D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[AbdulAlhazred]

As I may have mentioned, my impressions of 4E were formed entirely within the first six months of release. And I already admitted that controllers might be an exception to this, since their powers tend to be more situational.

In this case, it's actually more like a guideline to help the DM adjudicate. If you're a paragon-level party, and there are only heroic-level fire sources around, then your improvised fire attack might deal less damage than you were hoping.

Page 42 allows for more than 'do some damage without expending a power' of course. Just take a fire for example, you could force an enemy into it with a power, doing some extra damage (its free damage, why not), and keeping them there (probably another power, to take ONGOING damage is good too). These would be worthy things at paragon, though possibly not enticing enough to bother with depending on the situation. You could also throw fire, maybe using your Thunderwave to blast it into the faces of bad guys (good for an extra 'blinded UEONT' perhaps).

Ultimately though this gets back to my words on encounter styles. It IS incumbent on the DM as primary author of the environment to produce a complex, dynamic, and interesting environment in which exciting action-adventure scenes can be played out. If he's filling boring rooms with nothing but little braziers that do 2d6 damage for terrain then indeed the game may get boring.

 

[Sadras]

They obviously DID begin to get a clue towards the very end, as Guardmore Abby and to a more limited extent the last couple modules (the ones that were included in Essentials) are a BIT less lugubrious. There are bits and pieces of other modules, as well as some not-strictly-WotC material (Some RPGA and Dungeon material) that comes across fairly well.

I have purchased Guardmore Abby specifically because of the high praise it received and am keen to run it in our 5e campaign when appropriate for storyline purposes.

The rest of your post does now make it perfectly clear to me what experience you are specifically seeking and why I couldn't relate/understand your point of view. Out of interest does Guardmore Abbey possess encounters with 'crazy stuff'? If 4e produces the ability to run this 'crazy stuff' smoother why do you not just continue with it?

 

[Sadras]

But its very hard to find a character build, unless you deliberately create a one-trick-pony that has one trick and nothing else. Even in the later case its more like they have one really overly potent trick and several other useful but relatively less enticing options.

CaGi - was this a one-trick, yes or no?

And you simply cannot discount page 42 in 4e while lauding AD&D characters as being 'able to do anything' when there were NO RULES AT ALL for doing anything except whatever few things were part of your class.

You speak about 4.5e and its strengths... well what I see for that means powers being removed altogether and the game running on page 42 with increased comprehensive details regarding effects and what not.

I have to think they didn't want to try.

Powers were an issue - we did try, but the system integration was massive and the 4e software didn't cater for a great deal of customisation. We were heavily customizing 4e when the announcement of the open playtest came out. I was burnt out on customization I was only so glad when I heard they were designing a new edition.

 

[Sadras]

Like some other posters upthread, I'm curious about what "anything" means here.

From bull-rushing, to tripping, to disarming, to hindering, to tumbling and attacking, to lunging and pinning oneself onto the beast with ones weapons, dodging, shield rushing, feinting, swinging and attacking, distracting, intimidating, sacrifice accuracy for damage and vice versa...etc

At most tables I played at, a 1st level fighter also couldn't declare "I attack the nearest orc, sidestep 10', and attack the other orc". Even when mutiple attacks came into play (via specialisation, or at 7th level) the possibility of moving between attacks was never very clear.

As I have said upthread - DMs of that generation have more experience now, or are you saying the system makes the DM solely?

And here's another perspective on the issue: no version of D&D has ever reduced the description of spell-users to "You are magical: you can declare any magical effect you can think of, and the GM will tell you what dice to roll to work out the consequences." And the fact that magic consists of rather tightly defined little packets of auto-effect has always been part of what makes spell-casters more attractive to power-players in AD&D.

True, yet you also cannot dismiss the creative number of uses spells have had in the various versions of D&D.

 

[Sadras]

If you have a card, then the DM is inclined to let that card work exactly as it's written. If you don't have a card, then the DM needs to figure out how to resolve your action using other system mechanics. As often as not, the DM may be inclined toward erring on the side of caution, to the point where your action is likely to fail outright (or otherwise be less effective than you were hoping).

You could theoretically do anything, but in practice, you could do whatever the DM would let you get away with. Generalizing that further, it gets to the point where improvised actions are rarely worthwhile, since effective improvised actions would mean nobody ever actually attacked each other.

I know what you are saying but the exact same argument could be made for DMG page 42, skill challenges...etc
It still doesn't stop CaGi from becoming an every-encounter trick.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I assume my characters are competent, and understand whatever in-game reality corresponds to HP and the damage-potential of an attack. Barring some in-game circumstances which would benefit from a situational ability, dealing more damage is always better.

Another situation might be if you're uncertain whether or not an enemy is ... whatever in-game reality corresponds to being a minion ... in which case you wouldn't want to expend unnecessary energy on such a pitiful opponent.

It might well apply for other situations as well. You mentioned hanging onto daily powers, but hanging onto encounter powers until say the cleric hits the guy with Burning Brand and you get a fat attack bonus are good tactics as well. You may use the same powers, and employ similar tactics, in a lot of fights, but there is endless interplay with terrain and monsters. This is also where the better parts of 4e monster design come in, because each monster has some different attributes and powers. In AD&D an orc, a goblin, an ogre, it was all basically the same. You might avoid some opponents because they were too powerful or something, but there was NO mechanical difference between them in any other respect. You can't really fight a 4e goblin warrior the same way as an orc or an ogre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually you cannot dictate how I was using the word evolution, you jumped onto nit-pick semantics when all I was saying was that 4e was a natural progression from 3e given the perceived problems of 3e - same with the progression onto 5e. So if you do not like the word evolution in that kind of context, sure, substitute it with any word that makes sense to you. My original statement still stands however.

Words have commonly accepted meanings and connotations, that's how we communicate. Explaining to someone who is misusing a term isn't 'nit-pick', its just an attempt to communicate better. The word 'evolution' connotates gradual change and progress. Actual BIOLOGICAL evolution has no objective notion of progress, but even there gradual change is a part.

Its of course judgment as to whether or not the various D&D edition transitions were 'gradual' or not, but at least up to the 5e transition they were definitely progressive in some sense, with the game putting an increasing number of options in player's hands, etc. Its more complicated than that of course, some trends increased over time, some things just changed, some things didn't have a single specific direction they went in. Still, one thing was always true, the game progressively incorporated new elements and more modern methods of play, up until the 5e transition, when it lost elements, returned to older elements, and gained almost nothing new at all. Regressive isn't a bad way to describe that, IMHO, even if it isn't perfectly uniformly true.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You know perfectly well I was speaking about "1 card" in the metaphorical sense - it wasn't that disguised in my posts for you to take this line.

I would submit it was a bad metaphor then since you relied on the part of it which was least analogous to the real situation to support your logic.

Encounters and Dailies are not auto successes either unless they have the "on-a-miss" effect. In the latter half of your sentence you seem to allude that the powers were unique so in previous editions anyone could copy anyone else with a special manoeuvre. Is that what you are saying here?

There WERE no special maneuvers before 3e, just extemporizing, and any character could do that equally well since there weren't ANY rules for it at all. In a few very common cases 2e had an optional rule or a (usually not well-thought-out) procedure, but it never factored in basic race/class type distinctions, so every PC could pretty much trip an orc with the same competency. 3e changed that to some extent with feats, but mostly what that did was make options bad unless you had the feats, reducing people's options further, but not changing who could try which ones.

ALL Daily powers with VERY few exceptions have a miss effect or else are Reliable.

There is a predisposition of utilising powers in combat especially if they are sitting on your character sheet. Will you use your powers more or less if they sitting in your hand?

Sure, but that doesn't mean I won't do other things if they make sense. I'm not LIMITED to doing what is on my sheet.

 

[Sadras]

Words have commonly accepted meanings and connotations, that's how we communicate. Explaining to someone who is misusing a term isn't 'nit-pick', its just an attempt to communicate better. The word 'evolution' connotates gradual change and progress. Actual BIOLOGICAL evolution has no objective notion of progress, but even there gradual change is a part.

Its of course judgment as to whether or not the various D&D edition transitions were 'gradual' or not, but at least up to the 5e transition they were definitely progressive in some sense, with the game putting an increasing number of options in player's hands, etc. Its more complicated than that of course, some trends increased over time, some things just changed, some things didn't have a single specific direction they went in. Still, one thing was always true, the game progressively incorporated new elements and more modern methods of play, up until the 5e transition, when it lost elements, returned to older elements, and gained almost nothing new at all. Regressive isn't a bad way to describe that, IMHO, even if it isn't perfectly uniformly true.

Since this topic ain't about to drop, how about I view it as evolution because it incorporates more play-styles as opposed to less (IMO).

 

[Sadras]

I would submit it was a bad metaphor then since you relied on the part of it which was least analogous to the real situation to support your logic.

We were discussing one encounter power initially - it is not my fault so many people decided to climb onto the wagon and wanted to explore my discussion at paragon level (again this is a metaphor for those that missed it).

There WERE no special maneuvers before 3e, just extemporizing, and any character could do that equally well since there weren't ANY rules for it at all. In a few very common cases 2e had an optional rule or a (usually not well-thought-out) procedure, but it never factored in basic race/class type distinctions, so every PC could pretty much trip an orc with the same competency. 3e changed that to some extent with feats, but mostly what that did was make options bad unless you had the feats, reducing people's options further, but not changing who could try which ones.

THACO very much ensured CLASS DID come into play for special manoeuvres. And I cant remember offhand but it MAYBE that some races received +1 proficiency with certain weapons. Also please do not think I'm here to defend 3e or any past edition. I think they all needed work and had their issues IMO
Personally, I would much prefer to play or DM 4e than 3e, unless it was E6.

ALL Daily powers with VERY few exceptions have a miss effect or else are Reliable.

Noted.

Sure, but that doesn't mean I won't do other things if they make sense. I'm not LIMITED to doing what is on my sheet.

If you are not arguing about an inherent predisposition which exists, then I guess you agree with me.