D&D 4E What Doesn't 4E Do Well?

[Garthanos]

The thread title is: what does it do NOT well.

So i am gald that 4e is BAD at those hings I listed

It doesn't do well a super number of things that D&D never was intended for... It might be appropriate to list only things it intends to do... sometimes that might be hard to figure out..

For example: It doesnt act as a good slaughter ground for heros as a dm you can still create tpks but when you do, you usually cant claim ignorance. Some AD&D fans seem to think that extreme death rate was an intended balancing factor of that older version.

 

[Elric]

Actually, the logic is 'It costs 5 times as much material components to use the ritual, so it's five times as costly to produce, and therefore 5 times as much to buy.'

This last part doesn't logically follow from the first parts.

Assuming there's some (constant returns to scale) "magic item creating technology" that everyone has access to doesn't require that the price of items be that given by the technology. It sets a maximum on that price.

Given that there are existing level 30 items, the question is why anyone would pay 3 million GP for them.

I don't mean to suggest that D&D needs a realistic economy. I'm fine with Plate Armor costing 5 gp more than Scale. However, the 4e scale used causes problems at higher levels.

Where this causes an issue in the game system is that a 15th level PC can own a lot of lower level potions, wondrous items, etc. Practically any heroic magic item is well within his reach.

Right. The gold scaling exacerbates the problems with items that don't take up item slots, and leads to the general phenomenon that characters have little trouble maxing out all of their non-ring item slots by level 15 (and they should do this if possible, because it's much more cost-effective to spend gold purchasing lower level items than, say, upgrading your neck-slot item).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

He is right however with the initial release of the first set of core books. There are really annoying errors in it. The worst one was the hill giant which did less damage with its club, than with its stones... (which in the video interview even irritated the designer)

Also skill challenge mechanics were bogged, but this was clearly the result of nerdrage (the mechanics presented in the preview were much better).

Also Divine challenge mechanics became really strange after nerdrage... I believe that if they had not previewed the system, we had better mechanics in some places.

 

[Garthanos]

Precisely. That's my only point with regards to economics here.

One thing that 4E does not do well is to be even close to a decent economic simulator. Not that it has to be great at it, but it would be preferable if at least a little thought was put into this for a future (5E) release since little in this area was done for releases 1E through 4E.

Scaling down the over all wealth gained... and flattening the cost curve sounds like it would indeed have many many benefits. Your point about magic item balance being more fragile than it need be because of the cost curve being so steep is also quite good. I vague hand wave have cultures where magic items are available for purchase but most of the time it is a trade... how much gold would you let me buy that for? ummm insert out of reason number.. or you could go get this spell component and that one and that one... and we will call it even.

 

[ValhallaGH]

(and yes, thanks for sharing that it is irrelevant to you, that does not make it a fact that it is irrelevant)

You misunderstood.
I said that why it should matter to anyone other than you is irrelevant. The why is irrelevant, not the fact of a bad economic model.
Why people should care is totally irrelevant to this discussion. They either care or do not. So, please refrain from trying to make people care. You've stated your basic point, it has been agreed upon as a thing that the current edition does not do well. Move on, and if you really need to purge these words from your psyche then open a new thread and start doing so.

3) Purchasing / enchanting items. I haven't seen players do this in 4E since it is so expensive.

I don't want to take the time to find the relevant citations, so I shan't, but I remember reading that this was intentional. In a large number of 3.x campaigns (enough so that the designers of 4E considered it a majority) the creation and purchasing of custom magic items led to rampant increases in PC power, an "arms race" mentality between various players (including DMs), and a generally perceived erosion of the fun to be found in the game.
The designers of 4E decided to prevent this problem by making players reliant upon items the DM hands out, without completely removing the possibility of players actually purchasing or fabricating a specific few items.

4) Plausibility. This is a major thing for me. The game has to flow. It has to feel quasi-realistic. Implausibility jars the game.

Agreed. I can't tell you what to find plausible, as that is largely a matter of taste and where one chooses to suspend disbelief (or cease doing so).

But why exactly does the Ogre have 5000 GP in his lair?

Why does it have to be in the Ogre's lair? Why can't it be a small cache of jewels (natural, placed, otherwise) that is in the area? Why can't it be some shiny rocks the ogre found and kept because they were pretty?
Though I have to admit, I don't understand what connection, beyond economic, this has to magic items.


When it hasn't made me want to retch from boredom (sorry, I just get that way sometimes), this has been a very interesting discussion KD. I hope we can have more in the future.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It doesn't do well a super number of things that D&D never was intended for... It might be appropriate to list only things it intends to do... sometimes that might be hard to figure out..

For example: It doesnt act as a good slaughter ground for heros as a dm you can still create tpks but when you do, you usually cant claim ignorance. Some AD&D fans seem to think that extreme death rate was an intended balancing factor of that older version.

My answer was a response to the poster above me...

So I just tried to say what 4e does good. Actually I don´t see a single point where it really fails hard to do what it claims.

So i had to list things that were intended.

Ok, what i consider bad:

- Using attributes as a represenation what the character can do. As a result multiclassing between natural fits sometimes is difficult.

- Making every attribute have an impact on the character: Int is often not so useful. (Tying perception to int as it was pre 3.x would have gone a long way to balance it)

 

[KarinsDad]

So I just tried to say what 4e does good. Actually I don´t see a single point where it really fails hard to do what it claims.

One major place where it failed hard to do what it claim was in the math. There were several early claims that the "sweet spot" would be maintained at all levels. I think they failed at this for mid-Paragon to Epic (with the basic math, especially to hit and weakest NAD) and then turned around and added a lot of new classes and feats and powers and magic items to make up for it. I do think that they have quasi-corrected a lot of this, but it did fail out of the box (i.e. if one does not use supplemental material).

I also think they partially failed in the two ability score classes vs. one ability score classes area.

However, for all of their minor failings, I do think that they put out a good product. If 5E follows the same basic paradigms, it should be a really good game out of the box.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sorry, but you are mistaken here and mislead by the example. Secondary skill checks are the same as every other skill check. They are just slightly more difficult skill checks that the DM did not consider when creating the encounter.

Aid Another can be done, the update says so and the DMG does not contradict that.

Well, we can argue endlessly but the fact remains that nothing in the SC system guarantees players the right to Aid Another. Assuming that it is an option on all checks at all times makes a mockery of a good bit of the system so I fail to see where it is a warranted assumption.

Secondary Skill checks in the generic sense are something that the player HAS to justify. Again they are not ENTITLED to them. The player has to come up with an idea and nothing even suggests that any random hairbrained scheme is worth a check. Notice the 2nd paragraph in the section "Reward Clever Ideas" on DMG75 where it talks about secondary skills (for the 2nd time, p73 says pretty much the same thing). These skills need to be justified and the DM is advised to allow them only when they make sense.

And again, most challenges define specific mechanics for likely secondary skill uses. The whole concept of secondary skills makes no sense if AA is allowed everywhere without any DM moderation. Frankly I almost never allow it and I'd strongly advise other DMs to do the same.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One major place where it failed hard to do what it claim was in the math. There were several early claims that the "sweet spot" would be maintained at all levels. I think they failed at this for mid-Paragon to Epic (with the basic math, especially to hit and weakest NAD) and then turned around and added a lot of new classes and feats and powers and magic items to make up for it. I do think that they have quasi-corrected a lot of this, but it did fail out of the box (i.e. if one does not use supplemental material).

I also think they partially failed in the two ability score classes vs. one ability score classes area.

However, for all of their minor failings, I do think that they put out a good product. If 5E follows the same basic paradigms, it should be a really good game out of the box.

Realistically going just by the 1st three books Epic is perfectly playable. Plenty of people ran Epic games before even AV came out, though the vast majority probably didn't. Certainly VAST numbers of people ran Epic games before PHB2 and many before even MP. It did work. Epic game play HAS definitely been tweaked some, but not all that much. Its hard to say actually if it works better now than it did at the start. Honestly in my experience it isn't that much different.

I think the dual primary stat classes were an attempt to pack in as much material in the PHB as possible. It would have been hard to get people playing a 4e with very few options right off the bat but there were only so many classes they could wedge into one book. So some of them are sort of 2-fers.

The amusing thing I see with 4e is that the system is about 900 times mechanically superior to any previous edition. Ironically, but not entirely unpredictably if you are a student of human nature, this means that it comes in for about 900 times more criticism for the inevitable relatively minor flaws it does have. It was really fairly pointless to criticize the rules of 1e or 2e as they were way to loose and mechanically flimsy to even be worth much criticism. 3.x did get a good bit of criticism but in its case the flaws were so glaring and so embedded in the core mechanics that again most criticism was relatively pointless. Now we have a system where people vehemently criticize minor (and arguable intentional) shifts in to-hit numbers at higher levels. I guess its progress. At least its a lot easier to actually run the game as it was designed.

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, we can argue endlessly but the fact remains that nothing in the SC system guarantees players the right to Aid Another.

No, the PHB allows it.

Skill or Ability Check: You can instead aid a skill check or an ability check made by an adjacent ally. Make a DC 10 skill check or ability check. If you succeed, you give a +2 bonus to your ally’s next check using the same skill or ability. This bonus ends if not used by the end of the ally’s next turn.

There is no specific skill challenge rule in the DMG that overrides this general rule.

The update just verified it.

Secondary Skill checks in the generic sense are something that the player HAS to justify. Again they are not ENTITLED to them. The player has to come up with an idea and nothing even suggests that any random hairbrained scheme is worth a check. Notice the 2nd paragraph in the section "Reward Clever Ideas" on DMG75 where it talks about secondary skills (for the 2nd time, p73 says pretty much the same thing). These skills need to be justified and the DM is advised to allow them only when they make sense.

Secondary skill checks have nothing to do with Aid Another. They are just another skill, merely a skill the DM did not think of when creating the challenge. There is nothing special about them. If the DM disallows them, he does. What has that to do with Aid Another?


Is the skill in the list of skills for the skill challenge? Yup. Then one can Aid Another that skill.

Is the secondary skill one that the DM allows for the skill challenge? Yup. Then one can Aid Another that secondary skill.

And again, most challenges define specific mechanics for likely secondary skill uses. The whole concept of secondary skills makes no sense if AA is allowed everywhere without any DM moderation. Frankly I almost never allow it and I'd strongly advise other DMs to do the same.

It might not make sense to you (it makes sense to me like the example I posted earlier). I do not even understand why it doesn't make sense to you to have two PCs combined their history knowledge or combine their diplomacy. People brainstorm stuff all of the time. People work together on things all of the time.

Your method forces every PC to work solo. Yuck.


I'm not quite sure why you think your POV on this is correct when the rules disagree with you. shrug

Nothing you have written is even close to a rule that indicates or suggests that Aid Another cannot be done and the update explicitly clarified it.

The +2 "reason" you gave earlier is moot. The +2 wasn't for secondary skill challenge, it was for DM's Best Friend.