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

[FourthBear]

I'm not speaking frequency of occurrance, I'm talking frequency of actually working. I still have never seen a wizard or cleric prepare all save-or-die spells at a table, usually one or two, because of the failure rate. Now, back in 3.0, before the 3.5 revision, I saw save or die used VERY frequently, and it was actually getting ridiculous, because of the stacking save DCs that allowed players and NPCs to get save DCs for their spells up in the 30's and 40's! (Thanks to greater spell focus, the spell power abilities of archmagi and red wizards, spellcasting prodigy feats, etc.) To be honest, I still haven't seen many save DCs above a 25 until we hit the 18th level and up, and the ability of PCs to boost saves outstripped the ability of characters to boost them.

Now that did definitely occur to me, as I've seen this be a significant problem with high level spellcasting in 3.5e. Since the powers at high level tended to be "Save or Lose", there was always a strong tendency to allow for high saves and spell resistance, to make a spell actually taking effect almost a freak occurrence. Frankly, I consider this to be two wrongs making something worse. In the case you've described, save or die is effectively nerfed as the chance of death is now simply a matter of rolling and praying it doesn't come up a 1.

So now we've got the peculiar circumstance that save are die are intended to scare the pants off of PCs, but are now rarely used because they're so ineffective due to save mechanics and counterwards. In effect, this is what has happened in the campaigns I've seen. Characters quickly try to grab Death Ward or similar protection, or worse rely on resurrection magics at high level. By simply eliminating these Save or Lose effects, saves can be scaled such that failure can be a significant chance (and missing multiple such in an encounter likely means death), but they no longer need to lead to an instant "You Lose".

 

[Raven Crowking]

I get the impression that some people have a very different concept of "Options, not Restrictions" than I have.

For me, it means that when I have a general idea about a character (player perspective) or a adventure (DM perspective), I can whip out the rulebooks and find something that does what I want.

Hopefully, what you want for that adventure will not include resource attrition. 4e promises to be like Star Trek: Voyager, where, although they begin with very limited resources, and with no way to replenish them, those resources seem to spontaneously regenerate at the begining of every episode (encounter).


RC

 

[FourthBear]

Hopefully, what you want for that adventure will not include resource attrition. 4e promises to be like Star Trek: Voyager, where, although they begin with very limited resources, and with no way to replenish them, those resources seem to spontaneously regenerate at the begining of every episode (encounter).

Yeah, kind of like how spells regenerate every day in all previous editions of D&D.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yeah, kind of like how spells regenerate every day in all previous editions of D&D.

Don't be so sure about that!

In 1e, you had to lug around a spellbook (if magic-user) or pray to your deity (if cleric). The spellbook could be affected by all sorts of things, and m-us would tend to keep a travelling book if they could. Still, a chance encounter, or an encounter badly handled, could mean no spells. Paper did not save well against fire effects, for example, and immersion in water ruins spellbooks. Some m-us preferred to simply go without than to risk their spellbooks to chance.

Both the cleric and m-u needed eight hours of uninterrupted rest to regain spells, plus the time for rememorization (which was far longer than you might think). Any interruption of that rest meant the process had to start all over again. The cleric could not try again until the next day. Which means that, not only could your spellcasters not pull guard duty if they wanted to regain spells, they couldn't even tangentially be part of any encounter.

Shall we discuss what happened to the druid who failed to properly harvest his mistletoe?

So, in 1e at least, you were required to bring along the means to replenish your resources. There were no mundane spell component pouches that magically had whatever you needed in unlimited quantities. You also had to have opportunity, and in a hostile area that opportunity might not have existed.

In 1e, there was a significant chance that you would not be restored each day. In 4e there is a miniscule chance that you'll be restored to less than 80% after each encounter.

Clearly, these are exactly the same.


RC

 

[MerricB]

The big question is this: How easily are Hit Points recovered. For they are the major attritional resource.

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

The big question is this: How easily are Hit Points recovered. For they are the major attritional resource.

Know of any spoilers on that yet?

 

[FourthBear]

Don't be so sure about that!

In 1e, you had to lug around a spellbook (if magic-user) or pray to your deity (if cleric). The spellbook could be affected by all sorts of things, and m-us would tend to keep a travelling book if they could. Still, a chance encounter, or an encounter badly handled, could mean no spells. Paper did not save well against fire effects, for example, and immersion in water ruins spellbooks. Some m-us preferred to simply go without than to risk their spellbooks to chance.

Both the cleric and m-u needed eight hours of uninterrupted rest to regain spells, plus the time for rememorization (which was far longer than you might think). Any interruption of that rest meant the process had to start all over again. The cleric could not try again until the next day. Which means that, not only could your spellcasters not pull guard duty if they wanted to regain spells, they couldn't even tangentially be part of any encounter.

Shall we discuss what happened to the druid who failed to properly harvest his mistletoe?

So, in 1e at least, you were required to bring along the means to replenish your resources. There were no mundane spell component pouches that magically had whatever you needed in unlimited quantities. You also had to have opportunity, and in a hostile area that opportunity might not have existed.

In 1e, there was a significant chance that you would not be restored each day. In 4e there is a miniscule chance that you'll be restored to less than 80% after each encounter.

Clearly, these are exactly the same.

I don't believe it's a very apt analogy, as the difficulties with Star Trek Voyager had to do with in series claims about the difficulty of repairing damage to the ship. (Actually given the abilities of Trek matter manipulation, pretty much any such resource issues were of the technobabble variety). The resources discussed were not replaceable. This places them in the same conceptual space as equipment, magical items and non-renewable abilties in D&D terms. I've heard no plans for 4e to allow for expended or destroyed magical items to renew themselves automatically, so they are on the same terms.

The abiltiies in 4e that are being made per encounter are those that were previously Vancian. These were quite renewable, except under unusual circumstances, that you list above. They most certainly renewable in the vast majority of cases. Are you honestly claiming that loss of the spellbook or failure to gather components were anything like a common occurance in 1e D&D campaigns? To return to Star Trek, should phasers and tricorders have had strict per day requirements for use? Did the various Star Trek RPGs suffer from the lack of such per day resource constraints? Or did they simply use different methods of resource management?

 

[FourthBear]

The big question is this: How easily are Hit Points recovered. For they are the major attritional resource.

Given that we've been told that many of the new class abilities and options tried out in later 3.5e books were trials for 4e, I suspect that some fraction of a character's hit points will be renewable, but not all. Something like the Dragon Shaman's aura to renew only up to half of a character's hit points might be something that might be suggestive. I know I've seen some other mechanics that were similar, but can't recall them. I would guess that all characters will have some ability to renew their hit points after an encounter to some fraction of total. So characters without magical healing may be at half hit points after a number of encounters, making the likelihood of a total party kill increase significantly, but not a certainty in the next encounter.

 

[HeinorNY]

I just love how the anti-crowd here so vigorously banks on the excluded middle. "If you want to include something I don't like, then you must allow everything, whether or not it has any sensible correlation to the topic of the game." Yeah, right.

Nah. Those absurd rethorical examples only serve as clearer and louder examples to show how the "extreme dangers in D&D makes the game more heroic" point is pure nonsense. DMs and players should make the game heroic first, not the rules.

The rules should serve the game, not vice-versa.
Use the rules, but don't let the rules use you!

Oh and the anti-crowd here is you, don't forget that.
We are the official D&D crowd here.

 

[MerricB]

Know of any spoilers on that yet?

No. Well, only that Second Wind is in.

There were three major systems being trialed in late 3.5e and Saga, and one minor one. Let's start with the minor one.

Second Wind (from Saga) allows you, once/day, to recover a quarter or your Con score hp (whichever was higher) as a swift action. I've instituted this as a rule in my 3.5e campaigns now, as it reduces the load on the cleric. (Feats allow the mechanic to be used more than 1/day).

Heal to Half (from PHB2, CChampion) allows the healer of the party to heal a character to half their HP at will, but no more using that ability. Dragon Shaman and the Touch of Healing reserve feat.

Big Healing, Once per Hour (from Magic of Incarnum) allowed the Incarnate to take X/2 damage to heal X hp, but could only do it on each character 1/hour. This has allowed the Incarnate in our group to function as the major healer, although he can't deal with non-hp damage. (He also has a meld that allows him to heal more from a regular wand; so cure light wounds wand would heal him for 1d8+11 or so!) A variation of this can be seen in Saga for medpac healing - you can only do it once/day.

Heal and Hurt (from Book of Nine Swords): the Crusader could heal someone near him whenever he hit someone else; normally not for much, and some manuevers only worked 1/combat. At 1st level, you could expect him to heal 2 hp every time he hit a foe, and 1/combat to heal 1d6+1. This looks like it will make it into 4e in some form.

Cheers!