4E Consequences: Being passive, cautious, or a loner is now unoptimized

[Kzach]

The 'passive' rogue idea is still quite possible in 4e.

It just requires a bit more tactically minded players who choose powers that grant or maintain combat advantage. The player I mentioned above played just such a rogue and his character virtually never got hit and yet dished out a lot of damage.

 

[Rechan]

The 'passive' rogue idea is still quite possible in 4e.

It just requires a bit more tactically minded players who choose powers that grant or maintain combat advantage. The player I mentioned above played just such a rogue and his character virtually never got hit and yet dished out a lot of damage.

Aye; there are a lot of powers that say "get combat advantage until the end of your turn".

 

[Dedekind]

As someone who loves being team player, the warlord has been the best thing ever. In fact, it was the class I always wanted to play, but never could.

As a counterpoint to the thread, if you are not willing to play as a team, than basically all the class abilities of Defenders and Leaders are diminished in value. That is sad, to me, but probably not the intention of the loaner.

 

[thelettuceman]

As for the 3rd... yes. And that's the entire reason I like 4e.

If your not a team player, don't play DND play Xbox

Good, the loner powergamer feels powerless. D&D is a game about being a member of a team.

See, this kind of opinion isn't helpful. Basically you're saying, "Its our way or the highway, sod off." D&D is a game about having fun and exploring other roles in a fantastic setting. Why should I be limited by the system to play a character that I don't want to? Sorry, but playing an interactive, dominating, frontline character is not something I always like to do, and I think that people need to respect that opinion. The system should be able to support both sides of the coin, if they wanted.

But then again, 4e is among the most elitest-producing game systems I've ever seen.

 

[Kzach]

But then again, 4e is among the most elitest-producing game systems I've ever seen.

And there we have it.

I knew there was a point to this thread.

 

[Rechan]

But then again, 4e is among the most elitest-producing game systems I've ever seen.

Obviously you've never seen WoD.

4e has nothing to do with my "elitism"; I've had this opinion since before 3e.

In my experience, loners screw the game for everyone else. Because they want to go alone, and thus the party cannot depend on them. Everyone has to sit on their hands while the loner uses up precious time being all loner with the DM. And, the loner often gets people killed because he runs out ahead or off, stumbles into an encounter, and dies, or drags enemies back to the party, or sets off an alarm. I've had games become an exercise in masochism because the Loner has no interest or reason to be with the group, and I've had games come to a screeching halt because the Loner declares, "I have no reason to go with you people, so I'm going to walk off."

It's the equivalent of everyone in a group of friends, sans one, deciding on going to a Chinese restaurant, and the man out takes every opportunity to make the others regret not choosing pizza like he wanted.

So, damn right I'll criticize someone's fun, when their idea of fun is at the expense of everyone else.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This topic has been a point of contention amongst the people who play LFR at our local gaming store. There's about 15-20 of us who play. Some have embraced the concept of roles and teamwork and others are still much more used to their 3e tactics and mindsets.

We have one guy who plays a Paladin who rarely, if ever marks people. He wants to use his actions in order to recover his Tempus Channel Divinity power so he can get guaranteed crits more often.

There was a combat where there were 3 humans with polearms standing in the room and some warlocks on catwalks above. The warlocks hit him, did a fair amount of damage to him and then it was hit turn. He readied his action until the guys with Polearms came into reach. He claimed that if he moved forward into melee, he was just going to die because he was low on hitpoints. One of his teammates got rather annoyed at him, since he was avoiding damage as a Defender. I, as the DM, agreed with that player which started a large argument.

The polearm wielding humans ended up splitting up and 2 attacked the Cleric and 1 attacked the Paladin. Some people claimed that was a good thing, in order to split up the damage amongst everyone and some claimed it was bad because the Paladin had larger healing surge values, hitpoints, and AC. The Paladin player and the Cleric player are both firmly convinced that delaying and letting the enemies come to you is the best tactic.

This argument finally came to a boiling point when one of the players at that table made a new character for LFR, a Drow Rogue who used a hand crossbow. The Rogue in question has +6 to hit with his hand crossbow at 1st level(18 dex and +2 prof bonus). He was playing up in an adventure(so he was playing an adventure designed for 3rd and 4th level characters). He missed probably 80% of his attacks for the whole adventure. When he did hit, he almost never had Combat Advantage.

In that group there were 3 Fighters. All the fighters were getting their butts kicked by a fairly hard encounter. We'd been doing a good job of marking to keep them on one of us then switching to another one of us and so on. We were ALL bloodied and the Cleric was out of heals. The Rogue was WAY at the back of the party doing the same thing every round: Moving to hide behind a wall, using Stealth, then Deft Striking to move into the open and firing. He was rolling 10-15 on the Stealth rolls, and the enemies had Passive Perceptions of 16, so he almost never got Combat Advantage, but he kept trying, hoping he'd roll high. Either way, he was missing nearly every time and had taken nearly no damage.

I suggested that if he was able to move up into melee and flank with the dagger he had with him that the +4 extra to hit and guaranteed sneak attack would be WAY more effective than his current tactics.

He blew up big time. He yelled at me, saying "I AM NOT PLAYING YOUR CHARACTER! STOP TELLING ME HOW TO PLAY! I AM NOT A MELEE ROGUE! I AM A RANGED ROGUE ONLY! NEVER MELEE! I DON'T WANT TO GET HIT!"

Even after the game, we went out for dinner with each other and he tried to convince me that his tactics were the best tactics for the situation and he would have died if he'd gone into melee. I told him that there were 3 fighters there, and he'd have been safe. He said that he didn't trust DMs to make attacks against the people they were marked to and that he was afraid that he'd die the round he got into melee.

 

[Asmor]

1. I've noticed some people get really discouraged when playing Defenders. Defenders get hit, get hit a lot, and get knocked unconscious a lot. A lot of players, especially those who are used to how 3E ran, just don't like getting beat on to the extent that 4E Defenders get abused. You really have to like being hit to play a Defender. Cautious players don't last as Defenders.

Bravo! The defenders are doing their jobs! The defender should be the first one to fall.

That said, the defenders in my game freaking never go unconscious. One of them's a fighter who's been maxed out on con (his schtick is that he just won't die-- and he won't). The other's a paladin, who only joined the game recently so I can't comment much on him... But I don't think I've ever seen the fighter use even half of his healing surges.

Then again, I usually play the monsters so that they do everything in their power to avoid getting tangled up with defenders, and will also frequently have monsters break off and attack the squishies anyways. It's a nice tactics because it lets the defender get some extra whacks in (making them feel useful), deals more damage to the monster (meaning the combat will end sooner), and spreads the feeling of danger and fear to other players.

2. Passive players have real problems with certain classes. You have to take risks and put yourself in harms way for you to accomplish anything as a Rogue. Our most passive player previously preferred the Rogue above all other classes, and she just hasn't been doing well with the 4E Rogue at all. I've seen that passive Rogue players can't consistently achieve combat advantage, and that the Rogue class is powerless without it, while I've seen aggressive players with no regard for life and limb keep combat advantage applied 90%+ of the time. I've also noticed that the 4E Warlock lacks obvious power, but can equal the other characters by taking risks, provoking opportunity attacks to move and attack at point blank range, drawing enemy fire, and being a general pest. People playing Warlocks as being stand back and shoot characters have been very disappointed, while an insane Halfling Starlock who spent most of his time in melee range running around at full speed was often the most effective character we had. On the other hand, classes like Laser Clerics and Wizards are well used by passive players.

If she wants to play like that, suggest she try an archer ranger.

3. Our loner player has a real problem with 4E. He isn't a team player, and he isn't getting the same results he got with 3E. In 3E, he was a powergamer who had all the big guns and dominated combat. In 4E, he doesn't synergize well with what everyone else is doing, and feels powerless.

So what you're saying is that in 3e, he was a loner and was powerful. In 4e, he's a loner and not powerful? I can't really make many suggestions without more info. What's he playing, and what's everyone else playing? Honestly, I find it hard to believe that he can't 'synergize' with them.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Bravo! The defenders are doing their jobs! The defender should be the first one to fall.

That said, the defenders in my game freaking never go unconscious. One of them's a fighter who's been maxed out on con (his schtick is that he just won't die-- and he won't). The other's a paladin, who only joined the game recently so I can't comment much on him... But I don't think I've ever seen the fighter use even half of his healing surges.

Then again, I usually play the monsters so that they do everything in their power to avoid getting tangled up with defenders, and will also frequently have monsters break off and attack the squishies anyways. It's a nice tactics because it lets the defender get some extra whacks in (making them feel useful), deals more damage to the monster (meaning the combat will end sooner), and spreads the feeling of danger and fear to other players.

Same here, and yet as a DM I knock the Defenders silly. It happens when the average encounter is level+2 vs the party.

If she wants to play like that, suggest she try an archer ranger.

That is definitely another choice, along with Cleric and Wizard. For the record, her next character will be a Druid. I think the issue isn't so much that passive players suck, its that passive players suck at certain classes, classes that may appeal to them from a fluff standpoint. If you're a passive, nonagressive player, you're likely going to suck at playing a Rogue. Just how 4E rolls.

So what you're saying is that in 3e, he was a loner and was powerful. In 4e, he's a loner and not powerful? I can't really make many suggestions without more info. What's he playing, and what's everyone else playing? Honestly, I find it hard to believe that he can't 'synergize' with them.

We recently had a game reset, but he had been playing Archer Rangers and Dark Warlocks in well balanced and optimized parties. His characters were on par with the other characters, but he didn't have the same impact on things he was used to having when he played 3E. He also tended to be ineffective due to not synergizing with what other people were doing.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Does 4e discriminate against loners? God, yes. And it fits perfectly within 4e's gamist paradigm. The goal of a loner character is to go do awesome things by himself. If he's having fun playing a loner character, he's doing so at the expense of the rest of the group, because every minute of gameplay he's doing fun things is a minute of gameplay four other people are doing nothing fun at all. It's a grossly unfair distribution of activity, and fits right in with the other "you don't get to play" mechanics that 4e eliminated. (Charm, confusion, save or die effects, etc.)

A friend of mine once said that 4e isn't World of Warcraft; it's Final Fantasy Tactics.