4E Situational Modifiers: Too Many or Not Enough?

[Dausuul]

One of the things that drove me crazy about 3E was all the fiddly little modifiers in combat; +1 to hit for this, -2 to damage for that. I was hoping 4E would strip these out. It did reduce them somewhat, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

What do y'all think?

 

[Theroc]

One of the things that drove me crazy about 3E was all the fiddly little modifiers in combat; +1 to hit for this, -2 to damage for that. I was hoping 4E would strip these out. It did reduce them somewhat, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

What do y'all think?

I'm no real expert with either system (Though I am more familiar with 3.x than 4th, and enjoy both systems), but I actually feel 4th Edition has MORE fiddly little modifiers, since most feats are, "If you hit with X attack then your next Y attack until the end of your next turn gets Z bonus to (insert attack or damage here)" Or, "If you use X weapon type to attack something, you get Y bonus to attack" etc...

I did not encounter as many such bonuses in 3.X. This could be a case of dueling anecdotes, or I may just have not encountered them due to my more limited experience. (I've actually participated in maybe 5 complete 3.X combats or so.)

 

[hailstop]

The problem I have isn't with the situational modifiers for hits...it's the situational modifiers for damage.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

One of the things that drove me crazy about 3E was all the fiddly little modifiers in combat; +1 to hit for this, -2 to damage for that. I was hoping 4E would strip these out. It did reduce them somewhat, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

Totally agree.

 

[Alan Shutko]

3E had a lot of mods, but they all lasted a long time, so you could precalc a lot of stuff. With 4e, I find myself missing more of them because they all end at someone else's turn.

 

[Shroomy]

I've never really had a problem with keeping track of the situational modifiers or conditions for myself, the other members of my party, or even the monsters we're fighting. They can get pretty fiddly, but then they usually apply only in very discreet ways, so I'm not forced to re-calculate everything when they occur.

 

[Nifft]

3.x mods scaled up with spell durations.

4e mods scale up with number of PCs at the table.

I've had no problems with them, but then, I usually game with 4 other people, so that's only 3 other PCs throwing down effects I need to remember.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Herremann the Wise]

One of the things that drove me crazy about 3E was all the fiddly little modifiers in combat; +1 to hit for this, -2 to damage for that. I was hoping 4E would strip these out. It did reduce them somewhat, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

What do y'all think?

I disagree with you somewhat. I think 4e has overall increased the use of modifiers as it pertains to giving them out to other characters (and it is this which is one of the fundamentals of the teamwork ethos of 4e). However, this has also caused a lot of the I hit AC 21...no 23...no wait up [thinks for 15 seconds]... yeah I hit AC 23.

3e had a lot of personal modifiers that (while being fairly exhaustive) could be precalculated to speed up play. The main difficulty with 3e (that 4e has somewhat erased) is that if you did get a bonus modifier, you had to check whether it would stack, have a greater effect than a bonus already in place or be useless.

I think the solution in 5e will be to turn these given modifiers into momentary modifiers (see my blog in sig.). A character can perform several minor reactions in a round and thus when somebody goes to hit, you use one of these minor reactions to give them the bonus at that moment only. It will either be this, or you will have the bonus for the encounter. This is a lot cleaner, maintains the teamwork approach and speeds the process up while also reducing downtime between individual player activities. Having the bonus sit there as in 4e until the end of your turn clogs up the process (this is where the initiative process can be dramatically cleaned up but 4e unfortunately cut and pasted the 3e model).

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[FireLance]

As a player I seldom have difficulty keeping track of my modifiers and the modifiers I grant to the other players.

As a DM, I occasionally lose track of monster modifiers, but I feel that the solution is to limit the number of complex monsters in any one fight.

 

[amnuxoll]

I posted a proposed solution to this last night:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/268070-avoiding-temporary-modifiers.html