D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[Balesir]

If you tell someone to organize blocks within a room, then they'll pick some order that makes internal sense and put them in that arrangement.

If you tell someone to scatter blocks randomly, then they'll place them in a position that doesn't correspond to any obvious pattern. It's not random, of course - people are terrible at randomness - but it's clearly not ordered, either.

If your main goal is to avoid an identifiable pattern, then asking for randomness is a good way to get it. Likewise, if you want a DM to avoid protagonizing the PCs, then having them develop their own concept of a natural world is a good way to get there.

It's beginning to sound very much that what you are after is an aesthetic; you want it to feel like a naturalistic, uncontrived world that is not the product of artifice.

This is fair enough as an aesthetic, but I'm pretty sure you will never get it if you insist that the game world be the creation of one person. I think this factors into what [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] is trying to get at. If only the GM creates the game world, s/he will neccessarily contrive it; it will always be the product of their artifice.

I think you would actually find that allowing others to feed meaningfully into the world creation actually will create something that feels less artificial and contrived - because it will actually arise from an uncontrived process rather than from artifice!

You have to consider that the thing people are predisposed to hear is what they already believe,

Quite - that's what I was saying.

and what most people already believe is rooted in reality.

Actually, no. Or, at least, what most people believe is derived from reality, but is derived using heuristics that are, for most purposes not related to either hunting or avoiding predators, biased and misleading. Things like availability heuristics, representativeness heuristics, base rate fallacies, anchoring effects, misperceptions of randomness and information cascades.

Sure, it might be rooted in their own perceptions of reality, but our perceptions are themselves rooted in actual reality.

Not really. Our perceptions are rooted in how our brains work. If we rigorously think logically and rationally, we can dig down to what is really going on and form perceptions based on that, but by default our perceptions are based off of randomly sampled information points collated together by our brains using instinctive or evolutionarily formed heuristics that are good at helping us survive but not so good at giving us an actual accurate model of how the world works. Science can give us that model, eventually, but our brains are not wired to use the rigorous techniques of scientific analysis in day-to-day thinking and perception.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But, as was explained, NO 4e character has less than about 4 power cards, even at level 1, and the number quickly rises to around 7, and can quite easily be substantially higher depending on feats, items, and class features that provide powers, race, etc. By their very nature most of these will be potentially applicable in any given turn of a fight.

There's a certain mindset which can look at a hand of four cards and only see one. I know this, because I fell victim to it during my brief foray into the edition.

The logic works like this: You have four cards, but not all of them are usable. You can't use the Daily, because you might need that later. You shouldn't use the At-Will powers, because they always give you the least bang for your action-buck. The only card remaining is your Encounter power. Thus, you should open up every fight with your Encounter power, and then go back to your At-Will powers for the rest of the fight. When you gain your second Encounter power, you then have a choice between which order to use them both in, before going back to your At-Wills (and continuing to ignore your Daily powers).

It's possible to break that mindset, over time, but it's not easy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There's a certain mindset which can look at a hand of four cards and only see one. I know this, because I fell victim to it during my brief foray into the edition.

The logic works like this: You have four cards, but not all of them are usable. You can't use the Daily, because you might need that later. You shouldn't use the At-Will powers, because they always give you the least bang for your action-buck. The only card remaining is your Encounter power. Thus, you should open up every fight with your Encounter power, and then go back to your At-Will powers for the rest of the fight. When you gain your second Encounter power, you then have a choice between which order to use them both in, before going back to your At-Wills (and continuing to ignore your Daily powers).

It's possible to break that mindset, over time, but it's not easy.

So...intentionally ignoring 75% of the resources available to you...means that you have 75% less resources than you actually could have.

That's what you're saying. "If I ignore a supermajority of what I can do, I have only one action to take." Well...yes! That's what happens when you impulsively ignore most of the things you can do and refuse to consider the possibility of employing your environment in addition to the ready-to-hand options available to you.

Your problem sounds much less like "there is only one card" and much more like "I have extremely high standards for what actions I want to take, unless I have no idea how good they will be, in which case I am perfectly happy doing whatever I like." In which case, the only choices you'll be happy making are uninformed choices, which I find...strange, to say the least.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's what you're saying. "If I ignore a supermajority of what I can do, I have only one action to take." Well...yes! That's what happens when you impulsively ignore most of the things you can do and refuse to consider the possibility of employing your environment in addition to the ready-to-hand options available to you.

If you care about the action economy, then it's logical to maximize the effect of each action. It's possible that the best course of action would be an At-Will instead of an Encounter power, but At-Will powers are at an inherent disadvantage in that comparison since they have a smaller design budget.

For improvised actions, you have to factor in some penalty to their effective efficacy based on uncertainty about how it will resolve. If I'm remembering page 42 correctly, though, most improvised actions should be balanced with Encounter powers. If that's the case, and if you're fairly confident that the DM will use that guideline, then it might be worth switching to improvised actions as soon as you run out of Encounter powers.

Your problem sounds much less like "there is only one card" and much more like "I have extremely high standards for what actions I want to take, unless I have no idea how good they will be, in which case I am perfectly happy doing whatever I like."

No, I'm assessing an uncertainty penalty to any improvised action. If I'm playing 2E, and my only "card" is basic attack, then I'll probably just play that card repeatedly rather than gamble on the small chance that an improvised move would both be highly effective and actually succeed. (Barring obvious environmental set-ups, of course - barrels of gunpowder, pushing someone off of a cliff, etc.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you care about the action economy, then it's logical to maximize the effect of each action. It's possible that the best course of action would be an At-Will instead of an Encounter power, but At-Will powers are at an inherent disadvantage in that comparison since they have a smaller design budget.

I would then argue that you are setting an excessively high barrier (maximizing the effect of each action, rather than simply going for good courses of action), and that you are setting the scope of your optimization too narrowly, e.g. you'll get more bang for your buck by considering both this turn and next turn, and thus hopefully avoid some amount of the paralysis and "nope can't do that, nope can't do that, nope can't..." that applies when you narrowly focus on a single turn.

For improvised actions, you have to factor in some penalty to their effective efficacy based on uncertainty about how it will resolve. If I'm remembering page 42 correctly, though, most improvised actions should be balanced with Encounter powers. If that's the case, and if you're fairly confident that the DM will use that guideline, then it might be worth switching to improvised actions as soon as you run out of Encounter powers.

I recognize the uncertainty; I just think you put such an incredible premium on certainty that everything else is obliterated as "not good enough." Also, knowing whether the DM uses that guideline is as simple as asking, if the DM is honest with you (generally a safe assumption?)

And it's not like At-Wills are horrible terrible awful abominations. They're not as good as Encounter powers, sure, but that's the point. You're supposed to use them, especially during the early levels; either as a prelude to a good situation for your lone Encounter power, or a fallback after that power is expended. An encounter where you never once use an At-Will power should be rare until at the very least Paragon Tier. Any analysis which strictly forbids that has morbid assumptions, by definition (since, at first level, there's no way you're going to have one-round combats all the time, and the only way to not use anything but an encounter power is to not act, which must by definition be inferior to actually taking, or preparing to take, SOME action.)

No, I'm assessing an uncertainty penalty to any improvised action. If I'm playing 2E, and my only "card" is basic attack, then I'll probably just play that card repeatedly rather than gamble on the small chance that an improvised move would both be highly effective and actually succeed. (Barring obvious environmental set-ups, of course - barrels of gunpowder, pushing someone off of a cliff, etc.)

Then...uh...I still don't understand how 4e is any worse than any other game. That is, in 2e you literally DO only have one card--and it's an At-Will, to boot! At least 4e gives you (a) At-Wills that do SOMETHING more than just "I swing my weapon," and (b) additional options that you can elect to save or expend. What you are saying here makes it sound like every edition of D&D ever has been unable to satisfy you, because you only have "one (actual) card" or "one (optimizationally perfect) card" in literally every example I can think of. Particularly since 1e isn't that much different from 2e.

 

[Balesir]

The logic works like this: You have four cards, but not all of them are usable. You can't use the Daily, because you might need that later. You shouldn't use the At-Will powers, because they always give you the least bang for your action-buck. The only card remaining is your Encounter power. Thus, you should open up every fight with your Encounter power, and then go back to your At-Will powers for the rest of the fight. When you gain your second Encounter power, you then have a choice between which order to use them both in, before going back to your At-Wills (and continuing to ignore your Daily powers).

I agree with this, to a point. I have seen this sort of thinking in action. The fact is that At-Will powers are sometimes the best tool to use, but you have to break out to the point of thinking as part of a team to really see that, rather than obsessing over maximising your own damage output. Most folks seem to get it, eventually, but several sadly give up before the penny drops (although this particular issue isn't neccessarily what prompts them to move on, I'm guessing; I don't know, since none of my group have "moved on" so far).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Then...uh...I still don't understand how 4e is any worse than any other game. That is, in 2e you literally DO only have one card--and it's an At-Will, to boot! At least 4e gives you (a) At-Wills that do SOMETHING more than just "I swing my weapon," and (b) additional options that you can elect to save or expend. What you are saying here makes it sound like every edition of D&D ever has been unable to satisfy you, because you only have "one (actual) card" or "one (optimizationally perfect) card" in literally every example I can think of.

Who said that I wasn't satisfied? I'm one of those people who actually likes the basic-attack Fighter. I just don't like jumping through hoops in order to carry my weight.

In 2E, improvised actions were rarely better than just attacking, so I could just attack and I would be fine.

In 4E, improvised actions are often better than At-Will powers, so it makes sense to use them whenever I run out of Encounter powers. The fact that At-Will powers have additional effects is not relevant, since most powers (and improvised actions) have effects beyond just damage, and it's the relative strength of any power which makes it an attractive option.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree with this, to a point. I have seen this sort of thinking in action. The fact is that At-Will powers are sometimes the best tool to use, but you have to break out to the point of thinking as part of a team to really see that, rather than obsessing over maximising your own damage output. Most folks seem to get it, eventually, but several sadly give up before the penny drops (although this particular issue isn't neccessarily what prompts them to move on, I'm guessing; I don't know, since none of my group have "moved on" so far).

Completely agreed--4e is very, very, VERY much a team game, and often the at-will powers are where you see some of the most basic teamwork components apply. For instance, the Warlord having an at-will that lets an ally make a basic attack; the Paladin having an at-will that grants THP to allies; Wizards having Storm Pillar and other control effects as at-wills; etc. There's nothing wrong with using your at-wills, and in fact you should probably be using them regularly, if you chose them wisely.

 

[pemerton]

Thinking about this more, what I would say is that there is a 'planning horizon' somewhere (and it will vary from situation to situation). Within that horizon the players have acquired information and made plans, and they should get what was coming to them within that scope.

I've also been thinking about this a bit.

I think in my game there is an informal understanding of "momentum" or "tempo".

While the PCs are not resting and are pushing forward, they (and thereby the players) have tempo, and so it would be unfair for me as GM to radically reshape the gameworld around them. But once they stop and take an extended rest, tempo shifts and I'm within my rights to reframe things to keep the pressure on.

A practical example: they got to take the fight to Lolth, and win (or so it seems - that conflict is still in its denouement phase). But once they stop and rest (which seems likely) then as GM I've got licence to change things up in response, have Orcus notice and take precautions or act pre-emptively, etc.

As I said, I think this is all informal, but seems to be implicit in the way we approach the game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I agree with this, to a point. I have seen this sort of thinking in action. The fact is that At-Will powers are sometimes the best tool to use, but you have to break out to the point of thinking as part of a team to really see that, rather than obsessing over maximising your own damage output.

I'm working on knowledge from the first PHB, and the obvious exception is something like Thunder Wave, but controllers aren't really all about the damage anyway. In general, though, if you can get the same utility and more damage out of an Encounter power, then you should use that one instead of the At-Will version. It's not like the enemies are going to heal, such that you'd need to do more damage at the end of the fight; saving your best moves for later just means you risk overkill.

Although I'm sure that also varies by the monster. I can't think of any right now, but there must be some monsters which get scarier when bloodied, such that you'd want to burst them down at the end.