D&D 4E In Defense of 4E - a New Campaign Perspective

The Crimson Binome · Jun 4, 2019

thanson02 said:
I decided to go through the old Player Handbooks for 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition because I wanted to make sure I responded appropriately to what you're presenting here. After looking at how Hit Points were dealt with in 2nd Edition, 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, and 5th Edition, what I'm seeing is an evolution of concept design, not a deviation. I understand that you have your way of playing your game and earlier editions allowed you to do that for you. I also understand that you disagreed with the evolution direction that they went with 4th and 5th editions, but you're conflating your House-rules with RAW and the examples you brought up above, you even straight up and said that the gameplay seem to go that direction. Just because they decided to actually take that next step with 4th Edition, doesn't mean they were in the wrong.

Don't conflate the explanation of the rules for the actual rules themselves, even if that explanation is in the book. The actual rules for every edition prior to 4E are that you can only suffer HP damage from things that are physically capable of damaging your body; we know this, by looking at the different things that cause HP damage, and comparing them to the things that work through other mechanics.

The explanation for those rules may suggest that it's possible to take HP damage without some corresponding physical injury, but that interpretation is flatly contradicted by the actual rules in the book. If it was possible to cause HP damage without causing physical injury, then there would be something in the game which actually worked that way, but there conspicuously is not. The absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

The explanation may suggest that being scared by a ghost can cause HP damage, but the actual rule is that being scared by a ghost can just kill you outright (if you fail your system shock for magical aging); until 4E came along, where it suddenly does "psychic" damage.

thanson02 said:
Also, the comment you made above about not caring about the rules and only caring about how things are at your table, all the arguments of objectivity that you've been making up to this s point have been completely thrown out the window with that statement. You can't insist on having objectivity within a game rule set and then turn around and say that the rules don't matter when it conflicts with your House-rules and how you want to run your game. It doesn't work that way.

I care about rules. I don't care about ridiculous interpretations of those rules, regardless of how official those interpretations may be.

The game can include twelve paragraphs about how amazingly lethal a sling bullet is, but if it does less damage than an arrow, then those twelve paragraphs are incorrect as a point of simple fact. And the fact of the matter is that, prior to 4E, the description of HP in the book did not align with how the rules of HP actually operated.

thanson02 · Jun 4, 2019

tomBitonti said:
Some points about minions:

I think the "1 HP" notion is an attempt to model a more general feature: Minions are intended to model creatures which die after one solid hit. A more accurate model would give minions about 1/2 the HP value of an average attack. As a simplification, that is changed to "1 HP", which required a further modification to prevent low damage area effects from killing minions too easily.

Also, minions are not quite creatures modified to fit their use outside of their usual level band. Minions "break" usual scaling by increasing their expected damage output but leaving their effect hit points unchanged. Although not tracking exactly, level increases mean increasing attack bonuses and armor class, and mean increasing damage output and hit points. Minions break this by increasing the combination of attack bonus and damage, without increasing the combination of armor class and hit points.

That is, a goal of the the core combat model is to roughly preserved combat as levels increase. One of the features of combat which is not preserved as levels increase is that detail and complexity increase, as both the characters and their opponents have many more abilities. Minions "break" this model.

A way to (partially) unify minions with usual opponents is to replace hit points with a chance of elimination: If on average, five 10 hit point strikes are needed to defeat a 50 hit point opponent, that can be replaced with a 10 hit point strike having a 20% chance of defeating the opponent outright, and an 80% chance of being ignored. The inverse of this replacement is arguably the effect of introducing hit points, with the intended benefit to reduce the variability of combat.

Thx!
TomB

Something to think about too is looking at minions from a different angle. I found after a while that one way to run groups and minions was instead of having a bunch of individual monsters with one hit point, you actually had a standard swarm creature of the level that you want for the minions to be. This works really great if you had those horde of zombie scenarios or swarms of goblins. It was also easier to manage on the DM side and did not affect the player's perception of what was going on in any way.

So, for example, instead of having 5 to 10 zombie minions on the battlefield, you can have a gargantuan size zombie swarm that would just attack the party. Everytime the swarm took damage, one of the zombies "died", but you still had a mess of them to deal with. When the swarm became bloodied, I'd roll a save roll to see if the swarm broke or if they continue to fight. That ended up being my makeshift moral check. I also took the idea and expanded it out to different types of swarms, including creating infantry units which had slightly different rules than the mass forms.

The idea of having a warlord who had companions swarm infantry units as companion creatures to perform his exploits and combat maneuvers was something that just made me giddy.

So just a different way of approaching minions if you don't particularly like the "1 hit point creature" route.

thanson02 · Jun 4, 2019

Saelorn said:
Don't conflate the explanation of the rules for the actual rules themselves, even if that explanation is in the book. The actual rules for every edition prior to 4E are that you can only suffer HP damage from things that are physically capable of damaging your body; we know this, by looking at the different things that cause HP damage, and comparing them to the things that work through other mechanics.

The explanation for those rules may suggest that it's possible to take HP damage without some corresponding physical injury, but that interpretation is flatly contradicted by the actual rules in the book. If it was possible to cause HP damage without causing physical injury, then there would be something in the game which actually worked that way, but there conspicuously is not. The absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

The explanation may suggest that being scared by a ghost can cause HP damage, but the actual rule is that being scared by a ghost can just kill you outright (if you fail your system shock for magical aging); until 4E came along, where it suddenly does "psychic" damage.
I care about rules. I don't care about ridiculous interpretations of those rules, regardless of how official those interpretations may be.

The game can include twelve paragraphs about how amazingly lethal a sling bullet is, but if it does less damage than an arrow, then those twelve paragraphs are incorrect as a point of simple fact. And the fact of the matter is that, prior to 4E, the description of HP in the book did not align with how the rules of HP actually operated.

Everything in this response tells me you haven't even bothered open up the book and look and see what the rules actually say. Everything you just said contradicted everything in the core books.

You do realize that the rest of us aren't slow morons, correct? You do realize we are able to comprehend the words that we read and understand how they used in gameplay right?

You're conflating your house rules with RAW.

Have a good day.

The Crimson Binome · Jun 4, 2019

thanson02 said:
Everything in this response tells me you haven't even bothered open up the book and look and see what the rules actually say. Everything you just said contradicted everything in the core books.

You do realize that the rest of us aren't slow morons, correct? You do realize we are able to comprehend the words that we read and understand how they used in gameplay right?

If you honestly believe that I haven't read and re-read the text in order to find some possible interpretation that would reconcile the matter, then it casts serious doubts on your own cognitive abilities. I won't speak for anyone else in this thread, as they at least seem to understand the topic at hand, even if they choose an alternate interpretation which I find distasteful.

thanson02 said:
You're conflating your house rules with RAW.

Either you're deliberately trolling, or you have no idea what either of those terms mean; and I don't particularly care which it is.

thanson02 said:
Have a good day.

It will be, now that I've blocked you.

HJFudge · Jun 4, 2019

Oh internet disagreements.

"UR DUM!"

"NO U!"

Please never change you beautiful people

AbdulAlhazred · Jun 5, 2019

Saelorn said:
All of the examples you give here are bad, but if you want to run through your complete list, you might find one which is an error in design consistency rather than an error in your memory.
Ghosts in 2E cause aging when they hit, rather than damage. Ghosts in 3E can corrupt living creatures by touching them, but there's nothing to indicate that the corruption is all on your head. It certainly sounds like necrotic damage to me, and that's consistent with how the ability works in both 4E and 5E!

Both the Shadow and the Spectre are non-corporial undead which do hit point damage. So is the Groaning Spirit. In fact the ghost itself is the only one which doesn't do any damage in hit points, but there are many variations of ghosts which do. Several exist in different modules, etc. Oh, Wraith is another example.

That ability doesn't deal HP damage in any other edition. Fourth Edition is the weird one.
Phantasmal Force does damage only if you believe it's real. Literally, you think you're injured, so your mind makes it real. Shadow magic is partially real, and it's the real part which damages the body.

What else would you call that besides psychic damage??? Also Shadow Magic is mostly illusory too, so again this must be psychic damage, except for the 1 point you take if you save.

It's impossible to kill someone through HP damage without sufficiently damaging the integrity of their body, and anything that deals HP damage must be capable of inflicting physical injury. It's one of the few consistent design decisions throughout all of D&D (prior to 4E).
What you think is reasonable, I think is nonsense. Your narration would be laughed out of any table I've ever played at.
Why would I play with a group that interprets gameplay in a nonsensical fashion? That sounds like a recipe for disappointment all around. In any case, they never showed up at any table I played at; or if they did, they had the good sense to keep their ridiculous ideas to themself.

It just isn't so. I mean, classic D&D tends to indicate effects with other elements besides damage, and there are certainly quite a few D&D spells which don't do damage. I would say, however, that this is both a problem, and a game balance decision that the designers made (IE force the wizard to make a choice between damage and other effects whenever possible).

There is nothing nonsensical about it, except in your overly rigid way of interpreting things!

thanson02 · Jun 5, 2019

Saelorn said:
It will be, now that I've blocked you.

No skin off my nose. Farvel......

thanson02 · Jun 5, 2019

HJFudge said:
Oh internet disagreements.

"UR DUM!"

"NO U!"

Please never change you beautiful people

Well I'm glad you were having fun with that.

I've gotten to the point where I just don't have any tolerance or patience for people who keep talking themselves and circles and don't add anything of value to the conversation just so they can reinforce their own ideas.

Despite the troll, so far this has been a good conversation.

The Crimson Binome · Jun 5, 2019

AbdulAlhazred said:
Both the Shadow and the Spectre are non-corporial undead which do hit point damage. So is the Groaning Spirit. In fact the ghost itself is the only one which doesn't do any damage in hit points, but there are many variations of ghosts which do. Several exist in different modules, etc. Oh, Wraith is another example.

A quick check of the AD&D Monster Manual shows the shadow and spectre (as well as wraith) having a chilling touch, described as supernatural cold. I never said that an incorporeal creature couldn't supernaturally affect a corporeal one; I just said that all HP damage is described in a manner that's consistent with physical injury. Chilling touch makes sense as dealing cold damage, at least as much as Cone of Cold does.

AbdulAlhazred said:
What else would you call that besides psychic damage??? Also Shadow Magic is mostly illusory too, so again this must be psychic damage, except for the 1 point you take if you save.

I have to imagine it's similar logic to a sneak attack; failing the save means you're allowing the 10% of non-illusory energy to hit you in the worst possible way. Honestly, though, if you accept psychic damage as being physical damage to the body (albeit caused by the mind), then we may not be so far apart on this than I had originally thought. Most people seem to pitch psychic damage as an entirely non-physical phenomenon, with no signs on the body whatsoever.

AbdulAlhazred said:
It just isn't so. I mean, classic D&D tends to indicate effects with other elements besides damage, and there are certainly quite a few D&D spells which don't do damage. I would say, however, that this is both a problem, and a game balance decision that the designers made (IE force the wizard to make a choice between damage and other effects whenever possible).

I won't argue about the design issues inherent with non-damaging spells. I'm a big fan of Pathfinder's decision to make Turn Undead into a positive energy wave damage effect, for example.

AbdulAlhazred · Jun 5, 2019

thanson02 said:
And since I am now certainly in this conversation, might as well add my part to the mix:

We agree on this one. If you play combat through like a monster mash, then yes, it can take a while. If you mix it up with narrative though, you can diversify what is going on and even though it might take a while, it won't seem like your constantly fighting. There were a few things I did to help with this in my game.

I reduced the monster HP by about 20% so they didn't take as long to defeat (kill, gave up, etc), In some cases I dropped the AC by 1 (depending on what role the monster had in combat), and I adjusted the monster damage so it had a bit more pop to it. The reason for the adjustment, and perhaps I was not the only one who noticed this, was that when I first started off my players, they felt the combat was really hard. I believe my wife at one point said "When did goblins get tough?" when she was either 1st or 2nd level. But then around level 5-6, the combat got easier, almost to the point of boredom. Then when they got to level 11, it got hard again. And then again, around levels 15-16, it started to get easy again. To offset the wave, I didn't do anything with the math, but I did up the damage die with the monsters by 1 around level 6 and then again around level 15-16. I figured, if the trend continues, that I will have to do the same thing around level 25 or so.

Another thing I did was that I started to make combat-based skill challenges, similar to what you stated above. This is a skill challenge intermixed with a combat situation. One of the last one's I did was that I had a white dragon attack the parties air ship and the monster attacks were based on what was in the stat block, but the effects of the attacks on the ship and what the players might run into with the dragon during the attack was part of the skill challenge. They had a lot of fun with it and came up with some really creative ways to use the ship to fight the dragon. Combat still lasted a while, but there was so much going on and they were having so much fun, the players didn't notice or care.

IMO, this complaint is the biggest load of bull I have ever heard from the gaming community about 4E. You don't need a game system to effectively role-play. If you feel you cannot role-play with a given system, then your not trying to role-play. Your just trying to play a game. If that is your speed, that is fine, but be honest about it and don't make up stuff to compensate for your vanity (grumble, mini-vent). With that being said, it is also important for the DM to have a solid grasp on the mechanics so they can tell the story in a meaningful way that the players can feel engaged in. 4E is a VERY modular system. You don't even have to run combat with the combat rules if you want (hello skill challenges!). You can have high magic, low magic games, you can have games with no magic (look at DMG2 if you are not sure what I am talking about). The idea that you cannot role-play with it is just nonsense................

It took me a while to understand what was going on with Skill Challenges. Videos online from PHD20 and the blog At-Will (not sure if it is still up or not) helped a lot with this. Also, the article on Narrative Challenges in Dragon Magazine which was developed for downtime activities in 4E added a new element to Skill Challenges that I had not seen in the core books. The biggest thing for me was "What story am I trying to tell with the challenge?", "What actions are the players going to try to do in this situation to resolve it?", and "How do the skills play into the player's actions?". I found the easiest challenges for me to write in the beginning were group challenges that progresses from one stage to the next that the players were reacting to. I play-tested those for a while and then evolved what I had to include other situations. I would also playtest skill challenges and rewrite them based on how the players interacted with them until they did what I wanted them to do. Right now, my skill challenges are subdivided into combat challenges, social challenges, environmental challenges, reactive challenges, and hybrid challenges (where I intermix elements of the previous ones together for the challenge).

The best thing for this is to remember that the rules are there to facilitate plot points for story telling. As long as you keep that at the central focus, you should be fine.

I think the main thing to keep in mind with 4e is it is REALLY geared towards being a kind of action/adventure game with the PCs playing fairly straightforward, though potentially quite varied and even unique, protagonists. It rewards things like high action dynamic scenarios which mix fighting with story goals and such things. So for instance:

Once I ran a scenario, as part of a larger story arc, where the PCs discovered that the big bad guy had captured some of their NPC friends and was down at the lumber mill. So the PC rode the log flume down into the mill, leapt inside and confronted the BBEG, complete with damsel about to be sliced in half by the saw, etc. This was a terrific and awesome scenario, with all sorts of thrills, a lot of skill checks, things moving around all over the place, ropes, piles of lumber, etc. etc. etc. This particular one didn't include an SC, per se, but it isn't hard to integrate that too if it is needed. The key was that the scenario was much more than just 'kill the bad guys in room 3'. 4e is no good for that later type of thing, which is why a lot of the adventures that were published in earlier 4e were basically long slogs. Later ones did get better, but it really isn't a game where trivial filler encounters work well.

4e wants to engage plot with a vengeance, and it is pretty good at it! Much better than classic D&D where either the party lacks real caster power, and thus is very limited in what it can do, or is pretty much shaped and dominated in a plot and planning sense by what those specific characters capabilities are. It is a much less easy game to work in story with than 4e, IME.