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

[Benimoto]

OTOH if, (as it seems to be in 4e) it's a natural function of the monster type, then, yeah, he gets the power. Well, I dunno. We'll need to see what the polymorph rules are. From what I've heard, you'll have a list of creatures you can turn into, all designed from the get-go to be things-you-can-turn-into, so all the game balance issues -- and, baby with bathwater, all the creative and ingenious things players can do -- are tossed aside. 4e seems to have, as a guiding philosophy, that everything should do one thing, and one thing only, and be extremely restricted and rulebound. Balance uber alles.

Well, as the War Troll thing taught me, balance uber alles is kind of a worthwhile goal. A lot of the 3e powers were balanced, but others were not, so they led to situations where the creative min/maxer was playing a War Troll, while the guy who just wanted to play the game "normally" was playing a 12th level fighter.

I'm hopeful that the eventual solution for polymorph or wildshape does allow for creativity and ingenuity while keeping things somewhat on the rails of a normal campaign. I support class balance as a goal. I don't think one player should be stuck playing a mechanically inferior character just because of their class choices.

I appreciate many of the design *goals* of 4e. I dispute their methods. Under 3e, it was trivial for me to make a half-fiend medusa rogue as a villain, and when he became a reluctant ally of the PCs instead of a foe to be slain, he wasn't grossly unbalanced because he wasn't built entirely on the assumption he would exist for only one encounter and be gone. Every monster in 4e is seemingly balanced on the basis of a single encounter only, and while that may work in 95% of cases, it's the other 5% -- where the game takes an unexpected veer and the plot lurches off the tracks, never to return -- that makes for memorable sessions.

I haven't seen any of the monsters for 4e being any more imbalanced in a friendly role than their 3e counterparts. Could you provide an example, perhaps? Unless you mean that if 4e has better class balance, it will be more obvious that a monster NPC has totally inappropriate abilities.

 

[Benimoto]

That 4e should have said "Players should begin at third level, allowing for a lot of variety and multiclassing options; first and second level should be use for modeling weaker NPCs or if the players desire a challenge. The game presumes a third level starting point for players." Then balanced the game around it.

I disagree here. I think that good game design takes the option that the most people want and makes it the way to play the game. Too many optional rules are bad for the game. I know a lot of people like to say "why isn't my preferred playstyle even an option?" but taken to the extreme, this just means that everything is an option and there's barely any actual rules.

People come to a game with expectations, and want to play a game where those expectations are met. If there are too many optional rules then it just becomes harder to find a game where the other players are playing with the rules you want.

 

[Lizard]

I haven't seen any of the monsters for 4e being any more imbalanced in a friendly role than their 3e counterparts. Could you provide an example, perhaps? Unless you mean that if 4e has better class balance, it will be more obvious that a monster NPC has totally inappropriate abilities.

I'm going on designer statements that monsters are assumed to 'live' for a single encounter, and are balanced for that and that alone. As to whether anything is specifically broken, that will probably show up only in Actual Play TM. I am concerned over the lack of healing surges for monsters, but there may be rules in the DMG for dealing with what happens when a PC or NPC uses a healing-surge dependent power on a creature which doesn't have them. (The bodak, for example, 'eats' healing surges, a nifty mechanic. But if only PCs have them, how does the bodak feed when there's no PCs to eat?)

 

[Spatula]

Well, as the War Troll thing taught me, balance uber alles is kind of a worthwhile goal.

I kinda suspect that the 3e polymorph was expected to showcase the flexibility of the new system - you can turn into any creature, and now we actually have stats for that! Instead the inherent problems with with trying to link monster HD to effectiveness required that it be errata'd over and over and over... But having said that, the war troll is just an incredibly stupid and overpowered monster. It's an abomination that should never have been published, and a black mark against the MM3 (one of my favorite monster books, otherwise).

I do wonder if the reason there is no druid in the 4e core is because they haven't figured out how polymorph-type effects (and thus wildshape) can work yet and still be balanced in the face of monster supplements.

 

[Wormwood]

I do wonder if the reason there is no druid in the 4e core is because they haven't figured out how polymorph-type effects (and thus wildshape) can work yet and still be balanced in the face of monster supplements.

I would have thought PHB2 solved those issues satisfactorily. Limited forms, predictable effects.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm going on designer statements that monsters are assumed to 'live' for a single encounter, and are balanced for that and that alone. As to whether anything is specifically broken, that will probably show up only in Actual Play TM. I am concerned over the lack of healing surges for monsters, but there may be rules in the DMG for dealing with what happens when a PC or NPC uses a healing-surge dependent power on a creature which doesn't have them. (The bodak, for example, 'eats' healing surges, a nifty mechanic. But if only PCs have them, how does the bodak feed when there's no PCs to eat?)

That's heavily simulation thinking that doesn't really apply with the 4e mindset. The mechanics are that when PCs meet them they can have healing surges eaten. Which is an effort to model the "energy draining" nature of the creature without making the battle unfair for the players.

NPCs dealing with NPCs don't use rules most of the time. If the creature wants to suck the life force out of any living creature, it can. And it gains sustenance. Mechanics aren't needed for this situation. In fact, since you don't need to be "fair" to NPCs, you can just say that he sucks all of their energy out immediately. Or that this particular NPCs is strong enough that he's able to hold out for 5 rounds, since that is about the time you think it'll take the PCs to win.

However, in the case of using healing surge powers on creatures other than PCs. One would figure that you might eventually fight monsters who are clerics and that those monsters might want to heal each other. So, I think it'll be covered.

 

[Dunamin]

The bodak, for example, 'eats' healing surges, a nifty mechanic. But if only PCs have them, how does the bodak feed when there's no PCs to eat?

The mechanic in question represents its deadly gaze, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with feeding. In fact, bodaks don't eat, to my knowledge.

It works well in killing PCs and NPCs alike, however.

 

[Wormwood]

(The bodak, for example, 'eats' healing surges, a nifty mechanic. But if only PCs have them, how does the bodak feed when there's no PCs to eat?)

Like all my monsters, when Bodaks aren't being sliced up by PCs they spend their time backstage at the craft services table.

 

[Lizard]

That's heavily simulation thinking that doesn't really apply with the 4e mindset. The mechanics are that when PCs meet them they can have healing surges eaten. Which is an effort to model the "energy draining" nature of the creature without making the battle unfair for the players.

NPCs dealing with NPCs don't use rules most of the time. If the creature wants to suck the life force out of any living creature, it can. And it gains sustenance. Mechanics aren't needed for this situation. In fact, since you don't need to be "fair" to NPCs, you can just say that he sucks all of their energy out immediately. Or that this particular NPCs is strong enough that he's able to hold out for 5 rounds, since that is about the time you think it'll take the PCs to win.

"The DM can make it up" is always an answer to any question about any rules in any game, but, is it the BEST answer?

A PC mind-controls a foe and sends the foe to fight the Bodak. The Bodak decides to eat some healing surges. The PC, noting that his forced ally is about to die from other wounds, uses a power to heal said ally (to keep him distracting the bodak as long as possible). Does the ally have healing surges left? "He does if the DM wants him to" is a valid answer, but not a good one. It puts the DM into deciding the conclusion of the story, not just the beginning of it.

Yes, I've seen actual play where PCs heal 'enemies' -- either to keep using them for some purpose, or because (this was a PC I played) they have very strict codes against killing and will stop in mid-battle to stabilize a fallen foe. So I don't want healing rules that just work for PC/PC interaction or just NPC/NPC interaction. I want one set of rules that don't care who is the heal-er and who is the heal-ee.

Everyone keeps telling me "4e is less work for the DM!", but I see it as a lot more work, because I have to make up a lot more rules on the fly for all the things it doesn't cover in the name of "simplicity". I have better things to do, as a DM, in play, than write rules. The players in my game want me to help them experience a fun and exciting adventure, not playtest my new house rules being produced as we go.

 

[KidSnide]

It seems to me there are a lot of people that don't want to design role-playing campaigns so much as play with model trains. And for them, the thrill comes from building every NPC just so, so there's working lights in every tavern, and lovingly prepared cotton snow covering every surface during winter. And every PC, monster, and NPC are all built according to the exact same rules. It doesn't matter that the only people who have any chance of tripping others are the ones built for it--everyone must have the ability, because otherwise you're cheating, the same as if you used an HO scale house next to an S scale track.

This is the classic difference between a game and a toy. A game is about the activity or process of playing in which you attempt to complete certain goals based on the game. A toy is a thing that you use to invent your own activity. One of the interesting things about RPGs is that (generally) they are games from the perspective of the players and toys from the perspective of the GMs. (Players who go off to build castles and towns are also using it as a toy.)

My take on 4E is that it is going to be a much better game than 3E, but a worse toy. That is, the tactical decisions that PCs get to make are going to be more interesting, and there will be fewer rules that block gameplay "because that's the way the universe would work".

But, of course, because the rules are designed to make the best game, the (sometimes foolish, but very interesting) internal consistency that was a hallmark of 3E is not as strong in 4E. That makes it less fun as a toy because you can't imagine a world in your head by starting with a few assumptions and letting all the rules go click-click-click to generate interesting results. (I note that those results were often interesting to think about, but did not necessarily generate interesting decisions for the PCs.) As has been observed by many others, this "less of a toy" effect is particularly harsh if you are of the "the rules are the physics of the world" camp.