Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Raven Crowking]

Overly literal interpretation of posts pendantry is bad form, and leads to raised tempers and lack of communication. It doesn't help discussion, it just leads to sniping back and forth.

I think you'll find more people will get your point if you leave the pedantic BS out.

I am very happy to hear about your promotion to moderator. I hope it comes with a benefits package.

In this particular case, though, I believe that the pedantry has actual value. Hussar's statements imply that there is not only no point behind AC at higher levels, but no point to the attack roll as well.

Sometimes hyperbole requires correction, lest the unchallenged statement lead to erroneous conclusions. As a recent example, my hyperbole about minions was challenged. That led to an apology, if you will recall.

(I might also add that your response was worse form, by far, than what you were responding to. Especially as it demonstrated that you hadn't even bothered to read before criticizing.)

In older D&D, parties of mixed levels were not uncommon (the combat example in the 1e DMG, for example, uses two such parties). Moreover, the inclusion of henchmen, hirelings, and followers could mean that while Bob the Name-Level Fighter could easily hit the opponents encountered, AC still had relevance for the party as a whole.

This is in addition to the prior point, of course, that Bob can now actually chart his growth in some objectively measurable fashion.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

I am very happy to hear about your promotion to moderator. I hope it comes with a benefits package.

Hmm...I think we've had this discussion before.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The point is both that the name level character is objectively better than Mr. Newbie, and that the play experience has changed. This is something, IMHO, that WotC has failed to grasp about the original game.

I don't know how it worked in 3.5, but from what I read on the 4E design discussions before the release, they didn't fail to grasp, but decided conciously to move away from it, because people enjoy certain "success chances" the most. In other ways, the play experience is designed to not change in that regard, but always be in the "psychological optimum" range. (Though I think that is assuming "smart play", e.g. using stuff like flanking or buffing powers - which makes sense to me.)

While the theory behind improving actual hit chances with level makes sense, the question is if this is actually what leads to a satisfying play experience overall. It assumes that is okay to have "less fun" at early levels than at later levels. You start feeling incompetent but notice that you get better, and that is something to look forward to and keep you playing.

But doesn't the actual game experience not indicate that most people find their "sweet spot" and try to play within it? Many people do not start campaigns at 1st level again (where a single shot can kill anybody), and many people don't venture in the high level ranges (where you never miss and a lot of "win"-spells are around).

I think that is strong evidence that people prefer that "sweet spot" of success chance, and that any design not trying to achieve that spot at every time will see parts of it diminished.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2e is another game that uses the "increasing success" chance concept, very transparent even (due to using percentile roles). I found that the most troubling when it involves skills, not necessarily combat. In combat, it is just "tedious", but regarding skills, one really feels incompetent - and there it also hurts the "simulation" aspect of it, since it's hardly believable that even a starting character is so bad in his speciality skill...

 

[Raven Crowking]

Why in the world are we pitting a level 1 minion against a level 23 minion for a hypothetical death match? Didn't we already move past how silly that would be under the 4e rule set? It's a ludicrous corner-case which treats minion status as part of an objective imagined reality, rather than a rules construct used only in some combats.

If you treat minions as simulationist constructs, you're definitely going to have bizarre results, just like this. They are inherently non-simulationist, and to pretend otherwise is ... well, kind of bizarre, IMO.

-O

I agree. Thank you.

But the purpose behind the hypothetical death match, from my point of view anyway, is to demonstrate that a prior claim is false. Minions are a new construct to 4e, and are not the same as kobolds and commoners in previous editions. If you treat minions as simulationist constructs, you're definitely going to have bizarre results. If you treat commoners and kobolds as simulationist constructs in earlier editions, not so much.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Hmm...I think we've had this discussion before.

Do you actually have anything to say re: the content of the post? I'll include it below for you:

The point is both that the name level character is objectively better than Mr. Newbie, and that the play experience has changed. This is something, IMHO, that WotC has failed to grasp about the original game.

When the numbers keep cranking up, but the odds remain exactly the same, the play experience also remains roughly the same while the work to get there increases exponentially.

When one talks about a "sweet spot" in TSR-D&D, one is generally talking about a particular play experience one enjoys.....when a character can do X pretty easily, but still cannot do Y. WotC twigged to that, and tried to make every level conform to the general consensus "sweet spot". But they tried also to make it seem as though characters were rapidly progressing at the same time (another thing from their market research). The result is that, in WotC-D&D, when one talks about a "sweet spot", one is often referring to the complexity of the math, and how that affects speed of play.

There are (IMHO) a lot of good things about WotC-D&D, both 3e and 4e. Especially, I enjoyed the lively debate that WotC's analysis of 3e problems, and proposed 4e fixes, sparked. There are certainly a lot of lessons learned there which have made my gaming better. Certainly, those discussions prompted RCFG, and I didn't throw away all of WotC-D&D's ideas. Many of them are too good to throw out.

But at the same time, it became very clear to me that 3e stepped away from using a linear scale of measurment for character/creature/world features, and (IMHO) nearly all of the problems I've encountered with WotC-D&D stem from that decision, either directly or indirectly.

Coupling ideas from the 3.x SRD with a linear scale of measurment has created the best play experience I have ever had. I rather wish that WotC had done the same with 4e, which would have allowed (IMHO & IME) many of the same benefits 4e has over 3e without the same numbers creep, and without the same wonky disconnect between rules and common sense.

YMMV.

and​

In older D&D, parties of mixed levels were not uncommon (the combat example in the 1e DMG, for example, uses two such parties). Moreover, the inclusion of henchmen, hirelings, and followers could mean that while Bob the Name-Level Fighter could easily hit the opponents encountered, AC still had relevance for the party as a whole.

This is in addition to the prior point, of course, that Bob can now actually chart his growth in some objectively measurable fashion.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Mustrum,

I would say that WotC failed to grasp that those success chances are only "sweet" when they exist in contrast to other success chances. They may have made a "conscious decision", but if so I don't believe they took all the factors they should have into account. When we were getting snippets of what 4e would be like, I frequently found myself learning why things were not like that earlier.

But, again, YMMV. If 4e provides the play experience you want, then rock on. I imagine that there are folks who frequently find themselves wondering why things were not like 4e earlier.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

I do somewhat agree with Ariosto that AC didn't scale particularly well in earlier editions, but, I consider that a failing, not a feature. What it meant, at least in my experience, is that you automatically hit every single time. If baddies (other than unique ones) top out at around AC 0, then by the time a fighter type hits about 5th level, he never misses. THAC0 of 16, +2 for strength (not unreasonable IME), +1 weapon means you hit pretty much every monster in the book at least 50% and most are much, much easier to hit. Never mind if you add in things like weapon specialization (either 1e UA or 2e core).

By the time you hit name level, where you are meeting those big monsters, you never miss at all.

What's the point of having AC at all if you never miss?

I think the entire point that I have made several times is that a higher level fighter is supposed to be hitting a lot more often, thats how one measures actual improvement. The fact that the tougher monsters don't go down in one or two hits is a measure of thier skill and danger level.

If Joe the 1st level 1E AD&D fighter is fighting a normal orc in chainmail (AC5) with a STR bonus he scores a hit on a 13. If Joe hits the orc there is fair chance he can put it out of action.

Lets say that Joe is now facing a minotaur also in chain armor (AC5). His chances to hit the minotaur are the same as for the orc. How likely is Joe to win this fight?

Remember that AD&D core didn't feature crushing critical hits and high impact damage from weapon users (certain magical items in combination being the exception) so a high HP total worked like a combination of vitality and ablative defense.

A high level fighter hit a lot more often than not because he needed to in order to cut through the ablative defense of the things he was fighting. This is why lower level creatures were effectively minions to the high level fighter.

 

[jgbrowning]

In 4e, the damage depends on the level of the PC doing the damage. So the damage dealt at level ten is not comparable to the damage dealt at level three.

Unfortunately you cannot rely on hit-points as a measure of relative toughness. Level is this measure in 4e. You could work around it using house rules, or just hand wave out of combat interactions based on level or whatever other factors you believe relivant.

Perhaps I need to be more explicit about what I mean when I say toughness. To me, toughness is the ability to take damage. Not the ability to deal damage, nor the ability to avoid taking damage.

Think as if one were porting the system to another system. I would break down a 4e monster into three questions for ease of translation into a different system: How much damage can a monster take? How much damage can a monster deal? How difficult is it to deal damage to the monster? All of these questions are viewed in relation to all other creatures in the system.

I think that Level is a measure of relative power (the totality of those three questions above), not toughness as how I use it.

joe b.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't know how it worked in 3.5, but from what I read on the 4E design discussions before the release, they didn't fail to grasp, but decided conciously to move away from it, because people enjoy certain "success chances" the most. In other ways, the play experience is designed to not change in that regard, but always be in the "psychological optimum" range. (Though I think that is assuming "smart play", e.g. using stuff like flanking or buffing powers - which makes sense to me.)

While the theory behind improving actual hit chances with level makes sense, the question is if this is actually what leads to a satisfying play experience overall. It assumes that is okay to have "less fun" at early levels than at later levels. You start feeling incompetent but notice that you get better, and that is something to look forward to and keep you playing.

The bad part about the whole asumption is thinking that progressive improvement over the levels equals less fun. I don't grok the concept of a "psychological optimum" range of play. Does this mean that my character starts out being just OK and stays that way his entire career? In my mind aiming for mediocrity and hitting bullseye every level is a far cry from my own view of a psychological optimum

But doesn't the actual game experience not indicate that most people find their "sweet spot" and try to play within it? Many people do not start campaigns at 1st level again (where a single shot can kill anybody), and many people don't venture in the high level ranges (where you never miss and a lot of "win"-spells are around). .

Some people love that middle level range. For campaign play I like the full run of low to high level and that the game experience is different.

 

[Obryn]

I agree. Thank you.

But the purpose behind the hypothetical death match, from my point of view anyway, is to demonstrate that a prior claim is false. Minions are a new construct to 4e, and are not the same as kobolds and commoners in previous editions. If you treat minions as simulationist constructs, you're definitely going to have bizarre results. If you treat commoners and kobolds as simulationist constructs in earlier editions, not so much.

RC

No, minions are IMO absolutely not the same as kobolds and commoners in previous editions.

While a level 1 kobold minion might fit the same game-space as a 1d4 hp kobold in 1e (and in fact I'd say they're virtually indistinguishable from a gameplay standpoint) I wouldn't say that an orc minion, an ogre minion, or a legion devil minion fit into any previously-established game-space. Those are new to D&D, but carry a fairly rich legacy from other, frequently cinematic, games.

IMO, any discussion of minions which treats their 1-hp-ness or 1-hit-kill-ness as an objective characteristic of the imaginary creature, along the same lines as height or weight or diet, is flawed on some level.

I said earlier in this thread that a 4e DM greatly concerned with simulationism shouldn't use minions at all, and I stick by that. And I'll also repeat that I don't think it would break the game whatsoever, but that the DM should probably let their players know this ahead of time.

-O