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

[Micah Sweet]

So, honestly, why are you still engaging with this thread? You already know 4E doesn't produce the fiction you want. What do you think you'll gain by repeatedly telling people an edition of the game that's been out-of-print for 10 years doesn't suit you?

What do people get by repeatedly telling others an edition of the game that's been out of print for 10 years suits them? It keeps coming up is the answer to both questions.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I'm not sure what a "fundamental" breakdown would be, short of the entire game engine somehow crashing, but I'm saying that the consistent ability to damage an opponent on a missed attack – literally, with every missed attack – requires a narrative justification for how that's happening (particularly if it means that you're always connecting somehow, negating the "don't connect with the enemy at all" part of AC, at least if we accept that hit point loss means an injury is dealt). Moreover, that this justification is no small thing, since otherwise it can introduce a disconnect between the flavor text and the mechanics that some players find unpleasant because it brings them out of the immersive aspect of play.

I'll say again that this line is going to be different for everyone, and that's okay. No one's trying to convince anyone of anything here, except perhaps to understand why we're coming from where we're coming from.

Very well. For me, this seems like an exact parallel to the Evasion ability with exactly the same level of required narrative effort.

I have no issue with Evasion, so I see no issue with "Damage on a miss unsuccessful attack"

Edit: hell, I was making it harder than I needed to.."Always on target: your blows may not always strike true, but your strikes never fail to leave a mark..deal x damage on a miss"

 

[Alzrius]

When the guy with 8 Dexterity wearing full plate is attacked in melee, it's hard to say that an attack "missed" them. They are most assuredly being hit, it's simply that the armor protected them.

Not when the attacker is a guy with 8 Strength, using a weapon he's not proficient with.

"Damage on a miss" could be an armor-piercing attack; certainly there are things that one could imagine as being able to pierce armor. That one would rather have such an attack modeled by either granting a high bonus to the attack roll or ignoring AC entirely as opposed to dealing a small amount of damage on a miss is ultimately the same thing-

I disagree that it's the same thing. The mechanical result might not be very different at all, but in terms of what those mechanics are modeling from an in-character standpoint (i.e. the immersive aspect of play), it's quite different.

You're still looking at how many attacks it takes to kill someone. Anything that increases the average damage you deal over time kills them faster, regardless of the mechanics used to get there.

Again, I don't think it's "regardless" of that. The "how" of things matters, at least if you're looking at a more simulationist aspect of things.

I would say no, but obviously there are people who feel that there are certain assumptions in how the end goal should be achieved. They would reject Graze out of hand, because they visualize combat is literally being hits and misses, but might not bat an eye at a magic sword that has an enchantment that causes it to fire a single magic missile at any foe it fails to connect with.

Yes, exactly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So in AD&D, a 1st level or zero-level character loses (say) 3 hp from being stabbed by a spear. There's a real chance that they are now unconscious and dying, or even dead. If they are still alive, they are probably one blow away from unconsciousness and/or death.

On the other hand, we know - from Gygax's rulebooks - that a 10th level fighter who has lost (say) 30 hp in a fight with 10 spear wielding Orcs is merely scratched and winded. The many hit points in the mechanical description of this character represent, in the fiction, their skill, luck and divine favour in avoiding damaging strikes.

So far, so good.

But the low level character can be healed hale and hearty by curing their light wound. Huh? What light wound?

Whereas a high priest, able to raise the dead, cannot bring the high level character back to full health - curing their critical wound still leaves them scratched and winded. Huh? What critical wound?

*****************

The idea that 4e introduces too much abstraction compared to AD&D just isn't an idea I can credit. What I've just described isn't just abstract. It's incoherent.

On the other hand, 4e isn't incoherent at all. The high level fighter can more easily regain (say) 30 of their 100 hp than the low level character can regain (say) 20 of their 22 hp. And it requires far less divine intervention for that to happen, than it takes to bring someone back from the dead.

Healing is definitely a problem, agreed. I suggest re-working it into a percentage of the target's total hp, modified by how powerful the healing effect is.

 

[overgeeked]

I think part of the issue is that the thread is no longer serving the issues raised in the OP.

The thread is no longer serving the issues raised in the OP because people cannot stop themselves from relitigating the Edition Wars.

Someone slams 4E, opening shot. 4E fans come to the defense, return salvo. Sides are formed, trenches dug, and 43 pages later everyone has trench foot. They'll all be home by Christmas...and 15 years later we're all still going around and around in the same circles, fighting the same fights.

But when people try and discuss the ways in which 4e did not work for them, we are told (to quote Steve Jobs), that "You're holding it wrong."

A few things.

One, when you've had to defend a thing you like for 15 years, it's hard not to see every criticism no matter how mild, or even how accurate, as an attack.

Two, sometimes there is a wrong way to hold it...and you just might be holding it wrong. All these other people seem to have managed to get ahold of it the right way round.

Three, you cannot change what the thing is*. You can only change your expectations and whether you're willing to accept it as it is. If you're unwilling or unable to do either, that's that.

*Yes, yes. House rules. Ship of Theseus. Etc.

Four, any discussion of preferences is doomed to fail before it starts. I mean, we've seen that enough times by now, right? See all those "I like pineapple" discussions. Endless merry-go-round. Nothing is resolved. No one changes their minds. It's inevitable trench foot. If there is any meaningful discussion to be had it's not from a preferences standpoint, rather on purely mechanics and results terms. X rule produces Y result. What would the result be if the rule was Z instead? Or what rule would produce this other result?

The OP raised a salient issue- new reporting on why 4e was the way it was, and why it wasn't the success that higherups at Hasbro hoped that it would be. But as I stated near the beginning of the thread-

I think that fundamentally, though, this reporting won't change what people already want to believe about the transition from 3e to 4e, to the extent it contradicts the emotional experiences that people had and the stories we have told ourselves. Heck, despite the fact that Peterson has extensively documented the early history of TSR and RPGs in the 70s, we still see people keep repeating the same incorrect assertions about that time, over and over and over again.

Peterson being intentionally incomplete doesn't help. But that's already a whole other thread.

Instead of engaging with the substance of what was reported (and why that might be interesting, especially in light of the current direction of the game vis-a-vis 5e 2024), we remain stuck talking about .... looks around... hit points as meat, or whether skill challenges worked for people, or why some people didn't like "damage on a miss" mechanics.

It's not hard to track how we got here. 4E was mentioned, so someone inevitably crapped on it. Because people are terrible and cannot seem to help themselves.

 

[overgeeked]

What do people get by repeatedly telling others an edition of the game that's been out of print for 10 years suits them?

Find other fans and connect with them over a shared interest. Like...as in the literal purpose of fan communities.

Now that I've answered you, how about answering me?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Find other fans and connect with them over a shared interest. Like...as in the literal purpose of fan communities.

Now that I've answered you, how about answering me?

I see no problem with explaining my opinion on why a particular game that gets a lot of discussion time on this forum doesn't work for me. I'm not being dishonest, or intentionally misrepresenting 4e or other games I don't care for. If I'm proven wrong about a statement, I'll own up to it and apologize. Heck, you called me out on my feelings being mostly, well, just that, and I agreed. Should I not express them because other people have different feelings?

I don't think 4e is a bad game. I played and ran it for well over a year before a variety of issues I and my group had with it led us to stop, and go back to our 1e game before 5e came out and we gave that a try. It wasn't for me, for specific reasons I've explained.

What you're asking for feels like wanting people who don't like what you like to stop talking about it.

 

[billd91]

One, when you've had to defend a thing you like for 15 years, it's hard not to see every criticism no matter how mild, or even how accurate, as an attack.

If that's your take on the criticism, maybe you're holding it wrong. Other people seem to recognize it's not an attack on you...

 

[Nikosandros]

So in AD&D, a 1st level or zero-level character loses (say) 3 hp from being stabbed by a spear. There's a real chance that they are now unconscious and dying, or even dead. If they are still alive, they are probably one blow away from unconsciousness and/or death.

On the other hand, we know - from Gygax's rulebooks - that a 10th level fighter who has lost (say) 30 hp in a fight with 10 spear wielding Orcs is merely scratched and winded. The many hit points in the mechanical description of this character represent, in the fiction, their skill, luck and divine favour in avoiding damaging strikes.

So far, so good.

But the low level character can be healed hale and hearty by curing their light wound. Huh? What light wound?

Whereas a high priest, able to raise the dead, cannot bring the high level character back to full health - curing their critical wound still leaves them scratched and winded. Huh? What critical wound?

*****************

The idea that 4e introduces too much abstraction compared to AD&D just isn't an idea I can credit. What I've just described isn't just abstract. It's incoherent.

On the other hand, 4e isn't incoherent at all. The high level fighter can more easily regain (say) 30 of their 100 hp than the low level character can regain (say) 20 of their 22 hp. And it requires far less divine intervention for that to happen, than it takes to bring someone back from the dead.

I was really dismayed that 5e dropped healing surges. The concept that healing is proportional to total HPs and limited by character is, IMO, fantastic and can be used even in games completely different from 4e.

 

[pemerton]

Except that this flavor is, at best, inconsistent. A tarrasque isn't dodging your attacks you aren't failing to make contact

Right.

Gygax was clearly aware, in his DMG, that there is no uniform narration of hit point loss that makes sense. It's ad hoc, case-by-case narration. Mostly hit point loss, by a PC, is being winded or scratched or getting worn down - but if the attack inflicts poison, and the player fails their save, then the narration had better include something that makes the poisoning make sense!

4e recognises and builds on this logic. All "damage on a miss" means, in the context of a melee attack, is that you always wear down your foe, but have a chance (reflected by the roll to hit) to wear them down a bit quicker. In other words, the roll to hit for that attack is not "Do I hurt them?" but rather "Do I get in my best strike?"