Monsters and Armour...

[Spatula]

I pity every person who comes to the 4e rules forum looking for advice on interpreting the rules...

"Hey all, I'm trying to figure out how these rules in the DMG work. Is this right?"

"Who cares! Do what you want!"
^^^^ doesn't answer the question and is not telling people anything new.

 

[Zurai]

Amen.

 

[Grazzt]

I pity every person who comes to the 4e rules forum looking for advice on interpreting the rules...

"Hey all, I'm trying to figure out how these rules in the DMG work. Is this right?"

"Who cares! Do what you want!"
^^^^ doesn't answer the question and is not telling people anything new.

Just how it works in 4e. Thank goodness they figured out we don't need a friggin rule for every possible situation. DM interpretation worked fine for all editions prior to 3.x. Don't see why it can't work moving forward.

 

[Sashi]

Yes, this works perfectly. Player's LOVE getting screwed out of loot, just LOVE it.

Player1: "That drow had heavy armor and we found out he had an AC of 34, that must be some armor!"
Player2: "We check the armour to determine what the plus is on it! Happy days!"
DM: "It's mundane armour."
Player1: "No, it's not."
Player2: "I'm a bloody drow, I don't get innate +6 to AC, and there is no feat I can take that would give that to me, the armour is magic."
DM: "No, it really isn't."
Player 1: "Stop trying to screw us out of our rewards, you suck."

If the rules can't model a consistent world, the rules have failed.

WRONG! Because if said drow's AC was actually super high (say, the solo at the end of a dungeon crawl) then a treasure parcel is near at hand. He may actually be wearing magic armor (which the PCs could then take) or there might be a magical sword being held by the drow, or there might be a bounty on the drow's head. But if a 13th level party killed a Drow Blademaster, the response would be "huh, he was kind of tough" not "OMG Super awesome AC!". An AC of 30 is right in line with the proper AC for a level 13 elite skirmisher (level+14+2=29), which means that the party has been facing AC 30 foes for a long time. Nothing about an AC of 30 shoudl be that wierd, after all 4E characters (unlike 3E ones) actually DO get giant bonuses to AC for no apparent reason other than it makes them level appropriate.

What's really funny is that your theoretical players are actually applying 1E and 3E concepts to 4E, then complaining that 4E doesn't follow them.

1E: Any really cool magic item you encounter has to be used ON you first (this is VERY 1E, where if you want that sword of sharpness you've got to get a few limbs chopped off first, with the DM chortling all the way)

3E: Character power is directly proportional to the amount of money they've been able to acquire and turn into magic items. Therefore a dungeon's "treasure" hasn't been properly acquired until everything in it has been stripped bare. Players have always been taking Adamantine doors off their hinges and carting them away, but only in 3E was there the obsession with killing someone and then stripping them of everything that could possibly be valuable (since pound-for-pound, medium full plate is more valuable than platnium!).

4E partially goes back to the 1E concept of "treasure" being big chests of gold pieces, or ruby eyes in statues, a magic sword in the hands of a statue, or a small chest with a magic ring. It also goes with the 3E concept that the amount of treasure and magic items a PC should have isn't "whatever the DM feels like" but should follow some kind of laid out progression. Remember that 4E is very rigid about what the end result should be ("between 3rd and 4th level, the PC's should gain X amount of treasure") but the way that you grant that treasure can be as varied as you want.

 

[FourthBear]

Well, I thought the discussion was fine with MeMeMeMe and Spatula's posts on the subject, but if people want to delve into page 174 of the DMG, I guess I can.

I think it's pretty clear that the text in the section on Armor does need to have the language sharpened up. I think MeMeMeMe's calculations are correct from what is intended and makes the most sense in light of 4e's assumptions about defenses, but Spatula's calculations match what they give in this section, which is inconsistent with AC's definition in the PH.

The primary problem is that the calculations in the DMG don't make sense. The base of defense values such as AC, as given in the PH, is 10 + half level. The half-level bonus is added whether you're in light armor, heavy armor or stark naked. As noted in the actual calculations for the ogre savage, they are subtracting the half-level bonus as part of the Dex modifier. This half-level modifier should be subtracted from all ACs before you start worrying over the subtraction of Dex/Int modifiers depending on heavy or light armor. This is consistent with the way ACs are treated in the PH, so if consistency is desired, this should be the way ACs are treated. My guess is that, as a shortcut, the designers use the Mod + Half-level value given in the monster stat blocks for these calculations and started to think of *that* value as the stat modifier. Then, when they wrote the section on armor in the DMG, they forgot that this half-level modifier needs to be separated out from the calculations, since it applies regardless of armor type.

I should note that while in the specific case of the drow here, the chainmail isn't a big problem as a treasure item. However, as you go up in level, you will have the problems I noted, since the kind of armors needed to get reasonable ACs in the upper Paragon and Epic tier will need to be things like Wyrmscale and Godplate. These are, by definition, magic armor and quite valuable treasure. A DM should consider how to deal with this issue. Currently, opponents have a Magic Threshold bonus assumed. If this doesn't please the DM and players, I believe alternatives will need to be thought of.

 

[Celebrim]

The problem in your example appears to be greedy, petulant players, rather than a poor ruleset.

Whereas, to the players, the problem is a egotistical DM that cheats to achieve the result he wants and then tries to stiff the players out of thier just reward.

 

[Celebrim]

1E: Any really cool magic item you encounter has to be used ON you first (this is VERY 1E, where if you want that sword of sharpness you've got to get a few limbs chopped off first, with the DM chortling all the way)

As opposed to the 4E concept, the DM chortles all the way, then when you go to grab that uber sword, the DM says, "It's just a mundane sword. That monster simply had powers far greater than any an NPC could hope to obtain."

 

[FourthBear]

Whereas, to the players, the problem is a egotistical DM that cheats to achieve the result he wants and then tries to stiff the players out of thier just reward.

Just reward? I'm not sure on what basis that entitlement is justified, outside of the expectation of previous editions. I'm not aware of characters in the genre source material looting magical arms and armor off of nearly all of their humanoid opponents. Perhaps you can remind of such scenes in Tolkien, Vance, Leiber or Moorcock? As far as I'm concerned, it's a poorly justified expectation that leads to tedious overproliferation of magical items. I'll be very glad to see it eliminated, if possible.

Edited to add: To bring this around to my original point, if expectation is not based on experience in previous editions, plain greed or genre emulation, it is almost certainly based on concerns about verisimilitude. This is why I believe that the DM and players should agree either 1) no explanation is needed for the issue of NPC opponents not needing magic items to justify their stats 2) all NPCs do need magic items and the system will need some house ruling to deal with this proliferation of magic items or 3) the PCs commonly confront NPCs with some power source to explain their increased stats.

An example of the last would be if rituals were able to imbue a person with significant power from a patron (the appropriate attack and defense enhancements). The rituals would be specific to the patron and would require sacrifices vile enough to explain why they wouldn't be used by anyone other than depraved organizations. Further, they also give the individual a fatal vulnerability to the abilities of the patron and its allies (which may or may not be known to all of the recipients, but made clear to the PCs prior to learning of them). This way, it would be highly unlikely for any PC to want to gain this power, since it would involve making themselves helpless against an abusive power, as well as having to partake of a vile sacrifice.

 

[Sashi]

As opposed to the 4E concept, the DM chortles all the way, then when you go to grab that uber sword, the DM says, "It's just a mundane sword. That monster simply had powers far greater than any an NPC could hope to obtain."

How is this different from killing a 3.5 Ogre Mage and not being able to loot its Cone of Cold ability? The game has never pretended that you have to give a piece of treasure for every special ability and stat the enemy has.

 

[Sashi]

huzzah! double post!