D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[BryonD]

It seems to me there's an argument between two different flavors of awesome.

The first is the awesome of the improbable, the "HOLY ****" moment, the winning lottery ticket, the guy who falls out of a plane without a parachute and lives kind of moment. This type of awesome suits traditional RPGs really well, which are based on modeling the expected results of a fantasy world with expected verisimilitude. Every once in a while a series of improbable rolls happens, and a monster dies in a way no one expected, or a character lives (or dies) in some improbable way, and those are the stories that get passed around the gaming table 10 years later. Everyone still probably remembers the exact dice rolls (He rolled under a 3 five straight times!).

Hussar is arguing for the awesomeness that more narrative games are built for, the awesomeness of the climatic moment. When the storyline comes together, and the character faces a true live-or-die (or needed success vs epic fail) moment, then the game rewards you for not just attacking, but doing something memorable. Narrative games thrive by giving rewards for expending or risking character resources at dramatically opportune moments to create climatic moments of awesomeness.

It's the awesomeness you feel that comes when you've finished a really good book or movie, that shivery flutter in the pit of the stomach. In a narrative game, you help to create that moment instead of just witness it. It's not that adrenaline rush that comes with rolling a 20 when you're the last guy standing, but it's certainly an awesomeness worth respecting.

This is an excellent goal.

I don't at all agree that the 4E power system achieves it.

First, if tripping someone is an encounter power, then you are saying that tripping becomes something that only happens as a climax. What about tripping someone in the middle of an encounter?

Second, this implies that you are back to "spamming" "at-wills" until that awesome moment.

Third, how can you use multiple encounter powers per encounter and have each one be an end of the book feeling?

Fourth, that "jump out of your chair" moment has been happening for me in games for decades. It worked in 1E and 2E, and Warhammer, and GURPS, and then in 3E and PF. I don't see how telling players their options are limited does anything to improve on what we already have.

 

[Ratskinner]

Unfortunately, that's pretty much 4E. Fighters get fighter effects. Rogues get rogue effects. Wizards get wizard effects. And everyone does damage all the time.
While I accept it's a valid gamestyle, I don't think that's where 5E is, nor should be, headed.

I think taking "Fighters should have cool effects" and extrapolating 4e from there is a bit of a stretch. Book of Nine Swords did it for 3.5e (for good or ill, I wish I liked that book more than I do.) Individual classes having specific abilities has been around since 1e (backstabbing, etc.). I just think that the fighter class would be better served if its abilities were a little more flavorful than "He hits stuff 15% better than other people." The list of stunts doesn't need to be very long (in fact, I would appreciate it being rather short.)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Good post. I just wanted to clarify something about "full throttle" play. I wasn't meaning to say that the stake are always as high as they could conceivably be, but rather that, in playing their PCs, the players don't hold back mechanically. So in a non-life-and-death struggle, the PCs might hold back on their deployment of lethal force, but the players wouldn't hold back in the way they use the mechanics to play their PCs' holding back. (I hope that makes sense.)

I think that a "spirit of the game" that the mechanics don't reflect is in some ways worse than superficial. I find it can mean fighting with the game at every moment of play.

Agreed on first paragraph. I took your meaning that way, and was elaborating on the thought.

Also agree on the second part. Such a game does end up fighting itself. My contention was that in such a game, the "spirit of the game" ultimately itself becomes superficial, whatever vitality it may have begun with.

Made up example:

Me: "I've got this really great gonzo game idea where you play immortals in Roger Zelazny's Divlish the Damned series, conniving against each other in these intricate, rapidly developing plots that make Amber look like My Little Pony in comparison."

You: "Ok, how does it work."

Me: "Well, you state your course of action and roll 7d6 + 2d10 + 3d3 + die to be named later, then compare against several charts." (What follows is a long-winded explanation that boils down to you have about a 2% chance of anything happening at all--such critical things as your cat catching a cold or spendig the day at the park watching butterflies.)

You: "I think I just died a little inside."

It is the failure to recognize that essential link between spirit and mechanic that I find lacking in some conversations that think getting the spirit right is the be all and end all. In fairness to them, their preferences have piggy-backed upon some inherited relationships that are a bit stronger than they imagine. So the spirit is not quite so readily and overtly crushed as in my example. This is a difference in degree, not kind.

 

[Ratskinner]

Given the abstract nature of D&D combat (any edition), I'm not sure any action happens in-game. e.g. You "trip" your opponent, but what actually happened? We don't know; all we know is that he's prone. Another example: You deal damage on a successful hit. What actually happened? We don't know; all we know is that he doesn't have as many HP.

I could be wrong, though.

This is an important point, but I don't think we're getting rid of HP or their abstract nature. (No matter how much I might like to see it go.) I think this side of the problem comes from the inherent disparity between the specificity of many spells and the (typically) more abstract attacks of the traditional fighter.

 

[LostSoul]

This is an important point, but I don't think we're getting rid of HP or their abstract nature. (No matter how much I might like to see it go.) I think this side of the problem comes from the inherent disparity between the specificity of many spells and the (typically) more abstract attacks of the traditional fighter.

HP can still work in a less abstract system if they are seen as a way to mitigate damage. Does the sword blow cut through your hand or just leave a big gash? e.g. A while back in my game a PC was grabbed in the mandibles of a giant ant queen; he hacked at her mandible, and of course she had no way to defend against that attack (save the hardness of the mandibles, i.e. AC). If the attack didn't do enough damage it wouldn't have been hacked off - it's cut but still there. The attack did do enough damage so her mandible was, in fact, hacked off.

 

[Libramarian]

It seems to me there's an argument between two different flavors of awesome.

The first is the awesome of the improbable, the "HOLY ****" moment, the winning lottery ticket, the guy who falls out of a plane without a parachute and lives kind of moment. This type of awesome suits traditional RPGs really well, which are based on modeling the expected results of a fantasy world with expected verisimilitude. Every once in a while a series of improbable rolls happens, and a monster dies in a way no one expected, or a character lives (or dies) in some improbable way, and those are the stories that get passed around the gaming table 10 years later. Everyone still probably remembers the exact dice rolls (He rolled under a 3 five straight times!).

Hussar is arguing for the awesomeness that more narrative games are built for, the awesomeness of the climatic moment. When the storyline comes together, and the character faces a true live-or-die (or needed success vs epic fail) moment, then the game rewards you for not just attacking, but doing something memorable. Narrative games thrive by giving rewards for expending or risking character resources at dramatically opportune moments to create climatic moments of awesomeness.

It's the awesomeness you feel that comes when you've finished a really good book or movie, that shivery flutter in the pit of the stomach. In a narrative game, you help to create that moment instead of just witness it. It's not that adrenaline rush that comes with rolling a 20 when you're the last guy standing, but it's certainly an awesomeness worth respecting.

This narrative awesome of which you speak tastes distinctly like weak sauce*.

* A semi-technical term. Means stuff that could be achieved just as well if not better by freeform play.

 

[Ratskinner]

This narrative awesome of which you speak tastes distinctly like weak sauce*.

* A semi-technical term. Means stuff that could be achieved just as well if not better by freeform play.

Just a note. Most of the (non D&D) games that focus on "narrative awesome" are far less cumbersome than any D&D system, but hardly freeform. However, they often use mechanics which are a far cry from D&D (in rpg terms, anyway.) Although, strangely enough, I've seen a few of them used to "simulate" the D&D adventure "story". Weird, though.


P.S.
"Weak sauce" is far from a technical term, its (mildly) derogatory slang.
From the Urban Dictionary:
1) Paltry, insufficient, and laughable in effort
2) Something that is incredibly lame, weak, or uncool.
3) calling one "weak sauce" compares an individual to the "mild" sauce found at Taco Bell; weak, insignificant, attempting to be like the other hot sauces, but not living up to expectations.

A relatively brief search did not turn up any references to support your definition. I'd be interested to see how it evolved in this direction, since where I come from its somewhat insulting when used as you did above.

 

[Hussar]

Jameson Courage - nice fight scenes. I'd point out that the "multiple trips" is exactly what a close burst power by a martial character would look like. So, basically, this character has two close burst powers that allow him to trip/immobilize targets. Pretty easy peasy for a higher level martial character.

BryonD - yeah, again, you're going to try to drag this into the real of edition warring. No, I wasn't pissing on editions here. Look, it's pretty clear - in 3e and earlier editions, fighter types did one or two actions over and over again, round after round. They either charged and attacked, or they just attacked. Yup, exceptions exist, but, I'm also very, very sure that in a ten round combat, a 3e fighter made a full attack at least 5 times, a move and attack at least twice and probably spent 3 rounds doing something else.

Y'know, spamming the same thing over and over and over again. How could he not? What choices did he have? Seriously, your fighter is facing a dinosaur - nice easy bag of hit points. What options does he really have besides full attack? He can't grapple, because the dino wins automically (presuming it's a big dino), tripping might work, but, very unlikely due to the size differences, and it's not like he could sunder or disarm.

So, exactly what is he doing each round if he's not either making a standard or full attack?

 

[Hussar]

This narrative awesome of which you speak tastes distinctly like weak sauce*.

* A semi-technical term. Means stuff that could be achieved just as well if not better by freeform play.

So, any playstyle that doesn't match yours is badwrongfun? Just because you happen not to like it, doesn't make it "weaksauce". Could it be achieved through freeform? Possibly. But, in freeform, you control the success or failure of the action. In this system, you control the opportunity.

Thus, you keep the "Yahtzee" moment of that great roll, while rejecting the idea that it needs to be completely random.

 

[Charleois]

I see this sentiment in many threads. The 4e rules do not prohibit combat creativity, nor do they say what cannot be done. Instead, the rules say what can be done reliably. The rest has to be judged by the DM, similar to AD&D or OD&D. The DMG (p. 42) and the DMG2 (terrain powers section) give excellent advice on adjudicating these situations. I do agree that the rules could have been more explicit about trying things besides specific powers. I think that is a victim of moving combat rules from the DMG to the PHB back in 3e.

The new edition of the game need only provide a set of clear guidelines, similar to the 4e p.42 and the DMG2, and combat maneuvers will be used. They could even throw in some combat stunt rules such as in Iron Heroes. Didn't Mearls work on that or something?

I agree 100%. I have NEVER been restricted even from the first level in the Fourth Edition from tripping, bullrushing, disarming, grappling or threatening. Nor from doing imaginative stunts. Of course the difficulty class might be high and my appropriate ability might not be enough, but the system does not forbid me.