Farewell to thee D&D

[Keefe the Thief]

Look, SteveD, i know you think you´re pretty clever and all. But this is a thread for snark and counter-snark. For "look what Celtavian said about my game" and "look what they said to Celtavian!" And then you come in, saying what i was thinking all along, making reasonable statements and that.
I mean, seriously.
Was that necessary?
Everybody was already so worked up. The usual people had alread told the other side that they are acting pretty disgusting & vice versa. And then this.
I give up.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Resource management has always been a part of play but some players actually liked the freedom of only having to manage hit points for a fighter and keep things simple. Others loved managing spell lists and played casters. In 4E equal complexity is forced upon all classes. I don't enjoy that kind of force fed complexity.

I wonder how true this really is. I've played all core classes (plus Warlock) in 3E at some point, and I enjoyed them all in some ways, but I always found some short-comings. Going through my spell list as a wizard could become pretty tedious. No less so for a Cleric (A class I honestly don't seem to get the hang off, even in 4E). So I went for Fighter, and there I found it was too much of the same - same tactics every encounter (Trip foes, hit them hard until they die) - despite me trying to make a character pretty effective at a variety of maneuvers. When I played a Warlock, I loved the flavor and some of the effects, but ultimiately, just shooting eldritch blasts with tiny variations all the time and know concept of real resources beyond hit points and the self-healing ability of the Warlock, it seemed to lack something. So I was always jumping back and forth between classes, because I got tired of their mechanical complexity. One is to simple and boring, the other to complex and tedious.

So maybe gunning for a middle ground for _all_ classes was the right choice to make? I don't really know. Celtavian seems to prefer Wizards above all - maybe this is not true for him. But I think it might be true for a lot of other people. I know one player that is pretty much a power-gamer/munchkin type of player who rarely played wizards in 3E - I don't know if it's because he also likes to "physically" kick but with his PCs (and thus tends to Fighters and Barbarians), or if it wasn't the actual way more complex resource management. In 4E, he happily plays a Wizard.
But that's all anecdotal. Maybe Wizards market research revealed trends, or it was just a gut feeling of the designers (and either could still turn out to be wrong.)

As far as game balance goes, 4E has yet to do battle with the almighty splatbook.

Oh yes, it does. I say: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst...

 

[Seagrave1750]

wait, what?

"Monster recharge powers are a joke. I ran a Hobgoblin Warcaster with Force Lure. It used force lure and dragged a player 3 squares so allied monsters could get at it. And that player used an encounter power to shift away."

The DM can use a Delay action on the Warcaster, or Ready actions on its allies to ensure that they work in concert. If the Warcaster is ready before his allies, the Warcaster Delays his Force Lure until the initiative count just before his allies take their turn. That way the PC cannot escape. If the allies are ready first or at differing times, they can Ready attacks for when a PC appears within range, courtesy of the Warcaster's Force Lure. The PC should shift away good and battered, but he could also be surrounded in either case (through Delay or by allies readying Move actions to surround him).


The Ready and Delay actions are as old as 3e (were they prior as well? in the Skills & Powers books?) and are still part of the ruleset. OP claims to understand the rules, claims to have 25? years gaming experience, claims to have all the books, how could he miss this?

I suspect troll activity. But if what we have been told is true, then he is right to leave the game and we shouldn't try to stop him. I recommend the LOTR version of Monopoly instead.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Simulation

Simulationist

Gamist

Did I take a wrong step and end up in that horrifying mess of The Forge?

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Cute, but The Forge closed that theory area of their forums in, like, 2006, so your jokes are a bit dated.

 

[MrGrenadine]

The Narrative Interpretation

Just wanted to chime in on about the "narrative" interpretation of Encounter and Daily powers, and say I understand and appreciate the attempt to create a framework for a Tumble that can only be made once an encounter, (for example), but I've gotten so used to being in control of my character's narrative, nothing else will do.

This is in some ways related to the opinion that fighters in 3.5 were only good for tripping and hitting until the target was dead. I've been playing a strong but slow Heavy Flail fighter in a weekly 3.5 game for about a year, and combats are never boring. On any given turn, I can move to flank, or to assist and ally, or to attack, I can Power Attack anywhere from 2 to 10 (if the target's AC is low enough), use caltrops to control enemies moving past me, activate a magic item (my Boots of Speed are a big help for a fella with an 8 Dex), Trip if the target is on two legs and has a particularly high AC and low strength (or is surrounded by my allies--love those OAs when the sucker tries to stand), grapple, flee, or a dozen other things. And every turn, all of my options change because each of my allies and all of our enemies will have done something since the last time I could act.

So while other folks defuse traps, sling spells, heal or whatever it is that they do, I'm right there on the front line, in the flow of battle, using the terrain, my weapons, and my wits to out-maneuver and crush our enemies, and its a blast.

Getting back to my point--even if, given all of those choices, the best play is to stand my ground and trade blows until I or the target goes down, then thats what I'll do. And if at some point a sunder or a trip is called for, then thats what I'll do. I get to choose. The problem with the narrative interpretation for powers is that the rules get to choose the narrative--not me. Yes, I can choose once, but after that, its out of my hands, and thats no fun at all.

Thats why I'd love to see a mechanic built in to 4th that allows me to use any Encounter or Daily power whenever I want, but at an increasing penalty each time. For instance, I could use an Encounter power once during an encounter at no penalty, and then again at -2, and again at -4, etc etc. Dailies should perhaps have a higher penalty, but the effect is the same: I retain control of my character and the character's narrative, (while retaining the "specialness" of the Encounter and Daily powers themselves).

--MrG.




Also:

I recommend the LOTR version of Monopoly instead.

If this truly is your first post on ENWorld, its a pretty poor way to present yourself, unless you were joking. I'll assume you're joking, but if not, please try to be civil. Fact is, the OP doesn't like the same rules edition of a game that you do. This is hardly grounds for rudeness. Just saying.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Thats why I'd love to see a mechanic built in to 4th that allows me to use any Encounter or Daily power whenever I want, but at an increasing penalty each time. For instance, I could use an Encounter power once during an encounter at no penalty, and then again at -2, and again at -4, etc etc. Dailies should perhaps have a higher penalty, but the effect is the same: I retain control of my character and the character's narrative, (while retaining the "specialness" of the Encounter and Daily powers themselves).

Thats a really good idea. Too bad WOTC went with the binary design. A power is either active or on cooldown.

 

[ruemere]

I'm late to arrive to this thread so I'm going to limit myself to:

Your concerns, Celtavian, echo mine. Thank you for taking time to voice yours so coherently.

And this:

My personal style of gamemastering relies on working inner logic of the world. The lights coming up upon the PCs entering the room illuminate beings with history, complete set of statistics and some script guidelines. When the PCs exit, the world will not stop turning for those left behind.

That's the first issue I have encountered upon learning about 4E - that the world revolves around heroes entering and leaving the stage.

Another reason for my indifference to 4E is the way the mechanics are working. It's, of course, again a matter of personal preference, however, when you swing a chair in a bar room brawl, the mechanics are for letting me judge how effective was the swing and whether there was any significant change to landscape.
However, in 4E it is not a mere swing of a chair - it is some special power employed. The mechanic overshadows game reality, since the power may also come with additional effect (like sudden change of position) and suddenly, instead of swinging a chair, the protagonist is using a power.

It's a total change of style - instead of trying to pretend you're part of the world, instead you are there using powers to get effects. To me, it's wrong - not wrong as in "you cannot roleplay because of this" but wrong as in "you should be swinging a chair (and wait for GM to let you know what happened later), not using Swing Mightily Improvised Weapon, Hit: Push Away One Square".

That's all.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. Ah wait, there is one more gripe. Some powers require serious translation as to why the effects work that way. All sliding, regaining hitpoints through motivation and similar stuff... I know that everything got a bit more abstract (even called it "introduction of abstraction layer into DnD"), but it does not sit well with me.

 

[Obryn]

My personal style of gamemastering relies on working inner logic of the world. The lights coming up upon the PCs entering the room illuminate beings with history, complete set of statistics and some script guidelines. When the PCs exit, the world will not stop turning for those left behind.

That's the first issue I have encountered upon learning about 4E - that the world revolves around heroes entering and leaving the stage.

I'm just going to ask, being somewhat naive in this...

(1) Why are the specific rules important when you're working with stuff that's more or less off-screen?

(2) While I understand that the "world" exists when everyone is sitting down and playing D&D, I don't understand how it exists when you're not playing D&D. At least, it's no more existing then, than it is for a novel-writer.

Novel writers don't, generally, need RPG rules. Why should a game world need RPG rules during times in which you're not using it to play a game?

-O

 

[Umbran]

So maybe gunning for a middle ground for _all_ classes was the right choice to make? I don't really know.

There's an easy way to answer this question - by answering another question. Is it reasonable to expect that the designers could please everybody with one design? If not, it is difficult to argue that there is any one "the right choice". All choices are right in some ways, and wrong in some ways.