D&D 4E 4e: Death of the Bildungsroman

[I'm A Banana]

This is in error.

Yes, low-level combats can still be deadly.

Yes, low-level combatants are already considered "heroic."

The core of the post lies in the second point, not the first.

 

[drjones]

Regarding the powers, I certainly see where you're coming from, but the way I see it the DM just has to redouble his efforts in giving the PCs an appropriate fear of death. You know, kind of show them that "yeah, you can do all this fancy stuff, but there are still beings out there that are much, much tougher than you are, so watch it." I think the PCs can still feel weak without being rendered useless on a regular basis.

In my playtests using the rules we have my players ended several encounters with 2 of their 3 'death tics' filled. If you ask me 'I died' or 'it was a cakewalk' both make a less enjoyable story than 'I barely made it' and the tighter balance of the math in 4e looks to be making it more likely that the third outcome occurs.

but in general if you want to start your wizard as an apprentice and have him work his way up to power why not roleplay all that jazz and leave the dice rolling to the part of the game that is actually tactically interesting, ie. the part where you are a wizard. Do you miss being the weakling newbie or do you miss casting one spell per day? The first option can be roleplayed, the second is best fulfilled by not playing 4e since there are already thousands and thousands or pages of books detailing games just like that in previous editions.

 

[Dausuul]

The thing about the traditional fantasy Bildungsroman is that it requires mentors and protectors to guide and guard during the hero's initial learning period. And frankly, while that may make for a good story, it makes for a lousy RPG. See "DM of the Rings" for how it plays out; the character who in the novel is a beloved Wise Old Mentor, in a role-playing game becomes an obnoxiously powerful DMPC.

And there will still be plenty of "Remember back when we were wusses?" stories in 4E, for those who play through to the upper levels.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

If powers are relevant to monsters and players, then the concern is of no importance. Characters, while having more options than before, are facing monsters with the same number of options. I don't see this issue in 4E whatsoever.

 

[Irda Ranger]

The thing about the traditional fantasy Bildungsroman is that it requires mentors and protectors to guide and guard during the hero's initial learning period. And frankly, while that may make for a good story, it makes for a lousy RPG. See "DM of the Rings" for how it plays out; the character who in the novel is a beloved Wise Old Mentor, in a role-playing game becomes an obnoxiously powerful DMPC.

And there will still be plenty of "Remember back when we were wusses?" stories in 4E, for those who play through to the upper levels.

Yeah, it takes a bit of finesse and humility for the DM to run a "mentor" NPC without taking the limelight for himself. I don't think it's even possible when 12 years try it in their first game. Good thing this isn't the default!

I think the OP has correctly taken 4E's measure. I also suspect that there's enough demand for "n00b hero" genre to support a third-party supplement of some kind. Call it "Beginnings", or "The Basic Set", or something; it could provide a 0th level version of each class, maybe unlocking one class power and adding some HP at different milestones, until you reach 4E's 1st level, at which point regular 4E D&D play (call it "Expert Play", if you prefer) takes over.

How this would work with the GSL is uncertain.

 

[Ingolf]

Yes, low-level combats can still be deadly.

Yes, low-level combatants are already considered "heroic."

The core of the post lies in the second point, not the first.

Only for certain values of "heroic." While it's true that the default conceit is that player characters are already "heroes" - exactly what that means is up to the DMs and players of each particular game to decide. The difference between a "heroic" 1st level PC and a non-heroic 1st level NPC may be more a matter of willingness and bravery than fate or training.

Personally, the Bildungsroman type story-arc that the OP is bemoaning the loss of has never been done as well by D&D as so many people like to think. It's the sense of nostalgia, I think, and a fair amount of confirmation bias at work, that makes us fondly remember the times we followed (and wrote) the tale of Joe Schmoe from a pointless peasant to a pillar-of-heaven shaker. Meanwhile, we tend to forget Joe's brothers who didn't survive past 3rd level, or worse, the entire games and campaigns that suffered from a string of bad luck in the early going and died untimely deaths.

 

[DonAdam]

The hit points thing does not seem like a problem. I can easily foresee myself, as a DM, effectively describing ~2 wounds before any given creature drops: a minor wound for bloodied, and a major wound which knocks the person out of the fight. As far as I'm concerned, 4e hit points are a major gain in both cinematic emulation and verisimilitude. Losing hit points is usually just losing the momentum in a fight.

The endless spells are a problem for emulating most sorts of fantasy literature. But it seems easy enough to handle:

If wizards (or other spellcasters) are really world shakers, we're really talking about paragon level characters. So the easy solution is to only allow multclassed casters at the heroic tier. Then, whenever you shift tiers, give the character a chance to flip their class/multiclass combo (this seems to be the only way to change careers in 4e). So you could go from a rogue with wizard feats to a wizard with rogue feats. Voila.

 

[FadedC]

I'm not sure that I 100% agree. I mean I've read plenty of books where the main character was some blacksmiths apprentice in the beginning. But yet frequently in the begining they will still somehow manage to defeat two people at once or accomplish something reasonably impressive. It may be played up as luck, but it still happens.

If you look at a lvl 1 fighter his main abilities aren't anything too crazy. He can push somebody back with his shield, and he can sometimes follow through on a hit to do minor damage to somebody else. He MIGHT be able to take on 2 regular enemies at once, but would need some luck and to pull out all the stops. He certainly wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

None of this seems out of whack for bob the apprentice blacksmith who has been trained by his father on how to use the sword.

 

[Rechan]

Sure, we started out as 1st-Level Magic Users. But we never started out in an "Apprentice" class or a "Rat Catcher" or "Orphan" class. That's never been a part of the D&D experience. WHFRP? Yes. D&D? No.

I disagree. 1st level in 2e-3e felt like "Rat catchers" to me. You fought dire rats, and skeletons. Oh no.

 

[FadedC]

I disagree. 1st level in 2e-3e felt like "Rat catchers" to me. You fought dire rats, and skeletons. Oh no.

Well I'm not sure about dire rats, but taking on necromantically animated bones that move with supernatural speed and shrug off most weapon hits sounds pretty heroic to me.