Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[jgbrowning]

Why in the world are we pitting a level 1 minion against a level 23 minion for a hypothetical death match?

I suspect it's because I said comparing the toughness of a level 23 minion with that of a commoner dramatically shows the difference between the minion concept and a creature having 1hp in previous editions.

I think the word toughness wasn't clear enough when I used it and my above post hopefully clarifies what I intended by using that word.

joe b.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Obryn,

Whatayaknow?!?! We agree on something!

RC

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.

I think they did, just not the way you expected - I mentioned "smart play" - stuff like using flanking/combat advantage and similar things. I think they are supposed to remind you of the difference.

And of course, the "sweet spot" success percentage is not fixed. You can fight monsters of different levels, and monsters of different roles also have different defenses.

But the difference to earlier editions is - you have the same variance at every level. So every level you notice when you are doing good (be it because of smart play or just because a weakness of the monsters you fight) and when you are not doing good.

It is the same thing as with the "class balance". In early editions, it was considered "balanced" that spellcasters start weaker at low levels and grow stronger at high levels. But it turned out that many people didn't like it - avoiding play of low level casters and switching (if in any way possible) to high level casters at higher levels. Instead of looking at the entirety of the level range, the balance became more important at every distinct level.

I must admit, I find it a little sad that this approach doesn't work. It has a strong appeal, that's for sure. But play experience overall (painting with broad brushes) seems to suggest it's just not that satisfying. And in the end, the play experience is what matters, not some platonic ideal. Well, at least that is my opinion.

What might be interesting is to create a "balanced" game at every level and changing some other ways the individual classes are played. Pre 3E editions introduced followers, basically as a class feature. 3E did away with that mostly - Unless you used the Leadership feat, which was open to anyone and most useful to those characters with a high Charisma (and thus Bards and Sorcerors benefited most from it.)

In such an approach, a "Fighting Man" would turn into a "Fighting Army" - a single commander (the PC) accomponied by a group of mercenaries, and they could achieve similar power in combat than a Wizard or Cleric.
Balancing this would be difficult (action economy vs spell effects?), but hey, if someone manages to do it, that could be awesome.
Of course, not everyone wants to see his Fighter become a Warlord, so it's still not a satisfying solution for everyone. But nothing ever is.

 

[Ariosto]

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.

That makes THAC0 13, or 40%. AC 10 (Buck Nekkid in 1E) would be 90%. That's analogous to a Master (possibly a Rune Lord candidate) in old RuneQuest; in old D&D, it's one of three steps between Hero and Superhero. In other words, the character is supposed to be hot stuff.

An AD&D Lord (9th), a level beyond Superhero, hits AC 10 on a 2+. Past that point, you're getting into territory in which there is no effective distinction among a growing range of normal armor classes except with weapon versus armor type modifiers. Eventually, damage rolls and number of hit points make all the difference: level 17+ fighters hit AC 2 (plate & shield) on 2+.

At that level, you're in the realm of myth and Marvel Comics. Going one-on-one with the mighty Thor is not a good idea when he's got 399 hit points to your (say) 75 to 110, but you have entered the league in which demigods play. Magic-users are wielding 8th-level spells, for heaven's sake!

Normal men can hit up to AC -4 without a bonus, although they would need a good reason to try. Monsters of 2-3 hit dice need a 20 to hit AC -4 through -9.

Samson in a skin, though, is at best (granting dexterity 18) AC 4. Nobody has better than AC -3 without magic (and even that assumes availability of field plate). A lion has HD 5+2, a tiger 5+5 (the latter hitting AC -3 25% of the time).

 

[Obryn]

I suspect it's because I said comparing the toughness of a level 23 minion with that of a commoner dramatically shows the difference between the minion concept and a creature having 1hp in previous editions.

I think the word toughness wasn't clear enough when I used it and my above post hopefully clarifies what I intended by using that word.

joe b.

Okeydokey. FWIW, I agree that higher-level minions are an entirely new thing in 4e. I think they're a good entirely new thing, and don't hinder the kind of world-building I do (which is all very high-level and abstract, rather than detailed), but they're definitely new.

And because they're new, there's a tendency to treat them like things in previous editions. You can't, though - at least not without getting silly results. Stuff like commoners with rocks vs. level 29 legion devils, or (in the PC realm of things) a Cloud of Daggers from a level 1 wizard auto-killing a that same legion devil... well, they break the minion system. I don't think that's how they should be used, and I know they will turn out silly, so my choice as a DM is never to do that. It's like throwing my computer out a window - while it might be tempting to try, and it occasionally sounds interesting, I know it can't end well.

Minions require a subtly different way of dealing with creatures. If you think treating a creature as a minion would do something insane to the system, my suggestion is that you don't do it. Use common sense and only use minions when they seem like they would be fun, or else add something to a fight.

Obryn,

Whatayaknow?!?! We agree on something!

RC

Anyone know the zip code for hell so I can check it in weather.com?

-O

 

[Ariosto]

Basically, there seems to be a much wider range of circumstances in old D&D (especially among those commonly expected to arise) in which opponents can mutually hit each other with some frequency. In 4E, it seems at least from early experience that there tends to be roughly 110% to split: if one side has better than 55%, then the other is probably about so much worse. I wonder about Epic Tier, though: would monsters of similar level run rough-shod over characters?

The ratio of hit points to hit points, and of hit points to damage, also seems to me more felicitous in the old game. (The power curve is slightly flattened in AD&D, which was designed with higher levels in mind than in the original game).

The way hit points function in play is also very different, with healing surges radically changing the scheme in 4E.

 

[AllisterH]

So, again he asks, do people have as much trouble with understanding elites and solos. Both of which are new to 4e?

 

[jgbrowning]

Okeydokey. FWIW, I agree that higher-level minions are an entirely new thing in 4e. I think they're a good entirely new thing, and don't hinder the kind of world-building I do (which is all very high-level and abstract, rather than detailed), but they're definitely new.

And because they're new, there's a tendency to treat them like things in previous editions. You can't, though - at least not without getting silly results. Stuff like commoners with rocks vs. level 29 legion devils, or (in the PC realm of things) a Cloud of Daggers from a level 1 wizard auto-killing a that same legion devil... well, they break the minion system. I don't think that's how they should be used, and I know they will turn out silly, so my choice as a DM is never to do that. It's like throwing my computer out a window - while it might be tempting to try, and it occasionally sounds interesting, I know it can't end well.

Minions require a subtly different way of dealing with creatures. If you think treating a creature as a minion would do something insane to the system, my suggestion is that you don't do it. Use common sense and only use minions when they seem like they would be fun, or else add something to a fight.

We agree. Using minions is a different style of play than prior editions, which was my basic point way back when in this thread when I said that 4e has moved towards a world that exits in relation to the PC approach unlike the players interact with a separate world approach of prior editions and then moved on to using minions as an example of my postulate.

*I'm struggling hard to phrase this correctly, so instead I'll just ask for you to view what I say below in the best way possible because type isn't always the best to convey intent.*

I do know how to use minions. I know what they're for, and how to use them to increase the fun of the game. My issue with them is not that I don't know what they're for and how to use them properly, it's that I don't prefer the type of gaming that they are designed for and believe that introducing such a different style of gaming into this edition hasn't been a peanut butter/chocolate type mix for a significant portion of the D&D audience. We are nominated for an Ennie for Best Adventure for a 4e adventure that includes minions, after all.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

So, again he asks, do people have as much trouble with understanding elites and solos. Both of which are new to 4e?

I don't, and I don't think most people do because elites and solos are exceptionally tough varieties of a creature type. There's always been tougher than average creatures so I don't find them troublesome at all.

And at least for me, it's not that I don't understand minions, it's that I don't like them. It's a pretty significant difference.

joe b.

 

[Ariosto]

The power curve is slightly flattened in AD&D.

I would clarify/contrast, though, that fighters generally progress more quickly in "to-hit" chances, although they are on par with their OD&D peers at levels 7-8.

I find 3E overall not quite to my ("old-school", I guess) taste -- but I can appreciate much of the design. Giving everyone a class and level seems to me bizarre at least from a D&D-tradition perspective, but I think it works out pretty well.

It works better if one bears in mind that there's a liminal level between the merely amazing and the utterly superhuman. Memory is vague, but I think that's probably in the neighborhood of 6th. In old D&D, even a 1st-level character is something special; by 4th, we're probably in the land of fable (although that's complicated in AD&D by some NPCs given the equivalent of fighter levels).

In 4E, I think characters are supposed to be of that status from the start (as the name of the Heroic Tier might suggest to one who recalls that a 4th-level fighting man was formerly titled Hero).

A complex of design elements, though, makes them seem to me (and I gather to others) not really all that. They're not quite Normalman (a comicbook character who was the only non-superhero in his world), but somehow it's as if they're wearing lead boots and swimming in molasses. They're jacked up, but so is everything else.