Farewell to thee D&D

[Treebore]

Celtavian,

Just ignore this thread. You stated your opinion in a nice well reasoned manner, obviously people are going to justify their rude reactionary behaviour any way they can rather then just admit they went over board and apologize.

Just let it go and move on, then everyone else will as well.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They won't leave you to do that in the first place, thus the reason they have opportunity attacks. If this is how you justify tumble, then so be it.

And very often they miss those attack, thanks to stuff like Artful Dodgers AC bonus vs OAs, or Mobility. Or just because you are that damn dextrous. (What do you think you get that Dex bonus to AC for? Standing still?)

I know, you don't like it, but there are many ways to achieve the same result. A Rogue that doesn't want to be hit thanks to his tumbling will have Tumble, be an Artful Dodger, and enjoy his Dex Bonus to AC. All 3 achieve the same in-game result - the enemy has a hard time hitting the Rogue.

This is what you're not understanding. Yes, I can do that. But it is artificial.

Me, I immerse myself in DMing. I think of the enemy as intelligent and I think of them as acting in an intelligent group of creatures. That means giving the players no rest once the fight is set off.

I don't get all these recommendations just to handwave or create artificial encounters that "simulate" what I want to do.

This is in essence the problem I have with 4E. That everything is simulated, artificial, and a bunch of handwaving. It takes me out of the game.

Telling me to design an encounter from a metagame standpoint to simulate what I want to do isn't going to make me feel better. Why do you think that it is?

My biggest problem with 4E is all the handwaving and assumption you are talking about. Did I not convey well enough that I want things to work and work all the time?

For example, let's say I have a recurring villain who has fought the character before in the same adventure. In your example for Tumble, then why wouldn't he be able to stop me from tumbling again since he knows I will do it? But he can't because I can do it once per encounter regardless of what the other characters do.

Just because you met someone before doesn't mean you can negate all his combat tricks. The Villain in question might adapt differently- he will not rely on hitting you OAs (assuming he had a in-gameworld concept of it). He might instead catch you with a net or immobilize you with magic, knowing that this negates a lot of your abilities.

So why wouldn't I be able to do it all the time? what about against a stupid undead zombie who wouldn't have the intelligence to stop me from tumbling all around. Do I need contrive a different excuse for such dumb creatures as to why I can't tumble more than once every five minutes?

Sometimes it's not enough to trick the monster. You can't break the world record on 100m every time.

As a DM that truly likes to immerse myself into the monsters I play to the point where I alter my voice around the table and think about the personality of the creature, that recharge roll is a big old immersion destroyer.

More so then counting the seconds (rounds) between recharges? Think about what's different here - 1d4+1 x 6 seconds is a very specific way to describe a "recharge" time. How do you calculate this into your role-playing or immersing yourself into the Dragon? Does he count these rounds in his head? Does he know beforehand that he will be able to breath in that time?

The fact that a monster won't do his job as controller or leader because he was unlucky on the recharge roll doesn't sit well with me. Never will.

What if he is unable to do his job as controller or leader because he keeps rolling bad on his attacks?

I was told to use this excuse for 3E as well.

I could use it. And it would be funny as heck to run a lvl 30 Archmage wizard and wonder why he couldn't level lvl 6 Skirmishers with his "awsome" power.

Even a high level wizard only gets 2d6 for his scorching blast. Levels may make a significant different for defenses, but damage is so depressed in 4E that his damage boost wouldn't be all that much save perhaps when he critted.

But your DM wouldn't send you level 6 Skirmishers. They are not appropriate challenges for you. He would send you level 26 Minions. And you'd kill them easily.

If a Jedi doesn't play like a Jedi, I wouldn't like that game either. Jedi are the strongest in the game bar none, whether it is a 30 lvl jedi versus a 30 lvl smuggler. If the game doesn't have that feel, I wouldn't play. Thus why I never played Star Wars the MMORPG or RPG. I want my games to feel like storybooks, not egalitarian environments where we can all be equal.

I always hated those Starwars Games (basically every SW game before Saga) that made Jedi uber.

Once again you are bringing up the artificial nature of 4E. That is what I was getting at. It is all artificial, a bunch of smoke and mirrors. That lvl 20 demon minion you are fighting isn't really powerful, he just a puffed up smoke and mirror creature for the DM to throw at you.

You want to know what phrase comes up in my mind for 4E over and over again, one that keeps getting confirmed arguments like the one you used above.

"All style, no substance."

That is 4E in a nutshell. It looks great on the suface, but dig a little deeper and you find fluffy cotton in your monsters and balloons filled with air that pop when when you hit with them a +6 greatsword or poke with a finger.

It is always all smokes and mirrors. There is neither real magic, nor do d20 resolution rolls, levels or hit points represent anything meaningful in the real world. Sure, we say there are "abstractions", but we can say that about every game element!
The "simulating" smokes of mirrors appeal to some, but they are still smokes and mirrors. And sometimes, they are also hoops you have to jump through to get to the point where you have fun or the actual game experience you want.
But I don't want to repeat myself:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4442798&postcount=48

Ultimately, yes, I know what you are talking about. But I think there are also some serious flaws to the simulation approach, and if you focus on it too much, you lessen the game experience.

Especially once we are discussing about stuff like "suspension of disbelief". Is suspending my disbelief to let those smokes and mirrors work on me mentally harder for me to do then consistently going through all the tedious work of the simulation that bogs down game speed, that keeps me thinking about game math instead of story, or sometimes needs fudging to get to the real story I wanted to tell or experience?

Isn't it more sensible to just tighten (or loosen?) your 'disbelief suspenders' and go with the smokes and mirrors?
Or does that make me a lesser person, a lazy role-player, no longer true to the cause of RPGs?
I get meaningful character choices. I can tell and experience a story line. I kill monsters and take their stuff. I get exciting combat. What am I really missing with the smokes and mirrors?

True enough. But no, I don't think there is anything wrong with games that aren't perfectly balanced.

I think that there is something wrong with such games. Imbalance means inherent unfairness, and I do not think that is a feature of games, it's a bug. I might accept imbalances if the game system tells me: "You can play a Fighter, which can be fun, but the Wizard will eventually be far more powerful than you". but that alone isn't really enough. It needs to give me more. Maybe if I, as the player, get more narrative control - maybe I am allowed to not only play a Fighter, but also two of his allies, or I can make up some NPCs that help the party, then it might get "fairer" in some sense.
But ultimiately, that's still just striving for balance, and it is a very unstable kind of balance...

 

[Celtavian]

So in brief, the fact that 3e wizards were vastly more powerful than 3e non-spellcasters is a crucial point for your satisfaction?

Now you're misquoting. Vastly more powerful? I doubt that unless there was a substantial level difference. Vastly more more verstilte I agree with, vastly more powerful I do not.

The warriors and priests were far more durable and could hold their own in any dungeon. Why there is this perception that warriors were weaker when they did truckloads of damage easily equal to or greater than a wizard on a round by round basis is a gross falsehood.

And there's no reasonable way a wizard can aspire to a leadership position due to powers that are... now exactly the same scale as every other class? These positions may be held in good faith, but I think you're going to be pretty lonely in holding them.

You could not have a wizard take over a realm by himself or mind control the king or what not. No, that is not possible in 4E.

There are not permanent powers in 4E. Everything is a round by round or a sustained spell. Everything in 4E is temporary thus weakening the wizard even further.

If I wanted to play a game where wizards were Just Better, I'd play Ars Magica. I think WotC is being very reasonable in targeting the game towards sharing the Awesome out among all the character class, and not bestowing special power upon the PC who decides that his Awesome comes from the "Totally Impossible" power source rather than the "Highly Implausible" power source. You can still write perfectly good fights with Unstoppable Wizard Antagonists just by following the DMG guidelines for ginning up solo monsters. Once a wizard sips from the chalice of NPCdom, he gains assorted hideous powers hinging on his eventual unspeakable fate. It's a thin fantasy world that can't support the concept of wizards who make sacrifices totally unacceptable to any PC in exchange for unheard-of personal power.

You hit another nail on the head. I cannot stand the fact that the enemy wizard is so much more powerful than my own wizard as to make me, the party wizard, look like a joke.

As I said, if you made a 3E wizard enemy, he was still a wizard. He and the party wizard could go toe to toe and see who won. Now with the new solo and elite rules, if I ever did like I used to do in 3E, having the party wizard square off with the enemy wizard at the end of the dungeon, the party would be scraping him up off the ground.

You used to have to devise a balanced party to challenge a PC party. The enemy wizard needed a solid spell list to challenge the mage in 3E. Now you design artificial powers that your party wizard can't access when creating NPC wizards.

I can't even have the party fighter stand toe to toe with a fighter of legend. He'll get beat down if I design the NPC as an elite or solo. The elite and solo bad guys are designed to be a challenge for a whole party. I don't know about you, but imagining a party of six guys having trouble beating on one guy is not my idea of honorable or cool combat.

That may work fine for giants and demon lords. But I hate it for NPC wizards and fighters. Forget that bunk. The party wizard and fighter is every bit as good as any fighter their level in all the land and better than most. They can go toe to toe with the main end level encounter fighter mob. And that's how it should be.

You didn't see Launcelot, Arthur, Gawaine, and all the Knights of the Round Table beating on one guy at once. I don't want some endgame fighter being so tough he could paste any characer in solo combat unless he is vastly higher level. And I don't mean artificially inflated to be an appropriate encounter level, rather than just equal level.

In terms of leadership, I can't understand why wizards-as-powerful-as-everyone-else makes it impossible for a wizard to be a ruler now. A cursory review of real-life history strongly suggests that people totally incapable of hewing down even five ordinary men in a single blow still manage to run countries. Possession of godlike powers of reality-shaping is strictly optional, and it's not as if other classes now possess unique degrees of might unapproachable by a lowly spellslinger.

That's a matter of taste then. I liked the feel of Saruman being able to mind control King Theoden, and needing to bring Gandalf to challenge Saruman. I liked the feel of Rand blowing away armies while the guys who travled with him were just regular skilled swordsman. I like the feel of that.

If I want to work something in and handwave it like 4E does, then I'll do that in 3E. But otherwise I want the players to feel as strong and powerful as their NPC counterparts. I want an NPC fighter or wizard to have exactly the same access to the same power as a PC and vice versa.

Ultimately, if you really must have wizards be grossly more powerful than mere warriors, give all wizards five or six bonus levels. That's essentially what you're asking for from the game- wizards as intrinsically and naturally superior to noncasters. I really don't think you're going to get it in any modern game not devoted to the conceit.

If I believed that wizards were grossly more powerful than fighters, then I would buy into what you're saying. Since fighters seem to dish considerable damage and they themeselves are very dangerous, I don't think I'll need to.

But I do prefer a game that requires wizards to be there to provide that versatility and edge against NPC wizards. In 3E wizards knew why they needed fighters, and fighters knew why they needed wizards. I like that dynamic.

I have yet to see a book where the wizard blew off his power willy, nilly as 4E wizards do. I prefer the 3E model where the wizard sat on his power until it was needed and that is why he was the "turn the tide of battle" guy. Not because he could annhiliate everything alone while the poor fighter sat there on the sidelines wondering why he was there. That never happened in 3E, no idea why you perceive it as so.

It is your opinion is that wizards are "grossly" overpowered. My opinion is that wizards are more powerful in terms of versatility and magical defense, which will ultimately lead to a victory for them in a one on one fight against a warrior or rogue, but probably not a priest. And even though a wizard's increased power that comes with magical versatility makes them potent one on one, it still doesn't obviate the role of fighters. Who themselves have tremendous hit points and do amazing damage with their melee attacks to multiple real opponents, not 1hp minions that pop like baloons.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, I fear that's what I might do.

That was misinterpreted then, my apologies.

No need for an apology. It wasn't obvious, and there was certainly a part in me that might also be that mean

With a hit point wound system, I wouldn't bother about bone breaking injury at all. Brute strike is an extra hard hit that takes more out of an opponent.

The sweeping strike example is more of a problem. Prone is an actual condition that is both obvious to the world's inhabitants and carries mechanical consequences for those in that position. Once a combatant is prone, they must get up (barring the use of some ability that allows instant stand). In the example you gave, are you saying that a regular strike can score a knockdown but allows the target to stand up without spending movement? If that is the case do other foes get combat advantage against this guy(because he is prone) until his turn when he can stand up as a free action? These are the types of things that affect the flow of combat as they occur and are not only observable, but are able to be acted upon by the observers.

This is the reason why I think the whole, save vs knockdown only when it would cause additional effect is BS.

For me, Knockdown is a condition that tells you the creature is "knocked down" long and strong enough to make a (mechanical) difference. You might use a purely narrated knockdown to explain why another hit (or flurry of blows) landed, but it didn't gain the mechanical representation of it as Combat Advantage. It was represented by the fact that your dice came up high enough to hit.
If you want, every type of narration that is not represented in mechanical bonus, penalties or conditions is represented by the dice rolls. (Though of course, your interpretation of the dice rolls combined with the mechanical ements _and_ your desired theme or feel of a scene result in the game world narration.)

 

[Celtavian]

Hmm. Whine on message boards?

Now you're just taking shots.

No one forced you to post in this thread.

So why exactly do you need to answer my posts with your own whiny counterarguments? Because I don't like something, I am a whiner.

And you feel just as compelled to argue my points even though I said they were my opinions? You're not changing my mind at all. All you're doing is proving what I said to begin with. That it is all artificial handwaving that you don't mind.

That you don't care about consistency and you don't care about the things that matter to me.

Yet you feel the need the need to argue them with me and take shots? I love that. I'm the whiner, but I'm not posting in a thread you started? And I'm not looking to start up with people in other threads of people proclaiming their love of 4E?

Yet I'm the whiner? No one is forcing you to respond to my posts. So if you view them as a whine, then move on. Geez, do you really have to go taking shots like that in a thread you didn't even have to come into?

I don't care about this type of consistency.

I do. End of discussion. We will never see eye to eye. I like internal consisency. You don't mind the lack of it.

Your 3E Minion (barring house rules) will most likely be unable to affect the Fighter at all if the Fighter can really kill him in one blow. That's why the Minion mechanics for 4E have changed - to ensure that they still matter, but also don't require me any book-keeping on hit points.

And the 4E minion will do pittance damage and die in two or three rounds regardless of what type of minion he is. I haven't found a minion that mattered in 4E or did significant damage.

I can design plenty of higher level minions that can harm the fighter and still be a challenge. And my party wizard will need more than scorching blast to kill them. And that his how I like it.

No need to continue discussing it with you. I'm a whiner in your eyes. So be it. Next time just pass on my threads Mustrum if all they are to you is whines with no validity.

 

[Zil]

I don't intend to play it. I didn't create this as an edition wars thread which is why I prefaced my comment with this is a subjective opinion. I wanted to commiserate with a few other folks who might feel as I do.

After you played a game as long as I have, it feels kind of strange to have that game become something you don't want to play. I'm sure some people felt that way when 3E came out as well.

I generally looked forward to new books. Now I have no books to look forward too. And feel alienated from the game I enjoyed for so many years. This is one of the places I know of with D&D players in large numbers. So I came here to commiserate.

You should consider looking into what Paizo is putting out these days if you want some OGL/3.5 things to look forward to on a regular basis. I've been really impressed with their output over the past year. They've completely supplanted the old anticipation I used to have for the latest and greatest WoTC D&D product. I think you mentioned Pathfinder RPG a bit farther sown this thread, but you should take a look at some of their other products too.

As for the original post, I tend to agree with a lot of what you said. I've also been playing this game for well over 25 years and 4E just isn't what I'm personally looking for when running or playing a long term D&D game. Sure, when someone wants to run a 4E game, I'll play it. It's fun in a limited sort of way. However, it just doesn't work for me as an immersive fantasy RPG. That brings me back to Paizo and Pathfinder; there are still cool things coming out for 3.x like games. There is no reason to leave the hobby just because WoTC went in a direction you don't like. You do have options!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's a matter of taste then. I liked the feel of Saruman being able to mind control King Theoden, and needing to bring Gandalf to challenge Saruman. I liked the feel of Rand blowing away armies while the guys who travled with him were just regular skilled swordsman. I like the feel of that.

The entire magic in LotR (at least how it was presented in the movies) seemed very subtle in many regards.
Probably won't appeal to you, but anyway:
I could see a Wizard trying to dominate a king represented differently from ordinary magic - instead of using a Dominate Person like spell, he'd might just use Diplomacy, and the "player" flavors his 1/2 level bonus to Diplomacy as the wizards magic manipulating the king...

 

[apoptosis]

Post deleted

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Now you're just taking shots.

Take that as you want. But I might just know that I am not as good as I want to be.

And the 4E minion will do pittance damage and die in two or three rounds regardless of what type of minion he is. I haven't found a minion that mattered in 4E or did significant damage.

I remember a Paladin being overwhelmed by a horde of Minions. It was interesting to see and it shapes my perception on Minions to this day. But it wasn't the last time I saw that happen. I remember a group of Decrepit Skeleton Archers seriously hammering a Wizard - I suppose he was pretty glad that he could take down a few of them with his area effects...

A single Minion is negligible. A group of Minions focusing their fire on a single party member is a terrible threat.

No need to continue discussing it with you. I'm a whiner in your eyes. So be it. Next time just pass on my threads Mustrum if all they are to you is whines with no validity.

Well, I didn't really see you as a whiner, but I wonder if I should revise that thought.
...
No. I won't. You just felt attacked...

 

[Rel]

Let me underscore KC's admonition to avoid rudeness in this thread. This has gotten much more heated than is tolerable. In fact, let's everybody be EXTRA polite for the remainder of the thread.
Also, Gothmog, those are some pretty interesting ideas you've got there. I might snap those up.