D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Garthanos]

So first, it's not my case, I really gave the edition a chance, for quite a few years, with different campaigns and DMs, including myself.

But my point is exactly that, don't you think that there are reasons for 4e receiving most of it ?

Because people did not have platforms of rage to express on when they went from 2e to 3e would be one reason. The rage was there but the ease of expressing its religious zeal were not. Gygax had a platform and i would say "freaked out" even on the minor changes in 2e.

I mean inherent to the game, once more not inherent to its quality, but to its style, and in addition to the simple "OMG they changed it" ?

Actually I think OMG they changed it was a primary actual cause and issue, 4e was the largest design shift probably ever and they were willing to do so arguably in part because they needed fresh IP not bound by the Open Gaming license, not saying it was completely for that reason but rather that was an enabler for change that was too sudden for many people.

Don't take it badly, but I have pointed this out before, although I hope not at the same level, but I think it's too much of a mish-mash to have abilities shared across so many different classes

The sharing of spell lists across the board for every bloody class in 5e makes them feel far more the same to me it strips them of many points of subtle uniqueness, and does it unabashedly without even flavor differences. And mechanically My Swordmage in 4e feels utterly different than a fighter and isn't taking the same bloody sentinel feat to do defender tricks that the fighter does nor same spells easily accessed by other classes. (see also, sometimes class specific feats that modify powers distinctly in 4e but not 5e)

To me there were more distinctions thrown away but not in the name of balance.

D&D has a long history of using the same mechanics or incredibly near the same for things that could have been made distinct . In stormbringer for instance they made divine intervention another trick all its own instead of spell casting. Similarly in RuneQuest divine magic were utterly distinctly than spirit magic more like miracles but oops they are really just spells very often ones shared without even bare flavor differences in the latest D&D.

and roles just for the sake of balance with just basic renaming

The basic ability can indeed be just renamed but exists in a context and be affected elsewhere transformed by by different class specific feats and abilities for instance. And further I do not see simple renaming as pervasive as you are presenting.

, for one, and second yes, you can't compare different roles for whom abilities were indeed very different, and you indeed sometimes had different mechanics across classes for the same role, but

I am sure is that somehow bad thing oh right if its very different but still balanced it must be bad.

but because in the end it was in an extremely controlled environment,

Funny how you make that a negative. The term I use i actually balanced environment, after decades of utter imbalance and careless design it is a complete breath of fresh air.

Yes they are. I'm sorry, but dying is dying

D&D is and has always been schizophrenic in its game language with to hit not meaning hit (not really) and damage not meaning damage. People become used to such over time except when you do not want to... 1 to 4 hours and a trivial amount of healing and a day will get you up and running regardless and your terrible terrible wounds are poof. There are people that do not like that either but you let yourself just ignore that no problem. Realistically people die of shock even sometimes from what might be relatively minor injury a hero pushing past that on their own or with the help of Warlords primitive and empowered psychotherapy is just a really minor thing to me.

And yet, it is the exact paradigm of the 4e wizards: "After an extended rest, you can prepare a number of daily and utility spells according to what you can cast per day for your level." You can use the daily that you prepare exactly once before needing to prepare it again. Vancian to the core.

yes (only misses one element book dependence) this is an aside of anything else... but its very close to the Jack Vances writing in terms of how many spells are known.

And even you shrug when trying to explain it, so imagine me shrugging even more in despair when trying to fond an explanation that matches the way I envision my fantasy worlds.

I didnt find it difficult to explain at all the shrug was deprecative (ie it was saying it is no big deal for me).

For me complexity of thought being in common between martial types doing their trickiest moves and non-martial doing their trickiest moves is a perfect parallel. Where as the treating martial as I hit it with my sword triviality is one of the things I hate more than a little in other editions and interferes with the way I envision both reality and fantasy worlds. Is that exactly about balance?

Further I actually love the ambiguity expressed in the descriptions of Martial Power, as it connects to ancient legends and myth and fantasy and the mechanics try to follow through. For me It drips with real awesome. I mentioned earlier that early legend and myth has both things like "Warrior" or "Craftsman" magic and the asian Ki and similar where ambiguity between mundane and martial things and magical things is the norm.

The ambiguity between heroes and gods is also expressed in 4e supported with the ongoing attribute advancement and epic destinies and similar. The lack of which in 5e messes with my fantasy. Hero in Greek Myth virtually meant half god, I say virtually because the literal meaning is defender.

In the common fiction. Heck kings being or having their own kind of subtle magic you see in the Lord of the Rings where an oath to a king becomes a binding that goes beyond death and can give Aragorn an army of the dead or allows the king to use a weed as a healing herb. He is not casting a "healing spell" just like everyone else does off a common spell list.

In "explicitville" unsubtle 5e one could make a feat Call it Kings Blood, that allowed temp hit points granted by the character to be treated as healing and normal hit points if the subject is not at full hit points. (add in a few other things that really matter mechanically).

To me 5e is very much crude/unsubtle with martial types treated as simplistic.(even the Battlemaster with its drab unpoetic abilities that are each and every appropriate for level 3) demonstrates it.

 

[Garthanos]

Saying it does not make it true. Oh yes, it's very much in the fiction to say "the beholder looks at you and it blocks you consciously and subconsciously..."

I use more complex language than necessary and apparently over your head or a language issue (I could have just said mental). Oh right sorry you think martial means mindlessly simple and unaffected by something like that obviously.

This is not some huge leap except you wanted to single out a type of character because that was how it was done previously "Oh My God they Changed It"

Come on, 4e is great on some levels, but I'm sorry, narratively, here, it fails

Saying that does not make it so...

Casters being overwhelmingly more potent than other types in early D&D is the only reason for a "blocks caster ability."

And definitely not because it made martial types cooler for me it just highlights exactly how unimportant they were.

compared to the elegant simplicity of anti-magic in a magical world because,

When you insist on caster superiority you need things to single them out. Not so much otherwise.
The only reason you can call anti-magic terrifying let alone acceptable is because of caster blatant superiority.

 

[Garthanos]

Also, by the way, the 4e MM beholder does not have such an ability, it just dazes the target.

Dazes hmmm to me that is just a more simplified and less specialized form of mind affecting magic which reduces the ability to act. They made it stronger later. (I prefer the later form)

 

[Garthanos]

I am so glad my D&D doesn't need singling out of casters and the DM can be worried about the Warlords daily exploits just as much as the Wizards powerful spells.

 

[Lyxen]

Because people did not have platforms of rage to express on when they went from 2e to 3e would be one reason. The rage was there but the ease of expressing its religious zeal were not. Gygax had a platform and i would say "freaked out" even on the minor changes in 2e.

And yet the rage for 5e was much less than the one for 4e...

Actually I think OMG they changed it was a primary actual cause and issue, 4e was the largest design shift probably ever and they were willing to do so arguably in part because they needed fresh IP not bound by the Open Gaming license, not saying it was completely for that reason but rather that was an enabler for change that was too sudden for many people.

And maybe, just maybe, it was also inherently not a change that people welcomed, in itself, in addition to being a change. It was certainly my case. I wanted a change from 3e, but that change was not the right one for me. And it's not a question of radical or not, it's a question of whether the change takes the game in a direction which corresponds to the game I want to play or not.

The sharing of spell lists across the board for every bloody class in 5e makes them feel far more the same to me it strips them of many points of subtle uniqueness, and does it unabashedly without even flavor differences.

First, spells flavors for class stays in, especially between domains. Second class and especially archetype powers are not shared.

And mechanically My Swordmage in 4e feels utterly different than a fighter and isn't taking the same bloody sentinel feat to do defender tricks that the fighter does nor same spells easily accessed by other classes. (see also, sometimes class specific feats that modify powers distinctly in 4e but not 5e)

Just as a Bladesinger does feel completely different from a fighter.

D&D has a long history of using the same mechanics or incredibly near the same for things that could have been made distinct . In stormbringer for instance they made divine intervention another trick all its own instead of spell casting. Similarly in RuneQuest divine magic were utterly distinctly than spirit magic more like miracles but oops they are really just spells very often ones shared without even bare flavor differences in the latest D&D.

Except for the fact that everyone gort spirit magic and very often the same one, whereas it took a bloody long time to get divine magic, which, I agree, felt very specific. Fortunately, there were more differences than this, but I distinctly remember RQ 2 with very very differences in magic between one character and the other. The roleplaying was extremely varied though, and I'm still very much in love with RQ, but it was not because of variety of spirit magic...

Funny how you make that a negative. The term I use i actually balanced environment, after decades of utter imbalance and careless design it is a complete breath of fresh air.

I'm not making it negative, you are. I'm saying it's very controlled with all its positive and negative sides. Just as some people want a very much controlled society and others a very free one. They all have advantages and drawbacks, and after that it's a question of personal preferences.

And yes, it was a breath of fresh air at start for us, I've already said this, until we realised that it prevented us from narrating the game the way we wanted to, in which case we felt restrained and uncomfortable.

D&D is and has always been schizophrenic in its game language with to hit not meaning hit (not really) and damage not meaning damage.

|Dying: When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconscious and are dying." and "When you are dying, you need to make a saving throw at the end of your turn
each round. The result of your saving throw determines how close you are to death." All of this seems pretty non-ambiguous to me. These are not abstract hit points.

People become used to such over time except when you do not want to... 1 to 4 hours and a trivial amount of healing and a day will get you up and running regardless and your terrible terrible wounds are poof. There are people that do not like that either but you let yourself just ignore that no problem. Realistically people die of shock even sometimes from what might be relatively minor injury a hero pushing past that on their own or with the help of Warlords primitive and empowered psychotherapy is just a really minor thing to me.

While I agree that in some cases there might be that kind of explanation, having that kind of power more or less at will means that it will become the standard explanation and that people will just accept it as a technical fact and gloss over it without any narrative support. This is what causes combat and its consequences to be fictionless.

As for me, I'd rather a system that makes a bit more narrative sense in particular because the fiction corresponds to that of the genre (once more see healers in Fantasy, for example the Wheel of Time).

For me complexity of thought being in common between martial types doing their trickiest moves and non-martial doing their trickiest moves is a perfect parallel. Where as the treating martial as I hit it with my sword triviality is one of the things I hate more than a little in other editions and interferes with the way I envision both reality and fantasy worlds. Is that exactly about balance?

I don't care about absolute balance, see ? I think once more it's artificial for the game to maintain it that forcefully in its mechanisms and it makes the game poorer, not richer. As a DM I have many other means at my disposal, in particular story means to make it sure that every player gets their spot in the sunlight.

Of course, if you get stupid builts a la 3e and entitled ruleslawyers insisting on technical advantages that you need to shut down it's a pain, and that's why 4e was a good thing, but they went way too far in their correction, and thankfully 5 restored some equilibrium. Balance is not perfect, but it's not really bad either, and it does not feel constrained.

Further I actually love the ambiguity expressed in the descriptions of Martial Power, as it connects to ancient legends and myth and fantasy and the mechanics try to follow through. For me It drips with real awesome. I mentioned earlier that early legend and myth has both things like "Warrior" or "Craftsman" magic and the asian Ki and similar where ambiguity between mundane and martial things and magical things is the norm.

The ambiguity between heroes and gods is also expressed in 4e supported with the ongoing attribute advancement and epic destinies and similar. The lack of which in 5e messes with my fantasy. Hero in Greek Myth virtually meant half god, I say virtually because the literal meaning is defender.

I have absolutely zero problem playing a demigoddess paladin in 5e, she is an awesome character, and it's not because of the epic path of Odyssey of the Dragonlords, I have not even really touched it yet. But the paragon and epic paths of 4e, while a great idea, always looked technical and uninteresting to me. Examples:

• "Burning Blood (16th level): When you use your second wind, enemies within 10 squares of you take psychic damage equal to your Constitution modifier." Why, for christ sake, does the fact that you have burning blood cause psychic damage when you recover your breath ?
• "Invisible Infiltrator (16th level): When you drop a target that is your level or higher to 0 hit points or fewer, or when you score a critical hit against a target that is your level or higher, you become invisible until the end of your next turn." I don't even know where to begin... Why does doing these things even turn you invisible ? Especially when you can't use magic...

As for the epic destinies they are even worse:

• "Spell Recall (21st level): At the beginning of each day, choose one daily spell that you know (and have prepared today, if you prepare spells). You can use that spell two times that day, rather than only once." OMG, you can use a spell twice, this really feels epic !
  
  
• "Trickster’s Control (24th level): If you roll an 18 or higher on the d20 when making the first attack roll for an encounter or daily attack power, that power is not expended." Same here, you can use a power again. How epic a feel !

I don't doubt that technically these can be fun, but after looking at Permeton's account of a battle, it is extremely technical, probably took hours to run and is only epic because he broke the rules of the game (like jumping on the back of a dragon and wrestling it to the ground, that I did not see at all in the account).

All these technicalities make the combat even more fictionless, as they become the focus of the game during combat resolution.

And for me, all these technicalities don't make the game epic. I feel absolutely epic playing my level 1 demigoddess half-siren paladin because of the setting, the story and the way the DM narrates things.

In the common fiction. Heck kings being or having their own kind of subtle magic you see in the Lord of the Rings where an oath to a king becomes a binding that goes beyond death and can give Aragorn an army of the dead or allows the king to use a weed as a healing herb. He is not casting a "healing spell" just like everyone else does off a common spell list.

And neither is he using a level 13 exploit. Or using a technical power like the above.

However, in our Odyssey of the Dragonlord game, any oath is really binding, and the story makes it feel that way. Not "Spell Recall". The problem is that what you are mentioning above as a difficulty for 5e is 10 times reinforced by the 4e system but you seem strangely blind to it.

In "explicitville" unsubtle 5e one could make a feat Call it Kings Blood, that allowed temp hit points granted by the character to be treated as healing and normal hit points if the subject is not at full hit points. (add in a few other things that really matter mechanically).

To me 5e is very much crude/unsubtle with martial types treated as simplistic.(even the Battlemaster with its drab unpoetic abilities that are each and every appropriate for level 3) demonstrates it.

Oh sure, looking at the 29th fighter power "No Mercy" which just does a shitload of damage but which is otherwise exactly the same as Brute Strike at Level 1. EXACTLY ! Can you please tell me where the originality is here ? Again, lvl 30 in 4e feels almost exactly like lvl 1 with greater numbers. You do more damage (yay! very epic) to more targets, you move more adversaries further (yay ! Epic !), but it's almost exactly the same principles. The only complexity in 4e is about technically connecting abstract powers to each other so that the push of one triggers the other just as fictionless power of yourself or another character, and dealing with powers that become more and more abstract and unexplainable, like the green dragon who can glare at you if you slide but not if you move. Why ?

In summary, the ultimate fictionless combat.

 

[Lyxen]

I use more complex language than necessary and apparently over your head or a language issue (I could have just said mental). Oh right sorry you think martial means mindlessly simple and unaffected by something like that obviously.

sigh. You are so much concerned by balance that you are unable to envision something that affects some characters differently than others. Do you even read genre fiction ?

Saying that does not make it so...

It's funny how you cut my answer with all the explanation to use one of my own sentence which was, on the other hand, totally justified because your claim did not come with any accompanying text.

Casters being overwhelmingly more potent than other types in early D&D is the only reason for a "blocks caster ability."

So what ? There were still lots of people playing non-casters, because of circumstances like this, because of magic items, because of preferences, etc. The game worked, and it worked well. And it really exploded with 5e when they removed all these constraints of forced balance through means which strangled creativity in situations and in rules.

And definitely not because it made martial types cooler for me it just highlights exactly how unimportant they were.

Well, we obviously did not play the same games, in which magic-users were instantly wiped as soon as a surprise popped out because of no resilience whatsoever.

When you insist on caster superiority you need things to single them out. Not so much otherwise.

It's a trope of the genre.

The only reason you can call anti-magic terrifying let alone acceptable is because of caster blatant superiority.

No, it affects magic items and a lot of powers of non or partial casters too. And yes, D&D is a game of high magic. If you are playing with no magic, why play D&D ?

 

[Garthanos]

It's a trope of the genre.

caster superiority is your genre choice then yup you won't like 4e where the potent abilities of martial classes themselves are just as much an issue.

 

[Lyxen]

Dazes hmmm to me that is just a more simplified and less specialized form of mind affecting magic which reduces the ability to act.

And it's totally bland, and does not capture the uniqueness of the monster, and its threat.

They made it stronger later. (I prefer the later form)

And that one is so technical that no-one has yet produced an explanation as to how it works. It requires the beholder to blink as a burst, instead of just "beholding you" and it produces an effect that does prevent people from... I am still not clear from what actually. It affects magic items powers, for sure my flame tongue needs concentration to burn. Sorry, it's just purely technical.

I am so glad my D&D doesn't need singling out of casters and the DM can be worried about the Warlords daily exploits just as much as the Wizards powerful spells.

And the DM should not be worried, as he is not playing against the players (even in 4e it's the credo, you know ?). And by not singling anyone out at any time, you have what you deserve, a flat game where noone shines because noone is really unique.

When I'm not so concerned about balance, I can imbalance the game on purpose to give everyone his turn, but for different reasons. I played a whole campaign with a bard that was totally ineffectual in combat, but really shone in social environment, and that was good enough for me. I did not need specific enforcement from the DM to make sure that I could kick ass as much as my friends in combat.

Again, exactly the same as in real life, control can prevent abuses, but it stiffles creativity except along the specific paths that, in its generosity, it lets you have, but in 4e, for me, it felt totally fictionless, just be creative about counting squares and using your powers in the right order...

 

[Lyxen]

caster superiority is your genre choice then yup you won't like 4e where the potent abilities of martial classes themselves are just as much an issue.

You really don't get it. These are never ISSUES for me. They are opportunities to have players really shine, each in their domain of choice.

It really looks like if, as a DM, you cannot trust your players, or if as a player, you do not trust your players, or yourself, to balance things your way and according to the wishes of your players, collectively and individually, and need a crutch like a very controlled game system here as a safeguard.

I don't need that, and it actually hampers me, because of the style of play that we have at our tables. To each his own and his fun, just stop trying to convince me that I need control through the game system. I don't. I have never needed it, even in AD&D or even 3e where there were other means (annoying to manage, but they were there) to control it without stiffling my creativity in terms of situations.

 

[Garthanos]

And by not singling anyone out at any time, you have what you deserve, a flat game where noone shines because noone is really unique.

No the player get to choose in 4e when the players want their characters to shine. Instead of only when you the DM decide for them with artificial leverage like anti-magic.