Forked Thread: Did 4e go far enough or to far?

[Imaro]

They really don't play the same. At all. A defender marks someone in order to force a confrontation. The mark influences the marked target to stay near them, or attack them, or else suffer some penalty.

The striker's extra damage mechanics encourage the opposite. A target who has been designated as a quarry, or who is flanked, has incentive to get away from whoever quarried or flanked them, so as to avoid suffering penalties.

They're the same only in the sense that they both involve choosing a foe to suffer a disadvantage. The means of choosing the foe, the disadvantage suffered, and the tactical consequences that flow from that decision are entirely different.

Uhm...we agree here, in my earlier post I said that these were the exception. I actually think these are more varied than the actual powers in mechanical application and effect.

They're different, and its ok to prefer mechanical differences, but where your argument drives us batty is when you assume that a lack of full fledged mechanical sub systems somehow translates into tactical similarity. This is not the case.

No one used the word "tactical". Play != tactical. Some people said they felt similar in play, not that their tactics were the same. A spell from 4e and a spell from 3e could promote the same tactical play, yet have very different mechanics for resolving that spell. This I think may be the dissconnect. In 4e whether that spell effects or doesn't effect it's target is always resolved the same...for every spell (roll d20 +mods) vs. defense. This could be what causes the samey feeling not the tactics, and it could be even more pronounced for players not interested or good at tactical combat.

 

[Greg K]

it's still not Spirit of the Century.
/HHOS

I would replace Spirit of the Century with True20. Although, I am curious to see how Grim Tales would play using Elements of Magic: Revised (EN Publishing), Psychic's Handbook (Green Ronin), and Blood and Fists (RPGObjects).

Of course, I need to first get a copy of Grim Tales

 

[Imaro]

While others get a sense of individuality from their character by giving them different personalities, ie, making them individuals in the more non-gaming sense. To each his own....

Hmm...I guess someone who desires mechanical individuality in their character must not be able to roleplay...I mean it has to be an either/or situation...NOT, what was the point of this statement again?

No, it's not. The statement you quoted is not a value judgment. It's a just an observation of a difference between the systems.

Where does he in that statement compare systems...he makes a statement about what "you" do or don't do.

He didn't say that. He was pointing out that 4e puts the emphasis on tactics used during play, rather than "system/build mastery".

You're reading (a lot) into what was written.

That's not what he said, but ok...whatever.

 

[Mallus]

Hmm...I guess someone who desires mechanical individuality in their character must not be able to roleplay...

Where did I say that?

Where does he in that statement compare systems...he makes a statement about what "you" do or don't do.

He was making an implicit comparison between games like 4e which prioritize tactics at the table as opposed to 3e which can be prioritizing character building ("mastering the mechanics"), which occurs outside of the gaming session.

At least that's how I read it. And besides, it still doesn't make what he said a value judgment.

 

[Umbran]

Actually, we were told the sales were pretty fan-[censored]-tastic. Well, that was of course not the word Mr. Slavicsek used, but it certainly wasn't "decent" either. But maybe you have a newer official statement?

Last time I checked, "fan-[censored]-tastic" was from a subset of "decent". It has been censored, after all, and so is family friendly, and therefore decent

Really, I merely chose a word that indicated that they'd hit a desired minimum, and ran no risk of having someone try to get me to give support for what they thought was hyperbole.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No one said it was necessary, different people are stimulated in different ways, especially when it comes to games. To claim "You don't master a mechanic, you master the tactics of a class" is just the preaching of Badwrongfun (or whatever it's called). Who are you to say that people can not have fun in mastering mechanics...or better yet fun in both mastering mechanics and tactics. I see the mastering of tactics no different from the mastering of mechanics... just a different preference of fun for some.

It has nothing to do with one way badwrongfun - at least not for me. Of course at the moment I prefer the "Master the Tactics" aspect. "Master the Mechanics" is part of what I didn't like in Shadowrun with its Decking/Hacking subsystems. But it didn't bother me so much when, say, comparing a Barbarian to a Wizard in 3.x. I am just saying there is a unique elegance to it. Not saying it's inherently superior and its bad to prefer other ways.

I think 3.x (or any other game system) would even get more "unique elegance" points from me if they created very different mechanical subsystems (maybe Vancian vs token-build up vs encounter powers) that managed to keep the balance between them.

 

[Evilusion]

For me 4E went to far in a few ways

Classes fitting certain "roles"
Making every class balanced(Should have just made a genertic class and pick and choose your power, skills etc.)
Alignment(should have just trashed it or kept the old system)
Minions rules

Those are my main one, the rest would just really turn into a rant on the whole 4E system.

Evilusion

 

[Runestar]

How can using the biggest brand name in the hobby (for it's entire history) be a detriment?

It can, when the target audience 4e is trying to appeal to happens to be the same group who may not want to be associated with the dnd namesake.

Popular as dnd may have been, it can also been quite divisive. It is no small knowledge that there are people who stereotype dnd players as basement geeks with no social life whatsoever, associate dnd with satanism, and numerous other accusations with no iota of truth in them whatsoever.

However appealing the new mechanics may be to them, the moment they see "DnD", they are going to shy away from it like a hot iron, because of the negative connotations it may have in their mentality.

Just imagine, if 4e had been rebranded under the WoW name or something...

 

[dm4hire]

Good point. Whatever happened to the rumored d20 Fantasy that was referred to a lot toward the end of 3.x? I wonder if WotC is still planning on doing something with the concept of making a non-D&D based ruleset for Fantasy? Course I'm still waiting for the latest news for d20 Modern 2.0.

 

[FireLance]

5. Ok, this one is a little more complex.

The power system has the potential to permit characters to mix and match abilities. This in turn has the potential to allow for a lot of variety by permitting characters to take things that aren't part of their usual suite of powers. For example, a Fighter might want to take a power that helps him fire a crossbow particularly well. Ways to do this are already becoming available: if you look at the gladiator article, the multiclassing mechanic is being used to give characters the ability to learn special weapons tricks that might not fit with their regular class, but which add variety. Like a wizard who mostly casts spells, but occasionally wields a whip, and gets good advantage out of it. The architecture exists for this to happen.

Unfortunately, its got a flaw. Not a major flaw, and maybe even an inevitable flaw, but a flaw.

Basically, its this: the value of a power granted by a feat, or a new option granted by a feat, varies based on who is receiving it. And the game has to charge for it based on the recipient best able to exploit it. So, for example, a power that lets you make an attack based on dexterity has to be charged for on the assumption that someone who's favorite ability score is dexterity will be taking it. But that just makes it over priced when someone who doesn't favor dexterity wants to take it, which in turn limits how much you can use this mechanic to create versatile tricks for your character.

Use the whip as the example.* The whip feats have to be balanced on the assumption that they will be taken by a Rogue. They work based on Dexterity, after all, and rogues have an off hand so they can fight with a dagger/whip combination. That's fair, and I understand this. But a whip might be a cool thing to give to a Warlock, right? Except that warlocks don't use dexterity. So a warlock who uses both magic and a whip would end up with a crappy whip power. That means the whip power should either be less difficult for said warlock to obtain, or, should be powered up. But if its powered up enough it becomes a no brainer for rogues.

I don't like this, but I don't see a solution either other than direct DM intervention. I can't see anything that WOTC could do to fix the situation, since its so... nuts and bolts and based on individual characters.

Here's a relatively simple fix for the problem, which I thought of when I was grappling with the same issue for my multiclass-only racial paragon class. For each power, you define one or more primary ability scores, e.g. Dexterity for the whip power. A character may use any other ability score to make attack rolls for the power, but he takes a -2 penalty if he does so. The Dex 12 Cha 22 warlock who wants to use a whip power could thus use his Charisma modifier of +6 -2 = a net modifier of +4 to make attack rolls with his whip power, which is +3 better than his actual Dexterity modifier of +1.