Excerpt: Racial Benefits

[Immolate]

Nark would have provoked an attack of opportunity for movement from Hodo, and if Hodo was successful, he would have been unable to move and marked as well.

Which is a good reason for brutes, who know the mechanics of combat, to never engage a defender 2-to-1 if they can avoid it.

This is wrong, defenders deal as much damage as controllers. They are harder to kill, so there is a reason for monsters to bypass them. The problems with bypassing the defender is that the defender can follow, and in that case the monster is sandwiched between the defender and the strikers/controllers. That is one good reason not to run by the defender.

It's hard to imagine a defender with his one attack putting out as much damage as a controller with his AoE. This is one of those exercises, however, that defies mathematical conclusions, even with all the crunch available. I imagine that, over the course of a campaign, you could potentially put together enough empirical data to do a worthwhile analysis, but even then it would be biased toward the types of encounters that particular DM likes to design and how he plays his monsters. One of the DM's in our group is as AoE conscious when he's DM'ing as the players are, and works to avoid giving the AoE guys too many good opportunities.

 

[DandD]

Nobody really knows for now if controllers will dish out more damage than defenders at higher level. But at lower levels, both classes do the same, the controller just happens to be able to target more than one enemy.
Also, how is a brute going to know that the little wee-one is a player-character-defender, and not simply a normal halfling warrior? All the other halfling warriors weren't as tough as that one, after all. But that little weenie isn't a weenie, he's serious business... It just happens that he's controlled by a player at a gaming table, but these brutes can't know it, unless they have gamemaster-metaknowledge and strangely react accordingly. But that's also the point where a game stops being fun, as the gamemaster plays AGANST the other players, not with them to have fun together. Happens to a lot, unfortunately.

 

[Immolate]

Also, how is a brute going to know that the little wee-one is a player-character-defender, and not simply a normal halfling warrior? All the other halfling warriors weren't as tough as that one, after all. But that little weenie isn't a weenie, he's serious business... It just happens that he's controlled by a player at a gaming table, but these brutes can't know it, unless they have gamemaster-metaknowledge and strangely react accordingly. But that's also the point where a game stops being fun, as the gamemaster plays AGANST the other players, not with them to have fun together. Happens to a lot, unfortunately.

They won't know, at least at low level. At higher levels, gear will become a tell.

Still, what is the advantage to fighting two-on-one on a melee character when there are squishies who are unmolested and raining death on your allies? Most semi-intelligent melee monsters are going to engage the defender with one brute and send the others after the soft targets. A halfling warrior with another defender could work as a team and shift together to give the halfling his advantage, but that's not always possible for any number of reasons. I think that the bottom line is that we will have to see. If halfling warriors really are superior overall, that reality will percolate up until everyone knows it. It'll take time though.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Could you be any more presumptuous?

I've been chewed out, in the past, by my players, for making much smaller retcons than this one. Sure, your second statement makes a perfectly valid retcon. Of course, the original post implies that Feywild will be retconned into the setting, which is a much larger change - unless the campaign already had a similar plane (mine uses the Plane of Faerie).

I've found that my players, at least, like continuity. I love it, and try to maintain a semblance of continuity between all my campaigns (regardless of which players participate in them), because sharing the world in such a manner opens up all kinds of adventure hooks and plots which I would have never thought of myself.

Why the whinging then? Seriously, don't change your campaign world. Either use 4E with your old campaign world or don't use it at all.

 

[DandD]

They won't know, at least at low level. At higher levels, gear will become a tell.

At higher level, gear will only tell you that these will be uber-heroes, and that you are chewing too much than you could ever bite. Especially if they have weird abilities with which they can cheat death for a short time, or fly around, which wizards might very well have if they're paragon level.

Still, what is the advantage to fighting two-on-one on a melee character when there are squishies who are unmolested and raining death on your allies?

The advantage of ganging up two on one is that you're going to finish him off twice as fast... normally. That tactic works in the real world too, after all. It just happens that in the action-driven D&D-game, that little halfling dude isn't your run-on-the-mill NPC halfling loser, he's a player-controlled halfling hero with player character classes, and both Gark and Nark are in for a surprise. Causality works against them, however, as they are controlled by the ominous being, the gamemaster, to provide an entertaining challenge to the friends of the gamemaster, who all happen to control the little band of merry heroes who Gark and Nark are attacking with their orc buddies.
Gark and Nark will wonder why the little Halfling knows Sword-Fu. Or perhaps they'll die before thinking about that.

Most semi-intelligent melee monsters are going to engage the defender with one brute and send the others after the soft targets.

If they can pass him, and if they recognize that he's really tougher than they're bargaining for. I mean, the image we're talking about is of two brutish orcs, really tall, with muscles, who are afraid of a midget with a sword that might barely qualify as a dagger?

A halfling warrior with another defender could work as a team and shift together to give the halfling his advantage, but that's not always possible for any number of reasons. I think that the bottom line is that we will have to see. If halfling warriors really are superior overall, that reality will percolate up until everyone knows it. It'll take time though.

Heroic Halfling Warriors played by Billy are superior to Non-heroic Halfling Warriors from NPC-town, who live a modest NPC-life, until the gamemaster has use for them, where they either get mauled by horrible monsters for plot-reasons, or are NPC-hirelings... Or perhaps even NPC-enemies to the player characters.

Don't forget, the Feat Excerpt says that not every member of a particular race has the abilities that the higher-level feats provide, nor do most members of said particular race even reach paragon level. Some aren't trained in these techniques and art. Being lost in a crowd for combat purposes might very well need expertise for that. And being good enough to qualify as a Player Character Fighter is another thing.
It's like in D&D 3.X. More than 99% of all halfling combatents were level 1 Halfling warriors, at best. A very very few happen to have a superior class, like Fighter, Barbarian, Swordsage or whatever you want. But for most orcish raiders, nobody is really going to assume that Halfling Warriors are Fighters or so. They're either commoners with 1d4 hitpoints, or warriors with 1d8 hitpoints. And they stink. That's all. No problem for Gark and Nark. The same when the world is D&D 4th edition. Most halfling warriors die like minions, simply because that is so.
And then there is Hodo Bigguns... The last Halfling they're trying to rob... It won't end well for Gark, Nark and friends.

 

[Andor]

For one side, fluff without mechanics to represent them is meaningless. That means a monster must have all the rituals, spells and items it might use in its description. But this also means that a mechanic has fluff attached to it, and I don't care the fluff, I can't use the mechanic.

Or, you can change the fluff. All it takes is a pencil.

 

[Rechan]

Or, you can change the fluff. All it takes is a pencil.

But that's annoying, and it reminds you of the bad fluff every time you use it.

 

[Torchlyte]

Burst and blasts are easy to mix up. Blasts are the replacement for cones. They are measured by how many squares across they are. They have to be touching the originator with at least one edge or coner.

Bursts are radius based. A Close burst radiates from the originater, like it was blowing up. Ranged bursts are a number of squares around a central targeted square.

They should've just done:

1. Blast X - Ranged, X by X squares
2. Burst X - Non-ranged blast, X by X squares
3. Spin X - Everything within X squares of your character.

Meh?

The funny thing is, some (if not most) of the ardent 4ers who argue for a strong implied setting (inspiring! easy to ignore if you like!) are also arguing for monsters that are nothing more than mechanics (monster fluff limits my creativity! it can't be ignored!). And vice versa with the 4e nay-sayers: we don't want an implied setting, we want a toolbox! ...and monsters that are full of implied setting-ness!

This came very close to being an excellent point, but in actuality it's that people didn't want monsters to have unnecessary mechanics getting in the way. They still wanted the fluff.

I think, I'm going to ban humans and half-elves, as well. Since I never liked elves, I'll also ban them and Eladrin. It goes without saying that abominations like the dragonborn and tieflings will never make an appearance in my game.

All Dwarves? I'm glad I'm not one of your players.

I am going to not think about not banning them never.

That many negatives is just wrong. It hurts my thinking thingy.

Gark: bah, can't hit the slippery little eel. He keeps getting underfoot! He's got me marked though, so you go on ahead, and I'll catch up if I don't start hitting him soon.

With that being an explicit game mechanic now, I'd use a different word. Just something I noticed, not a real point or anything.

 

[MindWanderer]

They should've just done:

1. Blast X - Ranged, X by X squares
2. Burst X - Non-ranged blast, X by X squares
3. Spin X - Everything within X squares of your character.

The advantage of having "ranged bursts" be different from "close bursts" is that they fall into the unified mechanic that "ranged" attacks provoke OAs, but "close" attacks do not. That's also why you have some things that are "one creature in close burst 10" because "range 10," while being otherwise identical, would provoke an OA.

 

[Torchlyte]

The advantage of having "ranged bursts" be different from "close bursts" is that they fall into the unified mechanic that "ranged" attacks provoke OAs, but "close" attacks do not. That's also why you have some things that are "one creature in close burst 10" because "range 10," while being otherwise identical, would provoke an OA.

So you could just say Bursts and Spins provoke OAs, while Blasts do not... unless I'm misunderstanding you.