New Legends and Lore:Head of the Class

[Nagol]

Wait... what?

I resolve the encounter, defeated the monster, and you, the DM don't award me xp for this?

Considering that earlier editions only awarded xp if you KILLED the opponent, while 3e and 4e award it if you DEFEAT the opponent, I'm really not sure where you're getting this.

The classic D&D trope is to throw a distraction like food while beating a hasty retreat in an effort to get away with limited engagement not to defeat the encounter. Typically, the critter beats you, its just that you don't care as your goal was to escape with your resources intact/treasure gained and avoid a pointless fight. Usually, the encounter wasn't resolved so much as postponed. That critter is still there and still needs to be faced if that passage it to be used again.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Nothing there.

There are no generic humans / elves / dwarves / etc. in the Monster Manual?

I disbelieve the illusion!

Not even a mention of level/role to use as a benchmark.

But, given that you do have a full set-up to use them in a skill challenge, presumably you have enough information to hazard guesses (e.g., that one's a minion, this one's a brute, etc., of approximately the party level)?

 

[pemerton]

Run the damn thing in 1E so statblocks on the fly are a sane option.

Maybe this is the real point at issue. I think a lot of people run 4e statblocks on the fly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

4e is pretty intimately tied to the encounter as the source of "fun" in the game.

And specifically it is tied to the combat encounter as the source of "fun" in the game.

Think of it this way:

What your character can do in the game is mostly defined by class.

Class is mostly defined by powers.

Powers are mostly defined by Attack Powers (for offensive use in combat) and Utility Powers (for defensive use in combat).

What opposes your character is mostly defined by monsters.

Monsters are also mostly defined by combat powers.

What you can do is mostly defined by combat at the level of the character you create and the challenges you face.

This is not exclusive, of course. It's not ONLY combat. You have a few utility noncombat powers. You have rituals. You have skill challenges. You can do stuff other than just combat.

But rituals are rather poorly designed GP-sink patches, by and large. And skill challenges lack significant variety or strategy. And utility powers are a choice between combat effectiveness and noncombat flavor, and since most of your threats are combat threats since most of your threats are monsters, you're encouraged to pick combat powers.

A determined DM and an amenable group don't HAVE to be combat focused, and not every group wants rules for roleplaying, but the design of the game undoubtedly is focused on combat (even if it doesn't exclude other things)

Not that this has changed dramatically in 40 years, of course. D&D was the outgrowth of wargames. Combat is vitally important to every edition.

But 4e's siloing project went slightly askew when it decided to kind of phone in the rules design for anything that wasn't minis combat. It's smart to make it so a character doesn't have to choose between being effective in combat and with a good flavor. This is Wise. It's not smart to make most everything that's not combat bland or ill-considered. That's rough.

I think we can do better, and I think it begins with considering combat as a part of a whole, rather than as a goal in and of itself. Going "back to the dungeon".

Personally, I think this begins with expanding the use of long term resources. The idea that any sort of rest makes your enemies stronger is a good one for focusing beyond the encounter, into the context in which the encounter is situated in. Add a few more things to loose aside from healing surges, and make even victory cost something, and we're on our way.

BUT, what that means, in part, is developing simpler rules for combat, and more complex rules for exploration, discovery, and interaction. And the current class structure, with Attack powers and Utility powers and little else, gives you little to use there. And the current threat structure, with monsters and encounters and little else, doesn't give you much, either.

But that's for the adventure I'm working on...

 

[Saeviomagy]

You wouldn't do it in 4E because you don't have any kind of rules for those things, and the guidelines for ruling out-of-the-box are pretty shallow.

I'm not really seeing where this is the case, apart from people's misconceptions...

At a glance not assuming heavy houseruling I would agree with that assessment because of two little words:

THE ENCOUNTER

XP in 4E is gained through overcoming challenges which are made up of individual encounters. If the encounter is set up as a combat challenge then the foes must be overcome to earn the xp. Treasure is a reward for jumping through the hoops of the challenges.

See, to me the fact that it's an "encounter" and not specifically killing a foe that results in XP suggests the opposite... And if I'm not mistaken, the DMG agrees with me.

I guess I'm just at a loss to explain where the lack of rules for non-combat stuff in OD&D is somehow superior to the lack of rules for non-combat stuff in 4e. The only real difference is that combat now takes longer... and that's really only because it's involving the entire party instead of excluding half of it.

And that's pretty much where I can see the sliding scale of complexity being a good thing. If an area of the game doesn't pique your interest, you can dial the complexity down and phone it in, letting everyone else get on with it, then dial it up for the parts of your game that you enjoy.

But I think you need to do that on a player-by-player basis and across the board. There are players who just want to roll the diplomacy skill and contribute. I think that forcing them to give a speech, or cranking the complexity up to combat levels is not going to make them any happier than forcing the guy who wants to say "I hit it with my sword" to pick between 3 at wills, 4 encounter powers, 4 dailies and all the feat permutations possible therein will.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) and that's really only because it's involving the entire party instead of excluding half of it.

Please elaborate.

 

[Hussar]

Please elaborate.

How much is your rogue contributing to a combat vs a golem?

As far as the "throwing food to the encounter" goes, well, I'm really not seeing a whole lot of difference.

In 1e, I delay the encounter by throwing it some food. If I don't come back, I don't get the kill xp.

In 4e, I delay the encounter by throwing it some food. If I don't come back, I don't get xp.

Where's the difference?

On exploration - Isn't it funny that it's perfectly possible to play earlier versions of D&D without tracking food and ammo but, suddenly, when the rules don't tell you to track food and ammo, people are apparently completely incapable of playing without those rules.

I can't be the only one who played earlier versions of D&D where we wrote 2 weeks iron rations on our character sheets and then promptly ignored anything remotely resembling daily accounting. And the game played perfectly fine.

If you want to track ammo and food in 4e, what's stopping you? The game works perfectly fine if you do. I guess I'm just not really seeing the difference here, other than the baseline now speaks to me instead of you.

 

[Mark CMG]

(snip)

Thanks, Hussar. So, again, Saeviomagy, regarding your personal experiences with combat . . .

The only real difference is that combat now takes longer... and that's really only because it's involving the entire party instead of excluding half of it.

Could you eleborate? You feel that the only difference in combat between old D&D and newer D&D (I'll assume you probably mean to include more than just 4E and (O)D&D) is that half the party doesn't participate in combat?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Please elaborate.

Yes please do.

As far as I recall, a golem required a magical weapon to hit. Thus a fighter without such a weapon would be just as ineffective as the thief, and if both were armed with magic weapons then they could both participate fully.

Golems in 1E AD&D also had immunity to all but a few spells meaning that casters without the specific magic to use were in the same boat as martial characters without magic weapons.

The very nature of a golem made it more than just a monster. Depending on the experience and preparedness of the party, it could serve as a nasty deathtrap to be avoided, a really tough opponent in combat, or just a plain old monster.

 

[I'm A Banana]

See, to me the fact that it's an "encounter" and not specifically killing a foe that results in XP suggests the opposite... And if I'm not mistaken, the DMG agrees with me.

Not a huge amount of difference in 4e between killing them and knocking them out. You can try your social skills, but your typical NPC or monster isn't set up to have much in the way of social skills, so it involves a lot more DM winging-it.

I guess I'm just at a loss to explain where the lack of rules for non-combat stuff in OD&D is somehow superior to the lack of rules for non-combat stuff in 4e. The only real difference is that combat now takes longer... and that's really only because it's involving the entire party instead of excluding half of it.

OD&D had plenty of noncombat stuff, mostly in the hands of the cleric and wizard. Invisibility, charm person, cure disease....the "Fighting Man" had less, but the fighting man was supposed to be the one to overcome the combat challenge. The "magic user" was there to overcome most of the other challenges, with the cleric there to help the party recover (and contribute a bit in both challenges).

This "noncombat magic" remained a feature of every spell-using class up until 4e, where it was located in the poorly expensed Rituals system.

I think this was an effect of loosing sight of the larger context in which the combats occur in. Earlier editions were balanced around the idea that some classes were "good at combat," some classes were "good at exploration," some classes were "good at interaction"...(and a few were good at everything, potentially...). I'm not so sure this was as true in 3e (except maybe for the bard), but it was certainly true up until then.

Again, not that this is the best way to handle it, just that it's probably a better way to handle it than the rituals system.

And that's pretty much where I can see the sliding scale of complexity being a good thing. If an area of the game doesn't pique your interest, you can dial the complexity down and phone it in, letting everyone else get on with it, then dial it up for the parts of your game that you enjoy.

I am fully on board for this!

But I think you need to do that on a player-by-player basis and across the board. There are players who just want to roll the diplomacy skill and contribute. I think that forcing them to give a speech, or cranking the complexity up to combat levels is not going to make them any happier than forcing the guy who wants to say "I hit it with my sword" to pick between 3 at wills, 4 encounter powers, 4 dailies and all the feat permutations possible therein will.

It's true, some people will want to be simple no matter what.

But some people who want to say "I hit it with my sword" will also want to make an elaborate speech, and some people who just want to roll a Diplomacy check will want to choose powers and engage tactically.

And that's part of why the complexity needs to be a "dial," and not a "switch," ideally.