D&D 4E Forked Thread: Some Thoughts on 4e

[Verision]

Deleted

 

[Lacyon]

The free attack is the consequence, but it is not the design goal. The design goal is to lock down opponents. The design goal is to make the Fighter sticky. How they achieved that is not the goal, it's the game mechanic to accomplish the goal.

The problem with a forced lockdown is that it is too much like compulsion magic. It appears that the designers prefered a system of choice with consequences.

Choice with consequence was the design goal.

A choice with consequences that's so bad as to never be taken is a non-choice and therefore manifestly not the design goal.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's uber metagamey.
"Ignore the other 4 monsters that are attacking us and concentrate on the last monster".
Doesn't matter if its the monsters doing it or the PCs doing it, unless there is some specific goal to it (for example: escort mission where the NPCs try to kill the person being escorted or some such thing).

Is it a good strategy? Does it work? Yes and yes. But its super metagamey. If I'm playing an SRPG, I'd do something like that, but in D&D....well, you might as well just play a wargame if you are going to fight like that.

HAHAHAHAHA

Now you are arguing just to argue.

Nearly every player in the world tries to use good tactics in DND combat unless they are roleplaying an idiot.

That includes multiple PCs attacking the bloodied opponents or even the slightly wounded opponents. That includes giving buffs to PCs that can do a lot of damage. The includes all types of tactics, all of which are designed to increase the odds of the PCs.

If this is metagamey, then so is every other tactic used to improve the odds of the PCs.

People don't use the Marquis of Queensbury Rules in DND combat. Cut us a break.

Not really when you have 50 gp potions of healing. Anyone can pour that down the throat of the leader as easily as the leader can heal someone (well, almost as easily. I figure if you're far enough in a fight that someone get's knocked out, then the leader has prolly already used most of his/her healing)

And how many actions does it take for someone else to use a potion on the downed Leader, especially if the Leader is not in the next square over? And how much does the Leader heal?

Compare this to the fact that it typically only takes the Leader a minor action to heal an injured PC.

It's all about action economy. If a PC uses up several actions to heal the Leader, it is more effective for the NPCs than if the Leader uses up a minor action to heal a different PC. And if an ally heals the Leader for a mere 10 hit points, it's not too difficult for an enemy to take him right back out again.

The other aspect of this is that of urgency. If the Striker is knocked unconscious, it is not as urgent to get him back conscious as if the Leader is knocked unconscious. When one forces the actions of your enemies, one controls the battle more than if the enemies have more options.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Choice with consequence was the design goal.

A choice with consequences that's so bad as to never be taken is a non-choice and therefore manifestly not the design goal.

Yes, I would say that the design goal was to create stickiness for the Fighters to allow them to act in the Defender role. Rather than going with some sort of "If he attacks a monster, that monster can't disengage" they gave the DM's some options. He can shift away at the risk of taking a hit, and he can attack someone else at the risk of taking a hit and a -2 penalty. Or if the enemy was hit by a ranged attack and wasn't adjacent to the Fighter, it would just take the -2 to attacks against other targets. Even the 1 CC attack has some reason behind it.

..x
.F.
..C
x=Marked Enemy
F=Fighter
C=Cleric

In the above scenario the monster has several choices. He can continue attacking the Fighter, attempt to shift or move away from the Fighter, or shift towards the Cleric and attack him. Now, if he shifts away from the Fighter he'll take a CC attack. If he tries moving away, it will be an AoO and if the Fighter hits it would stop his movement entirely...so that's a much worse choice (not to mention all the bonuses to AoO's that the Fighter might have).

However, shifting to the Cleric would provoke a CC attack, but actually attacking the Cleric would not since CC's are capped at one per round. What this means is that if x is actually some big baddy like Irontooth, he can shift past the fighter, take the CC attack and then wail on the Cleric free of charge. Well, there's that -2 to hit, but for a big baddy going against a softer target like the Cleric it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

So as you can see, this allows the Fighter to be sticky, but also allows the DM to make tactical decisions about when it's worth it to risk ignoring the mark and provoking attacks from the Fighter. Personally, especially if that Cleric was already bloodied, I would take it. You have about a 50% that the Fighter will hit on that CC, and 1 in 20 chance that it will crit. Plus, it's a basic attack, so it's just the average of the weapon damage plus ability mod. For my Fighter at level 1, when we fought Irontooth, that would've been an average of about 9.5 damage, and 14 damage on the crit. That's not a lot of damage at all.

Now, this is just talking about the Fighter though...my group also has a Paladin! He can mark you, give you that same -2 to hit, and actually cause some damage if you ignore it. He and I also try to create walls out in front of the squishies. So against us, CC's and AoO's are very unattractive. At least in the dungeon environment we're in now, trying to get around us could lead to several AoO's. So we make a pretty effective wall.

If a party had just one Fighter though, that's a different story. Now you have someone who is more limited in who he can mark, especially if sticks to more single target powers (I have Dragon Breath, which I use to mass mark and minion kill). Additionally, he's only limited to one CC attack a round, and he can't fall back and attack enemies who get past him, which is important.

If you rush our line we have several options. The Paladin can peel off and start using his marks on the enemies that get past, meaning they would be taking damage for going after the squishies. Plus, he'd be wailing on them. Or I can peel off and go back an attack the enemies that rushed past. We'd also most likely be able to get easy combat advantage against them, which means they would fall pretty quick unless it was a big baddy.

When you only have 1 Defender though, he can't peel off and go attack enemies that get past him, he has to hold the line. Perhaps part of the reason that the DM in Verision's game provokes so many AoO's per round is because there's only one Defender. Every guy that gets past their Defender is one more guy that the Defender can no longer engage. He needs to hold the line otherwise all fo the bad guys will get through and swarm his allies.

 

[Verision]

Deleted

 

[Doctor Proctor]

There's a difference between good tactics in a tabletop game and metagame tactics in a tabletop game.

Matagame tactics may be "good" in the sense that they work well, but you're breaking the 4th wall doing that.

And if you are a paladin, or some other type of character with a behavioral code, you very well may use rules not unlike the Marquis of Queensbury Rules in combat.
Others, like Warlords or war trained fighters, may try to follow Sun Tzu and the Art of War.
Others may not have the first clue about fighting as part of a team and using such tactics with those characters would be very metagamey.

To each his own, though, I guess.

You know, I actually have to disagree with you on that. For first level characters, this is true. But think about it, if you have a party that's been through a few tussles before, they know what they're doing. Even the Cleric will understand what it means to be part of a fighting unit and what kind of tactics need to be used. When you're level 28 and fighting some Gargantuan Ancient White Dragon everyone in the party is an experienced vet and knows not to do stupid things.

To an extent, this is already handled without RPing it because you all play together and learn each other's styles and combat capabilities. If you want to RP it though, the whole "not understanding complex tactics" will go away within the first couple levels. If the systems is designed such that approximately 10 encounters = 1 level, then at level 3 (at the end of Keep on the Shadowfell, for example) your character has been through 30 or so encounters now. Some will be skill challenges, that's true, but even conservatively that's at least 20 encounters.

Just by using the term "action economy" you are showing that you view combat in D&D as being completely separate from the roleplaying. You are looking at the combat as if it is just a war game; as if you were playing Warhammer or something.
That works just fine, if your goal is to win every battle using the smallest amount of resources possible, but you aren't really playing your character any more; he's just a piece on a chess board now with no feelings or goals.
And if the Striker is your friend, then getting him back conscious is probably urgent.

While this is true to an extent, it's also a byproduct of fighting together for awhile. If you were stricly RPing everything, eventually your characters would become concerned about action economy. You don't want to be stuck halfway down in a dungeon with no dailies and the big baddy still ahead, do you?

Now myself, I'm a Fighter, so I'm supposed to tactically mindful of the way the battle is going. I often try to work with our Rogue to get him combat advantage, and I'm constantly looking for the most opportune time to use my powers such as my Dragon Breath. Even still though, I'm not economizing every single action, that would be taking it a bit too far. But simply looking at what you're doing and thinking "Is this action worth spending my standard action and giving up my attack? If so, is it worth spending my action point to get another standard action so that I can attack this round?"

The best situation for the NPCs is if multiple NPCs attack a single PC. Granted, the Fighter is not often the best target for this (typically the Leader is)

KarinsDad: I don't understand how you can argue that point, and then question the decisions of a DM that's opening himself to AoO's. If it makes more sense for the NPC's to swarm single targets, and the Fighter isn't a good choice always, then it's perfectly understandable why they might be willing to risk AoO's to get the Leader. As you yourself said, it's much more costly to heal the Leader when they fall than for the Leader to heal, say, the Fighter.

For example, one of the Fighter's class skills is Heal. Since Fighters often had decent Wisdom scores, it's a good skill to have. If the NPC's knock down the Leader then the Fighter might end up being the one trying to get back to them to heal them. This would mean that now the Fighter would most likely be provoking AoO's, which would even the odds considering the AoO's that the NPC's had to take to get past him, and then he would be blowing a standard action to use Heal on the Leader. If he failed the check, then he might even have to blow another standard action to try again! This is great action economy because the Fighter is now hurt, the Leader is down and the Fighter is blowing standard actions to heal the Leader rather than fighting and marking enemies.

Zombies and Goblins might not go this route, but it's perfectly justifiable for a more intelligent enemy like a Hobgoblin (or Goblins led by a Hobgoblin) to do something like this. So it might not happen every encounter but it's bound to come up when dealing with more intelligent enemies that would be more versed in battlefield tactics.

 

[KarinsDad]

There's a difference between good tactics in a tabletop game and metagame tactics in a tabletop game.

Matagame tactics may be "good" in the sense that they work well, but you're breaking the 4th wall doing that.

And if you are a paladin, or some other type of character with a behavioral code, you very well may use rules not unlike the Marquis of Queensbury Rules in combat.
Others, like Warlords or war trained fighters, may try to follow Sun Tzu and the Art of War.
Others may not have the first clue about fighting as part of a team and using such tactics with those characters would be very metagamey.

To each his own, though, I guess.

The philosophy of Sun Tzu is to win the battle before it starts. Anything that works is fair game. Sun Tzu supports my POV, not yours.

Your position here is questionable. The vast majority of people try to use the best tactics that they can in DND combat. Sure, someone might make a roleplaying decision every once in a while, but they probably won't intentionally do stupid things and rarely focusing multiple PCs on a single NPC is stupid.

Just by using the term "action economy" you are showing that you view combat in D&D as being completely separate from the roleplaying. You are looking at the combat as if it is just a war game; as if you were playing Warhammer or something.
That works just fine, if your goal is to win every battle using the smallest amount of resources possible, but you aren't really playing your character any more; he's just a piece on a chess board now with no feelings or goals.
And if the Striker is your friend, then getting him back conscious is probably urgent.

Not as urgent as making sure the rest of the team does not die.

Medieval melee combat is not like 21st century ranged warfare. Now, it's a bit heroic to pull an ally to safety because nearly everything is ranged combat from behind cover. In melee combat, all it does is waste time and get more people killed. Throughout history, writings of battles indicated that one fought first, then worried about the wounded and dead later.

So, your philosophy is the opposite of good roleplaying. The Ranger might be a friend, but so is the Wizard and the Rogue.


DND 4E is explicitly designed to encourage offense over defense/support.

 

[KarinsDad]

KarinsDad: I don't understand how you can argue that point, and then question the decisions of a DM that's opening himself to AoO's. If it makes more sense for the NPC's to swarm single targets, and the Fighter isn't a good choice always, then it's perfectly understandable why they might be willing to risk AoO's to get the Leader. As you yourself said, it's much more costly to heal the Leader when they fall than for the Leader to heal, say, the Fighter.

For example, one of the Fighter's class skills is Heal. Since Fighters often had decent Wisdom scores, it's a good skill to have. If the NPC's knock down the Leader then the Fighter might end up being the one trying to get back to them to heal them. This would mean that now the Fighter would most likely be provoking AoO's, which would even the odds considering the AoO's that the NPC's had to take to get past him, and then he would be blowing a standard action to use Heal on the Leader. If he failed the check, then he might even have to blow another standard action to try again! This is great action economy because the Fighter is now hurt, the Leader is down and the Fighter is blowing standard actions to heal the Leader rather than fighting and marking enemies.

Zombies and Goblins might not go this route, but it's perfectly justifiable for a more intelligent enemy like a Hobgoblin (or Goblins led by a Hobgoblin) to do something like this. So it might not happen every encounter but it's bound to come up when dealing with more intelligent enemies that would be more versed in battlefield tactics.

Actually, the opponent needs to know that a Leader is a Leader to make this type of decision.

That doesn't typically happen until later in combat.

I wasn't arguing that foes might not be willing to take CCs and OAs on occasion, I'm arguing that it is against their best interest to do so most of the time (i.e. the 1 to 3 OAs per round on average syndrome). That's just playing the monsters idiotically on average. Sure, there will be times when it makes sense to risk a CC or an OA for a monster, but most of the time, that should not be the case.

Attacking a bloodied Leader might be one of those times, situation depending. But just giving the PC Fighter free OAs in order to get to the "squishier" targets in the back on round one typically does not make sense. Swarming the closest target makes more sense usually. And if foes want to get to the squishier targets, they should just go around the Fighter in front on round one, not stop and engage.

 

[Lacyon]

Attacking a bloodied Leader might be one of those times, situation depending. But just giving the PC Fighter free OAs in order to get to the "squishier" targets in the back on round one typically does not make sense. Swarming the closest target makes more sense usually. And if foes want to get to the squishier targets, they should just go around the Fighter in front on round one, not stop and engage.

Swarming the defender so you can spend the whole fight attacking the guy with the best AC (who also gets the most out of his many surges due to a high hp) and be forced to give up OAs which stop your movement on a hit if you try to disengage does not make the most sense usually.

And since you always want to engage the squishier targets first, you should indeed go around the Fighter - if you win initiative and thus aren't already "stuck" to him, and the terrain allows you a long way around that still lets you reach the squishy in one turn.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Actually, the opponent needs to know that a Leader is a Leader to make this type of decision.

That doesn't typically happen until later in combat.

Considering that most PC's can tell, say, a Blue Dragon from a Green Dragon, or a Bugbear from a Hobgoblin, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the NPC's can tell a Cleric from a Fighter. Paladin from a Fighter though? That might be a bit less clear at first...but certain classes are fairly obvious.

Even a Warlord would be. One of his first abilities to come into play is the initiative bonus, which one could say was the Warlord ordering the troops into a better formation to prepare them for combat quicker. The enemy would quickly see this and understand that he is in charge, not the guy standing in front with the shield and heavy armor.

(And yes, a Warlord could be in heavy armor and have a shield too, but the Fighter won't be shouting out battle orders.)