Dragon Editorial: Fearless

[Wolfspider]

The massive damage rules ensure a "save or die" DC 15 at least once a round at higher levels. 5% of those are auto-failed.

Thaumaturge.

Are you serous? Once a round? I can see some spells doing 50 points of damange in one strike, but I can't imagine that much damange being slung around every round. The bite of a great wyrm red dragon can't even inflict 50 points if maximum damage is rolled. (Of course, it's breath weapon is another story, but it should be.)

Hmmm....

 

[Celebrim]

Let me use this to address a slightly different concern -- is 4e any different at level 30 than at level 1?

By this I mean:
Level 1, assumed +1 bonus, DC for an 'untrained' task=10.
Level 30, assumed +15 bonus, DC for an 'untrained' task=25.

If the game scaled so that, basically, you have roughly the same odds of accomplishing a task of the same difficulty? And is task difficulty based on YOUR level, not the difficulty of the task?

I don't think we know yet, but I've always conjectured that part of what they meant by 'fixing the math' was exactly this. There are precedents. One of the deliberate design features of Diablo was that it was designed to scale such that no matter how much more powerful you became, the game played basically the same because the challenges were scaling up at pretty much the same rate. So that, the way the first few levels of normal mode played out, could play out again in pretty much the same way on nightmare mode.

It's been implied that DCs are set by level, not circumstance, so a fighter trying to hang on to a minecart has a DC 10 check if the party is average first level, a DC 15 check if the party is average 10th level, and so on. Is that how it really works?

We don't know. They've been very tight lipped about the specifics. I'd guess that since in practice it often worked that way in 3E that its likely to formally work that way in 4E. I certainly don't think these are standard dungeon features mentioned in a skill description.

I really really wish that more time was spent discussing the examples. My impression is that we are looking at low DC skill checks (and possibly reflex saves) where 1 is not an automatic failure. So for example, jumping the gap apparantly took something like a DC 12 dungeoneering check (failure and the ride stops, take maybe 6d6 damage). Given that everyone's skill at everything gets better with level, a DC like that would give anyone a reasonable chance of guiding the cart, and insure that someone skilled would almost certainly make it. You can run this same scene with 3E PC's a couple levels higher than 4E ones (to make up the gap in HD), and using DC's slightly lower than the 4E ones (to account for skills not scaling with level) and it would play out pretty much the same provided you provide an impetus for using the cart (like to get away from a mob of goblins chasing you, or a flood of lava). What I really want to know is how the specific 4E mechanics enabled this scene. What is better about how 4E manages this scene than how an equivalent scene would play out in 3E. That's what you need to sell me on.

Don't tell me that this sort of scene is new and unique to 4E. That's going to just irritate me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Great resource!

I find that I've owned or played 8 of the games from 1981 and 11 from 1983, probably my student heyday

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Are you serous? Once a round? I can see some spells doing 50 points of damange in one strike, but I can't imagine that much damange being slung around every round. The bite of a great wyrm red dragon can't even inflict 50 points if maximum damage is rolled. (Of course, it's breath weapon is another story, but it should be.

Between spells and classed NPCs critting with big weapons, it's reasonably common. Maybe not once/round in every fight, but it's often enough.

We stopped using massive damage rules years ago. The sense of verisimilitude wasn't worth it, in our opinion.

Brad

 

[Wolfspider]

Between spells and classed NPCs critting with big weapons, it's reasonably common. Maybe not once/round in every fight, but it's often enough.

We stopped using massive damage rules years ago. The sense of verisimilitude wasn't worth it, in our opinion.

Brad

Massive damage hasn't come up much in my games, but since the characters are approaching high-ish levels now, I imagine it will become more common.

I'm thinking of houseruling that massive damage causes a creature to be dazed for one round unless the save is made. Sounds reasonable to me.

Of course, I'm sure someone will claim that that being dazed is also a save or die effect.

 

[drothgery]

Are you serous? Once a round? I can see some spells doing 50 points of damange in one strike, but I can't imagine that much damange being slung around every round. The bite of a great wyrm red dragon can't even inflict 50 points if maximum damage is rolled. (Of course, it's breath weapon is another story, but it should be.)

Hmmm....

Hmm... let's do some quick number crunching for a greatsword +5-wielding fighter 16

start with 2d6+5 from the sword
Str 26 (start with a 16, +4 from levels, +6 belt) = +12 damage (2-handed)
weapon specialization = +2 dmg
weapon mastery = +2 dmg
greater weapon specialization = +2 dmg

So now you're doing 2d6 + 23, and will always do at least 50 damage on a critical hit. Power attack for 8 and you can do 50 dmg on a regular hit. Power attack for 14 and you will do 50 dmg on a regular hit.

 

[Wolfspider]

Hmm... let's do some quick number crunching for a greatsword +5-wielding fighter 16

start with 2d6+5 from the sword
Str 26 (start with a 16, +4 from levels, +6 belt) = +12 damage (2-handed)
weapon specialization = +2 dmg
weapon mastery = +2 dmg
greater weapon specialization = +2 dmg

So now you're doing 2d6 + 23, and will always do at least 50 damage on a critical hit. Power attack for 8 and you can do 50 dmg on a regular hit. Power attack for 14 and you will do 50 dmg on a regular hit.

Well, someone proved a while back that Power Attack was useless, I believe, so that's that.

Seriously, those are interesting numbers. The characters in my campaign are not maximized melee powerhouses by any means, so I guess that's why this nastiness hasn't become apparent to me yet.

 

[MerricB]

3e, for all intents and purposes, is far more deadly than 1e when it gets to the higher levels. 15th level adventuring - which is what I've been running a lot of recently - is terrifying once you start looking at the DCs of spells and abilities.

DC 25 is fairly standard with some of the monsters. What's the "low" save of your PC? Somewhere about +10, if you're lucky.

That's a 70% chance of failing your saving throw. For Wizards, the hit point damage is likely to kill you.

Of course, there are spells that will make you immune to certain "death" effects (fire, death, electricity, etc.) but rarely do they last long enough to be reliable in combat.

Cheers!

 

[hong]

There is no risk, or "boldness," or "fearlessness" in a game without a significant possibility of failure.

Exactly. Now, define "failure".

 

[hong]

To use my trusted movie examples, in 4E Indiana Jones would behave like the original Terminator.

And this is a BAD thing??