Something Awful leak.

[FireLance]

That's not to say 4e is without flaws- and piles of conditions in combat is certainly one of those issues. It's just a pity we'll have to wait until 6th edition to see any progress on such a design.

IMO, that's an encounter design problem, not a system problem (apart from the system not giving enough advice). The trick to minimizing the need to keep track of multiple conditions in combat is to avoid using a variety of monsters that inflict different conditions in the same fight.

Of course, that doesn't do much for the PC side of the issue, but the DM can always spread the load around by requiring the players to track the effects of their own PCs' powers. (You do trust your players, don't you? )

 

[DMKastmaria]

Good gravy man, leave bad 70s design behind, it's 2012. I really fear they will be bringing back REALLY poor design just so they can appease some nebulous grognard group that barely exists.

Your attempts at marginalization and insult aside, I've seen the "appeasing the grognards" idea, pop up several times of late. A few words, on that subject:

1. It's going to take a lot more than "vancian casting" and the 86ing of "dis associative mechanics" to "appease" the old school crowd.

2. Most "grognards" I've spoken with, aren't on board the 5e train and are a bit too familiar with WotC and the current situation, to think that Mike & Monte really "gets it," or will make a game that fits their style of play, better than the ones they already have.

3. The OSR is thriving, growing, alive and kicking. It isn't going anywhere, just because WotC puts out a new edition.

 

[the Jester]

Just out of curiousity EW, what would you consider a good (for a given value of good) pace of a round? Presume 5 players and a DM, low to mid-low level and no really funky stuff going on. How long should a round take and how long should a given player take to resolve his turn?

To me, the real question isn't "how long should a round last?", it's "how many encounters should you be able to fit into a session without rushing?"

The answer, for me, is twelve to twenty.

Re: The problem of conditions- 4e's issue with conditions isn't how many there are, it's how many you need to keep track of in a given fight.

 

[Piratecat]

To me, the real question isn't "how long should a round last?", it's "how many encounters should you be able to fit into a session without rushing?"

The answer, for me, is twelve to twenty.

How long a play session?

 

[KarinsDad]

Agreed!

I actually prefer until end of target's turn being the default duration, cause then you can associate a condition with a creature, then slash it off when its turn ends. If it's save ends, then it has to make a save to do so. Easy peasy.

This doesn't work for certain debuffs.

For example, I give this creature -2 to all defenses. The creature goes next in init. Nobody got the advantage.

By making it the end of the user's next turn, it lasts for a round+ where the user also gets to take advantage of it.

And, the person responsible for originally using the power is the person responsible for turning it off.


Granted, one solution to this is to get rid of debuffs. Instead of debuffing the monster, buff all of the rest of the PCs and your solution would work. But then, every player has to remember to remove the buff on his PC as opposed to just a single player having to remember to remove the debuff.

Well, in addition to the general 4e design of just letting you do whatever you want to alter monsters, WotC made themes, so people can trivially mix and match abilities on monsters, gave options for replacing variable resistance on demons to show a good system for that, etc. You can also rule 42 it, or terrain power it, and have it make a skill check to do something to the environment to mix things up.

Really want a close-ish attack and don't got it? Knock down the pillar next to you, maybe bringing some of the roof down. Your players should appreciate that kind of detail, and your pacing problem's solved.

Really, I think the biggest thing they needed to do was have the start of 4e look a lot closer to what it does now and to have some big advice on letting things do cool stuff that isn't in their stat block. "Ancient dragons are powerful ritualists whose magic can be used in a myriad of ways to protect their hoards, control the minds of others, change into other forms, or even summon or animate armies. Each dragon has its own powers and preferences, so fights with different dragons rarely play out the same." Maybe it even gives some examples of a black dragon which animates undead to lurk in pools within its lair and has a vortex of acid it can trigger during the combat, while a silver dragon changes into a person to interact with the party beforehand then triggers a contingent teleport if things go awry, etc.

Agreed.

I do find, however, that in today's instant gratification culture (and I am guilty of this myself), one doesn't see the amount of devotion by DMs to craft their worlds. A lot of this is life. When it's summertime between college semesters, there's a lot more time to craft unique monsters and create lairs for them and such. When one is 40 with a family and there's a lawn to mow in the summer and kids to take to the local pool, there is less time for modifying the game beyond what is quickly found in the books. So although I agree it is possible, in practice, I very rarely see it. Maybe that's because every DM I play with anymore is not single and has a family.

 

[keterys]

This doesn't work for certain debuffs.

For example, I give this creature -2 to all defenses. The creature goes next in init. Nobody got the advantage.

By making it the end of the user's next turn, it lasts for a round+ where the user also gets to take advantage of it.

And, the person responsible for originally using the power is the person responsible for turning it off.

Granted, one solution to this is to get rid of debuffs. Instead of debuffing the monster, buff all of the rest of the PCs and your solution would work. But then, every player has to remember to remove the buff on his PC as opposed to just a single player having to remember to remove the debuff.

Well, for starters, if you do a sweeping change to durations you should do a similar change to debuffs to make them work...

And let's be honest. -2 to defenses _is_ going to turn into each person's turn if they only miss by 1-2, asking if the -2 was remembered, so it's not harder to remember than +2 to hit that guy. Especially since there are also powers that do just give +2 to hit that guy. In my experience, it's equally valid to give the bonus to PCs... and again, it's far easier to remove something from yourself as something you do every turn than go "Did A go yet? Do I still have that (bonus/penalty)?"

But, I think that part of making it easier to track conditions is making less fiddly conditions and random minor penalties and bonuses to any number of things that last a round or less surely fall into that bin.

So, if you need that power, it can cause everyone to gain combat advantage on the monster for a round. Same effect, simpler, don't have to sweat stacking, and easier to latch other mechanics into it. Otherwise, you can just give the monster a -2 penalty for the encounter. Or _do something else_ like daze, immobilize, whatever.

 

[DMKastmaria]

I do find, however, that in today's instant gratification culture (and I am guilty of this myself), one doesn't see the amount of devotion by DMs to craft their worlds. A lot of this is life. When it's summertime between college semesters, there's a lot more time to craft unique monsters and create lairs for them and such. When one is 40 with a family and there's a lawn to mow in the summer and kids to take to the local pool, there is less time for modifying the game beyond what is quickly found in the books. So although I agree it is possible, in practice, I very rarely see it. Maybe that's because every DM I play with anymore is not single and has a family.

One of the reasons I utilize "bottom up" world design. In the main, I stay just ahead of the players and solicit their input, when possible. So, someone playing a Cleric can make up their own god, if they wish, with associated myth, background material, etc. A player running an elf PC, has the opportunity to define elven culture and history, to a rather large extent, if he or she chooses. Otherwise, I'll fill it in myself, as we go along.

Makes life easier on me, encourages player participation and fosters the kind of glorious chaos, I enjoy.

 

[Thraug]

Ironically, I found 4e to be a throwback to 70's design in this respect - because the implementation of 'exception based design' which was used meant that every monster could do something different. The troglodyte would pin you one way, the devil would pin you another way, a third creature had yet another way of pinning you - all slightly different in their implementation. Maybe every creature had its information in its statblock, but in 3e you just needed to know how stun (or petrification) or something worked once and it always worked that way.

This move away from standardisation of attacks was one of the things I personally found difficult in 4e.

Cheers

Correct. I'm not a fan of powers/abilities that have lasting effects that need to be managed that are unique to that power/ability. They sound good on paper but in my 4e experiences, and coupled with the already long list of existing conditions, they are a nightmare to track. I'd be fine with powers/abilities ONLY issuing LASTING effects that are defined in a small set, say maybe 10 defined conditions. But I doubt that will happen.

 

[KarinsDad]

So, if you need that power, it can cause everyone to gain combat advantage on the monster for a round.

Once you are giving everyone Combat Advantage for the round is the moment that you are handing out a duration: until the end of the user's next turn. By definition. So, again, until the end of the user's next turn is better than until the end of the target's turn for two reasons: 1) nobody is left out in the cold due to init, and 2) the only player that has to do the bookkeeping for and to remind people of the buff/debuff is the user of the power.

You've more or less proved my point by giving this example.


Your end of target's turn preference also has other side effects. For example, the monster that is at -2 to hit until the end of it's turn. If that monster goes immediately after the caster, that monster does not get -2 to hit on Opportunity Attacks for an entire round. If he goes immediately before the caster, he does.

Any duration system that lasts for a full round consistently (casters turn to casters turn) every single time is preferable to one that has different results dependent on initiative order.

And note: in 5E, it's possible that durations might be things like 1 round per level or some such again. So if that does happen, having the user of the spell or power do the bookkeeping is preferable when one is using a power that lasts for 4 rounds.

 

[Janaxstrus]

To me, the real question isn't "how long should a round last?", it's "how many encounters should you be able to fit into a session without rushing?"

The answer, for me, is twelve to twenty.

Re: The problem of conditions- 4e's issue with conditions isn't how many there are, it's how many you need to keep track of in a given fight.

12-20? Really? Are you going off of the 4e "talking to someone is an encounter"?

We have 5 hour 3x/Pathfinder sessions every week, with about 4-5 combat encounters a night, which goes perfectly. I don't want 12-20 encounters a session. That leaves time for roleplaying.