Mearls' "Stop, Thief!" Article

[Imaro]

Questionable - although rangers certainly do more damage. But missing the point. The point is that the Powers system opens up tactics - for instance the almost insane behaviour of the Bravura Warlord or the isolate and pound strategy of the Avenger.

I think you're missing what is being discussed... I'm not arguing against the tactical nature of powers... but instead asking, how is this any different than say building a trip fighter and claiming his tripiness is the result of his wild flailing "style" in 3e or describing and trying such maneuvers in earlier D&D under the DM's judgement and claiming the same thing? In fact it seems 4e's style is pretty limited to the type of builds available... as opposed to 3.x's mix and match building blocks or earlier editions DM fiat system.

The HP disparity was much greater - one hit kills. In 4e wizards get 4hp/level, and fighters get six (I think). Around 50% more hp to the fighter. In 1e, wizards get d4hp per level and fighters get d10 - or over twice the hit points. If the wizard's trying to hold the line, things have gone pear shaped. And badly so. But he won't be brushed aside in quite the way he would in earlier editions, going down to one hit. It's a move of last resort rather than utterly suicidal.

Edit: And I think Pmerton meant sub-par rather than suboptimal. It's hard to accidently make a useless character in 4e at heroic. This wasn't true in older editions.

I think I stated upthread that the Wwizard of previous editions also had a much larger bag of tricks to employ in order to accomplish something like this as well... or is the only answer to "holding the line" run up and get whacked...

EDIT: On a sidenote in a skill challenge heavy game the Fighter class is definitely sub-par... of course he more than makes up for it in combat.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think I stated upthread that the Wwizard of previous editions also had a much larger bag of tricks to employ in order to accomplish something like this as well... or is the only answer to "holding the line" run up and get whacked...

The thing is in AD&D it would be hugely dependent on what the wizard has available for items and what spell selection he happens to have. At 7th level he MIGHT gain access to Stoneskin, which would make standing in the front line for a round or two pretty viable. He could have say Bracers of AC4, which would help a lot, as would a Cloak of Displacement for example. Having an item that allowed some kind of close in attack (or at least a spell like say Burning Hands) helps too. So, yes, there are ways for an AD&D wizard to improve his survivability and utility in that situation. Most of them really depend on the DM cooperating though. I guess you could also sort of count Monster Summoning I (again a level 4 spell, so 7th level caster). The thing is, there are also a lot better general spells you'd want that are 4th level. Stoneskin is pretty primo since you don't actually have to burn a slot to have the effect, but I'd bet that most AD&D wizards aren't going to pick up Monster Summoning I on the off chance they need to have blockers.

EDIT: On a sidenote in a skill challenge heavy game the Fighter class is definitely sub-par... of course he more than makes up for it in combat.

It depends heavily on the context. An SC which centers on durability and survival and/or athletic prowess will go well for the fighter. Lots of fighters can also pretty easily pick up another nice specialty either using a background element, a skill power, and/or one feat. Sneaky fighter (dex based build, quite effective). Perceptive fighter (wis based build, also quite effective). Just getting access to one more skill really makes a big difference.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sorry, but I've already seen threads in which the opposite is claimed.....that not building a character the "right" way makes him useless to the party.

In addition, the existence of optimization threads is a strong indication that some builds are more powerful than others. In which case, it should be obvious that some are also "sub-par".

As to whether a character is "useless" or not....well, that is highly dependent upon the context, isn't it? I will agree that 4e put a far greater emphasis on a single context (grid-based combat) than any other edition, and that combat consumes such a large amount of play time that a character not optimized for combat is going to seem subpar, but I have run games for and played many non-combat-optimized characters in previous editions, and I have yet to see one that was useless.

YMMV.


RC

But those, that claim that characters with 16s in its main stat are useless are fools. Even when you do less than optimal damage, you are still contributing to the narrative and in combat and you perform well enough... if you however define yourself by how much damage you actually deal, it is a different matter...

4e´s system in combat is robust enough to be usasble with suboptimal, optimal and subpar characters... you really can´t do a lot wrong, except when you are deliberately trying to be subpar...

Mathematical analysises are nice and well... and when you read something like: "the warlord heals much more than the cleric by making the monsters dead faster" my roleplayer heart rebels...

if you want to play a character that actually heals... a lot... you are not doing anything wrong... the cleric does well enough, except when you are in a "how fast can we go through the dungeon" challenge... and not in a real game.

I would never ever play in any edition with such players... player that bend rules and optimize to "win" D&D are not contributing to a game i like to play.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But those, that claim that characters with 16s in its main stat are useless are fools.

<snip>

I would never ever play in any edition with such players... player that bend rules and optimize to "win" D&D are not contributing to a game i like to play.

Perhaps, but, if so, the point carries to all other editions as well.

I've never met a useless character. The more variety as to what occurs in a game session, the greater chance for a character to shine in that session, no matter what his build.

IMHO, YMMV.


RC

 

[Imaro]

The thing is in AD&D it would be hugely dependent on what the wizard has available for items and what spell selection he happens to have. At 7th level he MIGHT gain access to Stoneskin, which would make standing in the front line for a round or two pretty viable. He could have say Bracers of AC4, which would help a lot, as would a Cloak of Displacement for example. Having an item that allowed some kind of close in attack (or at least a spell like say Burning Hands) helps too. So, yes, there are ways for an AD&D wizard to improve his survivability and utility in that situation. Most of them really depend on the DM cooperating though. I guess you could also sort of count Monster Summoning I (again a level 4 spell, so 7th level caster). The thing is, there are also a lot better general spells you'd want that are 4th level. Stoneskin is pretty primo since you don't actually have to burn a slot to have the effect, but I'd bet that most AD&D wizards aren't going to pick up Monster Summoning I on the off chance they need to have blockers.

My experience was that monster summoning(s) were quite the popular spells specifically because they were so diverse in application, and it's not like the Wizard can last more than 1 or 2 rounds of holding the line in 4e by getting hit... that said, so you agree it was possible in earlier editions??

It depends heavily on the context. An SC which centers on durability and survival and/or athletic prowess will go well for the fighter. Lots of fighters can also pretty easily pick up another nice specialty either using a background element, a skill power, and/or one feat. Sneaky fighter (dex based build, quite effective). Perceptive fighter (wis based build, also quite effective). Just getting access to one more skill really makes a big difference.

No it doesn't... If I had said... in a skill challenge the Fighter is sub-par you would have a point, but I said in a skill challenge heavy game, which I would assume has an equal distribution of skill use throughout the game and not just endurance...encdurance...endurance...athletics the fighter is sub-par, and he is. Feat taxes to fix it only stress my point when the Rogue gets 2x as many starting skills.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Exactly...

one of my favourite 3.x characters was a bard with an array of 8,9,10,13,14,15 in the same group as the 18,17,16,some other high values blade singer...

and oh man were there sessions were he could shine... even in combat, his songs doubled the archer´s (the only really optimized character) damage output by a) making his iterative attacks hit and by increasing his damage just enough to allow single hit kills...

The great thing was that everyone knew, that this character pulled his (considerable) weight easily... and when he died at level 13, no one even thought about not raising him immediately...

You know, maybe this is what mike mearls wanted to say: you dont even need to be able to do a lot mechanically... you just need a character, a concept and trying to play him in the best possible way... and if it is compensating mechanical incompetence by beeing clever, so be it...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But those, that claim that characters with 16s in its main stat are useless are fools. Even when you do less than optimal damage, you are still contributing to the narrative and in combat and you perform well enough... if you however define yourself by how much damage you actually deal, it is a different matter...

4e´s system in combat is robust enough to be usasble with suboptimal, optimal and subpar characters... you really can´t do a lot wrong, except when you are deliberately trying to be subpar...

Mathematical analysises are nice and well... and when you read something like: "the warlord heals much more than the cleric by making the monsters dead faster" my roleplayer heart rebels...

if you want to play a character that actually heals... a lot... you are not doing anything wrong... the cleric does well enough, except when you are in a "how fast can we go through the dungeon" challenge... and not in a real game.

I would never ever play in any edition with such players... player that bend rules and optimize to "win" D&D are not contributing to a game i like to play.

I think it goes deeper than that. A 16 prime stat is not 'suboptimal'. You can't make that kind of generalization. It certainly could be suboptimal for certain builds, it could be highly optimal for others. Beyond that it costs a LOT more points to jack a stat beyond 16. Those points have to come from somewhere. A less highly focused stat allocation means you have overall better stats. Those better numbers are obviously going into other stats, presumably useful ones. It is even hard to say that any stat is really useless to any given character. It may or may not be highly useful in the narrow context of primary combat optimization, but there ARE compensating rewards.

The character may perform well in a wider range of combat situations and have less severe weaknesses in worst-case scenarios. This last is something that optimization generally overlooks, worst case situations are the ones you really need to worry about. It is nice to be able to curb stomp the encounters that you're good at, but if you die hard in the bad scenarios sooner or later your luck will run out. It won't help you at all that you breezed through the first 5 encounters if you're useless in the 6th one and die. Thus often a less focused character actually works better in practice because he'll make it through whatever the DM throws at him. The super focused character ends up laid out.

So, really the dimensions of what is 'optimal' are hard to define.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That is exactly the point.

But if you browse a bit you see a lot of threads, where any objection like yours is feeding the flames.
Optimizers in 4e also don´t take anything different than DPR into their calculations... which is foolish IMHO.
Senseless application of mathematics is just stupid. After applying a mathematical model to a real problem you have to reality check... usually "optimizers" forget that...

 

[malraux]

If you feel that having a lot of the tricks codified for you ahead of time limits your creativity then it generally means either:

A: The powers encompass enough of what you want to do you don't need to look elsewhere. That's good game design.
or
B: You don't have the creative desire and/or capacity to look beyond what's on the page.

That's not a system flaw, that's a personally chosen interaction with the game.

In my experience, it's not A or B, but an unnoticed false dilemma fallacy. Unless you specifically think about it, its hard to remember that which your power cards represent many of your options, they don't represent all of them. It's not creativity lacking, its just that you get used to the cards in front of you and don't always see another option. Its fallacious, but it's still there.

Now I dunno if 4e is particularly worse about this than anything else.

 

[pemerton]

The difference between a 4E fireball and earlier editions lies not in the "description" but in the implications in 4E that a fireball is a "power" that transcends the fiction, whereas in earlier editions, a fireball is a real fiery object being summoned that could potentially wreck equipment, etc.

I think this is a very good point. I'm not sure I agree - part of the mechanics of a 4e fireball is its fire descriptor and its fire damage, which I think are clearly, and by the rules, relevant to the fiction (see eg the discussion of the vulnerability of objects to fire somewhere around p 60 of the DMG).

But I agree that there is a tendency to treat descriptors as purely mechanical notions, M:TG style. I don't see any support for this in the rulebooks (cf the aforementioned passage in the DMG, plus related stuff like the immunity of objects to psychic damage). I think it has an external cause.

But, we see this sort of mentality all the time, especially on this forum, where people will advise DMs against "nerfing" powers because of the fiction. Why is that?

I think it's largely to do with a disconnect between some of the mechanics and the fiction actually happening in the game and a general play and design ethos found in 4E.

My answer isn't necessarily at odds with your answer - so perhaps we're both right. I think it's to do with a certain conception of what the player is entitled to achieve, in the game, in virtue of having chosen certain powers, and a reluctance to build a fiction that coherently accomodates that - a certain laziness, if you like, of ignoring the fiction rather than working with it. I think this probably has the same external cause.

It's hard for me to describe the external cause non-pejoratively, but I think it's to do with a certain view of what RPGing is about - a pretty hardcore and non-Gygaxian gamism. And my view is that if you changed 4e to change the way in which fictional positioning interacts with the mechanics, you wouldn't get all these people suddenly playing fictionally rich RPGs - they'd either drift back to what they're doing now, or find another game/passtime. After all, whatever the authors intended, plenty of people played AD&D and Basic D&D, or for that matter RQ and RM, with less attention to fictional position in combat then occurs in the play of 4e.