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

[Anthtriel]

All this tells me is that a d20 isn't granular enough for saves like this. The streamliners won't like this, but maybe a secondary save is needed when a natural '1' on the primary save would still make the save by a set amount (10?) if the auto-fail rule wasn't there...

Lanefan

Or just go all the way and make it damage instead of a save.

25 hit points is a friendly estimate for an 8th level wizard (average of 8d4 being 20). If we start postulating items and spells he could have, we're not going to get any further either, because then we'd deal with a number of possible combinations that goes into the thousands, and for that I don't have time, sorry.

Oh please. You know just as well as any of us that there is no such thing as a PC Wizard with Constitution 10. The Player Handbook specifically tells you that Wizards need high Con, so they have. (Which is pretty bad by the way, they are way too dependant on that attribute)

Not that I'm aware of..otherwise, Negative Energy Protection would help against spells such as Slay Living, Finger of Death, Destruction or Implosion and Cloudkill, the gaze of a bodak or the wail of a banshee. It doesn't, because those are all Death effects, not negative energy damage.

Sorry, my bad.
During all my years of playing 3E, my groups have always treated it as negative damage. Not as a change we were aware of, we actually thought Negative Energy Damage for Death Effects were in the RAW, because it just feels right.
Necromancy (and by extension pretty much all Death Effects) has always been defined as harnessing Negative (and before 3.5, also Positive) Energy. So it seems really weird to me, that they don't do Negative Energy Damage. I suppose it effectively doesn't matter, because immunity to Death Effects usually implies immunity to Negative Energy, but it still looks incredily weird to me.
(To no one in particular) How exactly do Death Spells actually work, if they are not supposed to work with Negative Energy?

Does this mean that you beleive on the final move in chess matters? Or does the lead-up to that last move have anything to do with the outcome?

I certainly don't, and I believe such moments are very anti-climatic. Just the same as PCs rolling a 1 on a Save or Die and dropping dead round 1 or 2. ^^
If a randomly rolled enemy, or a minion, casts Slay Living on you, then you either die, or you don't. There is no warning, no preparation, nothing you can do, except hope you roll well.

Hmhmm, but that "little" mechanical difference is not so little to begin with. If you start using damage to hit points as main mechanic to simulate death effects, you'll run up against a host of trained player minds who are used to explore every rule to increase their hit point total and reduce damage they take from any source, which will turn the whole thing into just another arms race exercise between damage dealers and damage resisters. Also, that difference has huge flavour differences between an effect that is no different from being stabbed by a sword, only that the damage is a lot higher (and from what I've seen, there are PC and monster builds out there that would scoff at an output of a palsy 100 points of damage), and an effect that will kill you immediately no matter how high and mighty you are, except for some really specific protection, in 5% of all cases.

Min-Maxing is an entirely different problem that is pretty much independant on the system you use. As is, Min-Maxers just boost their Fortitude Save through the roof, or get outright immunity to Death Effects, to make them nearly irrelevant, just as they could make damage nearly irrelevant.

By the way, how DO you get 20 save-or-die effects into play against a level 50 Paladin who has Death Ward as a 4th level spell? 20 death clerics who all jumped him in the middle of the night while sleeping? Just interested how contrived such a scenario would have to be to end up with a paladin of THAT magnitude with his pants down and surrounded by 20 opponents of that caliber.

When you are Level 50, Level 9 clerics are mooks, which can be encountered in dozens, if not hundreds at once. Unless you have Death Ward active all day (which makes all Save or Death effects useless, even of the Level 60 Necromancer), you are going to get hit by twenty of the them over the course of a day at most, and drop dead. If the PCs roll badly enough, any Epic group can be slaugthered by a couple of random Level 9 Caster in one round.

Apples and oranges, two very different effects represented by two very different rule systems creating two very different flavours. And yes, I want to have a system in place that still can strike down even a high-level character if used right under the right circumstances.

But why is it okay that a spell can immediately kill anyone, no matter how much more powerful, yet a normal attack (or any other spell) cannot? Why should the systems be different?

It's interesting to note, by the way, that this auto-success/failure rule for saving throws came up with 3.5 as a response to high-level characters having no real failure chance otherwise, which in turn gave low-level characters a slight chance to make even impossible saves.

And here we see why the whole "Save and there's no negative effect, don't save and drop dead"-system doesn't work well in game terms.

Got to correct myself here about the whole thing of divine abilities. After quite a bit of page turning, I can say that D&D 3E treats saves against divine spells/abilities like any other save..albeit with extremely high DCs, which coupled with the no auto-success of 3E back then means you have to be damn good to make it.

So Bob the Commoner can survive the Death Spell of the God of Death. Or of the Level 30 Necro, if you like that one better.
And if Gods had a different spell system, it would be just another silly emergency rule like the dozens or so of "Hellfire" rules. Much better to make the entire thing scalable.

I don't think we'll get any farther, both of our positions are pretty resolute.
My problem with your position (after this discussion) is this: Save or Death effects in the RAW are commonplace. After some time, any caster can do it multiple times, and even mooks can do it. If you play the RAW, then you will necessarily have multiple cases of PCs dropping dead in the first round of combat for no other reason than rolling badly, simply because some random (as in, not outstanding) opponents are supposed to have them. Something that the game is designed to avoid most of the time, because it is one of the least fun, and therefore game-destroying things that can happen at all.
You seem to use Save and Death very differently, and to great effect, apparently. But that's not the way it is in the RAW. Usually, all mid-level casters have access to it, and will use it. There isn't supposed to be any warning.
By now, I can understand that it is good and appropriate for your group, and likely for some others as well. But I believe to have proven that is problematic for much more others.
And as you cannot really make it optional (once one spell like it is out there, it is in the system), so cutting Death Effects seems to be the right choice for the game, even if it is not the right choice for your campaign.

 

[Mallus]

How can any of tell if 4e is 'getting soft' before we actually play the game?

And has anyone defined what it means for an RPG to 'go soft', or provided an illustrative counterexample of hard-ass USMC-style D&D play? Because at first glance the whole question seems rather silly.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Oh please. You know just as well as any of us that there is no such thing as a PC Wizard with Constitution 10. The Player Handbook specifically tells you that Wizards need high Con, so they have. (Which is pretty bad by the way, they are way too dependant on that attribute)

Uhm...seeing as the last wizard I played ran around with a Con of 11 for all of his career, and did pretty okay with that...allow me to disagree.

(To no one in particular) How exactly do Death Spells actually work, if they are not supposed to work with Negative Energy?

They simply kill the target? I mean, you can make it out to be stilling the heart, brain aneurism, whatever you prefer. Basically, they snuff out a character's life. Even if I hate to use that catchphrase, but "Hey, it's MAGIC"

When you are Level 50, Level 9 clerics are mooks, which can be encountered in dozens, if not hundreds at once. Unless you have Death Ward active all day (which makes all Save or Death effects useless, even of the Level 60 Necromancer), you are going to get hit by twenty of the them over the course of a day at most, and drop dead. If the PCs roll badly enough, any Epic group can be slaugthered by a couple of random Level 9 Caster in one round.

Erm...that would be the point where my players would be wondering why those hundreds of 9th level clerics haven't popped out of the woodwork before, while they were busy dismantling the easier levels of the evil cult's network.
But tastes vary. Personally, I hate to simply "up the mook" just because my group managed to get into the two-digit level range.

So Bob the Commoner can survive the Death Spell of the God of Death. Or of the Level 30 Necro, if you like that one better.
And if Gods had a different spell system, it would be just another silly emergency rule like the dozens or so of "Hellfire" rules. Much better to make the entire thing scalable.

Depends on if Bob the Commoner can deal with the residual damage that follows in the wake of most successful Fort saves against such spells as Finger of Death (3d6 +1/caster level), Slay Living (3d6 +1/caster level), or Destruction (10d6). For folks like Bob, those save-or-die effects translate to die-or-die, in most cases.

I don't know why it is generally viewed as more preferable to try and use one system for all and every different thing that can come up in a game with such a broad range of possibilities as D&D. To me, that is something that deserves the adjective "silly" just as much..and for once, I'm actually in agreement with the 4e designers, who already stated that they will use a slightly different (yet compatible) system for monster design. Why should the ability of deities, entities that are so far removed from mortal characters, work under the exact same rules? D&D showed that scaling the D20 system up into infinity breaks around the early epic levels, for example.

I don't think we'll get any farther, both of our positions are pretty resolute.
My problem with your position (after this discussion) is this: Save or Death effects in the RAW are commonplace. After some time, any caster can do it multiple times, and even mooks can do it. If you play the RAW, then you will necessarily have multiple cases of PCs dropping dead in the first round of combat for no other reason than rolling badly, simply because some random (as in, not outstanding) opponents are supposed to have them. Something that the game is designed to avoid most of the time, because it is one of the least fun, and therefore game-destroying things that can happen at all.
You seem to use Save and Death very differently, and to great effect, apparently. But that's not the way it is in the RAW. Usually, all mid-level casters have access to it, and will use it. There isn't supposed to be any warning.
By now, I can understand that it is good and appropriate for your group, and likely for some others as well. But I believe to have proven that is problematic for much more others.
And as you cannot really make it optional (once one spell like it is out there, it is in the system), so cutting Death Effects seems to be the right choice for the game, even if it is not the right choice for your campaign.

Where we differ is also in the opinion of what actually constitutes "RAW use" of save-or-die effects. I disagree that at some point, opponents with SoD effects become commonplace, or even mooks/random encounters, and nothing in the RAW tells me that it HAS to be so either. As a DM, I control the frequency, the circumstances and the numbers of save-or-die effects in my game, because they are a tool for the DM to use as he sees fit in his campaign.
But yeah, happy gaming in whatever style you prefer.

 

[DM-Rocco]

How can any of tell if 4e is 'getting soft' before we actually play the game?

And has anyone defined what it means for an RPG to 'go soft', or provided an illustrative counterexample of hard-ass USMC-style D&D play? Because at first glance the whole question seems rather silly.

The term getting soft relates to the projected absense of the Save or Die effects and spells and how the game would or could suffer without them. Yes, none of us will know for sure if the 4th edition is going to be too soft or way easier on the players. We are debating with the information given and the facts of the past. Since it would be pointless to discuss this once released, we are talking about it now.

 

[Anthtriel]

Where we differ is also in the opinion of what actually constitutes "RAW use" of save-or-die effects. I disagree that at some point, opponents with SoD effects become commonplace, or even mooks/random encounters, and nothing in the RAW tells me that it HAS to be so either.

Among others, the Bodak is in the random encounter table in the Dungeon Master's guide for Level 8 Characters. They are supposed to be thrown randomly at the party, your trusty guide tells you as much.

As a DM, I control the frequency, the circumstances and the numbers of save-or-die effects in my game, because they are a tool for the DM to use as he sees fit in his campaign.

That I fully agree with.

But yeah, happy gaming in whatever style you prefer.

To you as well.

 

[Mallus]

Yes, none of us will know for sure if the 4th edition is going to be too soft or way easier on the players.

Isn't campaign difficulty established by the DM and not the rule system? Barring, of course, games which explicitly stated that PC's can't die.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Among others, the Bodak is in the random encounter table in the Dungeon Master's guide for Level 8 Characters. They are supposed to be thrown randomly at the party, your trusty guide tells you as much.

Yep, in mine (3.0) they are in the table for Dungeon level 9, with a 10% chance of encounter. Not going to repeat my rant about how they took out the background info and generalized a special use monster again. But it goes to show what can happen when game designers try to fit everything in D&D under one formula.

 

[Anthtriel]

Yep, in mine (3.0) they are in the table for Dungeon level 9, with a 10% chance of encounter. Not going to repeat my rant about how they took out the background info and generalized a special use monster again. But it goes to show what can happen when game designers try to fit everything in D&D under one formula.

Or what happens when game designers try to fit two entirely different systems together, instead of just throwing one out.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know why it is generally viewed as more preferable to try and use one system for all and every different thing that can come up in a game with such a broad range of possibilities as D&D. To me, that is something that deserves the adjective "silly" just as much..and for once, I'm actually in agreement with the 4e designers, who already stated that they will use a slightly different (yet compatible) system for monster design. Why should the ability of deities, entities that are so far removed from mortal characters, work under the exact same rules?

Save or Die not as a "generic spell effect", but as a plot device seems okay with me. If there was a fair warning about it (probably not: "Oh, and behind the next door, there will probably be a Medusa Paragon that turns you to stone, no save, forever", but "The Labyrinth of Stones is commanded by the first Medusa of the world. A Demon Cult is trying to free her from her prison to destroy this world once and for all. Stop them *several adventures later* Just as you enter the room, the Demon Cultist Leader is beginning to unlock the last locks of the First Meduas prison. Stop him now, or prepared to literally end up as a monument of failure." (That's obviously the "Epic Approach" to Save or Die - exaggerated to emphasize the story)

D&D showed that scaling the D20 system up into infinity breaks around the early epic levels, for example.

I think it only showed that the current system can't really be scaled beyond certain levels. The main problem was that the difference between a character focussing on some kind of check, save or roll and that of a unfocussed character became so high that the d20 could just not bridge the gap. If you keep some care to avoid this happening, you can extend the lifetime a lot. At some points, abilities shouldn't give "pluses" any more, they need just to give options. Though at high levels, you might end up with a Storyteller or Shadowrun System, except with a d20 instead of a d10 or d6 (at least if we're following the Starwars trend with adding rerolls as one type of benefit that doesn't just add modifiers). At least if you're not careful. And I guess at some point it's just no longer interesting to advance further. (What comes behind Epic? Maybe Gods? Okay, but what's beyond that?)

 

[shilsen]

How can any of tell if 4e is 'getting soft' before we actually play the game?

We can't. So it lets us express opinions, hopes and concerns which might be so much horse manure, all without any fear of being conclusively proved to be full of it. It's supposed to be very freeing. Personally, I find it kills time between classes really well.

And has anyone defined what it means for an RPG to 'go soft', or provided an illustrative counterexample of hard-ass USMC-style D&D play?

Hard-ass USMC-style D&D play is when you take away a player's playing piece, because the fear of losing your playing piece apparently creates excitement, builds character, and puts hair on our chests. Even though the playing piece is either returned almost immediately, or you're given a new one. It's like forcing someone to stop using the car in Monopoly and giving him the shoe instead. Because that makes you hard and tough and a real man.

Because at first glance the whole question seems rather silly.

But this is how we roll. Or something like that.