Mearls: The core of D&D

[Raven Crowking]

Then The Alexandrian remains wrong nonetheless, because everything said here could be said the same of the 3e wand of healing.

Beats the heck out of me; I neither wrote nor read that piece. My only concern here is the cause of the 15-minute adventuring day....what contributes to it, what does not. What claim is The Alexandrian making? I'll be glad to throw my $.02 in. I might even agree with you! EDIT: See next post.

Nor for that matter does the fifteen minute game not exist for any game ever save for those that automatically replenish everything at the end of each fight.

Back up, there. You just took another leap.

The 15-minute adventuring day can exist without "automatically replenish[ing] everything at the end of each fight." It exists because of factors, as described above, which make replenishing automatically the smart move after each fight. It is not necessary that everything be replenished; nor does it need to be after each fight. You could have a 15-minute adventuring day, for example, by resting after every two fights. Or by replenishing only spells, only healing surges, only hit points, or whatever.

The key points are (1) something to replenish which makes winning more certain (or, at the very least, mitigates against losing), (2) no consequences for replenishing this thing (which means that all the consequences fall on the "not replenishing" side) and (3) that the first two factors be clear enough that the players understand them.

You seem to hold the position that the fifteen minute day is either omnipresent or non-existent. That isn't true at all.

I'm puzzled as to where this comes from. Whatever makes you think I hold this position?

It should be painfully obvious that, when raiding an active location, factors can prevent resting that would not be present in, say, the Tomb of Eternal Traps Without Wandering Monsters.

Since the factors I site can be present in some cases, but not others, then it makes no sense at all to assume that the consequence of those factors is "either omnipresent or non-existent".

Furthermore, your example rests solely on the DM, not the player. The fifteen minute work day describes player action, whereas you describe DM action.

Huh.

Are you actually saying that you don't see the relationship between what the GM offers, in terms of context and consequence, and what the players choose to do?

Everyone at the table has an equal stake in making the game fun. Everyone has to contribute.

But the GM sets the conditions under which the players operate; his decisions largely determine what sort of choices will be rewarded in the game setting. The GM's decisions also largely determine what sort of choices will be punished. The range between these two -- between automatically knowing that X will work or Y will fail -- is the range of interesting/meaningful choices in the game.

This is no different than putting on a heavy coat in the winter. You may say that there is a world of difference between the coat-wearer's choice and the action of the sub-zero weather....but I say that one is a direct and obvious result of the other.

And, before someone feels the need to point out the obvious....yes, player input has a direct impact on the conditions set by the GM. But, that doesn't have any bearing on the fundamental point: The GM sets the context, the GM sets the consequences, and the players make choices within that paradigm.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

OK; I went back and read The Alexandrian.

As I understand it, the argument boils down to:

IF there is a limited resource to needed successfully handle encounters, and
IF that resource can only be restored after a given period Y,
THEN scenario design should only include X encounters before Y period of time, where X is the amount of resource available.​

That's rational.

A reply that would demonstrate The Alexandrian wrong about 4e would have to answer one or both of the two IFs.

Is there is a limited resource to needed successfully handle encounters? And is that resource only restored after a given period Y?

Note that this doesn't mandate a "15 minute adventuring day"....it could, for example, be a "four encounter week".


RC

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The threat of the party to go nova, and then get away with it for metagaming reasons, has been in every edition of D&D, albeit to varying degrees. The DM has always had the ability to combat it, with time-sensitive threats, and other such in-game levers.

What has changed over editions are the tools built into the game to make this easy on the DM and/or encourage the party to play along. Since the tools have varied on how they appeal (i.e. sim reasons, narrative reasons, metagaming reasons, etc.), naturally, different DMs and players have found some of the tools more or less useful and appealing.

Accordingly, I think it is nigh-useless to talk about handling nova issues, unless one is also willing to determine which tools a particular group will find acceptable. And for which campaigns--some options are more appealing to certain styles of a campaign, such that a given group might like that tool only part of the time.

For example, you can easily put in a sim/gamist limit on novas by limiting healing to relatively expensive magic and time-sensitive magic (that scales with level), and then sharply regulating funds. There--you can nova, but it will cost you a lot of treasure. Or you can go slower, and let threats mounts. Or you can be more strategic, and spend when speed is important. This will work in any edition, with minimal house rules. It just might not feel right for a lot of games.

 

[Raven Crowking]

For example, you can easily put in a sim/gamist limit on novas by limiting healing to relatively expensive magic and time-sensitive magic (that scales with level), and then sharply regulating funds. There--you can nova, but it will cost you a lot of treasure. Or you can go slower, and let threats mounts. Or you can be more strategic, and spend when speed is important. This will work in any edition, with minimal house rules. It just might not feel right for a lot of games.

Good post, CJ.

The important thing is that to nova should not be the obvious right choice, and to not nova should not be the obvious wrong choice. The decision should be within that middle ground of interesting/meaningful choices.


RC

 

[GSHamster]

Yes, The "Inherent Bonuses" system. Which I have already stated my dislike of.

An interesting system might be to cross Inherent Bonuses with magic items. Whenever a player gains a level, she "improves" one of her items. You can say that the improvement has to be tied to elements of the adventures that happened. For example, if the player just spent a lot of time in the North, maybe the inherent bonus is that her sword now does extra cold damage.

Add in a few restrictions, like magic items cannot be specifically created by other means, or you can't improve the same item two levels in a row.

So you get the bonuses so the math works, you get the fun of magic items, and you get this heirloom mini-game as well.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

An interesting system might be to cross Inherent Bonuses with magic items. Whenever a player gains a level, she "improves" one of her items. You can say that the improvement has to be tied to elements of the adventures that happened. For example, if the player just spent a lot of time in the North, maybe the inherent bonus is that her sword now does extra cold damage.

Add in a few restrictions, like magic items cannot be specifically created by other means, or you can't improve the same item two levels in a row.

So you get the bonuses so the math works, you get the fun of magic items, and you get this heirloom mini-game as well.

Still does the same thing as WbL magic items and Inherent bonuses without adding any new play space.

I'd rather magic items not be required for the basic math of the game to work. I'd like the majority of opponents to be designed based around the values of a PC using mundane equipment while other more thematically powerful opponents such as dragons and demons would be designed with superior equipment in mind.

 

[Hussar]

Still does the same thing as WbL magic items and Inherent bonuses without adding any new play space.

I'd rather magic items not be required for the basic math of the game to work. I'd like the majority of opponents to be designed based around the values of a PC using mundane equipment while other more thematically powerful opponents such as dragons and demons would be designed with superior equipment in mind.

But, that's very, very limiting on what you can do for most of the monsters. Funnily enough, dragons don't need superior equipment to deal with and never have. Demons and devils did have some fairly specific weaknesses, although the rules were rather lacking on exactly what a cold iron weapon was and how that affected the weapon.

But, what you're outlining here is a style of game where D&D becomes a low magic game - a goal that people have tried to achieve with every edition and mostly failed. If you limit magic weapons in earlier editions, you have to throw out a large swath of monsters and you're left with humanoids and giants for the most part.

Rare magic has never really been true in any edition. There's a reason paladin's in 1e and 2e were limited to 10 magic items, there was an expectation that the rest of the PC's would actually have more than 10 items. Most treasure types had somewhere between a 10-20% chance of multiple magic items, meaning that you were pretty much guaranteed to find multiple magic items per level considering how many lairs you actually had to loot to gain levels in 1e and 2e.

I totally agree that the whole +1 Lumpy Metal Item is boring as all hell. I7ll give 4e one prop - you almost never have just a +1 item. Almost all items have additional abilities. I just wish they had more flavorful abilities than they do. I think they should have gone farther.

 

[pemerton]

Sure, your "bane bow" is interesting to you right now, but that is mostly from the fact that it is unusual.

My own guess is that it's interesting because it interacts with the fictional environment, and forces gameplay decisions.

If every weapon did that or something similar you would consider it boring as well.

I think it can become tedious to track too many tactical and fictinal considerations all at once, but in my experience as long as the information-handling is kept at a reasonable level, it won't be boring.

The problem of +1 magic weapons being boring comes from +1 magic weapons being the norm. If non-magical/non-special weapons are the norm seeing a +1 weapon becomes exciting.

Only in the way that finding a magic fountain of improving stats is exciting - it's a buff!

Wheras the bane bow, or a flametongue, or an item that lets its wielder sacrifice hp to do more damage, or whatever, is more than a buff - it's flavour, it interacts with the fictional environment (a flametongue is stronger against skeletons than orcs, for example) and it actually feeds into player decision-making in an interesting and sometimes quite sophisticated fashion.

I've actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the "Wow!" factor of items come from, and let me give you a hint: the "Wow!" factor always comes from making the item stand out.

This depends a lot on what your players are looking for. My players don't particularly care for exploration for its own sake (although one of them is more inclined in that direction than the others). They care about engaging the gameworld via the choices they make for their PCs. And they like items that encourage this.

An example of this comes from my recent sessions:

The PCs found a shortsword that, about 100 years ago, had been recovered from the Shadowfell by a wizard, andchristened "Truth" by him, with the intention of presenting it as a powerful gift to the wizard's king. As is so often the case for purely backstory NPCs, the wizard never got to give the kind the gift, the king died, the kingdom fell, and the item lingered undiscovered until the PCs looted it.

The PC wizard, who is also an invoker of Erathis, Ioun and Vecna, used Arcana skill to investigate the sword. He suffered a severe psychic backlash and feelings of great animosity from the sword. He passed the sword to the party ranger, who in turn passed it to the tiefling paladin. The player of the wizard worked out that the sword must be the Sword of Kas, but wasn't sure about bringing that metagame conclusion into play. But with a +18 or so bonus in History, he didn't have much trouble with the check to have his PC work out what it was, and recollect various salient facts about it.

So the PCs now know that it is a Vecna-hating sword that once belonged to a feared vampire lord. And the paladin is busy trying to persuade the sword that its goals would be better served if it were reforged as a khopesh (the PC has Turathi Weapon Training, but has been using the shortsword rather than his khopesh for the past couple of fights).​

This item has the "wow" factor because it is situated in the game's fiction, and opens up a space for the players to make choices that matter within the fiction.

The best way I've seen this illustrated is from a letter in Dragon talking about what happened in a 2e Darksun game. In the letter, the writer talks about what happened when his party found a steel dagger for sale in a bazaar. A long story short, the party hatched a crazy scheme to steal the dagger, almost succeeded but ultimately failed after some poor dice rolls.

This is a story about a party doing crazy stuff to get good items. I've had players do this sort of thing too. The gameplay can be exciting when the stuff they're trying to steal is something other than a +1 dagger.

There's a reason paladin's in 1e and 2e were limited to 10 magic items, there was an expectation that the rest of the PC's would actually have more than 10 items.

This is a good point, that reinforces my view that, by the book, items are not that uncommon in classic D&D play, and finding +1 items isn't that spectacular an occurence.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

But, that's very, very limiting on what you can do for most of the monsters.

Much less so than either 3.X or 4th edition. In 4th edition, due to how the math is done, monsters follow a fairly narrow progression in power growth a levels increase. Monsters level 1-5 assume +1 equipment, 5-10:+2 , 11-12:+3 and so on.

Using 4th edition's 1 to 30 level span and +0 to +6 equipment variance, what I'm suggesting is that their can be monsters of all level's than expect +0 to +6 equipment. That's 7 times as much monster design space as 4th edition.

Funnily enough, dragons don't need superior equipment to deal with and never have.

Higher level dragons in 3rd edition had Damage Reduction that required +X weapons to bypass.

Folklore made a big deal about being properly kitted out when facing dragons. Beowulf had an iron shield made especially for his battle with the dragon. The Lambton Worm required special bladed armor to kill.

But, what you're outlining here is a style of game where D&D becomes a low magic game - a goal that people have tried to achieve with every edition and mostly failed. If you limit magic weapons in earlier editions, you have to throw out a large swath of monsters and you're left with humanoids and giants for the most part.

What I'm suggesting isn't inherently low magic. Just that it is easier to appreciate magical equipment when it has a noticeable effect.

Rare magic has never really been true in any edition. There's a reason paladin's in 1e and 2e were limited to 10 magic items, there was an expectation that the rest of the PC's would actually have more than 10 items. Most treasure types had somewhere between a 10-20% chance of multiple magic items, meaning that you were pretty much guaranteed to find multiple magic items per level considering how many lairs you actually had to loot to gain levels in 1e and 2e.

True, you would get a large number of magic items, but most of them will be potions, scroll, or various miscellaneous magic items and fewer pieces of equipment.

My perspective on the paladin magic item limit is that it was a munchkin/monty haul limiter, i.e. those campaigns where paladins, the supposedly most powerful class, were more likely to appear tended to hand out magic items a lot more making the class less abuse-able.

I totally agree that the whole +1 Lumpy Metal Item is boring as all hell. I7ll give 4e one prop - you almost never have just a +1 item. Almost all items have additional abilities. I just wish they had more flavorful abilities than they do. I think they should have gone farther.

When everything is special, nothing is.

 

[pemerton]

RC, some thoughts on a couple of things you said.

According the the DMG, p. 75, a creature of 4+1 HD or more can affect a creature which normally needs +1 or better weapons to hit.

<snip>

it is certainly possible for characters to gain control of creatures to which it does apply.

So, clever players may well defeat these creatures, by using other creatures and/or magic.

Or, as noted, casting spells.

From memory, the biggest creature Charm Person can affect, in AD&D, is an Ogre - which is able to attack as a +1 weapon. To get something bigger than that we're talking about 4th level spells (Charm Monster, Enchant Weapon), and I can't imagine there have been that many AD&D campaigns where (i) the GM was using monsters which require magic to hit, and (ii) 7th level PCs didn't have access to sufficient magic weapons to hit them.

So if we focus on the ogre example - I can see there is a certain sort of puzzle-solving wit in a low-level party working out "OK, how can we get the loot from the gargoyle in Room 4? I know, by Charming the ogre in Room 3 and having it fight the gargoyle for us!" But, a bit like the Tomb of Horrors as discussed in another recent thread, this is an approach to play that doesn't grip everyone - and certainly it doesn't grip me all that much, and after the first time I think I'd just find it tedious!

The alternative option of the wizard blowing up the gargoyle with magic missiles is, I think, more exciting (Lewis Pulsipher made this same observation in an early discussion of the merits of Charm Monster vs Lightning Bolt). But both strategies also have a sort-of "wizards trump" flavour that I'm also not a big fan of.

My preferred solution to this issue in AD&D - and one which I implemented in Rolemaster, which also has a "magical weapons to hit incorporeal and some non-fleshy monsters" rule - would be to have a first level spell (a cleric spell would be a good fit for D&D, I think) that grants no bonus but enables a weapon to count as magic. Then the cleric could bless the fighter's sword (which is what clerics do) and the fighter could beat up the gargoyle (which is what fighters do).

In AD&D 1e, a 10th level fighter with 100 hp, and the same fellow with 1 hp, both hit with the same frequency, and both do the same damage, but they are not the same. Nor, to be quite honest, do they fight the same, for it is unlikely (at best) that the player will make the same choices in each of these instances.

A fighter with 10 surges can afford to be reckless. A fighter with 0 surges cannot.

While I can see the force of the comparison, I also think there are some significant ways in which hit points and healing surges differ in the sort of effects that they have on play.

The key difference is that a player does not have to do anything to access his or her PCs' hit points, whereas s/he does have to do something to access his/her PC's healing surges. So no matter how many healing surges a fighter PC has, if the player can't access them then they won't do any good.

The upshot of this, at least in my experience, is that whether the fighter has few or many surges remaining, many of the tactical considerations with regard to accessing surges in the course of the combat are likely to be similar.

A fighter with 0 surges available is, perhaps, a special case - having only your hit points to rely on in a 4e fight is a tricky proposition, especially for a fighter. In this particular case, my experience suggests that play will more closely resemble that which you would get in AD&D if the fighter has significantly less than full hit points remaining.