Blog post on the feel of D&D (marmell, reynolds et all)

[Harshax]

Add in magic, and games often ground to a halt as players gave physics dissertations on why it was perfectly logical for them to use a spell in a way which was obviously way beyond the intended scope and power of the spell.

I misread this the first time, and had a flashback of the three of us in high school physically performing combat moves, and how they were totally plausible within the 1 minute round. We'd argue for for hours. This was before UA, when two-weapon fighting was a tiny paragraph in the DMG. (Back then, the DMG was kinda like a bible for the irreligious. You kept coming back to those favorite yellowing pages, but huge tracks were pristine white from lack of sunlight or pizza stained fingers)

Sometimes I think we got together for the arguments, not the games. :\

Good times. good times.

The rules have gotten a lot better, when it comes to adjudicating a situation that the rules don't handle specifically. That said, however, players have gotten a lot more meta-gamey at the table because the guidelines for handling ad hoc situations is transparent through the DM Screen. We've trade the situation where a DM would lean back in his chair and stair thoughtfully at the ceiling for a few minutes before making his call to players leaning back in the chair and extrapolating the logical skill or ability score to use for a given action, and sometimes openly discussing it as if it is a foregone conclusion how to DM should rule. Neither is really an ideal scenario.

 

[Sir Brennen]

I misread this the first time, and had a flashback of the three of us in high school physically performing combat moves, and how they were totally plausible within the 1 minute round. We'd argue for for hours.

Go back one sentence in my post from what you quoted and I was talking about this, too. Yep, I remember those players back in the day, flailing about the living room:

"It's one minute, right? So I fire my crossbow, then leap over the pit like this, drop, tumble to the dagger, snatch it up, and ... oh, dude! Sorry about your lamp!

I'll pay for that. Seriously. But tell your mom the cat did it..."

 

[Mephistopheles]

I think the signal to noise ratio on 4E is getting so bad that I feel it's becoming frustrating to follow it.

 

[AZRogue]

I think they should have allowed JD to become a playtester. An NDA would work on him as well as anyone. He shouldn't have been given a spot automatically as a former employee, but it would have been wise to make him a playtester due to his influence in the community. But, hey, what's done is done.

At this point I think everyone is just waiting for the rules. WotC doesn't seem very interested in releasing information other than in the occasional blog post at this point. Once the rules are out we can look at them ourselves and not have to bang our head against the "what were they thinking!!!??!??!" wall anymore.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

How is this any different from people who have been exposed to the same amount of rules and yet declare that 4E is FRENCH FRIED AWESOME.

(Or at least really like the game based on that limited exposure?)

His opinion is just as valid as the many people on this board who have played "4E" based on the materials from the DDXP and declared that the game plays great. It doesnt matter if he was in the industry or not. Right now, in this case he's a gamer just like us and he feels that what he's played so far doesn't feel like D&D to him.

As he is making broad generalizations about the entirety of the rules, specifically what the rules say and do not say about things not in the rules, it is actually quite different than a personal opinion about how the 5% available to the public plays at his table.

 

[Cadfan]

Interestingly, 4e actually provides a framework for abilities like "throw salt in their eyes" in a manner that previous editions did not.

So your player wants to throw salt in an enemy's eyes, but you're afraid that if you allow it your game will turn into a 1e style salt-throwing fest after you permit it?

Make it a power. Restrict it to per encounter or per day, and make the player take it as part of their regular power progression.

One of the problems with something like salt throwing in earlier editions is that if it was good enough to do at all, it was good enough to do ALL. FREAKING. DAY. So you had to make it worse than regular attacking, ie, worse than you might want, so that your characters don't spend the rest of the game abusing it.

With limited use abilities, you can afford to make it worthwhile. They can't spam it anymore, can they?

Throw Salt
You suddenly draw and throw salt into your opponent's eyes, and lunge at them as they recoil.
Prerequisite: Trained in Theivery
Per Day, Melee, Must have one free hand, Must have salt or some other caustic substance, Opponent must have eyes.
Make a reflex attack opposed by your foe's fortitude. On a success, your opponent grants combat advantage to you, and you may make an immediate follow up attack at 3[W]+Dex. On a failure, you may make an immediate follow up attack at [W]+Dex. Your opponent grants combat advantage until a save ends. This save counts as being versus poison for the purposes of abilities like Cast Iron Stomache.

That's just something I tossed together, I'm sure lots of you could do better. You could weaken it and make it a per encounter ability, you could do lots of different things. And it will meet the basic criteria- make it a good ability to have, something players will want to do, and something that doesn't break your game or end up getting spammed every round.

 

[Wolv0rine]

I dunno, salt/sand in the eyes seems to be in the same category as a sack of flour. From nearly my very first game, every character I've made has carried as part of the Standard Adventurer Supplies Set a small sack of flour or two.
The most common usage was to make invisible creatures visible (in one of my most amusing memories, a fellow player and I derailed an entire encounter arguing back and forth between an invisible creature being solid-but-invisible vs. energy and thus immune to this trick until the DM threw his hands in the air and screamed "FINE! ENOUGH! THERE IS NO INVISIBLE CREATURE! THERE NEVER WAS AN INVISIBLE CREATURE! MOVING ON!) (We did it just to mess with him though, it was all friendly trouble-making).
Flour can aid in tracking checks (toss some flour for example to see where the wet footprints appear, etc). It's not entirely similar in that it's not an attack in and of itself, but it's an age-old, tried and true (IME) adventurer technique. I'd hate to see it gimped into a per encounter ability or something.

 

[mach1.9pants]

But even beyond using powers for such, the designers have continually emphasised a goal of easy on the fly DM adjudication. With just a little thought (and I reckon that article was a big pile of hoop, a real knee jerk reaction to seeing some combat rules but nothing else) you can see that on the fly rules are going to be easy in 4E. The d20 mechanic has been further standardized, with defences replacing saves and all of the variables increasing in a similar fashion so you can roll dex/int/theivery or whatever vs AC/fort/perception etc. That (along with the monster stat blocks and creation) is what DM's- and players- should really be looking forward to. As far as I can see it will be bloody easy as pie for impromptu rules for crazy actions, much, much better than 1E et al.

Where on earth has he got the idea that knowing a few combat based powers and a few combat based rules means that the DMG will say 'It is best not to improvise, just use these powers and nothing else!' edited out to remove rantage

I promise if I am wrong I will resurrect this thread and say 4E is rubbish for impromptu rules and actively discourages the use of such in the DMG. My apologies for my stupidity will be effusive...will JDs?

 

[small pumpkin man]

How is this any different from people who have been exposed to the same amount of rules and yet declare that 4E is FRENCH FRIED AWESOME.

(Or at least really like the game based on that limited exposure?)

His opinion is just as valid as the many people on this board who have played "4E" based on the materials from the DDXP and declared that the game plays great. It doesnt matter if he was in the industry or not. Right now, in this case he's a gamer just like us and he feels that what he's played so far doesn't feel like D&D to him.

You know I REALLY can't wait for the Non-disclosure thing to get lifted so that people who have been play testers and have actually played the game can give their honest opinions as to the benefits and flaws of 4E. Not just the mostly positive reviews that WOTC has allowed out recently.

It's completely different. One person is saying "this rule that I have seen? I like" This guy's saying "those rules that I haven't seen? They suck!" or more accurately "Those rules that I haven't seen? Obviously they don't exist!" you can't see the difference there?

 

[mach1.9pants]

It's completely different. One person is saying "this rule that I have seen? I like" This guy's saying "those rules that I haven't seen? They suck!" or more accurately "Those rules that I haven't seen? Obviously they don't exist!" you can't see the difference there?

Very true. I am a fan of 4E, but that means I like what I see so far. The combat is fast paced, the powers stuff great and the monster stats blessedly short. IMO impromptu rules will be easy, from how we have been told (by Ari for example) that they work. However I might loathe the rituals or some other unpublished facet. But I am not on this board or elsewhere arguing that 4E rituals are 12 kinds of awesome, I don't know that. JD is arguing that an unpublished book will not encourage on the fly play! Maybe he is a mind reader and has probed 'The Brains of The Rouse'!