D&D 4E 4e and PC/NPC balance

[Negflar2099]

I don't have a problem with NPCs having access to powers PCs will never get. In fact of all the changes the designers made I like that one the best. It's not like it's all one sided. PCs have powers NPCs will never have such as healing surges, or having access to tons of different powers or having access to feats or background bonuses.

I know how it is when your'e a player. You don't want to lose and when the other side seems to be playing by different rules it can seem very unfair. Your natural instinct in those situations is to cry foul but c'mon, this is D&D, not football. You're five people playing against one person who has to control upwards of dozens of monsters and NPCs, and you're not really supposed to be playing against that one person anyway. It's supposed to be the bunch of you working together to create a heroic fantasy that challenges your characters. It's not you vs the DM. At least it's not supposed to be.

As a longtime DM I suppose I'm a tad bitter but I've had so many players over the years moan and complain every time things don't go their way only to have those same players be only too happy to exploit some loophole in the rules to give their character ungodly advantage. In other words if they get cool powers NPCs don't get that's just fine but put the shoe on the other foot and suddenly it's completely unfair. I just think that's ridiculous.

Know what I mean?

 

[Rechan]

If you're comparing dwarves to eladrin, that doesn't really hold water. Both are PC races, and a PC in an intrigue-oriented campaign could expect to occupy pretty much the same role as the Aurum Concordant (essentially a super-cool guild thief, disguised as a merchant). So, shouldn't a player who has a dwaven character who is a member of the Aurum be able to have a reasonable facsimile of that same power?

You're a human, I'm a human, we work at the same company. If you're really good at X and I'm really good at Y, shouldn't that mean that I equally could easily be good at X purely because you're a human and we work at the same company? No. You're good at X because you're good at X, not because you're a human at this company. That's your area of expertise.

The PC is a dwarf rogue. Dwarf rogues have specific powers they can get. The end. That's just How the System Works. Why is it the Dwarf Rogue who works for the Aurum has more healing surges and can Second Wind, while the Concordant can't? Why does the Dwarf Rogue have an action point while the Concordant doesn't?

To put it another way, why can Bards multi-class all they want, while Pcs can only multi-class once? becuase the BARD can do it, so should anyone else, right? Because the Bard is in their group, and their abilities should be able to be similar. Why can a Sorcerer not take a Wizard power, without taking all kinds of feats? The Sorcerer is Arcane, the Wizard is Arcane, why can't they take the same powers? Why do they use different ability scores (Cha and Int)?

Okay. This is one that really boggles my mind. The NPC existed before the fight and will exist afterward, if the PCs lose or the NPC runs. Either a power is appropriate for use once, twice, or at-will during an encounter or it isn't. The justification that the NPC is created just for that fight breaks the 4th wall way too much for my tastes. This is one of the few explanations I'm actually hostile towards.

Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to swallow it. Otherwise you get into the issue where you have to consider the impact of a monster having those powers outside of that encounter. At which point you get into the old argument why a spawning undead hasn't taken over the world?

(In case you haven't heard that particular argument, most undead in 3e spawned when it killed someone. Shadows, wraiths, wights, etc. So let's say one shadow kills one person in a city; then there's two. Two shadows kill two people in the town, there's 4. Before an alarm goes off, you'll have hundreds of shadows on your hands, and your average town or city would get wiped out under the sheer numbers. Which leads to the question: how does the world not get wiped out overnight by a tide of shadows?)

You're thinking of it in terms of in-game vermisilitude. But its' not. It's a matter of balancing. Simply put, the power is rarely going to be encountered compared to giving it to a player. NPCs break the rules with exceptions because they are under the Dm control and thus extremely limited.

A player who got that ability would abuse the holy hell out of it. An at-will minor power that does anything is all ready broken. One that uses the second most powerful status condition (Stun being the most powerful) is just Beyond the Pale.

NPCs have the power of the DM, the power of DM Fiat, and can do anything the DM wants. Should PCs be able to do that too? To wave their hand and say "I have that ability"?

Let's put it another way. let's say that a player could get the ability to dominate, as a minor action, at will. How fun do you think this would be for the other players? How fun do you think this would be for You? If you don't think it would be awesome, then you see why it CAN'T happen. And if you agree that it would be mechanically broken and not fun, then how could you continue to argue that it should be doable? Which is more important, Verisimilitude, or a fair system?

Or you go with Kamikaze, change the rules so the player get the ability, and you see what happens to your game.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Let's put it another way. let's say that a player could get the ability to dominate, as a minor action, at will. How fun do you think this would be for the other players? How fun do you think this would be for You? If you don't think it would be awesome, then you see why it CAN'T happen. And if you agree that it would be mechanically broken and not fun, then how could you continue to argue that it should be doable? Which is more important, Verisimilitude, or a fair system?

I also think it's fair to say that the power itself is too powerful for anybody to have, monsters included. Clearly, the power, working as-intended, diminished the fighter's fun. And I'd favor folks havin' fun over rules adherence any day. If someone ain't having fun, it's not working like it should, even if it's working as intended. It'd be acceptable to nerf them by making it recharge or 1/encounter, or whatever, I think.

Or you go with Kamikaze, change the rules so the player get the ability, and you see what happens to your game.

I frequently err on the side of "letting butt be kicked."

The power I made up is, plausibly, the same power they're using, just with the information for PC's in place (while the monster version omitted certain information that wasn't pertinent -- DM's didn't have to know that the dude needed a feat for the power, or that it only worked on humanoids, or that it was a daily power that granted an at-will attack rather than an actual at-will minor action power, since none of that was directly relevant in combat).

Personally, I'm okay with either nerfing the monster power (which seems crazy potent even for monsters -- even 2 or 3 of these guys could probably shut down a party fairly easily), or giving the PC's a way to get at the ability.

It's also worth mentioning that the monsters that get this are "elites," and so count as "2 monsters," or 2 PC's. I'd consider only allowing it to gestalt characters, or something similar, as well.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Moved to 4e discussion

 

[jbear]

I personally have no problem with the rules of PCs vs NPCs.

However...


My personal feeling is that you shouldn't have been hitting the same player with the same attack round after round.

Dazes, dominates, and especially stuns are easily a fun killer. Especially when used round after round. Therefore you should spread the hurt around, rather than just clobber one PC over the head with the thing round after round.

One of the most fun fights we ever had was during a dream sequence (the pcs were not sure if it was a dream) where they meet the villain and her banshees that they will struggle against in the flesh in the near future (as per the Ravenloft module, House on Gryphon Hill).

It was an absolute slaughter (as suggested by the moduleas to how the encounter should be run) with Dominate galore (as all 3 enemies were vampires);
They PCs were shocked, terrified and appalled that they were turned against each other. But it was seriously fun despite all that, and not just for me.

They now have a profound respect for enemies that can dominate and make it their number one priority to eliminate them as swiftly as possible.

Everyone was dominated at one stage or another. I certainly wouldn't recommend picking on just one PC ALL the time. I still had them make the attack rolls and they role played the domination, which was great fun. Certainly much more fun than immobilised, dazed or stunned!

As for PCs not having access to Dominate; A Bard can dominate as a Daily power at Lvl 5.

 

[Leatherhead]

One player was all but sidelined for the encounter because of a single power.

This is probably the real reason people got upset.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Okay. This is one that really boggles my mind. The NPC existed before the fight and will exist afterward, if the PCs lose or the NPC runs. Either a power is appropriate for use once, twice, or at-will during an encounter or it isn't. The justification that the NPC is created just for that fight breaks the 4th wall way too much for my tastes. This is one of the few explanations I'm actually hostile towards.

I don't expect life expectancy to have anything to do with abilities either. A given thing can do what it can do. NPC's have plans and goals just like the PC's. I use the capabilities of the NPC's to help determine what kind of things can they accomplish. Raw ability is just like gold, or allies. All are resources used to determine what can be accomplished.

But, it does take me in the direction that I finally went, internally. This encounter was 2-3 levels above the PCs. They won, but it was a pretty tough battle that forced them to regroup afterward and take an extended rest. This includes the fact that the players rolled numerous 1s and I critted about five times. So, the encounter was mechanically fair. For most games, that's all that's necessary. The difficulty was dead on.

Who says life is fair? Where is that written? In my campaign the 2nd level party happened to encounter a rather nasty bullette (level 9 elite brute) in the area. If approached as a straight combat encounter the party was mechanically screwed. The party engaged it ever so briefly, did a realistic
assessment, staked a goat to the ground and beat a hasty retreat to a rocky hill while it ate the snack. At this stage of the campaign the creature is a known hazard to avoid or come up with a better plan than "beat it till it runs out of HP" to deal with it.

Dominate kinda sucks, okay, but sometimes things suck. There is no way the PCs can ever replicate that ability, or even approach it.

Sure they can. It's just called confusion now.

 

[Mercule]

This is probably the real reason people got upset.

Actually, the players confirmed pretty much what I said. An intelligent foe should be able to act intelligently.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would make a houserule, that saves can be granted for powers that last until end of turn. This would bring those powers in line and make those abilities more useful.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nor do I. I don't know what the deal is with the Aurum Concordian, so I can't say for sure. I do know that the Human Wizard's Dancing Lightning is a spell that I can't see any reason not to allow PCs to learn. I was assuming it was like Dancing Lightning, otherwise there wouldn't be much point to asking if the PCs should be able to use it or not. That may have been the wrong assumption.

Meh, in every edition of D&D there have been monster 'abilities' that are simply not accessible to PCs. There are certainly spells PC arcane casters CAN access that are pretty similar to the Dancing Lightning power of the Human Wizard (and I'm pretty sure with the right feat you can come very close to reproducing it, perhaps with a bit of refluffing).

Boons would be a mechanism by which a DM could give some sort of access to something outside of normal PC powers too, if it was really desired. For that matter nothing really says that the powers listed in the rule books are any kind of final and unalterable list of all the powers that can ever be. If a player really wants something that isn't in the book, let them come up with rules for it and as long as it fits with the power level of other powers let them take it.