D&D 4E More reflections on 4e and 5e.

Zustiur · Sep 30, 2012

I wonder if balancing At Wills with Basic Attacks might have caused less confusion. Seriously; why even have basic attacks if they're never used? (yes yes, I know about free attacks and opportunities etc)
I'd like to see the basic attacks be a valid option on your turn. I think this would actually reduce confusion for newcomers, and even if they didn't 'get it', they'd still be doing something reasonably effective.

Uller · Sep 30, 2012

Zustiur said:
I wonder if balancing At Wills with Basic Attacks might have caused less confusion. Seriously; why even have basic attacks if they're never used? (yes yes, I know about free attacks and opportunities etc)
I'd like to see the basic attacks be a valid option on your turn. I think this would actually reduce confusion for newcomers, and even if they didn't 'get it', they'd still be doing something reasonably effective.

Exactly. A basic attack in 4e is a little 'quicker' than standard actions. One of the biggest places it comes up is at the end of a charge. Martial melee types are effective at charging because their basic melee is somewhat effective (and they can pile on powerstrikes, sneak attacks, etc). A cleric is not so good at it because (unless he has melee training (wisdom)) his melee basic that he does at the end of the charge will likely miss and will do about 2/3 of the damage his at-will attacks do. Provoking an OA from a wizard is far less risky than provoking one from a fighter. So it works in that regard.

However, IMO, 4e has made basic attacks so ineffective in many cases that they tend to get neglected to the point were melee PCs don't even bother having a decent option for a ranged attack or vice versa.

5e, this isn't a problem. In our last play test, a wounded orc fled from the party. Rather than try to chase it down, the thief just pulled out her crossbow and finished him off (and did decent enough damage that even if he was not wounded it would have been a substantial hit).

But still, your point is a good one and goes back to the notion that if an option is available, even though it may not be optimum, it should be good enough to take. Too often, basic attacks for PCs are so ineffectual, why bother...

n00bdragon · Sep 30, 2012

This argument that "4e is good but most people are just too dumb to use it properly" is incredibly cynical and condescending. 5e, instead of simply taking for granted that some people at the table can't walk and chew bubble gum and designing dumbed down roles specially for them, should work on ways to enlighten and educate those people.

Focus on making the best possible game for smart people and then try to make everyone smart.

JamesonCourage · Sep 30, 2012

I don't think "making everyone smart" is a very tenable idea. However, at-wills should be fine, as long as they aren't overly complicated. It'll take time for people to adjust, but with guidance from experienced players, or from trial and error, it'll make sense with a little bit of time. That's how it works for all games. As always, play what you like

1of3 · Sep 30, 2012

B.T. said:
(c) Round-by-round tracking sucks.
There needs to be a set duration for powers. Either they last until the end of your next turn or the beginning of your next turn or the end of the enemy's next turn or the beginning of his next turn. Trying to figure out when powers ended was a huge pain and caused more page-flipping than the actual powers themselves.

And then choose either beginnings or ends. It's hella confusing to have both.

One tip I found useful with new 4e players: Do not hand them basic attack cards.

Raith5 · Sep 30, 2012

n00bdragon said:
This argument that "4e is good but most people are just too dumb to use it properly" is incredibly cynical and condescending. 5e, instead of simply taking for granted that some people at the table can't walk and chew bubble gum and designing dumbed down roles specially for them, should work on ways to enlighten and educate those people.

Focus on making the best possible game for smart people and then try to make everyone smart.

I largely agree with this. I dont think 4th ed requires intelligence per se but it certainly rewards certain types of tactical intelligence. That tactical essence and tactical party cooperation is why I like 4th ed (but I can certainly see why people would like to see DDN with a less tactically demanding starting point). But I like the fact that 4th knowingly puts tactical options and mechanics up front and says do your best with them!

Shadeydm · Sep 30, 2012

Uller said:
As I mentioned in the 4e/5e hybrid thread, I think there is something else horribly wrong with at-wills...even when you know how to use them, for everyone (other than strikers), they suck. A first level fighter doing d12+5 damage will take about 3 hits (and about 4 rounds) to kill a 1st level mook. When a fight is down to characters using at-wills, it has become boring because everyone feels like they are shooting tanks with rifles.

I get this very same feeling as a player and have often thought that if I ever end up running a 4E game introducing a house rule allowing players to use the level 21 power expressions on at wills once all their encounters and dailes are spent. Who knows it might be all kinds of broken in play but it might help alleviate the rifles vs tanks feeling too.

Mattachine · Sep 30, 2012

I run a D&D-RPG club at my high school.
The veteran players loved 4e, but the new players didn't. In the years since 4e came out, the club had more players who always had to be helped out during rounds than in 3e. Also, combats dragged on terribly with a group of newer players. The at-will attacks did make it slower, as well as the plethora of choices.

I loved 4e--got my own gaming group to switch to it, even a couple that didn't want to leave 3.5. Still, I must recognize its faults--the game had simpler rules than 3e, but it was more complex to play. Paradoxical, in a sense.

For DDN, I hope that the simpler, streamlined rules stay in place, and also that combat rules go back to something much simpler, too.

Remathilis · Sep 30, 2012

At Wills created a weird area in the players psyche. They were statistically better than basic attacks (typically due to status riders, but in more than a few cases due to primary stat alignment) but rarely anything "interesting". Seriously, The choice between Reaping Strike and Tide of Iron was superficial most of the time. Due to this, they were spammed to the point of boredom while rarely adding anything to the combat worth mentioning (unless all your combats involved pushing monsters into hazards or you tended to miss a lot). Since they were unique enough to require a choice but boring enough that the choice wasn't significant (and could slow things down as a fighter considers where to push his foe) they felt clunky and un-needed, esp when all you care about is dropping your foe as quick as possible.

Magic at-wills are in a different boat. There is some area to give wizards some form of magical attack. I'm actually of the opinion PF got this mostly right; cantrips like acid splash or ray of frost have advantages (ranged touch) and disadvantages (only 1d3 damage) that make them both better and worse than ye-old light crossbow.

pemerton · Sep 30, 2012

B.T. said:
At-will powers are junk.
Nobody understood these.

<snip>

The rogue in particular had difficulty with his at-wills. He wanted to use his Sly Flourish ability, so he rolled a melee basic attack. I explained that he used Dexterity on this roll because it was Dexterity vs. AC. He did that and rolled 1d4 + Strength damage. I explained that he added Dexterity + Charisma damage on this, and we got things sorted out. Next round, we had a similar problem--he was insistent on rolling that 1d4 + Strength basic attack.

This sounds like poor character sheet formatting. He shouldn't even be having to look at his stats! - the character sheet needs at-will options formulated with +to hit, damage expression, and any effects.

It also sounds like poor comprehension of the game design. I think I am fortunate in always having RPed with fairly "game-y" players, who tend to pick up the basic features of a game's design (like at-will powers in 4e) reasonably intuitively.

B.T. said:
The striker role should not exist.
In the combat, the strikers did the majority of the work.

<snip>

There wasn't much in the way of healing needed in the battle, so I felt somewhat useless.

<snip>

every class should be a "striker"; that is, every class should be capable of doing decent damage.

I don't object to the existence of a "damage-focused" class and non-damage focused classes. My own experience of control in play (both ranged control eg wizard, invoker, and melee control such as from a fighter) suggests that it is just as effective as damage-dealing.

My group has never had a dedicated healer - for a long time it was paladin plus leader-multiclass, and now we have a hybrid cleric-ranger who plays mostly as an archer with a bit of encounter healing on the side. I get the impression that the warlord is the most interesting and "active" rather than simply responsive leader.

Maybe your warpriest is a bit sucky in the build if you don't have much to do besides healing? Or maybe your GM didn't send a very strong encounter against you?

B.T. said:
Round-by-round tracking sucks.

I think everyone agrees with this. I treat it as a necessary evil - it would be a lot of work to go through and change everything - but (especially in combination with the "E of attacker's NT" misses sometimes being better than the "until save" hits) it should have been done better.

B.T. said:
Forced movement is awesome.

No argument there!

B.T. said:
Thus, what I want to see from 5e:

(a) Few, if any, at-wills.

<snip>

(b) Nobody gets shafted with damage.

On (b), it depends if there is a well-defined control role or not. If not, then agreed that no one should be shafted on damage. But equally if not, then combat can degenerate into mere hit point attrition. I personally don't like this.

On (a), my worry is about ability dependency and also flavour. One thing that I like about 4e is that it makes a PC like a CHA paladin viable - someone who is not strong, but still blessed by the gods and able to win in battle.

Some form of stat-swap, like Essentials does for rogues and rangers, would be another way of going with this.

Uller said:
We playtested a fight with 4 6th level characters vs a young red dragon tonight...it was a great fight...In the opening round, the fighter readied a throwing hammer and the cleric readied her long bow to shoot when the dragon came near. The fighter scored a crit for 13 damage

How is your fighter built? 18 STR and bastard sword +2 would be a crit of 16+2d6. Drop the sword to +1 and we're still looking at 15+1d6. Exchange bastard sword for weapon focus with a longsword, we're still looking at 14+1d6. That's before any Iron Armbands (the fighter in my game doesn't have them, but I know they're pretty popular!).

The only way I can see a crit for 13 is 12 for max damage plus 1 on the d6. 12 for max damage is STR 16 and a +1 longsword with no other feat or item support. I'm not saying that's a terrible build - maybe it's a dwarf focussing on CON or WIS for some reason but nevertheless equipped with a longsword - but it sound like about the lowest damage fighter the system will let you build!

Uller said:
the cleric readied her long bow to shoot when the dragon came near

<snip>

the elf hit for 6

I'm guessing that that is a cleric with neglible DEX using a non-magical longbow, for 1d10 raw damage. But I don't understand the readying - the bow has a range of 40, so why was the elf not plinking away for the two or three rounds it took the dragon to close? (This was what the fighter in my game did at around the same level, as a young black dragon flew in.) And then readying a ranged 5 power that would hit for (say) 1d8 (Lance of Faith) + 4 (stat) + 2 (item and/or feat bonus), which would be 6 damage before the die is rolled.

In other words, I agree that the damage rolls you are talking about are low, but I don't understand the 6th level PC builds that are producing them.