D&D 4E My Least Favourite Thing About 4e is Forced Balance

[herrozerro]

Ive never done this before so tell me if Im doing it wrong but...

OBERANI FALLACY!

Just cause I can fix the problem as DM doesn't mean the rules arent a problem.

This doesn't apply here, as monster design is a customization element of the game.

now if the issue were that all monsters auto hit every third attack because it's in the rules and you need to change the rules to fix it, then it would apply.

But to say that "monster X isnt as cool as you'd like it to be so you should change it." its not a fallacy in the sense that you are putting forth.

 

[herrozerro]

OK, for some niche game with no observable fan base, I concede the point.

I'm pretty sure we ARE in fact talking about D&D here though, so I'll take you statement as concurrence.

So the real answer is that a game needs to be simulationist to reflect our real world so that the greatest percentage of people bringing in their own preconceptions are not effected?

 

[BryonD]

So the real answer is that a game needs to be simulationist to reflect our real world so that the greatest percentage of people bringing in their own preconceptions are not effected?

Wow, putting words in my mouth.....

I've seen that before.


Well, lets see.....
I don't know of ANYONE hung up on "our real world", so lets ditch that red herring from the start.

And, IME, hardcore simulationists tend to constantly be looking for new ideas to simulate. Thus pretty much by definition a quality simulationist system must reject nearly all "preconceptions" so that it is ready for the concept of the minute that the fans may want to build.

No. I think I have to say that I can't make much sense out of what you just said. Sorry.

I think it is better to just say:
"But, show me a game that tells its players that they need to look at things from where it is coming from instead of the game being able to service the notions the players want to bring into the game, and I'll show you a game where the designers are thinking about a new edition two years later."

 

[herrozerro]

I think it is better to just say:
"But, show me a game that tells its players that they need to look at things from where it is coming from instead of the game being able to service the notions the players want to bring into the game, and I'll show you a game where the designers are thinking about a new edition two years later."

To which I say your question is a loaded one to start with. any game that is not a niche game with no noticeable fanbase is probably going to be that is going to do multiple editions.

I could show you games that have the mentality that we are discussing but of course the big ones are going to be going through revisions and editions.

Like I said before though, magic as a topic is a perfect example of "Here is how it works in this game.".

 

[hanez]

This doesn't apply here, as monster design is a customization element of the game.

But to say that "monster X isnt as cool as you'd like it to be so you should change it." its not a fallacy in the sense that you are putting forth.

I think my satirical use of the fallacy is equivalent to the way I see many others use it on this site. Let me use a classic example:

"Oh myyyy this edition sucks soooo bad because I read you could make this mage/druid/splatbook class that totally dominates in combat. Theres only one class to play and everyone else is a torchbearer! "

Response - "So, uh don't do that, and a reasonable DM would veto that anyways. He could also throw a variety of situations to make everyone useful."

"noooooo the whole system sucks because of this one intentional ploy to break it, and I shouldnt have to change it or have a competent DM, thats the OBERANI Fallacy!"

All I'm trying to say, is to some fire elemental should be immune to fire. Changing that in their game, is just as easy as changing a rule on balance issues in another game. Both may provoke questions and concerns from players. Both are areas of DM discretion (rule adjudication, challenge design and setup, and monster selection are part of DM discretion).

People dont want to have to change rules to make the game fun (for them), they want to have faith that the rules will be fun as is and that they won't have to constantly patch, append or customize the system. It just seems we often hear from one side "well you can change that, thats not a big deal right?" when it would be a big deal if it was the other way around.

In fact the quote I specifically referenced said that while one rule type for the monster could easily be changed, the other would not be acceptable. Ill quote it below, logically shouldnt both solutions be acceptable as both can be changed?

Nothing stops you from creating your own skeleton with such an immunity. This is what is so good about D&D4 ... You don't have to balance things out if you don't want to.

On the other hand, a system that would not allow to balance fun between players would not be nice. I prefer a balanced system that can be umbalanced, than a umbalanced system that cannot be balanced.

 

[Hussar]

I think you will need to explain to me how the game that has been converted into:
Blue Rose
Grim Tales
Pathfinder
Spycraft
Mutants and Masterminds
etc
etc
etc


even BEGINS to meet that definition.

You criticized a system for the designers beginning to look for a new edition two years after release. I honestly thought you meant 3e, since that fits the criteria. After all, 3.5 hit 3 years after release, so it was being designed pretty much since 3.0 hit the shelves, and 3.5 started being reworked as early as 06, again, about two years after release.

Or perhaps you'd like to back up a bit on the edition cheap shots?

I'd point out that 4e currently has Santiago in the wings (SF 4e), Gamma World, and half a dozen other alternate genre games already out there. Granted, nowhere near as many as 3e. Totally get that. OGL and all that tends to limit things quite a bit.

But, that's the point. The reason you don't have a bajillion alternate games for 4e is the OGL, not the mechanics of the game.

 

[BryonD]

You criticized a system for the designers beginning to look for a new edition two years after release. I honestly thought you meant 3e, since that fits the criteria. After all, 3.5 hit 3 years after release, so it was being designed pretty much since 3.0 hit the shelves, and 3.5 started being reworked as early as 06, again, about two years after release.

Are you really trying to equate 3.5 to replacing 4E with a completely new edition?

Yeah, 3.5 was promoted from very early on. And it was touted as an effort to take the massive feedback that the groundswell of fans had provided and build on that. Now I’ll readily agree that it had some serious negative unintended results. But we are talking about motivation. And the motivation was the growth.

I agree that there are fundamental differences between essentials and 3.5. But if 3.5 counts for this specific conversation, then essentials counts even more. I was talking about moving from 4E to the next edition. But the motivation for both the current change and the role out of essentials were touted as efforts to expand the fan base and recover lost fans.
Yes, I said 2 years and 3.5 meets that sole criteria. But if I said “round, purple, and full of sweet juice” would you say I must mean a cue ball because it is round? 3.5 doesn’t come close to meeting what I said.

Or perhaps you'd like to back up a bit on the edition cheap shots?

You not liking it is not the definition of a cheap shot. It was an accurate statement of what happened (without even considering essentials). And it was an accurate statement of cause and effect.

I'd point out that 4e currently has Santiago in the wings (SF 4e), Gamma World, and half a dozen other alternate genre games already out there. Granted, nowhere near as many as 3e. Totally get that. OGL and all that tends to limit things quite a bit.

But, that's the point. The reason you don't have a bajillion alternate games for 4e is the OGL, not the mechanics of the game.

So what? Those setting tweaks don’t being to touch the fundamental system changes that I listed.

Yes, the GSL greatly limited supporting development. But showing me a different fact that also happens to be true does nothing to contradict other realities. The mechanics are fundamentally important here as well. 3E readily supports major rebuilds because it was designed as intended to be a tinker toy tool box. 4E was designed, and loudly praised by its fans, for not burdening new DMs with that tool box.

You know I have made that point to you multiple times over the past small number of years. And now Mearls has echoed that point in his quote in the Forbes article when he said “In some ways, it was like we told people, ‘The right way to play guitar is to play thrash metal,’” says Mearls. “But there’s other ways to play guitar.”
Repainting fantasy thrash metal into sci fi thrash metal does not meet the standard I have in mind.

And you are also contradicting the pro-4E point I directly responded to here.
“I think all of this "Oh Noes! My immersion is broked!" comes from people bring their own preconceptions into the game and not trying to instead look at it from where the game might be coming from instead.”

Do you support that quote or do you agree that the game system needs to be able to respond to the preconceptions the players in a given group have more than the players should be expected to set aside their preconceptions in order to meet the requirements of the game?

 

[BryonD]

To which I say your question is a loaded one to start with. any game that is not a niche game with no noticeable fanbase is probably going to be that is going to do multiple editions.

I could show you games that have the mentality that we are discussing but of course the big ones are going to be going through revisions and editions.

Like I said before though, magic as a topic is a perfect example of "Here is how it works in this game.".

Ok, I don't see how any of that is relevant to this conversation.

Within the scale of the popularity of D&D I stand by my contradiction of your claim.

I don't dispute that there may be some tiny little niche game out there that may be perfect for you, or may be perfect for me. And neither of those games is ever going to be a dent on the marketplace.

But for making a version of D&D that appeals to a much larger fan base than 4E did I stand by what I said.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This ain't exactly the case. The 4e "fire mage" -- the pryomancer -- has an ability to ignore fire immunity built right into it.

Yep. This was partially due to the fact that different monster designers had different visions of what should have fire resistance and what shouldn't. So, they needed to give the pyromancer the ability to ignore it, given too many enemies already had resistance. I don't know how many have immunity, mind you. I think VERY few. And I suspect that they were exceptions that got past the Development team.

However, if you chose not to take that class feature(or it wasn't available, given that it came out 3 years after the game was released in a Dragon Magazine Article), but still chose all fire spells, you would be unable to hurt some enemies. Which is why most enemies don't have more than Resist 10 fire. So that you can always roll above it and hurt them at least somewhat.

IMO, it's a bit of a conflict between "general" and "specific." Generally, fire elementals don't take fire damage. Specifically, the pyromancer has an ability that ignores fire immunity, in order to make it playable in a fire-themed dungeon (or whatever). This is pretty Good Design, IMO. Everyone BUT the fire mage still has to deal with fire-immune elementals, but the fire mage can trump that immunity. Awesome possum.

But the creature with fire immunity still causes major problems for other people, even if they aren't a pyromancer. I once played an Avenger for 8 levels before I even noticed that he only had 1 power that didn't do fire damage. And it was an at-will. I was glad I never ran into any fire immune creatures because it would have made the battle annoying as hell.

I don't think a class should need an exception to the rules just so they can play normally.

The other side of the coin: fire elementals that are not immune to fire damage -- is a little silly. This is pretty Poor Design IMO. Fire is a reasonably effective strategy to use against things made of fire? No. Not in my games.

Well, this is purely opinion. I don't find it silly at all and it IS a reasonably effective strategy. In fact, it's a great strategy. Sometimes you just have to fight Fire with Fire.

It was part of the "essentials-ization" of 4e that lead to fire elementals loosing their fire immunity (and gaining big resists instead), which is sort of a pointless non-change. Actually immune and functionally immune is immune as far as the party fighting the things is concerned.

Most things with large resists are very high level and you can power through them. However, I agree with you here. I believe I saw a comment from one of the R&D team that said they let too many creatures with high resists through. That their goal was to have very few of these. But that each designer was allowed to create what they wanted.

If it's a situational ability, then anything you want can be immune to fire attacks.

If it's a core part of your character's design, then nothing should be immune to (your) fire attacks.

100% agree. Except that I'd go one step further and say that if an ability can be made into a core part of your design, it should be viable. If sneak attack is your way of doing damage, nothing should be immune to it. If you can choose all fire spells, nothing should be immune to that. If you can make a character who grapples as his primary ability, he should be able to do that with a reasonable chance against any creature.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Please could you change your thread title to reflect the main thrust of your argument - that you don't like forced balance - and don't have 4e in the title.

This will help reduce the chance of edition war temperatures rising b accident.

Thanks

Since this didn't happen, I'm closing the thread. We do rather rely on people not choosing partisan titles when wanting to discuss issues.