D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how D&D 4E could have looked

There is nothing wrong with having MMO influences, they are quite good in their own right, even if that is something that turned off folks at the time. If it is what the designers were specifically thinking about and crediting as an influence, it is what it is.

I don see anybody being told to "suck it up," but the thread started from a post-mortem from one of the designers of 4E on how it could have been different. As it was, it failed in the marketplace. Mearls speculated on how it could have been if WotC had better knowledge of the target market at the time.

Then there is the odd sidetrack into how one of the aspects of 4E that 5E took basically wholesale is somehow a defining difference? Yet it remains the same, with flatter math.

Manbearcat said:

Alright, so we're doing this again.

1) The "level of the encounter" is where DCs come from. The game implies this throughout its text (in both Combat Encounters and Skill Challenges), but I can't remember if it says this precisely in DMG1's page 42 or if you're just supposed to infer this from the holistic context of the rest of the book (I don't have my books with me). I know FOR CERTAIN that DMG 2 says it specifically in its Terrain Powers section (which is basically the "show your work" version of improvisational acts). The overwhelming % of encounters in 4e are going to be of-level, level +1 or level +2 (until you get into later Paragon and then Heroic). So the rolling 3 level spread of DCs and Expressions easily encapsulates the relevant numbers required in almost every situation. If the encounter is particularly difficult (level +3 to level +5), then just move the DCs and expressions down one.

An encounter is a discrete environment of context that includes, circumstance, threat, and danger. Sliding down a banister is an of-level encounter with no extenuating circumstances is different than sliding down the same banister in a burning building, filled with smoke, where the building's framing is failing, and you're tasked to protect 3 vulnerable minions from the fire and from a level +2 equivalent encounter worth of threats 6 levels later.

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Just wanted to address this because according to the most up to date rules reference... The 4e Rules Compendium... you are wrong. And unlike the original DMG states how DC's are determined in an upfront and clear manner. I have reproduced the relevant section below with an emphasis on how DC's are actually determined...

Difficulty Class
When making skill checks, high results are best. A creature is always trying to
meet or beat a certain number, referred to as the Difficulty Class (DC) of the
check. A skill check’s DC depends on what a creature is trying to accomplish
with the skill check, and the number is set by the Dungeon Master.
Typically, a creature either succeeds or fails at a skill check, meaning that the
check result meets or exceeds (beats) the DC or else falls below it. Some skill
checks have degrees of success or failure that depend on the difference between
the check result and the DC. Unless otherwise noted, when a creature fails a skill
check, it can try again with a new check.
The skill entries in this chapter give sample DCs for common uses of the skills.
Some DCs are fixed, whereas others scale with level. A fixed DC represents a
task that gets easier as an adventurer gains levels. By the time an adventurer
reaches the epic tier, certain tasks become trivial. In contrast, a DC that scales
with level represents a task that remains at least a little challenging throughout
an adventurer’s career.
The Dungeon Master can use the suggested DC for a task or set one using the
Difficulty Class by Level table. The table provides DCs at each level for three
categories of difficulty: easy, moderate, and hard. When choosing a DC from the
table, the Dungeon Master should use the level of the creature performing the
check, unless otherwise noted.

Parmandur said:

There is nothing wrong with having MMO influences, they are quite good in their own right, even if that is something that turned off folks at the time. If it is what the designers were specifically thinking about and crediting as an influence, it is what it is.

I don see anybody being told to "suck it up," but the thread started from a post-mortem from one of the designers of 4E on how it could have been different. As it was, it failed in the marketplace. Mearls speculated on how it could have been if WotC had better knowledge of the target market at the time.

Then there is the odd sidetrack into how one of the aspects of 4E that 5E took basically wholesale is somehow a defining difference? Yet it remains the same, with flatter math.

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Here is the problem with all of these things:

1) There is implied connotation (and often explicit...you can see it in this thread) when discussing 4e as a boardgame or MMO by people who hate it. "4e is a (shallow) boardgame (where fiction is irrelevant)" and "4e is a (shallow) MMO (where fiction is irrelevant)" were UTTERLY weaponized from (even before) 2008 through the entire Next playtest. They were epithets, no descriptors. It was not just weaponized, but it was an UTTERLY incorrect weaponization. Embarrassingly wrong. It was nothing but an EXTREMELY small part of the complete "scorched earth" operation waged by a small but ridiculously vehement and relentless group of edition warriors that made hobby shops and RPG boards completely insufferable places to partake in during that period (hence why SO many great posters on these boards aren't here anymore). Those people completely made the hobby completely inhospitable and none of them will take responsibility for it. They actually pretend that this didn't take place. Like we all weren't there and didn't go through it together. Its this weird combination of Stepford Wives meets The Matrix meets The Truman Show.

2) I've many times called aspects of 4e influenced by Magic the Gathering (systemization and themes). Its easy to see, MtG is the primary WotC offering (dwarfing D&D), and it was well known that members of WotC's MtG group consulted/helped out with the design.

Now MtG is a card game which could connote the descriptors "shallow" and "where fiction is irrelevant". However, I can talk about this objectively and silo away those connotations about MtG because I'm just trying to have an interesting conversation and understand the actual design influences. (a) Even though I haven't played it in several years, I'm a fan of 4e and I'm not coming from a position of ignorance while merely trying to weaponize those potential connotations as an epithet. (b) I'm accurately describing the situation from a well-considered, non-compromised position. Its clear that combat roles are kindred spirits with Magic Decks and its plain to see the various design influences if you know both games.

(A) is a thing because people who hate something don't get to decide that their targets aren't allowed to take offense to their epithets (which are clearly meant to be injurious rather than descriptive)...IN PARTICULAR if those epithets aren't (b)...and they aren't and never have been. And they were obsessively persistent (disturbingly so) during that aforementioned "scorched earth" campaign during the edition wars. If I was an alien doing a fly-by during that era and this was my lone observation of humanity...I would have pulled a Ripley and nuked_the_entire_site_from_orbit to make sure these insane, petty creatures never get off this blue planet and make a mess of things in the cosmos.

3) Finally, Mike Mearls does not have a lot of social/design currency with 4e players (for a myriad of reasons...there are convincing lines of evidence that he wasn't a particular fan of the game - I believe he's spoken of AD&D2e being his favorite D&D line and it should come as no surprise that 5e was basically AD&D 3e...and he clearly didn't understand the concepts as deeply as some would like us to believe with his first offering as an adventure being basically anathema). Of the designers whose work I really appreciate (my Mount Rushmore of living designers would probably be Vincent Baker, Jonathon Harper, Luke Crane, and Jonathon Tweet), Mearls is waaaay down on the totem pole. If I want insight into the design process and inspiration of 4e, I'll take the guy who was primarily responsible for its conception, clearly loved it (he made a game with Tweet that basically pushed the concepts he most wanted out of the system), and moved the most units; Rob Heinsoo.

Hussar said:

Just for the novelty of it, I'm going to completely agree with [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] here. 4e's major malfunction was in the writing. Totally, 100% agree.

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That may be. I can't disprove that it is in the writing. But I don't believe it. I think they truly intended it to be this way.

@Imaro

That's fine. You know what that is for? That is for extra-encounter rolls during exploration phases or transition scene sort of play (eg using a Ritual to teleport).

Orthodox 4e has the exact same usage outside of the Encounter site.

However, you'll notice:

(a) RC doesn't have any information on Stunting or Terrain Power resolution during Combat encounters (eg using Terrain Powers - at-will like a banister or limited-use like pushing over a brazier). So this is your "otherwise noted", as RC doesn't cover either of these things DMG and DMG2 (especially) remain the reference points. Exception-based design.

and (THE reference-point in RC for intra-encounter handling of Skills)

(b) page 157 of RC is the only place where it references deploying Skills in an Encounter. What does it say? Does it say "the DC is dependent on the creature performing the check?"

No, it does not.

It says: "A Skill Challenge has a level, which helps determine the DCs of the Skill Checks involved."

That should be pretty clear.

MwaO said:

Sure I am. Because swinging up to the ogre might provoke an attack in fiction — it is her skill with swinging that makes everything work, not just the initial grab.

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The first roll is CLEARLY described as just "the initial grab", as you put it.
You are describing a *BETTER* way of doing it. But the text isn't even ambiguous. The text directly contradicts you.

And it is the danger of a CR8 Ogre vs say a CR1 Orc that requires that skill. A big failure on the acrobatics check might allow the Ogre to make an OA against her.

No, it isn't. 4e is in almost all cases about having the creature who is doing the action to be the one making the roll, then setting the DC based on the obstacles in the way. If the DM wants to reflect that the CR11 Hill Giant is more difficult to swing up to, they can use DM's Friend *on page 42* to give a -2 penalty. Or even set DC to medium. Or for the Goblin Wizard, a +2 or even not require an Acrobatics check at all and go straight to the attack roll.

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And now you are contradicting yourself. If the DC takes the monster into account, then you don't need a modifier to take the monster into account.

Again, THREE ROLLS, two explicitly reference the character and one explicitly references the monster. The fact that they do consider the monster in one makes it abundantly clear that they did not have any intention to reference the monster in the others. I already pointed this out and you choose to edit it out. I don't wonder why.

Manbearcat said:

Alright, so we're doing this again.

1) The "level of the encounter" is where DCs come from. The game implies this throughout its text (in both Combat Encounters and Skill Challenges), but I can't remember if it says this precisely in DMG1's page 42 or if you're just supposed to infer this from the holistic context of the rest of the book (I don't have my books with me).

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So let me get this right. This game was praised as being wonderful for new DMs. Page 42 is often referenced as a central achievement and representation of how great the game is. On that page of pages, the great page 42, it references the character. And yet in vague other places "throughout its text", it "implies" (it doesn't clearly state, it "implies") that this clear statement of the character is not about the character. It is about the encounter*. And all these newb DMs are supposed to get that.

All I can say (1) I do agree that doing it as described is a vast improvement over doing it as written (2) What *is* written there is completely lacking in ambiguity (3) the amount of squinting and cocking of heads to come up with a way to say "it depends on what you mean by 'is' " is quite amusing (4) This issue, which seems well proven by the current exchange, is clearly on the (rather long) list of things which stand between 4E and the 4E that could have been



* - Note that I have three differing answers already. (character implies the monster; it means character, but with modifiers for monster; and not character at all, character is a special code word for encounter)

Manbearcat said:

@Imaro

That's fine. You know what that is for? That is for extra-encounter rolls during exploration phases or transition scene sort of play (eg using a Ritual to teleport).

Orthodox 4e has the exact same usage outside of the Encounter site.

However, you'll notice:

(a) RC doesn't have any information on Stunting or Terrain Power resolution during Combat encounters (eg using Terrain Powers - at-will like a banister or limited-use like pushing over a brazier). So this is your "otherwise noted", as RC doesn't cover either of these things DMG and DMG2 (especially) remain the reference points. Exception-based design.

and (THE reference-point in RC for intra-encounter handling of Skills)

(b) page 157 of RC is the only place where it references deploying Skills in an Encounter. What does it say? Does it say "the DC is dependent on the creature performing the check?"

No, it does not.

It says: "A Skill Challenge has a level, which helps determine the DCs of the Skill Checks involved."

That should be pretty clear.

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So you're referencing the specific rules for setting a Skill Challenges ( a specific type of encounter) and how DC's are set specifically in that subset of encounters as opposed to the general rules of setting DC's (which arguably will come up much more often)...and then claiming that's how you set DC's as a general rule?? I just want to make sure I'm following correctly.

EDIT: Notice in the passage I quoted where it said "...unless otherwise noted..."? You've grabbed the "otherwise noted" and tried to claim it's the general rule and you're wrong.

EDIT 2: How do I determine the DC for a single skill check taking place in a combat encounter?

BryonD said:

Again, THREE ROLLS, two explicitly reference the character and one explicitly references the monster. The fact that they do consider the monster in one makes it abundantly clear that they did not have any intention to reference the monster in the others. I already pointed this out and you choose to edit it out. I don't wonder why.

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Wait but I was told it's supposed to be based on the DC of the skill challenge... not on the specific obstacle...

@Imaro and @BryonD

1) Terrain Stunting and Skill Challenges both reference DCs being set with respect the encounter level. The RC text I quoted above is directly cribbed from the DMGs.

2) The Terrain Stunting text is below. If you're looking for me to say "apparently it would have been better if DMG1 (perhaps in the p42 section) had the Terrain Stunting section rather than DMG2 because there is some confusion around DC setting, then sure."

Here is the section on Terrain Stunting (which swinging on a chandelier would have to fall under At-WIll terrain):

DMG2 p62

..."or an ogre pushes against a wall attempting to topple it over onto nearby enemies. First, the ogre has to make a successful check to push the wall over.

...Use DC and Damage by level table (page 65) to determine the exact DC based on the level of the encounter."

Ruined Wall, Chandelier Attack, and many others are broken down in this. This is authoritative.

In 4e, there are the below types of resolution via Skill Checks:

1) Free/Open/Exploration/Transition play (extra-encounter) like Passive Perception to notice something or active Perception vs a Trap during exploration or Ritual Casting/Martial Practices. This could be Group Checks if its just a transition. This could be Streetwise. This is what Imaro quoted above.

2) Extra-encounter Contests where you're very specifically challenging/interacting with another creature (eg Perception vs Stealth or Insight vs Bluff to determine if someone starts combat surprised or some sort of action scene/encounter should be initiated or some situation escalated).

3) Hazard/Disease effects (these have their own DCs based on their individual level).

4) Encounter Terrain Stunting - Encounter Level DCs and damage expressions.

5) Skill Challenges - Encounter Level DCs.