I’m Thinking of Giving 4e Another Shot

[Windjammer]

1. Take a look at the stunt rules on page 42 of the DMG. Basically, this gives the DM guidelines for letting the players ignore their normal powers and do cool stuff that involves the environment. Kick people into fires, drop tapestries on their heads, all sorts of things. Making copious use of this may help alleviate your frustration with martial powers that are only used once a day, just because you can get a similar effect by using stunts.

That's beautiful and I try to to that as much as I can in my own games too. But one thing I constantly stumble over is to allocate proper DCs. To be sure, page 42 in the DMG correlates specific outputs of damages to skill use DCs - but what about the other conditions - knocking prone, dazing a creature, and so on? I've tried to do a hierarchy of these (i.e. which condition is more "powerful" and hence would demand a higher DC from a game-balance perspective) but always failed to come up with something.

So I'd like anyone who has done some progress on this point to share their insights with us, please! First round goes to Piratecat, who seems to hold promise.

 

[xechnao]

I think making martial powers to be "mystical" (Ki) isn't wrong. It kinda makes sense that you can't beat supernatural monsters like dragons, beholders and hydras without some kind of "magic" tricks, either. really, even if they are not explicitely magic (as I would put the default assumption), beating a dragon in melee combat isn't really something ... dare I say.... "realistic"? Aside from that the dragon probably doesn't work without some magical help, fighting a big monster 25 times your weight and 5 times your height with scales as hard as metal with a big sword should be impossible without some extra tricks up your sleeve.

In older editions this was settled with the existence of magic weapons-equipment. Balance was achieved around this idea too. Only warrior characters for example could efficiently use the best melee equipment, be it magic or not. Some people may prefer this than the ki solution. Regarding 4e perhaps they could link certain martial powers to certain magic weapon techniques than only a martial class could master and achieve.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's beautiful and I try to to that as much as I can in my own games too. But one thing I constantly stumble over is to allocate proper DCs. To be sure, page 42 in the DMG correlates specific outputs of damages to skill use DCs - but what about the other conditions - knocking prone, dazing a creature, and so on? I've tried to do a hierarchy of these (i.e. which condition is more "powerful" and hence would demand a higher DC from a game-balance perspective) but always failed to come up with something.

So I'd like anyone who has done some progress on this point to share their insights with us, please! First round goes to Piratecat, who seems to hold promise.

My first tip is: You don't need to be perfect when creating your hierarchy.
My take might be:
1. Push, Pull, Slide, Slow. Resist 5 (for ally or PC)
What it is depends on what makes sense for the described power. Yes, Slide is more flexible then push or pull, but the difference is marginal. How much you can slide/push/pull could be done in the 3.x way - every 5 points above the DC adds a square.
2. Knock Prone, Immobilize, Daze, Weaken, Ongoing Damage 5 (per tier), Ongoing Effect from 1. Resist 10.
3. Stun, Ongoing Damage 10 (+5 per tier), Ongoing Effect from 2. Resist 20.
4. Dominate. Ongoing effect from 3. Resist 25.

Of course there will be situations where a slide might be more useful than a knock prone. But that's ... well, situational. It's part of it being a tactical situation.

Now you need a way to press this into the tables format and think how to apply it. Maybe drop the damage step by 1 for each step up in your condition hierarchy (down to a damage of 0.) Higher DCs (+5 to DC or Defense in question) could also add one step on the condition hierarchy. One-Time effects get one free step on the condition hierarchy. I also like the idea of adding requirements like combat advantage to such steps. So you could say: "Yes, if you have combat advantage and beat the targets Fort/Ref by 5, this stunt will let you drop the target prone for free in addition to the damage effect.)

 

[Sebastrd]

Doesn't really address the OP's issue, though, which is (if I understand it correctly) that there is no way for the player to be in the PC's mindset when making this decision. The tactical question involved in using a daily power is, almost always, "Do I want to burn a daily power in this fight? Is this a good time for it, or should I save it for later?"

If the opportunity to use a daily power comes from chance and specific circumstances, then the decision is a no-brainer from the character's perspective - hey, look, it's a chance to use my super-deadly uber-trick! I better seize the opportunity while it's here, I'd be an idiot not to. The decision is purely a metagame one.

There's absolutely no reason why you have to play with this mindset. If your PC would use an exploit (martial powers are called "exploits") in a given situation, then play it that way. The question, "Do I want to burn a daily power in this fight?", probably doesn't even occur to your PC. Every PC doesn't have to be a tactical genius.

 

[cerealman]

I agree.

But if I had to give a single recommendation to the OP, I'd say cut the fluff text off the powers. 4E is already rules-before-roleplaying.

How? Honest question here. I'd like your opinion on why this is? 1E, 2E, and 3E all were a hodge podge of rules/role playing mixed and did little to help role players actually role play. Taken as whole Edition, each of the previous editions rule sets were much worse than what 4E has to offer. So I'm honestly curious how 1E (with its charts and tables and books like Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide), 2E (with it's books for every class/race and the black death series), and 3E (which admittedly was a step in the right direction) were more about putting role playing before rules?

Admin here. Folks, please see my caution on the next page before replying to this line of discussion. Thanks. ~ PCat

 

[Dausuul]

There's absolutely no reason why you have to play with this mindset. If your PC would use an exploit (martial powers are called "exploits") in a given situation, then play it that way.

What would be a situation in which my character would not use a daily exploit, then, given the opportunity? 90% of the time, if I have a choice between using a daily, an encounter, or an at-will power, the only reason not to use the daily is that I don't want to "use it up." Dailies do more damage and have nastier rider effects.

I understand that dailies can be explained by "You only get the chance to use them every so often, and you have narrative control over when that happens." But the flip side of this is that you must exert narrative control; you have to step outside your character's head and decide when to give him/her the opportunity to use the power. Some players want to be able to stay in character as much as possible.

The question, "Do I want to burn a daily power in this fight?", probably doesn't even occur to your PC.

That's kind of the point.

Incidentally, daily and encounter powers are a lot easier to explain if you make them fungible - that is, if you have a 5th-level daily left but want to use your 1st-level daily again, you can swap it out. Then you can explain daily powers as a matter of stamina; these are incredibly exhausting feats* that leave you drained, and you can only do them so often in a day. Encounter powers are similar, but a short rest is enough to replenish them. I haven't tried this, but I don't think it would cause major balance issues.

[size=-2]*Not "feat" in the rules sense, of course.[/size]

 

[cerealman]

Doesn't really address the OP's issue, though, which is (if I understand it correctly) that there is no way for the player to be in the PC's mindset when making this decision. The tactical question involved in using a daily power is, almost always, "Do I want to burn a daily power in this fight? Is this a good time for it, or should I save it for later?"

If the opportunity to use a daily power comes from chance and specific circumstances, then the decision is a no-brainer from the character's perspective - hey, look, it's a chance to use my super-deadly uber-trick! I better seize the opportunity while it's here, I'd be an idiot not to. The decision is purely a metagame one.

It's done the same way casters spent 1E, 2E, and 3E with the spell system. It's really just as simple as saying "hey, my character would want to do that right now because he can." The exploit is incredibly difficult to pull off, and everything is in the right position, I can do this!

Honestly, people look at 4E and completely forget everything we learned from 1-3E. I don't always slam people with my shield with Tide of Iron. I've kicked them in the gut. I've been hit from behind and slammed into them. I've leaped from the top of the stairs and sent my axe swinging from on high into them throwing them back.

Seriously, just because everyone has them now, people forget that powers aren't a new system and have been around since spells have been.

 

[cerealman]

What would be a situation in which my character would not use a daily exploit, then, given the opportunity?

The risk is too great.
There are other more appealing options available. Daily Powers aren't the end all of powers.

That's kind of the point.

So? Rather weak point.

 

[Mallus]

What it boils down to: 4e lacks out-of-combat powers.

4e has skills. Good skills. You could use skills.

The idea that role-playing = magic use is a quaint D&D-ism I'd like to see buried.

 

[Dausuul]

It's done the same way casters spent 1E, 2E, and 3E with the spell system. It's really just as simple as saying "hey, my character would want to do that right now because he can." The exploit is incredibly difficult to pull off, and everything is in the right position, I can do this!

Er... no. Casters in previous editions used the slot system because their spellcasting was modeled off Jack Vance's magic system from the Dying Earth books, in which a wizard had to prepare a spell for use; if you needed that spell three times but you'd only prepared it twice that day, tough beans. The explanation was entirely in-character. Wizard PCs were quite aware of their limited number of spells per day.

Unless you are proposing that martial characters in 4E have to prepare their exploits every morning like AD&D wizards, the comparison does not apply.

(Besides, I've hated Vancian casting and daily abilities for twenty years, ever since I was first introduced to BECMI. 4E simply aggravated an existing issue.)

The risk is too great.
There are other more appealing options available. Daily Powers aren't the end all of powers.

Risk of what?

Let's take a specific example. Say I've got a bastard sword/heavy shield fighter with the following exploits:

Cleave (at-will)
Tide of Iron (at-will)
Covering Attack (encounter)
Brute Strike (daily)

I'll concede, there are circumstances under which this fighter would choose to use options other than Brute Strike. Sometimes you need to hack down a lot of weak foes (read: minions), or push somebody off a cliff, or bring the rogue into flanking position.

But be honest: 90% of the time, this fighter is going to want that extra 2d10 damage more than a little tactical movement. Imagine you get access to all of these powers, at will, without restriction. Any sensible fighter is going to use Brute Strike as the default, with the others only as secondary options for specific situations. It's like comparing at-will powers to maneuvers like bull rush and grab; yeah, sometimes you want to bull rush, sometimes you want to grab, but mostly you want to whack the guy as hard as you can.

So why would the character, knowing only what the character knows, choose not to Brute Strike most of the time?