basic differences in rules per edition

[billd91]

And 4e actually supports me in playing these characters. 2e hindered me by making me incompetent with the majority of weapons. To take one example, I want to play someone who bullies people with his shield in combat (which is the way I fight when reenacting). In 2e this was neither supported nor hindered. In 3e (or rather with the battlemat) I can't push people backwards with my shield and drive them back so I'm hindered. In 4e I just need to take the "Tide of Iron" at will or the "Hammer Hands" fighter stance and what happens reflects the way I see it happening.

Back in 2e, I'd have simply taken proficiency in the weapons I wanted to use as part of my character concept. I got 4 of them at 1st level. Or I'd take the -2 penalty, which is a far cry from incompetent.
In 3e, if I wanted to push people back with my shield (and limited to core), I'd have used a bull rush.
I don't feel particularly hindered by lack of a special power to build a concept around. Should I feel hindered by 4e if I want to play a rogue fencer who wants to disarm his opponents? Or should I come up with something on the fly like we did with every other edition of D&D when somethng wasn't explicitly covered by the rules?

 

[Raven Crowking]

To take one example, I want to play someone who bullies people with his shield in combat (which is the way I fight when reenacting).

In RCFG, this would be a combat maneuver, and a fighter can take weapon skill ranks in it. In fact, he could take ranks in several related maneuvers, to create a specific style of fighting.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Back in 2e, I'd have simply taken proficiency in the weapons I wanted to use as part of my character concept. I got 4 of them at 1st level. Or I'd take the -2 penalty, which is a far cry from incompetent.

It's pretty poor.

In 3e, if I wanted to push people back with my shield (and limited to core), I'd have used a bull rush.

That's a world away from the effect I want. Bull Rush replaces the attack. What I want is someone who is large and in the face of the opponent. It's what's done by the shoulders, the hips, and the footwork - not what's done by the entire attack. I don't want to push them. I want to get so far up in their faces when I'm attacking that they need to step back - a vastly different matter. 4e on the other hand normally supports me building characters who think and move the way I want them to.

I don't feel particularly hindered by lack of a special power to build a concept around.

I'm not building the character concept around a power. The general approach in combat reflects the concept. And that I can't reflexively fight with sword and board the way I myself do is ... annoying.

Should I feel hindered by 4e if I want to play a rogue fencer who wants to disarm his opponents?

If your concept involves disarming as a stock tactic, a bit, yes.

Or should I come up with something on the fly like we did with every other edition of D&D when somethng wasn't explicitly covered by the rules?

And once again you miss the point. This isn't how people fight on the fly. It's how they fight when they can't see anything better to do. The sort of stuff that should be the default.

In RCFG, this would be a combat maneuver, and a fighter can take weapon skill ranks in it. In fact, he could take ranks in several related maneuvers, to create a specific style of fighting.

There are a number of reasons I have no wish to play RCFG - but if I wanted to play the style of game it's written for, it sounds like a good one.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There are a number of reasons I have no wish to play RCFG

No doubt. One of them (if you've even looked at it) must be that the Beta is an organizational nightmare.

but if I wanted to play the style of game it's written for, it sounds like a good one.

Thank you.

There are a number of rules structures in RCFG which may be considered analogous to similar structures in 4e. For example, a "shake it off" mechanic vs. healing surges.

I don't think that 4e is a bad game, although it is not what I am looking for personally. I do think that the designers had some good ideas that might one day appear in an altered form in a different edition that I would really enjoy.

(shrug)

To each his own!


RC

 

[billd91]

And once again you miss the point. This isn't how people fight on the fly. It's how they fight when they can't see anything better to do. The sort of stuff that should be the default.

If that's the point then it's a pretty useless point. How they fight when they can think of nothing better to do? What's the matter with just trying to injure their opponent? That's been the default since the very beginning. Your insistence on having a power to allow you to bash someone back with a shield isn't looking for a default action when they can't think of anything better to do, it's an attempt to achieve a specific effect that isn't simply injuring your opponent on the battlefield.

And if that's something that should be there by default, why not disarm or any other effect I want to achieve? Why is that somehow different? The simple answer is: it's not. The respective editions of the game included, as standard rules, various combat maneuvers a player could choose to use. Ad hoc rulings were required for anything else. That hasn't changed. To assert that one game is somehow more limiting than the other in this regard is really more of a will to feel that one is more limiting.

 

[Bluenose]

If that's the point then it's a pretty useless point. How they fight when they can think of nothing better to do? What's the matter with just trying to injure their opponent? That's been the default since the very beginning. Your insistence on having a power to allow you to bash someone back with a shield isn't looking for a default action when they can't think of anything better to do, it's an attempt to achieve a specific effect that isn't simply injuring your opponent on the battlefield.

And if that's something that should be there by default, why not disarm or any other effect I want to achieve? Why is that somehow different? The simple answer is: it's not. The respective editions of the game included, as standard rules, various combat maneuvers a player could choose to use. Ad hoc rulings were required for anything else. That hasn't changed. To assert that one game is somehow more limiting than the other in this regard is really more of a will to feel that one is more limiting.

I think you're misunderstanding the point. Very few people make it easy to injure them, and if they do that's the best thing to try. On the other hand, forcing someone to move is pretty easy. And if they're not leaving you an opening, it's worth doing simply because they might, in the course of shifting, actually create that opening for you. Even if they don't you're forcing them to expend energy reacting to what you're doing or threatening to do. Disarming, tripping; they're hard. Attempting those things generally requires that you take more risks yourself, leave yourself exposed. I don't have to explain why that's not always the best idea. So that's why you might lever someone around with your shield. There's no real opening to seriously strike at them, you don't want to give them the initiative, and it's something you can do that might give you a proper opening to end the fight. Or it might not. C'est la vie.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

In 3e (or rather with the battlemat) I can't push people backwards with my shield and drive them back so I'm hindered.

Yes you can: Bullrush .

I think page 42 is what it says: actions the rules don't cover. Perhaps you could have players pre-craft a special action that they could pull out when appropriate based on a particular check or checks but in reality, I think this would be the limit of what you could do. Skill challenges mapped on a prewritten module would hopefully be possible. Or again, you just use it to keep track of overall successes and failures with the DM selecting what a success or failure means from a list. I think the rules for skill challenges have been formalized enough that this would be possible. However, it is combat where a computer would excel ensuring speed and continuity while making sure the rules were applied perfectly.

...

Actually you will find (particularly if you have played MTGO), that this is where the computer with a virtual table would really excel. In your example, the player who's turn it is receives priority meaning that the computer waits for them to input their action and selections necessary for that action. They select their power from a list, they then select one of the legal targets that the computer highlights on the VTT, and then they select from the legal highlighted spaces where the target is to be slid to if the rolling d20 says the attack was succcessful. All done 100% perfectly according to the rules. Maybe not the way how some want to play D&D, but if they had have had this up and running when 4e was initially released, things might have worked out more successfully for WotC.

In essence, I still maintain that the rules must have been built around catering to this sort of structure.

Wait a second. What you have just said is that the rules design of 4e is built around actually defining the rules when the rules cover the actions. And providing guidance for the DM where it doesn't. In one fell swoop this makes DMing much easier, almost eliminates the three hour rules argument and its smaller but more common cousin the five minute rules argument followed by the losing side feeling miffed, and makes it easier for new players to adapt to a group. And you think this is a bad thing?

Emphasis mine.

I think you have caught yourself out here. Firstly, you have your 4e defender shields upped to 75% power and secondly, as soon as you see MTG and 4e mentioned in the same sentence, you think that the comments are automatically bad. Please re-read what I wrote and you will see there is not criticism here or saying this is a bad thing. I am merely stating what seems to me pretty damn obvious. Particularly when you consider the VTT was supposed to launch when 4e was released. In terms of VTT play, such rules clarity is not only preferred but demanded! Perhaps there is no better example of this than how illusions changed from AD&D to 3e to how they are treated in 4e. Powers are related to hp erosion or penalties/bonuses in-combat while out of combat is into deception-based rituals - all of which completely formalizes what used to be the classic "how do I as DM provide a ruling/judgment on this" that would send a computer silly.

If there is any criticism I can find, it is the odd little things that such clarity causes such as tripping things that can't physically be tripped (although interpreting tripped as hindered is what most people did/do). Clarity does take away a little of the mystery of the game (which has been steadily eroded through each edition) but in no way do I think that this is a "bad thing".

Having the rules do what I want a rule system for is to me a vast improvement. I don't understand why you think otherwise.

The things that I don't like about 4e are more related to my preference for a more mysterious, grittier, simulation-style play, not rules clarity. Next time, please take the defender shields down and don't assume that mention of MTG/O or perhaps even boardgames in the same sentence as 4e automatically means a criticism without reading what is written first.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Herreman, just doing some maths in public here:

I'm a mathematician by trade so as you can guess, I love this stuff

...if ACs ranged from 24 to 27, then a +15 to hit would hit the 24 12 times in 20, and the 27 9 times in 20. So the lower AC gets hit a third as often again (in percentage terms, a little over 33%).

I can see how that may not be especially noticable in play.

As people have mentioned before, humans aren't the best at judging probability. For example, the 33% you mention is more a long term thing. In the immediacy, a couple of lucky or unlucky rolls (when does anyone seem to roll just "average"), will totally throw things out of whack. Like when the ranged wizard feels like he has more hit points because he still has a bunch and they don't get eroded as quickly as those PCs in teh thick of it. Mathematically, it is because of the extremes of the d20 that the defense differences are more conservative, so that in the long run, the mathematics will work out.

What about Lanefan's spread of 8? I'll do ACs of 22 to 29 instead - in my game, this would be the Paladin having +3 rather than +2 armour, and the wizard having started with 18 rather than 20 Int - neither a ludicrous possibility. +15 to hit hits AC22 14 times in 20, and hits AC 29 7 times in 20. The lower AC will be hit twice as often. That should be very noticeable in play!

I was thinking more fort, reflex and will defenses than AC which has more ways of mucking around with it (as it should too and the example you give would be noticeable if the wizard's AC was targetted as much as the Paladin which in truth it more than likely isn't so even with half the chance to be hit, the paladin will still feel like he's taking more for the team). Feel and mathematics can be surprisingly at odds sometimes.

I suppose my point is that in the long run, 4e is a more mathematically stable game than any D&D previous. I feel that greater differentiation between characters has been sacrificed to achieve this but in doing so, the game is more inclusive of all players and the characters they play. The play experience is "better", the verisimilitude less so.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Herremann the Wise]

That's a world away from the effect I want. Bull Rush replaces the attack. What I want is someone who is large and in the face of the opponent. It's what's done by the shoulders, the hips, and the footwork - not what's done by the entire attack. I don't want to push them. I want to get so far up in their faces when I'm attacking that they need to step back - a vastly different matter. 4e on the other hand normally supports me building characters who think and move the way I want them to.

Tide of Iron is a cool ability so I can understand where you are coming from. When starting adjacent, Bull Rush forces you to give up the attack (which you will get back with an attack of opportunity when they try to get up from prone -as will others who are adjacent). I suppose a Bull Rush like this would represent focusing your attention on shoving them back. However, you can charge them, still get the attack and the push effect knocking them over and the ensuing attack of opportunities which is not quite as you describe but in effect is similar (and perhsps a litlle better).

If I was your DM, and your fighter had multiple attacks, I would let you make your primary attack then use bullrush in place of a secondary attack to push the opponent back but not prone - mimicking if you will tide of iron - if such was what your character was trying to do with their body and footwork. I think this might be what billd91 was hinting at with ruling on the fly.

In the Pathfinder Core Rules, you can choose the Shield Slam feat which allows you to do what you are saying with a couple of extra reactions that may be chosen depending upon the result. [Did you work with Paizo on their beta rules in regards to this? ]

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[howandwhy99]

EDIT: wrong thread