D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked

[Jay Verkuilen]

In the Harry Potter world you never see a Muggle, I mean Fighter participating at all so I am not sure that it would balance magic in the way that someone like Gar would enjoy at all!

Yeah, I think that that's an important point. Balancing between non-casters and casters isn't important in a game where everybody is a caster. However, I do think that there are ways of balancing Vancian spellcasting. Spell interruption with casting time, for instance, turns out to work nicely. Higher level spells with longer casting times are hard to get off. I still run a heavily house ruled 2E game. Two of the PCs are fighters and they are really crucial for defending the wizard, who has to work hard to avoid spell interruption. If he's strongly pressed he ends up casting lower level spells or using a device and, of course, he's got to worry about getting his tail end beat up.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

So, three ogres: one an elite, one 'standard', and one minion. Sounds fine...until you ask how that 1-h.p. minion possibly managed to survive growing up in a colony of might-makes-right ogres, or how it's lasted this long without suffering the one little scratch or accident that would do the one point damage required to kill it, and so on.

More broadly, if the fiction works in a particular way when PCs are involved then it also has to work the same when the PCs are not around: the 1-hit-point minion has one hit point. Period. Without this the fictional setting and background becomes nothing more than internally-inconsistent - and thus worthless - garbage.

This is a good point. For some, the secondary reality really matter and things like this are troublesome. Hence articles like "Dungeon Ecology" or various attempts at mimicking "reality" by dealing with the abstraction of hit points (say). For others, the speedup one gets from minion rules is well worth it. I did find minions worthwhile from a game standpoint but I have to say some of 4E's more "game mechanical" aspects tricky and jarring. It's not that other games have none of them, but 4E was really out in the yard with it.

 

[pemerton]

So, three ogres: one an elite, one 'standard', and one minion. Sounds fine...until you ask how that 1-h.p. minion possibly managed to survive growing up in a colony of might-makes-right ogres, or how it's lasted this long without suffering the one little scratch or accident that would do the one point damage required to kill it, and so on.

More broadly, if the fiction works in a particular way when PCs are involved then it also has to work the same when the PCs are not around: the 1-hit-point minion has one hit point. Period. Without this the fictional setting and background becomes nothing more than internally-inconsistent - and thus worthless - garbage.

And in this I AM putting fiction first, because if the fiction doesn't work right then the whole game kinda falls apart.

This is confused and incoherent.

Having 1 hp is not part of the fiction. It's part of the mechanics. There are no "three ogres, one elite, one standard and one a minion". There's just three ogres, all equally tough. Much tougher than (say) a town guard. But not very tough compared to Sir Lancelot.

Mechnaically, we stat the ogre as a solo vs a group of low-heroic PCs: only together can these fresh heroes take down an ogre. We stat the ogre as a standard vs an upper-heroic PC (the MM even gives us the stats, which is handy). And when the ogre fights Sir Lancelot (a mid-paragon PC) we stat it as a minion.

If ogre 1 fights ogre 2, given that this is not an episode of gameplay, we don't stat anything. The GM can just decide what happens - or, if s/he doesn't care, can toss a coin.

This is a good point. For some, the secondary reality really matter and things like this are troublesome.

It's a terrible point which shows a complete misunderstanding of how the game works!

How the mechanics of the game work has no bearing on how the "second reality" works. Nothing stops a 4e GM writing whole tomes of ecologies of ogres. But statting an ogre as a minion says nothing about its ecology. Statting an ogre as a minion is a gameplay decision, giving effect to the already-established fiction that the PC is considerably tougher than the ogre.

Now if there is some RPGer out there who can't establish fiction independently of game stats they may find 4e hard to work with. But that's nothing to do with "secondary realities". JRRT wrote reams of secondary reality without needing game stats to help him!

 

[Teemu]

This is confused and incoherent.

Having 1 hp is not part of the fiction. It's part of the mechanics. There are no "three ogres, one elite, one standard and one a minion". There's just three ogres, all equally tough. Much tougher than (say) a town guard. But not very tough compared to Sir Lancelot.

Mechnaically, we stat the ogre as a solo vs a group of low-heroic PCs: only together can these fresh heroes take down an ogre. We stat the ogre as a standard vs an upper-heroic PC (the MM even gives us the stats, which is handy). And when the ogre fights Sir Lancelot (a mid-paragon PC) we stat it as a minion.

Indeed. In fact, there are paragon level ogres in published 4e sources represented as minions, yet ogres also exist as heroic tier enemies classified as standard monsters. Another good example is the nalfeshnee demon; early epic standard monster, but also a late epic minion (as part of a demon prince encounter).

4e monsters are not inherent statistics of creatures. It's a fundamental idea you just have to grasp in order to understand the edition's base framework.

 

[Garthanos]

If a resource is limitless then it's only natural to use it as if it were - you guessed it - limitless! Resource attrition is meaningless when the supply of said resource is infinite, and this endless availability is going to inevitably affect what actions the players declare.

A DM who wanted them to be could have enabled unlimited healing in 1e and 2e. But making potions became du jour in 3e.

Healing surges capped healing in 4e and for the most part it took DM adjustments if you wanted limitless but they pulled the top off again in 5e.

As I mentioned in Paragon and Epic that top became a bit more budgeable by players via a ritual which was very expensive.

 

[Garthanos]

In the Harry Potter world you never see a Muggle, I mean Fighter participating at all so I am not sure that it would balance magic in the way that someone like Gar would enjoy at all!

If you are playing a Game of Wizards are the only hero class character and everyone else is at best a sidekick better be in the mood for playing a Wizard (Insert Ars Magica where everyone made both with the awareness the one could literally kick realities tush and the companion usually got along better with normal folk )

 

[Garthanos]

EDIT 2: Chameleon's Mask was what allowed me to substitute Arcana for Stealth. And this is before we get into rituals...

Essentials brought it further in to the realm of insane with 4 ridiculously broad cantrips immediately banned by me until I could figure out how to properly retract their power while keeping flavor and this one we can for certain thank Mike Mearles for that piece of broken goo he was more than a little in charge of that whole essential shebang if someone invests in a large number of rituals so they have something to apply to a lot of situations that is one thing.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

How the mechanics of the game work has no bearing on how the "second reality" works. Nothing stops a 4e GM writing whole tomes of ecologies of ogres. But statting an ogre as a minion says nothing about its ecology. Statting an ogre as a minion is a gameplay decision, giving effect to the already-established fiction that the PC is considerably tougher than the ogre.

Now if there is some RPGer out there who can't establish fiction independently of game stats they may find 4e hard to work with. But that's nothing to do with "secondary realities". JRRT wrote reams of secondary reality without needing game stats to help him!

Indeed. In fact, there are paragon level ogres in published 4e sources represented as minions, yet ogres also exist as heroic tier enemies classified as standard monsters. Another good example is the nalfeshnee demon; early epic standard monster, but also a late epic minion (as part of a demon prince encounter).

4e monsters are not inherent statistics of creatures. It's a fundamental idea you just have to grasp in order to understand the edition's base framework.

Right but this is exactly the point about issues with their framework. I get from a game mechanical standpoint why 4E was designed the way it is.

However, if, as some people do---I lean in that direction if not fully---there's a desire for a semblance of what has been called Gygaxian naturalism, for instance, which would suggest that there's a Great Chain of Monster Being but that a given monster's toughness (abstractly represented as it may be) exists separate from the PCs. Thus ogres having dramatically different stats depending on the PCs' stats is quite alien and runs counter to the secondary reality established by, say, the monster stats. 4E adapted the world around them, much like a computer game that has dynamically scaled adversaries who appear roughly the same but hit differently, as opposed to having the adversaries change in some way, say getting better armor and weapons as time goes on. It would also introduce monsters like orcs that were statted at very different tiers.

I know people who pretty strongly prefer naturalism and are very bothered by game mechanical devices like minionization. I generally prefer naturalism but will use devices such as minionization sparingly because I prioritize execution speed above all else. Of course, I hated DMing 4E.

 

[Garthanos]

I know people who pretty strongly prefer naturalism and are very bothered by game mechanical devices like minionizaion.

"They have no chance of making a good headshot against the higher level character so they take easier weaker effect but more readily available openings... their special moves are never attempted because they are simply frustrated by the heroes abilities and defenses. yes my ogre still can use that move that threw your hero back half a dozen yards but really its not going to happen when you are in paragon "

Practically the ability which never makes it into actual play is wasted space in the current context of the story (that is a game driven answer yes)

However if you want write them all up with things from how they are at all tiers (with a tier of farmer/apprentice level being populated by level 1 minions. Then say they have a penalty to all the Solo abilities that is effective disabling and almost always not worth using after 5 or 10 levels but in practice they will either swish around doing nothing or take easier moves and get cautious becoming functionally a minion ALSO ie that extra level of caution when one is aware every attack is a save or die is why they do not take damage on a miss as well as why their ac is level appropriate. It's easily seen as an adjusted fighting style you would only ever drop back to when it is obvious you are outclassed if you want decide they always miss badly on round one then if that improves your sense of "in story" adjustment happening i say go for it.

Shrug its kind of ridiculous to worry about why the 1e soldier in the monster manual didnt have an elaborated strength - doing the same thing with minions is not less so.

I had played RuneQuest a before I played significant amounts of D&D the D&D people thinking they were doing anything naturalistic always made me laugh.

 

[Garthanos]

Spell interruption with casting time, for instance, turns out to work nicely. Higher level spells with longer casting times are hard to get off.

There was in my experience a serious difference in practice and theory... which is I feel a broad issue in older D&D (and probably pokes out now as well).

Gygax asserted that magic items were a bit like the fighters spells in providing versatility however I do not recall any warriors with a number of magic items at all similar to spells.