D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Micah Sweet]

I've not read it, but that's the point, right? To gate special manoeuvres behind a sense of random opportunity rather than making them spammable as at-wills or artificially spendable as daily or encounter powers.

I would suppose that people who don't like the mechanic want that control.

 

[overgeeked]

Well, immersive world sim is what I always want out of D&D.

I’m okay with D&D being more than one thing. As long as it’s focused and know what it’s trying to do and tries to do it well, I’m good.

I like superhero stuff too, but would rather play other games for that.

Superhero is one of my favorite genres. But capes and spandex isn’t quite what I mean by superheroic fantasy, high octane and high powered D&D is.

 

[soviet]

I would suppose that people who don't like the mechanic want that control.

Obviously

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m okay with D&D being more than one thing. As long as it’s focused and know what it’s trying to do and tries to do it well, I’m good.

Superhero is one of my favorite genres. But capes and spandex isn’t quite what I mean by superheroic fantasy, high octane and high powered D&D is.

I would honestly prefer just to reskin a superhero game to fantasy if I wanted to combine the two, but doing it in D&D is fine too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Obviously

Then what was your question?

 

[soviet]

Then what was your question?

I didn't ask you a question, but I think my point was clear, and the poster I responded to agreed.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Alzrius amigo!

The funny thing is that even in 3.5, the creatures with big lists of spell-like abilities (SLAs) were quite often not the combat monsters their CR presented them as being.

Sort of.

If you ever picked up a copy of Bad Axe Games' Trailblazer: Teratologue (affiliate link) – which was a monster book companion to Trailblazer, their own attempt at a 3.75 edition – you likely noticed that they made an interesting notation regarding the monsters' CR. Specifically, it noted that they'd used the work of Craig Cochrane (our very own @Upper_Krust), who had taken the idea that a monster's CR was the aggregate total of everything in its stat block to its natural conclusion, devising an intricate breakdown that assigned a numerical value to each aspect of a monster's stats (i.e. Hit Dice, Base Attack Bonus, feats, skill bonuses, movement types, etc.), all of which cumulatively added up to its CR.

Now, the Teratologue didn't reproduce U_K's work in full, but instead adjusted the monsters' CRs accordingly. However, it included a certain takeaway from it: all of the monsters in the book had their total CR, but also a "spine CR" listed.

I worked with Bad Axe Games on one of their books which included a prototype of my CR system. So it was likely a variant of that.

 

[overgeeked]

I would honestly prefer just to reskin a superhero game to fantasy if I wanted to combine the two, but doing it in D&D is fine too.

Sure. Just about any supers game would be better suited for that style. But I prefer to meet games where they are as much as possible. 4E and 5E are very much superhero fantasy, so I’d rather embrace that when playing them. I’ve tried to house rule games into drastically different beasts, i.e. what I wanted them to be, but that way lies madness.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. Just about any supers game would be better suited for that style. But I prefer to meet games where they are as much as possible. 4E and 5E are very much superhero fantasy, so I’d rather embrace that when playing them. I’ve tried to house rule games into drastically different beasts, i.e. what I wanted them to be, but that way lies madness.

I beat my 5e game into world sim, but that's because 5e is what my players are familiar with and want.

 

[Upper_Krust]

To avoid stat block clutter while retaining flavour I suggest just giving monsters after a certain CR, such as the Pit Fiend something like limited wish at will but then make a point of noting its 3 favoured spells. But make its stat block centred around the three most unique features of that monster.