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

[billd91]

No, definitely 23, I checked.
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Oops, Nina'd (or Swordsage'd, as we'd say back in 3e).

Interesting. Looks like they were dead set in preserving distinctions between the AD&D 18/% groupings, even though there’s no correlation of modifier values.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, definitely 23, I checked.
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Oops, Nina'd (or Swordsage'd, as we'd say back in 3e).

I'm aware. 18/00 is mire like 18 though in real terms.
20 is an improvement (+10 total vs 18/00 +9).

18/00 is still better though due to things like darts RoF and 3.0 hit point inflation.

 

[Kannik]

Would you mind posting this here when you get the chance? I keep seeing scattered references to it online, but can't seem to find a copy.

Erf, unfortunately I don't seem to have it. And I'm starting to think (remember?) that it might have been a post on Wizards' website rather than an actual booklet (which if that is the case that might well have been a missed opportunity). Sorry for getting hopes up. :/

 

[Kannik]

When I first HEARD of Skill Challenges (on this site, which did wonderful 4e-spoilers ahead of release!) I ran some really, really great ones.

Heh, this to an extent mirrors my experience as well. I read about them and either read about or watched some early WotC live plays with the new rules, and so when I started playing I only glanced at the rules and ran them much like the examples. And they were (and remain) awesome.

Even to this day I can't entirely tell if the way they're presented in the various books is poor or misleading, since that example (and working) framework is so embedded in my mind. That said, how they were presented in LFR modules definitively seems lackluster and rote, rather than the creativity spawning and tension building thing that they could be.

 

[pemerton]

Even to this day I can't entirely tell if the way they're presented in the various books is poor or misleading, since that example (and working) framework is so embedded in my mind. That said, how they were presented in LFR modules definitively seems lackluster and rote, rather than the creativity spawning and tension building thing that they could be.

I think the presentation in the rulebooks is underdone in all sorts of ways - the requisite information is there (in a literal sense) but requires knowing what you're looking for to be extracted. (DMG2 is a bit better in this respect; Rules Compendium is not.)

There are worked examples in the DMG (not terrible) and the Rules Compendium (a bit better), but both display the use of GMing techniques that are not called out, or explained and elaborated on. So again, unless you know what you're looking for, they're not very good teaching tools in my view.

Now that said, the presentation of skill challenges in H2 (the only one from a module I can recall) is terrible - it directly contravenes the advice in the DMG and DMG2, in that the situation does not change depending on the outcome of each check. So it really is just a dice-rolling exercise. My understanding, from what people have posted over the years, is that the LFR ones tended also to be like this.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Hey, if you'd managed to roll a natural 18 for Strength, and then a natural 100 for exceptional Strength, it seemed fair enough to have that be converted over as something similarly over the top.

18/00 strength should have been super-rare, since you had to roll 3 6s , followed by a 00 result on percentiles.
Despite this in my years of playing 2nd edition I saw it all the time! In fact, 18/00 seemed to be more common than any other 18/percentile amount.

But sure, they were all legitimate rolls. "I did it at home and got it first try"

 

[Zardnaar]

18/00 strength should have been super-rare, since you had to roll 3 6s , followed by a 00 result on percentiles.
Despite this in my years of playing 2nd edition I saw it all the time! In fact, 18/00 seemed to be more common than any other 18/percentile amount.

But sure, they were all legitimate rolls. "I did it at home and got it first try"

Think I saw it rolled legit once or twice and it wasn't done in 1 roll.

1 in 21600 chance legit on 3d6? We used 4d6 drop the lowest.

Bedt character I ever saw rolled legit was 12,14, 17,17 17, 18 I pulled it off in front of the DM first try.

18/anything was a lot better than 18. Probably made Half Orcs very popular.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

18/00 strength should have been super-rare, since you had to roll 3 6s , followed by a 00 result on percentiles.
Despite this in my years of playing 2nd edition I saw it all the time! In fact, 18/00 seemed to be more common than any other 18/percentile amount.

But sure, they were all legitimate rolls. "I did it at home and got it first try"

In 1e, it was always the same guy who happened to roll a 17 for charisma too.

Yeah, I'm talking about you Derek.


Slightly real note. I swear that the most common "roll" I saw was 18/92. It is something about the cheater's mind. I think that every single cheater must have gone through the same process....

Hmmm. If I say I rolled an 18/00, they'll know I cheated. So I can't write that. But I can give myself the next best score! Yeah, that's the ticket. So 18/91 is the worst of the best. But wait, that's too obvious. So ... 18/92! Perfect.

Seriously, I always, always, always assumed that 18/92 was fabricated. And I saw it all the time.

 

[Red Castle]

I’m not sure I ever saw a 18/00, legit or not… it always been the dream though… but I have a friend that was the luckiest bastard when rolling stats, always had a 18, two or three 16-17 abd lowest score about 12-13… could always make a Paladin as if he didn’t have to put 17 in charisma… meanwhile, I often had though luck, highest score often being 15-16… felt pretty useless when we both played in the same campaign and were both playing fighters…

Standard Array and point buy were a godsend for me! And although I believe it was possible in earlier edition, it’s only in 4e that we stopped rolling for stats. Needless to say, my lucky friend really hate standard array, it makes his character feel powerless… welcome in my world!

 

[billd91]

I have seen it because I did it in my friend Eddie's game back when I was in grad school (so about 1993/4). I was planning on playing a half-orc fighter, so +1 to Strength was the racial mod. Eddie's character rolling rules were a bit different and designed to make sure each PC had at least 1 high stat as a prime requisite. You'd roll 4d6dL until you got at least a 16, then you took the next 5 rolls, arrange to suit. So I was rolling for Strength. After a couple of rolls below the threshold (which for me was 15 because of the +1 racial bonus), I hit an 18 naturally on 3 of the 4 dice. Eddie said "Since you don't get to add +1 to that to get 19, take your bonus as +10 on the %." I then rolled over 90. That would have taken me over the 18/00, but since I was playing a half-orc, I was capped at 18/99.

So, yeah, it's possible. I've seen it at least once. But it's a lot more rare than you saw on PC sheets. It's one of the reasons I really liked getting rid of the % Strength and the addition of stat bumps as characters level up when 3e came out. It reduces the tendency to cheat on stat gen dice because you can still get there.