Jason Bulmahn Speaks about DDXP(His take on the system)

[Alnag]

Few days ago I've posted a thread asking if the cost payed for balance isn't diversity. This review seems to support my worst worries...

 

[fafhrd]

Yeah, I can see where that might seem a bit obvious. What I was trying to get across is this. The balancing mechanism for the encounter powers of monsters is a random rechange mechanic. If your DM has a string of lucky rolls in this regard, the fight is going to be much harder than it would be if he rolled an average amount. It would be like the DM rolling 1 for a 3.5 dragon's breath weapon recharge a number of rounds in a row. While this only has a 25% chance of happening each round, some of the monsters I saw had a recharge % greater than this. I am not 100% sure this is a huge problem, but it struck me as a bit odd.

Meh...

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

I appreciate the explanation. It strikes me though that a 3.x party running into bodaks and having a bad day on the dice is likely to go in the toilet pretty quickly. I've seen girallons evicerate a healthy party simply because they won initiative. With 4e, the larger number of hitpoints, the modest durational damage, absence of a 'swingy' standard/full attack bimodal system and the lack of save or die effects would seem to offset the issues you raise.

 

[Jason Bulmahn]

I appreciate the explanation. It strikes me though that a 3.x party running into bodaks and having a bad day on the dice is likely to go in the toilet pretty quickly. I've seen girallons evicerate a healthy party simply because they won initiative. With 4e, the larger number of hitpoints, the modest durational damage, absence of a 'swingy' standard/full attack bimodal system and the lack of save or die effects would seem to offset the issues you raise.

I completely agree with your examples. My point though is this. The saves vs bodaks and the init rolls vs the four armed monkeys of doom are both rolls that the characters can influence with their build. These rolls are clearly outside the PCs (or even DMs) influence (afaik), making them a wild card in any combat (just like the 3.0 dragon breath weapon).

That said, I can certainly see where you are coming from. I am in a more hesitant mood right now I guess.

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

 

[Zinegata]

Welcome to tactics, and for that matter, any situation with multiple options.

True, but again the problem is that some abilities are simply too conditional. They are clearly to be used only in certain situation.

I would argue that true tactics is the use of the same tools, but in very different ways depending on the situation. For instance, let us use the example of movement allowance. A character may move five squares every round. That may seem simple and "boring", but a true tactician realizes that they can manipulate this movement in a heck of a lot of ways in order to defeat the enemy.

For instance, rather than just charge an enemy two square away, maybe you could decide to swing around and hit them from behind. Or you could decide to move to an entirely different part of the battlefield, to nail a different opponent. Or, you could just take one step backwards, so you have a clear line of sight against an enemy spellcaster hiding in the rear. With a clear LOS, you can now nail the spellcaster with your bow or spells.

That's the proper application of tactics. By contrast, having an ability that pretty much says "Use me against undead" (i.e. Turn Undead) or something similar is just adding new tools to your tool kit. And it doesn't take a lot of thinking if you need to choose between a screwdriver and a wrench when you want to tighten a loose pipe.

 

[fafhrd]

Actually, I think your instincts were correct in this regard.

It's generally not good to have the game change decisively because of a few dice rolls. You generally want a lot of dice rolls to "smoothen" out the chance that a player will get too lucky. That's why many games such as Risk, A&A, and Heroscape uses tons of dice rolls.

In contrast, letting the game boil down to one roll is generally too swingy and can be highly unbalancing. For instance, in Warhammer 40K, melee is generally considered superior to shooting. This is because in melee, an entire unit can be wiped out by a single bad die roll (a morale check), and destroying a unit entirely nets a huge amount of victory points. By contrast, wiping out an enemy unit by shooting requires a good die roll with each and every shot.

Still, some games thrive on having few die rolls. But if balance was an important game objective (and it seems to be, given all of the emphasis on getting the math right), I'm not entirely sure this was the right move.

Okay, let's try this again. This time with context clues.

If your group fails a bunch of these rolls, while the DM makes his recharge rolls, you are in for a tough fight.

 

[keterys]

One thing I found interesting was that the designers of the modules didn't design the characters - for instance, Mearls was surprised that there was no rogue and only 2 melee, both defenders and said he'd have done things differently if he'd known.

On that note, I actually thought the wizard could have used a non-Reflex power... swap the races between the warlock and wizard and have the wizard with ray of frost, and suddenly the wizard's design space opens up a fair bit.

I also found the ranger the least interesting of the bunch, even though it's one of the fan favorites because its encounter and daily powers were too specialized for my taste and it overall lacked any control or 'wow' moments, except for the 'Whee, I killed two mooks off the bat' with the daily. Yet... it is one of the most popular among fans, so clearly there is a subset of player who is happy with a ranged character who does careful attack over and over again from a safe vantage point. Perhaps because that's 'normal' for 3e, whereas the wizard feels more restricted? I don't know.

 

[KingOfChaos]

I am starting to feel that 4E is going to stifle creativity...a lot.

 

[fafhrd]

I completely agree with your examples. My point though is this. The saves vs bodaks and the init rolls vs the four armed monkeys of doom are both rolls that the characters can influence with their build. These rolls are clearly outside the PCs (or even DMs) influence (afaik), making them a wild card in any combat (just like the 3.0 dragon breath weapon).

That said, I can certainly see where you are coming from. I am in a more hesitant mood right now I guess.

Jason Bulmahn
Gamer/Game Designer

Point taken. It seems that irrespective of the 'swing' built in to the 4e mechanics you mention, there is also an implicit opportunity for mitigation. The low damage effects and high hitpoints I mentioned before seem to provide(in my admittedly limited experience) a chance for PC response to actually matter. Defenders can step into the gap, action dice can be spent, buffs can happen in real time without "putting down the sword".

In any case, sorry if I was overly harsh in my initial comment. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the internet is a public place.

 

[The Little Raven]

Yeah, I can see where that might seem a bit obvious. What I was trying to get across is this. The balancing mechanism for the encounter powers of monsters is a random rechange mechanic. If your DM has a string of lucky rolls in this regard, the fight is going to be much harder than it would be if he rolled an average amount. It would be like the DM rolling 1 for a 3.5 dragon's breath weapon recharge a number of rounds in a row. While this only has a 25% chance of happening each round, some of the monsters I saw had a recharge % greater than this. I am not 100% sure this is a huge problem, but it struck me as a bit odd.

But doesn't that add an element of uncertainty and variability that would make fights with the same monster type less repetitive, since fighting the same creature twice can be quite different if one is chock full of special powers, while the other is less flashy? I mean, it makes monsters less predictable than monster from older editions, who get a clearly defined 1/day or 1/round ability.

 

[KingOfChaos]

I am gonna be seriously annoyed if high level characters are resorting to casting magic missile and the like over and over again because they run out of 'options'. That's just boring.