D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[Pickles III]

Quick mathematics moment. Under the 3e paradigm you typically face 14 encounters of equal level before you level up. Assuming half the encounters are potentially lethal, and that there's a 99% chance that you'll survive any particular potentially lethal encounter, do you know what level you get to before your probability of being alive is less than 50%? 9th. If you get to 10th level without dying, having faced 70 encounters where you only had a 1% chance of dying, then you're doing better than average. And you're saying 4e PCs win pretty much all the time. Do you really think other editions are particularly dangerous for PCs?

I did say "of course this is the same for any edition"

Nice to see the half life maths though.

4e did insulate you from death through randomness to a large extent - crits or fluffed saves vs Death which meant that most of the deaths I saw were in TPKs (I think I saw more TPKs than instances of a character dying outside a TPK, though that's a handful in each instance).

Anyway the thrust of what I am saying s that I do things in 4e combat & indeed engage in it in the first place because it is great fun. I do not avoid it in the way I avoid any conflict or potential for pain & maiming IRL.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Right, any RPG is as easy or hard as you are desiring to make it. You can play 4e as an easy-going story game where 'loss' is just a setback and the PCs almost always win fights regardless. Or you could play it as a completely hard-assed survival game, like 4th Core, using exactly the same rules. The same is true of every edition of D&D. If you want you can make it tough, or you can go pretty easy and just play to have a few laughs.

That's as true as it is to estimate the ability of the characters (and players' skill) vs the threat of the challenge (and your own 'skill' as a Killer DM). Some games make that harder than others. In classic D&D it was an art, you developed the talent for it or you didn't. As a result, there were a lot of 'Killer' and 'Monty Haul' DMs out there, some of them unintentional.

When D&D introduced actual encounter guidelines, they weren't too dependable or easy to use. CR was iffy, a monster might be much deadlier than it's CR suggested, or a party might be able to handle much more challenging encounters than their level suggested, due to party composition, or simple strategies like the 5MWD - nor was it simple, an encounter of multiple monsters was a matter of 'breaking up' higher CR values into multiple lower ones. 4e did a lot better, with simpler guidelines, tighter math and less severe balance fluctuation on both sides of the equation, and added guidelines for non-combat 'skill' challenges, as well. 5e, as the flip side of making combat faster/'simpler'/TotM and accuracy 'bounded,' needed more complicated encounter guidelines - and, at this point, they also don't work really well (might get better as they tune their 'monster math').

 

[D'karr]

As I keep running more sessions of 4e I keep finding other things that really stand out as great in the system.

Exciting combats that can be easily tweaked/expanded/contracted.

Several weeks ago the characters had a combat with a Hobgoblin Commander (leveled up), his pet black dragon (leveled up mount), and his bugbear mooks (some minions and some standard) with additional waves of bugbears appearing in subsequent turns. This encounter happened on a large open area on the side of a mountain. We used the Temple map from Keep on the Shadowfell as the top level with several of the cave maps from Trollhaunt warrens as the lower levels.

It was a totally awesome combat. Combat progressed across both levels with the dragon and the commander being able to fly from level to level with no issues. Everyone else had to climb to the upper level, or jump/climb to the lower levels. Some players were totally digging this movement - jumping from tops of ladders down to the bugbears below (cannonball). At one point one of the characters jumped over the dragon's snout in mid flight and deployed an immovable rod catching the commander square in the gut and unmounting him. This turned the tide of combat in their favor, but the bugbear reinforcements kept coming. When the party rogue grabbed on to the dragon's "scruff" and started riding him, the dragon spiraled up into the air continuing to climb for several turns. Let's just say that the dragon and rogue's demise was truly epic.

 

[Garthanos]

The myth that early D&D was this hugely lethal game is just that, a myth. Your odds of dying in any edition of D&D are about the same, given the same challenges.

NPC fires an arrow at thief or mage round one puts them down in one shot.... hmmmm

4e starts with a lethality like that of 4th or so level characters from the 1e era and gives the monsters reasons to actually fight the tanks, the defender can actually do his role, totally an improvement but also less lethal.

"Never name a character under level 4" was a bad for story idea.

 

[Aenghus]

That is very mistaken. That is very much not what balance means. A 50-50 chance of TPK means that your parties should never be able to take on 3 encounters. There has never been a 50/50 chance of TPK in a standard encounter in any edition of D&D. The idea of "easy" mode is a joke.

agreed

Look, in AD&D, your 1st level fighter had banded mail, shield and probably a Dex bonus (whoa, autocorrect almost turned that into "sex bonus" totally different game) for an AC of 0-1. The baddies needed a 17-19 to hit you a single time and were generally only doing about 4 points of damage per hit. After about 3rd level, it was virtually impossible to kill a PC in melee combat without massively outnumbering him.

Granted, the prevalence of save or die effects meant that PC's died pretty often, but, it was SoD effects, not combat that killed PC's.

Well, 1st and 2nd level were the most dangerous levels, and in Basic D&D, 1e and 2e I remember a bunch of low level characters dying, many from hit point damage, and players pretty much shrugging and moving on as that's what was expected. Generating new low level PCs was easy. How dangerous low level was in part depended on the optional rules used, immediate death at 0 hp obviously made the game deadly, restrictive stat generation led to limited stat bonuses, and people rolling low for hit points were immediately in trouble. In some games no-hoper PCs would bravely rush monsters in the hopes of being cut down so a new potentially better PC could be rolled.

It's true the casualty rate dropped from 3rd level on, and some games made a point of starting at 2nd or 3rd level to skip the danger zone.

Though in those editions squishy PCs could easily be killed by melee monsters if they could get to them, barring magic.

If you can't kill PC's in 4e, you're not trying very hard. It's pretty easy to do. The myth that early D&D was this hugely lethal game is just that, a myth. Your odds of dying in any edition of D&D are about the same, given the same challenges.

While lowest level D&D could be a real meat grinder, most players got sick of it quickly enough, and IMO there was a definite drift over time to improve PC survival in most D&D games I saw e.g. using the -10 hp buffer, applying minimums to hit points or allowing rerolls, and toning down the unavoidable death traps/ deadly monsters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, 1st and 2nd level were the most dangerous levels, and in Basic D&D, 1e and 2e I remember a bunch of low level characters dying, many from hit point damage, and players pretty much shrugging and moving on as that's what was expected. Generating new low level PCs was easy. How dangerous low level was in part depended on the optional rules used, immediate death at 0 hp obviously made the game deadly, restrictive stat generation led to limited stat bonuses, and people rolling low for hit points were immediately in trouble. In some games no-hoper PCs would bravely rush monsters in the hopes of being cut down so a new potentially better PC could be rolled.

It's true the casualty rate dropped from 3rd level on, and some games made a point of starting at 2nd or 3rd level to skip the danger zone.

Though in those editions squishy PCs could easily be killed by melee monsters if they could get to them, barring magic.



While lowest level D&D could be a real meat grinder, most players got sick of it quickly enough, and IMO there was a definite drift over time to improve PC survival in most D&D games I saw e.g. using the -10 hp buffer, applying minimums to hit points or allowing rerolls, and toning down the unavoidable death traps/ deadly monsters.

Right, if you play 1e 'out of the box' even level 3 isn't that safe. A magic-user has 7.5 (call it 8) hit points, a single blow from an orc (which can probably hit his AC8, generously, behind on a 12) can STILL end him. The thief isn't much better off, with 11 hit points, which is within the expected damage output of a number of 3HD monsters. Add in the fact that you can easily (by following the rules and using the supplied encounter tables) run into significantly tougher monsters than 3HD in the 3rd dungeon level, then things are still pretty dangerous. 5th level is getting safer, even the wizard can now survive pretty much any melee attack from reasonable foes (ones you shouldn't just flee), and can blast a lot of the tougher encounters with a single, albeit only, 3rd level spell, maybe go invisible, etc and good items are likely to have shown up to some extent by then.

As for lethality evolution, I agree, the game ALWAYS evolved towards greater survivability at low levels. OD&D as written is VERY lethal! That is it is very swingy. 1e upped warrior hit dice, standardized on ability score bonuses, introduced the -10 rule, and then also provided methods 2-6 for creating a PC, which all increase the quality of your ability scores by a LOT.

 

[JeffB]

The thing that has been forgotten about O/AD&D and into MCM B/X...

You were expected to run away/avoid combat about as frequently as get involved in it. At some point, it became about winning and tailoring the world to the PCs. That was not the case previously. You either got very clever, or bravely turned and fled. My first character in 77/78..a Paladin..ran away often. Better to fight again for Odin another day

 

[MwaO]

The thing that has been forgotten about O/AD&D and into MCM B/X...

You were expected to run away/avoid combat about as frequently as get involved in it. At some point, it became about winning and tailoring the world to the PCs. That was not the case previously. You either got very clever, or bravely turned and fled. My first character in 77/78..a Paladin..ran away often. Better to fight again for Odin another day

That's in some ways true of 4e. One major aspect of skill challenges was how to resolve the 'running away' as something that had meaning rather than purely arbitrary.

"I'm a Paladin with no defined ability to use Stealth, running away in Platemail...hoping the low level Thief, who barely has any ability to use Hide in Shadows/Move Silently, somehow isn't detected and killed."

The answer often was, "I, as DM, am going to put a dangerous encounter into the game, yet simultaneously give the PCs an arbitrary out that wasn't really dependent on checks." - because if they do get into a fight with the fast-moving beast, they're dead.

Where 4e says, "Ok, how to resolve this - on a good roll, they avoid. On a bad roll, lose a healing surge or two, but don't flat out kill them unless the players decide to actually engage the hellbeast..."

 

[JeffB]

That's in some ways true of 4e. One major aspect of skill challenges was how to resolve the 'running away' as something that had meaning rather than purely arbitrary.



Where 4e says, "Ok, how to resolve this - on a good roll, they avoid. On a bad roll, lose a healing surge or two, but don't flat out kill them unless the players decide to actually engage the hellbeast..."

This is how I usually adjudicate in 4e, 13A (recoveries/setbacks) and DW (debilities/setbacks). I also try to use this school of thought playing OSR/TSR games these days. I ran a simple "skill challenge" of sorts in my last White Star game for the PCs to escape a large number of Pirates and Stormtroopers, and imposed a setback/or fatigue penalties as they were pushed to their limits instead of just having them blasted to bits.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's in some ways true of 4e. One major aspect of skill challenges was how to resolve the 'running away' as something that had meaning rather than purely arbitrary.

"I'm a Paladin with no defined ability to use Stealth, running away in Platemail...hoping the low level Thief, who barely has any ability to use Hide in Shadows/Move Silently, somehow isn't detected and killed."

The answer often was, "I, as DM, am going to put a dangerous encounter into the game, yet simultaneously give the PCs an arbitrary out that wasn't really dependent on checks." - because if they do get into a fight with the fast-moving beast, they're dead.

Where 4e says, "Ok, how to resolve this - on a good roll, they avoid. On a bad roll, lose a healing surge or two, but don't flat out kill them unless the players decide to actually engage the hellbeast..."

Well, lets use 1e as a model, but B/X would also work fine. The thief skills are only applicable to EXTRAORDINARY situations, that is where you wouldn't normally be expected to be able to do something. So, characters should usually be able to discern and avoid monsters when said monsters aren't themselves attempting to be sneaky, and in a perfectly dark area that isn't dead quiet a paladin should be able to move around quietly with some degree of success. Interestingly the game doesn't put numbers to any of this. Hide in Shadows for instance applies when NO ordinary person would reasonably be able to hide, but a thief can!

The upshot of this is, a party in these games should be expecting extreme danger, and taking precautions. A proper level 1 1e party of smart players will incorporate several hirelings, scout ahead carefully, and do whatever research etc is feasible BEFORE entering a dangerous area. Thus they should avoid encountering the terrible beast. If they DO, they've already failed, in a critical way. That's the thinking.

Its a type of skilled play game where you aren't expected to fight. Fighting isn't a featured behavior of PCs in Gygaxian play, certainly not at low level. If you do fight its with due consideration and a plan to nullify any advantages of the bad guys. Of course the DM often arranges things such that you can't actually avoid SOME fighting. It IS pretty much considered bad form however to dump an unbeatable opponent on a party with no recourse, and then insist that they brawl with it, as opposed to say negotiating or something like that.