D&D 4E Keith Baker on 4E! (The Hellcow responds!)

[EATherrian]

I have an awesome set of RPG rules here that I can sell you. It's called "Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus (4th Edition)", by Bill Venables and Brian Ripley. Now I feel I should warn you, the rules aren't actually very useful for gaming with, but I can guarantee that it's a good read.

Don't tempt me! I love books as a by-product of my love of RPGs. I already have family trying to do interventions because of my filling my house with bookshelves. On the downside once I read that book I'll realize I'm just a statistic...

 

[EATherrian]

There'll always be people who, no matter how low your starting point, want to go lower. I remember a 1E module where you started as 0-level escaped slaves, with rocks for weapons. You didn't even have an alignment (that was determined by what you did in the adventure). If you survived, you got to the lofty heights of 1st level and could actually choose a class.

I loved that module! I think it's a great idea. I just wonder how you'd do a 1e Cavalier with it, start at -3rd level?

 

[TerraDave]

Hellcow, thanks for stopping by!

I remember looking at those NPC classes, many years ago, and thinking of all the great NPCs I could make with them...and then I (almost) never did.

Dragonblade is on to something. Both from the many posts and podcasts, and breifly talking to some of the people behind 4E, it is clear that one goal was to take out subsystems and corner cases that hardly saw any use, and/or that didn't work nearly as well in practice as in theory. Seems like a good idea to me.

 

[TerraDave]

I just wonder how you'd do a 1e Cavalier with it, start at -3rd level?

Now thats some grogcred.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I don´t think so. I really enjoy adventures where you start out at Lvl 0. I think in 4th Edition this could work perfectly:

Just give your players hp = constitution +5, a simple weapon proficiency (or non at all), one or two background skills and begin play. If you are no superhero, why bother with having a class at all. Then you can give minor class features when they start learning: beginn with at will abilities usable once per day, then at will abilities per encounter, encounter abilities per day... and now you have got a nice low power PC.

If they don't include some optional rules to do it you'll need to come up with your own rules to do it. Either way you're having to make modifications to scale the upscaled base power level back down when they could have just built it on a lower base and recommended people start at level two. That's what I mean by the change removing an option that was always there and making you come at it backwards if you want to do it.

 

[Goobermunch]

If they don't include some optional rules to do it you'll need to come up with your own rules to do it. Either way you're having to make modifications to scale the upscaled base power level back down when they could have just built it on a lower base and recommended people start at level two. That's what I mean by the change removing an option that was always there and making you come at it backwards if you want to do it.

I think that's a consequence of the 3.xe's math working best from 3rd level to 14th level (the sweet spot). There's also the issue of increasing the base power of the races to open up the racial design space so as to help eliminate the +LA races.

Sadly, they cannot work the sweet spot, eliminate +LA races, and have room for weak starting characters.

Besides, if the default starting spot for adventurers is level 2, why bother with level 1 at all?

--G

 

[Ydars]

Great thread. I LOVE that everyone hates 3.5 E stat blocks as much as I do. It completely put me off ever trying to get anything published. Hopefully 4E will be better.

There is one really annoying thing about commoner stat blocks that hasn't been touched on; the fact the some rules-lawyering PLAYERS hate the idea that low level NPCs can have "any old skills". They actually expect consistency because the rules set has this underlying logic.

For example, I have a player in my group who loves to make characters with maxed Diplomacy, Intimidate etc, so he can win arguments with NPCs. He gets VERY annoyed if he meets an NPC who is low level but has some way of beating him in verbal contests. Don't get me wrong; we do roleplay all this stuff, with situational mods etc, but because the rules exist, this player expects to be able to use them in this way, and I can see his point of view. The rules in 3.5E do lend themselves to this and actually take away the DMs fiat a little.

Now I have ruled against him in this kind of situation but he genuinely feels it is unfair for someone to have +30 Diplomacy when they are low level and sees it as DM cheating. I guess he just regards these rules like most people do combat bonuses.

Hopefully, 4E will address this problem, although the social combat rules could be "interesting".

 

[Hussar]

This seems just like starting the PCs at 2nd or 3rd level if you want them to be more durable from the start of the campaign. Unfortunately in the process the option to run the style of game in which the PCs start out weaker has been removed. Unless they have some optional rules in there to hamstring 1st level PCs if desired but it does seem like that would be a backwards way to approach it.

The problem with starting PC's off at 3rd level though is now you have to equip them. DM's can get persnickety about players thumbing through the DMG to figure out their magic goodies.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Alexander the Great, Lassie and Hulk Hogan don't have many hit points either.

Terry Hogan doesn't have many HPs, but Hulk Hogan has tons.

 

[Cadfan]

Re: First level characters.

The game should be designed so that new players and new DMs can pick up the rulebook, start at level 1, and have a good time. That means level 1 has to be a legitimate level. It can't be some wacky shadow zone for expert players who want a hyperlethal game. If there is demand for apprentice or commoner level characters, it needs to be optional in the DMG so that new players won't be suckered into believing that they should start at level 1, and then ruthlessly punished for doing so.