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

[Justice and Rule]

If anything, it just suggests a hidden sacred cow that the designers did not realize they were slaughtering....it has just occurred to me right now that "sacred cow" is kind of obviously offensive as it refers disparagingly to real world religious practice. Is there a sensible replacement idiom around?

You could probably use the term "third rail" in a similar usage, being a topic that, when touched, usually draws severe backlash. It's not quite the same, but probably close enough for jazz.

The Bloodied condition arguably belongs in this list as well.

Honestly I would love to see something like this brought back. It's a very simple thing, but probably better-understood by the audience. Unlike many of us older players, they have now grown up on years upon years of Fromsoft-style bosses who proceed into different stages upon passing certain damage thresholds. That's just a basic style concept for combat design for them.

Tastes vary.

I like them pretty much across the board, possibly with the exception of the daily surge limit, I played in a 4e game with the numbers reduced down for an encounter basis of surges and it was fantastic.

Honestly, looking at it now, I kind of like daily surges because it creates a fairly easy and interesting attrition that I always feel like the more simulationist D&D stuff is trying to get to but also failing at.

 

[Voadam]

Honestly, looking at it now, I kind of like daily surges because it creates a fairly easy and interesting attrition that I always feel like the more simulationist D&D stuff is trying to get to but also failing at.

AEDU and healing surges tie into a daily resource pattern that is decent, and a better balanced daily paradigm but still has the daily paradigm issues of novas and running on empty for tougher encounters when designed for a full tank party that can incentivize five minute work days and hit different play styles (max nova all the time, use a single daily most encounters, hoard them for bosses or emergencies) differently and encourage metagaming how many encounters per day you expect to maximize best use of your daily resources.

Squishies can tank for a single fight in a day with 4 surges and be decently OK. When you have only 1 surge per encounter it makes doing so much riskier even if you are sure it will be the one wilderness traveling encounter of the day. Strikers feel it most every fight instead of being fine, fine, on the edge, on the edge, on the edge.

 

[Thomas Shey]

All I can say is YMMV. No one's experience is definitive of anything outside of it.

Of course. But unless you have tunnel vision, none of us live in cave, and I've been paying attention to what other people in the hobby have been saying, asking about, and showing interest in for almost half century now, and not just in a corner of it. You'll excuse me if I think that counts for something..

 

[Thomas Shey]

You could probably use the term "third rail" in a similar usage, being a topic that, when touched, usually draws severe backlash. It's not quite the same, but probably close enough for jazz.

Seems about as close as you're going to get.

Honestly I would love to see something like this brought back. It's a very simple thing, but probably better-understood by the audience. Unlike many of us older players, they have now grown up on years upon years of Fromsoft-style bosses who proceed into different stages upon passing certain damage thresholds. That's just a basic style concept for combat design for them.

Probably unsurprisingly, it exists in 13th Age (I believe called "shaken" there).

 

[Thomas Shey]

AEDU and healing surges tie into a daily resource pattern that is decent, and a better balanced daily paradigm but still has the daily paradigm issues of novas and running on empty for tougher encounters when designed for a full tank party that can incentivize five minute work days and hit different play styles (max nova all the time, use a single daily most encounters, hoard them for bosses or emergencies) differently and encourage metagaming how many encounters per day you expect to maximize best use of your daily resources.

Squishies can tank for a single fight in a day with 4 surges and be decently OK. When you have only 1 surge per encounter it makes doing so much riskier even if you are sure it will be the one wilderness traveling encounter of the day. Strikers feel it most every fight instead of being fine, fine, on the edge, on the edge, on the edge.

This is, honestly, an issue that comes up in almost any system with limited but regenerative resources. I'm not sure there's a general fix for it.

 

[Pedantic]

This is, honestly, an issue that comes up in almost any system with limited but regenerative resources. I'm not sure there's a general fix for it.

Strict time records.

 

[pemerton]

Leaving aside the "outside of D&D family" bit, no such citations or corroboration were made; all that people seem to be able to do is point to Gygax's old essay in the AD&D 1E DMG

I disagree with regard to what I've said being untrue, let alone objectively so, and think it's saying things like that which has unfortunately made the exchange unproductive.

@Mannahnin quoted not only multiple passages from Gygax's DMG, but passages also from Gygax's PHB. Hence why he said that your statement, quoted above, is objectively untrue.

He even provided a link back to the post with his quotes:

I think this is the point at which I have to conclude that this exchange is no longer productive. It's become circular and you're repeating assertions which are objectively untrue.

 

[pemerton]

Editions prior to 3.x had hit points leaning primarily within the physical/injury category.

This claim is highly contentious, given that two of the most canonical sources for pre-3E D&D play, namely Gygax's PHB and DMG, say otherwise.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Strict time records.

That just moves the problem around. Then people just tend to either over-hoard the resources or swing between too much use and too little. Believe me, I've seen it in other systems when they were, from lack of a better term, daily resources.

 

[Autumnal]

From the 3.0 SRD:

What Hit Points Represent​

All characters (and some items) have a certain number of hit points. Hit points represent a character's luck, health, and basic physical condition.