How many hit points do you have?

[Manbearcat]

In 4E, are drow weapons mundane or are they magical and salvageable? If you disarm the hobgoblin's staff, does he lose his implement for shocking? How do the PCs "know" to spend 10 minutes or not differentiating the useful magical loot from the useless loot that were merely implemental to their owners? What do treasure parcels imply is happening in the fiction, or is it merely uninteresting to the story? I'm curious, because it seems to mirror the hit point self-awareness angle as well.

I think the totality of your answer lies in a simple acknowledgement. 4e, unlike AD&D 2e and 3.x, doesn't willfully attempt to convince its operators to divorce themselves from the metagame, or at least to mask its existence through various means. It embraces it. This is a guiding principle of the scope of its design. With 4e being Heinsoo's D&D, unsurprisingly, 13th Age stridently advocates the same approach. All the various parts, from setting/backdrop to PC build components, can move from mere background color ("say yes") to actual mechanical resolution ("or roll the dice") as is required to properly pace the game and keep everyone engaged in the conflict they are interested in.

To answer your questions:

1) Drow weapons, the ends of general labor and material by drow, are mundane. There is some specific mundane equipment that, while not magical, may have specific (yet mundane) properties that make them superior. The Drow Long Knife is an example; Superior one-handed melee weapon (+ 3, 1d6, 5/10 range, Heavy Blade Group, Heavy Thrown and Offhand Properties. Then there are magical items that are expected to have specific relevance to drow culture (such as a Piwafwi).

2) No, he doesn't lose his ability to shock people if he is disarmed from his staff. The implement keyword means that magic can be channeled through it (requiring proficiency with the implement) and empowered if the implement is magic (such as a + 1). An unmagical implement, unless it is superior (and then it has properties), is merely color mechanically (but perhaps a sign of power or ritual for the owner). However, there are high level magical implements in the game that specifically have At-Will spells stored in them that let the user cast them if he has proficiency (typically as an encounter power).

3) Discerning magic is a straight-forward affair for anyone trained in Arcana (any group will typically have one or more). The character spends a Minor or Standard Action (depending upon what they are trying to identify) and resolves the check mechanically (Moderate or Hard DC depending on what they are doing).

Regarding magic items, it is assumed that a wielder immediately knows the magic properties of a magic item (there is no more procedural ritualizing the "identify item" D&D trope; flapping your arms as a bird or spending hours and pearls). An item with a cursed property, however, will stay hidden until the trigger condition is met. The curse stays until a DIsenchant Magic Item or Remove Affliction ritual is used or something else campaign-specific occurs.

4) Treasure Parcels are a GM-side metagame tool to properly dispense loot to the group such that the expectant wealth/treasure by level balance is maintained. Treasure is a PC build resource in 4e so it is inherent to the expectant balance and is another tool to diversify/bulwark archetype and enrich PCs thematically for in-fiction outcomes (such as a Divine Boon by a pleased deity or an earned martial Alt Advancement exploit after training with someone).

 

[Lanefan]

In this case, it's a matter of the hobgoblin casting a spell through the staff, not the staff itself being magical. The fighter can't cast all the wizard's spells by borrowing his wand, either.

I'll have to read it again, but I don't recall the Hob. specifically being a spellcaster. In any case, I was converting the adventure for 1e which doesn't use implements for casting, so I had to rationalize it somehow.

This was an attempt to avoid the wretched state of affairs in 3e of NPCs needing an overabundance of gear. 1e faced similar problems, so you had stuff like drow weapons that evaporated in sunlight.

I think they did this specifically to drow weapons to allow themselves design space to load drow up with magic so they'd present a credible threat to mid-high level parties; which is fine by me.

The trick is to make the magic risky - the more you have, the bigger the bang if and when it goes off.

Lanefan

 

[Obryn]

In 4E, are drow weapons mundane or are they magical and salvageable? If you disarm the hobgoblin's staff, does he lose his implement for shocking? How do the PCs "know" to spend 10 minutes or not differentiating the useful magical loot from the useless loot that were merely implemental to their owners? What do treasure parcels imply is happening in the fiction, or is it merely uninteresting to the story? I'm curious, because it seems to mirror the hit point self-awareness angle as well.

The 4e default is that NPCs don't need magic items, but may possess and use them when they're intended as treasure. NPC gear is assumed to be mundane, so you can loot a guy's sword if your sword breaks or something - not too uncommon in Dark Sun.

As for what to identify, magic items are automatically identified during a short rest, except in very rare situations (e.g. when the item is an artifact). There's no dull "pile the loot and cast detect magic" routine; such identification is an assumed part of downtime after an encounter.

I personally don't like or use treasure parcels; I like the game to be about the characters more than their equipment, so I use inherent bonuses + rare and powerful items on occasion that scale with the party + fun/interesting stuff. This lowers the optimization ceiling in my game, but means neither my players nor I need to screw around with gear.

As to what treasure parcels are in the fiction? They're a game mechanic. Just a formalized way to get a certain wealth-by-level. I don't like fiddling with them, but they're as sensible as rolled treasure types.

 

[Dungeonman]

Then this is going to sound very obvious, but in those cases where players don't know or don't think about what the metagame construct means in the fiction (either in general, or at any one point in the story) then obviously the character couldn't know either in-game.

I think the implication of the OP is whether the player has "permission" of sorts to roleplay the PC to do X when the player knows Y.

For example, if the PC has 50 hit points facing against a 5 hp goblin, then:
- if the PC "knows" this, the player has "permission" to roleplay the PC in a brave confident manner
- if the PC does not "know" this, the PC could be brave ("die puny goblin") or cowardly ("run away") or cautious ("maybe we should negotiate with the goblin") and all options are equally valid

If 4E embraces the metagame, then the player doesn't need any "permission" to roleplay the PC within the rules. One way or another, the story will follow. In that case, I think this poll is rather irrelevant.

In previous editions, this is an issue, that I don't think has been addressed satisfyingly in D&D culture as a whole, because:
1) Let's be honest here -- most people probably didn't and don't care
2) From a game play perspective, the PCs should "know" their hit points anyway. Who wants to be in the position of the epic fighter begging the cleric for serious healing when he lost only 5 hp?

I guess I don't appreciate blindspots in the fiction so much. I don't like 4E if it gives me blindspots with treasure parcels and bloodied conditions and martial healing and such. Then again, I didn't like previous edition blindspots with monsters standing around in rooms for no reason, fighters increasing their swimming skill during a forest/dungeon quest, and many many others. Because that created a schism between what I thought I was "supposed" to do (which usually equals hack and slash, search every room, etc.) vs rp'ing the PC in a rationally interesting way.

Necessary evil, I say. Unless I try Ahnehnois' idea of a setting that makes every D&D rule to be "real" in the story too. Hey maybe, D&DN will make that even more satisfying. That would be cool.

 

[Campbell]

I very much see it as similar to the genre blindness you might see in superhero comics. I enjoy the tropes of the genre, but conflicts seem trivial if characters are aware of the fact that they are in a comic book. I mean I love Deadpool, but he's entertaining as a joke because he subverts that genre blindness.

4e allows me to play through heroic fantasy stories with the tropes I enjoy while maintaining aesthetic flourishes that the much more self aware 3e does not. I can have fighters who very much fear that dagger at their throat when I realize their throat will not get slit in their sleep because that's bad fiction in a heroic fantasy game. I can have that same fighter collapse in a desperate battle due to exhaustion and rally under the wise words of a priest or inspiring words of a battle captain instead of having his guts get put back together on a daily basis.

In short: I have far more tolerence for metagame mechanics that lead to satisfying fiction than more immersive mechanics that lead to what I consider inferior fiction because I cannot meaningfully relate to the characters as the human beings the game tells me they are. Aesthetics are deeply important to me - far more than mechanical vagaries.

 

[Manbearcat]

In short: I have far more tolerence for metagame mechanics that lead to satisfying fiction than more immersive mechanics that lead to what I consider inferior fiction because I cannot meaningfully relate to the characters as the human beings the game tells me they are. Aesthetics are deeply important to me - far more than mechanical vagaries.

This is a very good post and I agree with it all. However, I would supplement this bit here with "and that inevitably contract the narrative space available to us at the table due to the binary, stridently causal, nature of outcomes in process simulation task resolution (eg always success or failure at task - failed climb rendered only as you fail to move up the tree or fall - rather than success or failure at intent as in conflict resolution - failed climb rendered potentially as you successfully climb the tree but your prey slips out of your line of sight into a crevice in the gully.)

 

[Dungeonman]

4e allows me to play through heroic fantasy stories with the tropes I enjoy while maintaining aesthetic flourishes that the much more self aware 3e does not. I can have fighters who very much fear that dagger at their throat when I realize their throat will not get slit in their sleep because that's bad fiction in a heroic fantasy game.

How does that work in 4E? Can the DM "minionize" the PC in their sleep? How does the metagame reflect the fear and the trope of a fighter scared by a dagger at his throat if it's not actually possible?

In short: I have far more tolerence for metagame mechanics that lead to [cough, cough, what I consider] satisfying fiction than more immersive mechanics that lead to what I consider inferior fiction because I cannot meaningfully relate to the characters as the human beings the game tells me they are.

Not to discourage your enjoyment of 4E, it's just that I see a conflict between prioritizing satisfying heroic fiction vs relating meaningfully to the characters, so I don't understand the above statement. A protaganist vulnerable to being killed in his sleep is a real and thus meaningful character to me. A character that cannot be killed in his sleep makes a satisfying hero but I can't relate to him. What does it mean that a guy in an uber-dangerous world goes to bed never afraid of someone slitting his throat? Now a fighter who is afraid, and goes to sleep with his sword under his pillow, and maybe one day, an assassin sneaks in, and I know that the PC *could* be killed, that's a meaningful character. A fighter with exceptional senses and sleeps lightly, or a wizard who knows an alarm spell and thus goes to sleep soundly are both characters I can relate to as well. But that relatability starts with fiction that suspends my disbelief, not with metagame constructs that forces some sort of story trope.

Also, it's a very valid and satisfying fantasy trope to have your throat slit in your sleep in the modern world that enjoys fiction like Games of Thrones, etc. Whether that level of grittiness is appropriate to a D&D game is a different issue. There's also a difference to me between a system that doesn't allow for assassination of PCs in their sleep vs a social contract that discourages that (I appreciate the latter, but not the former.) And all of the above is meant to be edition-neutral, as I'm not sure that any edition of D&D encourages PC throat slitting. The point was really to ask you about "meaningfully relat[ing] to the characters as the human beings" when many fantasy tropes are not particularly about relatable human beings at all.

Aesthetics are deeply important to me - far more than mechanical vagaries.

Perhaps it's more fair to say that particular aesthetics induced by 4E are important to you. Obviously, previous editions offer certain aeshetics that are very satisfying to those who play them. I can imagine gamists who don't care about aeshetics are comparably prevalent in all editions of D&D, including 4E.

 

[Obryn]

Then this is going to sound very obvious, but in those cases where players don't know or don't think about what the metagame construct means in the fiction (either in general, or at any one point in the story) then obviously the character couldn't know either in-game.

I think the implication of the OP is whether the player has "permission" of sorts to roleplay the PC to do X when the player knows Y.

For example, if the PC has 50 hit points facing against a 5 hp goblin, then:
- if the PC "knows" this, the player has "permission" to roleplay the PC in a brave confident manner
- if the PC does not "know" this, the PC could be brave ("die puny goblin") or cowardly ("run away") or cautious ("maybe we should negotiate with the goblin") and all options are equally valid

If 4E embraces the metagame, then the player doesn't need any "permission" to roleplay the PC within the rules. One way or another, the story will follow. In that case, I think this poll is rather irrelevant.

In previous editions, this is an issue, that I don't think has been addressed satisfyingly in D&D culture as a whole, because:
1) Let's be honest here -- most people probably didn't and don't care
2) From a game play perspective, the PCs should "know" their hit points anyway. Who wants to be in the position of the epic fighter begging the cleric for serious healing when he lost only 5 hp?

I guess I don't appreciate blindspots in the fiction so much. I don't like 4E if it gives me blindspots with treasure parcels and bloodied conditions and martial healing and such. Then again, I didn't like previous edition blindspots with monsters standing around in rooms for no reason, fighters increasing their swimming skill during a forest/dungeon quest, and many many others. Because that created a schism between what I thought I was "supposed" to do (which usually equals hack and slash, search every room, etc.) vs rp'ing the PC in a rationally interesting way.

Necessary evil, I say. Unless I try Ahnehnois' idea of a setting that makes every D&D rule to be "real" in the story too. Hey maybe, D&DN will make that even more satisfying. That would be cool.

I'll just note that I don't look at hit points any differently in 4e than I ever have in any other RPG - whether an edition of D&D or not.

I don't need "permission" because I am a person sitting at a table rolling dice and playing a game, making decisions for my dude. Even if "immersion" is a goal, there are limits, and there's a necessary and fundamental distance here given that hit points are a nonsensical game construct which cannot correspond 1:1 to any sensible in-fiction construct because people just don't work that way. (And if they do, how are you relating to them for this "immersion" goal anyway?)

How does that work in 4E? Can the DM "minionize" the PC in their sleep? How does the metagame reflect the fear and the trope of a fighter scared by a dagger at his throat if it's not actually possible?

Not to discourage your enjoyment of 4E, it's just that I see a conflict between prioritizing satisfying heroic fiction vs relating meaningfully to the characters, so I don't understand the above statement. A protaganist vulnerable to being killed in his sleep is a real and thus meaningful character to me. A character that cannot be killed in his sleep makes a satisfying hero but I can't relate to him. What does it mean that a guy in an uber-dangerous world goes to bed never afraid of someone slitting his throat? Now a fighter who is afraid, and goes to sleep with his sword under his pillow, and maybe one day, an assassin sneaks in, and I know that the PC *could* be killed, that's a meaningful character. A fighter with exceptional senses and sleeps lightly, or a wizard who knows an alarm spell and thus goes to sleep soundly are both characters I can relate to as well. But that relatability starts with fiction that suspends my disbelief, not with metagame constructs that forces some sort of story trope.

Also, it's a very valid and satisfying fantasy trope to have your throat slit in your sleep in the modern world that enjoys fiction like Games of Thrones, etc. Whether that level of grittiness is appropriate to a D&D game is a different issue. There's also a difference to me between a system that doesn't allow for assassination of PCs in their sleep vs a social contract that discourages that (I appreciate the latter, but not the former.) And all of the above is meant to be edition-neutral, as I'm not sure that any edition of D&D encourages PC throat slitting. The point was really to ask you about "meaningfully relat[ing] to the characters as the human beings" when many fantasy tropes are not particularly about relatable human beings at all.

OK, kinda weird we're off on this tangent, but...

A 4e PC can be coup-de-grace'd in their sleep just fine. The attack is automatically a critical hit, and if it deals damage equal to or greater than your bloodied value, that's that. A 15th-level character might have 104 hp; 52 in a coup-de-grace and they're a goner. For a "lurker" style monster - the sorts who'd do the knifing - this is extremely plausible. Likewise, a brute or a skirmisher with on-advantage damage. Or a higher-level monster. Or a normal enemy NPC with an actual magic weapon.

I don't think it's kosher to throw that sort of thing into a game, by and large. And I think the fact that 4e actually can model it is more an accident of design than an intentional goal. But it's there...

 

[JamesonCourage]

OK, kinda weird we're off on this tangent, but...

A 4e PC can be coup-de-grace'd in their sleep just fine.

I'm having fun running a 4e campaign right now (I have an ongoing thread on it), but this doesn't look like it's the case for Fighters (as in Campbell's example).

The attack is automatically a critical hit, and if it deals damage equal to or greater than your bloodied value, that's that. A 15th-level character might have 104 hp; 52 in a coup-de-grace and they're a goner.

Actually, 104 HP looks pretty impossible for a Fighter (definitely possible for other characters, as you no doubt meant). I'm just going to use the Fighter as an example, as that was what Campbell used in his example.

A Fighter gets 25 starting HP (15 + Con score of 11 [10 + 1 for reaching level 11]) + 6 HP/level for 14 levels = 110 HP minimum. If the Fighter invests any of his starting ability score points into Con, any of his three stat hops into Con, or gets any feat (Toughness) or Paragon Path (Dreadnought), then it's significantly higher. A level 15 goliath Fighter with a starting Con of 14, one Con stat hop, the Toughness feat, and the Dreadnought Paragon Path has 135 HP. This gives us a range of 110-135, with something like 115 probably closer to the average. This means that it'd take 57 damage to kill the Fighter (his bloodied value).

For a "lurker" style monster - the sorts who'd do the knifing - this is extremely plausible. Likewise, a brute or a skirmisher with on-advantage damage. Or a higher-level monster.

It looks like only two level 15 creatures can finish off the Fighter in one hit (from an admittedly cursory glance of about 20 minutes), the Drow Infiltrator and the Drow Darklasher (the Megapede comes close at 54 damage). There might be others (or even some at level 14 or less, such as The Black Blade of Raam if the target has no allies adjacent to it, or the Shadar-Kai Dawnkiller). While it's possible, there aren't a lot of equal level enemies that can do it.

Then again, I use higher level enemies against my PCs all the time, and they're only (just now) level 8. I imagine this will only grow as the game goes on, so facing off against a wider range of enemies means more enemies that will qualify to do enough damage in one shot. Still not a lot, but definitely possible.

Or a normal enemy NPC with an actual magic weapon.

Also a possibility.

I don't think it's kosher to throw that sort of thing into a game, by and large. And I think the fact that 4e actually can model it is more an accident of design than an intentional goal. But it's there...

Yeah, this is my feeling on it, too. These things mostly slipped through the cracks, though there are some exceptions (like The Black Blade of Raam, which has an ability called "Execution" that does 105 on a crit). All told, I'm not disagreeing with your point of it being possible, but I'd stress the rarity. It is there if a DM wants it, though.

 

[JamesonCourage]

4e allows me to play through heroic fantasy stories with the tropes I enjoy while maintaining aesthetic flourishes that the much more self aware 3e does not. I can have fighters who very much fear that dagger at their throat when I realize their throat will not get slit in their sleep because that's bad fiction in a heroic fantasy game. I can have that same fighter collapse in a desperate battle due to exhaustion and rally under the wise words of a priest or inspiring words of a battle captain instead of having his guts get put back together on a daily basis.

It depends on how you like your fiction (I love Game of Thrones, for example, and I love gritty games), but I get where you're coming from. If you think having your Fighter's throat slit in the night is bad fiction, then 4e is actually pretty good at avoiding this. I personally don't think inspiring words being done every battle is good fiction, but I try not to focus on the specifics of healing when I play 4e (the party has a cleric, so we handwave it as magic).

In short: I have far more tolerence for metagame mechanics that lead to satisfying fiction than more immersive mechanics that lead to what I consider inferior fiction because I cannot meaningfully relate to the characters as the human beings the game tells me they are. Aesthetics are deeply important to me - far more than mechanical vagaries.

I totally get this, too. My house rules for 3.X (which eventually evolved far and away into its own thing) made things "make more sense" to me, but it got grittier. A Hit Chart was added, as were long-term wounds, the separation of fatigue and body wounds, etc. I quite like it (or I wouldn't have made it), but I get it fits a more niche play style than what many others like.

In 4e, they went basically the other direction, but they're still aiming to make a game that produces a fiction that doesn't jar you out of the game (just like what I aimed for, even if the end results are drastically different). You can still have an in-depth game with lots of details in 4e (I feel like my sessions have them, and I put them up for everyone here to read), it's just a different experience than what you'd get from a game that aims for a different aesthetic.

Regardless of our preferences, I totally get where you're coming from. I can have the most realistic game rules in the world, but if it takes twenty minutes to resolve each and every attack roll, I'm probably getting pulled out of any sense of "immersion" I had going for me, which kind of defeats the purpose of the rule most of the time.