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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
Is Pathfinder Combat As Slow as 4e?
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<blockquote data-quote="The_Gneech" data-source="post: 5402219" data-attributes="member: 6779"><p>Er ... what? I only play one MMO (LotRO), and both the Burglar and Loremaster classes are explicitly referred to as "crowd control".</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>With the possible exception of breath weapons, I don't recall that much in the way of "cooldown" mechanics in any version of <em>D&D</em>. Most abilities have (number) / (period) mechanics, whether it's uses per day or uses per encounter. I suppose you could say 4E's "recharge" mechanic is vaguely like a cooldown. Cooldown is an annoying mechanic at the tabletop because it's yet another thing to keep track of ... 4E's "recharge" is one of the places it did improve on the 3.x ruleset.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Okay, this flat out makes no sense to me. Marks are there to get creatures to attack you instead of your allies. They are exactly like taunts in their purpose, if not their implementation. It's true that the Knight's challenge in 3.x (and the <em>Star Wars Saga Edition</em> talents along the same lines) are closer to taunts mechanically -- but in terms of the function they are identical.</p><p></p><p><strong>In any case!</strong></p><p></p><p>This whole snit over which system is more MMO-ish is kind of pointless, considering that MMOs are descendants of RPGs anyway. What makes a good tabletop RPG is the ability to interact with the GM and have unique and very personal adventures that go beyond "kill X number of Y" and "click quest item A in location B."</p><p></p><p>If you're going to bash 4E for being "too gamey" (and I think it's a fair criticism), MMO-like rules constructions are not the real problem. The real problem is the way characters are defined as <a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html" target="_blank">a bucket of powers that don't have a real meaning "in the game world"</a> and the whole "delve" format, which <a href="http://www.robertjschwalb.com/2010/09/reexamining-the-dungeon/" target="_blank">discourages any activity other than button-pushing combat</a>.</p><p></p><p>MMO-inspired mechanics such as taunts are not inherently bad things; if you play a fighter-as-meatshield sort of character a taunt is a very nifty ability. MMO-inspired adventure design, on the other hand, needlessly throws away everything that's good about tabletop gaming without gaining anything that's good about computer gaming.</p><p></p><p>-The Gneech <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The_Gneech, post: 5402219, member: 6779"] Er ... what? I only play one MMO (LotRO), and both the Burglar and Loremaster classes are explicitly referred to as "crowd control". With the possible exception of breath weapons, I don't recall that much in the way of "cooldown" mechanics in any version of [I]D&D[/I]. Most abilities have (number) / (period) mechanics, whether it's uses per day or uses per encounter. I suppose you could say 4E's "recharge" mechanic is vaguely like a cooldown. Cooldown is an annoying mechanic at the tabletop because it's yet another thing to keep track of ... 4E's "recharge" is one of the places it did improve on the 3.x ruleset. Okay, this flat out makes no sense to me. Marks are there to get creatures to attack you instead of your allies. They are exactly like taunts in their purpose, if not their implementation. It's true that the Knight's challenge in 3.x (and the [I]Star Wars Saga Edition[/I] talents along the same lines) are closer to taunts mechanically -- but in terms of the function they are identical. [B]In any case![/B] This whole snit over which system is more MMO-ish is kind of pointless, considering that MMOs are descendants of RPGs anyway. What makes a good tabletop RPG is the ability to interact with the GM and have unique and very personal adventures that go beyond "kill X number of Y" and "click quest item A in location B." If you're going to bash 4E for being "too gamey" (and I think it's a fair criticism), MMO-like rules constructions are not the real problem. The real problem is the way characters are defined as [url=http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/dissociated-mechanics.html]a bucket of powers that don't have a real meaning "in the game world"[/url] and the whole "delve" format, which [url=http://www.robertjschwalb.com/2010/09/reexamining-the-dungeon/]discourages any activity other than button-pushing combat[/url]. MMO-inspired mechanics such as taunts are not inherently bad things; if you play a fighter-as-meatshield sort of character a taunt is a very nifty ability. MMO-inspired adventure design, on the other hand, needlessly throws away everything that's good about tabletop gaming without gaining anything that's good about computer gaming. -The Gneech :cool: [/QUOTE]
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