Things old school players hate.

[tenshiakodo]

Opportunity attacks help, but not enough. You don't get enough of them, for one. 3e had ways to get more, but that was apparently discarded post 3e. So at best, you can stop one guy from slipping past you, then you're as useful as a stone pillar that doesn't actually support the roof.

When we have discussions about casters beefing their defenses and getting armor, when our long-held beliefs are that they shouldn't be able to do this, we have to consider why this is happening- because they simply aren't getting adequate protection from their allies or their native defensive abilities.

The Fighter (and others who fill his role) is supposed to be a deterrent because he's up in your face with a big weapon- but when the backline is far more dangerous than his opportunity attack, anyone with an ounce of common sense is going to be like "yeah, uh, I'll deal with you later, Mr. Tin Can".

Really, just being able to make spaces in their reach count as difficult terrain would go a long way to reinforce the Fighter's traditional role. Or we can boost his damage. In the early levels, especially, a Rogue is more dangerous with a bow than a Fighter is with a two handed sword, and he's operating from range!

[Tanarii]

Clearly you need to have enough of a front line, and it can be overwhelmed, but there weren't rules to keep enemies with a decent move rate from just bypassing a fighter on their turn.
But there were. Once you were in the melee, you couldn't leave it, except to retreat from it back in the direction you came. Enemies certainly couldn't just push through it to exit the other side and attack squishies not in the melee.

There weren't 3e style AOs except for retreating, because it was impossible to go past a fighter in melee. You had to entirely bypass the melee your allies were engaging enemy fighters in, provided there was space to do that.

[kyoryu]

Opportunity attacks help, but not enough. You don't get enough of them, for one. 3e had ways to get more, but that was apparently discarded post 3e. So at best, you can stop one guy from slipping past you, then you're as useful as a stone pillar that doesn't actually support the roof.

When we have discussions about casters beefing their defenses and getting armor, when our long-held beliefs are that they shouldn't be able to do this, we have to consider why this is happening- because they simply aren't getting adequate protection from their allies or their native defensive abilities.

The Fighter (and others who fill his role) is supposed to be a deterrent because he's up in your face with a big weapon- but when the backline is far more dangerous than his opportunity attack, anyone with an ounce of common sense is going to be like "yeah, uh, I'll deal with you later, Mr. Tin Can".

Really, just being able to make spaces in their reach count as difficult terrain would go a long way to reinforce the Fighter's traditional role. Or we can boost his damage. In the early levels, especially, a Rogue is more dangerous with a bow than a Fighter is with a two handed sword, and he's operating from range!

Opportunity attacks don't stop anything. They just create a penalty. This is partially a result of the HP system that makes "getting hit by a sword" a trivial occurrence.

Getting past an armed swordsman in real life is trickier - if they hit you, you're gonna have a bad time, and if you're not guarding, you're not going to be very effective defending.

[tenshiakodo]

Well here is my first experience with movement in AD&D. From the PHB, pages 104-105:

"Participants in a melee can opt to attack, parry, fall back, or flee. Attack can be by weapon, bare hands, or grappling. Parrying disallows any return attack that round, but the strength "to hit" bonus is then subtracted from the opponent's "to hit" die roll(s), so the character is less likely to be hit. Falling back is a retrograde move facing the opponent(s) and can be used in conjunction with a parry, and opponent creatures are able to follow if not otherwise engaged. Fleeing means as rapid withdrawal from combat as possible; while it exposes the character to a rear attack at the time, subsequent attacks can only be made if the opponent is able to follow the fleeing character at equal or greater speed."

So here's how this happened. As a new player, I was told to play a Fighter. I'm in one of those classic 30' x 30' rooms. I moved into the center of the room, and am facing three Hobgoblins. On their turns, two of the Hobgoblins fall back- I can't pursue because the third remains in melee with me.

Then on their next turns, the Hobgoblins move around my position, not engaging melee, to attack the Cleric. I was now left with having no option other than to fall back to where the Cleric was to engage those enemies (who still had no incentive not to keep beating up the Cleric until my turn AFTER that, when I could attack again) or stay in place.

Though the DM was "nice" and said I could just retreat, taking a free hit.

It was at that exact moment my beliefs about "only good faith prevents the DM from ignoring the front line" crystallized.

[Tanarii]

Then on their next turns, the Hobgoblins move around my position, not engaging melee, to attack the Cleric.
This is where your DM made a mistake.
The can't bypass you without engaging in the melee.

Also why wasn't the cleric with you in the melee in the first place? That's what Clerics are designed to do.

[Mike_G]

This is where your DM made a mistake.
The can't bypass you without engaging in the melee.

Also why wasn't the cleric with you in the melee in the first place? That's what Clerics are designed to do.

If the fighter was in the middle of a 30' x 30' room, that leave ten feet on either side of him. If one Hobgoblin fights him, and the other two have withdrawn, there's no *rule* that says they can't hug the walls on either side and move around him to beat up the caster. Now the DM could say "OK, you can shift and keep them in front of you" and maybe make a roll if they want to maneuver around him, or give him an AC penalty or attack penalty for fighting multiple opponents, but there was no rule against just walking past someone, so long as you don't pass within 5 feet.

In reality, it's not easy to just walk around an active melee. Fights shift and move in real life, but they can be deceptively static in a game where figures or counters in contact just remain where they are.

[tenshiakodo]

The Cleric, sadly, didn't have a very high Strength, and couldn't wear very heavy armor. They were using a sling as I recall, with their entire list of prepared spells being Cure Light Wounds (we were pretty low level). Casualty of rolling for ability scores.

And yes, the DM pointed out that the two Hobgoblins moving past me were out of my reach. We weren't using a battle map, as almost no one did back then, so I had to grin and bear it. This was one of the reasons I was happy when 3e made maps standard and I've never gone back to "theatre of the mind".

With a map, everyone can see where everyone is, and it's very clear what lines of movement there are.

[Tanarii]

The rule was you advanced to engage in melee. If you wanted to "hug the walls" you needed to be a rogue to hide in shadows, or to be outdoors and spend a few rounds flanking.

It wasn't until combat and tactics that threatening zones / reach, and being able to bypass a melee with tactical combat movement in an enclosed space "battlemat" style became possible.

[tenshiakodo]

Wait, where was that rule?

Because I never heard that you were forced to move to the first guy in a room you could fight and stop. If that's true, I was bamboozled!

I assumed you could move anywhere you wanted until you engaged in melee.

[Mike_G]

The rule was you advanced to engage in melee. If you wanted to "hug the walls" you needed to be a rogue to hide in shadows, or to be outdoors and spend a few rounds flanking.

It wasn't until combat and tactics that threatening zones / reach, and being able to bypass a melee with tactical combat movement in an enclosed space "battlemat" style became possible.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't remember that as an actual written out rule from my AD&D days. As far as I can remember it was up to DM interpretation

[RedMage125]

My experience with 4E is that GMs never make this hard decision, and have enemies always attack whoever marked them. I was one of the very few GMs who would surprise players by sometimes violating a mark.

Oh, I'd do it all the time, especially if the player over-optimized defense at the cost of offense.

4E was filled with those types of soft control effects, and that was one of the things I really liked about it. Failing to engage with them was, I think, failing to engage with the system.
Thank you kyoryu, because that's about what I was going to say.

An important distinction is that any creature *knows* the effect of any power it's been hit with. While "marked" is just a condition, other defenders used power to mark. Someone hit with a swordmage Aegis knows that if they break mark, that guy will be teleworking to their side and hitting them.

And yes, some creatures may decide that the juice is worth the squeeze.

In all the agmes I played, it came down to more or less realistic assumptions and tactics for the enemy in question. Players made an effort to shield the squishies with fighters, and monsters acted like their level of intelligence. Mindless ones attacked the closest, average grunt types attacked the biggest threat to them, so a guy swinging a sword very close to them was more obviously scary than a weedy looking elf in a dress 20 feet behind. Experienced enemy who knew tactics and recognized casters would target them.
That's always been huge with me. I hated it when DMs would run a horde of zombies like their all disciples of Sun Tzu.

Likewise, I let the monsters intelligence and background inform my tactics. Kobolds usually hit and run, relying on traps to wear down enemies, and only closing when they can gang up on someone. But when I run hobgoblins, they almost always use maneuvers, flanking, and protecting their own artillery, who focus fire on casters first.

Huh, I always thought that "marking" someone was exactly that, you passively intimidate a guy by making him the focus of your attention, a sort of "don't you dare let your guard down". I admit that multi-marking was harder to grok, but I used to have this utility that required training in Intimidate that made all enemies near you have a -5 penalty to hit anyone but you, and I would roleplay it as me taunting them. "You call yourself warriors? You're weak, little sissies! Come fight a real challenge!"

Of course, not all Defender mechanics were the same- the Paladin was strictly magical, and you got singed by divine power for attacking their allies.

That's how we saw it as well. I think the Fighter was the only one who marked everyone he attacked (which made dragonborn great fighters, as they had a minor action aoe encounter power).

One of my favorite abilities that used marking mechanics, however, was a Bard at will, called "Misdirected Mark". The bard made a ranged attack which did psychic damage, and the target was Marked by one of the Bard's allies. At our table, we called this power "He Did It" *accompanying finger point*.

[tenshiakodo]

Yes, I remember using Dragonborn fear. It rarely hit (due to bad design) but it didn't need to...

Also Misdirected Mark sounds amazing. I wonder why i never noticed that power with my Bard? It would have probably been better than trying to debuff things with Vicious Mockery and accidentally killing them instead.

Though killing a guy with an insult is kind of epic, so maybe not.

[Satinavian]

So here's how this happened. As a new player, I was told to play a Fighter. I'm in one of those classic 30' x 30' rooms. I moved into the center of the room, and am facing three Hobgoblins. On their turns, two of the Hobgoblins fall back- I can't pursue because the third remains in melee with me.

Then on their next turns, the Hobgoblins move around my position, not engaging melee, to attack the Cleric. I was now left with having no option other than to fall back to where the Cleric was to engage those enemies (who still had no incentive not to keep beating up the Cleric until my turn AFTER that, when I could attack again) or stay in place.

Though the DM was "nice" and said I could just retreat, taking a free hit.

It was at that exact moment my beliefs about "only good faith prevents the DM from ignoring the front line" crystallized.
Seems legit.

Is pretty much exactly what i would have done as GM if i decided that the hobgoblins recognize the cleric as a relevant participant. That is also what most player groups would do if they attacked a spellcaster and a tanky fighter with three melee types in an open room.

[Willie the Duck]

Wait, where was that rule?
Because I never heard that you were forced to move to the first guy in a room you could fight and stop. If that's true, I was bamboozled!
I assumed you could move anywhere you wanted until you engaged in melee.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I really don't remember that as an actual written out rule from my AD&D days. As far as I can remember it was up to DM interpretation


"Determine the results of whatever actions are decided upon by the party with initiative:
A. Avoid engagement (flee, slam door, use magic to escape, etc.) if
possible.
B. Attempt to parley.
C. Await action by other party.
D. discharge missiles or magical device attacks or cast spells or turn
undead.
E. Close to striking range, or charge.
F. Set weapons against possible opponent charge.
G. Strike blows with weapons, to kill or subdue.
H. Grapple or hold"
...
P.66:
"Close To Striking Range:
This merely indicates that the party concerned is moving at base speed to engage the opponent. The base speed is inches, indicating tens of feet in
the dungeon or similar setting indoors, tens of yards outdoors. All normal activity and bonuses ore permitted when so doing. This action is typically
token when the opponent is over 1" distant but not a long distance away. Play goes to the next round after this, as melee is not possible, although
other activity can, of course, toke place such as that detailed above.
Charge:
This action brings the charging party into combat on the charge round, but there are a number of considerations when it is token.
Movement Rate Outdoors: Movement bonus for charging in normal outdoor settings is 33% of base speed for bipedal creatures, 50% for
quadrupeds. (Cf. TSRs SWORDS 8 SPELLS.)
Movement Rate Indoors: The indoor/dungeon rate is greatly reduced due to the conditions. Therefore, all movement ot the charge is double base
speed, remembering that encumbered creatures are not allowed the charge. Note: The opponent must be within 10' distance at the termination
of the charge in order for any blows to be struck during that round.
Armor Class of Charging Creatures: There is no dexterity bonus allowed for charging creatures. Creatures with no dexterity bonus became 1 armor class lower, i.e. easier to hit. Thus on AC 3 creature becomes AC 4. There is no penalty to AC 10 creatures for charging, however.
Melee At End of Charge: Initiative is NOT checked at the end of charge movement. The opponent with the longer weapon/reach attacks first.
Charging creatures gain +2 on their "to hit" dice if they survive any noncharging or charging opponent attacks which occur first. Weapon length
and first strike ore detailed under Strike Blows.
Only one charge move can be made each turn; thus an interval of 9 rounds must take place before a second charge movement can be made."
[/i]
As always with EGG, it isn't perfectly clear.

The procedural process of combat lists the options theoretically available, and does not list an option where the PCs can move toward the opponent while skirting around to get to specific opponents. Whether that means you can't is of course open to interpretation, but it sure looks like the intended situation is that melee squads rush forward while archers and casters loose ranged effects.

[tenshiakodo]

I should have checked the DMG- the PHB rules are unbelievably sparse, by modern standards. It does look like you can totally charge and engage anyone you can get within 10' of, as well. Wow, that was actual melee reach back then? I honestly can't think of a time when it came up.

So that's what tanarii was talking about. Apparently being within 10' is melee range. I'm guessing my DM didn't know that...then again, the back line party members weren't all that far from me, so that means he didn't need to do any fancy movement, he could have just had them attack the guys who had just entered the room!

Sorry, it's just wild thinking about this. All those tiny dungeon rooms were basically meatgrinders- if you can get into the center of them, you can attack just about anyone in them!

I guess this is where the 3e guys got the idea of 5' reach and characters being able to 5' step from.

EDIT: oh, and thanks, Mr. the Duck!

[Kurald Galain]

Opportunity attacks don't stop anything.

You can use them to trip though, that stops enemies just fine.

[tenshiakodo]

Battlemasters and guys with War Caster can be a real pain in the backside too!

[RedMage125]

Yes, I remember using Dragonborn fear. It rarely hit (due to bad design) but it didn't need to...
I meant the breath weapon. A common level 1 feat for dragonborn was Hurl Breath, turn that Close Blast 3 into an Area Burst 1 within 10. Fighter opens with that, and just marked several enemies.

Fun note: one time he got a crit with his opening hurl breath on a zombie ogre. As you may recall in 4e, a single crit on a zombie is basically "head shot, drop to 0". Good times.



Also Misdirected Mark sounds amazing. I wonder why i never noticed that power with my Bard? It would have probably been better than trying to debuff things with Vicious Mockery and accidentally killing them instead.
I don't know, it was in the PHB2, one of the first power introduced. I thought it was hilarious. The best part was the Bard marking an enemy that couldn't get to a Defender, and just had to eat that -2 penalty to attacks.


Though killing a guy with an insult is kind of epic, so maybe not.

For some reason it makes me think of Clerks 2.
"I just made fun of Lord of the Rings so hard, some nerd puked all over himself"

[tenshiakodo]

There goes Randall, a berserker...

And yeah, there was a dragon fear power you could take instead of the breath weapon, it was like a stupidly huge area. Though as I recall, breath weapons had terrible attack scaling too.

[Kurald Galain]

And yeah, there was a dragon fear power you could take instead of the breath weapon, it was like a stupidly huge area.
Yep. Takes forever to resolve and just doesn't do a whole lot. It's on my banlist for that reason.

IIRC the breath was errata'ed to fix scaling, and the replacement power wasn't.

[tenshiakodo]

Oh now that you mention it, I remember that. I really only wanted the fear for marking on my Fighter anyways, even if it did hit, it was just icing on the cake.

[kyoryu]

You can use them to trip though, that stops enemies just fine.

Stop, I'm getting spiked chain flashbacks.

The fact that you can't really body block people is a real impediment to believability, though.

[tenshiakodo]

I kind of miss the spiked chain. Yeah, it made you a one trick pony, and when it was working, it worked a little too well. And it was trivial to switch off, making the chain tripper so much dead weight- though doing so forces the DM to change their encounter composition- sort of the flipside of the game world reacting to the players debate we had upthread.

But man, the first five levels when I played one and actually felt like I could defend my squishier allies was a lot of fun. Then we started fighting centaurs...

[Tanarii]

So that's what tanarii was talking about. Apparently being within 10' is melee range. I'm guessing my DM didn't know that...then again, the back line party members weren't all that far from me, so that means he didn't need to do any fancy movement, he could have just had them attack the guys who had just entered the room!

Sorry, it's just wild thinking about this. All those tiny dungeon rooms were basically meatgrinders- if you can get into the center of them, you can attack just about anyone in them!
To be fair to your DM, you were outnumbered 3 to 1 and it sounds like they spent at least one round if not two setting it up. It's not totally unreasonable to think they could leave someone to keep you occupied, and if you failed to fall back to protect access to your caster, go around you.

But yes, dungeons were very much meat grinders of melee up front with (depending on the specific editiib and rules involved) missile and sometimes spells either being impossible to lob into melee or random targets.

[tenshiakodo]

Yeah, one round to fall back, another to move to the backline. I didn't realize what was going on til too late, since I was a newbie. I don't think my DM read the combat rules in the DMG though. I think that's possible- the PHB came out first, and people were probably playing the game before the DMG came out? So they "learned" how to play and then just failed to absorb the new information. I don't know.

I didn't play 1e for long, as we moved into the glorious mess that was playing 2e but often still allowing 1e stuff- it was totally compatible, right? This sometimes created...oddities.

But yeah, as a level 2 Fighter with no weapon specialization (wasn't in the 1e PHB) and non-exceptional strength (I put my high roll into Con), 3 Hobgoblins was a challenge for me. I couldn't manage to hit them half the time, and I had one attack per round. Plus...I was a sword and board Fighter (lol, the shame!).

Fortunately, they couldn't hit me very well either, but yeah. I started playing my Fighters to be damage machines so I'd just murder things too fast for them to have a chance to get sneaky. And well, most DM's seemed to play by some sort of unspoken rules of engagement anyways.

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah, one round to fall back, another to move to the backline. I didn't realize what was going on til too late, since I was a newbie. I don't think my DM read the combat rules in the DMG though. I think that's possible- the PHB came out first, and people were probably playing the game before the DMG came out? So they "learned" how to play and then just failed to absorb the new information. I don't know.
There were an incredible number of people that started with oD&D, B, BX, or BECMI who moved on to AD&D or 2e and played it mostly as the previously played game, but with new class and race rules, different weapon damages, and whichever random chart caught your eye (be that psionic combat or the harlot table).
There's some subtle elegance to these editions that I've learned to appreciate later in retrospect, but man did I miss huge swaths of it on first go-through*.
*non-AD&D example-the basic set of BECMI had a nice little 'choose your own adventure' style playthrough that taught you the basics of the different classes and their roles, how combat and spellcasting works, and so on. What it doesn't teach you is the procedural dungeon crawl rules, the encounter table and non-violent interactions with monsters, morale and chase rules, or any of those things which made the game less combat-centric and also more survivable.

[Telok]

Something I've been noticing (since I'm finally in a D&D 5e game with an experienced DM and thus it hasn't broken the DM in 5 sessions or less) and is bringing back 4e memories: The monsters stopped mattering except for hp & damage.

Literally other than counterspelling enemy casters there's nothing to do in a fight that cares what form the opposition takes. Half our party didn't notice we were fighting mind flayers, and even if we had we couldn't do anything about it because the only things that mattered were hp, ac, & saves. Fought a bunch of stuff including a zombie T.rex that kept horking up fresh zombies, but it didn't matter because all there was to do was hit things until they were all out of hp. Fought stuff with at-will vampritic touch (but not a spell) at the top of a tower with a magic bell, what they were or did didn't matter because we stood between them and the bell & traded hits until one side fell down. Hostages? Hit stuff untill it runs out of hp because nobody can escape combat and theres no way to defend a bunch of helpless mooks. Swallowed whole? Nothing to do but damage it until you get barfed up or kill it. Escape scenario? Nobody moves faster than 60 feet a round and some are slower so just kill everything. Stealth? Someone will roll low so its basically auto-fail, just kill everything. Enemies with at will teleports and slow zones? Not a spell and so there's nothing we can do but hit point damage untill they stop moving.

Everything is so "balanced" that we can't do anything to an enemy that isn't damage is a "save each round" inconvinence (shout outs to polymorph:killer whale & banishment as the exceptions by dint on not being save every round). I'm reminded of 4e combat in that its slow, balanced, and your useful choices are so restricted that what you're fighting basically doesn't matter. It has hit points so you kill it. Bah. Bugger "balance". Give me unbalanced crap where all the players get awesome fun stuff and the DM can just keep throwing bigger, badder, and more enemies at us untill the setting explodes from our super op ass kicking characters.

[Kurald Galain]

Half our party didn't notice we were fighting mind flayers,
It is definitely my experience that, in 4E specifically, players often forget, ignore, and/or have no real clue what enemy they're fighting. This is definitely a downside of balancing things too much.

[tenshiakodo]

I had a very different experience, we were always making sure to ask for knowledge check DC's so we knew what we were dealing with in 4e. Most classes have some sort of forced movement or debuff options, so knowing "ok, he has a reaction that lets him move his speed and attack someone without provoking, let's slow/daze/stun/knock prone, push the monster with an attack so he doesn't eat the Cleric" was fairly common practice.

As was setting things up for your Defender to keep enemies locked down, like dropping friendly zones on top of him and the like.

I guess I just had more tactically minded playgroups in that era. As for 5e though, with the exception of the Battlemaster, most martials don't have anything like that, so it falls to the spellcasters to deal with, and since "dead is the best status effect", most just ignore the crowd control spells and just try to do more damage with magic.

Especially since there is no default system in 5e for monster knowledge nor real support for retreat. It's -a- way to deal with challenges, but not really one I care for.

[Kurald Galain]

knowing "ok, he has a reaction that lets him move his speed and attack someone without provoking,
That underlines my point though. Knowing what mechanical ability a monster has is not the same as knowing what kind of creature you're fighting.

Besides, it depends highly on the GM whether 4E knowledge checks give you this specific kind of information in the first place. That means that your dig that other people aren't tactical is misplaced.

[kyoryu]

That underlines my point though. Knowing what mechanical ability a monster has is not the same as knowing what kind of creature you're fighting.

Besides, it depends highly on the GM whether 4E knowledge checks give you this specific kind of information in the first place. That means that your dig that other people aren't tactical is misplaced.

Actually it's not.

https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_knowledge_checks


Success: You identify a creature as well as its type, typical temperament, and keywords. If you also meet the hard DC of the monster's level, you additionally know the monster's resistances, vulnerabilities and powers.

[KorvinStarmast]

Actually it's not.
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_knowledge_checks Keywords is such a magical property of a monster. :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

Actually it's not.

https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_knowledge_checks

Sure. Some GMs will give you the general gist of the power, others will give you the full statblock, yet others will give you the name of the power and let you guess from there. All three are RAW.

[LibraryOgre]

Sure, 4e could devolve into "What monster are we fighting", but look at humanoids in AD&D. "Is this a goblin, or a kobold? An Orc or a Hobgoblin?" There wasn't much to distinguish them. 2e at least gave orcs and hobgoblins different alignments. 4e then gave them different mechanical abilities.

[tenshiakodo]

It wasn't a dig, really, Kurald. Everyone plays their own way. My groups wanted to know how we could interact with the abilities of strange monsters, and we looked for ways to do so.

And yes, a DM could decide to give very little information on a monster knowledge check, but fortunately, most of the 4e DM's I played with realized that not doing so had a knock on effect with how engaged players were with combat.

If a monster just randomly does stuff and you never know how or why it happens, then there's no point in trying to learn anything other than how fast I can kill it.

As for whether or not you know what you're fighting, that comes down to the description of the monster. 4e had reasonable art for creatures in the monster books, and a friend of mine, (sup Tyler!) used to print out "Borderlands-style" wanted posters for major baddies so we could see what they looked like.

Plus, in 4e, certain monster types generally shared abilities. If you fought a kobold, it was probably shifty, if you fought an Orc, it could likely spend a healing surge when struck for damage.

EDIT: while 2e stat blocks were bog simple, I loved reading the Monster Books because each creature was oozing with flavor and identity. It had an ecology, culture, and personality all it's own. There were sometimes interesting tidbits for how you can turn an Aurumvorax into treasure, or that the original mustard jelly was a female wizard who screwed up when polymorphing herself and got stuck as an ooze, which then spread and multiplied- but had high intelligence (by ooze standards) and unusual defenses against some magic.

Was the consciousness of the wizard still present, spread across all the examples of mustard jelly in the world? Had she gone mad? Could she be restored? What would that even do? Would the world be overrun by clones of a 7th level Wizard?

[icefractal]

While people can run it differently, 4E's mechanical aesthetic was very much on the "high information" side. As in, both sides know the other's capabilities, hidden information is uncommon. The reasoning being that you get better tactical interplay with full information (chess, for example), and that "If I try to move past the demon knight, I'm going to get stabbed real hard - is it worth it?" is more interesting than "Guess I'll head for the door ... oh god, that hurt. Well since I already took the pain I may as well continue with what I was doing."

That said, that open-info style can put a damper on trying to trick/outwit the foes. One player in a game I was in got quite annoyed that his summons weren't acting as meat-shields because the foes continued attacking PCs instead (the smarter move, in this case), and the situation didn't make it possible to physically interpose them. After a round or two, the GM took mercy and targeted the summons, but really 4E's not a game where you should expect the foes to be making blunders.

I'd say that while I have some issues with 4E combat (the slowness and lack of decisive-feeling attacks, primarily) monsters feeling different isn't one of them. 4E monsters feel more distinct than 5E, and more distinct than most of 3E. I haven't played 1E/2E enough to have a strong opinion, but from what I did play they seem closer to 5E.

[Telok]

Funny, for us there was nothing to 4e monsters except defenses & hp because thats all we could really interact with. Whatever powers the monsters had we didn't really notice except the difference between melee, ranges, and area attacks. Monster has a recharge breath weapon? Area/ranged attack, gain cover if possible was the only thing we could do. A movement power? We can't affect that. A push/prone power? Couldn't stop it. Its throwing down difficult terrain? Can't stop it or undo it. Has an aura? Nothing to do about that. Incorporeal? We can't interact with the ability or status.

Maybe we weren't high enough level after 8-9 months of play to have the abilities that let us do stuff other than damage+rider. Maybe we didn't pick the right classes to get any optiond but attacking. Maybe the monster math fixes the next year did something. I don't know. Our only options in combat were attack for damage+minor rider (well the cleric could heal sometimes and grant another save once a fight or something). Ultimately nothing mattered about enemies except their defense & hp.

[tenshiakodo]

That's unfortunate, and I'm sorry your experience went like that. 4e was a potentially better game than that, but if it wasn't working out for you, me saying "well, it didn't have to be that way" doesn't help. I hope you've since found a more rewarding experience!

As much as I grew to love 4e, and am deeply bitter about WotC basically sacrificing it on the altar of making more money, the game DID have problems, and they were slow to address those problems. Rituals were hard to use in many adventures, and often, they had the same "silver bullet" approach to a challenge that spells do, being able to trivialize things that the game wanted you to make skill challenges for. Martial Practices, for people who didn't wield magic, were woefully undeveloped. There were too many Feats, and too many situational non-combat Feats that most people didn't take because the game was very focused on combat- what's the point of speaking more languages when you don't survive your first encounter with a Bullette?

You needed the online builder to be able to manage all the options, and not everything was given the same level of care. Entire classes didn't function correctly, but the Wizard got more support than anything. And old-school exploration just didn't work right, IMO- I tried to run White Plume Mountain, and even with beefed up combats, my players were bored. That made me very sad.

But there was good there, and things that, with more care and development, could have made the edition great. They dropped the ball so many times with 4e though, I understand the reasons people don't care for it. 3.5 still had life in it. Not everyone was on board with the new direction of the game- many 3e players were still playing Fighters and Rogues and had no real clue what the heck a Warlock or a Swordsage were.

Tables used to slowly whittling away daily resources were not ready to shift to a playstyle where everyone has encounter and at will resources. Some people felt their immersion was broken by non-magical healing and Fighters with Daily powers. The formatting of attack powers was strange and weird with formulas like 2[w] damage. Many early powers seemed similar ("ok, i have a power that does damage and pushes a guy." "Huh, me too!").

Early monsters were hard to kill unless you knew how to build a Striker just so, and let's be honest, not everyone enjoys playing the optimization game, or working out how to best synergize everyone's abilities. They want to go in and beat up monsters! The Fighter lost his identity as the big melee beast, and instead was now devoted to protecting his allies. Many people rejected the fiction of how it worked, because they had been playing for a very long time, and never had the Fighter needed powers to make monsters attack him- that's just what monsters did!

Some people were quick to compare 4e to computer RPG's, even though almost all of those games were descended from D&D in the first place. And finally, the game killed too many sacred cows, and shoved aside "classic" races like the Gnome in favor of Tieflings and Dragonmen!

I know I was slow to adopt the game, and for 2 years, I continued to play 3.5. My first attempt to play it when it came out left me feeling underwhelmed. But then I got into going to Encounters every Wednesday, and then joined the local Living Forgotten Realms community, and I discovered there was a lot more to the game than initially met the eye.

I'm sad that it's gone, but I totally understand why others don't miss it. I just hope that eventually, people will grow to realize that, in many ways, 4e was ahead of it's time.

But it doesn't matter. I know people who still play 2e, which I think is arguably the jankiest edition, and they turn up their noses at anything that wasn't printed before Players Option: Skills and Powers! They gripe that "WotC made a good card game, but their D&D sucks", and when pressed for reasons, they'll say things like "they got rid of Thac0!".

No, I'm not kidding. But you know what? They still claim to have fun, and who am I to tell them otherwise?

[RedMage125]

*An excellent description of some of the actual flaws of 4e*
That was great, tenshi. I liked 4e, too, but I acknowledge that it had its weaknesses. A lot of what you mentioned are things I bring up as well (like it did have a weak start).


But it doesn't matter. I know people who still play 2e, which I think is arguably the jankiest edition, and they turn up their noses at anything that wasn't printed before Players Option: Skills and Powers! They gripe that "WotC made a good card game, but their D&D sucks", and when pressed for reasons, they'll say things like "they got rid of Thac0!".

No, I'm not kidding. But you know what? They still claim to have fun, and who am I to tell them otherwise?

LOL.
I know you're not kidding. It's one of the reasons I laugh so hard when I see people trash talk 5e (to include talk like "it's beginner's D&D"). 95% of them started in 3e, and act like that's somehow the "true" or "advanced version". Because I remember the early internet message boards when 3e was coming out (and even after it did). And I specifically remember the people who called it "oversimplified", and "catering to the instant gratification video game crowd" and even compared the customization of characters "making D&D into a card game". So I laugh uproariously when the people who started on 3e act like the same crotchety grognards now.

I also agree on the jankiness of 2e. I started on 2e, and both then and now, I feel like the mechanics sometimes became a barrier to play. A lot of my friends in HS dropped D&D entirely and just made entire homebrew systems to have fantasy RPG games with. They were even skeptical of a new edition of D&D because of how much they found 2e distasteful.

But for my part, I always try to make it a point to parse my preferences as such explicitly. I don't want to play 2e, but I don't say "it's a bad game" or "others shouldn't play it". I say "It's not a game I like", and let others enjoy what they like, too.

[tenshiakodo]

That bit about customizing characters just amuses me now. You customized characters in 2e as well, it's just, almost all of that customization happens at first level.

Roll Ability Scores, place them as allowed.
Select Race.
Select Class or Multiclass.
Select Kit (if allowed/desire).
Select Proficiencies (if used).
Fill in details like Alignment, history, experience.

Roll dice!

The only choices that happened after this was gain occasional proficiencies and maybe dual-classing. Well unless you were a Wizard or Bard, then you got to add to your spellbook- which may be out of your hands anyways.*

*Sure, divine casters got new spells too, but since they had access to all spells they had, uh, access to, this really isn't a long term decision.

[RedMage125]

That bit about customizing characters just amuses me now. You customized characters in 2e as well, it's just, almost all of that customization happens at first level.


Oh, I remember. It's just that such was literally what people were saying about skill points and feats. This was when 3.0 was still brand new. I shudder to think of what all those same grognards would say about the glut of classes and prestige classes that 3e became.

I honestly don't even remember where those message boards were on the internet anymore. It's been over 20 years. I had dial-up internet. I would log on to download horribly pixelated images, and to find funny stuff and jokes, and occasionally look up stuff about (A)D&D. I couldn't tell you one site that I used to frequent back then.

[Telok]

That's unfortunate, and I'm sorry your experience went like that. 4e was a potentially better game than that, but if it wasn't working out for you, me saying "well, it didn't have to be that way" doesn't help. I hope you've since found a more rewarding experience!

Yeah, we gave 4e about a year long run, but it was the first year and I don't think they started fixing stuff untill... mid second year? We could tell it was "balanced", all the fights went the way they were supposed to, and the DM loved it for the ease of DM use. But from a playing perspective it was just a grind. Two or three at-wills, three encounters, three dailies, forgettable utility junk, and the basic attack being useless unless you were str based (maybe dex?) melee, and the only combat resolution being zero the other side hp and those hp being so high that only your attack powers were worth using... it just achieved the balance by limiting choices.

Sure, a great DM can make it shine. A good enough DM could probably make FATAL shine, just ignore a bunch of stuff in the books and run mostly free form-ish. I can take a 3/4ths finished homebrew system from some internet rando and make it work well for a year long campaign. But in 4e, and now in 5e, I'm seeing (and occasionally being) players who don't know or care what they're fighting. Its not that we're bad players, we rp, care about why we're in combat, and still bother with the minimum zone control & focus fire tactics we're allowed. It just doesn't end up mattering if we fight undead, demons, constructs, humanoids, dragons, or murder fluffs. And it doesn't matter because the solution is always the same, zero hp because you can't really do anything else and it always works.

I don't like that. Its balanced, but boring, and I don't like that I've stopped noticing if we're fighting gnolls, mind flayers, or at-will vampritic touch undead (ok I sorta noticed the last because the DM mentioned them getting temp hp but since we couldn't do anything about it there was no difference between them and stuff with more hp & dmg). Rescuing hostages isn't a thing because short Wall of Force/Forcecage type spells nobody can protect them except by killing the monsters. Running away isn't a thing anymore, defending against hordes of mooks isn't a thing anymore, yadda, yadda, yadda. It annoys me that I have no reason to pay real attention to the combat game between my (short) turns except roll occasional saves and mark off hp. It annoys me that I have to play a caster to do anything useful in combat other than walk up & hit stuff.

[Luccan]

As someone whose group's solutions have largely been zero HP in combat regardless of edition*, I will admit to being curious about examples of alternatives in other editions that aren't possible in 5e. Especially those that are possible in every other edition (except 4e I guess, since this is apparently a shared problem)

*I mean combats you can't talk your way out of or flee, which are both definitely things you can still do in 5e

[Kurald Galain]

That bit about customizing characters just amuses me now. You customized characters in 2e as well, it's just, almost all of that customization happens at first level.
It strikes me that 2E players who disliked 3E's skill points probably weren't playing with 2E's non-weapon proficiencies, then. They're admittedly an optional rule, but they do allow character customization at later levels.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm sad that it's gone, but I totally understand why others don't miss it. I just hope that eventually, people will grow to realize that, in many ways, 4e was ahead of it's time.

That's an interesting one. 4E was released twelve years ago; if it were ahead of its time, one might assume that games now are doing the same things as 4E did, perhaps not dropping the ball quite so much as WOTC did back then.

Are they? The main example that comes to mind is PF2, which does share several designers with 4E. So is PF2 "4E done right"? Is PF2 a highly popular game now because now is the time (and twelve years ago wasn't)? Or perhaps some other game is doing this?

[Willie the Duck]

That's an interesting one. 4E was released twelve years ago; if it were ahead of its time, one might assume that games now are doing the same things as 4E did, perhaps not dropping the ball quite so much as WOTC did back then.
Are they? The main example that comes to mind is PF2, which does share several designers with 4E. So is PF2 "4E done right"? Is PF2 a highly popular game now because now is the time (and twelve years ago wasn't)?
Sometimes something being 'ahead of its' time' and then falling short means that others don't try to replicated it. Electric and diesel cars from the 70s were certainly ahead of their time, and presaged some of what we have today, while at the same time their perceived flaws stopped a lot of development down those lines in the 80s and 90s.

I don't have a point except that games now not doing what 4e did doesn't inherently mean it didn't have ahead of its time notions, as that second iteration of 4e-like mechanics could still be in the future (perhaps now that 5e's wide acceptance has reset the default on what games are in-reaction-to), or it had 'ahead of its time' ideas that won't show up again soon because it poisoned the well on them.


Or perhaps some other game is doing this?
Hmmm. Here's the thing -- 4e was very innovative with regards to changing the script for D&D. The instant you start talking about other games, it isn't notably good, bad, revolutionary, crunchy or light, this or that. It's just another game with strengths and weaknesses like all the rest. PF2, 13Age, and yes even 5e -- those have bits and bobs of 4e in them. If <other game> had a 4e fan in the development team and puts some 4e-like qualities into it, would it even be noticeable?


It strikes me that 2E players who disliked 3E's skill points probably weren't playing with 2E's non-weapon proficiencies, then. They're admittedly an optional rule, but they do allow character customization at later levels.
My initial take is to guess otherwise. While called optional, I saw almost no one (excepting perhaps people that stopped with the core books) who didn't use them. In particularly because bonus nwps was one of the few benefits of the kit system, which was a huge part of the customization ruleset in 2e (until Skills&Powers at least). Regardless, both NWPs and S&P did allow for at-later-level customization, the lion's share of the modifications happened at 1st level. For example (and here we'll look at a power-combatant because I want to use fighter as my example), a 1st level fighter with a 14 Int (not good enough for the main Str, Dex, or Con benefits, so why not some extra languages?) and access to Complete Fighter's Handbook (can use extra languages as weapon proficiencies) could pick the Myrmidon kit (and why wouldn't you, unless there was another splat book with another uber-option?) grab the broad weapon group for blades, narrow one for bows, specialize in a sword or composite longbow (free from kit), and pick up maybe ambidexterity, two weapon fighting style, and a level of punching or wrestling specialization. Then with mandatory non-weapon proficiency slots, he'd get Ancient History (military) and Fire-Building from the kit, and three more for riding or blind fighting or an outdoors skill (or more combat benies, if you also have Complete Gladiator's Handbook). That's... a lot of customization, and at 1st level. After that you get... one weapon and one non-weapon proficiency each every 3rd level. Other classes will have even less customization, gaining either weapon or non-weapon slots at a slower than 1/3 progression (mages and specialist wizards in particular having 1/6 weapon advancement, and likely an even higher amount of 1st level customization if you have a 17 or 18 Int). Compare that to 3e, where you are doling out 2+int to 9+int points amongst a bevy of skills (where you will always be shy of points, as a dwarven fighter has maybe 4 things they wants to do with those 2 SP and a human rogue has ~15 things to do with their 9) and the two experiences feel drastically different.

[elros]

As much as I grew to love 4e, and am deeply bitter about WotC basically sacrificing it on the altar of making more money, the game DID have problems, and they were slow to address those problems. Rituals were hard to use in many adventures, and often, they had the same "silver bullet" approach to a challenge that spells do, being able to trivialize things that the game wanted you to make skill challenges for. Martial Practices, for people who didn't wield magic, were woefully undeveloped. There were too many Feats, and too many situational non-combat Feats that most people didn't take because the game was very focused on combat- what's the point of speaking more languages when you don't survive your first encounter with a Bullette?

You needed the online builder to be able to manage all the options, and not everything was given the same level of care. Entire classes didn't function correctly, but the Wizard got more support than anything. And old-school exploration just didn't work right, IMO- I tried to run White Plume Mountain, and even with beefed up combats, my players were bored. That made me very sad.

But there was good there, and things that, with more care and development, could have made the edition great. They dropped the ball so many times with 4e though, I understand the reasons people don't care for it. 3.5 still had life in it. Not everyone was on board with the new direction of the game- many 3e players were still playing Fighters and Rogues and had no real clue what the heck a Warlock or a Swordsage were.

Tables used to slowly whittling away daily resources were not ready to shift to a playstyle where everyone has encounter and at will resources. Some people felt their immersion was broken by non-magical healing and Fighters with Daily powers. The formatting of attack powers was strange and weird with formulas like 2[w] damage. Many early powers seemed similar ("ok, i have a power that does damage and pushes a guy." "Huh, me too!").

Early monsters were hard to kill unless you knew how to build a Striker just so, and let's be honest, not everyone enjoys playing the optimization game, or working out how to best synergize everyone's abilities. They want to go in and beat up monsters! The Fighter lost his identity as the big melee beast, and instead was now devoted to protecting his allies. Many people rejected the fiction of how it worked, because they had been playing for a very long time, and never had the Fighter needed powers to make monsters attack him- that's just what monsters did!

Some people were quick to compare 4e to computer RPG's, even though almost all of those games were descended from D&D in the first place. And finally, the game killed too many sacred cows, and shoved aside "classic" races like the Gnome in favor of Tieflings and Dragonmen!
Thanks for detailed post, and you described all of the concerns I had when I read the 4th Ed D&D books, including my reaction to the formatting of attack powers and healing surges for fighters.
After reading what you wrote, I am curious what it was like playing 4 Ed after it hit its stride. If I view it as a different game altogether instead of reacting “what is this?”, I would probably like DMing it. The one thing I would avoid are Dragonborn and Goliath characters- they seem like they would overpower human and other fighters, and it would be tricky to get them to fit into small spaces. Did you find that having those races caused the party to split up more?

[tenshiakodo]

Well right off the bat, the "optional" proficiency system included one of the few actual class features of the Fighter (Weapon Specialization), and if you read the Bard class, they get free proficiencies (Musical Instrument, Reading/Writing, and History, Local). Oh and Rangers got Tracking, and were the only ones who could use the skill worth a darn, because non-Rangers took a -6 penalty to Track (how's that for niche protection?).

I imagine this might be a case where players maybe pushed for it so they could get to use abilities they were "owed"? I played with proficiencies from day 1 of 2e, but never touched the Secondary Skills system. No idea how or why that came about. Kits did push proficiencies a bit, but some had other benefits so it's hard to say if that's the reason.

After awhile, a there got to be way too many Non-Weapon Proficiencies, and some really causes consternation at the tables I played at, like when we'd have multiple proficiencies that did the same thing, or when they decided to have multiple perception-based proficiencies- from a game that resolved everything with a simple ability check, things quickly got weird when a DM or player would randomly claim "oh you need x non-weapon proficiency to do y, you can't just roll an ability check".

As for 4e, maybe it's not ahead of it's time, it was the best way I could put my feelings into words. The system had a lot of really cool innovations for how to keep the adventure going, avoiding the "5 minute adventuring day", making sure that players always had something better to do than "I swing for x damage", and making the DM's job much easier.

Minions are something I know a lot of DM's love to this day, as an example.

But obviously gamers are large weren't ready for these ideas. Maybe they never will be, and somewhere, there's an alternate universe where 4e was never cancelled. They probably have zeppelins there!

[kyoryu]

I think 4e was heavily dependent on the GM actually being aggressive and at least semi-smart with attackers, and really leaning into the positional gameplay.

Big empty battlefields were an anti-pattern for sure.

[tenshiakodo]

(Warning: Long, Rambling Post interspersed with snippets of gaming stories.)

4e races were very well balanced. Most gave you the option to raise 2 ability scores by +2, and by the later game, almost all of them had an optional ability score raise- for example, a Halfling could have +2 Dex/+2 Cha OR +2 Dex/+2 Con.

They usually had an encounter power, some of which had Feat support that added a new wrinkle to the ability. So for example, the Eladrin could Misty Step, a free teleport once a fight. The Halfling had Second Chance, an ability that could force an enemy to reroll an attack made against them.

The Dragonborn breath weapon was great at first level, but the damage fell off quickly, so it was mainly used to clean up Minions. The Stone's Endurance of the Goliath was a great ability to avoid damage, but I never saw it as being light years better than the Dwarven ability to heal in combat as a minor action.

One of the best defensive abilities was on the Voidsoul Genasi, who could cease to exist until the start of their next turn, a weird and terrifying ability if you think about it.

As the game progressed, the earlier races and classes got a lot of support (too much, in the case of the Wizard). So you had a wide array of possible builds and powers to choose from. Most worked, a few didn't.

Sadly, later classes and races did not always get this same level of love, which was a darned shame if you played a Warden, Ardent, or Seeker. Once you get familiar with the game though, the hybrid rules allowed you to pick and choose abilities of two classes (with limitations) to really shore up lackluster classes like the Assassin.

One of my favorite characters was a hybrid Warlock/Paladin with a Fey Pact- a lot of people looked at me cross-eyed, but I simply pointed out that Corellon Larethian is not only a God, he is also an Archfey.

If 4e had a problem, it's that the "build a character" minigame was in full force. You had to sift through many options (if you used the online builder), but you couldn't really afford not to, since vital things a class might need tended to be scattered across several books and even the online Dragon magazine.

It was so bad that when the builder was taken down, my group had to stop playing, because so much stuff was now missing. This is something I never quite forgave WotC for- they were taking several years off to crowdsource D&D Next- there wasn't any reason not to have a game called Dungeons and Dragons live during that time. Which is probably why my group switched to Pathfinder (after a brief stopover with 13th Age).

What I will say is, with many tools at your disposal, however, building a character around a theme became a lot easier. Controller was my favorite role, and I loved throwing out zones of area control, using forced movement, and status debuffs to confound my enemies.

Even non-Controllers could get in on the action- my Ranger had a few Feats that, when combined, did the following- if he hit an enemy in combat, they became slowed until end of turn. If he hit a slowed enemy in combat, they fell prone. If he hit a prone enemy, he took no penalty to attack them, and did +2 damage.

As a Ranger, he had several ways to hit people multiple times in a turn. Eventually he got an encounter power that could daze the target, and a terrifying daily power that gave him three attacks- if he hit once, the target was dazed until the end of their next turn, if he hit twice the target was also dazed (save ends) and if you hit the third time, they were also stunned (save ends).

We had to fight a vampire chick in the Realm of Betrayal (a clear reference to a Ravenloft Domain) in the Shadowfell. She started the fight incorporeal. I used a daily magic item called Ghost-Grinding Powder to make her corporeal (save ends), spent my Action Point to get another action (you basically got an Action Point every other combat if you didn't have one laying around, and it gave you an extra action, great for boss fights). Then I used my Daily.

When my turn ended, she was prone, stunned, dazed, slowed, and quite corporeal. I didn't get a second turn. Nasty, but I could only do that once a day.

Our Cleric was a pacifist, meaning he had no damaging powers, but could throw out good heals and debuff enemies- his most dangerous power could daze a target and make then vulnerable to all damage for a turn. This usually meant whatever he hit with it went down fast.

In contrast, of course, enemies often had unique abilities, like reactions to get them out of melee, and the ability to debuff party members, so you had to pay attention to the fights.

We fought a White Dragon once, and it kept knocking me prone with it's tail attack, and dazing me with it's bite (that did cold damage). Being limited to one action a turn, after two rounds of basically saying "I stand up", I was like, you know what, forget the -5 to hit, I'm going to fight laying down!

Got the killing blow on that jerk too. : )

[Tanarii]

But obviously gamers are large weren't ready for these ideas.
The core idea of "requires a battlemat to play" doesn't resonate with all gamers. That's neither ahead nor behind.

I liked a lot of what 4e did, especially for martials (some of which were different power sources in 4e). But the time and effort and accouterments to play were a serious investment. My experience was it did well among board game players and those that heavily used battlemats in 3e, and for that matter many players who started in 3e / WotC DND were inclined to view the game as combat first, not combat to be avoided. But not so well among those that wanted fast combat, combat without minis, and/or a heavy combat avoidance strategy focus.

[Telok]

As someone whose group's solutions have largely been zero HP in combat regardless of edition*, I will admit to being curious about examples of alternatives in other editions that aren't possible in 5e. Especially those that are possible in every other edition (except 4e I guess, since this is apparently a shared problem)

*I mean combats you can't talk your way out of or flee, which are both definitely things you can still do in 5e

Removal of the AD&D initial reactions tables, removal or wandering (not always random) encounters, increasing the saftey of combat (hp have increased faster than damage over editions & level appropriate stuff), and changing the surprise rules has pushed the fight/talk/avoid question to be mainly a DM proposition with the default & expected outcome being combat.

Surprise was not intrinsically linked to combat like it is today, and non-scripted encounters didn't give DMs & players the 'level appropriate set piece fight' expectation. Without that expectation turning a corner in a cave and running into a bunch of orcs wasn't automatic combat. These days simply determining surprise is immedately followed by initiating combat with rolling initative.

Thaen, AD&D still, if at any point the party wanted to flee there was an actual flee/chase mechanic that didn't involve base movement speeds (or at least not untill the differences were really high, memory iffy there), didn't put a time limit on running, and had bonuses for PCs closing doors & creating obstacles.

The current state of the game mostly presents encounters as pre-planned level appropriate fights to be killed through. Then surprise is shown as leading directly into the fight. There are no strong rules about talking to opponents to avoid fighting. Finally the chase stuff is set up as an optional rule, and not one in the PH so players would know about it. The chase rules themselves, I'm given to understand, have some issues with being linked to base speed & exhaustion (no possibility of escape without higher speed or higher con+good rolls) and participants generally being all about sucking up random checks for speed penalties.

[kyoryu]

The core idea of "requires a battlemat to play" doesn't resonate with all gamers. That's neither ahead nor behind.

I liked a lot of what 4e did, especially for martials (some of which were different power sources in 4e). But the time and effort and accouterments to play were a serious investment. My experience was it did well among board game players and those that heavily used battlemats in 3e, and for that matter many players who started in 3e / WotC DND were inclined to view the game as combat first, not combat to be avoided. But not so well among those that wanted fast combat, combat without minis, and/or a heavy combat avoidance strategy focus.

What's interesting is that I started welllll before WotC D&D. My view of 4e was something more like "oh, they made a game for how most people seem to actually be playing nowadays, cool."

Overall, I like what they did. That said, I do have some significant quibbles with it. It's definitely a very different game than 1e or B/X, but I think it's a good game for the intended play style. I think a few significant tweaks and a presentation pass would have turned it into a great game - and, in my opinion, that's really what 5e is more than anything.

Unpopular view, perhaps, but I see 5e as being more inspired by 4e mechanically than any other edition, but with the presentation of earlier versions.

[tenshiakodo]

Some people were quick to stake territory in 5e- they saw similarities to editions of the past they liked, and were like "yes, more of this please". So WotC did get most of their base under one banner, but you can wander into any 5e discussion board (like, oh, I don't now, the one on this very site, lol) and you'll find some really divisive ideas about what the game is and should be like.

I guess it's always been that way, but sometimes the level of tension between progressive players who are like "yeah, this is good, but maybe it could be better..." and the diehard "5e is perfectly fine as it is, get your feats/multiclassing/upgraded backgrounds/MtG settings/ideas for scaling back Wizards and scaling up Fighters out of here and go find some different game to play, you heretics!" is really noticeable.

My memory of message boards in 3e was people pushing the boundaries of what the system could do, interspersed by people who made an account to gripe about how OP Monks were.

My memory of message boards in 4e was people having a fantastic time playing with the legos and building blocks provided, playing tango with Customer Service, and trying to figure out exactly how Stealth works.

Now it's like "oh hey we're going to have Dragonlance but it is simultaneously nothing like Dragonlance and yet, somehow exactly like Dragonlance, and we're introducing some new concepts" and it feels like everyone has something to gripe about.

I guess it's time to add another log onto the fire for old school hate: silly and pointless rules debates!

[Kurald Galain]

The one thing I would avoid are Dragonborn and Goliath characters- they seem like they would overpower human and other fighters, and it would be tricky to get them to fit into small spaces.Both are still medium sized, and neither is a more powerful race than humans.


Unpopular view, perhaps, but I see 5e as being more inspired by 4e mechanically than any other edition, but with the presentation of earlier versions.
5E is cleverly designed in that fans of <whichever edition> mostly think that 5E is mostly inspired by and/or resembles <their favorite edition>.

[Tanarii]

I guess it's time to add another log onto the fire for old school hate: silly and pointless rules debates!
That's a time honored tradition all the way back to oD&D. It was most visible in the 3e era (because of the internet exploding and because it was a rules heavy edition and because the edition itself had explosive growth) but I assure you it happened offline (and in magazines! And from what I hear on Usenet) in TSR D&D as well.

Also rules lawyers.

[tenshiakodo]

Rules lawyer is a loaded term for sure. I make a distinction between "rules guru", someone who delves into the rules and simply wants to understand how things work, and "rules munchkin", who only brings up the rules when they benefit his or her cause (see Brian Vanhoose).

Some people do react badly to the regular rules guru's presence, however- the best examples of the breed are just inquisitive people who ask questions and want to understand how things work. Some people don't want the universe to be explained, and prefer to have things that are ineffable.

(Another Boring Gaming Story): I once had a DM who felt that magic that allowed characters to fly, levitate, and teleport "ruined the experience" of D&D, and according to his house rules, no such magic exists in his world. This wouldn't be so bad, unfortunately, they were not one of those DM's who knows how to make travel interesting and memorable. He had maps of his game world and emphasized the vast distances we had to cross, but rarely filled in those spaces. So a typical cross-country adventure was "you get to the capitol city, you acquire passage on a ship, you journey south for three weeks before reaching the port city at the edge of the blazing desert, which takes you 3 days to cross before you reach the mountain stronghold where the Phoenix Sage resides".

Anyways, during one of these journeys, we found a strange symbol embedded into a stone surface inside an old ruin. Upon investigating it, we were all teleported to a different place. After some exploration, we exit a passage and find that we are in a majestic palace floating in the clouds far above the world. The rules guru was immediately like "how does this work if flying and teleportation exists in the world?".

The DM didn't pop a vein, but I swear his eye started twitching and he said "because magic, that's why!".

I had to shush the guru before he could press on by pointing out that "no such magic exists in the DM's world". Despite the fact that we finished the session without incident, the game went on hiatus after that session, never to be concluded.

[Mike_G]

Rules lawyer is a loaded term for sure. I make a distinction between "rules guru", someone who delves into the rules and simply wants to understand how things work, and "rules munchkin", who only brings up the rules when they benefit his or her cause (see Brian Vanhoose).

Some people do react badly to the regular rules guru's presence, however- the best examples of the breed are just inquisitive people who ask questions and want to understand how things work. Some people don't want the universe to be explained, and prefer to have things that are ineffable.

(Another Boring Gaming Story): I once had a DM who felt that magic that allowed characters to fly, levitate, and teleport "ruined the experience" of D&D, and according to his house rules, no such magic exists in his world. This wouldn't be so bad, unfortunately, they were not one of those DM's who knows how to make travel interesting and memorable. He had maps of his game world and emphasized the vast distances we had to cross, but rarely filled in those spaces. So a typical cross-country adventure was "you get to the capitol city, you acquire passage on a ship, you journey south for three weeks before reaching the port city at the edge of the blazing desert, which takes you 3 days to cross before you reach the mountain stronghold where the Phoenix Sage resides".

Anyways, during one of these journeys, we found a strange symbol embedded into a stone surface inside an old ruin. Upon investigating it, we were all teleported to a different place. After some exploration, we exit a passage and find that we are in a majestic palace floating in the clouds far above the world. The rules guru was immediately like "how does this work if flying and teleportation exists in the world?".

The DM didn't pop a vein, but I swear his eye started twitching and he said "because magic, that's why!".

I had to shush the guru before he could press on by pointing out that "no such magic exists in the DM's world". Despite the fact that we finished the session without incident, the game went on hiatus after that session, never to be concluded.

I'm fine with "because magic."

This is a game of magic and wonder. The characters probably don't know everything that is possible, and the players shouldn't assume they do either.

It's not unreasonable for the characters to have never seen teleportation and not believe in it, and then it happens. We've been exploring our planet for millennia and there are still things that we find out that we never knew existed. It's even more reasonable to assume that this would happen in a world of magic and one where the gods openly do things.

That's the Star Trek "It's a type of energy we've never encountered before, Captain" situation. It's a staple of fantasy and sci fi.

[Pex]

I'm fine with "because magic."

This is a game of magic and wonder. The characters probably don't know everything that is possible, and the players shouldn't assume they do either.

It's not unreasonable for the characters to have never seen teleportation and not believe in it, and then it happens. We've been exploring our planet for millennia and there are still things that we find out that we never knew existed. It's even more reasonable to assume that this would happen in a world of magic and one where the gods openly do things.

That's the Star Trek "It's a type of energy we've never encountered before, Captain" situation. It's a staple of fantasy and sci fi.

"Because magic" isn't inherently bad, but the problem in the scenario is that teleportation was specifically banned to the players yet the DM used it to railroad the party into an adventure. It is bad form for a DM to say a Thing doesn't exist then use said Thing. It's a nuance difference than given all normal game rules in play for players an ability/power/effect happens a PC could never do. 5E Legendary Resistance, Legendary Actions, Lair Actions for example.

[Ignimortis]

That's an interesting one. 4E was released twelve years ago; if it were ahead of its time, one might assume that games now are doing the same things as 4E did, perhaps not dropping the ball quite so much as WOTC did back then.

Are they? The main example that comes to mind is PF2, which does share several designers with 4E. So is PF2 "4E done right"? Is PF2 a highly popular game now because now is the time (and twelve years ago wasn't)? Or perhaps some other game is doing this?

The main two reasons my GM likes PF1 are: 1) They actually release non-adventure content, several full books every year 2) It's more complex than 5e, and as such, provides more mechanics to play with. As for my personal experience, PF2 is making a lot of the same mistakes as 4e did while not repeating the few successful choices 4e had.

I think that 4e flopped while PF2 thrives is mostly due to the surrounding climate of TTRPGs — back in the 00s, going from 3.5 to 4e would feel like you've lost a lot at first, and that things were different. Going even from all the published 5e content to just the PF2 CRB feels like you haven't lost much if you're prepared to tackle somewhat more complex rules that did similar things more satisfyingly for people who actually care about combat mechanics.

But PF2 really did arrange the rakes that 4e stepped on and proceeded to hop and skip across most of them (overly strict math is one, and the feeling that everyone runs on the same two subsystems is another), and then added the typical Paizo crock (somewhat simulationist mechanics at level 1, which you then have to pay feats to break away from, and having no time of day for any power mechanics that aren't spells or feat-based at-wills).

Though unlike 4e, which feels like an attempt to make something new, PF2e feels more like Paizo taking the 3.5 corebook and saying "alright, we've done PF1, now here's how we would do it from scratch". It's amazing how the industry keeps returning to the 3e CRB, which is one of the worst books of that edition, but doesn't take notice of all the gems that were released between 2005 and 2008.

[tenshiakodo]

3e was a transformative moment for the game. 2e had turned into a bloated mess by the end, with TSR desperately cranking out content to try and keep afloat. WotC took the time to ask people "hey, how do you play D&D?" and took notes.

They presented a spiffy new rulebook full of colorful art (not as good as 2e art, sadly), and the faux-ancient tome look, and introduced concepts that are still part of the game to this very day.

Barbarians are core. Paladins Smite. Clerics don't have to choose between having healing spells on tap and cool, useful spells. Druids can take the form of animals and be threatening. Feats are introduced. Characters acquire ability score bonuses over time. Everyone uses the same xp table.

Whether you like it or not (and I know people who don't), 3.x produced a lot of STUFF for the game, with new, fresh concepts, and put D&D back on the map, as by the time 2e ended, it had been overtaken by newer, more pretentious games- I'm looking at you, V:tM!

For me, personally, this is where something very important changed. Before 3e, admitting I played Dungeons & Dragons wasn't something I did lightly. {Scrubbed} I had endured being teased and bullied about liking this strange game.

But now, suddenly, it was ok to like D&D! And that's only gotten better over the past 22 years, to the point where I feel perfectly fine wearing my D&D shirt in public. 3e had problems- but every edition has. But it's a treasure chest of great ideas, and it still has many fans who pine for the fjords of it's vast options and broken combos. They remember how awesome all day buffs due to Divine Metamagic were. They recall looking at the Planar Shepherd and going "damn, that's cool". Or maybe they're more down to earth, and just think turning into a half dragon or a weretiger is neat?

While it was murder on DM prep time, knowing that monsters were built a lot like characters were, to the point that they could take character classes and gain feats, and that, maybe, if your DM was insane, YOU could play a Succubus Paladin or Troll Barbarian, still excites the dreams of many a player.

Monster classes, gestalt characters, fractional save and BAB progressions, Air Goblins and Desert Elves- the sheer amount of optional content and rules could fill entire threads.

Sure, it wasn't handled well. Sure, the DM was never told "hey, maybe you shouldn't mix this web supplement with this obscure Forgotten Realms book". Sure, some games crashed and burned when a fully functional CoDzilla hit the table. Maybe it turned out Fighters needed more than Feats, and that Rogues and Monks were terrible. And yes, definitely, Wizards got out of hand, breaking Wealth by Level and boosting their caster level and save DC's into the stratosphere, abusing free metamagic and infinite Wish loops.

Often times, playing the character you wanted was a slog, because the guy sitting next to you was a veritable demigod, and you were stuck rolling under 10 on a very fickle d20.

But by the Gaming Gods, when 3e was good, it was AMAZING.

[Ignimortis]

*snip*

But by the Gaming Gods, when 3e was good, it was AMAZING.

Yes, it was! But the corebook content was usually not conductive to that, only rules. But somehow everyone keeps coming back to 3e corebook content — Fighters with lots of feats and almost no special features, and Wizards who are defined wholly by their spellbook and maybe favourite school, while changing the underlying rules, when it should probably be done in reverse! Trim the 3.5 fat a bit, and make Warblade the new Fighter, make half a dozen Wizards themed around specific schools instead of "I am all the arcane magic users in one class", make Clerics depend on domains a lot more and the general list a lot less, split Druid into Shapeshifter and Nature Cleric, etc, etc, etc, etc!

The 3e classsplosion was also done in a unique way - half the new classes had a new subsystem and new abilities made for them, which actually made those classes make sense design-wise.

My personal opinion is very simple, really. Core only 3e is the worst modern D&D has ever been, full content 3.5 is the best modern D&D has ever been.

[tenshiakodo]

Well yeah, but what can you compare it to? Core-only 2e? Bleh!

The Fighter really was light years better in 3e than 2e, it's hard to really see at first where they went wrong- the 2e Fighter had 2 class features (one of which was shared by the other Warrior classes and the other was optional). It really should have worked, but the designers ran into a problem-

Because the Fighter gains 11 bonus Feats, Feats can't be good. Because the Fighter gets 11 bonus Feats, long Feat chains need to exist.

And that was that. Want to get Whirlwind Attack and hit everyone in reach on your turn? Well, buckle up! First you're going to need a Dex of 13 and Dodge. Then Mobility. Then at 4th level you get Spring Attack for some mobility for your heavy armor using class (woo!). But wait, there's more! Now did you remember your Int of 13 so you can take Combat Expertise and have basically an improved ability to fight defensively? Great, now, if you were smart and went Human, you can take Whirlwind Attack just as your second attack comes online!

Oh at the same level the Sorcerer can hurl 3+ fireballs a day. Hm. Well, you can do Whirlwind every turn! For less damage! In a smaller area! But there's no saving throw! You do have to hit though, but that shouldn't be a problem! Right? Right?

Then as the game went on, people realized there wasn't much reason to not ignore the Fighter and go after said Sorcerer...and that the Fighter had bad skills...and man, he really got screwed on Saves over 2e, didn't he?

But hey, Barbarians are fun!

[kyoryu]

5E is cleverly designed in that fans of <whichever edition> mostly think that 5E is mostly inspired by and/or resembles <their favorite edition>.

Except i don't consider myself a 4e fan. I liked it well enough, for what it was, but frankly I'd prefer 1e.

[DigoDragon]

So is PF2 "4E done right"? Is PF2 a highly popular game now because now is the time (and twelve years ago wasn't)?

I wish I could convince my Saturday group to try PF2e so that I can get such answers. I only got to play a little in PF2e and I liked the experience. But my Saturday group is comprised of all old school gamers (including myself) and a big irksome issue I have with them is that they all settle into one RPG and just stay in that "comfort zone", not wanting to try new systems.

[tenshiakodo]

Learning the ins and outs of new systems always seems to make people balk unless they are tired of the system they are using. Early this year I bought Fantasy Age...and they turned their noses up at it. Ope.

Heck, I still keep trying to get them to try Earthdawn, but that's been a non-starter for 10 years now.

[RedMage125]

They presented a spiffy new rulebook full of colorful art (not as good as 2e art, sadly), and the faux-ancient tome look, and introduced concepts that are still part of the game to this very day.

This may be the first thing you've said that I disagree with as vehemently as I do.

I think the 3e artwork was a huge leap forward in a lot of ways. It was cool, it was almost all in color (huge difference there), and there weren't massive differences in style. You didn't have one picture look all gritty and realistic, and the next look like a cartoon (2e Monstrous Manual is a huge culprit there).

One major thing that didn't get pointed out to me until 3e had been out for awhile was "the females don't all look like strippers anymore". And that's true. 2e and before frequently had females in scant armor or ridiculous "boob plate". Lidda and Vadania look like they're actually wearing armor. Alhandra's is a little weird, but doesn't look like an exotic dancer. Ember, although showing a lot of skin, looks more powerful than sexy. Mialee has bare midriff for no apparent reason, but that's it. The rest of 3e art continued this trend. Sure, some of the style choices were odd (what the heck is Hennet wearing?), but they were still more cool than anything.

This was a huge change from previous editions. I know a lot of the stereotype at the time was that D&D was mostly played by males, but that wasn't always true. And in recent years, I've heard from a lot of female gamers that have talked about how the art of D&D at the time kind of signposted to them that D&D was a "boy's club". Even if there were no such attitudes among the actual gamers at the table. The overwhelming majority of females depicted in official D&D artwork was not equitable with the way they depicted males.

It was kind of a shock, actually when 4e came out. Almost every female in the 4e Core Rulebooks had low décolletage and/or bare midriff. Having had the 3e change pointed out to me, this was something that actually stood out to me with the 4e art from the jump. There were a few examples of females in full, practical armor, but it wasn't the majority any more. At least at first.

Now don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with "sexy fantasy art". I love the work of Boris Valejo as much as the next guy. But the official art in the books, I feel, should be more about "this is awesome and cool fantasy adventure". And having a handful of attractive or even sexy looking characters is okay. There are certainly gamers who want to see a character who can look both powerful and attractive. I feel like 5e is back on track (there's only 2, maybe 3 examples in the 5e PHB).

/rant

Sorry, but the changes made to the artwork was one area where I feel strongly that 3e wins across the board in every was over previous editions. Consistency, quality, way things are depicted...just winning all the way down.

[Kurald Galain]

Sorry, but the changes made to the artwork was one area where I feel strongly that 3e wins across the board in every was over previous editions. Consistency, quality, way things are depicted...just winning all the way down.

Something that's always impressed me about 3E is that somebody went to do the research to give realistic (or mostly realistic) ability scores to animals, and do things like calibrate carrying capacity to what people do in the real world. I'm sure they made some mistakes here and there, but this is in stark contrast to every other edition, that puts arbitrary and/or random values to all of this.

[LibraryOgre]

Learning the ins and outs of new systems always seems to make people balk unless they are tired of the system they are using. Early this year I bought Fantasy Age...and they turned their noses up at it. Ope.

Heck, I still keep trying to get them to try Earthdawn, but that's been a non-starter for 10 years now.

This is part of why I glom onto flexible rulesets, like Savage Worlds. I *love* Shadowrun lore, and I think Earthdawn did traditional fantasy right in a lot of ways... but FASA was certainly in love with complex systems. However, I can port all that over to Savage Worlds! And use that system, with a few tweaks, for Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect or a D&D like world!

Once they buy into the ruleset, it gets easier to sell the world. And selling the world is, IMO, one of the harder things. I'm wanting to run this game of gritty, pulpy adventure on Athas, and they're naming their characters "Twinklethumbs Dimbledork", insisting that they want to play a gnome, and that there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't get to be a cleric of Loki in a world with no gods. World, and the tone set by the world, can be the hardest thing to sell, IME.

[kyoryu]

This is part of why I glom onto flexible rulesets, like Savage Worlds. I *love* Shadowrun lore, and I think Earthdawn did traditional fantasy right in a lot of ways... but FASA was certainly in love with complex systems. However, I can port all that over to Savage Worlds! And use that system, with a few tweaks, for Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect or a D&D like world!

Once they buy into the ruleset, it gets easier to sell the world. And selling the world is, IMO, one of the harder things. I'm wanting to run this game of gritty, pulpy adventure on Athas, and they're naming their characters "Twinklethumbs Dimbledork", insisting that they want to play a gnome, and that there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't get to be a cleric of Loki in a world with no gods. World, and the tone set by the world, can be the hardest thing to sell, IME.

Savage Worlds/Fate/GURPS for me, but yeah.

[RedMage125]

World, and the tone set by the world, can be the hardest thing to sell, IME.

That's rough, buddy. I have never attempted to run Dark Sun, but I love the lore, and I'd like to try.

Eberron is the setting I like that has a different tone. I have written a one-page "primer" to hand to players to give the ones unfamiliar with the setting the idea of the general tone and theme of the setting.

[LecternOfJasper]

I wish I could convince my Saturday group to try PF2e so that I can get such answers. I only got to play a little in PF2e and I liked the experience. But my Saturday group is comprised of all old school gamers (including myself) and a big irksome issue I have with them is that they all settle into one RPG and just stay in that "comfort zone", not wanting to try new systems.

We had our first PF2e session in 9 months last night. The best (and earliest) quote was "I spent 6 or 7 hours yesterday reading 2e stuff, and I now know how to play a fighter and how the DM was building encounters wrong." Good times all around :smallbiggrin:

[tenshiakodo]

Maybe I need to crack open my 3e PHB again, Red Mage, but I don't recall seeing any art in there as evocative as:

https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/heritage/33/228833/H1042-L09619793.jpg

or

https://www.tribality.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cutting_things_down-crop-768x384.jpg

[Willie the Duck]

Something that's always impressed me about 3E is that somebody went to do the research to give realistic (or mostly realistic) ability scores to animals, and do things like calibrate carrying capacity to what people do in the real world. I'm sure they made some mistakes here and there, but this is in stark contrast to every other edition, that puts arbitrary and/or random values to all of this.

Interesting. Regarding animal stats, I remember 3e as the one where the Wizards forums had a 'why do dogs have a higher Dex than cats?' thread every other week.

[tenshiakodo]

It depends on the animal. It's like how animals always get high Con, despite the fact, in our world, humans are pretty much the kings of stamina because we're persistence hunters. We just keep following the animal until it gets tired.

[RedMage125]

Maybe I need to crack open my 3e PHB again, Red Mage, but I don't recall seeing any art in there as evocative as:

https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/heritage/33/228833/H1042-L09619793.jpg

or

https://www.tribality.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cutting_things_down-crop-768x384.jpg

Okay, well, the first was the art for a novel from the Dragonlance setting, is it not?

And the second kind of highlights my point about females in artwork.

But a lot of the pictures in 2e and before were simple black and white. You had some full page spreads in color in some books, but all the smaller pics were B&W. Almost all the pictures in WotC editions are in color. Although there were less "full page of art" spreads during the 3e time.

I just feel like 3e was an improvement across the board.

5e did give us a return to occasional full page spreads, however. I actually don't remember if we had them in 4e or not. I think there were some.

[tenshiakodo]

I don't know if the Larry Elmore piece was used for Dragonlance, but it's on page 7 of the PHB, so it counts in my book.

As far as black and white art goes, I did crack open my 3.5 PHB, and the entire Races section is black and white art...

Guess it's just a personal preference.

[Kurald Galain]

It depends on the animal. It's like how animals always get high Con, despite the fact, in our world, humans are pretty much the kings of stamina because we're persistence hunters. We just keep following the animal until it gets tired.

True but I'm not sure if that was common knowledge in 2000. Anyway, constitution is not just "not getting tired" anyway.

Point is, 3E gives me the impression that research was done for animal statblocks; 2E and earlier don't give ability scores to monsters; every other edition gives me the impression that animal statblocks are completely random. YMMV.

[LibraryOgre]

Once they buy into the ruleset, it gets easier to sell the world. And selling the world is, IMO, one of the harder things. I'm wanting to run this game of gritty, pulpy adventure on Athas, and they're naming their characters "Twinklethumbs Dimbledork", insisting that they want to play a gnome, and that there's absolutely no reason they shouldn't get to be a cleric of Loki in a world with no gods. World, and the tone set by the world, can be the hardest thing to sell, IME.


That's rough, buddy. I have never attempted to run Dark Sun, but I love the lore, and I'd like to try.


To be fair to any of my players from the past, "Twinklethumbs Dimbledork" is a completely made up example.

[RedMage125]

I don't know if the Larry Elmore piece was used for Dragonlance, but it's on page 7 of the PHB, so it counts in my book.

As far as black and white art goes, I did crack open my 3.5 PHB, and the entire Races section is black and white art...

Guess it's just a personal preference.

Huh...I guess I was wrong. That really reminds me of a lot of the Dragonlance cover art, though. But that's my mistake.

I said most of the 3e art is in color. I didn't ever make the claim that there were no B&W pictures at all. Contrast to 2e, where the only color pictures were the full page spreads, and all the rest was B&W. And both of those is about the art of the edition as a whole, not limited to the PHBs.

[tenshiakodo]

Sometimes it was blue and white! : )

[awa]

there was definitely good art in second edition but the quality level fluctuated a lot more.
Look at the general quality of the second edition monster manual art and compare it to its 3rd edition equivalent.

On top of that most 3rd edition art has the same kind of feel to it even if quality varies, while 2nd edition stuff was all over the place. Planescape for instance has a radically different art style than the rest of the game.

As a third point a lot of second edition art isn't really d&d art its just generic fantasy art that happens to be in a d&d book. People are casting spells, using items or fighting monster that have no apparent analog to anything actually in the game.

[Jophiel]

I enjoyed the art in the 1e & 2e era and like most of what I've seen from 3e. Even when it's not technically great, it's often distinct and evocative.

The art of 5e all feels to me like it came from the same Artstation masterclass. I can never pick out individual artist styles and it all has a very commercial and generic feeling to it. Technically competent but often soulless. So I guess that's my old school grognard complaint for the day.

[Lord Torath]

Huh...I guess I was wrong. That really reminds me of a lot of the Dragonlance cover art, though. But that's my mistake.Larry Elmore did the original covers for the Chronicles, Legends, and Tales trilogies, and the cover art for a few of the original Dragonlance modules, so it's understandable. But "Dragon Slayers, and Proud of it!" wasn't used for Dragonlance.

I really love Brom's artwork for 2E Dark Sun (and hate Baxa's). Really evocative stuff.

[RedMage125]

Larry Elmore did the original covers for the Chronicles, Legends, and Tales trilogies, and the cover art for a few of the original Dragonlance modules, so it's understandable. But "Dragon Slayers, and Proud of it!" wasn't used for Dragonlance.
Okay, so I was wrong, but given that it's the same artist, who has a distinct style, it's a totally normal and understandable mistake to make.


I really love Brom's artwork for 2E Dark Sun (and hate Baxa's). Really evocative stuff.
Oh, I learned about this one last year. Several pieces of Brom's artwork actually came before the setting and actual game mechanics behind the art. They were looking to make a new setting, one that felt really different from everything else, and liked the idea of having psionics be more prevalent. And then one of the pieces now associated with Dark Sun was on Brom's desk (a thing he had done on his own time), and they loved it. Brom's artwork is part of what created the setting, so it certainly evokes it well.

[Tanarii]

The Fighter really was light years better in 3e than 2e, it's hard to really see at first where they went wrong-
I disagree. At first glance it appears this way, but in actuality 3e Fighters lack what 2e fighters had that was most important. Great saves, especially at high levels. And followers.

[tenshiakodo]

Planescape had a different feel, but Tony DiTerlizzi's art made the setting for me. It was a little quirky and otherworldly, and I loved it.

Brom's art was definitely METAL, and it was both distinctive and gritty, so it's no surprise that Dark Sun was created around it, rather than vice versa.

And yeah, the Monster Manual art was all over the place. I really liked the Monstrous Compendium Art, but the later monster books were "ehhhhh".

EDIT: well Tanarii, I did mention the saving throws thing, but that wasn't a problem that immediately jumped out and hit me in the face when I first saw the new Fighter.

As far as followers go, WotC kept the option in the game with Leadership. Now the funny thing here is, the reason it stopped being a built-in option for Fighters was that many groups weren't using it. Players wanted to go on adventures, not base build in a lot of games, so the ability to generate a standing army became vestigial at some point in 2e.

Not all groups, but apparently enough that WotC was like "ok, we'll keep it around, but not make it a class feature".

And then, amusingly enough, it didn't take long before Leadership was denounced as the most broken option in 3e...

[LibraryOgre]

I disagree. At first glance it appears this way, but in actuality 3e Fighters lack what 2e fighters had that was most important. Great saves, especially at high levels. And followers.

I'd also note that a lot of things that 3e fighters got through feats, 2e fighters could just DO. 3e made a feat of "You can do this without an attack of opportunity!" while 2e just... didn't make you take a feat to do it.

Oh, and iterative attacks in 2e? You could still use them if you moved, and they were always at your base ThAC0, not at a -5 per extra attack. And you could attack with two weapons if you moved. And attack with two weapons on a charge.

[awa]

that's less a 3e fighters are bad problem and more mundanes got nerfed and casters got a huge boost

[tenshiakodo]

Yeah iterative attacks was a strange decision. As is the Full Attack. But while these things affect the Fighter, I don't see them as part of the Fighter class. They certainly affect the Fighter, to be sure, but like my comment said, "at first glance", the 3e Fighter seemed to be light years better.

The fact that they dropped the ball on Feats, seemed to think Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes would somehow give the Fighter back their saving throw superiority, and the terrible skills package, plus the changes to how extra attacks worked, ended up to the Fighter's detriment.

But by contrast, the Wizard really didn't get anything in 3e they didn't have before, save for changes to spellcasting mechanics, and yet, suddenly, the Fighter/Wizard disparity appeared, when it had never been noticed for the 20 prior years.

[Mike_G]

Yeah iterative attacks was a strange decision. As is the Full Attack. But while these things affect the Fighter, I don't see them as part of the Fighter class. They certainly affect the Fighter, to be sure, but like my comment said, "at first glance", the 3e Fighter seemed to be light years better.

The fact that they dropped the ball on Feats, seemed to think Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes would somehow give the Fighter back their saving throw superiority, and the terrible skills package, plus the changes to how extra attacks worked, ended up to the Fighter's detriment.

But by contrast, the Wizard really didn't get anything in 3e they didn't have before, save for changes to spellcasting mechanics, and yet, suddenly, the Fighter/Wizard disparity appeared, when it had never been noticed for the 20 prior years.

Wizards actually got metamagic and combat casting, which let them be a bit safer when attacked. And their starting HP went up, they got Con bonuses to HP, so they became marginally less squishy, they got more slots per day, and they got the ability to make their save DC higher, which wasn't a thing in AD&D. And in 3e every class advanced at the same rate of xp, whereas in AD&D the wizard advanced slower.

So they got quite a bit.

Fighters lost ground while casters gained. Especially with regards to save, both Fighters getting worse at making them and Wizards getting better at making spells harder to save against.

In practice the disparity wasn't as bad as people claim theoretically, at least at low levels, but it got silly at higher levels.

[RedMage125]

Planescape had a different feel, but Tony DiTerlizzi's art made the setting for me. It was a little quirky and otherworldly, and I loved it.
TDT definitely made my favorite 2e art (even though it caused issues regarding kobolds, as mentioned upthread).


Brom's art was definitely METAL, and it was both distinctive and gritty, so it's no surprise that Dark Sun was created around it, rather than vice versa.

While I agree with the use of that word as an adjective, it's an ironic one, in the context of Dark Sun, lol.

[elros]

Wizards actually got metamagic and combat casting, which let them be a bit safer when attacked. And their starting HP went up, they got Con bonuses to HP, so they became marginally less squishy, they got more slots per day, and they got the ability to make their save DC higher, which wasn't a thing in AD&D. And in 3e every class advanced at the same rate of xp, whereas in AD&D the wizard advanced slower.

So they got quite a bit.

Fighters lost ground while casters gained. Especially with regards to save, both Fighters getting worse at making them and Wizards getting better at making spells harder to save against.

In practice the disparity wasn't as bad as people claim theoretically, at least at low levels, but it got silly at higher levels.
In 1st & 2nd edition the “fighter with a six pack” (aka potions) was a viable character, and fighters backed up with healing were even more formidable.
I didn’t play 3rd, but I can imagine how meta magic would have changed the power dynamic. Quickened spells fix the action economy. Summoning and polymorph builds that change how the class plays. Add to that internet guides to optimize wizards and all the additional spells, and they no longer resemble the glass cannons of the older editions.

[Telok]

Summoning and polymorph builds that change how the class plays. Add to that internet guides to optimize wizards and all the additional spells, and they no longer resemble the glass cannons of the older editions.

It didn't even take that. My first 3e character was a halfling sorcerer. At level 11 with mage armor, decent dex, shield, and a 16 con I exceeded the monk's ac & hp. Plus teleport, disentegrate, large elementals, polymorph, etc., etc. Within 6 months of release and without and internet guides our DMs (we traded off) were giving fighters & monks free feats & custom magic items to even up against the casters. Just automatically getting the spells you wanted was a huge boost over AD&D where you plotted, schemed, looted, and researched to get a spell without any certanty you'd be able to finally learn it.

Then the natural spell feat came out in a splat and we all just banned it on the spot, no discussion required. Of course it couldn't last, 3.5 came out nerfing haste from a great melee buff to just "ok-ish" and making natural spell core in the PH.

[tenshiakodo]

The problem with haste in 3.0 was that it wasn't only a melee buff- since it granted an additional action, casters would haste themselves to fire off two spells a round.

[LibraryOgre]

Wizards actually got metamagic and combat casting, which let them be a bit safer when attacked. And their starting HP went up, they got Con bonuses to HP, so they became marginally less squishy, they got more slots per day, and they got the ability to make their save DC higher, which wasn't a thing in AD&D. And in 3e every class advanced at the same rate of xp, whereas in AD&D the wizard advanced slower.


A big bonus to higher-level casters was the 1 hour spell prep time. In 2e, you really couldn't have the "five minute adventuring day"... it was more the "five minute adventuring week", after which you went back and spent a huge chunk of time rememorizing your spells (10 minutes/spell level adds up pretty quick; even without bonus slots, you break an hour starting at 4th level).

Also? Cheap and easy scrolls from 1st level was a big change... more than bonus slots for intelligence, I'd wager.

[kyoryu]

Let's not forget making most combat spells insta-cast meant interruptions were few and far between.

[Pex]

A big bonus to higher-level casters was the 1 hour spell prep time. In 2e, you really couldn't have the "five minute adventuring day"... it was more the "five minute adventuring week", after which you went back and spent a huge chunk of time rememorizing your spells (10 minutes/spell level adds up pretty quick; even without bonus slots, you break an hour starting at 4th level).

Also? Cheap and easy scrolls from 1st level was a big change... more than bonus slots for intelligence, I'd wager.

I know this was the rule but now that I think about it it was never enforced when I played 2E, even during the few 2E games I played after college. It was handwaved you prepared your spells for an hour during breakfast before the party continues their journey. It's during this same time warriors are putting on their armor. It didn't cause any power disparity. I'm not sure if people even knew the official rules. I vaguely recall it being discussed in college once to be house ruled, but that may also be a Mandela effect. I'm sure it was not discussed in games after college. It was just done.

[Tanarii]

Yeah the combination of everything Magic Users had to deal with definitely made them "hard mode". The switch to Wizards being "god mode" in 3e was dramatic.

IF you somehow got them to high levels in TSR editions, they could be pretty powerful, provided they had enough allies around them to stop casting from being interrupted constantly. But every case of a high level character I ever encountered (MU or other) was a case of power leveling (usually via Monty Haul gp rewards) or starting at high levels.

[LibraryOgre]

I know this was the rule but now that I think about it it was never enforced when I played 2E, even during the few 2E games I played after college. It was handwaved you prepared your spells for an hour during breakfast before the party continues their journey. It's during this same time warriors are putting on their armor. It didn't cause any power disparity. I'm not sure if people even knew the official rules. I vaguely recall it being discussed in college once to be house ruled, but that may also be a Mandela effect. I'm sure it was not discussed in games after college. It was just done.

As I mentioned, it got really pronounced at higher levels. When you're talking an hour or two, it's handwavable. If you're talking 30+ hours to rememorize, it becomes a bit aspect of the game.

The few times we played higher levels (11+), you wound up with fighters being more or less blockers in the face of what the wizards could pull off.

[Telok]

The problem with haste in 3.0 was that it wasn't only a melee buff- since it granted an additional action, casters would haste themselves to fire off two spells a round.

Yeah the old "this is too good on a caster so lets fix that and make it crap for the fighters too". You could just tack a "you can't cast additional spells with the extra action" on and fix the issue.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah the old "this is too good on a caster so lets fix that and make it crap for the fighters too". You could just tack a "you can't cast additional spells with the extra action" on and fix the issue.

TBH, 3.x seemed to be written far more "rule of cool" than earlier, or later, editions. 4e swung back, hard, with a very tightly controlled game. 5e seems to have mellowed a bit.

[kyoryu]

TBH, 3.x seemed to be written far more "rule of cool" than earlier, or later, editions. 4e swung back, hard, with a very tightly controlled game. 5e seems to have mellowed a bit.

More like "Rule of Cool Casters."

[elros]

Yeah the combination of everything Magic Users had to deal with definitely made them "hard mode". The switch to Wizards being "god mode" in 3e was dramatic.

IF you somehow got them to high levels in TSR editions, they could be pretty powerful, provided they had enough allies around them to stop casting from being interrupted constantly. But every case of a high level character I ever encountered (MU or other) was a case of power leveling (usually via Monty Haul gp rewards) or starting at high levels.
When I DMed wizards made great NPCs and antagonists, precisely because it was so hard to level up that they were a challenge for the party to handle. Like the wizards in Conan (or the wicked witch of the west from the wizard of oz), the caster would have minions and would be difficult to defeat in a straight up battle, but a determined party could find a way to fight back. Yes, it is a cliche, but still made for good adventures.

[LibraryOgre]

TBH, 3.x seemed to be written far more "rule of cool" than earlier, or later, editions. 4e swung back, hard, with a very tightly controlled game. 5e seems to have mellowed a bit.


More like "Rule of Cool Casters."

Funnily enough, 4e went harder for "Rule of Cool", but they wrote it VERY tightly. While there were some math problems, it was good at showing you all the cool things your character could do, and moved fighters beyond "And I swing. And I swing. And I swing."

[Kurald Galain]

Funnily enough, 4e went harder for "Rule of Cool", but they wrote it VERY tightly.
4E is "rule of cool" by its fluff only.

The best example is probably how 4E's "Finger of Death" spell (by fluff) is actually "finger of pretty much the same damage as anything else at that level" (by crunch). There's plenty of other examples though.

[Bohandas]

I and many other players hated the original drow issue of "Your armor and weapons that you found down here aren't magical once exposed to sunlight" :smallfurious: Thanks, E.G.G. :smalltongue:

I've only heard of that secondhand so I don't know the full rules on that, therefore I must ask, was there any rule that forbade the obvious solution of just painting them or maybe plating them with an additional layer of metal

[LibraryOgre]

4E is "rule of cool" by its fluff only.

The best example is probably how 4E's "Finger of Death" spell (by fluff) is actually "finger of pretty much the same damage as anything else at that level" (by crunch). There's plenty of other examples though.

I don't agree with that, at least not on the martial side. Fighters could shove people around, or let friends move, or attack multiple people. They could eat damage, or open the opponent up to attacks... their attacks DID things other than "I do damage."

And that's part of the point... things went beyond "I do damage", which helped level the playing field from wizards, who could always do cool things. Wizards could ALWAYS create a cloud that would kill people... now fighters could smack people around the battlefield, or make people regret not attacking them.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't agree with that, at least not on the martial side. Fighters could shove people around, or let friends move, or attack multiple people. They could eat damage, or open the opponent up to attacks... their attacks DID things other than "I do damage."
Yes they can.

But "rule of cool" is a vastly different thing than "having options".

For instance, swinging off a chandelier is practically speaking pretty stupid, but cinematically speaking it's really cool. So giving characters a (substantial) bonus for pulling a stunt like that, that's Rule of Cool. Exalted does that. Toon and Paranoia do that. 4E really doesn't.

Yes, 4E fighters are much cooler than 3E fighters (in fact I would never play a fighter in 3E). But "being cooler" is not "rule of cool".

[tenshiakodo]

I have played a Fighter in 3e, but I will stress, I usually multiclass at some point, and the primary reason I would do so (after the first time, that is), is to use some cool Feats.

All core really supports that I found fun was chain shenanigans so I could bodyguard my squishies more efficiently. Beyond that, Complete Warrior and the PHB2 had some really neat tricks that you basically had to be a Fighter to get access to in a timely manner.

I still vastly prefer the 4e Fighter, but the 3e Fighter could be cool. The issue is that it takes non-core options being available and a lot more work to find those options than it really should, as compared to say, the Warblade, who gets all kinds of neat things he can do as a matter of course.

[elros]

Yes they can.

But "rule of cool" is a vastly different thing than "having options".

For instance, swinging off a chandelier is practically speaking pretty stupid, but cinematically speaking it's really cool. So giving characters a (substantial) bonus for pulling a stunt like that, that's Rule of Cool. Exalted does that. Toon and Paranoia do that. 4E really doesn't.

Yes, 4E fighters are much cooler than 3E fighters (in fact I would never play a fighter in 3E). But "being cooler" is not "rule of cool".
From what I read about 4th Ed, fighters gained battlefield control because they could move enemies, draw enemy attacks, and other maneuvers that increased tactical options during combat. I lean more to cinematic, but I can understand how setting enemies up to be taken down by combos and teamwork would be cool.
As an example of cinematic cool, I remember the rule book for Champions RPG encouraged players to describe their powers and the GM would create the mechanics, and sometimes wouldn’t tell the characters what the actual stats were. They described a character that could phase his hand into the enemy and cause critical damage, and the GM made it a killing attack with limited uses per day. There is something “cool” about saying “I phase and grab the enemies heart!” instead of “I roll 6d6 killing attack damage.” Tacticians may not enjoy that as much, which is why different things are cool for different people.

[Tanarii]

4e was rules of cool for a top down gridded battlemat with miniatures.

Not rule of cool for theatre of the mind.

Yes, Wizards and similar classes and high level spells got nerfed hard. But that's because if you have easy combat casting for control and ranged and close in blasts, it was needed. When you take out all the combat casting limitations that could be used to justify high powered effects (including SoD/SOS spells), you have to cut back their power dramatically.

[Jophiel]

I've only heard of that secondhand so I don't know the full rules on that, therefore I must ask, was there any rule that forbade the obvious solution of just painting them or maybe plating them with an additional layer of metal
It's weapons and armor so I'd expect it'd be a very short time before your paint/plate solution chipped and scratched and exposed what was underneath.

It's been a long, long time but when the Drizzt books came out, I thought there was a mention of him keeping his gear wrapped in cloth during the day but it rapidly de-magicking on the surface anyway, away from the Underdark's magical influence. Not a rule, nor a rulebook, but I could imagine many a DM using that as justification if players tried similar ideas.

[DigoDragon]

Learning the ins and outs of new systems always seems to make people balk unless they are tired of the system they are using. Early this year I bought Fantasy Age...and they turned their noses up at it. Ope.

Heck, I still keep trying to get them to try Earthdawn, but that's been a non-starter for 10 years now.

Oof, I feel you on that one. I worry my non 3.5 books will just collect dust with the local group. At least I can use them for the occasional pbp on GitP

"GitP. When you bought a system years ago and you really wanna play with it."


Well, I might convince my current group to try Pathfinder 1e since I tried to sell it as D&D 3.75 and that seemed to get their attention. At least there's enough of it made public that we can try it without buying the books first.



Savage Worlds/Fate/GURPS for me, but yeah.

GURPS is fun if you have the time to put that toolkit together into a campaign. I haven't tried Savage Worlds yet, but would like to.



We had our first PF2e session in 9 months last night. The best (and earliest) quote was "I spent 6 or 7 hours yesterday reading 2e stuff, and I now know how to play a fighter and how the DM was building encounters wrong." Good times all around :smallbiggrin:

Sounds great! The short time I got to play (about two sessions) I tried an Alchemist and it was fun tossing bombs. The learning curve on combat was a little steep on me but once I got it I found it was pretty solid.

[Scots Dragon]

As I mentioned, it got really pronounced at higher levels. When you're talking an hour or two, it's handwavable. If you're talking 30+ hours to rememorize, it becomes a bit aspect of the game.

The few times we played higher levels (11+), you wound up with fighters being more or less blockers in the face of what the wizards could pull off.

I think some of the handwaving came from people who'd also played Basic, which had the hour memorisation handwave as standard despite otherwise being pretty similar (and compatible, in some cases).


Memorizing Spells
During an adventure, a spellcaster can only use spells he has memorized. Memorization is a special process of imprinting one use of a spell in the caster's mind. When the spellcasting character memorizes a spell, he holds it in his mind and can cast it at any time. But when he casts it, it vanishes from his memory: His knowledge of it flows away as the spell discharges. For this reason, characters constantly have to re-memorize spells.

Magic-users and elves can only use spells that they have found, researched, or have been taught by their mentors. These spells are recorded in a large, bound volume called a "spell book." The book is written in a magical language that only the magic-user who owns the book can read. This spell book is the list of spells that can be used by that character when taking spells for an adventure.

Clerics and druids gain their spells through meditation. Players can choose which spells their clerics have memorized at the beginning of an adventure. They do not need to write down their spells, since they can simply meditate to rememorize them.

Resting and Re-Memorizing
After a spell is cast, the character cannot rememorize it until he is well-rested. One night's sleep is enough rest. Upon awakening, before he spends time on any strenuous activities, the spellcaster must spend an hour (of game time) in study or meditation. Magic-users and elves must use their spell books to regain spells, while clerics and druids need only meditate.

Just because spellcasters spend their mornings doing their memorization or meditation for spells, it doesn't mean that they forget their uncast spells overnight. Unless they wish to do so, they won't forget the spells they didn't cast. The next morning, the spellcaster needs only to study or meditate to replace those spells he cast the previous day.

Multiples of the Same Spell
Characters often memorize the same spell multiple times so that they can cast it several times in the course of a day. A cleric knowing that he's going to face fierce battle during the day may memorize numerous cure light wounds spells, for instance.

[asaadrehman]

I hate when people being late, do cheap things such as eating the lunch of others and such other such stuff

[Lord Torath]

I've only heard of that secondhand so I don't know the full rules on that, therefore I must ask, was there any rule that forbade the obvious solution of just painting them or maybe plating them with an additional layer of metalThe drow weapons and armor needed to be periodically exposed to the 'light' of the radioactive hunk of dimly glowing rock in the ceiling of the Vault to retain their totally-non-magical bonuses. Also, any drow equipment that was exposed to the sun at all would start rotting away. So painting your weapons and armor would work until the first blow you landed with a weapon, or the first hit your armor took. Once the rotting process started, it was inevitable. Drow sleep poison decayed after a couple of months anyway, and I think instantly in sunlight. Drow cloaks and boots also decayed in sunlight. If you only wore the at night or in the dark, you could get them to last a long time.

[LibraryOgre]

GURPS is fun if you have the time to put that toolkit together into a campaign. I haven't tried Savage Worlds yet, but would like to.

SW and GURPS have flexibility of character in common, but Savage Worlds tends to use bigger chunks and less fine control... in GURPS, you can spend a lot of time to make the exact character you want (within point limitations). In Savage Worlds, you can make most of the character you want, but there may be gaps where the system doesn't do things with fine enough brushes to get exactly.

OTOH, Savage Worlds characters can be built really quickly, even Powers-users. Pick an edge and some Hindrances, divide your attribute points, your skill points, and get some gear. If you have powers, you probably only have 3-5, if not fewer.


I hate when people being late, do cheap things such as eating the lunch of others and such other such stuff

Being late is annoying, but eating lunch sometimes has to happen, especially if you don't want to be late.

I've also had groups that ate together; my ex wife would cook big dinners for our gaming group, who were mostly college students at the time.

[Jophiel]

Being late is annoying, but eating lunch sometimes has to happen, especially if you don't want to be late.
Hopefully not the lunch of other people though :smalltongue:

"Munch, munch... good sandwich you packed. You want me here on time or not?"

[elros]

Being late is annoying, but eating lunch sometimes has to happen, especially if you don't want to be late.

I've also had groups that ate together; my ex wife would cook big dinners for our gaming group, who were mostly college students at the time.
Eating and gaming remain a challenge. My younger self could get by without eating much, but now I need something more healthful. Definitely an downside of getting older!

[tenshiakodo]

Nothing wrong with getting older, just got to wait for those bonuses to mental stats to roll in.

Wait, you mean I haven't become smarter, wiser, or more charismatic?

D&D LIED TO ME!

[LibraryOgre]

Eating and gaming remain a challenge. My younger self could get by without eating much, but now I need something more healthful. Definitely an downside of getting older!

Teens: Taco Bell and Mountain Dew! Woo-hoo!
20s: IDK, man, what do we have as leftovers? Get me a beer while you're in the fridge.
30s: Bring your own snacks
40s: Ooh, who brought a veggie tray? And charcuterie? Someone's bribing the DM!

I haven't hit 50 yet, but I assume it's Jello shots of Metamucil. :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Torath]

I brought home-made chocolate chip cookies and carrot sticks to a youth group (12-14 year olds) and the carrots disappeared first! The cookies all disappeared, too, of course, but I was surprised by the order. :smallbiggrin:

[Xervous]

I brought home-made chocolate chip cookies and carrot sticks to a youth group (12-14 year olds) and the carrots disappeared first! The cookies all disappeared, too, of course, but I was surprised by the order. :smallbiggrin:

Were they freshly prepared carrot sticks, chilled ones even? I went for those first as a kid because they dried and warmed over time.

[Jay R]

Once, the husband of one of my players took sausage meat, formed it into the requisite shape, put it on a shish kabob stick, and served rat-on-a-stick.

[Batcathat]

I wonder if there's ever been a cook book aimed at tabletop gamers? If not, that seems like a Kickstarter waiting to happen. :smallsmile:

[Telok]

I wonder if there's ever been a cook book aimed at tabletop gamers? If not, that seems like a Kickstarter waiting to happen. :smallsmile:

Pff. One page: "How to order pizza". My group has a couple of those 50s and half the time they're still calling in the cheapest grease bomb crap they can.

[Willie the Duck]

Teens: Taco Bell and Mountain Dew! Woo-hoo!
20s: IDK, man, what do we have as leftovers? Get me a beer while you're in the fridge.
30s: Bring your own snacks
40s: Ooh, who brought a veggie tray? And charcuterie? Someone's bribing the DM!

I haven't hit 50 yet, but I assume it's Jello shots of Metamucil. :smallbiggrin:

It's the same as 40's, just with more 'oh, thanks for offering, but I can't eat ____ anymore!'

[RedMage125]

Nothing wrong with getting older, just got to wait for those bonuses to mental stats to roll in.

Wait, you mean I haven't become smarter, wiser, or more charismatic?

D&D LIED TO ME!
OTOH, I feel like what's happened to my knees as I round the 4-0 bend certainly counts as a lost point of Dexterity.

Teens: Taco Bell and Mountain Dew! Woo-hoo!
20s: IDK, man, what do we have as leftovers? Get me a beer while you're in the fridge.
30s: Bring your own snacks
40s: Ooh, who brought a veggie tray? And charcuterie? Someone's bribing the DM!

I haven't hit 50 yet, but I assume it's Jello shots of Metamucil. :smallbiggrin:

Teens and early 20s for me was "order pizza". And as a DM, I used to give bonus XP to anyone who chipped in on the Pizza (if it was from Pizza Sam's a great place in my college town), if I got to eat some without paying. Was it blatant acceptance and quid pro quo bribery? Yes. Was I also a broke college student eating cafeteria food or Ramen? Also, yes.

Mid to late 20s I was married. And my wife, even if she wasn't playing, was brought up with the idea that a proper host has food for guests. So there were any number of homemade snacks and stuff.

By my 30s, I moved my "D&D cave" to the garage, and we were back to ordering pizza, or all chipping in on some other delivery food.

Now (really late 30s), I've been playing at a FLGS, and I only feed myself, usually before I leave the house. And I just started an online game, so once again, snack foods.

[elros]

Can we agree that cheese puffs are the worst snack to bring to a gaming session? No way to eat them without getting cheese powder on everything.
Honorable mention goes to a friend of mine who mixed up M&M and Skittles in a bowl, because those two flavors don’t mesh at all. And yes, he did that to troll us.

[Mike_G]

Can we agree that cheese puffs are the worst snack to bring to a gaming session? No way to eat them without getting cheese powder on everything.
Honorable mention goes to a friend of mine who mixed up M&M and Skittles in a bowl, because those two flavors don’t mesh at all. And yes, he did that to troll us.

A friend of mine did that as well.

We called them "S&Ms" because you had to be a little bit of a masochist to enjoy them.

[Blackdrop]

Can we agree that cheese puffs are the worst snack to bring to a gaming session? No way to eat them without getting cheese powder on everything.
Honorable mention goes to a friend of mine who mixed up M&M and Skittles in a bowl, because those two flavors don’t mesh at all. And yes, he did that to troll us.

Chopsticks. Also very handy (heh) for over-buttered popcorn.

[DigoDragon]

Honorable mention goes to a friend of mine who mixed up M&M and Skittles in a bowl, because those two flavors don’t mesh at all. And yes, he did that to troll us.

I did that once as an April Fool's prank at a job. It went over pretty well, though after that people were wary when I put out that bowl of candy for other holiday/events. XD

With my local group, we usually do our own thing for dinners. Some bring sandwiches, others will go pick something up during the dinner break. I usually reheat leftovers from the week.

[Batcathat]

Pff. One page: "How to order pizza". My group has a couple of those 50s and half the time they're still calling in the cheapest grease bomb crap they can.

This reminds me of a cookbook for students I got when I was younger. Most of it was normal recipes for cheap and easy to make dishes, but one was along the lines of "Hangover pizza" and the only text on the otherwise blank page was something like "Call and order a pizza".

[elros]

Chopsticks. Also very handy (heh) for over-buttered popcorn.
If someone took out chopsticks to eat cheese puffs, my first reaction would be "WtF?!", but then it would switch to "You are a genius!" Great idea.

[Tanarii]

Chopsticks. Also very handy (heh) for over-buttered popcorn.


If someone took out chopsticks to eat cheese puffs, my first reaction would be "WtF?!", but then it would switch to "You are a genius!" Great idea.

Massively over-engineering something you only eat because it's right in front of you, not because it tastes good.
Sounds like a nerd or geek (meant in the kindest possible way) to me! :smallamused:

[LibraryOgre]

Pff. One page: "How to order pizza". My group has a couple of those 50s and half the time they're still calling in the cheapest grease bomb crap they can.

Old Hackmaster GM screens had a "Pizza Matrix" on them, so you knew what people would and would not eat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The sad thing about getting old is that I'm no longer able to eat pizza (dairy intolerance, and the dairy free stuff is an abomination before all the gods). Or most snacks. Stupid auto-immune issues...

[LibraryOgre]

The sad thing about getting old is that I'm no longer able to eat pizza (dairy intolerance, and the dairy free stuff is an abomination before all the gods). Or most snacks. Stupid auto-immune issues...

So many dairy-free "cheeses" have the consistency of warm snot.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So many dairy-free "cheeses" have the consistency of warm snot.

And most of them use coconut oil as their "solid" factor...which I'm also sensitive to.

So yeah. Dairy-free "cheeses" are nasty. And it doesn't help that dairy-free "pizzas" also tend to be gluten free (read--use nasty crust substitutes) and vegan (ie losing the good part, the meat)...

[Khedrac]

What annoys me is the increasing number of Pizza places in the UK that now marinade their chicken (of all things) in something containing soya - to which I am allergic. Also, despite being a recognised allergen, its the one that usually doesn't get taken out in the "free from" ranges in the supermarkets and is getting used in increasing numbers of products...

And yes, despite all of one of my gaming groups now being over 50 for game night it is still "order pizza" for the food. (The campaign is older than the hosts' kids , the oldest of which is now 16... Being Call of Cthulhu-based the amazing thing is that I am only on my second character!)

[RedMage125]

Being Call of Cthulhu-based the amazing thing is that I am only on my second character!)
That is amazing. Especially because what I've always been told about that game is that you should roll up 1d4 characters.


The sad thing about getting old is that I'm no longer able to eat pizza (dairy intolerance, and the dairy free stuff is an abomination before all the gods). Or most snacks. Stupid auto-immune issues...

My deepest and truest sympathies to you. I'd probably starve if I couldn't have dairy. My whole household consumes so many different kinds of cheeses all the time.

[Pex]

Teens: Taco Bell and Mountain Dew! Woo-hoo!
20s: IDK, man, what do we have as leftovers? Get me a beer while you're in the fridge.
30s: Bring your own snacks
40s: Ooh, who brought a veggie tray? And charcuterie? Someone's bribing the DM!

I haven't hit 50 yet, but I assume it's Jello shots of Metamucil. :smallbiggrin:

D&D food is pizza, chinese, or fast food restaurant.

[Spore]

Blessed ve the DMs wife that fed us during our sessions. In between killing orcs on her barbarian she checked the stew.

[elros]

I have the same issues with pizza and other junk food, and gaming doesn’t seem the same without it.

And you have my respect for have a long-standing CoC campaign. I never had characters that lived that long!

[Telwar]

Our game days are on Saturday, and we used to go out for dinner and then come back to go longer.

Now we're older, so dinner is more mid-range (~20-30/head, not fast food/pizza), and it's at the end of the session, not in the middle, since the DM's wife falls over at 8 pm.

Heh, last time we were there, their son (~6) told us to leave at 7 pm.

[One Tin Soldier]

I wonder if there's ever been a cook book aimed at tabletop gamers? If not, that seems like a Kickstarter waiting to happen. :smallsmile:

In fact, there is a recently made D&D cook book! It’s not exactly aimed at making food to eat while you’re gaming, but rather reflavoring various.recipes as belonging to dwarves/elves/halflings/etc, along with some cuisine lore. The recipes in it are quite good, and you certainly could serve them to your group, they’re just not any more gaming-friendly than any other recipe book.

[KorvinStarmast]

As someone whose group's solutions have largely been zero HP in combat regardless of edition*, I will admit to being curious about examples of alternatives in other editions that aren't possible in 5e. Morale checks used to be a thing.

I'm fine with "because magic."

This is a game of magic and wonder. The characters probably don't know everything that is possible, and the players shouldn't assume they do either. {snip}
That's the Star Trek "It's a type of energy we've never encountered before, Captain" situation. It's a staple of fantasy and sci fi. There are sources of magic not accessible to PCs. (See artifacts). See also CoC in general.

But honestly, what are we really talking about here?

D&D, Hackmaster (love the DM screen pizza table!), or Snackmaster?

The only official D&D food I know of is a thing called Dungeon Bars. The recipe is in a book called Dying for Chocolate Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson I found it here; (https://www.food.com/recipe/goldy-bears-dungeon-bars-361184)I made a copy of it years ago and I enjoyed them, with coffee, the first time we made them back in the 90's. Her son Arch had friends over, so Goldy made them Dungeon bars since they were playing D&D within the story. (My wife and I read most of her books and tried a lot of her recipes).

[Satinavian]

It's not unreasonable for the characters to have never seen teleportation and not believe in it, and then it happens. We've been exploring our planet for millennia and there are still things that we find out that we never knew existed. It's even more reasonable to assume that this would happen in a world of magic and one where the gods openly do things.

That's the Star Trek "It's a type of energy we've never encountered before, Captain" situation. It's a staple of fantasy and sci fi.
I don't like it.

It works in Star Trek because of the episodic format.

But in an RPG ? You are basically bound to get "Wow, something new and exciting. How about we investigate it to make it known and understood ?" nearly every time you either have sciency characters or characters specialized in this field in the party. Sure, real investigation has often to wait until the next downtime, but this downtime will come and then you need the answers anyway.


It might have worked once when adventureres were just greedy buffoons only interested in material worth and little understanding or interest. And even that is a stretch as magic users were always hunting for knowledge.

[Pauly]

I wonder if there's ever been a cook book aimed at tabletop gamers? If not, that seems like a Kickstarter waiting to happen. :smallsmile:

Speaking as a professional chef and a long time gamer who has seen what gamers consider food and drink I will burn you with the fire of a thousand suns if you ever mention such a monstrosity ever again.

Wt are you trying do - summon Cthulu?

[Satinavian]

I wonder if there's ever been a cook book aimed at tabletop gamers? If not, that seems like a Kickstarter waiting to happen. :smallsmile:
Of course things like this exist already. Here is one from TDE :

https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/2/29/SH_DSA4_Culinaria_Aventurica.jpg/250px-SH_DSA4_Culinaria_Aventurica.jpg

And a whole series of fan made extensions. Because seemingly it was just that popular
https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/4/48/Kochbuch_Titel_03.jpg/250px-Kochbuch_Titel_03.jpghttps://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/1/15/Kochbuch_II_Titel.jpg/250px-Kochbuch_II_Titel.jpg

[Morgaln]

Of course things like this exist already. Here is one from TDE :

https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/2/29/SH_DSA4_Culinaria_Aventurica.jpg/250px-SH_DSA4_Culinaria_Aventurica.jpg

And a whole series of fan made extensions. Because seemingly it was just that popular
https://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/4/48/Kochbuch_Titel_03.jpg/250px-Kochbuch_Titel_03.jpghttps://de.wiki-aventurica.de/de/images/thumb/1/15/Kochbuch_II_Titel.jpg/250px-Kochbuch_II_Titel.jpg

There's also "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home," an AD&D supplement that was part of the Dragonlance boxed set released in 1993. While it contained a lot of other content, one chapter was dedicated to recipes.

[DigoDragon]

Morale checks used to be a thing.

I miss that mechanic from my AD&D 2e days. Back in my day, cowardly monsters knew how to properly cower. Several GMs I've played with in recent years be like "Well, the bandits just lost two-thirds of their number to the party, guess they'll just fight to the death."

Uh huh... :smalltongue:

[Tanarii]

I miss that mechanic from my AD&D 2e days. Back in my day, cowardly monsters knew how to properly cower. Several GMs I've played with in recent years be like "Well, the bandits just lost two-thirds of their number to the party, guess they'll just fight to the death."

Uh huh... :smalltongue:
Personally I blame DMs that used to skip this mechanic directly for Pc power inflation. It was the only thing that gave PCs a fighting chance in AD&D, so of course everyone viewed it as a meat grinder that didn't use it.

The fact that it was eventually a meat grinder if you regularly got into combat anyway I'll conveniently ignore for my love of he morale mechanic.

Seriously though, I never got why anyone would actually complain about the morale mechanic. DMs making retreating monsters get reinforcements and screw the PCs? Sure. But that's a player complaint. Why would a DM complain about it?

[Pex]

Personally I blame DMs that used to skip this mechanic directly for Pc power inflation. It was the only thing that gave PCs a fighting chance in AD&D, so of course everyone viewed it as a meat grinder that didn't use it.

The fact that it was eventually a meat grinder if you regularly got into combat anyway I'll conveniently ignore for my love of he morale mechanic.

Seriously though, I never got why anyone would actually complain about the morale mechanic. DMs making retreating monsters get reinforcements and screw the PCs? Sure. But that's a player complaint. Why would a DM complain about it?

It gets worse when the DM would deny XP for the bandits running away because the party didn't kill them. That forced players to kill everyone, turning them into murder hobos. There's a reason why 3E specifically told DMs PCs get the XP when monsters run away. They get the XP for defeating the monsters, not necessarily killing them.

[Telok]

I don't like it.

It works in Star Trek because of the episodic format.

But in an RPG ? You are basically bound to get "Wow, something new and exciting. How about we investigate it to make it known and understood ?" nearly every time you either have sciency characters or characters specialized in this field in the party. Sure, real investigation has often to wait until the next downtime, but this downtime will come and then you need the answers anyway.

It might have worked once when adventureres were just greedy buffoons only interested in material worth and little understanding or interest. And even that is a stretch as magic users were always hunting for knowledge.

In D&D I've had to stop playing casters with any curiosity about magic because of this. AD&D was the last edition that expected casters to investigate & research (as it was a way around the find-a-scroll-and-roll-to-learn-a-spell limit & required for magic item creation). 3e at least had some guidelines for making custom spells, but the 4e & 5e rule cultures seem actively disinterested or outright hostile to the idea of pcs doing research & investigation beyond "roll investigate for the next DM provided railroad clue".

[kyoryu]

It gets worse when the DM would deny XP for the bandits running away because the party didn't kill them. That forced players to kill everyone, turning them into murder hobos. There's a reason why 3E specifically told DMs PCs get the XP when monsters run away. They get the XP for defeating the monsters, not necessarily killing them.

Less of an issue in 1e where the majority of the xp came from loot, not murder.

[Willie the Duck]

Personally I blame DMs that used to skip this mechanic directly for Pc power inflation. It was the only thing that gave PCs a fighting chance in AD&D, so of course everyone viewed it as a meat grinder that didn't use it.

The fact that it was eventually a meat grinder if you regularly got into combat anyway I'll conveniently ignore for my love of he morale mechanic.

Seriously though, I never got why anyone would actually complain about the morale mechanic. DMs making retreating monsters get reinforcements and screw the PCs? Sure. But that's a player complaint. Why would a DM complain about it?

Honestly I wonder if it was just a 'we've already made workarounds for TSR-era D&D/AD&D being challenging with enemies not retreating, so putting morale back in and readjusting is a problem (especially after some norms were established and things like undead being extra-threatening because they didn't retreat wasn't entrenched in mindsets and the like). Everyone I know who played with morale in TSR-era A/D&D liked it. It's just that plenty of people didn't play with it. It just... didn't happen. I don't know exactly where to lay blame for that.

The easiest place would be at the feet of Mentzer Basic and the 'build your own'-style adventure with Bargle and Aleena the Cleric. Let me be clear, I say that as someone who can't not see that as brilliant. Mentzer basic (1st printing, with the Moldvay thief %ages and the magic users with the strangely good to-hit) was the first D&D set I actually owned (not played, we started with a mashup of rulebooks) right when I first realized that girls were fascinating and that Larry Elmore picture of Aleena the Cleric (and the fact that you couldn't save her)... Anyways, it's a very good little play example for teaching the basics of combat, hp, encumbrance, spellcasting, and so on. What it doesn't show is the procedural steps of dungeon-crawling, the encounter checklist (encounter distance, reaction table, etc.), or enemies you negotiate with, flee from, or cause to flee. That doesn't make sense, though, as lots of people I met who started with BX or AD&D (including some of the bigger kids whom I learned from) also kinda glossed over the morale rules.


Less of an issue in 1e where the majority of the xp came from loot, not murder.
Yeah, I can't remember if there was consistency on my DMs BITD (or what I did) with regards to whether fleeing enemies gave combat xp. It was nominal compared to treasure xp (or just plain treasure, if it was magic items) in our attention span at the time. 'They fled (meaning you don't have to fight them) without grabbing their treasure chests' was enough for us.

[Pex]

Less of an issue in 1e where the majority of the xp came from loot, not murder.

Not when they take the loot with them, i.e. whatever is in their pockets or take the treasure chest and teleport away at higher levels.

[Luccan]

Morale checks used to be a thing.

I was being literal. Unless you mean the lack of morale checks actually makes it impossible for enemies to flee I have no idea how I'm supposed to take this seriously. I genuinely object to the claim that 5e fights only end when all of one side is dead. It would be better if there were morale mechanics. That is not the same thing as "all enemies always fight until they die". I'd be very surprised to find out veteran players running 5e games genuinely believe that and never ran 5e games where enemies fled rather than died

[Pauly]

I was being literal. Unless you mean the lack of morale checks actually makes it impossible for enemies to flee I have no idea how I'm supposed to take this seriously. I genuinely object to the claim that 5e fights only end when all of one side is dead. It would be better if there were morale mechanics. That is not the same thing as "all enemies always fight until they die". I'd be very surprised to find out veteran players running 5e games genuinely believe that and never ran 5e games where enemies fled rather than died

There is a significant difference in game enjoyment between “we forced the bad guys to run away” and ‘the GM decided the bad guys run away”.
There’s a difference between “Hey that last goblin passed 3 morale checks” and “man, why is the GM forcing us to kill every last gobbo”.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I was being literal. Unless you mean the lack of morale checks actually makes it impossible for enemies to flee I have no idea how I'm supposed to take this seriously. I genuinely object to the claim that 5e fights only end when all of one side is dead. It would be better if there were morale mechanics. That is not the same thing as "all enemies always fight until they die". I'd be very surprised to find out veteran players running 5e games genuinely believe that and never ran 5e games where enemies fled rather than died

Agreed.


There is a significant difference in game enjoyment between “we forced the bad guys to run away” and ‘the GM decided the bad guys run away”.
There’s a difference between “Hey that last goblin passed 3 morale checks” and “man, why is the GM forcing us to kill every last gobbo”.

So only things forced by the mechanics matter and the rest is just the DM taking pity on you? That seems like a recipe for bad times, especially since 99% of everything isn't forced by the mechanics in any way. Are there mechanics that say the monsters must attack particular people in particular ways? Or is the DM picking on you by using tactics? Seems unnecessarily antagonistic in a player vs dm sort of way.

I've yet to see a set of morale mechanics that beats DM judgement, as long as the players and the DM trust each other to have the interests of the table at heart. Which is rather a prerequisite for any kind of game I'll enjoy, so it's a given.

[Tanarii]

I genuinely object to the claim that 5e fights only end when all of one side is dead. It would be better if there were morale mechanics. That is not the same thing as "all enemies always fight until they die". I'd be very surprised to find out veteran players running 5e games genuinely believe that and never ran 5e games where enemies fled rather than died
The overwhelming majority of D&D games I've been a player in WotC DnD have had DMs run combat as fights to death. In 5e Adventurers League specifically, as far as I can recall, enemies never retreated except tactically (usually into a trap or to get reinforcements) when I played.

5e has suggestions for morale in the DMG p273. They're good guidelines for when a DM might want choose to exercise judgement on the enemy fleeing. Otoh the suggest mechanic for random determination (a DC 10 Wis save for the creature or leader) is just terrible.

[Telok]

I've yet to see a set of morale mechanics that beats DM judgement, as long as the players and the DM trust each other to have the interests of the table at heart. Which is rather a prerequisite for any kind of game I'll enjoy, so it's a given.

In all of 4e (yes, only 9-12 months of weekly sessions before the players revolted) and all of 5e (many short failed attempts by novice DMs and one long campaign) I've seen exactly one critter run away from combat, and that after it got blasted to the edge of the map and under 10 hp. Its not an issue of trust, its a question of if the game offers it as a valid and frequent option. A short, sloppy, optional rule buried 3/4 of the way through a dense 300 page technical manual with bad organization isn't a valid & useful option.

DM judgement for morale is fine with DMs who are experienced, want to use it, and remember to use it. Inexperienced DMs are pretty maxxed out just trying to use the rules (despite the talk 5e combat isn't simple with the conditional bonus actions, conditional reactions, and weird unique actions on so many monsters) and near none will use anything not in the rules or monster stat block. DMs who don't have prior experience with decent morale mechanics are likely to go with what they know, if anything, and thats usually closer to a bad mmo/crpg "flee at 10% hp if 9/10 of the monster side is already dead". And of course if there's nothing in the core game or monster stats about morale or fleeing the DM isn't as likely to remember it.

[awa]

while a dm can use judgment for when monster retreat the default assumption definitely seems to be fight to the death. I remember several adventures (only vaguely mind you) that had something along the lines of this monster is cowardly or just hungry it will flee once it loses 75-90 percent of its hp. With the clear implication that the vast majority should be fighting to the death while this monster effectively fights to the death.

[Pauly]

I've yet to see a set of morale mechanics that beats DM judgement, as long as the players and the DM trust each other to have the interests of the table at heart. Which is rather a prerequisite for any kind of game I'll enjoy, so it's a given.

Then you are doing morale wrong. Morale, particularly how and why one side will run from a fight is very heavily researched area and the short answer is “we don’t know”.

We do know there is an absolute laundry list of factors that contribute including but not limited to pay, rations, weather, belief in your cause, belief in your chances of success in the campaign, your status, your enemy’s status, the status of nearby friendlies, quality of leadership, availability of escape routes, how long you’ve been on campaign, your fatigue level, training, health/illness and surprise.

A simple roll against WP, motivation, or whatever stat you’re using is better than the assumptions of a DM

[Kurald Galain]

The overwhelming majority of D&D games I've been a player in WotC DnD have had DMs run combat as fights to death.
I've found that in 4E, many GMs here will end combat (by having the enemies run or surrender) when the outcome of the battle is obvious. This is usually after two or three rounds, and combat gets boring when you already know who won and have to slog through another couple hundred hit points.

In Pathfinder Society, many enemies do have a morale condition, but these often don't come up in practice (e.g. "will run away if under 10 hit points" but the enemy will likely go from above 10 to below zero before it gets a turn again).

[icefractal]

Fun fact - 4E does have something very similar to morale rules - once foes are bloodied (half hp), you can use an Intimidate check to make them retreat or surrender, at a difficult but not unreachable DC. IIRC, the worse shape the enemy side is in, the easier the check is.

However, I've never seen this used. And when I mentioned planning to do it (while making a character who was good at Intimidate) the GM seemed very reluctant. So I think lack of rules is only part of the issue, there's also a culture of "challenges should not be circumvented or reduced" at a lot of tables.

[Vahnavoi]

I've yet to see a set of morale mechanics that beats DM judgement, as long as the players and the DM trust each other to have the interests of the table at heart. Which is rather a prerequisite for any kind of game I'll enjoy, so it's a given.

Game master judgement works about as well as any mechanic based on tables and die rolls, provided the game master knows what morale is and is paying attention to it.

By now, it's been empirically shown that without a game rules specifically calling attention to it, plenty of game masters don't know enough and don't pay enough attention to make it relevant factor in their games. Format of those rules is of secondary importance, a short primer on how morale works in real life would, in many cases, be sufficient.

Trust and "everybody having interests of the table at heart" don't solve the problem. If the players don't know what morale is and don't pay attention to it either, they literally can't tell what they're missing.

[Kurald Galain]

Fun fact - 4E does have something very similar to morale rules - once foes are bloodied (half hp), you can use an Intimidate check to make them retreat or surrender, at a difficult but not unreachable DC.

IIRC this intimidate DC was strictly up to the GM; and at least on the WOTC forums, the reaction was that this is a stupid mechanic and the GM should set the DC to 9001.

[Vahnavoi]

Before 4th edition, it's worth noting why rules for Intimidate, Diplomacy, Leadership etc. In 3rd edition fail to fill the role of earlier morale rules, despite being inspired by them and condensing them in a new format:

1) they're opt-in on the player's side. If the player doesn't invoke them, there's no reason for the game master to. There's also tactical-level opportunity cost due to Intimidate etc. taking actions to use, meaning inflicting morale penalties compete with other options instead of working alongside them.

2) Due to scarcity of skill points, feats etc. character building options, there are significant opportunity costs to opting in. In practice, several relevant archetypes, like Fighters, struggle to invoke the relevant rules. This also means a character can be big burly monster capable of one-shotting their opponent and still unable to cause morale pressure, which has been rightly mocked.

3) The relevant options are also some of the most broken in the core game. Leadership as written is so much more powerful than other feats of its level that it frequently just gets removed from play, its functions replaced by fiat or ignored; and for characters that actually manage to specialize in them, Intimidate, Diplomacy etc. become so powerful they can trivialize entire categories of scenarios - while for characters that won't or can't, they border on useless.

4) Magic, as with almost anything in 3rd edition, overshadows core ways for inflicting morale effects, variably allowng you to be immune to them or allowing you to inflict them in a way that bypasses the core system.

[Batcathat]

Then you are doing morale wrong. Morale, particularly how and why one side will run from a fight is very heavily researched area and the short answer is “we don’t know”.

We do know there is an absolute laundry list of factors that contribute including but not limited to pay, rations, weather, belief in your cause, belief in your chances of success in the campaign, your status, your enemy’s status, the status of nearby friendlies, quality of leadership, availability of escape routes, how long you’ve been on campaign, your fatigue level, training, health/illness and surprise.

A simple roll against WP, motivation, or whatever stat you’re using is better than the assumptions of a DM

So your point is that if the GM can't make a perfect judgment call, weighing in every single factor that might contribute, it might as well be left to random chance? By that logic, shouldn't pretty much any NPC behavior be random?

[Pauly]

So your point is that if the GM can't make a perfect judgment call, weighing in every single factor that might contribute, it might as well be left to random chance? By that logic, shouldn't pretty much any NPC behavior be random?

Isn’t that what basically happens with persuade, diplomacy and perform checks anyway? The only thing that changes is who is rolling the dice.

For complex interactions with multiple independent and dependent variables with differing weights a simple die roll against the target attribute is better than an armchair expert’s judgement call.

[Batcathat]

Isn’t that what basically happens with persuade, diplomacy and perform checks anyway? The only thing that changes is who is rolling the dice.

For complex interactions with multiple independent and dependent variables with differing weights a simple die roll against the target attribute is better than an armchair expert’s judgement call.

But the dice doesn't control whether or not someone use persuade, diplomacy or perform, it merely decides the outcome. In my experience (I'm sure there are people who do it differently), players/GMs decide what their characters want to do, while dice decides if they do it. So in this case, the GM would decide that the NPCs wish to flee, while the dice would decide if they manage to do so.

Yes, you're entirely correct in that not even the greatest GM who ever lived is capable of accounting for every single parameter that affects whether or not someone decides to flee. But that is just as true of any other NPC action. Whether they attack or not, whether they help the PCs or betray them, whether they use clever tactics or dumb ones and so on.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Then you are doing morale wrong. Morale, particularly how and why one side will run from a fight is very heavily researched area and the short answer is “we don’t know”.

We do know there is an absolute laundry list of factors that contribute including but not limited to pay, rations, weather, belief in your cause, belief in your chances of success in the campaign, your status, your enemy’s status, the status of nearby friendlies, quality of leadership, availability of escape routes, how long you’ve been on campaign, your fatigue level, training, health/illness and surprise.

A simple roll against WP, motivation, or whatever stat you’re using is better than the assumptions of a DM

But when do you trigger such a thing? Any fixed system for that has all the flaws you mentioned.

Personally, for me I use a straight d20 against a DC that is either 10 or 15 (for brave creatures), but the judgement comes in on when to roll, not what to roll.

[kyoryu]

Not when they take the loot with them, i.e. whatever is in their pockets or take the treasure chest and teleport away at higher levels.

In 1e, the presumption was "megadungeon" and that hte majority of the treasure was a stash somewhere, not their pocket change.

More heist, less locational genocide.

[Telok]

But when do you trigger such a thing? Any fixed system for that has all the flaws you mentioned.

Personally, for me I use a straight d20 against a DC that is either 10 or 15 (for brave creatures), but the judgement comes in on when to roll, not what to roll.

I'll say it again: a good DM can make even a bad system work well (often by ignoring or changing the rules), a bad system is detrimental to playing with novice & average DMs, and not having solutions/rules for common problems (like 300hp meat sack boring slog combats or illusions) is not the hallmark of a good system.

AD&D morale worked OK, was decently presented, and was a core monster stat reminding DMs to use it. As always, a DM could ignore or override if they needed to. It, and the initial reaction roll, offered players ways with rules support & DM guidelines, to interact with monsters beyond doing hit point damage in combat. In the D&D editions since AD&D fewer & fewer monsters run away or don't fight unless the casters throw down rule supported fear effects. Even the "cowardly" ones 90+% attack on sight & fight to the death. Rabid wolves are less blindly aggressive & suicidal than most D&D creatures.

Champions has a basic attack action anyone can do called a 'presence attack'. You get bonuses on it for doing big destructive things like blowing up cars. Anyone can do it, requires no build resources (although you can build around it), and it functions as a rule supported sort of "inflict a morale check" that even the strong dumb bricks can use. Actually, a strong dumb brick is usually pretty good at presence attacks in combat by massively over-killing some scenery or mooks while doing it.

This has been going on for 30+ years. There's no excuse for making bad morale systems, just check out & adapt a good one from another game or previous version. Oh, wait yes there is, someone might make a D&D fighter or barbarian option that lets them modify or force an enemy morale check, and we can't let mundanes have nice things, only casters get fear & charm effects.

[Satinavian]

Personally i am quite happy with letting the GM decide. And i have seen and probably also run hundreds of fights not to the last HP.

I am also against making this a character ability or an action somehow. If people retreat should mostly depend on how the overall combat situation is (can they still win this ?) what the objebtives are (Why do we even fight) and how whether they can get away (orderly retreat possible ? pursuet likely ? wounded that have to be left behind ? etc.).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Personally i am quite happy with letting the GM decide. And i have seen and probably also run hundreds of fights not to the last HP.

I am also against making this a character ability or an action somehow. If people retreat should mostly depend on how the overall combat situation is (can they still win this ?) what the objebtives are (Why do we even fight) and how whether they can get away (orderly retreat possible ? pursuet likely ? wounded that have to be left behind ? etc.).

Exactly. Making it a stat means that all of that stat block shares that same base value for something that varies tremendously even for the same individual between circumstances. Which says that any default value is a bad one and this should be user input

It also makes it harder (especially when mechanized and player facing) to reuse stat blocks in sightly different situations. That bandit? He's a fanatic in this case. But now when he doesn't run, that violates a (in this hypothetical) a player expectation that bandits have low morale.

[Telok]

It also makes it harder (especially when mechanized and player facing) to reuse stat blocks in sightly different situations. That bandit? He's a fanatic in this case. But now when he doesn't run, that violates a (in this hypothetical) a player expectation that bandits have low morale.

The fear of players talking to the DM because they think they're fighting regular bandits instead of fanatic psychopaths is not a good reason to naysay a mechanic that widely used and useful in most combat oriented games. Especially if the mechanic makes for a better play experience by giving people an option to have encounters not automatically go into deathmatch mode.

If there's a mechanic then the players can use it to interact with the npcs in a way that isn't just "hit to do damage", the designers can have classes or abilities or whatever intrract with it, the DMs don't have to make new rules up if they want it. Without a mechanic someone new to the game may (and from all I've ever seen, will) assume that all monsters automatically attack & fight to the death. Novice DMs trying to run things "by the rules", on the assumption that they have bought a full functioning rule set, do just have stuff attack untill dead unless there is something telling them otherwise. Even experienced DMs will sometimes forget about it if there isn't some form of reminder in a npc/monster stat block.

That you in particular are afraid of players questioning why a specific npc is slightly different from a basic default stat block does not mean that a decent basic morale rule is a bad thing. I'd rather players ask why a group of apparently otherwise normal for-profit-and-try-not-to-get-killed bandits are fighting like suicidal beserkers, than to keep having my characters be automatically forced to murder their way through every single hit point of every tribe of podunk goblin & kobold mooks that get encountered. I've played with novice DMs who want to run things using the rules (and not the optional rules in order to try and stay simple) and aren't comfortable going beyond them. Without something reminding them that monsters may want to flee, they won't do it. In our D&D game that made a party's "mercy & kindness" peace cleric into a remorseless mass murderer as soon as initative was rolled because every encounter is a no-escape fight to the death for a lack of non hit point damage solutions.

I'd rather the novice DMs have a useful rule that expert DMs don't need and can ignore, than cut out all the rules the expert DMs don't want and make it more work & less fun for novice DMs. At least for D&D. If D&D wasn't the intro rpg for so many players and the "learn how to DM" game for many people then I wouldn't care.

[Mike_G]

It also makes it harder (especially when mechanized and player facing) to reuse stat blocks in sightly different situations. That bandit? He's a fanatic in this case. But now when he doesn't run, that violates a (in this hypothetical) a player expectation that bandits have low morale.


But that becomes a good adventure hook.

"We just killed all his friends. Shouldn't this guy be running away or begging for his life?"

"You would think so, but he's not. (Secret Sense Motive roll) In fact, he doesn't seem to be showing any fear. Just a burning, fanatical hatred of you."

[Pauly]

But when do you trigger such a thing? Any fixed system for that has all the flaws you mentioned.

Personally, for me I use a straight d20 against a DC that is either 10 or 15 (for brave creatures), but the judgement comes in on when to roll, not what to roll.

It comes in much earlier than most RPGers think.

Historically it was quite common for units on the battlefield to rout after suffering 10% or less casualties. It is/was incredibly rare for units to keep fighting after taking 50% casualties. We’re still talking about the Spartans at Thermopylae 2500 years later because that type of last stand is so rare.

You could start rolling on the first turn, just that in the turns before anyone starts getting hit the bonuses should be high enough for automatic passes, but if the enemy is particularly intimidating then it’s plausible for the other side to run before fighting even starts. It’s actually a difficult military problem - how to get the bad guys to stand and fight when they’ll run away if they can see they’re outgunned.

[icefractal]

IIRC this intimidate DC was strictly up to the GM; and at least on the WOTC forums, the reaction was that this is a stupid mechanic and the GM should set the DC to 9001.It's the foe's Will Defense + 10, and now that I'm looking there aren't any situational modifiers specified, although it auto-fails against things that are immune to fear. It's actually better than I remembered, as it forces them to surrender, not just flee.

And yes, I remember a lot of complaints about it, and people saying they'd house-rule it out. Which, personally speaking, I found obnoxious. That's a hard DC to hit (4E skills can't be easily boosted the way they can in 3E), and it's not even like it can skip the fight entirely, just shorten it by half. But no, apparently the holy and sacred HP attrition is too important to ever reduce - it's better that, while injured, in the face of the most intimidating person they've ever met, enemies still just shrug and keep fighting. :smallyuk:

[DigoDragon]

But when do you trigger such a thing? Any fixed system for that has all the flaws you mentioned.

Personally, for me I use a straight d20 against a DC that is either 10 or 15 (for brave creatures), but the judgement comes in on when to roll, not what to roll.

I could have sworn that in AD&D 2e it had a guideline on when to make that roll. Like, if 20% of their forces were slain by the party or something.

[Vahnavoi]

The two guidelines I've seen used make distinction between individuals and groups.

For individual (lone) monsters, you first check morale when first blood is drawn, then again when 50% of its hit points have been depleted.

For monters fighting as a group, you first check morale at 20% casualties, then again at 50% casualties. So if you're fighting an opposing party of five, they will first check moral when first party member falls, then check again when third party member falls.

The latter comes directly from real military rules of thumb, where a force that's lost 20% of its fighting strength is considered defeated and a force that's lost 50% of its fighting strength is considered destroyed.

[KorvinStarmast]

For individual (lone) monsters, you first check morale when first blood is drawn, then again when 50% of its hit points have been depleted.

For monsters fighting as a group, you first check morale at 20% casualties, then again at 50% casualties. So if you're fighting an opposing party of five, they will first check moral when first party member falls, then check again when third party member falls.

The latter comes directly from real military rules of thumb, where a force that's lost 20% of its fighting strength is considered defeated and a force that's lost 50% of its fighting strength is considered destroyed. That's about what I do, but if the first phase of the fight shows some success (some of the party disabled or downed) it will improve monster morale in terms of their perception of "we are doing OK" - but I don't have a hard and fast rule for that.

[Vahnavoi]

The rules I outlined were simply for when to check morale - the actual morale score is a different thing that had different rules between Basic, 1st edition Advanced and 2nd edition Advanced D&D.

For Basic, morale score was rated from 2 to 12 and was checked with roll-under 2d6 rolls. Monsters with 12 morale never broke form, fled or surrendered, while monsters with 2 always did at the slightest sign of trouble - monsters were given scores mostly based on their supposed nature, so even a big burly monster could be a coward, while elite trained but individually weak humanoids could have scores up to 11.

I think 2nd edition AD&D used similar system, just with wider range of scores and 2d10 rolls. 1st edition AD&D used a %-based system with a page-long table of possible score modifiers. All systems had their own situational modifiers for adjusting morale, so the morale score, and consequently actual likelihood of breaking, fleeing or surrendering could vary throughout a fight.

[KorvinStarmast]

The rules I outlined were simply for when to check morale - the actual morale score is a different thing that had different rules between Basic, 1st edition Advanced and 2nd edition Advanced D&D.
I am familiar with 0D&D, Basic and 1e sufficiently (Didn't DM much in 2, mostly played as I had burned out on DMing), thanks for the review.

When I say "I do" I mean that I have imported into 5e my 2d6 die roll for morale checks. The benchmarks you outlined is when I usually roll one.
What I have not done is assign a morale score to every monster. The morale check is most often done when there is a minion/leader relationship, but I do make morale checks for wolf packs, for example, if their initial surge isn't very successful.

My general case is: 7 or better on the first check is "do not flee"; 9 or better after half of them are downed. I'll subtract a 1 from the roll if a significant leader/member is down or already captures/disabled.
I add a 1 (usually) if one of the party members is down.
Leaders add 1 or 2 to the roll, but that really depends on the leader.

I need neither a chart nor hard coded Morale values and it has worked out fine.

[Telok]

I need neither a chart nor hard coded Morale values and it has worked out fine.

Well actually you do have a chart, you just haven't written it down in a chart looking format.



Morale: 7+ on 2d6.

Modifier chart:
+2 at 50% casualties
-1 if strong leader
-2 if very strong leader
etc., etc., etc.

[JadedDM]

I could have sworn that in AD&D 2e it had a guideline on when to make that roll. Like, if 20% of their forces were slain by the party or something.

It does: Chapter Nine of the DMG:


First, do not check morale every round of a combat. Aside from the fact that this slows everything down, it also crates unbalanced and unrealistic battles. Everyone going into a fight expects a little danger. Only when the danger becomes too great should a morale check be rolled. Just when the DM rolls morale checks is a matter of judgment, but the following guidelines should prove useful.

Check Monster and NPC Morale When:

• The foes have been surprised, but only on the first round after surprise

• Faced by an obviously superior force

• An ally is slain by magic

• 25% of their group has fallen

• 50% of their group has fallen

• A companion is slain after more than 50% of the group has fallen

• Their leader deserts or is slain

• Fighting a creature they cannot harm due to magical protections

• Ordered to attempt a heroically dangerous task

• Offered temptation (bribe, chance to steal, etc.)*

• Told to act as a rear guard, such as covering a fighting withdrawal

• Directed to use up or use a charge from a personal powerful magical item*

• Given a chance to surrender (and have met the conditions for one other morale check)

• Completely surrounded

* In this case, the morale check can be used to see if they agree or refuse.

Obviously, following the guidelines above too strictly can lead to illogical situations. Players, once they've learned the conditions calling for morale checks, may try to abuse the rules. For example, they might think to offer surrender terms to every monster they meet, figuring the odds of the morale check might work out their way.

Don't let players get away with this, and don't let the dice overrule logical or drama. When 1st-level player characters offer surrender terms to an ancient red dragon (obviously hoping for a lucky break on the dice), remember what common sense is saying: "There ain't no way!"