D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[S'mon]

Yes, I think that's a fair explanation of my position. As a player, I explicitly do not want that power. I want that power to be wielded only by the DM. As a player, I want to only play my character in the setting, within the limits of what that character can actually do.

A 4e PC can use Arcana skill to manipulate magical energies, just as much as he can use Thievery to pick a lock. Per RAW, either skill can be extrapolated to a variety of uses beyond the limited specified list, and the GM is given the tools to set reasonable DCs and results.

For instance, the GM knows that a PC using Arcana to channel the power of a dead dragon to create a magic sword should not per RAW give more than a PL+4 magic item, because the treasure parcel system suggests that encounters, quests etc generate only items of PL+1 to PL+4; and that is an extreme case - if what is being done is 'routine' and using resources normally available to the PCs then it's PL+0. For non-routine you use the parcel system, for routine you use Enchant Item & its limit.

For the process of creating the item, if it's a PL+4 item then at least a Hard check appears to be in order, but using an appropriate Encounter or Daily power appropriately can provide a significant boost, as Pemerton says. I'd probably treat creating a PL+4 item as a Skill Challenge, an encounter in itself - which in 4e per RAW can get treasure packets same as any other encounter. Normally for a simple check I'd be looking at a PL+0 item and simply count the dragon heart as 'worth' the value of an item of that level.

My own campaign is pretty low magic, I use Inherent Bonuses so I don't have to worry about whether the PCs are getting their pluses from items. If my PCs harvest 'non-magic' treasures and bits of monsters to make items it's normally for items well below Party Level - the fire ring I mentioned is something like a 15th level Rare item, the PCs were 21st level.

Conclusion: Pemerton wasn't stepping outside the bounds of the 4e system as written. It's meant to
facilitate & encourage this sort of thing. Personally I can't see how wizards attempting to manipulate chaos energies breaks world-sim, either. That's something I like about 4e - the design allows player contribution to the fiction without breaking immersion.

 

[pemerton]

You can always just try something, and hope that it works.

What does "trying" mean, here? It must mean some sort of action declaration by a player. In which case it does not seem very different from what the player in my 4e game did - declare that he casts Cyclonic Vortex so as to gather into himself the ambient chaotic energies.

There are two key questions when a novel action declaration is made. The first is, how does the table determine whether it is a permissible move in the game? The second arises if the action declaration is determined to be permissible - how it the declared action to be resolved?

4e's answer to the first question is - the GM decides, but is expected to incline strongly towards saying yes. 4e's answer to the second question is - apply the generic framework for action resolution set out on p 42 and in the skill challenge rules.

My typical experience with 2nd ed AD&D is that the answer to the first question can be all over the place (but defaults to GM decides), and that there is no systematic guidance on how to answer the second question.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Conclusion: Pemerton wasn't stepping outside the bounds of the 4e system as written. It's meant to
facilitate & encourage this sort of thing. Personally I can't see how wizards attempting to manipulate chaos energies breaks world-sim, either. That's something I like about 4e - the design allows player contribution to the fiction without breaking immersion.

That's cool. It sounds like the world setting for 4E is substantially different from the world of 2E. In a 2E game, the default manner of manipulating magical energies is through explicitly codified spells, and you can't just make a check to do that sort of thing on-the-fly. Honestly, the 4E method makes for a more-interesting setting, in my opinion.

In fact, I would go as far as to add that to my list of the Best Things from 4E - and it's one that they've carried over to 5E, even!

 

[S'mon]

What does "trying" mean, here? It must mean some sort of action declaration by a player. In which case it does not seem very different from what the player in my 4e game did - declare that he casts Cyclonic Vortex so as to gather into himself the ambient chaotic energies.

There are two key questions when a novel action declaration is made. The first is, how does the table determine whether it is a permissible move in the game? The second arises if the action declaration is determined to be permissible - how it the declared action to be resolved?

4e's answer to the first question is - the GM decides, but is expected to incline strongly towards saying yes. 4e's answer to the second question is - apply the generic framework for action resolution set out on p 42 and in the skill challenge rules.

One thing about 4e that strongly facilitates this is the siloing of combat and non-combat. In 3e & Pathfinder a Wizard PC is supposed to balance his spell loadout of combat & non-combat; if he could use Arcana or Spellcraft checks to substitute for non-combat spells then that has balance implications, it makes the powerful class even more powerful. In 4e non-combat magic is siloed into rituals & arcana checks and does not impinge on the combat side, so they just need to be balanced separately, far less difficult than the 3e paradigm of balance (which often fails, leading to 'Angel Summoner & the BMX Bandit')

IME the 4e GM does not need to balance the utility of every skill, either - certain skills like History are always likely to be weaker than others like Arcana, Diplomacy, Perception.
He just needs to try to make sure the primary role-defining skills are of similar utility - Stealth, Arcana, Diplomacy, Perception, Athletics, and probably Nature I think are the big ones, with Religion, Acrobatics, Dungeoneering and Bluff in the second tier (Nature might be 2nd tier depending on campaign factors). History is third-tier, joined by Dungeoneering if the GM lets Nature & Arcana take too much of its stuff.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are two key questions when a novel action declaration is made. The first is, how does the table determine whether it is a permissible move in the game? The second arises if the action declaration is determined to be permissible - how it the declared action to be resolved?

4e's answer to the first question is - the GM decides, but is expected to incline strongly towards saying yes. 4e's answer to the second question is - apply the generic framework for action resolution set out on p 42 and in the skill challenge rules.

Yeah, that's... not my favorite thing about 4E. In fact, I think that "The DM is expected to incline toward saying yes," is right up there alongside "You can change the description of any power, as long as you don't change the mechanics," for my least favorite things about 4E.

I strongly prefer the 2E answers to those questions - 1) The GM decides; and 2) The GM decides (with suggestions toward making an ability check of some sort). I mean, kind of by definition, a novel action is not one which lends itself toward any sort of codified resolution.

 

[S'mon]

That's cool. It sounds like the world setting for 4E is substantially different from the world of 2E. In a 2E game, the default manner of manipulating magical energies is through explicitly codified spells, and you can't just make a check to do that sort of thing on-the-fly. Honestly, the 4E method makes for a more-interesting setting, in my opinion.

In fact, I would go as far as to add that to my list of the Best Things from 4E - and it's one that they've carried over to 5E, even!

Yup, I agree 100%. Pre-4e uses 'The Dying Earth' as the model for magic, whereas 4e is like a (somewhat lower-powered) 'Rhialto The Marvellous'. The 4e approach, treating magic use as just another skill like athletics, actually tends to feel a lot more 'magical' in my experience, certainly closer to most literary magic where its application is uncertain and dependent on caster skill and strength of will, and not normally cut up into discrete spell packets.

I'd like to take a similar approach in my 5e campaign; I think that should work but am a little bit wary in case it leads to balance issues, 5e having a more traditional spell-packet system. Certainly in 5e creation of most magic items should not be routine. OTOH the one caster in my 5e game is a Warlock, and the 4e approach seems very character-appropriate to me.

(BTW does anyone know how I can turn off multiquote? An old post from Pemerton keeps appearing in my Reply box.)

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, that's... not my favorite thing about 4E. In fact, I think that "The DM is expected to incline toward saying yes," is right up there alongside "You can change the description of any power, as long as you don't change the mechanics," for my least favorite things about 4E.

I think defaulting to yes goes along with the 4e assumption that the PCs are special, the protagonists in a story being written, they're the Big Damn Heroes even at level 1. Note though it's "Yes - you can try to do
that, and the DC is not impossible" - it's not defaulting to "Yes - you succeed". If anything a 4e PC tends to fail more in their area of expertise than a 3e/PF one does, just as literary & cinematic characters often face setbacks. The horribly failed Arcana check that releases a destructive evil force into the world a la A Wizard of Earthsea seems to me well within the 4e paradigm, whereas it would seem unfair in pre-4e
unless the spell specified this as a possible consequence of failure.

 

[pemerton]

One thing about 4e that strongly facilitates this is the siloing of combat and non-combat. In 3e & Pathfinder a Wizard PC is supposed to balance his spell loadout of combat & non-combat; if he could use Arcana or Spellcraft checks to substitute for non-combat spells then that has balance implications, it makes the powerful class even more powerful. In 4e non-combat magic is siloed into rituals & arcana checks and does not impinge on the combat side, so they just need to be balanced separately, far less difficult than the 3e paradigm of balance

That's a nice analysis.

There is still the need to balance rituals and Arcana/Religion checks, but - at least in my own experience - this isn't normally too hard. Besides the tendency of Arcana checks to be much more dependent on fictional context than rituals, there is also the prospect of complications on failed Arcana checks which aren't there for most ritual checks.

IME the 4e GM does not need to balance the utility of every skill, either - certain skills like History are always likely to be weaker than others like Arcana, Diplomacy, Perception.

In my game I think the weakest skill is probably Thievery, just because I'm not much of a traps/locks GM, or perhaps Heal (maybe a dozen Heal checks in 6 years of play? Perhaps a few more on some rituals that I've forgotten about).

Skills that get tested pretty often are Acro, Aths and Stealth on the physical side (and Endurance coming in the second rank), Arcana and Religion on the intellectual side (with History in the second rank in this case), and then Diplomacy and Intimidate for socials (Bluff is close because we have a Bluff-y sorcerer, but not as all-round useful as those two; Insight gets rolled quite a bit because two or three PCs are good at it and those players like a social game; Streetwise has turned out to not come up very often because no one is trained and they don't spend enough time in urban areas).

On the environmental side Perception is the big one. Nature and Dungeoneering have probably been mostly on a par - we treat Dungeoneering as also including aspects of architecture and engineering - but both secondary to Perception.

 

[pemerton]

I strongly prefer the 2E answers to those questions - 1) The GM decides; and 2) The GM decides (with suggestions toward making an ability check of some sort).

Just focusing on (1) - how does the GM decide? As in, what considerations are meant to be taken into account?

You've said upthread that you don't want your desire, as a player, to have your PC do this thing make a difference. So presumably, then, the GM is not meant to have regard to the fact that the player, having tentatively declared the action, wants to be allowed to attempt it. This is a clear difference from 4e, which encourages the GM to say yes to such requests.

But what other considerations are relevant? Genre ones, obviously, but most of the time that won't settle the question either way because engaged players tend to try and reinforce or build on genre rather than undermine it.

What else? (Not rhetorical.)

 

[pemerton]

Note though it's "Yes - you can try to do that, and the DC is not impossible" - it's not defaulting to "Yes - you succeed".

Yes. (!!)

The terminology of "say yes" in 4e generally has a different meaning from Burning Wheel (which takes it from Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard, and calls it "Vincent's Admonition"). In BW, "say yes" means "say yes or roll the dice" - ie only roll the dice when something important is at stake.

The same idea is found in Robin Laws' HeroQuest, and he cut-and-pasted the relevant text into 4e's DMG2. And Wyatt's stuff about skipping through the details of the corridors to get to the caverns has a similar vibe to it. But in 4e, rather than "say yes", I think this technique is called "skip to the fun". (Or something like that.)