D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think it is just better to take people at their word rather than attribture motives to them.

Fair enough, but maybe you didn't try to participate in the discussions over there, lol. I know [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] did, and IIRC I've seen some other people that are here over there in the past, but believe me it was futile. Certainly my perspective on it is that I was always willing to give people credit, but I got zero in return. Never did we get credit for anything, it was all variations on "4e sucks, go away" largely. Sure, I can take those people at face value, but then what?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Whatever the people at the table decide.

To what option are you referring?

I don't know where this is coming from. You appear to be merging my discussion of the role of the DM with your ongoing CaGI discussion.

But, to address your discussion, why do your tastes trump mine? Given the DM/player paradigm that I was discussing, there is absolutely nothing preventing a player from attempting some form of taunting, and there is every reason for the DM to play out the NPC's reaction to that taunt. In the absence of CaGI, there is nothing preventing that from occurring, and the rules can actually support it in some other venues. So why take away the DM's ability to do that and put it in the hands of the power and the player using it?

The absence of a restrictive ability is actually "more options" because the player can attempt to taunt or bait or manipulate his opponent in any way he chooses, and the DM can react in any way he chooses, and each of those ways are options.

Well, even WITH CaGI in the game 4e's general skill/check rules are right there to handle a taunt. It is a perfectly feasible and even almost trivial thing to handle within 4e's framework. For instance if a player without some explicit power to allow for it decided to do so I'd probably give them a CHA vs WILL type check, with suitable modifiers for the nature of the opponent and the tactical situation. Success could easily result in pulling opponents. It would be inferior to CaGI, maybe grossly so depending on level (no enhancement bonus), but it might be a pretty feasible tactic if for instance the character had a skill power or item or something that allowed rerolls or bonuses to CHA checks. It would probably work OK at low levels too. Of course even Hussar is probably going to be OK with it being highly conditional since it isn't a built-in power that the player expects to be able to use, like CaGI is.

So its not like 4e lacks all the needed machinery to do things in different ways. In fact it has a rather nice system for that, certainly as good as what 3e or 2e have. Clearly the existence of powers like CaGI in the book is going to mean that the table is going to have to explicitly look at how they want their game to play and possibly exclude a few options. Presumably Mike's notion with 5e was to make that more explicit and try to segment different play style specific rules into modules. Of course I'm not sure they can find the right factoring that will satisfy everyone.

 

[Garthanos]

Fair enough, but maybe you didn't try to participate in the discussions over there, lol. I know @Garthanos did, and IIRC I've seen some other people that are here over there in the past, but believe me it was futile. Certainly my perspective on it is that I was always willing to give people credit, but I got zero in return. Never did we get credit for anything, it was all variations on "4e sucks, go away" largely. Sure, I can take those people at face value, but then what?

I am particularly frustrated at the moment but I seem to have a masochistic streak.

 

[Guest 85555]

Fair enough, but maybe you didn't try to participate in the discussions over there, lol. I know @Garthanos did, and IIRC I've seen some other people that are here over there in the past, but believe me it was futile. Certainly my perspective on it is that I was always willing to give people credit, but I got zero in return. Never did we get credit for anything, it was all variations on "4e sucks, go away" largely. Sure, I can take those people at face value, but then what?

i have been following these discussions since they began and i think there is plenty of bad faith on both sides. I dont find the characterization of people who dislike 4E as just being affraid of new things accurate

 

[D'karr]

Eh, well, the thing is I want to see the player create a believable narrative. I'm fine with it being a player controlled resource and a player choice, but with power comes responsibility, you have to come up with an explanation of how it worked. Of course the players can come up with any sort of fantastical narrative they want to, it is their story as much as the DM's, but I consider that part of the contract. OFTEN in our play players will forego using a power when they aren't satisfied with the resulting narrative. OTOH all sorts of hilarious nonsense happens at my Tuesday night table. The Saturday group is a bit less slapstick. In practice they don't find narrative to be too hard a constraint. If someone REALLY wants to use CaGI they'll figure out some sort of story for it.

Sure, and I absolutely agree. You want that sense of narration, and the table can set their own judgement on what is, or not, believable/appropriate for their tastes. I just think that this type of narrative works better when the results are quantifiable instead of nebulous. They don't work as well when the results are based on some abstract "threshold of believability" that is only defined by the DM.

I want DM adjudication of weird rules. I want the DM to have the freedom to rule out using a maneuver like that for his game. However, I don't want the maneuver completely removed from the game because one DM or one designer did not think it was believable. I also don't want "DM freedom of adjudication" to turn into "only if the DM believes it." That's were freedom becomes fiat, and "rules adjudication" becomes "DM may I".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Personally, I enjoyed my early rpg experiences, but my game has evolved considerably. I absolutely think the game can evolve. I just don't think that many of the changes that have been previously implemented or are now being tested are the right ones.

I don't think there is an "old school/new school" dichotomy, and I don't like it when people try to create one either.

Personally, I was a regular on the WotC boards and then gave up on them around the 4e release. It's been impossible to have a civilized discussion there for a while.

I just hope WotC doesn't actually think their own message boards are representative of the rpg community. If they are, this hobby is toast.

It seemed like the discussion got rapidly tainted, yes. Its pointless to point fingers and say it was any particular group of people's fault. Clearly there were a bunch of people that were angry about the changes 4e made to the game and another group that liked them. Being in the 2nd group I found the generally lack of willingness to grant us even the slightest credit rather galling, but that doesn't mean I think that many 4e advocates didn't heap on the scorn either. I have never said that there is an old/new school dichotomy either. After all I played OD&D in the OLD days, and everything in-between then and now, and they were all perfectly nice games. I didn't agree with the way they worked in every case, but IMHO it isn't a big deal. Still, there are PLENTY of people who are unyielding in their judgment that only X version of D&D is really acceptable and they aren't even willing to admit that some other version might be fun for them to try.

Those boards are pretty toxic, yes. Actually NOW the 4e boards themselves are FINE, but there's not a ton of traffic. All the annoying people have pretty much run off to argue on the DDN boards and you can now actually have some reasonable discussions of things like how to use 4e material to do this or that, campaign ideas, discussions about lore, etc which should all have been IMHO the meat and potatoes of the board from the start, but which all got tossed onto page 12 in 1/2 hour by yet another "RAWR I hatez 4e video game" thread. Oh well. I find it interesting to talk about playstyle related stuff here were the discussion is generally civil, but on the whole I think I've found my preferred method of play with 4e and don't really anticipate that I'll change things a whole lot going forward. There are always interesting little tricks and things to test out though. As for the hobby being toast, I think WotC is toast. I think they tried, but they simply failed to manage the community and relate to it in a productive way somehow. "D&D" in a greater sense is alive and well and will continue to flourish. I expect DDN will attract a fair following, but I'd be very surprised if there is ever again one dominant form of the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

NPCs arent you so they dont have to deceive you to be deceiving the npc.. this generalizes and includes using mechanics to alter NPC behavior on a broad scale. I agree... It is nice when influencing the PC can be implemented as influencing the DM.. such as the fighting mans marking mechanics from 4e do you see any of that in 5e I certainly dont, which entail a strong enough damned if you do and damned if you don't element - A fighters I will harm you if you dont keep your eyes on me and I will interfere with you when you attempt to act without accounting for me works well... . I don't see how it can be twisted into working for a deception/invitation/false opening or whatever.. I think you might be able to ply its technique for a taunt where the idea is for instance the taunt enrages the enemy so that actions other than the desired ones are penalized in some fashion (... and in effect so are the desired actions)

Invitations (standard fencing move) and influences (like taunts) are so incredibly common in combat in reality and fantasy that if the game does them poorly or makes them lame or ignores them utterly... I repeat myself but I feel its very significant.

Side idea for giving the fighter his retaliatory defense :Hmm what about a Protective Riposte .. similar to a riposte but if an attack fails against an adjacent ally you are poised to exploit the opening it creates. ... later Protective Retaliation except if an adjacent enemy launches an attack no including you - you exploit the opening it creates. Or however it needs worded.

There are a number of powers that work this way. There is the Ranger power, Disruptive Strike that is an immediate where you get a shot at someone when they make an attack. Very nasty 'gold' power too, off turn attack plus chance of causing an opponent's action to be wasted. Rogue and fighter also have some similar but not quite so awesome versions of their own, I forget the power names off the top of my head. I expect many other classes have them too, and there are the White Lotus feats etc that bolster those tactics.

 

[Guest 85555]

I expect DDN will attract a fair following, but I'd be very surprised if there is ever again one dominant form of the game.

I agree with you. People already know what it is like to have a game that fits their taste perfectly, so getting folks to drop that for something more in the middle is a tough goal to reach. I do think the way they are doing it is possibly the one way that will work (it appears they are trying to set it up so we will be able to pick a variation of D&D or use optional rules to tailor it to our liking). But I can honestly say after over four years of pretty much not playing D&D (with the exception of the occassional 2E or 3E mini-campaign), I am pretty set with other systems. It would be nice to have a current version of D&D I could feel comfortable popping into for a steady game, but I don't need that. It used to be we played all kinds of other games on the side but D&D was our meat and potatoes. Now the focus among the people I play with has shifted to playing other systems.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think this issue is tangential but a single video of one incident isn't data. You cannot extrapolate much from one example. You have to run it a lot of times to get something more concrete. Either it just shows what a bad choice dropping the Bow and picking up a drawing a melee weapon is. The examples you are offering work against your bowmen scenario IMO. If you can't even draw a gun and blast him in that time, then you will get cut down before you can draw a sword. If I am holding a bow and a guy lunges at me with a sword I am going to move and fire if I can, sidestep him and get the heck away or run.

Well, given that police doctrine is designed around anyone within about 25' being a threat I think we can accept that the POLICE believe it. I have friends who have been/are in law enforcement. I am sure I could ask them, but I'm also pretty sure what the answer would be based on comments people have made before, being within about 15-25' of someone means you are effectively 'engaged in melee' should the other person choose to act. Obviously I'm agreeing with [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] et al as to how well CaGI models that, though I am perfectly fine with the notion that there can be a point where it could get silly. IMHO that's what the DM is for in 4e, to modulate the rules WRT the actual in-game situation and to help impose a coherent narrative on it. In any case I think 4e could work for either of our needs assuming a very small number of powers were omitted from play in your case. There may obviously be plenty of other reasons to favor some other system of course.

 

[Guest 85555]

Well, given that police doctrine is designed around anyone within about 25' being a threat I think we can accept that the POLICE believe it. I have friends who have been/are in law enforcement. I am sure I could ask them, but I'm also pretty sure what the answer would be based on comments people have made before, being within about 15-25' of someone means you are effectively 'engaged in melee' should the other person choose to act. Obviously I'm agreeing with @Garthanos et al as to how well CaGI models that, though I am perfectly fine with the notion that there can be a point where it could get silly. IMHO that's what the DM is for in 4e, to modulate the rules WRT the actual in-game situation and to help impose a coherent narrative on it.

I think police simply are not reckless. Even if the guy with a gun has an advantage pver the knife wielder at 25 feet, in real life it is pretty foolish to rely on that advantage and not treat the knofe wielder as a threat. But like i said before this conversation about gun-knife iht hypotheticals is a detour

In any case I think 4e could work for either of our needs assuming a very small number of powers were omitted from play in your case. There may obviously be plenty of other reasons to favor some other system of course.

i get that you like 4E and that it may be hard for you to see why others might dislike it but trust me when i say this is simply not the case. I have payed 4E, i have read it. It simply doesnt work for the experience I want (for a host of reasons). I would have to seriously revise the game to get it any where close, but the why should i bother when i can se 2E or 3E as a better base for what I want?