The Tragedy of Flat Math

[D'karr]

However, most people's initial reaction to 4E's skill chart is "that's silly - stuff just gets harder when I go up a level?" It kind of misses the point, but I think the DMG was too quick to present the results and not show the workings.

Exactly, the system gives the DM almost infinite flexibility to challenge the players in any way he wants to, but it makes the assumption that the DM will know the "background" mechanic behind the result. If instead of assuming that explanation, the system had taken two sentences to explain the "designer reasoning" behind the mechanics, these silly arguments would be nullified. Unfortunately the system explained it poorly. So we have these strange assumptions that everything just gets harder as the PCs level.

 

[Remathilis]

What 4E does (badly IMO) is short-circuit DM design skills of picking appropriate challenges. It also lacks descriptions for what the DCs represent.

However, most people's initial reaction to 4E's skill chart is "that's silly - stuff just gets harder when I go up a level?" It kind of misses the point, but I think the DMG was too quick to present the results and not show the workings.

Agreed, and it probably is 4e's greatest design flaw as a game*.

4e presented a lot of rules, and told you to make up the fluff that went along with it. Even with things like knocking ochre jellies prone or martial dailies, the biggest offender was the DC system. I have no idea why a door in a level 1 dungeon is DC 13, while one in a level 8 dungeon is DC 20 other than to account for 1/2 level math.

In 3e, if I want a more solid door, I look at the table for the different types of doors and select the one that either makes the most sense or makes the best adventure. In 4e, I select the level of the challenge to set the DC and then justify why its that high. Is it adamantine? Is it superior dwarven craftsmanship? No answer is given, so I get to pick one or it goes un-explained and the PCs wonder why its getting harder to bash down doors in the new dungeon.

From a DM's perspective, I'd rather the rules try to model the game's reality than have to justify their existence. Put another way, I'd rather look up an adamantine door and see its bash DC is 26 than look up a level 8 challenge, see the door DC should be 26, and have to decide that its adamantine. The former feels consistent, the latter arbitrary.

* That is, taken on its whole against other RPGs. Against other forms of D&D, I can count a number of greater failings, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[pemerton]

So far, folks seem to be dancing around the notion of Boss as a unique mechanic.

<snip>

The argument seems to be around the mechanic of marking a foe as Boss, when that should be a mechanical outcome of the level difference. In other words, that an Ogre should mechanically "work out" as a boss for first level players but be a more normal opponent to third level players, and a minion to 10'th level players. There's nothing in the normal scaling (HP, AC, AB, &etc) to make that work.

Agreed.

Not every game has an action economy of the D&D sort. In some games, for example, additional actions can be generated by taking penalties to the associated rolls (both Rolemaster and HARP have elements of this, for example). Under such a design, scaling bonuses can produce the additional actions necessary for effective "boss" monsters.

But D&D, with its strict action economy, needs effective "boss" monsters to scale in that dimension also.

Really, what the different between +6 atk vs. 18 AC and +21 atk vs. 33 AC?

None. That's why, upthread, I posted this:

Provided you mostly use opponents of around the PCs' level, 4e is a pretty flat maths game.

<snip>

the fun part of getting better in 4e isn't that the maths changes (it is flat, because of the uniformity and transparency of scaling); it's that the fiction changes. The fictional stakes become higher and more complex, although in many ways the mathematical stakes of action resolution remain largely the same throughout the game.

This is one of several respects in which 4e resembles some indie RPGs.

But I don't think 5e is going to resemble an indie RPG very much, and I therefore think it will not rely solely on the fiction to carry the weight of "getting better", and I therefore think that it won't use flat maths.

To add to that last clause: I think D&Dnext will use flatter maths than 3E, but not as flat as 4e played in accordance with the encounter design guidelines. In this respect, I think it will be closer to B/X or AD&D.

4e's "everything advances at 1/2 level" was an illusion of math.

Granted, it did allow you to pretty much own lower level opponents because your bonuses really did advance relative to theirs. However, chances are DMs are/were throwing appropriately leveled minions at you instead of lower level critters undermining that feature.

It's not an illusion if everyone can see through it. The point of the +1/2 per level is, quite obviously, not to change the maths of action resolution. It's to drive the story in a certain direction: the PCs start fighting goblins and end up fighting Orcus, Demogorgon or Lolth.

All this proves to me is that the inflated math is there to feed Player ego and powergaming fantasies.

Is there an advantage to increasing the bonuses when the 50/50 hit ratio is constant?

Yes. In conjunction with the published monsters, it drives the story in a certain direction. There may or may not be powergaming fantasies, but they play out in the fiction, not in the action resolution, which in its basics doesn't change fundamentally between 1st and 30th level (though in certain ways it becomes more complex: more complex PC builds with levelling, more complex status effects (eg blinded, removed from game), etc).

If the end result is I need to roll a "9" to smack someone, does it matter if the attack is +5 or +25, bigger numbers are just unnecessary bloat.

Not "unnecessary", though perhaps "not desired by all". The effect of scaling in 4e isn't to change the odds of hitting. It's to drive the story in a certain direction.

Fifteen points of unnecessary bonuses all to end up with the same chances of success.

<snip>

I don't want completely flat math. But flatter than the present method sounds pretty good to me.

Again, the bonuses have a purpose - to drive the story in a certain direction (assuming that the GM uses the published monsters more-or-less as published). And as I said above, D&Dnext will have maths that is not as flat as 4e's in the functional sense (4e maths is very flat when the encounter building guidelines are followed). Part of the design goals of D&Dnext is that changes in the PC's numbers are meant to change the odds of success in the action resolution mechanics - otherwise, +X weapons would be factored into "the maths", whereas we have already been told that they won't be.

4e presented a lot of rules, and told you to make up the fluff that went along with it.

That's not entirely how I'd describe it - eg the use of "fluff" has pejorative overtones, whereas the whole point of 4e is that the thematic weight of the game is carried by the fiction as expressed by the mechanics, and not by the mechanics themselves (eg we know the PCs are getting tougher because they are now fighting mind flayers rather than kobolds - the process of action resolution on its own, divorced from the fiction, doesn't reveal this). In this respect it resembles two foundational indie games - Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest - which is further evidence in favour of my contention that of all versions of D&D 4e is the closest to modern indie RPGs. Whereas D&Dnext is clearly turning in a more traditional direction.

 

[slobster]

In 3e, if I want a more solid door, I look at the table for the different types of doors and select the one that either makes the most sense or makes the best adventure. In 4e, I select the level of the challenge to set the DC and then justify why its that high.

Odd. In 3.x, when designing a door, I select the level of challenge (read=DC) that either makes the most sense or the best adventure, and then use that to find what type of door I'm using.

Does that mean I'm doing it wrong?

 

[Remathilis]

Odd. In 3.x, when designing a door, I select the level of challenge (read=DC) that either makes the most sense or the best adventure, and then use that to find what type of door I'm using.

Does that mean I'm doing it wrong?

No, but you know that X DC = Y Door. There is no such guideline in 4e. You chose that door because it matched the DC you desired, and to get it you had to use that door. In 4e, you picked that DC and its that DC because that's what the DMG says is appropriate, you can explain it however you want. I find that to be tedious extra work as a DM; I already have to create interesting stories, monsters, dungeons, and NPCs, I don't want to have to come up with an on the spot reason why its DC 23 (besides that's what the DMG says it is).

 

[slobster]

No, but you know that X DC = Y Door. There is no such guideline in 4e. You chose that door because it matched the DC you desired, and to get it you had to use that door. In 4e, you picked that DC and its that DC because that's what the DMG says is appropriate, you can explain it however you want. I find that to be tedious extra work as a DM; I already have to create interesting stories, monsters, dungeons, and NPCs, I don't want to have to come up with an on the spot reason why its DC 23 (besides that's what the DMG says it is).

Fair enough. In that case I suppose you could say that 3.x offers you a slightly easier and more comprehensive toolbox when running a simulationist campaign. It's not the case that 4E is somehow fundamentally unsuited for the same (in this example, at least).

 

[Minigiant]

4E essentially uses what I call the "math word problem order". In 4E you are given the math and then are told to create the fluff to match. You are given X+7=15 then you must create the problem of "Joe has 15 apples and gave John 7. How many does Joe have left?" "DC before flavor" was a new concept to D&D.

If the 4E DMG was filled with descriptions for all those DCs, there would be fewer issues with understanding "DC before Flavor"

 

[pemerton]

No, but you know that X DC = Y Door. There is no such guideline in 4e.

Actually, there is this table from the DMG (p 64), which seems to give you what you're looking for. (Though for reasons canvassed on the "With respect to the door" thread I think these sorts of tables aren't the most natural fit with other aspects of 4e's design and the way it plays.)

DCs to Break Down Doors

Strength Check to		DC	Level
Break down wooden door		16	3
Break down barred door		20	9
Break down stone or iron door	25	18
Break down adamantine door	29	29
Break through force portal	38	—

The point of the "level" column is to give advice to the GM as to what level of party the door is suitable for, assuming you want the door to be breachable in only one or two tries.

 

[slobo777]

Actually, there is this table from the DMG (p 64), which seems to give you what you're looking for. (Though for reasons canvassed on the "With respect to the door" thread I think these sorts of tables aren't the most natural fit with other aspects of 4e's design and the way it plays.)

DCs to Break Down Doors

Strength Check to        DC    Level
Break down wooden door        16    3
Break down barred door        20    9
Break down stone or iron door    25    18
Break down adamantine door    29    29
Break through force portal    38    —

The point of the "level" column is to give advice to the GM as to what level of party the door is suitable for, assuming you want the door to be breachable in only one or two tries.

I think a bunch more of exactly these kinds of tables (obviosuly covering more than doors, and perhaps giving some alternatives/equivalents) in some DMG appendix for 4E would have been very useful for DMs wanting to build their world with actual stuff coming first and balanced challenges as a result. Those of us wanting a more unique take on the game world could always customise, re-fluff from or simply ignore the tables.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually you need not be so generous. Anyone who actually read the DMG would know that there are charts in there of things like types of doors and what the DCs to break them down are. The rules for climbing and jumping also set specific DCs to accomplish specific things. There are other examples, plus many DCs are inherently set by the capability of your OPPONENT. Sliding DCs is some sort of idiot myth that was spawned by people who wanted to dis 4e and skimmed the DMG for 12 seconds.

What 4e DOES do, aside some of the examples above, is not try to nail down the FICTION associated with a given DC too tightly. This allows the DM some leeway in play, so when he wants to describe something in a specific way he's not forced to then give it exactly DC X, which might not be very appropriate to his adventure design. It also allows the DM to decide to a certain extent exactly what it means to be 'epic' for instance. Can epic PCs run across the tips of their enemy's spears? Well, sure, if that's what the DM decides, the game isn't going to commit you to that one way or another.

Honestly there's a good argument that they should have entirely abstracted the system and then explained said concept. I just don't get the impression that everyone working on the design of 4e was quite on the same wavelength there...