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.

 

[Shasarak]

The last hit takes you down after no appreciable loss of ability before that call it what you want.

The last hit is both a crit discovered with a heros skills and was preceded by many many many attempts all bouncing off armor.. D&D ablates hit points as luck runs out (and now has relatively minor crits)

And for you every every every every single attack is a wound.. AND every every every every hero is a tough guy hero.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz how fun you get to decide for your game play and not for everyone else.

My characters I will continue picture turning accurate attacks into some sort of miss causing fatigue/luck loss and sometimes minor wounds. OR even if I have a regenerative hero
like a long tooth shifter not so minor wounds.

I guess my problem with a "lucky" character is that it kind of ignores the luck of the attack roll. For me the luck is the monster rolling a 1 and missing or my character rolling a save and succeeding. That was lucky.

If you describe your character as luckily dodging out of the way of a successful hit then it just seems...kind of fake to me. Its like the Black Knight getting bits chopped off while still refusing to acknowledge that anything bad was happening to him, although probably not because even he admits to a flesh wound.

It also clashes with any luck mechanics in the game. A lucky 5e Halfling can reroll an attack but your lucky character cant. A Luck Blade gives you a bonus to your saves and Wishes!

But the good news is that at least a Cure Light wounds can still heal luck damage, so thats lucky!

 

[pemerton]

I don't want max level characters who feel no fear when being surrounded and outnumbered

By whom? Bar-room thugs? Vrock demons?

The issues of whether being surrounded/outnumbered is a threat seems somewhat distinct from the issue of whether goblins should still be a threat to 20th level PCs.

But is that not what the minion mechanic does?

There are no paragon or epic tier goblin minions. (At least if one is playing in the default setting.) Ogres are minions at paragon tier.

I used hobgoblin phalanxes (swarms) at mid-paragon. At epic tier, the swarms are swarms of vrocks and other demons.

In principle one might use a goblin army as a threat at epic tier, but - and going back to a point [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] made upthread - 4e doesn't have good mechanics for handling this. (Swarms don't really work beyond 4 sq x 4 sq, and clearly an army is bigger than that.)

 

[pemerton]

for me some examples of what constituted say a Heroic tier difficulty door that had a DC of 8 vs one with a DC of 26... would have went a long way to not only reinforcing this assumed fiction change but also provided some guidance.

Do you mean the list in the DMG?

 

[Shasarak]

Do you remember 1e or do you just play it different the 1e players described what they planned to do and had their spokes person announce it to the dm and the dm adjudicated the order and interaction there of with regards to monsters actions using those player turns was really a 3e introduced very explicit turn taking before that it was very much trying to be emulating everyone acting at once...

Yeah, we never used a caller. I can not think of a reason why you would ever need one for 3 or 4 players.

We did use weapon and spell speed though, roll your initiative and add your action to the total and act when it gets to your turn. Does not scream action movie.

 

[pemerton]

So I found this interesting...

Because you agree that performances, qua performances, can involve variation? And you agree that MMOs do not involve the collective creation of a shared fiction?

That would put you on the side of both common sense and reason!

 

[Garthanos]

That's a genre preference, really: I don't want max level characters who feel no fear when being surrounded and outnumbered, or who cannot be flummoxed by social and environmental limitations.

Each tier is something of a genre change. Your desire to always feel fear of that sort is you telling me I am stuck with heroic class limits it is not appropriate for Odysseus and Rand from the Wheel of Time and Cuh Culaine and members of the Tuatha de Danaan and the Aesir and many others ie from Paragon through Epic. And Rand did the whole trip.

 

[pemerton]

The greatest sports moments in history come not from textbook following of the rules—after all, junior high kids can play a game following all the rules—but from the intersection of the rules with exceptional talent at the right moment.

And why would RPGing be any different?

Don Bradman remains one of the greatest batsman of all time. He didn't need to break the rules. He played within the rules.

If a RPG system only delivers great moments when the system is not used, what is it for? A set of guidelines?

you continued to misrepresent my arguments in my last post, insisting that I was advocating "ignoring" the rules.

Here are the quotes:

My take on this is that if your best RPGing moments are coming about when you ignore the system, then the system isn't fit for purpose!

I couldn't disagree more.

Also, you keep talking about the rules whereas I posted about the system. You seem to be treating these as synonyms, but I don't know what you mean by "the rules". (I do know what I mean by "the system". The same as what Vincent Baker means in the post here under the heading "Doing Away with the GM". It's more than just resolution mechanics, although they are part of it.)

 

[Parmandur]

By whom? Bar-room thugs? Vrock demons?

The issues of whether being surrounded/outnumbered is a threat seems somewhat distinct from the issue of whether goblins should still be a threat to 20th level PCs.

There are no paragon or epic tier goblin minions. (At least if one is playing in the default setting.) Ogres are minions at paragon tier.

I used hobgoblin phalanxes (swarms) at mid-paragon. At epic tier, the swarms are swarms of vrocks and other demons.

In principle one might use a goblin army as a threat at epic tier, but - and going back to a point [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] made upthread - 4e doesn't have good mechanics for handling this. (Swarms don't really work beyond 4 sq x 4 sq, and clearly an army is bigger than that.)

People with pointy sticks, so yeah, Goblins.

 

[Parmandur]

Each tier is something of a genre change. Your desire to always feel fear of that sort is you telling me I am stuck with heroic class limits it is not appropriate for Odysseus and Rand from the Wheel of Time and Cuh Culaine and members of the Tuatha de Danaan and the Aesir and many others ie from Paragon through Epic. And Rand did the whole trip.

Rand shielded facing ten swordsmen would be in trouble.

 

[pemerton]

People with pointy sticks, so yeah, Goblins.

I don't think that Hercules is seriously challenged by a group of Athenian hoplites surrounding him. Nor Lancelot, for that matter. Nor is Conan if he's able to get his back against a wall but otherwise is pressed by foes.

A character who can seriously threaten a demon prince seems to me to be closer to Hercules than Samwise Gamgee in overall power/heroic stature. I think 4e does quite a good job of presenting such a state of affairs.

I've got no real opinion on 5e combat other than that the monsters don't seem super-interesting. But 5e non-combat seems to me not to model "tiers" very well, for the sorts of reasons that I and others ( [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION], [MENTION=12749]MwaO[/MENTION]) have posted. The upshot (it seems to me) is that the DC for a high level fighter shoving his hands into the forge so as to stabilise the magic hammer so that the artificers can grasp it with their tools is impossible.