zelda.

Sebastian

2009-03-01, 05:42 PM

Psionics Handbook was one of the earliest 3.0 books to be released, However, thri-keen didn't arrive till MM2.

Still, it is true that wizards are a bit different. But, I think the reason for that was- its harder to handle a guy with an army, all of which have actions. Pet-masters get trimmed down in 4th ed, but maybe it was necessary for ease of play.

Right, because "a guy with an army" and "use your actions to make your animal do something, else he'll just stand there like a doorstop" are the only possible options.

Personally if I had to choose between mechanics balanced and mechanics that make sense (or at least try to) I'd prefer the latter, at least they are usually easier to remember. 4e is so nonsensical (to my eyes) that I always the impression that I'm forgetting something.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 05:48 PM

Among other things, I measure it by how much it actually handles problems instead of just handwaving it. If I wanted to just pull some random thing out of thin air, I can do that myself, for free. Why would I buy a system that can't do anything more than I can for free? Exactly?

Later editions handle such things more comprehensively than their predecessors.

Then we take a huge step back, with the edition all about horse archers = win, that can't even handle basic things like breaking the door down without handwaving BS, and where you can easily genocide a large part of the world simply by raising an army of Fluffies to attack people once for massive free XP and loot. Or just creating a 1 damage sandstorm. Either way.
Curious. So solving a problem of "I want lots of squishy hoards" to slash through by giving 1 HP minions is somehow less acceptable than rules which are more "realistic"? That's a scenario that 4e rules were comprehensive enough to handle. Furthermore, if you're going to claim that minions are only a matter of taste, it would behoove you not to hang your argument off of it.

It's not like third edition is necessarily better at solving problems of game design (putting aside versimilitude for the moment), as anybody is apt to point out. Having more rules doesn't mean "faster gameplay" or "better gameplay."

And furthermore, third edition does require DM fiat, if you've ever used house-rulings to patch your game, this is exactly what you are doing. So I propose that you prove to me how many of those rules actually served a purpose or was functional. I could probably make the "genocide the world" scenario as a 3e DM, but that wouldn't be a fault of the rules.

Grappling was widely mocked for this reason. And the skill point system, though something I'm fond of, was needlessly baroque and generally underpowered. Bows are easy to sunder, etc. By any stretch, I consider the 2e magic system to be far superior to the 3e magic system simply by virtue of the 3e system being broken in the specific wordings of spells and in its generous rulings for magic item creation and for resolving spellcasting. And your only excuse is that 3e is better because it has more bad rules?

Don't let the word "handwaving" confuse you, because it isn't really BS to make players solve puzzles. Hit points are just "handwaving" the idea that adventurers get charmed lives because they're just that badass. The rationale or fluff you give for these things don't matter, they exist in the service of a better game.

I'm sure you're tired of me beating this particular horse, but let me restate it for emphasis:
Making an appeal to the idea that rules are realistic and desirable for that reason is fallacious. Rules are necessary abstractions that enforce a certain minimum standard of fair play.

The fact of the matter is, you don't always need to have rules to referee a reasonable outcome or to speed the resolution along so the game doesn't get bogged down.

hamishspence

2009-03-01, 05:48 PM

they can do things without manuevers, just not much, basic move, full defense, if you are also doing that.

Saga Edition Clone Wars Campaign Guide had ways of handling followers in squads- maybe PHB2 and similar books will strike a balance, allowing flexible companions without them dominating the turn.

Otogi

2009-03-01, 05:54 PM

Yes. Yes it is.

Asbestos

2009-03-01, 06:02 PM

Then we take a huge step back, with the edition all about horse archers = win,

Yet ANOTHER statement that you don't plan on backing up at all, right?

Also, how does having break DCs and lock DCs on doors = 'get the blue key'?

Why am I even asking? I know I won't get a sensible answer.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 06:04 PM

Asbestos

2009-03-01, 06:08 PM

No really. When you can't even survive a cat scratch without dying instantly, but have somehow lived this long, it grabs you by the throat, forcibly pulls you out of the game world, and beats you senseless with the rulebooks to remind you that you're just sitting around a table trying to make a nonsensical game make sense, rather than ya know, staying in the fantasy world you're playing in.

So, were you aware that in 3.x housecats could very easily kill commoners?

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 06:09 PM

The fact they had to fall over at a fingerpoke, instead of just being lower level is telling.

Also, genociding the world would take a lot more than 1 damage in 3.5, as even the most fragile Commoner would only be Disabled for 1 day by this, after which he sleeps and gets better.

No really. When you can't even survive a cat scratch without dying instantly, but have somehow lived this long, it grabs you by the throat, forcibly pulls you out of the game world, and beats you senseless with the rulebooks to remind you that you're just sitting around a table trying to make a nonsensical game make sense, rather than ya know, staying in the fantasy world you're playing in.
So you can't be bothered to read what I say, even though I just addressed this?

You're abstracting a situation where a peasant dies because somebody made an attack roll against him. The willful use of force. This isn't really quite the same as a cat scratch.

And if you insist on maintaining that minions are an abstraction that is a matter of taste, like hit points, you really have nothing to argue for other than to express that you're just being stubborn.

And I already TOLD YOU that realism is a completely BS reason to judge the merits of a rule. All game rules contain an element of "simplicity for simplicities" sake, and are therefore "unrealistic." You're talking about a game where adventurer's casually get attacked with a dagger but turn it aside by hit points fiat that says "I'm that badass," then turning around and shooting magic from their fingertips. Don't talk to me about realism or what "makes sense."

If you submit that argument again to me without actually refuting or addressing it, I don't see why you're wasting everybody's time.

its_all_ogre

2009-03-01, 06:15 PM

{Scrubbed}

AgentPaper

2009-03-01, 06:15 PM

I'm STILL waiting for Advocate to show how an archer on a horse is so much more powerful than in 3.5. And how his fighter is doing more damage than a ranger. And how he's stun-locking with said fighter, or any class really. Or to tell us how his fortress is relevant to this discussion.

For the record, I agree that there are reasons to play 3.5 over 4E, and vice versa, but they're mostly dependent on play style. And they are not the reasons Advocate has pointed out, which are...misguided.

Advocate

2009-03-01, 06:24 PM

So, were you aware that in 3.x housecats could very easily kill commoners?

It would take the cat several rounds to kill, even if the Commoner only has 1 HP it takes 11 damage to take him out. Compare to the same thing happening in one hit, and also happening to so called highly trained soldiers, who are supposed to be level appropriate for borderline gods...
{Scrubbed}

Asbestos

2009-03-01, 06:35 PM

It would take the cat several rounds to kill, even if the Commoner only has 1 HP it takes 11 damage to take him out. Compare to the same thing happening in one hit, and also happening to so called highly trained soldiers, who are supposed to be level appropriate for borderline gods...

Your comparison is at best, utterly laughable.

I'm not even bothering responding to the others anymore, as they've went full on hand waving illogical justification, as they never had any basis in fact to begin with. I've dealt with this type before, and there's no getting through to them.

As the others have pointed out, you can't deal with abstraction, I'm forced to wonder what you consider HP.

Also, we're all still waiting for you to back up your many claims.

And, just because it takes a housecat a few rounds to kill a guy, that isn't anymore acceptable.

I find it very ironic that you should say "I've dealt with this type before, and there's no getting through to them." I mean... wow. What a joke.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 07:03 PM

As the others have pointed
And, just because it takes a housecat a few rounds to kill a guy, that isn't anymore acceptable.
Well to clarify: This isn't problematic because it happens in 3e. The problem is that Advocate is doing some special pleading. It's not a problem if it happens in 3e but when it happens to minions in 4e, well now, it's just too unrealistic.

How often do house cats sufficiently motivated enough to try and rip your throat out come up in gameplay anyway?

nightwyrm

2009-03-01, 07:15 PM

How often do house cats sufficiently motivated enough to try and rip your throat out come up in gameplay anyway?

Whenever some commoner thinks it's a good idea to give his pet cat a bath. :smallsmile:

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-01, 08:00 PM

If you go into 4e, trying to recreate your 3.5 characters, yeah it's not going to work. Not really a fair arguement to say the game isn't worth getting. it really all comes down to the group. A game shouldn't get derailed when a character wants to break down a door, or through a wall, or anything else, and if it does, that's a DM problem, not a rule problem. I can't count the number of times in the 4e core rulebooks where they stress, that small tweaks to the rules are going to be a part of it. It's sad that some people would have to make a whole ordeal out of the 4e dmg not having the hp for a door.

You're using really petty arguments to try and make your opinion fact, and it doesn't work that way. The length of this thread is proof enough that there are plenty of people who enjoy 4e. I'm not going to try and prove any edition is "better."

Try it out and see, for a lot of people, it most definitely is. Most of the people that sit here hating on the game are the ones that told us they threw the books away after trying the game a couple of sessions, and with new books, there is quite a bit of content that has been added. Things like summoning are in the game, and I'm sure there will be more, you just have to look for it. Just because you're not bringing a whole other creature with turns into the round, doesn't mean you're not summoning. They just need to be included as attacks, or defenses, and then repeat the attack by sustaining the summons with a minor action. Anyway, arguing this part is somewhat pointless. Opinion and fact, remember, there's a difference. Yeah I'm hungry and bored with this.

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-01, 11:08 PM

Whenever some commoner thinks it's a good idea to give his pet cat a bath. :smallsmile:

Is this peasant perchance named "Joe the Plumber"?

krossbow

2009-03-01, 11:55 PM

Y

In that case Id say , so you want to use your uber axe to knock down the door? Fine roll a strength check to see if you can hack through it. If you wanted to try using an uber magical dart though , I wouldn't allow it. the Axe seems like a feasible way to explain a door breaking maneuver.

It is included in the rules. Fanatics are just choosing to ignore the Specific vrs General rule and attacking the system by saying everything is broken because you can punch a door down with your bare fist faster than any other method of getting through. It is nonsense and once breaking down a door is played correctly , then you will see that the other methods are NOT useless. .
And sure , you probably COULD get through the front door of your house with an axe eventually, IF you are strong enough , roll a strength check to find out. If you pass you break through , if you fail, then you were not strong enough .

I'm sorry, but thats pretty freaking dumb. You slam that door with a magical adamantine axe, its going to take some SERIOUS damage. Not a strength check, structural damage. You keep hitting it, its going down, no ifs and or buts.
Each whack of that axe will leave DEEP cuts in the door, and will hammer more and more away at the integrity of its attachments to the wall. Its called cumulative damage. All you have to do is aim it at its attachments, and your taking it off. Hell, you could even carve out a hole through that thing with a powerful magical weapon given enough time; mundane materials are not blunting powerfully enhance weapons, straight up.
This isn't some magically regenerating door that springs back, just as strong after each hit. This is a normal door. Even IF its a magical door, its not regenerating without some mending spells going on.

Keep in mind, this is a axe that cuts through DIAMOND magical constructs. Yes, saying its undamagable is a cop out; you hit something, it will leave a mark (Damage, HP loss, however you want to state it, its not as strong as it was before your barbarian slammed that baby).
When your DM says doors can't take damage and require strength checks, its time to find a new DM, because this is truly just you not getting through the door because the DM doesn't want you too.

AgentPaper

2009-03-02, 12:40 AM

Requiring strength checks isn't giving the door plot armor, it's just adding a bit of abstraction, instead of worrying about hardness and HP and what material it is and on and on. Either you are strong enough to break it down, or you aren't. The same thing happens with hardness. Either you can break it down eventually, or you can't overcome the resistance.

Of course, this depends on what type of game you want to play. If it's a more heroic action type of game, blasting through doors and statues and walls is par for the course, and the object HP rules are perfect for that. If you want a more gritty campaign, you use just the strength check rules, which are more "realistic". I mean, what it comes down to is how much force you can put behind your blow, not what fancy maneuvers you pull off, so the other stuff doesn't really matter. If you have a nice big axe, or hammer, or similar, you can ask the DM to give you a circumstance bonus, like +2, or +4 or so for a magic weapon.

krossbow

2009-03-02, 12:49 AM

\ Either you are strong enough to break it down, or you aren't.

Uh yeah, no. Hit a door; see that crack? thats DAMAGE. One two, three hits? The NUMBER of blows is Very, VERY relevent. If you can damage something, even in the slightest, its going to add up.

Furthermore, strength is the absolute WORST way to determine if you can take out a door. Shape, Your weapons material, door hardness, what ENERGY its infused with, all that matters a hell of a lot more than simply your muscles. A dude swinging an axe will still do alot more to a door than a burly dude with a stick.

Strength checks are a horrible, HORRIBLE way to take out a door. Integrity CAN and will be damaged, its not hit or miss.

Kaun

2009-03-02, 01:36 AM

I still find it adorable that people think there is enough realism in any level based rpg to use it as a valid excuse in any argument.:smallsmile:

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-02, 03:51 AM

I still find it adorable that people think there is enough realism in any level based rpg to use it as a valid excuse in any argument.:smallsmile:

I'm more surprised that the Damage Object argument erupted as such a firestorm. I mean, I think I'm one of the most ardent supports of 4E on these boards, and even I can see that the current rule is borked.

So I came up with a simple Errata for it, and moved on. There is no reason any DM should have to arbitrate on a case-by-case basis whether object A can damage object B; people in Heroic Fantasy settings are always chopping ropes, hacking up doors, and shattering chains - this sort of activity should be modeled in the rule set.

In case anyone was interested, here's my Errata:
To start with, we still use the Break and Force DCs, as well as the HP table (though we might simplify that later), but all objects now have Hardness values.

Hardness Table:

Heroic
Hide = Resist 5
Wood = Resist 10

Paragon
Stone = Resist 15
Iron = Resist 20

Epic
Adamantine = Resist 25
Starmetal = Resist 30

Modifiers
Reinforced = +2 Resist
Weak = -2 Resist
Enchanted = +2 Resist

In addition, the current rules regarding damaging objects are replaced with these:
- Objects may be attacked by any power the DM rules could target the object, unless otherwise noted in the power description. Powers that target Will can never be used to damage an object.

- Ranged or Close Weapon Attacks cannot damage an object of Medium size or larger, subject to DM rulings.

- Sneak Attack, Hunter's Quarry, Warlock's Curse and similar Class Features cannot be used on objects. An object can never be Marked or Divine Challenged. Objects cannot be targeted by a Coup De Grace attack.

- Objects of size Medium or larger are immune to powers that push, pull and slide, subject to DM rulings.

- Any melee attack that hits an object of size Medium or larger results in a Critical Hit. Powers that are triggered by Critical Hits are never triggered by an attack on an object, though extra damage from magical items and feats are rolled as normal. Ranged and Close attacks against Small or smaller objects do not automatically result in Critical Hits - roll damage as normal.

It's shorter and clearer than the rules in the DMG, and the Crit Rule makes it easier to resolve damage to objects. Like most things in 4E, these constrain Heroic characters more than higher-Tier ones; Epic Great Weapon Fighters are easily able to one-shot your standard dungeon door, and even sunder iron portcullises.

Advocate

2009-03-02, 07:40 AM

{Scrubbed}

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-02, 08:36 AM

And the parallels keep piling up. You guys are hilarious.

You're trying to make "4e is NOT worth getting" fact. and it's not. it never will be.

If you'are arguing "4e is not worth getting" and everyone else is arguing "4e might be worth getting for you and your group's play style," then you lose by default. end of story. bye.

Kurald Galain

2009-03-02, 10:21 AM

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-02, 10:35 AM

I absolutely agree.

It is fun, in my opinion, for player characters to have options that aren't automatically succesful, but potentially dangerous if used wrongly or in the wrong situation. I feel this adds verisimilitude to the campaign, and enhances gameplay. Yes, that bar of dynamite / rod of flame / eldritch device will blow your enemies to tiny bits. Yes, it will also likely blow you up if you use it carelessly. Do you use it, or try another approach? Feelin' lucky, punk??

(to forestall the inevitable strawman response, no, that does not mean that I want all, or even most, of the PCs options to be like that, except when I'm playing Paranoia)

I agree. This is IMHO sorta linked to the 3.x broken spellcasting / 4th edition meh rituals issue*.

There MUST be a compromise and IMHO, this is the way. Unluckyly, 4th edition designers headed in a different direction. Someone like it. Me, not.

No, no no nonono. No. Don't like. I prefer use Taint, Purple Rain, Wild MAgic, Defiling, Dead magic and other subsystems in 3rd and keep magic special AND with drawbacks, but I swear.

Of course, a little bit less lazyness by the designer (in 3rd and in 4th) could have lead to a better game.

*Someone feel them wel made but: 10 minutes casting time silence is enough for me. Maybe getting old I'm becoming close-minded :smallwink:

AgentPaper

2009-03-02, 11:36 AM

Uh yeah, no. Hit a door; see that crack? thats DAMAGE. One two, three hits? The NUMBER of blows is Very, VERY relevent. If you can damage something, even in the slightest, its going to add up.

Furthermore, strength is the absolute WORST way to determine if you can take out a door. Shape, Your weapons material, door hardness, what ENERGY its infused with, all that matters a hell of a lot more than simply your muscles. A dude swinging an axe will still do alot more to a door than a burly dude with a stick.

Strength checks are a horrible, HORRIBLE way to take out a door. Integrity CAN and will be damaged, its not hit or miss.

Yes, it does come down to whether you're strong enough or not. Either you're strong enough to do any damage at all, in which case it's only a matter of time. Or, you're not strong enough to put a dent in the thing, in which case, it's never going down. If you're using the break DC rules, and it goes down on the first try, then you're pretty damn lucky, and managed to hit it in just the right spot, or some such. Yes, it stretches the suspension of disbelief a bit, but on the whole it works, and you don't have to spend 5 minutes figuring out what HP the door has, what it's hardness is, whether that power should be able to hit, etc.

And strength is the most important factor. More specifically, the amount of force you're putting out per area. A kid with an adamantine axe isn't going to take down an iron door. A really high level fighter, using his fists, will. (remember that this is paragon level you're doing this, so you're well past human, and your fists can take punching metal) An axe will help, of course, especially if it's a really nice axe, but you need the strength more. If you really think it should matter more than +2 (which is already not bad) then you give a higher bonus. And if you're really worried about things going down too quickly, just require multiple strength checks.

The point of the system isn't to be as realistic as possible, it's to be as realistic AND simple as possible, to keep suspension of disbelief going. (taking a 5-minute break to figure out the rules for doors will break immersion much more than trying to figure out how you could take that iron door down in a single blow, when last time it took you 15 tries)

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-02, 12:44 PM

I agree. This is IMHO sorta linked to the 3.x broken spellcasting / 4th edition meh rituals issue*.

There MUST be a compromise and IMHO, this is the way. Unluckyly, 4th edition designers headed in a different direction. Someone like it. Me, not.

No, no no nonono. No. Don't like. I prefer use Taint, Purple Rain, Wild MAgic, Defiling, Dead magic and other subsystems in 3rd and keep magic special AND with drawbacks, but I swear.

Of course, a little bit less lazyness by the designer (in 3rd and in 4th) could have lead to a better game.

*Someone feel them wel made but: 10 minutes casting time silence is enough for me. Maybe getting old I'm becoming close-minded :smallwink:
At the risk of repeating myself, I don't mind the *idea* behind rituals, as I think it's actually workable. It's just that, contrary to arguments presented, creatively using rituals simply isn't compelling when most rituals are *basically* slower and more expensive skills.

There are plenty of out-of-combat utilities that don't have to step on the toes of the group contributions. The spells "Control Weather," "Soul Bind," "Antimagic Field," various wall spells and such come to mind.

You can still give magic the impression that it's good at big and important things even if it's not immediately or eminently useful in combat.

Knaight

2009-03-02, 02:29 PM

Yes, it does come down to whether you're strong enough or not. Either you're strong enough to do any damage at all, in which case it's only a matter of time. Or, you're not strong enough to put a dent in the thing, in which case, it's never going down. If you're using the break DC rules, and it goes down on the first try, then you're pretty damn lucky, and managed to hit it in just the right spot, or some such. Yes, it stretches the suspension of disbelief a bit, but on the whole it works, and you don't have to spend 5 minutes figuring out what HP the door has, what it's hardness is, whether that power should be able to hit, etc.

And strength is the most important factor. More specifically, the amount of force you're putting out per area. A kid with an adamantine axe isn't going to take down an iron door. A really high level fighter, using his fists, will. (remember that this is paragon level you're doing this, so you're well past human, and your fists can take punching metal) An axe will help, of course, especially if it's a really nice axe, but you need the strength more. If you really think it should matter more than +2 (which is already not bad) then you give a higher bonus. And if you're really worried about things going down too quickly, just require multiple strength checks.

Alright. I throw a fireball at the door. Strength Check? And its not like it would take five minutes to figure out HP and hardness anyways. And if your using break DC only, there should still be a way to simulate damaging the door. Maybe something like "If you miss the break DC by 5 or less, the break DC of the object decreases by 1. If you are wielding a weapon that would work well breaking the object, and you miss the break DC by 10 or less, the break DC of the object increases by 2" Simple, gives the weapon a significant use, and simulates damage over time.

lesser_minion

2009-03-02, 02:35 PM

I absolutely agree.

It is fun, in my opinion, for player characters to have options that aren't automatically succesful, but potentially dangerous if used wrongly or in the wrong situation. I feel this adds verisimilitude to the campaign, and enhances gameplay. Yes, that bar of dynamite / rod of flame / eldritch device will blow your enemies to tiny bits. Yes, it will also likely blow you up if you use it carelessly. Do you use it, or try another approach? Feelin' lucky, punk??

(to forestall the inevitable strawman response, no, that does not mean that I want all, or even most, of the PCs options to be like that, except when I'm playing Paranoia)

I think you are definitely right here - a good ritual magic system would be the 2nd edition WFRP one (the only silver lining in a magic system that makes FATAL look merely bad).

Every ritual had listed consequences - for example, the Fiery Vengeance ritual from the sample adventure (summons a generic daemonic soldier wreathed in hellfire which slays a target you specify) injured its caster, had a chance of killing the caster if they failed to cast the ritual (and come on, this is WFRP where Death Is Not Cheap), and freed the daemon to wreak havoc upon the world for a short time.

The other sample rituals included one that turned everyone except the casters within a one-mile radius into a horrific rampaging mutant for an hour, but affected the casters only if they failed the casting roll. There was also one that levelled a city, but killed the caster if they failed their casting roll. Admittedly, these were pretty much the WFRP equivalent to epic spells, but they were still pretty awesome.

Even if they had nothing on Nailed to the Sky.

Morty

2009-03-02, 02:37 PM

I think you are definitely right here - a good ritual magic system would be the 2nd edition WFRP one (the only silver lining in a magic system that makes FATAL look merely bad).

Huh?:smallconfused: What's so wrong about 2nd edition WFRP magic system? I think it's pretty neat.

lesser_minion

2009-03-02, 03:19 PM

Huh?:smallconfused: What's so wrong about 2nd edition WFRP magic system? I think it's pretty neat.

I guess YMMV. While I loved a few bits (rituals and lore skills), it actually never really conveyed the inherent darkness of the Warhammer world. The number of spells attached to a single talent was usually absolutely ridiculous, and I felt that Tzeentch's Curse wasn't really that dangerous or significant to the game (ZOMG MY HAIR IS STANDING ON END! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

Using the same mechanics for Priests as for wizards seemed a bit strange considering how the battle game handled things (warrior-priest prayers were simply treated as bound spells, occasionally with a variable power level), and I felt that the battle magic spells could have been made into slightly 'smarter' spells. As it was, it felt like way too little time had been spent on it.

The spells themselves generally felt a lot less evocative than I would normally expect from Warhammer material (Fate of Doom still sounds a bit narmy, and did not even remotely belong in the battle magic section in any event).

krossbow

2009-03-02, 03:26 PM

Yes, it does come down to whether you're strong enough or not. Either you're strong enough to do any damage at all, in which case it's only a matter of time.

If that were true people would simply use iron drills for everything, and the quality of cutting tools wouldn't matter. Strength is just plain wrong, quality of your tool, skill, and weaknesses are all FAR more relevent; real life itself proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

The point of the system isn't to be as realistic as possible, it's to be as realistic AND simple as possible, to keep suspension of disbelief going. (taking a 5-minute break to figure out the rules for doors will break immersion much more than trying to figure out how you could take that iron door down in a single blow, when last time it took you 15 tries)

Heres the thing; almost every OTHER system out there besides D&D handles this quite well, and does it realistically. Iron door? You got a table. Just have them roll damage, ect. simple as heck.

The only thing 4.0 has for it is simple HP; Your only have to spend 5 minutes to figure out as a DM fiat because the system fails.

Once again, if i wanted to play a overly simplistic system which only cares about its balance or speed and sacrifices all realism to get it, i'd just pop in a video game and play that.

Morty

2009-03-02, 03:29 PM

I guess YMMV. While I loved a few bits (rituals and lore skills), it actually never really conveyed the inherent darkness of the Warhammer world. The number of spells attached to a single talent was usually absolutely ridiculous, and I felt that Tzeentch's Curse wasn't really that dangerous or significant to the game (ZOMG MY HAIR IS STANDING ON END! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

Well, while each one of the Lores has got many spells, you can use only a few of them before you raise your Magic characteristic, not to mention that with only one Lore being available to a single wizard, it's rather expected for it to have a good number of tricks. As for the Tzeentch's Curse - well, Grimdark or no Grimdark, having your character blown up after trying to light a candle is a bit too much. And the effects of TC after rolling a triple or quarduple can be pretty severe. Even in case of a double, having all your food go stale in the middle of greenskin-populated wasteland isn't very nice.

Using the same mechanics for Priests as for wizards seemed a bit strange considering how the battle game handled things (warrior-priest prayers were simply treated as bound spells, occasionally with a variable power level), and I felt that the battle magic spells could have been made into slightly 'smarter' spells. As it was, it felt like way too little time had been spent on it.

Well, I've never played the tabletop version, so I wouldn't know, but I do agree that the divine magic as presented in 2nd edition WFRP doesn't fit the whole setting and system. I'd go as far as to remove divine magic from the game.

The spells themselves generally felt a lot less evocative than I would normally expect from Warhammer material (Fate of Doom still sounds a bit narmy, and did not even remotely belong in the battle magic section in any event).

Then perhaps it's again because I've never played tabletop Warhammer that I don't see anything wrong with the 2nd edition WFRP magic. But even so, players aren't supposed to reach the level of power shown by the battle mages, it says so in both core rulebook and Realms of Sorcery.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-02, 04:11 PM

If that were true people would simply use iron drills for everything, and the quality of cutting tools wouldn't matter. Strength is just plain wrong, quality of your tool, skill, and weaknesses are all FAR more relevent; real life itself proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Heres the thing; almost every OTHER system out there besides D&D handles this quite well, and does it realistically. Iron door? You got a table. Just have them roll damage, ect. simple as heck.

The only thing 4.0 has for it is simple HP; Your only have to spend 5 minutes to figure out as a DM fiat because the system fails.

Once again, if i wanted to play a overly simplistic system which only cares about its balance or speed and sacrifices all realism to get it, i'd just pop in a video game and play that.

I don't think I even bothered to make sure I was "following the rules" the last time a player wanted to break down a door. He didn't seem to mind. It didn't take 5 minutes to wing it. It took me about as long to figure out how i wanted to do the math, as it took him to roll the dice. If a player really really wants to hack through a door, as opposed to shoulder ramming through it, I could honestly care less. If that makes him feel like his character is that much more hardcore, so what? It achieves the same purpose, let's the player feel cool, and keeps the game moving. Just because another game more realistically factors in the physics of door chopping, d&d sucks?

Personally, this whole thing about doors has gone on for way too long. So, so minor.
And speed? I thought a major complaint was how long every encounter took? I don't really feel that the turns are any speedier or slower than they were 3.5. It's still deciding on an attack, rolling a d20, then rolling some damage. As for realism, well yeah, they could have done much better with that. The way the eladrin teleports just isn't a realistic enough teleport for me. Ok so I know teleporting and hacking a door apart are 2 different things, but seriously, this thing about doors not breaking realistically enough is apparently a big deal to people. As long as my players enjoy breaking through it, however they wish to do so, I'm cool with it. And like I said, I don't think I followed the rules last time they wanted to, but it's so minor and easy to wing, I just don't see why it has been talked about this long.

edit: spelling and what not

lesser_minion

2009-03-02, 04:41 PM

Heres the thing; almost every OTHER system out there besides D&D handles this quite well, and does it realistically. Iron door? You got a table. Just have them roll damage, ect. simple as heck.

The only thing 4.0 has for it is simple HP; Your only have to spend 5 minutes to figure out as a DM fiat because the system fails.

While the rule is, in fact, utterly broken (see my earlier post, before I'd actually gone through those rules, expressing disbelief that the rules on objects were actually that bad), it does not make the entire system broken. Remember, for example, the 3e rules for drowning (where there is no way to actually prevent the process once it has started) and starvation.

4e may not be the best system in the galaxy - I still prefer 3e - but that does not mean that 4e fans are some kind of Heretic fit only to be cast into the infernal depths of the Nine Hells of Baator.

On the subject of WFRP - while I can understand the idea behind never allowing wizards to reach the power of actual battle mages (this is true - the less narmy WFRP spells are basically gimped versions of the WFB 6th edition spells). As for TC, the nastier effects are pretty nasty, but they are also statistically not all that likely. Green Ronin seem to have been trying so hard to avoid wizards burning out that they completely forgot that Trusty Crossbow Syndrome is not an issue in WFRP - a burnt out mage can still try to deal some damage, and probably will because of the dodge and parry limits - unlike in D&D, if you charge into six hundred goblins, they will kill you.

I also prefer 1st edition WFRP, because it gives a reasonable idea of how the magic is actually working than the inconsistent 2nd edition rules. As well as being more GRIMDARK. Somehow, considering that those were the 'happy high fantasy' rules.

Kurald Galain

2009-03-02, 04:57 PM

I don't think I even bothered to make sure I was "following the rules" the last time a player wanted to break down a door. He didn't seem to mind. It didn't take 5 minutes to wing it. It took me about as long to figure out how i wanted to do the math, as it took him to roll the dice.

I completely agree with this, and extend it to many other things. To me, the point of an RPG certainly isn't the rules, and keeping the action moving is more important. So yes, I'll happily pull out of thin air whatever is necessary in an action scene. I certainly encourage players to try weird stunts, because weird stunts are fun. I dislike, and tend to disallow, people looking things up in the rulebooks during an action scene because it breaks the flow and the immersion.

The New Bruceski

2009-03-02, 05:27 PM

I completely agree with this, and extend it to many other things. To me, the point of an RPG certainly isn't the rules, and keeping the action moving is more important. So yes, I'll happily pull out of thin air whatever is necessary in an action scene. I certainly encourage players to try weird stunts, because weird stunts are fun. I dislike, and tend to disallow, people looking things up in the rulebooks during an action scene because it breaks the flow and the immersion.

One of my failings I'm trying to learn to overcome -- remembering that what my character sheet says I can do is not the ONLY things I can do. This is hardly a 4e issue, it's a playstyle issue. If I want to knock over a statue onto the enemy, the answer isn't "there's not a power for that," it's a DM ruling probably involving a bull rush and a strength check (oh look at what Bull Rush includes naturally! Maybe that was a poor example.) In this sense, 4e's attempt to unify mechanics, and try to cover everything on the holy Page 42 is great. The DM has an idea of character's power level, says "that would be challenging for you to do" and there's a guideline DC. Very quick once you get used to it. I can't say if 3e did anything to make this easier, because I didn't even think about such things until after 4e (not from the system as much as my own gaming ideology).

ANY system can get bogged down in "we need to look up the rules for this" or "how can I turn what I have written down into what I want to do?" 4e's powers are particular things the character's good at, that can be done naturally. I think a lot of people do get used to treating them as spells, "this is my spellbook, if I wanted to swing from a chandelier, I don't have a spell for that, so I can't do it."

Panda-s1

2009-03-03, 03:13 AM

On the argument of Knock, did it ever occur to anyone that a broken door is, I dunno, noticeable? Knock doesn't destroy doors, so it has the advantage of stealth.

http://photo.darkness.com/files/175/the_more_you_know2%5B1%5D.jpg

Sebastian

2009-03-03, 03:54 AM

The PC smashing down a door or not is just a part of the problem. The problem is the consistency of the rules and the underlining philosopy behind the system. Having solid, consistent rules (and I don0t mean it only for breaking doors) means that you can apply them to situation they were not originally thought for and have "believable" result, for example, a character normally should not be able to smash down a door bare-handed, but what if the character is a minotaur? or a minotaur monk? or a minotaur monk with gauntlets of ogre strength? with a good set of rule the GM don't have to judge every situation case by case, all he need is apply the rules, the minotaur have strength X, the monk to Y damage the door have Z hitpoints, yes you character can smash a door with a single punch, cool! another example, the PC are chased by some big monster , they came to a door and are able to barricade behind it? can the monster smash it down? and if yes in how much time? sure, a GM can always come up with some numbers that sound believable but, and I admit it is a personal preference, I'd like it better if there are some rules that can give some consistent and repeteable effects ("the door have 200 hp, the troll make an average of 20hp/round...") so the PCs have other factors to consider when planning beisde how is the GM's mood. :smallsmile:

tl;dr Yes, you don't need detailed rules to break doors, actually you don't need detailed rules to do anything in a RPG (THE GM can always make stuff thing out of thin air), but sometime they help.

Quistar

2009-03-03, 04:49 AM

Talk about the hottest issue to hit gaming in recent times...this one caused me and my gaming cronies a LOT of agita. :smalleek: I'll try to make my own observations without repeating too much of what has gone before.

Having played and run various 3.X games, as well as writing adventure modules for various third-party releases, I've become very familiar with the 3.X rules, and the limitations of that game system. As a result I was looking forward to seeing a new, "fixed" D&D game that would solve the problems we saw in 3.X and take the game to the next level. Even when I read all the advance hype and critiques, I did my level best to keep an open mind until I (a) read the 4e books and (b) tried out a session myself.

At the same time, I remembered that, for any improvements we got from 3.5, the update came only 3 years after the release of 3.0, so as far as I was concerned, we shouldn't have seen 4.0 until about 2010. So with the new edition coming 2 years ahead of schedule, I expected it to be a VAST improvement on 3.5 in every possible way. Which was perhaps half true. There are a lot of changes, but maybe half of them really improve the game.

I heard reviews from friends that got the game before I received my core books from Amazon. I kept an open mind even when I heard mixed reviews, all of which were basically true. I tried out a sample quickie scenario for the sake of giving the system a shot. I can honestly say that it's a pretty efficient game, but it just isn't for me. This may or may not apply to you.

Game balance is definitely a plus. The classes and races are quite evenly balanced against one another in terms of what they can do. The problem is that it comes at the price of variety and options. The core classes are fairly rigidly defined by the Four Roles, and multiclassing is seriously limited to Paths at higher levels. Diversity is extremely rare by comparison to 3.X. The characters are more cookie-cutter than before, a throwback to 2.0 and earlier editions. This has both advantages and disadvantages, and your preferences will tell you if this works for you or not. If you prefer any of the systems prior to 3.0, then you probably will not mind the lack of choice in 4.0, which offers a lot more options compared to 2.0 or earlier. Those systems relied on stricters roles for PCs and minimal multiclassing, and if WotC had given us 4.0 when they introduced 3.0, odds are we would have just gone ahead and enjoyed it en masse. Now, however, it's a very different story since we were spoiled with 3.X.

One comment I heard over and over bears true: 4e is a very good game, but it is NOT D&D (except for the brand logo). It doesn't FEEL like D&D. If anything, it feels like a MMPORPG, which shows you who the target audience is intended to be, and it isn't the Old Guard of D&D (of whom I consider myself a member by both age and experience). Which is fine if you like that style of play, but if I wanted to do that, I'd just subscribe to WoW and forget D&D entirely.

As I noted, the game just doesn't FEEL like D&D anymore...I tried playing a paladin and walked away with the feeling that this just wasn't what a paladin is supposed to be like. The powers don't at all resemble the paladin of old.

The problems of 3.X rules re: combat etc were neatly fixed, but I didn't see any fixes that couldn't have worked in the 3.X paradigm of rules. Over and over, my feeling is that the designers threw the baby out with the bathwater, killing too many "sacred cows" of D&D for the sake of a system that would be competitive in the modern market. I can only guess as to the WHY, which is pure speculation and opinion on my part, but the WHAT is rather clear by reading the rules...that is, what was tossed out and what was changed.

On top of everything else is something that may just be nitpick or pet peeve on my part, but it has a lot to do with those "sacred cows"...the things that you expect to see when you play a D&D game, regardless of edition, even if they aren't quite "balanced." Things like magic missiles hitting without an attack roll or saving throw (both are gone). Or dryads being seductive wood nymphs living in trees (now they are ugly claw/claw/bite melee monsters). Or eladrin being chaotic good angels (now they're an offshoot of the elven race). Really, with all the money that went into production of the new game, you'd think that the designers could have been creative enough to make up new names for these critters if they only remotely resemble what we've come to know over the years?

That was probably the last nail in the coffin for me...the realization that all of my prior knowledge about D&D games and worlds was no longer valid. That I'd literally have to re-learn EVERY aspect of the game, because I could no longer assume that I had a clue what any particular creature was supposed to be, or how the rules worked. It wasn't an upgrade...it was a total revision, both in rules and concepts. And that convinced me that I just didn't need 4e nearly as much as it needed me, which is apparently...not at all.

Other things are fairly minor I suppose, like not being able to play a bard or barbarian until PH2 came along, or the issues of GSL vs. OGL (which certainly doesn't help the third-party publishers any, quite the opposite). But by the time I get to those issues I'm already done with the whole thing and am walking out the door.

4e is a mixed bag, but it is the big new game in town. Me, I'm hoping that Paizo's Pathfinder ("3.75") upgrade will be the game I was hoping 4e would be. I have a lot more faith in their product than I do WotC's based on what I've seen so far. Sadly, though, this is the end of the road for me and WotC/D&D, and that's something I never thought I'd say. Caveat emptor.

Sebastian

2009-03-03, 05:00 AM

FWIW, AD&D 2nd edition is my favorite version of D&D and yet I don't like 4e.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-03, 05:16 AM

The problems of 3.X rules re: combat etc were neatly fixed, but I didn't see any fixes that couldn't have worked in the 3.X paradigm of rules. Over and over, my feeling is that the designers threw the baby out with the bathwater, killing too many "sacred cows" of D&D for the sake of a system that would be competitive in the modern market. I can only guess as to the WHY, which is pure speculation and opinion on my part, but the WHAT is rather clear by reading the rules...that is, what was tossed out and what was changed.

These are the first two things that come in my mind when think about the issue. 3.5 was faar away from perfection, but it seems to me that thay went in the changes.

The MMORPG feeling is more about coherency rules - game than other things that we could consider forgiveable bad taste ispirations (i.e.,Eladrins/ Blood Elves, Fire Archon/ Ragnaros the Firelord, and the like).

IMHO, the final intention of WOTC, is make a game well adaptable ot a videogame (and in this, 4th edition rocks).
Money are in MMORPG. Companies (nothing wrong in this) go where there is more money. D&D must be translated in videogames and 4th edition is the way.

Dhavaer

2009-03-03, 05:22 AM

IMHO, the final intention of WOTC, is make a game well adaptable ot a videogame (and in this, 4th edition rocks).

Are you sure? I have doubts about translating things like action points, milestones and encounter powers.

lesser_minion

2009-03-03, 05:36 AM

Are you sure? I have doubts about translating things like action points, milestones and encounter powers.

All it would probably take is something like a timer that only starts once your character can't see any opponents and refreshes your EPs when it fills. For dailies, you could probably cut 15-minute workdays altogether by imposing a strict time limit.

It's not to difficult to track number of fights either.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-03, 05:42 AM

Are you sure? I have doubts about translating things like action points, milestones and encounter powers.

Set powers cooldowns. Example:

- At will, 3 seconds

- Encounter: 5 minutes

- Daily: 30 minutes

You can use action points to reset cooldowns, as an example. Or when you press the cooldown key, you raise your chance to crit.

Think about monsters. Their tailored roles fit very well with a instanced dungeon pull. Or boss.

I can imagine players see a bunch of minion and say "we do these by AOE, go Mage" like I said when I played wow.

Same with "save ends" powers. Easy to manage (the game server calculates a chance every x seconds to have the power end). This is why now a curse does not make you unlucky, but make the Warlock deal more damage to you and trigger an effect.

toasty

2009-03-03, 05:46 AM

Are you sure? I have doubts about translating things like action points, milestones and encounter powers.

Hmm... I can see them.

Assuming Real time Combat:

Action Points: Increase damage or chance to hit for X seconds
Encounter Powers: Longer cooldowns? Use more mana?
Milestones: Erm... in a single player RPG... we have lots of these already don't we (forgive me if I'm wrong. I forget exactly what Milestones are)

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-03, 06:10 AM

That was probably the last nail in the coffin for me...the realization that all of my prior knowledge about D&D games and worlds was no longer valid. That I'd literally have to re-learn EVERY aspect of the game, because I could no longer assume that I had a clue what any particular creature was supposed to be, or how the rules worked. It wasn't an upgrade...it was a total revision, both in rules and concepts. And that convinced me that I just didn't need 4e nearly as much as it needed me, which is apparently...not at all.

Heh, welcome to the world of Edition Changes. Imagine how I felt moving from 2E (with Baatezu & Tanari'ri, Ability Checks and Thieves' Cant) to 3E (with Devils & Demons, Skill Points, and "Innuendo") - plus I had all this nonsense about Feats, in-game multiclassing, and Encounter Levels to deal with. Little I knew from 2E still applied - it was a whole new game.

This happens every time a new edition is brought out. Sometimes it is relatively painless (Shadowrun 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition), sometimes it can be quite traumatic (Shadowrun 3rd Edition to 4th Edition) but always the broad strokes that defined a system remained; it might be the setting, or the tropes, or even just some familiar phrases.

I can certainly see how folks could be surprised this time; last time WotC launched a new "edition" it was 3.0 to 3.5 - a massive revision to be sure, but only a revision of existing mechanics rather than the launch of a new system. But that is the exception, not the rule; when a company releases a new edition, it is usually a significant departure from the old system. Why, compare the Old Word of Darkness systems with their newer counterparts to see how an edition change usually works.

I would encourage you to take the time to sit down and try to learn this new system. In my experience, a new system can produce novel situations that, while you may not have thought about beforehand, can be a lot of fun once you run into them. The trick is to not approach a game with preconceptions; just take it as it comes, and then decide whether you had fun. :smallsmile:

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-03, 07:26 AM

Baatezu and Tanar'ri are name of evil ousiders even in 3rd. I can recognize that multiclassing may lead to odd things, but you can roleplay it.

More, what do you mean for feat nonsense?

@toasty: no more mana. Longer cooldown. Even healing surge can be connected in an extent to the after combat "rec", even in in combat work differently.

BTW, I think that could be a very good videogame.

Quistar

2009-03-03, 01:49 PM

Heh, welcome to the world of Edition Changes. Imagine how I felt moving from 2E (with Baatezu & Tanari'ri, Ability Checks and Thieves' Cant) to 3E (with Devils & Demons, Skill Points, and "Innuendo") - plus I had all this nonsense about Feats, in-game multiclassing, and Encounter Levels to deal with. Little I knew from 2E still applied - it was a whole new game.

I was there, believe me, I remember the pain. I nearly gave up on D&D with 3.0 just because it was so complicated. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with it, and even now I doubt I know more than 80-90% of the rules properly. I just learned to fake the other 10-20%.

This happens every time a new edition is brought out. Sometimes it is relatively painless (Shadowrun 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition), sometimes it can be quite traumatic (Shadowrun 3rd Edition to 4th Edition) but always the broad strokes that defined a system remained; it might be the setting, or the tropes, or even just some familiar phrases.

I can certainly see how folks could be surprised this time; last time WotC launched a new "edition" it was 3.0 to 3.5 - a massive revision to be sure, but only a revision of existing mechanics rather than the launch of a new system. But that is the exception, not the rule; when a company releases a new edition, it is usually a significant departure from the old system. Why, compare the Old World of Darkness systems with their newer counterparts to see how an edition change usually works.

I would encourage you to take the time to sit down and try to learn this new system. In my experience, a new system can produce novel situations that, while you may not have thought about beforehand, can be a lot of fun once you run into them. The trick is to not approach a game with preconceptions; just take it as it comes, and then decide whether you had fun. :smallsmile:

I'm mostly enjoying oWoD these days, actually, though I long for some D&D. I'm a bit isolated atm and finding it harder to locate players for a steady game, which contributes to my decision not to invest in any games that I won't be getting any real use out of. If I rarely get a chance to play 4e, no point in buying the books when I have 3.5 stuff out the wazoo.

Truth, the DM I had running my one 4e experience was not the most competent or creative I've seen. On the other hand, I think I got a fair exposure to the game system, and my feeling is that, no matter how many times I try playing it, I'm not going to enjoy it. And with Pathfinder on the way, I at least have an alternative for properly updating the game I've come to enjoy, even for all its problems and limitations.

The New Bruceski

2009-03-03, 03:07 PM

The thing I see about 4e is its ruleset is not a world simulator. NO edition of D&D was a world simulator, but people keep trying to use them as one (see the rules breaking down in 3rd for commonor railguns and such). IMO, 3rd edition came closest, so when WotC decided to take a step back, it's been jarring to some people.

For example, there's a den of thieves off in the middle of the desert, nowhere near the plot. What are their levels? Who cares? If the DM wants a merchant to be robbed, and then go hire the PCs, he doesn't carry out the full combat offscreen, the merchant shows up robbed. If the PCs go after the thieves, THEN the DM decides how much of a challenge they should be, and levels them appropriately.

The players get to the base, but how many guys are they fighting at once? The DM uses encounter packets to gauge what would be suitable for the party. That's not where they're all sitting for three months, just where they happen to be found if the PCs surprise them. If they make too much noise, or do something foolish like shouting a challenge at the camp, things change, probably for the worse.

If the DM feels the camp should be fuller than the PCs could handle normally, but wants the PCs to go there, minions come in. These guys haven't lived their lives in constant fear of a pinprick, but they're expendable, or much weaker than the players, so when hit they die without paperwork. Stormtroopers and Action Movie Mooks are the perfect example here. They could be fully statted out, but they don't need to be.

Note that nothing is changing about these thieves. They do not have some previous stats that are suddenly changed, they're off the grid. A minion is not a minion until combat, and if someone else was fighting him, he might not be a minion. People do not walk around with level stamped on their foreheads, not even the PCs. Treasure packets are not some Physical Law of Quantised Wealth, it's a guideline to help the DM, since the game is balanced around players having certain amounts of money at certain levels.

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-03, 03:51 PM

Baatezu and Tanar'ri are name of evil ousiders even in 3rd. I can recognize that multiclassing may lead to odd things, but you can roleplay it.

More, what do you mean for feat nonsense?

Partially it was hyperbole, but more importantly, I wanted to draw attention to the scope of changes from 2E to 3E. Devils and Demons are not the same as the Baatezu and Tanar'ri - they bore the same fluff relationship as Eldarin from 3E to 4E. And Feats were a completely new mechanic that absolutely changed the game; now there were mechanical tools to define your heroic actions (super-smashes, powerful charges, super-spellcasting) instead of everything being homebrewed.

Yet, I enjoyed my experience with 3E; it provided a new approach to the Heroic Fantasy which I hadn't thought of before. The moral of my story is that one should not shy from a new system merely because it is different and strange, I suppose. Quistar knows this quite well (judging from his post) but I have seen this sentiment many times on these kinds of threads, so I thought I'd make a post :smallsmile:

Morty

2009-03-03, 03:57 PM

Partially it was hyperbole, but more importantly, I wanted to draw attention to the scope of changes from 2E to 3E. Devils and Demons are not the same as the Baatezu and Tanar'ri - they bore the same fluff relationship as Eldarin from 3E to 4E. And Feats were a completely new mechanic that absolutely changed the game; now there were mechanical tools to define your heroic actions (super-smashes, powerful charges, super-spellcasting) instead of everything being homebrewed.

Yet, I enjoyed my experience with 3E; it provided a new approach to the Heroic Fantasy which I hadn't thought of before. The moral of my story is that one should not shy from a new system merely because it is different and strange, I suppose. Quistar knows this quite well (judging from his post) but I have seen this sentiment many times on these kinds of threads, so I thought I'd make a post :smallsmile:

The trouble is, many people see such statements as "You're just stubborn and unwilling to change". And they're quite rightfully aggravated. Or outright pissed off if they have a short temper.

Talya

2009-03-03, 04:03 PM

Devils and Demons are not the same as the Baatezu and Tanar'ri.

Yes, they really are.

Do you know how the names Baatezu and Tanari came about? Because of all the rage at children playing games about devils and demons in 1st edition. So they were renamed. Then 3rd edition just amalgamated them...Baatezu is another name for devils of Baator, and Tanari are the standard demons of the Abyss. Yes, there are a few devils that are not baatezu and a few demons that are not tanari, but they are the same thing.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-03, 04:11 PM

The trouble is, many people see such statements as "You're just stubborn and unwilling to change". And they're quite rightfully aggravated. Or outright pissed off if they have a short temper.

Most of the time yes, and even in this thread, quite a bit, yes... BUT the last page seems to have actually lightened up a bit, with a lot more "yeah, I could see that." It's refreshing.

But seriously, you are so so wrong. People don't see statements like that at all! I'm aggravated, and outright pissed off.

Nightson

2009-03-03, 04:31 PM

Video games with 3.5 rules(including one MMORPG): A lot.
Video games with 4.0 ruleset: None

Just saying.

Yukitsu

2009-03-03, 04:41 PM

How old are they by contrast again?

hamishspence

2009-03-03, 05:00 PM

all baatezu are devils, but all devils are not baatezu :smallsmile:

For Demons, difference is stronger, with two new demon subtypes (obyrith, loumara) in addition to the few oddball non-tanar'ri demons (oculus demon included)

Quistar

2009-03-03, 05:25 PM

The trouble is, many people see such statements as "You're just stubborn and unwilling to change". And they're quite rightfully aggravated. Or outright pissed off if they have a short temper.

Yeah, I got this treatment from a fellow gamer that decided it was ok to scream at me about this topic while I was driving him home from a game. He quickly wore out any brownie points with me.

He managed to ignore all the various points I've brought up in my posts here and boil it down to "You old-timers don't want to learn the new rules because you don't like anything that's new or changed." Which is far from the truth. I was ready for a change. I just wasn't ready for THIS one.

Thanks to everyone here that is a lot more understanding and open-minded than that guy!

LurkerInPlayground

2009-03-03, 06:39 PM

On the argument of Knock, did it ever occur to anyone that a broken door is, I dunno, noticeable? Knock doesn't destroy doors, so it has the advantage of stealth.
Only if you can manage the stealth part in spite of yammering at a door for 10 minutes.

Sebastian

2009-03-03, 06:51 PM

Video games with 3.5 rules(including one MMORPG): A lot.
Video games with 4.0 ruleset: None YET

Just saying.

bolded part my me

Panda-s1

2009-03-03, 09:39 PM

bolded part my me

So? The point is saying 4e is more like a video game is like crying wolf: it means nothing as D&D videogames have been around since 1st ed. days. In fact I'm inclined to believe that 3.X is the most videogamey given how much math and complication is involved. In the form of a computer game, those numbers become much easier to handle!

Kurald Galain

2009-03-04, 04:28 AM

I think there is one important part of 4E that wouldn't work in a videogame, and that is immediate interrupts.

Myshlaevsky

2009-03-04, 04:31 AM

I think there is one important part of 4E that wouldn't work in a videogame, and that is immediate interrupts.

Assassin's Creed seems to do a pretty good job of it.

Oslecamo

2009-03-04, 06:04 AM

I think there is one important part of 4E that wouldn't work in a videogame, and that is immediate interrupts.

You're joking right? There's TONS of games out there that allow for instant counter mechanics.

Kurald Galain

2009-03-04, 07:19 AM

You're joking right? There's TONS of games out there that allow for instant counter mechanics.

But not in this way.

Unless you want to make it an action game (which really wouldn't fit with the RPG genre), you need some way of asking the player, every single time, whether he wants to use one of his (possibly several) immediate interrupts or immediate reactions every single time he gets attacked by an enemy. Or every time an enemy moves somewhere. Or etc.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-04, 08:52 AM

So? The point is saying 4e is more like a video game is like crying wolf: it means nothing as D&D videogames have been around since 1st ed. days. In fact I'm inclined to believe that 3.X is the most videogamey given how much math and complication is involved. In the form of a computer game, those numbers become much easier to handle!

Is a matter of:

Interface: Power System is more intuitive than Vancian. If this is valid for RPG, is more for Videogames.

Streamlined Rules: simpler, wider target.

See how Characters power work in wow. See Neverwinternight, and say to me what game of the two can be learned faster.

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-04, 04:01 PM

Unless you want to make it an action game (which really wouldn't fit with the RPG genre), you need some way of asking the player, every single time, whether he wants to use one of his (possibly several) immediate interrupts or immediate reactions every single time he gets attacked by an enemy. Or every time an enemy moves somewhere. Or etc.

Not really. Most Immediate actions have a trigger - all you need to do is throw up a dialog box as a monster is winding up for a slam saying "Do you want to Disruptive Strike?" until it is used. Sure, it'd make the combat a bit choppier, but not in a fatal manner.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-04, 08:24 PM

But not in this way.

Unless you want to make it an action game (which really wouldn't fit with the RPG genre), you need some way of asking the player, every single time, whether he wants to use one of his (possibly several) immediate interrupts or immediate reactions every single time he gets attacked by an enemy. Or every time an enemy moves somewhere. Or etc.

Hmmm I dunno, like others have pointed out, this is pretty much in WoW. Priests have certain holy spells they can only cast after an ally has died, the warrior/rogue/lots of others have plenty of attacks after blocking a hit, or a dodging, or scoring a critical, and these are just the first few that came to mind. Your "button" lights up to show it is available, usually for about 5-8 seconds. That's fairly accurate, considering a turn in D&D represents 6 seconds.

As a person that has played WoW since release, played a lot of 3.5 (both sides of the tables), and played 4e since release (both sides of the table)(I'm sure this applies to plenty of others here as well, so don't jump me), I personally find a lot of resemblances between 4e and WoW. WAY more than 3.5. For the lore and flavor of the world, well yeah, the similarities there go back to the first Warcraft (RTS), but as far as game play, I see a lot of similarities.

I think 4e would make the easiest transition to an action (not turn based, or pause based, or anything similar, like Knights of the Old Republic) game, similar to WoW.

Sure, there are the games out there like Balder's Gate Dark Alliance (i'm talking about the hack and slash playstation 2, not PC RPG) which are based on D&D, but I really don't feel they represented the game play very well.

Mobey_Wee

2009-03-04, 08:27 PM

but i guess it really depends on what kind of game you're talking about.

Mando Knight

2009-03-04, 09:18 PM

Priests have certain holy spells they can only cast after an ally has died, the warrior/rogue/lots of others have plenty of attacks after blocking a hit, or a dodging, or scoring a critical, and these are just the first few that came to mind. Your "button" lights up to show it is available, usually for about 5-8 seconds. That's fairly accurate, considering a turn in D&D represents 6 seconds.

Actually, the time frame would have to be a bit tighter for 4E to keep the round time frame correct: many of the immediate powers activate and affect their triggers, like one of the Ranger powers knocking out an enemy ranged attack, or a Paladin using the power that lets him take almost all of the damage from an area attack. It's not all "ally dropped, so advance to his position and heal," (though there is that, in a level 1 Bravura Warlord attack power...) there's also "ally would drop, so switch places and preemptively attack."

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-05, 04:53 AM

Actually, the time frame would have to be a bit tighter for 4E to keep the round time frame correct: many of the immediate powers activate and affect their triggers, like one of the Ranger powers knocking out an enemy ranged attack, or a Paladin using the power that lets him take almost all of the damage from an area attack. It's not all "ally dropped, so advance to his position and heal," (though there is that, in a level 1 Bravura Warlord attack power...) there's also "ally would drop, so switch places and preemptively attack."

See how the Warrior power "overpower" in Wow works. It triggers after someone dodge an attack, and the power button is active for a short time. Immediate interrupt.

Consider that a lot of my old players were Wow players too, and when 4th edition came out, some of the refused (IMO, this is a mistake, BTW) even to test it once they've seen both game mechanics and art.

Sebastian

2009-03-05, 05:04 AM

I think there is one important part of 4E that wouldn't work in a videogame, and that is immediate interrupts.

I was thinking more push/pull/slide powers. Unless you go turn-based which with today market seems to be almost impossible (sadly)

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-05, 05:15 AM

Pull, slide?

See how works in Wow the Death Grip power of the hero class Death Knight.

AgentPaper

2009-03-05, 06:42 AM

Pull, slide?

See how works in Wow the Death Grip power of the hero class Death Knight.

Well, push and pull are pretty easy in videogames in general. I think the best use so far has been in the various jedi games, using force push and pull. Making them go left or right could also work.

However, I'm actually going to come out and say that 4E is actually less suited for being a video game than other games, such as 3.5.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-05, 07:13 AM

Well, push and pull are pretty easy in videogames in general. I think the best use so far has been in the various jedi games, using force push and pull. Making them go left or right could also work.

However, I'm actually going to come out and say that 4E is actually less suited for being a video game than other games, such as 3.5.

Ok, but my point was that almost everything in 4th is easy translable in a MMORPG.

Translate 3.5 Bestow Curse, unless you translate only stats penalities...

mrmaxmrmax

2009-03-05, 08:49 AM

Ok, but my point was that almost everything in 4th is easy translable in a MMORPG.

Translate 3.5 Bestow Curse, unless you translate only stats penalities...

There are only four things bestow curse can do and all but one of them translate very well.

1) Stat penalty
Just change the characters stats until the curse is removed.

2) -4 to all d20 rolls
Just change the random number generator to rng-4 until the curse is removed.

3) 50% chance of all actions failing
Anytime an attack is selected, have nothing happen half the time.

4) Create your own curse no more powerful than the above
Even this is do-able through a curse creator sub-program, but why bother? The only thing I could think of would be a -8 to all d20 rolls relating to a certain thing.

I will agree, though, that I would love to see a turned-based strategy game based on Dungeon Delve or something like that.

Maxwell.

P.S. We've wandered a long way from the start of this thread, huh?

Sebastian

2009-03-05, 08:50 AM

Ok, but my point was that almost everything in 4th is easy translable in a MMORPG.

As far as Powers go, I agree with you. Because powers in 4e is extremelly specific, they do one or more specific thing and only that thing, and it always works even when it would make little or no sense (i.e. blinding barrage on a hydra), while some 3,5 spells or even feats need more GM interpretation.

There could be more problems with rituals and skill challenges that are more more vague and ill-defined.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-05, 08:58 AM

There could be more problems with rituals and skill challenges that are more more vague and ill-defined.

Maybe It's my malice, but this could lead to the feeling that these things has been designed poorly because they are kinda... collateral.

Rituals can be translated, anyway.. as channelling effects, that maybe you can do in specific places (Resurrection ---> Deity Altar, and nothing strange in this feature BTW) and if you try to cast silence when fightin enemies... a red writing appears on the video:

"You are in combat"

Anytime an attack is selected, have nothing happen half the time.

4) Create your own curse no more powerful than the above
Even this is do-able through a curse creator sub-program, but why bother? The only thing I could think of would be a -8 to all d20 rolls relating to a certain thing.

I will agree, though, that I would love to see a turned-based strategy game based on Dungeon Delve or something like that.

Maxwell.

P.S. We've wandered a long way from the start of this thread, huh?

- you can even curse one makim him unfertile. Could be an imaginative way to punish an Orc Warchief (remember that for Orcs many children higher recognition.. at least in 3rd).

I remember a good article in Dragon Magazine with suggestion about curses, and Vile Darkness too, but even in core it's simply left to imagination and DM fiat.

Untranslabe.

Panda-s1

2009-03-05, 02:12 PM

Ok, but my point was that almost everything in 4th is easy translable in a MMORPG.

Translate 3.5 Bestow Curse, unless you translate only stats penalities...

Y'know, considering they managed to put Wish into Baldur's Gate 2....

mrmaxmrmax

2009-03-06, 12:11 AM

- you can even curse one makim him unfertile. Could be an imaginative way to punish an Orc Warchief (remember that for Orcs many children higher recognition.. at least in 3rd).

That is too powerful. You are basically telling him he can't roll the d20 100% of the time.

To be more serious, that is why you play D&D with a DM instead of a computer. Once you've turned something into a computer game, you are playing a game about role-playing.

Are still dealing with Orcs when you first get Bestow Curse (level five at the earliest)?

Can I get any agreement on the level of spells in 4e at least? How great is it that a fifth level wizard can cast fifth level spells?

Maxwell.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-06, 04:32 AM

That is too powerful. You are basically telling him he can't roll the d20 100% of the time.

To be more serious, that is why you play D&D with a DM instead of a computer. Once you've turned something into a computer game, you are playing a game about role-playing.

Are still dealing with Orcs when you first get Bestow Curse (level five at the earliest)?

I miss you point here, Bestow Curse CAN be cast in a imaginative way. Several WOTC sources support this, see my post above.

About orcs.. you could have a whole campaing based on orcs, as minions of a BBEG (*coughcoughSauroncoughcough*) or as the biggest threath in the world (an orcish horde spawning from the Mountains of Something, with Orog overlords crafting powerful weapons and summoning Demons to support the army).

Orcs advance by character class, and can multiclass. They are not 1st level only, and a 1st level orc barbarian can deal something like 63 HP damage charging with an axe and critting. Remember that an high CR encounter can be managed even with a bunch of smaller monsters (well played).

Can I get any agreement on the level of spells in 4e at least? How great is it that a fifth level wizard can cast fifth level spells?

:smallconfused: Well, there's nothing inherently good or bad in 4th edition levels of power, it depends from your tastes I think. If you say that in this way is more intuitive, well you are right. But this is not linked with the content of spells.

Y'know, considering they managed to put Wish into Baldur's Gate 2....

Well, that's the opposite. A videogame akwarldy imitating an RPG mechanic.

You see, Baldur's Gate is the point. Is faaaar less intuitive than World of Warcraft. I doubt BG sold like Wow.

Wow's secret is the starting simplicity of the game, it's be an intuitive game.
Complexity grows in actual play (the way you move on the battlefield, see PvP mechanics in Wow arena). Very similar to 4th, IMHO.

Charity

2009-03-06, 04:57 AM

I find it genuinely astonishing that a pen and paper RPG is still being compared to a derivative computer game.

Despite the manyfold and increasingly desperate attempts to paint D&D4e as possessing some sort of mystical power to change the way you think and interact with your peers, it is in fact just a P&P RPG just like all the others. It does have an emphisis on fun and balance but sadly it is not capable of transporting you Tron style into a computerised WoW clone... sorry bout that.

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-06, 04:59 AM

It does have an emphisis on fun and balance but sadly it is not capable of transporting you Tron style into a computerised WoW clone... sorry bout that.

Am I the only one who thinks that would be pretty cool? :smallcool:

FoE

2009-03-06, 05:04 AM

Am I the only one who thinks that would be pretty cool? :smallcool:

The only video game I want to be transported into is Barbie Horse Adventures. :smalltongue:

Charity

2009-03-06, 05:05 AM

@^ You frighten and amuse me FoE

Have you seen that simpsons episode OH?

Oracle_Hunter

2009-03-06, 05:11 AM

Have you seen that simpsons episode OH?

Huh, probably not - I haven't watched the Simpsons in years, for Old Man Reasons *shakes cane*

BTW: Tron - extremely heavy religious overtones; you don't notice it as a kid, but watch it 10 years later and woah!

Not that that makes Tron a bad movie, mind you - Light Cycle is awesome! :smallbiggrin:

lesser_minion

2009-03-06, 05:14 AM

As far as CRPGs go, I wouldn't mind seeing a decent attempt to blend character social skills into conversation - a text parser or even just a 'text creator' system could be pretty interesting.

The game could track what you know, and would automatically make a sense motive check an Insight check if you said something while the game had you listed as knowing something contradictory.

As far as being transported into a computer game goes, Final Fantasy would be quite interesting - it may be worth avoiding the more GRIMDARK settings though. Would you want to be trapped in Spira IRL?

And I'd rather be a PC, so I can actually say something, instead of being mocked relentlessly by 8 bit theater.

xanaphia

2009-03-06, 05:32 AM

P.S. We've wandered a long way from the start of this thread, huh?

Oh well, this topic is better.

Lord Mancow always says that if he wanted to play WOW, he'd play a version of it which didn't require organizing a large group of people to go to someone's house. He hasn't read 4e, but I think he has a point.

I think that 4e tried to change itself to what was succeeding, as in WOW. It reminds me of a Japanese restaurant, frustrated by the success of a french cafe, putting croissants in its sushi. That's not how you succeed.

Charity

2009-03-06, 05:37 AM

@^ Just out of curiosity how many games of 4e have you played?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNBg71VXbTU&feature=related

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-06, 05:38 AM

I find it genuinely astonishing that a pen and paper RPG is still being compared to a derivative computer game.

Have you ever played World of Warcraft?

Charity

2009-03-06, 05:41 AM

Yes and Guildwars and various freebie variants, it's a computer game, an immersive one.

Sebastian

2009-03-06, 05:50 AM

And I'd rather be a PC, so I can actually say something, instead of being mocked relentlessly by 8 bit theater.

*sigh* Times are tough.

AgentPaper

2009-03-06, 06:40 AM

I'm also wondering where the similarities are supposed to lie. I've played WoW, on and off, since before it came out, and I've played 3.5 and 4E a good bit. I just can't see how they are similar, at least no more than any other tabletop RPG.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-06, 06:42 AM

Yes and Guildwars and various freebie variants, it's a computer game, an immersive one.

Even too much immersive, I had to break up to do anything else. :smalltongue:

Ok.. you played it. And didn't you noticed analogies in the way damage scales by level, difference between NPCs and PCs, differentiation between out of combat and in combat action, the art..?

If for someone (or for many people) all of this si good, I don't want to say that is necessarily bad. I took ideas from Wow system of crafting for my curren campaing.

But if I don't like new changes, can I have the doubt that some choose has been made to head the game in a certain direction, without been looked smugly?

I don't think that take inspiration from Wow or whatelse it's inherently bad, but if you, as an example, want to imitate Wow Warrior's Taunt, Last Stand and similar Tank-o-matic powers, would be fine imitate something like Execute. *

If companies go where is money, my doubt it's so baseless?

*Even if, as Oracle Hunter, IIRC, stated once, a system with powers can "auto-fix" himself better than other kind of systems in these things. It's enough introduce a different power in a different book. The advantage of 4th in this is undeniable.

AgentPaper

2009-03-06, 07:14 AM

Ok.. you played it. And didn't you noticed analogies in the way damage scales by level, difference between NPCs and PCs, differentiation between out of combat and in combat action, the art..?

But, damage scaled by level in all RPGs. This is a basic premise of leveling up. The difference between NPCs and PCs has always been there, 4E has just recognized and accepted it, instead of pretending that the stats of a monster/noble/peasant/etc actually mattered when the party wasn't fighting it. (Knowing how powerful it is and what it can do is important, but not that it has 23 strength and +19 to grapple, for the most part)

And in and out of combat isn't really differentiated between, except that you can't rest when you're fighting for your life, or prepare an intricate ritual while a goblin is poking you with a spear. And the art, well, that's a matter of opinion, but I can't say I see a real correlation. Looking at the two PHBs, the art is pretty much the same in both 3.5 and 4E, though 4E shows higher level characters. The style of the books are different, and there aren't any sketches in the 4E one, (No picture of the races in a police lineup, for example, which I liked, but ah well) but the colored images are the same general style of art. And the art from WoW is significantly different, from what I've seen.

Charity

2009-03-06, 07:17 AM

OK I'll do this point by point, I know it's a bit annoying, but you've asked a lot of Q's and I'd like to give each the attention it requires.

Ok.. you played it.
Just out of interest have you played 4e?

And didn't you noticed analogies in the way damage scales by level,
I hate to point this out but damage scales by level in every level based game it is a inevitable consequence of having a level based system (yes Matt even AD&D :smalltongue:)... also it needs to be said, it happens more exteemly in 3.x it just isn't as upfront about it, think about it is your 10th level Barbarian doing the same damage he was at 1st ie 3.x? I certainly hope not.

difference between NPCs and PCs,
A lot is made of the diffences between generating PC's and NPC's but at the end of the day it is ENTIRELY up to the DM to bring the NPC's to life, the method of generating their combat stats is neither here nor there.

differentiation between out of combat and in combat action,
Er do you mean the /encounter mechanic? Cos 3.x treats character actions differently in and out of combat (taking a ten is a good example) it is a common gaming shortcut used when the precise timing of events is not critical.

the art..?
Too subjective to be addressable. The art has changed but it is generally of a reasonable standard so I have no issue with it.

But if I don't like new changes, can I have the doubt that some choose has been made to head the game in a certain direction, without been looked smugly?

You used what has become a 4e meme, it was bound to recieve a stock response.

I don't think that take inspiration from Wow or whatelse it's inherently bad, but if you, as an example, want to imitate Wow Warrior's Taunt, Last Stand and similar Tank-o-matic powers, would be fine imitate something like Execute. *

...
I am not entirely sure what you are saying here so I'll reserve comment.
...
as an aside, using something as inspiration does not make those things equivalent in either substance or worth...
An example
http://www.kiwipulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/campbells-soup3.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/13/92122947_c28fadd66b.jpg

If companies go where is money, my doubt it's so baseless?
Companies will always go where the money is, it is naïve to think they should do otherwise.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-06, 08:34 AM

OK I'll do this point by point, I know it's a bit annoying, but you've asked a lot of Q's and I'd like to give each the attention it requires.

No problem. It's more clear this way.

Just out of interest have you played 4e?

Sadly, not enough. Maybe this could surprise you, but in my gaming grou I'm one of the more open minded toward it. :smalltongue:

I hate to point this out but damage scales by level in every level based game it is a inevitable consequence of having a level based system (yes Matt even AD&D :smalltongue:)... also it needs to be said, it happens more exteemly in 3.x it just isn't as upfront about it, think about it is your 10th level Barbarian doing the same damage he was at 1st ie 3.x? I certainly hope not.

I think you miss my point here. OF COURSE damage must scale, in HP systems. But The way it scales and the lethality of the single blow are, IMHO, more similar in 4th to wow. This can be connected to the lack of save or die. Some people hate them, for me they make the game more interesting.

A lot is made of the diffences between generating PC's and NPC's but at the end of the day it is ENTIRELY up to the DM to bring the NPC's to life, the method of generating their combat stats is neither here nor there.

OK, but a Twilight Mage or a Naga Mage in wow is not a PC mage. Because in the design of the first, the only thing that matters is the way they interact with PCs. See analogies?

Er do you mean the /encounter mechanic? Cos 3.x treats character actions differently in and out of combat (taking a ten is a good example) it is a common gaming shortcut used when the precise timing of events is not critical.

I was meaning 10 minutes to cast a Silence spell, similar to a "you are in combat" =" you cannot do it now" mechanic in Wow. Is not a matter of shortcut, is a matter of make some thing IMPOSSIBLE to do in combat by design.

Too subjective to be addressable. The art has changed but it is generally of a reasonable standard so I have no issue with it.

The example is amusing but does not fit. Wotc does not sells pictures about elves and orcs, sells a game about elves orcs and spells and classes and roles and whatelse. The distance between 4th and Wow is not the same from the can and the picture.

You used what has become a 4e meme, it was bound to recieve a stock response.

Yeah but people don't always answer in the same tone. someone is pleasant, someone not.

as an aside, using something as inspiration does not make those things equivalent in either substance or worth...
An example
http://www.kiwipulse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/campbells-soup3.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/13/92122947_c28fadd66b.jpg
[quote]

See above. but the example is anyway cool.

[quote]
Companies will always go where the money is, it is naïve to think they should do otherwise.

Agree. So my doubt

Wow = more money ---> copypaste wow and maybe make a videogame with more suitable mechanics to make more money

is not baseless.

Charity

2009-03-06, 09:14 AM

No problem. It's more clear this way.
Ok I'll continue in this vein, but I don't want to be drawn into a silly point refuting contest.

I think you miss my point here. OF COURSE damage must scale, in HP systems. But The way it scales and the lethality of the single blow are, IMHO, more similar in 4th to wow. This can be connected to the lack of save or die. Some people hate them, for me they make the game more interesting.
4e is not a great deal more lethal as you progress in levels unlike 3e is this what you are objecting to?

OK, but a Twilight Mage or a Naga Mage in wow is not a PC mage. Because in the design of the first, the only thing that matters is the way they interact with PCs. See analogies?

The point I think you are missing here is that in WoW the NPC's responses are programed in, it is inflexable. In a table top game (regardless of system) the NPC's are brought to life and interact in a way that the GM sees fit. The GM makes all the NPCs descisions and responses and thus the PC's interaction with them will be entirely coloured by how the GM choses to portray them. The only difference between 3e and 4e is how the NPC's combat statistics are generated and as the players don't get to see that, in either case I can't fathom where the objection stems from.

I was meaning 10 minutes to cast a Silence spell, similar to a "you are in combat" =" you cannot do it now" mechanic in Wow. Is not a matter of shortcut, is a matter of make some thing IMPOSSIBLE to do in combat by design.
Rituals are not designed to be cast in combat, just because a 4e ritual has the same name as a 3e spell does not mean they should automatically be comparable.
Item creation feats are not designed to be used in combat in 3e, nor are the 'oh so very missed' crafting skills there are things that are hard to do when someone is swinging a sword at your head.
4e has made it so that the party's best solution isn't always, 'get the mage to fix it' that was deliberate and to my mind benificial.

The example is amusing but does not fit. Wotc does not sells pictures about elves and orcs, sells a game about elves orcs and spells and classes and roles and whatelse. The distance between 4th and Wow is not the same from the can and the picture.

I believe the spoiler was offered as an aside rather than an example, but I feel it fits better than you give it credit for.
The Campbells soup can label was designed as an attractive and recognisable object to assist in the sales of soup. It was no less designed than Warhols interpretation, and Warhol intended to make money on the sale of his art alongside his iconic artistic statement. Both are designed to be recognised.
4e and WoW are both games of a fantasy genre, the same can be said of any edition of D&D you care to mention, that is pretty much where the similarities fall down. You might as well say 4e is the same as Yahtzee as both of the involve rolling dice.

Agree. So my doubt

Wow = more money ---> copypaste wow and maybe make a videogame with more suitable mechanics to make more money

is not baseless.
my emphasis
4e is not a videogame
4e is a P&PRPG just like every other edition of D&D and bears no more relation to a videogame than any of the previous editions.
There is already a WoW RPG, and it uses the 3e D20 system, and it is not a bestseller so why would they copy it?
Oh look they didn't.

Kaiyanwang

2009-03-06, 09:53 AM

Ok I'll continue in this vein, but I don't want to be drawn into a silly point refuting contest.

You mean? Please explain :smallsmile:

4e is not a great deal more lethal as you progress in levels unlike 3e is this what you are objecting to?

In short yes.

The point I think you are missing here is that in WoW the NPC's responses are programed in, it is inflexable. In a table top game (regardless of system) the NPC's are brought to life and interact in a way that the GM sees fit. The GM makes all the NPCs descisions and responses and thus the PC's interaction with them will be entirely coloured by how the GM choses to portray them. The only difference between 3e and 4e is how the NPC's combat statistics are generated and as the players don't get to see that, in either case I can't fathom where the objection stems from.

Thank you for the explaination , but i meant that if I roll a Wizard PC, and I meet a Wizard PC in 3.5, I'm sure he will follow the same rules. The Barbarian and the Frost Giant will power attack in the same way. For someone is importan for immersion. It's a crime?

Rituals are not designed to be cast in combat, just because a 4e ritual has the same name as a 3e spell does not mean they should automatically be comparable.
Item creation feats are not designed to be used in combat in 3e, nor are the 'oh so very missed' crafting skills there are things that are hard to do when someone is swinging a sword at your head.
4e has made it so that the party's best solution isn't always, 'get the mage to fix it' that was deliberate and to my mind benificial.

Ok, but i see analogies with grinding. I realize that there are other things like diplomacy and skill challenges, but some of them seem akwarldly designed, leading me to think "how much were they important for the designers and why?"

4e and WoW are both games of a fantasy genre, the same can be said of any edition of D&D you care to mention, that is pretty much where the similarities fall down. You might as well say 4e is the same as Yahtzee as both of the involve rolling dice.

I see, but IMHO 4th and wow are linked in a more thight manner. Anyway if you played wow and say you didn't see so much "copypaste", I can consider that I have prejudice.

There is already a WoW RPG, and it uses the 3e D20 system, and it is not a bestseller so why would they copy it?
Oh look they didn't.

That's a setting. Analogies I found were about feeling and playability, and objectionable and praiseworthy aspects of the games.

Winterwind

2009-03-06, 10:53 AM

Thank you for the explaination , but i meant that if I roll a Wizard PC, and I meet a Wizard PC in 3.5, I'm sure he will follow the same rules. The Barbarian and the Frost Giant will power attack in the same way. For someone is importan for immersion. It's a crime?Pardon me if I enter into a discussion once more that, by all rights, should not concern me as non-D&D player in the least, but that's another sentiment I keep seeing and that I totally do not understand. Why is it bad to have different rules for PCs and NPCs?

In the following, I will try to present my own philosophy regarding rules and their interaction and meaning for PCs/NPCs and the world as a whole.

The rules of an RPG serve one purpose only: To provide an interface between the game's world and the players. This is their goal, not simulating the world itself. The rules an NPC has to follow are completely irrelevant and could be as completely different from those the PCs follow as possible, as long as for the duration of the encounter between the PCs and the NPCs these rules would result in the NPC behaving in a manner similar to that of a comparable PC. All the players see are the results of the rules that arrive on their end. Whether the rules that led to these results are the same as for themselves or completely different is irrelevant - they do not get to see them at work anyway, all they get is the result. And as PCs are the protagonists in the story told in the game (which does not necessarily correlate with being important people within the world, mind you), it would make sense for them to have far more detailed and complex rules than the NPCs - as long as the NPC rules provide them with a decent enough approximation of how similar PCs would behave in their place as long as the PCs are present, it is completely irrelevant whether the rules would lead to different results when the PCs were gone, because the rules are not meant to describe the world with no PCs around.

Because, again, RPG rules do not serve to simulate a world while the PCs are gone - or, at least, there is no merit in such rules. Everything that happens in an RPG is always observed from a PC-perspective, with PCs around, because the senses of the PCs are all that allows the players to look into the game's world *1. That does not mean that the world does not exist when the PCs are gone - quite the opposite - but the rules do not apply to what happens in PC absence*2. One does not roll dice or apply other rules for every single spell cast by every wizard in the whole world every second, with no relation to the PCs and the story whatsoever. One does so only for the spells that might affect the PCs.

Of course, this does not mean that NPCs have to follow other rules - if the same rule set can be applied to both PCs and NPCs equally, fine. But if simpler and faster rules can make an NPC function in a similar manner for long enough for the players not to notice he uses different rules, then that's a benefit, and it doesn't matter that in the long run, with the PCs gone, these rules might yield different results, because all that matters is that they yielded the same results when the PCs could observe them.

I am having a bit of a hard time to formulate clearly what I mean; I hope it was somewhat understandable nonetheless. :smallfrown:

*1 Such narrative tricks as cut-aways notwithstanding; such scenes, that consist of nothing but gamemaster description, should not make use of rules anyway, as they would amount to the gamemaster playing alone with himself to the exclusion of the players.

*2 And for clarification, with "absence" I mean all things that happen without affecting the PCs directly. As in, the BBEG casting a spell from afar targeting the PCs should still adhere to the rules to see if s/he can break the PCs magical resistance, or whatever kind of defence they might have; that's not absence in the above sense.

Charity

2009-03-06, 11:13 AM

[
You mean? Please explain :smallsmile:
You must have seen threads go this way, where each poster pulls apart the words the other guy uses without ever digesting the meaning behind them... you are not going there so it seems I needn't have concerned myself.

In short yes.
It seems counter intuative to me that heros should die quicker the more experianced they become, but each to their own

Thank you for the explaination , but i meant that if I roll a Wizard PC, and I meet a Wizard PC in 3.5, I'm sure he will follow the same rules. The Barbarian and the Frost Giant will power attack in the same way. For someone is importan for immersion. It's a crime?
See the thing is, they do follow the same rules, just not the same method of generation... now that may just seem to be empty somantics, but It encompasses the differance in out start points.
I say, it doesn't matter how you generate an NPC's stats as long as the GM makes them feel like a wizard in how they speak and act, and the game will show they have powers in keepiing with a wizard. Why does it matter that the stats that only the GM sees are arrived at and formatted differently?

Ok, but i see analogies with grinding. I realize that there are other things like diplomacy and skill challenges, but some of them seem akwarldly designed, leading me to think "how much were they important for the designers and why?"

I feel it was a pretty universal criticism of 3e that primary spell casters were too powerful and too versatile, the rituals are way of combating this.

I see, but IMHO 4th and wow are linked in a more thight manner. Anyway if you played wow and say you didn't see so much "copypaste", I can consider that I have prejudice.
...

That's a setting. Analogies I found were about feeling and playability, and objectionable and praiseworthy aspects of the games.

Well we all have prejudice, I believe YMMV is what the 'cool kids' are saying these days.

Morty

2009-03-06, 11:15 AM

I am having a bit of a hard time to formulate clearly what I mean; I hope it was somewhat understandable nonetheless. :smallfrown:

It was, but there's nonetheless a big problem with this post: you say that rules are meant only to represent anything as long as PCs are around as it were an objective thruth, which it isn't. Far from it, in fact. For many people, internal consistency is very important, and such consistency requires PCs and NPCs to follow the same rules. Otherwise it breaks immersion.

Why does it matter that the stats that only the GM sees are arrived at and formatted differently?

Because it gives a distinct impression that world is just an unimportant background to the Mary Sues PCs. Which, surprise, bothers people.

Winterwind

2009-03-06, 11:43 AM

It was, but there's nonetheless a big problem with this post: you say that rules are meant only to represent anything as long as PCs are around as it were an objective thruth, which it isn't. Far from it, in fact. For many people, internal consistency is very important, and such consistency requires PCs and NPCs to follow the same rules. Otherwise it breaks immersion.But... you don't roll dice for things when the PCs aren't around, do you? I mean, that's several ten thousand dice rolls for the Profession checks of all blacksmiths in the world alone, add every other profession, every fight in the world, every animal on the hunt, etc., and you would end up at billions or more dice rolls you would have to make to simulate every second. No, you just ignore all these irrelevant aspects of the world, and very likely just state what happens for aspects that are not irrelevant to the story, but still do not affect the players immediately (example, I imagine if a murder investigation was part of the story you had in mind, you wouldn't roll dice for the fight between the murderer and the victim if the PCs weren't around - you would simply declare that the murderer kills the victim (and, maybe, suffers a harmless but potentially revealing wound on the upper arm).

At any rate, yes, I stated it as objective truth (though with the qualifier that this entire passage constituted my personal philosophy), but a major reason for that is that I really, honestly do not see any alternative. That's, actually, the reason why I made that lengthy post in the first place - because some people have an attitude towards the rules that I find, frankly, absolutely alien, and that I would very much like to understand.

From my point of view - what other purpose could RPG rules serve but to act as interface between the world and the players? Rules for what happens outside of PC presence simply make no sense, because all they would accomplish would be to waste time that could be used for the players to actually play the game; why would the GM roll any dice or do any such things if these things did not actually affect the PCs somehow? The rules exist for the benefit of the players only, they have no value, no justification for their existence of their own, separated from the players.
The purpose of a rule set describing an NPC wizard is not to simulate an wizard; it is to provide the PCs with the impression of a wizard, which is a subtle, but important difference.
I'm struggling for a formulation of what I mean again, and failing to find one that satisfies me. :smallsigh:

And I don't see how different rules for PCs and NPCs would lead to internal inconsistency, unless they made PCs and NPCs function completely differently during the duration of the encounter between the two (which is not so much an issue of a different rule set between PCs and NPCs as the issue of the NPC rules being bad and failing at what they are supposed to accomplish*1). Outside the encounter, nobody is going to see what happens.

*1 That's under the assumption of a playstyle and setting that calls for consistency between PCs and NPCs in the first place, of course, otherwise these rules could actually be exactly the right ones, but that's the assumption on which our discussion is founded.

EDIT:
Because it gives a distinct impression that world is just an unimportant background to the Mary Sues PCs. How so? :smallconfused:

Doug Lampert

2009-03-06, 12:08 PM

Oslecamo

2009-03-06, 12:13 PM

EDIT:How so? :smallconfused:

In 3.X, players can instant kill, lock enemies and a unleash a thousand other horrors on the party.

But...So can the monsters. Players gotta watch out. That monster's finger of death is just as deadly as the wizard's finger of death. The dragon's full attack will make you in mince meat just as the barbarian's full attack would.

Same for defences. Rogues have evasion, and some monsters also have evasion. Wizards hide behind illusions and so do other monsters. Barbarians can go around triping and so can the dragon. If the cleric invisibility purges, it also reveals his teammate wizard as well as that hiding demon.

In 4e, players can't instantly kill enemies any more(except minions), but they can still do some nasty stuff like stun-sleep locks. Players also get a bundle of defensive interrupts and powers to screw up with monster's attacks, plus powerfull feats like evasion and mettle.

The poor monsters, however, don't get this chance. They can't stun lock players, they have very scarce defensive and utility tricks if any at all, they're only a threat by HP damage to the players, and their only true defense is their huge amounts of personal HP.

So while players are, well, guys with plenty of powers and options, monsters are mostly HP sacks who dish out damage at a regular rate. A trick here and there, but nothing that can really take down a player by suprise like the players can do with the monsters.

Artanis

2009-03-06, 12:28 PM

Winterwind, while I agree with your position, I can see the reasoning behind those who require identical mechanics. If somebody does X and says Y, then he does X and says Y, regardless of the mechanics behind it. It doesn't make a difference.

IF doing X and saying Y are all you, as a player, see.

Players realize that there are different mechanics, and despite the outcome being the exact same, there is still that knowledge that the means of getting there is different. For some, that breaks verisimilitude.

In 3.X, players can instant kill, lock enemies and a unleash a thousand other horrors on the party.

But...So can the monsters. Players gotta watch out. That monster's finger of death is just as deadly as the wizard's finger of death. The dragon's full attack will make you in mince meat just as the barbarian's full attack would.

Same for defences. Rogues have evasion, and some monsters also have evasion. Wizards hide behind illusions and so do other monsters. Barbarians can go around triping and so can the dragon. If the cleric invisibility purges, it also reveals his teammate wizard as well as that hiding demon.

In 4e, players can't instantly kill enemies any more(except minions), but they can still do some nasty stuff like stun-sleep locks. Players also get a bundle of defensive interrupts and powers to screw up with monster's attacks, plus powerfull feats like evasion and mettle.

The poor monsters, however, don't get this chance. They can't stun lock players, they have very scarce defensive and utility tricks if any at all, they're only a threat by HP damage to the players, and their only true defense is their huge amounts of personal HP.

So while players are, well, guys with plenty of powers and options, monsters are mostly HP sacks who dish out damage at a regular rate. A trick here and there, but nothing that can really take down a player by suprise like the players can do with the monsters.
All of which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Winterwind's post.