Another Grognard Reviews 4e based on KotS

[haakon1]

Actually, I can't answer for Fluff qua Fluff but in terms of Crunch to Fluff 4E works pretty well in the boothill terms you mentioned.

Afterall, a fighter who sets up his daily right stands a pretty good chance of one shotting an equivalent levelled PC let alone NPC.

The mortality is back it's just coming from a different direction.

Interesting. Well, I'll be trying it as a player, it might be that it's greater than I've realized so far. Certainly, it looks like fun.

Great and backwards compatible would be the ideal for me.

 

[mmadsen]

Previous editions of D&D didn't duplicate real warfare exactly , but there was a significant attempt to put as much reality into a system that uses fantastical elements as possible and still make it playable.

Certainly D&D started out as a realistic medieval war game, Chainmail, with fantastic elements tacked on, but I would say that D&D's rules have always been the weak link in the simulation.

Through most of D&D's history, the game was at all "realistic" because the DM presented a situation, the players reacted to that situation, and the DM tried to figure out what would happen if the player characters "really" did that in that situation.

It's only in combat, with its explicit rules, that things diverged from "realism" entirely.

 

[haakon1]

Previous editions of D&D didn't duplicate real warfare exactly , but there was a significant attempt to put as much reality into a system that uses fantastical elements as possible and still make it playable. 4e says, "Reality. What's that? Physics and physiology work differently for PC's and NPC's, and people can get healed because they see a comrade hit one of the bad guys for no other reason than we think it's fun and cool."

Right. In general, I think we've got two different ideas that folks are conflating:
1) Older editions of D&D were a realistic model of reality. No one is saying that, but it's getting beaten on as a strawman.
2) Older editions of D&D were attempting to simulate a reality outside their own rules, not in a scientifically accurate way, but in an intuitive way. Rules were developed by a polymath (Gygax) with an eye on many things: playability, yes, but also his extensive reading of fantasy literature and mythology, and his extensive historical knowledge, especially military history. The rules often tied back to the real world. Examples:
-- Limit on falling damage due to terminal velocity. (Not sure what edition this started it, but I know it was in 3e.)
-- Int explained as score x10 = IQ in AD&D
-- Ratio of 20 sp to 1 gp in AD&D, changed for playability to 10 sp to 1 gp in 3e. Why 20-1 ratio of silver-gold? Because Gygax knew something of historical economics/numistmatism. I'm sure he was thinking about the $1 silver dollar coin and the $20 gold eagle coin of the cowboy age, plus he grew up when the gold standard was still around, and he was familiar with the 20-1 ratio of shillings to pounds. So this was an example of history and "feel" of olden times/England triumphing over decimalized playability.
-- High prices for arms and armor. People often say this is one way AD&D was broken, because the economics didn't make any sense. In the AD&D PHB, Gygax explained that his arms and armor and adventuring gear prices were meant to be super high, to reflect frontier gold rush pricing. IIRC, he mentioned eggs going for $1 each in the Yukon gold rush.

I contrast that with 4e, which I think makes rules not thinking about the Yukon gold rush, but strictly about playability. Perhaps that leads to better or more balanced rules, but it does change the feel significantly.

 

[Lanefan]

-- Limit on falling damage due to terminal velocity. (Not sure what edition this started it, but I know it was in 3e.)
-- Int explained as score x10 = IQ in AD&D

Pretty sure it's capped at 20d6 in 1e.

-- Ratio of 20 sp to 1 gp in AD&D, changed for playability to 10 sp to 1 gp in 3e. Why 20-1 ratio of silver-gold? Because Gygax knew something of historical economics/numistmatism. I'm sure he was thinking about the $1 silver dollar coin and the $20 gold eagle coin of the cowboy age, plus he grew up when the gold standard was still around, and he was familiar with the 20-1 ratio of shillings to pounds. So this was an example of history and "feel" of olden times/England triumphing over decimalized playability.

Exactly. A fine example of fluff *as* rule.

On a different issue, that of "boring" Fighters, two things:
1. As a Fighter I usually get to do a lot more things a lot more times in a given combat than most other character types, and if those "lot more things" are often mechanically the same each time, so what?
2. Combat's only half the game. Give her a memorable personality and character out of combat and you'll never be bored. In other words, if all you're looking at are the numbers on the page and the strict game mechanics of how Fighters work in combat, you're missing well over half the fun.

Lane-"single-class Fighter since 1984"-fan

p.s. it's truly amazing how often I can post - like this one - somewhat "in character" for Lanefan, other than I have to leave out all the cuss words...

 

[Erik Mona]

I contrast that with 4e, which I think makes rules not thinking about the Yukon gold rush, but strictly about playability.

This is my favorite thing I read all day.

--Erik

 

[Shazman]

I like these comments... They make me giggle...



And this is different then any other edition of the game? I'm a monster so I get hit dice / BAB / Saves for being... monsterish? While you PCs get all that stuff from class?

The way I see it 4e seems to be a lot MORE consistent then previous editions. Now even monsters use a race/class structure so the way they generate their abilities is in line with the rest of the game.

The game has always treated the PCs as special. 4e is just doing it a bit more openly.



If you're playing the game for some reason other then fun...

What kind of reasoning are you looking for?

They heal because they see someone on their team doing well. Have you ever played a sport? I have. When it's late in the game and you're dead tired, and you see a team mate do something awesome... you get amped. Suddenly you're not so tired, not so worn down.



I've seen people get hit by cars, bounce a few feet, then get up and walk away with little to no injury... I've seen people break appendages, and still play out the rest of their game... I've seen people have to have joints replaced and then learn to walk and move again afterwards...

But i have NEVER once seen someone get hurt, walk up to the closest priest and have a working cure light wounds spell cast on them...

just sayin...

In the examples you just mentioned, the people were either not really hurt or pushed through the pain because of adrenaline. Guess what that represents? Hit points! Have you ever seen someone beat nearly to death by someone, and then they are instantly healed because one of their friends strikes the person that beat them or yells at them to "Walk it off!" Instantaneous, magical healing makes a whole lot more sense than this, especially in the context of a fantasy world where magic exists. How else can someone be nearly decapitated by a greatsword and still live? Magical healing is the only "realistic" way this is possible.

 

[haakon1]

On a different issue, that of "boring" Fighters, two things:
1. As a Fighter I usually get to do a lot more things a lot more times in a given combat than most other character types, and if those "lot more things" are often mechanically the same each time, so what?
2. Combat's only half the game. Give her a memorable personality and character out of combat and you'll never be bored. In other words, if all you're looking at are the numbers on the page and the strict game mechanics of how Fighters work in combat, you're missing well over half the fun.

Lane-"single-class Fighter since 1984"-fan

I agree. Haakon is a single-class Fighter, originally created in AD&D in 1996, ported to 3e in about 2002.

 

[AllisterH]

I contrast that with 4e, which I think makes rules not thinking about the Yukon gold rush, but strictly about playability. Perhaps that leads to better or more balanced rules, but it does change the feel significantly.

Hmm..that's an interesting point and as a 4E fan, I actually agree with this somewhat.

I think this is a good thing since previously the difference is that the rules were designed in how they look ON paper but not HOW they play at the table.

I'll give an example. Healing.

The rate of Healing in 4E drives many people up the wall. Basically, "ione night of sleep cures all that ails you? Yeah right". The 1E/2E (and even 3Es) rate of natural healing on paper sound less "videogamish/action movie" to many.

However, IN PRACTICE, the natural rate of healing of 1E/2E led to two things.

1. The fact that you NEEDED a cleric. Without a cleric, you were pretty much boned and unless you DM was sadistic, the DM would always "weaken" the combat in favour of the PCs. With a cleric, you had people saying "ok, we'll rest for today, tomorrow, healbot will just use his slots to heal everyone and then the day after we continue"

2. The fact that in 3.x you had people running around with wands of healing and portable holes filled with healing potions. Here's the thing though...Can you name ANY fantasy where you see the characters regularly run around with LITERALLY 50 charge wands of healing

So, the OUTCOME of the rule was that you had people devaluing magic in how often it was needed.

That's why I'm somewhat happy with 4e. They actually seemed to realize how people actually use the rules and not how it looks.

 

[Logos7]

i find it somewhat odd all this simulation talk talking about the world, sure some thigns may simulate the world, but its not less simmy to simulate somethign else (like a genre) just different. The DnD 4th edition world is quite inconcistant, but the feel of the game seems to me at least to be preety much as omnifantasy you can get (a bit of wuxia but not too much, a bit of high fantasy but not too much, a bit of conan, cthulhu, and old dnd but not too much, because that would exclude other options)

 

[Scribble]

In the examples you just mentioned, the people were either not really hurt or pushed through the pain because of adrenaline. Guess what that represents? Hit points! Have you ever seen someone beat nearly to death by someone, and then they are instantly healed because one of their friends strikes the person that beat them or yells at them to "Walk it off!" Instantaneous, magical healing makes a whole lot more sense than this, especially in the context of a fantasy world where magic exists. How else can someone be nearly decapitated by a greatsword and still live? Magical healing is the only "realistic" way this is possible.

I don't see them as being "nearly decapitated." I see them as narrowly avoiding a sword swing that would have decapitated them. They won't be so lucky when they get too close to 0 HP.