D&D 4E Just played my first 4E game

[AllisterH]

re: Cooldown/Recharge vs Encounter
The D&D version of the cooldown/recharge mechanic is an ability that reads

"Once every AdX rounds, you can do _"THIS"_". Needless to say, this has been in D&D for a LONG time before.

THAT"S a cooldown/recharge mechanic. The PER ENCOUNTER mechanic doesnt translate well into videogame terms since the ability is based on "not being in combat" whereas the typical videogame cooldown mechanic still alllows for you to be right next to the boss and whacking away until the ability "recharges".

re: Roles
Given that it is MUCH easier in 4E I found to have a non-standard party and still accomplish the goals of the adventure, I'm kind of course of thinking the roles are more flexible than people give it credit for. Certainly more so than the 1e/2e classes. Now multiclassing is the issue of course though.

re: Storytelling
Er, looking at the DMG in 4E and where it actually talks and gives more background/rules/emphasis on non-combat encounters, and how to actually run them compared to earlier editions, as a pro-4E fan, I do wonder what exactly people are referring to when they say that 4E doesn't encourage non-combat encounters.

What exactly are those that believe this actually comparing 4E to in this regard? I fully admit, compared to say Pendragon, the non-combat rules are pathetic, but compared to say what's actually in either the 2E or 3E DMG?

I mean, take Profession and Craft. Nowhere in the books does the 3E core rules mention how to incorporate them into your campaign/adventure. The only rules mentioned with regard to these non-combat skills is

a) Craft - How long it takes to make something
b) Profession - How much money I earn a week.

 

[rounser]

If you had Whirlwind attack, you could use it whenever conditions presented themselves for its use.

This gives me an idea. What if instead of doing extra damage on a critical, you could convert the attack into a special attack? That would represent "favourable conditions".

This does a couple of things - it makes crits a lot more fun and interesting, and it still limits every attack from being a "triple headbutt suplex combo".

It also "makes more sense" than a daily power, from a suspension of disbelief perspective.

A downside is that it reduces the strategy of combat, in that you can't plan to do a maneuver for sure (unless you force a crit by spending a "fate point" or a "luck point" or something). Still, there's the seed of an idea there.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This gives me an idea. What if instead of doing extra damage on a critical, you could convert the attack into a special attack? That would represent "favourable conditions".

This does a couple of things - it makes crits a lot more fun and interesting, and it still limits every attack from being a "triple headbutt suplex combo".

It also "makes more sense" than a daily power, from a suspension of disbelief perspective.

Interesting idea, but the problem might be that you have no control on critical hits, where you definitely have normally about dailies and encounter powers.

I think I rolled _one_ 20 last game session. Despite rolling well overall...

 

[Jack99]

But certainly the whole game seems designed around what a character can do in combat. There's more to D&D than just combat, but the new rules seem very combat-focused.

Why do they seem more focused? Because they are balanced? or because there is no craft skill? What rules from prior edition do you feel they should have included? Because I see more pages about creating your character and playing a role than in any of the previous edition. Not to mention the DMG, which is about handling players and their different styles, instead of spending 45 pages telling me how much a mule weights and how many sp a waitress that moonlights as whore 3 times a month earns.

Even if the Wizard is more versatile than other classes, it's nowhere near as versatile as it used to be. And I totally refute that wizards dominated or could mimic other classes under 3E/3.5- I never once found that.

Sorry, was that just a strawman? Saying something ain't broken because you haven't figured out how to play it correctly doesn't make it broken. The Wizard has since the dawn of D&D been the, or one of the most powerful classes. Now, I never played much 1e, but in 2e and 3.x the wizard dominated play with his Switz-army-knife syndrome, with a solution for everything. If played smart. Natural my bonehead cousin could only figure out how to throw fireballs and such after the monsters, so he never thought that the wizard was overpowered either.

In response to Blargney's question, we had 3 PCs - a human paladin (me), a human cleric and a tiefling warlock. And if anybody mentions that with only 3 PCs the DM should have scaled the adventure, let me say that you are dead right and we told him so. However, I maintain that if the rules are such that you need all character types (you'll note we had only 1 meat shield) to do well, something's gone wrong.

The party above works just fine. I do not know where you get the idea that it shouldn't, especially since mentioning that it only has 1 tank. /boggle. If you guys failed, it was either because you screwed up badly, or because the DM did. For the record, my group consists of 4 strikers, 1 controller, 1 leader and 1 "tank". I use quotation marks because he is fighter multiclass wizard, so he uses hide to benefit from his 16 int. Let's just say that even without a massive AC, he does just fine. And so does the group.

A few posters put their fingers on this, and for my money they're spot on. The old rules felt more 'realistic', insofar as you can have realism when you're talking about fire-breathing reptiles and turning people into monkeys. The old rules had a kind of pseudo-science you could inject. Wizards got their spells per day. Every day they prepared spells and those were the ones they cast. Ditto clerics and everybody else (except sorcerers).

Yes, I agree that it felt more realistic. Now, I am perfectly fine with that, but that's a matter of taste.

Easy to understand and to base your storytelling around. But now, some abilities are 'per encounter'. How do you storytell that? Whats the pseudo-science there? I know that for some people that won't matter, but it matters to me. I like to be able to tell coherent stories with my roleplaying, be I the DM or the player, and I feel my ability to do that in 4E has sufferred.

To quote Hong: You need to stop thinking so hard about fantasy. It is the single best advice on this, because once you do, you will find your narration getting much better.

In fact, I should have mentioned this in relation to the 'video game' debate. Basically, the gist of my point is that 4E feels much more like roll-playing than role-playing. More thought is given to what a character can do than what a character is. For instance, someone mentioned that elves didn't make good wizards before. I dispute that claim regardless, but what's more important is not whether the character was 'good' by game dynamics (ie. min-maxed or 'munchkinned') but whether they were a good character. The feel of 4E seems very munchkin to me - character is less important than stats.

WoW. This leaves me baffled. 3.x was the munchkin game par excellence. 3.x was all about me me me, my character, my build, my crap. 3.x combats were won at character creation, by using a good (broken) build, not to mention by rolling a wizard/cleric/druid. Instead, 4e combats are won on the table, by using team tactics. Which sounds more munchkiny to you?

Regarding the roll vs role. The streamlining of the rules, together with the greater focus on the team, has increased the roleplay at my table. Of course, this may not be true for all groups, but I thought you should know.

Also, it's far too hard to die. Characters ought to be able to be killed occasionally. Not often, just...occasionally. Keeps everybody on their toes.

How much have you played? It sounded like only one session. For what it is worth, it is not that hard to kill players. But it is still a new game, and I am guessing that a lot of DM's rather go easy than hard on his players for starters.

I think you should try it some more. My guess is that given some more time, you will find that some of the issues you have with 4e only exist in your head, not in the game.

Cheers

 

[rounser]

Interesting idea, but the problem might be that you have no control on critical hits, where you definitely have normally about dailies and encounter powers.

Yes - edited my post to that effect before I saw yours, actually.

Perhaps WOTC just needs to spend a bit more time justifying it. I think most people would accept an explanation like luck, daily powers just need to be wrapped up in those terms and logic. At the moment they're a bit bare bones.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Cooldowns are not "per encounter powers"! An ability that has a cooldown can be used again in the same "encounter".

Healing Surges for example are a mechanic no video-game ever used, as far as I know - Why should Vidogames limit how much healing you have "per day" - no one cares about the flow of time in the world of a MMORPG. But it is important in the real world.

This is all well and good, except it's obviously just the same artifical restriction as translated through the medium.

In a game as segmented as D&D, you get per encounter/day, whereas in a video game you have recharge times. It's the same feel for most of us, and perhaps your "different mindset" is basically just justifying what is the same. And, really, there's nothing WRONG with a recharge time or per encounter/day, just as there's nothing WRONG with it feeling more videogamey to some folks.


I mean, really, I spend a lot more time in WoW than I do playing D&D (my "how 4e drove me to WoW " thread was a while ago), so why would I be offended that there's some borrowing either way?

The problem IMO, comes about when they forget to accentuate what seperates D&D. They talked about "the implied setting" so as to highlight the imaginative aspects of D&D, but they didn't (IMO) provide enough material to inspire a new player. The PHB does little more than assign tactical powers to someone. It has as much roleplaying as Battletech did.


How is this different than previous editions for me? Part of it is the style of writing (like I said, it feels like they wrote the books as if to explain D&D to a WoW player), part of it is the streamlining that removed options that made things different (shapechanging, illusions, pets...). Heck, even the huge font and overload of white space, with a poor integration of graphics into the text, it makes it feel less evocative.

Plus the lack of gnomes. Any game that lacks gnomes obviously faltered in the inspiration department.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Yes - edited my post to that effect before I saw yours, actually.

Perhaps WOTC just needs to spend a bit more time justifying it. I think most people would accept an explanation like luck, daily powers just need to be wrapped up in those terms and logic. At the moment they're a bit bare bones.

I could see a system whereby powers are triggered by actions more. Like trip isn't 1/day, but rather "when an enemy provokes an AoO (yes I still call it that, OA sucks), you can attempt a trip attack" or somesuch.

It of course could have the potential to quickly get too complicated, and some powers are already like that, but trip is often referenced lately...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How much have you played? It sounded like only one session. For what it is worth, it is not that hard to kill players.

Jack99, you are _not_ supposed to kill your players! That's illegal, even in your country! Everyone else, remember this: Do not kill your players - even if it's easy, like with poisoning their food supplies or something. Just don't!

Yes - edited my post to that effect before I saw yours, actually.

Perhaps WOTC just needs to spend a bit more time justifying it. I think most people would accept an explanation like luck, daily powers just need to be wrapped up in those terms and logic. At the moment they're a bit bare bones.

I think it's "too late" for that - the explanation is not in the PHB or DMG.
And does it have to be official? Why aren't the various approaches to "rationalize" the abilities or "get-into-the-narrative-mind-set" by fans not enough?

There seem to be two basic approaches:
1) The character is of course always trying to use his best tricks (except when he deliberately isn't ). But his best tricks work only under circumstances he can't directly affect. The encounter/daily powers are powers allow the player to decide that the opportunity is there, and that his character will use the opportunity. There might be situations where the opportunity is there, but the character decides not to use, and there might be situation where the character wants to try his favorite maneuver but just can't.

2) It's all magic. You can't fight a 15 feet armed Giant or a 10 ton Dragon with a sword and expect to survive it. But using magical training, you can achieve amazing feats that allow you to face them. Some people focus their magic on divine powers, some on arcane, and others on martial abilities.

 

[rounser]

Why aren't the various approaches to "rationalize" the abilities or "get-into-the-narrative-mind-set" by fans not enough?

That will indeed be what people have to do, because the design isn't finished if we have to make up excuses for their rules.

 

[Phaezen]

This has probably been mentioned, but I think that most video game comparisons stem from (whether you think this is valid or not):

1) Recharge/Cooldown - rather than being able to use anything in your arsenal any time you'd like, you have to wait until it is ready again (whether another encounter, after a rest, etc.) -- this has been seen in many video games - - RTS games where you can't build another of troop type XYZ until so much time has passed, City of Heroes and other MMOs where you have to wait for the Blazing Attack O Doom to light up again before you can click on it, etc.

Also been seen in previous editions of D&D, whether it was spells per dat, Paladins smite perday/remove disease per week, Clerics turning per day the list goes on and on and on.

2) Roles - Tank, Striker, Controller, etc. are straight out of WOW and other MMOs. (again, not a value judgement, just the basis for the comparison)...frankly, you could even say that the idea of a close-up attacker, a ranged attacker, a magic attacker, etc. is taken directly from Gauntlet

I think the roles have alwys been there in D&D (look at the classic party of the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Thief), the only difference in this edition is that the designers have decided to spell it out for us.

3) Combat emphasis (again, you might disagree with this) - the idea that all classes must do well equally in combat - - so wizards can spam magic missile....this is very similar to again, oddly enough, Gauntlet and of course many other videogames.

THis is most probably the biggest nod to computergames in the editions, the idea of balancing classes to be usefull both in and out of combat. And I for one am glad about it. Beside, if computergames can steal ideas from pen and paper rpgs, the designers of said rpgs should be able to steal ideas that work back.

Having said that, I still assert that 4E is a lot closer to a miniatures skirmish game or CCG than a video game.

I should also point out that the biggest fan of 4E that I personally know is the manager of a Gamestop, and at the same time that he will tell me how much he loves playing 4E he will also tell me that it is absolutely a lot like an MMO, and that's what he likes about it.

As I pointed out earlier, there shouldn't really be an issue with games designers looking at other games in other media and seeing what works, what doesn't work and what can be adapted. If it brings out better products, this is a good thing.

Phaezen