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

[overgeeked]

This is I think where "natural language" helps in the various abilities and/or spells you find in 5E, 3E and before. 4E's powers were 90% the mechanical structure, with only one line or two of narrative fluff. Which meant unless you really worked at it, it could become too easy to just gloss over the fluff and only focus on the mechanics. And in that regard the mechanics would not inspire thinking necessarily of use outside of combat.

I don't think so. Some referees didn't read the DMG. Some referees were draconian in their restrictions. That's not something that's down to the rules being written one way or the other. Whatever their reasoning, I'm sure it would equally apply to natural language powers. Hopefully the players dealing with that simply abandoned that referee and they stopped running games or learned they were being an ass and stopped.

For instance, most of the fire spells in 5E specifically mention being able to light things on fire. Now while a DM might not have every single thing burst into flame each time a fire spell is used... having that detail written into the spell as part of the readable natural language can go a long way to remind players of this fact each time they pull up the spell to remind themselves how it works. Such that at some later point they might think "Oh! We want to set that things over there alight! I think one of my spells can do that!" And sure enough, it probably can.

Whereas a 4E player who had unfortunately skipped over the one sentence of fluff too often when looking at 4E powers... all they end up seeing when looking at some fire spell is the Target, the Attack, and the Damage (with or without special feature or damage on a miss). Thus the idea of being able to use the spell to set something on fire "outside of combat" gets missed because it isn't read or put in a prominent position within the write-up. Sure, some players will think of it anyway... but too many players perhaps would not or did not.

It's nobody's fault that this occurred... but it did change perhaps how people looked at the features in 4E differently than they might have in 3E/5E.

Eh. That's like putting warning labels on obviously dangerous stuff. Yes, obviously fire will burn things. If someone doesn't understand that fire burns things, that's entirely a personal problem for them. Again, a restrictive vs permissive mindset. "The book doesn't specifically say X, therefore not X." Nah, man. And again, why I vastly prefer old-school, OSR, or NuSR games. You never need to explain things like "fire burns stuff" to people.

 

[Cadence]

The last time I asked was after both my parents died within a year of each other. One guy said he could DM for a while, maybe, and there was no game again until I was ready to run again.

I'm so sorry to hear that :-( (On all counts).

 

[Kaiyanwang]

In fairness, the way players at the time responded, their condescension wasn't unwarranted. People did, in fact, cheer at the announced removal of Vancian spellcasting at one point.

"We've moved on from these things that cause problems and trip up the offered gameplay experience" isn't a snooty message when your players cheer on the "sacred barbecue."

These were for others just things that people enjoyed. You kind of prove my point.

What's this fascination with level drain (and ability drain for that matter) anyway? You're not the only person I see lamenting the lack of this mechanic. What's so great about it? It feels like such a gamist concept to me because a level is just a game mechanic. What even IS a 'Level Drain' in universe? And why couldn't we just represent that in-universe effect with a more streamlined mechanic that doesn't involve recalculating tons of naughty word? Same for ability drain.

Sorry to burst this bubble but the level is not really THAT gamist. People gain hit dice, which has an in-universe effect, which is mostly resilience and power, a closeness to the divine if you will. A greater vigor and vital force. Etc
Level drain is brilliant because it perfectly represent the vital force draining ability that undead have. Additionally, since levels are very important for the player, a level draining monster instills a true sense of dread that is well justified in-universe and at the table. Is an absolutely great mechanic that ties universe and gameplay.

And I found the same with much of the adventuring rules that are out there compared to AD&D, 3e, and 5e. The 4e ones always seem more fixated on encounter-level involvement than other editions. But that's 4e's particular myopia - it's THE edition focused most tightly on providing a particular combat encounter experience.

I think this nails it perfectly, and also nails the "blindspot" many 4e supporters have in the thread. The overall considering not important stuff people cared about and then dismissing their concerns, and THEN get mad they didn't join 4ed and accusing people of not "getting it" or the PH1 being "bad at presenting the game" or something. Which is offensive toward the 4e designers if you think about it.

That's a good point I'd never quite verbalized before. You can see this focus just in the fact that 4e has Encounter based recharge powers and 5e has Short Rest based recharge powers. We can quibble over the ideal length of a Short Rest, or point out that they're functionally fairly similar to each other, but the difference in how the two measure time is telling.

Point being, there is an abyss of difference between a per-encounter mechanic and a short rest one because a short rest is way easier to identify in-universe. Say you fight 3 orcs for 4 rounds, then 5 rounds nothing happen, then 6 goblins arrive. In 5e we know there is no short rest, there is no time. In 4e, is that a different encounter? If yes, would have been that different if the goblins arrived in the last minute of the orc fight? If so, what happened? What if there was only one round of rest, would that count as encounter separator? If that is enough to rest, would taking a breath during the figtht allow me to recharge my encounter powers? After all, I can Second Wind. And so on. Dissociated mechanic.

neither of these are the reasons why 4e failed, they did not help, sure, but 4e failed because of the 4e rules and how they were written. It was not a good game that failed due to circumstances outside of its control, it primarily failed because it did not deliver what people wanted from D&D.

In fact, many factors point to the fact that during a crisis cheaper goods sell better.

Yep. That's the core problem of modern, WotC-era D&D. In TSR-era D&D combat was deadly and best avoided. WotC centered combat in all of their editions but, as a result, could not make it deadly. Which they didn't figure out until after 3X.

3.X was infamous for a quick death due to a SoD spell or a greataxe crit. Or some stone-turning effect. Or level drain stacked up. More combat centric for sure, but call the combat not deadly seems odd to me.

After seeing the 3.5e stat blocks of Kyuss and Demogorgon in Dragon Magazine, I can understand the impulse to cut things down. Overcompensating seems to be the right description.

Those are end-game monsters. Monsters that both the DM and the players "earn" as a culmination of a long journey. 1st level encounters don't have such stat block.

 

[billd91]

That feels like a pretty meta way to look at it. Seems to me the appeal isn't the condition itself, but rather it's duration. 4e had the disease track, which could be used for curses and long lasting injury and I think that mechanic REALLY should be brought back.

In a sense, a separate track is what the PF negative levels were with each negative level taking you to the next place on the track (with basically a cumulative -1 on d20 rolls and -5 hp).
Disease tracks and the SWSE condition track are always interesting ideas that potentially have a useful place.

 

[billd91]

Those are end-game monsters. Monsters that both the DM and the players "earn" as a culmination of a long journey. 1st level encounters don't have such stat block.

True, but a little over 2.5 pages in Dungeon Magazine for Kyuss is still a bit much.

 

[Undrave]

Sorry to burst this bubble but the level is not really THAT gamist. People gain hit dice, which has an in-universe effect, which is mostly resilience and power, a closeness to the divine if you will. A greater vigor and vital force. Etc
Level drain is brilliant because it perfectly represent the vital force draining ability that undead have. Additionally, since levels are very important for the player, a level draining monster instills a true sense of dread that is well justified in-universe and at the table. Is an absolutely great mechanic that ties universe and gameplay.

There is no way a level is not a game concept.

And if something scares the PLAYER then isn't that a dissociated mechanic? It should scare the characters first.

Again, why does draining vitality have to be represented specifically by lowering your level? Why not just say 'You can't recover Hit Dice beyond half your maximum while this curse is still in effect' or 'You have a -X penalty to all d20 roll. If the result of your roll is 1 or below, you lose a hit dice, hit dice lost this way cannot be recovered while this curse is in effect. If this curse makes you lose all your hit dice, you die.'. There, devastating curse that doesn't need tons of book keeping.

Point being, there is an abyss of difference between a per-encounter mechanic and a short rest one because a short rest is way easier to identify in-universe. Say you fight 3 orcs for 4 rounds, then 5 rounds nothing happen, then 6 goblins arrive. In 5e we know there is no short rest, there is no time. In 4e, is that a different encounter? If yes, would have been that different if the goblins arrived in the last minute of the orc fight? If so, what happened? What if there was only one round of rest, would that count as encounter separator? If that is enough to rest, would taking a breath during the figtht allow me to recharge my encounter powers? After all, I can Second Wind. And so on. Dissociated mechanic.

It's one encounter. A short rest is specifically 5 minutes and 5 rounds is only 30 seconds. There's zero ambiguity here.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

To be seen in play. That is what we are doing, yes? Playing a game?

I have to address this separately because I think is egregious.
We are indeed playing a game. But this game also included world building and magic and mystery that go beyond combat.
What I talked about when discussing the preview books and the bad job they did, I think one of the worst offender was the concept on the designers part that monsters are supposed to exist for few rounds. Which is ridiculous for two reasons.

First, both the characters and the monster can flee and regroup, or use hit and run tactics that can prolong the skirmish from rounds to minutes to days. Secondly, there are monsters that can regenerate or be killed only in specific ways, which make them automatically "big returners".

More importantly, the monster does not exist to be killed by the PCs. It exists as a creature within its own world, with needs and, if intelligent, wants, plans, aspirations and abilities that can have an impact in his social sphere. Even in its activities that are on the offensive side, the monster can have spells or qualities that work better out of combat, like reanimating the dead or spreading diseases. I think in an highly magic and supernatural game like D&D, this should be reflected by special abilities on the monster's part.
Additionally, many of the monsters are inspired by legends and fiction. An Efreet that does not grant (and twist) Wishes is not a true Efreet. Is Fire Plane Guy #4984.

A well designed monster should not be just beatstick. But on top of THAT, it should also have abilities that have an impact on the gameworld, proportional to its power level, and these abilities should be fairly split between combat-adjacent ones and others completely unrelated to that.
4e did great for many low-to mid level monsters avoiding the boring beatstick. See what I wrote about the cyclops up thread. But it neutered high level abilities and OOC ones.

 

[Retreater]

Why would you choose to run it that way? The books don't tell you to do that. The advice points rather dramatically in the other direction. Skill challenges and player quests point in the other direction.

Every published adventure tells you to run it that way. And the examples in the core books to create your own are woefully inadequate and terribly explained. The issue of terribly explaining them to DMs is exacerbated because DMs are also not given the tools to explain them to the players.

Skill challenges feel artificial - like a dice rolling exercise laid over a Choose Your Own Adventure flowchart. My group simply cannot grasp them.

My players don't care enough about their tokens to create a magic item wishlist or player quests. Their characters might as well be the thimble from Monopoly or the green car from the Game of Life.

I just...why? Why does that feel out of place?

Because character abilities and powers only fit in the confines of an encounter template. There's been no 4e campaign world imagined where At-Will powers by low-level characters function in their reality.

 

[niklinna]

I can see the benefit but I also feel like something is lost. It feels like code without presentation.

It looks like great presentation to me. I'm not looking for flowery language when I'm trying to resolve an action; I want to resolve the action and get on with play.

Or put another way, I want to be immersed in my play, not in the text of the rulebook.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

There is no way a level is not a game concept.

And if something scares the PLAYER then isn't that a dissociated mechanic? It should scare the characters first.

The way we call that increased power is a game concept, but the power increase is not. I have a lesser chance to one-shot with a sword strike a level 2 character compared to a level 1. The increased vitality and resilience exists in-universe, WE call it level.

Again, why does draining vitality have to be represented specifically by lowering your level? Why not just say 'You can't recover Hit Dice beyond half your maximum while this curse is still in effect' or 'You have a -X penalty to all d20 roll. If the result of your roll is 1 or below, you lose a hit dice, hit dice lost this way cannot be recovered while this curse is in effect. If this curse makes you lose all your hit dice, you die.'. There, devastating curse that doesn't need tons of book keeping.


It's one encounter. A short rest is specifically 5 minutes and 5 rounds is only 30 seconds. There's zero ambiguity here.

That max HP limit in specific is an interesting mechanic that some undead somewhere actually has, and is nice to add in the same way other undead like the Wraith drain Constitution instead. In-universe, they have different ways to mess you up, sometimes your health (Wraith) others your sanity and presence (Allip).
Level drain in 3e also removes the highest spell slot from spellcaster, something PF1e unwisely removed. Adds a penalty equal to the level drained to skill and ability checks, saving throws, effective level, and removes 5 HP per drain (which is also harsher on arcane spellcasters, usually). It's messed up, and the fact that also the PLAYERS fear it doens't mean the PCs don't. In this case, the negative reaction is well justified in-and-outside the universe, which is a big plus.

Is that's one encounter in 4e or 5e?