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

[AbdulAlhazred]

We

Well, breaking from reality completely isn't any better. Magic can be made weaker, or more difficult, if that's a problem for you.

Why?

 

[Aldarc]

I get tired of the "you're misrepresenting the game" argument. If you have a specific issue I'm open to discussing. General accusations of "you don't know what you're talking about"? Not so much.

Why are you gaslighting me, Oofta? For the past few pages you have been discussing the specific issue of minions and challenges in 4e, particularly your understanding thereof, with people who are clearly correcting you about how the game works and what it was meant to emulate.

 

[Garthanos]

The ogre is still a much larger creature than Jackie, and therefore still capable of body slamming him. That fact doesnt change when Jackie gets more experienced. He's just less likely to pull it off.

yes demigod jacky (entirely unexaggerated) should always be rolling multiple 1000 sided dice so we can represent infinitesimally unlikely chance that he will get critically hit by the local dog and die. So we must have all the complicated mechanics and boring rolls.

We do not game for the same reasons.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

The ogre is still a much larger creature than Jackie, and therefore still capable of body slamming him. That fact doesnt change when Jackie gets more experienced. He's just less likely to pull it off.

Again, I do understand the paradigm 4e operates from. I just dont care for it.

Fair enough, but at least you understand that the minion abstraction makes sense within the 4e paradigmn.

Doesn't matter how much larger the creature is. The 4e version is modeling the fictional positioning that Jackie is so B** A** that there is no practically no likelihood it happens. This is a not so rare trope.

Of course, 4e mechanics could allow for something like this if that is the fictional positioning wanted. They are very flexible! Say a bunch of Ogres represented as a Swarm with a "body slam" power. Or Minions that could use a body slam or grapple power if there are 4 or more adjacent to the target.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why?

I guess I must speak personally. A level of reality underlying the fantasy world makes it more believable to me, and the story stronger.

 

[Micah Sweet]

yes demigod jacky (entirely unexaggerated) should always be rolling multiple 1000 sided dice so we can represent infinitesimally unlikely chance that he will get critically hit by the local dog and die. So we must have all the complicated mechanics and boring rolls.

We do not game for the same reasons.

Without a doubt.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fair enough, but at least you understand that the minion abstraction makes sense within the 4e paradigmn.

Doesn't matter how much larger the creature is. The 4e version is modeling the fictional positioning that Jackie is so B** A** that there is no practically no likelihood it happens. This is a not so rare trope.

Of course, 4e mechanics could allow for something like this if that is the fictional positioning wanted. They are very flexible! Say a bunch of Ogres represented as a Swarm with a "body slam" power. Or Minions that could use a body slam or grapple power if there are 4 or more adjacent to the target.

Yeah, my biggest problem with 4e is ultimately that I dont want the mechanics modeling the fictional position to the degree that 4e does. Far to overt for my taste.

 

[Garthanos]

Well, breaking from reality completely isn't any better. Magic can be made weaker, or more difficult, if that's a problem for you.

The alternative is to
1) just never play post heroic tier which can even in D&D can be relatively mundane
2) Or if you are having up to epic levels I prefer letting the martial characters be Cu Chuhlains (so potent he scared armies) and Herakles (ahem) and Gilgameshes (sprinting for days without sleep or stop) and Beowulfs (fighting for hours while holding my breath no problem)

 

[Teemu]

You don’t have to change the 4e ogre’s stats if the group faces them later. There’s actually no official rules in 4e telling you to do that. Minionizing a creature is essentially a house rule. The level 6 ogre doesn’t contribute as a meaningful threat when the PCs are level 12 however, but the same is true in 5e or PF2. You can add Grush the Ogre in an encounter at paragon tier, using the very same stats as earlier in the game, but the DM advice tells us that Grush is not a threat anymore. Same in 5e, really, and PF2. The difference in 4e is that the minion/elite/solo rules do allow adjusting a creature to fit the proper mathematical threat at almost any level, but it requires some system mastery from the DM (knowing how to create monsters).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there are a couple things here.

1. You don't have to have full blown mook rules to make fights non-tedious. As I've noted, most PF2e fights are 3-5 rounds.
2. That said, you do need something like that if you want really large numbers of relatively low end opponents who are still (at least collectively) a threat. This is why most modern superhero games have something of that nature (and its one of the things correctly touted as a virtue of Savage Worlds frequently). Usually just dropping levels either doesn't make them brittle enough to be practical, or if it does, drops them so far they're no longer any sort of real threat.

Right, that's why I definitely prefer to debate it on the grounds of functionality. I can't comment on PF2e, really, but certainly IMHO 4e's minions are way easier to handle than just tossing out a lot of low level monsters. Obviously people can have whatever ideas in their heads that the game has to 'model reality', I can't account for that. I don't write games like that, lol. I write games that are playable and fun and where things work in the way that enhances that, for me.