Salvageable Innovations from 4e for Nonenthusiasts
- Thread starter Redbadge
- Start date
I'm sure many writers influenced Tolkien. However, it's Tolkien whose influence is the 800 pound gorilla on the genre ever since The Hobbit & LotR came out.
Redbadge
Explorer
If I gave the impression that I though all of those things on my list were innovations to 4th edition, I did not mean to. I think those things are core to the system, and I listed them to show others what I think is important to 4e (in other words, without each of these elements, I think that the system begins to lose a lot of its identity). Thus, if someone came along and said, "I think that dragonborn were a salvageable innovation from 4e," I could point out that, for me, dragonborn are not core to 4e and are not an innovation for the system (besides, they were "innovated" in 3.5 in Races of the Dragon). However, if someone says that minor actions are a salvageable innovation, I would agree because minor actions are part of the core action economy.
Also, with regards to gamist design into plausible simulation, I refer you to my earlier post wrt flavor->mechanics->design. I largely agree. For example, nowhere will you find me praising Healing Surges as an innovation. They are not an important part of the 4e core system for me. I find something slightly off with them, though it is tough to put my finger on it. Although I use them, and do not hate them, I don't love them.
To the people saying that 4e characters can't be taken out with one hit at 1st level, I would like to mention the silt runners (kobold variants from 4e Dark Sun), and similar creatures that can deal between 25 and 40 damage in one hit (at-will, sometimes). In my own encounters, every encounter at every level certainly has the possibility of taking out any character, if not in one hit, certainly in one round.
Finally, I'd like to comment on the aspects of HP in my games. HP represent endurance, health, morale, stamina, luck, fatigue, stress, and more in my games. When characters have become bloodied, they likely have taken their first actual injury of the encounter, and usually only a scratch. When they finally fall below 0 hp, they have taken their first truly damaging hit. This explanation compliments the 4e regeneration rules nicely I think (regeneration only functions for bloodied creatures). When a martial healer "heals" an ally, I think of it as a morale boost, providing a boost in courage and adrenaline through words and example alone.
Perhaps as an even greater nod to simulation, future versions of this rule, should they still exist, is to have martial "healing" only work on non-bloodied creatures, while magical healing only works on bloodied creatures (though perhaps magical healing should still work all the time, because it can relieve stress and fatigue from non-bloodied creatures, thereby restoring HP).
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pawsplay
Hero
Are balors made of fire and darkness? Do they live in the depths of the world, waiting to be dug up by dwarven miners? Do balrogs explode when they die? Do they teleport? While balors were clearly influenced by balrogs, I disagree with the assertion that a balor is a balrog. A balor is a gargoyle-like giant with similar attributes to Gygax's other demons. There hasn't been a balrog per se since D&D has been in book form.
The mixed elf-dwarf-hobbit party is obviously taken from LOTR, and is the principal addition of Tolkien's lore to D&D. In contrast to LOTR, D&D does not have an overarching dualism, and does have discrete immortals and deities. The themes in D&D tend to relate more to eldritch and unknowable things, swashbuckling adventure, and colorful lands, all much more closely related to the Howard-Moorcock-Leiber-Lovecraft side of the family.
Where in Tolkien can you find plate mail? What about creatures of Greek mythology? Teeming cities of sin and intrigue? Arcane wizards hunting for puissant spells? Witch doctors? Telepathic aliens?
Doug McCrae
Legend
As people say, D&D is the game where Conan, the Gray Mouser, Aragorn, Sir Galahad and Rhialto the Marvellous team up to fight Dracula, who's controlling some Ray Harryhausen skeletons. On the way they have random encounters with an AE Van Vogt monster and Man-Thing from Marvel comics. So Tolkien is in the mix.
The party generally acts like Conan looking for a big score (yeah, even Sir Galahad). And the setting resembles the Dying Earth more than anything else, but with much more crazy stuff. The adventure takes place in something out of A Merritt's The Moon Pool or Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race. The whole thing is way, way, more wahoo than Tolkien. But, to be fair, it's way more wahoo than *anything*.
And some DMs have looked at this and said, "That's too much wahoo, I want something more like Tolkien." And they've pared it down to make something like Tolkien. I played in such a game for years. (It was quite boring.)
The party generally acts like Conan looking for a big score (yeah, even Sir Galahad). And the setting resembles the Dying Earth more than anything else, but with much more crazy stuff. The adventure takes place in something out of A Merritt's The Moon Pool or Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race. The whole thing is way, way, more wahoo than Tolkien. But, to be fair, it's way more wahoo than *anything*.
And some DMs have looked at this and said, "That's too much wahoo, I want something more like Tolkien." And they've pared it down to make something like Tolkien. I played in such a game for years. (It was quite boring.)
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Not really denying that, at least in terms of commercial/crossover success.
However, if you really take a look at the writers and their works themselves, its a little different story.
pawsplay
Hero
I like Tolkien, and one of the things I dislike about 4e is that it was less "Tolkienesque" than previous editions. However, I just can't see much evidence that Tolkien was anything more than an extra onion in the pot. Strip out the elves and dwarves and hobbits, and you could still have Conan, the Grey Mouser, and Sir Roland team up with one of Poul Anderson's changelings and go looking for tentacled elder races to slay. Of the source material, Howard's stories had the most nonhuman or semihuman races, and D&D is fairly close in spirit; however, in D&D many of the friendlier races are filled by Tolkien-inspired archetypes.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Yeah, you're right. I think it's the biggest onion in the pot (unless you count myth & folklore) in terms of number of individual elements. It's the PC races, as you say, and that's more noticeable for the players than monsters.
Gary seemed to view the Tolkien-esque elements as a way to pull in LotR fans, hoping they wouldn't mind that the game didn't play anything like LotR. But they got the last laugh by creating Dragonlance.
PS What are the non/semi-human races in REH? I only know about serpent people, half-demons/demons of the outer dark and apemen.
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The 4E designers clearly recognized how disappointing it was that 3E combats involve so little obvious movement -- characters seem to just stand toe to toe, whacking away -- but I agree that they went too far (in the wrong direction) in addressing the problem.
It feels like every fighter is able to make his opponent move like one particular chess piece, once per encounter -- even if that opponent is a giant or an ooze.
If we look at how classic hex-map war games work, movement takes the place of hit points as a way to provide momentum. Instead of hitting and doing damage, attacking units force defending units to retreat. If the defender can't retreat -- because it's backed up against a river -- then the unit is (effectively) destroyed.
I wouldn't mind seeing rogues able to avoid damage by retreating. Fighters, on the other hand, would hold ground. And each variation of 3E's bull rush wouldn't require a separate power.
Herremann the Wise
First Post
The important thing here is that by expanding the scope of what hit points represent, you expand the number of things that can help restore them. I think this is a good thing for hit points.
They have only taken a damaging hit if they die from it, otherwise it is a wound light enough that it will be inconsequential the following day. I think this is 4e big failure in not fully separating hit points as they and you present (and that I think is good) and physical damage. Physical damage is not restored as quickly as all the other things that hit points represent and so physical damage must be treated separately if you wish to have consistency in the narrative and simulation of a spectrum of injury.
I agree with what you are saying here and think this a really neat thing, except when the warlord yells enough at an unconscious comrade and they start getting up after potentially taking a killing blow and thus your suggestion:
And again we run into the problem of not separating physical damage and hit points. Why cannot someone who is injured still be motivated by the warlord to hold the line one more time? Just because a creature is bloodied shouldn't stop the warlord's inspiring word from working (although you would assume unconsciousness would). I suppose the fix is: while they are above zero (what we houseruled for 4e), but even then you still have the central issue of either you are dead, or perfectly fine the next day. There is no in between.
And so I am definitely in the camp of liking how 4e took hit points to the next level (fleshing out how they were described in previous editions) but not liking how hit points works with the other pieces. Like mmadsen, I think the only way to correct this is to separate physical damage from hit point loss and calling healing surges: "combat surges" or just plain surges. In that way, it makes sense using combat surges as a usable currency for alternative uses other than healing.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
