The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Thasmodious]

While I generally agree, I think being able to auto-kill any minion who starts next to you during the entire combat will be quite powerful. You close with them, they die. If they bunch up, they all die.

Just saying

Minions are supposed to die. They are built to die. Fighters are supposed to kill lots of them. Fighters are built to kill lots of them.

 

[brehobit]

The encounter design system in 4E uses not just level, but also monster type designators: minion, elite, solo, leader, etc. Because of this, you cannot just look at a monster's level and make a judgement on how powerful it is. You have to consider its type as well, and minions in particular will be much less powerful than their base level indicates.

Sure, but in this case the EXP for the minion is as high as a standard epic level 20. And EXP is the point of comparison for different monsters in 4e, rather than CR in 3e.

Mark

 

[almagest]

Why should it matter whether it was present in previous editions? I call it out because I don't like it. I didn't like it in BECMI, I didn't like it in 2E, I didn't like it in 3.X, and I don't like it now.

I'll probably suck it up and deal with it, just like I did in all those previous editions, but I still don't like it.



And this is why I don't like it.

Ultimately, it's not a big deal; but I do find it irritating. Furthermore, it's much more pervasive than it used to be. In 3.X, only certain classes and feats had this sort of thing going on; you could quite easily play a game in which nobody had "prepared moves" of this type. (For example, a party of fighter, rogue, sorceror, and favored soul.) In 4E, every single character has them.

Sorcerors and favored souls sure did have prepared moves. You'd run out of [x] level spells eventually, after all. And you had a much smaller spell list than a cleric or wizard. Plus, the sorcerer and favored soul were a *heck* of a lot more powerful than the fighter and the rogue, even without optimization.

Also, it matters when people claim 4e has this problem, but previous editions don't. I also don't understand why you play D&D when you have a problem with a core mechanic of every edition.

 

[Skyscraper]

Say there is a pit and you have a daily that would let you push the baddy into it. If you knew you didn't have access to that daily, you wouldn't take the AoO to get there to try. But if you didn't know, you would.

Not sure i understand what you're saying. Are you saying that the daily allows you to avoid an AoO?

If so, are you saying that a character would only accept to take an AoO if he knew it was impossible to pull off otherwise?

If i understand you correctly, i'll respectfully disagree with you. Knowing that an AoO is coming in both cases, i'd decide if trying to push the baddy into the pit is worth the AoO or not. Knowing that a daily exists to avoid it would simply make me wish i had it, it wouldn't change the fact that i'd consider taking the AoO if i believe i'd survive it and kill the baddy in the process.

Sky

 

[Dausuul]

Well, coming back to my hockey allegory, why does the "goon" only try a deke once every 10 games in the NHL? Why not once every game?

Because he's not good enough to get the conditions to try it that often.

Likewise, the daily powers could have been the "once-every-10-combats" powers instead, i guess it would have been more appropriate. For simplicity's sake, it's "daily", expecting that you'll be doing about 10 encounters per day. (I don't know how many you're expected to do, 10 being an example.) But the point is: the fighter would like nothing better than to get his daily power off every round. However, he's simply not good enough to do it. He's fighting for his life and moving around the battlefield and dodging swords and thinking about his next move, and at one point during one particular combat he gets things just right and BAM! he lets his daily power go. Super move! Why doesn't he do it always? For the same reason that all combattants and sportsmen are not able to use their better ability all the time in real life. The best of the pros have dazzling "at will" and "encounter" (or per-game) powers, while the ordinary (level 1) folk get the cool stuff out pretty rarely. At least, that's what it looks like in the amateur leagues that i've played in.

Sky

The problem is the way it drives a wedge between the player and the PC. It makes it that much harder to get into the mindset of your character; because you are sitting there making battle plans in the full knowledge that you will be able to choose when to use your daily and encounter powers, but your character can't possibly know that.

Once my players and I get used to 4E, I'm considering offering an optional rule in which a PC's daily and encounter powers are randomized rather than fixed. Something like this: You assign a suit to each of your powers (spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds), and then each round you draw from a deck of cards. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (X), where X is a number dependent on your level, all of your encounter powers of that suit are available for that round. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (Y), your daily powers of that suit are available too.

(Actually, it would probably be a customized deck rather than standard playing cards. And there would need to be something to ensure you do run out of daily powers eventually, presumably due to fatigue. But you get the general idea.)

 

[brehobit]

Not sure i understand what you're saying. Are you saying that the daily allows you to avoid an AoO?

If so, are you saying that a character would only accept to take an AoO if he knew it was impossible to pull off otherwise?

If i understand you correctly, i'll respectfully disagree with you. Knowing that an AoO is coming in both cases, i'd decide if trying to push the baddy into the pit is worth the AoO or not. Knowing that a daily exists to avoid it would simply make me wish i had it, it wouldn't change the fact that i'd consider taking the AoO if i believe i'd survive it and kill the baddy in the process.

Sky

Sorry I was unclear.

Say you had a daily which would allow you to push the baddy into the "Pit of Death". But in order to get into position, you need to take an AoO. If you know you've used the daily, you know you can't do that action, so you don't take the AoO: you attack with some other power. But if the character doesn't know the daily is used, then you will take the AoO and "try" to push them (failing automatically because you don't have access to that daily).

In other words, the "I try every time, but sometimes it doesn't work" explanation would seem to suggest that the PC should be trying to set up an attack even though the player knows it can't possibly happen.

 

[Skyscraper]

The problem is the way it drives a wedge between the player and the PC. It makes it that much harder to get into the mindset of your character; because you are sitting there making battle plans in the full knowledge that you will be able to choose when to use your daily and encounter powers, but your character can't possibly know that.

Your point is good.

Still, it doesn't appear that hard to me to take the daily powers into the game without an obvious meta-game seam, when players are able to imagine an entire virtual setting with silver waterfalls and flying dragons and a mind-dominated succubus turning against its Balor overlord in the midst of a fireball-filled battlefield. That, and hit points which represent an abstract mix of stamina and morale and wounds and... oh, i really talked about hit points, didn't i?

I mean, i see what you guys are saying. I guess what i'm saying is that it appears like a pretty standard role-play element to me.

D&D was never intended to be a simulation, it's a fantasy RPG. Some mechanics exist to streamline combat and/or make it more interesting. Giving the player a choice of when to unleash his daily power is one of those mechanics that make the game interesting to players. At the other extreme, you can take almost everything out of the player's hands and have the DM simply tell a story based on each PC's attributes.

Once my players and I get used to 4E, I'm considering offering an optional rule in which a PC's daily and encounter powers are randomized rather than fixed. Something like this: You assign a suit to each of your powers (spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds), and then each round you draw from a deck of cards. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (X), where X is a number dependent on your level, all of your encounter powers of that suit are available for that round. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (Y), your daily powers of that suit are available too.

(Actually, it would probably be a customized deck rather than standard playing cards. And there would need to be something to ensure you do run out of daily powers eventually, presumably due to fatigue. But you get the general idea.)

This will add complexity and will make the game less fun for the players who will have less options during combat. It's obviously your game and you can do what you want with it, but i'd not favor such a move if i were you.

Sky

 

[JohnSnow]

The problem is the way it drives a wedge between the player and the PC. It makes it that much harder to get into the mindset of your character; because you are sitting there making battle plans in the full knowledge that you will be able to choose when to use your daily and encounter powers, but your character can't possibly know that.

Once my players and I get used to 4E, I'm considering offering an optional rule in which a PC's daily and encounter powers are randomized rather than fixed. Something like this: You assign a suit to each of your powers (spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds), and then each round you draw from a deck of cards. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (X), where X is a number dependent on your level, all of your encounter powers of that suit are available for that round. If you draw a card whose value is higher than (Y), your daily powers of that suit are available too.

(Actually, it would probably be a customized deck rather than standard playing cards. But you get the general idea.)

I think you would find that it's a lot of work that generally gives almost exactly the same results. But, if you insist on doing it, here's how I'd suggest going about it.

Have the player put each of his encounter and daily powers on a card (or assign a power to a particular playing card.
Create (or assign) a much larger number of cards that just say "at-will."
Each round, let the player draw a number of cards from the deck. He can use an at-will, or any of the encounter/dailies that show up in his "hand."
Set up the probabilities (cards in deck vs. cards drawn) so that on average, the player will pull the right number of per-encounter abilities in a 6-8 round fight and his daily once every 4-6 fights.

I think the problem you'll find is that the party's power becomes a lot less "predictable." Some combats (where the players draw well) will be particularly "easy," whereas others will be a lot harder (where the players draw nothing but "at-will" cards).

The "Dail" powers generally won't come into play as often, but sometimes you'll see them twice in a combat.

So you'll increase the swinginess of combat, but, unless you deliberately overpower the characters, you probably won't see appreciable differences in how often (on average) the powers get used.

Having played with the Iron Heroes token system, I think it's a lot of bother for a minimal payoff, but I guess everyone has to decide that for themselves.

From what I understand, the WotC guys considered something like this during playtesting (check out the different "recharge" systems in the Tome of Battle, for example) but chucked it based on the feedback they got. The vast majority disliked the "subgame."

To each their own, though.

 

[Skyscraper]

Sorry I was unclear.

Say you had a daily which would allow you to push the baddy into the "Pit of Death". But in order to get into position, you need to take an AoO. If you know you've used the daily, you know you can't do that action, so you don't take the AoO: you attack with some other power. But if the character doesn't know the daily is used, then you will take the AoO and "try" to push them (failing automatically because you don't have access to that daily).

In other words, the "I try every time, but sometimes it doesn't work" explanation would seem to suggest that the PC should be trying to set up an attack even though the player knows it can't possibly happen.

You got me wrong. I didn't say the fighter tried all the time. I said he'd like to try all the time, but can't. He can't position himself right to even start the move.

In your example above, he wouldn't provoke an AoO because he'll not initiate the move to try to push the baddy at the outset.

So the way i see things, assuming that pushing someone is a daily ability, the fighter simply won't initiate a push if the daily is not available because he just can't get into position to do it.

As an aside, i hope simple manoeuvers like pushing are doable by anyone and are not daily abilities (i've read something on that but can't remember...). But even if they're not i can live with it. (And no, i'm not a 4E fanboy that supports it whatever it's flaws.) I've done some foam-weapon combat and trying to physically reach someone without being pelted with numerous weapon strokes is pretty darn hard. I admit that i'm far from a weapon-combat reference, but my point is that i can see that trying to push an armed opponent is not an easy feat to pull off and although the Good Guys (TM) always manage it in Hollywood movies, i can see that it's not because someone is standing in front of a pit that you'll get an opportunity to push him in.

Sky

 

[Primal]

Agree with ya here. I'm definitely not a huge fan of everything (poison, dazed, immobilized, dominated, etc) being shaken off as easy as it can be. I can see getting rid of the 'save or die' stuff (for the most part), but nerfing the hell outta just about everything else that lasted more than a round seems like they swung too far the other way.

In fact the diseases seem to be deadlier in 4E than 3E -- a couple of failed saves and you either die or suffer some kind of long-lasting effects. They're nasty, and I like how they work in 4E.

I have to agree about poisons, but petrification, for example, is still kind of SoD-type of effect -- if you fail you're immobilized (i.e. unable to act) and the second failed save petrifies you. In retrospect, I would have liked to see that "slow petrification" the designers originally hinted at, because it would have been thematically great (as someone posted here or the WoTC boards) "to see a fighter hacking at the medusa as he's slowly turning to stone".