D&D 4E How did 4e take simulation away from D&D?

[pemerton]

Are Duelist's Panache and Wasteland Wanderer from Essentials?

 

[KarinsDad]

I understand this: but like I say, it's a shift in design policy, and it's something that affects a game already in motion. Characters who were pretty good a year ago are less so now, and nothing has changed but WotC shifting core design to account for people who don't play like we do. This is fine for people who were already playing that way. It's not very cool for us. But like I say, we have a solution. And it penalizes nobody: there's nobody at the table who's going to feel threatened because now other people are able to succeed about 50% of the time at hard challenges without sinking sparse resources into the privilege.

It's interesting to note how people think feats or skill powers are a sparse resource.

In the 2E days, feats were REALLY scarce. They didn't exist.

In 3E, PCs going to the end of Epic tended to have a max of 11 or 12 of them (except for a few classes).

Now, all PCs get 18 or 19 of them if played to level 30 and it's still not enough.


Also, the change in the skill challenge levels happened about week 4 after 4E came out. It's hardly a new thing.

+9 at level 1 (skill training + 18 stat) vs. DC 15 hard is 75% chance.

+27 or +28 at level 28 (skill training + 26 or 28 stat + 14 half level) vs. DC 33 hard is 75% or 80% chance.

Even with a starting stat of 12 and never boosting the stat at all, a trained PC can do a hard DC 33 at level 28 45% of the time. A low stat, no feats, no items, no stat boosts and all it requires is training at level one (or any level) to have a decent chance of success on a HARD task at level 28.

With nothing else added in.

I'm not seeing a problem with it being too hard, I see a problem with it being too easy. Medium difficulty tasks are 100% trained and even PCs that are untrained can easily accomplish them.

WotC dropped the DC by 10 at low level and 5 at high level.

It should be DC 10 15 20 at level 1-3 and the original 30 34 38 at level 28-30.


DC 5 is pretty much a joke, even for an untrained PC.


The skill challenge system is nothing of the sort. It's an exercise in rolling the dice where if the players pick trained skills (or Aid Another), they are pretty much a shoe in to win every skill challenge.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

My problem with feats is the same as my problem with utility powers: you have ones designed for combat and ones designed against combat sitting side by side.

It makes for bad choices. Not difficult choices, because when I have to choose between a utility power that gives m my primary stat modifier as a bonus to all my defenses and a utility that let's me summon a bed once a day, that's a really easy choice! But it's a bad choice, because you're setting up a combat/non-combat pair off. Linguist gets snubbed because it has to compare with Expertise.

I think ideally feats should be kept focused on combat with a second system - I typically go with Talents - serving as the non-combat addons. Likewise, Utility powers could become Feat Powers and you would also occasionally gain Talent Powers.

 

[Dannager]

My problem with feats is the same as my problem with utility powers: you have ones designed for combat and ones designed against combat sitting side by side.

It makes for bad choices. Not difficult choices, because when I have to choose between a utility power that gives m my primary stat modifier as a bonus to all my defenses and a utility that let's me summon a bed once a day, that's a really easy choice! But it's a bad choice, because you're setting up a combat/non-combat pair off. Linguist gets snubbed because it has to compare with Expertise.

I think ideally feats should be kept focused on combat with a second system - I typically go with Talents - serving as the non-combat addons. Likewise, Utility powers could become Feat Powers and you would also occasionally gain Talent Powers.

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Also when the hell was any game of D&D "simulationist" at all, like, in the slightest.

I'd really love to know where this comes from, especially in regards to 3e. Hell, 3e was advertised loudly as not being any for of simulation or any form of narrative. 3e was all about going back to the dungeon! and slaying dragons! and leaving the metaplot to those Vampire players!

3e was a direct rebuttal to White Wolf, and it was a game that very loudly and proudly announced itself as a game rather then a bizarre narrative/simulationist experience. When the hell did that get reversed?

 

[Dannager]

The skill challenge system is nothing of the sort. It's an exercise in rolling the dice where if the players pick trained skills (or Aid Another), they are pretty much a shoe in to win every skill challenge.

The skill challenge system isn't supposed to be a complex mechanical challenge. It's supposed to provide a game-like framework for roleplaying that allows the DM to judge whether a party succeeded or failed at a task that carries consequences.

It's not an excuse to roleplay while you roll dice. It's an excuse to roll dice (and in turn put your character's skills to some serious use) while you roleplay.

 

[Dannager]

Also, the change in the skill challenge levels happened about week 4 after 4E came out. It's hardly a new thing.

Also of note: it looks like you missed the second revision to skill DCs. All your math is outdated. DCs at level 1 are now 8/12/19. DCs at level 28 are 23/30/40. Yeah, the old skill challenge DCs needed improvement. That's why they improved them.

 

[Erudite Frog]

I think people are getting too stuck on the system of SCs. I'm not sure why people see them as rigid. Its like people are ignoring any other way than is presented- on purpose to boot!

 

[kaomera]

I think people are getting too stuck on the system of SCs. I'm not sure why people see them as rigid. Its like people are ignoring any other way than is presented- on purpose to boot!

Well, the "system" behind skill challenges is what has been presented. It's nice that they've tried to update that system, and provide advice on how to run them, but to me that advice seems to tend to boil down to "ignore the system we presented, it's actually kind of poop".

The skill challenge mechanics are a nice way to be able to incorporate more roleplay / non-combat encounters into published adventures, but ime actually running them doesn't really do anything, and the ones that do get published tend to have rubbish like "if the PCs try to use intimidate they fail outright". Now, you can still run something like that in a fun way, but imo it pretty much requires you to ignore both the skill challenge mechanics and the actual challenge as written. One of the issues is that PCs get to be good at relatively few skills each, and it's hard to get someone involved when they know that if they fail to roll particularly well it will "hurt" the entire group (although ideally the outcome of an encounter should only be good for the players regardless of success or failure...).

 

[Kingreaper]

The skill challenge mechanics are a nice way to be able to incorporate more roleplay / non-combat encounters into published adventures, but ime actually running them doesn't really do anything, and the ones that do get published tend to have rubbish like "if the PCs try to use intimidate they fail outright".

That one always pisses me off.

I wouldn't mind quite as much if they ever did it for other skills. Ie. if, when coming across an unstable cliff, using athletics (to try and climb) was an auto-fail, or coming across an angry beast diplomacy was an autofail, etc.

But nope, just intimidate.