Do powers reduce combat originality?

[Kunimatyu]

I think I'll send the group an email informing them that they should try to be creative more often, and that creativity will be rewarded, because stunts should deal more damage than normal attacks. And yeah, once they get used to their powers, things should go more quickly.

In hindsight, since the game is stone age, I think I should've had the PCs' weapons show signs of damage as they tried to stab the stone mantis with stone spears, and then I could've said, "but the head looks nice and squishy," but eh, no worries.

Stone age, eh? I'd love to hear more details -- I've been thinking about running a stone age 4e game myself.

 

[VorpalWarrior69]

I think your players just need a little more time to get comfortable with the new rules & system. Once they have got a good feel for the "box", it will be easier for them to think outside of it.

I'd also suggest not to be too obvious about the potential benefits of certain stunts or daring actions. I just think its more delightful for the players (and the DM) if the players figure it out themselves, as opposed to being led to it. I think this also allows for the possibility of them finding (suggesting) some other stunt or daring action, which may end up being cooler than your original idea.

Hang in there. If they were creative with 3E, then they will eventually be creative with 4E.

 

[RangerWickett]

Stone age, eh? I'd love to hear more details -- I've been thinking about running a stone age 4e game myself.

Not much to tell, yet.

I'm basically running the Book of Genesis, starting with the PCs trying to stop the god of desert storms, El the Eternal, from flooding the world in an effort to destroy the worshipers of all the other gods. It's raining, and if they don't stop El within 40 days, all their people will be drowned.

Each of thirty different villages sent a 'champion' and a few lesser warriors to aid the mission, and now they are marching from the first proto-city in the world, Eshkital (loosely inspired by Jericho), across hostile terrain, to the desert where they will face El's followers. Their current plan is to find the 'great wooden ship' the followers of El are building, then storm it so they can hold El's followers hostage in exchange for stopping the Deluge.

Roleplaying wise the game has been great, because each player got to make up his own primitive tribe, and what god his people worship, and design their own style. Everyone has their own special contribution -- the fire shaman's flames can withstand the rainfall, the warlord comes from a village with lots of giant insects whose chitin provides the only quality armor, the monotheistic warlock has unknowingly befriended the angel who is spying on the expedition, and the warrior fisherman worships He Who Writhes, a giant kraken who will come in handy when its time for the PCs to assault the Ellish ark.

Game rules wise, I really haven't changed anything. I just made metal unavailable, which shifted some character design choices a bit. And since I didn't have a full sense of how to make NPCs, and there are a LOT of NPCs (I'm sort of inspired by Lost in how I'm interweaving backgrounds), I just made each NPC have the stats of a monster that I felt was thematically appropriate.

Everyone's human, but the leader of the whole expedition has stats of a hobgoblin warlord/captain/something like that; and the shaman who loves swarms has the stats of a stirge.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

I suspect its the "training-wheel" effect. Once your players feel comfy with the system, they'll be back to their cinematic swashbuckling ways.

I think this is a good analogy. I'm finding that as I grow more comfortable with the system, I'm finding it easier when adjudicating stunts. And my players are catching on as well - during the fight in KotS's Kobold Lair, the warlock asked if he could use Diabolic Grasp to throw one kobold into another (I said yes, if he rolled well on Arcana). During the fight KotS's Torture Chamber, the dwarf cleric asked if he could jump onto the torture rack in the center of the room and do a jumping charge attack against the hobgoblin torturer. I said sure. The dwarf rolled high on Acrobatics (!) and I gave him an extra +1 on his Charge attack for the boldness of his manuever. Unfortunately, the dwarf rolled a 1 on his attack roll.

It's been a slow process for us, but I think we're coming around. It's a new way for me to play D&D - while I'm familiar with doing all sorts of crazy things in a game like Exalted, I've never applied it to D&D. I think 4e's philosophy has a lot to do with that.

 

[joethelawyer]

Sorry, but I saw the opposite as well.

Before, I saw a lot of this.

1.) Fighter moves up, then proceeds to full-attack something to death.
2.) Wizard hides a country-mile back, nuking from orbit.
3.) Rogue does flank/SA if the foes were relatively weak, otherwise goes all bow-archer on large/scary foes.
4.) Cleric stands near fighter, casting a cure spell a round (occasionally attacking when the fighter's foe missed)
5.) The bard stayed back at the tavern, singing and granting his allies a +2 to hit while simultaneously hitting on the busty bar wenches.

man, i laughed my ass off for 10 minutes after reading this part, especially the bard part...

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The fighter Tide of Irons his foe toward the rogue, who uses his attack to get CA then shift away. The wizards still hanging back, but he's tied up a couple foes with sleep and ray of frost. The cleric is boosting the fighters or rogues to hit while also engaging a foe. PCs are moving to get into position. They are paying attention to terrain, using choke points to slow the wave of minions swarming and pushing foes into pits because it removes them from the fight faster than a basic attack would.

In essence, they are moving, acting, looking for advantages, and helping each other out. They have more choices to make (do I use my second wind? Are we losing enough to use my daily?) and since I encourage Page 42-style actions (by setting reasonable DCs for cool moves, but hard DCs for ones that are trying to juke the system) PCs are much more willing to wing it and try something NOT on their sheets rather than "look up combat manuever X" in the PHB.

The thing is, they're still just using their powers blandly. You're just explaining it in a dynamic way. At the end, they're still just reading off of their powers list. The OP was wondering if powers are limiting how players think in terms of out-of-the-box stuff, such as climbing up and jumping on the monster. I'm glad you love the powers, but...it's no different from just full attack. It's STILL all in the box, using the preset mechanics instead of improvising or finding new ways to dance away from how every combat goes.

For what it's worth OP, I've seen the same problems.

 

[RyvenCedrylle]

I've been running/playing 4E for about two months now, and IMHO, the powers system is problematic in two ways:
a) you can't always find powers to match the style of character and
b) the psychology of resources is way different.

To address (a), this will get sorted out slowly over the course of the game as splat material comes out. F'rinstance, I wanted to play a Wolverine-esque sort of fighter with a little magic ability and found a Fighter/Warlock MC with Ritual Casting and a GM-ok'd unarmed combat houserule a la Andy Collins that fit the character well. He's a lot of fun to play (Boundless Endurance became a magical, wound-closing 'Unnatural Endurance' for instance) and I can work 'out of the box' fairly well with him. The Artificer I'm playing just to try the class? Horrible bore. So based on this and some feedback from other players in said games, I would argue that the overall potential for amusing combat roleplaying is undiminished, but you have to have a much better grasp on the character concept to maintain the 'immersion' level instead of the 'game' level

As for (b) - no, I probably didn't use a Trip attack more than once per encounter if at all, so I'm probably doing more 'interesting things' with Spinning Sweep than with just the normal Trip mechanic. But the option was never mechanically taken from me before. Same with healing. I probably never went through more than 3x my max HP in a day - but now I know in the metagame that all the magic in the world won't help me if I'm out of healing surges (there are exceptions, but in general...) and it screws with me. I'm less likely to try weird stuff because I find myself managing resources instead of being my character.

Do I like 4E for what it is? Sure. But I also have my weekly 2E game as well. They're totally different experiences, offering different sorts of satisfaction.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Like others have said it has been quite the opposite, we have actually been incorporating lots of climbing, etc. into combat powers. So a power allows a shift for example. Well, if the shift is off a cliff, or under a table, etc. then we also do that as well.