D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[EzekielRaiden]

It was a metaphorical statement and I was initially talking about encounter powers and as you mentioned we start off with one.

Then your metaphor was poorly chosen, because it makes a distinctly false characterization, and even with the "logic" you later supplied, it cannot hold past mid-Heroic anyway. Surely, if you had enough experience with 4e to feel you understood what was going on, you played until at least level 3 or 5?

I always find this interesting. People like to compare their current roleplaying experience with those of 20-30 years ago and speak about how bad the DMs were. Has it every occurred to anyone that 20-30 years of experience (for both DMs and players) might have something to do with why DMs are perhaps better now days and its not all always about the system?

See, this is just funny. You assume that, because I was referring to B/X, I must have been playing 20 or 30 years ago. 20 years ago, I was in second grade, and did not even know D&D existed. 30 years ago, I wasn't even yet a twinkle in my parents' eyes (that is, I wasn't born yet). The B/X experiences I speak of were last summer (2014). And you somehow missed the "They were good experiences!" bit too--the DM was just fine, thank you very much, and he went out of his way to accommodate some of my interests despite them resulting in some changes to the backstory of his campaign world. (The changes actually meshed quite well with facts that were already well-known, but they were new things nonetheless; his accommodation of my interests was a major draw for me, the other being "I should really try this OSR thing and find out what I like/dislike firsthand.")

Yet, as I said above: "ANYTHING you want" did not characterize the experience. It was, as I said, more a matter of wheeling-and-dealing, persuasion, and knowing the kinds of ideas that the DM liked or didn't like. I couldn't really leverage RL resources because it was over Hangouts, though I usually find RL resource leveraging (e.g. bribing the DM with pizza, beer, or something else) distasteful anyway. For instance, my Paladin (actually a Dragonborn racial class, inspired by the B/X and 4e Paladin and, to a lesser extent, 4e Warlord) couldn't do a dang thing to deal with a trap to save his soul, except try to set it off from a safe distance; other people would definitely contract nasty diseases if they touched the mummies we were dealing with, but my disease immunity gave me carte blanche for extracting treasures from sarcophagi. The DM was good--he would give ideas a fair hearing, and if he felt it was possible he would state a DC (usually roll low on d6) and see what came up--but there were PLENTY of things that were just straight up impossible. One of our Thieves would have completely warped the game around his gonzo plans if "ANYTHING [he] want[ed]" actually flew--he was a great player, but I think the DM was right to curb some of the more out-there ploys.

Perhaps, I'm not ruling this out. I do know that without a codified list of powers in front of them, I find my players are more prone to be creative in encounters. Not that they weren't creative in 4e, just less so - perhaps viewing as I do the 4e powers as a stifling mechanism.

And, as I said before, I can understand why this can happen; changes to the toolbox, both expanding or contracting it compared to what someone is comfortable with, can change how they behave. There are, however, ways to encourage greater creativity--particularly by reminding your players that "attacks" do not HAVE to target enemies. If you have a fire at-will? It can light things on fire. Even when you aren't in combat. If you have a non-damaging mark power, perhaps it can help you keep track of one specific person as they meander into a crowd. Etc. There will always be things you have to un-learn or re-learn with a new edition, this one is just a little different from what you might need to unlearn/relearn with prior editions. (Though I'd argue that creative use of powers is not a very big leap from creative use of maneuvers and spells, which the former was present from 3e and the latter's always been present.)

 

[Bluenose]

Perhaps, I'm not ruling this out. I do know that without a codified list of powers in front of them, I find my players are more prone to be creative in encounters. Not that they weren't creative in 4e, just less so - perhaps viewing as I do the 4e powers as a stifling mechanism.

You must hate spell lists.

 

[Sadras]

Surely, if you had enough experience with 4e to feel you understood what was going on, you played until at least level 3 or 5?

Played until 22nd, DMed until 7th (we progress slowly - so around 20-25 sessions)

The B/X experiences I speak of were last summer (2014).

Yet, as I said above: "ANYTHING you want" did not characterize the experience. It was, as I said, more a matter of wheeling-and-dealing, persuasion, and knowing the kinds of ideas that the DM liked or didn't like.

Sure then that is your perspective from your roleplaying experience with that DM and I'm not saying it is unique, since I certainly recognise what you are talking about - but I have played with DMs where I do not get that from 'ANYTHING you want' hence my comment.

I couldn't really leverage RL resources because it was over Hangouts, though I usually find RL resource leveraging (e.g. bribing the DM with pizza, beer, or something else) distasteful anyway.

Never experienced this via being a player or as DM - I'm not saying it doesn't exist but like you I find it distasteful.

And, as I said before, I can understand why this can happen; changes to the toolbox, both expanding or contracting it compared to what someone is comfortable with, can change how they behave. There are, however, ways to encourage greater creativity--particularly by reminding your players that "attacks" do not HAVE to target enemies. If you have a fire at-will? It can light things on fire. Even when you aren't in combat. If you have a non-damaging mark power, perhaps it can help you keep track of one specific person as they meander into a crowd. Etc. There will always be things you have to un-learn or re-learn with a new edition, this one is just a little different from what you might need to unlearn/relearn with prior editions. (Though I'd argue that creative use of powers is not a very big leap from creative use of maneuvers and spells, which the former was present from 3e and the latter's always been present.)

We were doing this by the end of our 4e run - it did make us feel like there was no point to the powers though, like the abilities could be better presented without the use of drawn up powers. Something along the lines of what, i believe, Quickleaf has in his signature with his DM cheat table.

 

[Sadras]

You must hate spell lists.

Nope.

 

[Manbearcat]

For me, 4e just doesn't meet my minimum levels of internal consistency and causal logic. The metagame "proud nails" of 4e are just too frequent and obvious, though at this point I frankly can't even swallow "core" D&D-isms like armor class, hit points, and "Vancian" magic, let alone be bothered to deal with AEDU.

How does it meet the minimum threshold for internal consistency and physical causal logic?

Well this is going to be a subjective answer that will or will not deliver the good depending on your mental framework.

How it passes the players at my table (and presumably for folks like me) is borne out in a few ways:

1) Two of the four people at my table were collegiate athletes and have been involved in all sorts of sports and physical endeavors throughout the entire course of their lives (martial arts, gymnastics, physical combat sports, multiple ball sports, hiking, running, weight-lifting, etc). The third is a marathon runner, cyclist, hiker, big time cross-fitter etc. The fourth is a very physical person despite not being as intensive as the other three.

All four of us are very entrenched in various spectator sports (from ball sports, to gymnastics, to combat sports). All four of us are very appreciative of the action-adventure genre and its cinematic physics.

From that rather informed perspective, the four of us all hold that 4e's dynamic combat engine hews closer to the real thing than anything else we have come across. That includes forced movement, dynamic mobility, the interaction with the battlefield/terrain that the prior 2 bring into play, marking, encounter powers, dailies, and the triggered immediate/OA aspect of play.

Further, it is abstract in just the right places so the narrative can retain needed diversity and malleability.

2) The keyword system is extremely elegant and intuitive. It informs our thoughts on fictional positioning just enough to make sense of what is happening, to adjudicate improvised actions/interactions efficiently and easily, and is broad enough in scope that (again) narrative malleability is still in play.

3) Noncombat conflict resolution is a place that is always going to be a wobbly litmus test for folks. I don't prefer much process-sim here at all. I much prefer stakes-driven play with light, abstract resolution mechanics that are predicated upon consistetnly achieving drama-based needs and genre coherency. If the resolution mechanics are transparent and robust, the PC build mechanics are properly synched with those resolution mechanics, if the agenda/principles that inform their usage are clear, and the whole of it (when deployed by proficient GMs and engaged players) yields the intended dramatic, genre-coherent conflict...then you've won the game.

In 4e, the physical causal logic is left up to the table to negotiate with advice that those drama-based DCs that scale with the PCs through the tiers match up to what you would expect. Each tier is basically a different genre. At Heroic, (where you're Boramyr) you're going to be informed by a wee bit more process-sim (but certainly more supernatural than our real world) than you are at Paragon (where you're doing ridiculous Legolas-like stuff regularly). By Epic tier, earth-based process-sim is wholly out the window as you're The Incredible Hulk. Each step of the way you move further and further away from earth-based process-sim toward supernatural genre-physics and simulation of those conceits.

I'm not only good with that, I prefer that. You have guidance on genre but each table manages their own genre credibility tests (where they "say yes, roll the dice" or look at you cockeyed if you attempt to invoke something completely off the reservation that may or may not be bad faith - which this has yet to happen in my group). I think its better for narrative malleability and table handling time in action resolution (leading to a faster-paced game). I know [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] disagrees here (I think because it doesn't pass his minimal threshold for process-sim and this dovetails with his sense of player empowerment?) but I've yet to encounter a problem at the table due to it.

Would it have been a bit better if they would have included something akin to MHRP's progressive list of stuff you should be able to expect to do as you move along in each tier of skills? I think so. It certainly helps to inform that game. Truly, if you use the first 3 tiers for each of those abilities (d6, d8, d10), you basically have stuff for the tiers in 4e. But I think each table can figure it out on their own well enough just by referencing various genre fiction, taking in each DMGs' guidance on the tiers of play, and reading the tea leaves of each character's thematic investments (skills, power suites, Themes or PPs or EDs, etc).

If I was rewriting 4e, I would have done certain things differently in terms of layout, advice, and emphasis (and a few minor rules changes). As is though, I never found its mysteries to be remotely difficult to penetrate and I found so much of its advice to be just reformatting and D&Difying indie principles that I was already familiar with.

So what it is it about 4e that so uniquely pushes characters into fictional positioning "spaces" that allow for this kind of play? Because even having thoroughly engaged with much of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's descriptions, I still have a hard time understanding how players selecting a bunch of powers/exploits/spells drives this.

<snip>

But how does 4e do it?

a) I think going back to my initial invocation of transparency and the reigning in of GM latitude being kryptonite to illusionism (and all the various analysis that followed) would be helpful here. Illusionism erodes player agency, thus deprotagonizing PCs. The inversion of that is, of course, the actualization of player agency and the protagonization of PCs.

b) I'll also refer back to a few of my other posts upthread regarding the principles and techniques of running dramatic conflict resolution. Specifcally, how the SC mechanics, and the proper running of them, protagonises each PC (with respect to their specific interests, what they have staked, and in the actualization of their thematic archetype).

c) I know some folks were turned off by their perception of the "sameness" of the way PCs looked (due to AEDU, the layout of powers, and their own inability to grok the weight and implications of the keyword system), but the robust combat resolution mechanics and the dynamic diversity in PC builds manifested archetypes extraordinarily well in actual play at the table. Even if your GM is an uncreative and tactically-inept, it will still be extremely difficult for PCs to actually manifest as "samey" within the fiction of combat.

d) Then there is the Quest system of 4e. The analogue to this in DW (an unabashed indie Story Now engine for D&D) and its bonds and alignment statement. These are player authored declarations of the thematic premises they wish to address in play. 4e works the same and while DMG1 has good guidance on them, DMG2 builds on this. This empowers players and protagonizes PCs toward the pursuit of and realization (in some emergent fashion, up, down, or other) of those thematic interests.

e) Lastly, bridging off of the above, like in DW, Race, Class (and especially)Theme, Paragon Path, and Epic Destiny serve to inform and make transparent those thematic interests. So when you're buidling your PC in either system (race, class, moves, attributes vs race, class, theme - etc - , background, attributes), your bonds, alignment statement and Quests will be a natural emergent consequence. The xp system works to induce positive feedback toward the pursuit of those interests.

Sum total, 4e bleeds fictional positioning and its prominense in the resolution of every action declaration at the table. It bleeds premise and/or high stakes in every conflict-charged scene (which should be every scene).

---

Those are a lot of words and they may mean very little to you. Don't know.

If you would like, when I next have time, I can revisit the Saerie from 4e and the Saerie from DW and compare how those two systems promote her fictional positioning, protagonize her/empower the player, and empower me as GM to frame action that addresses each thematic premise she has declared as important...and how we both get to actually "play to find out what happens" rather than ceding the trajectory of play to the imposition of my own will.

That may be more helpful.

 

[Tony Vargas]

the whole "Say yes or roll the dice" advice. And it's been remarkable what has changed with my group's approach to their characters.

Like the very similar 'fail forward' advice, that's something you can apply in almost any system. It's a matter of DMing style.

And I agree with you, the idea that slavish adherence to causal process interpreted through "rules as physics" makes it much harder to do that (unless you find a system that can radically streamline that causal process interpretation while still producing plausible results).

Yes (no). Rules as laws of physics are de-facto the case, in one sense, the sense of using them that way as a matter of DMing style, and the antithesis of the style you're describing, which puts story and character first. No matter how lite the rules, if you approach them as 'laws of physics,' you're not approaching them as story-facilitating, 'say yes,' fail forward, or however you want to characterize that alternative style.

For me, 4e just doesn't meet my minimum levels of internal consistency and causal logic. The metagame "proud nails" of 4e are just too frequent and obvious, though at this point I frankly can't even swallow "core" D&D-isms like armor class, hit points, and "Vancian" magic, let alone be bothered to deal with AEDU.

It's nice to hear someone complain about D&D, in general, not meeting their quixotic standards of simulationism or versimilitude or immersion or whatever it is you're getting at, here, rather than pretending that there was some past version of D&D that was perfect at it.

I don't want "process sim," I want character-based fictional positioning where the characters have real stakes with what is happening in the fiction. And as you noted, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], that is a wholly independent aim as a GM than simply driving "realistic" results. I've discovered that I'm not terribly interested in "realism"

That sounds like a reasonable enough approach. System wouldn't have a lot of bearing on it, but player buy-in would, and players can get squirrelly and obsessive over systems....

So what it is it about 4e that so uniquely pushes characters into fictional positioning "spaces" that allow for this kind of play? Because even having thoroughly engaged with much of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's descriptions, I still have a hard time understanding how players selecting a bunch of powers/exploits/spells drives this.

I know Savage Worlds works in this way because 1) the underlying core mechanic makes plausible "process sim" elegant and easy,

You just finished explaining that 'process sim' had nothing to do with it, so I'll ignore that one...

and 2) characters generally have more freedom to build their character the way they want (free-form, skill-based advancement vs. class and level). If a character doesn't fit into the player's "vision" it's absolutely no one's fault but their own; there's no "accidental" choosing the wrong class, etc. Players get to really define their own vision for a character.

This second point is one I've seen 4e - and more heavily effects-based systems like Hero - deliver on a lot. The mechanics are clear and balanced, so you can make concept-driven choices instead of system-mastery optimization-driven ones, and you can re-skin mechanics to get the vision you want of your character. However, that's only "for D&D," class/level is still less organic than skill-based or genuinely effects-based, for instance.

Because I'm not worrying about mechanical resolution issues, I have huge amounts of freedom as a GM to focus my energies on the fiction.

Though you didn't give this one a number, 4e delivers, here, too. Resolution is clear and consistent, making the mechanical side of DMing very easy, and minimizing the need to substitute rulings for unclear, inadequate, dysfunctional, or absent rules (something you end up doing a lot of in 'rules lite' games).

You know perfectly well I was speaking about "1 card" in the metaphorical sense - it wasn't that disguised in my posts for you to take this line.

So, when you said:

4e gave you combat options, two at-wills, an encounter & a daily at 1st, and you steadily gained more - and, there was page 42 if you wanted to further improvise.

Characterizing all that as '1 card in your hand' is, well, it's a /very/ poor analogy, let's put it that way.

It isn't if I'm actually sitting with power cards.

you were speaking metaphorically?

Because it sounds like you were drawing an analogy, then when told that it was a bad analogy, moved your goal posts to a literal interpretation. Then, when that was shown to be factually incorrect, moved your goalposts back to it being 'metaphorical.'

Encounters and Dailies are not auto successes either unless they have the "on-a-miss" effect.

Dailies often did, but no, the point isn't auto success, but merely that there's a defined effect. You can declare an action you think should do something special, and the DM can resolve it as an ordinary attack, for instance (a perfectly reasonably ruling given how abstract attacks an hps are in D&D).

in previous editions anyone could copy anyone else with a special manoeuvre. Is that what you are saying here?

Any improvised action, yes, of course. I mean, that's what you're resting this on, the idea that, even though you have no defined ability, you can try whatever you can think of. Necessarily, so can anyone/everyone else, since no defined ability is required to make the attempt.

There is a predisposition of utilising powers in combat especially if they are sitting on your character sheet.

Sure, using a defined ability is a clear choice that you can more or less count on, while using an improvised action is uncertain, as it rests on the DM agreeing with you on how it should be resolved. That doesn't mean having defined abilities is bad, far from it, it means that needing to rely on improvised ones is undesireable, and that having some classes with many defined abilities, and other with few, is innately imbalancing.

I do know that without a codified list of powers in front of them, I find my players are more prone to be creative in encounters. Not that they weren't creative in 4e, just less so - perhaps viewing as I do the 4e powers as a stifling mechanism.

Of course, codified lists of spells were a feature of D&D since the beginning, but never caused this issue.

I don't think it's so much powers or spells being codified in neat packages, as it is just clarity and quality of the rules in general. If the players find their options in the rules unclear, limiting, or otherwise unfavorable or frustrating, it's natural to try to appeal to the DM for something better - you can call that 'getting creative,' it probably involves at least as much creativity as desperation.

I know what you are saying but the exact same argument could be made for DMG page 42, skill challenges...etc

That's the point. Everything you could say about what 'creative' and 'improvised' actions could do to save other editions from being boring and optionless, is also true of 4e, on top of it providing martial characters with more codified options, up front.

It still doesn't stop CaGi from becoming an every-encounter trick.

CaGi keeps CaGi from being an every-encounter trick. It's only useful when you are facing multiple opponents who aren't all charging into melee, anyway. Against skirmishers or minions, it's awesome. Against a solo, probably pointless. Of course, when it was of use, it was excellent support for the Defender roll, something the Fighter had always tried to be, but consistently failed to deliver on, mechanically.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

CaGi keeps CaGi from being an every-encounter trick. It's only useful when you are facing multiple opponents who aren't all charging into melee, anyway. Against skirmishers or minions, it's awesome. Against a solo, probably pointless. Of course, when it was of use, it was excellent support for the Defender roll, something the Fighter had always tried to be, but consistently failed to deliver on, mechanically.

Yeah, for all the ink spilled on this power its really situational and often the result is a gang-bash on the user if he's not careful.

However, a more general comment is "so what if you don't like some powers", there are about 800 other powers a fighter can pick. Even in PHB1 for that specific power slot at level 7 you can select from 4 powers, plus 8 more powers of lower level which may well be suitable as well depending on your build. Nobody has to suffer with using a power they aren't happy with. Heck, ban it from your table, who cares? Its just one of many.

 

[Serendipity]

The "fluff" really was what I liked about 4e the most. Not all of it obviously (though we retain some affection for the accursed Donkeyhorse) - so in essence the PoL/Nerath setting. But the planar books are informing my 5e game today. Just full of good ideas IMO.

 

[Balesir]

I'm working on knowledge from the first PHB, and the obvious exception is something like Thunder Wave, but controllers aren't really all about the damage anyway. In general, though, if you can get the same utility and more damage out of an Encounter power, then you should use that one instead of the At-Will version. It's not like the enemies are going to heal, such that you'd need to do more damage at the end of the fight; saving your best moves for later just means you risk overkill.

Reasons you might choose to save Encounter powers until later in the fight:

1) First, you have to realise that most 4E monsters aren't going down in one hit. If they are, they are probably minions - in which case they're a waste of an encounter power anyway - "overkill", as you put it.

2) You can miss. With anything but a daily, this means your DPR for the round is nil, or nearly so. Waiting until you have at least combat advantage can be worthwhile, especially bearing in mind (1). While you wait, why not use At-Will capabilities to give one of your allies combat advantage? I have seen a Fighter with Tide of Iron (push and follow-up) and Footwork Lure (shift and slide the enemy into the square you left) At-Wills do this to great effect in many fights - his speciality is getting the opposition just where he wants them and then striking hard.

3) Quite often, encounter or other more powerful powers are even better used in concert with others and at an opportune moment. In the party I GM for, a favourite late heroic/paragon combo was for the Fighter to pull in many non-minion enemies with CaGi when they had grouped up enough to do so. Just as the monsters rubbed their hands at the pounding they were about to give, the Warlock switches places with the Fighter (Fey Switch) and then teleports out using Otherwind Stride - damaging all the monsters further still and immobilising them as she leaves. The perfect set-up for the Wizard's area burst...

4) Going further out on a limb, more "advanced" 4E GMs will often have reinforcement waves in an encounter (actually, it works better if you exapnd the "encounter" from the usual "one room" to a complete sector of the dungeon; as a rule, big maps work best, but the effect is much the same). Saving the odd "surprise" for these latecomers can be very worthwhile - especially if it's not really what's needed in the early fight.

5) Saving an Encounter power can give you the flexibility to rush the next encounter without a short rest, if that would seem likely to gain advantage. If the fleeing remnants of this fight could warn and join the next line of defence, rushing in early might pay back enough to make a short rest an expensive luxury.

Long story short, there are a lot of reasons to hold back on blowing your "big" powers all in the first round. And I'll note that all of the powers I listed in this post bar Footwork Lure (which is in Martial Power) are in the PHB. And the highest level among them is 7.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

However, a more general comment is "so what if you don't like some powers", there are about 800 other powers a fighter can pick. Even in PHB1 for that specific power slot at level 7 you can select from 4 powers, plus 8 more powers of lower level which may well be suitable as well depending on your build. Nobody has to suffer with using a power they aren't happy with. Heck, ban it from your table, who cares? Its just one of many.

I guess it depends on your definition of "suffer".

If you're going with the shared-narrative strong-DM model, from 2E and the like, then everyone must agree with (or at least tolerate) everything that exists in the game. Maybe I'm playing the Cleric, but I don't want to play in a game where the Fighter has that power because it hurts my immersion too badly. I can't choose to imagine it differently from how the DM narrates it, or else I've violated (what I understand to be) the premise of the whole game.

Or maybe I'm playing the Fighter, and I resent that I'm forced to choose between being effective at my game role and maintaining my role as player rather than narrator.

Edit: Of course, the above mindset is entirely the wrong way to approach a game like 4E. Trying to impose that mindset on that game is unlikely to end up well, so this example demonstrates failure of the player rather than of the system.

There are all sorts of reasons why the mere existence of a power would bother someone who doesn't even take it. It's all a matter of priorities, and what's important to you in a game.