D&D General Why is D&D 4E a "tactical" game?

[Undrave]

To add something on with the action system, it just really allows different classes (and even archetypes within classes) to play very differently depending on their skills and loadout.

For example, a Sword-and-Board Fighter requires an action to raise their shield and get the defensive benefit, so they are going to be naturally slower than, say, a great weapon fighter, and even slower if they have a Tower Shield that they want to use to the fullest. Weapon choices matter in interesting ways with how they play around with the action economy, like one of the most common weapon/attack traits in the system: Agile. Everyone can attack with every action with a stacking penalty, but using an Agile weapon (typically smaller weapons) lessens the penalty. Suddenly having an off-hand dagger is useful because that dagger is more likely to hit on the second and (possible) third attack, rather than trying to outfit yourself with the biggest weapon you have in your offhand. And that applies to everyone, even though some classes are obviously better at it than others.

And different classes modify how they interact with the Action Economy: if you take Ranger and his specialty is "Flurry", his penalty for multiple attacks is MUCH lower, and if they use an Agile weapon they can make 3 attacks at less of a penalty than a regular person would have with 2. And how different actions react changes things: in PF2, if you are grappled it leaves you Flat-Footed. This is a +2 to anyone trying to hit you and is a keyword for a lot of powers to activate (Like Sneak Attack). So a Rogue walking up, grabbing someone and stuffing a knife into them can give them their Sneak Attack just like you'd expect from someone getting properly shivved. Also different actions can be modified by how many actions you spend: Cure Wounds basically occupies both Healing Word and Heal, depending on how many actions you spend on it.

Like, I could go on, but so much from the game keys off the action system. It's just really amazing.

You may want to namedrop PF2 in the first sentence of your post to not confuse newbies.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have literally never had people challenge this sort of thing in 4e. And if it were a setpiece in 4e I'd take the three seconds to write the power or just say "it's a power" - and DMs have pretty much complete control over the powers they write. Indeed I'd go one step further and say that a lot of lurker monsters have precisely the weird abilities you say got challenged.

In my experience 4e almost completely vanished the expectation that the players need to understand the monsters because there is intentionally a lack of parity. I've seen complaints in 3.X that the PCs can't do things the monsters can because in 3.X almost everything is a spell and almost every spell can be learned by wizards. Possibly in early 4e your players were still in 3.X habits?

I think it is a 'table thing'. 4e has 'terrain powers' anyway, which can pretty much explain anything (and were the 5e genesis of the 'lair' stuff, 4e just had it in a more generalized form).

 

[Justice and Rule]

I think it is a 'table thing'. 4e has 'terrain powers' anyway, which can pretty much explain anything (and were the 5e genesis of the 'lair' stuff, 4e just had it in a more generalized form).

Ah, smart, smart.

Also I will say @Neonchameleon managed to pick the dullest dragon out of a hat, because Green, White, and Red have the sort of things they'd enjoy. And all Dragons get more interesting at the ancient level, with different modifications of things like their breath weapon (save, again, Black Dragons who get At-Will Darkness).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Are there not those in 4E? I had figured there was plenty of bonus stacking in 4E. Now you could find the way they do it more interesting, but I've found that PF2 does it fairly well in its own right. I like it way more than simple Advantage/Disadvantage.

They are - although 4e bonuses normally start at +2. The thing is that 4e is not a perfect system and one of its flaws is that there are too many stacking modifiers by paragon tier. PF2e encourages a proliferation of +1s.

I mean, if you are doing unfriendly things to them with an axe, I suspect I might give you a bonus, though just getting intimidation from, say, an attack would be a bit sweeping, wouldn't you say?

I'm literally suggesting using the three action economy the way it was intended to be used and killing someone with an axe as one action and trying to demoralise someone as a second.

But there is a Feat for that Intimidating Blow.

You mean Intimidating Strike? And not the same thing at all. I have no problem with Intimidating Strike existing. A two action combo trick that you use in combination with a standard attack action.

What I am saying is that anyone should be able to demoralize people non-verbally if they can communicate why they should be demoralised and spend the normal action.

And I like that the glare is a feat: not every charismatic bard should be able to intimidate people with a glance. Splitting it up, to me, is a solid distinction.

That's a matter of communication. If a bard glares at people a lot of people are going to shrug. If a wizard threatens people non-verbally with fire or a fighter makes a mess of someone's friend they should be able to demoralize them.

There is room for an "Intimidating glare" feat; the problem is in the hyper-rigidity of the PF2e skills that require intimidation to be an auditory effect (and give a -4 penalty for cross-language intimidation)

Fixing this badly put together mess Demoralize should require some form of action or communication showing you have the ability. It should not require the flapping of gums. But Pathfinder 2e is an obnoxiously over-detailed system that details its skills as special cases.

This change would free up the Intimidating Glare feat to be just by glaring and not using any other form of communication.

How often do you go to our PF board? Or the PF Reddit? Like, have you talked to people who like it, or just found people who don't like it? That could simply be an artifact of your friend group.

Not much any more. I dropped in quite a bit to the board and didn't comment much to see if there was anything I found worthwhile about the system. And the three action economy was about it.

And the thing is that you can just do a lot with those. The character building is honestly a really great feature of the system. Some of the archetypes are really great. I mention the Wrestler because it's fantastic.

Someone did a version of the 4e brawler fighter in Pathfinder 2? Nice. (And having looked at some of the abilities that really looks like someone had fun playing the brawler fighter and decided to convert it). The biggest difference other than system I'd say is that the 4e brawler is very much about dragging their foes around as well as just grabbing and grappling them.

Yeah, I think you'll bounce off because it's just not your thing. I'm pretty adaptable in my tastes.

So am I. My problem with PF 2e isn't that it's crunchy. I've used GURPS Vehicles in cold blood in the past. My problem with PF2e is that it doesn't seem to give me anything.

To me, the statblocks on PF2 creatures are fun. I think part of is that you need to know the system, as a lot of the flavor is wrapped up in creature traits.

Would that be the traits that are just fluff or the ones that do something.

But once you do, there's a lot to love. I don't think it'll replace 4E for you, though. It's a very different feel and taste.

Honestly the points you've pointed out this post that I've liked have all been slightly watered down 4e. And no it won't replace 4e but I can see there's a bit more there than I thought even if it is borrowed from 4e.

And different reactions mean different things for different dragons.

Good to see them taking more inspiration from 4e Having looked at the dragons I think I like Draconic Momentum - but I'm not sure whether it's that meaningful given the action economy and the way you're likely to have already taken two actions to use Draconic Frenzy.

For the record here's the Young Black Dragon from Monster Vault

Yes, the tail sweep is different for the different colours. So is the instinctive action (which IME really sells that this is a king of monsters) and the acid blood equivalent. (The main awkward symbol is the sword in the circle by bite - that indicates it's a melee basic attack so you can use it on a charge or opportunity attack; you get an unlimited number of opportunity actions but only one immediate action per round).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean, if I remember correctly the Escalation Die is a double-edged sword: you open up more stuff, but so do monsters. I haven't played 13th Age, but the Escalation Die and the monster design were things I really liked when I heard about them (so much so that I looked up the latter and used it in 5E).

One of the things I really like about 4e is you don't NEED one. With a well constructed encounter it should naturally flow through rising tension, to climax, to finale and wrap up simply by virtue of the design of all the elements. Admittedly MM3-grade monsters do make this work more reliably. I always felt like the escalation approach is a bit of a crutch, game-design-wise at least, lol.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Also I will say @Neonchameleon managed to pick the dullest dragon out of a hat, because Green, White, and Red have the sort of things they'd enjoy. And all Dragons get more interesting at the ancient level, with different modifications of things like their breath weapon (save, again, Black Dragons who get At-Will Darkness).

I apparently did that twice over because the second one I looked at was the blue...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ah, smart, smart.

Also I will say @Neonchameleon managed to pick the dullest dragon out of a hat, because Green, White, and Red have the sort of things they'd enjoy. And all Dragons get more interesting at the ancient level, with different modifications of things like their breath weapon (save, again, Black Dragons who get At-Will Darkness).

As with all other 4e monsters, but Solos doubly so, MM3-grade redesigns are a HUGE improvement overall. The addition of extra actions (again the genesis of 5e's Legendary Actions) are a really super addition to these monsters. They also managed to tweak various powers and whatnot so as to create more interesting scenarios and eliminate a lot of the "well that just slowed everything down..." kind of stuff (like darkness, it can be interesting, but it often just creates a slog).

So, for instance, the MV Young Black Dragon gets Shroud of Gloom instead of the darkness. It does 5 ongoing acid damage and gives a -2 to all attacks (it is an area effect but not a zone) until end of encounter, but you can spend a standard action to attempt a Heal check to negate it. This might be a bit steep, most players will just rather use the standard action to attack, but it does give you the chance to puzzle out which is a better option! Its still a fairly potent AoE, but not a showstopper in terms of slowing the action down too much.

LOL: I see @Neonchameleon pretty much ninjaed me there

 

[Nefermandias]

Yes, our 4e combats had lots of terrain powers, hazards and secondary objectives like summoning portals that had to be shut down with applications of the Arcana Skill.

Yes, they took hours to resolve and sometimes that meant the whole session.

No, that was never a problem since dungeon crawls were done through abstract narration and skill challenges (especially the structural skill challenges present in the DMG 2).

I'm always under the impression that people used the system wrong, honestly.

 

[Staffan]

I love the concept of the escalation die, but I also dont think the PCs really need more help in fights.

The system is designed to take it into account. You shouldn't just add it to Pathfinder or 5e without making some additional modifications, such as buffing monster AC/saves a point or two.

I mean, if I remember correctly the Escalation Die is a double-edged sword: you open up more stuff, but so do monsters. I haven't played 13th Age, but the Escalation Die and the monster design were things I really liked when I heard about them (so much so that I looked up the latter and used it in 5E).

It's pretty rare that monsters benefit from the escalation die. The only ones in the core book that straight up get to add it to their attacks are dragons. There are a few more that get to add it in particular circumstances (e.g. fire giants adding it against enemies taking ongoing fire damage), and I'd estimate maybe one monster in five uses it somehow, often as a way to unlock more abilities. The sneakiest one is the rakshasa, who

Spoiler

can steal the escalation die, freezing it in place and now adding it to their own attacks. The PCs get to start over with a new escalation die.

I've seen a lot of things that I really dislike in Pathfinder 2e from that to the ridiculousness of the player side feats and the way they both include a lot of very fiddly +1s and the way they are required to do things that I think you should be able to do with skills normally (like demoralizing people and intimidating them in combat through your actions).

Feats that only give numerical bonuses are pretty rare in PF2, particularly if those things have a direct influence on combat. Pretty much all of them unlock new abilities, reduce penalties for doing particular things, or improve action economy.

I am open minded however - can you suggest something positive about Pathfinder 2e other than that it has the three action economy. Because so far I've seen absolutely nothing I see as a positive advocated by its fans that it does better than both D&D 5e and GURPS.

Tight math combined with the crit system, where hitting/missing by 10+ is a critical success/failure. It might not look impressive, but it means that things that give small bonuses or penalties also affect the chance to crit, essentially doubling their effect. It also means that while the fighter doesn't have a shiny ability to deal extra damage, they get more damage in by virtue of critting more often. Another effect of the crit system is that most spells have some mild effect even on a successful save, so you don't waste your action and your spell slot even if the target saves.

Most of your character's numerical power comes from the base class chassis (mostly in the form of proficiencies that go up at various levels), and can't really be affected beyond that. That means that you never have to take feats like 3e's Weapon Focus or Spell Focus just to keep up with the numbers, and can focus on feats that do Cool Things for your particular fighting style.

4e-esque creature generation system, albeit without the formal roles. Basically, you choose what sort of things your creature is going to be good and bad at, cross-reference that with their level, and numbers pop out. You might need to polish things a bit to get the right feel (for example, you might want to move some damage from a sneaky monster's regular attack into a Sneak Attack-like ability), but the basic system is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Archetypes, including multiclassing. Instead of splitting your levels or XP between classes, you spend some of your class feats to grab certain abilities from another class or possibly a non-class-based archetype (e.g. Medic, Aldori Duelist). Since your numbers come from your base chassis, you don't run the risk of falling behind in those, but at the same time the things you can poach are curated so you can't grab the really strong class-defining abilities, or at least not at full strength (e.g. multi-classing into Ranger can get you the Hunt Prey ability giving you bonuses to Seeking or Tracking a selected foe as well as reducing moderate range penalties, but it won't give you the powerful combat-enhancing Hunter's Edge abilities against your prey).

The parts I've pointed out are absolutely harmful to the style. It can be done but, when I'm used to not having to dealing with it having to deal with it is nails on a blackboard.

You need to change the math to accomodate it. Raise all the ACs and save bonuses for NPCs by one so the PCs are behind on turn 1 and only break even on turn 2

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's certainly less involved in preparation and "analysis paralysis" than 3E could be.

Agree on the preperation, but having DMed a campaign up to LEvel 30, analysis paralaysis was still a bit of an issue during tactical play - with 4 daily attack powers, 4 encounters attack powers and a bunch of utilities, some of these abiltiies being able to used as minor or free actionp plus some magic item abilities, there were definitely players thinking deeply about their options.

But I think on some level you want that in a tactical game - you want people to have meaningful options they need to consider, and not just default to the standard option.
At least on the DM side, it tends to be a lot easier, because the NPCs do not have that many options.

But at least I don't have to manage my attack matrixes. I think in D&D 3, the Cleric/FIghter/Paladin/Hospitaler player basically sat down the day before the game session for an hour o two to remind himself how his character would work. And when I played my Druid/Shifter, I definitley had to do my homework to work out those attack matrixes for the different possible forms I might pick.