How Does "The Rules Aren't Physics" Fix Anything?

[Thyrwyn]

Point of contention - no one has said that only PC's can be raised - they said that only someone with an epic destiny (or something like that) can be raised. To me, that means that anyone (PC or NPC) can be raised if they are relevant to the story/plot/path of the campaign. While this (theoretically) inherently includes the PCs, it does not inherently exclude all NPCs - only most of them.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Well, that isn't precisely the point. The rules need to be consistent, where they exist and are applied. You can swap out 'raise dead' for 'heal', and the problem remains. In fact, the problem becomes worse, as you can heal your NPCs all day, but once they are dead, that is the end of their story. How does one form of healing work but not the other?

Not to raise the spectre of Raise Dead again (pun intended), but I hardly see that as 'cleaned up', since it hasn't really changed.

So I'm confused. Are you saying that the raise dead rules have changed from 3e, or not?

 

[Storm-Bringer]

In and of its self, it does not. But what it does make life a whole lot easier for the designers.

3rd edition ended up having a bunch of rules that end up causing more problems than they were worth as a result of trying to be simulationist. There are instances where leaning towards simulation help (such as diagonal movement and the confirm roll for criticals vs very high AC opponents in my opinion). But there are more instances where simulationist rules were not such a great plan.

I am going to address these bullets here:

- Poison doing ability damage causes poisons to be much more dangerous than they need to be.
As opposed to poisons that arent' very dangerous at all? I mean, of the poisonous substances in the world, a good many of them are simply lethal. No saving throw. Certain spider poison will cause necrosis of tissues for months or years after the initial bite.

- Grappling giving a size bonus meant that large creatures would nearly always succeed on grapple checks since they would also have very high strength values and a CR appropriate Bab.
So, an Ancient Dragon should have roughly the same chance to grapple as a Kobold?

- Ability bonuses being tied into so many different things that changing a score via a buff or a poison / ability drain would require a bunch of recalculation.
Only when you used them. I understand 4e has a crapload of overlapping auras and such that need to be adjusted and re-calculated during combat. Much higher handle time.

- Monsters playing by exactly the same rules would often result in more book keeping than would be ideal.
DMs who are forced at gunpoint to stat out every goblin child in the game world will be faced with a great deal of bookkeeping. DMs who wisely stat out major NPCs only will not have a substantial task ahead of them.

- Monsters getting abilities that make sense flavor wise but are meaningless in actual game play.
Such as?

- A skill system that guaranteed it would be impossible to have a skill based challenge that would be reasonable for everyone in the party to have to attempt.
How is that bad? Is Rope Use really applicable when negotiating with a sphinx? Will Diplomacy really help you detect a trap better?

- The implementation of Disarm / Sunder / BullRush essentially being crappy.
In your estimation. Much like Grapple, some have problems, others don't.

- Mounted combat that leads to a 'kill the horse' strategy always being the best.
Which, historically, was the best strategy. How is this a problem?

While I am not sure if it would show up in 4th edition, what harm would there be in making it so that the players mount would be guaranteed to survive within reason? As a player, if I put a bunch of effort into mounted combat, I would like to have the horse survive a 10th level Fireball.

Because that isn't a 'mount', that is an M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. You don't sound like you want a reasonable chance of a mount surviving, you want Geico for your horse. If you don't want to lose a horse in combat, tie it up back and the camp and hike over to the battle.

I don't remember when common sense applications of rules became the ultimate in bad GMing, but it is a particularly odd development, in my mind.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Point of contention - no one has said that only PC's can be raised - they said that only someone with an epic destiny (or something like that) can be raised. To me, that means that anyone (PC or NPC) can be raised if they are relevant to the story/plot/path of the campaign. While this (theoretically) inherently includes the PCs, it does not inherently exclude all NPCs - only most of them.

Which is exactly no different than previous editions.

 

[Kzach]

It fixes things by separating the retards from the roleplayers.

 

[Kordeth]

Well, that isn't precisely the point. The rules need to be consistent, where they exist and are applied. You can swap out 'raise dead' for 'heal', and the problem remains. In fact, the problem becomes worse, as you can heal your NPCs all day, but once they are dead, that is the end of their story. How does one form of healing work but not the other?

Raise dead isn't healing. It's a powerful ritual in which you contact the Raven Queen and entreat her to return the soul of one who has fallen. The Queen of the Dead does not grant this favor lightly--only those who have a great destiny before them left unfulfilled will be returned from her halls, and only the greatest of heroes can even ask for such a favor.

I imagine, depending on the Raven Queen's fluff and how it relates to undead, you could spin off an interesting in-world explanation by saying that those with unfulfilled destinies are allowed to be raised because the alternative is a vengeful revenant or restless spectre.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Which is exactly no different than previous editions.

The effect on the rules implementation may not be any diferent, but from the standpoint of consistent storytelling & world building, the effect is quite significant.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I am going to address these bullets here:

Yes, you do a good job of pointing out the simulationist logic behind those rules.
But the rules are still more complaex than they have to be.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Which is exactly no different than previous editions.

I am so confused now!

First you said that lack of NPC healing was the heart of the problem with 4e, then that turned out to be wrong.

Then you agreed to move the argument to the way 4e handles Raise Dead, but twice now you've said that Raise Dead hasn't changed since 3e.

So what's the new, improved heart of the problem? (This will be the third heart.)

 

[JohnSnow]

Which is exactly no different than previous editions.

I beg to differ. The standard way to set up laws is to make a rule and then designate the exceptions. The assumption is that the standard rule is the norm and the exceptions are there to cover corner cases.

For a moment, let's ignore the monetary cost of raise dead. There's a world of difference between:

"Anybody can be raised from the dead unless they choose not to be." (3.5)

and:

"Nobody can be raised from the dead unless they possess an epic destiny." (4E)

The first implies that being raised from the dead is a typical occurrence, and then tries to band-aid the implications over by making it expensive (meaning that it's rare because most people can't afford it). Essentially, everyone in the game world with enough cash can come back from the dead. That means that if an NPC dies, anyone who wants to could spend their treasure to bring them back. People coming back from the dead is the default assumption.*

The second implies that being raised from the dead is an atypical occurrence. While it may be something that great heroes do, it's just not available to the average joe at any price. By definition, if you can come back from the dead, you're not average. In this world, people staying dead is the default assumption.**

From the standpoint of the PC characters, nothing has changed. From the standpoint of the gameworld assumptions, there's a BIG difference.


*While it is possible for the DM to decide for his campaign that the (assumed) corner-case exception in the rules of a person who doesn't want to come back is, in fact, the default standard, doing so runs counter to the implications of the default rule.

**Likewise, the DM could decide that everyone has a Destiny sufficient to enable them to be raised from the dead, but again, doing so runs counter to the prevailing assumptions implied by the default rule.