Forked Thread: Rate WotC as a company: 4e Complete?

[ironvyper]

The full range of encounters that are built to metagame a certain player from having fun by using his power set aren't the tools I should be forced to use as a DM.

If I have a player that builds a character that can go invisible, and then ensure that every important encounter includes True Sight or some variation, I am not allowing that player to participate. I've had arguments at the table to the effect that "if you're going to nerf an option whenever it was useful, don't include it at all!"

I'm probably not the only one wondering this... but it sounds like your complaining that the spell is too powerful against ground based, too dumb to use the terrain to thier advantage or carry missile weapons or have thier own spellcasters enemies.

While at the same time insisting that those are the only enemies your willing to use, because having an enemy with anything over animal intelligence that actually acts like it by being aware of the fact they may desire or even need to be able to engage at range is somehow unfair to the player because he doesnt have an "i win" button anymore. And these are somehow flaws with the game.

Let me know if i interpreted that properly, ya know just for my own curiosity.

 

[portermj]

In the same way that a rogue not being able to sneak attack undead/ constructs meant not that you never used them, but also not that you used them all the time. Sometimes fly lets a mage dominate an encounter, other times the group is inside and flying to the top of the 10' room is meaningless. Sometimes invisibility is great, othertimes there's a guard standing in the doorway and you can't slink between his legs...

What if you want to run an undead heavy campaign? What if you want to have a lot of outdoor encounters?

4th Edition does a better job of making it easy to set up adventures and campaigns without having to do things like worry whether a character will get their time in the spotlight or if a character will be a glorified torchbearer if too many of a type of monster are included.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Sometimes fly lets a mage dominate an encounter

Is this what we want from a system? Encounters being turned into non-encounters.

This is the problem with previous editions of D&D, everything was much too binary. You're either wtf pwning or being slaughtered, there's not enough interesting middle ground. A rogue is virtually useless against a non-sneak attackable foe. Magic Jar is invincible, unless Prot Evil is up which renders it useless. Same with a vampire's dominating gaze. Lots of effects are crippling if you don't have a cleric, but at worst a matter of waiting a day if you do. Fly makes the tarrasque, supposedly one of the strongest monsters in the game, into a joke. The knight, perhaps the most iconic image in fantasy, is likewise rendered impotent. This is a system that isn't doing its job. It's putting too much work on the shoulders of the DM.

 

[Vocenoctum]

What if you want to run an undead heavy campaign? What if you want to have a lot of outdoor encounters?

Then the DM and players should have a conversation about what kind of campaign and capabilities are there. If I as DM want to run a campaign centered around a drow city's intrigue, and one of the players comes up with a druid afraid of cities, then maybe I didn't explain stuff well enough.

4th Edition does a better job of making it easy to set up adventures and campaigns without having to do things like worry whether a character will get their time in the spotlight or if a character will be a glorified torchbearer if too many of a type of monster are included.

Is this what we want from a system? Encounters being turned into non-encounters.

This was addressed elsewhere. Some folks want all the characters to be equal in each encounter, others are fine with having moments in the spotlight that may vary somewhat. It's a design choice that some will prefer and others not.

 

[AllisterH]

I'm probably not the only one wondering this... but it sounds like your complaining that the spell is too powerful against ground based, too dumb to use the terrain to thier advantage or carry missile weapons or have thier own spellcasters enemies.

While at the same time insisting that those are the only enemies your willing to use, because having an enemy with anything over animal intelligence that actually acts like it by being aware of the fact they may desire or even need to be able to engage at range is somehow unfair to the player because he doesnt have an "i win" button anymore. And these are somehow flaws with the game.

Let me know if i interpreted that properly, ya know just for my own curiosity.

It would certainly help if the MM (you know, the book that you're supposed to assume will provide good encounters) seemed to assume the flying/invisible wizard was a common feature.

Seriously, if Fly becomes available at level 5, count how many creatures at CR 5 and above can actually deal with a flying wizard. Hell, to make it even better, throw in Improved Invisibility and take a look at the CR of creatures.

The MM obviously didn't assume that flying, invisible wizards would be standard until the early teens at the earliest.

So why blame DMs when the books themselves don't seem to factor it in.

 

[Fenes]

The majority, I'd say.

The majority of encounters in dungeons are not affected at all by Fly.

 

[Rechan]

The majority of encounters in dungeons are not affected at all by Fly.

Because we know that the habitats of creatures larger than medium always take place in rooms with 10' ceilings.

 

[Fenes]

Because we know that the habitats of creatures larger than medium always take place in rooms with 10' ceilings.

Larger creatures have larger reach. Really - how many encounters in Dungeons did you have where Fly would have helped a lot?

People do not tend to excavate double to triple the amount just so their enemies can fly around.

 

[Intense_Interest]

In the same way that a rogue not being able to sneak attack undead/ constructs meant not that you never used them, but also not that you used them all the time.

Sneak Attack isn't really an equivalent comparison here. A rogue using Sneak Attack still has a bucket-full of risks to deal with, while without it he is Skill Monkey the Useless. Meanwhile, a wizard in the preferred fly environment has only a handful of inherent risks, while without he is still a Wizard.

Flying is a Superhero ability that isn't suited and accounted for in the base-level genre conventions of High Fantasy (p.s. Peter Pan is a fairy tale). It isn't a power needed to play a Swords and Sorcery game.

Let me know if i interpreted that properly, ya know just for my own curiosity.

No, but try and tell me what I was saying again and we'll see if you get closer.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Sneak Attack isn't really an equivalent comparison here. A rogue using Sneak Attack still has a bucket-full of risks to deal with, while without it he is Skill Monkey the Useless. Meanwhile, a wizard in the preferred fly environment has only a handful of inherent risks, while without he is still a Wizard.

Flying is a Superhero ability that isn't suited and accounted for in the base-level genre conventions of High Fantasy (p.s. Peter Pan is a fairy tale). It isn't a power needed to play a Swords and Sorcery game.

I guess flying carpets always had a 5' max height? Magic brooms? The fly spell is not the only method of flight.

Like I said, for my games it has not been a problem. It was used at higher levels for quick movement and that served to advance the storyline more than slogging through forests trying to figure out how we fight the ogre's on the other side of a crevice.

If the default assumption of 4e is that there were a lot of wilderness encounters defeated through flight, then it's just another assumption that deviates from my game.