Andy "Errata" Collins got laid off

[Nikosandros]

According to WotC, the overall response to errata is quite positive. Believe it or not, most people who play the game actually like that all the broken stuff gets weeded out.

Yeah... honestly, I don't get the rage against errata. If some things aren't working properly, I'm glad that they are attempting to fix them. I'm also glad that the errata is easily accessible and integrated in the electronic tools. For some games, you have to sift through message board posts in order to get the corrections...

 

[Phaezen]

Yeah... honestly, I don't get the rage against errata. If some things aren't working properly, I'm glad that they are attempting to fix them. I'm also glad that the errata is easily accessible and integrated in the electronic tools. For some games, you have to sift through message board posts in order to get the corrections...

QFT

WotC should be congratulated for their efforts in continually refining, clarifying and rebalancing the rules as issues come up. Some gaming companies don't put any effort towards this and it shows.

 

[Shazman]

Here's the thing. They are nerfing things that let PC's do a lot of damage, but in 4E they have to do a lot of damage to get through the absurdly high hit points of 4E monsters in a reasonable amount of time. Unless the design goal of 4E is to have almost all fights be 2 hour plus grindfests, they are "fixing" the wrong thngs. The game is already unbalanced with monster hit points and defenses being too high (IMHO) compared to PC attack and damage capabilities. If they want a truly balanced game, reduce monster hit points, not tricks the PC's can use to get some balance back into the game.

 

[MrMyth]

Here's the thing. They are nerfing things that let PC's do a lot of damage, but in 4E they have to do a lot of damage to get through the absurdly high hit points of 4E monsters in a reasonable amount of time. Unless the design goal of 4E is to have almost all fights be 2 hour plus grindfests, they are "fixing" the wrong thngs. The game is already unbalanced with monster hit points and defenses being too high (IMHO) compared to PC attack and damage capabilities. If they want a truly balanced game, reduce monster hit points, not tricks the PC's can use to get some balance back into the game.

My experience has been the opposite. With lower levels of optimization than involved in the things fixed here, PCs in my game blow through enemy hp without any difficulty. Whether there is an issue with monster hit points and defenses or not (and these days, I definitely don't feel there is), I don't think anyone truly believes the elements being removed are required to get overcome monster hp. Builds that one-shot average monsters of their level aren't required to play the game - winning combats in a single round, having it come down to whomever wins initiative, is not, and should not be, a goal of the game.

 

[Shazman]

I don't think that should be the goal of the game either. I also don't think average to slightly difficult combats lasting 1 and half to 2 hours, and difficult fights lasting 3-4 hours (which is what I have personally experienced way too often) should be the goal of the game. A truly balanced system would allow for a happy medium between the two most of the time, and I'm just not seeing that from 4E without major houerules. I don't know how your PC's blow through hit points so quickly. I hear lots of people talk about it, but I have yet to see it for myself, and I don't even see how it's mathematically possible without PC's critting almost every hit.

 

[shieldknight01]

I don't think that should be the goal of the game either. I also don't think average to slightly difficult combats lasting 1 and half to 2 hours, and difficult fights lasting 3-4 hours (which is what I have personally experienced way too often) should be the goal of the game. A truly balanced system would allow for a happy medium between the two most of the time, and I'm just not seeing that from 4E without major houerules. I don't know how your PC's blow through hit points so quickly. I hear lots of people talk about it, but I have yet to see it for myself, and I don't even see how it's mathematically possible without PC's critting almost every hit.

I agree 100%!

I quit playing because I was sick and tired of taking 2+ hours to run a combat. That and to me it just felt like every class did the same thing. Attack a defense, do 1W damage plus push 1 square. or whatever. But that's another thread.

I have a friend that has kept playing/DMing. His group is all 20th level +. He has cut the hp's of the monster in half and doubled the basic monster attacks and he still can't threaten to kill any of the PC's and the combats are still taking over an hour each. I understand not wanting to be done in the first round and the winner of initiative being the one left standing, but I can't stand taking more than an hour for four characters to defeat one monster.

I have found that because 4E is so simple, it makes for a better starter game for my children and their friends. But we just use the basic books, no sense trying to complicate things even more by adding twenty new rule books every year. That being said, I got some 4E books for sale.

Just my 2 coppers.

 

[Obryn]

Here's the thing. They are nerfing things that let PC's do a lot of damage, but in 4E they have to do a lot of damage to get through the absurdly high hit points of 4E monsters in a reasonable amount of time. Unless the design goal of 4E is to have almost all fights be 2 hour plus grindfests, they are "fixing" the wrong thngs. The game is already unbalanced with monster hit points and defenses being too high (IMHO) compared to PC attack and damage capabilities. If they want a truly balanced game, reduce monster hit points, not tricks the PC's can use to get some balance back into the game.

I thought we'd established in another thread that other groups' experiences differ from your own group's experiences? The "fixes" you propose would have a devastating effect on other people's games - games which are working quite well right now, in fact.

I have no doubt that your group has had a bad time with 4e, and that your combats went too long. But you seem to doubt that anybody else could possibly be having a good time with smooth combats, either.

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't think that should be the goal of the game either. I also don't think average to slightly difficult combats lasting 1 and half to 2 hours, and difficult fights lasting 3-4 hours (which is what I have personally experienced way too often) should be the goal of the game. A truly balanced system would allow for a happy medium between the two most of the time, and I'm just not seeing that from 4E without major houerules. I don't know how your PC's blow through hit points so quickly. I hear lots of people talk about it, but I have yet to see it for myself, and I don't even see how it's mathematically possible without PC's critting almost every hit.

Dunno what to say to that except maybe a visit to the 4e charops forum would be educational. Even with all the errata its QUITE feasible to make a striker that can drop 100+ damage in high heroic tier on a crit. An average striker at those levels dropping a solid encounter power or using an AP etc can do enough damage to slag at-level monsters (a 9th level skirmisher has something like 80 hit points). It takes some pretty serious min/maxing and blowing a couple daily powers to cut down a whole encounter in one or two rounds, but it IS possible. This is the kind of thing errata is aimed at curbing.

Honestly very few errata have hurt your average character's damage output. At worst some characters may not do their big damage every round anymore, but that's only happened with a very few nerfs like Bloodclaw/Reckless that were really seriously out of line with the power level of the rest of the game. Only 1 or 2 errata since the game started have even hit any PC in the games I run and then the effect was pretty minor (the wizard lost out on extra Staff of Ruin damage and there was a fighter that had Dual Strike which isn't quite so awesome as it used to be but is still good). Neither of those characters builds got changed and combats still take 5-7 rounds and usually under 90 minutes.

 

[Felon]

Yeah... honestly, I don't get the rage against errata. If some things aren't working properly, I'm glad that they are attempting to fix them. I'm also glad that the errata is easily accessible and integrated in the electronic tools. For some games, you have to sift through message board posts in order to get the corrections...

QFT

WotC should be congratulated for their efforts in continually refining, clarifying and rebalancing the rules as issues come up. Some gaming companies don't put any effort towards this and it shows.

This post, ladies and gentlemen, is where we went from a discussion to bitter sarcasm designed to start a fight. Read this, see what he's doing, and use it as a bad example. ~ PCat


Well, my friends, let's bear in mind first and foremost that 4e never has "errata". It's called a "rules update". Isn't that much easier on the ears? Try saying it a couple of times. "Update"...."Update".....So much less harsh than "errata".

To use the term errata would imply that they are correcting errors. Acknowledging the existence of errors is unproductive, as it inevitably leads to some malcontent positing how they could have made those mistakes the first place. On the other hand, "update" is more like there's no right or wrong rule, just a reconsideration. It's like your auto mechanic coming to your house a few months after a transmission overhaul and handing you a refund because, after fair consideration, he decided you were overcharged. You don't say "hey, you overcharged me, you rapscallion". Rather, you say "wotta guy--you're aces in my book, fella!"

Take Careful Strike, for instance. It was completely inobvious that Twin Strike was hands-down a better choice. Regardless of what the bad-mouthers might contend, there's no way they could have made that determination during the playtesting and design stages. This is all more art than science after all, with little math involved.

And of course, the other term to avoid at all costs is "revision". Because 3.5 edition was a revision which did an excellent of fixing, refining, clarifying, and rebalancing many things, and WotC was virtually burned at the stake for the sheer gall of printing "3.5" on the cover. The quality of the revision mattered not a whit. That it invalidated the previously-purchased print products is what actually mattered.

WotC is to be commended for learning from the mistakes of the past and a revised edition will not be forthcoming. Did I say mistakes? I meant...misfortunes. This time around players will not find their PHB's made unreliable and out-of-date by a set of abruptly revised rules. Rather, they can continue to use their books as-is, with a handy compilation of life-affirming updates sitting beside their trusty tome, steadily growing in a healthy, organic manner with each passing month. And if that should prove unwieldy for some, they'll have the option of purchasing the Essential Dungeons and Dragons Rules Compendium for the meager sum of $19.95.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't know how your PC's blow through hit points so quickly. I hear lots of people talk about it, but I have yet to see it for myself, and I don't even see how it's mathematically possible without PC's critting almost every hit.

It's actually pretty easy to figure out the math.

10th level is a "weak" level for PCs overall. I took the 13 10th level standard monsters from the MM and here are their defenses:

HP 130; AC 22; Fortitude 21, Reflex 20, Will 18
HP 107; AC 24; Fortitude 23, Reflex 21, Will 19
HP 111; AC 26; Fortitude 24, Reflex 22, Will 21
HP 109; AC 27; Fortitude 26, Reflex 20, Will 21
HP 81; AC 24; Fortitude 21, Reflex 24, Will 23
HP 106; AC 24; Fortitude 23, Reflex 20, Will 21
HP 110; AC 22; Fortitude 23, Reflex 16, Will 19
HP 105; AC 24; Fortitude 20, Reflex 22, Will 19
HP 106; AC 26; Fortitude 27, Reflex 21, Will 23
HP 126; AC 23; Fortitude 22, Reflex 23, Will 20
HP 160; AC 24; Fortitude 21, Reflex 22, Will 23
HP 87; AC 27; Fortitude 25, Reflex 22, Will 21
HP 106; AC 24; Fortitude 24, Reflex 20, Will 19

So, the average same level 10th level foe would be:

HP 111; AC 24.4 (round to 24); Fortitude 23, Reflex 21, Will 20.5 (round to 21)

Let's use a party of Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Wizard. One of each role but Defender, two of those. We will only use At Will powers.

The 10th level Cleric uses Lance of Faith every round. Wisdom 20, +2 holy symbol vs. Reflex
The 10th level Fighter with Weapon Talent uses Reaping Strike every round. Strength 20, +2 longsword, Weapon Focus
The 10th level Paladin uses Holy Strike every round. Strength 20, Wisdom 14, +2 longsword, Weapon Focus
The 10th level Ranger uses Twin Strike every round. Dexterity 20, +2 longbow, Lethal Hunter
The 10th level Wizard uses Phantom Bolt every round. Intelligence 20, +2 staff vs. Will, Dark Fury

Except for the Cleric who probably doesn't focus on damage at all, I gave them all a single damage helping feat. The Defenders are sword and board, so no big weapon damage. None of these PCs have a +3 magic item (but some of them should), nor did they take superior weapons or implements.

Even without counting the increased damage of criticals, the Cleric does 6.9 dpr, the Fighter does 8.825 dpr, the Paladin does 8.7 dpr, the Ranger does 11.625 dpr, and the Wizard does 7.5 dpr.

This is a total of 43.55 dpr or 12.75 rounds to take out 5 such foes (worse case scenario).

Something as simple as counting the increased damage of criticals drops this by over a round or 11.5 rounds (~3 criticals in that timeframe). Combat Advantage a fourth of the time drops 1 round. Using 3 Encounter powers instead of 3 At Wills per PC drops it by at least 2 rounds and sometimes more. We're already around 8.5 or fewer rounds.

Optimizing the PCs more than I did, Weapon/Implement Expertise, racial abilities, the defenders getting an occasional free attack or damage, giving some of them +3 items instead of +2, throwing in multiple foe area effect powers, using two handed weapons or superior weapons, having more feats for more damage, getting power bonuses to hit or damage from other powers, dropping the mega 160 hit point outlier Leader monster from the averages, using focus fire in order to free up PCs to gain Combat Advantage via flank more often, hitting foes with vulnerabilities, doing ongoing damage, having two strikers in the group instead of two defenders.

It's not that hard to take this down to 6 rounds or fewer, especially with PCs that are just decently optimized.

I wonder why you don't see this in your games. Maybe you should keep a record of your encounters to find out how much and when damage occurs on the foes.