Fewer conditions?

[Mengu]

'Okay, for this game, none of your at-will or encounter powers can give a penalty or bonus that isn't instantaneous or encounter long'

Actually I'm okay with bonuses, everyone seems to remember them, and as DM they don't bother me for tracking purposes. It's the penalties that I'd sooner get rid of. As creatures move around or get moved around, they become harder to remember and track. I think I might even be okay with it if there was just a single condition that gave attack penalty called "clobbered" or something that was a flat -2 penalty, I'd just add that to the conditions I use indicators for like dazed, blinded, etc.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sounds horrible.

Basically it works for two types of effects:
1) Dailies
2) very very minor bonuses/penalties

The +1/-1 buffs and debuffs could work for Encounter powers. The bigger things, Dailies.

This doesn't mean that one couldn't have +2/-2 or even +3/-3, it just means that those wouldn't be for the entire encounter.

And now you're tracking as many things as before, en total, but more per round since they never go away, except now the system will have ways to remove bonuses/penalties with dispels, and... argh.

Says who?

There is no need for a dispel for -1 to hit. If many of these are the same type (e.g. power bonus), they don't stack, so no need to track multiple ones.

Like any change in a system, it would have to be carefully thought out and designed.

Avoid them as much as possible, and make the ones you use save ends?

Precisely.

That would suck so much. It's absolutely crippling for many monsters, dreadful for many PCs in certain situations.

I have to tell you, "cry me a river". The poor Defender is Slowed for the entire encounter. Boo hoo.

I don't see it. This might (or might not) force PCs to have at least one ranged attack and who cares about monsters. It would be rare for a Slowed monster to not be able to Charge 4 squares or even Run 8 squares and not get anywhere.

I don't see how this is so crippling.

So, don't put those types of debuffs in the system? Give your allies a bonus, or do something else. If the system models something badly, don't do that thing.

Precisely. My point exactly.

Biggest question whenever anyone wants to do something like this: How do you handle multiple defenders?

Simple. Any foe around a defender is threatened by that defender. If surrounded by multiple defenders, it's multiple threats.

Not much different than OAs today. The more "conditions" like marked that can be tracked by just looking at the miniatures on the board, the better. Today, we only have OA and prone basically tracked that way. Marked too could be tracked that way. Why is he "marked"? Because he is in reach range of the Defender's weapon.

Two defenders flank a foe and that foe tries to shift away, bamm. He gets Combat Challenged (or whatever) attacked by both defenders.

 

[keterys]

The +1/-1 buffs and debuffs could work for Encounter powers.

So, Warlord goes and hits with one of his encounter powers and goes 'Okay, Ranger, you're +1 attack for the encounter'? Every encounter, one of his four encounter powers?

I have to tell you, "cry me a river". The poor Defender is Slowed for the entire encounter. Boo hoo.

Wow... that sounds just like the responses people used to have to save or dies. 'So, you rolled an 8 or lower and died. Cry me a river. Boo hoo.'

I don't see how this is so crippling.

If you're fighting in a 8 x 8 room with no terrain, it pretty much isn't, to be honest. If you're more able to pick your battlefield, and you do it at ranged to a creature, or a nice burst of creatures, then just keep casually walking away from it... it's extraordinarily powerful.

Simple. Any foe around a defender is threatened by that defender. If surrounded by multiple defenders, it's multiple threats.

And now they're no longer defending. They're just striking, in a different way. If you want to rebalance all defenders to assume that they'll get to trigger their benefit far, far more often... great, but if not, eh.

I toyed around with one modification that would only trigger when they attacked a non-defender, but I doubt that'd please a lot of people.

Two defenders flank a foe and that foe tries to shift away, bamm. He gets Combat Challenged (or whatever) attacked by both defenders.

And then goes somewhere else on the battlefield and attacks someone else, since he's going to get attacked no matter what, and that other person has lesser defenses? Eh, doesn't match thematically that well.

Could work if you balanced around it, but that'd screw up the balance of a defender who doesn't have a second defender to force catch 22s.

 

[Lord Ernie]

I've been pondering a universal way to make (save ends) effects more effective across the board. The main problem with them, IMO, is that it requires careful manipulation of the initiative order to be at its most effective. This happens, of course, because save ends effects are checked at the end of each individual effected target's turn, making it possible to end it sooner than an 'until the end of your next turn effect', as has been pointed out numerous times throughout the thread.

A possible solution could be to make saves at the end of the next turn of the save originator (i.e. the guy/girl/thing who used the power to be saved against). You could even move the responsibility to the originator at all times, and have them roll an 'anti-save' roll at the end of each of their next turn vs. each affected target, with the DC of course affected by saving throw mods (standard range: 12-20 means the effect remains), although this would create more back-and-forth.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, Warlord goes and hits with one of his encounter powers and goes 'Okay, Ranger, you're +1 attack for the encounter'? Every encounter, one of his four encounter powers?

First off, the Warlord has to hit.

Second, the +1 could be for one attack per round.

Nothing says that this is unbalanced, it just has to be designed well. It can work.

+1 is not that huge of a bonus to one PC for an entire encounter.

Wow... that sounds just like the responses people used to have to save or dies. 'So, you rolled an 8 or lower and died. Cry me a river. Boo hoo.'

It might sound like that, but it's hardly an apt comparison.

If you're fighting in a 8 x 8 room with no terrain, it pretty much isn't, to be honest. If you're more able to pick your battlefield, and you do it at ranged to a creature, or a nice burst of creatures, then just keep casually walking away from it... it's extraordinarily powerful.

No, it really isn't. Slow hardly does squat in 4E. There is almost always someone within 4 squares of a foe, at least in the published modules.

There are some unique scenarios where this might be powerful, but it would be rare.

And now they're no longer defending. They're just striking, in a different way. If you want to rebalance all defenders to assume that they'll get to trigger their benefit far, far more often... great, but if not, eh.

So, the current Combat Challenge implementation is flawed because it does damage only???

I consider it fairly sticky, at least in my games. To each their own.

And then goes somewhere else on the battlefield and attacks someone else, since he's going to get attacked no matter what, and that other person has lesser defenses? Eh, doesn't match thematically that well.

Could work if you balanced around it, but that'd screw up the balance of a defender who doesn't have a second defender to force catch 22s.

I'm not sure you understood the concept. He could do this at any time, just like Combat Challenge today. It doesn't require flank.

Combat Challenge: If a foe is within melee attack range of the Fighter and the Fighter can attack, the foe is threatened (i.e. marked) and Combat Challenge works as it does today.

The only difference is that one does not have to keep track of that mark. If the miniature is next to the Fighter miniature, the foe is threatened. No bookkeeping necessary.

It actually makes Combat Challenge a little bit stronger and the Fighter a little bit stickier because every foe around the Fighter is always "marked".

The players just don't need to use the marked terminology and they don't need to do bookkeeping for it. It would be a Fighter Class feature called Combat Challenged. No mark involved. The monsters are "threatened" instead.

 

[keterys]

I'm not objecting to a single defender working that way.

I'm objecting to two defenders working that way. You no longer have the ability to obey the defender's wish and avoid retribution. You just get smacked, no matter what.

 

[Mouseferatu]

No, it really isn't. Slow hardly does squat in 4E. There is almost always someone within 4 squares of a foe, at least in the published modules.

Maybe it's because we don't use much from published modules, but you're not playing the same 4E I am if you think Slow "hardly does squat." I've seen it used with great effectiveness, both for and against PCs, with rather substantial frequency.

 

[keterys]

I play lots of published modules and Living Forgotten Realms... and, yeah... it just sucks in a lot of combats. Melee already has enough problems compared to range, it'd be... just bad.

But, yeah, I think we just play differently.

 

[KarinsDad]

Maybe it's because we don't use much from published modules, but you're not playing the same 4E I am if you think Slow "hardly does squat." I've seen it used with great effectiveness, both for and against PCs, with rather substantial frequency.

Examples?

The only thing that I have seen Slowed do is prevent an enemy from running away, and with a Readied Action, it can remove the rest of a target's movement (at the cost of a Readied Action which lowers the attacker's init and is not guaranteed to hit doing so).

I'm sure it can be extremely useful once in a while, but "great effectiveness"??? Substantial frequency???

I find that hard to believe. Slowed combined with Knocked Prone? Sure. Slowed combined with Dazed? Sure. But Slowed by itself? It's about as effective as Dazed best case scenario and not a hinder at all worse case scenario (i.e. foes are within 2 squares). Unlike Dazed, a Slowed creature can still shift, can still charge, can still run. Can still do ranged attacks. Can still do 3 actions per round. Dropping 3 or 4 squares movement per move action is hardly greatly effective. 75% of all conditions in the PHB are stronger than Slowed and most of the rest are on par.

Could you post some examples?

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've seen fights where the rogue was denied the ability to deal sneak attack damage, or to use most of his useful powers, for multiple rounds at a stretch due to be being slowed. I've seen fights where defenders were basically kept from "defending" at all, because the enemies were easily able to stay away from them while getting to the "squishier" targets. This is especially true with artillery and controller creatures, but even melee-focused creatures can take advantage of it.

And while you dismiss "keeping creatures from running away" as a minor advantage, it means that the entire party can more easily gang up on a single target and take it down fast.

You keep saying "People should learn to carry ranged weapons," but for the bulk of melee-oriented classes, that still leaves them unable to use the overwhelming majority of their powers. Sure, doing a basic attack for four rounds straight is better than nothing, but only marginally.

It's really not hard, unless the battlefield is relatively confined, for a creature with halfway decent speed to keep more than four squares distant from a slowed character. And the fact that a slowed character can still do something doesn't remotely alter the fact that their options (and, in many cases, access to powers) is substantially reduced--which is, ultimately, the entire point of tactical use of conditions.