GM Prep Time - Cognitive Dissonance in Encounter Design?

[Wicht]

Sure. But that has nothing to do with my point.

Rechan, if I may ask: might your point be summarized as "From the Player's perspective, the villain in Burnt Offering's is just as shallow as the Villain in WotC's Keep on the Shadowfell. They don't care about her or meet her until they kill her."

 

[Neonchameleon]

Have the 4e modules changed? Nope. Enemies exist just to die. This is very much a part of monster creation - if monsters are just blobs of combat, and in 4e they are indeed blobs of combat, that's all they do. They serve their function, and their function is nothing more then "Oh hey an enemy *splorch*" As cool as skill challenges can be, because they're so structured, there's no sudden case of bluffing your way past the monster. Look at Revenge of the Giants. Skill challenges, just like combats, are their own separate encounters, taking place outside the narrative instead of alongside or inside. They give you two or three skills you can use, and that's it - when you flop them, woops, combat time.

In short, WoTC module designers implementation of skill challenges suck. If skill challenges aren't part of the narrative, what the hell are they doing there? The issue here is one of implementation.

Compare this to how open ended Stolen Land makes it on sneaking into a bandit fort, even telling you the players could indeed simply bide their time and try to assassinate the Stag Lord while he sleeps, or how they might kill one bandit and set the others in the camp against each other with accusations. Don't have the best bluff or disguise? Taking an enemy captive and getting information from them earlier can help you there, scoring you code words and the secret that the bossman has a weakness for alcohol.

All prime skill challenge fodder.

Look at the 4e statblock for the monster. Look at how much is dedicated to the combat blob part. Now look at what's dedicated to everything else. Do you see it? That small block on skills? That's it. And even that doesn't say much, as the only time you'll see those skills come into play is if the enemy has a skill power or if your set a skill challenge up around it.

The thing is that with 4e design, the camera is centred on the PCs. Monsters don't need that level of detail in their statblocks for anything other than Perception, Insight, or Stealth. All you need to know is rough level of training and level of difficulty the PCs are attempting to know whether to use the easy, the medium, or the hard DCs and for what skill challenge level.

Instead of Burning, let's look back at Stolen Land. Let's skip ALL flavor entirely and just jump to the Stag Lord's stats. Literally, just the numbers. What do we get?

Less than should be in a normal 4e statblock, I expect.

We know that he has a penalty to his stats due to being sickened from too much booze.

Wouldn't be in a normal 4e statblock, granted.

We know that his favored targets are other humans. We know that, as a ranger, he has bow skills and is built to his terrain.

Would be in many 4e statblocks. Quick question: How does he shoot his bow? Extremely fast but not that hard, trying to turn the air black with arrows (At Will double attack)? Fairly normally, but occasionally picks out a target and fires an extra powerful attack at them (encounter or recharge power)? Exploiting opportunities (immediate action with trigger)? Almost up to melee then dancing out of reach (one of a number of skirmisher powers)?

He has high stealth and acrobatics, which gives some major clues on how he would fight.

And are simply laughable compared with how much skirmisher or lurker powers tell you in 4e about how people fight.

His physical stats are good with a very good dexterity, but his mental stats are low, with his wisdom being especially bad and his charisma being slightly better,

So you think that 4e stat blocks don't have attributes?

which is reflected in how easily his bandits abandon him as soon as he falls (which is, in turn, in their stat blocks).

Do tell how?

Do you see what happened there? Even the stuff based purely on combat told you things about the Stag Lord's character. Even just the strict combat blob bits gave hints and hooks on how to play him outside of the actual fight. That one stat block tells you more then entire modules in 4e tells you about their bad guys.

On the contrary. With the single exception of the alcoholism (and arguably morale) it tells you less than the 4th edition Monster Manual (and particularly the Monster Manual II) tells you about generic bad guys of a given type who aren't minions.

Once you go just one step beyond the pure numbers, it gets even worse. Still sitting in the stat block, now we look at the words. His sickness is gone once he sobers up, suggesting a number of ways to help keep him weaker.

Here, you're getting somewhere.

In melee he moves around a lot to flank with his bandits, so he knows and uses teamwork (the bandits themselves had a note that they'd often use terrible tactics due to being poorly trained. You'd never see that in a 4e creature).

Really? I'd do something like:
Terrible Tactics (no action): The bandit gains no bonus from flanking.

Plus the tactics block of text.

Most importantly, the fight isn't segregated from the narrative - you can wait for him to pass out and then just coup de grace him. No battlemat needed!

Yes, Paizo's adventure fluff beats WoTC's. I don't think anyone disputes this.

It's funny, but my experience is almost the opposite of yours. In the 3e statblock I glance down at the feats and powers of the Balor and I know immediately how they work. Part of it is having a good memory for details, and part of it is the conscious decision to standardise the way that effects worked in 3e, and I think it was a good thing. (nb, in 3.5e they even gave tactics blocks for the Balor and similar creatures to help DMs run them)

The thing is that in 4e, most of the building blocks are standardised. It just takes several to make a monster. Skirmishers tend to rely on shift or move-without-provoking-from-target.

In the 4e statblock, I can't do that. Everything is a special case for everything. Nothing I know about something else can be transferred. I have to read whole statblocks every time to see how something is supposed to work rather than just -know- it.

I read 4e stat blocks and just know it afterwards. It's all in the stat block for most monsters.

The other issue is, and I apologise for reiterating my earlier point, that in 4e the paragon and epic creatures have a severely limited palette of options to choose from.

Compared to what? The 3e Ettin?. The 3e Kyton? (CR6 would probably map to low paragon in 4e). Even 3e cloud giants are little better.

The only monsters in 3e with anything resembling a normal 4e palette of options are those with some form either of magic or of spell like abilities.

If you've seen one Pit Fiend, you've seen them all

And if you see one 3e goblin you've seen them all unless the DM adds templates or levels. The difference is you're going to meet a lot more goblins than you are pit fiends unless you are doing something really weird.

- there is pretty much only a few things he can do in a fight, ever. Sure, he could be given DM Fiat rituals for funky things out of the combat, but when the fight starts, he's only got a few approaches (and IIRC it might be quite easy for a fire resistant party to shut him down).

In short, Pit Fiends are 3e Spellcasters rather than 3e Spear-carriers. In 4e this more or less makes them Solos partly from complexity and partly from threat.

Ironic that in 3e creatures struggled to last more than 5 rounds and do 5 things, while in 4e they tend to last much longer and have less options so have to repeat tricks more often! It is almost as if the designers decided to stretch two axis (how long a fight lasts goes up, number of available options go down) when they really wanted to stretch one.

Except, as I believe I have illustrated, the number of available and substantially different options has increased massively for anyone who wasn't a spellcaster. For spellcasters it's shrunk - but the monsters only normally need to repeat their default attack modes while waiting for an opening.

And this doesn't get into the whole issue of differentiation - where monsters would pick their spells from the same list. Meaning that a lot more felt like different looking reskins than they do with monsters who literally move differently on the battlemat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The thing is that in 4e, most of the building blocks are standardised. It just takes several to make a monster. Skirmishers tend to rely on shift or move-without-provoking-from-target.

I read 4e stat blocks and just know it afterwards. It's all in the stat block for most monsters.

Then you are a god among men in memory terms, and I presume you can't have had any problem in 3e along those lines! The fact that every power in every creature is likely to be different in the way it works is what I find stumping. The gaze attack of the medusa, the basalisk, the bodak and everything else that gazes in 4e is a special case. I can't remember all of those (and you've got to remember a lot in terms of the detail too - not just save and effect but range, defence that is targetted, duration (is it save ends? is it save for secondary effect?) condition applied/healing surges lost/damage done/whatever? Some kuo-toa use a kind of harpoon that stops people it hits from moving, and there is at least one other creature that does the same; in one case the attack can't recharge until the target is no longer immobilised, in another case the attack can recharge at any time (and the DM has to handwave a reason for this).

Don't get me wrong - I quite like the idea of 4e creatures having a variety of attacks. I quite like the way that kobolds are more shifty, that goblins are more evasive, that hobgoblins are more disciplined. However, I do think that it would be a far stronger system if they had thought more about standardising certain kinds of attack, rather than take the (IMO) lazy approach of just writing something down without thinking it through (e.g. how does an immobilising attack with a weapon actually work).

I don't think 3e was perfect by any means. I've never thought there was much value in attempting to specify the exact skill ranks and feats which a creature should have based on its type and HD, for instance. That is a situation where it is better to just give it what it needs.

Compared to what? The 3e Ettin?. The 3e Kyton? (CR6 would probably map to low paragon in 4e). Even 3e cloud giants are little better.

The only monsters in 3e with anything resembling a normal 4e palette of options are those with some form either of magic or of spell like abilities.


And if you see one 3e goblin you've seen them all unless the DM adds templates or levels. The difference is you're going to meet a lot more goblins than you are pit fiends unless you are doing something really weird.

In short, Pit Fiends are 3e Spellcasters rather than 3e Spear-carriers. In 4e this more or less makes them Solos partly from complexity and partly from threat.

I thought it was rather obvious that I was talking about complex, typically high level 3e creatures with quite a number of powers or spells - y'know, the stuff that we're actually talking about. I didn't realise that I should have spelled that out, but mea culpa.

Now that is settled, we come back to the point in question. In 4e there is nothing really analogous to the '3e spellcasters' as you put it. Nothing with the variety of options available.

Regards

 

[Rechan]

Rechan, if I may ask: might your point be summarized as "From the Player's perspective, the villain in Burnt Offering's is just as shallow as the Villain in WotC's Keep on the Shadowfell. They don't care about her or meet her until they kill her."

Your first sentence is part of my point. Rather, the module doesn't make the PCs care. Or give them an incentive to care (aside from the fact Sandpoint is threatened, but that's beside the point). Some groups might. Some groups might try to find out more about Nualia. But the same is true for KotS; the PCs might care why this is happening. The same group, ran through both adventures, responding the same way to the villain and there would be little difference[/b].

The awesomeness of the Paizo adventure comes in the little details. Sandpoint, the Goblins behavior, etc. But those things are things the PCs see and interact with and love. At the end of the day, the backstory and rich detail put into something that the PCs don't engage with is just the DM talking to himself. That's great if that's what a DM wants, but a great module is what the PCs come into contact with. It's the stuff they do come into contact with, their reactions, that create great experiences. And to me, the detail put into Nualia (while a compelling story!) is a waste because the module as written doesn't offer a lot of opportunity for the PCs to appreciate it. And so Nualia is no better than Kalarel because they are not set up to be appreciated.

To put it another way, if I wrote the DM a great epic of pie and orc, what is it worth if all the PCs see, all the players know, is an orc in a room with a pie, the end?

 

[Wicht]

Your first sentence is part of my point. Rather, the module doesn't make the PCs care. Or give them an incentive to care (aside from the fact Sandpoint is threatened, but that's beside the point). Some groups might. Some groups might try to find out more about Nualia. But the same is true for KotS; the PCs might care why this is happening. The same group, ran through both adventures, responding the same way to the villain and there would be little difference[/b].

I think where I disagree then, in a nutshell, is your statement the module does not give them an incentive to care. While it is true that the module does not implicitly bring the PCs into a relationship with Nualia, it brings them into a relationship with those she is attacking. Furthermore, it provides plenty of hooks for the DM, if he chooses, to tie the PCs into her background in some way (or the background of her henchmen, etc.). Each DM is going to want to tell the story a different way but the richness of the module allows that and encourages it. My players cared a lot,even about learning who was behind the attacks. You might say its just because I'm a good DM, but I think its because its such a rich module its easy to run it well.

Anyway, we can leave it at that.

 

[billd91]

The awesomeness of the Paizo adventure comes in the little details. Sandpoint, the Goblins behavior, etc. But those things are things the PCs see and interact with and love. At the end of the day, the backstory and rich detail put into something that the PCs don't engage with is just the DM talking to himself. That's great if that's what a DM wants, but a great module is what the PCs come into contact with. It's the stuff they do come into contact with, their reactions, that create great experiences. And to me, the detail put into Nualia (while a compelling story!) is a waste because the module as written doesn't offer a lot of opportunity for the PCs to appreciate it. And so Nualia is no better than Kalarel because they are not set up to be appreciated.

To put it another way, if I wrote the DM a great epic of pie and orc, what is it worth if all the PCs see, all the players know, is an orc in a room with a pie, the end?

Here, we really are getting into style issues. If the players are the type who just breaks down the doors to hack and loot, then the Epic of the Orc and Pie is irrelevant. But if the party is struck by the oddity of the situation of an orc sitting there with a pie and willing to parley, then the epic can come out.

It's the players who determine how they interact with the environment. Their orientation to the adventure will have a tremendous impact on whether or not that backstory comes into play. With Paizo's approach, as DM, I have a lot more information about the main villains or the movers and shakers of the NPC-side of the module and can devise a response that's more in character.

 

[Rechan]

Here, we really are getting into style issues. If the players are the type who just breaks down the doors to hack and loot, then the Epic of the Orc and Pie is irrelevant. But if the party is struck by the oddity of the situation of an orc sitting there with a pie and willing to parley, then the epic can come out.

It's the players who determine how they interact with the environment. Their orientation to the adventure will have a tremendous impact on whether or not that backstory comes into play. With Paizo's approach, as DM, I have a lot more information about the main villains or the movers and shakers of the NPC-side of the module and can devise a response that's more in character.

If that is the case, then the module should do more to offer that Option for the players. That it should present more of an opportunity, and more of that information, sooner, so that those who do want to parlay are piqued much more, much earlier. Instead of sticking her in a room in a dungeon and those that want to parlay have to yell "WAIT DON'T SHOOT" when they walk in the door. Because they may be more LIKELY to want to interact if they have more to go on before they show up.

I contrast Burnt Offerings with say, the Crimson Throne, where the PCs get to meet the BBEG way early, way earlier then they know that person is the BBEG. Their friction has the opportunity to build. (Yes I know one is a single module and one is an AP villain, but the same principle of exposure is there).

I also think this is important because in so many modules, the only time the PCs get any information about the villains, it's via letters and/or other writing of the villains themselves. There are just better ways to do it[/b].

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think that the reason modules tend to put the BBEG in a room at the end is to avoid having the PCs slay the BBEG earlier, thus ending the "plot". Thus the general reveal through secondary artifacts of the BBEG/leaving it up to the GM to determine how the reveal is arranged.

The point, though, is that the GM needs to have something to reveal in order to arrange any reveal at all.

I personally prefer a game to have a number of divination abilities, which allow the players to gain access to information. The "mystery" becomes knowing what questions to ask, rather than what the answers to those questions might be. This worked to great effect, IMHO, in my last game session, when one PC consulted the Akashic Memory about a character they thought was the BBEG, as well as about their employer.

Players like meaningful information, for the obvious reason that it allows them to make meaningful choices. I say, give it to them. However, the information must be there to give, and I am finding that this lack of motive is the hardest part of converting WotC at this point.

RC

 

[MrMyth]

Have the 4e modules changed? Nope. Enemies exist just to die. This is very much a part of monster creation - if monsters are just blobs of combat, and in 4e they are indeed blobs of combat, that's all they do.

I'm not sure how true this is - it was my understanding several of the later adventures have been a lot more engaging than the early one.

Even if the 4E mods remain these failures, I think you are making a massive assumption that the issue is the statblock rather than the encounter design. My home game uses 4E stat blocks, sometimes stripped down even further. Focused entirely on combat details. That has not translated to it being nothing but a hackfest. PCs have bargained with enemies, joined forces with them, got involved in intrigues, trading - all sorts of roleplaying. I suspect many other home games are the same. I suspect there are even more than a few WotC adventures where this is true.

Similarly, I've seen some excellent conversions of Paizo adventures into 4E. Using 4E statblocks. I don't think that reduces those adventures to one long string of combat encounters.

I can understand the desire for more flavorful enemies - and I think that is found in their lore, as well as in the design of the encounter itself and the adventure as a whole. I don't think adding useless elements to combat stats would serve to particularly enhance things out of combat, and would make things less straightforward for the DM in combat. At least, in my opinion.

Similarly, your understanding of skill challenges is very, very, very different from my own.

Compare this to how open ended Stolen Land makes it on sneaking into a bandit fort, even telling you the players could indeed simply bide their time and try to assassinate the Stag Lord while he sleeps, or how they might kill one bandit and set the others in the camp against each other with accusations. Don't have the best bluff or disguise? Taking an enemy captive and getting information from them earlier can help you there, scoring you code words and the secret that the bossman has a weakness for alcohol.

Yeah, I've seen more than a few skill challenges along these lines. Maze of Shattered Souls, a recent dungeon adventure, is a good example. The entire point of skill challenges is to provide a framework for this sort of thing without reducing it to one or two rolls - to provide options. Maybe the skill challenges in some adventures are poorly designed. But the sort of approach you describe is a core tenet of 4E philosophy. The idea that there are approaches any party can take to get past obstacles, rather than needing a rogue to get past the locked door, or a bard to bargain with the bandits. And in most 4E games I've seen, listed skills in a skill challenge are the primary and expected skills, but many other approaches tend to be allowed if they seem reasonable.

Look at the 4e statblock for the monster. Look at how much is dedicated to the combat blob part. Now look at what's dedicated to everything else. Do you see it? That small block on skills? That's it. And even that doesn't say much, as the only time you'll see those skills come into play is if the enemy has a skill power or if your set a skill challenge up around it.

Well, yes. I get the sense that most skills are there to show the flavor of the enemy. As, often, the abilities do as well. Look, your following example makes no sense at all - a 4E stat block could also show that the Stag Lord hates humans, is good with a bow and dealing with terrain, has good stealth and acrobatics, high dex, low wisdom/charisma. The only thing I wouldn't expect to see in a standard stat block would be the note on being sickened by booze - and that's hardly a given.

I mean, even when I've wanted more expansion on the flavor of certain monster abilities, often the names alone give just the same sort of RP guidance you are looking for.

Do you see what happened there? Even the stuff based purely on combat told you things about the Stag Lord's character. Even just the strict combat blob bits gave hints and hooks on how to play him outside of the actual fight. That one stat block tells you more then entire modules in 4e tells you about their bad guys.

Once you go just one step beyond the pure numbers, it gets even worse. Still sitting in the stat block, now we look at the words. His sickness is gone once he sobers up, suggesting a number of ways to help keep him weaker. In melee he moves around a lot to flank with his bandits, so he knows and uses teamwork (the bandits themselves had a note that they'd often use terrible tactics due to being poorly trained. You'd never see that in a 4e creature). Most importantly, the fight isn't segregated from the narrative - you can wait for him to pass out and then just coup de grace him. No battlemat needed!

I really think you are looking at things from a distorted perspective. Why would you be unable to build in this sort of sickness into a 4E character? Why would a 4E monster never have notes about not using good tactics? Why would you need to put down a battlemat if PCs sneak up on him and simply stab him death while unconscious?

ProfessorCirno, I really get the sense - now more than ever - that you aren't arguing against 4E, you are arguing against some imaginary perception of 4E that neither matches the game that WotC has written, nor the game that people are playing. I can understand your concerns, certainly. But I don't see these problems supported or encouraged by the rules. I see tactics blocks and lore entries for monsters, and lately in significant detail.

I just don't understand how when 4E lists skills, they "don't say much", but when 3.5 stat blocks show he has "high stealth and acrobatics,"
it "gives some major clues on how he would fight".

Identical pieces of information, yet you somehow see one of these are completely useless, and the either as evidence of a fully developed character. Are you certain there is no bias at hand in your perception of the game?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then you are a god among men in memory terms, and I presume you can't have had any problem in 3e along those lines! The fact that every power in every creature is likely to be different in the way it works is what I find stumping.

The thing there is that the exact way the power works is right down there in front of me in the statblock. (Or it references one of the dozen or so conditions on the DM's screen). I normally run three monster types per encounter (four with minions). This means I need to remember off turn the immediates/triggers and opportunity actions. In turn I can glance at the statblock - and remember how the monsters operate for their basic plans. And I need to remember the statuses (with the help of coloured paperclips we hang on weapons).

All these are bitsized chunks - and all prompted (assuming good design) by who the monster actually is. And yes, I'm good at that sort of thing, especially with the prompts right in front of me.

However, I do think that it would be a far stronger system if they had thought more about standardising certain kinds of attack, rather than take the (IMO) lazy approach of just writing something down without thinking it through (e.g. how does an immobilising attack with a weapon actually work).

My problem with this approach is that to me there are too many variables. Harpoon, bolas, net, or tazer? All immobilise - for different durations and in different ways. (And a weighted net is a different article to an unweighted one). We're into five ways (plus grappling) of immobilising with a weapon. Then multiply up for the number of conditions. You're probably pushing fifty such methods - little improvement in systematisation while closing off some design space. (How many ways can you think of of inflicting slowed with weapons?) Frankly I'd rather leave it as more elemental building blocks.

Now that is settled, we come back to the point in question. In 4e there is nothing really analogous to the '3e spellcasters' as you put it. Nothing with the variety of options available.

The thing is you don't need that range of options. And they very seldom actually add something unless you're planning on taking on multiple instances of the same big enemy. (Give a solo seven distinct standard action spells, a bloodied recharge power, a couple of minor powers and an interupt and you're way past what's needed).