Are you tired of conditions?

[KarinsDad]

This is true, but IMO the biggest design improvement in 4E is greatly reducing the time to build bad guys. In 3.5, I would spend many hours creating a single bad guy (be it monsters with classes, NPCs, or whatever) only to have them get punked in the first 20 minutes. That really sucked as DM. I wasted a whole lot of time. Now, however, it's way simpler and I spend very little time working on bad guys. Who cares if they use all their powers or not? It's no longer a huge waste of my time and if the PCs prevail super easily, more power to them!

Yeah, I don't quite see it that way. As DM, I still take the time to design out an encounter room or rooms, still put unusual terrain in it, still put traps in it. I still do the work, my focus is just in many different other places.

When the PCs punk out the BBEG, it can still be frustrating.

In our campaign, we added a house rule that NPCs get an immediate free save (no modifiers) versus Stun, Sleep/Unconsciousness, and Petrification so that the conditions that totally remove actions have a chance to fail right away. This both helps to protect the encounter and incentivizes players to take Daze, Immobilize, etc. type conditions which although debilitating, do not take away all of the NPC's actions instead.

Personally, I cannot stand the Wizard Lock scenarios of 4E. It's extremely bad game design. Fortunately, none of our players have tried it yet.

 

[KarinsDad]

So I'm okay with it if the DM wants to fudge a few roles to make sure the cool stuff happens.

I'm not. DMs are not omnipotent and fudging dice rolls ends up changing probability which in turn can lead to TPKs. Sure, the DM can make sure he hits the first 5 times and then misses the next 5 times, but that's not fun for me as a player either. "Yup, the DM did the smack down on us, but then turned around and saved us.".

It gets old when the DM fudges the dice to make sure his monster's Once Per Encounter powers actually work so that he can show them off. That's not creating a story. The story will work out just fine without the DM fudging, in fact, it often works out in interesting directions that the DM never anticipated. Since the DM is not omnipotent, he can actually minimize the cool weird unexpected stuff from happening when he fudges. This is the worst gaming advice ever and it's unfortunate that WotC added it to the DMG. Spontaneity makes the game a lot more fun and interesting than railroading, even when the DM's pet idea does not come to fruition.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

KarinsDad: You could be right. I haven't sat on the DM side of the screen for many years. I can see where fudging results to achieve a particular result could backfire.

 

[GameJunkie]

Not at all... as a Wizard I stay out of range.

That is my usual strategy I prefer range classes for that reason. And Controllers in particular but if I went Striker I would be a Sorcerer because of their nice dose of control aspects. If I see this monster spamming conditions I just start leveling the playing field. But seriously the players have to invest in items and NEVER forget those Utilities, some of them are party lifesavers, cherry flavored.

The best way to control it is from the GM side, nobody will ever know if they "fudge" a dice roll here or there if they see the obvious overkill going on at the table. I like that 2 1/2 rule of thumb mentioned previously. I've done similar depending on the "mood" of the players. Some take it with a smile some get intensely frustrated if they are being sidelined in a particular fight. Take that into account or even talk with the players before hand that there is a story arc reason for upcoming fight whatever works best for your group.

 

[Elric]

In general, WotC didn't do a good job designing monsters to be balanced based around their special abilities. Monsters with better special abilities tend to be meaningfully stronger than other monsters at their level/role, and "better special abilities" often means "inflicts more conditions more often."

The reason for this is that monsters have base stats that are roughly the same based on role/level, and then special abilities (like conditions inflicted) are added on top of that. So a decent percentage of the variance in monster power can be accounted for by some monsters inflicting more severe conditions more often. This is true within monsters of the same level/role, and across monsters of different rolls.

Controllers are a good example of this; the Spitting Drake (MM, pg 91) is a weak level 3 artillery, and the Goblin Hexer (MM, pg 137) is a very strong level 3 controller. If we took away every single ability from the goblin hexer besides its standard action at-will attack powers, it would still be much stronger than the Spitting Drake, because the Hexer’s at-will blinds (save ends), and that’s worth a lot more than slightly better to hit and damage.

 

[77IM]

I think the problem with conditions (for both PCs and monsters) is that there's generally very little you can do about it. Unless you've invested in utility powers or magic items that grant extra saves; but even then, you have limited resources and usually can't shake the "until end of next turn" powers. A game is a series of interesting decisions, so conditions that remove choice (dazed, stunned, immobilized) can be very frustrating.

I think the general-case solution is a system where conditions don't remove choice, but alter it. For example, maybe every character has multiple ways to unstun or undaze yourself, each with its own trade-offs. So now the daze-locked fighter gets to decide, "do I put up with the daze, or use one of my anti-daze methods? and which one?" I don't have a specific suggestion, though there are house rules to address this (some are given in this thread).

-- 77IM

 

[Plane Sailing]

After my gaming group finished up today, the party fighter was complaining, saying he is so tired of being stunned/dazed/immobilized etc every other round.

I'm tired of conditions for a slightly different reason - I'm tired of keeping track of a wide range of varied conditions, some of which are save ends, some of which are until start of originators next turn, some of which are until end of originators next turn. Multiple different conditions inflicted on multiple different participants in the combat suck the life out of it for me, and are in danger of turning it into an exercise in bookkeeping.

Ah well.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think I might be tempted to give people additional ways of removing status effects via actions. For example, making an Endurance check of an appropriate DC as a standard action to attempt to remove a condition. After all, if someone is on fire, why can't he do something to attempt to fix it like pat the fire out or shrug off his cloak or whatever? Why should it require a specific leaders utility power to give him the extra chance of escape?

Cheers

 

[GameJunkie]

I think I might be tempted to give people additional ways of removing status effects via actions. For example, making an Endurance check of an appropriate DC as a standard action to attempt to remove a condition. After all, if someone is on fire, why can't he do something to attempt to fix it like pat the fire out or shrug off his cloak or whatever? Why should it require a specific leaders utility power to give him the extra chance of escape?

Cheers

Why have Utilities if a simple skill check could erase my encounter or better yet my Daily power just because you can't deal with a Controller. That is a Controller's whole mission. It is to MESS YOU UP without being boring. They already removed the best reason to play a magic user why not do it full bore? (As I giggle and laugh all the harder as the books come in with the RAW rules and options to the said RAW).

Seriously just get a few items already. And deal with the fact that penalizing you is a given. It is the very basis of the difference between CONTROL and BLASTER. I mean come on, if you have a balanced party you have at least one player that can directly alter conditions straight up, it is THEIR job, they are damn good at it also. Leaders are the antithesis of Controllers. Defenders and Strikers the same yet they compliment each other, so get your players to do it already.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Why have Utilities if a simple skill check could erase my encounter or better yet my Daily power just because you can't deal with a Controller. That is a Controller's whole mission. It is to MESS YOU UP without being boring. They already removed the best reason to play a magic user why not do it full bore? (As I giggle and laugh all the harder as the books come in with the RAW rules and options to the said RAW).

Seriously just get a few items already. And deal with the fact that penalizing you is a given. It is the very basis of the difference between CONTROL and BLASTER.

Sorry mate, but I prefer to have a sense of realism and role-playing in my games. If you prefer to have what is essentially a tactical wargame then more power to you, but your suggestions seem more fitting for a game of D&D minis combat than an RPG.

I guess that you are happy with people who keep on burning until they roll a 10 or higher on their turn or on someone elses turn, but wouldn't allow them to jump into the pool of water to put out the fires? Or drop and roll (you know, the kind of thing that you would do in real life if you caught on fire)?

Why wouldn't you want to inspire innovative thinking? It seems to me that there are two essential ways of taking it:

a) anything not specifically prohibited may be attempted
b) anything not specifically allowed cannot be attempted.

Personally I've always preferred the former, both as DM and as player.

Regards,