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

[pemerton]

On an individual attack or to-hit attempt, no. However, a single attack roll is not the entire combat.

If a skill challenge truly maps to combat, isn't each individual roll in a skill challenge kinda like a to-hit roll in a combat? If yes, then anyone involved ought to be able to see how the situation is developing and, if desired, choose to end the scene* between rolls, just like a combatant can choose to end a combat* between attacks.

The character is not involved in a skill challenge. The players and GM are. The GM describes what the NPCs do. The GM is not at liberty to describe the players losing unless and until they have actually lost. So if the skill challenge is still on foot, the GM is not at liberty to describe someone choosing to leave.

Further, what about the PCs? Can the players have the PCs abandon the skill challenge* partway through?

I don't think the DMG discusses this, and I don't remember now what later books say. My approach is influenced by discussions with @LostSoul: if the players are happy to forfeit what is at stake in the challenge, than they can abandon it (ie choose to lose).

 

[Lanefan]

Like the impending doom mechanics… from 13th age?

Where a count up die notes a bonus to everyone’s attack as the rounds go buy.

But I like this idea, I might make it a bonus to everyone’s damage thiugh.

That seems very counter-intuitive - as combatants get tired wouldn't they be doing less damage each swing rather than more?

 

[pemerton]

Again, it's not a question of clarity. It's a question of verisimilitude. If you're literally always getting a hit in on an enemy, regardless of the die roll (i.e. removing any aspect of the value of the die roll influencing the narrative interpretation of the attack result beyond a binary pass/fail), and necessarily ignoring any possibility of them ever avoiding your attack altogether/you ever completely missing them, that's a bridge too far for some people. Especially if the only way to cover that up is to say that your character is literally the only person in the entire world who can do this; what makes them so special?

Well, in the case of the fighter in my main 4e game, he was destined to become an Eternal Defender, blessed by Moradin and then taking on the mantle of God of Pain, Punishment and Imprisonment.

Of course that's not the only pathway available in Epic tier.

 

[Alzrius]

Are you serious?

I notice that, when you become engaged in a debate, you tend to get snarky with people as time goes on. I suppose that's true for a lot of people, but it makes what would otherwise be a friendly debate rather unpleasant. If you find yourself making expressions like this one, maybe stop and ask yourself if you're making a constructive contribution to the thread.

First, it seems that you don't actually know what the game did.

I'll admit to not being up on healing surges as percentages, sure. But saying that means I "don't know what the game did" overlooks that this is different from, say, damage on a miss.

Second, there is no "narrative disconnect" in one person being an implacable warrior among a sea of predominantly mediocre warriors. Aragorn, Eomer, Conan, Lancelot, etc are all of this nature. ("And there are names among us that are worth more than one thousand mail-clad knights apiece.") It may not be to your taste, but it's not absurd.

I disagree. There is indeed a narrative disconnect in one person in the entire game world operating by special rules that apply to literally no one else.

The idea such a character does not and cannot ever miss an enemy, no matter what the circumstances – or regardless of how badly they fail an attack roll – can be legitimately described as a disconnect between what the mechanics are telling us and what the fiction is indicating, because other characters do miss on the same die roll values (with the same modifiers versus the same targets); and yet that's resolved because...the PC has a power that no one else in all the world has? Nowhere did Tolkien, Howard, Mallory, etc. write that their characters would forever strike true simply because of who they were (at least, not that I'm aware).

Character classes, levels, XP, the fact about who in the real world owns and controls a game element - none of these are part of the gameworld. (Unless you're playing something absurdist and fourth-wall breaking, as Over the Edge can be.) They are not "physical laws" of the imagined reality.

They're all "part of" the game world in that they model how the game world works. The rules are, in a very real way, the physics of the game world. Breaking that is the literal definition of a narrative disconnect, because you've "disconnected" the narrative from the mechanics.

 

[Alzrius]

Well, in the case of the fighter in my main 4e game, he was destined to become an Eternal Defender, blessed by Moradin and then taking on the mantle of God of Pain, Punishment and Imprisonment.

Of course that's not the only pathway available in Epic tier.

Okay, but is that the case for every fighter PC in every 4E game? And why is it that such a character is always a PC and not an NPC?

 

[Lanefan]

You don't.. if you accept the mechanical elements as they are (insofar as they are internally consistent), when you craft the narrative in the first place.

The "problem", in my experience, comes when you map in outside, typically real-world, expectations, which have no intrinsic or necessary connection to your fantasy setting.

The GM is in control of the settings they create. If they want a different setting experience than the rules facilitate, they should expect problems.

And fixing those problems means the rules have to change, not the setting.

Besides all this, generally speaking, the concept we were talking about has been AC, which has no real narrative heft. It is "generic protection against attacks", and it protects an abstraction in "hit points".

Suggesting that an ability exists where you can bypass generic defense to degrade an abstraction should not require narrative justification. Like this is 100% rules abstraction BS.

If something can't be justified in the narrative then what the bleep is it doing in a game the entire point of which is sharing the imagination of a narrative and-or setting?

 

[payn]

That seems very counter-intuitive - as combatants get tired wouldn't they be doing less damage each swing rather than more?

Im sure there will be some narrative explanation around there being holes in the defense to exploit and its not about endurance at all. The power always working is what is important, the narrative will be made to support it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That seems very counter-intuitive - as combatants get tired wouldn't they be doing less damage each swing rather than more?

It's a narrative mechanic.

 

[Gammadoodler]

And fixing those problems means the rules have to change, not the setting.

If something can't be justified in the narrative then what the bleep is it doing in a game the entire point of which is sharing the imagination of a narrative and-or setting?

Ennh. Change the rules, change the setting, whatever suits your fancy.

Of course.. you are sharing the rules with the players at the table, players who will be looking at those rules independently. Whereas, until you narrate the setting, it only exists in your head.

As it relates to AC and HP's place in the setting..I'd go with..tradition?

 

[Lanefan]

There are no first level fighters with 8 STR in 4e D&D, at least in my experience.

And if someone is absolutely determined to build a mechanically unviable fighter, for whatever reason, then why would they take or use the Reaping Strike power that contradicts their vision of their PC?

As far as the comment about the "astoundingly large part of the gameworld", the gameworld is not full of 1st level fighters. And low-level minion warrior types aren't generally statted to do damage on a miss.

Except the game world IS often full of 1st-level Fighters. Armies of them, veterans of various battles and still marching to and fro on their liege's commands. Look at GoT - everyone in that setting knows how to fight!

This does point to one issue that 4e had that I'm not sure it ever really dealt with: the too-large mechanical gap between commoners and 1st-level characters.