D&D 4E Hate or aggro rules in 4e

crossfirecreek · Aug 24, 2007

I am wondering if there will be some kind of hate or aggro mechanic in 4e.

We have heard devs talk about classes like the Fighter filling a party defender role, kind of the Tank role from MMO’s. Rodney Thompson talked about a game play example when his rogue had to take over the party defensive role once the main-fighter went down. He stated that his rogue became the number one target for the monsters while the rest of the party wore the monsters down. He made it sound like the monsters were ignoring the rest of the party and just going for his rogue.

It sounds to me like there maybe some in game mechanic that will steer opponents towards the party Defender.

Olgar Shiverstone · Aug 24, 2007

Knight's challenge? I'll bet something like that carries forward in some form, whether as a class ability for some class, or a feat/talent tree thing.

SpiderMonkey · Aug 24, 2007

For all the hate the Knight got for it, I strangely don't mind aggro abilities; it helps players add a cinematic element to the game that is (narratively speaking) not solely confined to their characters' actions.

I'd like to see it as a "power" for non-magical classes.

stonegod · Aug 24, 2007

Talent tree is the way to go in my mind.

Man in the Funny Hat · Aug 24, 2007

crossfirecreek said:
It sounds to me like there maybe some in game mechanic that will steer opponents towards the party Defender.

I hope not, personally. Best left to the DM to handle than for the game rules to try to dictate. A "taunt" may be one thing; a useful ability just as, say, Sleep, or Suggestion would be. Aggro, however, is a term that comes DIRECTLY from MMORPGs. Unless you're also proposing a significantly different defintion of what "aggro" is and does, it remains an ever-changing mathematical value that is used as a REPLACEMENT for a DM who would otherwise ACTIVELY control who a given opponent attacks and WHY.

While "morale" in past versions of D&D was ostensibly instituted as a control over when opponents LEAVE, rather than who they attack as "aggro" does, it is STILL something best handled by the DM because the DM ALWAYS knows better than a numerical morale/aggro value what's happening and why. 3E was right to drop it. 4E would be mistaken to reintroduce it as anything other than an isolated ability; definitely not as a general mechanic.

Korgoth · Aug 24, 2007

This kind of mechanic doesn't make sense for a role playing game. The DM is in charge of the monsters and of determining who the monster wants to hit the most.

Mechanics like this make the game seem too artificial and disingenuous, if you ask me. Next we'll be talking about whether the PCs can "pull" one gnoll at a time from around the campfire without having to fight them all at once.

Greatwyrm · Aug 24, 2007

Korgoth said:
This kind of mechanic doesn't make sense for a role playing game. The DM is in charge of the monsters and of determining who the monster wants to hit the most.

There may not have been mechanics for it, but every DM has made decisions similar to it at one time or another. Intelligent creatures/monsters will focus on what they perceive as the biggest threat. If the fighter is hacking down one bandit after another, they'll gang up on him. When the wizard roasts 10 of them at once, they may decide he needs their attention first.

As an aside, there actually has already been a pen-and-paper game with aggro tracking rules. The game Rune, which is based on a viking slugfest videogame of the same name. The tabletop game was to be as close a representation to the videogame as possible. It did include a flowchart of who got aggro when. This was partly to emulate the game and partly to help with fairness between players, since the game was designed to have each player rotate as GM.

Korgoth said:
Mechanics like this make the game seem too artificial and disingenuous, if you ask me. Next we'll be talking about whether the PCs can "pull" one gnoll at a time from around the campfire without having to fight them all at once.

And any rule like that would go straight to my Garbage Can of Devouring.

outsider · Aug 24, 2007

I don't think we will be getting some mathematical aggro system. Seems like it would be a pain to keep track of. I do suspect though that we'll be getting "taunt" type abilities like the knight has.

I think it's a good thing. It's the fighter's job to keep the monsters from slaughtering the wizards, and it always has been. The problem is, to accomplish that, the fighter often had to rely on dm charity. The wizard is almost always FAR more dangerous than the fighter. Most of the time it makes more sense to quickly annihilate the wizard rather than gradually beat down his meat shield. The fighter rarely can stop the monster from ignoring him in favor of destroying the wizard. At best, the fighter will be able to get an attack of opportunity in, or if the battleground allows for it(not very common in my experience), physically block the monster's path to the wizard. The game has been moving towards player empowerment rather than relying on dm fiat, so I think we'll be seeing some sort of mechanic where fighters can force monsters to attack them rather than their allies.

I will note though that this is what made spiked chain wielding, trip specialist fighters so good. They could use trip to actually stop monsters from passing them in favor of attacking the wizard. The spiked chain allowed them to cover quite a large chunk of the battlefield with their trips, so they were really quite good protection for the mage. Unfortunately they were a very mechanically complex build, and from what I can tell, alot of DMs tended to hate the build with a passion.

KarinsDad · Aug 24, 2007

First, I sincerely hope not.

Second, I suspect not. WotC appears to be wanting to simplify the game, not adding rules just for the sake of there being rules for everything.

Lonely Tylenol · Aug 24, 2007

Why yes, I do in fact hate aggro rules. I don't like any rules that dictate to the DM (or to the players) how they're going to carry out their combat tactics. Compulsion effects are one thing, telling the DM that his orcs have to attack the knight because he's the tank is something else entirely.

I'd much rather see something like a few of the manoeuvres in Bo9S, which set things up so that the opponent has the option of choosing his target and actions, but if he doesn't choose the target or action that the power-using character dictates (usually the imperative is to attack that character), he suffers consequences. A trade-off, rather than a metagame lever.