D&D 4E In Defense of 4E - a New Campaign Perspective

[MwaO]

What 4E did was to take a hard stance, that HP were definitely just a game element that didn't signify anything deeper about how the world worked, and force everyone else to either take it or leave it. I don't think the designers necessarily realized how many people would see that as a deal-breaker.

I mean, 4E's stance is basically AD&D's stance. PCs don't actually have all that survivability, they just use luck+skill+divine influences to survive impossible challenges. It is the last few hp that represents actual dying potential(1E paraphrased). Monsters kind of have that too. Even Smaug gets hit by a lucky arrow shot by essentially a 'PC' archer — but it in part represents that all the attacks being aimed at him wore down his luck to the point where he could be killed by one shot.

You're much higher level than an opponent, that luck+skill+divine influences that they have is irrelevant, similar to what happens when say a novice fights a sensei at a dojo or a sensei fights a world champion class martial artist. Or in particular, you're a spellcaster firing off a save or suck spell at a lower level opponent who then is out of the combat vs a martial having to chew your way through their block of hp one by one.

4E goes a small step further in a sense that it says basically, we don't actually know if someone whose hp say they're dying is actually dying or not. We can only know if they were dying when they actually die. Maybe they're just nonplussed for a few seconds, lying on the ground, and in the heat of combat, who really has time to check if they're bleeding out or have the wind knocked out of them? That concept allows for martial healing — Warlord shouts at the 'dying' PC to stop acting stupid and get back into the fight. And then they weren't dying — we know this because they're now obviously not bleeding to death. It also allows for martial PCs to being equivalent to casters — we don't have to work out how the paragon tier martial PC one-shotted the Ogre in the exact same way we never had to work out how the 14th level Wizard basically took the Ogre out of combat by making it fail a saving throw in other editions.

As for falling — if an Ogre falls 10' and kills himself in a paragon tier adventure, that's fine. That means he was likely hit by a PC's attack, failed a saving throw to avoid falling, and then fell. At that much unluck, who cares if he dies or not given he's not particularly important to the encounter, likely at best about 1/16th of the XP.

 

[billd91]

I get it. It's just that argument is very weak and it seems to be the foundation for a vast number of other arguments around how D&D should function, and if the foundation of an argument is weak...then what is that to say of the rest?

I think it would say that you're totally wrong about that assessment that the argument is weak. It is what it is so some kind of structure must be built from scratch that suits the needs or preferences of the designers in both feel and mechanic. Vancian magic both tweaked the designers' interest and presented itself as something that was easy to manage from a game-structure point of view. There were plenty of other options out there in literature to model after, and they chose the one that they felt was best for the game.

 

[Garthanos]

I think it would say that you're totally wrong about that assessment that the argument is weak. It is what it is so some kind of structure must be built from scratch that suits the needs or preferences of the designers in both feel and mechanic.

There is rich mythology and legend to draw on ... and most of it has more in common with 4e ritual magic (The rare exceptions might be more fun however).

 

[Zardnaar]

Magic in D&D is more inertia. Basically don't replace vancian. I think you could make new magic using classes in splats (warlock is one example). that do it differently but in core you have to have vancian IMHO. Otherwise you leave yourself to open to "this is not D&D". Its one of those sacred cows. Adding stuff to the game is fine, replacing stuff is the problem.

 

[Immortal Sun]

I think it would say that you're totally wrong about that assessment that the argument is weak. It is what it is so some kind of structure must be built from scratch that suits the needs or preferences of the designers in both feel and mechanic. Vancian magic both tweaked the designers' interest and presented itself as something that was easy to manage from a game-structure point of view. There were plenty of other options out there in literature to model after, and they chose the one that they felt was best for the game.

That doesn't address anything I said. At all.

The relevance of what tweaked the designers nose or didn't has absolutely no bearing on the "it's magic, there are no rules" argument which is regularly used to say "Magic users can do cool stuff because magic has no rules, but fighters can't do cool stuff because reality."

Magic in D&D is more inertia. Basically don't replace vancian. I think you could make new magic using classes in splats (warlock is one example). that do it differently but in core you have to have vancian IMHO. Otherwise you leave yourself to open to "this is not D&D". Its one of those sacred cows. Adding stuff to the game is fine, replacing stuff is the problem.

Sure, and I'll buy that argument too. "It's not the best system but it's the system that feels the most D&D." But again, that's an argument to tradition, which is a widely established logical fallacy, meaning the subsequent arguments founded on that of "Magic can break the rules because magic and non-magic can't because non-magic." are therefore fallacious.


I'd probably be more accepting of people just flat out admitting "Magic can do cool stuff, non-magics can't, that's just D&D if you don't like it find another game." Than attempting to argue any that D&D magic/non-magic rules are attempting to simulate one or more elements of reality.


But that would make those people sound terrible and probably not engender many people to start playing.

 

[Zardnaar]

That doesn't address anything I said. At all.

The relevance of what tweaked the designers nose or didn't has absolutely no bearing on the "it's magic, there are no rules" argument which is regularly used to say "Magic users can do cool stuff because magic has no rules, but fighters can't do cool stuff because reality."




Sure, and I'll buy that argument too. "It's not the best system but it's the system that feels the most D&D." But again, that's an argument to tradition, which is a widely established logical fallacy, meaning the subsequent arguments founded on that of "Magic can break the rules because magic and non-magic can't because non-magic." are therefore fallacious.


I'd probably be more accepting of people just flat out admitting "Magic can do cool stuff, non-magics can't, that's just D&D if you don't like it find another game." Than attempting to argue any that D&D magic/non-magic rules are attempting to simulate one or more elements of reality.


But that would make those people sound terrible and probably not engender many people to start playing.

Its not really a logical fallacy since 5E has Vancian back (tweaked sure). People have expectations from franchises,D&D isn't the only one. Basically don't alienate your fans.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A minion in all but name and a good damage roll? Eh. I don't see "It's basically a minion, but not really." as any different than "It's a minion." End result? A mook with low HP that will 99.9% of the time die in one hit.

Not really, no. The only thing a low-level NPC has in common with a minion is that they can die from one attack. In almost every way that matters, a low-level NPC is different. For one thing, even if they have 4hp, they can survive the little bumps and bruises that we pick up in our daily lives. For another thing, their relative durability is based on factors that actually exist within the game world, rather than a meta-game descriptor of their relative importance to the narrative.

Minions work fairly well, in the context where many of them are facing off against the PCs in combat. The further you take them away from that context, the less sense they make.

They're NPC commoners. I'm actually legitimately shocked that you thought that would turn out any other way.

As I said, the weakest possible PC has like 13hp, and a level 1 goblin has 25. The way these miners were described, they should have been tougher than that. They may even have been dwarves. Even if they were level 1 standard NPCs, their numbers should have been enough to turn the tide of combat; but since they had an invisible 'minion' flag, they all died meaningless deaths.

There was absolutely no way, whatsoever, for our characters to know that they were minions. If they were minions, it's improbable that they would have survived so long in an open mine. They would have stubbed a toe, or been stung by a bee, or fallen victim to any of a million other things that deal the minimum possible damage. The fact that they were still alive should have been proof enough that they weren't minions.

Of course, the same could be said of any minion. A level 21 giant minion could not feasibly have survived to adulthood without taking a point of damage at some point along the way. Treating minions as an objective aspect of a persistent reality is an exercise in futility.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I mean, 4E's stance is basically AD&D's stance.

I've heard it said before, that 4E delivered on Gygax's promise. If you read back through any of the old editions - basically anything prior to 2E - then you get a lot of grandiose speech about epic heroes slaying dragons and winning the day. But if you actually follow the rules, you get a lot of random chumps who die meaningless deaths in dark caves. Gygax's commitment to mechanical procedure, and his enthusiasm for wargaming, meant that it was actually pretty rare for things to turn out as he'd described them.

Fourth Edition delivers, though. You're an epic hero. You're going to overcome the villains, and save the world. There are actual mechanics to the game, which reinforce the narrative that they want to achieve. And that's great, if you still believed in the old lies. If what you want out of the game, is to play the heroes in an epic narrative, then the 4E mechanics can actually deliver that.

But many fans of D&D, were fans of D&D for what it actually was, rather than what it claimed to be. A lot of people really liked the commitment to procedure, and how everything was internally consistent. It was a huge selling point for 3E. Even 2E was written more toward role-playing, and less toward story-telling. And those people, who never cared about Gygax's great lie, were disappointed when 4E suddenly flipped the script. If I actually cared about playing the protagonist in some story, then I never would have stuck around with D&D; I would have gone off to some other game, with rules that actually supported that.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Not really, no. The only thing a low-level NPC has in common with a minion is that they can die from one attack. In almost every way that matters, a low-level NPC is different. For one thing, even if they have 4hp, they can survive the little bumps and bruises that we pick up in our daily lives. For another thing, their relative durability is based on factors that actually exist within the game world, rather than a meta-game descriptor of their relative importance to the narrative.

Minions work fairly well, in the context where many of them are facing off against the PCs in combat. The further you take them away from that context, the less sense they make.

Well, then don't.

As I said, the weakest possible PC has like 13hp, and a level 1 goblin has 25. The way these miners were described, they should have been tougher than that. They may even have been dwarves. Even if they were level 1 standard NPCs, their numbers should have been enough to turn the tide of combat; but since they had an invisible 'minion' flag, they all died meaningless deaths.

There was absolutely no way, whatsoever, for our characters to know that they were minions. If they were minions, it's improbable that they would have survived so long in an open mine. They would have stubbed a toe, or been stung by a bee, or fallen victim to any of a million other things that deal the minimum possible damage. The fact that they were still alive should have been proof enough that they weren't minions.

Of course, the same could be said of any minion. A level 21 giant minion could not feasibly have survived to adulthood without taking a point of damage at some point along the way. Treating minions as an objective aspect of a persistent reality is an exercise in futility.

This is all very good and corner-casey and all, but you essentially have two extremely niche examples here, one of which can be summed up as "This one time we did a thing and it didn't turn out like I expected and I didn't like it." and the other an extreme example that I've already agreed is kinda silly and admitted I never use and I have no idea why you keep bringing up examples of high-level monsters except to exaggerate your corner-cases.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Its not really a logical fallacy since 5E has Vancian back (tweaked sure). People have expectations from franchises,D&D isn't the only one. Basically don't alienate your fans.

An argument to tradition is a logical fallacy. Period. The end. There is no, "Well not really." or "Not in this cases." or "Kinda sorta." It just is. You don't have to like that it's a fallacy, and people practice it every day of their lives, but it's still a fallacy. The fact that people do it all the time and are okay with it is another fallacy.