D&D 4E A simulationist DM has a few reluctant questions about 4E

[Dacileva]

Yes - in the sidebar "When is an Encounter Over?" on page 41. It says that you should treat the multiple encounters as a single one.

This means that, when designing the encounter, you should make sure that your encounter is actually the level you think it is. If you want it to be a level 4 encounter, all the XP in all the different encounters should total 875 XP.

This.

It also means that this bug:

Here's an actual play-based argument that it's a bug:

Our party is in hot pursuit of a group of dog-men who've taken a villager captive. We fight a series of battles as they send out assault teams to delay us, or sentries that they've posted outside the cave where they've taken the girl. At no point do we feel like we can risk her being killed while we take five and have a smoke break, so we press on. Finally we make it into the altar where they're about to sacrifice her to advance their vile designs.

Narratively, this is the most exciting encounter of the series. Mechanically, it's the dullest. We've blown all our interesting encounter powers, so the combat is a long grind of either this at-will or that one. We're on the edge of death, so that's exciting, but we didn't get there in the way 4e assumes. No one is even close to out of healing surges; we're just lacking the encounter powers (second wind, healing word, etc) that would let us tap their surges. So the sturdy defender doesn't benefit from having more healing surges than the frail wizard; both are equally on the edge of dying. And when we do drop, there's no dramatic battlefield revival; no one can use the Heal skill to let the fallen use their second wind, because we've all used up our second wind.

This final battle was awesome roleplaying because we had to race against time to reach it, and fight a bunch of lesser encounters as part of the buildup. But it really felt like, moment to moment, the system was punishing us for acting in-character.

is one of two things.

Either the players misjudged their resources (by blowing all their encounter and daily powers on the weaklings leading toward the BBEG), or the DM misjudged the difficulty of the encounter (by setting, for example, a level 4 party against what he thought was two or three level 4 encounters, then a level 6 big-fight when he designed it, but what was actually a single, extended level 10 encounter due to the time constraints he inserted into the encounters).

Systems are not at fault for easily-avoidable user error.

 

[Andor]

[sblock=long quote]If that's a feature, there should be guidelines telling you to use it. Is there something in the DMG that talks about how you should adjust the difficulty of encounters that happen under extreme time pressure so that the PCs are assumed not to take short rests between fights? (Or, for that matter, how to bump up the difficulty of wilderness encounters in which conserving your daily is less of an issue because you expect to need to sleep before the next day of adventuring anyway?) That's not a rhetorical question - being a playtester means I've often lost track of what is and isn't in there.

Here's an actual play-based argument that it's a bug:

Our party is in hot pursuit of a group of dog-men who've taken a villager captive. We fight a series of battles as they send out assault teams to delay us, or sentries that they've posted outside the cave where they've taken the girl. At no point do we feel like we can risk her being killed while we take five and have a smoke break, so we press on. Finally we make it into the altar where they're about to sacrifice her to advance their vile designs.

Narratively, this is the most exciting encounter of the series. Mechanically, it's the dullest. We've blown all our interesting encounter powers, so the combat is a long grind of either this at-will or that one. We're on the edge of death, so that's exciting, but we didn't get there in the way 4e assumes. No one is even close to out of healing surges; we're just lacking the encounter powers (second wind, healing word, etc) that would let us tap their surges. So the sturdy defender doesn't benefit from having more healing surges than the frail wizard; both are equally on the edge of dying. And when we do drop, there's no dramatic battlefield revival; no one can use the Heal skill to let the fallen use their second wind, because we've all used up our second wind.
[/sblock]
This final battle was awesome roleplaying because we had to race against time to reach it, and fight a bunch of lesser encounters as part of the buildup. But it really felt like, moment to moment, the system was punishing us for acting in-character.

I'm not particularly a narrativist as I think has been made clear, but I'd fault the GM in that scenario. When the party came to the last fight it would have been appropriate for him to say "You all feel a surge of triumphant relief as you see that your perseverance has paid off and you still have time to save the Princess. New Encounter."

 

[Anax]

My take on the "five minute rest break" is two-fold:

From a simulationist point of view, this is about catching a breather. You need a short period of down time to hang your head, catch your breath, make sure everybody is okay (nobody got hurt and didn't realize it), patch up any problems like broken/cut ties on armor, etc.

From a narrative point of view, it's not really an important distinction. One "encounter" ends when the scene ends. It doesn't really matter how long it takes or for what reason, one scene has ended, and everybody is good to go if something goes all swordy-and-firebally again.

From a gameplay perspective, the reason for this definition is to prevent exploitation. You can't run around the corner, determine that you have escaped (and the encounter is over), and then run back. You have to take a time out. Without that constraint, you can abuse the system. With it, the DM has a tool to smack you down if you do abuse it. If the DM chooses, he may decide that a new encounter is beginning and things are refreshed regardless of how much time has passed--but if the players choose to try to force the issue, he can insist on a five minute break.

 

[WyzardWhately]

You know, it occurred to me that there is actually at least one good way to handle stuff like baleful polymorph or petrification, as wizard spells. Okay, bear with me here.

The spell is a normal attack, probly v. Fortitude. It has a normal, or maybe slightly better than normal damage value. It misses on a miss. On a hit, you roll damage. If this is enough to exceed the target's current hit points, they are turned into stone/ a rabbit/whatever. Since this is effectively equivalent to beating the enemy, it just happens whenever you'd normally kill them. You still have to fight them for a while before you defeat them, you just get to do it in a different way. If the rolled damage is not enough to beat their current HP, you do half damage and they're stunned or dazed or something, save ends, whatever it takes to balance it.

The other way would be to make it a utility power or a feat or something. Once per day when one of your spells would normally kill an enemy, you can interrupt yourself and ret-con it so they're turned into a rabbit or statue instead.

Thoughts?

 

[silentounce]

This.

It also means that this bug:is one of two things.

Either the players misjudged their resources (by blowing all their encounter and daily powers on the weaklings leading toward the BBEG), or the DM misjudged the difficulty of the encounter (by setting, for example, a level 4 party against what he thought was two or three level 4 encounters, then a level 6 big-fight when he designed it, but what was actually a single, extended level 10 encounter due to the time constraints he inserted into the encounters).

Systems are not at fault for easily-avoidable user error.

This is also very amusing considering that KotS has this very flaw built into an early encounter that has thus far resulted in a ton of player deaths and TPKs. Actually, it appears that one of the most common ways to "defeat" this encounter is to actually split it up into two separate ones with a rest in between. A level six encounter against a level one party is too difficult even if it is spread out, because under the rules, it is still a single encounter. The KotS designers would have benefited from this thread.

Hmmm just occurred to me that if you wanted a long term wound system it would be best to make it a disease. hmmm...

If you come up with something along these lines, please let me know.

 

[LostSoul]

This is also very amusing considering that KotS has this very flaw built into an early encounter that has thus far resulted in a ton of player deaths and TPKs.

That's assuming it hasn't been designed to be a very challenging encounter.

 

[Staffan]

The spell is a normal attack, probly v. Fortitude. It has a normal, or maybe slightly better than normal damage value. It misses on a miss. On a hit, you roll damage. If this is enough to exceed the target's current hit points, they are turned into stone/ a rabbit/whatever. Since this is effectively equivalent to beating the enemy, it just happens whenever you'd normally kill them. You still have to fight them for a while before you defeat them, you just get to do it in a different way. If the rolled damage is not enough to beat their current HP, you do half damage and they're stunned or dazed or something, save ends, whatever it takes to balance it.

This is essentially the mechanic for staking vampires in the Buffy RPG. If the attacks damage x5 (IIRC) is enough to kill them, you do so. Otherwise you missed the heart or something, so you only do normal damage. That means you have to beat on the vamps for a while before staking them.

 

[WyzardWhately]

This is essentially the mechanic for staking vampires in the Buffy RPG. If the attacks damage x5 (IIRC) is enough to kill them, you do so. Otherwise you missed the heart or something, so you only do normal damage. That means you have to beat on the vamps for a while before staking them.

You know, I'm aware of that now that you mention it. But I think I got the idea from how the old Power Word: Kill spell worked.

 

[Alkiera]

Welcome to HERO... Where if a power does enough 'damage' to kill someone, it can alternatively do whatever you want, including turning them into a newt. Seriously, that's exactly how they balance transformation attack powers; they have a 'damage' roll, and if it exceeds the 'Body' of the target, they get transformed.

You can even set things up so that the 'damage' persists (with a specified wear-off rate) and a second use of the power will add to previous damage.

On the other topic, I intend to use a modification of the disease system for long term injuries; which will probably only come into play when people fall below 0 hp.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I think you can portray lasting damage as the semi-permanent loss of healing surges. It works out much better than anything in 3e would do. (hs = healing surge from now on)

Let us say you fighter has 11 hs to start with. In two of the encounters he goes down. He has spent 8hs. In addition you could say that two of those healing surges aren't coming back before he can rest properly for x amount of time.

If you are playing a fighter that is down to 5hs a day because he is so hurt, you are feeling it. At the same time, he can still function.

The same goes for weariness: you have traveled for 2 weeks without stop, well then all of you remove 2 healing surges each. You are just plain tired.

The beauty of removing hs is that the max hp, bloodied, the dying point etc of a character isn't affected, but it affects his staying power anyway, you can "force" characters to take a real breather.