D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[pemerton]

"I don't know if I can do it, or even if it's theoretically possible but if it is possible then I know I can do it."

Yeah, no. Not buying it. Of the various possible ways to run this, that one seems less probable than most alternatives. More likely candidates include, "I don't know if it's possible, but even if it is possible, I don't know how to do it," and "I am fairly confident that it is possible, and if my understanding is correct, then I can probably perform that task."

Maybe I've lost the context, but I don't follow.

99% of new business owners - "I don't know if it's possible for me to start and operate successful business, but I'll give it a go". Within 5 years around 80% of them find out that it either wasn't possible, or that if it was possible they didn't know how to do it. Many of that 80% won't know which of those two possibilities was true of them.

Me, sitting down to write a paper - "I don't know if I can find an argument that supports XYZ, but I'll give it a go". Sometimes I don't find an argument, but remain committed to XYZ, and so use rhetorical devices to minimise the appearance of gaps in my reasoning. Sometimes I change my mind about XYZ - rarely completely, but at least in nuance. Sometimes I find the argument I wanted.

A chaos mage knows that the world was created from chaos, knows that s/he can create magical effects by manipulating chaotic forces, knows that the magic items are a type of magical effect that exist in the world, and knows that ambient chaos energy is present. Can s/he harness that energy to create a magic item, much as the Primordials harnessed that energy to create the world, and much as s/he harnesses that energy to create spell effects? Perhaps - it's not obviously impossible, but the ways of chaos are (naturally) chaotic. Let's give it a go! (Which, in the real world of playing a game, means - Let's set a DC and then roll the dice!)

In a wider sense, I would take the view that there must be an in-world reason for PCs to have more hit points (if that's what the game says). There really is no such thing as "rules without in-game reasons"; game rules, by definition in my view, have in-game reasons. They might not be dictated to you in the rulebook, it might instead be left to the players' imaginations, but there must be reasons; that's just fundamental to what reasons are.

You seem to be saying that there is no such thing as a purely metagame rule.

I don't think I agree.

In BW, a PC's abilities can advance with practice or training. They also advance from making checks in the game, but there are two sources of constraint on this: (1) because of "say yes or roll the dice", checks are only made when there are genuine dramatic stakes; (2) the rules are very strict that advancement can't occur unless checks are made at a range of difficulties, including (near-)auto-failure, so players have an incentive to manipulate their dice-pool resources and the situations they find themselves in to generate that range of tests, which itself helps achieve dramatic pacing and outcomes.

Those are rules, but I don't think they reflect anything about the gameworld. The gameworld I am using for my BW game is Greyhawk, but GH hasn't suddenly become a disc-world style parody driven by the logic of drama.

 

[S'mon]

I wonder what [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] or [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] (or, of course, anyone else) thinks of these conjectures?

I know your skill and save changes (and have read the thread that explains how your save changes will break this most modular of games!), and I know what slow healing is.

What are your Turn Undead, spell level cap and movement changes? I think the 5e rules for combat movement are probably its most dramatic innovation on the action economy side of things.

Conjectures - I think 5e doesn't kick back against lllusionism like 4e. But I don't think it has the massive PC vulnerability and class imbalance issues of 3e, it really seems to play very like AD&D (esp 2e), as we have discussed - and 2e gets a bad rap but IME 1e & 2e are a lot more robust than 3e; eg you can teleport a powerful demon into the high level PC's boudoir without auto-killing the PC (absent massive fudging). Instead you get a fun dramatic scene. GMing 3e I had to leave off doing all the evil things I used to do to the PCs, because guaranteed TPK is no fun.
Because 5e is relatively mechanically robust, I think it doesn't push TOWARDS illusionism the way 3e or PF do. It looks a much better system for running Paizo APs than Pathfinder is, for instance.

Turn Undead - I'm quite proud of this bit of design work, it brings 1e style Turning back to D&D:
Turn Undead: 1/short rest
Action: present holy symbol. Roll a single d20+WIS+Prof attack to Turn, opposed by all Undead within 30' "passive WIS Save": the roll must equal or exceed 11 plus the Undead's WIS save bonus. If succeed, Undead you can see within 30' are turned, fleeing for 1 minute (PHB 59).

Turn Undead Calculated DCs (roll attack roll vs DC):
skeleton 10
zombie, ogre zombie, ghoul, ghast* 11
wight 12
beholder zombie, will-o-wisp, wraith 13
vampire spawn 14
vampire* 18

Spell cap - max 6th level spells, can use lower level spells in higher level slots normally. This is more about worldbuilding, I don't expect to see 13th level PCs in the current campaign.

Movement - the first rule of 5e movement, we don't talk about 5e movement. So far the players and I have acted as if 5e's emergent 'Conga Line of Doom' tactics are not possible, instead it's more like move+attack, and you can hold a choke point just like in real life. I guess I'm running it like 1e - once in combat you're locked in, unless you take a special 'flee' action, or you kill all your opponents. That latter point means that a high level Fighter could move across the battlefield cutting down swathes of foes, though, unlike 3e's (IMO) terrible movement/attack rules. So you can move-attack-move, but only if your attack kills the enemy.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A chaos mage knows that the world was created from chaos, knows that s/he can create magical effects by manipulating chaotic forces, knows that the magic items are a type of magical effect that exist in the world, and knows that ambient chaos energy is present. Can s/he harness that energy to create a magic item, much as the Primordials harnessed that energy to create the world, and much as s/he harnesses that energy to create spell effects? Perhaps - it's not obviously impossible, but the ways of chaos are (naturally) chaotic. Let's give it a go! (Which, in the real world of playing a game, means - Let's set a DC and then roll the dice!)

If you're letting the dice determine the laws of physics, as has been suggested, then failure means that it's not physically possible, and success means that it's both possible and you've accomplished the effect. You omit the possible result of "It's possible, but I just can't do it", which really should be the most common outcome for this type of experiment.

 

[S'mon]

On the PC-build side, 5e looks like a revision of Essentials. My best sense, from looking at the rules and following play reports, is that while asymmetric in its builds, it is probably relatively well mathematically balanced over a "standard" adventuring day. And it does have features (cantrips, encounter recharges of some spells, etc) to try to reduce the prospects of caster novas. (Which, if they become routine, obviously blow asymmetric balance out of the water.)

The monster stats also seem to be relative methodical in the way they're put together - though, in my view, somewhat boring compared to the best or even the middling of 4e. But it doesn't have the pseudo-simulation of 3E's "natural armour" bonuses, uncapped stats etc, which are just mechanical devices cloaked in the thinnest veil of ingame meaning.

I'm one of those who thinks the Stealth rules are terribly written, but I think you could just jack on the 4e rules without any problems.

I don't know what the stealth rules say, I'm probably using something like the 4e rules, or whatever seems appropriate - Theatre of the Mind makes that easy.
The lack of ridiculous 3e 'natural armour' bonuses is definitely a plus - they were a terrible idea that easily resulted in tpk monsters if the gm just stacked a few defensive spells on top, mage armour notably. My experience so far with the monsters is that weak monsters play fabulously - goblins, orcs, brigands & such - but I'm concerned stronger ones will be dull, we had our first small bit of grind today as the pcs fought 3 gnolls - lots of hp, not a lot of damage. It was nothing like a bad 4e fight, though.
I think 5e can have its dials turned to look like a lot like Essentials, but it can also have its dials turned to look like 1e (with Uneathed Arcana - there are some inescapable fiddly bits). I've been trying to present player-facing stuff 1e-style while using lessons from 4e for stuff like building monsters, eg here's an npc
paladin companion character I did, based off the MM knight:

Malenn, Paladin of Mitra
Medium humanoid
Armor Class 9
Hit Points 52 (6d10 + 12) current hp:
Healing Dice 3 (d10+2)
Speed 30 ft.
Proficiency +3
STR 14 (+2) DEX 8 (-1) CON 14 (+2) INT 11 (+0) WIS 13 (+1) CHA 17 (+3)
Senses passive Perception 14

Brave. Malenn has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Actions
Multiattack. Malenn can make two melee attacks.
Blessing of Mitra (Recharges after Long Rest - requires prayer to the rising sun to recharge): Action, requires a sprinkling of holy water, affects up to 3 willing allied creatures sprinkled on their foreheads. In the next encounter, whenever the Blessed allies make an attack roll or a saving throw they add +1d4 to the roll. A creature can benefit from only one Bless die at a time. Requires Concentration - this effect ends if she is incapacitated.
Lay on Hands: She can touch someone and restore up to 15 hp per day (or spend 5 hp to cure disease/poison). Recharges after long rest.

Reactions
Parry: She adds 2 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit her. To do so, she must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.

Weapons
Unarmed ATT +4 dam 3 bludgeoning

No spells! Instead of me struggling with the phb spell lists every time, the npc gets a limited number
of signature abilities to use, with an eye to what will be notable and useful.

 

[Manbearcat]

Yeah, I'm finding it's an awesome game for running with the grognards on Dragonsfoot, it really sings. Conversely when I tried running Phandelver with my 4e group it felt rather flat & we soon went back
to 4e.

I'm curious how grognards on Dragonsfoot feel about the Fail Forward advice for noncombat conflict resolution, Inspiration (specifically its dynamics on play), and Background Traits. Presumably they just ignore the prior two? Background Traits have a decent chunk of mundane player fiat there and are fairly embedded in the system though. I guess you could just chuck those as well though.

Any anecdotes?

Yeah, again, while some have praised the analysis of the game that came out of the whole Edition War, I only really see the scorched battlefield. My appreciation of the D&D Community was greatly diminished, and the whole thing still makes discussions, even in our group, about choices of games to run fraught. Beyond that I can't help feeling that 5e as a game is fodder for the bunker mentality. All innovation has been beaten out of the game. As much as 5e does incorporate one or two ideas into D&D, FUNDAMENTALLY it is simply a rehashing of old material, tropes, agendas, tone, etc. Its a signpost which says "Don't try to make anything new and different out of D&D." No piece of culture can survive that for long. RPGs will go on, but D&D in its formal sense is done, 5e is a tombstone system.

The playtest for me was a very frustrating thing because the ethos of design was obviously not going to put the game on a path I was inclined toward. Nonetheless, there were several playtest packets that I thought were broad brush strokes in the right direction (which were subsequently scrapped).

And finally, the live version is a mixed bag of some extremely good design (Background Traits, Inspiration and its potential dynamic on play, Lair Actions, the Exhaustion Track, Concentration - kinda/sorta) and some flat out DoA rotten apples (noncombat conflict resolution and assymetrical resource suites with adventuring day focused encounter design). In the end, I think it is a game well designed for folks who liked AD&D and want a cleaned up version of it. If that is enough to sustain the the hobby's cleanup hitter, then good for them/it. I've got plenty of focused games that do precisely what I'm looking for and don't deviate from it.

But like I said, the culture that came out during the playtest was just really, really weird (and toxic imo). I think the vantage point that things are all "shiny happy people" now because a one or another cross-section of the community isn't making a stink is a really mistaken one. I just think either some folks plain won't act the jilted lover (as was the case so fiercely during the edition wars) and/or they became resigned, cashed-out some time ago, and just don't care enough to involve themselves. Or....they're happy enough where they are because they aren't fighting for the legitimacy of their childhood experience; "the heart and soul of D&D".

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm curious how grognards on Dragonsfoot feel about the Fail Forward advice for noncombat conflict resolution, Inspiration (specifically its dynamics on play), and Background Traits. Presumably they just ignore the prior two? Background Traits have a decent chunk of mundane player fiat there and are fairly embedded in the system though. I guess you could just chuck those as well though.

Many background traits are just codified versions of things that people have been doing all along. If you're a priest, then you can get cheap healing and free quarters at an allied temple. That's true regardless of whether or not it's written on your sheet.

From what I recall, most background traits fall into that category.

As for Fail Forward and Inspiration, those are both options which the DM can choose to invoke (or not) at any time. If the DM chooses to not invoke them, then they don't come up.

 

[S'mon]

I'm curious how grognards on Dragonsfoot feel about the Fail Forward advice for noncombat conflict resolution, Inspiration (specifically its dynamics on play), and Background Traits. Presumably they just ignore the prior two? Background Traits have a decent chunk of mundane player fiat there and are fairly embedded in the system though. I guess you could just chuck those as well though.

I'm not really using the phb backgrounds, except for a bit of starting gear; I'm not using skills - pcs
are proficient in every skill listed in their class skill list, and anything else that seems reasonable. Today the barbarian pc asked what he knew about a foreign religion, I think that's the first time I've made a
non-proficient attribute check.
Inspiration - I've granted it once, today, when the lightning-god-worshipping barbarian cleared shrubbery from a wall and found the lightning bolt symbol beneath, and made a big point of this. I'm not planning to grant it for metagame stuff, only in-game 'you feel inspired'.

'Fail Forward' - I don't know about it being embedded in the system, can you point me to where? I guess I always tend to GM that way anyway, and the Conanesque tone of this campaign even moreso.
So far the main difference with this 5e game from the 1e & BX games I've run on DF before is that instead of rolling an ad hoc d6 or d% to see what happens, I'm usually rolling d20 attribute checks for the PCs - from the player side though there's no difference. The difference the players are seeing is that non-casters have some mechanical choices to make in combat - do I Rage, do I Second Wind/Action Surge, that sort of
stuff - but most of their choices are in-world strategic - do I stand and fight or run away, do I throw
rocks or close to melee. Those are mostly differences between 1e/2e and 3e, anyway, not new to 5e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When they only gave you a monster stat block, including THAC0 and Hit Dice and AC and Intelligence range, it's because the vast majority of the creatures of that type would have stats that fall close enough to the listed that the differences didn't matter.

If you just needed the stats for a bandit, then it didn't matter whether that bandit had Wisdom 8 and Dexterity 13, because you needed extremely high or low stats before they had any impact on combat. It's not that NPCs didn't follow normal 3d6 distribution, so much that the chance that any of that would matter was low enough that actually generating stats would be a waste of time.

But you could look at 4e monster/NPC stat blocks the same way. Instead of inventing class progressions and feats, etc for every orc you simply write down some numbers that are close enough. Instead of worrying about whether said orc will get some healing, just give it a few extra hit points, etc. The end result of course is that you have effectively different types of character that are optimally suited to their roles.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But you could look at 4e monster/NPC stat blocks the same way. Instead of inventing class progressions and feats, etc for every orc you simply write down some numbers that are close enough. Instead of worrying about whether said orc will get some healing, just give it a few extra hit points, etc. The end result of course is that you have effectively different types of character that are optimally suited to their roles.

The difference is that the quick stat blocks you whip up aren't close enough to what you would get if you did go through the process. I can accept inflated HP as a roundabout way of not having to track healing for team NPC, but you still end up with people whose attacks and defenses are too good for the (non-magical) gear they're supposed to be wielding. It's not as bad if you're running a game with Inherent bonuses.

And there's still no excuse for minions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

They should have a pretty good idea whether it's something that should work, based on what they currently know about how things work. A pocket-sized computer might seem impossible to you, eighteen years ago, and it was! Eighteen years ago, there's no way you could have made a pocket-sized computer.

Likewise, a sorcerer or arcanist should know, with little time for consideration and a fair degree of certainty, whether chaos energy can be channelled from a dying firedrake into a magical item or into oneself. Not in terms of theoretical possibilities of the far future, but whether they have the capability of doing that right now.

I'm not so sure of that. You are assuming that magic is like physics, a deterministic science-like process. What if it is more like an athletic competition or a debate? Maybe factors of determination, cleverness, self-discipline, any of 50 things could factor into whether you can or cannot do something. Many of the factors could be very inscrutable, even unknowable by a PC.