When status effects annoy the players

[Windjammer]

I think what 4E could profit from would be a way to help the DM to adjust the difficulty bar. See, the tricky bit is that you want 4E to be a game that succeeds wildly at fundamentally different things. The spectrum runs from "an introductory step into a larger world, that of RPGs" to "a nice way to very occasionally spend a Saturday afternoon" to (on the far end) "a fulfilling experience at campaign-length play" and "keeps the number crunchers happy".

In its current form, 4E (not to mention previous editions), doesn't attempt to really address this issue. Instead of a "difficulty bar" the game comes with a level range and an EL system, neither of which tell the DM (or the players) much about how hard certain monsters will be for the players given their level of skill.

I hope this will rectify the situation somewhat, though, to be honest, I was rather hoping for a DM-oriented resource that basically categorizes all MM1 and MM2 monsters in (ca.) 5 groups on how much system mastery, character optimization, and sheer tactical brains each of these require.

Seriously, I'd like to know that myself. There's a world of difference between me DMing

(a) a group of people most of who just had a hard day of work, and

(b) my friends on a leisurely Saturday evening where we are all bent on playing The Game to our (tactical) hilt

I'm absolutely certain that there are monsters in the Monster Manuals which are ultimately suited for one of these categories but not both.

 

[Stalker0]

One other thing I have found about 4e conditions is how there is a different psycological factor from them and 3e conditions.


In 3e, a lot of times a condition meant you were out of the fight. Players never like being out of the fight, but when it happens it happens (and generally its much rarer to get big conditions applied in 3e). A lot of times they would leave the table, get some food, talk to a friend who isn't engaged in the combat, etc.

In 4e, conditions have this roller coaster ride style. You are hit with a condition, but wait! You might be okay next round....oh failed the save...ok ok this time...oh got hit with another condition etc.

I have noticed among my players that this your "conditioned your not, you are again" style has been more frustrating than the old version. In the old version there was nothing to be done, you accepted it and moved on. But when you can get over condition quickly but don't due to other circumstances the frustration increases.


Now once again I'll say I actually like 4e conditions better than 3e ones, they are cleaner, easier to use, and generally not nearly as game changing. But I do think 4e applies them too liberally, which leads to the OP's original concern.

 

[Barastrondo]

Now I'm curious, B. In the games you and your group play, does a player character never have a one-on-one conversation with a non-player character, like a family member or a contact or a mistress? Does a player character never scout ahead? Do the player characters never split up to cover more ground? Do one or two player characters never stand guard while the rest are sleeping?

Do your players all contribute equally at every moment to everything that happens during the game?

Given that the intrewebs can be a tough medium for sussing out nuance, let me be perfectly clear that I don't mean any of those questions to be taken rhetorically or facetiously - I really would like to get a sense of how your group operates during actual play.

Valid question. And yes, there are one-on-one sessions and moments where individuals scout ahead, and the like. Generally I think that those are held to a different standard by the players, though. They're like "taking turns" in their own right -- one player talks about the next assignment with the marshal, another goes diving for information in taverns, a third is hunting in the woods -- those are turns. Scouting ahead is a little different, but that's one of the reasons I'm intrigued by skill challenges; they can move scouting as "a turn" in its own right, while everyone else is doing other things to contribute to overall success. (And also, scouting ahead is always something that the players themselves agree upon, never my call or the result of a die roll. It's very much a voluntary ceding of attention, in order to get information that the entire group is interested in.)

With a group that contains a fair amount of social roleplay, to some extent there's an acceptance that there will be longer "turns' before the group is collected and in encounter mode. This works up to a certain point, mind; the lesson of the Netrunner/decker going off into cyberspace for 45 minutes to do his thing while everyone waits for that to resolve is notable, particularly if you've only got time for a three-hour session in the night.

Mechanics that force you to miss your turn (instead of limiting what you can effectively do with your turn) are somewhat different, in my perception. It takes away a turn instead of having that turn be freely offered. Players can certainly choose to do nothing, and may gain quite a bit from it, but mechanics that push them into the spectator role, whether that's what they want to do or not, remove the choice to participate.

I absolutely think that such mechanics probably work very well for some groups. They may serve not only as an acceptable risk, but as a demanded risk. But with a wealth of acceptable risks to choose from, I pretty strongly disagree that anyone who'd rather have their character kicked prone into a firepit than miss a turn should leave the hobby. If the players would rather be playing as much of the game as possible, there are plenty of things left to do to them to make sure they're still working for their victories.

I really disagree here. They are playing when their turn has been skipped. The player should be putting the time to good use: strategizing on what to do next. If they're not doing that, then they're playing badly.

I don't believe that going over choices that you might or might not be able to make and actually being empowered to make those choices are quite the same level of participation, but I freely admit that "doing things" is a very subjective matter.

 

[Morrus]

Another approach which occurs to me is to attempt to devise 10 or so new statuses - statuses which are interesting, have a detrimental effect of some kind, are colourful and fun, and don't stop players taking actions.

Thing is... I can't think what they might be!

Perhaps some one-off unique statuses (randomly teleporting on the battlefield - save ends; OK, that's maybe a bit silly but you get the idea). "Stuck in the Air" - a status effect which is caused as a side-effect of some magical effect and which means the PC is 10 feet off the ground (save ends). Or.. ummm... I dunno. Everything I think of sounds a bit silly! "Confused" - like the 3.5 spell, roll randomly for your action (save ends).

Hmm, yeah - maybe the way to think about this is to use the 3.5 spellbooks as a resource for wacky stuff that you can do to a PC which doesn't mean missing your turn.

Perhaps also more ways for monsters to remove marks and the like.

 

[AllisterH]

One other thing I have found about 4e conditions is how there is a different psycological factor from them and 3e conditions.


In 3e, a lot of times a condition meant you were out of the fight. Players never like being out of the fight, but when it happens it happens (and generally its much rarer to get big conditions applied in 3e). A lot of times they would leave the table, get some food, talk to a friend who isn't engaged in the combat, etc.

In 4e, conditions have this roller coaster ride style. You are hit with a condition, but wait! You might be okay next round....oh failed the save...ok ok this time...oh got hit with another condition etc.

I have noticed among my players that this your "conditioned your not, you are again" style has been more frustrating than the old version. In the old version there was nothing to be done, you accepted it and moved on. But when you can get over condition quickly but don't due to other circumstances the frustration increases.


Now once again I'll say I actually like 4e conditions better than 3e ones, they are cleaner, easier to use, and generally not nearly as game changing. But I do think 4e applies them too liberally, which leads to the OP's original concern.

That's an interesting observation...

The fact that the 3e conditions basically meant you done for the rest of the fight (and depending on the fight, this was on the order of a quarter hour if not much longer) I guess means you could detach yourself from the game and do something else...

With 4e conditions, you GOT to stay focused on the table....

 

[Talysian]

This is a very valid point, though I know at higher levels in 3e the combats to us wen't just as long as 4e so figure if you are out in the first round or to... guess what you are making the food run!

 

[Marius Delphus]

I think there's design space for cumulative or "escalating" groups of conditions, rather than the cross-referenced list we have (that can be "entered" at any point) -- a smaller number of condition "tracks," sort of like fatigue and exhaustion did in 3.X. The design goal would be to reduce the number of tracks to significantly fewer than the current number of conditions, simplify the way conditions are assigned, and make having a condition suck less.

So keeping in mind the fact I'm nowhere near an expert in 4E design, here's how I'd start (and by "start" I do *not* mean "finish") going about putting together something like this:

MOVEMENT TRACK
Slowed - Immobilized - Restrained - Prone

MENTAL TRACK
Surprised - Dazed - Stunned - Unconscious

PHYSICAL TRACK
Fatigued - Exhausted - Weakened - Unconscious

There are a number of conditions that don't neatly fit on tracks like these, but I think you can see where I'm going. The verbiage would need some cleaning up, and (IMPORTANT!) the conditions would need to be redefined, but the basic idea is that an effect that presently causes a "physical" condition would move the target along the "Physical Track" (and wouldn't directly cause the weakened condition or unconsciousness unless the target was already afflicted). Especially powerful attacks might move the target two notches along the track.

Just an idea I had.

 

[billd91]

I'll have to disagree with you again there. They're playing the game they want to play; that, by definition, is the right game. If it takes a little tweaking to make it more fun for them, then so be it - the game exists to serve its players, not the other way round.

I think before we can take this as a foregone conclusion, or reject the advice to play something else out of hand, you have to take a very hard-nosed look at the players. Will they be satisfied with just making changes to status effects? Or will there then be something else to complain about? Will replacing the status effects with more damage lead to further complaints since that's likely to cause some lost turns due to unconsciousness and/or death?

If the game fits most of your players' preferences, then I'd agree that 4e is a fine game for them and would consider making a tweak here or there. But if it turns out what they really want is a game that has different tools for character adversity that depend more on their own narrative permission, then 4e really isn't as good a fit as some other game might be. It's a sad thing for people to think they want to play a particular game that offers them frustrations than seek out a game that's a better fit but they don't yet know about.

The reason I think this actually needs to be given serious consideration is because one set of changes never seems to satisfy. One element I've seen in the development of AD&D over the editions is a progressive weakening of certain aspects of the game's challenge environment. Save or die/suck effects have typically gotten weaker over the editions, in each case because they were supposedly "unfun" for the characters suffering them. Yet, each weakening seems to not be enough and defines the new level of "unfun". Will reducing the presence of status effects or modifying them in some other manner be enough for your players?

 

[Festivus]

I usually have a deck of 3x5 cards handy, I scribble down whatever the save ends effect is and hand it to the player, telling them to hand it back when they make their save.

I find the "until the end of next turn" effect from monsters to be more annoying as a DM. Not sure how to handle that one quickly yet.

The worst of all are fights with insubstantial elite brutes (or something like that)... long fights = no fun. I like to offer up ways to make the creatures lose insubstatial, eg. a skill challenge in the fight to make them lose that trait, like a ritual that would lock down a leader for 3 rounds, preventing healing, making the fight seem more dire until the challenge is won and the tide turns.

As a player, I don't mind status effects, I find it part of the challenge to overcome in the fight, just like terrain, obsticles, monsters, etc.

 

[Marius Delphus]

It also occurred to me that maybe this is a result of turning the old saving throw into a static defense -- with a static defense, the players don't feel like they have any "control" over whether the status effect lands, whereas with the saving throws of old, players at least have a chance to roll a die.

Maybe you could allow characters to expend a healing surge to gain a saving throw at the beginning of their turn instead of having to wait till the end. Maybe a save gained this way is a bit more difficult than usual, requiring a 12 or even 15 to save. But it would at least give characters a little bit more "control" over their destiny. I haven't really thought through the ramifications of this; it's just another thought I had.