D&D 4E Presentation vs design... vs philosophy

[pemerton]

if you put Jon Jones (arguably the greatest melee combatant, with the greatest physical profile, in the history of the human race) in magical armaments, trained him to human perfection with his weaponry...and put him in the lair of an Ancient Red Dragon?

I just want to say: while I don't dissent from the broader themes of your post I don't know who this Jon Jones is (I'm sure Google would tell me but I haven't asked it) - so I was expecting more about the Martian Manhunter, an unjustly neglected (but not by @Eric V) Superman knock-off!

 

[Oofta]

Except that @pemerton gave the actual rules reference which says you need one piece of ammunition per target if using mundane ammunition. So you would need nine daggers to hit nine people.

Listen, if you didn't like 4e, that's fine. But stop spreading misinformation about it and stop claiming that a problem you had with your house rules not being realistic was something to do with the actual rules not being realistic. The actual rules of 4e said you could not do the thing that you were claiming it was unrealistic to do. Your criticism of 4e is that your table got the rules wrong. This is not a problem with the rules of 4e.

You might have been misinformed at the time, but now the page reference has been produced you have no excuse for spreading outright falsehoods.

I don't have the books any more but I clearly remember the gist of the power. Could I be missing some detail? Maybe. Okay then ... I do have my old fighter sheet. He had several powers that were supernatural in my opinion. Disagree? Fine.

I'm tired of arguing about an edition I couldn't care less about.

 

[Oofta]

These two quotes seem to be in direct contradiction with one another.

How is Batman or the other non-magical ninja who takes out enemies by throwing multiple batarangs/shuriken/knives a less legitimate non-magical trope than non-magical knights beating up on dragons?

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't care. It's a pointless argument.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't have the books any more but I clearly remember the gist of the power. Could I be missing some detail? Maybe. Okay then ... I do have my old fighter sheet. He had several powers that were supernatural in my opinion. Disagree? Fine.

I'm tired of arguing about an edition I couldn't care less about.

The detail you are missing is the basic rules of 4e. If you want to target multiple targets with a ranged weapon you need multiple pieces of ammo. The character sheet will have said Close Burst 3 - it is the page on what a burst is that says that a burst needs ammunition.

And I'm tired of misinformation about an edition I do care about.

 

[Oofta]

The detail you are missing is the basic rules of 4e. If you want to target multiple targets with a ranged weapon you need multiple pieces of ammo. The character sheet will have said Close Burst 3 - it is the page on what a burst is that says that a burst needs ammunition.

And I'm tired of misinformation about an edition I do care about.

I'm asking politely. Stop. I don't give a ****.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm asking politely. Stop. I don't give a ****.

You know you don't have to reply. Or write about 4e at all. Meanwhile I care about 4e and I care about the spread of misinformation.

When I don't give an asterisk about something I don't bother writing about it. Which is why you very seldom see me anywhere near Pathfinder threads.

 

[Eric V]

You know you don't have to reply. Or write about 4e at all. Meanwhile I care about 4e and I care about the spread of misinformation.

When I don't give an asterisk about something I don't bother writing about it. Which is why you very seldom see me anywhere near Pathfinder threads.

Yeah, but 4e sucks, don't you know?! So saying any old thing about it, even if factually untrue, is ok.

 

[pemerton]

I was initially referring to a 4E power that let my buddy's rogue throw a dagger (singular) at every creature in a 15 ft burst if I remember correctly. So he could hit up to 9 creatures with 1 dagger.

My point is that there is no such power. Your buddy was not applying the relevant rules.

Is it pedantic to think that analysis and criticism of a game should have regard to the actual rules of the game?

 

[pemerton]

1e is both malleable and forgiving when it comes to kitbashing and rulings. It's the one true advantage of what I call its underlying mechanical chaos.

I don't think so. As the lockpicking example illustrates, it's very easy to make a ruling in AD&D that runs roughshod over some other, carefully rationed, class ability.

But the tone of the PH* - the player-side info - in both 3e and 4e is "here's what you're allowed to do, and here's where the borders are". There's no real encouragement to try anything else because it's presented as if there's a rule for everything.

4e PHB pp 6, 8-11.

D&D is a fantasy-adventure game. You create a character, team up with other characters (your friends), explore a world, and battle monsters. While the D&D game uses dice and miniatures, the action takes place in your imagination. There, you have the freedom to create anything you can imagine, with an unlimited special effects budget and the technology to make anything happen.

What makes the D&D game unique is the Dungeon Master. The DM is a person who takes on the role of lead storyteller and game referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters and narrates the action for the players. The DM makes D&D infinitely flexible - he or she can react to any situation, any twist or turn suggested by the players, to make a D&D adventure vibrant, exciting, and unexpected. . . .

When you play your D&D character, you put yourself into your character’s shoes and make decisions as if you were that character. You decide which door your character opens next. You decide whether to attack a monster, to negotiate with a villain, or to attempt a dangerous quest. You can make these decisions based on your character’s personality, motivations, and goals, and you can even speak or act in character if you like. You have almost limitless control over what your character can do and say in the game. . . .

Your "piece" in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game is your character. He or she is your representative in the game world. Through your character, you can interact with the game world in any way you want. The only limit is your imagination - and, sometimes, how high you roll on the dice. . . .

The Dungeon Master decides whether or not something you try actually works. Some actions automatically succeed (you can move around without trouble, usually), some require one or more die rolls, called checks (breaking down a locked door, for example), and some simply can’t succeed. Your character is capable of any deeds a strong, smart, agile, and well-armed human action hero can pull off. . . .

How do you know if your sword-swing hurts the dragon, or just bounces off its iron-hard scales? How do you know if the ogre believes your outrageous bluff, or if you can swim the raging river and reach the other side?

All these actions depend on very basic, simple rules: Decide what you want your character to do and tell the Dungeon Master. The DM tells you to make a check and figures out your chance of success (a target number for the check).

You roll a twenty-sided die (d20), add some numbers, and try to hit the target number determined by the DM. That’s it!​

There's probably more I haven't got too, but that seems enough to show that your view of tone is not the only one, and not terribly warranted by the actual explanatory text of the game.

All 1e Fighters may be mechanically the same (or very close), ditto for all 1e Thieves; but the 1e Fighter and the 1e Thief sit on very different mechanical underpinnings from each other. And this is what I'm getting at; mechanical difference and disunification between classes, rather than between individuals in the same class, greatly helps define each class for what it is - and isn't.

I mean more in terms of underlying chassis. Some examples:

Different level-advance rates a la 1e-2e;
Different mechanics e.g. Cleric casting mechanics are not the same as Bard casting mechanics are not the same as Wizard...;
Knights, Paladins and Cavaliers use a different combat matrix in honourable combat (or tournaments) than in mass melee;
Multiclassing works differently (or not at all) depending what combination of classes you're trying to combine;
Some class-skill combinations use d%, others use d20, sometimes it's roll-over, sometimes it's roll-under, etc., depending on the level of granularity and intended outcome probabilities required;
Etc.

And then there's resource management: does everyone get their spells and-or hit points back at the same rate, etc., but that's at a different level than what I'm thinking of.

As I've already posted, when I think about what differentiates PCs in a RPG, resource recovery rate is not what I look for. That seems more of a wargame priority than a RPG priority, to me at least. And this is even moreso for "underlying chassis"/underpinnings like acquisition of abilities, or which dice to roll for resolution.

The key in a RPG, for me at least, is the way characters affect the fiction. Which goes back to @Charlaquin's remarks way upthread: in a RPG which makes combat a significant part of the fiction (and 4e DMG is definitely one such) then pushing your enemy into a pit or even just driving them before you is interestingly different fiction from (say) withdrawing and luring them after you or throwing your shuriken and blinding them. The fact that the resolution and resource framework is broadly similar isn't an impediment here but a virtue, as it makes interpreting and applying the rules easier.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The key in a RPG, for me at least, is the way characters affect the fiction. Which goes back to @Charlaquin's remarks way upthread: in a RPG which makes combat a significant part of the fiction (and 4e DMG is definitely one such) then pushing your enemy into a pit or even just driving them before you is interestingly different fiction from (say) withdrawing and luring them after you or throwing your shuriken and blinding them. The fact that the resolution and resource framework is broadly similar isn't an impediment here but a virtue, as it makes interpreting and applying the rules easier.

Upthread I went slightly further. After 4e and its forced movement just about any other RPG and a whole lot of games trying to do tactical combat with larger than life characters and without the array of forced movement feels to me like trying to act in front of a green screen when you are used to there being actual sets. That is something I value and that makes the world feel a whole lot more alive.