D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

[AbdulAlhazred]

i don't know much about real world disarming with swords. But I dont this this is the sort of thing disarm is attempting to model. It might even be a bad or unrealistic rule. However it isnt a big problem because no one really associates the disarm with the character choosing between taking damage and being disarmed. This is in fact the first I have ever heard about disarms involving such a choice. Come and get it creates a problem I just cant get around. I think it is fair to say there is a big difference between physically forcing a weapon out of a person's hand and forcing them to choose to walk over to you. It is also choice operating on a much smaller scale than physically moving on the battlefield from point A to point B. that is the sort of choice gamers expect to be in the hands of the person playing the character. Movement is something you normally have control over in the game.

Well, lets see:

1) CaGI is virtually the only power that is like this, aside from charm type magic which presumably isn't an issue. So the question that I would have is is it really a good argument against an ENTIRE GAME? CaGI is about 1/4000th of power offerings of 4e, and even counting its higher level follow-ons they total about 1/800th of the power offerings of the game. Simply ban the power or let the DM decide if and how it actually works (which is always within his rights to do).

2) As I said above, magic has a pass on this, so it is NOT TRUE that "movement is something you normally have control over in the game" unless there don't happen to be any casters around, because if there are you'll be lucky to move where you want at all if you're an NPC (or a PC facing some serious caster enemies).

3) CaGI operates entirely on NPCs. Its possible a monster could have basically the same power, but I don't know of any that do quite the same thing. It seems to me that it is MUCH less true that the DM's characters are under his control at all times in the sense you're talking about. In pre-4e D&D charms, suggestions, holds, uncontrollable dancing and laughter, etc were part and parcel of the effects NPCs regularly got dished out to them. A PC with something like a Rod of Rulership or a Helm of Brilliance could expect to virtually dictate the actions of everything in sight range if he wanted to.

Put in that context I'm not sure why anyone wants to make a big deal out of CaGI. Obviously it DOES bother some people, but it is incredibly trivial to just not pick it (if it bothers you as a player) or to ban it or nerf it as a DM.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, lets see:

1) CaGI is virtually the only power that is like this, aside from charm type magic which presumably isn't an issue. So the question that I would have is is it really a good argument against an ENTIRE GAME? CaGI is about 1/4000th of power offerings of 4e, and even counting its higher level follow-ons they total about 1/800th of the power offerings of the game. Simply ban the power or let the DM decide if and how it actually works (which is always within his rights to do).

as I have said, it is one of many aspects of the game I dislike.

2) As I said above, magic has a pass on this, so it is NOT TRUE that "movement is something you normally have control over in the game" unless there don't happen to be any casters around, because if there are you'll be lucky to move where you want at all if you're an NPC (or a PC facing some serious caster enemies).

There is a reason magic gets a pass. I have no objection to something with a magical explanation forcing another character to do something. I object to a mundane power allowing that. I get not everyone feels that way. But this mundane-magic split is a big part of why alot of folks dont like 4E.

3) CaGI operates entirely on NPCs. Its possible a monster could have basically the same power, but I don't know of any that do quite the same thing. It seems to me that it is MUCH less true that the DM's characters are under his control at all times in the sense you're talking about. In pre-4e D&D charms, suggestions, holds, uncontrollable dancing and laughter, etc were part and parcel of the effects NPCs regularly got dished out to them. A PC with something like a Rod of Rulership or a Helm of Brilliance could expect to virtually dictate the actions of everything in sight range if he wanted to.

Put in that context I'm not sure why anyone wants to make a big deal out of CaGI. Obviously it DOES bother some people, but it is incredibly trivial to just not pick it (if it bothers you as a player) or to ban it or nerf it as a DM.

again, you pointing to forms of magical control. That isnt an apt comparison. It isnt just that the PC manages to control the npc, it is how it is done that is so problematic here. If it doesn't bother you, then it doesn't bother you. But for lots of us these aspects of 4E really stand out as a problem to our enojoyment of the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Errata?

It's been quite a while since I've played 4E, but I was of the impression that CaGI required line of effect; not line of sight. Even then, the only reason I chose wall of fire is because it was an easy example. There are similar effects which don't block sight and aren't considered hindering terrain.

I think you are both partially correct. Just to facilitate that discussion:

CaGI requires LoS and LoE, it is a burst 3, so LoE is required to the enemy, and it specifically targets only enemies you can see, so LoS (and non-invisible etc) is also required. You can argue some fine points here with Tremorsense and such, but basically you have to be able to 'see' the enemy, and if you can see it, then presumably it can see you too, barring some corner-cases.

In 4e spell effects, AoEs etc are not 'terrain' and thus cannot technically be hindering. You can force-move people through walls of fire without saves. This could indeed be an issue for some people, but again the DM is free to add requirements and exceptions for specific situations as he sees fit. You can argue that this is in fact what the 4e developers expected would happen (though you could as easily argue otherwise too). Some spell effects WILL of course block LoS and thus CaGI, though most of those are not also damaging zones.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not sure that "choose" is the right word. When you hit someone hard in the stomach, they may double over - I woudn't say they "choose" to, though - even if it might be the case that a tough enough person may be able to control the tendency to collapse in pain.

me.

Walking over to a place in the battle field and doubling over in pain, seem like to very different kinds of actions to me. The first involves a good deal of agency and free will, the latter has a lot more involuntariness to it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

as I have said, it is one of many aspects of the game I dislike.



There is a reason magic gets a pass. I have no objection to something with a magical explanation forcing another character to do something. I object to a mundane power allowing that. I get not everyone feels that way. But this mundane-magic split is a big part of why alot of folks dont like 4E.



again, you pointing to forms of magical control. That isnt an apt comparison. It isnt just that the PC manages to control the npc, it is how it is done that is so problematic here. If it doesn't bother you, then it doesn't bother you. But for lots of us these aspects of 4E really stand out as a problem to our enojoyment of the game.

I don't want to get into a long and drawn out debate on this, but I have always found the notion that there is a strong split between 'mundane' and 'magical' in D&D to be highly questionable. Certainly D&D takes its inspiration largely from S&S and similar genre fantasy in which such a distinction can be pretty hard to make. Even an OD&D fighter is clearly a fantastical combatant, capable of standing toe-to-toe with creatures many times his size and strength, being specifically capable of wielding powerful magical swords, etc. Certainly by the time we're talking about even 2e characters it is almost impossible to make any magical/non-magical distinction at all beyond some very simple cases which can be reproduced in any edition (IE a fighter hacking on an orc with a non-magical sword, works the same in every edition modulo choosing certain powers in 4e).

I just think that this whole position is somewhat artificially constructed. Nobody ever was playing a 'mundane fighter' in any edition of D&D to any significant degree, unless you stuck to level 1 human fighters and never gave them magic weapons and armor that nobody else could use. 4e does explicitly annihilate the mechanical distinction and outright calls out Martial power as being a form of magic, which is more open than previous editions, but not really a radical change when you think about it.

Of course you are obviously free to dislike 4e. This thread wasn't even about people disliking or liking 4e, so I'm not sure why you originally brought up that point. I am just noting that the things you call out as dislikes of 4e are things that existed to some extent in similar forms in all previous editions of the game. It begs the question of whether the nature of people's objections to 4e are not more about it is simply not traditional D&D. If for instance the original game had had Paladin as a class without restrictions on alignment/conduct but instead a sidebar on RPing your character as a champion of good would you be unhappy with the 4e paladin now? Its an interesting and unanswerable question of course, one we need not debate, but it is interesting to think about sometimes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't want to get into a debate over it either but I do disagree. Martial classes with magic abilities were always clearly identified as drawing on a magical source for those. Fighter abilities have always been mundane. Nothing magical about specialization, WP, attack bonuses, maneuvers or multi attacks.

 

[D'karr]

I don't want to get into a debate over it either but I do disagree. Martial classes with magic abilities were always clearly identified as drawing on a magical source for those. Fighter abilities have always been mundane. Nothing magical about specialization, WP, attack bonuses, maneuvers or multi attacks.

In 3.x there were quite a bit of things that were designated as "Extraordinary" simply so they could design around "Spell-Like" abilities and not "call it" magic. It doesn't mean that it's not as magical to the viewer.

Things like "Evasion" and "Improved Evasion" always struck me more as "magical", even if they were "mundane". There is no "mundane" way that someone with no equipment can evade the effects of a Fireball in a confined space without some form of "magic" immunity. A rogue can be naked and not get even a bit of damage from a fireball in a 10x10 room. Call it extraordinary, if you like. Then martial powers are extraordinary too, if it floats your boat. PCs are most definitely extraordinary.

Our real world mundane, does not map 1:1 to D&D mundane.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't want to get into a debate over it either but I do disagree. Martial classes with magic abilities were always clearly identified as drawing on a magical source for those. Fighter abilities have always been mundane. Nothing magical about specialization, WP, attack bonuses, maneuvers or multi attacks.

Yeah, we'll agree to somewhat disagree. I mean it isn't like I think fighters are ALL magical, whereas a magic user certainly is (aside tossing a dagger or something trivial). So it isn't like there's no difference at all. IMHO that difference is projected into 4e as well, even if it is more of a player choice. For instance if you look at the fighter's level 29 capstone class daily powers they're all surprisingly 'mundane' in nature (somewhat fantastical but I would say within the bounds of what a DM could let a level 20 AD&D fighter try to pull off). I think every edition has some degree of differentiation, so it is really more of a matter of how much it is and at least in 4e how much you push it.

FOR ME at least this is one thing I like about 4e is that it has quite a few of these dials. If you stick to certain powers and/or the DM rules their use in specific ways, and the DM rules on skill use and DCs in according to a certain aesthetic then you can make your characters feel fairly mundane. I would think no more fantastic than equivalently leveled pre-4e characters of the same sort of concepts. There will be a few things that will be different at some levels. Character survivability and default healing and such will be somewhat different. Still, it seems to me the games can be not too far apart, so they can overlap a good bit. Once I saw that there was enough overlap that I could translate my late 2e style of campaign into 4e and run it then that was good for me because I was largely trying to do something a lot like what Pemerton was doing with RM (which I also tried using back in the day, but with less success than he did). 4e does that sort of play pretty well IMHO. Certainly if I want to do a pure dungeon crawl sandbox I might choose differently, though TBH I think even then older D&D's somewhat wonky rules bug me, lol.

 

[Balesir]

I don't want to get into a debate over it either but I do disagree. Martial classes with magic abilities were always clearly identified as drawing on a magical source for those. Fighter abilities have always been mundane. Nothing magical about specialization, WP, attack bonuses, maneuvers or multi attacks.

This is obviously a major area of cognitive difference (no, not dissonance!), but I agree with AlHazred on it. If "Magical" is so far differentiated from "Mundane" and "Natural" then I think that necessarily implies that magic is separate and dissociated from the way the "natural" (game) world works, in which case, what is it doing there at all?

I think this was an early reason I shifted to game systems other than D&D; in C&S, RuneQuest and the like it was clear that "magic" was as much a natural part of the game world as people and trees were. The "rules of physics" of the worlds were based as much on "magic" as on "physics", if you like. This made magic make so much more sense - it wasn't some "foreign" force intruding (with no plausible explanation) from "outside" - it was just a part of how the game world worked and what made it "different". When I come to think about it, pretty much every other game system I have played uses this assumption; from HârnMaster to Burning Wheel to Mage:the Ascension (which has perhaps the most breathtaking integration of Magic with Science that I have come across).

Hmm - maybe this is a "Unique Feature" of D&D that some folk find essential (even if I find it to make no sense)?

 

[JamesonCourage]

Things like "Evasion" and "Improved Evasion" always struck me more as "magical", even if they were "mundane". There is no "mundane" way that someone with no equipment can evade the effects of a Fireball in a confined space without some form of "magic" immunity. A rogue can be naked and not get even a bit of damage from a fireball in a 10x10 room.

This is true if your Fireball causes a perfect sphere to expand outwards (which is never how I described mine). But then, nobody -over any level or class- can make a save for half, either. So, that Commer 1 with an 8 Dex that rolls a natural 20 and takes half is just as nonsense as that level 15 Rogue PC with Improved Evasion who rolls a natural 5 and dodges it.

Call it extraordinary, if you like. Then martial powers are extraordinary too, if it floats your boat. PCs are most definitely extraordinary.

This seems to be "everyone is extraordinary", if you're going by this logic, not just "PCs are most definitely extraordinary." A completely naked, sleeping NPC peasant with below average Dexterity can dodge a Fireball, even in a 10X10 room with no features. (This isn't so much of a problem to me, since Fireballs more expanded in swirling flames, so dodging is possible.) And to some people, the "everyone is extraordinary" is obvious, and cool. To me, not so much (and not because "if everyone is special, no one is" line).

Personally, I'd rather change mechanics and tone stuff down, but a lot of that may not be "fun" to a lot of people that enjoy the more gonzo aspects of how they've always used D&D. But, again, that's me. I'm not someone who enjoys the "sleeping guy dodges the Fireball" unless he has a perk of some kind (feat, class ability, racial, skill, etc.) that lets him be just as aware while sleeping as he is while awake (or close to it). And, personally, I'd rather not write abilities that work against the mechanics of the game (like Fireball being perfectly spherical but allowing a save for half). As always, play what you like