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

[Herschel]

...So the group may use abilities that apply status effects rather than straight out damage.

which is the general idea behind controllers. They do some damage but also make the enemy's life miserable.

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.

Frost cheese is fun but yeah, you specialize too hard one way and it may bite you at some point but that's a lot different than nerfing an ENTIRE CLASS. My Swordmage rocked the Casbah against the Frost Giants/Titan but I'm built around multi-elemental damage. Nerfing a class by default is bad design. If you want monsters to make the PC's lives unfun then give them abilities and their own status effects.

 

[Sunseeker]

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.

But here's the catch, you CHOSE to specialize. The rogue is the definitive skillmonkey class, none of the rogue except the backstab restrictions imply specialization, and yet, the rogue has no say in specializing in backstab. They either do....or don't. If they do, they're going to suck sometimes and font do anything about it, if they don't, they're just going to suck all the time. There is a big difference between choosing to specialize, and being forced to.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Yes. As has been posted by others, the party torchbearer or porter can set up ropes and do ad hoc engineering - yet it's pretty rare to see them put forward as viable PCs in a heroic fantasy game.

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.

<snip>

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.

I've got nothing against such an encounter. I've never actually seen it in any published module, though.

More generally, if you want players to have their PCs do fictionally engaging, creative things, you need to design encounter spaces and encounter contexts that support that. (The 4e rulebooks emphasise this in respect of terrain. That's a start, at least.)

If you want this to be something that rogues, in particular, will do, you need to make sure that those encounter features will speak especially to things that rogues are good at (like acrobatics, stealth and tinkering with mechanical devices).

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

Once your encounters are structured in this way, it's not unreasonable for players too look for ways to maximise their ability to kill. Conversely, if you want a greater range of creativity in encounters, you need to find ways to make things other than killing salient to the players. (This is a next step in designing encounter spaces and contexts that support fictionally engaging, creative things.)

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"

If you have players who are going to play their paladins like this, then I don't think the design of Smite Evil is your problem!

 

[curupira]

That's actually pretty weird. "I name thee EVIL, shifty merchant, and thou shalt feel my WRATH!"

It strongly reminds me of Miko, the paladin of Azure City in the Order of the Stick webcomics.

 

[fenriswolf456]

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."

It doesn't, if the other options are of equal weight, like what you presented. But if it comes down to "roll attack to do 6d6 damage" vs. "roll strength to push the golem to do 7d6 damage", most rogues will likely go for the 6d6 option. If that 6d6 becomes 1d6 because of the creature's immunity, then there's likely more pondering of other options.

Of course, it all depends on the encounter and the 'rules' involved with it. My statement was more that given a choice between say dazing, or +5d6 damage, 9 times out of 10 the rogue is going for the damage.

But here's the catch, you CHOSE to specialize. The rogue is the definitive skillmonkey class, none of the rogue except the backstab restrictions imply specialization, and yet, the rogue has no say in specializing in backstab. They either do....or don't. If they do, they're going to suck sometimes and font do anything about it, if they don't, they're just going to suck all the time. There is a big difference between choosing to specialize, and being forced to.

Well, you could argue that you're choosing to specialize in stabbing vitals by choosing a rogue, much like choosing a specialist mage. The choice to specialize is selecting the class in the first place.

I do see what you're saying though, I was just attempting to draw a parallel. And again, I don't endorse the 3E way of blanket immunities, just in the value of making some encounters tougher by virtue of denying special abilities. Much like an anti-magic field, or a desecrated graveyard that prevents healing, or ranged combat when the fighter is mostly melee based, and so on. There should be times when the party is forced to think outside the box of their usual tactics.

 

[Hussar]

I couldn't leave this one alone.

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.

Yeah, great game we have coming up.

Swimming my way through this thread and saw this. Personally, I think that idea is bloody FANTASTIC. I want the players to actually engage with the game world, and, by having this sort of mechanic, they will do so in a very personal and meaningful way. The paladin's ethics and morality will have to be defined by the player and not by the game designer.

What a great way to make morality and ethics a central issue for a character whose primary schtick is based around morality and ethics. Much, much better than "I can smite him because he's Team Evil and I know that he's Team Evil because WOTC says so."

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, I meant "as the defining feature of the class." The pre-4e barbarian's rage certainly is a damage rider, but it's also full of other mechanics. I'd say a pre-4E defining characteristic of a rogue is their skills rather than sneak attack/back stab.



Absolutely.

I'm not sure I agree with this completely. Oh, sure, skills defined the rogue/thief. No disagreement there. But, Backstab/Sneak Attack was a pretty big element too. I see it kinda like clerics. Clerics are largely defined as healers, but, Turn Undead is a major thing too.

I would say that sneak/backstab was the rogue/thief's defining element in combat though.

 

[Hussar]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the DM setting up an encounter which has elements in it that make one or more characters less effective. That's fine. Creatures who fly make melee types less effective, for example. Big spaces with lots of cover make the ranged types more effective. Damage reduction can make one character less effective and another more. Etc. Etc.

But, let's make that an element of individual monsters, and not monster types. There's no real problem with the rogue losing out against the golem. That's fine. It's that the rogue loses out on 1/4 of the creatures in the Monster Manual. Undead, plants, constructs, oozes, elementals - these are all pretty common monsters in adventures, not some "once in a campaign or even once in a level" sort of thing. Any sort of "guardian monster" quite often will be one of these types. It makes sense from an adventure design standpoint - it's a lot easier to buy into the idea of an undead guardian or a bound elemental standing over some lost treasure than having to come up with an entire orc village ecology to guard the same treasure.

 

[pemerton]

Swimming my way through this thread and saw this. Personally, I think that idea is bloody FANTASTIC. I want the players to actually engage with the game world, and, by having this sort of mechanic, they will do so in a very personal and meaningful way. The paladin's ethics and morality will have to be defined by the player and not by the game designer.

What a great way to make morality and ethics a central issue for a character whose primary schtick is based around morality and ethics.

XP seems to be turned off at the moment, so I can only QFT.

 

[Hussar]

A later thought occured to me on the idea of smiting.

Take two paladins faced with Robin Hood. The first paladin is a paladin of Heironeous - all about law and civilization, and order. The second paladin is a paladin of Pelor - all about mercy and helping the needy.

The Heironeous paladin could justifiably smite Robin Hood. Robin has, after all, broken numerous laws, is destabilizing the region and is a threat to the established order. That makes him smitable under this paladin's beliefs.

The Pelor paladin, OTOH, probably couldn't smite Robin Hood. Robin is helping the poor, the Sherriff and King John are both forces of oppression and greed. That they are also the established rightful rulers doesn't justify their actions in this paladin's eyes.

Not that this is the only argument you could make. I realize that. But, these are pretty reasonable arguments. And, better yet, one paladin could actually smite the other depending on how the situation falls out. The Pelor paladin could possibly join Robin in helping him against the forces of oppression, while the Heironeious paladin could side with King John against the rabble upstarts seeking to topple the rightful ruler.

To me, that's FANTASTIC for roleplay opportunities.

And, even better, you could still have the Team Good and Team Evil style campaign. You simply define the teams at the beginning of the campaign and that's who can be smited (smitten?). You can have one system that covers a simple approach and the complicated approach.

Inclusion - it's the new buzzword.