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The biggest issue in my opinion, and the one I have mixed feelings about, is the difference between realistic and cinematic combat. It's probably one of the biggest distinctions between 4E and 3E.
Like many others, I don't think the combat in D&D has ever been particularly realistic. That's okay, because the combat in most of the fiction that inspired (and still inspires) the game is similarly unrealistic.
I think 3e and 4e frame their unrealistic nature differently. 3e is unrealistic, but spends more time trying to get at the details of action. There isn't much difference between a 3e trip attack that leaves the target prone and an encounter power that leaves a target prone. The end result is similar, but in 3e they are usually a bit more explicit about how the action leads to the result. 4e is a bit more vague - maybe you tripped the target, maybe you shoved the target when they were off-balance, and maybe you created a slippery sheet of ice under them.
Some folks like that about 4e, others do not. Some folks like to be able to visualize the the action of what is happening (even if it is unrealistic), more distinctly.
Maybe some folks call having that clear visualization "realism", even if that action could never happen in the real world.
What really bugged me starting with 3E (never got into 2E supplements) was how cumbersome the rules became. There were other things as well (how opportunity attacks worked, for one) -- but that was the big one, and it's much worse in 4E. The pace of the game is much too slow. Other aspects simply turn me off more.
It actually makes 3E look good to me by comparison, highlighting the continuities by making the departures seem in retrospect less radical. Maybe I could actually DM 3E, with just a few tweaks? How much of the clunkiness is essential to fans when the alternative is 4E? The hardcore won't go for something as stripped down as C&C, but maybe there's a middle ground. No "splats", no rules-lawyers, no munchkins?
Giving one figure at a time a full turn is both thoroughly unrealistic and (more importantly in my view) one of the big time wasters. Generating a new order for each fight just makes it worse. "Waiting for my turn" is not how I want to spend most of a session! Count me a fan of simultaneous movement for this kind of game.
The biggest issue in my opinion, and the one I have mixed feelings about, is the difference between realistic and cinematic combat. It's probably one of the biggest distinctions between 4E and 3E.
I have to disagree on this point, but as always, it's a matter of perception.
I started playing with BECMI D&D and 1st Edition AD&D, and I've always found every flavour of D&D to be highly cinematic in terms of combat. I don't find 4E combat to be any less realistic or more cinematic than 3E or any earlier editions. It is less random in that PCs are much less prone to go down from one unlucky die roll, which I suppose does make it somewhat less realistic in that sense.
Hit Points have always been (by the rules) an abstract concept defining the overall toughness and staying power of a character or monster, although many players have misinterpreted HP as primarily being about how much physical damage a body can withstand. In a realistic combat system, one well-placed or lucky thrust of a dagger could kill even an experienced adventurer, and D&D has never modeled that very well.
From my point of view, Hit Points don't generally represent actual severe physical wounds until a successful hit reduces a character below 0 HP. Before that point, they represent near misses that throw a character off-balance, a glancing blow, fatigue, a physical blow that almost struck true but the character twisted his body just enough that it missed a vital organ, and any number of other things which represent gradually being worn-down. I feel that 4E reinforces this with the concept of healing surges; they aren't inherently magic healing abilities that individuals possess but represent the limits of physical and mental staying power that an individual can withstand before needing to rest. Hit Points themselves become a measure of how long a character can stand in a single encounter.
It's all a matter of interpretation, but even before 4E I had started to shift away from viewing character actions as a one-way cause --> effect relationship. Now I see it more in terms of resolving an action and determining the effect and then determining the game-fiction "cause" of the effect. I find it very fitting with the abstract nature of D&D combat. And I think this addresses a couple of your complaints about the 4E power system.
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Originally Posted by Hexmage-EN
- Some powers (Come and Get It!) are difficult to rationalize or have effects that seem unrelated to each other (such as the Cleric's hit-and-heal powers).
- Although the limited-use powers keep battles interesting and simulate the sort of fights you see in movies, their mechanical limitations can seem jarring in terms of suspension of disbelief.
For example, in Fourth Edition Martial characters cannot use the same encounter power more than once even though they are free to use another, equally as strenuous power. There's no good way to explain why this is so and retain verisimilitude.
If you look at it such that a Fighter can only perform a "Steel Serpent Strike" once per fight or that a Fighter can only perform a "Brute Strike" once per day, then it does seem arbitrary and illogical. Arcane or Divine powers can get away with it, as the magical origin of these powers can justify nearly any method of resource management (spell memorization always bothered me, to be honest). When you take a step back and view combat from a more abstract perspective, then these arbitrary limitations can make sense from a game-world perspective.
When the fighter's player performs a "Brutal Strike" and makes a successful hit, expending that daily power, it doesn't have to mean that the character only made that single attempt to perform that maneuver nor that the character doesn't keep trying to perform that maneuver. In order to successfully perform a martial combat power, a great number of factors have to come into alignment just right: the hero has to be in the perfect state of focus, the opponent needs to be slightly distracted, the hero and his opponent have to be just the right distance from one another, the opponent has to have been thrown off balance or weakened, the hero's attack has to build on the momentum from the last swing of his weapon, the opponent has to expose a weak spot at just the right angle for just the right amount of time, the hero's weapon has to begin its arc at just the right moment in time... You get the idea.
For an encounter power, the circumstances in which a maneuver has the potential of being successful happens about once per battle; for a daily power, the right circumstances are aligned only about once per day. 4E is simply giving the player (not the character) the ability to decide when this actually happens. When the fighter's player decides to attack with a "Steel Serpent Strike" and hits successfully, it is at that point where we can describe the action (in the game world) as the fighter having slashed his sword across the back of the orc's knee, slowing him down. It isn't that the fighter can't be trying to stab other orcs in the knee or foot during that encounter, but the player has decided that the infrequently-occuring situation where the orc has exposed the back of his knee in such a way that his fighter can take advantage of it happened this round and not in a future round.
You may not accept this, and I have read many objections to this perspective on this and other forums. It makes a lot of sense to me, and it means that I can explain limitations on martial powers in terms of how often everything that needs to happen in order for the opportunity for a specific maneuver to be successful is likely to occur. I can still explain limitations on arcane powers as physical or mental limits on channeling energy, or physical exhaustion from channeling powerful magic. Limitations on divine powers may represent how often the gods or their servants are willing to answer prayers. 4E allows for very flexible interpretations of game rules within the narrative of the game world. Powers of all sources have the same basic structure and are limited by the same resource management system, but they can each be described in completely different ways.
The "Come and Get It" power forces enemies to move, but it doesn't have to be interpreted as some magical-but-not-magical compulsion that overrides the opponents' will and forces them to approach you. It simply describes the outcome -- each opponent in a close burst 3 shift 2 squares and end adjacent to the fighter (if it is possible), and the fighter attacks each adjacent opponent. It could be as simple as the fighter taunting his enemies and they are stupid or angry enough to take the bait. It could also mean that a group of opponents moved in such a way that they ended up adjacent to the fighter and he took advantage of the opportunity to catch them off guard. They could have been moving at the same time intentionally or unintentionally, they could have been coordinating attacks on the fighter or just trying to get away from someone or something else. The player (not the character) is making the decision that the opportunity for multiple opponents to shift toward the fighter so he can attack them is happening now. Powers essentially just describe outcomes and effects and give a measure of narrative control to the players; they can be described and explained in any way that works in the particular context in which they are used.
It's a different way of thinking about the game, but I find it very liberating and it really brings me back to how I played the game when I was younger. 3E is a great system and I really enjoyed playing it, but I do think that the nature of the system encourages a more rigid cause-and-effect mindset and a less abstract view of the relationship of the game rules to what is happening in the game world.
I think that this perspective accounts for why D&D has never really had a system of modeling specific injuries to body parts or a robust called shot system. AD&D's minute combat rounds made it explicit that the one (or perhaps two for higher-level characters) roll "to hit" made per round didn't mean that the character only swung her weapon once; it represented the overall chance that the character was able to land a blow that had an effect on her opponent. Targeted strikes didn't really work when combat was played out at this level of abstraction. The player rolled a high number on the die roll for damage and the opponent went down? "You slice the goblin across the neck for 8 points of damage, mortally wounding him. He collapses to the ground, bleeding profusely." The player rolled 15 damage to an orc, taking it to -10 HP? "Your blade pierces the orc through the heart, killing him instantly." It was generally assumed that characters were always trying to take out their opponents as quickly as possible with as little physical harm to themselves and their companions as possible. Delivering the killing or crippling blow to an enemy essentially meant that the character had taken advantage of an opening to strike a vulnerable body part.
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Originally Posted by Hexmage-EN
Combat in Third Edition (and previous editions) is designed to simulate a fantasy world (aside from certain abstractions, such as 6-foot swordsmen being able to kill giants with their blades), and combat in Fourth Edition is designed as a playable action movie scene that eschews realism in exchange for excitement. This approach to combat colors the rest of the game; in Fourth Edition's case, this approach rendered the game nearly unrecognizable as the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
I think that the realism of combat comes from how the actions are described within the game's narrative. If you want martial powers to represent nearly-supernatural comic-book or action movie abilities, then describe them that way. If you want fighters to be able to control the movement of enemies with their sheer physical presence and willpower, then it can be described that way.
If you want martial powers to represent the abilities of highly trained and skilled warriors, then they can be described that way as well. Many martial exploits are essentially very specific instances of a "critical hit," except that the player gets to decide when they can happen. If a power hits for 2[W] damage and shifts the target one square, then describe that as a mighty blow that knocks the opponent off balance, causing him to stagger a few feet back. If there is another enemy adjacent to the target, then maybe describe it in such a way that the target's ally grabbed him and pulled him out of the way of the fighter's swing, turning what would have been a fatal blow into a serious but not mortal wound. Don't describe damage taken as a serious physical wound unless a character drops to 0 HP; "Damage" taken can be described as the process of wearing down your opponent and forcing him to lower his defences. When a character is out of (or can no longer make use of) healing surges then her defences are just about to break and she's almost out of staying power.
Of all of the versions of D&D released so far, I think that 4E most readily lends itself to running a low-magic campaign -- which often (but not always) is seen as part of a more believable or realistic game world. Healing surges mean that magical healing is no longer necessary in order to keep PCs from dying. Martial classes cover the defender, striker, and leader roles, leaving only the controller role unfilled. Martial characters could still learn and study rituals (some such as Raise Dead would probably need to be "banned"), and that would keep the flashy combat spells out of the game, leaving magic as a difficult, costly, and time-consuming resource.
A believable game world, in my opinion, is created by the narrative and the DM and players' descriptions of character actions in the world. The rules describe quantitative effects and outcomes of actions, but they allow for a great deal of flexibility in describing how those effects were created, if the participants of the game are open to the idea.
I'm sure I've said this before, but for some reason this thread has inspired me to repeat myself. IMHO, 3e (and the vast majority of other RPGs) have a combat system designed to simulate combat in whatever world the game takes place. It is rarely close to realistic, and is often simulating something very odd. (At least I found 3e combats with too-many options on and/or unclosed loopholes to be so.) But it is clearly designed to simulate combat. With 4e, combat is some sort of cinematic miniatures skirmish game. I don't know that the end result is less realistic (whatever that means is this context), but it clearly was designed as a game, rather than a combat simulator. Although skeptical at first, I have actually found it quite a bit of fun to play. It does, however, have the disadvantage of putting an additional layer of abstraction between a player and his/her character. In 3e I can imagine my character evaluating his options is combat much as I was at the gaming table. In 4th, I have only a vague idea of how my character sees things. It's not a bad trade-off, but it is a trade off, and in the long run I see myself mostly playing systems that give me more immersion that 4e.
On a side note, I find it somewhat ironic that, despite their differences, 3e and 4e run on basically the same combat engine. I mean, you could have 3e and 4e characters fight each other if you wanted. The numbers would line up oddly, and it would make no sense, but it would work as an exercise. The sad thing for me is that I really like this underlying combat system, but don't particularly care for how 3e or 4e does characters.
In a realistic combat system, one well-placed or lucky thrust of a dagger could kill even an experienced adventurer, and D&D has never modeled that very well.
It's modeled pretty well in older editions with experienced (NPC) adventurers possessed of only a single Hit Die. Player-characters get more the longer and more successfully they're played in order to serve purposes that include strong character identification in a combat-heavy game. Bad luck has more chances to catch up with greater exposure. If there's a small chance of getting killed with each attack, then high-level characters are the most likely to meet such sudden, arbitrary, random ends (as opposed to deaths due to poor decisions by players).
I've participated in several discussions on this topic, and I think I understand a major part of the reason behind why some people have so much trouble with "Vancian" 4e martial powers while they didn't have trouble with 3.xe.
It's not that 4e is less "realistic" than 3.5e, or requires less suspension of disbelief. As has been pointed out, neither system is very realistic at all. True, it's unrealistic that a given power can never be used more than once an encounter - just like it's unrealistic that people move in 5 foot increments; it's just an approximation for gameplay purposes. And it's not clear that Vancian martial abilities are any worse an approximation than anything else in the game.
It's not that it's hard to "narrate" what's going on in a 4e combat. As has been pointed out, there are plenty of ways to "narrate" why a power would work in one situation but not another.
Another reason I've heard is that it means that characters don't understand what's going on because there's no way to explain why martial abilities have use restrictions in a way that the characters would understand, but that's not it either. That was also true of 3.5e magic - there was no "underlying reason" behind Vancian magic - that's just the way magic works. (And it's hard to see how any other explanation would even be possible.) And of course, that's also true of real-life phenomena - imagine explaining to a medieval person the "underlying reason" behind how a television works - he would surely think it something that you just made up.
The real problem, at least for many players, is something more subtle. The problem is that it forces characters to know the mechanics. In other words, with 3.5e, players didn't have to know the mechanics of how a trip works in order to trip an opponent. Theoretically, a player wouldn't even have to read that section of the rulebook - he could just say "I try to trip the opponent," and the DM could translate that into the appropriate mechanics (the PC makes a trip attempt.) However, with 4e, that's no longer possible. Suppose the player says "I try to trip the opponent," and he has a power that knocks the target prone. Does the character want to use his encounter power now? Should this be resolved as "the character tried to trip, but couldn't find an opening to trip, so he used an at-will instead?" What if the character has multiple encounter powers that trip - which one should be used? Or does the character want to trip, but doesn't want to use his encounter power right now, so this should be resolved as a stunt?
Similar things occur with other abilities. For example, an ability that says "recharge an encounter power of your choice" implies that characters know about encounter powers and know which ones they have so they can choose one to recharge. An ability that says "one of your allies makes a save against an effect that a save can end" implies that characters can identify effects that saves can end, and distinguish them from effects that saves can't end (like "until end of next turn" effects).
Of course, all this occurs with 3.5e magic as well, so why wasn't it a problem there? One possibility is that 3.5e magic is implied to be gotten through either arcane study (wizards et al.) or granted by the gods (clerics et al). Both of these make it reasonable that characters would know underlying mechanics. Certainly, if the way magic worked in the game world included things like spell levels, level-dependent durations, metamagic effects that alter keywords of spells, etc., characters would learn about all these things in "wizard school." For the case of deity granted power, it's more of a stretch, but perhaps the deity provides his or her disciples with a booklet of terms and conditions that explain exactly what powers he will provide, and how often he will provide them, kind of like how when you sign up for a cell phone plan you are told the number of minutes you can use before being charged extra.
But for the case of a martial character like a fighter or barbarian, who gaets his powers from raw skill, strength, or talent rather than study, it's less reasonable to believe that the character would know the underlying mechanics.
There was no "underlying reason" behind Vancian magic.
Actually, the underlying rationale was the very reason it was called "Vancian". Read the tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance, from which the concept of spells as patterns of energy writhing in a magician's brain was derived.
As to the rest, I can speak only for myself -- but that role-playing element is THE big criterion of "realism" I have for a fantasy role-playing game.
Last edited by Ariosto; 8th May 2009 at 08:46 AM..
You bring up some interesting ideas, Alex319. Very cool. I need to think about those.
__________________ "If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
-- Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell to Arms" Burning Empires:Boldaq Keep on the Shadowfell
Why does having the player make choices imply the character must also know those choices?
It's called role-playing.
"Old school" players are less likely to require that a player "forget" what he knows (about monsters, math, literature, etc.), while the "new school" is more likely to put a premium on the theatrical sort of "playing a role".
Forcing what is sometimes called "meta-gaming" onto players as a barrier between them and their roles tends in both quarters to be seen as bad form (more in actual play than in generating "stats"). By contrast, it is widely acceptable in, indeed fundamental to, "story-telling" games.
Last edited by Ariosto; 8th May 2009 at 09:16 AM..
"Old school" players are less likely to require that a player "forget" what he knows (about monsters, math, literature, etc.), while the "new school" is more likely to put a premium on the theatrical sort of "playing a role".
Forcing what is sometimes called "meta-gaming" onto players as a barrier between them and their roles tends in both quarters to be seen as bad form. By contrast, it is widely acceptable in, indeed fundamental to, "story-telling" games.
Players make all kinds of decisions about their characters that wouldn't be choices that an person in the game world could reasonably make.
Metagaming can be a problem. OTOH, it also prevents problems - "but that's what my character would do" isn't a good excuse for ruining other players' enjoyment of the game.
__________________ "I'd like to shake the hand of the genius who invented that - just the hand, after it's been cut off from the now screaming man."
Such ruinous extremes get a bit more support with the voguish "thespian" approach. Of course, when the problem gets solved with rough justice in-game, the other players can say just the same!
I've participated in several discussions on this topic, and I think I understand a major part of the reason behind why some people have so much trouble with "Vancian" 4e martial powers while they didn't have trouble with 3.xe.
Minor nitpick - 4e powers are not "Vancian", which means somewhat more than "limited in the number of uses per day".
Another reason I've heard is that it means that characters don't understand what's going on because there's no way to explain why martial abilities have use restrictions in a way that the characters would understand, but that's not it either. That was also true of 3.5e magic - there was no "underlying reason" behind Vancian magic - that's just the way magic works. (And it's hard to see how any other explanation would even be possible.) And of course, that's also true of real-life phenomena - imagine explaining to a medieval person the "underlying reason" behind how a television works - he would surely think it something that you just made up.
Now that I think of it, I could have been a lot more clear on this point.
The argument I was responding to is the argument that because there is no way to explain the use restrictions in a way that characters would understand, the only options are to (1) houserule in an explanation, and make modifications to the rules to fit the explanation, or (2) accept that the use restrictions have no corresponding reality in the game world.
Of course, you can sidestep all these issues with house rules if you just embrace the design ethos of 4th Edition: There is no explanation for the besieged foe ability. It is a mechanical manipulation with no corresponding reality in the game world whatsoever.
At that point, however, you're no longer playing a roleplaying game. When the characters' relationship to the game world is stripped away, they are no longer roles to be played. They have become nothing more than mechanical artifacts that are manipulated with other mechanical artifacts.
My point is that there is a third option: accept that the use restrictions are a real in-world phenomenon, even though that phenomenon has no known (by the characters at least) explanation. It's simply the way the world works, and characters will adjust their tactics to accomodate it.
And, or course, having an in-world phenomenon that the characters do not know the underlying explanation for poses no problems whatsoever for "role-playing." In fact, it's perfectly realistic: before the advent of modern science, the underlying explanations behind most real-world natural phenomena were not known.
What really bugged me starting with 3E (never got into 2E supplements) was how cumbersome the rules became. There were other things as well (how opportunity attacks worked, for one) -- but that was the big one, and it's much worse in 4E. The pace of the game is much too slow. Other aspects simply turn me off more.
I have to agree with you on this; the amount of real time that is spent resolving combat is significant, as a result a large proportion of table time is taken up by resolving combats and as the game as a whole tends to move very slowly.
Case in point: last night's session with a group running Thunderspire Labyrinth. It was the second session of our assault on the deurgar stronghold, and the session before had ended with us about to begin a combat so it was straight into initiative rolls when we started up. The combat took 1.5 hours to resolve. We were then drawn into a second combat which took 2.5 hours to resolve. Aside from a half hour break we'd spent the entire night in combat, covering maybe 10 minutes of game time. The previous session was much the same: the whole night taken up by two combats.
This was the kind of bog down that killed the interest of my 3E group when we hit about 10th level; I'm frustrated to see it appearing in 4E at 4th level.
Agree with the OP. I like an awful lot of stuff about 4E, but... my suspension of disbelief crashed out suddenly and severely at some point during the game I was running last night.
It might have been around the time the fighter ran up to three cult necromancers - ruthless and intelligent combatants who are deadly at range but suck in hand-to-hand, who have no reason to voluntarily step into melee ever - and said, "Come And Get It!" And they all crowded around him so he could beat them down.
Or it might have been when the bard yelled insults at a guy and he fell over dead.
Maybe it was when one of the players said, "Oh, that's so cute, you're still trying to narrate 4th Edition combat."
Here's the thing about 4th Edition combat and 3rd Edition combat. They both contain bizarre rules artifacts, places where the simulation breaks down and makes no sense. But in 3E, when stuff makes no sense, the DM generally steps in and says, "Dude, you can't make a trip attack against an ooze. It's already as prone as it can physically be. Doesn't matter if it's technically rules-legal. It makes no sense and you can't do it."
In 4E, the DM is expected to shrug and let the ooze be tripped. "Trip" and "prone" are no longer defined concepts with a concrete meaning in the game world. They're just abstract mechanical terms, subject to redefinition on the fly. And the DM trying to figure out and narrate what the hell just happened? Shut up and play the board game, pal.
...Sorry. I'm ranting. I think I hit some kind of threshold or breaking point or something.
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Originally Posted by Alex319
By the way:
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Originally Posted by Gizmo33
poison affects me if I'm "hit" but not "hit"
What so you mean by this?
It's one of the reasons that narrating "the monster hits for 10 points" as "he swings and just barely misses you" doesn't work for a lot of players. When you attack with a poisoned weapon, if you hit, the target is poisoned. That makes no sense if your attack just barely missed; a poisoned weapon can only deliver its poison with an actual physical hit.
(Although that is not, for me, the primary reason. My primary reason is much simpler, and is at the heart of a lot of my problems with 4E: I have no patience for RPG systems that play Humpty Dumpty with the English language. A word's meaning in-game should be a reasonable approximation of its meaning in real life. If I make an "attack" with a "sword" and it "hits" resulting in "damage," then the guy I "hit" damn well ought to be bleeding. If that isn't what you mean by "hit," call it something else.)
__________________ Have you ever known a person who always behaved exactly the way you expected? Real people don't stay in character.
Last edited by Dausuul; 9th May 2009 at 04:36 AM..
I'm coming to realize that what I really want out of RPG combat is an open, flexible system that encourages players to think up clever improvised stunts and provides robust tools with which to do so. The power system is going in the exact opposite direction.
A few questions:
1. How does the power system make improvised stunts harder? Powers just give you additional options. There's nothing that says you can't do improvised stunts just because you have powers. If you could do stunts in 3e, I don't see why you can't do them in 4e. (Or, to be specific: can you give an example of an "improvised stunt" you could do in 3e but not in 4e? And, e.g., disarming doesn't count, because disarming was an explicit rule in 3e, so not an "improvised stunt.")
2. Does page 42 give you the tools you need to create clever improvised stunts? Does 3e give you the tools you need to create clever improvised stunts?
Note: I'm not in any way saying there's anything wrong with preferring 3e over 4e, or vice versa. I'm just trying to understand in more detail what the issue is here, so we can possibly come up with ways to solve it.
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