Insubstantial rules irk anyone else?

[DreamChaser]

In my opinion, there is a huge psychological and practical difference between hitting but then having it taken away (50% miss chance) and hitting but doing less damage (50% less damage).

The first is insurmoutable. No matter what bonuses you gain, no matter what fun tricks you use, no matter what technique you use to attack, there is a chance 50/50 that all of your effort did absolutely nothing. This was especially frustating for spellcasters in 3e. There is no imperative to improve or use special abilities that increase your chance to hit because you roll the miss chance **after** your to hit roll.

With a half damage rule, there is the imperative to hit hard, hit often, and deal damage efficiently. There is no learned helplessness of spending an action point only to find it wasted. Parties can plan resources to use innovative strategies knowing that the strategy will do **something** verus the old system where technically, if your party's innovative strategy involved any physical item or energy, there would be a 50% chance that it simply would not work.

So...in sum...big, huge difference and valid change. Randomness does not automatically equal fun for anyone...

And I got tired of pulling punches with ghosts and wraiths when the ENTIRE party rolled under 50 three rounds in a row.

DC

 

[DreamChaser]

Considering that there used to be lots of ways to kill things without doing damage, and there aren't in 4e, Insub picked up a huge buff. Oh yeah, Force effects do half damage without a special feat too.

how many of those worked on incorporeal or swarm creatures though? a powerful cleric turning and destroying incorporeal undead is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

er...and i think lots is a little overstated...

DC

 

[Caliban]

In my opinion, there is a huge psychological and practical difference between hitting but then having it taken away (50% miss chance) and hitting but doing less damage (50% less damage).

The first is insurmoutable. No matter what bonuses you gain, no matter what fun tricks you use, no matter what technique you use to attack, there is a chance 50/50 that all of your effort did absolutely nothing. This was especially frustating for spellcasters in 3e. There is no imperative to improve or use special abilities that increase your chance to hit because you roll the miss chance **after** your to hit roll. DC

It wasn't insurmountable in 3e. Melee combatents can get ghost touch on their weapons (or have a backup weapon with ghost touch). Clerics have positive energy spells and turn undead.

Wizards and sorcerers had the easiest time dealing with incorporeals and sward - use Force effects (magic missile and Force Orb usually) on incorporeals and any area blast on swarms.


Once the PC's get past 7th level or so incoporeals should be challenging, but hardly insurmountable.

 

[DreamChaser]

It wasn't insurmountable in 3e. Melee combatents can get ghost touch on their weapons (or have a backup weapon with ghost touch). Clerics have positive energy spells and turn undead.

Wizards and sorcerers had the easiest time dealing with incorporeals and sward - use Force effects (magic missile and Force Orb usually) on incorporeals and any area blast on swarms.


Once the PC's get past 7th level or so incoporeals should be challenging, but hardly insurmountable.

Your right...but then the issue was moot. It was zero / sum....there was either a miss chance or there wasn't. Once everyone in the party got ghost touch weapons and/or force effect spells, incorporeal became a largely irrelevant trait.

Assuming that a character was affected by it, a miss chance was insurmountable and completely out of the player's or character's control.

DC

 

[Sashi]

For me and my group it is exactly the opposite.
Coming up with good ways to overcome a "frustrating" challenge *is the fun part * and the removal of this kind of reward is on the list of reasons we don't care for 4e. The fact that 4e doesn't remotely bother trying to produce the perception of an insubstantial foe is also on the list.

You can still do this in 4E, it's just that now the DM has to specifically create a challenge that nullifies you, rather than randomly choosing a monster out of the DMG and halfway through realizing "Um ... there's no way your specific party can beat this guy."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And I got tired of pulling punches with ghosts and wraiths when the ENTIRE party rolled under 50 three rounds in a row.

DC

I once had a CR 7 or 8 Shadow (it was a shadow dancers advanced shadow) take down a 16th level party in 3e... I was a PC Shadow dancer and got charmed/domnated by an NPC and told to kill my compainions. First round 2 crits to the sorcerer and I had a new Shadow riseing... only two PCs had ghoast touch weapons...me (no help) and the Archivast who had a cross bow. TPK
I stayed hidden in plain sight the whole fight...


I don't mind the new rules...

 

[FadedC]

Huh? 3E your to-hit should be good enough you always hit by the time you're fighting insubstantial, then you suffer 50% insubstantial miss. Now with 4E you have about a 50% miss chance of missing EVERYTHING every turn, and when you hit you deal 50% damage to insubstantial. Um... how is that better? In 4E you get to feel like you're doing nothing half the time in every fight.

You’ve obviously never fought dreadwraiths which attack you through the floor for superior cover if you think incorporeals in 3e were easy to hit.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You’ve obviously never fought dreadwraiths which attack you through the floor for superior cover if you think incorporeals in 3e were easy to hit.

I belive that is a seprate power now...called phaseing(IIRC)

 

[IceFractal]

Your right...but then the issue was moot. It was zero / sum....there was either a miss chance or there wasn't. Once everyone in the party got ghost touch weapons and/or force effect spells, incorporeal became a largely irrelevant trait.

But that's the thing - it wasn't a moot issue, because using the options that kicked ass on swarms/incorporeals/whatever were less effective in general, so there was a trade-off:
* Make your primary weapon Ghost Touch - well that's one less +1 you can have in general. But against incorporeal creatures, you'll be glad to have it.
* Magic Missile (and other force spells) - Generally, these do less damage for their level, and against normal foes you'd be better off with other choices. But against incorporeal creatures, or foes with a lot of resistances, they pay off.
* Area of Effect spells - likewise, against a single foe or even a small group, there are much better options. But when the swarms or hordes of mooks come into play, AoEs rule the day.


So it was a trade-off that served both as a strategic choice, and a way to define your character - a ghost hunter would be well prepared for incorporeal creatures, and as a result would shine in such an encounter. A war-mage might be geared specifically to fighting large numbers of humanoids, and this would have an actual effect on battle, not just fluff.

And for that matter, it's not binary. Maybe your primary weapon isn't Ghost Touch, but you have a backup that is, or a magic oil that can help, while supplies last. Maybe you're not AoE-focused, but you can prepare a few.

 

[FadedC]

I belive that is a seprate power now...called phaseing(IIRC)

Yes, but all incorporeal creatures in 3e could phase. As a result their ACs tended to be much higher then actually listed because they had no reason not to attack you from superior cover. My point was just that claiming that 3e incorporeal was balanced by low AC is not accurate.