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

[Snarf Zagyg]

See to me legacy has never meant much in DnD. Every edition from Basic/Expert to Adnd to 3e to 4e has been a massive rewrite to the game. Huge changes.

So I find the notion of legacy to be rather baffling.

So I'd ask you to question your assumptions here.

I've previously written a bit about how the entire TSR-era was interoperable. You can basically mix-n-match all the material, from OD&D to 1e to 2e to Holmes Basic to Moldvay/Cook B/X to BECMI to R/C to ... all of it, and use it. You might have to do some slight adjustments, but it was common to see people running an OD&D module that was included with a Basic set for AD&D characters.

3e was the first significant rewriting, but while they had a fair amount of authority to change things around, they also did a lot to try and make sure that the continuity and legacy was maintained. The "Back to the Dungeon." The Greyhawk default (combined with a quick pivot to FR). The mechanics were changed and modernized, but they tried very hard to maintain a continuity with the past.*

Again, legacy and continuity may mean nothing to you, but it does mean something to other people. And I think that the marketing of 4e probably didn't help with those people.


*Of course, this wasn't enough for some people, which is why the OSR movement started.

 

[pemerton]

Page 42 is even more clear about this, as it provides a DC and damage matrix (rules widget) to apply to any situation not otherwise covered. It's the epitome of Mechanics are King.

Are you serious?

If a character tries an action that might fail, use a check to resolve it. To do that, you need to know what kind of check it is and what the DC is.

Attacks: If the action is essentially an attack, use an attack roll. It might involve a weapon and target AC, or it might just be a Strength or Dexterity check against any defense. For an attack, use the appropriate defense of the target. Use an opposed check for anything that involves a contest between two creatures.

Other Checks: If the action is related to a skill (Acrobatics and Athletics cover a lot of the stunts characters try in combat), use that check. If it is not an obvious skill or attack roll, use an ability check. Consult the Difficulty Class and Damage by Level table below, and set the DC according to whether you think the task should be easy, hard, or somewhere in between. . . .

Sometimes you need to set damage for something not covered in the rules - a character stumbles into the campfire or falls into a vat of acid, for example. Choose a column on the Difficulty Class and Damage table based on the severity of the effect. . . .

Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it. An Acrobatics check seems reasonable.

This sort of action is exactly the kind of thinking you want to encourage, so you pick an easy DC: The table says DC 15, but it’s a skill check, so make it DC 20. If she makes that check, she gets a hold on the chandelier and swings to the ogre.

Then comes the kicking. She’s more interested in the push than in dealing any damage with the kick itself, so have her make a Strength attack against the ogre’s Fortitude. If she pulls it off, let her push the ogre 1 square and into the brazier, and find an appropriate damage number.​

All the reasoning here begins with the fiction, and the identifies an appropriate mechanical framework for resolution. Contra your assertion, the narration of the action matters fundamentallly.

Here are some actual play illustrations:

The most interesting thing here was their response to one particular room. As per the module, I described it as containing a mirror containing the reflection of a woman in great distress - but there was no woman in the room. They worked out that she had been trapped in there by magic, and decided to rescue her. Based on some past experience with trapping mirrors (in Thunderspire Labyrinth) they decided to teleport her out using the wizard level 7 encounter power Twist of Space - which worked.

<snip>

They found evidence of necromantic magic (the aformentioned ogre skull, with large rubies in its eye sockets, and some old scrolls from Bael Turath). When the player of the paladin had his PC look closely again at the scroll describing the cultic burial practices and made a good perception roll, I decided that he noticed a stiffness/crustiness in the paper. Eventually, after use of Object Reading, the PCs worked out this was evidence of invisible ink. The drow then suggested that they should try and render the ink visible in the library outside the laboratory they were in, which would be more comfortable (good Bluff check). Then, lingering (good Stealth check) he pried the gems out of the skull eyesockets (good Thievery check). As per the module, this released the undead spiders inside the skull.

The combat which then ensued with these spiders was quite interesting, although they themselves were only a single level 7 soldier - the drow trying to conceal what he'd done by making Arcana checks to keep his magic quite and using Bedevilling Burst to push the spiders back into the skull. Unfortunately he rolled a 1 on his attack, and being a chaos sorcerer therefore pushed everything over, sending skull and spiders tumbling into the adjacent library. On his next turn he used Thievery to surreptitiously pocket the gems in the middle of combat, while the wizard and defenders tried to kill the spiders without wrecking the library that they were fighting in. This is my first 4e combat in which the "Rule of the Ming Vase" has come into play.

The water weird

The PCs were investigating a hot spring inside a temple bathhouse, and were attacked by a water weird. I had already decided, in my prep notes, to resolve this as a complexity 2 skill challenge ie 6 successes before 3 failures.

The PCs quicly discovered that psychic/Will attacks had no effect - the weird was animated water, with no discernible mind or body. So they decided to (i) try and destroy/move the water, using radiant and thunder attacks, and (ii) to try and plug the spring, by knocking stones down into it and using the thunder attacks to drive them home. (In my prep notes I'd expected the PCs to try and expunge the spirit, and had made some notes on how Religion and Arcana checks might play out. The idea of plugging the spring instead came as a surprise to me.)

The player of the dwarf set up the "plug the spring" idea. On his first turn he considered the situation as I'd described it, and thought "as a strong guy with a big axe my best bet here is to probably plug the spring". I, as GM, then suggested that (i) if he wanted to do that he had to knock off a lot of stone, so I would require him to expend one of his encounter close burst powers, and (ii) to get the stones in the right place would also require a Dungeoneering check. (This is roughly following the model in 4e DMG p 42.)

When the dwarf's next turn came round, the wizard and paladin had already picked up on his idea and done more stuff with the stone. He then went in for (what he hoped would be, and what turned out to be) the last big effort. The player knew what he wanted to do - use Come and Get it to "pull" the water away from the rocks, so he could push the rocks into the holes. I, as GM, suggested that what might make more sense is if, using his skill at timing his polearm strikes in relation to the fluid movement of the battlefield (as exemplified in part by this Come and Get It power), he waited for the water to surge up again and then pushed in the stone. The player liked that, and went for it. He made an Athletics check to keep his footing and act effectively in the water, and an attack roll to actually drive the stone home. Expending Come and Get It meant that the issue of timing was not a problem for that PC (Come and Get It in this context, as in many other occasions of use, acted as a sort of fate point - "my PC's timing perfectly matches the flow of battle" - than as a model of an ingame action like taunting or luring). His checks were successful, and so, as the water surged up over him, the dwarf pushed the rocks home with a sweep of his halberd. (If this check had failed, then the skill challenge as a whole would have failed and the whole temple been flooded by the surging water weird.)

They have been fighting the hobgoblins and Bane-ites on-and-off for the whole campaign, and have known for several levels that there is a fortress in the mountains. But not until this most recent session did they actually make their way there.

<snip>

the army encampment was much as the module describes it - an encampment of 500 or more, doing army things (eating, sleeping, drilling etc), and with a stairway up to a temple which is where the leader of the army, a fallen paladin, is to be found.

<snip>

they decided to use deception. The wizard PC had memorised Disguise Self for this purpose, and he also got around to filling one of his 15th levvel ritual slots, deciding that the Seeming ritual (from the Eberron book) seemed like a suitable choice.

The wizard Disguised himself as Paldemar, an evil wizard who had been a leader of/advisor to the army, and whom the PCs had recently killed, but who the army (as best they knew) didn't yet know was dead. He flew on the wizard's Flying Carpet (which the PCs had recovered from the wizard's tower after killing him) at the back of the procession.

The dwarf fighter had his hands loosely tied together with some copper wire that one of the PCs was carrying, and the Seeming turned that into shackles, with a chain being held by the party paladin, who Seemed to be a heavily armed-and-armoured wererat enforcer.

The other two PCs - a drow sorcerer and elf ranger-cleric - were changed to appear like wererat thugs. (The PCs had already learned that the wizard and his accomplices were using wererats as agents in the nearest large town south of the fortress.)

With the disguises established, the actual process of making their way across the encampment played out as a skill challenge - or, in fact, the final 4-check leg of a longer challenge (which involved other elements of navigating through the mountains), in which they had already accrued 8 successes and 1 failure.

The sorcerer started with a Streetwise check (aided by the paladin) to try and choose a suitable route through the tents etc where they would not be hassled or crowded (which could reveal their illusion). Unfortunately this failed, so just as they entered the tents in what seemed to be a low density area, a hobgoblin squad marched in front of them from behind a couple of tents. The quick-thinking paladin player responded by immediately barking orders at the hobgoblins, telling them to "Clear a path so that Paldamar can take his prisoner to the temple for interrogation" - and a successful Intimidate check resulted in a success.

As the procession moved through the encampment with the hobgoblin squad clearing a path, Bane-ite thugs who recognised the dwarf prisoner started approaching to throw mud and refuse at him. Not wanting any filth to reveal the illusion (eg by clinging to the fighter's halberd, which the illusion had rendered invisible), the wizard quickly cast them away with a Twist of Space, making sure that the rabble didn't further impede the procession's passage. (This also reinforced an Intimdate check from the sorcerer reiterating the need for unimpeded passage.)

Finally, the procession got to the foot of the temple stairs, where the two Bane-ite wardens asked for the password - which the PCs (and players) did not know. The paladin suggested Diplomatically that it would be sensible for everyone to let Paldemar through, so that he could deposit his prisoner and then rest, and the wardens agreed - and reiterated that all it would take was the password!

And then two actions happened simultaneously (the two players speaking over the top of one another): the dwarf "prisoner" made a break for freedom, charging one of the wardens and knocking him down and unconscious (a Bull Rush assisted by Rushing Cleats and, given the difference in capcity between the PC and the warden as well as the not-yet-in-combat mechanical context, one that I was happy to let knock the NPC unconscious as well as aside); and the wizard used Charm of the Dark Dream, possessing the warden (determined by a random roll to be the unconscious one, given the two PCs acted simultaneously) and hoping to quickly learn the password by reading his mind (a DC 30 Arcana check).

The ranger-cleric tried to do something at this point (Intimidate, maybe?) but failed the check, distracted by the fact that "Paldemar" had vanished. But he quickly reappeared - the Arcana check failed. The player had spent an Action Point to make sure that his spell hit its target: he gets +3 from Action Surge and the best of two rolls from his paragon path, and being a generous GM I let him have two rolls for his Arcana check also. He rolled a 4 and a 7, which with a +19 bonus was not enough, so he left the body of the unconscious warden without having learned the password.

But the sorcerer made a DC 30 Bluff check and led the paladin to grab the Dwarf (one on each side) and drag him up the stairs, while yelling "This is a dangerous prisoner, and we need to get him inside!" The wizard cast Glorious Presence (? 13th level Encounter power from Heroes of the Feywild) to push back the awed wardens and hobgoblin soldiers. In the circumstances, this was enough for the PCs to get inside the temple fortress while the NPCs dithered in confusion and dissaray.

In skill challenge terms, the inability to provide the password was a failed final check - leading to 3 failures - but with some mitigation of the failure by the quick thinking of the players (and their PCs) to somewhat cover for their inability to work around the password. That is, they successfully made it into the temple, but with their deceit likely to be discovered in short order, when the unconscious warden recovered consciousness and was able to report (1) that the dwarf who charged him felt like he was under an illusion concealing helmet, weapons etc, and (2) that someone/thing had temporarily possessed him and tried to read his mind.

As the PCs continue through the tunnels, I described them coming to a cleft in the floor, and got them to describe how they would cross it. The drow sorcerer indicated that he would first fly over (using 16th level At Will Dominant Winds) and then . . . before he could finish, I launched into my beholder encounter, which I had designed inspired by this image (which is the cover art from Dungeonscape, I think):

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I'm not sure exactly what the artist intended, but to me it looks as if the central beholder is hovering over a chasm, with uneven rocky surfaces leading up to it (archer on one side, flaming sword guy on the other). I drew up my map similarly, including with the side tunnel (behind the tiefling) which on my version ran down into the chasm, and the columns, stalactites, etc.

I didn't use four beholders, only 2 - an eye tyrant (MV version) and an eye of flame advanced to 17th level and MM3-ed for damage. And also a 15th level roper from MV, introduced on a whim when the player of the wizard asked, before taking cover behind a column, if it looked suspicious. (Response to result of 28 on the Perception check before adding the +2 bonus for knowing what he is looking for - "Yes, yes it does!")

Anyway, the terrain was pretty awesome, though hugely punishing for the PCs. I managed to get both ranged strikers down the 200' drop into the stream below early in the encounter - the drow sorcerer made it back up (Dominant Winds again, using his Acrobatics to land on ledges on the cliff at the end of each movement) but the ranger-cleric, after getting about 120' back up on his flying carpet, got knocked back down to the bottom. He still ended up being pretty effective, though, shooting up at long range with Twin Strike.

I failed in my attempt (as an eye tyrant) to use my TK ray to impale the dwarf fighter on a stalactite, and then the PC invoker did that to me instead - twice - using a slide effect from his zone of darkness and cold (Shadowdark Invocation; I resolved the stalactite as 2d8+8 and immoblised (SE), which seemed OK for a 17th level situational but multi-use option).

The PCs then waited for worldfall of the tower. When it arrived, they got into an argument with its hag owners - the PCs insisted on entering the tower so they could cross over to the Feywild, but the hags refused to let them in. The PCs, and their players, (correctly) suspected the hags were helping the Winter Fey, and a home invasion ensued. The one surviving hag ended up agreeing to let the PCs in. But before even a short rest could be taken, the Aspect of Vecna reappeared bringing back up (undead cultists, lich vestiges and four demons under its control).

Despite having just come off the back of a 30th level encounter with the hags (and hangers-on), and having no recovery except action point refreshment (my one concession to a plea for something in lieu of a short rest), the players had no trouble dealing with this 28th level follow-up. In the first round the invoker dominated Vecna and made him dismiss one of his summoned demons. (I had described the demon appearing by means of gate. The player had his PC order Vecna to end the summoning. The established fictional positioning made this clearly feasible, and so it happened.) And then before Vecna's turn could come around again, the cleric-ranger stunned him with a reasonably newly acquired daily power. To add insult to injury, the chaos sorcerer rolled a 1, pushing Vecna 1 square. Vecna failed his save and went tumbling 100' to the ledges below the earthmote. Then something (I guess one of the demons?) hit the paladin and pushed him over the edge. At which point an Acrobatics roll was requested, to "do a Gandalf" (from the Two Towers film) and fall down on top of Vecna. The roll was successful, and the paladin dealt damage to Vecna with a successful basic attack, as well as taking damage himself for the fall.

While the other PCs cleaned up uptop, the paladin successfully solo-ed the now-bloodied Aspect, but (at the behest of the invoker) only knocked it unconscious (and then used his Marshal of Letherna daily utility to prevent any regeneration that might let it come back to consciousness). The invoker then came down and used an Undead Ward ritual, with the Aspect as a focus, to try and sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye. This was successful (between stats, feats and Sage of Ages the character has bonuses of around +40 to most of his ritual checks), so the imp came back to life, still powered up by the Eye but no longer subject to Vecna's influence.

In all these examples, it is the fiction that establishes the context for the declaration of the action, and the consequences of its resolution.

 

[Aldarc]

Now this is just me, but im curious how many others are effected by setting and/or adventure material? I do know that early 4E adventures were not rated highly (Id agree). Though, also PF2 early adventures also are not rated highly either. The Paizo adventure writers admitted to not really groking PF2 yet, so naturally the adventures suffered for it. So, this isnt an element that is unique to 4E, but definitely something to add to the list of things that went wrong at launch to think about. I know its a comon saying that "APs are for readin, not for playin" from folks. Many others dont like them at all. I wonder how much of that is due to edition change hangovers for writers in general?

You know the saying "armies prepare to fight their last war instead of their next war"? That's pretty much how the early 4e adventures were written. They were not really designed for the strengths of the 4e system. I think that this is where heavy early playtesting helps.

However, it didn't really affect me much because my GM mostly did homebrew settings and adventures.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Page 42 is even more clear about this, as it provides a DC and damage matrix (rules widget) to apply to any situation not otherwise covered. It's the epitome of Mechanics are King.

What's the epitome of fiction is king then? And how does one go about it?? (Edited for grammer)

 

[Micah Sweet]

What's the epitome of fiction is king then? And how does it go about it??

I really don't know. I'm open to ideas.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't think 4e is any more mechanically driven than other editions of D&D. I think that it's more mechanically sound and more mechanically complete... but I think those are different things.

I think that, even after all these years, most criticisms of 4e tend to rely on feelings rather than just an analysis of it as a game. The fact that it's still a topic that can result in 300 pages of discussion is pretty telling.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I really don't know. I'm open to ideas.

There's always GURPs or RiFTs???

More importantly, you need to establish what the fiction is.

 

[RealAlHazred]

What's the epitome of fiction is king then? And how does it go about it??

Probably something like the old Hero Wars/HeroQuest system, now called QuestWorlds. Anything can be an ability. You write a 100-word paragraph describing your character, and then go through it identifying abilities, i.e. what they can do. "A capabiel swordsman" would describe an ability, so you'd underline "swordsman" and then write down "Swordsman" on your ability list. Then, you'd assign a value; how you derive the value isn't important but for the purposes of this example, let's say you assign "17." When it comes time to do something, and you and the GM agree your "Swordsman" ability is the best one to use for whatever you're trying to do (fight some dude with a sword, probably) you roll a d20.

Now, the GM decides, is this a simple or complex contest? If it's a minion, or there are otherwise no dramatic stakes, they'd have you do it as a simple contest. In this case, if your d20 roll is under your ability, you got a success. If your opponent's roll is also under their ability, they'd also get a success. So, then you'd look at success quality; if you rolled higher then they did, while still rolling under your ability, you win. Obviously, the person with the higher ability has a better chance of winning, but it's not a guarantee. Also, if you roll exactly your ability, it's a critical success. If you roll over your ability, it's a failure, and if you roll a 20, it's a critical failure. All that's for a simple contest, you compare successes and (if necessary) success qualities.

Let's say your opponent is an NPC with a name, maybe your rival in town, or a known bandit leader or whatever. Then, you do a complex contest. The rules for that are complex (obviously), but it turns into multiple rounds, where you start out with a pool equal to your ability, and you might gain or lose points each round depending on how the dice go. And whosever pool reaches "0" first loses. It's a lot more complicated, but also allows for, for instance, people jumping into a fight in a later round to help or hinder, or doing something surprising or unexpected (maybe with a different ability) to try to discombobulate your opponent so you can turn the tables, etc.

 

[Hussar]

So I'd ask you to question your assumptions here.

I've previously written a bit about how the entire TSR-era was interoperable. You can basically mix-n-match all the material, from OD&D to 1e to 2e to Holmes Basic to Moldvay/Cook B/X to BECMI to R/C to ... all of it, and use it. You might have to do some slight adjustments, but it was common to see people running an OD&D module that was included with a Basic set for AD&D characters.

3e was the first significant rewriting, but while they had a fair amount of authority to change things around, they also did a lot to try and make sure that the continuity and legacy was maintained. The "Back to the Dungeon." The Greyhawk default (combined with a quick pivot to FR). The mechanics were changed and modernized, but they tried very hard to maintain a continuity with the past.*

Again, legacy and continuity may mean nothing to you, but it does mean something to other people. And I think that the marketing of 4e probably didn't help with those people.


*Of course, this wasn't enough for some people, which is why the OSR movement started.

And I get that. And I have so much respect for the OSR movement. They've clearly declared that continuity and legacy is important and are proudly standing on that hill.

But, then you have 5e. Take the recent example of alignment. 4e is decried because it changes alignment. Fair enough. That's factually true. They changed alignment.

Then 5e comes along and says, "Hold my beer." In 5e, alignment has been totally removed from the mechanics. You could take a black marker to every example of where alignment is written in 5e and nothing would change. It's entirely vestigial. But, they used those magic 9 words, so, they must be respecting continuity right? But, hang on, none of the classes are restricted by alignment (something that 4e brought to the table), none of the spells have anything to do with alignment. Heck, Paladins can't even Detect Evil anymore.

And that's perfectly fine. Totally respecting continuity?

Like I said, I can totally respect wanting legacy and continuity. It might not be important to me, but, I get that it's important. But, it seems like continuity or legacy is only important if someone doesn't like something. If someone likes Change X, then continuity is totally unimportant. We can change things all we like (5e alignment as an example). But, if we don't like something, whoa Nelly. We MUST respect legacy. It's so obviously self serving.

----

And, speaking of self serving. A point that hasn't really been raised here is the biases of Ben Rigg's himself. I mean, he's selling a book. He's not about to tell a significant portion of his potential audience anything they don't already want to hear. Not if he wants to keep selling books after all. It's hardly surprising that he's taking the position that he is. And, to be fair, it's an easy position to take. The run up to 4e was horrible. Absolutely a master class in what not to do when marketing a new product. Plus all the other crap that went on - the GSL, the murder/suicide, Hasbro's unrealistic goals, etc - it's not a surprise that 4e thudded into the ground hard.

To me, the true beauty of all of this is how WotC has managed to get ahead of all of the failures of 4e and manage the fandom so well for the past decade. They've managed to institute a system where they can make all these changes, which were absolutely rejected in 4e, and make them applauded in 5e.

 

[Pedantic]

These were ironically things - particularly the setting, alignments, and planes - that I loved about 4e that pulled me back to D&D after playing other d20 games. Because the Nentir Vale and the World Axis cosmology just "clicked" for me in a way that the Great Wheel and older settings I had been exposed to during my 3e days (e.g., Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, etc.) had not. I think that a lot of that was the "made for adventure" vibes and the strong Chaoskampf motif, which I'm fairly certain was the influence of James Wyatt.

I also almost felt that those alignment changes were made for me. For example, I never really saw much of a point in a difference between CG and NG or LE and NE, and I felt that CN was an excuse to skirt around playing CE, and so on. I'm not really the biggest fan of alignment, but these alignment changes made a lot more sense to me, particularly in light of the aforementioned Chaoskampf motif.

The whole "adventurable" concept was something I always found quite jarring. That, fundamentally, didn't really feel like a job of the setting to me. It is certainly interesting that you might need to go to a place made entirely of fire, and/or that Bytopia has some really weird gravity stuff going on and is mostly full of helpful gnomes, but the idea of redesigning all that in service of an adventuring party having something to do there always struck me as, I don't know, backwards? It's the job of the adventuring party to want things, to oppose the actions of some people, look for great treasure, have grand desires to change reality or whatever, and the world exists primarily as an obstacles to that; it is apathetic and uninterested in the party's wants, and thus routinely stands in their way.

Coming up with ways to to circumvent and/or overcome it was the whole point of the game. The real D&D fantasy is achieving enough personal power that with a little planning and effort you can overcome all of that (well, that and a fantasy that sanctified violence can solve problems) and force reality to give way to whatever those wants are.