Is the math off?

[Dire Bare]

What level do you play at?

All of them! Although, not all at once.

I've actually NEVER had an issue with the math, even back during 1st, 2nd, and BECMI editions. With hindsight, I can see how editions prior to 3e were a bit wonky, but it never bothered me at the time. The most DMing I ever did was during the 3e era, and I did become annoyed at some of my players who cherry picked amongst the many sourcebooks for characters who kicked major ass but didn't make much sense thematically, but it was more the player attitude than the math that bothered me at the time . . . but we still all managed to enjoy ourselves quite a bit!

With both playing and DMing 4e, it was the first time I really paid much attention to the balance and math and that's because it all felt so smooth, easy, and balanced!!! I fell in love! Of course, on some level, I understand that the game isn't perfect, nothing can be, but so far the balance issues that started to annoy me in 3e have not reappeared. Perhaps with time!

I am truly kinda amazed at the discussion in this thread, that there is good sized minority of players (despite the poll, I highly doubt the "math broken" folks are any sort of majority of players) who are convinced the system is just broken and are upset by it.

I just play, and have a good time.

 

[The Little Raven]

I just play, and have a good time.

This. Some fights take longer than others, but I've seen nothing in play to support this "the math is broken" claim, and we're just about to moonwalk into Epic.

 

[Stalker0]

An earlier poster (Stalker0) mentioned how it worked in 3e but it was totally different in 1e/2e.

Fighters (and other melee guys that had a good THACO) at low levels had a devil of a time hitting.

Assuming you had a 16 STR (and with the random rolls of 1e/2e definitely not a sure thing), at 1st level you're looking at rolling 13+ to hit a lowly goblin (and there aren't as many modifiers to increase this) and a 15+ to hit a gnoll or a bugbear.

Question, since I didn't play that much 2e (only a little before 3e came out). How much damage could those creatures take? If a fighter did manage to hit, how many hits would it take to drop the monster?

 

[keterys]

I just play, and have a good time.

I play, and have a good time.

And if they hadn't made the change for expertise and epic FRW feats, I'd cheerfully shrug and assume that the math was close enough or intended. But the feats either screw up the math, or do a bad job of fixing it, and _either_ possibility is annoying.

I don't see that the annoyance is really coming up that often during the game, but it's a perfectly decent thing to chat about on messageboards when I can't actually be playing. Because I don't want WotC to ever do anything like Expertise ever again. Errata, or don't.

 

[Akaiku]

What game are you playing? Most of the time it's nowhere near that big. You might get that to one attack, maybe even to all attacks for a round, but not for the whole party for the whole encounter.

I'd like to agree with this! What leader power gives the WHOLE PARTY (including the leader) a +2 or better (everyone apperently assumes every attack gets CA forever) to hit for every encounter a day, regardless of specific circumstance (IE: even on a miss).

Which one gives the same to the non-ac defenses?

And does each leader have powers that do that? Or is a rather specific type of party based min-maxing with exact classes necessary to fix the math without the math fix feats?

 

[AllisterH]

Question, since I didn't play that much 2e (only a little before 3e came out). How much damage could those creatures take? If a fighter did manage to hit, how many hits would it take to drop the monster?

Goblins and kobolds would all be taken out with 1 hit but bugbears and gnolls were all 2 HD monsters meaning you were looking at 2 hits to take them out assuming you were using a longsword. Basically, a whole lot of missing going on but once you did hit, you pretty much were taking them out, of course, this was mitigated somewhat if you were a FIGHTER and had specialization since at low levels you had an attack routine of 3/2 (meaning 1 round, you get two attack rolls and the next round, you get one attack roll and then repeat the sequence)

(and yeah, it was even worse than I thought..I clean forgot that you needed a 17 to have a +1 to hit. Yet as mentioned, by the time you hit name level (9th), 95% of the monsters in the game are hittable on a 10 or lower thanks to magic weapons and the ubiquitous "Girdle of X Giant strength". Another indication in my mind that you weren't really expected to actually use those higher levels for actual combat encounters but instead should be more about running your duchy/barony/kingdom)

Of course, priests and rogues (especially) were screwed somewhat in that they had a worse THACO chart than the frontline melee guys but were still at times expected to wade into battle (at least the priests had magic, the poor rogue was truly left to hang out to dry).

 

[Hussar]

As the PCs advance, their attack bonuses gradually fall behind the defenses of monsters of the same level. (It's about a 4-point difference over all 30 levels.) It is thus significantly harder for a 30th-level character to hit a 30th-level monster than it is for a 1st-level character to hit a 1st-level monster

As another one who isn't all that terribly up on 4e, I'm a bit curious about this word, "significantly". A 4 point spread doesn't seem like it's all that significant tbh. If the standard, as I understand it from reading this thread and a couple of others, is that you should hit 70%, doesn't that mean you drop to a 50% when facing the toughest monsters in the game?

And this is considered such a huge problem? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk here, but, is this really all the hoopla is about? A 4 point difference spread over THIRTY levels?

 

[Garmorn]

And this is considered such a huge problem? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk here, but, is this really all the hoopla is about? A 4 point difference spread over THIRTY levels?

I am just getting back into gaming and reading this tread and looking at the 4e Players Hand book has me wondering what the problem is? I mean this is minor compared to the problems of previous editions. (Yes I have played several different systems over the last ~30 years.)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And this is considered such a huge problem? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk here, but, is this really all the hoopla is about? A 4 point difference spread over THIRTY levels?

keep in mind also at first level (when you are at that +4 highest) you have 1 encounter power, and one daily (+ what your race gives you) and in genral the daily is on a miss better then an at will (some daily misses like leaading the attack are better then hitting with most encounter powers)

at 30th level (when you are at the hoorid -4) you have 4 daily, 4 encounter, 2-5 paragon class features, 2-5 epic desitiny features and 5 or 6 utility powers... oh and 3 magic item uses +1 per milestone...

several cap stone 30th level powers are so far beyond good it isn't even funny...

I know very few epic parties that don't have atleast 1 (normaly a few) ways to recall dailies eaither... of cource factoring all of this in is way more complecated math then anyone really wants to think about...

I am just getting back into gaming and reading this tread and looking at the 4e Players Hand book has me wondering what the problem is? I mean this is minor compared to the problems of previous editions. (Yes I have played several different systems over the last ~30 years.)

yea, even if the 30 level 4 point spread was as bad as everyone is making it out to be it would still be better then 90% of the rpgs out there...

In 3e they claimed the sweet spot was like 6 or 7 levels...they easily more then doubled that even if it isn't all 30...

 

[kaomera]

And this is considered such a huge problem? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk here, but, is this really all the hoopla is about? A 4 point difference spread over THIRTY levels?

Well, remember that the monsters have it better both ways; they are ~20% more likely to hit as well as ~20% less likely to be hit. And the more severe conditions that become more prevalent at higher levels like stunned mean that a hit is often much worse than just the damage dealt.

Even given that I think that part of the issue is that what stands out are the extreme cases. Even if every dead PC is raised every time they die, there is going to be a tendency to examine those deaths to see "what went wrong". I don't have the experience at Epic level to really say if those deaths are more frequent, but if they are (even by a small margin) I'd expect players to look for a root cause, and the math does at the least seem to provide an obvious one.