D&D General New Interview with Rob Heinsoo About 4E

[SteveC]

@Undrave and @SteveC: If that's the case, why is not used on other spells. You are giving me very elaborated answers but not addressing the point. You don't have to explain me what Arcana does, you have to justify why is used here and here only.

It's a simple answer: you use it, and other skills, all the time for all sorts of reasons.

I wasn't aware of the Conversational method of running a game, but I was doing that even back in those days. We play in a conversation. I tell you the situation, you ask me questions about it, and then eventually tell me what you're doing.

I check if you have a power or ritual that either lets you do this automatically or has special rules for it. If not, and I believe you should be able to attempt it in terms of the Fiction, you make a check (if there's a chance of failure and consequences for failure). We see if it's a success or failure, and then I narrate how the situation has changed. And then we go back to you telling me what you're doing now.

Think of it as an informal skill challenge where there's a situation, and you tell me what you're doing to address it. I've been running games that way since the 90s, and I think 4E's skill challenge rules encouraged me to do it that way. It's how I run 5E or Pathfinder 2 now. And how I run Fabula Ultima or Daggerheart.

I think a lot of this comes from how we used to play 0E back in the 70s when you didn't have powers at all and you had to do everything this way. DM describes, player tells, and then you roll a die if you need to figure out what happens.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I...I just said that. I literally said that.

"Skill with manipulating the tone and structure of your voice via magical knowledge and practice does not translate to better ability to land other types of spells."

Are you even reading what I write?

But this only points out the inconsistency of the design and why the way 4e built is creates a disconnection. One would wonder why magical knowledge doesn't help me in better burn people alive with fireball.
Is a non-explanation, you basically have to adapt your fiction on the fact that the power is illogical and not well linked to the rest of the game and game universe.
Which is what turned off people from 4e.

 

[mamba]

You are literally performing magic. How else? You are invoking arcane power to achieve an end. It's not in a neat package, you're improvising magic to do the job.

then why do I not use this constantly to cast improvised spells and only fall back on my learned ones every once in a while because they reliably work?

I should be able to cast an improvised magic missile or similar pretty reliably, might as well just Arcana-check most 1st and 2nd level stuff

 

[SteveC]

But this only points out the inconsistency of the design and why the way 4e built is creates a disconnection. One would wonder why magical knowledge doesn't help me in better burn people alive with fireball.

That's a simple answer: because the designers didn't do one set of rules for target numbers across the board. Skill ratings are different than attack powers. It's just the design. If you play a game like 13th Age, there's only one set of target numbers you can do everything in one way.

 

[Undrave]

If that's the case, why is not used on other spells. You are giving me very elaborated answers but not addressing the point. You don't have to explain me what Arcana does, you have to justify why is used here and here only.

And I think there is a reason for this. Is all "post facto". There was no vision behind this beyond crippling any "open" spell or power under 4e restrictive design. Otherwise there would have been an integrated connection of Arcana and spellcasting which is simply not there in the overall game.

It's used here because it's a skill and you were using a skill. It's a simplified buff: Instead of having you gain a specific +X to your Diplomacy roll, they cut to the chase and have you roll Arcana directly. If you buff your Arcana Skill, this spell become stronger without needing to be rewritten.

Yeah it's crippling spells that auto-win. It's on purpose. Your Suggestion doesn't automatically go through just because you spent your magic coupon, you have a chance of failure like any other mundane character during a social situation.

You don't need to use Arcana for other spells because you already have an attack roll included as part of your power who are ALSO Arcana Power source and demands your INT like the Skill. 4e doesn't stack on failure points.

There's a bunch of ability in 4e that lets you substitute one skill for another, it's not exclusive to the Wizard or the Arcana Skill. It's a known mechanic.

 

[SteveC]

then why do I not use this constantly to cast improvised spells and only fall back on my learned ones every once in a while because they reliably work?

You actually could. The 4E DMG and infamous page 42 has rules for improvised attacks and damage effects. I think you would want to expand on those rules if you wanted to use them all the time (something that would have happened if 4E was OGL I'm sure) but you absolutely could. Maybe your DM wouldn't like having to do all this work on the fly, so it would be a negotiation process.

Edited to add: one more thing. To be fair, your powers were able to do more damage and have better effects than what you would end up with using the improvised rules. This was intentional so you'd primarily use powers, but you could do so.

 

[Undrave]

then why do I not use this constantly to cast improvised spells and only fall back on my learned ones every once in a while because they reliably work?

I should be able to cast an improvised magic missile or similar pretty reliably, might as well just Arcana-check most 1st and 2nd level stuff

The point is that those improvised spells are NOT reliable and are weak effect. It shouldn't be stronger than 1st or 2nd level powers because those are the formal reliable powers.

 

[Belen]

If they didn't want to put in the minimal effort demanded by a complex system like 4e, it probably wasn't for them as they clearly didn't care for tactical combat. And that's perfectly fine. As for what else they could have played I don't recall what all was available in 2008 so I don't know. It also depends what attracted them to try D&D of course and also depends what they mean by 'just want to hit things'.

Personally I have trouble understanding what makes Twin Strike or Cleave or Eldritch Blast that much more intimidating than a melee basic attack, but I'm not your pals so... who knows?

I think the issue is that 4e choose a specific playstyle and said that was the D&D playstyle. The classes did different things but fundamentally that all worked using a similar core mechanic. You had at-will, encounter, and daily powers.

I argued this a lot at the time but 4e was a departure from previous versions of the game. Previous versions supported different styles of play and different types of players. 4e supported choose the style of play and did not leave a lot of variation for players who did not enjoy that style.

It is not the effort involved. It was that 4e did not simulate the range of styles that people were used too seeing in the game. This was a fundamental departure.

 

[MockingBird]

If they didn't want to put in the minimal effort demanded by a complex system like 4e, it probably wasn't for them as they clearly didn't care for tactical combat. And that's perfectly fine. As for what else they could have played I don't recall what all was available in 2008 so I don't know. It also depends what attracted them to try D&D of course and also depends what they mean by 'just want to hit things'.

Personally I have trouble understanding what makes Twin Strike or Cleave or Eldritch Blast that much more intimidating than a melee basic attack, but I'm not your pals so... who knows?

That's the rub ain't it? It's D&D, a very recognizable name. I don't think you are meaning it in this way but it kinda sounds like they were too dumb to play the game. In my opinion that's a failure in the game if the intended play style isn't sticking to potential new players.

I don't think it was intimidating them as much as maybe it was just too many choices they didn't want to bother with. When 1d4 thru 1d20 is foreign to new players it probably all just looks the same.

 

[Undrave]

Is a non-explanation, you basically have to adapt your fiction on the fact that the power is illogical and not well linked to the rest of the game and game universe.
Which is what turned off people from 4e.

Here's another exemple of Arcana being used in place of another skill, the Knock ritual:

Make an Arcana check with a +5 bonus in place of a Thievery check to open each lock or closure. (See the Thievery skill description, page 189, for example DCs.) To undo bolts or bars you normally couldn’t reach, you must succeed on a DC 20 Arcana check.

Many rituals ask you for a skill check to determine the 'quality' or 'strength' of the action you want to accomplish. This is just the same mechanic, but with a shorter time frame. Knock was in PHB1 and Suggestion in one of the Essential book. It wasn't out of nowhere or unfamiliar a mechanic. At all.