4th ed, the Good & the Bad?

[Gargoyle]

Magical weapons provide the suspension of disbelief required to allow for a sword to cleave into a stone golem. In fantasy fiction enchanted blades are described as supremely sharp and capable of cutting into damn near anything. Its not the skill of the wielder that makes a sword cut through stone, it is the wielders skill combined with the enchanted nature of the weapon.

Yet non-magical weapons work just fine in D&D against all sorts of constructs and undead.

All good fantasy has the quality of internal consistancy with a nod to the believable within the context of the millieu. Humans have two arms and two legs, the world revolves around the sun, green plants need water and sun to survive, animals eat other animals to stay alive, etc. In other words a baseline realism that allows for the suspension of disbelief required for immersion in the game. Some of this "reality" can be altered due to magic but there is the key, the internal consistancy is maintained by invoking that which can supercede the normal laws of reality ie. magic.

There is nothing inherently magical about a rogue's sneak attack that would allow him to score more damage than a warrior striking the same golem, elemental, ooze, etc. The decision to allow rogues to sneak attack everything is nothing more than another indicator that D&D, though never known for its intense realism, is becoming a game that is more and more a Medieval Supers Boardgame of Tactical Combat (tm) where unless everyone gets to be badass all the time, the game is unfun.

I think this philosophy is designed to take the sting out of the consequences of choices a player makes in regards to his or her character. IMO this is an attempt to allow those who were weaned on videogames to play D&D and feel that there are no real consequences to their in game choices. In a videogame you can always start again at the last checkpoint/save point and things like versimilitude mean absolutely nothing. Does anyone really look for versimilitude when the play WoW? I have never seen anyone raise such a concern.

I was very enthusiastic about 4e and still like a lot of what I have seen. However, I am having grave doubts about some of the design philosophy behind the game that makes it seem that versimilitude is worthless and ruins everyone's fun. For 22yrs as a DM versimilitude added to the depth of the game and though there were chellenges that come PCs couldn't overcome merely with wicked cool powers, and they were forced to think outside the box, ultimately the campaigns seemed real and were a great deal of fun for all involved.

I still remember a situation in my 2e campaign when the party encountered a dragon who, with their resources too low to overcome it with sheer might, they were able to escape by collapsing the mouth of the cavern. Collapsing the cavern trapped the creature long enough to make a hasty retreat. Two of my friends still talk about that encounter and how powerless they were against the creature and of their pride in ultimately surviving the battle by using their wits.

This is IMO a lot of what the adventure of D&D is supposed to be about. Of course that encounter required on-the-fly adjudication on my part but IMO ultimately everything possible cannot and should not be covered in some rule. The DM is more than just a rule arbitrating CPU whose sole function is to interpret RAW though YMMV.



Wyrmshadows

I agree that some groups have fun with encounters they can't muscle through. Some don't. I wouldn't go so far as to label the latter as whiners.

The complaint about rogues not being able to use their sneak attack against entire monster types has some merit. The good thing about rogues being able to sneak attack constructs and undead is that it makes it easier on the DM to design campaign worlds and adventures. Design a nation of undead ruled by vampires in 3E and guess what? If your group includes rogues they won't go there. Create an evil puppetmaster NPC and populate his dungeons with clockwork automatons, and they'll find some other dungeon. Of course you can railroad them into anything, but if you want them to have some say in how the campaign goes, you don't want to hamstring rogues or any other class.

I feel like the new sneak attack is designed to free the DM to design things they wouldn't have in 3E.

However, as I said earlier in the thread, I do think that some monsters can and should have immunity to sneak attack. I have a hard time myself imagining formless oozes and incorporeal creatures as being vulnerable to a sneak attack. But instead of making the entire creature type immune, they can now just make those particular creatures immune. If they don't, I may house rule a couple of monsters, as I agree with you that not every class has to be fully effective in every encounter.

 

[Phlebas]

OK - been lurking in 4E forum rather than getting involved since i'm basically neutral to 4E but these lists seem to sum up most of the key issues so here's my humble opinion. Btw i've played most editions from the basic boxed set onwards and generally enjoyed the improvements (and house ruled anything i don't like the feel of) and suspect in a few years time i'll be doing the same to 4E....

thanks to previous posters for the list!

1. NO MORE LEVEL DRAIN - Good, once you have restorations available its just an awkward mechanic and i much prefer ability drain....
2. NO MORE (temporary) ABILITY DRAIN - Bad - ability drain is scary to PC's regardless of level, and simple to work out the impact on the fly. As a DM its a great way to threaten the party in alternative ways, as a player its a scary threat requiring different tactics.
3. NO MORE SAVE-OR-DIE - Good - I don't mind the odd 'make this roll or die moment', but it should be at the end of the encounter, not at the start.
4. NO MORE ETHICAL ALIGNMENTS - Good / Bad - Good in that i never played or DM'd it as written and prefer shades of gray in my own campaigns / Bad in that its a useful shorthand for monster / encounter / NPC / Church etc attitude.
5. SNEAK ATTACK ON ANYTHING - Neutral - yes it would be nice to have less things immune but it does make for variety in encounters if some things are. Why not allow charm or sleep spells to work on Zombies if you don't like general immunities?
6. FASTER GAME MECHANICS - Good. Hmm, waiting to see since every game promises this and very few deliver but the combat in 3E, though a lot more tactical, is much slower than prev edtions (though still faster than some dice pool / hit location systems) it would be nice to have a "combat lite" option to allow for better pacing of minor encounters.....
7. FASTER (N)PC CREATION - Neutral :
   PC - low level PC's are easy - high levels are more complex. Seems a fundamental that wont change. Biggest improvement would be handing out some simple function spreadsheets that did the number crunching for the math-averse. Hopefully included in the online section. Hope that the points / dice options remain....
   NPC- since you have the std NPC's in the DMG, and lots of free software for NPC creation I've never seen this as a major problem. worried about skills? just give them level bonus in class skills and don't worry overmuch about something that will rush into combat and die without using 90% of its abilities. If its a major NPC then take the same time you would on a PC - it deserves it. My (& others) biggest problem as a DM is when you have mid - high level encounters and you need to spend a lot of time just understanding their abilities and working out tactics and i don't see that changing unless you're going to oversimplify every monster
8. NO MORE EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF MAGIC ITEMS - Good. I always disliked the christmas tree impact, and body slots seemed artificial so the idea of fewer, more powerful items i like. Not sure what the final mechanic for making items will be so staying neutral on that. xp wasn't brilliant but gp is very campaign dependant
9. NO MORE (or less) VANCIAN CASTING - Bad / Neutral. I thought the sorcerer/bard mechanic of 'cast anything you know' in 3E solved the book-keeping issue for those that disliked it, while allowing those who like the resource management bit to carry on using it. I've been toying with allowing cantrips at will in my current game so i'm interested to see what they do with the at will / per encounter abilities. But I really get annoyed by the argument that having to rest after every few encounters is a system problem - learn how to conserve ammo people!
10. NO MORE SPELL SCHOOLS - Neutral - I like the idea of specialist spell-casters and having a mechanic to reward those who theme rather than cherry pick - I've seen alternatives based on elemental lists before so I'm not too attached to the current schools - but I'll need to see the alternatives in detail first before making any judgement
11. FOCUS ITEMS - Good - less magic items and gives flavour. concerned they will end up like familiars and be forgotten about 90% of the time....
12. SKILL SYSTEM REVAMP - Neutral - current skills don't seem particularly broken to me at the moment but be interesting to see what the alternative is
13. BASIC RACES CHANGES - Neutral - not because i'm fond of gnomes (though Zilargo has dramatically improved my opinion of them) but because I would have preferred to see a proper mechanic merging LA and Racial levels so that pretty much any race from the MM could be played and so allow DM's to choose for themselves what exotic creatures you can use. No problems with the new races proposed but seems a wasted opportunity
14. RACIAL PANTHEONS GETTING THE BOOT - Neutral - this is something you can homebrew or not as suits - there's nothing fundamental or rules based in this decision - in fact you could argue that other than a couple of examples all pantheons should be in a campaign sourcebook rather than the core rules but its only a page or twoand does help DM's who don't feel the need to world-build.
15. ELIMINATION OF PRESTIGE CLASSES - Neutral. The prestige classes were getting slightly out of hand with all the add on books but it was a relatively simple mechanic to create variety. I certainly preferred it to most of the 'new' base classes that came out of various books. If the 'Paragon' mechanic is better then no problems
16. EFFORT TO BALANCE FEATS - Neutral - The great things about feats is their variety and the fact you have a huge number to choose to create the character you desire. If you have a huge number then some will be better than others depending on your PC build / campaign / party mix / style of play etc. Not sure how 4E will change this but interested to see attempt.
17. PARTY ROLES - DEFENDER, LEADER, ETC. - Neutral - ok its nice to give a general guidance on how to make an effective party, but this seems really unnecessary and potentially restrictive. D&D at its core has always been class & level based. not sure what the Role adds
18. POINTS OF LIGHT SETTING DESIGN - Neutral- the beauty of previous editions was that you could use the same rule systems for anything from stone age to renaissance settings, urban to wilderness. If this is just fluff/flavour then its not a problem and helps newcomers but if starts affecting rules too much....
19. LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - Good / Neutral / Bad : Good that they've told us up front, Neutral in that most DM's will find a way to convert as has been done for basic to AD&D to 2nd ed to 3E to 3,5E, Bad in "Buy all our new stuff and throw away the £'s you've spent in the last 5 years"

 

[Leugren]

[*]SNEAK ATTACK ON ANYTHING (unsure)
It's not fun for a rogue to be gimped versus undead and constructs, so letting them sneak attack such is...useful. But it goes against logic. Some undead I can see having weak points, like the more "living" ones: vampires and ghouls. But not zombies (unles syou have a heavy slashing weapon), and certainly not incorporeal ones! Ok, pray tell me how you can sneak attack a wraith, eh?

So this rule change I'm ambivalent on. Good to help players, but bad for game logic.

Yet another example of why it never pays to choose a character with a martial power source! When you choose a martial power source, people have this irresistible compulsion to invoke "real-world logic" as a nerf-bat against you. The same people who cry "foul" as they watch you attempt to sneak attack a gelatinous cube never even bat an eye when the party wizard effortlessly warps the entire fabric of time and space to obliterate a horde of howling demons. Don't be fooled by the hype; rogues and other martial types will always be the shackled runners of D&D, even in 4e, thanks to the so-called "verisimilitude" nerf-bat that is constantly invoked against them!

DM: "Sorry, Regdar, I just don't see how it would be at all possible for you to jump more than 4 or 5 feet in full plate; I don't care what the rules say! You therefore fall into the crevasse and plummet 600 feet to your death... And Lidda, there's just no way you could use that improved evasion ability out in the open like that with nothing to hide behind, so the red dragon fries you to a crisp with his breath weapon."

Wizard: "I've gotta agree with the DM on this one, guys; it just wouldn't be realistic. While they're dying, I gesticulate wildly and mutter a string of non-sensical words. This temporarily grants me the ability to fly like Mary Poppins. I use this ability to glide effortlessly across the crevasse, waving at the fluffy pink cloud myconids as I float on by..."

 

[Greg K]

The rogue sneak attack issue is just one of the reasons I like the martial rogue option from UA. I considered building sneak attack into the rogue to be a bad idea from the beginning and it should have been a feat. Still, I think corporeal undead should be critable. They might not feel pain, but their limbs are still flesh and bone.

 

[Hussar]

And here's the key to this issue. The problem isn't a systemic one, it is a DM one. Consequently, the fix is a mechanical one designed to "protect" the player from the DM. It ain't going to work. A DM who totally ignores his players' desires as expressed through what's on their character sheets will do that no matter what.

What?

A very common, archetypal setup in the fantasy genre is entirely untenable because of the rules. And, yes, I consider an adventure where one of the players cannot contribute to combat for the entirety of the adventure to be untenable. So, I should NEVER do tomb raiding if there's a rogue in the party?

Sorry, I'd like the rules to be broad enough that I can do common fantasy archetypes without worrying that the rogue player's going to be completely screwed over for the next 4-6 sessions.

Isn't it funny though. People scream that a rogue shouldn't be able to sneak attack a construct, but, don't blink that the same rogue can sneak attack a demon or an abberation. What weak points does a gibbering mouther have? If I can sneak a chaos beast, why not a gelatinous cube?

Given the choice between verisimitude and fun, I'll go with fun EVERY time.

 

[rounser]

Yet another example of why it never pays to choose a character with a martial power source! When you choose a martial power source, people have this irresistible compulsion to invoke "real-world logic" as a nerf-bat against you. The same people who cry "foul" as they watch you attempt to sneak attack a gelatinous cube never even bat an eye when the party wizard effortlessly warps the entire fabric of time and space to obliterate a horde of howling demons. Don't be fooled by the hype; rogues and other martial types will always be the shackled runners of D&D, even in 4e, thanks to the so-called "verisimilitude" nerf-bat that is constantly invoked against them!

I understand what you're saying, but breaking physics and logic just because there's magic in the game when there's no magic directly involved, is a suspension of disbelief killer, and leads to Superheroization of the game. I agree that some things already don't make sense, like how striking an ooze with a sword is going to make much of an impact, but again, that's not an invitation to leave the stable door wide open.

In other words, that way lies madness. Just put some brakes on the magic, or somehow wrangle out some logic as to how the fighter manages to pull off that wire fu that will float for more than someone who's not just focused on what the kewl powerz will do for their PC.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Given the choice between verisimitude and fun, I'll go with fun EVERY time.

OTOH, "Fun" is subjective.

Some, like myself, find it fun to have a PC who isn't 100% effective against everything. (One of my favorite superheroic PCs of all time was "nigh-invulnerable"- an example in her case meaning she could take a header off of a skyscraper onto concrete and walk away, but she was just as vulnerable as I am in RL to a shock from a house appliance dropped in her bath.)

Consider...

A rogue scouting for his party, rounds a corner to find a sealed door. He cautiously breaks the seal and quietly opens the door, revealing a room full of (cinematic, fast) zombies. Confronted with legions of undead beats a hasty retreat (i.e. runs, screaming like LEEEETLE GORIL) past his party who try to decipher his echoing, doppler effect shifted screams of "Run, Zombies!" as he flies by.

Classic! Archetypal! and most of all- Fun!

 

[shilsen]

I understand what you're saying, but breaking physics and logic just because there's magic in the game when there's no magic directly involved, is a suspension of disbelief killer, and leads to Superheroization of the game.

As a wise person once said, physics is a house rule. As soon as you have a game world where fifty foot long lizards can fly without magical aid, you've thrown physics out of the window. Reality in D&D even without magic being present is emphatically not reality in our world. A cat or a dog or a horse or a human being in the D&D world is not the same as a cat, dog, horse or human in our world. So drawing an arbitrary line and saying one side is realistic and one side is not is nothing more than an expression of personal taste. The same is true for suspension of disbelief, which usually has much more to do with habit and the conventions one is used to than anything objective.

 

[rounser]

As a wise person once said, physics is a house rule.

After hearing about 60 people groan simultaneously in disbelief as James Bond "catches up" with a falling plane that's come off the edge of a cliff in Goldeneye, I beg to differ.

As soon as you have a game world where fifty foot long lizards can fly without magical aid, you've thrown physics out of the window.

Strict physics, yes. Narrative physics? Not really. Those wings are big. Big enough to suspend disbelief for most people except maybe an aviation engineer.

Flying with no wings, or vestigial wings? You'd better have magic aplenty, buster.

So drawing an arbitrary line and saying one side is realistic and one side is not is nothing more than an expression of personal taste. The same is true for suspension of disbelief, which usually has much more to do with habit and the conventions one is used to than anything objective.

I call shenanigans. Just because something's subjective is not carte blanche to ignore the issue just because it suits you. That's not being subjective, just wilfully ignorant.

 

[pemerton]

D&D characters, even those without magical abilities, have physical attributes no real-life human being (even the steroid-enhanced!) has ever enjoyed. They also have the mental drive of Hercules or Achilles. They are beloved of the gods. And, as the rules are written in 3E, they can defeat lions and tigers in combat with their bare hands (from somewhere around 10th level or so, for a fighter, and so probably at 20th level for even the most scholarly magic-user trapped in an anti-magic zone).

Given this, complaints about rogues sneak-attacking elementals as killing suspension of disbelief strike me as odd (or, perhaps, rather idiosynchratic). Particularly because, as someone else posted above, sneak attack can easily be read as a particularly well-timed or vicious blow, rather than as one which hits a vital area.

Btw, for those who think that you can't sneak attack an iron golem because it has no vitals, does that mean that you envisage an iron golem reduced to 0 hit points as having been pounded to rubble? If not, and to stop it all one has to do is lop of its foot (or whatever), then why can't a rogue be doing that with a successful sneak attack?