D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked

[EthanSental]

All the talk of superheroes in the thread has me going to Mile High Comic this week as I’m working in Denver and always wanted to visit the mega stores as a kid

i think Mearls talking about a less popular edition is someone who wishes his creation was more popular and reminiscing about what it should or could have been. Especially since people still continually ask him...what went wrong, why did it miss the mark etc.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I bought the preview books for 4e. And at that time power words were still in. Actually it seemed to me a better version than the final version of 4e. Or even more accurate: it seemed to go downhill from there. They did the mistake listen too much to loud minorities. The paladin desaster comes to mind. An easy to read short ability was translated into lawyer language because someone at a playgest table used divine challenge and hid from the dragon doing a few points of damage every round while his party was one man down. Instead of saying: qho cares because on a normal table it does never happen, they tried to write every power rules lawyer proof and failed miserably.
Later, when it was much too late the reverted it to the easier text...
And in essentials they proved that assymetrical design can work.
I am still believing if essentials was first published in a phb and dmg, combined with a more generous publishing policy we would not have seen pathfinder and might still have played 4e till now. And we might have had a different 5e.
Main problem with essentials: there was no audience left for it. Most 4e players embraced the 4e design or already left for a different game.
I am a collector and I can find good and bad things in any edition and I played 4e with character builder only and never bought the initial books because they were terribly edited at first and outdated later.

 

[Morrus]

Morrus, can you update this link to the actual thread? Right now it just goes to Mike's Twitter page, and I can't find the quoted passages there.

It was over a week ago, and I didn’t save the bookmark. Sorry. Thought I linked to it directly in my post, but I guess I messed it up.

 

[Shasarak]

Sure, but then we need "codified rules" for how a martial PC gets to add a shield (or whatever) to his/her equipment list.

If we want to use Captain America as our target for our ADnD Fighter then the very least that you could do would be to have a magical shield. If you were using Thor as your target then you would expect some kind of Hammer of Thunderbolts (which you actually do have in ADnD).

Would that magic shield have to add some kind of rules to how our proto Captain America could use it? I would say yes because the combat system does not have any hook to hang those kind of abilities off.

And we probably also want some system - a fairly generic one is fine, even desirable - for working out how hard it is to throw your shield (or whatever) and stun three orcs (or whatever). I agree with [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] that if we don't go beyond what the GM envisages a strong normal person can do we're going to have sucky martial types relative to magic-users.

If you look at the ADnD rules then you can easily see that even mundane high level martial types are not "sucky" compared to magic-users for many reasons including hit points, saving throws, easily interruptible spell casting and weapon speeds. Martial characters can even physically beat Dragons into submission where as Magic-Users better hope they get in a lucky spell before they get pulverized (maybe one chance!).

Presumably not - but I'm missing exactly where you're going with this.

You have to take level into account when you are comparing your character to Captain America. If I was to make the claim that my 1st level Fighter does not feel like an Epic super hero like Captain America then the answer is obviously not why would it. If I did expect a 1st level Fighter to resemble Captain America then that would be my mistake in confusing what type of game that ADnD actually is compared to any other superhero genre game that would start you off as Captain America.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Sure. The needless symetry of all classes having the exact same number of powers, recharge, and format of powers bugged me.

I get why they did it because it is easier to game balance things and I know one issue that they pursued (probably too hard) was game balance.

Give martials more At-will and spellcasters more and Dailies. Do things like have spellcasters "recharge" Encounter powers by doing a 1 minute ritual instead of a short rest, or martials being able to boost the damage of powers once a day rather than having entirely different powers. Or having low level wizard Daily powers becoming Encounter powers at high level.

Yep, exactly.

To say nothing of simpler and more complex characters.

I've said this before. Some people just really don't like playing complicated characters.

I think all of the coolest stuff on skill challenges was written in blogs and forums and not official books.
The WotC never seemed to know what to do with these...

The thing is there were plenty of other games they could have drawn on for ideas on how to generate a rich and interesting non-combat skill system. They did have some good ideas, though, mind you, but it never really came together.

The grid filling was unfortunate. Having to invent a "divine controller" and "primal defender" was unnecessarily, and the flavour of those was often weak and narrow. And having to create 60 new powers minimum for each class led to some fantastically mediocre design.

Yeah they were really reaching for some of them and probably should have simply reused some powers.

It would have been much more interesting to pick a role and have that augment your powers.
"You're the DPS barbarian? You deal an extra 1d6 damage with at-will powers. Tanking? Gain some damage resistance and when you hit with at-wills, you mark. Controller? Your At-will powers push and Encounters stun."

Yes, absolutely, and have the power source provide flavor.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

If you look at the ADnD rules then you can easily see that even mundane high level martial types are not "sucky" compared to magic-users for many reasons including hit points, saving throws, easily interruptible spell casting and weapon speeds. Martial characters can even physically beat Dragons into submission where as Magic-Users better hope they get in a lucky spell before they get pulverized (maybe one chance!).

Yeah with spell interruption, fighters are a lot less sucky in 1E and 2E.

 

[pemerton]

Premise: Epic level play in D&D has a Martial/Spellcaster imbalance, PARTICULARLY in non-combatant resolution (overcoming obstacles and resolving conflicts that don’t involve HP ablation).

Champions and Monks are unstoppable death machines.

The Wizard will always be flashier, because he is a Wizard. Doesn't stop the whirrling Cusinart of murder that is the Champion having fun.

For practical purposes, refer to Grog Strongjaw, entirely non-magical and nigh-mythic force of death.

I feel that talking about the death-dealing abilities of a PC build isn't explaining how that build contributes to non-combat resolution ie overcoming obstacles and resolving conflicts that don’t involve HP ablation.

If you look at the ADnD rules then you can easily see that even mundane high level martial types are not "sucky" compared to magic-users for many reasons including hit points, saving throws, easily interruptible spell casting and weapon speeds. Martial characters can even physically beat Dragons into submission where as Magic-Users better hope they get in a lucky spell before they get pulverized (maybe one chance!).

My general experience with AD&D is that even in combat, at higher levels (say 7+) it was the MUs who determined the flow of play: it was the MU players who decided whether or not to strike a decisive blow in the combat (by using a spell) or to leave it as something for the fighters to mop up. Again, even within combat, only spellcasters can inflict conditions - a blow from a sword can't maim a limb (unless the sword is one of the most powerful magical items in the game), a blow from a mace can't daze or stun.

And until fighters get to 7th level, only casters can attack multiple foes per game-unit-of-action. Conan can mow down were-hyenas by the truckload; Captain America drops multiple foes with ricocheting throws of his shield; but an AD&D fighter (unless fighting kobolds, goblins or the weakest men-at-arms) is stuck with attacking one or (at levels 7+) two foes per minute.

Once we look outside of combat, spells (and magic more generally) were the principle means of engaging and impacting the fiction.

This is why (to quote Lewis Pulsipher from a 1980-or-so White Dwarf article) "The magic-user class is the overwhelming favourite of experienced players" (BoWD v2 p 14).

 

[pemerton]

in essentials they proved that assymetrical design can work.

Asymmetrical desgin "works" only if the GM manipulates pacing so as to ensure a certain number of resource-soaking encounters per "adventuring day". In 5e it is 6 to 8 (with 2 short rests on the way through). I don't believe that 4e has a published figure anywhere, but many people seem to think that it is about 4 (with a short rest between each).

One of the very powerful features of 4e for me as a GM is that the GM does not need to railroad the players through a certain amount of "plot" between rests in order to maintain intraparty mechanical balance.

Whereas many critics of 4e describe it as "hyperbalanced", it is in fact incredibly forgiving at nearly every level of balance - the single opponent level, the encounter level, the pacing level, etc. All because of the symmetrical player-side resource suites.

 

[pemerton]

The thing is there were plenty of other games they could have drawn on for ideas on how to generate a rich and interesting non-combat skill system.

Well, they obviously did do this. Skill challenges are a form of "closed scene" resolution modelled on more pioneering versions like Maelstrom Storytelling (which has no other form of action resolution) and extended contests in HeroWars/Quest.

 

[pemerton]

Re Batman: Batman performs leaps, swings, "parachutings" etc that are - in the real world - physically impossible.

In D&D, high level fighters do things that are physically impossible, like wrestle giants.

So what's the objection to a high level fighter being able to shove his hands into a forge to hold a magical hammer steady so that the artificers can grasp and work it with their tools?