D&D 4E SRM Marking Marked and Other 4Eisms

[hong]

Another converted to HaT uv 4e! At this rate it will only take a few centuries to displace WoTC and take over the D&D market

On the serious end I'm fairly certain that I read in multiple places one comment after another that combat was being streamlined and the rough edges with the little fiddly bits filed off. Yet previews seem to be showing the exact opposite of that design philosophy. Was it just something Marketing kicked in because they knew it would be taken well?

From experience with Bo9S, it should run a lot smoother than currently, if you have all the accessories. If you don't, then it'll bog down.

A lot of the complexity probably only kicks in at high levels. Starting out, you might have 3-4 powers each and no conditions, which should be simple enough.

 

[MaelStorm]

I don't hate 4E, I hate WotC

 

[fafhrd]

I believe the original quote comes courtesy of a slight exaggeration of poster "Silent Wail" over on rpg.net.

 

[MaelStorm]

I going to play GURPS 4E instead. More flexibility and less expensive. No rogue with small blade and thievery if you don't want to. corporate greed. FTW

 

[Spatula]

One thing missing is that the wizard would be suffering from the negative effects of the fighter's mark, and therefore would still have a penalty on his spell attack rolls.

Try reading to the end of Mad Mac's post...

It does show that given what (little) we know about the mark, marking an ally to remove an enemy mark is a silly idea - the marked player still suffers penalties. Also, I would think the reason one mark overwrites another is that having two marks from two different characters on a creature creates an unwinnable situation - no matter who you attack, someone is punishing you. Yes, the mechanic is very "gamey" compared to what has come before, but is that really a surprise at this point?

 

[malraux]

Depends on the circumstances. Tossing a level 1 mark on your level 30 buddy to wipe out the level 30 mark the Arch Demon just threw on him might well make perfect sense.

But then your defender is not spending his time marking or attacking the Arch Demon. And given that marks just encourage you to attack the person who gave it to you, getting rid of it won't exactly do much.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

No. What you are saying is that the mechanics as the stand (at the level we know them) are at a severe disconnect with what they are intended to produce. If the paladin damage dealing marks are powerful enough to influence opponent's actions, then they are an effective offense in their own right. To use them as an offense, the paladin has to avoid attacks. To do anything else *would be metagaming*. Bad design.

There are several errors in logic here. First, all that the paladin's defending abilities have to do is provide some additional incentive to attack the paladin over other targets. This does not mean that they have to be particularly effective as a directly offencive abilities. Second, even if these techniques are as effective as directly offencive abilities, they seem to be designed to go into effect if the target does not intend to attack the paladin. Thus the paladin must both provide incentive to be attacked and provide incentive not to be attacked. Third, even this seems to be ideal defender behaviour, not aberrant defender behaviour.

Approaching game design from a gamist point of view has several problems. One, your design is more likely to break if people don't treat it seriously.

I'm not sure if this is even a coherent English sentence. I certainly don't understand the meaning.

Two, people find it hard to treat your design seriously. The latter is the bigger problem, any system breaks if people don't treat it seriously, so preserving credibility is crucial. Marks, as described (incompletely, granted), make me laugh. I am apparently not alone in that. That is bad.

I don't get it. A system that is designed to facilitate gamist play is bad, in principle, because people who play in a gamist mentality will... will what? Play gamist? And people who play for some other reason will... will what? Use the rules for some other purpose?

 

[hong]

OK, I laughed.

Seriously, stupid, arbitrary rules don't break D&D -- we've lived with "the hole closes by muscular action" for eight years now, after all -- but let's not pretend they're not stupid. Responding to an obvious exploit with "Well, you shouldn't do that!" or "They'll just mandate it can't be done!" shouldn't be considered high praise of a game system. It's indicative of a quick patch tossed in at the last minute.

We can play and have fun with stupid, arbitrary rules. I'd just rather not see people be so determined to bend over backwards to claim they're not stupid or arbitrary.

And what's wrong with stupid?

 

[small pumpkin man]

From experience with Bo9S, it should run a lot smoother than currently, if you have all the accessories. If you don't, then it'll bog down.

A lot of the complexity probably only kicks in at high levels. Starting out, you might have 3-4 powers each and no conditions, which should be simple enough.

I agree, I've been playing my Crusader without cards (I just roll for what I get) and it works fairly well, and there are certainly people in my group I wouldn't trust to do it that way, but they're exactly the same people I don't trust to play Druid or character with multiple attacks.The fact that you can get past it while Druids will always bog down play is a step in the right direction, but not necessarily the direction it was assumed the game was going.

The complexity is more interesting and more concept based than numbers based, which is easier to handle with physical objects, (it's also looking more interesting) but it certainly isn't looking "simple".

 

[Michael Morris]

This is a bad sign - Wizards game designers have forgotten the "Rule of 7"

To wit, on average human beings can temporarily recall 7 random facts on a short term basis. Now some individuals can do better, some worse, but the average is 7. This is the reason there are 7 digits in a phone number

Gotta remember the elf bonus to my spot checks. Oh, and the monster has marked me. Oh, btw the way, I'm bloodied. This is starting to get as bad, if not worse, than the famous 3e magic item christmas tree of magic item stacking effects.

I want this edition to do well, I really do, but this is not a good sign at all.