Please step away from the 4th edition "effect everything" abilities.

[pemerton]

take the golem example. It immune to most of the mages spells!! Then the mage uses grease. Resist that.

The mage using grease in that scenario is just creative play. So whats stopping the rogue from creative play? Whats to stop him trying to setup a rope to trip the thing while the fighter holds it at bay, or looking for the loose section of ceiling to try and collapse on its head?

My issue with this sort of play is that either it's broken - "I drop the roof on the dragon again, wahoo, sucks to be it" - or it becomes a mechanically fairly routine element of action resolution - as per p 42 of the 4e DMG.

In the latter case, it can perhaps sometimes be creative, and I've got nothing against the players engaging the fiction, but everyone can do that. The rogue has no special monopoly on it. For example, a fighter can climb up onto higher ground to get the benefit of elevation to attack and defence. And still bring his/her "to hit" and damage bonuses to bear.

And frankly, a magic-user using a Grease spell to knock a golem prone isn't very creative at all. No more than using Charm Person to take control of an attacking lizard man. I have seen creative use of grease, but it wasn't by a spellcaster. It was a fighter in my 4e game. The PCs found some old jars of wrestling oil in a ruined gymnasium, and the fighter thought "what the heck, it might come in useful" and stuffed one into his backpack. A few days later he was fighting some golems and decided to throw the oil onto the floor, thereby increasing the effect of his forced movement by one square, thereby triggering his "knock prone if slide it more than X squares" ability.

I think that is creative play, because it involves the player actually engaging with the fiction now to set up a possible, but currently unknown, payoff later. A similar situation was the sorcerer who snaffled some copper wire (in H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth, I think) and is now trying to work out how to use it to enhance his Sparkform attack.

But again, these aren't things on which the rogue has a monopoly. And I much prefer it when this sort of creative, fiction-engaging play has a mechanical framework of action resolution to hook into, rather than requiring ad hoc adjudications (how much damage does a collapsing cieling do in AD&D?).

 

[pemerton]

I love the idea of "Smite Evil" being based on the Paladin's beliefs about the target, and not some inherent Evilness of the target (mostly because I can't stand alignment as a quasi-physical property of things; it shouldn't be anything more than a broad description of beliefs and behavior patterns). That doesn't mean it's "Smite anything", though. The Paladin can still have a Code. If it turns out that he smote something undeserving, a Paladin should be wracked with guilt. Don't make him "fall" because some immaterial, unknowable force made him fall to punish him. He should fall because he comes to believe that he deserves to fall.

I like the fact that Paladins can choose who they think is evil, and who isn't. And act according to what they think is true. I reject evilness as something that something is. Or goodness, or chaoticness, or lawfulness. It's cartoonish and silly.

I think it's far more interesting for a Paladin to smite something, successfully, and later find out it wasn't really evil after all, than for a Paladin to smite something, then rest easy knowing that it was inherently evil (or else the smite wouldn't have worked), so he was automatically right to kill it; no muss, no fuss, no thought, no drama.

<snip>

The Paladin would still have a code. An honest (Good) Paladin would not lightly judge others as evil, and upon judging wrongly, would be horrified to discover his mistakes. A dishonest Paladin might very well find NPC Paladins hunting him down for his betrayal to his code.

Yes. This is exactly how I like paladins to play out.

The first paladin that I GMed was in my first long-running Rolemaster campaign. Rolemaster's combat system is wound-based, and many times a target will be disabled without being killed. The first time the paladin actually killed a person was around 5th level, when the player rolled a 00 on a crit with his two-handed sword.

The paladin went into repentance, and headed out into the wilderness to pray. I rolled on the slightly overblown Rolemaster random encounter table and got a minor demon. Which came up to the paladin and started taunting him about how he'd done the wrong thing, could never be forgiven, the demon was here to punish him, etc. Now I expected the paladin's player to reason "Because this is a demon it must be lying; hence I am forgiven; hence I can kill this demon and then go and rejoin the party". But in fact he reasoned "I've done wrong; I've done such a wrong thing that my god has sent (or let come) this creature to punish me." And then the PC did not resist as the demon beat him senseless, before getting bored and wandering off elsewhere.

As you say, the well-played paladin will create and manage his own moral dilemmas well enough!

A more recent example in my 4e game involved the dwarf fighter-warpriest of Moradin (who is technically not a paladin, but near enough). The party wanted information from an evil priestess they had captured. The dwarf - who was also, in this context, the public face of the party, was sent off to do important errands while the party interrogators went to work. As part of their interrogation strategy, they promised in the dwarf's name to do their best to stop the prisoner being executed for her crimes, if she would reveal the information. This worked and the got the information. Now these PCs, being a ruthless bunch (all unaligned, one a paladin of the Raven Queen, one a very righteous wizard-divine philosopher of Erathis, one a drow chaos sorcerer and Demonskin Adept), were getting ready to break the promise and hand her over for execution. But the player of the dwarf getting bored, he had the dwarf come back into the interrogation room. At which point the NPC explained about the promise that had been made in his name. And so - to everyone's annoyance, including the player of the dwarf - he became bound to do what his agents had promised he would do, and arrange for her not to be executed. Which he did. (The player of the drow complained to the player of the dwarf, "Don't arrange for us to do your dirty work and then come in half way through, compromising the op!")

The well-played paladin will create his/her own complications arising out of the code, and the unwillingness to compromise.

Alignment rules are superfluous. If the player doesn't want to play this sort of character, alignment rules won't make him/her do it. And if s/he does, alignment rules just get in the way.

So you like the fact that Paladins can choose who is evil and who isn't?

Instead of something being actually evil, the Paladin can make that choice for them and Smite the hell out of them.

It is the player making choices for his/her PC. The alternative is that the GM makes choices, by enforcing alignment rules. I don't see what that adds to the game. Whereas I know what player choices add to the game - see my two anecdotes above (and there's plenty more where they came from).

 

[Belphanior]

Not so sure I would take it that far. If backstab is the only thing the rogue gets, I will cry. But again, take the golem example. It immune to most of the mages spells!! Then the mage uses grease. Resist that.

The mage using grease in that scenario is just creative play. So whats stopping the rogue from creative play? Whats to stop him trying to setup a rope to trip the thing while the fighter holds it at bay, or looking for the loose section of ceiling to try and collapse on its head? If rogue players walk into every situation thinking "damage output" is the only solution (and therefore the natural expectation of that being that backstab should work on everything), I will be very disappointed.

As an aside, I weep at the suggestion that casting Grease could be considered creative play.

But to the main point, in this example the mage still used magic. Even when faced with a "haha no" monster, he can still resort to using his big main class feature. Setting up a rope or collapsing a ceiling is something everybody can do (although with magic it's easier to do both by the way). You don't need class features for that sort of thing. One might as well suggest that it's fine if the wizard never gets to cast any spells, because he can maybe set up a rope or something.

 

[Herschel]

As an aside, I weep at the suggestion that casting Grease could be considered creative play.

But to the main point, in this example the mage still used magic. Even when faced with a "haha no" monster, he can still resort to using his big main class feature. Setting up a rope or collapsing a ceiling is something everybody can do (although with magic it's easier to do both by the way). You don't need class features for that sort of thing. One might as well suggest that it's fine if the wizard never gets to cast any spells, because he can maybe set up a rope or something.

Yeah, if casting Grease is considered "creative" then I'd say that's a pretty limited imagination.

 

[Paxter]

People call hunter's quarry and sneak attack lazy design, but if you want players to be creative, you need to stop being lazy DMs. Throwing a golem at a 3E rogue that essentially "turns off" his big combat contribution is exactly like putting a wizard in an anti-magic field. It's not fun to do that to players. It's just like a player completely nullifying your monster's awesome power: it feels like crap.

The players should always have the OPTION of tryin to burn down monster HP, but if the players find it's not working, they need to come up with creative plans as a party! A great DM would set up an encounter to force the party to think creatively, instead of just patting the rogue on the back and saying, "better luck next time."

As for fighters being the best fighters, does that mean they should do the most damage? Most classes in 4E do the same baseline damage with at-wills, but the striker roles ramp it up during certain situations through the use of their class features. That's how it should be!! If you want to be an awesome, feared combatant that holds the line, play a fighter. But if you want to crank out damage, play a striker.

If you want to kill things with a two handed weapon and tell your friends to take care of themselves, roll up a barbarian and call it a fighter to make yourself feel better.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Look, if they are going to give the Paladin a universal Smite then they need to call it something else. Saying the Paladin an choose to place the mark of evil on someone in order to Smite them is not lazy design but stupid design.

" Oh I don't like that merchant so I think I will Smite him"

So basically they will be removing alignment in order to give us universal abilities such as Universal Smite.

 

[slobster]

" Oh I don't like that merchant so I think I will Smite him"

So basically they will be removing alignment in order to give us universal abilities such as Universal Smite.

It seems like paladins in DDN will be empowered by their utter devotion to a set of virtues or ideals. Abusing his power by smiting cagey merchants is a betrayal of those ideals, and would likely result in a fallen paladin.

I like the ability to "smite everything" as a game design issue. You seem to dislike it primarily on the story level, which you believe is better served by limiting the paladin to smiting evil, however that is defined. And that's fine.

Where I think we can find common ground is the repercussions a paladin faces when he abuses his power. Game design is served by letting him be useful in most situations, but the paladin's oath restricts him by imposing repercussions if the player completely ignores the fiction surrounding his class.

I'll note as an aside that none of this needs the alignment mechanics to work, though. A fallen paladin is an oathbreaker because he broke his oath, not because his alignment changed from lawful good to chaotic good.

 

[fenriswolf456]

People call hunter's quarry and sneak attack lazy design, but if you want players to be creative, you need to stop being lazy DMs. Throwing a golem at a 3E rogue that essentially "turns off" his big combat contribution is exactly like putting a wizard in an anti-magic field. It's not fun to do that to players. It's just like a player completely nullifying your monster's awesome power: it feels like crap.

So the PCs should never be countered ever? I can agree that it shouldn't be a constant thing, but for the odd encounter, I have no qualms of somebody being less effective than usual. That adds to the challenge of the encounter. Say with that 3E rogue, the party now can't rely on being able to just burn down the golem fast with lots of damage. Now they might have to think of ways to help mitigate the damage the fighter takes, since they're going to have to take more hits before the golem is defeated. So the group may use abilities that apply status effects rather than straight out damage.

Yes, it does feel blah when characters are hampered. But it shouldn't be the case that a character is fully effective in every single thing they do in their adventuring careers. I play a cold-based Swordmage, and it did suck when we played an entire adventure against the Frost King with numerous opponents resistant to cold. It goes with the territory of specializing, there will be times when that specialty is going to be negated. Likewise, a 3E rogue specializes in hitting vital organs and such. I'm not saying 3E did a good job in implementing cases where that specialty couldn't work (blanket immunities based on creature type is lazy design, such things should always be done on a creature by creature basis), but I can agree with the sentiment that sometimes an ability just doesn't work for the situation.

The players should always have the OPTION of tryin to burn down monster HP, but if the players find it's not working, they need to come up with creative plans as a party! A great DM would set up an encounter to force the party to think creatively, instead of just patting the rogue on the back and saying, "better luck next time."

They can. The rogue can still attack and do damage. It's just their usual tricks of twisting the knife or cutting arteries doesn't seem to work on a creature immune to such things.

If you're meaning that PCs should always be able to do their full damage all the time to kill things, that's not going to promote creative play. That's an issue my group (and I'm sure lots of others) has found with 4E. The best condition you can put on a creature is the Dead condition, so the focus is usually on doing as much damage as you can every turn. If a rogue's backstab works all the time, why would they try to be creative and do anything else?

I'd rather an encounter where the trick is to push the iron golem back into the forge from whence it was created, than to just keep hacking away at it.

 

[Incenjucar]

So the PCs should never be countered ever? I can agree that it shouldn't be a constant thing, but for the odd encounter, I have no qualms of somebody being less effective than usual. That adds to the challenge of the encounter. Say with that 3E rogue, the party now can't rely on being able to just burn down the golem fast with lots of damage. Now they might have to think of ways to help mitigate the damage the fighter takes, since they're going to have to take more hits before the golem is defeated. So the group may use abilities that apply status effects rather than straight out damage.

Yes, it does feel blah when characters are hampered. But it shouldn't be the case that a character is fully effective in every single thing they do in their adventuring careers. I play a cold-based Swordmage, and it did suck when we played an entire adventure against the Frost King with numerous opponents resistant to cold. It goes with the territory of specializing, there will be times when that specialty is going to be negated. Likewise, a 3E rogue specializes in hitting vital organs and such. I'm not saying 3E did a good job in implementing cases where that specialty couldn't work (blanket immunities based on creature type is lazy design, such things should always be done on a creature by creature basis), but I can agree with the sentiment that sometimes an ability just doesn't work for the situation.



They can. The rogue can still attack and do damage. It's just their usual tricks of twisting the knife or cutting arteries doesn't seem to work on a creature immune to such things.

If you're meaning that PCs should always be able to do their full damage all the time to kill things, that's not going to promote creative play. That's an issue my group (and I'm sure lots of others) has found with 4E. The best condition you can put on a creature is the Dead condition, so the focus is usually on doing as much damage as you can every turn. If a rogue's backstab works all the time, why would they try to be creative and do anything else?

I'd rather an encounter where the trick is to push the iron golem back into the forge from whence it was created, than to just keep hacking away at it.

Why does this require eliminating other options?

Wouldn't you merely have to make it the more efficient option?

If a rogue has a 50/50 chance of dealing 6d6 sneak damage and a 50/50 chance of dealing 7d6 forge damage, BAM, "creativity."

 

[nnms]

My vote would be for a Paladin smite that specifically works on supernatural predators and that's it. Undead, demons, devils, fey, shadows, elementals, etc.,.

Basically make it the equivalent of yelling "get off my lawn!" to all those whippersnappers walking on the grass of the prime material plane.