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

[Alzrius]

This rule is not stated anywhere in any edition of D&D. All rolling a natural 2 does is tell us that the attack roll failed.

Because it's not a rule at all, any more than there's a rule telling you that all misses are narratively identical. To me, the number on the die roll doesn't just give you a binary success/failure result, but the distance above or below the target number also influences the narrative regarding the degree of success or failure. I don't think that's particularly unintuitive, nor that it contradicts what the game intends for.

No version of D&D has this concept of a "near miss" based on margin of failure of a roll to hit. At least in any of the rulebooks I've read (B/X, AD&D, 3E, 4e, 5e Basic PDF). Where is it coming from?

Similarly, I've never once read a rulebook that explicitly states that a missed attack roll, regardless of margin, is completely open to interpretation regarding how it failed to connect. Can you cite a passage in that regard?

 

[pemerton]

4E uses percentage-based healing for its curative spells/abilities, rather than flat numbers of hit points?

If you don't know this about 4e, what are you basing your criticisms on?

Which gets into issues of the PCs operating under different rules than NPCs, which is another can of worms with regards to preferred game design.

<snip>

"PC exceptionalism" isn't an outlook which I subscribe to, and so the game world is full of 1st-level fighters, operating under the same auspices as a PC 1st-level fighter.

I'm not talking about preferences. I'm talking about the game. You said that it is hard to narrate damage on a miss. But if you actually follow the rules of the game, it's not.

Of course if you run a game that contradicts the rules of 4e D&D - a world of STR 8 fighters clumsily swinging at one another yet wearing one another down via Reaping Strike - then it will be absurd.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's completely trivial, though. This combatant is so implacable that they always wear down their foe in any 6 seconds of melee. But they have a chance (reflected by the roll to hit) to wear down their foe even more quickly.

It doesn't say that anywhere though, and such an idea shouldn't be assumed to be understood by a fan base heretofore unfamiliar with the concept. 4e fell down there IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes. This is what 4e does. It's one of the reasons I like it.

As was said above, it's a good idea that I would like to see divorced from 4e.

 

[Alzrius]

If you don't know this about 4e, what are you basing your criticisms on?

Backing up, can you cite which 4E healing powers are explicitly based on percentages of total hit points recovered, rather than flat numbers? That is, what page of what book says that?

I'm not talking about preferences. I'm talking about the game. You said that it is hard to narrate damage on a miss. But if you actually follow the rules of the game, it's not.

No, we're talking about preferences, simply with regards to what that particular edition of the game did. If you follow the rules of the game, all it does is obfuscate the damage on a miss issue (imperfectly, since it still comes up that so many missed attacks keep just-so-happening to inflict injuries) with an even larger narrative disconnect re: the PCs are inherently special.

Of course if you run a game that contradicts the rules of 4e D&D - a world of STR 8 fighters clumsily swinging at one another yet wearing one another down via Reaping Strike - then it will be absurd.

It's more that the rules of 4E D&D are in-and-of themselves absurd. The PCs are literally the only fighters in the entire game world? The only ones who can gain XP and advance? I suppose that makes the damage on a miss problem trivial, but only with regard to how these individual people are somehow exempt from the physical laws that bind everyone else!

 

[Gammadoodler]

Because that's what a natural 2 on the dice tell us happens. The narration doesn't occur in a vacuum.

If you're going to narrate a near-miss (e.g. by only a single point on the attack roll) as being the same as rolling a natural 1, well...that strikes me as decoupling the narrative from the mechanics (or at least pulling them in opposite directions), which is the opposite direction of how I think things should work.

Do you alter your narration on differing rolls when you hit (outside of crits) such that a 19 on the die receives meaningfully different narration than say a 10 on the die?

Narratively, there are only 3 outcomes that matter..a successful strike, an unsuccessful strike, and a critical hit.

Any additional narrative sauce you provide within those ranges is fine, but unnecessary.

No decoupling takes place for failing to provide this extra sauce.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Backing up, can you cite which 4E healing powers are explicitly based on percentages of total hit points recovered, rather than flat numbers? That is, what page of what book says that?

No, we're talking about preferences, simply with regards to what that particular edition of the game did. If you follow the rules of the game, all it does is obfuscate the damage on a miss issue (imperfectly, since it still comes up that so many missed attacks keep just-so-happening to inflict injuries) with an even larger narrative disconnect re: the PCs are inherently special.

It's more that the rules of 4E D&D are in-and-of themselves absurd. The PCs are literally the only fighters in the entire game world? The only ones who can gain XP and advance? I suppose that makes the damage on a miss problem trivial, but only with regard to how these individual people are somehow exempt from the physical laws that bind everyone else!

The idea is in some ways analogous to the playsheets in PBtA games, where each PC is the only "expert" or "chosen", etc., in the world. Definitely feels different than D&D is traditionally presented. Better or worse is of course subjective.

 

[Alzrius]

Do you alter your narration on differing rolls when you hit (outside of crits) such that a 19 on the die receives meaningfully different narration than say a 10 on the die?

Of course. I take that as a given.

Narratively, there are only 3 outcomes that matter..a successful strike, an unsuccessful strike, and a critical hit.

No, mechanically those are the only outcomes that matter (leaving aside critical fumbles, if those are in play). Narratively, there's a much broader range.

Any additional narrative sauce you provide within those ranges is fine, but unnecessary.

No decoupling takes place for failing to provide this extra sauce.

Again, I don't know about "necessary," but the narrative aspect of modeling the range of possible d20 results does (at least to me) involve decoupling, or at least leaning in that direction, if you model a near-miss the same as a very large miss.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No, we're talking about preferences, simply with regards to what that particular edition of the game did. If you follow the rules of the game, all it does is obfuscate the damage on a miss issue (imperfectly, since it still comes up that so many missed attacks keep just-so-happening to inflict injuries) with an even larger narrative disconnect re: the PCs are inherently special.

I think that there is a general divide on this issue.

Some people like the fact that PCs are defined by the adventures that they have been on; the "zero to hero" journey is not something foreordained, per se, but is something that occurs as a result of the choices of the player along the way. In other words, the PC is just like everyone else, except that they have chosen to do extraordinary things.

On the other hand, other people view PCs as being special because they are PCs. They are the heroes of a narrative- and saying that they aren't special makes no more sense than saying, "I don't get why that Spiderman comic has to have so much Spiderman in it." By definition, the PCs, as protagonists of the game, are the heroes, and therefore special.

IMO, while I subscribe to the first view, I believe that the second view is actually more popular with most people.

 

[Alzrius]

I think that there is a general divide on this issue.

Some people like the fact that PCs are defined by the adventures that they have been on; the "zero to hero" journey is not something foreordained, per se, but is something that occurs as a result of the choices of the player along the way. In other words, the PC is just like everyone else, except that they have chosen to do extraordinary things.

On the other hand, other people view PCs as being special because they are PCs. They are the heroes of a narrative- and saying that they aren't special makes no more sense than saying, "I don't get why that Spiderman comic has to have so much Spiderman in it." By definition, the PCs, as protagonists of the game, are the heroes, and therefore special.

IMO, while I subscribe to the first view, I believe that the second view is actually more popular with most people.

That would certainly explain why it's surprisingly hard to create an incompetent ass-clown in contemporary D&D. Just ask Kotaku:

It Is Surprisingly Hard To Create An Incompetent Ass-Clown In Dungeons & Dragons

The great escapist fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons is that you are not a salaryperson shoveling handfuls of gummy bears into your mouth and rolling 20-sided dice. Rather, you are a singularly important hero with a singular capacity to disarm some impending plot bomb. It’s a time-tried formula, one...

kotaku.com