Disappointed in 4e

[Zustiur]

Magic items definatly need to be in the PHB - one of my favourite changes - and you certainly need the DMG is you are going to adujicate a 4e game. These rules are in the DMG becuase they are too powerful for a general all in one mechanic and need to be used on a case by case basis, but they are part of the 4e toolset.

If you have only the PHB then you only have a third of the game, the DMG and MM are all required to play 4e as you cannot play as just a character in a void.

I disagree on both points. Firstly, magic items do not need to be in the PHB, as evidenced by previous editions. Secondly, you do not need the DMG to adjudicate the game, although it certainly helps. This is because it is intended to be a guide to running the game, not a book of game rules.
Roughly, the PHB should include rules. The DMG should be a guide to running the game, and the MM contains lots of monsters you can use in your game if you want to.
If you only have the PHB, you have all you require to play the game. The reason I posted earlier is that someone was implying that players should all have the DMG in order to have all the rules for the game. This is not so. The 'rules' presented in the DMG are not for general use by the players.
The MM is, and always has been entirely optional. You can stick to NPCs in your games, or you can create your own monsters.

Don't be so literal. DMs play the game too. And D&D by default has a DM at the table, so he needs to know how to be a DM. Pretty simple really. Previous editions' PHBs did no more to explain "how to play" than the 4E PHB.

It was a joke, I was merely pointing out the discrepancy in the title and the content of the books.

Why? The only reason I can see that you expect magic items to be in the DMG is because they have been there is previous editions.

How about, because it's hard enough keeping munchkin players focussed on the story without giving them hundreds of items to peruse? Or more importantly, because I liked having all the fancy items hidden from player knowledge because it made handing them out so much more special. Or because I'd like that extra space in the PHB used for something more productive (and for preference the DMG would then have been longer).

I do find it just a little ironic, that one of the features in this game is the ability to make a less magic item dependant campaign ( mostly DM's perogative) yet the magic items are in the PHB and it's even suggested that players give the DM a list of items they want <snip>But then again, you just asked for a reason why magic items should be in the DMG as opposed to the PHB...Space considerations and campaign control.

Exactly. I prefer to run low-fantasy settings. With magic items being rare, and non-complex. That is, most of them are just straight +X items, and only a few items get handed out that have special abilities tied to them. Putting all that info in the PHB gives players the expectation of finding fancy items, which I have no intention of handing out. But that's okay, because there are so many other reasons for me not to DM in 4E, that it makes no difference any more.

 

[Shazman]

This is what most "combat" throughout history and around the world has been. I've discussed realistic combat before, where I cited a piece by Grossman on Posturing as a Psychological Weapon:

The resistance to killing can be overcome, or at least bypassed, by a variety of techniques. One technique is to cause the enemy to run (often by getting in their flank or rear, which almost always causes a rout), and it is in the subsequent pursuit of a broken or defeated enemy that the vast majority of the killing happens.

It is widely known that most killing happens after the battle, in the pursuit phase (Clausewitz and Ardant du Picq both commented on this), and this is apparently due to two factors. First, the pursuer doesn't have to look in his victim's eyes, and it appears to be much easier to deny an opponent's humanity if you can stab or shoot them in the back and don't have to look into their eyes when you kill them. Second (and probably much more importantly), in the midbrain, during a pursuit, the opponent has changed from a fellow male engaged in a primitive, simplistic, ritualistic, head-to-head, territorial or mating battle to prey who must to be pursued, pulled down, and killed. Anyone who has ever worked with dogs understands this process: you are generally safe if you face a dog down, and you should always back away from a dog (or almost any animal) in a threatening situation because if you turn around and run you are in great danger of being viciously attacked. The same is true of soldiers in combat.

Thus one key to the battle is simply to get the enemy to run. The battlefield is truly psychological in nature, and in this realm the individual who puffs himself up the biggest, or makes the loudest noise, is most likely to win. The actual battle is, from one perspective, a process of posturing until one side or another turns and runs, and then the real killing begins. Thus posturing is critical to warfare, and victory can he achieved through superior posturing.

Bagpipes, bugles, drums, shiny armor, tall hats, chariots, elephants, and cavalry have all been factors in successful posturing (convincing oneself of one's prowess while daunting one's enemy), but, ultimately, gunpowder proved to be the ultimate posturing tool. For example, the long bow was significantly more accurate and had a far greater rate of fire and a much greater accurate range than the muzzle-loading muskets used up to the early part of the American Civil War. Furthermore, the long bow did not need the industrial base (iron and gunpowder) required by muskets, and the training of a long bowman was not really all that difficult.

Thus, mechanically speaking there are few reasons why there should not have been regiments of long bowmen at Waterloo and the 1st Bull Run cutting vast swaths through the enemy. [Similarly there were highly efficient, air-pressure-powered weapons available as early as the Napoleonic era (similar to modern paintball guns), which had a far higher firing rate than the muskets of that era, but were never used.] But it must be constantly remembered that, to paraphrase Napoleon, in war, psychological factors are three times more important than mechanical factors. The reality is that, on the battlefield, if you are going "doink, doink," no matter how effectively, and the enemy is going "BANG!, BANG!," no matter how ineffectively, ultimately the "doinkers" lose. This phenomenon helps explain the effectiveness of high-noise-producing weapons ranging from Gustavus Adolphus' small, mobile cannons assigned to infantry units to the U.S. Army's M-60 machine gun in Vietnam, which fired large, very loud, 7.62-mm ammunition at a slow rate of fire vs the M-16's smaller (and comparatively much less noisy) 5.56-mm ammunition firing at a rapid rate of fire. (Note that both the machine gun and the cannon are also crew-served weapons, which is a key factor to be addressed shortly.)​

A lot of adventure fiction -- from ancient epic poems to 20th-century samurai films -- emphasizes intimidation and posturing, whether via loud bragging or a silent stare-down. It definitely has its place in a "combat"-oriented game.

That said, I don't think physical injuries and fear should necessarily share the same mechanic. At the very least, we should stop calling them "hit" points, and we should divorce them from "hitting," if anything intimidating does "damage".

Would you like to watch an "action" movie that had nothing but insults and posturing in it? No combat, no action, no dramatic conflict. I would call that boring. D&D has always been about combat, not morale and intimidation. If you fight a dragon, do you drop dead from fright, or because it toasted you with it's breath weapon and ripped you to peices with it's claws? Like you said , morale should use a different mechanic than physical injury. Isn't that what a will save (or will defense in 4E) is for? Hurting morale should give some sort of penalty but not cause hp damage.

 

[Rel]

Would you like to watch an "action" movie that had nothing but insults and posturing in it? No combat, no action, no dramatic conflict. I would call that boring. D&D has always been about combat, not morale and intimidation.

See I agree with all of this.

And that's why I'm ok with the occassional intimidate or fear attack causing HP damage. It's because I think that such attacks should be rare and memorable. If something is going to be rarely used then I see little point in coming up with a separate subsystem for it.

 

[mmadsen]

Would you like to watch an "action" movie that had nothing but insults and posturing in it?

Nothing but posturing? Of course not. With a lot of posturing? Sure. And most action movies do. It's practically the basis of kung-fu movies, pro wrestling, etc.

No combat, no action, no dramatic conflict.

That's quite a straw man you've propped up there. Lot's of posturing, but no dramatic conflict?

D&D has always been about combat, not morale and intimidation.

First, D&D used to consider morale very important, because war games considered morale very important. Second, I think emphasizing morale and intimidation simultaneously makes the game more realistic and more dramatic, so I would consider a re-emphasis an improvement.

If you fight a dragon, do you drop dead from fright, or because it toasted you with it's breath weapon and ripped you to peices with it's claws?

I think it's pretty silly to have characters routinely drop dead from fright, but I think it makes perfect sense for henchmen and hirelings to run for the hills the moment they see a dragon. The PCs, of course, are made of sterner stuff.

Like you said , morale should use a different mechanic than physical injury. Isn't that what a will save (or will defense in 4E) is for? Hurting morale should give some sort of penalty but not cause hp damage.

The question is, should hit points even be tied to physical damage? Certainly they always have been, but that never made much sense. One good hit should take almost anyone out of the fight -- and isn't that what getting past AC is supposed to mean?

 

[Delta]

The question is, should hit points even be tied to physical damage?

Wow. Just... wow.

 

[Fifth Element]

Wow. Just... wow.

So...does that mean you do think hit points should be tied to physical damage? Your reply wasn't very informative.

 

[Shazman]

Well if the henchmen flee because their hit points are at 0 from fear of the dragon, they drop dead instead of running for the hills. The dragon's frightful presence made them flee because they couldn't resist it, not because their hit points dropped to zero. If hit points are morale, why are in you in a dying state when your hp drop below zero? If a PC wants to cause enemies to surrender or flee or take penalties with an intimidate check, that's fine. An intimidate check causing them to lose hitpoints is ridiculous. If you want morale to be analogus to hitpoints, it sounds like you want to play a different game than D&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

If hit points are morale, why are in you in a dying state when your hp drop below zero?

Because only a part of them represent morale. No one is suggesting they're supposed to be 100% morale. But as Mr. Gygax himself explained, some part of hit points is morale. (And some part is physical damage, and combat skill, etc). You're arguing against an assertion that has not been made.

If you want morale to be analogus to hitpoints, it sounds like you want to play a different game than D&D.

Hilarious. All previous editions of D&D would like to have a word with you. The parts that explain what hit points represent, specifically.

 

[Andor]

The question is, should hit points even be tied to physical damage? Certainly they always have been, but that never made much sense. One good hit should take almost anyone out of the fight -- and isn't that what getting past AC is supposed to mean?

I have a friend who's done a lot of exciting stuff for our Unle Sam. He once told me "The first time I got shot I was convinced I was dying. The fifth or sixth time it just made me mad."

One good shot in the right place will indeed take anyone out. But the human body can absorb amazing amounts of damage and keep operating for a while.

 

[Imp]

In a game where I could theoretically see the faces of all the combatants on the field, I'm happier with keeping morale mostly out of hit points, which is how it's been done previously, simply because I want anything with zero hit points to have sustained a mortal wound. I prefer the game to be sort of precise that way. In a wargame dealing with hundreds or thousands of combatants, the greater abstraction is welcome.

It also makes somewhat more sense to roll armor into hit points than it does morale.

Morale certainly does have a major effect on combat, but I'd rather it be on a different chart.

Nutrition, health, and fatigue also have major effects on combat, but D&D has historically elided those effects almost entirely, for the same reason morale has taken a back seat – it's part of the fantasy that heroes go against evil (or whatever) all out, without the concerns of lesser, normal people getting in the way.