Fewer conditions?

[OchreJelly]

I don't have the original 3x5 card file handy. I should upload it if I can find them, although I made it as a simple HTML page and printed it. It would be better as a PDF but I don't have those authoring resources...

I made a few that aren't necessarily obvious, but it helps: 1) a card for ongoing damage and 2) a generic "debuff" card to hand to someone for effects that don't fall under the standard conditions (usually your -2 fear effect or something). I color-coded them for ease of use: blue for movement impairments, red for action denial conditions etc. Make at least 4 or 5 of each type. Enough to hand around to everyone at the table.

 

[Mesh Hong]

It would be better as a PDF but I don't have those authoring resources...

Do a search for PDF995, the free version allows you to print to pdf. Its very useful.

 

[Tzarevitch]

I must admit, I can't see why people have problems keeping track of conditions. People have already pointed out the newfangled concept of writing things down. I use a netbook computer, a dry-erase board, or a piece of paper. The notecard idea works fine as well. I DM on a big dry-erase board I got from Staples for $20. I scored 1" squares onto the board and we've used it as a playing surface for years. I just record monster conditions on the board.

 

[OchreJelly]

I actually recently found a dry erase board at Costco that already had 1" scale squares on the surface. It was magnetic, came with markers and cleaner, and a few magnet tokens as well. I bought it on the spot, and haven't seen it around since. I now wonder if I wandered into some Ravenloft-esque version of Costco on a demi-plane dedicated to gamers (I usually get the gamer snacks there too as well).

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Yep, a white board for tracking conditions, as well as initiative order, etc., could be very helpful.

What are players supposed to do if the DM says no to the idea?

 

[Mesh Hong]

What are players supposed to do if the DM says no to the idea?

Tell him to read p28 of the DMG, entitled "saying yes".

 

[KarinsDad]

I must admit, I can't see why people have problems keeping track of conditions. People have already pointed out the newfangled concept of writing things down.

It's not just a matter of writing it down, although if you think about it, writing it down is pretty darn time consuming because it is every single round. It's a lot of bookkeeping that did not exist for the most part in earlier editions.

It's more of a matter of writing it down so that EVERY player can view it at any time. In order to make informed decisions, the players should know which monsters are debuffed, which have conditions on them, etc. They even need to know the statuses of other PCs. If the Fighter has a +2 power bonus to hit on him, it doesn't make sense to put a second +2 power bonus to hit on the Fighter.

In our PathFinder game, I am playing an Archivist/Wizard/Mystic Theurge. There are encounters where I use his Dark Knowledge. This tends to give everyone a +1 to hit most of the monsters in the encounter. If I cast Haste, I give everyone a +1 to hit for the rest of the encounter.

But, these are somewhat rare. I do not use them every single encounter. When I do use them, it is for the majority of foes and the majority of the encounter. There is very little need to track this extensively to the nth degree as to which monsters are affected and which are not. There is no need to try to determine if the effect is still up or not because it lasts for either the entire encounter, or for 6 rounds.

The issue for 4th is that the conditions, buff, and debuffs are nearly every single round for most of the combatants and it changes from round to round constantly.

It's much easier to remember and to write down that everyone is +1 to hit for the rest of the encounter than it is to keep track of a boatload of nitty little different effects that change from round to round and combatant to combatant.

The amount and difficulty of in combat bookkeeping has more than tripled from 3.5 to 4th.

And organization is not the solution. Organization makes it semi-bearable, but it doesn't resolve the core issues of too many one round effects, too many different duration effects (SOET, EOET, SOUT, EOUT, save ends), and too many single target effects.

 

[OchreJelly]

...and the shorter durations are a response to the older problem of spreadsheeting out long lists of pre-encounter buffs and such. Yet still, there can be a frequent need to audit those encounter buffs / debuffs when like a dispel magic goes off.

I'm not saying either edition is bad, but they both present different sides to the same problem: duration tracking. In 4E's case it's interesting because it introduces a new problem by having rapid-fire, short lived durations directly in response to the older problem of duration tracking. That new problem being even many short-lived conditions can be fiddly.

Is it more fiddly to put the breaks on the game to figure out a big dispel magic (and here I plead Pathfinder ignorance -- not sure if this is different there), or is it more fiddly to deal with round-by-round durations coming and going? For me, I prefer the latter but only because I make use of tools like cards and tokens. I'd probably be lost without them.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

...and the shorter durations are a response to the older problem of spreadsheeting out long lists of pre-encounter buffs and such. Yet still, there can be a frequent need to audit those encounter buffs / debuffs when like a dispel magic goes off.

I'm not saying either edition is bad, but they both present different sides to the same problem: duration tracking. In 4E's case it's interesting because it introduces a new problem by having rapid-fire, short lived durations directly in response to the older problem of duration tracking. That new problem being even many short-lived conditions can be fiddly.

Is it more fiddly to put the breaks on the game to figure out a big dispel magic (and here I plead Pathfinder ignorance -- not sure if this is different there), or is it more fiddly to deal with round-by-round durations coming and going? For me, I prefer the latter but only because I make use of tools like cards and tokens. I'd probably be lost without them.

What I am in favor of is making conditions (or really misc effects) more regular and simpler. If 90% of the powers only used a small subset of effects and used a smaller set of durations that WOULD make tracking somewhat simpler. I don't think it would have a major effect on the tactical play of the game either. There are going to be a few powers here and there that have fairly unique effects but at least they're much more likely to be daily and the designers should consider whether or not its really worth having encounter powers or at-will powers that drop oddball effects on things that need tracking.

I'd also note that there are a lot of things that can be done that DON'T really require tracking or have simple ways to be tracked that work naturally. Prone is like that, it is easy to signify and its duration is obvious. Other effects that are 'environmental' generally also fall into this category. Its not that big a deal to track a zone for instance or a conjuration or summoning. They have visibility on the board, almost never happen over and over again, etc.

Its the 'fiddly' stuff that can get nearly overwhelming. Yes you can put together a usable condition tracking system that works, but is that really a good way for a game to work? Younger players often aren't all that good at running a tracking system like that for instance, and may not be able to just run out and buy white boards and whatnot. NO other RPG I've ever played ever required anything like that either. 4e is the only one. It is likely to turn off some people and isn't a positive feature of the game in and of itself. I'd enjoy the game more if it wasn't necessary. Some people won't play at all. I don't want the game degraded seriously to get simple tracking, but there needs to be a balance. I think the 4e designers erred when they created 1000's of feats and powers that have 1000's of infinitesimally different effects.

 

[YRUSirius]

Would it be feasible or would there be too many mechanical problems if I would leave only two duration effects in the game; end of next turn of the affected and save ends? Both would end at the same phase of the turn, only save ends durations could last longer.

I've got the impression that this way only the affected side (player or dm) will have to care about the bookkeeping. Only the DM or the Player will have their status effects (positives and negatives) noted somewhere on their sheets and when the end of their turn has come they will simply remove the negative effects and the positive buffs on them (maybe roll a save additionally).

Everyone would have the same remove effect phase at the end of each turn. It seems to me that this would indeed make the durations more managable.

As a result of this initiative might become more important, because you're hoping to roll well while hoping for the enemies to get bad rolls, so that more of your allies could get inbetween your turns when you inflict effects.