4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[S'mon]

Well it's a narrativist term (i.e. we came here to author a story so maybe the game should stop arbitrarily denying me the ability to do that). I think in the context of D&D edition wars it's sometimes misused by people who are basically gamists but like their gamism really low-intensity and stacked in their favor because they can't handle temporary frustration. Which is rightly identified as being wussy (e.g. player entitlement), imo.

Personally as a player I'm fairly skilled (moderate at character building, but good at in-play tactics) so I can handle hard Gamism. But say I'm GMing and I theoretically () have a player who likes playing her PC and killing things with her powers, but really isn't cut out for hard Gamist play - she's fond of her PC and doesn't want her getting killed all the time. She likes the soft Gamism, but she also likes identifying with her character as the heroine of an heroic fantasy tale.
I think it's good that there is a game for players like that.

 

[S'mon]

As written - Raise Dead requires 500gp of components and a PC willing to come back from the dead. both 3.5 and Pathfinder also include willing to come back as well. Not sure if it was codified prior to 3E, but I know that was how my groups always had played it as well. You can certainly add in wonder & awe if you want as a DM, but I don't think it's really put into the rules.

And, it's not just Raise Dead. Teleport is also another device that was one of those awesome things you did at the end of a 1e/2e campaign. However, it was also a midway level spell in 3E, available at level 9 in a game designed to go up to level 20. And, 4E also does the same. Linked Portal gives you the ability to teleport at level 8 again, or less than 30% of the way through the typical campaign.

Many of the spells that were awesome game changers in 1e/2e lost their wonder once 3E came out, and lost it even further with 4E.

I'm wondering, do you regularly run games across the whole level range? I haven't since my first 3e campaign which ran around 19 levels from 2000 to I think 2004. My two big 3e campaigns after that ran to ca 8th level. My three big 4e campaigns from 2009 ran to 8th, 10th, and currently at 10th, nearly 11th, after 2 years. Only my ongoing 4e Loudwater campaign might one day go the whole level range in another 4 years or so, but I'm planning to run several other limited-range 4e campaigns while it's going on.

So, for me the 1-8 or 1-10 range is a typical campaign duration in both 3e and 4e, and Teleport and Raise Dead do indeed typically come in during the Endgame, same as in typical 1e.

 

[Bluenose]

As I recall, he's essentially a sorcerer, and like most sorcerers, he has no special immunities to being stabbed.

That's rather a contrast with the D&D Sorceror, who can easily stack up defences that make it nearly impossible for him to be stabbed. Invincible Sword Princess is... probably not all that envious, actually, but her Twilight Caste Sorceror friend might be.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Besides, it doesn't matter at all how many foes in the game as a whole are immune to SA or a given class' special abilities, what matters is (again) how many times such foes show up in the individual campaign.

This, I agree with.

I guess my point is, when about 25% of the Monster Manual is made up of these types of foes, it's probably not all that rare for this to come up. And, it's also not too much of a stretch to think of entire adventures made up of this 25%. The undead tomb. The trap dungeon that summons elemental defenders. The nature adventure where the plants are going to eat you. Etc. None of these are really all that far out of line of genre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On the objection to using a tanglefoot bag (or other stuff that isn't explicitly rogue): It doesn't have to be roguey to be worthwhile to do. Just like I don't see anything wrong with a wizard low on spells using a crossbow, I don't see the problem with the fact that everyone can do it somehow cheapens it for any particular class or archetype. Sometimes, I think people are looking for way too much niche protection.

I think the objection is more "if tanglefoot bags are so great that they can be as effective as swords, why aren't they the standard way of fighting ALL THE TIME?" It is just the old "oil flask problem" reborn. In pretty much every AD&D campaign some wag would decide to be clever and make molotov cocktails from oil flasks. Naturally, as DMs, we rewarded this industriousness with oil flasks which burst into flames and caused mayhem, yay player creative problem solving!!!! Until of course the next week when the party was armed to the gills with the damned things and every encounter was par boiled. Of course there were the inevitable DM counters (all the treasure burned up, danger of fire, monsters learn to use the same tactics, not always tactically applicable, etc), but that might at best curb the practice slightly. Truthfully there's a very good reason why armies and individuals throughout history rely on blades and such, they're the most effective type of weapons overall. Logically if you nerf them, you're nerfing the people who use them, and inventing equally effective replacements just runs the risk of leading to the oil flask silliness all over again.

On UMD - I think it's an interesting balancing factor between wizards (and other primary spellcasters) and rogues/bards, particularly useful for parties short on a character type. From a design perspective, one of the reasons wizards have utility spells that hedge into rogue territory (there's that spectre of niche protection again) is so that they can double for those features, or team up with a cleric loaded with find traps, when the party doesn't have a rogue. Well, UMD allows the rogues and bards an easier time in returning the favor. I've run 3e/PF games in which that skill has been quite useful in giving non-magic heavy characters magic. Is it any worse than allowing non-caster PCs to pick up ritual casting in 4e?

I think again the point is that if you want to have a magical thief type then there are vastly better ways to do it in 3e, and if you don't want to run that type why should the game gimp you? UMD was a horrible choice in any case as it required a lot of investment for a marginal payoff that was only marginally useful.

I think the general concept of "well, there are expensive alternatives you can rely on to get you through that one rare instance of this problem" is not BAD. OTOH if you want an obstacle that is overcome by non-combat means, make one. I thought making entire categories of common monsters into something you had to kludge around if you were class X was a bit awkward.

 

[D'karr]

This, I agree with.

I guess my point is, when about 25% of the Monster Manual is made up of these types of foes, it's probably not all that rare for this to come up. And, it's also not too much of a stretch to think of entire adventures made up of this 25%.

The reverse is also an issue, when you consider something like the Ranger's Class Feature - Favored Enemy. IMO, "player selections/decisions" should be relevant in the game. A Ranger that selects a particular "hated enemy" should have a reasonable opportunity of encountering that enemy in a campaign. However, DM choices will always trump player choices in this aspect. If a DM decides to never run an encounter with a favored enemy, the ranger player never gets to use his class feature. He "suffers" from the same issue as the rogue with the sneak attack feature in an undead campaign. The player decision is being totally cancelled by the mechanics, and the DM choices.

My issue with the "rules" at that point is that the fix is so trivial that it seems ridiculous for the general rules to be so restrictive. Somebody posed the example of Sneak Attack affecting everything, but wraiths being an exception. To me as a player, and as a DM, that is a much more workable, and desirable mechanic than the default of - all undead, constructs, and plants are immune to Sneak Attack.

I can envision that constructs, as "machines" of some sort, can still have vulnerable spots. So I can see them all still being affected by Sneak Attack, the PC is basically gumming up the cogs of the machine, but there can be exceptions. The Juggernaut, for example, might be immune or resistant to Sneak Attack. A particular golem such as an Iron Golem might be the same. I find that to be a better solution "rules-wise".

This is the same issue with the "prone" condition in 4e, which I describe more as off-balance for those creatures that would seem "immune". I can see the general rule simply describing the prone condition, and any effect that imposes that condition works similarly. Then I can have particular monsters that are immune to it. If as a DM, I don't want a Gelatinous Cube to be affected by that condition, then make it immune.

The issue is not that some class abilities should not work under certain conditions. The issue is that the game mechanics should not make player decisions irrelevant under large portions of the general rules.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure, but what if there is no single "big bad". If one of the PCs is a servant of law and the other of chaos (and my game is heading somewhat in that direction) what common foe do they necessarily have?

I'm talking mostly about action resolution mechanics that can handle differences in effort by the PCs, aimed at different goals. The "War by Other Means" skill challenge template in DMG 2 (p 96) is a good, if limited, example of what I have in mind. But there is no equivalent model for combat, for instance. The combat mechanics just tend to suck if all the PCs aren't fighting together on the same side.

Agreed that 4e doesn't especially provide a way to do this, but in the spirit of the theme of the thread, so what? Its a game about parties of heroes working together to defeat evil. Yes, it breaks down when said parties can't agree on what to fight or what means to use, etc, but you've at that point strayed outside the bounds of what the game is designed for.

I'd point out that in this sense 4e IS a more narrow game in concept than classic D&D (though the transition really took place somewhere around the arrival of 3e). In classic 1e AD&D for instance the DMG quite clearly describes a campaign as being structured out of the plans and activities of PCs. It describes a game in which each PC is an independent force with henchmen and a whole set of goals of his/her own. Adventuring generally takes place in parties (strength in numbers, and obviously everyone wants to play on Sat evening together) but in Gygax's own campaign it is quite clear that this was only a part of the whole campaign. Much more was Gary and players getting together and doing things on the side. PCs weren't necessarily allies or even favorably inclined towards each other either. You made sure you got your share of the treasure and if the rogue was stupid enough to get killed raising him came out of his share.

Of course you could play 4e in 'troupe play' mode like this but clearly this sort of game is no longer the default assumption.

 

[Ratskinner]

But what fighting style makes you more likely to hurt your target the more surrounded you are? I find this very hard to envisage - maybe I just don't know enough about fighting styles!

I think the complaint here is that "being valiant" requires facing risk. A power/style that grants you bonuses to do something like wade into combat necessarily reduces that risk. Which, I think, is just a problem with the character/PC/rules divide. So, if I understand the 4e position; all 4e powers are metagame, the paladin isn't aware of power, but the player is. That's a different design than previous editions, where characters seem likely to be aware of most of the abilities on their sheet. (To the point where D&D parodies can use it as a joke.) It seems to me that a lot of the headier edition-skirmishing I see revolves around this very kind of point.

Which lead me to wonder; "Can you have a system that encourages Paladins to be Valiant and Fighters to be Brave etc., and yet still avoid meta ability-mechanics." The only one I can think of is an advancement system where you pick up extra levels (or XP) in a class by acting according to type. Which might be kinda neat.

 

[Ratskinner]

Sure, but what if there is no single "big bad". If one of the PCs is a servant of law and the other of chaos (and my game is heading somewhat in that direction) what common foe do they necessarily have?

I'm talking mostly about action resolution mechanics that can handle differences in effort by the PCs, aimed at different goals. The "War by Other Means" skill challenge template in DMG 2 (p 96) is a good, if limited, example of what I have in mind. But there is no equivalent model for combat, for instance. The combat mechanics just tend to suck if all the PCs aren't fighting together on the same side.

hmm... if this is becoming the central issue of play, I think I would suggest changing systems. I've read some articles on people switching their high-level campaigns to Marvel Cortex+, even FATE could do it. (Although either is a big shift in detail and focus for resolution.) Of course, if its just a creeping weakness on the periphery, I'd just ignore it.

 

[D'karr]

Which lead me to wonder; "Can you have a system that encourages Paladins to be Valiant and Fighters to be Brave etc., and yet still avoid meta ability-mechanics." The only one I can think of is an advancement system where you pick up extra levels (or XP) in a class by acting according to type. Which might be kinda neat.

I don't think it needs to be avoided.

IIRC AD&D had general advice to reward players (+XP) for keeping within the tenets of their character, and penalizing (-XP) for not doing so. But then it gave details of how a class should act that didn't necessarily jive with everyone's playstyle.

It also had the metagame aspect of +XP for high ability scores, so that you essentially leveled faster for being "naturally competent" at your chosen class. I don't see that as more desirable than the paladin jumping into the fray and getting a bonus for being "valiant."

The player did chose to select that power during character creation, or at level up. I prefer that option to the one where you simply give +XP for having a high ability score in a class related ability. In one the player made a conscious decision to select a class feature, in the other it was simply random luck that he rolled well during ability score generation.

One encourages the character to "act" valiant because he is "good at it." The other doesn't necessarily do so. YMMV.