Same rules or different Rules (PC vs NPC)

[Nivenus]

Having DMed for both 3e and 4e (though I came in late for 3e) I'd much prefer using NPCs with 4e-style stats... at least for combat. When it comes to non-combat, I'm a little bit less certain, because I feel that 4e NPCs don't usually have enough skills or non-combat abilities to make them very interesting outside of a combat encounter.

Of course, 4e as a whole is very heavily built for combat, so that's not particularly surprising. But hopefully WotC can come up with a way to keep the simplicity and ease of use typical of 4e monsters/NPCs while also giving them a meaningful use outside of combat.

 

[RangerWickett]

Obviously you can ignore the system. But that isn't much of a justification for using that system.

Nor is throwing the system completely out the window.

The point I was trying to make is, the 'system' of 4e is much more forgiving for setting stats to whatever you want. Make them high. Make them low. Do whatever feels right for your game. But the book has guidelines to tell you "Hey, that might be pretty weak in a fight against PCs of level X."

So it's not ignoring the system. It's one of the amazing wonderful beautiful saves-so-much-effing-time elements that make me love running 4e.

In 3e, stats are defined based on a lot of rules. You feel sorta compelled to follow the rules because they give you so much structure. And if you don't, and have, say, a one-armed swordsman with an AC of 30 at 10th level, your players might call you on it. Suddenly you've got an argument because the game's rules don't let you just do what you want. You have to justify your numbers.

In 4e, I'm a mofoing DM. If I want a demon lord with a crap Will, there's no rule telling me I can't do that. Takes me 5 seconds. So much easier.

 

[Pour]

The point I was trying to make is, the 'system' of 4e is much more forgiving for setting stats to whatever you want. Make them high. Make them low. Do whatever feels right for your game. But the book has guidelines to tell you "Hey, that might be pretty weak in a fight against PCs of level X."

So it's not ignoring the system. It's one of the amazing wonderful beautiful saves-so-much-effing-time elements that make me love running 4e.

In 3e, stats are defined based on a lot of rules. You feel sorta compelled to follow the rules because they give you so much structure. And if you don't, and have, say, a one-armed swordsman with an AC of 30 at 10th level, your players might call you on it. Suddenly you've got an argument because the game's rules don't let you just do what you want. You have to justify your numbers.

In 4e, I'm a mofoing DM. If I want a demon lord with a crap Will, there's no rule telling me I can't do that. Takes me 5 seconds. So much easier.

Pretty much this.

 

[Viking Bastard]

So would you reject LostSoul's claim about the Starsteel Armor adding +2 or +3 to the demon?

I just skimmed the blocks of text, but if you mean that if a Demon Lord's twin brother suddenly entered a fray wearing fancy armor, whether I would give him a bonus to AC? Yeah, of course I would. It makes narrative sense: two identical guys, one wearing armor and the other not.

Granted, if I were to do it the other way around, and an armored Demon Lord's naked twin brother shows up, I would probably give the naked one a penalty.

 

[Balesir]

Exactly. And as far as the elf archer knows neither does HIS world.

Heh - maybe. Having a world built that way can be amusing - try the webcomic "Erfworld" for an example of what happens if you do just that...

Sorry. Poor clarity on my part. If I told the elf player this is an "easy" shot that would absolutely be every bit as much the same slap in the face.

I describe the situation to the player. If this is a new character for some reason I may offer a bit more insight. But in general I don't need anything but description. That player knows intuitively if it is easy/hard/whatever. Just as you do in real life.

And this works. It has worked awesome at my table for over ten years now. (and before 3E as well....)

Fair enough - I can see how that could work, but it would take longer than a simple number code, so I think I personally would have more problems immersing "around" it than around the number. And for skills/activities that I have no personal experience of I would still feel I was getting nowhere near the internal understanding/modelling I would as a "real" expert. With the numbers as communication, the idea is not to let/make me "experience" the use of the skill - it's to have the numerical mechanics substitute as an analogue of the actual skill, letting me view the wider game world and make in-character decisions based on the intuitive understanding that knowing the systems and the numbers gives me.

 

[BryonD]

Heh - maybe. Having a world built that way can be amusing - try the webcomic "Erfworld" for an example of what happens if you do just that...

True true...

Order of the Stick is a great example also.
And I mean no disrespect to either abstract or light hearted play.

 

[BryonD]

I just skimmed the blocks of text, but if you mean that if a Demon Lord's twin brother suddenly entered a fray wearing fancy armor, whether I would give him a bonus to AC? Yeah, of course I would. It makes narrative sense: two identical guys, one wearing armor and the other not.

Granted, if I were to do it the other way around, and an armored Demon Lord's naked twin brother shows up, I would probably give the naked one a penalty.

But the question is would you give him a +2 or +3 bonus (MAX) as LostSoul suggests, or a much larger bonus.

I think everyone agree that SOME bonus is fitting. So just agreeing to that doesn't really answer the question.

 

[BryonD]

The point I was trying to make is, the 'system' of 4e is much more forgiving for setting stats to whatever you want. Make them high. Make them low. Do whatever feels right for your game. But the book has guidelines to tell you "Hey, that might be pretty weak in a fight against PCs of level X."

So it's not ignoring the system. It's one of the amazing wonderful beautiful saves-so-much-effing-time elements that make me love running 4e.

In 3e, stats are defined based on a lot of rules. You feel sorta compelled to follow the rules because they give you so much structure. And if you don't, and have, say, a one-armed swordsman with an AC of 30 at 10th level, your players might call you on it. Suddenly you've got an argument because the game's rules don't let you just do what you want. You have to justify your numbers.

In 4e, I'm a mofoing DM. If I want a demon lord with a crap Will, there's no rule telling me I can't do that. Takes me 5 seconds. So much easier.

Well, on the 3E side the answer is "O course you have to justify things." That is the point.

On the 4E side of things you are hand waving and not addressing the issue.

If you want to say that you can just slap a -15 penalty on a demon lords will save and call it done then, of course, I fully agree with you.

But you are grinding against of the grain of the way the system is designed when you do that. And if you do it once, no big deal. But I have issues with that demon lord across the board. The will save is just a simple "for example". I'm going to want every stat across the board to fit the narrative and NONE of them to be tied to "the math". 4E has received a ton of praise for "the math works" and every single stat in that block is based on "the math" with the fact that it is a demon lord just painted on top.

So if you want to fix the will save and then also fix everything else to be what it "should" be, then you are going to have to second guess EVERY single stat and change 80% of them. At THAT point you are not playing 4E any longer.

 

[BryonD]

I add skill into the equation. Which makes sense to me; a more highly-skilled combatant is going to be harder to hit. For beasts, I imagine that, instead of skill, level represents size and ferocity.

I am very much cool with this line of thinking.
However, I find the idea that every fighter and every wizard progress in this skill at an equal pace very unsatisfactory.

What I mean is that, if the guy is 1st level, he shouldn't have access to plate armour. He should be wearing something like leather or hide.

I'm fine with that being extremely typical. I'm not fine with it making the leap to truism.

No. 4E changes what AC means in a fundamental way. It's a combination of skill and (speed + protection or (protection). I guess that makes more sense to me.

That sounds great. Until you look at the details. Our L27 Storm Giant and L27 Demon just happen to come out to the same number (+/-2) And if we made a quickling into a fey lord and advanced him up to L27 the HIS AC will just happen to be the same as well. He couldn't be much more different than a storm giant from a narrative point of view. And certainly it would be trivial to come up with a rationalization for why his AC, by completely different means, is exactly the same as the giants. But from a creativity point of view it completely sucks that it is predestined to end up that way.

It determines the strength of the magic, and therefore how easily it can overwhelm someone's defences. In 3E it would be like the spell level or HD, which is used to determine saving throws. That level 21 item would have a supernatural ability (or maybe spell-like? I'm not sure what the difference is), so the Will Save DC would be 10 + 1/2 HD + the item's CHA mod.

I'm ok with a magic item having an intrinsic CL. I'm not ok with the same thing applying to every aspect across the board of a living creature.

And, yes, HD in 3E most certainly do smack of that same issue and I had complaints about that before I ever heard of 4E. But as bad as it is in 3E, it doesn't come close to 4E. And also, 3E isn't built on presumptions that "the math will work" so it doesn't strike to the core of the system when you go off track.

 

[BryonD]

In the name of all that is sacred... use for different rules between creating PC and NPCs. NPC creation in 3.x, especially at higher levels, was godawful.

A fast and easy way to approximate PC abilities for NPC characters is all that is needed.

Do you have any suggestion for how to attract people who don't play 4E because of this issue?

Would a highly complex 3E approach be acceptable if there was also a compatible system for rule of thumbing everything to fixed levels? What if they were average levels rather than fixed?