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

[Tony Vargas]

Player: "Well, I really had my heart set on a Cleric..."

… said no D&D player, ever.

OK, maybe not none, ever, but, relatively few, and even fewer who have ever been frustrated in that ambition, since the traditional Cleric was the perfect fusion of utter necessity (only source of CLW @1st level, old-school undead encounters assumed Turning and were overwhelming without it) and complete lack of appeal (mace-wielding, pseudo-Christian, Van Helsing?).

...

And, Source was a keyword, so you couldn't(shouldn't?) really re-skin it.

A point of Dark Sun was no Gods, and you could excise the Divine Source from 4e without the devastating repercussions of traditional D&D sans the all-important Cleric. Ardents & Warlords could admirably fill the leader role for any Dark Sun party. No need of Clerics (or Shamans or Veiled Society Bards or Defiler Artificers, though that last might be interesting, very Mad Max...)

That was one of the real strengths of Source/Role, if a setting didn't call for a given Source, you could still have functional parties (the exception, of course, being Martial-only, which lacked Controller coverage - though Controller was arguably the most dispensable role).

 

[Garthanos]

No skin off my nose. Farvel......

Oh no you now wont get to read as much that ones arrogant self serving lies and ignorant expletive of your choice

Interestingly people quote them anyway so we are not immune

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Well, I still think that Gygax was perfectly justified in, and he certainly hit common usage squarely, when he described hit points as a combination of things and implied that 'hit' and 'miss' are simply conventions, not literal rigid narrative. It isn't all that easy to come up with ANY really consistent single interpretation of D&D rules, and I don't think it is worth doing, really.

I still don't see any examples in old D&D of luck or fatigue being represented through the HP mechanics, rather than through other sorts of mechanics. Magical luck is consistently represented as a bonus to attacks or saving throws (or re-rolls, in an extreme case), in spite of any assurance that luck is a component of your HP.

And of the things that can deal HP damage, they're consistently in the category of things that can cause physical damage to the body. They may have not intended it, but they were quite thorough about it when it came to execution. If that was a coincidence, then it was a highly unlikely one.

Saying you can only play with people who imagine it a certain way definitely strikes me as quite rigid, and odd for play of a game of pure imagination.

If it was a game of pure imagination, sure, but it's never been purely that. It's always included some elements of statistical modeling. Every number in the game has some sort of meaning, and when it comes to that sort of thing, it's important that everyone is on the same page about what's going on.

So, in the end, IMHO all 4e did was be more consistent about utilizing hit points as 'measure of defeat' rather than being all over the map in terms of what they're doing in any given situation.

Sure, 4E was much more consistent in being vague and non-committal about anything.

 

[MwaO]

A point of Dark Sun was no Gods, and you could excise the Divine Source from 4e without the devastating repercussions of traditional D&D sans the all-important Cleric. Ardents & Warlords could admirably fill the leader role for any Dark Sun party. No need of Clerics (or Shamans or Veiled Society Bards or Defiler Artificers, though that last might be interesting, very Mad Max...) That was one of the real strengths of Source/Role, if a setting didn't call for a given Source, you could still have functional parties (the exception, of course, being Martial-only, which lacked Controller coverage).

That you could do something and that it should be perfectly acceptable doesn't mean people wouldn't object to it anyway. Every time there's Dark Sun being brought up, I almost always hear someone complaining they can't play a Divine PC. Then they pick something else anyway.

But more referring to the concept that the DM says "X is how it is!" and instead of explaining it or getting buy-in, there ends up being a fight in the group because someone didn't quite get it.

 

[thanson02]

Oh no you now wont get to read as much that ones arrogant self serving lies and ignorant expletive of your choice

Interestingly people quote them anyway so we are not immune

What a shame.

Not that it mattered. I am still seeing his messages, so apparently it only blocks his ability to see my post? Oh, well.........

 

[thanson02]

As a 3E veteran, I’m used to thinking of certain creature types as being mindless, which makes the immune to mind affecting abilities. That level of detail was dropped from 4E. Not wanting to drop the older model, I’m left with a contradictory result.

A problem, I’m thinking, is that 4E went too far in allowing effects to be reskinned, with keywords not having any fixed interpretation. Putting Fire as a keyword had no interpretive meaning, other than purely syntactic interactions provided by the rules. I very much prefer keywords being an interpretive guide!

And that is a fair criticism given the situation, and given the desire to stick with the older model that makes sense.

For me, the re-skinning and the expansion of diversity with monsters (I think there are over 5,000 in 4E) made the monsters seem more real and less gamey. If you have a bunch of goblins for example, you are going to have one as the leader (even if he is just the one that is more clever then the rest), perhaps a few brutes, and a bunch of cannon fodder. To me, that just made sense. The idea that you needed a bugbear or a hobgoblin to do this (which seemed to come up in the games I remember from 3E) just made the monsters seem too two-dimensional for me and effected emersion in gameplay as well as my suspension of disbelief. If you look at real groups and social interactions, even among animals, there is defiantly a social structure there. Each animal will have variations within the species and the stronger or more intelligent members of the group will rise above the others. Hard to do that when mechanically they are all the same. That would be like someone saying that mechanically, I (6' 3") would have the same stats as one of my co-workers (5' 5" and weighs half as much as I do) because we both are human and work the same job. That doesn't make sense for us, so why would that apply for monsters too? And don't get me wrong, there are still mindless creatures in 4E, it is just different then earlier editions. And I am not saying that is better or worse, just different.

 

[Garthanos]

And, Source was a keyword, so you couldn't(shouldn't?) really re-skin it. .

Can be done fairly well usually as source is more meta flavor AND its really the powers you reflavor I turned a hybrid divine character (both divine) into a blood manipulating vampire

 

[Tony Vargas]

Can be done fairly well usually as source is more meta flavor AND its really the powers you reflavor I turned a hybrid divine character (both divine) into a blood manipulating vampire

Considering some of the Vampire myths - the whole sleeping in Hell through the day thing - I could see that still being Divine source, yeah.

 

[Garthanos]

Considering some of the Vampire myths - the whole sleeping in Hell through the day thing - I could see that still being Divine source, yeah.

Nyah the original might have been a night druid though... this one was a blood Wright manipulating both blood and leaking her vampiric needs to the party

 

[Tony Vargas]

. Every time there's Dark Sun being brought up, I almost always hear someone complaining they can't play a Divine PC. Then they pick something else anyway.

Nerds will be Nerds, I guess. Really, i see that contrary impulse in myself pretty clearly, and all too often...