Is 4th edition getting soft? - edited for friendly content :)

[DM-Rocco]

Do you think 4th edition is going to take the game into a realm where the rules are way to soft on the players and too hard on the creatures?

Below is an article from WOTC's website called, "Grab a d20. Roll high."

I infer from this that there are not going to be save or die saving throws, bad news for necromancers.

Do you think the game is going to be too soft and take away the fear of death?

What do you think?


From WOTC's website:

Grab a d20. Roll high.

That’s the basic rule of 4th Edition just as it was in 3rd Edition, but the new edition puts that mechanic more solidly in the core of the game than ever.

Ever faced one of those life-or-death saving throws? Hours, weeks, or even years of play can hang in the balance. It all comes down to that one roll. There’s drama in that moment, but it’s drama you didn’t create, and you don’t want.

That’s gone in the new edition.

Have you played a spellcaster and been a little envious of the excitement of other players when they roll critical hits? Have you wished that you could do that for your spells?

You can in 4th.

Have you ever had some confusion or miscalculation about your normal AC versus your touch and flat-footed AC?

You won’t have to worry about it.

If you want to know whether or not you succeed in doing some action in 4th Edition, you grab a d20 and try to roll high. Just as in 3rd Edition, you add a modifier to that roll from your character sheet, and you check for any extra bonuses or penalties from the situation or from your allies. The key difference in the new edition is what you roll for and what you add.

The standard defenses remain (AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will) but now they all work more like AC. When a dragon breathes fire on you, it attacks your Reflex and deals half damage if it misses. The DM rolls a d20, adds the dragon’s modifiers, and asks you what your Reflex score is. The dragon might roll a 1 and automatically miss no matter how much tougher it is than you, but there’s also the frightening possibility that it will roll a 20 and deal double damage.

Folks familiar with the new Star Wars Saga system will recognize this concept, but it’s evolved a bit to better suit D&D. In 4th Edition, when a creature only needs to touch you to deliver an attack, it targets your Reflex. When you’re surprised, you grant combat advantage, but you don’t need to look at a special AC on your sheet -- the normal number works fine. When a pit suddenly opens up beneath your feet, you make a check to jump out of danger, but if a crossbow trap fires an arrow at you, it the bolt attacks your AC.

What we mean when we talk about streamlining the system is this: making design decisions that make learning and using the game less difficult, while keeping the system just as robust. And making it more fun as the result.

 

[Baby Samurai]

It seems like they are removing some of the legacy crap that has persisted for far too long.

That was my gripe with 3rd edition – they didn't have enough balls to make more hamburger.

 

[XCorvis]

I think you're inferring a bit too much. They mean it won't be your crappy die rolling that kills you, it'll be the DM's, with the Monster overcoming your Save DC.

Maybe they will pare down the save-or-die effects. I won't miss them. Dying isn't fun, especially when you're totally fine one second and dead the next.

And liberal is totally the wrong word.

 

[RangerWickett]

I thought you were going to say that 4e would have mixed ethnicity chaotic good paladins wearing rainbow armor and marrying gay druids who are hugging trees. So compared to that, no, I don't think it's becoming too liberal.

I don't like the 'fear of death' in an adventure game by default. You shouldn't motivate PCs with the threat that they might die. You motivate them with the threat that the villain will do something fiendish and hurt a lot of innocent people. The hero can assume he's nigh invincible, but he has to be smarter and tougher than the villain to succeed.

And if you want to inject fear of death into your game, don't rely on 'save or die' spells. That's too trite. Who would be afraid of having your life's candle quickly snuffed when there are warlocks who can bind your will, send you to kill those you love, and then extract your heart with their bare hands, sacrificing your soul to Tharizdun so you will have no afterlife? That's what heroes should be afraid of.

Finger of death? *laugh*

 

[Baby Samurai]

Finger of death? *laugh*

Ah, but you wouldn't laugh at the winkle of death!

 

[Baby Samurai]

gay druids

That is not the preferred nomenclature, dude - alternate lifestyle druids, please.

 

[Cadfan]

No.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous to think that save-or-die effects are necessary to instill the fear of character death in players.

Save-or-die effects are good in some kinds of games and some kinds of circumstances. For example, if what you want to do is play Paranoia with swords, save-or-die is great. A lot of early modules and playstyles worked that way, and that was fun for what it was worth. Ironically, that type of gameplay has absolutely no fear of character death in it. If you show up to the session with two or three extra character sheets because you know your character isn't going to make it, you have no real fear of character death.

Save-or-die also works best in an environment in which Raise Dead is easily available. Again, this is a gaming environment in which fear of character death is minimal, because its only a temporary setback.

Save-or-die is incredibly hostile, as rules go, to gameplay which centers around character driven storylines. Its also hostile to games in which Raise Dead isn't easily accessible to someone with an adventurer's wealth. These tend to be the games in which fear of character death is the greatest, because characters are a serious investment for their players, and they can't get them back after they've died.

So, in short, no. I expect that eliminating Save-Or-Die will actually make character death more fearful, because it will enable gameplay where character death actually matters. Eliminating save-or-die will make character death less common, but not necessarily less frightening to players.

PS- My grognard-poking instincts make me want to toss out a comparison to fail-save-die-resurrect gameplay and MMORPGs, and an accompanying comment on how thankful I am that, after decades, D&D is finally moving away from the MMORPG model.

 

[Rechan]

No?

They're not taking death out of the game. The fact that a monster can crit on an area attack and potentially splatter the entire party is even HARSHER than SoD.

And if they take Save or Die out of the game, I'll be happy. (Anyone remember 3.0 HARM?)

What this does, I think, is just one of those things to speed up game play. Here, let me use an example.

Instead of this:
DM: Okay, the dragon breathes on you for (roll) 32 points of damage. Everyone roll reflex saves.
Tom: Got a 22.
Ed: 16.
Bill: ... uh, reflex right? Okay. Dang where'd the die go?
Ed: "OH HO A 1 ha ha splat."
Bill: "No add ... six to that so that's 7."
James: 18.

You get this:
DM: The dragon breathes fire on you. *roll die* He rolls a 17. *roll damage* for 32 points. If your Reflex Defense is under 17, take 32. If it's above, take 16.
Bill: Ow.

You cut 4 rolls down to 1 (plus damage).

 

[Mallus]

What do you think?

I think "easy" is the word you were lacking.

And no, I don't think the move away from save-or-die spells will make 4e (or for that matter, the current edition) too easy. It's just not a significant change. Death has been nothing more than a speed bump in the majority of campaigns that make it to mid-level that I've seen, dating back to 1e.

 

[kenmarable]

Not quite sure how "liberal" = "soft", but we won't get into that discussion.

Personally, I do think it is getting a bit softer if it is removing Save or Die, and I like that. I want them to look for ways of making the game more fun for everyone, and this is one step in that direction. In my experience, Save or Die isn't fun. As a DM and a player, I hate PC death. It takes the player out the game and either stops or at least greatly diminishes their fun.

In most of my "recent" campaigns (as in last 8 years or so after getting back into it from a lapse), we've had very few PC deaths. As a DM, I've had two "real" PC deaths. One was someone wanting a new character doing their best to kill off their current one. Another was thankfully high enough level so that the PC could be raised rather quickly - and it became a life altering event for the PC and the campaign because death was so rare. There were also several in a very high level climatic battle (19th level, 3.0, I think?), but we had a demiplane that operated on a different time speed and we had several deaths/resurrections/get back into fight moments. But in that case, it played out more as super healing rather than death.

Contrast that with a campaign I just joined as a player. That DM is definitely out to get the PCs and in my 3rd session I died on the first round of combat. Two others were dead in the 2nd round, and the 3 of us sat around for 2 hours watching the last surviving PC struggle to survive the battle. And since it's high enough level that returning from the dead is trivial, I'm planning on rolling up a new PC rather than spending half of another session sitting around waiting to be raised.

So for me, Save or Die and even PC death is not fun - at least when it is easy and common. I don't feel the players need a fear of PC death to have fun or be challenged. And what fear they have doesn't have to be instilled by having insta-death just a die roll away. In fact, I've found that being widdled down in hit points can be more fun and fear-invoking than "they cast a spell and you are dead".

On the flip side, I've found few players often use those spells. The other ones are usually more interesting. They have tended to go with area of effect that harms many for medium damage, than insta-killing a single enemy. There's also the sheer joy in rolling the stack of d6's for damage rather than passively telling the DM to save or die. (As an aside, I'm hoping that even if fireball isn't d6/level, it is still a bunch of d6's. That joy of dropping a handful of d6's has been some of the funnest moments in every edition of the game.)