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Presentation vs design... vs philosophy
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7933387" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>A few. Nowhere near as often is the PCs did it to the NPCs of course - but then I don't kill PCs that often. From memory I'd say I did it with the NPCs about as often as an average PC did to the NPCs (so combined they did it four or five times as often). As [USER=7020832]@FrozenNorth[/USER] said, if there was an acid pit or a thin railing there would be at least some movement from the bad guys. And quite a bit of paranoia.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think we're disagreeing in emphasis. 4e does great set pieces and I don't mean to challenge that assertion. But you do not need a huge setpiece to get 4e combat to be effective. You just need some interactive terrain </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which is what I did in my retroclone of 4e.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I meant a +2 sword has never been mechanically interesting. For a character it's an obvious McGuffin. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not necessarily, especially with automatic character sheet generation. The player couldn't really abuse things - this is a big part of balance; if the designers do the work properly the DM doesn't have to. The calculations were carried out automatically. And if the player was getting the rules wrong in a clean system it tends to stick out like a sore thumb. So no, the DM does not need to know the feats from memory.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's not a problem of anywhere near the same magnitude. </p><p></p><p>The first and most important issue is that <em>sorting through feats is not an issue at the table. </em>You might find there are an overwhelming number in an abstract sense - but at the table the only feats that are actually relevant are the ones you picked when you created the character or levelled up, and you did that when you had all the time in the world and it will be baked in to your character sheet (Character Builder does the math automatically). By contrast for a 3.X or Pathfinder DM you need to know a significant list of feats because the statblock will name the feat but assume you know what it means. </p><p></p><p>The second issue is that <em>you can gate away most of the feats if you have an even vaguely competent character builder</em>. If you're building a new character in 4e you don't need the heroic or epic tier feats because they only start at level 11 or 21. You don't need the class-based feats of any class other than your own because you can't take them (and you can also hide groups like the Channel Divinity feats if you don't have a Channel Divinity ability). I could go on. And I will say that 17 of the feats are skill training feats (one per skill). There are still too many feats if you include every splatbook and every issue of Dragon magazine - but it's nowhere near as bad as you are visualising. 3.5 never really had an authorised character builder.</p><p></p><p>The third issue is <em>there are basically no prerequisite feats.</em> In 3.5 there were entire feat chains like Power Attack/Cleave/Great Cleave or Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack/Expertise/Whirlwind Attack. You needed to plan your build out several levels in advance and this went double if you wanted to go into a prestige class. (I won't swear that there isn't a feat or paragon path without such a requirement other than in the lightweight multiclassing rules but if there is it will be in the PHB along with a couple of other design mistakes that weren't followed up on).</p><p></p><p>The third issue is that where feats are situational the situations are clearer and thus less likely to be forgotten. I can't think of any feats that provide a user-activated +1 to anything situational (+1s, yes - but the character builder can handle a +1 to fire damage even if no one takes that feat because it's obviously bad). In 3.0 and 3.5 <a href="https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#dodge" target="_blank">Dodge</a> was one of the most popular feats in the game because it was a pre-requisite to getting to the good stuff and it is (a) petty (+1 to AC vs one specific foe) and (b) situational as you had to bring it up every time you wanted to use it. 4e went away from that design philosophy - if it's a small bonus it's something that's baked in and that you get all the time, with the computer crunching the math.</p><p></p><p>And the fourth issue is that with an authorised character builder that did most of the calculations you very rarely needed to look over the player's character sheets; if they were doing something wrong it was generally extremely obvious as mentioned.</p><p></p><p>So by the end of 4e the game was staggering under the weight of having had far too many feats printed. I do not disagree with that. But <em>what </em>the feats were and <em>when </em>they interfered with the gaming table was also important.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 7933387, member: 87792"] A few. Nowhere near as often is the PCs did it to the NPCs of course - but then I don't kill PCs that often. From memory I'd say I did it with the NPCs about as often as an average PC did to the NPCs (so combined they did it four or five times as often). As [USER=7020832]@FrozenNorth[/USER] said, if there was an acid pit or a thin railing there would be at least some movement from the bad guys. And quite a bit of paranoia. I think we're disagreeing in emphasis. 4e does great set pieces and I don't mean to challenge that assertion. But you do not need a huge setpiece to get 4e combat to be effective. You just need some interactive terrain Which is what I did in my retroclone of 4e. I meant a +2 sword has never been mechanically interesting. For a character it's an obvious McGuffin. Not necessarily, especially with automatic character sheet generation. The player couldn't really abuse things - this is a big part of balance; if the designers do the work properly the DM doesn't have to. The calculations were carried out automatically. And if the player was getting the rules wrong in a clean system it tends to stick out like a sore thumb. So no, the DM does not need to know the feats from memory. It's not a problem of anywhere near the same magnitude. The first and most important issue is that [I]sorting through feats is not an issue at the table. [/I]You might find there are an overwhelming number in an abstract sense - but at the table the only feats that are actually relevant are the ones you picked when you created the character or levelled up, and you did that when you had all the time in the world and it will be baked in to your character sheet (Character Builder does the math automatically). By contrast for a 3.X or Pathfinder DM you need to know a significant list of feats because the statblock will name the feat but assume you know what it means. The second issue is that [I]you can gate away most of the feats if you have an even vaguely competent character builder[/I]. If you're building a new character in 4e you don't need the heroic or epic tier feats because they only start at level 11 or 21. You don't need the class-based feats of any class other than your own because you can't take them (and you can also hide groups like the Channel Divinity feats if you don't have a Channel Divinity ability). I could go on. And I will say that 17 of the feats are skill training feats (one per skill). There are still too many feats if you include every splatbook and every issue of Dragon magazine - but it's nowhere near as bad as you are visualising. 3.5 never really had an authorised character builder. The third issue is [I]there are basically no prerequisite feats.[/I] In 3.5 there were entire feat chains like Power Attack/Cleave/Great Cleave or Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack/Expertise/Whirlwind Attack. You needed to plan your build out several levels in advance and this went double if you wanted to go into a prestige class. (I won't swear that there isn't a feat or paragon path without such a requirement other than in the lightweight multiclassing rules but if there is it will be in the PHB along with a couple of other design mistakes that weren't followed up on). The third issue is that where feats are situational the situations are clearer and thus less likely to be forgotten. I can't think of any feats that provide a user-activated +1 to anything situational (+1s, yes - but the character builder can handle a +1 to fire damage even if no one takes that feat because it's obviously bad). In 3.0 and 3.5 [URL='https://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#dodge']Dodge[/URL] was one of the most popular feats in the game because it was a pre-requisite to getting to the good stuff and it is (a) petty (+1 to AC vs one specific foe) and (b) situational as you had to bring it up every time you wanted to use it. 4e went away from that design philosophy - if it's a small bonus it's something that's baked in and that you get all the time, with the computer crunching the math. And the fourth issue is that with an authorised character builder that did most of the calculations you very rarely needed to look over the player's character sheets; if they were doing something wrong it was generally extremely obvious as mentioned. So by the end of 4e the game was staggering under the weight of having had far too many feats printed. I do not disagree with that. But [I]what [/I]the feats were and [I]when [/I]they interfered with the gaming table was also important. [/QUOTE]
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