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

[AbdulAlhazred]

But it still usually comes down to "Is it worth using up my Encounter or Daily or not?" Otherwise there's rarely a case where the choice isn't fairly clear cut (at least it wasn't in my experience). In PF2e, the choice isn't clearcut for reasons that have nothing to do with consumable use resources much of the time (as a lot of those action choices are not based on things that are limited use).

That wasn't my experience with 4e. There is ALWAYS a basic equation of which resources are you expending, and when. If you stick to at-will/encounter powers, then the fight WILL take longer. Yes, you will save your dailies, but you will get hit more times before you win (assuming you can win, but this is usually true) and thus expend HS. So there's a trade off here, and there may also be fictional trade-offs, sometimes an enemy might not be that strong, but you have some other goal and need to deal with them ASAP, so a daily, or an AP, or both, come into play.

There is a LOT of nuance here, to play 4e effectively you need to consider these factors and decide when and where to trade HS for other resources, or AP for other resources, etc. You have to be able to look ahead and consider whether you need that AP to fight the big boss more than you need two HS. Maybe today you're pretty flush on HS and even in the big fight you won't need to use them all, so the choice is to go that way, another time you might be critically short of HS and thus burning a daily resource is worth it, and then the question becomes WHICH ONE?

I didn't find Minor Actions that important on any consistent basis. There were a few cases where they were, but they were usually both situational and of limited use (Clerical Healing Words for example).

Minor actions can be more or less important depending on the type of character you build, and whether or not you incorporate things into your build that work with them. Tons of characters have uses for them. Most leaders have a minor action class feature power of some sort, not just the cleric (actually I think this is universally true of fully-fledged leaders). Likewise most strikers have some sort of 'set up', certainly a lot of the classic ones do (IE warlock, ranger). Rangers also have considerable minor action attack capability in some builds at higher levels. In fact, the 4e database shows me that there are thirteen pages of minor action powers in it (it seems pretty comprehensive) accounting for over 2,400 powers. Heck, the fighter has Rain of Steel, a minor action stance which was one of the most heavily used powers in the game. I agree, minor actions are not CRITICAL for a lot of classes, but there are plenty of times when there are hard choices to make. I don't think the minor action really added a vast amount to the game, personally, but it is far from unimportant.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Its also not like level appropriate is 1 level the encounter building guidelines have a range of -4 to +7 for monsters range. And this is without the mechanical shift of Solo/Elite/Standard/Minion. Those enable an even greater range of monster useability.

Yeah, with those roles 4E is just being direct with what the GM wants from the monsters. If you want something to be an individual boss, you can do that. If you want something to be disposable, you can do that. Some people don't like the mechanical directness, but I personally like it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that was another thing that bothered us. We liked the objectivity (shared by every other edition) that meant any given creature was represented mechanically the same way, no matter when you met them. That statblocks were based as much on who was facing them as much as by who they were really rubbed us the wrong way.

Eh, its hard for me to find a virtue that every single thing described as an ogre has exactly the same stats, but every human varies depending on experience and training.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A subtler aspect of PF2 here is the way crits work. Any hit with a margin of 10+ is a critical hit. So a 10th level martial (should have an attack bonus of about +21) fighting a 6th level monster (the lowest that's enough of a threat that you get XP for them) will be targeting an AC of about 24, so you hit on a 3 and crit on 13+. That's going to help a lot with chewing through those hit points.

It absolutely does, along with some other differences (some of which admittedly come from available items, but that was a choice that had to be made oen way or the other).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Interesting indeed. Of course you still have to keep track of things where as in 4e an outclassed enemy going down in one stroke just doesnt take as much math.

Though in practice, not for long. One of the notable things in PF2e fights is they tend to (normally) resolve quick. Not as quick as 4e or 13th Age mooks, but still pretty fast.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I prefer 5E's approach. That level 1 PC looking at the sheer wall in front of them? There's no way they can climb it, they'll have to find a way around. That ogre that's a threat at level 1? Well he just brought 50 of his buddies and if you're not careful they can all target you with spears and I'll be using mob attack rules.

I understand both approaches, but if the ladder just gets more difficult as you go up then there's not as much of a feeling of growth. It's just numbers inflation to me. It's an issue with some video games as well. They don't want to come up with new threats and mobs don't really work in video games so things just scale up based on your avatar's level.

There is no perfect solution of course, it's just a matter of preference.

I'm glad you brought that up because 5e does do it differently. And it works great. I think bounded accuracy is one of the key features of this edition, and is something I hear others say they'd like to port into their 4e house rules.

As far as ladders are concerned, the difficulty never actually increases. If you need to roll a 14 at level 1 to climb it with bonuses, you probably still need to roll a 14 at every level because the DC (not the ladder) is keeping pace with your advancement. Its a gamist approach, obviously. But the thing is that the DC of anything is not a quality or trait. It is an expression of game mechanics. Ladders are not described as being DC 15 to climb. They are hard or easy or average. The DC is assigned as a reflection of how the players see it in relation to their character sheets.

And I think we spend too much time and effort looking for perfect solutions rather than accepting multiple solutions. Not you or I, of course. I'm speaking of the general 'we' hanging around message boards all day talking about the relative difficulty of climbing ladders and whatnot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Two separate items. I'm not arguing a blanket "by level" tables are simpler or easier. They might be more complex but are easier for me to get the results I'm after (or at least as easy with better results), but I can see why it might not be that way for others.

The argument is that even if the "by level" tables caused trouble coming from a different paradigm, we've had years to figure out what they are good for so why are we still bringing up the worst possible interpretation of 4e elements? There's not even organized play or other externalities getting in the way these days. Use the perspective that makes things work the best and make sense! You don't have to enjoy that perspective or 4e, but I don't see the point of trying to argue that the game should be played or evaluated in the least charitable way if other interpretations exist.

"If you set the ladder at Level 30 DC it's impossible for the Level 1 person to climb"
"Don't use Level 30 DCs for mundane 10ft ladders. DC by level is meant to represent overcoming challenges appropriate to that level and Tier. The fiction should change to match this. A level 1 easy check ladder is always a level 1 easy check ladder, but you shouldn't enounter mudane 10ft ladders as challenges at Level 30. They become window dressing. No need to roll. If you call for a level 30 athletics check it should be an EPIC challenge -- say vaulting from a portal a mountain above the cosmic cube and landing next to it while dodging Level 29 angel guardians. 4e mechanics are meant to resolve around level challenges which match the fictional positioning of that level/tier, maybe -/+5 levels works. Outside of this you can just narrate success or telegraph failure. "
"No thanks. I want ladders that challenge both a Level 1 commoner and a Level 30 Demigod."


Or the Warlord shouting wounds closed argument:

"I don't like 4e because you have Warlords shouting wounds closed"
"Well, especially in 4e hit points represent a lot of different things. Think of hit points more like heroic stamina. Warlords are just refreshing some of that stamina to carry on."
"Nah, hit points are meat points only."

Or prone:

"How can you prone an ooze?"
"Well, it's a mechanic that represents a target having to recover before moving. Most of the time that can be represented as prone but sometimes you have to think of different fiction -- maybe the ooze is split and needs to take a moment to fuse back together before moving"
"But it's called prone so it should be prone."

Since 4e is “mechanics grounded”, can you always come up with an in fiction narrative that is satisfying? Maybe not, but I'd say it's rare not to be able to.

The work to "make it work" is not elaborate mechanical changes but rather just accepting the paradigm 4e operates in.

I can see how people might not like this paradigm, but don't understand the continued denial of the mindset / paradigm that makes the ruleset work best, like using the Level DC tables for Level appropriate challenges rather than "morphing locks" that turn into Epic level locks when you come back to your starting village, or towns full of Level DC 30 ladders.

So, so, so, so true!

Beyond that, IMHO, 4e is vastly better using its paradigm in terms of describing QUALITATIVE differences between things like mid-heroic "I'm the toughest guy in this neighborhood" characters vs say mid-paragon "I can climb to the top of Death Mountain and beat everyone in the kingdom in a wrestling match." vs mid-epic "I'm the trusted left-hand of Kord!" and drives the fiction to display those differences. I mean, sure, if you want to play a nonsense game of 4e where things have bizarre DCs that make no fictional sense, be my guest, but that is NOT HOW IT WAS DESIGNED. When you are Epic, you do EPIC STUFF, and that has EPIC DCs. If your epic fighter finds a ladder, he just goes up the damned thing, he's a DEMIGOD, he doesn't need to check to see if he can climb a normal ladder!!!!

My feeling is that the 5e-like approach of non-scaling checks is an attempt to make everyone mundane. Its a 'Gygaxianism' that arose long ago in an early phase of D&D where cutting the PCs down to size so that the GM's map and key offered a challenge was the order of the day. I mean, its also a question perhaps of 'naturalism'. I would agree with anyone that said that largely non-scaling checks and fixed DCs were probably, usually, more realistic, but this is a game of magical elves, I don't want realism in my peanut butter, thank you!

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, my guess is that PF2e does (or will over time) spend a LOT of effort trying to root out and shut down ways to negate that -5 and -10, because players are going to really want to find exactly that, it will essentially multiply their offense considerably. As a game designer, I'm not super impressed with this whole rules construct. I think there must be better ways that don't involve this kind of "one thing compensates for another" design.

Actually, it baked in ways to do that if you wanted to from day one; it just requires some non-trivial overhead in weapon and feat choice. You just have to decide if that's worth it compared to everything else you might want to do, since its a solution that isn't ideal in every circumstance anyway (the solutions tend to work poorly against monsters with the wrong kinds of damage resistance for example).

(My wife's character in the game I'm in has chosen this, but it requires a fairly specific set of build).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Minor actions can be more or less important depending on the type of character you build, and whether or not you incorporate things into your build that work with them. Tons of characters have uses for them. Most leaders have a minor action class feature power of some sort, not just the cleric (actually I think this is universally true of fully-fledged leaders). Likewise most strikers have some sort of 'set up', certainly a lot of the classic ones do (IE warlock, ranger). Rangers also have considerable minor action attack capability in some builds at higher levels. In fact, the 4e database shows me that there are thirteen pages of minor action powers in it (it seems pretty comprehensive) accounting for over 2,400 powers. Heck, the fighter has Rain of Steel, a minor action stance which was one of the most heavily used powers in the game. I agree, minor actions are not CRITICAL for a lot of classes, but there are plenty of times when there are hard choices to make. I don't think the minor action really added a vast amount to the game, personally, but it is far from unimportant.

Just depends on how you assess "unimportant" I guess. I'm not going to say there weren't characters who got good value out of it, but there seemed plenty that didn't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Eh, its hard for me to find a virtue that every single thing described as an ogre has exactly the same stats, but every human varies depending on experience and training.

Not quite what I meant. Every ogre can be different if you want, but the same ogre should be the same IMO regardless of who is encountering them and what level they happen to be.