D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[pemerton]

I think you have a couple of options to prevent a total breakdown.

My game will likely figure a mix of some of these (maybe not so much the romance option).

One of the players in particular - and the one whose PC is the most obvious source of disruption (a chaos sorcerer with Demonskin Adept PP and Primordial Adept theme) - has already taken proactive steps to try to make cosmologically-driven links, both in character and in setting up backstory, that can help unify the party. The PC is also a Corellon cultist, and a Chan (good archomental) cultist, and has built up backstory about the relationship between Chan and Corellon, and between Corellon and the Raven Queen. And two PCs are Raven Queen cultists (one a demigod cleric, one a paladin Marshall of Letherna).

Oddly enough, the one who may in fact being most disruptive (though not looking it on the surface) is the almost utterly unbending invoker (Divine Philosopher, Sage of Ages) servant of Erathis, Ious, Bane, Levistus (the trapped archdevil), the Raven Queen and (sometimes) Vecna, who is trying to reconsruct the Sceptre of Law (= Rod of 7 Parts, or 5 parts so far) and destroy all remaining primordials.

It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

 

[Warbringer]

I don't feel that classic D&D does a very good job of answering this question coherently ...

The game isn't identical to a more descriptor based game like Marvel Heroic RP, but it works in something like the same sort of way, and uses something like the same sort of approach to create the space for, and adjudicate, heroic actions.

Ironically, and maybe its because the edition (1st AD&D) i played when i was a young-un (not to be confused with a jung-un) is that we felt heroic and non combat skills and tests were roleplayed.. and i think at some point we simply rolled a d10 and get lower to succeed. This went for cliff climbing, scaring NPCs into information, remembering the legends of a place, but not direct thief stuff.

And damn it worked

I feel this was lost the more rules tried to codify every skill and use, and by default became far more exception based, and we lost the simple concept of "heroes rock".

MHRP tends to replicate this because my awesomeness in hero mode (be that solo, buddy, team) is always going to be one of my key contributors to any Action Scene ... kind of like modifier in Next, because of the flat math ....

anyway, ramble off, but the more specific and complicated the ruleset the less"heroic" general actions are

 

[billd91]

In my own experience, the question this raises is - what are the heroes' capabilities? What can they achieve? Are they mundane mortals? Comic-book/action-movie mortals, like Daredevil or James Bond? Or heroes on a par with the elves of the First Age, or Hercules?

I don't feel that classic D&D does a very good job of answering this question coherently - for instance, the same fighter who can lop the head of a dragon with his sword may have trouble scaling a modest cliff.

Why is that necessarily incoherent? Moreover, even if the fighter could do that, why should we expect a wizard at a similar point on his heroic scale to be able to do so? I don't see where there is any necessary incoherence.

 

[pemerton]

Why is that necessarily incoherent?

I think there is a genre incoherence in the fighter who can lop the head of a dragon but not scale a modest cliff-face. What heroic archetype would such a state of affairs express?

That said, genre isn't scientific in its precision. Maybe someone else has an archetype in mind.

But this started with Tide of Iron and related questions about verisimilitude. So let's move the pieces around a bit: at the same level that a 4e fighter is pushing giants with his/her shield, s/he is able to lop the head of a dragon with his/her sword, and is able to scale even challenging cliffs while fully armoured (assuming 10th level: +5 level, +5 stat, +5 skill for +15 Athletics, feats to cancel armour and shield penalties; DC for a slippery rough surface is 20, 15 or less to fall, and this PC can't get less than 16 as a check result). That picture does not make me have questions of plausibility or verisimilitude - it is a genre-appropriate picture of a heroically tough warrior.

Moreover, even if the fighter could do that, why should we expect a wizard at a similar point on his heroic scale to be able to do so?

We might, we might not. In 4e at least that question is pretty moot, though: the wizard can't. (The 21st level wizard's +9 to +11 Athletics bonus (depending on how badly STR was dumped) would be pretty competitive at 1st level, but is nothing but a liability in Epic situations.)

The main difference I'm seeing is the action point allowing all of that to happen in a single round rather than in two.

I don't think that's a trivial difference.

In classic D&D, and in 3E, a spellcaster is able to "nova" by unleashing their best spells all in a row. The action point in 4e generalises the capabiilty to nova. And nova-ing is a key part of heroic action - if you have to take two turns to seize control of the dinosaur from its riders, your chances of success go down quite a bit, as the enemies intervene on their turns.

Action points aren't the only way to do it - you could have some sort of cascading effect system, where success begets success (3E's Great Cleave feat is a version of this, though confined to attack rolls), but that strips away much of the player agency that an action point system entails.

There's a lot to be said, in a heroic RPG, to players having the mechanical capability to pull out all the stops.

 

[Dausuul]

But this started with Tide of Iron and related questions about verisimilitude. So let's move the pieces around a bit: at the same level that a 4e fighter is pushing giants with his/her shield, s/he is able to lop the head of a dragon with his/her sword, and is able to scale even challenging cliffs while fully armoured (assuming 10th level: +5 level, +5 stat, +5 skill for +15 Athletics, feats to cancel armour and shield penalties; DC for a slippery rough surface is 20, 15 or less to fall, and this PC can't get less than 16 as a check result). That picture does not make me have questions of plausibility or verisimilitude - it is a genre-appropriate picture of a heroically tough warrior.

Well, if the fighter is tricked out to be good at climbing, of course s/he will be good at climbing. I can do that in 3E just as easily. Climb is a class skill for fighters. Assume 18 starting Strength, +2 from level, +4 from girdle of giant strength, for a total of 24. That's +7 Strength, +13 skill ranks, -3 check penalty from mithral full plate, +3 Skill Focus, for a total of +20 to Climb. And that's not even considering things like slippers of spider climbing.

 

[stoloc]

Well, if the fighter is tricked out to be good at climbing, of course s/he will be good at climbing. I can do that in 3E just as easily. Climb is a class skill for fighters. Assume 18 starting Strength, +2 from level, +4 from girdle of giant strength, for a total of 24. That's +7 Strength, +13 skill ranks, -3 check penalty from mithral full plate, +3 Skill Focus, for a total of +20 to Climb. And that's not even considering things like slippers of spider climbing.

Which highlites a difference between 3e and 4e - you might be able to get to similar places but it takes a lot more fiddliness and is a huge pain in the rear (to me at least)

 

[Dausuul]

Which highlites a difference between 3e and 4e - you might be able to get to similar places but it takes a lot more fiddliness and is a huge pain in the rear (to me at least)

Meh. You don't have to futz with skill ranks in 4E, but you still have to pick magic items and feats, and 3E doesn't have powers. In my experience, it takes at least as long to build a 4E fighter as a 3E fighter--and you can't even simplify it much by starting at 1st level.

If you want quick, straightforward chargen, you have to go back to AD&D or BD&D... or go forward to 5E.

 

[pemerton]

Well, if the fighter is tricked out to be good at climbing, of course s/he will be good at climbing. I can do that in 3E just as easily. Climb is a class skill for fighters. Assume 18 starting Strength, +2 from level, +4 from girdle of giant strength, for a total of 24. That's +7 Strength, +13 skill ranks, -3 check penalty from mithral full plate, +3 Skill Focus, for a total of +20 to Climb. And that's not even considering things like slippers of spider climbing.

Your PC has a lot more dependence on items than the one I mentioned (who has none).

But my point is that this PC can nevertheless not push giants of a bridge with his/her shield (at least, not easily). I mean, that was the whole point of the verisimilitude question around Tide of Iron. And that's what I'm identifying as a genre incoherence. You get this mighty climber who is at a loss when it comes to pushing giants; or this mighty dragon-head-lopper who is at a loss when it comes to scaling cliffs. The verisimilitude of 4e is, for me, in the coherence that it generates around these genre matters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The example given was a Fighter trying to push a giant off a bridge and upon failure, the giant reversing the process. Now the example can be flawed or ill-thought out because its a message board post and these things tend to be off the cuff. But it exposes a logic that has been decried before. Namely, applying DM-fiat results that harm or disadvantage the PC that the player did not understand beforehand.

But if the Fighter is using Tide of Iron to push a giant -- an ability with specified outcomes and expected results -- should there be additional DM-fiat penalty attached to the manoeuvre at all considering the PC has invested in this? How is the player to know when the power works as written and when the DM will change the parameters?

It isn't the outcomes and results, it is the stakes. You can go pushing around goblins and that's just routine. You may or may not succeed every time, but the dramatic stakes are low. Start pushing around giants and the stakes are higher. If this is made plain to the players then its not unexpected or unknown. Its a pretty straightforward thing to figure out. And really, most of the time, just being in the face of those giants is enough. However, there's nothing wrong with providing variable results when PCs fail at things. This is less often seen in the case of pure combat maneuvers, where its assumed that failure is its own punishment, but there's no reason to exclude it. Maybe the results of failing to push a giant off a bridge leaves the PC clinging to the edge himself. That's cool! Try it before knocking it

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is different from shooting the hobgoblin off a triceratops as a standard action, using a move action with a tumble check to climb up the beast and then making a handle animal or ride check to take control of the dinosaur? The main difference I'm seeing is the action point allowing all of that to happen in a single round rather than in two. How is engaging in actions like this particular to 4e?

Fundamentally? No, any RPG can deal with this type of action in SOME fashion. Its a matter of A) does the system make it fun; B) does the system make it advantageous; C) does the system make it easy to adjudicate; D) does the system make it easy for the player to know if it can be done and what the odds are?

4e certainly in general meets those criteria pretty well. Any player that knows his character's movement rate, Acrobatics, and Nature checks and can ask for a DC will know how difficult it is, be able to see the advantages, and understand how the process works. This should be fun for most players, though obviously the system can't guarantee that for all players. As a 3e player my concerns would be that penalties would reduce the chances of success too low (in 4e they should be pretty much set by the general level of the encounter, though its possible for the DM to 'price you out' if he's a pud). I'd also be concerned that using up 2 whole turns worth of actions would make it easier to just kill off the targets and not worry about it, especially as fast as things go down in 3e. I'd also be concerned that it is going to be complicated to run, though this example probably isn't. So not a HUGE difference, but I'd be worried as a player that if I fail a check in 3e my character will end up taking damage he can ill afford to suffer. I don't usually worry too much about that in 4e.