D&D 4E Things I really like about 4e (and how they could be better)

[delericho]

I actually meant this as a positive, not a negative.

Ah. Sorry, I didn't pick up on that.

For the record, as a mostly DM, I personally feel that in general, the party should succeed, but that setbacks are good for the game as well. They teach the party tactics. They build tension and/or drama. Plus, they make the successes that much sweeter. I have always felt that retreat is a valid tactic, but that encounters that are designed to force the party to retreat should be relatively rare. As for what the actual success percentage should be? I don't know. I think this is something that will always vary from table to table.

I believe the WoW guys actually did quite a lot of investigation of this, and came up with a figure of about 70% as being the sweet spot. It certainly sounds about right to me - the party succeed most of the time, but they fail enough to give it meaning.

(Of course, it's important to note that "defeat" doesn't, or at least shouldn't, automatically mean "TPK" or even the death of even one character.)

 

[Riastlin]

Ah. Sorry, I didn't pick up on that.

No worries, its easy to do.

(Of course, it's important to note that "defeat" doesn't, or at least shouldn't, automatically mean "TPK" or even the death of even one character.)

Indeed, there are many ways to measure failure. Death is merely the harshest (to the individual player character) measure of defeat -- though even then a death can be suitably heroic.

 

[Gryph]

[MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION], some very interesting ideas in the OP. I think I'm going to try the 1 AP per encounter in my next session and see how it goes in play.

I agree with you on the weakness of daily powers and healing surges. I see them as related problems and have been giving some thought to how to tie them together into something like a "fatigue" mechanic.

For example, a 1st level Ranger (normally has say 7 surges, 1 encounter power, 1 daily) would start his day with 5 surges. Using his encounter power costs him a 1 surge, using his daily cost him 2 surges, Second Wind and various healing word powers still use surges as normal. With a short rest, the range would regain 3 surges (like your post, I wouldn't allow chaining short rests). This mechanic means the players can use their nova powers more than once a day, at the risk of not having healing to cover during an encounter.

Please note, I haven't spent a lot of time working out the surge numbers, so the example above is meant to be illustrative rather than definitive.

What I think I will get out of this mechanic is sense of slowly fatiguing party, that never reaches the point of helplessness. One of the emergent effects I can see coming out of this mechanic is defenders using fewer encounter/daily powers other than those that help them hold targets. If the defenders can keep strikers/controllers from getting hit very often, then the big damage hitters can afford to go nova in more encounters, speeding up most encounters. (Something I think needs to be addressed)

 

[Riastlin]

[MENTION=98071]Gryph[/MENTION]: The only problem I see with your proposal is that it would have the tendency to make essentials characters inherently more powerful since they have fewer encounters/dailies on which to spend their surges anyway.

In general though, I do like the idea.

 

[Gryph]

@Gryph : The only problem I see with your proposal is that it would have the tendency to make essentials characters inherently more powerful since they have fewer encounters/dailies on which to spend their surges anyway.

In general though, I do like the idea.

Excellent point. The number of surges at start of day and recovered would have to vary by class. Defenders will still need access to more healing and Essentials non-spell casters to fewer dailies.

I'll have to keep this point in mind as I start working on actual numbers for class and level increases.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

(And, of course, this makes sense - if you're tracking ammunition, rations, and healing potions, you actually already have a bunch of per-adventure resources anyway. Eventually, you're going to have to retreat to restock.)

...

In the current model, if you structure an adventure with a time limit, and then the PCs have a really bad first encounter (whether because you misjudged the difficulty, they rolled really poorly, or whatever), then suddenly the whole adventure is in real trouble. However, you can at least build in time for, say, 2 ERests, and all is well.

From the dramatic perspective, what I want is that the closer the party gets to the end, the harder it is to back out (and the less they want to). Getting mauled earlier in the adventure, backing out, trying again--can even add to the drama. Backing out right before the boss fight is a much bigger jolt.

Old dungeons got some of this aspect from that operational resource play. It took risks and resources to get from point A to point E. If you were already at D, and E looked questionable, you still might try it. Even if you didn't, you had a reason to at least consider it. When you didn't, it was usually because the threat of E was overwhelming. So the back out to rest was grudging. Certainly, if a partial back out to C was a decent option compared to all the way back to civilization, the party would jump on it. (Go back to the orcs lair, restock on oil and arrows, etc.)

So I guess my one objection to 1 AP per encounter, 1 daily per milestone, or other such solutions is that they don't go quite far enough to address the above. That is why I would much rather tie the resources to milestones and then change how they work. That way, I can make milestones more dense towards the end of the adventure, and make the tougher stuff more rewarding to push through. But if I have an adventure that follows a different pattern, I can move the milestones around to reflect that.

I played in a one-shot at a con once (2E AD&D), where the DM had the worst fights as the opening and closing fights. The opening fight was, in fact, slightly worse than the last, because we weren't expecting it to be that way. Talking to him afterwards, he indicated that this was something he had started doing in cons to address dramatic pacing for people who had little attachment to their characters.

People expected the gradual build up, and thus weren't terribly motivated in the early going--except to save resources for later. Whereas, the way we played his adventure, we were shook out of this mindset early. Then, thinking we were in over our heads, we had to really focus in the middle. Finally, the boss fight didn't have to be that mechanically tough, because we were already drained of resources. So it became about the personalites--and we really cared, because the boss' troops had been abusing us for 3 hours.

I would tie none of this to surges, because besides the mechanical drawbacks, surges are meant to, and intuitively to the players will, correspond to that increasing fatigue. They are the final limit, and are thus a resource to be hoarded in operational play. Really, rather than tie surges to this other stuff, I'd rather move something over into that category with surges. I might feel differently if someone managed to include surges in a complete "reward cycle" of D&D play--but as written now, they are pure resource.

 

[OnlineDM]

What the game needs is a good momentum mechanic. Something that makes the characters stronger the longer they go without resting. Pair that with the natural erosion of healing surges as the game goes on, and you end up with a compelling resource management problem that also provides drama.

The 4e action point rules attempt to add some of this, but it's not enough. The same was true for the original daily magic item power rules (you get one per milestone).

I'm on board with the idea of having certain daily powers that only "unlock" after you complete enough encounters. The more encounters you complete, the more momentum you've built up and the cooler your abilities become.

I could see this being addressed as others have mentioned, with some kind of "hero point" mechanic - gotta get 3 (one after each encounter) to unlock a daily, or something like that. I could also see it being addressed via boons that only last until the next extended rest - after 4 encounters, the party meets an angelic being who gives someone a blessing that lasts for the rest of the day. Take a nap, and it's gone.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What the game needs is a good momentum mechanic. Something that makes the characters stronger the longer they go without resting. Pair that with the natural erosion of healing surges as the game goes on, and you end up with a compelling resource management problem that also provides drama.

Since I prefer action points that don't reset (i.e. a running total as a resource like healing potions), one of the areas that I considered to balance momentum is to do a little judo on the magic item/math gap.

For example, drop all bonuses from magic items. No +2 swords, but they can still be flaming, and so forth. No inherent bonus to replace it. Instead, you get a "momentum" bonus, +1 per (legitimate) encounter, cumulative, to all attacks, damage, and defenses. It resets on an extended rest.

For a more gamist, tactical swingy option, instead of making it +1 per encounter, make it +1 every time you roll a 1 on an attack (first roll only for multiple attacks). If you get lucky, you don't get the bonus, and need to use the resources you have saved to carry the day. If you get unlucky early, you'll have to use some of those resources to handle those early fights, but you'll be more effective going forward.

The tinker side of me likes the more elaborate option, but the handling time, opportunity for unintentional side effects, and general confusion is probably not worth it compared to the straight +1/encounter.

I hadn't tried it yet, because I really don't like tying those kind of things so hard and fast to number of encounters. With a large group of players, I like to vary things quite a bit on that front. At the time, though, I had not considered tying it milestones and making them less rigid in pacing. Hmm.

 

[heretic888]

What the game needs is a good momentum mechanic. Something that makes the characters stronger the longer they go without resting. Pair that with the natural erosion of healing surges as the game goes on, and you end up with a compelling resource management problem that also provides drama.

The 4e action point rules attempt to add some of this, but it's not enough. The same was true for the original daily magic item power rules (you get one per milestone).

I'm on board with the idea of having certain daily powers that only "unlock" after you complete enough encounters. The more encounters you complete, the more momentum you've built up and the cooler your abilities become.

I could see this being addressed as others have mentioned, with some kind of "hero point" mechanic - gotta get 3 (one after each encounter) to unlock a daily, or something like that. I could also see it being addressed via boons that only last until the next extended rest - after 4 encounters, the party meets an angelic being who gives someone a blessing that lasts for the rest of the day. Take a nap, and it's gone.

I once played around with this idea at my games:

When the PCs reach a milestone, they gain a +1 milestone bonus on all encounter and daily power attack rolls as well as attack rolls triggered by spending action points. This bonus increases by +1 for each additional milestone they reach that day.

This is a little different than the hero point idea being advanced because instead of restricting when you can and cannot use your daily powers, it instead rewards players for using them later in the day (because the bonus makes them more likely to succeed).

I ended up dropping the idea because it was just one more number to add to the bookkeeping (and the healing surge and daily power recharges I mentioned in my last post has been enough to encourage them to "keep going").... but if something like this were directly incorporated into the system in a way that made it easier to remember, I could see it working.

 

[ppaladin123]

I just wanted to drop by and say that this is the way to have a discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of 4e: polite, civil comments backed-up with specific examples.