D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how D&D 4E could have looked

OK on this "I would’ve much preferred the ability to adopt any role within the core 4 by giving players a big choice at level 1, an option that placed an overlay on every power you used or that gave you a new way to use them."
Basically have Source Specific Powers and less class powers. But I think combining that with having BIG differing stances to dynamically switch role might be a better idea so that your hero can adjust role to circumstance. I have to defend this NPC right now vs I have to take down the big bad right now vs I have to do minion cleaning right now, I am inspiring allies in my interesting way, who need it right now.

and the obligatory
Argghhhh on this. " I wanted classes to have different power acquisition schedules"

And thematic differences seemed to have been carried fine.

 

[Garthanos]

Given I'm almost always the one running, I'm okay with permission being required. Because I'm usually going to give it. And even when I am playing, I know my friends, and most of the time they'll let it slide too.

I have done totally free form gaming with my brother and friend so yes i know it can work wonderfully and even for magic too or super tech or whatever. So yes it can work.

 

[Garthanos]

Disadvantage can be an elegant way to give Martials 'Encounter Powers'. They get a power that works normally the first time it is used in an encounter and then after that, they get Disadvantage on using the maneuver.

Agreed that could be an implementation AND a battlemaster could get at-wills by sacrificing an attack from their attack action scanning for an opening to do a maneuver (as though they spent a superiority die)

 

[mellored]

Disadvantage can be an elegant way to give Martials 'Encounter Powers'. They get a power that works normally the first time it is used in an encounter and then after that, they get Disadvantage on using the maneuver.

IMO:
If an enemy has not seen you use this trick, you gain advantage. If the enemy has fallen for the trick, you get disadvantage for a number of days equal to their intelligence.

 

[Garthanos]

IMO:
If an enemy has not seen you use this trick, you gain advantage. If the enemy has fallen for the trick, you get disadvantage for a number of days equal to their intelligence.

That latter apply when they see another fall for the trick?

 

[MwaO]

IMO:
If an enemy has not seen you use this trick, you gain advantage. If the enemy has fallen for the trick, you get disadvantage for a number of days equal to their intelligence.

Think giving out Advantage rather than just having it be an option for a power to grant creates less opportunities for interesting options. A close burst 1 power in 4e or an option that grants Advantage

 

[pemerton]

By the nature of martial abilities, you don't need to define what is and is not possible. Because people generally have an idea. You just set the limits (how much you can lift, how far you can jump) and people can extrapolate and fill in the blanks.

I really don't see much evidence in the history of RPGs that this way of approaching it provides dynamic and capable "martial" characters.

This applies to everything from the stuff [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] is talking about, to exactly how many orcs my Conan-esque fighter can slay per game-unit-of-action, to the need in AD&D for my fighter to PC to get a girdle of giant strength if s/he is going to emulate a comic book hero like Power Man or even Captain America.

 

[Jester David]

I really don't see much evidence in the history of RPGs that this way of approaching it provides dynamic and capable "martial" characters.

This applies to everything from the stuff [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] is talking about, to exactly how many orcs my Conan-esque fighter can slay per game-unit-of-action, to the need in AD&D for my fighter to PC to get a girdle of giant strength if s/he is going to emulate a comic book hero like Power Man or even Captain America.

Look harder.

Every RPG ever has to deal with actions not covered by the rules. And in the absence of rules, DMs arbitrate based on acceptable realism. Typically cinematic. The "does this feel real?" test. Asking "would seeing a character do this in a movie break my immersion or seem implausible?" If someone asks if their character can do something, it's DMing 101 to think "is this physically possible?"

You really don't NEED a giant long list of everything a fighter physically capable. You can look at their abilities and decide if they can do a chin-up or not. Seriously. Have you ever seen any rules describing if a character can perform a chin-up? Seems like something that occurs in adventuring. Because you don't need rules for that. You know it's physically possible. You might even be able to do it yourself.

I tend to think of this in terms of the Die Hard movies. Several of the things McClane does in the first three Die Hards would have killed him. But it was close enough to reality that it didn't shatter immersion. You didn't look at it and go, "oh, that's BS. He'd be soooo dead." But then you watch other action films and something happens and it's just so ridiculously implausible you have to actively force your brain not to rebel. (Y'know, like in Die Hard 4 and 5.)

If the fighters in my game want to do something that feels like something McClane could do in a movie, then I don't need hard rules telling me it's humanly possible. Because it's self evident. So much so, you're apparently doing that without even noticing.

Contrast this with magic. Magic breaks the laws of reality. You need to define what magic can or cannot do.
If I say we're playing in an RPG based on a famous book series, then that establishes if a character can just casually snap their fingers and light a candle. Can someone effortlessly magic a candle alight?
If it's something like, oh, Dragonlance then the answer is "yes"... IF the character knows the appropriate cantrip. If we're playing a game based on The Witcher then also yes, as Geralt can light campfires pretty easily. If we're playing in a game inspired by the Kingkiller Chronicles then "no" as magic is sympathetic and creating even a small fire requires the caster to have a sympathetic link expend their own heat to ignite the flame.
Magic very much needs to be defined.

 

[Shasarak]

How many times does Mike want to redo 4e?

 

[Shasarak]

I really don't see much evidence in the history of RPGs that this way of approaching it provides dynamic and capable "martial" characters.

This applies to everything from the stuff [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] is talking about, to exactly how many orcs my Conan-esque fighter can slay per game-unit-of-action, to the need in AD&D for my fighter to PC to get a girdle of giant strength if s/he is going to emulate a comic book hero like Power Man or even Captain America.

Why would you complain that a ADnD Fighter needs to use a magical item to emulate a comic book hero who gets his strength after being injected with magical strength serum?

 

[pemerton]

Why would you complain that a ADnD Fighter needs to use a magical item to emulate a comic book hero who gets his strength after being injected with magical strength serum?

You're foucsing on the fiction. I'm focusing on the gameplay.

A rule that is at work in my 4e game - in virtue of one of the player's choice of epic destiny for a PC - allows that PC to wield bigger weapons that deal more damage. The fiction of the epic destiny is that the PC has grown in stature. I wouldn't mind if the fiction was, instead, that the PC has been injected with super-soldier serum or wears a girdle of giant strength. The point is that the mechanical power of the PC is the result of an inherent part of the PC build process, not dependent upon engaging a very different and largely GM-controlled part of the game system.

Every RPG ever has to deal with actions not covered by the rules. And in the absence of rules, DMs arbitrate based on acceptable realism. Typically cinematic. The "does this feel real?" test.

<snip>

Contrast this with magic. Magic breaks the laws of reality. You need to define what magic can or cannot do.

I've read more Dr Strange comics than I've watched Die Hard movies. I can do one as easily as the other - and in fact I do, in my Marvel Heroic RP and mechanically derivative Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy games. The character has a Sorcery skill, a half-page of descriptors in the rulebooks sets out its parameters, and we sort out the details through genre common sense. It works fine.

The reason it works fine is because there are clear mechanical systems for establishing difficulty and degree of effect, common across both "martial" and "magical" fields of endeavour. HeroQuest revised is another PC that works pretty much this way. (Though with looser - in fact largely freeform - descriptors.)

You really don't NEED a giant long list of everything a fighter physically capable. You can look at their abilities and decide if they can do a chin-up or not.

The things I mentioned included the stuff Garthanos referenced (acrobatic martial arts-y moves), how many orcs can be killed per game "move" (ie unit of game action), and the need to have a Girdle of Giant Strength to emulate Power Man. Chin up aren't on that list, so I don't see why you mention them.

Here's another example, from actual play:

Another thing that had been planned for some time, by the player of the dwarf fighter-cleric, was to have his dwarven smiths reforge Whelm - a dwarven thrower warhammer artefact (originally from White Plume Mountain) - into Overwhelm, the same thing but as a morenkrad (the character is a two-hander specialist). And with this break from adventure he finally had he chance.

Again I adjudicated it as a complexity 1 (4 before 3) skill challenge. The fighter-cleric had succeeded at Dungeoneering (the closest in 4e to an engineering skill) and Diplomacy (to keep his dwarven artificers at the forge as the temperature and magical energies rise to unprecedented heights). The wizard had succeeded at Arcana (to keep the magical forces in check). But the fighter-cleric failed his Religion check - he was praying to Moradin to help with the process, but it wasn't enough. So he shoved his hands into the forge and held down the hammer with brute strength! (Successful Endurance against a Hard DC.) His hands were burned and scarred, but the dwarven smiths were finally able to grab the hammer head with their tongs, and then beat and pull it into its new shape.

The wizard then healed the dwarf PC with a Remove Affliction (using Fundamental Ice as the material component), and over the course of a few weeks the burns healed. (Had the Endurance check failed, things would have played out much the same, but I'd decided that the character would feel the pang of the burns again whenever he picked up Overwhelm.)

In running this particular challenge, I was the one who called for the Dungeoneering and Diplomacy checks. It was the players who initiated the other checks. In particular, the player of the dwarf PC realised that while his character is not an artificer, he is the toughest dwarf around. This is what led him to say "I want to stick my hands into the forge and grab Whelm. Can I make an Endurance check for that?" An unexpected manoeuvre!

Resolving this depends upon the game establishing, in some sense, what is possible - in this case via a combination of the (fiction-oriented) descriptions of the tiers of play, and of the various paragon paths etc; and via a clear resolution system that can take Endurance checks as much as Arcana checks as an input.