D&D 4E Is 4E doing it for you?

[Fifth Element]

My point was, there's a third option: don't keep the cumbersome grappling mechanic, and don't design a simple mechanic simply as a rejection of the cumbersome mechanic. Just give it good mechanics. Do it right, then you can just let the rest of the chips fall where they may. Isn't that a good idea?

Indeed. It's just that your segue from a mention of elegant mechanics to an apparent reference to 3E grappling was jarring.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Nope dont like 4e. Its like d20 Exalted. Only Exalted is better.

 

[Darkthorne]

Irda,
I agree with you that a good number of previous spells would convert into rituals for 4e that is why I didn't add them in a previous post I had. As for the duplication which I speak of is 3 human wizards have 3 at will powers, there are only 5 at will choices in the phb, you have 9 slots to fill. With only 2 wizards 1 power will be duplicated, once you add the third wizard every at will he picks will already be chosen. I also do agree 3.5 wizards would almost always take 1 spell across the board (mage armor from my experience) that would result in duplication, but you had the choice of more than 5 spells that you could cast more than once. The dmg I find lacking in material for the cost ($35 for 320 pages of the phb, same 35$ for the 224 pages of the dmg) That's a 30% volume difference! The magic items could have easily fit in there w/o the removal of anything. As for more at will I think it would have been better to go up to possibly 6 at will powers by the end of your pc's career. Also being able to get more than just one [insert level choice] encounter or daily power I think could have added to 4E versatility. Again I want to repeat I do like 4E (being a DM is easier, clerics are better, warlocks did well in the conversion) but I think more could have been added up front

 

[Fifth Element]

The dmg I find lacking in material for the cost ($35 for 320 pages of the phb, same 35$ for the 224 pages of the dmg) That's a 30% volume difference! The magic items could have easily fit in there w/o the removal of anything.

There's a problem there. If the DMG were bigger, it would not stay at $35 for a price point. The PHB is cheaper on a per-page basis because they sell many more units of the PHB than the DMG, driving down the per-unit cost. The DMG will always be more expensive to produce on a per-unit basis, due to overhead and demand.

The reason for including magic items in the PHB was so that players would have everything they need to play in their book. Many people agree that things the players need should not be hidden form them.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

How is more less?


Which has also been a major problem for most groups throughout the last thirty years. Grognards don't like to admit it, but once you got to around 10th-level, every other class other than wizard and cleric becomes obsolete. Let me guess, all the complainers and whiners are wizard/cleric players.
.

Are you serious? Do you know how hard it is to even get off a high level spell in AD&D? A rock thrown by a 3 year old can disrupt it. And most spells take 5 segments or more to cast, so you're generally giving every opponent a free wack at you. And if you even use your dex bonus to dodge it, you lose the spell. All this while wearing a bathrobe. Yeah, they can nuke stuff, if they are very careful and lucky.

 

[Eridanis]

The fact of you asking someone not to be inflammatory in a thread designed to inflame is breaking my irony meter. Don't worry, I'll leave your thread alone from now on. There's already enough crap in it.

Three-day ban issued. Please be more polite when you return.

 

[Scribble]

To go with this approach you're proposing, every power that shouldn't work on incorporeal targets would have to include a caveat "doesn't work on incorporeal" along with a list of other things it doesn't work on. That's cumbersome design, since it's a lot easier just to say it once.

But to say it once, you'll need to account for EVERY thing that it applies to, both now, and in the future.

If you let things decide on a case by case basis you can decide when you design an element whether or not you want it to interact with other elements. You're not locked into one concept.

More to the point, they didn't do it at all. Not top-down, not bottom-up. Wherever that exemption for tripping Casper ought to have been made, it wasn't.

They didn't want it to be? Saying a ghost should be immune to tripping because it can walk through walls I think is largely personal prefference.

I might say that ghosts spend a majority of their time as semi physical beings... Ectoplasm... They can CHOOSE to go insubstantial but it's not the basic state, so they're effected by trips et al.

The point of bottom up though is that I haven't determined that this applies to ALL creature like this one. If I want, later on down the line, I can add a new creature that IS immune to trips, or other types of physical forced movement.

Conversely, the rules for the grab maneuver don't allow for things you and I could do to a person without the benefit of martial powers, much less heroes.

Again because it's the basic spring board for other actions. Whether those actions come from a power, or a use of page 42, grab doesn't have to/ need to account for those actions. It only has to account for the initial grabbing.

Some stuff might require the use of a grab, but grab does not require the use of the other stuff.

I'll try. Characters have a smattering of powers, and they're pretty much stuck with their choices until they can level and respec. If I throw an amorphous/incorporeal foe at them and then put my foot down and declare that it can't be knocked prone or slid around, or tell them that they can't use a sleep spell on a zombie, then I'm not really making them innovate new tactics.

I'm still not sure what you're getting at. Yes- if you take away somethings ability to function then you've taken away that things ability to function. If I take away the ability of a lock to be picked, then I've taken away the rogues ability to pick it...

Anything they do that isn't using one of their powers isn't going to be very effective, and they can't just get new powers on the fly.

Page 42 talks about this.

All I'm basically doing is stepping in and vetoing 4e's implicit promise that the small repertoire of powers at a hero's disposal will be reliable because monsters powers work on everything equally well, whether biped, quadruped, big, small, alive, dead, solid, liquid, gas or ether. That's working against the grain. In 4e, homogeneity is a feature, not a bug.

Yeah... Instead of approaching on a case by case basis you're trying to effect everything all at once, when it's not designed that way.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There's a problem there. If the DMG were bigger, it would not stay at $35 for a price point. The PHB is cheaper on a per-page basis because they sell many more units of the PHB than the DMG, driving down the per-unit cost. The DMG will always be more expensive to produce on a per-unit basis, due to overhead and demand.

Can't argue with this. The price point reasoning is solid.

The reason for including magic items in the PHB was so that players would have everything they need to play in their book. Many people agree that things the players need should not be hidden form them.

Here is the problem. Its the DM that decides what items exist at all, so putting them in the PHB because players "need " them is a moot point. Not including something which may not not exist in a particular game isn't hiding it. Including it might lead to dissappointed players who feel entitled to a given item because its in the PHB.

 

[Fifth Element]

Here is the problem. Its the DM that decides what items exist at all, so putting them in the PHB because players "need " them is a moot point. Not including something which may not not exist in a particular game isn't hiding it. Including it might lead to dissappointed players who feel entitled to a given item because its in the PHB.

As I said, many people would agree with how they are presented. I didn't say I was one of them. I'm not convinced it's the best way to go, as you say.

Edit: Although really, your argument could also be applied to the mundane items in the PHB (armour, weapons), and maybe to rituals. Or races and classes, if you want to go that far.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Negative. The only thing 4E did for me was make me realize how much I valued the options and complexity of 3.5.