A Meandering Thought about Design Philosophies

[Hussar]

Thinking about 4e and 3e a bit and it hit me. Perhaps its really obvious to everyone else, but, I'm a touch slow. What design decision had the largest impact on 3e? I thought of the usual suspects and then it came to me.

The design decision with the largest impact was the idea that the entire game should be viable for play in most groups.

That decision, coupled with the fact that most campaigns have a half life of about 18 months has guided and pushed pretty much every facet of the game - from experience awards, to adventure design, to monster design and treasure rewards.

Where 3e failed however, was that not every level is particularly viable. It's perhaps better balanced at high levels than previous editions, but, high level play is not exactly a roller coaster of fun. Combats take a long time, adventure design and DM workload is a bear, the math gets pretty complicated and the sheer number of different fiddly bits can grind the game to a screeching halt.

For 4e though, what I can see is the design team taking this philosophy a step further. The idea is that every level REALLY will be viable for play. Workload for the DM is being reduced, the math is being reduced and legacy items, like Vancian casting is getting the boot.

Take Vancian casting for a moment. Vancian casting does work as a balancing mechanism. However, it only really works for a fairly small subset of levels. Wizards go from being baggage toted around by the rest of the party to being valuable contributors to pretty much single handedly dominating the entire game. So, I can see the value in moving to a different system of casting. If your goal is to make all levels work, you can't do it with Vancian casting. 3e proved that.

So, whatcha think?

 

[Doug McCrae]

If your goal is to make all levels work, you can't do it with Vancian casting. 3e proved that.

So, whatcha think?

I agree.

Level 1-4: Fighter-types dominant
Level 5-7: Game is balanced
Level 8+: Casters dominant

That's one reason why I always thought 1e and 2e were supposed to stop around level 10. If you keep going to level 20 or 30 then the casters get a lot more 'me time'. Though that whole concept never really worked anyway.

 

[howandwhy99]

I think they were wise to survey the existing player group in '98. If they could have surveyed players who left back in '88, tons of which came back, the game would have been even better.

The design also incorporated far to many non-D&D fantasy (and even non-fantasy) rulesets that had come out through the 90's, especially the late 90's when the industry had nearly disappeared. I don't think they were bringing back gamers because they didn't appeal to the mass of gamers.

That said, the final d20 product does seem to feed off its' designers strengths. Their previous designs working for other games in other companies.

Unfortunately, instead of knowing why past errors within D&D needed to be removed, the problems were compounded by making everything one seamless integrated system where all elements had to be taken or none.

Vancian casting was over-the-top in 3e. It should have been more obvious that players playing spellcasting PCs shouldn't have to memorize 100's of spells to play their character effectively. Instead of making their combat abilities a joke after about 5th level, they could have progressed them at a higher BAB and lowered the number of Spell / Day to a feasible level... say about 2 / spell level. Then spells wouldn't have had to be awkwardly weakened.

Or if they had simply stayed at 10 levels, the system wouldn't appear to be imbalanced at certain levels.

My guess is (link) they are taking the 2nd route with 4e.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I think you have a point about intent. Now, let's see about the execution!

 

[Hussar]

Vancian casting was over-the-top in 3e.

I don't understand this. Casting hadn't largely changed from edition. If anything, spells got considerably weaker in 3e since they didn't scale infinitely (1e fireball and lightning bolt for example) and 3e monsters were much, much tougher.

In 1e, you were facing 40 ish hp giants. A couple of decent lightning bolts and the problem went away. In 3e, those same giants have three times as many hit points and your lightning bolt stops at 10 dice. You needed the higher levels spells because, at higher levels, the lower level spells stopped being effective.

However, the problem, as Doug McCrae very rightly pointed out, is that beyond about 9th level, casters totally dominated the game. And the reason for this is Vancian casting.

If you limit casters to say, 2 spells per level, then the whole 9-9:15 adventuring day gets even worse. You simply cannot make the casters strong enough in melee without stepping all over the fighter classes. Besides, if I'm playing a sorcerer, doesn't that mean that I want to cast spells? Why would I play a sorc to be a fighter with a couple of spells?

But, this is getting beyond the point I wanted to make. I think, and from what we've seen so far its quite possible, that the design philosophy is now:

"If its in a book, we WANT you to use it." Every level, every plane, every magic item EVERYTHING.

And that's not a bad idea IMO.

 

[Celebrim]

Level 1-4: Fighter-types dominant
Level 5-7: Game is balanced
Level 8+: Casters dominant

Pretty much matches my experience as well, though I don't think casters really start to dominate until 9th and the game stays pretty much balanced until 11th or so.

That's one reason why I always thought 1e and 2e were supposed to stop around level 10. If you keep going to level 20 or 30 then the casters get a lot more 'me time'. Though that whole concept never really worked anyway.

My experience of 1e is somewhat different. While my games rarely went above 11th level or so, I didn't experience fighters non-longer shining the times I did. For one thing, there was spell resistance. The higher level you got, the more likely it was that the monster you were facing would be the spell resistant kind and straight forward attacks just wouldn't work. Demogorgon's spell resistance in 3e terms would be 29. As a 15th level spell caster, you were still 70% likely to fail to penetrate. For another, even high level M-Us were insanely fragile and incapable of taking punishment. I never recall playing a high level spell caster and thinking, 'We don't even need these fighters around.'

 

[mmadsen]

I don't understand this. Casting hadn't largely changed from edition. If anything, spells got considerably weaker in 3e since they didn't scale infinitely (1e fireball and lightning bolt for example) and 3e monsters were much, much tougher.

He didn't say, "Spellcasting was too powerful in 3E"; he said, "Vancian casting was over-the-top in 3e."

There are two elements to this. First, as you already noted, "beyond about 9th level, casters totally dominated the game," and in 3E games were expected to routinely go beyond 9th level.

Second, the nature of D&D's Vancian spellcasting system is that is forces players playing spellcasting PCs "to memorize 100's of spells to play their character effectively." That's "over-the-top" in an entirely different way.

In fact, I think that's one of the key design flaws in 3E, a flaw that carries over outside the spell system to the feat system -- additional power in 3E requires additional detail. In a game like Mutants and Masterminds, by contrast, even very powerful characters might only have a handful of powers, but they're powerful nonetheless.

 

[Hussar]

He didn't say, "Spellcasting was too powerful in 3E"; he said, "Vancian casting was over-the-top in 3e."

There are two elements to this. First, as you already noted, "beyond about 9th level, casters totally dominated the game," and in 3E games were expected to routinely go beyond 9th level.

Second, the nature of D&D's Vancian spellcasting system is that is forces players playing spellcasting PCs "to memorize 100's of spells to play their character effectively." That's "over-the-top" in an entirely different way.

In fact, I think that's one of the key design flaws in 3E, a flaw that carries over outside the spell system to the feat system -- additional power in 3E requires additional detail. In a game like Mutants and Masterminds, by contrast, even very powerful characters might only have a handful of powers, but they're powerful nonetheless.

Ah, gotcha. Ok, I understand that now.

BTW, Celebrim, IIRC magic resistance in 1e dropped by 5% every level past 11th, so, as wizards gained more and more levels, SR simply became a non-issue. And, I would point out that using unique creatures is perhaps a little off since you not likely going to be regularly facing them. A better measure would be non-unique creatures.

Another thought occurs as I read the WOTC site. I read the following factoid, but, I cannot find it again to quote it (someone help):

It went something like this: Elves are immune to paralysis because during the old Chainmail rules days, low cost undead were mopping the floor with high cost elf troops.​

So, we have a legacy item here that has no real reason for existing any more. I think that this edition, much more than 3e is going to put a lot of these legacy items under the microscope. What effect would it have to make elves no longer immune to paralysis? Not a whole lot. So, instead, maybe either give them an ability that fits better with elves, or just scrap it altogether.

 

[WhatGravitas]

In fact, I think that's one of the key design flaws in 3E, a flaw that carries over outside the spell system to the feat system -- additional power in 3E requires additional detail. In a game like Mutants and Masterminds, by contrast, even very powerful characters might only have a handful of powers, but they're powerful nonetheless.

Hmm.. there's a point to it. Perhaps Vancian would have been better, if a caster simply got - let's say 5 + ability mod - spell slots, and then only progressed in the power of his spells, i.e. the use of his spell slots was "upgraded". And that made 3E high-level complicated: Not enough "upgrades", but instead more powers, while leaving the old powers intact.

And I have to say, "upgrades" look more reasonable and handleable.

Cheers, LT.

 

[FourthBear]

My experience of 1e is somewhat different. While my games rarely went above 11th level or so, I didn't experience fighters non-longer shining the times I did. For one thing, there was spell resistance. The higher level you got, the more likely it was that the monster you were facing would be the spell resistant kind and straight forward attacks just wouldn't work. Demogorgon's spell resistance in 3e terms would be 29. As a 15th level spell caster, you were still 70% likely to fail to penetrate. For another, even high level M-Us were insanely fragile and incapable of taking punishment. I never recall playing a high level spell caster and thinking, 'We don't even need these fighters around.'

Those match my experience. With no Con based bonuses to hit points or even progression past a certain point, magic-users were very fragile. As I recall, spells like Project Image and various tricks with Simulacrae were often used to keep M-Us alive long enough to unleash hell. Generally, most of my 1e campaigns didn't get to high level anyway.

In 3.5e, spell resistance and high saves for opponents often did make playing an offensive spellcaster frustrating. They still dominated the game, IMO, but not really on direct offense. It was really their divination, transportation, transmutation and similar spells that really qualitatively changed the way the game was played. Personally, I hope that 4e can do a better job of with these issues, since I was never wholly satisfied with the balancing of primary spellcasters (definitely including clerics, druids and psions here) with the other party members.