[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[JamesonCourage]

'To you,' OK. So, I list factual differences that set exploits and spells apart, and your counter is an unsupported personal opinion? Fine. You've made up your mind on that point, and are not open to alternatives.

To be fair, you basically said "they're called different things" to which he replied "they work the same as spells, so they seem the same as spells." Of course it's going to come down to how an individual feels, but by no means is it unsupported.

I also think it's pretty obvious that both of your minds are made up on it. And rightly so, by this point. It's a subjective view, and both are pretty valid, in my mind. As always, play what you like

 

[Tony Vargas]

Because CAW is all about giving the players the freedom to be less predictable, and PC-encounter balance is all about making encounter difficulty (and pacing and rhythm) more predictable. Which requires that the PCs be predictable.

Actually, it just requires that encounters be consistent. If you set up a 5th level encounter, you don't have something that'll instantly gank a 7th level party or that couldn't possibly challenge a 3rd level one. Nevermind variability on the player side, CR was that whacked.

The thing is, as long as it's an RPG, players can and will come up with things to try, and a DM is there to arbitrate them. In 4e, the DM has some guidelines for adjudicating one-off tricks in combat (the over-cited p42), and the Skill Challenge tool for resolving non-combat (but also, well, para-combat) situations. For instance, if a party decides they're going to improve their chances vs some terrible beast by luring it into a trap, creating the trap and luring the beast into it could be handled as an SC, and the success or failure would then adjust the difficulty of the battle with said beasty. There's a structure there, and the DM can set the difficulty of both SC and combat as he sees fit. So, it's easier to resolve, and involves the players and their characters in more than just snowing the DM into arbitrarily ruling that the plan works.

 

[JonWake]

One of the most difficult things that we had to adjust to with 4E was the extreme focus on the action economy. It is mitigated somewhat by usually having a larger group than normal, but my experience with 4E is that the risk of unexpected character death is lower, but the risk of a TPK is far higher as a percentage of all deaths. We had a 3 year 3E campaign that had several deaths in it, but was never in the slightest danger of a TPK. The Fantasy Hero game had deaths avoided only by special resources, but no TPK. We had one close TPK when only 4 players showed and I did not adjust the adventure.

But in 4E, we've had everyone down into single digits or dying many times--and I don't merely mean in that well-known 4E manner of "seemed almost dead and then broke out the dailies to reverse the trend." In fact, it reminds me of the TPKs I had in Basic and 1E, except that there are enough hit points and other resources that it isn't so swingy, and thus the TPKs have been avoided. But you probably know the ones I mean, where the cleric went down, and within 2 rounds, everyone else was either dead or about to be.

This is something I ran into, too. I think it's a byproduct of being so well balanced: if you lose a character early, the predictable back and forth flow of the fight goes right out the window and usually the party gets steamrolled in a couple rounds. Which I have no problem with, but it's not exactly the Epic Heroism sold on the box.

That's another thing with balance: it only exists when all the factors are accounted for. If something exists as an outlier, as dice are wont to do, you don't have balance, you have chaos. 4e designers acknowledge this; it's probably part of the reason why you're expected to go into each fight fresh. Over enough iterations, outliers will fall toward the mean.

 

[FireLance]

There's a serious conflict between CAW play and PC - encounter balance.

Because CAW is all about giving the players the freedom to be less predictable, and PC-encounter balance is all about making encounter difficulty (and pacing and rhythm) more predictable. Which requires that the PCs be predictable.

At least with regard to their capacity to defeat game-world challenges. If you design a balanced system where the fluff is easily divorced from the mechanical interactions, then you can give the players plenty of freedom to narrate their fluff. But this isn't the same thing as giving them the power to seriously influence or entirely override the standard mechanical interactions with situational CAW play.

IMO, the only way that PCs will ever be predictable is if the DM restricts the players to whatever is on their character sheets and nothing else. And frankly, if the players do not think outside of their character sheets, I am not sure that it is entirely the fault of the system.

Admittedly, some systems do make it harder for the PCs to engage in CAW-style play by denying them pre-packaged CAW solutions. When you don't have a create traps (or equivalent) spell, you have to do it the hard way: digging pits, laying tripwires, constructing deadfalls, carefully positioning barrels of oil so that they will land in just the right place, etc. When you can't wizard lock a door, you have to barricade it physically, with whatever materials are on hand. When you don't have access to divination magic, you have to do the scouting, research and investigation yourself.

Perhaps the real reason why some systems tend to be played as CAS is that the CAW style solutions are no longer on the character sheet, so the players have to come up with them themselves.

 

[Hassassin]

Actually, it just requires that encounters be consistent. If you set up a 5th level encounter, you don't have something that'll instantly gank a 7th level party or that couldn't possibly challenge a 3rd level one. Nevermind variability on the player side, CR was that whacked.

Yes, but CAS also requires a level 5 party to perform consistently against a level 5 encounter. The history of what happened before shouldn't affect the outcome of the fight (significantly). (Nor should party make up.)

This rules out attrition style CAW situations, where what would have been an easy encounter becomes first difficult and later a lethal threat as the party's resources are worn thin.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IMO, the only way that PCs will ever be predictable is if the DM restricts the players to whatever is on their character sheets and nothing else. And frankly, if the players do not think outside of their character sheets, I am not sure that it is entirely the fault of the system.

Admittedly, some systems do make it harder for the PCs to engage in CAW-style play by denying them pre-packaged CAW solutions. When you don't have a create traps (or equivalent) spell, you have to do it the hard way: digging pits, laying tripwires, constructing deadfalls, carefully positioning barrels of oil so that they will land in just the right place, etc. When you can't wizard lock a door, you have to barricade it physically, with whatever materials are on hand. When you don't have access to divination magic, you have to do the scouting, research and investigation yourself.

Perhaps the real reason why some systems tend to be played as CAS is that the CAW style solutions are no longer on the character sheet, so the players have to come up with them themselves.

The one thing though that is rather unaccountable in the design of 4e was the fact that not only were the 'easy out' magical ways of "cheating" made expensive and/or reduced in scope and effectiveness, but there's nothing much in the way of equipment provided by default that provides fuel for the 'Rube Goldberg' kind of approach. You don't have rules for hirelings, you don't have 10' poles, oil flasks, etc. My long experienced players simply went ahead and bought that kind of stuff anyway, but I never understood the reluctance of the 4e game designers to give a few nods to the whole notion. I don't think that was a smart move.

Yes, but CAS also requires a level 5 party to perform consistently against a level 5 encounter. The history of what happened before shouldn't affect the outcome of the fight (significantly). (Nor should party make up.)

This rules out attrition style CAW situations, where what would have been an easy encounter becomes first difficult and later a lethal threat as the party's resources are worn thin.

Eh, there are always still daily resources and other resources that are more situational or story oriented. There's always the option in 4e at least to restrict even the normal resources (run the party through a gauntlet, deny them a way to get a good rest, etc). I think it would be nice if the rules gave you more options for rates of recovery in 5e. That certainly is a cheap way to add flexibility to the system and I'll guess that it is the kind of low hanging fruit that WotC won't miss.

 

[Noumenon]

So if I find CaW fun I am wrong. Yes?

It was just a gut reaction. After pouring my tea in the saucer to cool it for a couple days, CaW is just a handy way to explain why people in the world are behaving differently from me.

I probably do still think your way of having fun is not really fun, just like I think about people who like watching football, gardening, and remodeling their house. But I'm not angry about it. If I DMed for you I might even put in some supply wagons you could torch to make the goblins pull out of the dungeon for once.

 

[Mutak]

'To you,' OK. So, I list factual differences that set exploits and spells apart, and your counter is an unsupported personal opinion?

You listed a bunch of semantics and keywords, but if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and walks like a duck, calling it a Swan doesn't make it feel more Swan-ish.

I'm going to assume you're familiar with the idea of dissociated mechanics. This is what he's talking about.

 

[herrozerro]

You listed a bunch of semantics and keywords, but if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and walks like a duck, calling it a Swan doesn't make it feel more Swan-ish.

I'm going to assume you're familiar with the idea of dissociated mechanics. This is what he's talking about.

So what is a "spell"?

Is a spell a mechanic that is self contained in a package that provides rules, keywords and flavor?

sounds like everything in the game is a spell...

In 4e "spells" and "exploits" vary greatly, exploits are almost exclusively weapon abilities, which means that they interact with a whole subest of different damage dice or feats.

Magic has a range of almost any damage type

Martial as a powersource has I beleive one single ability that dominates.

Magic causes things to fly, turn invisible or teleport.

just because they are presented the same doenst mean that they are alike at all.

 

[herrozerro]

So to throw the metaphore back at you:

If it looks like a duck, honks like a goose, flies like an eagle, has scales like a fish... then magic is probably involved, but if it looks like a duck and actually is a duck it's probably just a duck.