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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6582939" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Both of these are thinking patterns that I saw being especially common in players that hadn't played 4e yet. In all previous editions your character, even for many characters at mid-levels, is a fragile contraption with hit points you can count on your fingers going up against a damage scale that makes a 10' drop quite plausibly lethal, and provides no mechanism by which the character might mitigate that whatsoever, except to carry along a 'hit point battery' and hope that it can be applied quickly enough, which it often cannot.</p><p></p><p>In such a game nobody risks anything. In fact you can see it in many of the things [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] says about 'hating stories because conflict is risky' and such. These players have been trained NEVER to try anything except some last ditch hail Mary pitch the oil flask and run type of move because every last thing you try will probably kill you instantly! Moreover the wizard has all the cards, so if you aren't the wizard you're pretty much ill-advised to do anything except keep the bad guys off his back so he can cast and just hack away for some damage output. The only time you do otherwise is if the story demands it (remember, hate story) or the poop hits the propeller.</p><p></p><p>Other aspects of this are a total lack of any appreciation of tactics whatsoever. This one is particularly rife with 3.x players, where the system is apparently keyed to one shot kills and actually needing to concentrate firepower, flank, etc is utterly foreign. The typical group fresh from 3.5 each picks a different monster to target with their at-will and then their jaws drop when they have basically zero impact in round one and three skirmishers gank the fighter in response (as the other characters invariably will cower behind the defender and whomever else has heavy armor). </p><p></p><p>This will all wear off in time with a little encouragement. One tactic I found that worked was to interpose a 'sergeant' with the party, some old grizzled veteran CC that has a couple Warlord type leader powers and deploys them mercilessly along with highly cutting remarks, "no lumphead, kill THAT goblin first (Commander's Strike)!" Pretty soon the players begin to note the vast increase in effectiveness and begin to see how their PCs are actually quite tough, if they're not the only guy being hit by all 5 opponents. </p><p></p><p>DM trust can take a bit to achieve also. The classic dungeon delve addicted process-sim DM will spend a LOT of his time kneecapping players clever ideas. Players that are new to my DMing who came from that environment have to learn that in fact when the players think up some clever idea they will actually have a cool experience, instead of learning how the laws of physics or 'common sense' can be interpreted against them today....</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6582939, member: 82106"] Both of these are thinking patterns that I saw being especially common in players that hadn't played 4e yet. In all previous editions your character, even for many characters at mid-levels, is a fragile contraption with hit points you can count on your fingers going up against a damage scale that makes a 10' drop quite plausibly lethal, and provides no mechanism by which the character might mitigate that whatsoever, except to carry along a 'hit point battery' and hope that it can be applied quickly enough, which it often cannot. In such a game nobody risks anything. In fact you can see it in many of the things [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] says about 'hating stories because conflict is risky' and such. These players have been trained NEVER to try anything except some last ditch hail Mary pitch the oil flask and run type of move because every last thing you try will probably kill you instantly! Moreover the wizard has all the cards, so if you aren't the wizard you're pretty much ill-advised to do anything except keep the bad guys off his back so he can cast and just hack away for some damage output. The only time you do otherwise is if the story demands it (remember, hate story) or the poop hits the propeller. Other aspects of this are a total lack of any appreciation of tactics whatsoever. This one is particularly rife with 3.x players, where the system is apparently keyed to one shot kills and actually needing to concentrate firepower, flank, etc is utterly foreign. The typical group fresh from 3.5 each picks a different monster to target with their at-will and then their jaws drop when they have basically zero impact in round one and three skirmishers gank the fighter in response (as the other characters invariably will cower behind the defender and whomever else has heavy armor). This will all wear off in time with a little encouragement. One tactic I found that worked was to interpose a 'sergeant' with the party, some old grizzled veteran CC that has a couple Warlord type leader powers and deploys them mercilessly along with highly cutting remarks, "no lumphead, kill THAT goblin first (Commander's Strike)!" Pretty soon the players begin to note the vast increase in effectiveness and begin to see how their PCs are actually quite tough, if they're not the only guy being hit by all 5 opponents. DM trust can take a bit to achieve also. The classic dungeon delve addicted process-sim DM will spend a LOT of his time kneecapping players clever ideas. Players that are new to my DMing who came from that environment have to learn that in fact when the players think up some clever idea they will actually have a cool experience, instead of learning how the laws of physics or 'common sense' can be interpreted against them today.... [/QUOTE]
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