D&D 4E AICN 4e Review Part 2: DMing 4e

[Hussar]

Well, I will say the reviewer completely fails to convince me on the strength of his arguments.

Table kicking:
4e) Str vs reflex (At a truely massive penalty, given that a table large and sturdy enough to support 2 combatants is going to weigh over 300lbs)

Umm, what? Why? A scaffold can hold two people with no problem and can be carried by one. My kitchen table could hold two people standing on it and I can pick it up with no problem. How heavy do you think these combatants are?

3e) Trip attack (again at a massive penalty.
The only difficulty for a DM in either case? Adjucating the penalty.

Really? From the SRD:

Make an unarmed melee touch attack against your target. This provokes an attack of opportunity from your target as normal for unarmed attacks.

If your attack succeeds, make a Strength check opposed by the defender’s Dexterity or Strength check

So, what is the opposed strength check of the table? What attacks of opportunity does a table get? Does the table get bonuses for stability because it has four legs?

CR vs Exp:
As far as I can tell, the Exp system is the CR system under an exponential transform. It is the *same math*, which shouldn't surprise anyone since the CR system worked well (if you realized the CR=PL was a cakewalk).

Ok, I've been a supporter of the CR system for years. But, even I know that it never worked well. The assumptions of CR are too narrow to apply to most situations. It's a predictive tool and the further you move from baseline assumptions, the worse the prediction becomes. CR can work, but, there's a LOT of Voodoo science in there to make it so.

On the "magic mart" meme. Paizo's Savage Tide AP has several magic shops in the base city of Sasserine, plus, later in the AP, you meet a wandering caravan of Arcane (the race) merchants who will plane shift to their home, and then back with whatever magic item you care to order.

In Scarred Lands, where I gamed quite a lot, Hollowfaust has a bazillion magic shops (which makes sense given the setting), Mithril has at least one that I can think of, Shelzar had several.

In Cauldron, there were magic shops.

In The Free City (aka Greyhawk) Dragon outlined at least three magic shops.

Waterdeep has how many magic shops?

So, that's at least three published settings. Anyone know any more examples?

 

[IanArgent]

Eberron has a setting-assumption that there are magic shops. But the setting was designed from the ground up as conforming to 3.5 tropes...

 

[Kraydak]

Umm, what? Why? A scaffold can hold two people with no problem and can be carried by one. My kitchen table could hold two people standing on it and I can pick it up with no problem. How heavy do you think these combatants are?

Two people moving around and presumably not eating massive penalties/constant athletic checks? Without being firmly fixed to something? Without access to modern construction (hollow metal tubes FTW!)? Remember, 2 people fighting in DnD means 5' by 10' minimum. That is a big table. (1.5m by 3m by 4cm tabletop of oak is a hair under 300lb)

So, what is the opposed strength check of the table? What attacks of opportunity does a table get? Does the table get bonuses for stability because it has four legs?

Opposed trip check on the people on the table, of course. Please. In *both* editions you are stepping outside the precisely written rules. The fact that the basic mechanics in 4e provide an easy framework for any attack (stat modified roll vs. defense) doesn't mean that there isn't an easy framework for any attack in 3e (roll vs AC or save vs DC or opposed check). The difficulty is, and always has been, adjucating the (potentially large) circumstance modifiers to the rolls (that and the social problem of telling the player with the "brilliant" idea that he doesn't have a prayer of success).

 

[Mirtek]

Anyone else notice that we now have a fix on how power scales with level?

The 3E standard is that power doubles every 2 levels--that is, a 6th-level character is the rough equivalent of two 4th-level characters*. Based on XP values (level 1 monster is 100 XP, level 5 monster is 200 XP, level 9 monster is 400 XP), the 4E standard seems to be that power doubles every 4 levels.

So, where a 20th-level character in 3E was approximately 700 times as powerful as a 1st-level character, a 20th-level character in 4E will be only 27 times as powerful. Even a 30th-level character is only 150 times the power of a 1st-level one.

They have indeed flattened out the power curve. I can see people fighting 1st- and 2nd-level monsters well into the paragon levels now, which would have been inconceivable in 3E.

So this means that 600 first level humans are able to slay a primeval (if the primeval is a lvl 30 solo). Even if he's a level 36 solo and a thousand fist level humans are needed to slay him, that doesn't feel right

 

[Knight Otu]

So this means that 600 first level humans are able to slay a primeval (if the primeval is a lvl 30 solo). Even if he's a level 36 solo and a thousand fist level humans are needed to slay him, that doesn't feel right

800, and I don't think it means that. Sure, purely by the encounter creation rules, it works out that way. But the extreme level bonus discrepancy will probably work in the lvl 30 monster's favor – +15 to defenses alone will be hard to beat, so the characters need stuff that does damage on a miss, and the +15 to attacks probably turns all attacks into hits. They might have a chance, but I suspect it'll be very slim.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Eberron has a setting-assumption that there are magic shops. But the setting was designed from the ground up as conforming to 3.5 tropes...

And that brings up the question I've been asking. If Eberron is suddenly going to be a 3E holdover, how long will it be before we see a setting that was not just adapted to 4E, but actually created from the ground up as a 4E setting? I'd suggest "Points of Light" is the most obvious candidate, if they would just give us a map and some back story.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I wouldn't be surprised if 2010 was a original setting designed specifically for 4E.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

And that brings up the question I've been asking. If Eberron is suddenly going to be a 3E holdover, how long will it be before we see a setting that was not just adapted to 4E, but actually created from the ground up as a 4E setting? I'd suggest "Points of Light" is the most obvious candidate, if they would just give us a map and some back story.

Remember, they're still sitting on two "runner-up" setting from the Setting Search.

 

[Ahglock]

You must have played in a bunch of homebrew adventures; a ton of published 2E TSR adventures were chock full of magic items.

I cringed at the 2e remake of Keep of the borderlands. It had more magic items than I'd put in a 10th level 2e adventure designed from scratch. Sword of wounding, portable hole yeah I usually give those out to 1-3rd level characters.

To me 3e was the most item dependent of the editions and it almost necessitated a fairly robust magic item acquisition system for class balance reasons. 2es default assumption was magic items were precious and you didn't sell them, but you had so many spares you really wanted too. God I am blanking on 1e published adventures and what you usually got in them. Basic, expert etc. Less items but certain core items popped up frequently and scaled well with the adventurers level.

I kind of like what I am hearing about magic items in 4e, though I think some of there marketing of it is disingenuous.

 

[Ahglock]

So, what is the opposed strength check of the table? What attacks of opportunity does a table get? Does the table get bonuses for stability because it has four legs?

i agree with the other guy in 3e it would be easy to come up with something on the fly as well. You aren't tripping the table you are using the table to trip the opponents, so the check would be against them, just like it was adjudicated in 4e. As for the AoO I'd wave it for both the movement and the trip, in one case you have cover the table, in the other the table would function like a trip weapon and therefore not provoke an AoO.

Personally I'd of asked are you trying to tip or rock the table or take out its supports. One is a trip check one is a break object check.

4e may be easier to rule on the fly with but I think people are creating artificial difficulty barriers in 3e in order to try and show this.