D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Lyxen]

In 4e there is no magical/non-magical distinction in this mechanical sense.

You mean, apart from the fact that there are power sources, which are clearly typed as magical and non magical ? And this, from the Player's Handbook:

• Arcane: Drawing on magical energy that permeates the cosmos, the arcane power source can be used for a wide variety of effects, from fireballs to flight to invisibility. Warlocks and wizards, for example, use arcane magic. Each class is the representative of a different tradition of arcane study, and other traditions exist. Arcane powers are called spells.
• Divine: Divine magic comes from the gods. The gods grant power to their devotees, which clerics and paladins, for example, access through prayers and litanies. Divine magic excels at healing, protection, and smiting the enemies of the gods. Divine powers are called prayers.
• Martial: Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power. Martial powers are called exploits.

Come on! It's in the VERY DEFINITION OF THE POWER SOURCES !

There is also a Detect Magic: Skill Check right in the Player's Handbook: "Detect Magic (Trained Only) Your knowledge of magic allows you to identify magical effects and sense the presence of magic."

So no, sorry, there is clearly a mechanical distinction of what is magic and what is not, spells and prayers are magic, exploits are not.

This is part of what pushes the fiction of 4e D&D in a more romantic/mythic direction (I mean, no one in The Iliad thinks that the way to kill Achilles is to get him into an anti-magic shield).

This is the way you wish the rules were written, but they are not, see above. There are games/worlds where there is a continuum, from purely mundane to apparently magical, magical and then divine, for example Runequest / Glorantha. I love this, it is so imbricated together that fiction flows naturally from rules.

4e is not built that way, as demonstrated above, the powers and the classes are tagged by their power source right from the ground up.

Note that it's cool if you play it more romantic/mythic, I would probably love your games, but the system is extremely mechanical and not built that way, including specifically the combat which is the most mechanistical in all the history of D&D. You might not want to get Achilles into an anti-magic shield (which would be pointless since his power source is martial anyway), but you will want to slide him 2 squares into a pit. For me, that is the summary of fictionless playing.

Of course, you can dress it up better narratively, but because you start from something more mechanical, it's for me harder than with a system that is more open and descriptive, using for example Theater of the Mind, like I did most of the time before 3e.

 

[Lyxen]

Raise Dead is a ritual in 4e; various Epic Tier abilities also permit characters to come back from the dead.

Yes, and they are all magical, since they appeal to the gods: "You apply mystic salves, then pray to the gods to restore the dead creature’s life."

They are certainly not martial, based only on one own's strength, willpower, training and dedication.

A character in 4e who has the dying condition is not necessarily dying in the fiction, any more than a character who has been hit by an attack in 5e D&D has actually been hit by an attack. In the latter, maybe they cast a Shield spell and so haven't been hit at all; at worst they were nearly hit. In the former, maybe hit points are restored and so they weren't dying at all; at worst they had swooned, like Frodo when the Orc chieftain stabbed him with a spear.

No, I'm sorry, this is not what the rules say: "Dying: When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconscious and are dying."

You obviously want to interpret it differently in your game, and I certainly would support you because I find it cool and would like to play in your games, but this is not what the RULES say, this is not how the game is basically defined.

Frodo was more probably unconscious (the condition) than dying.

 

[pemerton]

I am pretty sure that if I say to one of your players "actually, you only thought you were over here, but actually you were over there where the tarrasque eats you", there will be complaints about player agency.

Well given that I played hundreds of hours of 4e D&D, with many creatures with forced movement abilities at various degrees of action economy "speed", I think I know the answer to this better than you.

One of my favourite 4e creatures is the Deathlock Wight. One of its abilities is Horrific Visage: a blast attack (ie it happens only on one side of the Wight, namely, where it is looking) that causes its victims to recoil in horror (that is, it is a push effect with the fear keyword). When I used this creature in an adventure, it was in a room, with an open pit, at the bottom of a steeply-sloping passage. The PCs, leery of the slope, roped themselves together. So when one recoiled in horror from the Wight, and fell down the pit, the players didn't complain about player agency. They congratulated themselves on their foresight, and the player of the dwarf made a STR check to pull his friend out of the pit.

In a skill challenge resolving a difficult conversation with some witches, led by a Pact Hag, I had to narrate a change in the fiction to drive the challenge forward (I can't recall now if it was a failure or just a reframing). I narrated that one of the PCs - stepping across the room under the "direction" (or misdirection) of the Pact Hag - suddenly found the floor collapsing beneath him as the Hag pulled a rope. The player of that PC didn't complain about player agency - he got ready to fight the giant spiders that were advancing on him.

I've played games with no FitM resolution: thousands of hours of Rolemaster; dozens of hours of Classic Traveller. 4e is not one of those games. I don't understand why you would analyse it as if it is. And then engage in special pleading about the 5e Shield spell.

In 5e the following ability would fit right in: Unstoppable: when you drop to zero hp, you may use your reaction to immediately spend a hit die. It could as easily be a fighter or barbarian ability as a paladin one.

 

[Nefermandias]

But Imagine it!!! Whenever there is an attack, you have to roll to make contact, roll to bypass shield/parry, reduce damage through armor, apply heroic resistance, divine luck, moral (each with its own subsystem) and more. That's make each attack a seven step process but it's a small price to pay for immersion.

That's why we have adopted a really revolutionary and immersive system at my table: Now we simply resolve combat by actually fighting and murdering each other with real sticks and knives. We use a flamethrower and gas grenades to simulate things like Fireball and Cloudkill.

That's the best way we've found out to keep the game true to the fiction. No more dissociative mechanics or turn based nonsense!

 

[pemerton]

You mean, apart from the fact that there are power sources, which are clearly typed as magical and non magical ? And this, from the Player's Handbook:

• Arcane: Drawing on magical energy that permeates the cosmos, the arcane power source can be used for a wide variety of effects, from fireballs to flight to invisibility. Warlocks and wizards, for example, use arcane magic. Each class is the representative of a different tradition of arcane study, and other traditions exist. Arcane powers are called spells.
• Divine: Divine magic comes from the gods. The gods grant power to their devotees, which clerics and paladins, for example, access through prayers and litanies. Divine magic excels at healing, protection, and smiting the enemies of the gods. Divine powers are called prayers.
• Martial: Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power. Martial powers are called exploits.

Come on! It's in the VERY DEFINITION OF THE POWER SOURCES !

There is also a Detect Magic: Skill Check right in the Player's Handbook: "Detect Magic (Trained Only) Your knowledge of magic allows you to identify magical effects and sense the presence of magic."

So no, sorry, there is clearly a mechanical distinction of what is magic and what is not, spells and prayers are magic, exploits are not.

That's all fiction. It has no mechanical meaning.

Is the Horrific Visage of a Deathlock Wight magical or non-magical? The game doesn't have a mechanical answer to that. It's a question of fiction for the table to resolve.

Note that it's cool if you play it more romantic/mythic, I would probably love your games, but the system is extremely mechanical and not built that way, including specifically the combat which is the most mechanistical in all the history of D&D. You might not want to get Achilles into an anti-magic shield (which would be pointless since his power source is martial anyway), but you will want to slide him 2 squares into a pit. For me, that is the summary of fictionless playing.

I have played a lot of AD&D, a little bit of 3E, and plenty of 4e D&D. 4e has the most dramatic combat, both in visual/cinematic and dramatic terms. It is as far from fictionless as I can imagine. Pushing people over cliffs is not fictionless; blasting demons through walls with Thunderwave is not fictionless; a fighter jumping off a flying tower onto a dragon and pinning its wings so that it crashes is not fictionless; an invoker calling up primeval tidal waters to wash his friends to safety is not fictionless.

I think I must have bought and played a different game from the one you did.

 

[pemerton]

Frodo was more probably unconscious (the condition) than dying.

There's almost no way to impose the unconscious condition in 4e except as a byproduct of the dying condition.

 

[Lyxen]

Well given that I played hundreds of hours of 4e D&D, with many creatures with forced movement abilities at various degrees of action economy "speed", I think I know the answer to this better than you.

The thing is that what you are describing is not exactly the same thing. Forced movement is one thing, it's part of the rules, but there is a defense to it when it is imposed on you. And it does not negate the fact that, before it, you were elsewhere. It's not "retcon, you were over there the whole time"...

One of my favourite 4e creatures is the Deathlock Wight. One of its abilities is Horrific Visage: a blast attack (ie it happens only on one side of the Wight, namely, where it is looking) that causes its victims to recoil in horror (that is, it is a push effect with the fear keyword). When I used this creature in an adventure, it was in a room, with an open pit, at the bottom of a steeply-sloping passage. The PCs, leery of the slope, roped themselves together. So when one recoiled in horror from the Wight, and fell down the pit, the players didn't complain about player agency. They congratulated themselves on their foresight, and the player of the dwarf made a STR check to pull his friend out of the pit.

I don't see what this has to do with the current discussion. It was a standard power just like Thunderwave in 5e, you fail your save, you suffer the effect. No retcon.

In a skill challenge resolving a difficult conversation with some witches, led by a Pact Hag, I had to narrate a change in the fiction to drive the challenge forward (I can't recall now if it was a failure or just a reframing). I narrated that one of the PCs - stepping across the room under the "direction" (or misdirection) of the Pact Hag - suddenly found the floor collapsing beneath him as the Hag pulled a rope. The player of that PC didn't complain about player agency - he got ready to fight the giant spiders that were advancing on him.

Don't get me wrong, player agency sometimes rubs me the wrong way too, I'm just pointing out the obvious difference between imposing things on players through an effect mandated by the rules with appropriate defenses and just erasing player choices.

I've played games with no FitM resolution: thousands of hours of Rolemaster; dozens of hours of Classic Traveller. 4e is not one of those games. I don't understand why you would analyse it as if it is.

Because you are not playing it by the rules, as demonstrated in my two previous posts. It's not an insult in any way shape or form to say it, it's actually great that you took a game system and made it your own for your own games. But the way it's written, it does not feel at all like the way you are describing it. I have played it for years too, you know, with aims similar as yours because most of our players come from AD&D 1e era if not before like myself.

And then engage in special pleading about the 5e Shield spell.

It's not a special "pleading", you are purposefully mixing up small steps in the mechanical process of resolving one attack with different actions undertaken at different times by different characters.

In 5e the following ability would fit right in: Unstoppable: when you drop to zero hp, you may use your reaction to immediately spend a hit die.

Only 5e does not do it that way, because it does not mix things which do not belong together in the narrative sense. The half-orc has relentless endurance, but it's built properly along the 5e lines, it's all about endurance and grit, and nothing else, and has nothing to do with recovery, because recovery is a completely different thing than keeping going.

Relentless Endurance: When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

It could as easily be a fighter or barbarian ability as a paladin one.

And again, this is why I don't like the 4e vision that everything is interchangeable, it gives less character to the races and classes.

The one above is for the half-orc, but paladin heal (recovery) through laying on hands.

And note that the 5e fighter's Second Wind is personal, not for others (so not a commanding speech, just ass with 4e martial power, a reserve of stamina built through training that the fighter can personally draw upon). Still, I don't like it that much personally but there you go, no edition is perfect.

 

[Lyxen]

There's almost no way to impose the unconscious condition in 4e except as a byproduct of the dying condition.

Then you see a limit of the system, in the narrative sense, as 4e prevents you from describing someone who has been knocked unconscious except at 0 hit points and therefore dying. Note that there is a logic to this because it goes with my "plot protection" perspective, there should not be a shortcut around hit points that define basically how heroically resistant you are.

But if you prefer, Frodo could be stunned and prone instead.

 

[Lyxen]

That's all fiction. It has no mechanical meaning.

But it has, since the detect magic skill mechanically detects whether something is magical or not, and it goes right back to the power source.

Is the Horrific Visage of a Deathlock Wight magical or non-magical? The game doesn't have a mechanical answer to that. It's a question of fiction for the table to resolve.

The skill use is quite specific actually:
Identify Magical Effect: Standard action.
✦ DC: DC 20 + one-half the effect’s level, if any. You must be able to see or otherwise detect the effect.
✦ Not a Power or a Ritual: The magical effect must be neither from a magic item nor the product of a power or a ritual.
✦ Success: You learn the effect’s name, power source, and keywords, if any of those apply.
✦ Failure: You can’t try to identify the effect again until after an extended rest.

I agree that monsters are not directly linked to a power source (probably because that way there are some monsters that you can use with different power sources depending on the occasion), however, the keywords for a monster can be an indication, for example Undead marks it as clearly unnatural (so not primal) and obviously not martial. After that, as you say, you could probably create arcane Deathlock Wights and divine Deathlock Wights, you have the option. But the mechanics of the game (the skill use above) would force you to choose.

I have played a lot of AD&D, a little bit of 3E, and plenty of 4e D&D. 4e has the most dramatic combat, both in visual/cinematic and dramatic terms. It is as far from fictionless as I can imagine. Pushing people over cliffs is not fictionless; blasting demons through walls with Thunderwave is not fictionless; a fighter jumping off a flying tower onto a dragon and pinning its wings so that it crashes is not fictionless; an invoker calling up primeval tidal waters to wash his friends to safety is not fictionless.

I think I must have bought and played a different game from the one you did.

You certainly played a very different 4e games than I did, but I guarantee that you bought the same one, since my quotations are straight off the player's handbook.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that you tailored the game to do what you wanted, but for us, despite decades of experience with Moldway and all the editions since then never managed to do the above.

Let's take for example the most glaring point for me, the fighter jumping from off a flying tower and pinning a dragon's wings, can you please describe in 4e terms (actions, movement, powers, creatures, grids, etc.) how he did that ? Because it's the example (fighting across the back of dragons assaulting an astral plane fortress, full 3d fighting with relative gravity) that I always take of things that I could easily do in BECMI/AD&D, that I can do again very easily in 5e, which was hard to do in 3e and totally impossible in 4e using its combat system.

Of couse, we could do as you do and ignore parts of the system (like actually being dying when you are in the dying state) when they didn't suit us, but frankly, we were just out of the unbalanced mess that was 3e, we really appreciated the efforts made by 4e to provide a balanced and fully consistent system, and we did not want to start ignoring parts, because when we did it clearly became obvious that it led to consequences in other areas no longer working (which is the drawback of having a nicely integrated mechanical system like 4e).

 

[Nefermandias]

You mean, apart from the fact that there are power sources, which are clearly typed as magical and non magical ?

This has absolutely zero to do with the mechanics. 4e doesn't rely on natural language like that.