D&D 4E 4e Compared to Trad D&D; What You Lose, What You Gain

[Manbearcat]

The 'systematic approach' in 1e is literally 'make up something that involves tossing some dice'.

I think one thing that should be pretty clear in terms of Trad D&D (I'm using AD&D 1e and B/X and the analog approach to 5e for this ) juxtaposed against 4e is pretty straight-forward:

As a player of a martial character (in this case Fighter or Rogue/Thief) engaging with the last two scenes, you would be dealing with some serious unknowns when evaluating your action declarations and, even when you know, often knowing means the GM has said "no" or has afforded you some low % odds of success such that the opportunity cost just doesn't make it a reasonable approach.

Examples:

* If you're a 1e Fighter dealing with the "take over the lead tank" challenge, best of luck in determining your odds and the attendant opportunity cost of spending your action economy on just deploying your significant damage capability via mere attacking. There is a fair chance that the GM says something like "roll 50 % (leap atop the ATST) > Bend Bars/Lift Gates - 10 % (even an 18/00 would be at only 30 %!) > combat inside vs enough HP tank crew that its more than a few rounds to deal with them > roll under Int - 5 (to sort out the alien tech) which is probably something like a 30 % chance.

* Neither the 1e nor B/X Thief has any chance whatsoever to deal with the melee responsibilities of the 4e Rogue in the above combat with the tanks/hoverpods (swashbuckling/skirmishing around the battlefield, deploying a ton of damage, running interference, and self-buffing with active rider buffs and immediate actions).

* If you're playing B/X, you're hoping the GM is generous with a 2 out of 6 rather than the default 1 out of 6 when trying to discern the alien tech to fly the hoverpods. Even then, you're just looking at a 33 % chance vs 16.5 %! But you're doing better than the 1e Fighter/Rogue who has to sift through the many layers of Gygaxian prose and discrete and not-well-integrated components of the rulebook to read the tea leaves on how to adjudicate both control and aerial combat! And that isn't even considering the burden placed upon the GM to sort this all out!

 

[Zardnaar]

Still more balanced than 3E. In 1E defense the PHB is about half the size of a modern one. Expectations were different.

 

[Manbearcat]

Still more balanced than 3E. In 1E defense the PHB is about half the size of a modern one. Expectations were different.

Agreed that 1e is by far and away more balanced to run than 3e (overall in terms of intraparty balance...not so much for the Thief/Rogue). Also agree that expectations were different. And while both of those games are unwieldy to run in different ways, 1e is considerably less burdensome to run than 3e is.

However, I'm not sure what role PHB-density has to play? Do you mean that 1e is less workload-intensive for players (at least non-casters who aren't dealing with spell lists) because the player-facing material was less burdensome?

 

[Zardnaar]

Agreed that 1e is by far and away more balanced to run than 3e (overall in terms of intraparty balance...not so much for the Thief/Rogue). Also agree that expectations were different. And while both of those games are unwieldy to run in different ways, 1e is considerably less burdensome to run than 3e is.

However, I'm not sure what role PHB-density has to play? Do you mean that 1e is less workload-intensive for players (at least non-casters who aren't dealing with spell lists) because the player-facing material was less burdensome?

No there is just a lot of rules that are simply not there that 2E onward at least made an attempt to cover. You have to wing it here and there as NWP/skills for example had not yet been invented. I prefer 2E and B/X over 1E rules wise (they are a lot cleaner) but 1E has a certain charm do to stuff being all over the place. Never run 1E but its a lot of fun for 1/2 shots and for the madness (last played 2014).

For example in that last game the DM telegraphed some sort of undead creature (I figured it was a wight) and hung back as my Druid and cast Faerie Fire. Party had a Cavalier (level 4) and the 1E Cavalier more or less has to derp charge in and so he did. He susrvied and the level 3 Cavalier is looking forward to getting back to level 4 again.

Things like that tend to teach to be a bit more careful and to appreciate your level 5 fighter a bit more over the level 3 Cavalier.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think one thing that should be pretty clear in terms of Trad D&D (I'm using AD&D 1e and B/X and the analog approach to 5e for this ) juxtaposed against 4e is pretty straight-forward:

As a player of a martial character (in this case Fighter or Rogue/Thief) engaging with the last two scenes, you would be dealing with some serious unknowns when evaluating your action declarations and, even when you know, often knowing means the GM has said "no" or has afforded you some low % odds of success such that the opportunity cost just doesn't make it a reasonable approach.

Well, I think that once you have a uniform resolution mechanic that starts to cover everything (there ARE actually still a goodly number of questions even in 4e for the GM to noodle on, but at least the basic approach is well-understood and well-explicated) then it starts to be hard NOT to have this sort of parity. It is certainly possible though.

Examples:

* If you're a 1e Fighter dealing with the "take over the lead tank" challenge, best of luck in determining your odds and the attendant opportunity cost of spending your action economy on just deploying your significant damage capability via mere attacking. There is a fair chance that the GM says something like "roll 50 % (leap atop the ATST) > Bend Bars/Lift Gates - 10 % (even an 18/00 would be at only 30 %!) > combat inside vs enough HP tank crew that its more than a few rounds to deal with them > roll under Int - 5 (to sort out the alien tech) which is probably something like a 30 % chance.

Well, the 1e wizard is in a similar position in terms of the chances of success being almost arbitrarily under DM control. What does a fireball do to a tank? What happens if I drop a Wall of Fire on top of it? Does it get hot inside? Does the crew suffocate? What about Stinking Cloud, or Cloud Kill? How about the Druid's Creeping Doom? I mean, there's a jillion ways to attempt to defeat a tank with spells, and about 10 jillion ways it could be adjudicated. This is, of course, why (particularly higher level) AD&D is sort of a 'beauty contest' where you mostly try to impress the DM with how cunning you are, and hope that she will feel obliged to reward said cunning instead of decreeing it ineffective. Of course the DM could simply make up some numbers and toss some dice and call it 'unbiased'. Well, this is why I said it was 'make up something and toss some dice'.

* Neither the 1e nor B/X Thief has any chance whatsoever to deal with the melee responsibilities of the 4e Rogue in the above combat with the tanks/hoverpods (swashbuckling/skirmishing around the battlefield, deploying a ton of damage, running interference, and self-buffing with active rider buffs and immediate actions).

Well, you COULD try to get the DM to let you leverage your various Thief Skills. Hide in Shadows COULD be utilized to find a blind spot at the side of the tank. Find/Remove Traps could be used to jam up the works of some weapon system. Pick Locks could obviously get you an open hatch, etc. Of course this is all up to the DM and not exactly in line with the hard line taken by Gygax in the DMG. IMHO however he would have played it that way, as long as the player was genuinely trying to find ways to extrapolate his character's existing skills in a fairly logical way. Of course, this might still produce only sub-50% success rates, depending on how harsh the DM is in meting out penalties.

2e is a bit less crazy, but not much. The combat rules are still extremely unclear, although the game does include the, fairly obscure, ability check rule as well as NWPs potentially. None of those give exactly stellar rates of success though.

 

[Garthanos]

Well, the 1e wizard is in a similar position in terms of the chances of success being almost arbitrarily under DM control. What does a fireball do to a tank? What happens if I drop a Wall of Fire on top of it? Does it get hot inside? Does the crew suffocate? What about Stinking Cloud, or Cloud Kill? How about the Druid's Creeping Doom? I mean, there's a jillion ways to attempt to defeat a tank with spells, and about 10 jillion ways it could be adjudicated. This is, of course, why (particularly higher level) AD&D is sort of a 'beauty contest' where you mostly try to impress the DM with how cunning you are, and hope that she will feel obliged to reward said cunning instead of decreeing it ineffective. Of course the DM could simply make up some numbers and toss some dice and call it 'unbiased'. Well, this is why I said it was 'make up something and toss some dice'.

Sure it isnt just the martial types at the mercy of the chaos factor but there is far more success assumption with magic - ie both the metagame of he spent a limited resource he should get something for it which is not really unreasonable and yes the old "pervasive magic is more powerful, can do anything assumptions" to top it off. So the tool kit for the instant win is just bigger.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure it isnt just the martial types at the mercy of the chaos factor but there is far more success assumption with magic - ie both the metagame of he spent a limited resource he should get something for it which is not really unreasonable and yes the old "pervasive magic is more powerful, can do anything assumptions" to top it off. So the tool kit for the instant win is just bigger.

Sure! I was just pointing out that its the whole game that has this character to it. In fact this is the element that is wanted by its fans. They see the inherent determinism and pervasive mechanical implementation as being antithetical to imaginative play. I disagree with those people, but the problem is that FOR THE WAY THEY KNOW HOW TO RUN A GAME, they can't use something like 4e in a better way. Not without learning new techniques.

 

[Marshall]

Uh, if you're a 1e fighter or thief in the above scenario you either have a magic item that enables flying or the DM would have been expected to hand out potions of flying. Taking over the hoverpods would be a non starter. Mostly because they have no way to defeat them short of destruction, but also because only the Wizard is going to potentially have the resources to start operate them.