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

[Micah Sweet]

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)

Those are all fine, and I can see a lot of great stories coming from that idea, but they're not the only alternatives. Plenty of people played D&D beyond "heroic tier" in the past and continue to do so today without making the martial types demigods (at least not without gear). Unless you're just talking about 4e? If so, then that is entirely in keeping with the design philosophy.

 

[Oofta]

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.

How am I gaslighting you? I have a different perspective than you do. I don't think a monster that literally has a different entry and stat block is the same monster.

Put it this way. If the PCs encounter Kersh the ogre at a low level and Kersh is about to smush them into bloody goo but gets called away at the last moment (hence the PCs surviving) and I want them to meet up with Kersh later I have a couple of options in 5E.

• Kersh comes back with buddies. A group of 12 ogres will be a decent challenge for a 10th level party. It does start to get a bit odd if there's enough of a difference since an ogre is only CR 2 in 5E, you'd probably have to throw 50 or so ogres against a level 20 party at which point I'd switch over to the mob rules.
• I want it to be just Kersh and an ally or 2 (solos don't work well in any edition). So Kersh has been working out and I add a bunch of barbarian levels. Narratively the same monster, starts with the same base stats, I just beef him up. Same as the PCs using the same core stat blocks as a basis that have just been added to over time. On the other hand, this is an extremely rare occurrence of having the same individual Ogre. In most cases if I want beefed up ogres with levels of barbarian I'd call them something different and not consider them "just" ogres anymore.

In 4E? I use a different stat block if the PCs have advanced more than a few levels. If Kersh is such a low level that he's no longer a big threat he loses all his HP while increasing his defenses and attack roll modifier.

There are pluses an minuses to either approach. But to me the connection between Kersh the Ogre Savage and Kersh the Ogre Thug are nebulous at best because they are built differently; he went from being a brute to a minion.

So we disagree. That's fine. I just don't think two monsters (not the 1 in 1,000 times you encounter the same exact individual monster) are the same monster because they have the word "ogre" in common. I understand the reasoning behind it. The problem is not the minion concept. I just don't think of them as the same monster. If you do, more power to you.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To each their own. I want the world to make sense except in those instances we've agreed it doesn't.

I agree with your statement, and that's a basic posit of playability, gravity works, and it need not be stated as such (except in the Elemental Chaos of course). We just disagree on where that sense comes from. For me it is a narrative element, and the game is merely a toolbox of numbers and procedures to use, like the stuff movies use to make a set. In this sense, ironically it would seem, I am closer to the original intent of D&D, IMHO, which is to simply be a toolbox, not a reality simulator.

 

[Oofta]

I agree with your statement, and that's a basic posit of playability, gravity works, and it need not be stated as such (except in the Elemental Chaos of course). We just disagree on where that sense comes from. For me it is a narrative element, and the game is merely a toolbox of numbers and procedures to use, like the stuff movies use to make a set. In this sense, ironically it would seem, I am closer to the original intent of D&D, IMHO, which is to simply be a toolbox, not a reality simulator.

I think people have approached the game differently over the years. I've always wanted a game that was a (simplified) reality simulator with magic even going back to OD&D. I wanted to be Gimli or Aragorn, not Thor.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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, if the fiction would be cool with the body slam from a minion ogre, they can have a power to do that! Minions can do anything any other monster can do, hypothetically! Beyond that, there IS page 42. It isn't really stated in terms of NPCs using it, but 4e is an RPG, its an open world, NPCs can attempt any arbitrary thing, technically.

And this is another thing that differentiates 4e from other D&Ds, to a degree, the stat block is just a convenience. Can Succubi only charm people for 6 seconds, and only in combat? I wouldn't think so, and their color/backstory indicate this is not a good interpretation either. Does the stat block provide some sort of mechanics for that? Nope. If you want to get into non-combat stuff involving the Succubus, you probably want to engage in SCs and quests, and free RP, during which the GM is free to employ whatever seems appropriate. I mean, maybe the GM is going to nail it down in his notes exactly what the possibilities are, that's fine, but unlike AD&D, where the MM entry is a canonical last word on that monster, 4e's monsters are less constrained, IMHO. 99.9% of the time the stat block is enough, but it isn't a description of the REALITY of the monster, just how it works in a fight.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

It's worse than that. He's not even suggesting to do things badly. I don't believe that 4e actually suggests minionising ogres anywhere. It is something most of us on this board would do because most of us have the sense to know that ten levels after first meeting ogres it would be a tedious and boring grindfest to use them as they were when they were a threat ten levels ago.

It's like his criticism of variable difficulty classes that relies on him taking the interpretation he likes the least and then railing against that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Well, the big question there is "Is having a whole lot of low level opponents a virtue". Its not self-evident that its the case to the degree of the numbers needed before mook rules are a particular virtue.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think people have approached the game differently over the years. I've always wanted a game that was a (simplified) reality simulator with magic even going back to OD&D. I wanted to be Gimli or Aragorn, not Thor.

So have I. And this is why I vastly prefer the version of D&D that seriously pruned back magic while empowering the fighter-types to have a range of approaches, and to use the sort of liminal magic that's larger than life but not Just Another Spell.

Aragorn is emphatically not a normal person and neither are Gimli or Legolas. They're all running on Hollywood Physics - but e.g. Aragorn (or, for that matter Legolas) should not have a spell list despite being a ranger. And they are generally competent across a broad range of skills in a way that non-4e characters simply aren't (thanks to the half level bonus from levelling up). They run on Hollywood Physics (especially Legolas in the films) rather than on real world physics.

Therefore it's 4e all the way. And if I wanted to play Thor I'd go either to epic level or break out a supers system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, the big question there is "Is having a whole lot of low level opponents a virtue". Its not self-evident that its the case to the degree of the numbers needed before mook rules are a particular virtue.

To me "this game can do a wider range of things" absolutely is a virtue. Is it necessary? No. Is it a benefit to have hordes as viable? Yes.

And IMO 4e did it better than 5e despite the cost because it's an edge case thing. And because 3.0 nerfed the effectiveness of mundane armour into the ground and neither 4e nor 5e fixed it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To me "this game can do a wider range of things" absolutely is a virtue. Is it necessary? No. Is it a benefit to have hordes as viable? Yes.

Again, that's a taste issue though.

And IMO 4e did it better than 5e despite the cost because it's an edge case thing. And because 3.0 nerfed the effectiveness of mundane armour into the ground and neither 4e nor 5e fixed it.

Well, honestly among D&D-oids I think I prefer the take in 13th Age. Its just not something I intrinsically miss outside of supers games.