Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Garthanos]

A better evolution than more skills might have been to go with the stat from column A/skill from column B (or attribute + ability, for the obvious reference) take that the playtest used for maybe 1 packet towards the end - but fewer skills.

Playtest material had a number of things I thought might have potential so very nearly none of those went anywhere because this edition was not for fans of the previous.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Mainly, I pay for pretty pictures and maps, not rules?

I've all the pretty pictures I need for free on the internet. I mean of course places like Wikimedia commons... And coffee table books are relatively cheap. Also the rules make up more than half the core books and lots of the MMs (I include things like spell descriptions as rules) - I don't understand buying books like that and them not being what I think I'm paying for.

 

[Parmandur]

I've all the pretty pictures I need for free on the internet. I mean of course places like Wikimedia commons... And coffee table books are relatively cheap. Also the rules make up more than half the core books and lots of the MMs (I include things like spell descriptions as rules) - I don't understand buying books like that and them not being what I think I'm paying for.

Well, all the rules you need are also free on the Internet, for a lot of different RPGs...?

I use D&D books for reading, too, rules are just part of it.

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[Neonchameleon]

Well, all the rules you need are also free on the Internet, for a lot of different RPGs...?

Yes. Which means I'm only going to play one where I think the rules are actually giving me something to make the game I want to run better.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes. Which means I'm only going to play one where I think the rules are actually giving me something to make the game I want to run better.

Well, as far as that partt goes, same here?

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[AbdulAlhazred]

That's called 'sandboxing.'

Which CAN be fine, but you can sandbox within the encounter-driven stream of things too. It probably won't look like the detailed exploratory play type sandbox, but it can still be one.

A better evolution than more skills might have been to go with the stat from column A/skill from column B (or attribute + ability, for the obvious reference) take that the playtest used for maybe 1 packet towards the end - but fewer skills.

Except I want quick, and the whole process of deciding between 18 skills and 6 different stat drivers for each one, and then adding up the bonuses, is not usually worth it. I want QUICK, and 4e's system gave you that with totally pre-set modifiers and which skill to use being almost always totally obvious.

It's true that being good at exploration doesn't excuse being bad at combat: what if the game is all combat & interaction, no exploration? But that's not a problem with the concept of pillars, just with trying to balance across all of them, rather than within each.

Yeah, I mean I don't disagree that exploration, combat, and socializing aren't all significant realms of activity. I just like how in 4e they aren't DIFFERENT realms of activity so much, they all use a very similar format of play. That helps with the 'nobody is only good at one situation' stuff. And of course even in 4e some characters are usually bad at some things. Fighters have very little way to get useful social skills, though its still not hard to acquire them through background or MC feat or whatever.

That's a broad definition of 'encounters' if you're including traps and skill challenges and the like. And, to be fair, it's a definition that goes back to 3e, IIRC.

Yes, its broad. One of my 'things' is the expressivity of systems as language. When a game has basically one core system it reuses then the other things that hang off that gain increased expressivity because they can be applied in many situations. So 'all significant situations are encounters' is POWERFUL because the same 'encounter language' (actions, powers, turn sequence, definitions of friend and enemy, etc) can all be applied in EVERY situation now, and not just some. If you want to swing a weapon in the middle of an SC, its trivial, and if you want to have a combat that is also an SC, that's trivial too.

 

[pemerton]

I would consider 18 the normal starting value. Fighters in particular can usefully exploit various abilities depending on build, so its even reasonable to see a 16 now and then. You'll not too often see a +7 level 1 fighter, but its a reasonable build (+2 for axe, +4 STR, +1 FWT). I think most fighters start at +8, or +9. Really start to get diminishing returns past that and really limit your feat choices a lot. Granted, over time there have been less feats with pre-reqs and more other choices, so maybe nowadays +9 or +10 is the norm? I don't know. I know a hammer dwarf could easily be viable with +7 and a high wis.

That 2nd build is why the 1st build ends up existing...or the closer variation, the Dwarf with Dwarven Training and a 16 Str.

From an optimization standpoint, they're both a little off - one person is following an optimization rule without questioning it(invest in to-hit is a good thing!) and the other potentially isn't following that rule at all. At worst, the 1st is going to be over-invested in to-hit. Nothing too wrong with that. But the 2nd might not be investing in to-hit to make up for the (relatively poor) starting value.

But everyone's seen enough of build #2 to realize that having a +2 proficiency or 16 starting Str often means bad or even really awful at hitting. And instead of going, "Hey, maybe that player doesn't know what they're doing?", they go, "Wow, that build that player is using an axe and keeps missing all the time. Having an axe sucks!"

Random anecdote: the dwarf fighter in my game started with 16 STR, halberd, DWT and Passing Attack as an encounter power. He never seemed to have that much trouble hitting. Certainly never gave rise to any buyer remorse.

 

[pemerton]

All my IRL friends who dig 4e are not tactical players. The game appeals to them because every single player option has lore, the game runs smoothly, they can read their abilities and know what to expect, etc. Not because it's tactical.

Those descriptors sound tactical to me...?

What? How?

How is "running smoothly" tactical? How is "the game does about what you explect it to do" tactical?

How in the 9 hells is "every player option has lore" remotely tactical!?

Well, the built-in lore thing less so (though that is true of any edition of D&D, from my reading?), but the rest sounds more like loaded language for "I like the tactical game" which is fine.

Honest, don't see how those aspects you mentioned could relate to anything *but* combat tactics...?

Well, you listed elements that sounded like they were grounded in tactical situations, like "reliable abilities"?

My response to this exchange was the same as doctorbadwolf's: I don't see how the game running smoothly, or abilities being reliable, has anything to do with tactical combat.

A player declares that his/her PC wants to speak a prayer to the Raven Queen to help in a fight against a wight. Wants to win a court case concerning the legaility of a leasehold issued by the baron's corrupt advisor. Wants to evade hobgoblin wyvern riders while racing to town on a flying carpet. Wants to possess a gate guard and read his mind to learn the password.

4e makes resolving all these things completely straightforward, because it has a default DC chart, a damage-by-level chart, and a skill challenge framework that allows for finality in non-combat resolution just as the hit point mechanic produces finality in combat resolution.

Well, it works more reliably...for heavy tactical combat, but it is hard to avoid that.. Other than that, eh, any edition is about the same?

The whole skill challenge system was interesting, but in terms of "reliability" I wouldn't put it above or below the other editions: it was more systematized, maybe, but that's about it.

It produces finality. That's completely different from anything found in 3E, or most of AD&D (a few checks in AD&D have a no re-tries rule, but they're single checks, not scene-resolution systems).

Classic D&D had some interesting little sub-systems, like the wilderness evasion rules or the morale rules, but (i) they didn't generalise, and (ii) later editions have dropped them.

But the beauty of the system is that it allows the DM to set everything up and make common sense calls: pick a DC off the screen and roll. Easy as pumpkin pie. No muss, no fuss.

This doesn't seem a special virtue of a system - as you describe it, every system from classic D&D (with its stat checks) through RQ to 5e allows for this.

I am seeing people playing martial PCs in 5E stunting like crazy, just narrating the results of the die rolls creatively: 4E is more...narrow...in dictating the stunting, from my experience?

Whether colourful narration counts as stunting is, I think, very much up for grabs - I think a lot of people, by "stunting", have in mind something where the fiction will actually affect the resolution.

It's certainly true that 4e tends to eschew mere colour for fiction-driven resolution.

Been reading Howard's Conan lately; Conan is a bit absurd himself, but the combat is accurately super swingy and deadly.

Most of the fights take a sentence or two, and the other guy is dead because Conan cut him in half, or stabbed the giant in the unmentionables: it moves quicker than any edition of D&D combat, and isn't super stunt heavy.

As someone else posted, combat in Conan isn't very swingy at all: Conan tends to kill everything he strikes at with a single blow.

I don't think classic D&D emulates that particularly well at all, because eg werehyneas will tend to have at least 2 or 3 HD, and hence not be liable to be killed by a single punch from Conan's fist. 4e's minion rules actually come closer to this feel.

 

[MwaO]

Random anecdote: the dwarf fighter in my game started with 16 STR, halberd, DWT and Passing Attack as an encounter power. He never seemed to have that much trouble hitting. Certainly never gave rise to any buyer remorse.

.55*(5.5+5) = 5.78
.65*(4.5+4) = 5.5

i.e. about identical #s, except the 2nd guy has a heavy shield and therefore +2 AC/Ref, no reach and hasn't spent a feat to get +2 damage. As reach tends to be low value in 4e, especially for a Fighter, that's not a great outcome.

But provided he doesn't do similar things in the future, probably fine. And a lot of that is under your control via the magic items that you hand out in a PHB 1/PHB 2 only game and the other PCs giving CA or other options.

Speaking from experience, I played a Fighter with a 14 Strength in early 4e. Many things can be overcome if you think them through or you simply don't do anything else equally bad

 

[MwaO]

4e makes resolving all these things completely straightforward, because it has a default DC chart, a damage-by-level chart, and a skill challenge framework that allows for finality in non-combat resolution just as the hit point mechanic produces finality in combat resolution.

I think the bolded text is a big area of confusion:
That there is a default DC chart has nothing to do with the difficulty of a particular task. Simply that if a DM is going to put something in the way of the players at level X, it ought to have a DC of at least X. And if it is below that, it probably isn't worth mentioning as part of a skill check.

As an example, a group of 30th level PCs run into a series of DC 17 iron shod doors with lots of verisimilitude. The minimum DC for easy is DC 24. This doesn't mean they can't run into the doors. It just means that simply doesn't count for purpose of the skill challenge. A common mistake that people would make is that they'd take the exact same iron shod door and make it different DCs - and because LFR mods were set for different levels of PCs, they'd need to do that simply from a structure the skill challenge PoV.

And the early mods should have come with warning text saying, "Hey, just be aware, here's why the DCs change." but didn't.