D&D 4E Are 4E powers mimicking poor playability of Dodge?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One of the problems of Dodge was that it only applied to a single target, and it was a tiny bonus. If you fought multiple enemies, it was hard to remember which one you had dodged against.
The situation suddenly became a less difficult for me when my Fighter in the Shackled City campaign picked up an ability to trip a dodge-opponent that missed him. I think I never forgot to dodge and trip.

The 4E buffs have the advantage that they work very similar, and that most of the time, two characters are reminded of the effect each round. The buffer spends his action to buff, and tells the target player of the benefit. If a buff lasts only one round, you have only one chance to use it to your benefit. Your personal investment is higher.

Most 3E buffs didn't require this. The Bard sang at the beginning of the combat and was then off doing something else*, most buffs were "pre-cast" before the combat.

*) really bad is it if the Bard rolls down his list of songs, but in each combat, he varies the sequence due to the tactical situation. It makes sense to do it, but doesn't help "memorizing" the bonuses.

 

[Mirtek]

IMO dodge wasn't complex, it was just a weak feat with an irrelevant bonus.

Well, it was a +1 bonus. Monster marks come down to basically a +2 bonus. So I really think that marks from defender monster will often be forgotten by the DM. If a player doesn't bother to remember his +1 bonus for his single character because it's irrelevant, I don't think that a DM will bother to rember +2 bonuses for multiple of his monsters.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, it was a +1 bonus. Monster marks come down to basically a +2 bonus. So I really think that marks from defender monster will often be forgotten by the DM. If a player doesn't bother to remember his +1 bonus for his single character because it's irrelevant, I don't think that a DM will bother to rember +2 bonuses for multiple of his monsters.

You say, because the bonus affects more targets and is higher, it's even more likely to be forgotten?

 

[Hussar]

I can see tokens being much more commonly used on the battlemap. Because you're going to see everyone at the table doing this sort of thing, tables are just going to have to bite the bullet and do a bit of prep work beforehand. Small cards to mark various effects work wonders.

 

[Mirtek]

You say, because the bonus affects more targets and is higher, it's even more likely to be forgotten?

Yes.

It's only insignificantly higher and affects more targets. If people don't bother to remember something insignificant for merely one character, they certainly won't bother to remember it for many characters

 

[lvl20dm]

I've run some encounters and such with the pregens, and my players had no problem remembering the bonuses. Though, honestly, the burden has shifted to the player to remember the buffs - I'm busy trying to coordinate (and roleplay) the monsters they are fighting. In 3.x we had problems remembering, but for some reason we don't with the those 4e characters (surprising too because we are new to the game). The Elf's perception Aura might be a problem at first, but I'm willing to bet a party with an elf starts factoring it in pretty quickly. Also, it will raise the passive perception score of the party, and the DM will largley be tracking that.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes.

It's only insignificantly higher and affects more targets. If people don't bother to remember something insignificant for merely one character, they certainly won't bother to remember it for many characters

Still don't get your logic. The bonus is higher. That gives more incentive in the first place to remember it, since it's more likely to change the outcome of an roll/check.
It affects more targets, so it has even more impact on every given round. On top of that, it's usually also one of your "core shticks" - Defender Mark, A buffing effect from a Leader.

 

[AllisterH]

Well, it was a +1 bonus. Monster marks come down to basically a +2 bonus. So I really think that marks from defender monster will often be forgotten by the DM. If a player doesn't bother to remember his +1 bonus for his single character because it's irrelevant, I don't think that a DM will bother to rember +2 bonuses for multiple of his monsters.

That's the thing though. I don't think a +2 bonus is irrelevant as that represents a 4 level jump in effectiveness for said character.

Even in pre-4E, a 4 level increase is HUGE.

I think we might have to retrain ourselves to realize a small bonus goes a long way in 4E. We've been conditioned so much that a +2 or smaller is considered inconsequential in the grand scheme of things for D&D.

Looking at not only the math (1/2 level increases) but also the design (buffs seem to exist only for 1 round/ no PERMANENT stat boosting magic) I don't think we should automatically assume a +1 bonus is irrelevant.

There have been a couple of people that have mentioned that when running the fan-made adventure with the Black Dragon, just subtracting 2 from all of its defenses made a battle go from "no way no how, thid dragon is kicking our butts" to "we might actually make this battle a stalemate".

Compare this with Dodge in practice. The +1 to your AC only made a difference really at levels 1-5 where the probabilities worked but as levels increase, you get so many other ways to not only increase your attack power but also your AC that the +1 bonus just fades away into the background (seriously, I can't remember a battle where the +1 Dodge bonus would've made a difference after level 5)

Still hate the elves perception bonus as that one you WILL likely forget given you don't use it often.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

You might think so, but you should have been at our Red Hand of Doom table and counted the number of times, the following questions were asked:

"Did you remember to include the +2/+2 bonus for bardsong?"
"Did you remember to include your +3 for recitation?"

Etc etc. And those were bonuses that could be written down once and used the next round. My experience is that there is a significant subset of players who can forget any bonus--no matter how large--if it wasn't written on their character sheet at the start of the combat and who are likely to be utterly helpless if bonuses change during combat.

I think that the issue with dodge was two-fold: it was a so-called "fiddly bit," and its effect was largely inconsequential.

Remove one of those two aspects (in all the cases you list, the inconsequential part), and I think you remedy the problem.

For instance - if, in 3.5, the bonus provided by dodge was +1 / 2 levels, would you remember it more often? Probably, because it is now a major bonus, rather than one that becomes largely meaningless.

The effects we're talking about here are not small. Adding someone else's int modifier to your attack roll is a bit different than a +1 against a specific creature.

 

[D_E]

I think that writing the bonuses on notecards and handing them to the targeted player will help a lot. I think it'll be harder to forget a bonus if you're holding something that says you've got it.