Does 4e limit the scope of campaigns?

[Lizard]

That's all well and good, but I think it's hard to argue that considerations like those should take up precious space in the core books. Nor could it all actually. If you are going to insist on that level of detail, it needs to be across the board, not just about one thing. Even highly detail oriented rules systems don't approach the level of detail that would be needed to cover all the things you would need to cover to justify describing locks in that level of detail. You would need a few dozen break DC tables to cover all the variations of locks, ropes, chains, windows, doors, walls, manacles, all divided up by the technological capabilities of the society that crafted said materials. It would be unworkable, even if it would be kinda cool. Maybe someday when RPGs are entirely integrated with technology the game system database would instantly produce such detail.

You could probably do a fairly simple chart of "Base Values" and "bonus per tech level" for a lot of things, though. But that's a different thread. Some game systems do come close, though not in core rules -- Dark Champions and Ultimate Skill, for example, go into excruciating detail on just these issues. GURPS has some basic formulas to calculate changes in a base object for each TL after introduction, and so do some versions of Traveller.

Ultimate point is, I prefer rules stated in the form "This kind of lock is DC 25" to "PCs of 10th level should encounter DC 25 locks." The actual dice roll, at the end of the day, is the same, but one form of phrasing makes more "sense" to me than the other.

 

[Spatula]

And, yes, what you're describing makes my head go all splodey-like. I "get" that hit points are abstract -- they always have been. However, most means of reducing hit points are not. A longsword doesn't scale with level -- if your epic level character is somehow deprived of his magic longsword and forced to use a normal one, his basic attack is 1d8+Str, just like it was at first level, no matter how many hit points his enemy has.

Actually, it does scale. Aside from STR increases (which are innate and can't be taken away), feats and so on, an epic character will be doing 2d8 with a longsword instead of 1d8.

So why should his stunt damage scale? "Because if it didn't, it wouldn't be worth doing"? Well, then, maybe it's NOT. Wizards do not cast Magic Missile at Orcus (unless they're out of all dailies, encounters, magic items, etc). Fighters DON'T use basic attacks if they have any other choice. And if you want epic-level stunt damage, IMO, you'd better come up with an epic-level stunt: Don't slide down a bannister, dive from 50 feet up with your blade pointed straight down, skewering the foe in a way no first level character could imagine doing (not if he wanted to live...)

Sure, that works. For me, I would simply say the damage increases because the character is a more powerful being. Stronger, faster, better than he or she was at 1st level. But of course it's up to DM adjucation as to whether a stunt is possible, how hard it is, and what its effects are.

 

[Thasmodious]

And, yes, what you're describing makes my head go all splodey-like. I "get" that hit points are abstract -- they always have been. However, most means of reducing hit points are not. A longsword doesn't scale with level -- if your epic level character is somehow deprived of his magic longsword and forced to use a normal one, his basic attack is 1d8+Str, just like it was at first level, no matter how many hit points his enemy has. So why should his stunt damage scale? "Because if it didn't, it wouldn't be worth doing"? Well, then, maybe it's NOT. Wizards do not cast Magic Missile at Orcus (unless they're out of all dailies, encounters, magic items, etc). Fighters DON'T use basic attacks if they have any other choice.

A small correction, at wills and basic attacks do scale by tier.

Reducing hit points is still abstract though. Sure, you use a weapon, but its not always physical damage. 20 points from a longsword doesn't always represent a cut, or at least not 20 points of cut, some of that is morale, defensive damage, etc.

"Because if it didn't, it wouldn't be worth doing" is exactly the kind of philosophical difference I'm talking about. I'd guess we are in about reversed positions. I played and Dmed 3e since it came out, loved it, had a blast, but never fell into agreement with the system about how it approached D&D. 4e does for me. Designing the rules based on the idea that they are pretty useless if the PCs aren't interacting with them (if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and the PCs aren't there, does it need to have a stat?) is something that makes sense to me. I scaled DCs on the fly in 3e all the time to keep rolls relevant.

What I, and others, are complaining -- or at least non-plussed -- about is *inconsistency*.

That's the trick, though. That's the philosophical disconnect I'm talking about. It is inconsistent if looked at a certain way. It's not inconsistent when looked at by someone who shares the philosophy of the edition, it's actually rather cohesive. There are exceptions of course, individual examples, but there always are.

(Before you wholeheartedly say "the former", consider that official party line is that the DM should ignore "common sense" when it comes to "How do you knock an ooze prone?" and "How do you 'pin' a flying monster which is not next to any surface?")

Don't get too caught up in the terminology. Prone is the generally correct term for what you are doing mechanically in that situation because most things have legs. An ooze, obviously does not, but the mechanical effects, and the general condition are not hard to explain. Knocking an ooze prone would consist of interrupting its form to a significant degree such that it must spend a move action to reform (think about Terminator 2, when Arnie nails Robert Patrick with an explosive round and he just stands there for a few seconds, an exploded mess, until he can reform and continue moving), its get a minus to attacks because your hammerblow just splatted it six ways to Sunday and it has trouble forming pods of goo to smash your allies with, just for a few seconds though.

The game design seems to be caught midway between old-style simulationism and new-style narrativism, and it seems fans tend to support whichever interpretation puts 4e in the most positive light. If simulation plays better in a given situation, 4e is simulationist; if narrativism plays better, 4e is narrativist. It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

Meh, first I think the GNS model is complete crap, but if you want to stick to those terms, I don't think I've seen anyone describe 4e as simulationist. It doesn't go for that at all. And the implication that fans of the edition swing intepretations in whatever way fits is a bit insulting. It's just a difference in how the game is approached. Does a lock need a DC if the PCs aren't trying to pick it? Does an NPC crafter need a craft stat, and if so why? 3e and 4e answer those questions very differently. You're either a fan of one approach or the other.

but in order to have fun with it, I have to disconnect a lot of logic circuits and, especially in combat, stop trying to imagine myself "in" the action and instead go into full on Tactical Minis Game mode

It's not logic circuits, you have a philosophy you buy into, 4e violates that in some ways, you have a problem with that. It's not like 3e has flawless internal logic and 4e doesn't. You just have things you accept as "right" and things you don't. And there is no need to attempt to push buttons with nonsense like 'tacitcal minis game' or by implying fans of 4e are the functional equivalent of Billy Mays with OxyClean. Can't we all just get along?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's a consistency issue. In one example the DC's are derived through an objective comparison of negative attributes that effect the difficulty... in the other it is abstracted into "tiers" which honestly mean what? All I'm saying is that there would have been less confusion if they had stuck with a single way of setting DC's... either as tiers or as the negative attributes that affect the skill.

I think that's because there are 2 distinct reasons you want people to roll skill checks. One is for a psudo-simulation reason. You want to know how hard it is to jump over a pit or you want to know how hard it is to climb a wet ladder.

The other reason you want a DC is when the players want to attempt something that's not so common, very complicated, or that you always want to have a chance to fail(for thematic or plot reasons). You can't have static DCs listed for everything, there's just too many things you can do.

And sometimes, you just want a chance of failure. You want to know that the lock will be hard for the group and you don't know what their modifiers are.

Each of these reasons requires a different way of figuring out the DC. If the players just happen to want to climb a wall, you want to quickly know how hard it is. You don't care if its really easy or really hard, you just want an objective answer. If it's DC 5 and everyone can make it on a 1, don't bother rolling. If it's DC 30 and no one can make it even on a 20, don't bothering rolling.

Sometimes, you want to make a challenge that has an "average" chance of success for a party of their level and give them a benefit if they have a character who specializes in that skill and a disadvantage if everyone is below average in the skill(thereby rewarding those who choose to be good and giving a real disadvantage to those who choose to be poor). In this case you want to start with the DC and work backward.

Both of them are tools to be used in certain circumstances.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Why did you create it then?

For it's own sake. Because I could. Because I wanted to. Because I find the creative exercise enjoyable.

It's just form following function. Wait, make that 'form acknowledging function'.

Yes, because clearly there is no other reason to exercise one's imagination and construct a fictional world other than for the playing of a rather specific game in a rather specific manner.

Fwiw, I consider this one of the most common and ultimately damaging mistakes of world design that DMs make.

My world has more purpose than to be your freaking playground.

Anyone else like to tell me I'm doing it wrong?

Stop thinking about it, you'll only hurt yourself. You parted ways with the 4e design philosophy when you said gaming doesn't need to be fun.

Oh, so not only am I doing it wrong, I'm stupid, too.

As pointed out above, I didn't say that gaming doesn't need to be fun. I said that the fun is a byproduct of pursuit of other goals, because fun is not a goal in and of itself.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Augh, I just had a whole huge post responding to a bunch of people, and then my computer ate it. For the love of...this is going to be much more brief than it was intended to be.

Yeah, it might be a good subject for a Dragon article or even some errata. Because, frankly, as I read the DMG, I got the impression that if the PCs encountered a wall at 3rd level and the same wall at 15th level, the climb DC should be increased. (The famous "chart on page 42" seems to feed into this, with the same maneuver doing more damage the higher levels the PC are -- I guess when an epic PC slides down a bannister to kick a monster in the teeth, he slides REALLY fast!)

I think it's easy to dismiss the abstraction here as not making sense, but I can think of a number of ways it does. Maybe you're just better at improvising maneuvers, maybe you're physically stronger, maybe both. Why does a longsword do more damage at higher levels (not just 4E; think about how stuff like Power Attack worked in 3E). We accept the abstraction as a function of your general prowess increasing.

Some parts of the PHB and DMG seem to use "objective" DCs (i.e, this kind of door is DC 10, this kind is DC 20) while others use "subjective" DCs ("This is a Hard DC for the party").

I think, in many cases, they are clearly called out as examples. You start with the tools (page 42 and 61) and create specific examples. That being said: the quote from page 23 talks about the importance of realism. Those static numbers are examples of how to create realism and consistency. They are not the be-all, end-all, though, and we give the ability for DMs to improvise challenges when those fixed rules don't cover it.

Why are all the threats in the city of brass epic - why are all the inhabitants epic? The premise of why you need the open lock DCs to all be higher based on tier seems to be based on the idea that everyone the PCs interact with at a given tier is also going to be at that same tier, which seems awkward.

Not everyone and everything that the PCs interact with--just the people that are meant to challenge them! It's perfectly OK to have lower-level peons in the City of Brass, but they're not going to be as much of a challenge. The idea of putting epic threats in the City of Brass is to present a challenge to the heroes. If you want to present a lesser challenge, or none at all, then by all means do so. However, it's just as easy to assume that the City of Brass has epic locks on the doors to keep out the epic thieves that roam the city, not just the PCs.

I know that if I saw a list of, say, six doors with DCs from 10 to 40, I'd be a lot more likely to make up a dozen more than if I just saw a generic DC by level chart. A tiny nudge to the imagination can go a long, long, way, and it also helps make the world more real.

So a list of 5 doors isn't good enough, but 6 is? Of course, I'm just ribbing you here, but it does bring up a point: how much is enough? How many examples do you need? I could give you a list of a description of doors/locks/walls/whatever at every DC from 1 to 40...or I can give you the tools to make your own and 5 ideas, which is what was done.

Also: I believe that there is some truth to the saying, "to define is to confine." If I give you too many definitions, you have the problem of the DM/players/designers being straightjacketed in the definitions you've already given in the DMG. You should be consistent, but some people will say, "OK, I need a DC 24 door for the PCs to break down...guess it HAS to be an adamantine-banded door made of treant wood." And, of course, the first time you do something different in a published module, well, suddenly your designers are hacks, your editors should be fired, and you're not publishing quality material.

Now for the prize, tell me... what type of ledge, to balance on, do you put in a paragon tier locale? Because it's DC isn't connected in any way to tiers... this is where I find the problem with the clarity of skills in 4e.

This is exactly what the DMG section on Realism is talking about. If it's just a ledge, you can use the sample DCs which assume it's Just a Ledge. If it's a ledge of ice covered in jagged shards of icicles, it might just be a paragon tier ledge...so you use the scaling DCs. Just because you become paragon tier doesn't mean that every ledge is a paragon ledge; it only is a paragon ledge if you, the DM, need it to be. And then you need to describe it accordingly.

It's a consistency issue that could have easily been resolved if the designers had decided on one way to represent DC's for in-game challenges...either through objective description or tier based assignment... but why both?

Because sometimes you want specificity, and sometimes you don't? Because unless you know a lot about how locks work, specific descriptions don't help you visualize it any easier? You can argue that the Open Lock DC descriptions are not to your taste, and I'll buy it. To say it's some larger flaw of game design seems more like a stretch, since playing and DMing a roleplaying game demands some level of common sense and the ability to put together different mechanical concepts. We can safely assume you understand both what specific examples mean, and what "paragon tier" means.

I have no problem imagining a DC 40 Acrobatics check ledge. I only have a problem with the idea it becomes a DC 10 ledge if a 1st level PC walks on it.

I think this is where the section on Realism from page 23 has to come into play. Besides, if you've already defined the ledge at DC 40, then that's the DC. You use the improvisation rules to define, mechanically, the current situation. If you tie a description to a DC, it's a two-way street; once you've tied a DC to a description, you should stick with it.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Oh, so not only am I doing it wrong, I'm stupid, too.

Sorry, not my intended meaning. I had intended to convey that... hmm... that trying to find the game you want in 4e was like trying to find an elephant in Alaska, perhaps? The thing you are seeking exists, but if you're on the wrong continent, you're not going to be getting anything except a lot of bother.

As pointed out above, I didn't say that gaming doesn't need to be fun. I said that the fun is a byproduct of pursuit of other goals, because fun is not a goal in and of itself.

Stop me when I get this wrong.

You suggest that the purpose of gaming is to "experience and immerse oneself in a fictional setting.".

That sounds like the most boring kind of game possible to me. I would not have fun in a game in which I was "experiencing and immersing" myself. (I'm fairly confident that this isn't where I misunderstand your argument.)

It is fair to say that if you are doing something in a way that leads astray from its purpose, you're doing it wrong, in much the same way that you're doing it wrong if you use your CD drive as a cupholder.

Therefore, by your standards, I'm doing it wrong if I'm having fun, because if I'm having fun then I'm playing in a game that is working contrary to the purpose of gaming.

 

[Jack99]

Because it's a different lock.

See, that's one thing that I think is commonly misunderstood about 4th Edition's "DCs that scale by level" system. Perhaps we've just not adequately explained the intent, in which case further explanation may be necessary.

Essentially, the idea of DCs that scale with level assume that you are throwing level-appropriate challenges at the PCs. The charts by themselves assume that, whatever task the heroes are facing, they are facing it because it's meant to be a challenge for their level. The reason the DC to pick a lock is higher at a higher level is because it's a more complex lock, or perhaps it's forged with magic, etc.

At the same time, we also want to maintain internal consistency. To wit:


So, when your third level heroes decide to break into the mayor's house, and you decide that's an appropriate challenge for your level, then you set the DCs based on that. However, when the heroes are 26th level and come back to their hometown and decide to break into the mayor's house, then the DCs shouldn't scale--the doors aren't different, unless for some reason you decide that they are. So, you would use those same level 3 DCs...which pretty much means the rogue walks up, rolls his eyes, pops the lock and strides in.

However, if the heroes are breaking into the Efreeti Bank in the City of Brass, which is more of a level-appropriate challenge, that's when you set the Thievery DC using the PCs level as a basis. That's because the locks in the City of Brass are tougher to open.

The PCs should face challenges with level-appropriate DCs, but it's up to the DM to describe those challenges in a way that makes sense why it's harder. Climbing a cliff at 26th level has a higher DC than climbing a cliff at 3rd level because at 26th level you should be climbing the Cliffs of Death where to rocks bleed a slick ichor and steam vents blast scalding water on you every few seconds...and at 3rd level you should be climbing the rocky cliffs by the beach outside of town.

But if you ARE 26th level, the cliffs outside of town shouldn't have their Athletics DC to climb changed...unless suddenly the cliffs outside of town are now the site of a demonic invasion where deadly portals open every few seconds to release bursts of hellfire.

For what it is worth, there are plenty of people who think the books explained it quite fine. Some people just won't understand, which is why I do not think a Dragon article for people like those in this thread will help. It might be good for other new DM's.

The City of Brass and its inhabitants are epic because there needs to be a level-appropriate city for epic heroes to go to.

Stop thinking about it, you'll only hurt yourself. You parted ways with the 4e design philosophy when you said gaming doesn't need to be fun.

 

[BryonD]

For what it is worth, there are plenty of people who think the books explained it quite fine. Some people just won't understand, which is why I do not think a Dragon article for people like those in this thread will help. It might be good for other new DM's.

FWIW, there are clearly at least as many pro-4e people who do it wrong as anti-4e people who are wrongly critical of it.

To me it is six of one and half a dozen the other because I'm going to use the right DC for the task. I have always done it that way in 3E and, were I to play 4E, would continue.

That said, when the intent is to tie DCs to the task, having the rules describe them assuming they are always relative to the players is really really dumb. It doesn't make actual game play worse for people who get it, but it does make the explanation more tortured to no value. After all, if you really get it, you should just be doing it this way. And if you don't get it then it makes the game experience worse.

The DC of the lock on the starting town manor is fixed. cool
Saying it is a simple lock is a simple lock is a simple lock is the smart way to say it.

Saying the lock is relative to the character level, but on another page explaining that the character level may or may not be connected to assumed character level is a really dumb way to say it.
It is horrid design either way.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Some people just won't understand

Avoid making broad-brush characterisations of people who disagree with you.

Goes for anyone in this thread of course.

Thanks