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

[pemerton]

Come and get it has a special place of shame: The problem was not the power structure. The problem was that any reasonable interpretation pushed you into problems. In 3E, a similar ability would either be a telepathic compulsion, which ought not to affect mindless creatures, and should be either supernatural or spell-like. Then WTF is the fighter doing casting telepathy? Alternatively, the ability could be a taunt, which sits a little better, but would require sight and sound, as well as mindfulness, and would be charisma dependent. Something for a bard more so than for a fighter.
Another problem is that the power is not envisioned in the game fiction (for example, bull rush is literally pushing someone). Rather, the power is envisioned in terms of the game‘s abstractions, with the fiction following: Hey, we have pulls and pushes in the game … let’s create a power based on those. This might not be a problem … except, as described in the first paragraph, establishing a convincing fiction is difficult.

This is all ridiculous. Whether it is a taunt, a lure, a wrongfooting of the foes - there is nothing remotely "telepathic" about a skilled warrior being able to draw their foes into close combat with them.

 

[payn]

Come and get it has a special place of shame: The problem was not the power structure. The problem was that any reasonable interpretation pushed you into problems. In 3E, a similar ability would either be a telepathic compulsion, which ought not to affect mindless creatures, and should be either supernatural or spell-like. Then WTF is the fighter doing casting telepathy? Alternatively, the ability could be a taunt, which sits a little better, but would require sight and sound, as well as mindfulness, and would be charisma dependent. Something for a bard more so than for a fighter.
Another problem is that the power is not envisioned in the game fiction (for example, bull rush is literally pushing someone). Rather, the power is envisioned in terms of the game‘s abstractions, with the fiction following: Hey, we have pulls and pushes in the game … let’s create a power based on those. This might not be a problem … except, as described in the first paragraph, establishing a convincing fiction is difficult.

TomB

This touches on another issue folks had. You were never inconvenienced with your powers, they just always worked. Tripping snakes and killing fire elementals with fire. I know the next line of defense is that you can build narrative stories about why an undead would be lured by come and get it, but that misses the point. Some things ought to not be useful/successful in every case.

 

[Voadam]

I disagree here. Most other systems do not cross genre the way we use DnD. You don’t build castles and countries in Call of Cthulhu for example. You don’t do horror in Blades in the Dark typically. You don’t do heroic fantasy in Twilight 2000. So on and so forth.

You do do a lot of different genres in DnD.

You don't generally do fantasy adventuring in Call of Cthulhu's horror version of the BRP rule system with sanity mechanics, you do it in BRP's Runquest or Elric! or BRP magic. Although there is also Cthulhu Dark Ages right there for castles. I forget if Pendragon is BRP for castles and kingdoms.

Powered by the Apocalypse covers a ton of non apocalypse genres. Fate, GURPS, Savage Worlds.

D&D does not typically do gothic horror but there is Ravenloft. Blades in the Dark is typically about fantasy heists, except when it is about military expeditions or rebellions against oppressive vampires or sci-fi horror.

There are certainly one off systems and certainly ones that are fairly highly tuned to a specific genre, but a lot of RPGs cover a lot of genres and get bent into different shapes.

 

[pemerton]

This touches on another issue folks had. You were never inconvenienced with your powers, they just always worked. Tripping snakes and killing fire elementals with fire. I know the next line of defense is that you can build narrative stories about why an undead would be lured by come and get it, but that misses the point. Some things ought to not be useful/successful in every case.

Why can a zombie not be wrongfooted by a skilled warrior?

 

[soviet]

Why can a zombie not be wrongfooted by a skilled warrior?

You can't have martial characters going round achieving things! It should be an action to try, you make a Cha check vs the highest number on their sheet, they then move towards you if they have spare movement from their last turn, undead, monsters, animals, spirits, dragons, elementals, constructs, and stubborn people are immune, then if they haven't moved away again in the meantime you can attack one of them in your next turn using Cha instead of Str to calculate the damage.

 

[Voadam]

With a wider view, characters are gaining and losing effectiveness in many ways. This suggests that a discussion of hit points must be looked at holistically within the overall game system. If consistency is a goal, should a warlord not only be able to shout a character to improved ability, but also shout their opponents to reduced ability?

You mean reduce an opponent's hp by a little bit with vicious mockery?

 

[Aldarc]

This touches on another issue folks had. You were never inconvenienced with your powers, they just always worked. Tripping snakes and killing fire elementals with fire. I know the next line of defense is that you can build narrative stories about why an undead would be lured by come and get it, but that misses the point. Some things ought to not be useful/successful in every case.

Not if you fail to hit with the encounter "Come and Get it" power vs. their Will defense. It doesn't work then. But this touches on another issue folks had: they didn't read the rules in the freakin' book!

Edit: I would also add that a lot of "your powers don't work on X" have subsequently been abandoned by a lot of d20 publishers because of things like your Sneak Attack not working on undead or constructs in 3e was not considered much fun for many players.

 

[James Gasik]

You mean reduce an opponent's hp by a little bit with vicious mockery?

Shoot, I got so many kills with vicious mockery in 4e it became a meme in our LFR chapter.

 

[James Gasik]

Not if you fail to hit with the encounter "Come and Get it" power vs. their Will defense. It doesn't work then. But this touches on another issue folks had: they didn't read the rules in the freakin' book!

Edit: I would also add that a lot of "your powers don't work on X" have subsequently been abandoned by a lot of d20 publishers because of things like your Sneak Attack not working on undead or constructs in 3e was not considered much fun for many players.

This point really surprised me recently. I got a Wand of Binding in game, and I read Hold Person and Hold Monster, and didn't see a single line about it not working on constructs!

So I tried it on a construct.

Turned out the construct itself was immune to paralysis (lol), but maybe there's one construct out there that isn't, lol.

 

[Gammadoodler]

This touches on another issue folks had. You were never inconvenienced with your powers, they just always worked. Tripping snakes and killing fire elementals with fire. I know the next line of defense is that you can build narrative stories about why an undead would be lured by come and get it, but that misses the point. Some things ought to not be useful/successful in every case.

I'm not sure this is a worse approach than banking on knowing and incorporating a whole bunch of individual eccentric interpretations of what can and cannot happen in explicity supernatural fantasy settings.

E.g. What is the bodily experience and composition of a fire elemental? What is magical fire made of? How do you damage it with swords and arrows, or lightning, etc.

Not to mention people's varying levels of ignorance and understanding of real-world phenomena)

How many snakes slither eye-side down?