Off the Farm (Forked Thread: Telling a story with 4th Edition)

[Rechan]

I completely understand where you're coming from and the sort of game you're trying to run - but I have to query this statement.

5 1st level 4e characters are threatened by a small group of kobolds - amongst the least powerful monsters in the MM. They'd be in trouble against only a few skeletons or zombies.

How, then, are they _darn_ powerful? Powerful compared to what?

Compared to older editions.

Also, 5 1st level 4e characters can take on 3 3rd level monsters, or 2 6th level monsters. Compare that to older editions, where a CR 3 is very dangerous for a level 1 group.

Also, they simply have more hit points than older editions, and can heal themselves.

Ultimately, the issue is: They can take more punishment.

 

[Roger]

My main game, which I've run off-and-on since 1990 under 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and RuneQuest, has the players start in a small village largely as farmers. Even the casters generally come from the village. The party is sent to find the missing knight who runs the village.

The idea is that they are scrubs. The local guards should be intimidating (I had them as level 2 warriors in 3.x), and even minor encounters are fairly scary.

[...] A 1st level character is _darn_ powerful in 4e and it's hard to feel otherwise.

[...] So, house rule time...

This doesn't seem like anything that would require house rules.

Guards who can kill the PCs without breaking a sweat? No problem.
Goblins who can kill the PCs in one blow? Easy as pie.

You seem to be saying "1st level 4E characters are powerful because they are powerful" which isn't quite as illuminating as I'd hoped.

The PCs are fish in a pond. The 4E ruleset gives complete rein to the DM to decide whether they are big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond.

Again, maybe you have something specific in mind that you think might be problematic, but so far, it looks pretty straightforward.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[brehobit]

5 1st level 4e characters are threatened by a small group of kobolds - amongst the least powerful monsters in the MM. They'd be in trouble against only a few skeletons or zombies.

How, then, are they _darn_ powerful? Powerful compared to what?

I ask this in a spirit of clarification, not to be antagonistic.

Thanks!

Tallarn.

I've not seen a group of 1st level characters feel threatened by a small group of kobolds. Our 1st level parties really haven't struggled with things like that. Heck, look at the encounter with Irontooth which _is_ a very challenging encounter for a 1st level party. There are something like 15 opponents, one of which is huge (Irontooth).
The party has massive resources: healing, huge daily powers, etc.

But to address your main question, they are darn powerful compared to the farmers they come from. PCs _are_ different than NPCs. They use a whole different rule set for starters.

Mark

 

[brehobit]

Here is an idea for a pre-heroic character.
Level 0
Remove all powers
Remove all feats
Remove 1 levels worth of HPs
Normal stats
Skills - unsure about these

My plan was:

• At-wills become encounter powers
• Encounter powers become dailies.
• Dailies go away.
• This includes most class powers. So marking by a fighter is an encounter thing, healing word is daily.
• Some class powers, like +1 to attack etc. go away.
• Remove 1 level of HPs.
• Skills and stats stay the same.

The problem is that folks like mages have horrible basic attacks while fighters have great ones. So I was thinking of changing the at-wills instead and then got distracted by the game I actually ran and the one I'm running next.

Mark

 

[brehobit]

This doesn't seem like anything that would require house rules.

Guards who can kill the PCs without breaking a sweat? No problem.
Goblins who can kill the PCs in one blow? Easy as pie.

You seem to be saying "1st level 4E characters are powerful because they are powerful" which isn't quite as illuminating as I'd hoped.

The PCs are fish in a pond. The 4E ruleset gives complete rein to the DM to decide whether they are big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond.

Again, maybe you have something specific in mind that you think might be problematic, but so far, it looks pretty straightforward.



Cheers,
Roger

Certainly, you can scale up the NPCs of the world. But I don't think 4e at first level has a feeling of being a farmer just off the field. And I think that was planned and intentional. Folks can teleport, throw blasts of flame all day, fire two arrows at rapid speed, cure wounds all day, be expected to have platemail, etc. at the very start. Scaling up the others in the world doesn't remove the fact that they can do this. Maybe everyone else in the world can too, but that's not the world I want to run. As noted above, it restricts my story/world design.

And frankly all that's okay. I'm going to be running my first "self-written" 4e module next week. I've written a whole new world where all this makes sense. Admittedly, the PCs are from the Monster Manual (not classed, just monsters), but 4e has really given me motivation to find something new and interesting to write for. It would be a hard story to tell in 3e or RuneQuest or Champions, etc. So that's all good. But 4e does seem (to me) to impose some significant story restrictions. So does every other system. I'm just listing off the ones I see in 4e.

 

[Roger]

Folks can teleport, throw blasts of flame all day, fire two arrows at rapid speed, cure wounds all day, be expected to have platemail, etc. at the very start.

Thanks for providing examples -- this helps considerably. I think they could each benefit from their own analysis:

* Folks can teleport: The only 1st-level characters likely to teleport are swordmages and eladrin. As swordmages are peculiar to the Forgotten Realms, I think we can put them aside for the moment, which leaves us with the eladrin.

Non-humans are a bit tricky to handle with a set-up like this, no doubt about it. I'm inclined to think this was true in earlier editions -- "We're just some kids from the farm... including that two-centuries-old elf who's tagging along with us." It can be done, sure. But I think within the structure of the story, the eladrin's ability to teleport is just one of the concerns, and not necessarily at the top of the list.

I think it's sensible enough with a set-up like this to suggest to the players that they stick to humans, or to ask them to come up with some reason why the dwarf is there in the first place.

* Throw blasts of flame all day: Yep. I see this as a matter of degree -- if a 1st-level player can cast Colour Spray, then it's a matter of degree as to whether he can cast that once a month, once a day, once an hour, or once a second. If the story can accept he can do it at all, then the rest is detail.

I wouldn't rule out, for this sort of story, to ask the players to stick to the martial classes, or to ask them to come up with some reason a spell-slinger is planting turnips along with everyone else.

* Fire two arrows at rapid speed: This isn't something I'm likely to find problematic. If I can accept that a guy can fire an arrow into combat every six seconds, it seems like I can accept he can hurry that up to once every three seconds. It's quick, sure, but I think there's enough room in the abstraction of the story to allow for it.

* Cure wounds all day: This isn't really quite true, but that's alright. If one can accept divine intervention in the first place, then it doesn't seem like such an intolerable stretch, to me. Hit points are already such an abstraction in the story that I don't find it especially problematic for that one really pious guy to be able to pray for me every hour and then I feel better.

* Expected to have platemail: This is a bit sticky, but changing the starting gold of 1st-level PCs is such a slight change that I hesitate to call it a house rule as such. Alternatively, it's certainly within the scope of the DM's discretion to declare that some equipment is just not available to the PCs starting in this particular scenario.

There are issues here, but they don't strike me as anything that sprang up between 3E and 4E. If your story could handle a 3E elven wizard among your turnip farmers, I think it can handle the 4E version just as handily. If, for some good reasons, the PC elven wizard wasn't ever part of this scenario, then that's fine too.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Bayonet_Chris]

Fresh off the farm

I think it would be easier to modify your encounter design than to houserule the crap out of everything in sight. I mean, human guards are level 4 and plenty mean. They're not even elite guards, just the normal kind of guys who might be guarding a gate.

If you want the PCs to feel threatened and that they're not the kings of the universe, make the encounters more difficult as a base. Have your "easy" encounters be at level instead of level-1 or -2; Limit minion use except where it is important for the story.

As far as the overtly magical nature of everything, limit non-martial classes to a certain percentage. There are plenty of martial builds available now.

 

[brehobit]

There are issues here, but they don't strike me as anything that sprang up between 3E and 4E. If your story could handle a 3E elven wizard among your turnip farmers, I think it can handle the 4E version just as handily. If, for some good reasons, the PC elven wizard wasn't ever part of this scenario, then that's fine too.

I find them significant for story-telling purposes. The ability to throw "fireballs" around at-will seems pretty significant from a story viewpoint. Being able to do it only once makes the character seem more "normal" to me. And just removing the only controller from the game (wizard) isn't the best of all options from a playability standpoint (druid has the same problems). And removing heavy armors will really screw a fighter or paladin at 1st level.

Of course there are workarounds to the "scrubs" thing in 4e. But it requires effort. I had to bend 3e pretty hard to get what I wanted. The bending required of 4e is just a bit too much for me. I've spent a fair number of hours trying to figure out how to work it for my "main" world. And while I've gotten there, things seem a lot more magical and a lot less gritty. And I _still_ have significant balance issues among the classes.

4e is a fun game. It's my favorite at the moment. But as the original poster asked, I find it restricts stories (as do all systems).

 

[Rechan]

Folks can teleport: The only 1st-level characters likely to teleport are swordmages and eladrin.

And Fey pact Warlocks. Warlocks can also pick a teleport utility at 2nd level.

 

[Rechan]

You know, not to be rude, but it is very possible that 4e just is not for you. Every edition has different feels, and facilitates different gameplay styles. 3e very much facilitates simulationist "I can use the rules to determine the level of a druid necessary to assist x acres of land for a GPD of y".