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

Atlictoatl · May 9, 2019

Saelorn said:
What I can't do is explain how much punishment a creature can really take, because that explanation doesn't actually exist. The only possible explanation of how to use minions is to deny that numbers have inherent meaning, and that's a line I'm not willing to cross. That's not something that any other edition has asked of me, and I'm honestly a bit offended that the designers would do such a thing; I thought I knew what I was buying, when I chose to buy those rulebooks, but they tricked me. That's why 4E is different (to answer the reply from the other poster).

I get it. Some people don't ascribe objective meaning to game mechanics. Those people can play 4E as easily as they could play 1E or 3E. Not everyone falls into that category, though. If the designers were really intent on crossing that line, then the least they should have done was to warn people. That's all I have to say on the topic. I thought I'd already made that clear, before you decided to drag me back in here.

Fair enough. And I take your point about 'dragging you back in'. I didn't read the thread much past the post of yours that I quoted, and it's entirely possible that you refined your point and I missed it. So I do apologize for belaboring things on my end, and admit it's a little rude to take someone to task for something they said three months previous. FWIW, when I quoted you I was more wanting to use the comment as a launchpad to chime in to the larger conversation than to target you specifically.

Tony Vargas · May 9, 2019

Atlictoatl said:
Are you belaboring the bolded section to make a rhetorical point, or do you legitimately not understand how to explain minions at your table?

The latter. It's a complete mental block. Not for want of having them (or hps) explained, either.
You'd have more luck explaining fire to a fish.

In the assumption that the conceptual intent of minions in 4e escapes you (though I suspect you do understand it, and are simply pretending confusion because you disagree with the design principle), let me briefly explain:

If you want to represent an ogre surviving in the wild against the many forces other than PCs who are also in the wild -- when PCs aren't present -- then use the L8 Savage or Skirmisher. You can simulate a combat between it and the goblin band living nearby, or the dragon who wants to eat it for lunch. That shouldn't be complicated or confounding.

Or, even better(worse?): you don't bother. Because the game isn't running a simulation in the background, it's only there to be played.

By introducing the abstraction of a L16 Ogre Bludgeoneer minion, the game introduces a gameable element, something which represents a minor threat that can actually bite but will perish very quickly. The party, reveling in their status as L16 planar heroes, can tear through a squad of four ogres while they fight the Treant and Savage Minotaurs. There's color there, there's nostalgia, there's the revelry of ginsu'ing something that once was a scary challenge, and the game doesn't bog down in a slog in pursuit of pretend verisimilitude.

Even so that 'pretend verisimilitude' - if it could be achieved - would be a aesthetically pleasing piece of game design. The ideal is understandable. Yes, it'd be awesome if a system, like a good scientific theory, elegantly modeled not only what it was created for, but accurately modeled or predicted unexpected phenomena, as well.

Games are designed to play well (games that don't suck, anyway), RPGs thus don't model an imagined fantasy world, so much as the experience or story of the PCs in that world. Sometimes, though, a system will have hints of modeling the backdrop world - 3.5 had more than a few, like NPC classes & crafting skills - and that just fires the imaginations of some fans. They want to believe the system is or can be some sort of fantasy G.U.T.

If you can explain how dragons can be understood when they speak Common, how it is you can press animals from another plane into service when you summon them, and how Mimics disguise themselves convincingly as treasure chests, you should be able to explain the design intent and reality of a Minion without a ton of effort.

If it was only wizards erasing minions with fireballs and the like, I'm sure it'd be OK. If you can work "but magic!" into it, there's generally a free pass to be had. If minions only dropped dead instantly when attacked by magic, but had hps when being beaten on, that'd be fine.

4e pushed so many hot-buttons all at once it's amazing Hiensoo didn't get 3rd-degree burns.

AbdulAlhazred · May 11, 2019

Saelorn said:
Believe it or not, people have been describing HP damage as objectively quantifiable for as long as the game has been around. It actually works pretty well, as long as you ignore Gygax's flawed explanation of what he was trying to do, and just take everything at face value. In any other edition, you can assign a consistent value to 48 damage, whether in terms of force applied or severity of injury, and it makes sense.

Fourth Edition is the only edition where a creature's HP total can change depending on who is attacking it. It's the only edition where an ogre might have different stat blocks, depending on whether you approach it when you are level 1 or level 21. That uniquely divorces the game mechanics from any sort of consistent meaning within the narrative. That is why 4E is being singled out here. It's the one edition where you can't ascribe consistent meaning to the mechanics, or else you're stuck trying to explain how any minion survived into adulthood with only 1hp.

So, my 96 hit point 11th level 1e Ranger can stand around and let 20 longbow arrows pierce his body and what? He simply doesn't die from having all those arrow shafts impaling him? What sort of realistic is that? This is clearly balderdash. 6 points of damage to a level 1 1e fighter means "skewered through by a clothyard shaft and bleeding out" whereas for Cargorn (the level 11 ranger) it means basically nothing. This is simply a fact of the mechanics of the game, you can't paper over it.

This is why Gygax described hit points as he did, as a way to constructing some sort of basis for the 'plot armor' they represent in terms of play in a narrative way that isn't nonsensical.

I would also like to disabuse you of your notions about 4e...

There is nothing in the rules which states that a creature's HP total changes. While it may be that it is fairly easy to make different versions of creatures with different levels and thus numbers of hit points, this is simply different versions of creatures. If the GM decides to use this to depict THE SAME creature at different times, then that might approach what you're talking about, in a narrative sense, but it is still not so mechanically.

And yes, the mechanics of the game are ONLY intended, explicitly, to reflect what happens in play, not to dictate how the world works in a narrative sense. However, this is also clearly true in at least some ways (see above in this post) in every edition of D&D. Nor does 4e try to entirely abandon, or intend to entirely abandon, the link between mechanical outcomes and narrative. It only means to eschew the concept that the mechanical representation of the creatures in the game is literal. This is actually quite in keeping with wargaming, in which mechanics and statistics are only meant to represent how things work within the scenario being played, and not to represent the actual world.

The Crimson Binome · May 12, 2019

AbdulAlhazred said:
So, my 96 hit point 11th level 1e Ranger can stand around and let 20 longbow arrows pierce his body and what? He simply doesn't die from having all those arrow shafts impaling him? What sort of realistic is that? This is clearly balderdash.

Any serious idea can be presented comically, but that's just a matter of presentation, and says nothing about the idea itself. In this case, nobody said anything about longbow arrows piercing a body. And even if they did, there's no reason why that has to be inherently silly. I've seen stories where a sufficiently powerful fighter continues to fight, even with three or four arrows sticking out of his back, and those characters were never presented as the almighty warrior-god that a level 11 ranger might be. (Seriously, you're talking about a level 11 character, in a game where level 6 is already incredibly impressive.)

More reasonably, everyone worth talking about is either wearing armor or is magic. (And if they aren't, for whatever reason, then the DM is there to adjudicate that.) By level 11, most characters will be wearing magic armor. Can you really say that it's ridiculous for someone to suffer the impact of twenty arrows without dying, if they're wearing armor? Or if they're a wizard?

Obviously not. A fighter in magical armor, surviving dozens of solid hits from incoming arrows, is far less ridiculous than a modern-day scientist surviving several gunshots to the chest because he's wearing a kevlar vest; and that's a perfectly normal degree with which to suspend disbelief.

AbdulAlhazred said:
6 points of damage to a level 1 1e fighter means "skewered through by a clothyard shaft and bleeding out" whereas for Cargorn (the level 11 ranger) it means basically nothing. This is simply a fact of the mechanics of the game, you can't paper over it.

The fact of 5E is that descriptions will vary from table to table. Older editions didn't even try to come up with a consistent explanation, leaving it as an exercise for the DM.

If you assume that 6 damage means a level 1 fighter is skewered though and bleeding out, but it's a near miss to a level 11 ranger, then that's entirely on you. Other players were happy to come up with their own consistent explanations.

AbdulAlhazred said:
This is actually quite in keeping with wargaming, in which mechanics and statistics are only meant to represent how things work within the scenario being played, and not to represent the actual world.

Well, excuse me for expecting D&D to be an actual RPG, and not a wargame.

AbdulAlhazred · May 12, 2019

Saelorn said:
Any serious idea can be presented comically, but that's just a matter of presentation, and says nothing about the idea itself. In this case, nobody said anything about longbow arrows piercing a body. And even if they did, there's no reason why that has to be inherently silly. I've seen stories where a sufficiently powerful fighter continues to fight, even with three or four arrows sticking out of his back, and those characters were never presented as the almighty warrior-god that a level 11 ranger might be. (Seriously, you're talking about a level 11 character, in a game where level 6 is already incredibly impressive.)

Is it? And if so, doesn't that mean that there's a point at which you cannot say, in 1e in this case, that a fixed amount of damage still represents a specific fiction. Its unavoidable, and what you're saying is just admitting it! Now, I used my 11th level PC with a lot of hit points as an example, but your average 5th level fighter with a 15 CON has an average of 32 hit points. He can already withstand a total of 9 average arrow strikes, or 5 that do max damage. Now, perhaps this isn't utterly beyond the realm of possibility, but it is stretching it a LOT. It certainly is a lot more than the 'three or for arrows sticking out of his back'. Clearly D&D can't simply whitewash this, the fiction changes as you level!

The fiction of a level 1 fighter with 6 hit points taking 4 points of arrow damage is easily "he's got an arrow sticking out of him, he looks bad, but he's still standing" whereas for the above mentioned 5th level fighter the fiction is more like "he deflects an arrow with his shield, a little of his endurance was diminished by the effort" (or something similar). This is just how it is!

More reasonably, everyone worth talking about is either wearing armor or is magic. (And if they aren't, for whatever reason, then the DM is there to adjudicate that.) By level 11, most characters will be wearing magic armor. Can you really say that it's ridiculous for someone to suffer the impact of twenty arrows without dying, if they're wearing armor? Or if they're a wizard?

Obviously not. A fighter in magical armor, surviving dozens of solid hits from incoming arrows, is far less ridiculous than a modern-day scientist surviving several gunshots to the chest because he's wearing a kevlar vest; and that's a perfectly normal degree with which to suspend disbelief.
The fact of 5E is that descriptions will vary from table to table. Older editions didn't even try to come up with a consistent explanation, leaving it as an exercise for the DM.

Exactly! You are making my point. The FICTION CHANGES, 6 hit points of damage is now "the arrow bounced off" instead of it sticking in almost (or all the way) killing him. Even if he DOES NOT wear any armor, this will still be the effect. This is how D&D works. ALL EDITIONS OF IT.

If you assume that 6 damage means a level 1 fighter is skewered though and bleeding out, but it's a near miss to a level 11 ranger, then that's entirely on you. Other players were happy to come up with their own consistent explanations.

Which are? I understand that they did, we all did. They were different at different levels. That is the whole point.

Well, excuse me for expecting D&D to be an actual RPG, and not a wargame.

I'm simply describing how wargaming, which is the acknowledged root of RPGs, doesn't start from a premise of mechanics simulating the world. Neither do RPGs. It simply is not necessary or definitional of RPGs, despite what some people in the community refuse to see.

The Crimson Binome · May 12, 2019

AbdulAlhazred said:
Is it? And if so, doesn't that mean that there's a point at which you cannot say, in 1e in this case, that a fixed amount of damage still represents a specific fiction. Its unavoidable, and what you're saying is just admitting it! Now, I used my 11th level PC with a lot of hit points as an example, but your average 5th level fighter with a 15 CON has an average of 32 hit points. He can already withstand a total of 9 average arrow strikes, or 5 that do max damage. Now, perhaps this isn't utterly beyond the realm of possibility, but it is stretching it a LOT. It certainly is a lot more than the 'three or for arrows sticking out of his back'. Clearly D&D can't simply whitewash this, the fiction changes as you level!

I said that you can explain HP and damage consistently by saying that a given amount of damage represents an objectively quantifiable amount of force, which is true. An arrow that imparts 8 units of force, will impart that same amount of force whether it hits someone with 6hp or 600hp. The only difference is whether or not the impact causes the victim to drop.

AbdulAlhazred said:
The fiction of a level 1 fighter with 6 hit points taking 4 points of arrow damage is easily "he's got an arrow sticking out of him, he looks bad, but he's still standing" whereas for the above mentioned 5th level fighter the fiction is more like "he deflects an arrow with his shield, a little of his endurance was diminished by the effort" (or something similar). This is just how it is!

You can say that's how it is, but you're wrong; that's how it is at your table. Your table is no more representative of the collective experience than mine is. We'll never come to any peace here unless we accept that other people played differently.

AbdulAlhazred said:
I'm simply describing how wargaming, which is the acknowledged root of RPGs, doesn't start from a premise of mechanics simulating the world. Neither do RPGs. It simply is not necessary or definitional of RPGs, despite what some people in the community refuse to see.

If a game wants to call itself an RPG, rather than a wargame, then I'm going to subject it to higher standards of scrutiny. If you don't care about that sort of thing, then fine, but there's a good reason why 4E was such an utter failure of an RPG and this matter is at the heart of it.

AbdulAlhazred · May 13, 2019

Saelorn said:
I said that you can explain HP and damage consistently by saying that a given amount of damage represents an objectively quantifiable amount of force, which is true. An arrow that imparts 8 units of force, will impart that same amount of force whether it hits someone with 6hp or 600hp. The only difference is whether or not the impact causes the victim to drop.

OK, so how does this not fit with 4e? I don't get it. Not saying I buy this as a viable way to reason about this kind of thing, but if we're going to work with it, then how does 4e not do this the same?

You can say that's how it is, but you're wrong; that's how it is at your table. Your table is no more representative of the collective experience than mine is. We'll never come to any peace here unless we accept that other people played differently.

OK, then give me the fiction that works for both of them. I'm not interested in being told that something can or cannot be done, SHOW ME.

If a game wants to call itself an RPG, rather than a wargame, then I'm going to subject it to higher standards of scrutiny. If you don't care about that sort of thing, then fine, but there's a good reason why 4E was such an utter failure of an RPG and this matter is at the heart of it.

Ah, now we get to the nut of it, you just don't like certain games. That's fine, there are games I don't like either. I don't go making stuff up about them. 'k?

Ancalagon · May 13, 2019

You can't take numbers in an rpg game too seriously, otherwise the moon is a cube in 5e...

The Crimson Binome · May 13, 2019

AbdulAlhazred said:
OK, so how does this not fit with 4e? I don't get it. Not saying I buy this as a viable way to reason about this kind of thing, but if we're going to work with it, then how does 4e not do this the same?

If we take as a given that HP objectively measure the ability of a creature to withstand a violent impact without falling, the way HP were actually used at many tables throughout every earlier edition, then it means any minion has absolutely zero tolerance for injury. It means a level 11 ogre minion has a much lower tolerance for injury than a level 1 non-minion goblin. If you objectively test their ability to survive a minor nuisance - have a level 1 fighter throw a dagger at each - then the ogre will die from the first hit, every time, while the goblin survives multiple hits.

That's setting aside the nonsense about using different stat blocks to represent the same creature, based on party level, which so many 4E-defenders endorse. At least the designers don't come right out and suggest that technique, in the book. They probably realized how idiotic it would sound.

AbdulAlhazred said:
OK, then give me the fiction that works for both of them. I'm not interested in being told that something can or cannot be done, SHOW ME.

It's not complicated at all. An arrow imparting 8 units of kinetic energy impacts the breastplate of a warrior. The warrior, being an inexperienced novice with a low tolerance for pain, falls unconscious from the impact. A similar arrow, with identical kinetic energy, impacts the breastplate of a more-experienced warrior. That warrior is not significantly impeded by the impact.

AbdulAlhazred said:
Ah, now we get to the nut of it, you just don't like certain games. That's fine, there are games I don't like either. I don't go making stuff up about them. 'k?

This is an RPG board, where we're supposed to discuss RPGs. If we're going to judge a game, then it needs to be on a basis of how it performs as an RPG; not on how it plays as a wargame.

Zardnaar · May 14, 2019

I don't think 4E was any worse than any other edition in terms of how it represented hit points.

Healing surges and rapid non magical healing were a bit absurd though. Both made the game grindy and easy mode especially combined with minor action healing like healing word and the other equivalents. All the modern D&Ds suffer from hit point inflation as well as PCs deal more damage/are tougher etc so its mostly a wash but 4E hit point inflation was combined with 4E defenses as well so combat was slow, grindy and ultimately boring.

Rereading 4E now you can at least kind of see why they did it, still reads like an instruction manual but most of it is quite good the horrible thing for me is basically the class/role design which is a big problem. Alot of the other stuff in it could be tuned had they made a follow up like how defences scaled and how things like healing surges or magic items worked.

Still think you could use the 5E engine to clone anything from B/X to 3E and 4E.