D&D 4E 4E tidbits from WotC blogs (Updated:David Noonan on Social Interactions)

[Shortman McLeod]

Storytelling be damned. I want the players to take pause when they encounter a squadron of watchmen, or a warband of orcs. Yes, they may very well mow through them. Usually they will. However, they can't get too cocky, because there is a chance that one or two of them might get lucky with strong crits and damage rolls, and just jackhammer the player.

That's good. That element of danger keeps the heroic players from being invincible, or arrogant.

Well said. I would even take it a step further; if the players are not facing at least the POTENTIAL of danger from the smallest of encounters, they aren't really heroic to begin with. Is a child stomping on ants "heroic"?

 

[drothgery]

Greetings!

Hmmm...well, if the whole helpless, lame and incompetent Stormtrooper thing from Star Wars is going to be a main feature, forget it.

It's probably worth noting that SWSE mooks (that is to say guys with less than 5 levels, most of them in nonheroic) can be a threat to heroes, but only if they're tactically smart.

The great equalizer of the game is area of effect attacks; Stormtroopers with autofire weapons and a stash of grenades can cause a lot of problems, even for Jedi Knights. And they can do other tricks with covering fire or combining fire that really only work well when you've got a large group. That competent Stormtroopers were not a feature of the movies (and hence probably not something low-level PCs will run into) doesn't mean that they can't exist.

 

[ptolemy18]

Standing in the back and watching the other players having a ball is not fun.

True, but sometimes it has to happen. Normally it's called "My character is unconscious and I must now wait around while the rest of the characters finish fighting the bad guys."

And speaking of that -- would people agree with me that the MOST fun fights, in D&D, are almost always ones where 75% of the party is knocked out and one or two people must save everybody by fighting to the end? I always loved fights like this, even if I am one of the poor knocked-out dudes. Because sometimes *I'M* the last one standing and the other people are knocked out... and it's always worth it for the drama, either way.

So what am I saying...? Oh yeah. I'm saying that I hope unconsciousness and death remains in the game in their existing forms, or something very close to them.

Jason

 

[Mallus]

I want the players to take pause when they encounter a squadron of watchmen, or a warband of orcs.

Have you checked out the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game? I think it'd be right up your alley. It's built off a different set of assumptions than D&D (pick an edition).

 

[ptolemy18]

I think the Vancian system will survive in the "per day" powers that Wizards have. There will be a few bombastic explosion kabooms that Wizards are capable of -- these will use slots. Nothing else will, and it will all refresh in a manner of rounds or minutes.

This would be acceptable to me (not that "acceptable to Jason Thompson" is a big factor in WotC's game design).

Like another poster said, I do hope that wizards -- and EVERY class -- retains lots of non-combat abilities, such as the elaborate ritual magic spells like Planar Binding (relatively few in practice but fun when you can use them) and so on.

Jason

 

[Shortman McLeod]

Have you checked out the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game? I think it'd be right up your alley. It's built off a different set of assumptions than D&D (pick an edition).

So based on a single post SHARK made, you think he should drop D&D and start playing Warhammer RPG?

Sorry, but I always find responses like this arrogant. Someone says, "I play D&D this way" and the reply comes back, "Try playing a different game."

Bah.

 

[Doug McCrae]

...you get up the morning, then have three encounters in a row that don't reallly challenge you. It's the fourth one that tests your skill—that's where you figure out whether you've spent too much, or if you still have enough resources left to finish off that last encounter. Then you're done. So basically, three boring encounters before you get to one that's really life or death.

It kind of makes sense, mathematically. The problem is, it's not fun...

So you get up at 8:00 AM, you have that fun encounter, and you rest "for the night" at 8:15 AM. Repeat as needed.

I was punching the air and going "Woot" as I read this. Well, not really. But I agree with James Wyatt a lot.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

No you're not. When the party fighter is getting hit for 50 or 60 points of damage in one round, what good is a wand of Cure Light Wounds going to do? It's like trying to put out a bonfire with a squirt gun.

Well, call me crazy, but I think that by the time you're taking that kind of damage, you might have decided to trade in your old CLW wand for one that heals more damage in one pop.

And what if someone gets level drained? Or diseased? Or blinded? What then?

Other wands, potions, scrolls, staves, and wondrous items. I really thought this was sort of elementary. I see it happen all the time in games. You carry an inexpensive wand for your between-encounter heals, a better wand for emergency healing during combat, some scrolls of restoration, a couple scrolls of a higher-level healing spell for serious emergencies, and distribute some potions. All this comes out of a pool that the party contributes to because they don't like to die. If you've got a paladin, dragon shaman, or anyone else with some class-based healing ability, it's icing on the cake.

Are you actually completely unfamiliar with this sort of strategy, or are you just trying to be contrary?

 

[ptolemy18]

About the "Warhammer Fantasy RPG" comparison... it's interesting that Warhammer, the miniatures game, got spun off into a VERY down-to-earth and realistic low-fantasy "anyone may die any minute" RPG, whereas D&D, which was originally a sort of realistic and gritty game in its own way, is now becoming more of... a miniatures game! :/ (Of course, D&D was originally a miniatures game too, but....) I like "Warhammer Fantasy RPG" and I like D&D too. And naturally since I like D&D I want the world's most popular RPG to have all the features that *I* like, rather than just switching to another, less popular game. ^_^

I think one of the main developments that may be happening with D&D4E is that they are (possibly?) removing the "mook" stage of character development. In most non-level-based RPGs (like Shadowrun, the White Wolf games, etc.), you start out and it's immediately assumed that you're better than the average person. You're already a hero, and then after that, your improvement is only gradual. But in D&D, you start out at first level, and you GRADDDUAALLLY improve until, at a certain point, you are totally awesome. (And the monsters you face are totally awesome too... but if the DM wants to, they can always remind you of your awesomeness by giving you the opportunity to fry a bunch of surly orcs who mistake you for a first level party.) In older editions of D&D, this was even more the case... you might start out with a character with awful statistics and roll 1 for your hit points and then it's pretty much assumed that you will die quickly. I mean, have you read those old OD&D modules with all their instant death?! They're insane! Enjoyable if you have the right sadomasochistic mindset. Only the best and luckiest people would survive to high level... like they say over and over in 300... "ONLY THE HARD! ONLY THE STRONG!"

3rd edition D&D, compared to previous editions, already goes a long way in making your characters more "heroic" from the get-go... minimum stats and max HP at first level and all that which makes life liveable. But at the same time you *are*, in an essential way, "just" a first-level character, and you are sort of equivalent to all those first-level warrior goblins and orcs and whatnot... following the "realistic simulation" model as if you, a first-level fighter, are somehow equal to a first-level commoner NPC. In 3rd edition D&D, and all older editions, you ARE a mook when you start out. You may *become* a hero when you get to high level, but first you must endure mookhood, where you may, just may, be able to beat a bugbear.

Personally? I like this style of play. I like the "start small and get big" element. I can see why other people wouldn't like it, but I do think it is a defining element of D&D in a way. Of course D&D is always going to have levels, so you will always have the element of getting stronger and stronger as the game goes on. But I do like it when the baseline, starting level of play is fairly low. Then you can have the Shonen Jump progression where your characters get more and more bad-ass and you really feel that you earned it.

However, in the defense of D&D's apparent move towards a more "heroic" scale of play, I guess you could say that most other, non-D&D RPGs already feature "heroic" characters from the get-go. And in those other RPGs, people certainly enjoy and "earn" every single level of XP or Skill Point that they acquire.

My feelings are that D&D4E may or may not be a good game. It definitely will represent a big break from the "traditions of D&D", though, as opposed to D&D3E which was more of an evolution. D&D4E may be a good game, but it will be a very different game from old D&D, I'm thinking. For better or worse.

Jason

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Mike commented he was amazed so many people hated Vancian magic. I've hated it for years and many of my friends who don't want to play D&D avoid D&D b/c the casting as pell and then forgetting it just sounds stupid to them. It's the ONE thing you do, you're intimately familiar w/the words and gestures and such, yet when you cast if it isn't memorized more, oops!

Of course, these arguments have always been silly.

In Jack Vance's stories, from which "Vancian" magic comes, it's a titanic effort to cram the semi-alive magical patterns of a spell into your brain - it's not just a few incantations and finger gestures, it's a massively complex mental structure you have to memorise perfectly, made of magical energy which literally leaves your mind when it's used because it can't be contained or retained for further use.

Of course, in Third Edition, you're not really doing that; instead, preparing your daily spells is really about weaving a set of magical effects which are kept "hanging" until you complete them with a few words and a gesture as a "trigger". It's like chanting "Candyman, Candyman" into a mirror in the morning, and then whipping out the mirror and pronouncing the final "Candyman" when you want to actually finish the spell and summon the Candyman.

Now, it's fair to say that neither of these are the kinds of magic you'd like your wizard characters to be able to cast - but they're not ipso facto silly. They only seem that way when you mischaracterise/b] casting a spell as using it and forgetting how to use it.