I begin to worry...

[Kwalish Kid]

1) Sacrificing Fun on the altar of Fun I am worried about the loss of save-or-sucks.

It looks like there will be quite a few opportunities for one-shot disables. Are you reading the playtest reports? Wizards will have lots of opportunities to push people off of cliffs. warlocks can send a person to another plane, even if only for a round.

2)Anime Names Two Words: Emerald Frost. I have a friend who reads a heck of a lot of anime. He has assured me that this is quite the anime name.

Let's assume this isn't some kind of closet racism here.

Wow, one name sounds like it could be in a particular fantasy genre. One name from a generic fantasy setting provided as an example.

3)Hit points If these things aren't wounds, then what the heck are they? They've been defined as a character's ability to turn a hit into a miss. So, what distinguishes a hit on HP from a miss? Most games I've played in describe HP as physical wounds, and now it looks like the casters will be shoehorned into damage.

Hunh?

4) The wizard is now a shadow Looks like the wizard will be stripped of much of his power, so that the fool with the metal stick can compete with the guy who can reshape reality with his mind.

Are you the one with the stick?

 

[Nebulous]

Oh, definitely agree with this one. I'm hoping that blast spells (for lack of a better term) will be reduced to something like: Level X Blast - Pick an energy type, you do XdX damage with this spell. No more taking up page after page with essentially the same spell with different damage.

Oh man, 3.x is SO bad about this. The spells don't even have good descriptions, just energy doing damage with a different name. B-o-r-i-n-g.

I want to see cool spells like "Blacklight" from 1e and 2e (was that ever converted to 3e?)

 

[Baby Samurai]

I want to see cool spells like "Blacklight" from 1e and 2e (was that ever converted to 3e?)

No, because you need the posters…

 

[Hussar]

I wonder if people who say this are largely fighter lovers.

Because from the GM side of the screen, while the wizard certainly delivers some powerful capabilities to the party, it takes a lot of defense and effort to keep one alive.

I've never seen a fighter type fail to contribute to a game. I disagree with the notion that "only the wizard had it good."

But, you have to ask, why was the fighter contributing? Or, rather, how. Was the fighter contributing based on what his class allowed him to do, or his toys?

Yes, the oft mentioned fighter with no toys is useless probably almost never comes up in actual games. Why? Because, no DM is going to screw over the fighter player so hard by stripping away all his magical goodies that make him, not better than the mage, but, at least competitive.

The problem is, strip away a wizards magic items and he's still good to go. Heck, he can replace pretty much any item in the short term just with a few spells.

This has been an issue long before 3e. Hopefully, bringing the fighter up and the wizard down levels the field a bit. Thus the whole idea of spreading out the "sweet spot". The sweet spot is sweet because its the range of levels where no one absolutely dominates. After about 13th level, fighters are baggage. Sure, they contribute, but, if the fighter goes down, it's not a big loss.

Or, think about it from the other side for a second. Which would your 17th level party rather fight? A 17th level fighter or a 17th level wizard? I'm thinking that there's certainly a higher chance of a TPK with the wizard.

 

[Psion]

Yes, the oft mentioned fighter with no toys is useless probably almost never comes up in actual games. Why? Because, no DM is going to screw over the fighter player so hard by stripping away all his magical goodies that make him, not better than the mage, but, at least competitive.

Since it's factored in to the power assumptions of the game, I think that's a fair assumption to make.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

4) The wizard is now a shadow Looks like the wizard will be stripped of much of his power, so that the fool with the metal stick can compete with the guy who can reshape reality with his mind.

As it should be. Unless everyone is a wizard (Ars Magica, Mage), the game should be balanced between wizards and non-wizards. And not the poorly thought out "balance" of 1st edition, which was that certain classes got less fun to play over time while others got more fun. If you arent going to balance them, magic users should really be relegated to NPC status.

Since it doesnt make a lot of sense to have classes if one class can do everything, they partialed out the wizard's power to other classes.

 

[Sundragon2012]

I dealt with this in the other thread talking about hp's. I'll repeat things here.

HP's are abstract. The problem is, people want to make the mechanics fit the narrative, rather than the other way around. When the high level fighter jumps off the cliff, he doesn't free fall to the bottom and go splat. We know he didn't because he still has hp's left and walks away.

For the same reason, we don't describe a killing blow before damage is rolled in combat.

Instead, the fighter hit some shrubs and branches on the way down, slowing his fall and landed in a deep pile of pine needles at the bottom. Thus, the narrative fits the mechanics, in exactly the way it should be in a RPG. We don't declare the results of an action before the dice are rolled, ever. This is no different.

Make the narrative fit the action, not the other way around.

Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't. It is one thing for a warrior to fall 400 feet into a dense forest and 400 feet from back of a griffon onto a flat plain. The DM knows what is below the falling fighter and an abstract mechanic isn't going to create trees or whatnot where there are none.

Nearly every DM I know house rules falling to make it substantially more believable. My players would look at me as if I were mad if I were to say that one of their characters just fell 500' and is not only alive, but able to move and fight as if uninjured (as we know anything above 0 hit points leave you fit and full of vigor :\ ). My players expect cinematic but not John Woo of Looney Tunes cinematic.

I say make the mechanics serve the versimilitude and suspension of disbelief.



Sundragon

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I wonder if people who say this are largely fighter lovers.

Unabashedly so. I also recognize that they've been a second class citizen for most of D&D's history. BY POOR DESIGN. Fighter in 1st/2nd edition was something you threw into a multiclass mix to squeak a few more HP into your fighter/mage. Particularly in 1st/2nd edition, your party was best service by replacing the fighter with another cleric.

Because from the GM side of the screen, while the wizard certainly delivers some powerful capabilities to the party, it takes a lot of defense and effort to keep one alive.

Yeah, because the party focus fires on the wizard. Why? Because its usually the more powerful class. Also the wizard needs a standard action to do his trick. The fighter in 3.5 needs a full round action.

I've never seen a fighter type fail to contribute to a game.

A commoner can contribute to the game. I mean, aid other is fun too right?

I seriously question whether you've seen a fighter contribute equally to the guy who can teleport, read minds, alter his shape, rob others of their will, summon extraplanar entities... need I go on? The fighter swings his weapon.

These are contributions from their class, and the wizard, by virtue of having access to any spell they bother to research, can do more. Anyone can come up with ideas and contribute in a way other than their class abilities, so that's a wash.

I disagree with the notion that "only the wizard had it good."

You're right, the cleric, druid and pretty much any other full caster get it pretty sweet as well.

 

[Baby Samurai]

You're right, the cleric, druid and pretty much any other full caster get it pretty sweet as well.

…And full manifesters.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

With due respect, you're creating an issue where none exists.

Whether we're talking about hit points or a vitality/wound system, we are, at base, discussing a method of notation for determining when we've overcome an obstacle. This is a broad level of analysis, but a crucial one. Regardless of what system we use, the monster is defeated when it runs out of points. From the tenor of your post, you're likely too committed to thinking of the vitality/wound dichotomy and that commitment will hurt your ability to enjoy D&D. Unless you can let go of that commitment.

We agree on the first part of your post. As for the second part I enjoy D&D quite a bit right now. I have absolutely no problem with the combined vitality/wound into one thing called hit points as they stand in 3.x right now. The system does a good job of glossing over things in terms of combat (I will grant the whole falling thing is broken but that can be fixed with CON damage). What I am concerned about is in the attempt to get rid of the unfun of healing they are spreading healing to people that logically shouldn't heal without magic unless the mechanic of a single hit point system is redefined in such a way that it requires breaking the hit point system into 2 parts to make sense again.

In a hit point system, there's one pool of points to cover all conditions your foe might experience, from being stunned to being unconscious to being dead, i.e. defeated. In the vitality/wound system, there is a mechanical distinction made between losing all your "consciousness points", and thereby becoming unconscious/defeated, and losing all your "wound points", and thereby becoming dead/defeated. In the end, we're still talking about defeat.

We agree here.

You seem to be worried about the gloss or color of that defeat. You want to kill monsters, but you also want to know when you've stopped destroying their morale and started destroying their bodies. Ultimately, it's an arbitrary designation in any system that relies on a pool of points (whether hit points or the barely-more-granular vitality/wound point pools). We know that 4E will contain a "Bloodied" mechanic, which is triggered when an opponent has lost half its hit points. Why not just create a house rule/convention amongst you and your players that the DM will announce when an opponent is at one-quarter of its original hit points. That announcement is a trigger for everyone to switch their attack descriptions from the "shield feint" type to the "cleave his head" type. Below one-quarter hit points, you simply describe physical wounds. Problem solved!

Well that is fine if I want to house rule a system, but then anything can be changed with house rules. I can play 3.x without dice if I want to spend the time house ruling. I want the base system to work and not be something I have to spend time fixing. Right now I am happy playing both D&D with its single hit point mechanic, and HERO System with a vitality/wound system. I have no problem playing in either as long as the mechanics support the system in a logical way. By creating a "bloodied" status it is trying to create a hybrid that doesn't make logical sense to me. If you are going to start defining hitpoints as bloodied or not, why not go all the way and make it a real vitality/wound system.

We're not talking about flaws in the mechanics of the game. If we were, you'd be advocating for different mechanic for tracking your enemy's level of defeat. You might, for example, argue in favor of the wound mechanics in Runequest 3rd. Edition, which feature specific wounds to specific body regions alongside a pool of general hit points. You might argue for a Mutants and Masterminds approach that conists of a simple, tiered system of damage conditions.

Again I play several systems and enjoy them all. I think there is a flaw in the mechanics of 4E if it ends up breaking the logic of the hitpoint system in an effort to get rid of healing being an action and spread to all classes. As for 4E I might be advocating a vitality/wound system as the logical extension of where they seem to be going. I figure if they are going to start redefining the hit point mechanic then they might as well go all the way. Either that or go back and look at the problem of the unfun cleric and find another solution that doesn't break the suspension of disbelief.

Instead, you're just arguing that we should arrange these general pools of points a little bit differently so that you can more comfortably describe what is going on. You're putting the cart before the horse. I've described how, in 4E, the end of every combat doesn't have to be unconsciousness or disarmament. When a foe drops to zero hp, there's no problem with equating that with the monster's death.

I am not arguing that reducing a opponents hp to 0 equals their defeat. I am arguing that the way they are doing healing is breaking the hit point system.

To use another movie example, look at the fight between Indiana Jones and the bald guy on the airfield in Raiders. At the end of the fight, the bald guy is chopped to bits by an airplane propeller. In D&D terms, Indy finally succeeded in reducing that opponent/obstacle/threat to zero hit points. When you reduce something to zero hit points, the game is signaling to you that the threat or obstacle is gone. The art in playing an RPG is being able to translate those mechanics into evocative stories and play. Indy punches or hits the bald man with his fists. When the bald guys hit points reach zero, Indy has defeated the obstacle. Whether the bald guy slumps to the ground, unconscious and defeated/overcome. The DM (hopefully with Indy's agreement) describes the bald guy becoming salsa. Same result. The obstacle is defeated/overcome and is never ever coming back. If the game (and the movie) called for the bald guy to harass Indy again, the bald guy would have just been unconscious. But the players (writers) didn't need him in the story anymore, so he's salsa.

Again they defeat is fine. The problem is once more in the healing. The problem lies with the Warlord being able to heal. Either the Warlord has magical healing or it doesn't. If it has magical healing then the hit point system continues to work fine but the system is now giving out magic to people that otherwise shouldn't have magic creating its own sets of problems. If it is not magic healing then it is basically a morale boot increasing the vitality of the player. In a vitality/wound system this would be fine but in a combined hit point system this creates problems.

The same can go for your own games featuring abstract systems like hit points and vitality/wounds. The problem isn't in the system; the problem is in how you play the system. I understand that you're worried about your suspension of disbelief being broken. That's your own personal Gordian Knot. I'm trying to suggest that you've got Alexander's sword in your hand, if you would only realize that the differences between your favorite mechanic of abstract wound measurement is not significantly different from 4E's general hit point pool.

As I said above. I play and like both general hit point systems including D&D and I like them as well as playing vitality/wound systems including HERO system and like them as well. What I have seen with 4E is an attempt at a hibyd that I don't think works as well as either.