D&D 4E Is 4E retro?

[Irda Ranger]

Its really more a “feeling” then anything else, but is 4E, at least in some ways, going back to pre 3E (or 2E) versions of D&D?

Yes. I am most familiar with AD&D 2e, but from what I have read about older editions, it's certainly there.

Mike Mearls compared and contrasted the OD&D approach to the 4E approach in some message board postings (I quote him in my player skill vs. PC skill musing); he characterized OD&D and 4E as being very different games that cater to different needs.

That doesn't make TerraDave's feeling wrong. I think 4E is much closer to older editions than 3E was. But the 4E devs did want to take advantage of advances in game design. You can get classic feeling without having to use old school mechanics. Mercedes Benz does this all the time.

By the way Philotomy, I've read most of your musings and I really like them. I've also joined your OD&D forum and have been going through the posts. It has inspired me to buy the Rules Cyclopedia from RPG Now, which I intend to print out and bind. I expect my next Greyhawk campaign to be 4E D&D "even more inspired by BECM than the default".

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To further get the feel of OD&D, I recommend referring to all Martial Powered classes as Fighting-Men and all Arcane classes as Magic-Users.

 

[Voss]

How many HP is a normal human in the world supposed to have? Not a guard designed to be a combat encounter, but a normal human chosen at random?
If the PCs unexpectedly try to rally the villagers into forming a militia, are the villagers all 1-HP minions?

No idea. They could be anywhere from (null) to Con + some semi-random number based on what role you think they are.

The system seems to support either option. I'd rather it was consistent and just ditch the minion idea (except for appropriate things... rats could have 1 hit point). But having baseline kobolds with 20-something hit points and other baseline kobolds with... not-hit points is a dissonant break. For me, I'd have the militia be like everyone else and be in the 20something range (if at the low end). I like the consistency. Of course, setting-wise, I think the die-in-one-hit chumps would fall into what most people refer to as the infant mortality rate. The setting in my head is a rough place, and people that can't take a hit or two get buried.

So, for me the human guard works.
militia would be 18-22 hit points, with just a normal weapon attack. It means they can get banged up a bit, but a high crit weapon is a serious threat and they can be one-shotted by people with real skills. At the same time, 3-4 are a credible threat to a 1st level PC. Even a pair can't be outright ignored, which is about the feel I want.
children, invalids, would be about half that.

 

[Lacyon]

In OD&D, The big difference between a normal man and a Veteran Fighting Man isn't the slight bonus to the Veteran's hit die, but rather the Veteran's status as a greater than 1HD combatant. This is significant because it prevented high HD enemies from engaging in non-fantastic melee against him, which would give them a number of attacks equal to their hit dice. (Fantastic vs. non-fantastic melee is a concept from Chainmail that carried over into OD&D, and even into AD&D in a modified form.)

For example, if an evil hero (4HD) attacked a group of merchants (all normal men with 1HD), the villain would get 4 attacks each round. However, throw a veteran guard (1+1HD) into the mix, and now the evil hero can only attack once. Similarly, if a PC Hero (4th level) is fighting a group of goblins, he would get four attacks each round, but if the goblins were led by a hobgoblin (1+1HD), the PC hero would only get a single attack.

As someone who never played anything earlier than 2E (and that only infrequently at best), the part of this that fascinates me the most is that it includes at least some amount of what the 4E designers have called "stickiness" - a Hero attacking a lower-level party has a mechanical incentive to hit that fighting-man before the spellcasters, because once the fighter is gone, the Hero can take out a bunch of the "squishier" characters all at once.

That benefit is lost once a whole party has more than one HD, though.

 

[Irda Ranger]

But having baseline kobolds with 20-something hit points and other baseline kobolds with... not-hit points is a dissonant break.

Neither HP nor "Minion Points" are real. They're just a way to model the world. An abstract representation. You know this is true because both players and PC don't care how many HP their enemies have. The only thing they really care about is how many hits it take to knock them down in a way that they stay down.

What the designers could just as easily have done is give Minions 1d6 HP, so that 99% of the time they fall down in one hit. Well, if you're already at 99%, why not just round up to 100% and skip the HP-counting step? This saves the DM work at a very small cost to rules consistency.

But I like the consistency.

Consistency is nice, but it's not an end unto itself. Fun is the goal, so consistency plays second fiddle.

 

[BASHMAN]

A point of clarification: BECM really stands for "Best Edition Creatyed by Man" and BE D&D is Best Edition D&D" Not everyone agrees, but they have always been my favorites.

Now, does 4e capture its spirit... sometimes, in a few little ways, but on the whole, I don't think so. Too many "kewl powerz", different types of actions, etc.

Some people see options, I see limits [any ability that specifically says you can do something means that is one more thing that other people explicitly cannot do unless they have said ability]. This killed fun and took its stuff on several occasions in 3.5 ("I swing down and grab the princess from the pit, and swing her onto the ledge". "No he cannot do that-- he doesn't have spring attack-- since he is moving, then taking a standard, then moving again, here on page yada yada yada". 2nd ed, or Basic, or OSRIC, or C&C, etc this would just be done by the DM deciding for you to make a Dex check...

You might think, well 4E they will just say, make an acrobatics check-- but it would be a move to swing down, a standard to grab the girl, and another move to keep swinging. Even though 4E will have less rules, it still will be too rules heavy to me...

 

[rkanodia]

I don't see how you can not have "expected wealth by level" -- your choice is either to make it explicit or to keep it implicit.

You remind me of one of the Artificial Intelligence koans:

In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Even though 4E will have less rules, it still will be too rules heavy to me...

They have promised the DMG will be a "game tweaker's bible." I hope that's accurate. I really want to use the 4E base mechanics (the "new math") and powers in a game that's as stripped down and free-form as I can get it.

I think the first item on the chopping block will be the Skill System. The second group of items will be any rules that prohibit physical actions (like Spring Attack) if you're lacking a Feat or Power. My rule will be: if you can imagine it, you can do it (no promises on the DC though )

 

[mmadsen]

You can get classic feeling without having to use old school mechanics.

Absolutely, and I think the key to that classic feeling is what Mike Mearls said and Philotomy Jurament cited -- fewer, more flexible rules, relying more on DM judgment.

 

[Voss]

Neither HP nor "Minion Points" are real. They're just a way to model the world. An abstract representation. You know this is true because both players and PC don't care how many HP their enemies have. The only thing they really care about is how many hits it take to knock them down in a way that they stay down.

This is absolutely and utterly wrong. It may be true for you, but it doesn't match my experience at all. From the day I picked up the red box, hit points mattered. And yes, at times I've tracked and counted them, as have most of the groups I've played with. It often meant the difference between finishing the enemy off with a weapon or wasting spells.

Consistency is nice, but it's not an end unto itself. Fun is the goal, so consistency plays second fiddle.

These two statements have nothing to do with each other. A consistent rules set adds directly to my fun. It isn't the end, but neither is getting to 20th level. But a consistent rules set is a lot more fun for me than monsters that vary according to arbitrary whims of DMs and game designers. The dissonance between real kobolds and paper kobolds actually does bother me, and makes the game less fun. So please, don't tell me what I should find fun or not.

 

[D'karr]

The dissonance between real kobolds and paper kobolds actually does bother me, and makes the game less fun.

I really don't know how to answer this... Kobolds are not real...

So please, don't tell me what I should find fun or not.

As long as you grant us the same courtesy I'm sure it will be alright.