D&D 4E 4e -- Is The World Made Of Cheese?

[eleran]

So why am I playing D&D and not Amber, again?



So I paid 75 bucks for...what, exactly?

"Dude, just make some stuff up" can easily be written on a fortune cookie. I find it hard to believe it took "seven digits" of development money to come up with that. If this was a simplification which actually fixed something many people complained about, I could see it, but it didn't. I do not recall many threads entitled "Hardness is too hard!".

Does removing hardness remove lookup time? No, you still need to work out object hit points, and it's not likely you'll bother memorizing a rarely-used chart. Does it simplify math? A tiny bit, but since resistance is still in the game, not much -- especially since bashing objects usually happens out of combat, when having a single extra number to factor in is not a big deal. Does it save space in the rulebook? Not much.

Will it lead to a lot of house rules, arguments, and inconsistency between game sessions and between DMs? Yes.

It's a change for no appreciable gain that carries some serious drawbacks.

A DM has enough work to do dealing with all the myriad situations no designer or rules set could predict. Telling him to "use common sense" for situations which are common occurences in play and which are trivial to write brief, useful, rules for is increasing, not decreasing, the DMs burden. I do not find my burden lighter when I have to do impromptu game design at the table.

I guess it is just a difference in how we look at things then. I see it as actually liberating me as a DM to create my world my way and not feel locked into whatever wonky rules may have been designed into the game. I need rigid rules for combat because that should be the same no matter whose campaign world I find myself in. But outside of combat only a few other things need hard and fast rules to guide the DM and players. The rest is really up to the DM and his imagination. If you liked stone walls having a hardness of 10 in 3e then you are free to have all stone walls in a 4e campaign have resistance 20 all with probably 3x the normal HPs. That wasnt so hard. I just spent 30 seconds typing and came up with a house rule that is easily applied every time someone wants to bash thru a stone wall. And before you start telling me that it cant be applicable to every single situation I will just mention that is a problem for EVERY RPG out there, not just D&D. For more realistic simulation you and your players are just gonna have to build a stone wall and spend time bashing it with everything you can find until you figure out exactly how difficult it is to destroy.

You dont have to pay $30 for any rules, you can sit down with sheets with characters on them and do whatever you like, you always have been able to.

Remember Gygax himself said the secret we should never tell the players is that they dont actually need any rules.

I have never played Amber so I dont know how to answer that.

I usually agree with Hong in his thinking too hard about fantasy diatribe, but not this time. I think it is just a matter that this a new paradigm forming in D&D and you have yet to embrace it. It may take some time, it may never happen. You really cant know for sure after a week and a half. I didnt realize I didnt like DMing 3.5, for instance, until I had been doing it for about 3 years. That was a couple years ago. I have now run 4 sessiosn of 4e and am having fun again. Now, to be fair, will I be having fun DMing it 4 years from now? I cant answer that yet, I dont have any skill in scrying the future.

Lizard, good luck with the new paradigm, I really hope you can coem to terms with it. It is a shift in mindset. For some of us it was pretty instantly noticeable that it was the right shift, for others it will take longer, for yet others it will never happen, and for a few poor souls they will never even give it a chance. At least you're trying, that counts for something.

 

[Mort_Q]

Yes, the lack of object hardness makes the baby jesus cry.

Or, at least, it makes me cry.

-O

Am I missing something? Hardness is there, it's just not called hardness anymore.

 

[Sitara]

Besides, you can always multiclass to ranger to get cool dual-wield powers.

Only to be able to use it 1/encounter and/or 1/day. You can never get the at will power of tein striking (unless you are a half-elf, and then its 1/day)

 

[Lizard]

I agree, it's easy to house rule. It just shouldn't be *necessary* to house rule it. It's a rules change for no apparent purpose.

House rules for odd/uncommon/campaign-specific things don't bug me. A rules set which tried to cover everything would be ludicrous. But presenting the choice of "The world is made of cheese" vs. "Just house rule it" is, frankly, bad game design, unless someone can articulate WHY hardness had to be removed -- something I notice no one here has done. No one has come forth with a horror story about how their entire campaign crashed to the ground because of hardness. No one had said "We never attack objects in our game, the hardness rules are just too complicated". No one's said why this change is good, needed, or beneficial, just that "You can ignore it if you don't like it."

So I reverse the onus: Why SHOULDN'T I house rule it? Nothing in 4e happened by chance; there was a design intent behind every rule, new or changed or kept as-is. What is the GAIN from ignoring hardness? What would I *lose* by adding hardness back in?

 

[Lizard]

Am I missing something? Hardness is there, it's just not called hardness anymore.

Where?

This whole thread might be unnecessary...

 

[Lizard]

Only to be able to use it 1/encounter and/or 1/day. You can never get the at will power of tein striking (unless you are a half-elf, and then its 1/day)

This honestly doesn't bother me any more than rogues not being able to cast magic missile at will. Everyone has their own little head-go-splodey things, and limiting abilities by class isn't one of my mine. I won't say you're wrong if it's one of yours, and I can see how the nerfing of multiclassing in 4e would bug you.

 

[hong]

House rules for odd/uncommon/campaign-specific things don't bug me.

Trying to carve your way through walls as a matter of course is very odd indeed.

 

[Staffan]

Only to be able to use it 1/encounter and/or 1/day. You can never get the at will power of tein striking (unless you are a half-elf, and then its 1/day)

Sure you can. You just need to dig pretty deep into the multiclassing.
Level 2: Warrior of the Wild
Level 4: Novice Power (swap Encounter power)
Level 8: Acolyte Power (swap Utility power)
Level 10: Adept Power (swap Daily power)
Level 11: Paragon multiclass (swap at will power and gain any 7th level or lower Ranger encounter power)

However, you never will get the at-will use of Hunter's Quarry, or using two One-handed weapons.

 

[ZSutherland]

Lizard,

I see your point, but I think you're taking your arguement to an extreme. Let's look at 3 hypothetical situations where tunneling through a wall might come up under both systems.

#1

DM: Okay, you've managed to escape the guards momentarily, but as you are unfamiliar with the passages in the King's dungeon, you've become lost and arrive at a dead end. You hear the rapidly approaching shouts and clanking of armor and weapons behind you.

3e: Without a burrow speed, passwall, teleport or something else that disregards hardness and hitpoints, the characters are never getting through the wall in time. The DM doesn't need to consult the DMG about hardness and thickness, do a little multiplication, and figure out roughly how long it will take. However long it will take, it's too long.

4e: See above.

#2

DM: Okay, after leaving you trapped beneath the earth by the landslide, your archnemesis has escaped. You are eventually going to run out of air, and if you don't stop him, he will have the McGuffin in a week. What are you doing.

Players: We start digging our way out.

3e: DM does some math, and either has them start making rolls, or computes an average, and figures out how long it will take them to get through the wall. There's nothing to stop them or harrass them, so they just go at it.

4e: Pretty much the same, except the DM can just decide how long he wants it to take for dramatic purposes, or based on past experiences with tunneling through rock. He can say, "Oh well, you have a dwarf with you, so he lends his expertise and you make relatively good time. It takes you until late afternoon to safely tunnel through to the passage beyond." Or whatever he would like to make it seem exciting or tedious as fits his needs.

#3

Same as #2, except the DM knows that the noise they make tunneling will attract the boojum, which will burrow in and attack.

3e: They start attacking hardness and hit points, the boojum shows up long before they get out and attacks. They kill it, and take it's tunnel out or finish theirs.

4e: See above.

Basically, the designers decided for 4e to focus on dramatic moments. Combat needs good, consistent rules so that it is smooth, engaging and easy to master (rules-wise). Breaking through a wall doesn't because it's always either a dramatic moment (in which case, you don't have time) or it's a non-dramatic moment (in which, it doesn't matter).

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Where?

This whole thread might be unnecessary...

It's "the DM can rule it if he chooses it" that's where, I'd think?

I love 4th ed. 3.5 sucked hellishly for DMing. Awesome simulation, lousy fun. only a computer should have ot work out all the crap, sigh. As DM, i want ot have fun, too!

why not just copy the 3.5 hardness tables, use it as you see fit in 4th ed
But don't get too worked over it.
It's just a "door" unless it's a SPECIAL door, in which case, it can have hardness, otherwise, don't bother.


DM says :" it's a very tough door, only magic weapons, fire, force or acid spells, or a two hander weapon is gonna do any damage to it, and even then only half"

ps, 4th ed, casters have AT WILL atttacks, spells ignore hardness...but I'd say, they would have reduced damage depending on what I, the DM, decide. The players can live with it, so can I