Why have dissociated mechanics returned?

LostSoul · Sep 4, 2012

tomBitonti said:
If you mixed that with blindness (probably need to dip into 3E for true blindness), or with a necromancer's skeleton (mindless), or if a player puts on a blindfold deliberately to (try to) avoid the effect, what happens? (Perhaps 4E has creatures with immunity to fear because of their nature, so the skeleton example may or may not work.)

When I run 4E I decide what the wight is doing and describe it. Based on that description, using blindfolds or averting your eyes may have an affect on its Horrific Visage.

What I find interesting about 4E is that it's not hard to resolve crazy actions that follow from the fiction:

Player: What would happen if I got out a mirror and made it see its own Horrific Visage?
DM: (thinks about the game world) ... Do you know?
Player: No, that's why I asked!
DM: Okay, make a Religion check to find out.
Player: (success)
DM: Well, I think it's an old trope that evil spirits don't like to look at their own reflections. So yeah, it would probably get blasted back if it looked at itself. "Oh, the horror I have become reminds me of what I once was, and what I have lost."
Player: I'll do that then.
DM: Cool, make a Wis or Cha attack against Will for (page 42 high regular) damage. If you "bless" the mirror somehow - Undead Ward, maybe? - you could probably add some kind of proficiency bonus to that.
Player: Nice. Can I do that again without the Religion check?
DM: Sure, you know how it works now.

slobster · Sep 4, 2012

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
But in some ways, I realize the answer is definitely yes - you'll probably get some XP from this experience, bringing you closer to a level with a higher defense - at least this particular "true horror" you may get a bit more resilient against...

Fair enough.

In the long run you get a little better at compartmentalizing your reactions, even resisting it sometimes. Every time is still a struggle, though.

1of3 · Sep 4, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
If my character concept is a Paladin in shining armour who charges into the midst of the foe, challenging them all and powers are associated then my Paladin is, to put it bluntly, much much more stupid than his mount - and I need to play stupidly. His only reward for this, despite it being a mythic archetype, is going to be a Darwin Award. And trying to play my Paladin is an unpleasant experience because the game is (arguably justifiably) penalising me for playing the archetype I want to.

If my character concept is a Paladin in shining armour who charges into the midst of the foe, challenging them all and powers are disassociated 4e style, then my Paladin may still be much more stupid than his mount. But I'm playing the mythic archetype - and the game rewards me for doing so. Now charging into the midst of enemies is still a high risk maneuver - I'm surrounded and likely to be gang-shanked. But it's only a risky maneuver, not a completely stupid one because I get a benefit for behaving in character. So this becomes a positive play experience - the game rewards me for playing to the archetype.

While the rest of your post is spot on, this passage shows just one more problem with the term "association". - There is no consensus on what it means. Here it is equivalent to "gritty", "down to earth". Why should shooting lasers from your eyes be "disassciated" in a super hero game? Why should charging an army be "disassociated" in D&D?

For Ioun's sake, guys, just say what you want to say, use ordinary words, get a thesaurus.

triqui · Sep 4, 2012

Remathilis said:
More importantly; if you've seen the "true horror of the undead" once, are you going to experience the same effect when exposed to it again?

Why not? "It's magic". And people who has seen (and killed) dozens of dragons, still have to roll vs dragon fear, in any edition I've played.

Cybit · Sep 4, 2012

So as someone who spent a lot of time (2+ hours) talking to the developers at PAX Prime (I was enforcing many of the rooms they were in, and went to all 5 panels, including the two dungeon panels that basically no one knew about)...I can definitively state the following

1) This version of the game will easily be the most narrative / flavor heavy of the game. Classes aren't being created unless they have a specific spot in the narrative and flavor. Every time a question was asked, the narrative / flavor element was the first thing discussed, it was talked about 90% of the time, and then they talked about the mechanics.

2) The playtest is brief on descriptions in some places because, well, it's either "describe out a certain part" or "add extra class we want playtested". I have no fear that a final release of the game will have maybe even too much flavor.

3) As for dissociated mechanics, they're deliberately trying to avoid that. Mike even talked about the CAGI problem (Come and Get It, one of the more dissociative powers in 4E), and how they are going out of their way to avoid it.

As an aside; these boards have terrible speculation and info going across it as a whole. There are a ton of assumptions being thrown around, and frankly, most of this crap is wrong. I'm going to try to type up a summary of what was said at Prime later tonight / this week.

tomBitonti · Sep 4, 2012

Remathilis said:
More importantly; if you've seen the "true horror of the undead" once, are you going to experience the same effect when exposed to it again?

Seems to me that inuring yourself against the horror ought to have an in-game effect. Call of Cthuhu has rules to handle this (repeat exposures do less sanity damage; the accumulation of sanity damage leads to psychological impairment, eventually).

In 3E and 4E, I'm not aware of any similar mechanism. There are some effects which have a note of "this effect cannot affect the same target again in the same 24 hour period".

For "Horrible Visage", that seems to be designed to work repeatedly. That is, the monster probably is substantially nerfed if the effect only works once.

Thx!

TomB

tomBitonti · Sep 4, 2012

A different problem of Horrifying Visage is that the "push" is actually a target action taken immediately on the Wight's turn.

That works for me, but only as a "90%" case: That is, in 90% of cases the result of the visage will be that the target reacts to move away from the wight. (But then again, maybe 90% is too high: The wight is an evil bastard, and will try to use it's visage ability to force the target into a harmful location whenever possible. Wights are mean like that.)

But then, "Push" is misleading, in that it really isn't the same as a "Push" from a bull rush. In this case, "Push" is really "Forced Movement".

But then, what if you used Horrifying Visage against a held or webbed opponent? Or against a slowly oozing intelligent gelatinous cube which has a two square movement? What if the terrain behind the target was a slippery slope which required a climb or perhaps a balance check?

Then, the problem isn't so much disassociation, but instead that the ruled effect is too coarse for some tastes. Some folks will be OK with the 90% case, and others will want to have more details.

Some of that turns into a control issue: The rules designers taking away the ability for the GM to manage the details of the game. Which turns into a trust and question of motivations issue very quickly.

Thx!

TomB

AntiStateQuixote · Sep 4, 2012

tomBitonti said:
Some of that turns into a control issue: The rules designers taking away the ability for the GM to manage the details of the game. Which turns into a trust and question of motivations issue very quickly.

Funny story: I once DM'd a 4e game and chose to ignore a PC's ability to knock a gelatinous cube prone because it didn't make sense. No one from WotC came to revoke my DM certification for not adhering exactly to the rules as written.

I doubt they would show up if I said a push (fear) power could only make you move your movement rate or not at all if you're grabbed, webbed, etc.

Bluenose · Sep 4, 2012

Brent_Nall said:
Funny story: I once DM'd a 4e game and chose to ignore a PC's ability to knock a gelatinous cube prone because it didn't make sense. No one from WotC came to revoke my DM certification for not adhering exactly to the rules as written.

I doubt they would show up if I said a push (fear) power could only make you move your movement rate or not at all if you're grabbed, webbed, etc.

Whereas I'd probably say that it did move restrained targets, since the sheer terror provoked the sort of adrenaline rush that makes people do things they couldn't normally do. And I don't think anyone from WotC could revoke my GM certification, which isn't in D&D. Of course, 5e is going to give us the power to make that sort of decision back. :hmm:

Neonchameleon · Sep 4, 2012

tomBitonti said:
But then, what if you used Horrifying Visage against a held or webbed opponent? Or against a slowly oozing intelligent gelatinous cube which has a two square movement? What if the terrain behind the target was a slippery slope which required a climb or perhaps a balance check?

Then, the problem isn't so much disassociation, but instead that the ruled effect is too coarse for some tastes. Some folks will be OK with the 90% case, and others will want to have more details.

And to be honest, that is the valid point buried away in the edition warring screed that is The Alexandrian's little essay. That the effects might all be valid - but second order interactions between them when you have multiple effects flying around can get ... complex. And this is one reason we have DMs.

Why have dissociated mechanics returned?

LostSoul

Adventurer

slobster

Hero

1of3

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triqui

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Cybit

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tomBitonti

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tomBitonti

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AntiStateQuixote

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Bluenose

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Neonchameleon

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