D&D 4E Who's still playing 4E

[pemerton]

They are good sources of focused analysis for their specified purpose. They are helpful but should not be taken as gospel.

I'm not setting out to disparage the optimiser's guides. Just pointing out what my players have found to be some of their limitations.

The optimizers guides are designed to show how to eliminate opponents as quickly as possible (pile damage on single targets, rinse and repeat) which in turn mitigates damage to your "team" (less attackers remain).

The experience of my group is that, in fact, this is not always optimal. My players' party does not exhibit any lack of ability to take on significant numbers of challenges, including combat challenges, without a long rest. But they do not particularly emphasise focused fire or single-target damage. Mobility and control, and synergies of positioning and condition-infliction, tend to be more important.

I'm not sure I have a fully-worked example that springs to mind, but the general idea is that controlling who enemies can attack, and hence where damage lands; and controlling enemy layout, and hence who is subject to the PCs' damage- and condition-inflicting AoEs; is very important. Exercising this sort of control often requires attacking multiple targets rather than focus fire. Mobility is also important for bringing melee/close burst attacks to bear, and for ranged PCs (of which my party has 3 of 5 - sorcerer, cleric-ranger and invoker/wizard) to keep out of melee where possible. And at 29th level, the fighter and paladin have about twice as many healing surges as the invoker/wizard, each nearly twice as potent. So getting damage to land on one of those defenders is quite important: one way to look at it is that every hp dealt to the invoker/wizard is four times as costly in terms of party capacity.

the guides have limited/narrow usability in a game that does not always heavily focus on combat

I think a fair bit of the inclination for CharOp kind of optimization is premised upon the majority of encounters being fairly narrow combat scenarios with symmetric threats.

Combat is a fairly big part of our game. I'm not sure whether the threats are "symmetric" or not - they at least tend to be more numerous, which probably reduces the symmetry.

I just had a look at the Invoker book "Art of the Covenant" - it says that controllers don't use their at-wills all that often, but then ranks Mantle of the Infidel poorly - whereas Mantle of the Infidel has range 20, and hence is situationally highly useful, and being situationally useful isn't a bad thing for something that you don't use all that often!

It also ranks Astral Step, 6th level daily party teleport, as average, and rates Symbol of Hope (a temp hp generator) higher. But Symbol of Hope (like Wall of Light, which also gets a better rating than Astral Step, and which Symbol of Hope is compared to) depends upon the PCs remaining within a given position. If two allies are within its area, it generats 10 temp hp per turn. As the PCs gain levels, that becomes an increasingly irrelevant number of temp hp, whereas the strength of Astral Step (which adds INT to the teleport distance for a Preserver) just grows!

The invoker in my party, who has Astral Step and who spent a feat to get Arcane Gate via multi-classing, would never think of dropping those mobility powers. They are situational to an extant, but then daily powers can afford to be because you're not going to use them every time! When they are used, they are game-changers in a way that Symbol of Hope is unlikely to be.

I'm not saying that the Guide is hopeless or anything like that, but I do think that it has a somewhat narrow conception of what optimisation looks like, even within the combat sphere.

Kinda surprised about the skill training thing. Usually I'm so incredibly starved for feats, I'm trying to find excuses not to take something with such narrow benefits.

I think from the player's point of view the benefits of skill training aren't narrow. The PC is trained in 8 of 17 skills, and has an average +25 skill bonus compared to the average of +19 to +21 for the other PCs.

These skills complement the character's rituals.

The character is not uber-powerful in combat (although with 1x/enc close burst domination he's not weak either), but is very effective as a sage and ritualist, which in my view is an extremely viable character and a useful one for the party.

 

[D'karr]

I think a fair bit of the inclination for CharOp kind of optimization is premised upon the majority of encounters being fairly narrow combat scenarios with symmetric threats. There are several ways to mitigate this. If the majority of encounters are noncombat action scenes with high stakes, players will naturally invest deeper into the means to dictate outcomes therein. If a fair portion of combat encounter budgets are spent on hazards/traps (threats that can't be resolved via HP ablation/nova), then players will inevitably invest in resource suites to counteract/avoid them and forced movement to afflict enemies with them. If monsters (auras) or team monster (synergy) routinely punish lack of finesse/mobility/active mitigation, players will be less inclined to invest in brunt force/nova options.

Obviously the inverse is very true as well. My guess is that a fair number of 4e GMs hewed to that inverse (at least at its inception and a few years into its life cycle).

This is the reason why I've always gone with extremely varied encounters. The typical encounter does not exist for my players. Therefore they have had to look for ways to optimize/synergize in different ways. Once you get your players off that mind set then you'll start seeing that the optimizer guides fall short for anything but the quick hit point ablation model. Hit point ablation is still effective, but it becomes only one aspect of the encounters.

 

[D'karr]

I think from the player's point of view the benefits of skill training aren't narrow. The PC is trained in 8 of 17 skills, and has an average +25 skill bonus compared to the average of +19 to +21 for the other PCs.

These skills complement the character's rituals.

The character is not uber-powerful in combat (although with 1x/enc close burst domination he's not weak either), but is very effective as a sage and ritualist, which in my view is an extremely viable character and a useful one for the party.

I think more than anything that is why single target optimization is not so important within your game. There are other available and viable options. And not every player must uber-focused on combat. Skill use is encouraged/rewarded in multiple areas. Rituals and powers are treated as open. Your combats are definitely not cookie-cutter, and every option is actually open with creative use by players and open/reliable adjudication by the DM.

If a DM is not willing to open up the playing field to creative options/solutions (actions other than what is explicitly contained in the text) he is also probably closing off other avenues the players have. In instances like that, HP Ablation becomes the only reliable/available option to use.

This is part of the reward/carrot - stick/disincentive training any RPG provides underneath the base rules level. If something is rewarded players will do it more, if it is disincentivized they will do it less. The "say yes" paradigm is what carries forward the momentum of the game. If combat is the only way to advance, the players will fix everything through combat. If combat is simply one of many ways to resolve conflict players will also use other options. If skill use, rituals, creative use of powers and feats (say yes) within every aspect of the game are all given equal footing, then HP ablation is not the only reliable way of overcoming obstacles. In those instances, the Optimizer Guide falls way short because of it's narrow focus.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm not setting out to disparage the optimiser's guides. Just pointing out what my players have found to be some of their limitations.

<snip>

Combat is a fairly big part of our game. I'm not sure whether the threats are "symmetric" or not - they at least tend to be more numerous, which probably reduces the symmetry.

<snip examples>

I'm not saying that the Guide is hopeless or anything like that, but I do think that it has a somewhat narrow conception of what optimisation looks like, even within the combat sphere.

This is the reason why I've always gone with extremely varied encounters. The typical encounter does not exist for my players. Therefore they have had to look for ways to optimize/synergize in different ways. Once you get your players off that mind set then you'll start seeing that the optimizer guides fall short for anything but the quick hit point ablation model. Hit point ablation is still effective, but it becomes only one aspect of the encounters.

Yes to both of these. I certainly don't feel that they're hopeless either. They're definitely helpful through a certain prism (and even helpful outside of them). However, the saying "the best status condition is the 'dead' condition" is probably the motto of CharOp. While it has merit and holds true under a specific paradigm, the extremely diversity of the 4e combat and noncombat encounter setup (and everything that interfaces with it; Rests etc) really limits the value of that model.

From feat value to class value to intra-class build value, there is an awful lot in the games that I've run that have deviated wildly from CharOp orthodoxy.

 

[Aenghus]

I'm still running my 4e campaign at weekends. I have few houserules, the main one being long rests may not be available every day.

 

[cavalier973]

When I get the time, i'm planning to run the 4e version of Keep on the Borderland

 

[cavalier973]

When I get the time, i'm planning to run the 4e version of Keep on the Borderland

Keep on the Borderlands/Chaos Scar. I'm thinking about using house rules to gimp the characters and to award XP based on the amount of treasure recovered.

 

[Mondaynightgamer]

Anyone see or working on a Princes of Apocalypse 4e conversion?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not setting out to disparage the optimiser's guides. Just pointing out what my players have found to be some of their limitations.

The experience of my group is that, in fact, this is not always optimal. My players' party does not exhibit any lack of ability to take on significant numbers of challenges, including combat challenges, without a long rest. But they do not particularly emphasise focused fire or single-target damage. Mobility and control, and synergies of positioning and condition-infliction, tend to be more important.

I'm not sure I have a fully-worked example that springs to mind, but the general idea is that controlling who enemies can attack, and hence where damage lands; and controlling enemy layout, and hence who is subject to the PCs' damage- and condition-inflicting AoEs; is very important. Exercising this sort of control often requires attacking multiple targets rather than focus fire. Mobility is also important for bringing melee/close burst attacks to bear, and for ranged PCs (of which my party has 3 of 5 - sorcerer, cleric-ranger and invoker/wizard) to keep out of melee where possible. And at 29th level, the fighter and paladin have about twice as many healing surges as the invoker/wizard, each nearly twice as potent. So getting damage to land on one of those defenders is quite important: one way to look at it is that every hp dealt to the invoker/wizard is four times as costly in terms of party capacity.


Combat is a fairly big part of our game. I'm not sure whether the threats are "symmetric" or not - they at least tend to be more numerous, which probably reduces the symmetry.

I just had a look at the Invoker book "Art of the Covenant" - it says that controllers don't use their at-wills all that often, but then ranks Mantle of the Infidel poorly - whereas Mantle of the Infidel has range 20, and hence is situationally highly useful, and being situationally useful isn't a bad thing for something that you don't use all that often!

It also ranks Astral Step, 6th level daily party teleport, as average, and rates Symbol of Hope (a temp hp generator) higher. But Symbol of Hope (like Wall of Light, which also gets a better rating than Astral Step, and which Symbol of Hope is compared to) depends upon the PCs remaining within a given position. If two allies are within its area, it generats 10 temp hp per turn. As the PCs gain levels, that becomes an increasingly irrelevant number of temp hp, whereas the strength of Astral Step (which adds INT to the teleport distance for a Preserver) just grows!

The invoker in my party, who has Astral Step and who spent a feat to get Arcane Gate via multi-classing, would never think of dropping those mobility powers. They are situational to an extant, but then daily powers can afford to be because you're not going to use them every time! When they are used, they are game-changers in a way that Symbol of Hope is unlikely to be.

I'm not saying that the Guide is hopeless or anything like that, but I do think that it has a somewhat narrow conception of what optimisation looks like, even within the combat sphere.

This is pretty much what I got out of the guides too. They are each written from a certain point of view, with a certain author's particular experience in mind. I found that MANY times powers that were marked purple, or even black, were actually perfectly effective and good solid choices for specific characters. If you already have 3 powers that do basically X, then a purple power that does Y instead, when Y adds some other useful dimension to your character, can make perfectly good sense instead of taking gold power number 4 that does X.

I would never build to formula from a guide, except maybe to create some pre-gens for a one-shot or something where I just wanted good solid generic PCs that the players can quickly pick up the primary shtick for. What the guides are useful for is pointing out different ensembles of useful feat/power/item/etc constellations that you can work into your character. They are also clearly excellent at setting out the basic parameters of a class and what stuff 'just works'.

So, when I build a 4e character I usually do look at the relevant guide, just to see if there are some things that it can tell me which I might not already know about. I could care less if they say some stuff is bad and its on my character sheet. Beyond that, sometimes the goal isn't optimization. I built a half-orc ruthless ruffian for example, which every guide basically says "don't even bother" about. It was awesome, did exactly what it was designed to do. Maybe I could do a bit more damage and whatever some other way, so what? It fit with what I wanted and pretty much every power I used was 'purple' because nobody really ever evaluated the powers in that context.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is the reason why I've always gone with extremely varied encounters. The typical encounter does not exist for my players. Therefore they have had to look for ways to optimize/synergize in different ways. Once you get your players off that mind set then you'll start seeing that the optimizer guides fall short for anything but the quick hit point ablation model. Hit point ablation is still effective, but it becomes only one aspect of the encounters.

Yeah, this is really the most key thing with 4e of all. If you build stock dungeon-type encounters all the time (or other types, but very vanilla) and try to just rely on "its a harpy instead of an orc" to make it work, then the game will devolve to a lot of very set-piece combat scenarios that just don't do the whole system a lot of justice. The combats MAY be fairly interesting, maybe, but most of the reasons for running 4e IMHO are missed.

It really works best as a supers game recast into the fantasy genre. The battles should be wacky crazy things or complexly plotted grudge matches between old enemies, or running action-sequences with incidental combat. For all 4e's focus on combat its at its best when you don't put that at the very center of things. Conflict is central but it should have a huge variety and come in many unexpected forms. Watch action movies, read comic books, THEN write your 4e adventure.