How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[Kask]

Huh? How does putting on a suit of armor make it more difficult to hit me? It makes it harder to hurt me, that's true, but touch me? Sorry, don't believe it.

If you were to actually read the games rules as 1st written it was damage not touching that was being determined in the "to hit" roll

Could that same 8 year old draw a 40 foot cone cast on a diagonal? How about a 30 foot spread?

Yes, when I taught them the rules of it they had no problem. At that age you are doing multiplication & division so figuring out something like this is well, child's play.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is a huge problem, especially with you living somewhere so desirable, and you can make up for it by allowing us to all come visit you in Ireland.

All of us.

At once.

All 80,000 odd ENworld subscribers?
Well with a bit of organising I suppose It could be done. I'd need some warning to boot the people renting my land off and youd all have to bring your own tents. I have a big barn out the back, needs a bit of fixing up, though even so people would have to game in shifts.

On the other hand I probably could swing a government grant for it
After all i would be saving the Irish tourist industry single handlly.
Probably saving Aer Lingus and who ever flys into Shannon from bankruptsy at the same time.
So who is coming?

 

[Imaro]

The problem comes in though, where do you stop? If you actually decide that rules=physics, your world becomes so completely bizarre that it's very hard to relate to. Take even the simple example of armor making you harder to hit.

See this is where the problem comes in... not once did I speak on rules equaling physics. When I talk of "realism" or versmilitude in an rpg I am speaking of logical consistency and expectations in the gameworld that are supported by the rules... not a physics engine. If I sit down to play D&D and a basic attack is always against AC then suddenly it's not, what I want is not only a rule to emulate this but a reason in the world for why this has happened. Otherwise I might as well be in a world of total chaos.

Huh? How does putting on a suit of armor make it more difficult to hit me? It makes it harder to hurt me, that's true, but touch me? Sorry, don't believe it. But, somehow, putting on full plate makes me so much faster that claws that would catch me when I was naked, suddenly miss by a mile.

If you want to get technical... armor does in fact make it harder to actually hit you as opposed to the suit of armor. Putting on a suit of plate makes it harder for the blade to actually hit you as opposed to the armor, it has nothing to do with speed, that is factored in through your Dex bonus.

Or, really, how does being stronger make you more accurate? Accuracy has very little to do with strength, but, in D&D land, Arnold Swartzenegger is going to hit you far more often than Bruce Lee. Harder I could understand

First do you realize how strong Bruce Lee actually was? The strongest person isn't necessarily the bulkiest or the biggest, you're assuming something that isn't a universal truth... secondly, being stronger allows one to wield a weapon more easily, quickly and with greater accuracy since you have better control over it. Give a 3 year old a longsword and a well muscled grown man one and see whose more accurate. Now there are weapons one can train to use with speed or agility... but this was represented in 3.5 as a feat that translated to that type of training with a weapon.

Going back to my question about hippogriffs. If the physics of the world allow a hippogriff to fly without magic, why can't my character pick up two pieces of paper, flap his arms and fly away? It's about as aerodynmically likely as getting half a ton of critter off the ground under its own power.

It flies because, at least in 3.5.. it is a Large Magical Beast... see consistency through rules, no modeling of physics just the fact that just like any monster classified as a "Large Magical Beast" it is able to do things that a normal animal cannot.

So, where do you stop? At what point do you say that Rules=physics except in these cases? To me, I look at the rules as abstract constructs that allow me to adjudicate events which occur in the game and nothing more. They do not speak at all to "real" events in the world. That's what the DM is for.

Why do you keep harping on rules equaling physics, this isn't something I'm arguing for. Even abstract constructs should have a consistency and logic in how they relate to the play space (especially in a game) if players are expected to interact and express their charactersinteraction with the shared world through them.

Could that same 8 year old draw a 40 foot cone cast on a diagonal? How about a 30 foot spread? You can be as dismissive of people having issues with this all you like, but, I'll guarantee that in every session you play, someone miscounts a move or an area of effect or a reach situation. Watch your next session, I'll bet dollars to donuts that someone during the session makes a mistake.

So is your point since people make mistakes why even try for a sembelance of logic or consistency... if so this is a really weak argument.

 

[Jack99]

Yes, when I taught them the rules of it they had no problem. At that age you are doing multiplication & division so figuring out something like this is well, child's play.

Actually, multiplication and division aren't until the 3rd grade curriculuum. I am not sure what ages American kids are in those grades, but I am pretty sure they aren't 8.

And if you think keeping track of all modifiers (not to mention drawing cones etc) in D&D is child's play at 8, you have very little understanding of the average child's capabilities.

 

[Imaro]

Actually, multiplication and division aren't until the 3rd grade curriculuum. I am not sure what ages American kids are in those grades, but I am pretty sure they aren't 8.

And if you think keeping track of all modifiers (not to mention drawing cones etc) in D&D is child's play at 8, you have very little understanding of the average child's capabilities.

Uhm...I'm an American and my son is 8 now (he'll be 9 on the 16th) and he's in 3rd grade...and does multiplication and division. Just saying.

 

[Kask]

Actually, multiplication and division until the 3rd grade curriculuum. I am not sure what ages American kids are in those grades, but I am pretty sure they aren't 8.

And if you think keeping track of all modifiers (not to mention drawing cones etc) in D&D is child's play at 8, you have very little understanding of the average child's capabilities.

Most children in the US start 3rd grade at 8 years old. I taught 9 of my child's friends (none of them anything but average) and they all learned it. I've taught many kids to play. No problemo.

Now, at 8 I was doing algebra, but I went to private schools.

 

[fanboy2000]

Actually, multiplication and division aren't until the 3rd grade curriculuum. I am not sure what ages American kids are in those grades, but I am pretty sure they aren't 8.

8's about right. I was 7 when I started 3rd grade, and 8 when I finished. Most of the kids there were a few months to a year older than me.

 

[Ariosto]

Yeah, armor in real life works by having a blow hit "it" instead of "you" directly. The effect of strength seems pretty clear to me, from Society of Creative Anachronism examples. Still, there is some abstraction going on in terms of what a successful attack roll that reduces hit points means. High-level characters' hit points represent more than just literal ability to take a beating, including (per the AD&D DMG) magical protection.

The traditional D&D philosophy is that if the abstraction is too poor a model for a given case, then you substitute another model. Poison can kill regardless of hit points, and failing your saving throw means you looked at the gorgon ("medusa") and got petrified. You can't look at it if you're blind, but that might make fighting difficult.

The concept that the player, as a sort of author reaching down into the world, is using a power -- rather than a particular character in the world using it -- can go far to make something seem less magical. An author might still be concerned with the world's internal consistency, though.

The interaction in 4E of the storytelling game, the boardgame and the roleplaying game may seem awkward to some people, I think especially to those (such as me) accustomed to give the roleplaying aspect priority in D&D.

How many times do we have to point that, yes, Hippogriffs are magical beasts?

The trouble here with the "slippery slope" argument is that it's being used in defense of an avalanche!

It seems also to be a defense of rules-lawyering, which under the circumstances seems to me sensible. The 4E design would probably collapse if subjected to the "fluff-lawyering" that almost everywhere else is called "role-playing".

"Diagonal" measurements are no problem if one is not using a grid in the first place! (A hexagonal grid gives six directions, but also an artifact of staggering against the grain). Templates are nifty for cones, spheres, and so on. Dealing with a cross-section bisected by a floor takes a bit more, but that comes up very rarely in my experience.

 

[Piratecat]

The 4E design would probably collapse if subjected to the "fluff-lawyering" that almost everywhere else is called "role-playing".

Could you expand on this, please? I don't think I agree with you, but i'm also not sure I understand you. I'm curious what you mean.

 

[Ariosto]

I mean that the approach of taking for granted that Power X creates Effect(s) Y no matter what seems a pretty integral part of the whole "game balance" that justifies the complexity of the design. If we start considering reasonableness first, rather than rationalizing the "story" after the fact by whatever means necessary, then we're introducing just the kind of variable the designers have at every turn gone to great lengths to cut out of the equation.

Besides respecting the time and energy they invested, I have invested a significant (for me, anyway) bit of cash in "buying into" the game. Dumping the skill challenge formalism has turned out to work splendidly, but I am pretty wary of messing so radically with the combat game (which is even more intimately tied to the "character build" game, magic items, and so on).