Stuff that still bugs me about 4e

[The Little Raven]

And still no word- how long has it been since the revision was announced?

The revision was announced just before GenCon.

The last update was a couple weeks ago, when Scott noted that since has taken on Linae's workload as well as his own, it will be a little while before it gets finalized.

 

[Treebore]

Lets see, things I am not liking about 4E so far, and this includes game design of their modules. Keep of the Shadowfell, in particular.

So far I have only played 4E up to third level, and the following is what bugs me the most so far:

We have attempted to use our one a days/per encounters over 10 times each now, the most any of us have hit out of those 10+ times is 3. So we are thinking of having all such powers expended only on successful hits.

When the mage rolls 8 crappy rolls in a row THEY SUCK!!!

When the cleric fails half of their rolls in a tough combat things get uglier!

When the monsters have AC's an average of 2 to 4 points higher then your group does the encounter is going to SUCK!!

My parties AC's for those wearing armor, 17, 17, 18, 21

AC's of too many of our opponents, 19, 20, 22, and 24.

Plus they do more damage (2d8+ with crossbows! WTH!!!), slow us, and generally have more powers that handicap us better than what we do to them.

I am glad my group is good at teamwork and strategy. If we weren't I can see why so many have talked about PC kills and TPK's. Even as good as we are we have come close, mostly because of bad die rolls. Last night we had players missing 7 out of 8 rolls. The frickin combat lasted for 12 ROUNDS!!! We used many of our healing surges, our cleric was completely out!

The mage got off maybe 4 successful spells against at least 1 target. Plus I noticed their save defenses were several points better than most of our parties. Ours were mostly 11 to 13, theirs were often 15 or better. What is up with that?

So in 4E encounter design the bad guys have better AC, equal or better to hit rolls, do better damage over all, have similar HP's, better save defenses, and more crippling powers.

The only positive thing I can say is if these were 3E or earlier classes we would have definitely been TPKed. Several times. I guess thats a positive thing, I am not sure yet.

 

[MerricB]

Plus they do more damage (2d8+ with crossbows! WTH!!!)

Assuming all of this is from Keep on the Shadowfell...

Ah yes, the Goblin Sharpshooter. It's just sneak attack. 1d8+1d6+4 damage, assuming they have combat advantage against you. Your rogue should be doing more damage back.

Hobgoblin Soldier-types are very tough; they have really high ACs. (They get a +2 bonus when they are beside another hobgoblin). However, looking through the other monsters, they seem to have ACs on line with yours - ditto defenses. I'm really not sure why you have such low defenses, in any case. For a 3rd level character, your defenses should mostly be in the range of 13-15. (10+1/2 level+highest of two modifiers+magic, if any).

I know the encounter you describe, and my party found it tough but the wizard didn't miss with his area attacks (needed a 7+ to kill a minion on a d20) and dropped all the support of the hobgoblin leader, thus lessening his AC by two points. After that, the fighter and paladin just traded blows with the leader, moved around to flank him, and basically neutralised his effectiveness. The other hobgoblins gave the rest of the party more of a problem, though.

If you'd like to discuss your experiences with Keep more, I'd be happy to respond in another (forked?) thread.

Cheers!

 

[Treebore]

Assuming all of this is from Keep on the Shadowfell...

Ah yes, the Goblin Sharpshooter. It's just sneak attack. 1d8+1d6+4 damage, assuming they have combat advantage against you. Your rogue should be doing more damage back.

Hobgoblin Soldier-types are very tough; they have really high ACs. (They get a +2 bonus when they are beside another hobgoblin). However, looking through the other monsters, they seem to have ACs on line with yours - ditto defenses. I'm really not sure why you have such low defenses, in any case. For a 3rd level character, your defenses should mostly be in the range of 13-15. (10+1/2 level+highest of two modifiers+magic, if any).

I know the encounter you describe, and my party found it tough but the wizard didn't miss with his area attacks (needed a 7+ to kill a minion on a d20) and dropped all the support of the hobgoblin leader, thus lessening his AC by two points. After that, the fighter and paladin just traded blows with the leader, moved around to flank him, and basically neutralised his effectiveness. The other hobgoblins gave the rest of the party more of a problem, though.

If you'd like to discuss your experiences with Keep more, I'd be happy to respond in another (forked?) thread.

Cheers!

Well, the difficulty of that encounter was because we had players missing 7 out of 8 times due to the AC's being so high. Or in the mages case due to rolling below 10 so many times in 12 rounds.

We actually killed the 4 minions pretty quick, it was the rest of them, combined with all of our missing their high AC's, that made it such a long and difficult encounter. 12 rounds to kill 5 opponents, crazy!

Just kind of shows/proves, no matter how balanced you may think an encounter is, if the dice go against ya, your likely to end up dead anyways.

If their AC's had been 16's it would have gone much faster. We could have hti 16, but 20? 22? Not nearly often enough.

Our groups composition is Paladin (me), Cleric, Warlord, Fighter, and Mage.

 

[MerricB]

Well, the difficulty of that encounter was because we had players missing 7 out of 8 times due to the AC's being so high. Or in the mages case due to rolling below 10 so many times in 12 rounds.

We actually killed the 4 minions pretty quick, it was the rest of them, combined with all of our missing their high AC's, that made it such a long and difficult encounter. 12 rounds to kill 5 opponents, crazy!

Just kind of shows/proves, no matter how balanced you may think an encounter is, if the dice go against ya, your likely to end up dead anyways.

Truly. I've had sessions where the wizards just couldn't hit anything with their die rolls.

If their AC's had been 16's it would have gone much faster. We could have hti 16, but 20? 22? Not nearly often enough.

Our groups composition is Paladin (me), Cleric, Warlord, Fighter, and Mage.

Interesting - two defenders, two leaders and a controller. That sort of puts things in context: you will tend to longer combats, but your group stays up longer. Compare to my group of Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock and Wizard.

Were you able to flank them?

Cheers!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I don't want to get into a 3E vs 4E argument. Suffice to say, the former was an escalation of immunities on both sides of the table (immune to crits, immune to various elements, immune to death, etc.) to the point that usage of several abilities on the player's side (i.e. sneak attack) became frustrating ("why can't I use this ability?" and so on).

Fair enough, I wish there weren't so many binary absolutes in 3E, but the escalation is usually at least reasonable until very high levels. And I admit it's hard to keep things from breaking down at high levels. I'd like to see a few dozen more 4E supplements come out before I agree 4E escaped this same problem, though.

I've used illusions, fakes, and the like during my time but that only work a) so many times and b) on only so many enemies. Like that wild, rampaging beast (i.e. Tarrasque) isn't going to be a planner...

There's nothing wrong with the PCs using their favorite abilities and tactics sometimes. Not every enemy has to be immunized against a humiliating round 1 defeat. It's more about challenging the players often enough to keep them on their toes.

Again, those are ad-hoc solutions. Sometimes, the villain isn't going to have a support staff. Or healers. (And 3.xx encounter design is based on 4 PCs vs 1 Monster.)

I've never bought into that. I realized very early into being a DM in 3E that lone bosses were a bad idea. Most times, the weight of the party's number of actions alone will overwhelm the boss no matter what. Sometimes, the rolls go bad for the players, and suddenly those abilities the monster had that made it a threat even though outnumbered become very deadly. I often have my "boss" be a duo or trio, all of near equal power, to divide the party's attention. And if I do a single powerful foe, he's definitely coming with a support staff! And if not, he used said staff's lives to wear down the PCs resources before confronting them.

All that said, sometimes it's nice to just take it easy and let the players revel in being awesome.

Little makes playing PCs or running monsters more tedious and "bureaucratic" then having to have several buff spells active to just get on equal ground to your respective opposition. Rules Mastery (use these spells to gain maximum effectiveness) combined with book-keeping is a good way to remind me I am just playing a game.

And having to come up with ways to defeat player character abilities is also something that I as the DM don't like. I want them to use their abilities, and if I "pre-script" all defenses against their known tactics and spells. It just cheapens their abilities, and they begin to ask why they even have these abilities when they don't get to use them when it really counts?

As above, not all the time. Just foil their abilities sometimes. And if you really hate SoD, you can just ban them. Or make a "boss" template that makes them immune to really nasty things (and giving an appropriate CR boost in return). 3E is open, you can do lots of varied things to any enemy generally, unless they're by nature unaffected. That's one of the benefits of the system, but it also has its drawbacks. Still, I'd rather take a single line to ban extra things I don't like than have to write several paragraphs to bring in something I want that was left out of the rules. Further more...I like system mastery.

Wow, how would that conversation go?

"Look, faithful Tim, I would like you dress like me so that when we are facing a powerful evil wizard, he might just mistake you for me and kill you first."

"Oh yeah, I'll get right on that, boss."

Body doubles are used all the time in real life to protect important people and possibly have to take a bullet for them, so why is it so hard to imagine in game? And what villain poses it like that? It'd be more like, "Hey you, worthless scum I'm keeping alive only so long as you're useful to me. Put these clothes and wig on and stand in front of me. Ask any questions...and you cease to be useful to me."

And if you can't rationalize this, how can you rationalize the ridiculously over-matched goons charging the PCs and meeting certain death?

What?

Color spray and even Grease render you pretty helpless on a failed save, and they're level 1. Hold Person is level 2.

Granted, in those cases it's more like "save or wait to die" but still.

Not to mention sleep (level 1).

The person I was replying to was talking strictly about SoD, not save-or-lose/suck/run/cry/become my mind slave. Sleep is also a level 1 daily in 4E. And it does the same thing, makes the victims vulnerable to coup-de-grace. Except the 4E version has no HD limit or numbers limit, retaining its power at every level in return for needing two failed rolls. Beyond that, the only difference is that 4E CDG is less lethal than 3E's version, arguably too survivable (IMHO, at least).

Also, grease? The worst it can do (if you constantly, round after round, fail your reflex or balance roll) is leave you prone or disarmed. How is that anywhere near helpless? Not to mention at round/level, it's hardly worh casting at level 1 anyway...

 

[Treebore]

Interesting - two defenders, two leaders and a controller. That sort of puts things in context: you will tend to longer combats, but your group stays up longer. Compare to my group of Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Warlock and Wizard.

Were you able to flank them?

Cheers!

How does having a rogue instead of an cleric speed up combats? In our game session it would have sped it up because without the cleric we would have died. Probably around round 6. So yes, I see how it would be faster in that regard.

Yes, we were flanking and being flanked. When your rolling like crap your bonuses rarely make a difference. Heck, my Paladin often had an additonal +4 or +5 with flanking and Valiant Strike. However when you roll a 6 and need to hit an AC 22, you still miss.

Considering how often the DM hit us we are very lucky to have survived. Healing Surges and second winds definitely saved us.

 

[MerricB]

How does having a rogue instead of an cleric speed up combats?

Dealing 1d6+2d8+4 every attack tends to shorten the lifespan of your opponents. Strikers deal a lot of damage in 4e. The group does run into having problems healing, though. Healing Potions are very valuable in this game.

Cheers!

 

[Treebore]

Dealing 1d6+2d8+4 every attack tends to shorten the lifespan of your opponents. Strikers deal a lot of damage in 4e. The group does run into having problems healing, though. Healing Potions are very valuable in this game.

Cheers!

Yeah, that would have helped. Then again, with the way rolls were going, the Rogue would never have hit.

 

[MerricB]

Yeah, that would have helped. Then again, with the way rolls were going, the Rogue would never have hit.

There comes a time when you just have to push the dwarf into the monsters, and run for your lives.

Cheers!