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

[Majoru Oakheart]

Clearly, again as seems to be agreed, there are plenty who don't have this problem. Even if the people who can't avoid it are stuck with it due to some fundamental and completely permanent internal factor, it is still a function of the person, not the system. (Not that I claim or even believe this internal factor exists)

There are many who don't have this problem. But they are working around the problem in a way that doesn't work for every group. Some don't consciously work around it. They just play in a style that avoids the problem.

It's a lot like:

"The radio on this car doesn't work. When you turn it on, nothing but static comes out."
"The radio works fine, it shows the time and plays CDs without any problem."
"But I don't want to use CDs or look at the time, I want to know what song is playing on my favorite radio station."
"I'm not sure what you are talking about. I turn on the radio, music comes on. It works fine. You just need to do it the right way. The people who ride around in my car have never run into any problem with the radio."
"Have you tried turning it to tuner and then tuning it to 94.3 to listen to the radio station there?"
"No. I've never had any need to listen to 94.3 since I have CDs."
The more I read discussions about the 15MAD, the more it always seems the same way:

"I don't have a problem with 15MAD, none of the people I've ever known have had a problem with the 15MAD."
"What happens when your wizard uses all his spells in the first battle?"
"Our wizard doesn't do that. Why would a wizard use all his spells in one battle? Sounds like a player problem."
"Well, if he uses all his spells in the first battle, then he more easily defeats the enemies. So, it makes sense mathematically for him to do so."
"No it doesn't. If he uses all his spells in the first battle, then he won't have any spells for later combats. This is a problem with your player, not with the rule system."
"But if you can kill off all the enemies in 2 rounds without taking damage if you cast all your spells but it takes 5 rounds and you nearly die if you don't cast all your spells, doesn't it make sense for players to do this?"
"No, because then they'll run into a problem with a 15MAD. Plus they'll fail to save the princess who is going to die tonight."
"What if the quest doesn't have a time limit?"
"Don't make quests without time limits. That's stupid."
.......

It just seems like the answer to why certain groups don't have an issue with the 15MAD is because....they don't want to have a problem with the 15MAD...and they've all agreed to play the game in a way that prevents it.

Which works well, if you have a group of people who are benevolent enough to realize that it's more fun to play the game in that way. But I find that asking them to do so doesn't work for my players.

It's the equivalent of asking my players if they'd like to do half the damage listed on their character sheets because it'll be more fun if we do it that way. They'd all look at me funny. And likely laugh.

 

[nightwyrm]

So with all this talk about tripping gelatinous cubes a few pages ago, I took a look at their 3.5 stats. Did you know you could trip a cube in 3.5? Oozes are immune to stuns, sleeps, paralyzes, flanking etc. but not to tripping.

 

[billd91]

There are many who don't have this problem. But they are working around the problem in a way that doesn't work for every group. Some don't consciously work around it. They just play in a style that avoids the problem.

It's a lot like:

"The radio on this car doesn't work. When you turn it on, nothing but static comes out."
"The radio works fine, it shows the time and plays CDs without any problem."
"But I don't want to use CDs or look at the time, I want to know what song is playing on my favorite radio station."
"I'm not sure what you are talking about. I turn on the radio, music comes on. It works fine. You just need to do it the right way. The people who ride around in my car have never run into any problem with the radio."
"Have you tried turning it to tuner and then tuning it to 94.3 to listen to the radio station there?"
"No. I've never had any need to listen to 94.3 since I have CDs."

Bad, even loaded, analogy. In the case of the broken car radio, it actually isn't working for part of its functions. You're presupposing editions of D&D are broken by making that analogy. That is not the case. To fit better you have to realize that 15 minute day play styles are every bit as much a choice compared to other viable alternatives.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not trying to be mean, Hussar, but this bit made me chuckle. As always, play what you like

LOL. Rereading that, it makes me chuckle too.

Bill91 - not really. Sure, it might be loaded, but, the point is still there.

For those of us who had the 15 MAD, the game was broken because we didn't WANT a 15 MAD. Now, personally, I got around it with healing wands and reserve. That solved 99% of the problem. But, again, the problem was there to be solved. Half the time when 15 MAD arguments come up, there's a pretty vocal bunch who refuses to even acknowledge that the issue exists at all.

Which makes it really frustrating to discuss when the other side of the discussion refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the problem in the first place.

See, to me, you're right. The 15 MAD is a play choice. You don't have to play that way. But, even so, the mechanics are channelling you down certain lanes of play if you want to avoid the 15 MAD - "smart play", "timed adventures" "random encounters" etc. If you don't want to choose one of these "fixed" playstyles, then you wind up with the 15 MAD.

To me, particularly in 3e, 15 MAD is a systemic issue. Yes, you can work around it. I certainly did. Or, you can go with a different system, and you get 4e where you don't have 15 MAD issues right out of the gate.

 

[Mattachine]

I like the Come and Get It Power, a lot. I love the way it simulates the scene in which the tough ol'fighter goads a load of mooks into charging him. Sure, there are other ways to make that happen, but they are either inelegant, or require the DM to agree with the player. The power solution is great. A DM can easily rule that it doesn't work on a given creature, too. Fourth edition marked a return to sensible DM rulings, something that 3e stepped far away from.

Let's keep that baby, shall we? DMs make rulings. There isn't, nor should there be, a rule for everything.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Two points here.

I like the Come and Get It Power, a lot. I love the way it simulates the scene in which the tough ol'fighter goads a load of mooks into charging him. Sure, there are other ways to make that happen, but they are either inelegant, or require the DM to agree with the player. The power solution is great.

"Narrative" facets of D&D work well, and satisfy the "traditional" crowd, in two cases. First, when they have an in-game rationale provided which matches the mechanics. For instance, the Goad feat in 3e forces targets who threaten you to attack you in melee instead of someone else, and requires a Will save against a Cha-based DC, affects only intelligent creatures, and is mind-affecting. That means that while players can (and often do) object to the way it works ("martial mind control!") they can still take those points and determine what's actually happening in-game (it's Cha vs. Will, so it's like intimidate, it affects intelligent creatures only, so it's based on language or the like rather than body language that would work on animals, etc.) and there are defined ways to defend against it (mind-affecting immunity) that make sense in-game.

Goad is basically "martial mind control," but it is explicitly so, as it has the [mind-affecting] tag, so anything that would logically protect against mind control works against that too. So while it doesn't simulate our reality at all, it is internally self-consistent with D&D physics and action movie physics, which gives players a point of reference to start using it/changing it/whatever from. Come and Get It does not provide such an in-game rationale. It happens automatically regardless of enemy type, it forces movement in a particular direction rather than making their attack choice for them, and doesn't have any way to protect against it. Even something simple like an attack of Cha vs. Will or even Str vs. Will would reduce the "automatic mind control" aspect and convey the fact that he's doing something scary/taunting to intimidate opponents, but the fact that it just works is a major part of the problem. It's good that a fighter can use it to draw out mooks action-movie style, it's bad that he can also draw out bosses, mindless skeletons, dishonorable villains, and any other things too.

The second case is a purely metagame mechanic, when the mechanics are invisible to characters. Action points are a good example, because while the player can use them to affect the narrative the character has no idea how or when an action point is used or even what one is beyond the fact that they're luckier than normal when it counts. So "traditional" gamers are not averse to narrative mechanics, they're averse to ones that affect the narrative unintuitively or make narrative tropes available/visible to the characters when they shouldn't be.

A DM can easily rule that it doesn't work on a given creature, too. Fourth edition marked a return to sensible DM rulings, something that 3e stepped far away from.

Let's keep that baby, shall we? DMs make rulings. There isn't, nor should there be, a rule for everything.

Another rant, once again spoilered for length:

[sblock]See my earlier rant regarding page 42 and the gap between codified rules and ad-hoc rulings. You may have heard of the Oberoni Fallacy before, which says that "The DM can fix it, so it's not broken" is not valid reasoning. Yes, the DM can rule that you can't trip an ooze, the DM can rule that CaGI doesn't work on certain opponents, the DM can work to make the 15 minute day not happen, but he should not have to. 3e and 4e are both guilty of this in some respects, but it's slightly more problematic in 4e due to how much more they've codified everything else.

You're right that there shouldn't have to be a rule for everything, but there are two caveats. First, you can't say "I don't want to have to ask my DM if I can do this! I'm glad it works exactly as it says it does without the DM having to agree with the player!" and then say "Well, you know, the DM can change stuff if he wants, there shouldn't be a rule for everything...." Either codify everything to the same standards as everything else, or leave a hole in the rules for the DM to fill as desired, but don't try to do both with the same thing at the same time--and if you're going to do both for different aspects of the game, make things that are the same in every game (character-based stuff like powers and classes) codified and things that will differ between games (setting-based stuff like monster frequency and item availability) open to rulings.

Second, the more frequently you have to make rulings, the worse the game will play. And let me clarify that before you say "But AD&D--!" In AD&D (which I played and DMed for years, by the way, I'm not new as of 3e) there are certain areas of the rules that are left for DMs to fill in and there are certain areas that a DM might want to change. If you're playing 1e and you find that it doesn't have a bartering system, or you find that you want to alter how weapon specialization works, you can make a ruling and move on. Once you make that ruling, it's set that way for your games, and everyone knows how it works moving forward. However, those kinds of rulings are what we call houserules nowadays--AD&D DMs may have had pages and pages of houserules in big binders to be explained to new players, but once those new rules were explained they didn't have to be again.

The more you have to make rulings during the game, the more things will slow down, because of the cascading effects, increased interruption of play, and the increased complexity of newer rulesets. If a 1e fighter wants to trip an ooze, has asks the DM, the DM can just say "no," the game moves on. If a 4e fighter wants to use a power on an enemy and the DM says no, (A) that affects that power from now on, (B) it has implications for similar powers, (C) he has to say "no, actually, that didn't do X, it only does Y" and cause takebacks and discussions and such because the default assumption is that the power works as-written, and (D) 4e combats involve many more discrete effects per character and many more characters, vastly increasing the opportunities for rulings and slowdowns when rulings are made.

The variation in effects in the power system makes this worse, as every exception is a point of failure to introduce new arguments and rulings. If a 3e DM decides that you can't push an ooze without magic, he makes a ruling on the bull rush combat maneuver and moves on, because basically everything involving moving enemies uses a function call to bull rush and there's only one special case (nonmagic bull rush vs magic bull rush). "Bull rush doesn't work on Oozes without magic" is a nice simple rule; bull rush is defined, Ooze is defined, and (Ex) vs. (Sp/Su) is defined. If a 4e DM decides you can't move an ooze, he has to make rulings on different powers individually because (A) the powers have different mechanisms (persuasion vs. brute force vs. etc.) and (B) there's no "ooze" category to apply changes to, so he'd have to determine this for individual monsters. "Forced movement that relies on physical force cannot move an amorphous creature" is not a good rule, as "physical forced movement" and "amorphous creature" are not tags, therefore leading to corner-cases where things perhaps should work but don't or vice versa.

Ideally, a game should be able to run without a DM contradicting anything--there may be areas where the rules say "DMs, make something up," and those should be few and far between in modern games, but the game should be able to play well and cohere without the DM having to step in and rewrite the grapple and diplomacy rules from scratch or make rulings on a bunch of powers. Once the game is functional, then the DM can make whatever houserules and rulings he wants. Houserules, rulings, and custom contents are there to make a game work better for an individual group, not to make the game work at all, because DM quality varies drastically among groups as I'm sure anyone who has played under bad DMs is aware and because rules-heavy systems relying on rulings to work or encouraging designers to lazily rely on DMs to fix things is frankly embarrassing today.

I'm happy to make on-the-fly rulings when I run AD&D, as the system is fairly rules-light and flexible relative to modern games and many things resolve faster. When I run 3e and 4e, I keep rulings to a minimum and rely on houserules, letting everything else play out as the rules indicate. Rulings are not inherently bad, I hope that's not the message people take away from this rant, but different systems work better with rulings vs. houserules vs. rules and different areas are better to rule than others. For 5e to rely on rulings would be an absolutely terrible decision if it's based on 3e or 4e (we know better with 3e and codification is much higher with 4e) and still bad but not as much if it's based on AD&D.[/sblock]

 

[Mattachine]

I respectfully disagree. Fourth edition DMG specifically calls for the DM to make rulings. I appreciated that--it removed some of the rules-lawyering of 3e.

Further, I didn't need to wait for errata to tell me that an ooze couldn't be knocked prone, or that a gelatinous cube could not be affected by Come and Get It.

I don't think a new rules set should rely on rulings--4e certainly doesn't. I think that the new rules should specifically tell DMs that it's okay to make rulings--in fact, that he or she should do so. I think that should be pointed out in the PHB, as well.

 

[Kynn]

So with all this talk about tripping gelatinous cubes a few pages ago, I took a look at their 3.5 stats. Did you know you could trip a cube in 3.5? Oozes are immune to stuns, sleeps, paralyzes, flanking etc. but not to tripping.

Gelatinous cubes are the bane of every edition's verisimilitude!

 

[Mattachine]

Gelatinous cubes are the bane of every edition's verisimilitude!

Heck, the cube is a "game mechanics" monster, right up there with trappers, lurkers above, and rust monsters.

Ah, that Gygax . . .

 

[Ahnehnois]

But, the 15 MAD is pretty easy to see. I've recently spent a lot of time trying to get people to articulate how they DON'T have the 15 MAD, and, virtually without fail, they cannot do so.
...
What is generally not at issue is the existence of the 15 MAD in the first place.

I don't see it in practice because I find it very rare that a party would face more than one challenging combat encounter in a game day, and because my players conserve resources pretty effectively. Also, I use spell points, which grants casters more flexibility and staying power. Even moderate level casters rarely run out of useful spells in my game. I can imagine where different styles would differ in that point.

The question is not "can a spellcaster blow all his useful spells for the day in a matter of minutes?". It's whether that is indeed a problem, given that this concept is the foundation of how (pre-power) D&D has been balanced. If the casters never run out of spells and feel useless, why would we have rules limiting their spells per day at all? And how would the basic fighter/caster dichotomy be relevant? The premise of the classic D&D class system is that fighters can whack all day, while casters have to deal with an extra layer of resource management. They sometimes run out of spells. This is not necessarily a "problem", it's supposed to happen.

People who complained about this issue in play are generally articulating a situation where a party is expected to face multiple combat encounters but instead stops and rests to recover hit points and abilities, which feels game-y and anticlimactic. This, however, is more of a DMing issue. I don't see how a DM who didn't genuinely want this to happen could set up a set of circumstances that allowed it. There are so many simple ways of structuring a game that make this a non-issue. Thus, the 15 MAD as a game design problem is somewhat mythical, even though casters certainly do run out of spells.

OTOH, complaints about specific powers tend to be very, very specific.

No one complains about fighters having spells? Warlords healing with words? Siloing of combat and noncombat abilities? Or homogeneity of characters? Or the power sources that were invented to underly the powers? Or the definition of an encounter? Or why martial powers are limited by day or by encounter? They only complain about specific powers? I don't agree with that at all. There are a lot of systemic issues with the power system. It's at the center of why we're talking about 5e in the first place.

Even the specific power complaints, however, are symptomatic of systemic issues. The very existence of a martial "power source" seems to have been taken as a justification to invent a wide variety of reality-bending character abilities to fill mechanical niches, many of which have inspired debate.

If anything is going to come of 5e, the entire paradigm has to change.