Rules clarifications

[Henry]

Jediwiker is JD Wiker. He used to work for WotC and co-wrote the SW d20 RCR. He has done other stuff too but I think most of his work was in the prior SW d20 line.

I agree with the comment that for game designers they seemed remarkably out of touch. When I juxtapose their comments with design comments made by people like Mearls, Noonan, Thompson, etc., the latter seem to have a much better grasp of what makes a good game.

Once upon a time, I had respect for some of the folks in question, but no more.

That's awfully quick to judge, to me. Mike Mearls, Dave Noonan, Rodney Thompson, and, quite frankly, the forum members at ENWorld have had the past MONTH to assimilate the stuff from D&D Experience. These guys downloaded the stuff and tried it out; it doesn't sound like they've been puzzling over bits and snippets like we have for a month. So some of their questions come off as short-sighted or uninformed. That's because they are uninformed. Mearls and Noonan have a better grasp of what makes up 4e, but that doesn't mean to me that they're any better designers just based on a blog post.

 

[small pumpkin man]

That's awfully quick to judge, to me. Mike Mearls, Dave Noonan, Rodney Thompson, and, quite frankly, the forum members at ENWorld have had the past MONTH to assimilate the stuff from D&D Experience. These guys downloaded the stuff and tried it out; it doesn't sound like they've been puzzling over bits and snippets like we have for a month. So some of their questions come off as short-sighted or uninformed. That's because they are uninformed. Mearls and Noonan have a better grasp of what makes up 4e, but that doesn't mean to me that they're any better designers just based on a blog post.

I agree, even though my first reaction was negative because they looked like complete kneejerk reactions, it's probably because they were. They were the comments of people still in 3.x mode and giving rules they found on the internet which aren't quite complete a quick play through. Considering these are 3.x designers, you can't really expect them to just "pop out" of their old thought processes, which is what I see the problem being.

 

[keterys]

Some of the comments are even made _while they're playing_, so you know they're really gut reactions / off the cuff.

 

[drjones]

As the fight went on, I started describing the dragon as tough (high AC) and quite dexterous for its size (high reflex). As for the warlock, the dragon got close to him at one point, and he decided to use eyebite to turn invisible and escape. He rolled, sighed, and told me he had an 18, figuring that wasn't good enough. When I told him he succeeded, he smiled widely, and started using eyebite for the rest of the fight.

Which is great, exactly how it should be in my opine. In my playtest once the guys figured out the basics they were very soon asking things like 'Does this kobold look less spry than the others?' and basing their tactical decisions partially on my reply and partially on the results they got from experimentation. This fits great with my idea of how a 'real' adventurer would work, you try things out you look for obvious weaknesses and exploit them. From a game perspective they seemed to enjoy it as it gave them more control over the outcome of the fight than just die rolling.

And its better than just memorizing the Monster Manual, that's not a game it's a quiz.

Of course they also asked if the Choker seemed particularly strong willed. I told them he certainly had a real singleminded determination to choke people.

 

[Cam Banks]

Oh my God, you have no idea...

Oh, I think I may have an inkling.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[TerraDave]

You claim to play role playing games for years, you in fact are a game designer, and then you post this:

Monsters running in to join the encounter makes sense--especially given a) the scenario and b) recent 3.5 adventures--but it still feels like drawing aggro in an MMO. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

There is nothing nice I can say about this, but as this is the internet....

I mean, you never, in say an ADD (or other) game in the 80's, used sentries, or had monsters react to noise in another room, or just had a monster wander in for fun. You only learned this from MMORGS, which of course you play.

Beyond pathetic. If there was a license to GM, JD Wiker should loose his.

 

[TerraDave]

And this is full of sour-grapes.

Disapointing.

 

[Andur]

used sentries, or had monsters react to noise in another room

I'm at work atm, so don't have Keep on the Borderlands handy, but iirc, the Kobold caves say that specifically.

 

[SteveC]

It seems pretty good (and fairly obvious) against ranged attackers or spellcasters, who can attack you.

But I suspect 4e is going to be fairly meta-transparent on the minions- you'll be able to tell, so bunch them up for the Wizard's fire blast.

Yep, that was my experience at, well, the D&D Experience. A Striker character shouldn't really be wasting his time with minions in the first place: their job is to deal with the heavy hitters. In the first scenario at the D&D Experience we encountered a nasty kobold wizard, and eyebite was exceptionally useful in keeping my warlock alive.

By that encounter we had pretty much figured out how to play our characters, so we had a number of minions to deal with as well as some guards for the wizard. Our group's wizard immediately went into "mook mashing mode" and dealt with the minions, while the ranger and I quickly got into position to take out the wizard. The paladin and fighter locked up the wizards guards and we were able to take the encounter quite effectively ... because each of us knew our role in the combat.

It was actually kind of funny: my warlock moved out into the room (which was a big death trap with a rolling boulder) and eldritch blasted one of the minions. The wizard asked why I had wasted an attack on a minion, and I said "well, that's because I'm now able to teleport over here, where I can hit the big bad next turn." The ranger just laughed and feystepped into position himself and said that he was more eco friendly: he didn't have to kill anything to teleport around!

--Steve