It's great to read about others' experiences running this series. Do you have any other suggestions as I go further into the series?
Combat and Roleplaying
It's great to read about others' experiences running this series. Do you have any other suggestions as I go further into the series?
P3 - this is the highest I've run - I'd probably say 'don't bother'; I used it as I needed a stand in for Shar's Towers of Night in the Shadowfell, now occupied by Orcus and his demons; the tower in P2 worked well for that being such a close fit. We cut out the whole outer bastion section as the PCs just climbed over it.
It's extremely linear; I'd say cut it even more than I did, maybe 4 fights; I tend to keep the ones that use the battlemap.P2 - if you are still running this you might like to look at my game logs. The three zones - Phaevorul, Hordethrone, the Abyssal lair - I think worked very well. The main thing I did was have the Abyssal gate affecting Phaevorul & Hordethrone drain 1 from max healing surge number every time the PCs long rested; they LR'd a bit too much and faced the final battle with the two heavy hitter PCs on 0 surges and ca 28-30 hp.
They went down fast & it was up to the rear rank to save the day!The Crimson Binome
Hero
That's a start, but I don't think it's really a substitute for having a definitive narration of what HP damage encompasses. If I'm going to take 20 damage for someone, then I want to know what that means, when I commit to taking it.
The other thing that stopped me from roleplaying in combat, when I was playing in 4E, was the inclusion of allied minions. I was trying to play a paladin, and I would have gone to the aid of a fallen ally, but the minions were irrevocably vaporized before I had a chance to respond. As a player, I wasn't really sure what the character should have been thinking at that moment. If I had known they were minions, then I never would have consented for them to fight with us (combat is a death sentence for minions), but I don't know how my character could have possibly known that. The whole situation made me second guess how the world really worked, and I could never really get into my character's head after that point.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
SORT OF, but it really depends on how you interpret AD&D (particularly 1e) about combat. One school of thought (heavily influenced by the example combat in the 1e DMG) is that there really isn't any defined 'positioning' once you're 'engaged' and thus the idea of standing over a body is purely a narrative concept. Not to say the DM won't give you something for that, but given how dependent even taking this risk is on how the ref feels like calling the game, its not a choice that the game encourages by any means.
Well, there is certainly no specific 'best choice' in terms of what you will need most in a given day, so that leaves a lot of leeway for people to do what they want. It COULD be RP, but the OP's point that combat itself is a crucible in which players are very free to play out their character's in 4e is still quite true.
You can always find someone who did 'X'. It was still a terrible idea...
I disagree. The loss of HS in fights over the day is VERY CRITICAL to success in 4e. The party which can't be bothered to hold onto HS and husband them, or has bad luck and can't is the party that is already walking down the slope towards TPK. 4e is VERY VERY capable of handing that out too! Morning is a long ways away when you're lost in the dark woods and you can hear the howls of the (were)wolves all around you!
I mean, I could point out that recovering all your HP/HS every day is standard, but not guaranteed, but we can leave that. I will point out that a long rest DOES require 8 hours of downtime, so it is not guaranteed you can get it even by RAW and typical play in a dangerous locale.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
From a game standpoint, sure. From an RP standpoint, I don't know how my character would know that. When you look around at your fellow party members, and everyone is either untouched or lightly scratched - nobody has sustained an injury that will persist through rest - then it's hard to despair. If you don't know that the encounters for the day are calibrated to test your exact limits, then it would be hard to know that your specific degree of HP loss (fatigue?) is something that you need to worry about.
Maybe there's a way to look at HP loss and Hit Dice and all that, such that it promotes in-character thinking that parallels what the players are thinking at the table. Whatever that may be, I couldn't figure it out, and that's what prevented me from being able to RP when playing 4E.
MoutonRustique
Explorer
HS in 4e is equivalent to "health" in action movies.
In action movies, even if the guy has bleeding feet (lost HS) and no shoes, he's still able to dodge, he's still able to climb, when the fighting starts, wounds are forgotten (full hp) - he performs. The hits they take during the scene, that make the hero dizzy and miss, and bleed everywhere, and that make you think : "damn! that hurt! - Is he going to make it?" Those are hp - and once he gets a breather, they convert to HS : still as banged up, but able to go for another round of abuse.
When you look at your buddy with full hp and 0 HS left, that dudette is bleeding all over, arm broken in two places, and tapped to a stick. But she's still got the fire to mess the bad guys up. She'll headbut that orc and she can take a few more shots... but not to many... it's getting close to a death-scene potential here.
In 4e hp, are not meat - HS are meat (actually, they can be meat, they can also be hope, faith, etc.) It's almost a direct translation of a boxing match : hp are what you have for a round, HS are what you've got for the fight.
You can't tell me you don't see a difference in a boxer's face/stance/everything between round 1 and round 8.
lockyreid1
First Post
Yeah you can think of HS as exhaustion levels as well. After each battle, you can take a short breather and bandage up some cuts. But enough fights during a day and your character is getting more and more tired. And at some point they just can't go on anymore without a full nights rest. These are the moments where your character can't hold their own in the fights, and TPKs become a serious reality.
I understand that you have to abstract the wording of some of the mechanics, but I don't think its too hard to reflavor the game mechanics into some in world thing your characters can measure and notice.
I understand that you have to abstract the wording of some of the mechanics, but I don't think its too hard to reflavor the game mechanics into some in world thing your characters can measure and notice.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Traditionally speaking, that's a good example of a character who has taken a lot of HP damage. She's clearly injured, in such a way that she won't be fine in the morning. She can still keep fighting (no wound penalties), but she's on the verge of being down for the count (low HP). It doesn't make sense as a description of running through all of your Healing Surges, because Healing Surges recover fully overnight, and broken bones do not.
There's also the issue where you go from 1 HP and 4 HS, to 100 HP and 0 HS. Even if I started thinking of HS as the new version of what HP had always been, I have no way to describe that conversion process. Spending a Healing Surge to recover HP is a conscious decision on your part, and I don't get how a character could consciously decide to take a long-term injury in exchange for short-term endurance. (I mean, I could understand if you're pushing yourself to keep going in combat, and that causes long-term strain; but healing surges are normally spent between combats, and short rests are supposed to mean catching your breath.)
Like I said, it was a puzzle that I couldn't unravel when I was trying to play the game, ten years ago. If there is a solution, then that would have been useful at the time, but nothing we say now will influence how I tried to play the game back then.
I
Immortal Sun
Guest
I generally agree that 4E gave you a sense of of the purpose of your character right there in the abilities. That certainly aids role-playing in some regards, but it also limits it. In other editions, the things you do were less right there in the abilities and more in how you put them to use. These approaches have appeal and work for different people. I like 4E in that the combat play reinforces the decisions you make during character creation. It can help keep you "on the path" of a certain type of play and a certain sort of roleplay.
On the other hand, other editions give you "pieces" and a note saying "some assembly required" and nothing more. This approach requires the player to keep themselves on track and focused on the style of play and sort of character they want to roleplay. Some people are better at this approach, some people aren't. This approach certainly requires more work and some people find that more enjoyable but some people see it more as work and some character concepts are harder to make work than others.
4E supported an awful lot of character concepts, and with their hybrid system, there were a nearly infinite number of combinations. As well every class had a variety of powers that could allow one to express a number of character concepts. But this design also limited players who wanted a more "bake from scratch" sort of approach. And it can be just as frustrating to not be able to express your character concept in this edition because the pieces don't exist, as it is to attempt to express your concept from the raw elements.
On the other hand, other editions give you "pieces" and a note saying "some assembly required" and nothing more. This approach requires the player to keep themselves on track and focused on the style of play and sort of character they want to roleplay. Some people are better at this approach, some people aren't. This approach certainly requires more work and some people find that more enjoyable but some people see it more as work and some character concepts are harder to make work than others.
4E supported an awful lot of character concepts, and with their hybrid system, there were a nearly infinite number of combinations. As well every class had a variety of powers that could allow one to express a number of character concepts. But this design also limited players who wanted a more "bake from scratch" sort of approach. And it can be just as frustrating to not be able to express your character concept in this edition because the pieces don't exist, as it is to attempt to express your concept from the raw elements.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
My assumption was always that 4e was replicating an action-adventure movie, at least in a loose sort of D&D-esque way. So, my model for how hit points and damage works is basically how it works in Hollywood. The hero gets bruised, battered, beaten, sometimes knocked down, and now and then visibly injured in a way that has some significant effect for a while. However, in a few scenes said injury has faded to being a 'limp' and a bandage.
Now and then some drama will arise out of an action hero's wounds, but they don't keep piling up and lingering for weeks, making them take refuge in the 'inn' for days on end. If you work on that model, and that model works for you, then 4e's take on hit points is pretty much dead on. There's danger, you could die in one round right where you stand, or you could be worn away while making your way through a long sequence of hazards until that last one gets you. You won't sit around in a hospital bed (at least not often).
I'm all for increasing the range of options. In HoML the GM has tools to impose 'afflictions', which can model some types of dramatic wounds or whatnot that might be used to help frame scenes and ratchet up the pressure on characters. This is more implicit in 4e proper, though there is certainly a disease track there to allow for it.
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