D&D 4E Forked Thread: 4e And 4th Wall, was multiclassing - is Arcane Initiate too powerful?

[Lizard]

Then change the martial power source to some mystical power source, if you have trouble explaining things within a narrative and fun context. Poof, all explained, with no harm done.

My DM is planning on doing just that when he runs 4e, with lots of Ki auras and flashy effects for "martial" powers. His world, his choice; I'd rather have the Martial abilities make sense within themselves.

 

[bganon]

If "overall combat" is the sum of actions that don't make sense, the overall combat doesn't make sense. If the tide of battle is turned because the archers left their posts for no good reason, the rogue hurled a dagger at a flying ghost and pinned it to the air, or caused an immobilized creature to move 4 squares by being charismatic, the thing as a whole doesn't make much sense, either. Any specific, individual, thing can be dealt with easily enough, and, again, I don't want to go into nitpicky detail -- it's the grand totality of them all that grates on me. If once every two or three fights, you have an "I steal his PANTS!" moment, well, I can easily live with it. If it's more like once a round...that's too much.

Okay, but IME these things don't happen in combat often (if at all), though I'm mostly only familiar with low levels. Does the fighter mark all the time? Sure. Do I have to worry about multiple marks? It honestly hasn't happened yet, so I haven't had any trouble explaining things. It's not hard to see cases where some powers don't make sense, but it just seems like somehow they don't come up, even when on paper you might have thought they would. Maybe I'm not playing with creative people.

All that said, I don't really like CAGI; it does seem a bit over the top. But it really seems to be a much worse offender than most of the other things which don't really bother me.

Really? Because I'd think a totally irresistable forced movement power that affected all creatures in a burst would be used mostly to get people out of cover -- so that the strikers can gank them. When I saw CAGI, that's the first use I thought of for it. Get the damn archers and casters down from the trees and out in the open.

Oh, I'm sure the fighter might LIKE to do that. My point is that in a good fight the melee monsters should bunch up on the fighter and keep him well away from the archers/casters. At which point the fighter's probably best off using CAGI to churn through them and keep them off everyone else, freeing the party wizard/cleric/ranger to flush out anybody in the trees.

And that seems to make a decent scenario, story-wise.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If "overall combat" is the sum of actions that don't make sense, the overall combat doesn't make sense. If the tide of battle is turned because the archers left their posts for no good reason, the rogue hurled a dagger at a flying ghost and pinned it to the air, or caused an immobilized creature to move 4 squares by being charismatic, the thing as a whole doesn't make much sense, either. Any specific, individual, thing can be dealt with easily enough, and, again, I don't want to go into nitpicky detail -- it's the grand totality of them all that grates on me. If once every two or three fights, you have an "I steal his PANTS!" moment, well, I can easily live with it. If it's more like once a round...that's too much.

I'm with you on this one. I consider it to be the dark side of "exception based design" where powers can trip oozes, pin flying creatures to the air and compel foes to leave their cover and run across fire to get to you - and where it is harder to knock over a dwarf than an ancient dragon (or a gelatinous cube).

As you imply, it is the cumulative effect which can make things seem more 'game' rather than 'traditional rpg' (for want of a better expression).

Cheers

 

[Goumindong]

Haven't we been over this before.

There are rules in the DMG for doing exactly what you want to do. They're called "Skill challenges". And you will gain appropriate wealth by the selling of your item it will be removed from your treasure tables You will not notice this because it will all happen behind the DM screens 4th wall. You will gain experience for completing the challenge. If you fail the challenge you will be unable to sell the item for that price.

If you are not taking up game time and are handwaving the endeavor then you get 20% of the items value. If you are taking up game time, then its a skill challenge.

Goodness how hard is it, if you want to play Merchants and Mavens while dungeon delving tell your DM and he will design some skill challenges for you all to run, unless no one else in your group wants to play Merchants and Mavens and then its not a problem of the system, but a problem of you not wanting to play the same game as your friends do.

And there is nothing in any system that can change that.

 

[porter235]

I am glad to see the some have found the correct term:
Suspension of disbelief

It refers to the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible. It also refers to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises. According to the theory, suspension of disbelief is a quid pro quo: the audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend their judgment in exchange for the promise of entertainment.

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

I am often happy to willingly suspend my disbelief for the sake of entertainment, to an extent. If you can't suspend your disbelief, you should probably find a different hobby.

 

[Lizard]

I am glad to see the some have found the correct term:
Suspension of disbelief




I am often happy to willingly suspend my disbelief for the sake of entertainment, to an extent. If you can't suspend your disbelief, you should probably find a different hobby.

There are gradients.

My point is not that SOD should not be required; it's that 4e makes it HARDER than perhaps it should be.

Rogue causes 10d6 damage (3e) to an Elder Wyrm with a dagger: Yeah, sure, he slit open its jugular vein or something.

Rogue causes 6d8 (4e) sneak attack damage to an iron golem...uhm, well, maybe he found a weak spot in the construction or something...OK...we can deal...

Rogue manages to use poison (4e again) to kill a creature made of solid iron with no biochemistry whatsoever...uhm, say what?

(Waiting for someone to think they're "clever" and say "Huh huh if you can believe in magic elves you can believe in any thing huh". The sad thing is, there's people out there who will believe that that's a legitimate response, that if one accepts one set of fantastic elements, all fantastic elements are fair game.)

NO game is without its "Murphy's Rules". In GURPS, you gain a significant tactical advantage by setting yourself on fire. (-3 penalty for fighting on fire, -10 penalty for fighting in the dark). In Hero system, an average man will walk away from a five story fall the majority of the time. In BESM, a typical schoolgirl can sustain more damage than many vehicles. Etc. The difference, to my mind, is that 4e seems to not even TRY; the design intent is not to give the benefit of the doubt to "balance" over "simulation" where necessary, but to gleefully ignore simulation even when adding it in would be easy. The "Gameness" of it takes center stage and never leaves, and intrudes on play in such a way as to make it more difficult than it needs to be to lose yourself in the experience. I want to suspend disbelief; 4e has a +20 attack vs. disbelief, target is immobilized, save at -10 to end.

 

[Goumindong]

My point is not that SOD should not be required; it's that 4e makes it HARDER than perhaps it should be.

No it doesn't. That is all you making it harder than it should be. From ignoring skill challenges, to having a crazy fetish for magic users, to flat out ignoring monster attributes.

Rogue manages to use poison (4e again) to kill a creature made of solid iron with no biochemistry whatsoever...uhm, say what?

Are you sure the creature isn't immune to poison?

Stone Golem:
Immune: Disease, Poison, Sleep

Homonculus:
Clay Scout
Immune: Disease, Poison

Iron Defender
Immune: Disease, Poison


Iron Cobra
Immune: Disease, Poison

 

[Lizard]

No it doesn't. That is all you making it harder than it should be. From ignoring skill challenges, to having a crazy fetish for magic users, to flat out ignoring monster attributes.

Uhm...WHAT crazy fetish for magic users? You'd think if I had one, I would have played more than one in the past 28 years...

And how am I ignoring skill challenges, unless, by ignoring, you mean, "evidently incapable of seeing the invisible writing on every page which says 'You can always use a skill challenge here'".

Are you sure the creature isn't immune to poison?

I was, but I was wrong.

I read the powers/abilities section; forgot they've moved immunities around in 4e. You got me there.

 

[mlangsdorf]

Well, I'm trying to get away from the specifics of economics and into the general "game vs. simulation" issue.

CAGI is a very good example of the problem. It is, in essence, a magic effect: All monsters within burst 3 teleport to a square adjacent to the fighter.

If your solution to this is to restrict "magical" powers to magic-using classes, we're back to the 3rd edition problem that non-mages can't have anything nice.

Literature and cinema are full of examples of smart, cunning people inexplicably closing against a warrior. Is it really so bad to add it to the game, especially since it's a neat effect with a lot of cool tactical applications?

You wouldn't have a problem with CAGI if it were a Divine or Arcane power. Why stiff people just because they use the Martial power source?

 

[Lizard]

If your solution to this is to restrict "magical" powers to magic-using classes, we're back to the 3rd edition problem that non-mages can't have anything nice.

I played a swashbuckler/rogue who was attacking seven times in a round and could duck under a dragon's belly without fear. I'd call that "something nice".

Literature and cinema are full of examples of smart, cunning people inexplicably closing against a warrior. Is it really so bad to add it to the game, especially since it's a neat effect with a lot of cool tactical applications?

If it were slightly rewritten, it could work. How's this:

Attack Cha+2 vs. Will, Burst 3
Hit: You pull target two squares.
Secondary: Attack Str vs AC
Hit: 1[W]+Str

This makes the power very clearly a "taunt" which is more likely to affect dumb grunts. (I'd be tempted to add in that it doesn't work on anyone who has a Basic Ranged attack, but that might complicate it too much.) I upped the damage to compensate for the fact it's less effective.

You wouldn't have a problem with CAGI if it were a Divine or Arcane power.

That's right, I wouldn't. Just like I wouldn't have a problem if "Fireball" were an Arcane power. Because, uhm, Arcane and Martial powers should be *different*?

But you make my point for me, quite well. CAGI (among other powers) cannot be easily modeled or justified as something which occurs in a battle (and remember, it's an encounter power, so it will come up a lot) as a consequence of "skill and/or training". It's a 100% game effect. You use the power, you arrange the pieces, you resolve the effect, and you disconnect yourself from imagining the battle as something "really" happening, any more than you imagine the clash of swords in a game of chess.

Why stiff people just because they use the Martial power source?

Why bother having power sources, then, if you can do anything with one you can do with the other?

I'd actually like to do an all-martial campaign, which is why I've been studying the martial powers more than the others -- and thus, constantly stumbling on these head-exploding quirks that could have been eliminated with another round of editing or two. They fixed Stalwart Guard; I have hope for the future.