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

[Cirex]

But, that doesn't really change my point. Written directly into the 3e rules, at almost any level, is the statistical possibility of killing a PC in one full attack. It might not be a high possibility, but, it's certainly there. A given creature can usually do 10xCR/round as a max. (give or take) Lots of PC's, including the front line fighter types, may have less than 10xlevel in hit points. Add in the chance of crits and it's not terribly difficult for the dice to declare you dead, despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong. Made no mistakes. The dice gods hate you today and you die.

To be fair though, we've wandered pretty far from the topic of the bildungsromans.

That's specially true with high strength creatures (giants mostly) wielding great axes or hammers or any x3 critical weapon. A Frost Giant will be dealing ~70,5 damage with a critical strike, not counting that a single attack power point will up that to 76,5 (I personally don't multiply attack power damage bonus on critical strikes). A level 9 bard or rogue will be at ~61 HP with constitution 16. Such hit would insta-kill them if they are unlucky enough.

Even if such classes are very careful, being hit can be unavoidable in certain situations (you need to help at melee, heal the tank, etc.)

 

[Vlademeer]

The point is, the bildungsroman is dead.

Starting characters in 4e are not simply acting heroically. They are, in fact, already heroes. Not very powerful yet, but heroes. They can shoot magic all day. They can plow down a roomful of minions. They can do all sorts of neat tricks - things that a yokel from a farm using his uncle's old sword simply couldn't imagine doing.

If you didn't want to play low level D&D in 3e, you could start everyone off at level 3. You are safe from a one-hit critical, pretty much. You have a nice assortment of spells, lasting 2-3 encounters. Fighters have some feats, etc. etc.

But what if you want to play a budding mage who ran away from his village in 4e? It was easy in 3e. Just play a 1st level sorcerer or wizard. But what about 4e?

Do I have to create an artificial level 0?

Don't you remember how satisfying it was in 3e when you looked by (10 levels) and said to your friend "remember when those 3 goblins in the alley scared you to death - and almost killed you?"

There is a satisfaction which arises from moving from a state of weakness to that of strength.

I don't feel that 4e supports this.

I feel the 4e paradigm is this: move from weak Hero to powerful Hero to epic Hero.

And that saddens me.

Yes, 4e might be a much better game for having level 1 be robust and varied. But by doing this, it further removes itself from the literary precedents I hold dear, and make (in my opinion) for a less rich and varied game.

I am generally the GM for my gaming group. Since I started playing many years ago I have GM far more than playing a character. I have always run a heroic campaign and I have always explained this to the players. I even limit the alignments to good aligned characters because my campaigns are based have always been based on the party doing heroic things and solving the problems of those that can't do it themselves.

I also really enjoy the low levels of game play (I actually don't like the excessive magic distribution of 3.X) because I like to see the party struggle through their early levels to earn a name for themselves when they get to the old school "named" level.

I don't believe this is going to be impossible in 4E. From what I have seen all the monsters have special abilities and with a nicely setup series of encounters it might not be as easy as people think. A group of characters against a group of enemies is going to have potential for problems for the party.

From what I have seen the powers of low level characters are not that bad when you add in the things the monsters themselves can do. In 4E the characters will have multiple choices to consider in combat but could still be "younglings" getting their heroic feet wet.

 

[hong]

But the theory is not a theory to explain popularity - it explains the relationship between rules and playstyle.

Perhaps, but if several people's preferred playstyles lie outside the scope of that theory, that still calls into question the usefulness of the theory.

To analyse adventure paths without expressing an evaluation of them: the players get to explore character (ie within limits imposed by the GM's world and the adventure designer's plot hook presuppositions the player gets to build and play a particular PC) and also settting, and they may even get to add a little colour here and there.

I think the key attraction of adventure paths, and "storyline-heavy" games in general, is that people often don't want to write a story. They want to _experience_ it, or at least the broad outline of it, in the same manner as experiencing a movie or book. In particular, they want the richness and depth that usually goes with having things plotted out beforehand. Also, writing a story takes time and effort, and there's no guarantee that what you end up with will be interesting or meaningful as a narrative.

That doesn't mean they want to be railroaded, by which I mean experience a story that isn't compelling, or which they have _no_ ability to influence. An adventure path (and CRPGs and JRPGs) has a fixed beginning and a fixed ending, but scope in the middle to do what you like. The freedom lies in choosing the path you take to the end, not necessarily in the ending itself. The art of good design lies in making invisible the constricting of options as you get closer to the end, so that players don't _feel_ like they're being forced to do stuff.

(Well, technically, APs will usually have two possible endings, ie success and failure. CRPGs may have a variety of different successful endings, and the possibility of failure is eliminated by being able to save/reload. But the point is that you're still relatively limited compared to "real" roleplaying.)

But surely you're not surprised that an academic who works in two literary disciplines (law, and social and political theory) prefers GNS, despite its inadequacies, to Robin Laws!

Heh. I'm an applied statistician. I just go for what works.

 

[Dausuul]

Of course, there is a really easy rationale behind why monsters don't kill all downed people. In a battle it is simply more pressing to attack the guy swinging a sword at you than the one on the ground bleeding to death.

That's only true if you can count on the guy on the ground staying on the ground. Frankly, if there's a good chance he can just pop back up next round--and there is--it's well worth taking an extra round to finish him off for good. It's like playing a video game where you pound the boss repeatedly and he goes into his "stunned animation." Just because he's temporarily incapacitated doesn't mean you can back off; if you do, he'll un-stun and start whaling on you again. You have to finish him off before he recovers.

(This is why I think there ought to be a rule that once you go negative, you're out for the rest of the encounter no matter how much healing you get. It adds a bit more sting to going negative, removes the incentive for the monsters to coup de grace everybody that drops, and avoids the silliness of "I'm up! I'm down! I'm up again! I'm down again! Up again!" Once I get a feel for 4E, I'll probably talk to my players about implementing such a house rule.)

However, one can argue that most monsters aren't used to encountering parties with lots of healing mojo. They're used to battling NPCs and other monsters, who go down and stay down, so they'll be surprised the first time an unconscious PC gets back up. After the second or third time, a smart monster might start CDG-ing, but hopefully it doesn't happen that often.

And regardless, PCs in 4E won't go negative in a single hit no matter what happens.

 

[Fifth Element]

No, I get it. Why did you rush into combat? Or, if you were surprise ambushed, why didn't the DM let you get away when things turned ugly?

Here's how an ambush works in 3.X. If you're surprised, your opponents get a surprise round in which they can take a standard action (such as shoot an arrow). Then you roll for initiative. If your intiative roll is bad, your opponents can end up with two attacks on you before you even get a chance to say "I run away".

When was the DM supposed to let you run away here?

I appreciate that your playstyle works for your group, except when you raise a concern where it doesn't. It sounds a lot like that DM is abdicating several decisions to the dice that they should be making themself

You seem to be arguing from two sides here. When the goblin attacks the wizard first, you say "did the DM roll for that randomly or did he choose to do that", implying that goblins using intelligent tactics is the DM's fault for deciding it that way. But you also state that DMs should not leave things to the dice, and to make decisions.[/quote]

Who decided to shoot an arrow at the wizard?

The DM, because he didn't want to determine it by random chance.

But, in order to avoid houserules, the game would have to be something like flawless. If the game isn't flawless, and house rules to correct the problems generally result from years of experimenting, how can new DMs be expected to run a reasonably enjoyable game?

Most people do house-rule, I believe. I house-rule all the time. But I think the place of house-ruling is for tweaking rules to suit your preferences a little better, not ignoring whole swaths of rules because they don't work at particular levels of play. That's something that should be fixed by the designers.

 

[Fifth Element]

I didn't say that. I said you may have to nudge things a bit to facilitate fun. That is the major goal of this new edition, isn't it?

Yes it is. One of the goals is to design the rules so that you don't have to fudge as much to facilite fun in low-level play.

After years of DMing 3.X, if WotC can make the DM's job easier (said job being facilitating fun), I'm all for it.

If fun is your goal, why would you oppose rule changes that make facilitating fun easier?

 

[MadMaligor]

With regards to the OP and some comments later in the thread...

It may have been mentioned before, but the most important thing to remember when playing D&D is that it is your game to adjust as you see fit. House rules abound in a huge portion of games out there. The game itself counts on this factor. Adjusting for a zero level campaign, or varying the magic availability/use is something you can, and should do if you are interested in that type of play/setting.

Personaly I think the idea that a magic user should be limited to a spell a day is a bit archaic (and I come from and loved that era of gaming). It didnt take us long to adjust the old system to something more akin to a 2nd Edition two spell + cantrips start point. Even then, thrown weapons like darts and daggers were chosen first, just because ranged combat was preferable to taking the risks of melee combat with a staff. It didnt seem very "wizardly" for lack of a better term.

I am looking forward to a system that hopefully balances the two factors.

Mal

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Don't agree with the OP for similar reasons that many outlined in this thread. D&D in any version does not really support this type of play and it does neccessarly mean that the characters start off weak and wimpy.

In fact in most fantasy literature the protagonists start off competent and where they are not, they are protected by those that can protect them. The latter situation is totally unsuitable for a D&D campaing unless the players start off playing the protectors and only play the protaganists when they heroically sacrifice themselves to allow the heros to escape.

As for modelling 0 level characters, then Piratecat's suggestion are pretty on the ball.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Yes it is. One of the goals is to design the rules so that you don't have to fudge as much to facilite fun in low-level play.

After years of DMing 3.X, if WotC can make the DM's job easier (said job being facilitating fun), I'm all for it.

If fun is your goal, why would you oppose rule changes that make facilitating fun easier?

I don't oppose those changes.

But surely, you aren't saying that the changes will de facto facilitate everyone's fun equally? That somehow, since the changes appeal to you and your group, they are inarguably the best method?

If fun is your goal, why would you adhere so tenaciously to the rules, especially when you simultaneously decry them for preventing it?

 

[LostSoul]

Perhaps, but if several people's preferred playstyles lie outside the scope of that theory, that still calls into question the usefulness of the theory.

I'd guess that most groups that enjoy the APs are gamist.