Design & Development: Warlord Article UP!

[Remathilis]

But the party cheered to early, another one of those creatures dove out of the sky and landed on both sides of the,
"Drogo, distract it again, like with the last beast" shouts Yarick.
"I can't the law of the universe only allows me to distract an opponent once per day. I suggest you stun it with your shield bash and we make a run for it"
"That doesn't work., I know that I have to meditate for five minutes before I can move my shield arm again. We just have to hope that we regenerate faster than the wounds the beast inflict"

Replace "distract" with any of the following terms:

Rage/Frenzy
Smite Evil
Stunning Fist
Hexblade Curse
Magic Missile
Inspire Courage
Wild Shape
Defensive Roll (rogue)
Kai Smite (samurai)
Turn Undead
Ghost Step (ninja)
Knight's Challenge (knight)
Sudden [Metamagic]
Lucky (swashbuckler)

and replace rest 5 minutes with "rest 8 hours to get my powers back for the day" and you pretty much have what we have here right now.

As I said before, house rule it that you can use your encounters/dailies whenever you want, at your own peril. However, you also have to realize that the cost of giving "martial" PCs something to do every round other than "I attack with my sword. 19 AC? 5 damage" is a slight break in verisimilitudes. Personally, Its never bothered me. When wizards are throwing fireballs out of magic staves off the backs of gryphons at death knights with katanas riding white dragons, I could care less about the verisimilitude of a warlords tactics not working two fights in a row...

 

[Primal]

What does "role-playing" mean here, such that it is at odds with metagaming? If the aim of the players and GM is to create a story, for example, than metagaming is crucial, in order to make sure that the characters take actions that generate that story.

But what you are describing is the players cooperating in order to generate a satisfying story of martial adventure. And they are doing that via their PCs as the vehicles for the playing out of that story. How is this not the essence of roleplaying?

Character immersion. IMO D&D combat system distracts from it heavily, apparently even more so in 4E. Not only that, but a lot of these 4E mechanics actually make it harder to create that story. For example, the abilities and certain other mechanics (e.g. the natural 20 on your "recovery" roll) which are pretty hard to describe in a logical fashion. Metagaming, in the sense that you'd employ out-of-character information to benefit the PCs in battle, does not have anything to do with that in D&D, since it's usually discouraged by virtually every DM.

Why is it hard to explain that warriors who are spurred on by an effective leader are better able to press the assault? As many others have already noted upthread, these mechanics would be problematic only for those who assume (somewhat bizarrely, it seems to me) that the turn-by-turn combat resolution mechanics actually model the gameworld, rather than constitute a mechanical abstraction from it.

Maybe the fact that D&D has always strived to model both high fantasy and low fantasy in its "pseudo-sim" way, and somehow I just can't see how you'd treat combat just as a mechanical abstraction from it. Although 4E may be stepping away from sim, IMO D&D has to some extent (and not succeeded very well, I admit) tried to mechanically model the gameworld in its fashion. I think 4E would have succeeded better as a trait-based system if the design goal was to constitute resolution mechanics that are not even meant to simulate the gameworld (and IMO it would have worked better as a "mechanical abstraction" as well).

I have no problem believing in warriors spurred on by effective leaders, but the trouble is that I feel the end result in 4E is really boardgame-y and I don't see it encouraging neither storytelling or character immersion. IMO Agon models heroic fantasy in a better way while encouraging storytelling (and metagaming, too, but in Agon it happens almost on a subconscious level and actually has an impact on the story).

 

[Kishin]

But the party cheered to early, another one of those creatures dove out of the sky and landed on both sides of the,
"Drogo, distract it again, like with the last beast" shouts Yarick.
"I can't the law of the universe only allows me to distract an opponent once per day. I suggest you stun it with your shield bash and we make a run for it"
"That doesn't work., I know that I have to meditate for five minutes before I can move my shield arm again. We just have to hope that we regenerate faster than the wounds the beast inflict"

Recharge methods are not what are being discussed here. The Warlord is. Please continue your 4E threadcrapping elsewhere.

 

[Remathilis]

Character immersion. IMO D&D combat system distracts from it heavily, apparently even more so in 4E. Not only that, but a lot of these 4E mechanics actually make it harder to create that story. For example, the abilities and certain other mechanics (e.g. the natural 20 on your "recovery" roll) which are pretty hard to describe in a logical fashion. Metagaming, in the sense that you'd employ out-of-character information to benefit the PCs in battle, does not have anything to do with that in D&D, since it's usually discouraged by virtually every DM.

See, I don't see an internal conflict between abstract rules and narrative flow. Take for example Attack of the Clones. Anakin is shot with Force Lighting and flunk a good distance. He is staggered, stunned, and leaves Obi-Wan to fight Dooku. When Obi-Wan is defeated and nearly coup-de-gras'd, Anakin recovers, jumps up, and blocks Dooku's blow. Dramatic Storytelling.

Now, how would that be handled in game mechanics? Well, Anakin's reflex defense is hit by the force lightning, and it deals enough damage to drop him. Obi-Wan, unable to heal Anakin due to Dooku's onslaught, fights for 3-4 rounds where Dooku widdles away Obi-Wan's remaining hp. On the four round, Anakin rolls the 20 on his recovery roll, just and Obi-Wan takes enough damage to drop. Anakin uses an action point to spring up, charge Dooku, and block Dooku's blow with some awesome Jedi per encounter ability.

Now, at no time watching that duel do you know Anakin is below 1/2 hp and used his second wind already, or that Obi-Wan's player couldn't roll above a 8 to save his life, or that Dooku rolled a crit to drop Obi-wan into negatives. All the abstract mechanics serve to do is give stage directions. Could the fight have played out differently? Sure it could off (see: the rematch in Revenge of the Sith). However, if the round played out like it did, I'd have not problem visualizing something akin to what happened in the movie.

 

[hong]

Character immersion. IMO D&D combat system distracts from it heavily, apparently even more so in 4E. Not only that, but a lot of these 4E mechanics actually make it harder to create that story. For example, the abilities and certain other mechanics (e.g. the natural 20 on your "recovery" roll) which are pretty hard to describe in a logical fashion. Metagaming, in the sense that you'd employ out-of-character information to benefit the PCs in battle, does not have anything to do with that in D&D, since it's usually discouraged by virtually every DM.

It is?

 

[Cadfan]

I just automatically assume that statistic based information is also in character information. That is, the statistics are there to tell us, the out of character players, what the in game characters know.

 

[Primal]

It is?

Yup. Let's not get started on this thread, too. Stay on topic, Hong -- you can do it.

 

[HeinorNY]

For example, the abilities and certain other mechanics (e.g. the natural 20 on your "recovery" roll) which are pretty hard to describe in a logical fashion.

I think 4E is more like Prêt-à-Porter.

 

[hong]

Yup.

Nope. Certainly not in my experience.

Let's not get started on this thread, too. Stay on topic, Hong -- you can do it.

Okay!

 

[Scrollreader]

I just automatically assume that statistic based information is also in character information. That is, the statistics are there to tell us, the out of character players, what the in game characters know.

Totally agreed. The fighter doesn't know that one of his powers does 2W, and another does 3w+6, but he does know one hits harder than the other. A rogue doesn't know 'that other rogue has an extra 2d6 SA' he knows 'that rogue is better than I am at taking advantage of opponent's screwups'. The barbarian doesn't know that the wizard has only a +4 fortitude save, but he does know that he's alot more resistant to magical effects that attack the body and poison. In my campaign, the rules exist to describe the game world, not define it. As such, they're convenient shorthand for the players, but the characters themselves know enough to make good choices. Playing them as idiots isn't good roleplay, and playing them cleverly isn't automatically metagaming.

Edit: Horrendous spelling errors fixed. I despise laptop keyboards. >.<