D&D 4E 4ed leveling on gameplay

[simply not edible]

But if this be the case in each campaign you will not just be facing the same, you will also be facing the same in the same order.

EDIT: what about the knowledge skill in this case? Why should a PC take it if he knows what exactly he should be expecting?

How is that different from what we have now? Do you unleash Great Wyrms, tarrasques and Balors at 1s level parties? Or, do you keep on advancing Kobolds so they can be used and threatening all the way through to level 20 and beyond?

In my - and I admit I only started relatively recently - experience, you can pretty much guess what kind of enconters to expect, due to the monsters being designed around having to be met at such and such level. With the exception of status quo campaigns, this is going to happen. There is so much choice for what is reasonable at a given level, so that is what you are getting. There is some discrepancy, but even that is actually clculated into the current system.

As for the knowledge skills - first of all, we do not know yet how these will work come next summer (or winter, if you're on the Southern Hemisphere), and secondly, the players knowing what to expect does not mean their characters do. If you are going to use OC knowledge of what to expect, why bother with Knowledge skills in 3rd edition?

Unless you are using a lot of homebrewed monsters - which I'm currently assuming you will be doing seeing as how you apparently advocate having guidelines for making them - players who pay attention to what they are doing will eventually learn what monsters there are, what they do, and how to fight them. So why, indeed, bother with teaching your character about the world he lives in, when you already know about it?

 

[BeauNiddle]

Okay I think I know the arguement xechnao is trying to make.

Lets assume the designers have a formula for minions that states their BAB is always Player BAB -5, their HP are always Player average Damage * 3 and their damage is Player hitpoints / 20.

This means if you are fighting minions APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR LEVEL their stats are always the same relative to yours. In that case why change the stats. Why not just give the player new options every so often?

Which is a perfectly valid arguement in the context of the game rules but it falls down horribly when applied to the game world. The DM will have to make adhoc rules about what encounter type a monster classifies as at each and every encounter - they can never predefine the world. If the party come accross a band of orcs how does the DM rule whether they count as minions, standard, elite or solo? If the player knows 5 'combat tricks' should all orcs count as minons? What about if one member of the party knows 5 'combat tricks' and another only knows 1 'combat trick'?

By adding levels it allows the world to be defined independent of the players. I can create a group of 3rd level goblins with 10 minions, 3 normal and one elite shaman. If the players attack at level 1 they will probably die. If they attack at level 9 then they will probably be able to kill the elite shaman as easily as the minions even though they are in different roles.

Levels also provide clear progression for the players. Facing an elite 3rd level goblin shaman might require the players to use every trick in the book when they first meet at level 2 but by they are level 9 they can kill them all day without sweating. Facing a level 10 elite will require exactly the same dice rolls they needed to beat the goblin shaman when they first met but they know that the level 10 elite is a 'tougher' monster even if mathematically it's identical relative to the player stats.

Since adventures are often designed for a specific character level then yes you could use xechnao's idea but if you tried to string those adventures into a campaign without using levels then you'd have a phenomenally hard time. THAT is the advantage of levels - they make campaigns doable.

So now we know the advantage of levels lets have a look at the cost:

A minor amount of maths every (other) time you level that can be recorded permanently on the character sheet. It is worth noting that 4th ed is moving away from ability /level damage so it's not like 3rd ed where throughout the adventure the numbers were changing from buffs, poisons, level draining, etc.


To my mind (and I'm guessing many others) the advantage of coherent campaigns plus the feeling that out characters are stronger (whether its a valid feeling or not) outways the cost of redoing the character sheet occasionally.

 

[xechnao]

How is that different from what we have now? Do you unleash Great Wyrms, tarrasques and Balors at 1s level parties? Or, do you keep on advancing Kobolds so they can be used and threatening all the way through to level 20 and beyond?

In my - and I admit I only started relatively recently - experience, you can pretty much guess what kind of enconters to expect, due to the monsters being designed around having to be met at such and such level. With the exception of status quo campaigns, this is going to happen. There is so much choice for what is reasonable at a given level, so that is what you are getting. There is some discrepancy, but even that is actually clculated into the current system.

As for the knowledge skills - first of all, we do not know yet how these will work come next summer (or winter, if you're on the Southern Hemisphere), and secondly, the players knowing what to expect does not mean their characters do. If you are going to use OC knowledge of what to expect, why bother with Knowledge skills in 3rd edition?

Unless you are using a lot of homebrewed monsters - which I'm currently assuming you will be doing seeing as how you apparently advocate having guidelines for making them - players who pay attention to what they are doing will eventually learn what monsters there are, what they do, and how to fight them. So why, indeed, bother with teaching your character about the world he lives in, when you already know about it?

Yes, I see DnD as a tool, and I was pretty excited by what I was seeing with Races&Classes design insight around here. Too bad this does not seem to be working with the DM's role.
Hell, 4e now seems that it won't be needing a DM at all: rather a player that will be playing monsters as PCs play their characters. It might even eliminate DM completely by dictating how each monster acts in certain encounters in adventures. To add variability on monster actions they can easily add a couple of random actions in some situations.
These random results could be influenced by character roles and stats such as charisma or skills such as initimdation so more favorable tactical results for the PCs are gained. Monster leaders or strategic points could also influence them in similar ways so when they fall monsters could have to check if they get further penalties to these rolls or if you could take advantage of their morale and get further bonuses.

 

[am181d]

Hell, 4e now seems that it won't be needing a DM at all: rather a player that will be playing monsters as PCs play their characters. It might even eliminate DM completely by dictating how each monster acts in certain encounters in adventures. To add variability on monster actions they can easily add a couple of random actions in some situations.

Two quick points:

1) I've never considered "tactical decisions for monsters in combat" to be a DM's primary responsiblity

2) even if you do get suggested attack routines for every monster, there's no reason that you need to follow them

On this later point, also keep in mind that 4e is predicated on mixing and matching monster threats with each other and with special traps and terrain. Even if every monster had a mandatory 1,2,3 attack routine, you'd still get plenty of variation from encounter to encounter -- and that's ignoring social encounters, pure roleplaying encounters, and so on.

 

[xechnao]

The DM will have to make adhoc rules about what encounter type a monster classifies as at each and every encounter - they can never predefine the world. If the party come accross a band of orcs how does the DM rule whether they count as minions, standard, elite or solo? If the player knows 5 'combat tricks' should all orcs count as minons? What about if one member of the party knows 5 'combat tricks' and another only knows 1 'combat trick'?

WotC can provide rules for balancing powers on the fly. Assign to powers and certain combination of powers values so you can just add up powers for your encounter to make. To see my point think of Games Workshop war games.

 

[Propheous_D]

Yes, I see DnD as a tool, and I was pretty excited by what I was seeing with Races&Classes design insight around here. Too bad this does not seem to be working with the DM's role.
Hell, 4e now seems that it won't be needing a DM at all: rather a player that will be playing monsters as PCs play their characters. It might even eliminate DM completely by dictating how each monster acts in certain encounters in adventures. To add variability on monster actions they can easily add a couple of random actions in some situations.
These random results could be influenced by character roles and stats such as charisma or skills such as initimdation so more favorable tactical results for the PCs are gained. Monster leaders or strategic points could also influence them in similar ways so when they fall monsters could have to check if they get further penalties to these rolls or if you could take advantage of their morale and get further bonuses.

i really don't get what you are saying. I mean the most time consuming and annoying part of being a dm can be combat. With combat streamlined to a point were a DM can easily prepare it on the fly and engage in it immediately we allow the dm to get into what he is there for. You know that pesky thing called role-playing.

As for the whole level progression vs category progression. I don't see a need to change the leveling system. It allows for a period of time to enjoy and get into your new found powers and develope a style or character with them. If you simply jump categories and get a bunch of new stuff you might as well scrap your old character and get a new one cause that is essentially what you are doing.

In a level based environment you are looking at a more ogranic progression then a categorical based one that you profess. This is because characters do not artificially inflate by leaps and bounds but by a progressive path the opens up new doors each level.

i.e. levels 1-10 you get a new thing each level and incorporate that into your working character model.
Going from Newbie category to Seasoned category you suddenly have 3-5 new abilities and that goblin you fought and barely survived last week is a weakling wretch who has no chance of defeating you this week.

Its like playing a total different person each level and I would personally find it hard to get atatched to a character like that. Now if you advocate a non-level/category increase through the acquisition of powers via purchase then I suggest you go play white wolf. Cause that is not DnD and I thank GOD for that. While those games have thier merit the flaws in the systems they represent are exactyl why I don't play them much anymore. I much prefer the simple easily compensatable flaws of DnD with a leveling system over and abstract skill based system.

 

[xechnao]

i really don't get what you are saying. I mean the most time consuming and annoying part of being a dm can be combat. With combat streamlined to a point were a DM can easily prepare it on the fly and engage in it immediately we allow the dm to get into what he is there for. You know that pesky thing called role-playing.

DnD rulebooks are about combat, not roleplaying. I am asking for a tool to model my roleplaying stories to balanced combats and I believe this is fair enough. Instead, I get their monsters and I also get them only at the progressing order they establish.

In a level based environment you are looking at a more ogranic progression then a categorical based one that you profess. This is because characters do not artificially inflate by leaps and bounds but by a progressive path the opens up new doors each level.

i.e. levels 1-10 you get a new thing each level and incorporate that into your working character model.
Going from Newbie category to Seasoned category you suddenly have 3-5 new abilities and that goblin you fought and barely survived last week is a weakling wretch who has no chance of defeating you this week.

Its like playing a total different person each level and I would personally find it hard to get atatched to a character like that.

On the contrary, with the right tools you could even more finely adjust character development.

Now if you advocate a non-level/category increase through the acquisition of powers via purchase then I suggest you go play white wolf. Cause that is not DnD and I thank GOD for that. While those games have thier merit the flaws in the systems they represent are exactyl why I don't play them much anymore. I much prefer the simple easily compensatable flaws of DnD with a leveling system over and abstract skill based system.

I don't get your point. What are the flaws you are talking about? 4e dnd seems much more a skill based system in its design philosophy than a level based system. Instead of developing your character through predifined leveling it gives you choices to customize him the way you want in a balanced way for every choice regarding power in combat.

 

[vulcan_idic]

If you change design and focus gameplay on class powers and cross-power training while keeping the rest in a linear scalable fashion that make no difference in gameplay, they only seem to be unecessary baggage.

This seems to me to be an extraordinarily huge leap of logic, an assumption made with very little factual support since we have very little fact. I concur with Shilsen (as I often find myself doing - he is very wise) - it would seem far better to wait for additional information.

 

[Benimoto]

I think I see what you're saying, but I don't agree either. I mean it's true that if you always fight enemies appropriate to your level, and that if all the enemies can level up, then from a certain perspective there's no point in keeping track of BAB/AC/whatever, since it'll always just be in proportion to your enemies. It's a good point, and an important one to consider.

I also see your point about how the unified advancement system and no dead levels means that characters are different only by the powers they have. Previously, a level 2 fighter/8 wizard would be very different from a 8 fighter/2 wizard, not only in powers they have, but also in BAB/saves/HP, etc. Now it looks like the main difference is the the 2 wizard/8 fighter will have 2 wizard powers and 8 fighter powers, while the other guy will be the reverse. Why not just give powers and skip the levelling?

Part of the reason to keep levels is the granularity. I think they'll keep things so that each level you gain makes a difference, and what was a difficult fight last level might become a normal fight at one or two levels higher. Sure, you could keep track of that thing with some sort of 3-4 level system, and just adjust your stats so that if the PCs encounter a monster at an early point in the story, he uses the "difficult" stat block but if they encounter him later he uses the "normal" stat block, but then you effectively have levels anyways. If you use a 5 point scale, such at "very hard", "hard", "normal", "easy", "very easy" over a campaign system that has 3-4 tiers of play then you already have 15-20 effective levels. Why not just call them what they are? Keeping levels makes things more transparent for your players, keeps it just as easy for the DM to adjust challenges, and allows

The other reason to keep levels, rather that just setting a chance of success based on how hard the DM wants the fight to be is that people like to see numbers going up. Levels make it easy to see that you've gained power. You can look at your numbers and see that you used to have a 4 and now you have a 12, and it gives a good sense of character development and advancement. Having those numbers gives the player a sense of power that is in their own hands and not in the DM's hands. It can give the player a real sense that if they were to go fight a monster that was difficult before that it will be easy now because of the numbers, not just because the DM thinks that their character has advanced. I also think that seeing your character develop by numbers can help you develop your character in terms of roleplaying, since you can tell fairly exactly how much better you are now as opposed to earlier in your career.

 

[pemerton]

IMO with minion-solo amd tier rules you are good to go. If you have progressed enough those orcs that were elite for you at the time they are nothing more than minions right now

I think that within the minion-solo and tier rules there will be degrees of granularity which your approach wouldn't capture.

Also minion-solo is not primarily a numerical spectrum, as your sketch of it suggests. It is a complexity spectrum, with many of the numbers (except hp and damage) being constant at a given level across the spectrum. This is being discussed in another recent thread on monster scaling (can't remember the name, Upper Krust and Mustrum Ridcully were the main participants).

EDIT: The page didn't load properly the first time. I now see that Mustrum posted his points about monsters above so no need to consult the other thread.