Rules clarifications

[Li Shenron]

So far, I've used my cleric's "once per encounter" power--and whiffed. Boy, that blows. (Update: In fact, I whiffed again on my next and only other use of the power. Sigh.)

I'm curious--is this a complaint about encounter powers, or just lamenting the bad dice? If it's the former, do you feel any different than you did in 3.5 when a monster made its saving throw against a spell, or you failed to penetrate SR, or when you miss with that paladin smite?

I think the ironic answer is appropriate, the question/complaint was lame. If you don't want to face a failure chance ever, play a diceless game.

The "55% save" against effects (like the glue pot) just seems odd--like they really wanted to just make it a coin toss, but decided that that was too obvious, so they made it a "10 or better on a d20.

Well, it does add some granularity to the roll, and allows you to have monsters that have "+4 to saves" or allow an ally to let you make another save at +2, for example. If it was a simple coin toss, it's so binary you can't do anything with it. Also, it may help you to think of saves not as "I avoid taking damage" so much as this edition's version of duration rolls.

This is a good point, although of course there is no fundamental reason for the starting change to be 55% rather than 50%.

Generally speaking, the idea of making basically every ongoing effect to require a save every round is ok. The only problem is if you have 3-4 ongoing effects and you have to roll for all of them (certainly going to happen with BBEG). OTOH, you don't have to keep tracks of durations.

What feels a little odd to me however, is that there is only 1 saving throw. Some characters have a bonus against a specific effect type (e.g. poison), but there is no distinction into groups. IMO this is a bit of a mish-mash result from the fact that 3e saving throws have been turned into static defenses; once static, it would have required the attacker to roll every round (which is more difficult to keep track of compared to the defender rolling), and therefore they introduced the "new" saving throw, but not wanting to complicate things too much they just made 1 saving throw for everything. A bit meh for my tastes... I'd have left the "active" saving throws of course, but as a second choice I'd have simply made them use the fort/refl/will defense bonus.

We are finding the "passive Perception" thing a bit off-putting. The short version is that, instead of rolling a Perception check against someone's Stealth check, you just add 10 to both.

Stealth still has to be rolled; there's no "Passive Stealth." Likewise, Passive Perception is only used when you're not actively looking for someone, as you probably already figured out. It's a way for the DM to determine whether you notice something without usingthe metagame-inspiring "OK, everyone give me a Perception check."

I don't find the passive perception any off-putting. We've been using "Take 10" in Listen and Spot all the time... there is no reason in rolling both stealth and perception, one rolled and one static is enough.

We're curious as to why the 5-foot-adjustment was in need of a fix ...

Because the importance of movement as a whole has been altered in 4E.

Considering that I believe the 3e 5foot step was introduced mostly to let spellcasters and archers avoid AoOs, I'm curious to find out if archers will now be screwed in melee in 4e (spellcasters won't, since Melee and Close spells won't provoke AoO at all).

EDIT: forgot about "shifting"... looks like the 5ft step has not disappeared at all, it just changed name and can now be taken in place of a move, rather than in restrictive circumstances only (i.e. when not moving during the round).

 

[Stalker0]

He didn't mention Eyebite's other big advantage. It attacks a different Defense than Eldritch Blast. The versatility that provides would make it worthwhile even if it didn't make you Invisible versus your target.

And this is a big one. For many of the warrior monsters, their will is weaker than their reflex.

I ran a playtest last night with the dragon. The dragon's reflex was 21, his will 18. So the warlock using eyebite had an effective +3 to his attack roll!! The warlock wound up doing the most consistent damage to the dragon out of anyone.

Also, having seen sleep in action I think its fine. It hits a lot of creatures, and its a guaranteed slow for a round. Heck it even works on undead!! Sure half of the creatures won't fall asleep, but about half will. That half a group of monsters you can go and coup de grace.

 

[Lacyon]

Also, having seen sleep in action I think its fine. It hits a lot of creatures, and its a guaranteed slow for a round. Heck it even works on undead!! Sure half of the creatures won't fall asleep, but about half will. That half a group of monsters you can go and coup de grace.

Well, about half of the monsters you hit will fall asleep. But that could potentially be a lot of monsters still.

Also, unlike previous versions of sleep, it's allowed to work on just about any target instead of the HD limit, which means it's not a totally wasted slot when you're fighting a solo monster.

What feels a little odd to me however, is that there is only 1 saving throw. Some characters have a bonus against a specific effect type (e.g. poison), but there is no distinction into groups. IMO this is a bit of a mish-mash result from the fact that 3e saving throws have been turned into static defenses; once static, it would have required the attacker to roll every round (which is more difficult to keep track of compared to the defender rolling), and therefore they introduced the "new" saving throw, but not wanting to complicate things too much they just made 1 saving throw for everything. A bit meh for my tastes... I'd have left the "active" saving throws of course, but as a second choice I'd have simply made them use the fort/refl/will defense bonus.

Most effects in 3E have a set duration once you failed the save anyway (or something like 1d4 rounds or whatever). In 4E, the duration's not set immediately, but instead by the result of the saving throw. It averages to something like 2 rounds under the effect (pretty similar to rolling 1d4, but you don't get to know in advance when it will end. In neither case does having a high Fort/Ref/Will help you with anything other than the initial "Am I affected?" roll.

Using multiple saves over multiple rounds would have been a much bigger departure IMO than the new save system. It would also make balancing powers that end with saves significantly harder, because someone with a Fort that's 4 points lower than Reflex is not only 20% more likely to be affected by your Fort attacks than your Reflex attacks, he also suffers under their ill effects for 20% longer. It makes each single point of difference that much more important. Not only that, you would then have to track differing save types and DCs for each ongoing effect, instead of just being able to rattle off all your effects - "Save vs. Poison, then Slow, then Fire" and quickly adjudicate the results with a minimum of bookkeeping - the player can just roll the dice, check for situational modifiers, and announce "Pass Fail Pass".

It looks awkward at first glance, I agree, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.

 

[Stalker0]

It looks awkward at first glance, I agree, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.

I felt the same way until I saw it in practice. So far, the saving throw system seems to work pretty well once I saw 4e effects in play. It makes effects very dynamic through combat, and except for the dailies, your not expending any permanent slots. So if an effect only lasts 1 round, oh well no big deal, no I'll do something else.

 

[lvl20dm]

Part of me wishes I had never read that livejournal entry. I like the rules clarifications and so forth, and I know that we are seeing people play a version of the game that is not finalized and so on, but I found many of the comments coming from former designers to be amazingly uninciteful. How on earth could one look at the Cleric and thinking he is worse at healing than the Paladin. His heal is a minor action, it heals more, and he can do it 2 times every encounter all day long until a given target's healing surges are used up. The Paladin can do it 3x per day and it only heals the normal surge value. A 1st level cleric can heal a high level fighter for more hp than a low level fighter - but who cares! The high level fighter has more hp - the heals are meant to cover a certain amount of total hp. How is it any stranger in 3rd edition to have a cure moderate wounds bring a 1st level character from -5 to full hp, and bring a 20th level character from -5 to barely alive. Is the 20th level character harder to heal? Does he resist healing?

And how on earth does the event of monsters running from an adjacent room to join a fight feel like an MMO? Hasn't this happened in every edition of D&D ever? Some of these complaints were trying to draw parallels to other systems - stretching it do so - and then claiming that such a parallel meant the game was bad.

This playtest runs completely counter to what I have experienced the past 3 weeks with my gaming group. I ran one big fight with a mess of Kobolds and an acid pit (and balconies and so on) to get a handle on the rules. It was generally felt that it was probably the best 1st level fight we'd had with D&D (Iron Heroes was also great for cinematic low level battles). The next week we mixed the characters up so people could try different classes and I tried to put together 4 "typical" fights that were at the appropriate challenge level for the party with the fight at the end on the more difficult side. This worked out great. Last night I ran the group up against a White Dragon (using the stats from the DDXP and adjusting his HP to where I believe they should be at around 290). This was an intense battle that ended with everyone having used their action point and their daily powers and with the paladin and fighter unconscious. We have been playing a cobbled together version of 4e for 3 weeks and have been having lots of fun; though we couldn't really RP or follow much of a story, etc. this felt like D&D to me - even if everyone had something interesting to do every round.

 

[Cadfan]

Wait, the people who wrote those questions were designers?

Wow. Ok, Sean K. Reynolds is the one who thinks its goofy for the amount of hit points healed to be determined based on the recipient, rather than the caster? (Technically, its not "rather than," its "as well as" the caster, for clerics.) Everyone I know greeted that change with "Oh! Yeah, that makes sense!" Probably because we've all had the late night, mountain dew fueled "how come a level 1 commoner can be patched back together from death's door by Cure Light Wounds, but a level 20 barbarian barely notices it?" conversation. I'm surprised he hasn't.

Some of those comments seem... out of touch.

I sometimes wonder whether designers ever consider that their comments on the internet are public and read by their prospective customers, and moderate their tone as a result. I know some do. I'm firmly convinced that Mouseferatu occasionally gets up from his computer, walks around his home and/or office, punches the wall a few times, then sits back down and writes a kind and reasonable response to whatever it is he just read. The gentleness of his internet presence is so unflagging that it simply cannot be the entirety of his personality. He probably screams wordlessly at action figures balanced atop his computer or something. No doubt it terrifies the neighbors.

 

[KarinsDad]

I ran a playtest last night with the dragon. The dragon's reflex was 21, his will 18. So the warlock using eyebite had an effective +3 to his attack roll!! The warlock wound up doing the most consistent damage to the dragon out of anyone.

How did the player know to even try Eyebite? Did he miss with Eldritch Blast on a high roll (19 or something) and decided to try the alternative?

 

[Verys Arkon]

Sigh. I just love how people pooh-pooh stuff they don't even know about or fully understand.

"This pole sucks!"
"What pole?"
"The one that's going to go into that ditch there!"
"But all it is, is a ditch. There is no pole."
"Yes, but the ditch is obviously inferior so the pole will be too!"
"0.o"

I can't agree with you more. As the guy that compiled the 4e Lite PHB, I have to stress that YOU CANNOT JUDGE 4E BY THE PHB LITE, it is assembled from glimpses of outdated preview material and some pretty clever guess-work by fans, but that is all. It gives impatient fans a single place to see what has been revealed (and what might be deduced), and it can give you an idea how it "might" play, but for goodness sake, wait until you get your hands on the real PHB before you make any final conclusions.

In the meantime, game on, but keep an open mind.

 

[Stalker0]

How did the player know to even try Eyebite? Did he miss with Eldritch Blast on a high roll (19 or something) and decided to try the alternative?

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.

 

[wgreen]

I think the ironic answer is appropriate, the question/complaint was lame. If you don't want to face a failure chance ever, play a diceless game.

I should note that "failing" and "whiffing" are different, but related, concepts. One can complain about the latter without complaining about the former.

-Will!