Rule of Three: May 22

[UngeheuerLich]

The game needs to be written, that a bonus is actually a bonus. If you decide to raise your strenght, e.g or if the fighter gets a little bonus to attack, he needs to come ahead of the curve.
The problem of 4e in general is, that since everything is assumed, everyone who misses an opportunity to raise the attack bonus etc. falls behind.

Skills in 4e had been no problem, if the assumed progression for defenses would indeed be 1/2 per level. This way, the math had been flat enough.

a fighter who dumps every point into strength and happens to find a magic item needs to have an easier time hitting an equal level challenge.
You could also assume, that you find average equippment or do some stat bumps, but expecting to raise by 1/level through some sources played a big roll in 4es problems.

(I predicted it when a unified progression was announced: +1/level is really a too steep curve, as to many variables rising by that single point make a big difference over 5 rounds of combats.)

 

[pemerton]

The game needs to be written, that a bonus is actually a bonus. If you decide to raise your strenght, e.g or if the fighter gets a little bonus to attack, he needs to come ahead of the curve.

<snip>

a fighter who dumps every point into strength and happens to find a magic item needs to have an easier time hitting an equal level challenge.

But if every PC in the group is like this fighter, then the only upshot will be that - in order to keep the game interesting - the GM will build higher level challenges. That's what I do in my 4e game! (And we're at mid-Paragon without Expertise feats.)

Much more important, in my view, than worrying too much about what's the baseline and what's a bonus, is to make it mechanically viable for PCs with differing levels of ability at a given activity to meaningfully participate in the same encounter involving that ability. If encounters can't tolerate significant variation among PC abilities, then once one PC gets a magic sword all the other PCs will need one too, or else the play of the game will break down. And you don't make this issue go away simply by stipulating that the magic sword is a special bonus, or is an expected part of advancement.

A game like Rolemaster uses the "rocket-tag" strategy for making participation by PCs with signficantly different abilities viable - because even a PC with a high attack bonus can low roll on a crit, and even a PC with a low defence bonus can survive a luckily low crit roll and then retaliate with a luckily high crit roll. And there are other features as well, such as wounding rules which mean that even those with good abilities can easily find themselves debuffed down to lower levels.

Which mean that it is completely viable, in a mid-level RM game, to have a wizard with a +20 body development bonus (meaning that a single sword hit will knock him/her unconscious) adventuring alongside a fighter with a +100 body development bonus (meaning that the fighter will only rarely be knocked unconscious by bruising or blood loss, but rather - if s/he drops - will do so because of a single serious wound). And to have a character with a +80 attack bonus adventure alongside another character with a +100 attack bonus. The second character will be noticeably better in combat, but the first character will still make a meaningful contribution, and presumably will make other contributions in other parts of the game (doing whatever it is that s/he is able to do in virtue of having spent fewer build resources on a high attack bonus).

As far as combat is concerned, AD&D is more like RM than is 3E or 4e, in part because NPC and monster ACs are generally lower across the board, and in part because damage output does not grow so significantly with level. But AD&D still has big THACO and hit point disparities.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As far as combat is concerned, AD&D is more like RM than is 3E or 4e, in part because NPC and monster ACs are generally lower across the board, and in part because damage output does not grow so significantly with level. But AD&D still has big THACO and hit point disparities.

This is exactly what has to be done in next.

In ADnD, the fighter really pulled ahead in attack bonus department. But other chars could still contribute. Due to very varied challenges.

Also, if everyone pulls ahead at the same rate, you are right, all monsters need higher AC. But if the fighter is 3 points ahead, but all characters hit on a 10 or higher, nothing is unbalanced. Especially as hitting is not so important, because you only lose some damage.

In 4e your main concern is hitting with your encounters or dailies. In such tactical combats, missing vertain hits can make your whole strategy fail, as an important bonus is lost.

 

[pemerton]

if the fighter is 3 points ahead, but all characters hit on a 10 or higher, nothing is unbalanced. Especially as hitting is not so important, because you only lose some damage.

It's important that damage capabilities not come too far apart either.

4e (as a deliberate design feature) creates big damage disparities between classes. In my own game, the fighter hits for 1d8+13 (or thereabouts) and the sorcerer hits for 1dX+27 (or thereabouts - depending on the attack, the X can range from 4 to 10).

Those disparities need to be reduced if role expectations are to be relaxed, and a bonus here or there to be treated as peripheral rather than central.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

yeah, striker role as damage dealer was a design flaw.

 

[pemerton]

yeah, striker role as damage dealer was a design flaw.

I personally don't go quite that far! - but it does depend upon a fairly clear contrast between strikers as damage dealers, and controllers/defenders as dominating the geography and "flow" of the battlefield. If you relax roles and/or drop the grid/tactical dimension so that control/defence goes away, then "striker" just becomes another word for "better".