D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[pemerton]

It might correspond in a somewhat abstract way. The term, and artifice, of initiative in wargames didn't spring out of nowhere, it is a concept in military science as well. It is meant to indicate when a particular combatant has seized control of the flow of events, and of course we use it in a similar way in everyday English when we say someone has 'taken the initiative', but it just naturally implies having control in a conflict situation where clearly if YOU have the initiative the other guy DOES NOT and you get to dictate the course of events.

That's not how I understand the phrase. From what I understand, to take initiative means to move toward action instead of waiting around to see what happens.

I'm not sure that these two posts are really in disagreement. Anyway, for better or worse I'm going to respond to them as a unity!

I can see that, in this sense, there is such a thing as seizing the initiative. (And not just in warfare but in any sort of incipient conflict situation.) The puzzle in D&D (and many similar systems) is that rather than being modelled as a bonus to success, it feeds into an essentially symmetrical turn-based structure.

The way the oddity manifests itself varies a bit from system to system, and is probably more egregious in some than in others. (More on that below.)

It really did make some sort of sense in AD&D as a concept, though the fairly arbitrary nature of the ebb and flow of initiative was a bit contrived perhaps.

Right. The ebb and flow is the oddity here.

In Rolemaster (your favourite system, AbdulAlhazred!) there is simultaneous action declaration prior to rolling initiative. This includes declaring attack vs defence. As a result it is possible to get hammered by initiative in a way that seems artificial relative to the fiction of the game: for instance, a character declares a high attack and low defence in order to attack an enemy, wins initiative, rolls a good crit and kills the enemy; then a slower opponent (who lost initiative and therefore hasn't acted yet) gets to close with the character and deliver an attack against the character's low defence. Whereas if that second enemy had won initiative, and thereby acted earlier, s/he would have (let's say) had a penalty to attack because of the blocking enemy who wouldn't have been dead and hence out of the way yet.

Of course the system has rules for changing action declarations, but if you've already attack you're not allowed to re-declare actions in a way that puts that attack bonus back into defence (because that could be exploited in other contexts).

It's a bit weird. I haven't played as much RQ and RM, but I think similar sorts of things can potentially happen there, where the allocation of parrying is influenced by the initiative sequence in a way that can seem arbitrary relative to the flow of ingame events.

The history of Rolemaster supplements and revisions is littered with attempts to invent various forms of strictly continuous resolution that will do away with this sort of issue.

(In this respect, Burning Wheel has an interesting form of continuous resolution. Action declarations are made simultaneously and secretly for the next 3 rounds, and then flipped and resolved. Relative speed factors in by allowing bonus actions in certain rounds - most characters will have one or two "floating" actions that can be assigned to their rounds. Resolution is simultaneous, and the goal is to declare attacks in those "slots" where the enemy has not declared any defences - the "floating" actions are good for this, but equally you're trying to anticipate what your opponent might do with his/hers. There is no initiative as such, but there is a speed/DEX influenced positioning roll at the top of each round that determines who gets to control positioning for that round, which can give bonuses or penalties depending on weapon length.)

In 4e the turn order probably could have a different name, and the term initiative might then be returned to its more abstract meaning, and having or not having it would be a description of the situation and not a mechanic.

your initiative score is merely a measure of how good you are at deciding to act, rather than just sitting there and doing nothing.

I agree with AbdulAlhazred here. Because in 3E/4e/5e style turn-by-turn resolution, after the first round everyone is equally good at deciding how to act and not sitting there and doing nothing. So initiative is really more like a "who gets the chance to gank" bonus. In 4e, because ganking is mechanically so difficult (given the relativities of damage to non-minion hp), it's barely even that!

 

[D'karr]

Rather what I enjoy most about 4e is that the game is focused on immediate and visceral play. From setting material to rules to play advice what matters most is what is currently happening.

I have to agree. I love this about the game. My group is having a blast because every episode of play has immediacy to them. Either their characters, through their selections, have "skin in the game" in what is happening, or as they've grown and built they see their selections being brought to the forefront.

During one of the early games the PCs encountered a Green Dragon, and twig blights in a pretty harrowing combat. The twig blights were minions, but one of them was just unkillable. The dragon's breath had targeted it several times and missed. The players had attacked it and missed. In the end, only the twig blight remained. The players were finally able to defeat it. When they finally "killed" it the warlock player asked if she could reanimate it and have it be a companion. I ended up modifying the Fey Beast Tamer theme to add the Twig Blight and that player has been having a blast with her "indestructible" Twiggy.

One of the players plays a barbarian, and has a wolf cloak that "talks" to him. This was part of his initial backstory. At one point while in the Feywild, I modified the cloak to be a magical item and it actually does talk to him now, it also provides the typical bonus magic cloaks provide. As they go up in level this item will also improve.

There are so many little details in the game that can tie the PCs to the gameworld that it makes my life a lot easier. It is awesome that the game provides mechanical ways to tie-in to these details. When a player decides he wants to have some backstory components there are many ways to bring this to the forefront as part of the mechanics.

 

[TheFindus]

I have seen posters in the past (names escape me) who have expressed a preference for dice-rolled limits/refreshes rather than player-chosen limits/refreshes - if someone held that preference, then my hit point analogy would break down because hit points aren't a player-chosen/fiated limit but rather a randomly determined limit. I think this is probably part of why 13th Age goes for more random dice rationing rather than player-chosen rationing: it's catering to the preference I just described.

I agree with your assessment that some (if not lots of) People like stuff to be determined by the roll of the dice. This thread is proof to this. In 13th Age you have dailies and encounter powers. In addition, players get recharge powers for their PCs. My impression is that this is not in order to cater to the dice rollers out there, but to give players even more powers fort their PCs while putting these powers into a mechanical framework that is mathematically balanced and nuanced. Therefore recharge 6+, 11+ and 16+ powers. For example, the rally action in 13th Age (basically allowing to spend a healing surge/recovery) can be taken more than once each encounter. You just have to roll 11+. In 4E, you can rally once. This is why I am saying that 13th Age makes PCs more heroic within a mathematical framework.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's not how I understand the phrase. From what I understand, to take initiative means to move toward action instead of waiting around to see what happens. In that way, your initiative score is merely a measure of how good you are at deciding to act, rather than just sitting there and doing nothing.

In military theory the initiative isn't a quality that you have, its a quality of the situation. If you are dictating the terms of the conflict to your opponents, then you "have the initiative" the other guy is doing what you want, and you decide what will happen next. Simplistically that can translate to you getting to 'go first', but it could actually represent you forcing the opponent to do something which you want him to do (like say if you lay down a whole lot of fire in a kill zone and force the other guy to take cover instead of advancing).

What TENDS to happen is that when you seize the initiative you backfoot your opponent, whatever happens next leads to giving you a chance to continue to control the situation. Often this is the result of superior C3I, Command, Control, Communication, and Intelligence, which means you are capable of acting in a tighter decision cycle than your opponent. By the time he figures out what you just did and what to do about it, you've already gone on to the next phase of your plan and he's behind the curve.

This doesn't tend to get reflected in the 'initiative' system of 4e, but to a certain extent the side-based initiative system of AD&D did kind of represent it in a more concrete way, though the fact that initiative was a toss of dice and could swap each round was a bit arbitrary. It might have been more interesting, or at least faithful to the feel of real combat to have had some sort of criteria by which each side was scored to determine who had the initiative.

Of course the flip side of this is that in 4e initiative in the military science sense is a function of tactics employed, and maybe some luck, which is probably equally a good way to handle it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In Rolemaster (your favourite system, AbdulAlhazred!) there is simultaneous action declaration prior to rolling initiative.

Well, you have this also in AD&D (and possibly earlier versions though its much more murky), the players are supposed to decide their actions BEFORE initiative is rolled (often ignored). Technically the DM is supposed to do so also, but its hard to enforce. However the exact nature of these declarations isn't spelled out (IE do you have to decide exactly who you are attacking or just that you are swinging your sword). Coupled with other large grey areas in the combat rules the effect is pretty variable from table to table.

(In this respect, Burning Wheel has an interesting form of continuous resolution. Action declarations are made simultaneously and secretly for the next 3 rounds, and then flipped and resolved. Relative speed factors in by allowing bonus actions in certain rounds - most characters will have one or two "floating" actions that can be assigned to their rounds. Resolution is simultaneous, and the goal is to declare attacks in those "slots" where the enemy has not declared any defences - the "floating" actions are good for this, but equally you're trying to anticipate what your opponent might do with his/hers. There is no initiative as such, but there is a speed/DEX influenced positioning roll at the top of each round that determines who gets to control positioning for that round, which can give bonuses or penalties depending on weapon length.)

Sounds a lot like the Star Fleet Battles 'impulse' system. The turn is broken down into 32 impulses. Before the turn starts each player allocates energy for that turn, thus deciding between offense, defense, and movement essentially. Depending on which variants of the rules you use you then plot your movement for the entire turn, or not. In either case there are various techniques to acquire 'reserve power' which lets you make mid-turn changes. In any case each weapon generally can attack once per turn, on any impulse, and units move in a pro-rated simultaneous fashion (speed 31 is the maximum, at which speed you move on all but impulse 1, if your speed was 8 you'd move on impulses 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, and 32). Its a pretty workable system when you have a small number of ships on each side, but it breaks down quickly if the battle is very complex. Obviously if each individual 'unit' is simpler then it isn't so bad.

I agree with AbdulAlhazred here. Because in 3E/4e/5e style turn-by-turn resolution, after the first round everyone is equally good at deciding how to act and not sitting there and doing nothing. So initiative is really more like a "who gets the chance to gank" bonus. In 4e, because ganking is mechanically so difficult (given the relativities of damage to non-minion hp), it's barely even that!

Well, you are still going first in 4e, you may not kill anyone on round 1, but debuffs are quite feasible, and beyond that you'll still go ahead of the other guy again on round 2, at which point its more likely you'll off him before he can act. Its not utterly critical to go first, but its handy. A good dex and one or another of the initiative bonus feats can be a pretty nice idea, especially for a controller.

 

[sabrinathecat]

There was a lot to like about 4E. There was a lot to bitch about. Thing is, for all the complaints, it was still a brilliant and innovative improvement from 3E/3.5.
I play with a group that games every Sunday (unless 2 or more can't make it or a holiday or such-like). In the time since 4E came out, we've had 2 games finish to lvl30, 1 reach epic but not finish (lvl24), 2 reach paragon, and one in the middle of Heroic. This is not enough to explore all the possibilities that even the PH1 had.

 

[sabrinathecat]

I loved the off-line character builder.
I loved the off-line monster builder.
I loved the people bitching about how 4E didn't have enough variety, even though just the PH1 had over 136 lvl1 combinations, not counting alignment, deity, choice of weapons, choice of daily powers(usually 2 designed for each build), choice of encounter powers (usually 2 designed for each build), or feats. (Some combinations were less than optimal, but they were options). And of course, there were usually at least 4 choices of power for each level (usually 2 for each build)...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I loved the off-line character builder.
I loved the off-line monster builder.
I loved the people bitching about how 4E didn't have enough variety, even though just the PH1 had over 136 lvl1 combinations, not counting alignment, deity, choice of weapons, choice of daily powers(usually 2 designed for each build), choice of encounter powers (usually 2 designed for each build), or feats. (Some combinations were less than optimal, but they were options). And of course, there were usually at least 4 choices of power for each level (usually 2 for each build)...

Yeah, the last 'war thread left on the WotC 4e forum is STILL full of tripe about how 4e had no options, 5e has "10x more" real build options, you can't be an archer fighter, you can't do this you can't do that, and you can't count anything that isn't in PHB1 because its 'unfair to compare', etc etc etc. It was almost amusing in its willful blindness.

That's OK though, my understanding of what I want the game to be is refined with each encounter with inflexible thinking....

 

[sabrinathecat]

It is willful blindness. After all, 574 combination options isn't enough to start a game with. That should be obvious to anyone.

And char-oppers are always right. About everything. Didn't you know that? They said so--what do you mean you want more than that?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is willful blindness. After all, 574 combination options isn't enough to start a game with. That should be obvious to anyone.

And char-oppers are always right. About everything. Didn't you know that? They said so--what do you mean you want more than that?

Eh, its more people who just have a distaste for AEDU, mostly because it isn't the traditional mechanics. Thus you get gems like "Fighters and Wizards are all the same" etc. Its just not something you can even ascribe to any sort of logic, just visceral dislike rationalized into a form that can be presented in a forum post.

See, I can understand and even sympathize with the sorts of things that Saelorn, etc are saying. They're not really even criticizing 4e, and even if they are at least there's some straightforward kind of reasoning to it that makes sense. I can get how Jameson's game differs from 4e in terms of resolution. Maybe I'm not convinced that it would work in a commercial game, but I can picture the differences. Its easy enough to see how 4e didn't really give any great attention to or really fit especially well with a logistically-driven exploration quest, and it certainly doesn't give more than lip service to things like running a domain or anything like that. Not that these are impossibilities within the scope of 4e mechanics, but if you push that sort of game then you probably run into the weaker aspects of the game without really benefiting from the strengths, so why not just run one of the nicer more modern OSR-styled systems that uses a pretty solid d20 core and lays all the old school thematics and agenda on top of it? Makes sense!

I also understand the 'bridge too far' sentiment that WotC might have been better off to make 4e such a game, but they didn't. Maybe they could have hewed a line that was a bit 'to the left of' where they did go with 4e, I'm not sure. 5e isn't vastly far off in some ways, but it falls far short of 4e in others. It feels more like what 3e should have been than like what 4e should have been...