Discussing 4e Subsystems: POWERS!

[Phaezen]

Tide of Iron, for instance, has been a shield bash, a kicked-over table, a shoulder check, a thrust kick, a hard shove, and at one point, an enraged cat.

Enraged cat? See now you have to tell that story.

Phaezen

 

[ProfessorCirno]

4e didn't necessarily kill the 15 minute work day, it just put some safeguards in to prevent players from blowing their - you know what, I'm not going to use that phrase. It gave players longevity at the cost of choice. You could last just as long in 3e as you could in 4e, saving your good stuff (dailies) for when you needed it, or you can go OH GOD GIANT SPIDER FIREBALL FIREBALL FIREBALL METEOR SHOWER DISINTIGRATE I DON'T CARE THAT IT'S HALF MY LEVEL. In 4e, you can do the first, but noooot so much the second.

Stalker covered most of my hangups with the powers system, but there are two places that I think it shines.

1) I really like the that powers do damage based on something other then strength. Finally, I don't have to be an elf just to make a dexterity-based attacker useful.

2) I went on a mini-tangent on this in another thread that sadly seems to have died, but if you want to maximize the good of the powers system, then put the players through a grinder (it helps if they know it's coming). In the example of the other thread, the setting was in the middle of a war/seige, and I gave the idea of the players having to go in and kill a lieutenant. However, to GET to him, they'd have to go through two handfuls of rank and file troops. The catch? The longer the lieutenant was alive, the more the battle swayed in the Bad Guy's favor. This gives the players a "fun" (for the DM, at least) problem - they need to work through the rank and file fast, but if they blow all their powerful attacks, they won't have any left for the big guy. For extra fun, those rank and file troops don't all attack at once - reinforcements trickle in with every round or so, so you can't just unleash one big cocktail and take care of all of them at once.

I guess what I'm saying is: the powers system works best when players are frayed. Sure, you can have your x encounters a day, they all use their encounter abilities then their at will and MAYBE a daily, but those get boring. Fast. When you fray the players out, they aren't so sure if they even want to use that encounter ability - good god, man, what if something hits us before we're finished and I already used my fireball?! In think when you look at it this way, powers DO have better pacing (YES I KNOW I JUST COMPLAINED ABOUT THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE POST SHUT UP ABOUT MY INCONSISTENCIES). And your players will never be more happy for a five minute break between fights.

 

[Jack99]

4e didn't necessarily kill the 15 minute work day, it just put some safeguards in to prevent players from blowing their - you know what, I'm not going to use that phrase. It gave players longevity at the cost of choice. You could last just as long in 3e as you could in 4e, saving your good stuff (dailies) for when you needed it, or you can go OH GOD GIANT SPIDER FIREBALL FIREBALL FIREBALL METEOR SHOWER DISINTIGRATE I DON'T CARE THAT IT'S HALF MY LEVEL. In 4e, you can do the first, but noooot so much the second.

You haven't played 4e much or at all, have you? You are basing your argument only on theorycraft and what you read others like you (little or no practical 4e experience) rant about on the interweb?

Well, let me repeat what has been said by those who actually play 4e regularly. Dailies are not the limiting factor when debating the 15 minutes day. This doesn't mean that some groups do not chose to stop and rest when they are out of dailies. There are chickens everywhere, not all were meant to play heroes. But it does however mean that a group can easily go on without dailies, fighting interesting and hard fights. Sure, if they run into a n+3 or so, they might be screwed, but those fights are normally fairly rare.

So yeah, they pretty much killed it.

And where is the lack of choice? You must surely mean for the spell-casters, right?

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You haven't played 4e much or at all, have you? You are basing your argument only on theorycraft and what you read others like you (little or no practical 4e experience) rant about on the interweb?

Well, let me repeat what has been said by those who actually play 4e regularly. Dailies are not the limiting factor when debating the 15 minutes day. This doesn't mean that some groups do not chose to stop and rest when they are out of dailies. There are chickens everywhere, not all were meant to play heroes. But it does however mean that a group can easily go on without dailies, fighting interesting and hard fights. Sure, if they run into a n+3 or so, they might be screwed, but those fights are normally fairly rare.

So yeah, they pretty much killed it.

And where is the lack of choice? You must surely mean for the spell-casters, right?

First off, man, did you even read the rest of my post?

Secondly, I have indeed played 4e. You're not quite grasping what I'm saying. I'm saying that there are hardcoded measures against the fifteen minute work day as I saw it, which was based around players going and blowing the hell out of the first encounter they see with everything they have, and then sleeping to get it all back. 4e has hard-coded prevention systems around this - you have a much more structured power build up with dailies, encounters, and wills; a 3.5 wizard could have a similar structured system using long term, medium term, and short term spells (A goodly metamagic'd buff can last a couple encounters, summoning/calling outsiders and binding them can give you several days worth of use, or fireball, which can be used once). However, a 3.5 wizard could also just memorize a whole bunch of fireballs become a tactical - or rather, not so tactical - nuke in the first battle. For some people, losing that is a good thing. For others, it's not.

Honestly, did you read through my post, or jump to a conclusion? I'm not saying anything bad about 4e. If anything, my post there was praising it.

 

[pukunui]

I'm not saying anything bad about 4e. If anything, my post there was praising it.

I certainly noticed and let me tell you, I was shocked to see you saying something positive about 4e! I've only ever seen you complaining about it ... in fact, it's somewhat ironic that you are warming to it while I am finding that I don't like it that much after all.

So yeah, they pretty much killed it.

You think they killed the 15 minute work day? I think they made it worse! Not because of the dailies but because of the healing surges. Once you're out of those - and in my group that happens pretty damn quickly - then you literally CANNOT go any further.

One time not so long ago my guys were so determined to rest after only a short (in-game) bit of adventuring - during which time the fighter used up every single one of his surges - that they gladly spent the better part of 24 hours lounging around doing nothing in the dungeon (after barricading themselves in, of course) just so they could get another extended rest. Of course, I didn't let them get away with it without a fight ... but still. Comparing that to my DMing experiences with 3e and I would say that the 15 minute adventuring day has only gotten worse because in 3e the PCs could keep going so long as they had cure potions or wands or whatever. You can't do that in 4e because healing magic is all keyed off surges and if you're out of those, you're out of healing.

And where is the lack of choice? You must surely mean for the spell-casters, right?

I see the illusion of choice, at least with the classes in the PHB ... but when you get down to it, since half of a class's powers are generally geared towards one or the other of the two builds, your actual choice is generally less than it first appears. Add to that the point that Stalker0 made about certain powers being obviously superior to others and your choice is diminished even further ... and the fact that I have to rely on supplements to increase my choice is not cool.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I certainly noticed and let me tell you, I was shocked to see you saying something positive about 4e! I've only ever seen you complaining about it ... in fact, it's somewhat ironic that you are warming to it while I am finding that I don't like it that much after all.

Don't get me wrong - 4e is far from my favorite game . But I figure I can't very well get irked by people neverendingly praising it if I or others neverendingly slam it. And quite frankly, there are things about 4e I do like, even in the powers system (which is one of my biggest hang ups)

 

[Minigiant]

They didn't kill the 15 minute workday with powers. They just changed the reason you rest. In 3E you rest when you ran out of OFFENSE. In 4E you rest when you run out of DEFENSE.

In 3E you can buy offense (weapons and ammo stacked with tons of magic, wands and scrolls) but you can't buy defense in 4E. So 4E adventure budgeting is different.

 

[Thasmodious]

2) I went on a mini-tangent on this in another thread that sadly seems to have died, but if you want to maximize the good of the powers system, then put the players through a grinder (it helps if they know it's coming). In the example of the other thread, the setting was in the middle of a war/seige, and I gave the idea of the players having to go in and kill a lieutenant. However, to GET to him, they'd have to go through two handfuls of rank and file troops. The catch? The longer the lieutenant was alive, the more the battle swayed in the Bad Guy's favor. This gives the players a "fun" (for the DM, at least) problem - they need to work through the rank and file fast, but if they blow all their powerful attacks, they won't have any left for the big guy. For extra fun, those rank and file troops don't all attack at once - reinforcements trickle in with every round or so, so you can't just unleash one big cocktail and take care of all of them at once.

I guess what I'm saying is: the powers system works best when players are frayed.

While I like the power system inside-out, I do agree with this. My opening to my 4e tabletop game, and my players introduction to the system, took place on a battlefield. They were split on opposite sides of a petty land dispute between an independent village and a local wealthy merchant turned noble who claimed dominion. The martial types were on one side and sent after the other sides mercenary mage and dragonborn companion. Each faced off with a mob of lackeys before they met in battle, then were interrupted by the activities of a Yuan Ti cult who made a bargain with a powerful devil and the two small armies were swarmed by legion devils and a bone devil (with level 1 PCs -grin-). Naturally, they fled to the nearest shelter, an abandoned watchpost over the trade road, and barricaded in with a few survivors. They managed a short rest, which was desperately needed after 1 full encounter, 2 rounds of PvP, and the fleeing, which was a skill challenge with failures resulting in mini combats with the devils (one PC even faced the Bone Devil for two rounds). Then the watchpost was assaulted by waves of devils until the PCs were forced to retreat through a trapdoor into an abandoned underground complex (where the cult was formerly housed) and right into a trap and encounter with a pair of guardians.

Most of them blew their dailies in the first encounter or the PvP and didn't see an extended rest until two encounters after the one with the temple guardians. The've believed mightily in power conservation ever since. They hardly use their item dailies even.

 

[pukunui]

Don't get me wrong - 4e is far from my favorite game . But I figure I can't very well get irked by people neverendingly praising it if I or others neverendingly slam it. And quite frankly, there are things about 4e I do like, even in the powers system (which is one of my biggest hang ups)

Yes, there are things I like about 4e too ... but while I had even gone so far as to put "4e is 4 me" in my sig during the lead-up to release, I have since come to find that it is not the game I was expecting it to be - and, like you, the powers system is one of my biggest hang-ups too.

 

[pemerton]

Isn't it great to play in a movie script where the director (DM/rules) dictate (railroad) you actions and choices?

There is a huge difference between being railroaded by the GM, and playing in accordance with the rules of the game.

rather than narrative pre-conditions allowing a maneuver to occur, the maneuver itself creates its own narrative pre-conditions. In terms of who has a hand in how the narrative actively plays out, 4E powers tilt control toward the players -- not because of any particular notion that players can change narrative on a whim, but because their interfaces to the world have narrative-changing abilities built into them.

Agreed.

I fail to see how 4e's power system gives players more control of the narrative. Frankly, I see it as being quite the opposite.

If I have an ability that can be used as many times as I want, then I can choose to use it as many or as few times as I want ... but if I have an ability that I can only use once an encounter or once a day, while I can still choose when to use it, I am being told that I cannot choose to use it more than once an encounter or once a day ... I don't find that empowering at all. I find that extremely limiting.

The game rules limit what the player can do while playing the game. But they also let the player decide (in accordance with those rules) what the gameworld is like (eg that all one's PC's opponents simultaneously come towards him/her). The rules increase the player's control over the state of the gameworld.

Whereas in a system like RQ, AD&D or 3E a martial PC can attempt an action as often as desired, but the player of the PC has no capacity to determine that the circumstances in the gameworld are such that the action succeeds.

If the narrative calls for my character to go tumbling across the stage and then tumbling back again, I can do that in 3e and in SWSE, but apparently I can only do that in 4e if I'm a rogue and then I can only do it once during the encounter on the stage. How am I empowered in this situation? How am I adding to the DM's sandbox by choosing to use my tumble to cross the stage in one direction and then having to walk back to my starting point because I apparently can't tumble again, even if it would be appropriate to the narrative to be able to do so?

This is where page 42 of the DMG comes into play. As the example of the Acrobatics check and the chandelier shows, the GM is meant to set DCs for non-power-based stunts that reflect not just the difficulty of the action in the gameworld, but the suitability of the action to the narrative (ie do we as a gaming table want to see more or less of this sort of stuff going on?).

I think this part of GMing 4e is actually quite challenging, because it can affect the mechanical balance of the game if the GM is not careful to keep stunting at a lower level of effectiveness than powers, but it can affect the narrative satisfactoriness of the game if the GM is not highly permissive in allowing all sorts of stunting.

Pukuni, I hope I'm right in remembering that you've followed a lot of LostSoul's threads on how to use page 42 to handle this sort of thing. I'm going to start GMing 4e fairly soon, and will certainly be relying on a lot of LostSoul's ideas for guidance and inspiration.