Insubstantial rules irk anyone else?

[Felon]

Imagine having to devise a way to combat an intangible ghost or a foe that can turn into a wispy cloud of gas. Well, no special tactics required in D&D now. Just swing away and deal half damage.

This is the case with intangible creatures, swarms of bugs, oozes, and many other creatures. It's not even limited to damage-dealing; you can knock an ooze or swarm prone just like anything else. The notion that everything has to be affected by everything seems a bit of overkill IMO.

4e has its share of goodness, but this is just something that I"m not comfortable with. Anyone got any (constructive) points of view on this?

 

[DreamChaser]

To me, this is an example of fun versus realism. The constant presence of miss chances in 3e was huge frustration to most players I gamed with. This system allows everyone to feel like they're doing something...

For a "solution" however, since most classes get some access to other damage types, one could opt for a rule that incorporeal creatures can only be affected by "energy" (radiant, fire, force, necrotic, etc). Of course, this totally screws the martial power source so be prepared for that fall out.

DC

 

[Nifft]

The constant presence of miss chances in 3e was huge frustration to most players I gamed with.

Same here.

I do agree that it would suck if all foes played the same. However, I'll need to play for a while before deciding if they do or not.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Aust Diamondew]

As for ghost and other insubstantial creatures;
In 3e they could only be harmed by energy, spells and magic weapons. And those all had a 50% miss chance.

In 4e they just give you half damage instead of the miss chance and nonmagical weapons can harm them. Not allowing mundane to harm them would more or less restore them to how they were in 3e but with greater speed of play.

As for the other stuff you could just make the monsters immune to being prone. If this makes powers that knock foes prone too weak, you could buff those powers up in some way (make them lower level, increase damage).

 

[Felon]

To me, this is an example of fun versus realism. The constant presence of miss chances in 3e was huge frustration to most players I gamed with. This system allows everyone to feel like they're doing something...

I think that making monsters susceptible to everything isn't really a good "fix" for the problem of player frustration, because over time it just gives combat a homogeneous "macro" feel, where players can always mash the same combination of hotkeys in a scripted manner and achieve consistent results. This is less obvious now because 4e is still so fresh and new to folks, but it's the same way with any MMO's honeymoon phase.

A better answer is to not make the presence of high-miss chances so constant. So, when players fight a ghostly or gaseous foe, they have to alter their tactics rather than damaging, sliding, proning, stunning, or otherwise affecting them like they would any other foe. But because of that, such battles should be the exception rather than the norm.

Paradoxically, the miss-chance issue is here in full effect in 4e. Lots of monsters have "gotcha!" interrupts that effectively neuter the attacks that triggered them. That's probably what I'll wind up tacking onto wraiths and the like.

 

[Regicide]

To me, this is an example of fun versus realism. The constant presence of miss chances in 3e was huge frustration to most players I gamed with. This system allows everyone to feel like they're doing something...

Huh? 3E your to-hit should be good enough you always hit by the time you're fighting insubstantial, then you suffer 50% insubstantial miss. Now with 4E you have about a 50% miss chance of missing EVERYTHING every turn, and when you hit you deal 50% damage to insubstantial. Um... how is that better? In 4E you get to feel like you're doing nothing half the time in every fight.

 

[Felon]

Actually, Regicide has a good point. The WotC podcast was an excellent example of this. Many folks simply assumed everyone was rolling like crap, but they could've easily missed as much as they did rolling average.

 

[BryonD]

To me, this is an example of fun versus realism. The constant presence of miss chances in 3e was huge frustration to most players I gamed with. This system allows everyone to feel like they're doing something...
DC

For me and my group it is exactly the opposite.
Coming up with good ways to overcome a "frustrating" challenge *is the fun part * and the removal of this kind of reward is on the list of reasons we don't care for 4e. The fact that 4e doesn't remotely bother trying to produce the perception of an insubstantial foe is also on the list.

 

[Nifft]

I think that making monsters susceptible to everything isn't really a good "fix" for the problem of player frustration, because over time it just gives combat a homogeneous "macro" feel, where players can always mash the same combination of hotkeys in a scripted manner and achieve consistent results. This is less obvious now because 4e is still so fresh and new to folks, but it's the same way with any MMO's honeymoon phase.

Aww, c'mon.

The 50% miss vs. 50% damage thing is a statistical wash, but IMHO the new version is less frustrating to players.

- - -

Anyway, if 4e is indeed as "tight" as it's claimed to be, the damage penalty will be significant.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Victim]

You mean it pretty much works as before? In 3.x, you could swing away at an Incorporeal monster with a 50% miss chance with a magic weapon. That's pretty much the same thing as 1/2 damage, except that half damage is more predictable. Considering that there used to be lots of ways to kill things without doing damage, and there aren't in 4e, Insub picked up a huge buff. Oh yeah, Force effects do half damage without a special feat too.

Gaseous Form? DR/magic. Again, delivering the straight up beatdown works.