Disappointed in 4e

[LostSoul]

Movement only impacts resolution where it.....impacts resolution. If the DM or player add jig-winking as colour, chosing full well not to act on it as colour, then it is colour.

Right?

Let's go over how the game is played.

1. We start in setup mode.

The game is in setup mode when you're telling the players what they need to know about the adventure and they're gearing up for the first encounter of the gaming session.​

DMG, page 20.

2. We figure out what mode we are in.

Exploration Mode:

In exploration mode, the characters move through the adventure setting, making decisions about their course of and perhaps searching for traps, treasure, or clues.

1. Describe the environment.

...

2. Listen. Once you're done describe the area, the players tell you what their characters want to do. ... Your job here is to listen to what the players want to do and identify how to resolve their actions.

3. Narrate the results of the character's actions. ... A character's actions can also lead right into an encounter.​

DMG, page 20.

Encounter:

The rules of the game are most important in encounters. The rules are all about determining whether you succeed or fail at the tasks you attempt - and thus whether you successfully complete the encounter.​

DMG, page 21.

So: In the situation that's causing us so much trouble, we're in a combat encounter. At the moment, the Kuthrik wants to eat our poor, worked-over Fighter's face. He has smashed the Fighter down.

At the moment, we're using the combat encounter rules to determine what happens in the game world. There are a whole bunch of things that impact resolution of this encounter; one of them is movement.

It's not acceptable to add colour that is movement, just as it's not acceptable to add colour that's killing other characters. You have to engage the resolution mechanics to do that.

So, yeah, you're right: movement only impacts resolution when it impacts resolution. Since we are in a combat encounter, it impacts resolution. The players (including the DM) can't act as if it were colour, because it's not.

 

[fanboy2000]

No one's going to read a post this long....

Has anyone here had sleep paralysis? (I’m actually going somewhere with this. Whether or not I want to go there is a different matter….)

I have. For anyone unfamiliar with it, sleep paralysis is when a person wakes-up but can’t move. The mechanism that allows conscious movement hasn’t turned back on yet. When I get, It can take me a little while (a few seconds that seem a lot longer given that I just woke-up) to do something like twitch my fingers.

I don’t consider trying to twitch my fingers an action. The definition of sleep paralysis is that I can’t take any actions, I’m paralyzed.

My point is that our bodies do a lot of things without conscious input. (Unconscious actions.) But those actions can take conscious input if we so wish. I good example is breathing. People breath continuously, if all is going well, but rarely is any conscious control exerted over the process. Of course, people can exert conscious control over their breathing. They can breath deeply, shallowly, quickly, slowly, and sigh. (This is not a closed list.) My point is that breathing, something we can exert control over, isn’t typically considered an action. If Link tells Mario that Luigi is just standing around doing nothing, Mario doesn't assume that Luigi has stopped breathing. Nor is any voluntary breathing movement ruled out by the statement.

Our bodies spend a lot energy keeping us alive without any conscious input. Out hearts beat, our lungs breath, and out white blood cells fight off infections without input. In game, this concept applies to “actions” (for want of a better word) that don’t count as actions. 3.5 codified this concept with the sentence “The melee combat rules assume that combatants are actively avoiding attacks.” The 3.5 PHB goes on to explain: “[e]ven if a character’s miniature figure is just standing there on the battle grid, you can be sure that if some orc with a falchion attacks the character, she is weaving, dodging, and even threatening the orc with a weapon to keep the orc a little worried for his own hide.” [pg 137] It’s possible that assumption has changed in 4e, but I doubt it.

This seems to say to me that the game assumes certain things aren’t actions in need of separate mechanical resolution, they’re subsumed in other actions. Dodging and weaving is covered by the attack mechanic, for instance.

When a person has been severely wounded, it makes sense that the body would take steps to heal itself and, if it knows it is in imminent danger, to get-up and fight off the threat. When a person is unconscious, no conscious thought can be put it the process. (The way a boxer might put conscious thought into getting up after a heavy blow.) But, if the person regains consciousness, then thought can be put into the process of recovery and defense. The conscious thought would accelerate the recovery of the body to the point where it can fend off danger.

It seems possible that a person, trained in inspiring people, can 1) make an unconscious person conscious, and 2) cause that person to start pumping adrenaline so as to get up and fight.

That said, a more rules oriented approach is necessary.

Actions in combat

The 4e PHB has a table of actions in on pg 289. At the bottom of that table is a category called “No action.” There is only one thing in that category, delay. (3.5 had this category as well.) Are there other things in this category that aren’t on the list? Possibly, the 4e PHB alludes to this on 286 when it tells the reader to use the list as a guideline for actions not covered in the rules. But does this list cover “actions” that are in the rules, but are not assigned an action category? I would hope so.

The 4e PHB says flatly that when a character’s hit points go from negative to positive for any reason that person goes from unconscious to conscious. Now, it makes sense that a person’s body is busy try to sort the situation out itself, that’s what the death save is about. It also makes sense that outside influences and accelerate this process and revive a person from unconsciousness. That’s what doctors do. This idea of the body working automatically, even with outside or conscious prodding, leads me to conclude that going from unconscious to conscious in 4e is probably “no action.”

When a PC is down to negative hit points, the PC’s body takes unconscious steps to repair itself and fight off any imminent danger. Any thoughts a PC may have regarding this while unconscious (or some primal attempt to fight back regardless of the state of the body) are “no actions” by the rules. (Sense the rules systems refers to PCs doing something without classifying the actions bolsters this conclusion for me. If it was another kind of action like an interrupt, then the game effects would be slightly different and probably warrant closer scrutiny.)

When another PC, who is playing a leader who’s training specifically includes ways to keep others fighting effectively, uses words to “heal” the other PC, I would characterize the actions as follows:

Healing Word Itself: Minor Action (says so right in the power)
Target PC going from conscious to unconscious: No action (for reasons stated above)
Target PC spending a healing surge: No action (the spending of healing surge in 4e seems to always be subsumed in another action.)
Getting up from prone: Move action taken on the target PC’s next turn.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're going to have to explain that one.

Please assume that I have Cut & Pasted my response, and feel free to respond to that. I do not feel that your objection answers my premise.

Of course, your response, very likely, could be Cut & Pasted from your previous posts, so I am more than happy to assume that we've each provided an infinite number of Cut & Paste posts and agree to disagree.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, yeah, you're right: movement only impacts resolution when it impacts resolution. Since we are in a combat encounter, it impacts resolution. The players (including the DM) can't act as if it were colour, because it's not.

Now, since we are in book-quoting mode, are you sure that I can't find a counter-quote that tells me that the DM can do that if he wants to?

Movement may affect resolution, but movement only impacts resolution where the DM and players say it does. Well, even more literally, where the DM says it does.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Has anyone here had sleep paralysis? (I’m actually going somewhere with this. Whether or not I want to go there is a different matter….)

Twice, and it creeped me out both times. If you have it more often, you have my sympathy.

However, sleep paralysis occurs when your mind is conscious, even though you cannot move. It doesn't speak, IMHO, to LostSoul's "The rules that say you're unconscious can be ignored if it doesn't impact resolution, but the rules that say you can't act cannot be ignored even if they don't impact resolution, unless I happen to like the outcome" definition of colour.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

Forget the jig part if you like. Focus on the winking at the elf bit.
How is winking at the elf more of an action than trying to get up?
Both are actions, or neither are actions.

It's not, really. That's why we haven't been focusing on that. The winking definitely does not affect resolution and has no potential to. So yes, the winking is colour just as much as the attempting to get up.

Most small movements, such as speaking, winking and dropping a weapon are free actions. Attempting to stand is a move action. Therefore you cannot do any such thing according to the rules.

Yes, that's technically correct. However, since it doesn't affect resolution and has not potential to, I see no harm in allowing it. Unlike dancing a jig. Which is why we were discussing the jig.

 

[Fifth Element]

Please assume that I have Cut & Pasted my response, and feel free to respond to that. I do not feel that your objection answers my premise.

There are at least three posters who clearly do not feel you have adequately addressed their points. The reason we keep bringing up the same points is because you have failed to defend your position sufficiently to convince us that it is a valid viewpoint. From my perspective you have simply avoided addressing certain arguments, repeatedly.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There are at least three posters who clearly do not feel you have adequately addressed their points. The reason we keep bringing up the same points is because you have failed to defend your position sufficiently to convince us that it is a valid viewpoint. From my perspective you have simply avoided addressing certain arguments, repeatedly.

(1) I am sure that it is always true that there will be posters who do not feel that their points are adequately addressed. I fact, I would go so far as to say that this is a primary means of "winning" arguments on the InterWeb.

(2) However, in this case, AFAICT, this is not because I "have simply avoided addressing certain arguments, repeatedly, but because their points are objections which fail to successfully object.

Example:

(A) Anything that does not impact resolution is colour.

(A.1) Therefore, trying to get up is colour.

(B) If anything that does not impact resolution is colour, and X does not impact resolution, then it is also colour.

(B.1) But X could impact resolution.

(B.1.a) Trying to get up could also impact resolution.

(B.1.b) Colour is defined as that which does not impact resolution, not that which has no potential to impact resolution.

(B.1.c) The set consisting of "that which has no potential to impact resolution" is an extremely small, and perhaps an empty, set.​

(3) Any "objection" which is a recursive to the above is not worth replying to again. It is of no more value for you to continue saying "But X could impact resolution" than it is for me to continually list B.1.a-c.

(4) Therefore, any objection which is of any value must acknowledge the validity of the response to the objection, as shown above, and raise a new objection, or must demonstrate conclusively that the responses to the objection are in error, thus requiring new responses.

This hasn't been done. All we are doing is recursively asking and answering the same thing over and over again. And, ultimately, if you are not convinced that mine is a valid viewpoint is of questionable value. And, to be equally honest, it is of questionable value for you to convince me. Neither one of us relies on the other for validity (I hope!).


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

(A) Anything that does not impact resolution is colour.

(A.1) Therefore, trying to get up is colour.

(B) If anything that does not impact resolution is colour, and X does not impact resolution, then it is also colour.

(B.1) But X could impact resolution.

(B.1.a) Trying to get up could also impact resolution.

(1) Simply change (A) to read "Anything that has no possibility of impacting resolution is colour", and go from there. Problem solved.

And B.1.a still ignores the point that you are trying to use the term "try" to discuss mechanics. Actions are what matter for mechanics. You either use your action or you do not, there is no try. If you use your move action to get up, even if you are knocked back down, you have still used your move action.

 

[Lacyon]

1E rules weren't optional. Hitting zero hp in 1E made you unconscious and dying, that was core rules. What was optional was possibly extending the "start unconscious" range down to maybe -3.

I know we didn't play this one as written in 1E (surprise! a 1e game with an unintentional house rule! ), so I'm not sure I have it right...

Assuming we're not extending the threshold...

A 1e character has 6 hit points.
If he's hit for 7 damage, he's dead.
If he's hit for 6 damage, he's dying - unconscious and losing 1 hitpoint per round, and will die at -10.

Is that how it works as written? The -10 is only death if you hit the threshold on the way (0 exactly, by default), otherwise you die as soon as you go negative?

-Hyp.

Assuming for the moment that Hypersmurf's got this right (since I haven't seen any other response to it and can't currently check for myself).

I retract my earlier statement. Replace it with:

Except for the case where a 1E character was brought to exactly 0 hp in combat, it has been "smart play"* in every version of D&D to continue seeking out dangerous things with no more than a day or so of rest. The only place where 4E stands out in this regard is that it's true even when clerical magic is unavailable.

* It's actually not been very smart, in most of the campaigns I've played, for reasons that have nothing to do with hp.