D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[JamesonCourage]

How is it less special if it happens for every group? Good grief, I want every group to be awesome and I want awesomeness as often as possible.

Awesome is only awesome in small doses. Otherwise, it's just cool.

Because it doesn't work. The penalty gets offset by bonuses and then it gets broken. We've seen this time and time again. And, note, it's the FIRST attack that's awesome, not the second one, so, what would be awesome about poisoning the dragon twice?

Again, that's if there are a lot of bonuses to offset it with. Again, they're going for much flatter math, which would indicate that they're cutting down on the sheer number of bonuses out there. Yes, bonuses could ruin a -5 penalty, but maybe not a -10 penalty. Then again, there may not be those types of bonuses, and they wouldn't even ruin the -5 penalty. We don't know about the system that much yet. But, trust me, another use or two -even potential use or two- will make a lot of people happy, and if it's mathematically inferior, it'll hardly be gamebreaking.

And, they did use the essence of death on the dragon more than once. It bypassed its damage reduction/natural armor/regeneration. It was cool the entire fight. But, that dragon rolling on the chart and just happening to swallow the hand that the guy coated beforehand? That was awesome, because it fit so perfectly with the player's tactic, and it was achieved passively and randomly. As always, play what you like

 

[JamesonCourage]

Awesome things aren't the only important part of the game. But they're one important part of it.

I don't think I ever claimed otherwise, and, from my point of view, I'm debating with Hussar on opportunities for more awesome moments, while his rejection of another use with a penalty seems to be arguing against more awesome moments. Again, from where I stand.

Any particular awesome thing is likely to happen only occasionally across games and groups, because it is a product of a particular group of PCs engaging a particular situation with a particular group of players and GMs. But in my view it becomes no less special because it's replicated in other places or on other occasions, or because similar things are happening at those places and times.

No, my point wasn't that another group did it, so it's less special. I'm saying that if "awesome" things happen all the time, they end up feeling "cool" instead of awesome. The sheer exposure to it on a regular basis blunts the "awesome" down a peg or two, much like overexposure to dragons or magical items makes them seem more mundane, rather than rare and wondrous.

I'm personally sceptical of the theory that, in real life, awesomeness needs to be diluted b boredom and suffering. And I've certainly seen no evidence that it's true of RPGing. It's a while since I played a lot of card games, but when I did it was a better experience to play with good players producing exciting plays, than to play with mediocre players producing boring plays. RPGing is the same, in my view. And when you're playing a gonzo fantasy RPG, "exciting" should mean over-the-top EXCITING!

Then again, I never asked for boredom and suffering, did I? No, awesome can be broken up by cool. I don't mind suffering in between, as I think it adds to the game. I'm also looking for a deeper experience than "playing a gonzo RPG that's over-the-top EXCITING!" but we want different things out of our games.

Again, overexposure to anything will blunt its emotional impact, and those truly awesome moments are the emotional ones where people are just sit there, awesomely stunned with excitement at what just happened. Those "did that really just happen? No way!" moments. The ones that people knew beforehand would likely fail, and then they rolled that critical hit, or that natural 20, and overcame all the obstacles that were stacked against them that they were sure would overcome them, but they went for it anyways.

That's awesome. Exploiting a two-headed dragon's weakness with your weapons covered in essence of death from an Avatar of Death? Cool. Having him bite your hand off after you covered it beforehand, "just in case"? Awesome.

Crashing a ship into another ship in the middle of the night after escaping from the brig while the party fights the sailors on it? Awesome. Crashing a ship into another ship over and over again? Cool.

Defeating your former ally in an emotionally charged battle while both sides rage around you, before he permanently blinds you with a flail from a bandit leader who killed your family, and you defeat him while blind after being trained by a guy named Taklos Darkseer with the sword gifted to you by your deceased wife (all in backstory before the fight)? Awesome. Fighting someone in a battle while it rages around you? Cool.

It's a matter of odds and frequency, and how they build up the situation. I know that awesome is purely subjective, and that different people have different tolerances for it, but for me and my group, it's about those two. Cool can show up in large doses (which is why I have a group with a Hercules-like PC, a man that can actively affect Fate, and the like), but awesome, from my viewpoint, necessarily can't. It's the top tier of cool, and that necessitates it happening less often.

So, again, please don't assume what I want includes only "awesome" and "boredom and suffering". If I was going for that, you wouldn't be climbing a fire dragon and killing it with your dagger by plunging it into the base of the skull (last session). Cool is strewn about it, as is some suffering (and, from time to time, boredom, though basically from the newest player who loves combat the most). There's also a lot of other things strewn about, including curiosity, emotions, and the like.

Again, I know it's totally subjective, but I want the possibility of awesome, and for me that means it doesn't happen often. Using an ability that is unlikely to succeed but has a chance means that it could fit that bill from time to time. Thus, my discussion on an encounter power that you can use multiple times by taking a penalty; it's unlikely to happen, but it might give you an awesome moment from time to time. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

overexposure to anything will blunt its emotional impact

As I said above, I'm not sure that this is true. But even if it is true, the emotions in question are the emotions of the players.

I do my best to listen only to decent music. I don't need to listen to crappy music in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent music that I listen to.

I do my best to read only decent fiction. I don't need to read crappy fiction in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent fiction that I read.

I do my best to watch only decent movies. I don't need to watch crappy movies in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent movies that I watch.

And the same is true for RPGing. I don't need pedestrian sessions and diluted excitement in order to "balance" the emotional impact of a handful of awesome moments.

Do the palates of critics, who spend their whole time engaging with a particular aesthetic medium, and experiencing the emotional impact that it has to offer, become jaded? Perhaps, although again I tend to be sceptical of this. But even were it so, my players and I spend most of our time engaged in other activities. I don't think, at four hours a fortnight, that becoming jaded by awesomeness is a serious risk.

I'm also looking for a deeper experience than "playing a gonzo RPG that's over-the-top EXCITING!" but we want different things out of our games.

Besides being a somewhat cheap shot, I think that this comment runs together tropes and themes.

I'll concede that it's an open question whether fantasy can, ultimately, evoke the same emotional and aesthetic depth as great literature, music, art or film. But I don't think that concession is a very costly one. Because I can certainly point to fantasy works - the best of Tolkien, the best of Le Guin's Earthsea, the movies Excalibur, Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - that evoke at least as much emotional and aesthetic depth as much second-best art. (And then there is also Wagner's opera, which arguably is among the greatest music ever and is clearly fantasy in its tropes.)

All fantasy is inherently gonzo by mainstream aesthetic standards. What is distinctive about D&D, in my view, is that it embraces this gonzo-ness and pushes it to new heights. (Contrast D&D with Runequest or Pendragon, for example.) But this is about tropes, not about depth. Gonzo fantasy clearly runs a risk of degenerating into silliness, but a movie like Hero or Crouching Tiger shows that it need not, and conversely the attempt to avoid gonzo in fantasy can undermine depth, as the end result becomes a type of self-absorbed po-facedness (some members of the Rolemaster community exhibit this trait, in my view).

Moreso than depth, I think that fantasy tropes curtail the viable thematic range that can be dealt with and communicated. But fantasy, with or without gonzo, can clearly deal with a wide range of traditional themes - loyalty, honour, duty, faith, betrayal, hope, despair, triumph, etc. And part of the point of approaching these themes via fantasy, in my point, is to use the fantasy tropes to paint them in a certain sort of larger-than-life way. Otherwise why fantasy at all? (Which is part of Eberron's non-appeal to me - it's kind of interesting in a "what if?" sort of way, but if I wanted to deal with the thematic space that a between-the-wars noir game opens up, what do I gain by incorporating fantasy tropes?)

 

[JamesonCourage]

As I said above, I'm not sure that this is true. But even if it is true, the emotions in question are the emotions of the players.

Me too?

I do my best to listen only to decent music. I don't need to listen to crappy music in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent music that I listen to.

I do my best to read only decent fiction. I don't need to read crappy fiction in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent fiction that I read.

I do my best to watch only decent movies. I don't need to watch crappy movies in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent movies that I watch.

Again, it's either "decent" or "crappy" now? It's not only "awesome" or "boredom and suffering" or "awesome" or "crappy". I said that before, but you appear to have missed it, or ignored it. I did comment quite at length on "cool" as compared to "awesome", and colloquially speaking (at least here), "cool" is quite different from "crappy."

And the same is true for RPGing. I don't need pedestrian sessions and diluted excitement in order to "balance" the emotional impact of a handful of awesome moments.

That's the thing! A handful of awesome moments. The more they pop up, the more "cool" they become, and the less "awesome" they become.

Do the palates of critics, who spend their whole time engaging with a particular aesthetic medium, and experiencing the emotional impact that it has to offer, become jaded? Perhaps, although again I tend to be sceptical of this. But even were it so, my players and I spend most of our time engaged in other activities. I don't think, at four hours a fortnight, that becoming jaded by awesomeness is a serious risk.

I strongly believe that constant exposure to any medium will mean you become more adjusted to its presence, and that the emotional impact that it first gave you will lessen (at least in frequency). You can still be regularly emotionally moved by it, but not in the same way you were at first -at least, not with the regularity you were at first.

Besides being a somewhat cheap shot, I think that this comment runs together tropes and themes.

I don't think it's any cheaper than implying I only want "awesome" or "boredom and suffering", or "decent" or "crappy" when I've explicitly talked about "awesome" becoming "cool" instead.

I'll concede that it's an open question whether fantasy can, ultimately, evoke the same emotional and aesthetic depth as great literature, music, art or film.

That's just a subjective call. I can get much more emotionally invested in an RPG than reading literature, listening to music, etc. It's like poetry I write, or short stories I write, etc.: it's mine. Because it's mine, I've invested my heart into it, or at least my mind.

But fantasy, with or without gonzo, can clearly deal with a wide range of traditional themes - loyalty, honour, duty, faith, betrayal, hope, despair, triumph, etc. And part of the point of approaching these themes via fantasy, in my point, is to use the fantasy tropes to paint them in a certain sort of larger-than-life way. Otherwise why fantasy at all? (Which is part of Eberron's non-appeal to me - it's kind of interesting in a "what if?" sort of way, but if I wanted to deal with the thematic space that a between-the-wars noir game opens up, what do I gain by incorporating fantasy tropes?)

Well, you're much more interested in exploring themes than I am (like I said, we want different things out of our game), but I am very interested in exploring human emotions that occur during deep roleplay (such as, as you point out, loyalty, honor, duty, faith, betrayal, hope, despair, triumph, etc.).

I want all of them in the game, and I want to feel them and invoke them in the players. After my long campaign first wrapped up (level 2-22ish over about 1,700 hours real time before returning to it several times later), I asked my players what one piece of advice their characters would give them. It was an emotional, poignant moment of quiet reflection from the players. They took something real away from those characters, and they knew them intimately.

I want that in my game. Exploring a particular theme is interesting, but exploring the human mind and emotional space is very interesting to me, and I want that to be what's most felt when the game ends and we look back on it. And, yes, I want lots of "remember when the dragon bit your hand off?!" and "remember when we combo'd Vecna with our signature moves, destroying his avatar?!", too.

But, at the end of the day, I want to look back and people to take personal, self-created lessons away from the game. I want to learn from the game, even if it's purely through creatively fleshing out a character concept. I think RPGs are particularly well-suited to this, and the real ability to explore other dimensions of yourself is what draws me in. As always, play what you like

 

[Zustiur]

How is it less special if it happens for every group? Good grief, I want every group to be awesome and I want awesomeness as often as possible.

As I said above, I'm not sure that this is true. But even if it is true, the emotions in question are the emotions of the players.

I do my best to listen only to decent music. I don't need to listen to crappy music in order to "balance" the emotional impact of the decent music that I listen to.

These two points are quite similar, so let me provide one counterpoint for both.

Take your favourite song, the one that you always love to hear, the one you always get up and sing or dance along with. That's an awesome song.
Now listen to it 100 times in a row.
Is it still your favourite?
No. It's no longer awesome. In fact, its probably painful.

Listen to it 100 times, but with lots of other music in between. Is it still your favourite? Maybe, but there's a good chance the awesomeness has faded to coolness or decency.


No one is saying you have to have a boring game in between moments of awesome.
All we're saying is that 'all awesome, all the time' isn't achievable.
It's like eating ice cream. It's a wonderful treat, but it doesn't make a good meal. You wouldn't eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch and tea (dinner).

 

[Bobbum Man]

Snippty-snip

Sorry...but to me this proposed system boils down to:

"Martial classes are at a minus to AWESOME, while casters get AWESOME as a class feature", even with your mitigating factors.

It's no use having unlimited access to maneuvers if the character is at a significant penalty to use them. All you will manage to accomplish here is incentivizing full-attack spam.

Also, the idea penalizing AWESOME and charging feat taxes to mitigate those penaltiesis just wrongheaded in my opinion, and part of the reason why I feel that 3rd edition was such a turd compared to the other iterations of the game. The baseline the game was designed from is that your character sucks at everything, and you had to plan your magic deck...err character build...around one or two things to not suck at. This design principle needs to go away.

Fun isn't something that needs to be rationed out to be meaningful, especially in a GAME.

 

[Hussar]

I'd point out something else here.

By adding in a -5 cumulative penalty (or whatever the meaningful penalty is), all we've done is shift the mark one step to the left. One of the big criticisms of the encounter powers is, "Why can't I do this more than once?" Why doesn't the same argument apply to this? "Why can't I do this more than twice?" After all, after the second time, with the whacking great penalty, you realistically can't do it more than twice.

Sure, you can try, but, you'd have to try twenty times to get it. Not likely going to happen. Even people with really bad math skills can likely figure out that if they need a 20 to do something, they're likely going to try something else.

And, if the penalty isn't cumulative, then we're right back into the same boat as 3e - the specialist spams the same thing over and over again, while the non-focused guy might try it once in a blue moon.

You could get the same result as the cumulative penalty simply by saying, "Encounter powers work twice per encounter". You get pretty much the same result (outside of that 5% chance of rolling a 20).

If I can do something twice fairly reliably, then why can't I do it three times? This is exactly the same criticism of the power system with an extra +1 tacked on.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

If I can do something twice fairly reliably, then why can't I do it three times? This is exactly the same criticism of the power system with an extra +1 tacked on.

I agree with most of what you are saying here, but not this part. First, encounter powers aren't used once per encounter. They are used zero or once. Infinite reuse is silly, but there is some sweet spot between "can't effectively do it" and "spamming" that could be somewhere north of one. The main reasons for stopping at one are:

1. Ease of handling -- you've used it this encounter or you haven't--simple check to record.
2. Maximum push to use other things in the encounter--by closing off options as the encounter progresses.

Those may even be good reasons for stopping at one, assuming that you set up the system to limit fights to a predictable number of rounds somewhat shorter than the available options. In any case, I'd say the limit should be a lot closer to zero than spamming. The trick is devising a mechanic that takes everything into consideration.

For example, you might have a recharge mechanic that works based on all encounter powers expended. Let's say that you roll a d6 at the end of your turn. If you roll less than the number of encounter powers expended, you get one encounter power back. (It's end of the turn to reduce analysis paralysis at the beginning of your next turn.) Until you've expended at least two such powers, you can't get one back. (Naturally, this system would work better if each character had at least two encounter powers to start with, and preferably more. To house rule 4E, allow 3 encounter powers at 1st level, but replace one each at 3rd and 7th level.)

Note that this encourages early use of encounter powers over dailies (though dailies that have encounter-long effects might still win out at times). You want to get your encounter powers used quickly, and keep them used, then use at wills and dailies and magic items to fill in while you wait for recharge to hit. Not that I'm saying this is superior to what 4E uses now, but it is a way to turn "zero to one" into "zero to two, maybe three in a long fight" without going all the way to "spam".

For a variant that adds less raw power, with different implications, have the encounter recharge d6 (or maybe d8 or d10) based on the number of encounter, daily, and item (encounter or daily) powers used thus far in the encounter. So now the impetus is to get this number up as high as you can without totally blowing through daily resources--while also getting at least one or two encounter powers used so that you have something to recharge.

It all depends on what result you want. The problem with a lot of the "design analysis" from our simulation loving friends is that they aren't clear what results they want.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I'd point out something else here.

By adding in a -5 cumulative penalty (or whatever the meaningful penalty is), all we've done is shift the mark one step to the left. One of the big criticisms of the encounter powers is, "Why can't I do this more than once?" Why doesn't the same argument apply to this? "Why can't I do this more than twice?" After all, after the second time, with the whacking great penalty, you realistically can't do it more than twice.

I think the fact that you can even try and fail (with a 5% chance of success) will satisfy a lot more people than "no, you can't try at all."

And, if the penalty isn't cumulative, then we're right back into the same boat as 3e - the specialist spams the same thing over and over again, while the non-focused guy might try it once in a blue moon.

Same thing in the same fight, at least. I mean, if I have an encounter power, odds are I'm spamming it in every fight anyways (until a little higher levels, when I have enough dailies/encounters that I may not in the first couple of fights).

You could get the same result as the cumulative penalty simply by saying, "Encounter powers work twice per encounter". You get pretty much the same result (outside of that 5% chance of rolling a 20).

I think I've made it clear why I like that 5% chance. I needed to roll that nat 20 to hit that pict thief with my javelin, but I rolled it (on a d20 that flashes when it rolls a 20, too!). It was awesome. I want that possibility.

No, I wouldn't use it often, but I might use it occasionally. Really. If I thought it was my best chance, I'd play against the odds. He's getting away, and I have something that'll immobilize him/slow him/make him prone/pull him back/etc., I might use it as a last resort. And, while "once per encounter, no exceptions" makes it impossible, 5% chance of success makes it awesome if I do land it.

If I can do something twice fairly reliably, then why can't I do it three times? This is exactly the same criticism of the power system with an extra +1 tacked on.

Yeah, why not do it three times? Thus a cumulative penalty rather than "twice" like you are suggesting. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

Take your favourite song, the one that you always love to hear, the one you always get up and sing or dance along with. That's an awesome song.
Now listen to it 100 times in a row.
Is it still your favourite?
No. It's no longer awesome. In fact, its probably painful.

Listen to it 100 times, but with lots of other music in between. Is it still your favourite? Maybe, but there's a good chance the awesomeness has faded to coolness or decency.

No one is saying you have to have a boring game in between moments of awesome.
All we're saying is that 'all awesome, all the time' isn't achievable.

Luckily, there is enough excellent music out there that I can listen to different excellent songs and pieces without listening to the same ones over and over.

Furthermore, some of the best music becomes better the more you listen to it, as (especially for someone like me, who is not musically trained) subtle features of its complexity gradually emerge.

I don't achieve all awesome, all the time, in my game, but I aim at it!

It's like eating ice cream. It's a wonderful treat, but it doesn't make a good meal. You wouldn't eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch and tea (dinner).

But ice cream is a particularly bad example, because as a pleasure it has almost no subtlety or complexity. Good music, and good gaming, are very different from that.

Fun isn't something that needs to be rationed out to be meaningful, especially in a GAME.

Exactly.