A subtle reminder from wizards.(or not so subtle)

[UngeheuerLich]

@take your opinion... invalidate your opinion, take away your opinion... no native speaker, sorry...

@what is ok: it is ok, that you are critic about what WotC tells us and don´t believe them blindly. You should be critic. But in my personal opinion we should just wait and see.


Your opinion: WotC is not telling the truth, possibly lying about the amounts of changesto the 4e framework.

I can accept that.

My opinion: WotC will tell us more soon. And i honestly don´t believe, that older materials will be outdated as it was in after the 3.5 edition change.

You should accept that.

@also i adressed some of your points. Especially why I believe that 3.5 and essentials are fundamentally different: new options vs revisions

I wished i had not made the first post... didn´t contribute to this discussion productively... just wanted to point out that you are IMHO too pessimistic about essentials... I believe it was too easy to misunderstand my intentions... next time i will be more clear...

 

[DracoSuave]

Certainly and rationally the truth of it I'm sure.

However this:
The Essentials are NOT replacing the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, or Monster Manual.

Becomes crap if what you are saying is true.

Depends on how you look at it.

Fixing problems that exist in the game is something they'll do regardless of what gets printed in Eseentials. In fact, the existance of Essentials is irrelevant, if they're gonna do changes to the MM1 monsters, they WILL do it. And it'll be in the updates.

The only problem is that the change would be of such magnitude that it would essentially 'reprint' the MM1. And doing -that- makes no sense while they have the surplus stock in waiting to distribute.

So they probably won't. They -should- but they also -shouldn't-.

But they'll probably print some new basic kobolds and goblins and things... they have to if Essentials is to be self contained. And they'll probably be of the simple garden variety ones... so a kobold minion, kobold skirmisher, kobold controller, kobold soldier, make sure all the kobold roles are covered.

And they -have- to... so they either reprint and update MM1 monsters, or they simply reprint them as is (they don't fit the math but that's a trifling concern, really), or they'll make new kobolds with new names.

What they won't do, however, is completely invalidate products they have in abundance in stock that they have yet to sell. Cause... they're in the business to make money, not burn it.

 

[Imaro]

You're not thinking critically, you are trying to read more in to it than there is. With the evidence we have, you're jumping to conclusions that simply aren't supported. You may think there's some sort of "plot" (for lack of a better term) but there's no evidence to support it, just speculation like the internet is famous for.


And speculation can be great fun.

I took the WotC post from the OP and posted questions I had about the answers given, that is thinking critically... Here's my original post... Please tell me where I talk about a plot? Or is it really just questions I have about their answers so that ambiguity doesn't cause me to assume something that is not true? I never actually stated anything as a fact, plot, or anything else. It seems though that even voicing my questions isn't cool with some people.

1. Haven't some of the "10 key essentials products" been switched over to the generic D&D product line (like the Rules Compendium)? So are we still certain there will only ever be 10 products, and if so what exactly are they?

2. But is it a revised edition?

3. Of course not, essentials isn't going to break my door down and destroy my corebooks...Of course if it's considered the de-facto starting point now, instead of the 3 corebooks, it does replace them in so far as what the current and official base game is... right?

4. So is the framework of the game changing... or not? We've already seen changes in the overall (not just in a specific build) of the mage and rogue classes.

5. Yes, and 3.0 was fully compatible with 3.5... wasn't it?

 

[Scribble]

Imaro: I'm obviously not in a position of superior knowledge or anything but, here's how I'd answer your questions based on my own readings.

1. Haven't some of the "10 key essentials products" been switched over to the generic D&D product line (like the Rules Compendium)? So are we still certain there will only ever be 10 products, and if so what exactly are they?

Seems like the idea behind the "essentials" branding is "These are 10 products that a store needs to keep in stock in order to ensure anyone who wants to start playing D&D can find whatever the game calls for."

What it feels like is a game designed for people who want to play like a "core only" game.

If they buy those books, they have all of D&D (essentially. ) Not that I think they're planning to stop making add on source books... but Essentials seems like it's designed to stand on it's own.

2. But is it a revised edition?

Everything we've seen so far leads me to believe no. This is because while they created new class constructs that function in different ways, the underlying system that is 4e is unchanged.

4e seems to be designed almost as two parts. The first is the underlying system... Stuff like how a basic attack functions, what armor class means, hit points, second winds, conditions... The basic stuff that people have in common, and would be effected by if it was changed.

The second part is layered on top... These elements are self contained interactions with the base elements. The "exceptions" they always talk about. Changing them effects only the element itself, or at most the person using it. It's not designed to change the base rules everyone works with.

For instance an at-will power that lets you shift more then 1 square doesn't change how many squares someone else gets to shift- Only how many you can.

The new classes we've seen so far only seem to add new stuff to the second layer.

3. Of course not, essentials isn't going to break my door down and destroy my corebooks...Of course if it's considered the de-facto starting point now, instead of the 3 corebooks, it does replace them in so far as what the current and official base game is... right?

It seems to be designed to create another avenue to get into the game. This one being better designed to guide you through the game more easily. The two from what we've seen can (and are designed to) function side by side (but see the previous comment on how I think Essentials is designed to stand on its own.)

4. So is the framework of the game changing... or not? We've already seen changes in the overall (not just in a specific build) of the mage and rogue classes.

I would say yes and no... No for reasons stated above... Yes in that it adds another layer of design they can use when making more stuff for us.

Instead of simply making characters that all get at-wills, encounter, and dailies they can choose to do so, or do something else.

5. Yes, and 3.0 was fully compatible with 3.5... wasn't it?

It's weird that they said that in that post. Maybe they didn't realize how much of an effect the changes they made would have?

The difference I see here is they've said you can use the stuff you already have without any updating to "make it like essentials."

If you have a PHB I Wizard and an Essentials Wizard in the same party they're designed to be balanced to each other from the start.

Using an essentials class along side of an original class doesn't force me to change anything to maintain balance.

When 3.5 cam about there were changes that rippled though the game... Like damage resistance for instance. When they changed that, suddenly a class that was using say a certain magic sword could no longer fucntion properly, because it now needed another type of weapon.

Suddenly a ranger was no longer balanced against another ranger.

The same isn't happening here.


Anyway those are my thoughts at least!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yes they are. They have:

1) Too much HP, making them very grindy and this is combined with their enhanced defenses enhancing the "grindy" feeling
2) Too little damage, so they cannot even generally threaten PCs anyway - especially because they often have terrible action economy to face a party of 5 players.
3) Brutes are an absolute joke, because they'll spend all day stunned/dominated and dazed due to utterly miserable defenses and their attack accuracy isn't sufficient (something MM3 fixed nicely).

MM1 solos are routinely described as being boring grind fests, it's a common complaint and its why Wizards changed solo monsters HP (20% less) and defenses. This isn't just "My game" this is a general complaint that resulted in the fundamental maths as to how solos are designed. If this was just "my game" why were they completely altered by MM2? Wizards doesn't just pay attention to what I say, so it can't just have been me that noticed solos had too many HP, not enough damage and weren't capable of challenging a party of five PCs (not enough actions usually, or poor action economy).

For many people... 'grindy' doesn't exist. They don't notice it. For many people, long combats are the norm, and they enjoy them. So you cannot use your opinion of what needs to happen for D&D combat to be fun to justify a blanket statement saying that all MMI Solos are terribly designed and fundamentally flawed.

Now that being said... do many people not like the MMI Solos and have made their opinions known? Absolutely. Did two additional years of playtesting, new material and listening to critiques convince the designers that Solos could be better than what they had? Absolutely. Has the opinions about MMI Solos tended to fall on the side that they aren't deadly and/or challenging enough? From what I've seen, yes indeed.

However...

...there have been plenty of people on these boards who have said they have not had problems. Thus, your claim that all MMI Solo monsters are terrible and not worthwhile is not empirically correct.

The proper statement to make is that Monster Manual Solos can cause problems, depending on the type of game you are a part of, and the number and type of characters that are playing. And enough people have run their games in such a way that these problems crop up more often, so changes over time have been made to new monsters to help those people out. However, that in no way invalidates the Solos from Monster Manual 1 and you might as well rip those pages out of the book, because it is impossible to play D&D with them.

Now you may think I'm splitting hairs here. And yes I am. However, when you make a black and white statement and the person who posts immediately after you gets concerned because they cannot understand how the game could get shipped if that black and white statement you made was true... I feel the need to point out to him that it isn't black and white, but is a much more vibrant shade of gray.

 

[Philosopher]

Making a mistake (or mistakes) does not mean they are merely practicing guesswork. It means they made a mistake (or mistakes). 4e has a pretty robust and balanced series of mathematical assumptions as foundation. PHB1 era maths don't properly apply those maths all of the time. They've been fixing this for some time now, with expertise feats (not my favored method, but let's not mix two flamewars here), new Monster Manuals with more challenging or fun mechanics, errata, extra Masterwork armor options in AV, etc...

So they did use math, but got the math wrong. Great.

Guesswork does not entail making blind guesses. You try things out, see how they work, modify, try them out again, etc. That's how things have been done all along, implying there was nothing new here.

 

[mkill]

Solo monsters were a new concept in 4th edition and it took the designers a few interations until they managed to do them perfectly. Is that so surprising? Maybe you're the kind of person who always does everything right the first time and never learns from experience, I'm not.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So they did use math, but got the math wrong. Great.

Guesswork does not entail making blind guesses. You try things out, see how they work, modify, try them out again, etc. That's how things have been done all along, implying there was nothing new here.

No, it is just that there are a lot of moving parts to the game. Unlike what people who haven't done commercial game design are likely to think there's really no simple 'done' point where everything is all neatly wrapped up in little bow ties. Especially with a game that was designed by a large team of people and is a significantly complex system you reach a point where you have to print it and ship it and inevitably not all of the dust has settled.

I just find it mind boggling that people can actually think that a well funded group of trained professionals are actually a bunch of total dolts that can't add. People talk about the 'math' like it is some kind of multi-variate calculus or something, its friggin addition. Nobody had trouble adding. They just simply don't always have time to playtest every single level of every class and every different build after the last round of changes to some other part of the system. So a number in PHB is off by a couple, the game WORKS, and works WELL, even so. I mean even with some kind of perfected lock-step progression of every number there's still variation in how people build their characters, party composition, what items they have, etc. The system HAS to be tolerant of some variation, and it is.

Of course when you have plenty of supplements coming out you have the luxury of dropping in a few things here and there like more Masterwork Armor in AV1 to make things even better.

 

[Aegeri]

So they did use math, but got the math wrong. Great.

The maths wasn't really wrong, because solo monsters are supposed to be five monsters. The maths of the original monsters, for example their "excessive" HP are caused because after paragon tier they gained x5 HP to their base total. That's basically like adding five monsters to one in terms of HP. It's not getting it wrong, it's doing things a bit too literally. Now solo monsters get a x4 multiplier regardless of their level.

This again goes to explain why I don't see much of a problem with many of the original MM heroic solos, they aren't terribly crippled by later changes. Paragon and Epic MM solos might as well be free experience - with the possible exception of some Dragons. The adult and ancient white dragons for example are brutes that have +5 vs. AC and +3 vs. NADs standard (EG MM3 maths). They also do enough damage that other than HP, defenses and poor action economy they do a pretty decent job. On the other hand some creatures aren't as lucky, like the Adult Black dragon, whom is basically designed to be missed a huge proportion of the time. Compounding this it is unable to deal real damage either - a long grindy combat is the result.

Really there was nothing inherently wrong with the maths - though that is outdated now - where solos absolutely failed was powers. They simply could not do enough to warrant them being five monsters. The worst solos in 4E are still from the original MM because of this flaw. The Purple Worm is the biggest joke in all of 4E easily and the Dracolich isn't far behind. I can't think of two worse solos in all of 4E than them.

Guesswork does not entail making blind guesses. You try things out, see how they work, modify, try them out again, etc. That's how things have been done all along, implying there was nothing new here.

In many ways that's exactly what happened. MM creatures are flawed in maths, but only because later changes decided that having extra HP, defenses and similar wasn't required. The "maths" that builds the original solos is fine, because it builds all the other normal monsters and is just multiplied by 5. Later changes to accuracy and damage were really things that occur at paragon and epic. If you read my responses, I've been careful to constantly stress where MM creatures fail is in paragon and epic - the two tiers IMO Wizards didn't have the best grips on until recently.

...there have been plenty of people on these boards who have said they have not had problems. Thus, your claim that all MMI Solo monsters are terrible and not worthwhile is not empirically correct.

Let's have a look at what I actually wrote, the key argument that I have continued to argue since the first post I made in the discussion.

Now when we get into the paragon and especially epic monsters - many of whom are so useless not even upgrading their damage helps - we have a problem. Most MM elites and solos are worthless after heroic tier. Orcus is arguably the biggest joke in all of 4E for an epic level end of game threat. Most regular MM high paragon and epic monsters are nowhere near competitive with an epic party (damage and power wise). Compare high level monsters from MM3 like Forsaken or Tulgar with just about anything high level (level 21+) in the original MM. Heck compare similar epic tier monsters in MM2 to MM1. MM2 creatures have better power design, so frequently all you have to do is change damage maths and bam, you're done.

Now we've got my argument correct, let's continue.

The proper statement to make is that Monster Manual Solos can cause problems, depending on the type of game you are a part of, and the number and type of characters that are playing.

You mean like my emphasis again and again that this is a problem that occurs in paragon and epic tier, where MM solos don't have the power design to cope with high level parties?

I do believe I've constantly made that point. If you look at every example I've picked out of the original MM, all of them are paragon and above. Purple Worms, Dracolich, Orcus and such forth. These are the broken solos, because unlike MM2 and MM3 solos they have not kept up with PCs in terms of powers. Compare Orcus with Demogorgon, Tiamat or Lolth. Who do you think makes a better fight? Compare the original Orcus with the, somewhat better, Orcus empowered from E3. The design differences are night and day.

If you've never played paragon and epic I can see why you might think MM solos might work. But they don't. PCs at paragon and epic - unoptimized can tear solo monsters apart piece by piece. They have tons of powers and options at these levels, their HP is high and they pack plenty of healing. A creature that is a bag of HP and overly high for its level defenses doesn't keep up - this is what wizards realized. The biggest difference - aside from maths - is in power design. Powers can make or break any solo in all of 4th edition.

And enough people have run their games in such a way that these problems crop up more often, so changes over time have been made to new monsters to help those people out.

To be honest, this to me should read "people who have run paragon and epic games", as I've emphasized a lot now (though unfortunately not as much in my previous post as I should have). This is where the flaws in solos, which admittedly isn't all on the shoulders of the outdated maths and power design of MM creatures, all comes into effect the most.

When I started running 4E, I defended MM solos quite routinely just saying people needed to figure out how to use them correctly. But the more I've run paragon and epic games the more I've seen the core flaws in solos. MM2 and MM3 address many of the core flaws in them, to the point where we're really only left with "Until end of your next turn" lockdowns. MM2 solos have the powers to be competitive, once you give them MM3 damage expressions especially. MM3 creatures are just fantastically designed in powers and deal great damage.

MM creatures are now behind in the most fundamental ways possible - especially when it begins to matter in paragon and epic tier. The more paragon and epic tier I ran, the more I realized that I couldn't make MM solos challenging anymore at all and MM2 solos were functionally better. I am not a DM who believes in planet bowling ball. When you fight a red dragon in my campaigns, you fight it on the broken, crumbling side of a volcano with the lava and magma rapidly oozing up to greet the combatants. Plumes of smoke block line of sight and hazardous terrain makes staying in melee difficult. This though doesn't help a creature that doesn't have the powers or actions to routinely make use of it. Once "locked down" where is all the effort into that terrain going? Powers make a huge difference and combined with new damage, the overall effect is pretty dramatic. A "MM3"ized Red Dragon in the same situation does a much better job than the original in the MM. One will make an intense and exciting battle, while the other may not be able to have the actions to genuinely threaten the party in the end. Noting my example here is ironically flawed, because the MM Red Dragon actually isn't that bad equivalently - it falls behind mostly on power design.

I've run 6 campaigns in 4E thus far, 2 that "finished", one is about to and 2 I had to abandon due to the group, time and other factors. I've run 3 games into epic, 4 into paragon and ended 2 at heroic. The difference in PCs power between heroic -> paragon -> epic is the "hidden" maths that the designers didn't account for (this is where I begin responding to Philosopher again). I've now got running a paragon and epic encounter down now, especially with the new maths but even before that I developed ways of making those encounters challenging. I always lamented though that by epic a "solo" of roughly around the PCs level was useless. Of course now it isn't - with the caveat again that I allow solos to save the action denial conditions even if they are "until end of next turn".

But again, to summarize my entire argument the "hidden" problem in MM solos is power design. The designers maths was fine, what they got wrong was how powers should scale in general. Again, I bring up Orcus, the Purple Worm and the Dracolich. All of them don't have enough actions from their powers to genuinely challenge a party of five PCs. Their powers design just doesn't take these things into account properly. Even the better paragon/epic solo monsters suffer similarly, like the Ancient White Dragon (albeit as I noted earlier, he has both MM3 like attacks and damage! Is he the holy prophet of the future in the original MM?). Just not enough actions against a party with a lot of out of turn attacks, many multiple attack powers and similar.

The overall point is that if you use a solo, don't go looking in the MM first over the better designed solos that follow.

 

[Obryn]

AHA!

OK, fine, it's not 4.5, but he did not say it wouldn't be 4.4! I've foiled your cunning plan, Slavicsek!

-O