D&D 3E/3.5 4E reminded me how much I like 3E

[Wulf Ratbane]

Totally, that was a large part of my problem when designing NPCs/monsters, I thought I had to have every little thing accounted for, or I was "cheating".

I was always thinking one of my players might say ‘Hey, how can he have this many skill points if he' a 13 HD giant with an Int of 11?!' 'And he's one feat over!'

So don't give them more than they are allowed. You can do that without accounting for every skill rank.

Feats you just swap-- but even if you did give an extra feat, it wouldn't change the CR by a full +1.

You could say, in 3e, "He's a monster, he's different." That should suffice, even if it is no different than, "Because I am the DM, and I say so."

Somewhere along the line the notion that the DM is the ultimate authority and arbiter seems to have been lost. 4e puts a lot of the power back in the hands of the DM (which is great) but does it in such a way that the DM still derives his authority from the rules (which is bad).

The DM derives his authority from the mutual consent of the players. They either trust him to make the calls, or they don't. If the players don't trust the DM, then it really does not suffice, in the context of a rules argument, for the DM to be able to point to a specific passage in the rules that grant him authority to "wing it."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Oh no, you got my point exactly.

4e has a lot to recommend it, but "4e finally gives me explicit permission to do something I could have done all along!" is worthy of mockery.

And yea, the heavens opened up, and light shown down, and 4e arrived on a golden cloud to deliver the masses. "You do not have to sweat the small stuff. You may fudge, o my people..."

Sure, you can handwave a lot, but not everything.
Imagine a Dragon encounter being played with the Dragon casting Mage Armor and Shield before or during combat, and one with him casting Ray of Enfeeblement and Magic missile. Or an NPC Wizard casting Displacement and an NPC Wizard not casting it. This kind of "small stuff" is very important, and it can be hidden away in a large spell list. You have to keep this stuff in mind when crafting the NPC and when running the encounter.

I give you skills - no one cares about NPC skills. But spells and feats, they still require lots of micro-management. Only lots of experience or a close look at your party stat-blocks and their spells will make you able to wing the numbers you need. Otherwise, you can just hope that getting the rules right will work out (which it probably won't in my cases, which is just another aspect that makes running the game so difficult...)

 

[LostSoul]

My NPCs don't even have skills until such time as they need skills. Wanna cast defensively? POOF! My spellcaster has maxxed his Concentration ranks. Need to tumble around combat? POOF! My rogue has Tumble. Need to bring your turned undead back under your control? POOF! The evil priest has 5 ranks of Religion and gets +2 to his Turn check.

This strikes me as cheap.

"Why do the bad guys always have the right skill maxxed out? Why do they always have the perfect spell for the situation memorized? Why do they have the right feat?"

It's not like we're playing Dogs in the Vineyard, where the game was designed so that you had to create NPC traits on the fly.

Now if you go into the game saying, "Look, this is how I run NPCs," that's a different story. I wouldn't say it's a default assumption that the DM can and will and should do that - I'd say the assumption that people have is that the DM will follow the procedures for play lined out in the text, which includes how to stat up monsters and doing so before a fight.

On DM authority: How am I supposed to know how much authority I have - either DM or player - if the book doesn't tell me? Even assuming we're all great pals and we all trust each other, how are we suppoesd to know what we can do and what we can't if it's not in the book?

I mean, as a player I could say, "And this NPC is my long-lost brother!" Do I have the authority to have that statement accepted in the gameworld? Is it true? If it is, or isn't, how am I supposed to know that without reading the rules of the game?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

This strikes me as cheap.

And my response to a player who uses that argument is, "It's not. Get over it."

"Why do the bad guys always have the right skill maxxed out? Why do they always have the perfect spell for the situation memorized? Why do they have the right feat?"

If by "the right skill" you mean "an unobjectionably typical skill such as most PCs or a similar class have," and by "the right spell" you mean, "an unobjectionably typical spell such as most PCs of a similar class have prepared" then the answer is, "Because my NPCs are unobjectionably typical."

If by "the right skill" or "the right spell" you mean custom designed to screw/frustrate the players in response to their actions, I already answered that above.

 

[Imp]

This strikes me as cheap.

"Why do the bad guys always have the right skill maxxed out? Why do they always have the perfect spell for the situation memorized? Why do they have the right feat?"

Well obviously when you run things this way you make a bit of an effort to correct for this. It isn't that hard to vary things from behind the scenes, and you shouldn't be throwing so many of the same type of creature at the PCs that the baseline becomes that obvious, anyway.

 

[LostSoul]

And my response to a player who uses that argument is, "It's not. Get over it."

I'd think it was cheap only if it went unstated. Normally I'd expect to be playing the default way, and this kind of thing I'd like to be told about beforehand.

If by "the right skill" you mean "an unobjectionably typical skill such as most PCs or a similar class have," and by "the right spell" you mean, "an unobjectionably typical spell such as most PCs of a similar class have prepared" then the answer is, "Because my NPCs are unobjectionably typical."

If by "the right skill" or "the right spell" you mean custom designed to screw/frustrate the players in response to their actions, I already answered that above.

I am talking about NPCs always having Iron Will, Great Fortitude, or Lightning Reflexes whenever they miss a saving throw by 1 or 2.

Or how you can't say, "Well, as long as he doesn't have <some specific spell> prepared, we should be good to go," because you have to assume that the NPC has whatever he needs.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I am talking about NPCs always having Iron Will, Great Fortitude, or Lightning Reflexes whenever they miss a saving throw by 1 or 2.

I'm not sure how you came away with that based on what I said above.

Or how you can't say, "Well, as long as he doesn't have <some specific spell> prepared, we should be good to go," because you have to assume that the NPC has whatever he needs.

If your assumption is that he won't have something unobjectionably typical, you'd be making a foolish assumption.

If I suspect that the PCs will be attempting a particular tack on a given night, I'll make sure to have any unusual spells accounted for in advance. This would account for, perhaps, one spell per spell level of a given NPC.

EDIT: And this accounts for "putting myself in the mind of the NPC" again, and not, "Screw the players." So for example if the PCs have used Scry>Buff>Teleport, the BBEG might prepare Forbiddance and/or Dimensional Anchor.

You really sort of have to get over the starting assumption that the DM wants to screw the players as opposed to challenge the players.

If you treat your games as a competition between players and DMs, I guess that could sour your outlook and foster the "CHEAP!" mentality.

 

[Spatula]

So, 4e tells me that I can break the rules, and that it's ok for my monsters to use different rules than the players' PCs, and that if there's something that's not relevant to the statblock, throw it out. Everyone lauds this brilliant revolution in game design!

So I am not exactly certain how it was that I managed to do this in 3e.

Sure, and I have done the same thing. I'm with you 100%. WRT spellcasters, spell choice isn't the problem, it's the accumulated effects of spell buffs. High-level casters and many high-level monsters have a lot of spells and/or spell-like abilities. It makes sense that, unless surprised, they're going to be ready for a fight and make the most of whatever buffs are available to them, but doing so radicially alters their numbers. I've always preferred to use groups of foes (which bizarrely I now get told I couldn't do with 3e, and yet somehow I did it anyway) so admittedly I made the situation more difficult than it would be if I was just throwing single monsters at the PCs (since all of the enemies are taking advantage of the buffs).

(and really, if a creature has an at-will spell-like ability that provides a buff - include the effects of that in the creature's stats!)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

WRT spellcasters, spell choice isn't the problem, it's the accumulated effects of spell buffs. It makes sense that, unless surprised, they're going to be ready for a fight and make the most of whatever buffs are available to them, but doing so radicially alters their numbers.

I mentally group spells into categories based on their duration:

• Daily spells, always assumed cast-- durations of 1 hour/level or more.
• Spells that are cast when the alarm is sounded-- durations of 10/min level and perhaps 1 min/level.
• Spells that I won't cast until combat is imminent (either the BBEG is seeking out the fight or he starts casting when the combat starts)-- 1 round/level buffs.

I don't really have much difficulty tracking buffs though I definitely DO think this area of the game can use improvement.

 

[CleverNickName]

And yea, the heavens opened up, and light shown down, and 4e arrived on a golden cloud to deliver the masses. "You do not have to sweat the small stuff. You may fudge, o my people..."

I know that edition wars are getting tired, everything that could possibly be said about the subject has already been mentioned a dozen times over, all that.

But this really made me laugh.