D&D 4E Are powers samey?

[Garthanos]

Hopefully some people find my perspective interesting or useful.

Thank you for your contributions to the thread by the way, I think you have helped bring up things that are quite useful for understanding. Expanding the scope of thinking into the strategic realm.

 

[Sadras]

At this point, across many posts, I think I've adequately explained both of the reasons why I find that 4e's powers feel samey to me. Hopefully some people find my perspective interesting or useful. I'm starting to feel like the validity of my opinion is being attacked, so I'm going to go ahead and bow out of this thread. Thanks for the discussion!

Sadly, I feel that this happens all too often in these sorts of threads.

 

[pemerton]

Most of the examples you've provided are of DM-placed obstacles that happen to provide for an arcana skill check to circumvent them, and I don't see that as supporting a general conclusion that the rules permit expanding rituals.

I think that this way of thinking about, or describing, what is going on is a mischaracterisation. It appears to assume GM-driven play, whereas the general orientation of 4e is towards player-driven play.

The general point can be illustrated by the discussion of Quests (=, roughly, scenarios and their associated goals) in both the PHB and DMG:

PHB p 258: "You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character."​

​

DMG p 103: "You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!"​

That last line is a recurring refrain in the DMG. It also is found in advice that the GM should "say 'yes'" to player suggestions about what might be feasible for their PC to achieve by way of the player making a successful skill check (see eg DMG pp 73, 75).

Suppose, then, that the players establish as a goal for their PCs the rescue of the NPC that @Manbearcat described in his scenario above. If they decide to break into the evil necromancer/alchmist/Dr Frankenstein's stronghold, then the set-up that Manbearcat laid out would be a good response by the GM to the plaeyrs' play of their PCs.

But suppose the players decide they're going to teleport in and rescue the PC by teleportation infiltration? The GM is not under instructions to say "That can't be done!" The GM is advised to "say yes as often as possible", and to use the generic tools of the game - DCs by level, the skill challenge framework, etc - to resolve this. And it's not as if there's no guidance. For instance, p 74 of the DMG says that:

It’s also a good idea to think about other options the characters might exercise and how these might influence the course of the challenge. Characters might have access to utility powers or rituals that can help them. These might allow special uses of skills, perhaps with a bonus. Rituals in particular might grant an automatic success or remove failures from the running total.​

This clearly allows for the sort of action with teleportation rituals being described by me and others in this thread. It is reinforced by similar sorts of stuff in the DMG 2. What would be central would be the establishment of a two-way teleportation portal. The use of a relevant ritual would be the key in establishing that this is feasible within the fiction.

How to go beyond that basic element of the skill challenge resolution is not something I'm going to try in this post. To do that well would require etablishing a lot more about the context of play than @Manbearcat has given us. (As p 72 of the DMG says, "More so than perhaps any other kind of encounter, a skill challenge is defined by its context in an adventure.") Though even without that context there are things I can easily imagine, like a failed check to hold open the two-way portal being narrated as lightning from one of the pillars blasting someone out of the mouth of the portal, allowing enemy flesh golems to rush through it to the PCs' home base.

Instead I simply point back to the example I linked to already, upthread, of a chaos sorcerer conjuring elemental magic out of the body of the dead dragon Calastryx, which had the result of openining up a portal which the wizard PC then took control of using his Sceptre of Erathis. That gives an idea of what a skill challenge involving teleportation and harnessing magical energies might look like, and it has the virtue of being a fully worked example of an actual play experience.

It simply did not occur to me that anyone might interpret page 42 and "say yes" as giving the PCs magical abilities in excess of the descriptions of the rituals and magical powers/items.

Your overall account of "sameyness" seems to take this premise, combine it with the second premise of similarity in rules structure, recharge rate etc of powers, to reach the conclusion they're needlessly/unhelpfully samey.

The better inference, I suggest, runs in the other direction: powers, skills, etc are all similar in rules structure, recharge rate, etc with a fairly clear resource economy; hence from the point of view of abtract rules framework having no regard to any particular bit of fiction, they're interchangeable; hence p 42, "say 'yes" as often as possible", etc, are all as applicable to "magical" action declarations as "mudane" ones.

This inference and its conclusion is reinforced by looking at the many examples I've posted and referred to (of skill challenges, traps/hazards, etc). After all, how would the fiction make sense, for instance, if a PC can use his/her Arcana skill to manipulate an enemy's portal (as in many publlished skill challenges examples) but not one created by his/her own ritual? In the fiction, how are these different phenomena?

I'm aware - by way of both rumour and direct posting - that there are many 4e GMs who did not always or even often say "yes", and who did not draw any connections between resolution and the shared fiction. In fact, to me it seems that at least some unhappy experiences with 4e (and I express no opinion here on your - Xethereal's - experience, knowing so little about it) resulted exactly from these sorts of disregard of clear implications of the rules and adjudication guidelines and so saying "no" rather than "yes", and insisting on distinctions that are grounded only in a certain metagame (eg GM vs player-initiated events and phenomeona - qv skill challenges as "exercises in dice rolling") rather than in the fiction.

For me, this circles back to a more general contrast between 4e and both earlier versions of D&D (AD&D, at least some approaches to 3E) and maybe 5e also: these other versions are very relaxed about resolution frameworks and expect the GM to manage things primarily by establishing and adjudicating the fiction directly; whereas 4e works best (it seeems to me, both from my own experience and looking at how those who haven't liked it seem often to have approached it) when everyone at the table respects and deploys the resolution framework, but the GM relaxes his/her control over the fiction and follows the lead of the players together with the outputs of resolution.

Approached in the fashion I've just set out, it's very easy to play out the teleportation, infiltration and rescue if that's what the players want to have their PCs do. (That's not to say it will necessarily be easy for the PCs to succeed - as @Teemu has pointed out, 4e in general has less player-side "fiat" magical abilities than other verions; and in the skill challenge of teleportation, infiltration and rescue things may well go wrong and even come completely unstuck if the players fail too many checks for their PCs.)

 

[Hussar]

Isn't it funny that folks only seem to feel like they're being attacked when the mountain of counter evidence is so large that it becomes impossible to ignore? Must be very comforting to believe that your opinions are always valid, regardless of pesky things like facts.

 

[Sadras]

Isn't it funny that folks only seem to feel like they're being attacked when the mountain of counter evidence is so large that it becomes impossible to ignore? Must be very comforting to believe that your opinions are always valid, regardless of pesky things like facts.

Hussar please don't lump everyone on this thread into the same basket or as anti-4e. There are certain people who have been having good faith discussions here from the few pages I have read. You cannot deny that some players caught a samey vibe from playing 4e. They cannot all be lying or all have an axe to grind. For myself it was the similar language and power card-like presentation which was everyone's character sheet.

Is it rational to have had a samey vibe only in 4e when there are plenty of samey stuff in others editions? Probably not but it is what it is. I don't think there is value in saying but 5e does this or 3e does that so why dont you say THAT is samey. I have a player who calls out both 4e and 5e as samey. At the end of the day we all make our own associations and create various links. It is not bad, or good, it just is. It is definitely not an attack.

Some good discussions were made on both sides in trying to analyse similarities which may exist in 4e, I thought. And yes you had your occasional odd digs by certain posters but such is online discussion. I dont think we need to mar the entire thread with this us and you.

 

[Umbran]

Isn't it funny that folks only seem to feel like they're being attacked when the mountain of counter evidence is so large that it becomes impossible to ignore? Must be very comforting to believe that your opinions are always valid, regardless of pesky things like facts.

Mod note:
A person bows out of the thread, and you continue to take shots at them?

And you think they shouldn't feel they are being attacked?

This is kind of the definition of attacking someone, @Hussar - taking potshots at them as they walk away. You are in the wrong at this point, and are treating people poorly.

 

[Teemu]

Here's a selection of powers (not rituals) that have various uses in scenarios involving a strategic scope. This is not an exhaustive list.

Command Water (wizard): adjust a body of water miles in diameter; lasts until your next long rest or until dismissed.

Fiendish Oracle (occultist theme): you can ask three questions, and you gain a bonus on all knowledge checks until the next milestone or long rest.

Re-Form Mind (ardent): grant a training in skill that lasts until the next long rest.

Walk with the Spirits (primal avatar epic destiny): you become a spirit (with the usual bodily transformation), which lasts until your next rest.

Summon Sidhe Ally (sidhe lord theme): you summon a fey guard that lasts until it drops to 0 hp, so permanent unless defeated.

Call Celestial Steed (paladin): a celestial warhorse (or dragon with a feat) that lasts until your next long rest.

Augury (wizard): ask a question and receive a vague notion.

Shrink (pixie racial): you shrink a normal-sized object and make it very small, lasts until next long rest.

Bear’s Strength, Cat’s Grace, Elk’s Fortitude, Eagle’s Splendor, Owl’s Wisdom, Serpent’s Cunning (druid): various bonuses until next long rest.

Seed of Healing (druid): healing seed that lasts until long rest.

Alarm Trap (trapsmith theme): an invisiblity-destroying trap that lasts through your long rest.

Soul Cage (cleric): choose a benefit from a trapped soul before next long rest.

Ritual Sacrifice (cultist theme): choose a benefit when killing a creature; one of them grants a hefty bonus on various skills until your next long rest.

Goodberry (druid): curative/boosting berries that last until long rest.

Death Mark (assassin): know the direction and distance to a chosen target who cannot become invisible to you; lasts until long rest.

Enchantment Ward (bard): gain a ward that lasts until long rest; can remove various conditions (including things like petrification).

Imitating Strike, Perfect Mimicry (chameleon paragon path): you gain an ally’s power until next long rest; this could be a wizard spell, a cleric prayer, a fighter exploit, or any other.

Nulathoe’s Undead Army (enigmatic mage paragon path): summon several undead that last until long rest.

Cloud Chariot (cleric): a flying chariot that lasts until long rest.

Death Shield (cleric): prevents target’s death once, lasts until next long rest.

Past Life Manifestation (soul of the world epic destiny): when you drop to 0 hp, you can return as any race (with its power), and gain any class’s utility power; lasts until long rest.

Mordenkainen’s Mansion (wizard): the usual; standard action; lasts 8 hours.

 

[Imaro]

I'd be interested in knowing if the 4e proponents think the following 4 powers could look samey or at least seem extremely similar in execution on a grid?

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Special: You can move 2 squares before the attack.
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.


At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Special: Shift 1 square before or after you attack
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Special: Before you attack, you let one ally adjacent to either
you or the target shift 1 square as a free action.
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level.

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you push the
target 1 square if it is your size, smaller than you, or one
size category larger. You can shift into the space that the
target occupied

 

[Teemu]

I'd be interested in knowing if the 4e proponents think the following 4 powers could look samey or at least seem extremely similar in execution on a grid?

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Special: You can move 2 squares before the attack.
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.


At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Special: Shift 1 square before or after you attack
Attack: Dexterity vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Dexterity modifier at 21st level.

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Special: Before you attack, you let one ally adjacent to either
you or the target shift 1 square as a free action.
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level.

At-Will ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you push the
target 1 square if it is your size, smaller than you, or one
size category larger. You can shift into the space that the
target occupied

Yes, since they’re all martial at-will single-target weapon attacks. Just like the various 5e single target cantrips are quite similar. Or how most 5e weapons are very similar, some of them identical even. Or how 3e has several nearly identical conjuration spells, including the single target damage ones that infamously bypass spell resistance. You can cherry pick all kinds of very similar powers, spells, attacks, and items between the editions.

 

[Imaro]

Yes, since they’re all martial at-will single-target weapon attacks. Just like the various 5e single target cantrips are quite similar. Or how most 5e weapons are very similar, some of them identical even. Or how 3e has several nearly identical conjuration spells, including the single target damage ones that infamously bypass spell resistance. You can cherry pick all kinds of very similar powers, spells, attacks, and items between the editions.

So Yes...