D&D General Maybe I was ALWAYs playing 4e... even in 2e

[GMforPowergamers]

Right, sure. Can come up pretty easily at first level if a monster gets a crit. Gets increasingly difficult after that, but is a real threat for the first two or three levels, anyway.

yes, but for non d10/d12 classes with a bit of bad luck could be all the wat through level 7
6d6+13 is 34 on rolled average or 37 if taking average+1 both can have a situation where at single digit hp you can take a 'massive' 20 damage (that is a 7th level d6 class with 6 at first level and rolling or taking average after... god forbid you roll and keep getting 1s and 2s)

2E had a massive damage rule as well. Any 50pt hit triggered a Save vs. Death as I recall.

yes but the 5e massive damage is more like the 2e -10

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They are imaginary.

plot armor... as long as you have it you are fine when it runs out you might die

 

[Crimson Longinus]

plot armor... as long as you have it you are fine when it runs out you might die

Why healing spells and healing potions restore plot armour? And why would you administer such if you apparently are not actually injured?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Why healing spells and healing potions restore plot armour? And why would you administer such if you apparently are not actually injured?

ask the dev team...

if you take 2d4 psychic damage you have no injuries
if you are a 7th level rogue (with an 8 con cause your funny) with 28hp you can get "your mama too fat" jokes thrown at you for 4 rounds and take 20 (8d4) damage and be almost dead (8hp left) but no visable wound... you have a head ache and you are annoyed and down 20 hp (btw max is 32 so in some crazy world you may be down

 

[Crimson Longinus]

ask the dev team...

if you take 2d4 psychic damage you have no injuries

Yes you do. Not necessarily visible or even physical ones, but you're hurt and you know it.

if you are a 7th level rogue (with an 8 con cause your funny) with 28hp you can get "your mama too fat" jokes

It is a psychic attack. It is not a joke. You can literally die of it.

thrown at you for 4 rounds and take 20 (8d4) damage and be almost dead (8hp left) but no visable wound... you have a head ache and you are annoyed and down 20 hp (btw max is 32 so in some crazy world you may be down

You might be annoyed. Or not. Annoyance is not damage. But you're hurt. And you know it.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

basic and 1 e die at 0, 2e otional -10, 3e is dead at -10... 4e and 5e are the only really ones with buffer zones.

-10 is a buffer zone.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why healing spells and healing potions restore plot armour? And why would you administer such if you apparently are not actually injured?

It's theater like healing spells in potions are in fiction. They get you back to fighting form regardless.

The game is so much better once you accept it's a game with game elements that run in the background instead of simulations of the fictional world.

 

[Nefermandias]

Have you ever thought about how you play/run D&D? Have you ever considered what each edition you played did to make your version of D&D? I guess this is me reflecting on that.

So in another thread someone spelled out what I think of as the basics of D&D



now 4e has things that A LOT of people dislike and some even say are "NOT D&D"

I am going to go out on a limb and say that if in 1996 I opened a new book and found a warlord that could 2/encounter heal a target, and that could grant other allies attacks and give bonuses and could 100% see me wanting to play one that day. (Now I am imagining a brown soft cover 'complete warlord' like I had complete psionic and complete barbarian)

if back then 1996 or so someone came up with a nonweapon prof that (us oldies know those as pre feats) gave the ability to deal damage on a miss to my ranger, I would have loved it.

fast forward to September 2006 (my birthday... I remember getting it for my birthday) and the Bo9S not only was a welcome sight... but it might have saved 3.5 for me. For a few years we used that book in almost every campaign. (we also used PHB2, and complete book classes)

infact when 4e was announced our (my group) greatest hope was wizard and cleric would be broken up and fighter would look more like a Warblade... and we never would have dreamed of what we got. and to this day I think of 4e as the best edition of D&D (with 2e and 5e both really close together for 2nd and 3rd) with BIEMI being 4th...

so as I have thought about this, I realized my style has ALWAYS been a mix of 4e and end stage 5e (social skills, encounters that have ways to win without fighting, warriors being as important as casters) and as such I don't think 4e tought me to play... I think that 4e was built 4me... or people like me.


Now my group splintered at 4th and kinda came back together for 5th then splintered 2 more times... and now we are all unsure of what 5.5/6/anniversary edition will bring. I wish it would take 4e and work in some 5e and bring it even MORE in line with my group... but I also realize that will not work for everyone.

I too have started back in 2e and I can say without a grain of doubt that 4e was my favorite edition. Scratched pretty much all of my itches.

 

[pemerton]

The miniatures/grid aspect is often mentioned, but it actually is a bigger deal than just having to use them. The battles need to be designed differently. 4e has a ton of powers that rely on movement and positioning. And if the GM designs an interesting battlemap with all sorts of different terrains and uses various enemies with different capabilities the resulting combats will be very tactical and engaging. But designing such battles is also a lot of work

<snip>

And when I myself ran 4e, I tried to avoid such a situation, and painstakingly designed the combat encounters. But frankly, I came to the conclusion that it really is not fun for me and not the sort of thing I want to spend so much time on when building adventures

I tended to find that even in an open/plain battlefield, movement powers still mattered because of the way they could reduce the effectiveness of enemy bursts, blasts and auras, and enhance the effectiveness of friendly bursts, blasts, and auras. Plus creating or negating flanking for Combat Advantage. Just using normal encounters with a group of synergistic foes, having multiple roles, and/or trying to maximize how well your party's powers worked on the battlefield, would inherently create tactical opportunities.

A DM just defaulting to a single tough monster on an open battlefield seems to be ignoring 90% of the cool bits of 4E combat.

I want to say a DMG or other advice book even had some kind of pattern for a defualt game for a DM to use like a templet until they were ready to make up there own

The DMG had good advice on how to use terrain, and creature/NPC role mixes, in combat encounters. So following that advice would not produce many encounters with a single tough monster on an open battlefield.

The very first 4e combat encounter I ran was adapted from the B/X module Night's Dark Terror: the PCs were in a boat; enemies had run a chain across the river to block the boat's progress; I had an archer (or slinger, I think it was) on the shore, protected by trees, some NPCs on a raft, some more NPC swimming through the water to the PCs' boat. Andhere was a sandbar with some trees in the river that the PCs could jump or swim to.

I don't recall all the details of play over 10 years later, but I remember a PC taking shelter from the NPC ranged attack by ducking low in the boat, and a heavily armoured PC failing to jump to the sandbar and so landing in the water, and the PCs ultimately taking control of the NPCs' raft and taking the combat to the shore.

I think this worked much better in 4e than it would have in B/X!

After that first encounter, I drew up lots of maps and statblocks. That was my adventure prep: I would introduce locations, and opponents, in a scene-framing fashion following the leads generated by play.

That said, I think 4e could have been significantly improved by including what I have called "Skirmish" rules. Specifically, I completely agree that 4e is built around set-piece battles. But set pieces aren't the only sort of thing that matters, and there's a number of places where being able to handle short, brisk, lower-risk, lower-fanfare experiences.

But just as we have rules for Skill Challenges, which are meant to give structure and set-piece-ness to non-combat challenges, shouldn't we be able to generate the "just a couple skill rolls, not a Skill Challenge" equivalent for combat things?

The easiest way to do that in the system as it is would be just to run a combat with a few minions.

 

[Vaalingrade]

People treat minions like they're supposed to be adds on solo or elite fights, but they're most effective as a horde.

4 per PC at level for a balanced fight. For the recommended party, that's 20 guys. Drop the level a little or increase the challenge and you're bringing a ton of boys for a quick fight if the players are even approaching competent.