D&D 4E 4e -- Is The World Made Of Cheese?
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skipdog172
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I cannot fathom a situation where specific hardness rules cannot be figured out on the fly. I have yet to see anybody produce a situation in this thread that is not very easily resolved if the DM simply spends a few seconds to think about what MAKES SENSE or what advances the story in the best way.
I just cannot think of a situation where ultra-realistic hardness rules are necessary. Either something makes sense or it doesn't. The time it takes to do something seems so much more reliant on the DM deciding how to best advance the adventure. I see no point in having strict "it takes you 5 minutes on this type of material" rules. Shouldn't the important thing be about what makes the most sense in accordance with what excitement the DM has planned for the party?
Can somebody please give an example where hardness rules make-or-break an encounter or situation? I am just having a hard time understanding why it is so important to know exactly how long it takes to dig through a wall and why it must be uniform across all games. It makes a lot more sense to me for the DM to decide in a way that makes the adventure more exciting or keeps it moving in the most fun way possible.
To me, it just seems pretty standard to ask, "DM, can we dig through this wall with our weapons?". I don't see a point in the players asking "what is the wall made of" so that they can dig into the rules and find out the hardness and exploit the situation. The most important thing to me, is the DM being able to dictate the pace and excitement of the adventure without the players trying to bend rules or whine that they can't do something that doesn't make sense because the rules say they can. I don't see how hardness rules helps in that aspect.
It seems like 4e is focusing more on the DM providing the PCs with a FUN adventure, not an ultra-realistic adventure. I can't see any reasonable DM taking more than a few seconds to think about any situation that has been proposed in this thread. If these situations do exist, post them.
I just cannot think of a situation where ultra-realistic hardness rules are necessary. Either something makes sense or it doesn't. The time it takes to do something seems so much more reliant on the DM deciding how to best advance the adventure. I see no point in having strict "it takes you 5 minutes on this type of material" rules. Shouldn't the important thing be about what makes the most sense in accordance with what excitement the DM has planned for the party?
Can somebody please give an example where hardness rules make-or-break an encounter or situation? I am just having a hard time understanding why it is so important to know exactly how long it takes to dig through a wall and why it must be uniform across all games. It makes a lot more sense to me for the DM to decide in a way that makes the adventure more exciting or keeps it moving in the most fun way possible.
To me, it just seems pretty standard to ask, "DM, can we dig through this wall with our weapons?". I don't see a point in the players asking "what is the wall made of" so that they can dig into the rules and find out the hardness and exploit the situation. The most important thing to me, is the DM being able to dictate the pace and excitement of the adventure without the players trying to bend rules or whine that they can't do something that doesn't make sense because the rules say they can. I don't see how hardness rules helps in that aspect.
It seems like 4e is focusing more on the DM providing the PCs with a FUN adventure, not an ultra-realistic adventure. I can't see any reasonable DM taking more than a few seconds to think about any situation that has been proposed in this thread. If these situations do exist, post them.
I'm late to the thread, but what the hell.
To my mind, there are three possible circumstances when rules for damaging items can come into play. The crucial factors are the scale of the damage to be done and the amount of time available to the damage.
First: The damage has to be done in a matter of moments. You want to cut the lines holding the suspension bridge before the Orcs can get across. You want to break through a metal grate in the ceiling before the room fills with water. You want to bash down the door before the goblins on the other side hear you.
In these cases, the 3E hardness rules work fairly well. The power-attacking fighter with a greatsword might overcome the grate's hardness, but he might not obliterate it in one blow. Now the room is half full of water. The barbarian doesn't demolish the door with his first shot, and the goblins hear you coming. When round-to-round timing is important, you don't just need to know IF you can destroy the item. You need to know how fast.
Second. The PC's have ample time to destroy the item. You want to break down the door, and nobody's around. You're trapped in a cell and want to bend the bars before the guard comes back with "breakfast". You've defeated the evil cultists, and now you want to smash their unholy altar.
To me, these situations are fairly binary. Either the PC's possess the tools and strength to do the job, or they don't. If the dwarf has a half-hour to go about his business, why bother rolling a bunch of dice to exactly how long it takes to get through the door? If he can break it, he does. If he can't, he doesn't.
Third. Long term projects that aren't really about destroying items. This mostly includes tunneling and mining. The player's want to sap the castle's foundation. They want to dig their way around the traps in the Tomb of Horrors. They want to build their own dungeons.
IMO, the 3e hardness rules are too fine-grained to address these issues in a satisfying way. Consider mining through stone. How many tools can overcome the stone's hardness 8? It's a weapon of war, not a mining tool, but I'll note that the heavy pick only does 1d6 per hit. Further, tracking the stone wall's 500 hit points seems unnecessarily tedious.
I think the better way is the way the 1E DMG handles it: a properly equipped miner can move X cubic feet of stone per 8 hours of work.
To my mind, there are three possible circumstances when rules for damaging items can come into play. The crucial factors are the scale of the damage to be done and the amount of time available to the damage.
First: The damage has to be done in a matter of moments. You want to cut the lines holding the suspension bridge before the Orcs can get across. You want to break through a metal grate in the ceiling before the room fills with water. You want to bash down the door before the goblins on the other side hear you.
In these cases, the 3E hardness rules work fairly well. The power-attacking fighter with a greatsword might overcome the grate's hardness, but he might not obliterate it in one blow. Now the room is half full of water. The barbarian doesn't demolish the door with his first shot, and the goblins hear you coming. When round-to-round timing is important, you don't just need to know IF you can destroy the item. You need to know how fast.
Second. The PC's have ample time to destroy the item. You want to break down the door, and nobody's around. You're trapped in a cell and want to bend the bars before the guard comes back with "breakfast". You've defeated the evil cultists, and now you want to smash their unholy altar.
To me, these situations are fairly binary. Either the PC's possess the tools and strength to do the job, or they don't. If the dwarf has a half-hour to go about his business, why bother rolling a bunch of dice to exactly how long it takes to get through the door? If he can break it, he does. If he can't, he doesn't.
Third. Long term projects that aren't really about destroying items. This mostly includes tunneling and mining. The player's want to sap the castle's foundation. They want to dig their way around the traps in the Tomb of Horrors. They want to build their own dungeons.
IMO, the 3e hardness rules are too fine-grained to address these issues in a satisfying way. Consider mining through stone. How many tools can overcome the stone's hardness 8? It's a weapon of war, not a mining tool, but I'll note that the heavy pick only does 1d6 per hit. Further, tracking the stone wall's 500 hit points seems unnecessarily tedious.
I think the better way is the way the 1E DMG handles it: a properly equipped miner can move X cubic feet of stone per 8 hours of work.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
For my part, I regret their choice because it limits future expansion on a rule base into other avenues.
This sort of thing actually comes up a LOT in modern-era games, which are my predominant area of interest, and the hardness rules served pretty well there, where hardness didn't become meaningless quickly. It translated out.
Sure, in a few years when d20Modern v2.0 is released, we might have something back in, but for now we don't, and I'm already quite a way in on putting together my own modern framework. Whatever I have to create is something additional that takes my time.
It wasn't, even, that they 'left out' the hardness rules. They changed them, utterly, BY DESIGN. The new rules involve increasing the hit points of an object to make it "stronger" or decreasing them if it is "delicate".
The only reason I can see for doing this was 'simplicity', by removing an extra math step.
And that's my own, personal complaint about 4E. In a lot of areas they removed small complexity ... which is noble, if it remained that way, but then they added it all back in somewhere else.
We no longer have to do adding and multiplication on a crit!
UNLESS we get a weapon that we need to do that with ...
Etc.
At the end of the day it removes a modeled system and replaces it with something else, which has a peculiar impact on me. I'm not advocating that everybody burn their D&D books, it's just one in a list of things they did that I don't like.
That list is next to the things they did that I do like.
--fje
This sort of thing actually comes up a LOT in modern-era games, which are my predominant area of interest, and the hardness rules served pretty well there, where hardness didn't become meaningless quickly. It translated out.
Sure, in a few years when d20Modern v2.0 is released, we might have something back in, but for now we don't, and I'm already quite a way in on putting together my own modern framework. Whatever I have to create is something additional that takes my time.
It wasn't, even, that they 'left out' the hardness rules. They changed them, utterly, BY DESIGN. The new rules involve increasing the hit points of an object to make it "stronger" or decreasing them if it is "delicate".
The only reason I can see for doing this was 'simplicity', by removing an extra math step.
And that's my own, personal complaint about 4E. In a lot of areas they removed small complexity ... which is noble, if it remained that way, but then they added it all back in somewhere else.
We no longer have to do adding and multiplication on a crit!
UNLESS we get a weapon that we need to do that with ...
Etc.
At the end of the day it removes a modeled system and replaces it with something else, which has a peculiar impact on me. I'm not advocating that everybody burn their D&D books, it's just one in a list of things they did that I don't like.
That list is next to the things they did that I do like.
--fje
Hussar said:
Unfortunately, lots of people disagree with you. Lots and lots and lots of people.
Obryn
Hero
Heck, I consider myself a 4e fan, but I think the lack of object hardness rules is a pretty big oversight.ProfessorCirno said:
If DM fiat is the expected solution to the "tunneling through the dungeon" problem, why list HPs for walls in the first place?
I mean, I'm going hit this with the Rule 0 Stick, but I'd rather have something clean & more sensible built in rather than tacking it on.
-O
It is apparent that the decision was "object hit points, especially with material hit point multipliers, is all we need for object hardness rules."Obryn said:
That the stat "Hardness" is not in the DMG does not mean object hardness rules do not exist; it only means that those rules are not the same as they were in 3.x.
This is a strawman argument. The DMG does not list hit points for walls.
Period.
It lists Break DCs (for walls up to 3 ft thick).
It lists HPs for objects, as clearly distinct from walls.
I think the way 4e is written, knocking down an adamantium door would be a skill challenge - not something you could do with your fist.
Here we go... Page 64... Breaking down a 3' thick stone wall. Incredible strength check DC 43. Since a 20 isn't an automatic success, a DC 43 is strictly impossible for normal individuals.
Break down adamantium door... DC 29. And that's assuming it's not reinforced in some way. This is NOT something any normal person, or a paragon level PC, could do with a spoon, their fist, or a sledge hammer. Only several of the +2 assist bonuses would allow it.
And if breaking thru a 3' stone wall is a DC 43, your example about burrowing through a mountainside presents an even more formidable challenge.
Here we go... Page 64... Breaking down a 3' thick stone wall. Incredible strength check DC 43. Since a 20 isn't an automatic success, a DC 43 is strictly impossible for normal individuals.
Break down adamantium door... DC 29. And that's assuming it's not reinforced in some way. This is NOT something any normal person, or a paragon level PC, could do with a spoon, their fist, or a sledge hammer. Only several of the +2 assist bonuses would allow it.
And if breaking thru a 3' stone wall is a DC 43, your example about burrowing through a mountainside presents an even more formidable challenge.
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