D&D 4E Where was 4e headed before it was canned?

[Campbell]

@AbdulAlhazred

Many of the elements that I grew to be less fond of in Fourth Edition that were carried over are largely aesthetic in nature, but many of them are also firmly rooted in game play.

These days I prefer games that focus as much on strategic play as they do on tactical play. In the last couple years I have been running Exalted 3rd Edition and FFG's Legend of the Five Rings in addition to some short Moldvay B/X, Stars Without Number, Blades in the Dark and Powered By The Apocalypse games (mostly Masks and Monsterhearts). These are games that have shown me that asymmetric resources can work and provide meaningfully different play styles at the table. They have also shown me that you can strong strategic and tactical game play in the same game.

As an example my preference for less inflated monster hit points is entirely centered around game play. I prefer more vulnerable monsters that hit harder because I think it makes for more compelling and threatening fights than the more drawn out affairs seen in Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition. Exalted taught me how exciting it can be when PCs have to be careful about every hit that comes their way.

On an aesthetic level in a game built around the heroic rally narrative like Fourth Edition healing surges make a phenomenal amount of sense. When even the Cleric's healing is about inspiring their allies Healing Surges have a high amount of ludo-narrative harmony, but I am not really interested in the heroic rally narrative these days. Hit dice when divorced from the heroic rally do not make an iota of sense to me.

When it comes to abstract short and long rests I am mostly more interested in the details of the fiction and exploration based play than I used to be. They are great fits for the sorts of stories Fourth Edition excels at. That is just not where my interests lie anymore.

Right now I am deeply interested in Pathfinder 2. It seems to keep what I still desire from Fourth Edition with little of what I have moved on from.

 

[Garthanos]

Right now I am deeply interested in Pathfinder 2. It seems to keep what I still desire from Fourth Edition with little of what I have moved on from.

There are tid bits in there.

 

[Garthanos]

When even the Cleric's healing is about inspiring their allies Healing Surges have a high amount of ludo-narrative harmony, but I am not really interested in the heroic rally narrative these days.

Poets, priests and politicians have words to thank for their positions.

 

[pemerton]

elements that I grew to not be particularly fond of during the lifetime of Fourth Edition. I know other Fourth Edition fans will probably not agree with me:

• Abstract short and long rest. I am particularly not fond of regaining all your hit points over a long rest.
• Martial abilities with arbitrary resource management without any direct correspondence to the fiction. Stuff like superiority dice, rages per day, bardic inspiration, second wind, and action surge.
• Hit Dice/ Healing Surges. Particularly when healing does not use them up they do not really feel like extra reserves.
• Ability Score substitution effects like using Dexterity for attack and damage on finesse weapons or the Hexblade's Charisma to Attack and Damage. Also stuff like the Barbarian's Constitution to AC that lets them run around naked.
• Monsters that lack meaningful resistances, weaknesses, and immunities.
• Monsters with incredibly bloated hit points when compared to PCs

These days I prefer games that focus as much on strategic play as they do on tactical play. In the last couple years I have been running Exalted 3rd Edition and FFG's Legend of the Five Rings in addition to some short Moldvay B/X, Stars Without Number, Blades in the Dark and Powered By The Apocalypse games (mostly Masks and Monsterhearts). These are games that have shown me that asymmetric resources can work and provide meaningfully different play styles at the table. They have also shown me that you can strong strategic and tactical game play in the same game.

As an example my preference for less inflated monster hit points is entirely centered around game play. I prefer more vulnerable monsters that hit harder because I think it makes for more compelling and threatening fights than the more drawn out affairs seen in Fourth Edition and Fifth Edition. Exalted taught me how exciting it can be when PCs have to be careful about every hit that comes their way.

On an aesthetic level in a game built around the heroic rally narrative like Fourth Edition healing surges make a phenomenal amount of sense. When even the Cleric's healing is about inspiring their allies Healing Surges have a high amount of ludo-narrative harmony, but I am not really interested in the heroic rally narrative these days. Hit dice when divorced from the heroic rally do not make an iota of sense to me.

When it comes to abstract short and long rests I am mostly more interested in the details of the fiction and exploration based play than I used to be. They are great fits for the sorts of stories Fourth Edition excels at. That is just not where my interests lie anymore.

The symmetry of 4e resource suites, which is not identical to but is fairly closely connected to the long rest return of hit points as well as the rather abstract short rest mechanic, is something that I am a big fan of in the context of that game. For me, it dissolves what has otherwise been a recurring issue in party-based FRPGs, of tensions and imbalances resulting from differing resource suites, differing resource expenditures, and differing abilities to go nova which lead to differing abilities to impact the fiction.

This is in a context where I have never been a fan of B/X-style strategic resource management of the (roughly and I hope non-pejoratively speaking) wargame sort; and hence have never run or played games where that looms large. But I've played systems (AD&D, Rolemaster) where the recovery rules are legacies of the classic D&D set-up (fighters are on a healing recovery clock; MUs are on a spells- or spell-points-per-day recovery clock) and it causes headaches that are needless in the sense they're contributing nothing to the game.

This set-up of resources also strongly supports scene-based pacing (which is a part of 4e I really enjoy), with the long rest dynamic overlyaing a longer (but in my approach non-strategic) pacing arc which also creates opportunities for GM taunting of players (when they start looking for rest opportunities just because they're a few surges or dailies down!). The rally narrative is part of that, and is part of why I consider 4e the culmination of the various abstract resolution systems that have been part of D&D from its inception.

Of other games I'm currently playing some have almost no resource management (Prince Valiant, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Cthulhu Dark) or very different resource management from 4e, in the context of games that emphasise a very different approach to framing and to pacing (Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel). BW has so many baroque and interweaving resource and related expenditure and recovery systems that I won't try and say anything more about it in this post. But Classic Traveller has a strong emphasis on strategic resource management with money as that resource. In our game it is moslty the player of the starshp owner who is playing that game. It creates interparty dynamics (as he collects fees for service from, or pays crew salaries to , other PCs) but doesn't create the sorts of issues I've experienced in the classic FRPG set-up because (i) there isn't really any such thing as "nova-ing" your money, and (ii) the starship in many ways plays as a whole-group asset even though care of and responsibility for it is in the hands of one PC.

I guess what I mean is, the flexibility is more in terms of the immediate narrative with 'martial' powers, in general. That is "how did I achieve this specific thing?" and giving a single answer is rarely satisfying. Thus one can ask "well, if using Power X is too tiring to do more than once, how come I can use Y, and Z and not just use X again?" will come up soon. If instead we simply flexibly narrate the action such that NARRATIVELY there aren't really an explicit X, Y, and Z that happen once each per fight, then the problem is non-existent, but the example description of ranger powers with this "exhaustion mechanic" as THE explanation built into the flavor works against that (you can of course ignore it). 4e generally tends not to present things that way, presumably for this very reason.

OTOH 'magical' powers and spells (both 4e and other editions) tend to be a bit more formulaic and its easier to swallow rationalizations, so they put less of a crimp in people's narrative style. Not to say that reflavoring is unimportant here either, but just maybe not as critical in the same sense. Of course 'magic' IS a fuzzy concept in 4e, so there is that as well.... (I mean you could simply flavor your fighter power "Come and Get It" AS an explicitly magical ability and this has no rules implication in 4e).

I agree with you about the flexibility of narrative-vis-a-vis-mechanics in 4e. At least in my game this is further supported by PC design: eg the system has encourage the fighter to specialise to some degree, in his case in polearms and forced movement, and that means that when he pulls out CaGI it is just another example of him wrongfooting his opponents(s) and attacking all of them around him. At the table CaGI it is a distinctive rsources that he deploys (roughly) once per encounter; but as the fiction plays out there is no metronomyic quality to its resolution (contrary to some online criticisms that to me at least seemed not well-grounded in play experience).

Of the other systems I've mentioned in this post MHRP/Cortex+ also supports a pretty high degree of this sort of flexibility. For instance, as per the published example of play for MHRP, Wolverine's player can include his claw die in an attempt to cause goons to flee (pool = the standard affiliation and distinction dice plus claws, Menace Master (a skill die) and a bonus die for the Fearsome SFX) just as the claw die might be included in an atempt to cut someone down (pool = the standard affiliation and distinction dice plus claws, Combat Master (a different skill die) and a die for the Enhanced Strength power). In MHRP that will feed through to different sorts of stress (emotional vs physical) but that in turn is primarily flavour with a hint of fictional positioning. (Not too different from psychic vs untyped damage in 4e.)

Burning Wheel, Traveller and even Prince Valiant have a much tighter nexus between mechanics and narrative than either 4e or Cortex+ Heroic That's part of what gives the first two a grittier feel. Prince Valiant I see as something of a stand-out (although The Dying Earth also has some similiarities though very different resource management) in having a long fairly "simulationist" skill list and allied approach to PC build, but much more light-hearted and "open ended" resolution. But that's because Greg Stafford is a genius!

 

[Campbell]

@pemerton

I think you will find very few B/X enthusiasts who take war gaming as a pejorative. I certainly do not. Developing skill at managing disparate resources, effective reconnaissance, proper spell and consumable management, and developing knowledge of individual monsters and their weaknesses are all things I highly value in the context of more Step On Up play which is what I look to Dungeons and Dragons for these days.

I do agree that balancing asymmetric resources can be challenging. I think it is particularly challenging in an environment where some of the key exploration rules like 10 minute turns and wandering monster checks are discarded. The bigger challenge I think comes from spell casters largely not having a specialty and having the ability to exceed dedicated specialists in their fields.

So the general take that Pathfinder 2 takes is that dedicated specialists like the Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Monk, and others will always be better at the things they are good at than what a Wizard can achieve trying to match them. The Wizard is really good at making them better in their fields or in a pinch can come close for one round using a very precious spell slot. They are also better at things like area damage, overcoming resistances, and debuffs, but will never match them in things like personal mobility, personal defenses, or single target damage.

The big thing they did was making every class a specialist of one sort or another. The spells and spell lists have been carefully curated to make sure every list has its own areas of specialization and no one character can do everything.

The other element is that martial characters utilize the action economy so much more efficiently that resources are largely asymmetric from both sides. It is largely on the side of martial classes while being more of a hindrance to casters.

That being said it is definitely not a game built for scene based resolution. It pretty much assumes that you are carefully tracking time between encounters with an exploration system built around 10 minute actions. You can obviate time if need be, but should account for things like the Treat Wounds use of Medicine, repairing shields, spell durations and the like. There also tends to be some long term lasting afflictions that affect character long after combat.

Exalted is very much like this in practice because healing is very slow, Essence recovers hourly, and stuff like wound penalties and other potent long lasting effects stay with characters even if most effects are explicitly scene based.

Exalted is interesting because player characters do not really have asymmetric resources if you look at their character sheets, but the ways they utilize them make them asymmetric in practice particularly because characters can be extremely focused in one arena and so a Dawn Caste who has Melee Supernal meaning they get to go beyond normal Essence limits will be a terror on the battlefield compared to an Eclipse who has Presence Supernal and will utilize Essence in a fight far more efficiently although the reverse true in a social encounter. Of course the system is built so that characters can burn out quickly if they try to do too much. It also means they are in danger of letting their anima barriers flare giving away their true nature in a setting where that might mean they get hunted down. It's often smart for them to rely on others in those circumstances.

It's very much a game built on risks and rewards. Nothing is certain and you decide how far to push yourself.

 

[pemerton]

@Campbell, as you describe it PF2 seems quite different in some key respects from its 3E/PF predecessor(s). Is that right? I wonder if that will affect its uptake.

 

[Campbell]

Something just struck me. There was a time when I definitely valued narrative flexibility, but over time I have more and more shifted towards specificity of fiction. I have drifted from liking games like Burning Wheel, Cortex Plus, and Fourth Edition to having a strong preference for Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, Masks, Exalted, and Legend of the Five Rings. All games about very particular characters in very particular situations. Blades is fairly flexible, but the others have a high degree of focus and mechanics that directly represent the struggles of the characters involved.

 

[pemerton]

@Campbell, your post makes sense except I'm not sure that you've got BW on the right side of the divide. Care to elaborate some more? (Eg are you thinking of the GM's flexibiilty in respect of narrating failure?)

 

[Parmandur]

@Campbell, as you describe it PF2 seems quite different in some key respects from its 3E/PF predecessor(s). Is that right? I wonder if that will affect its uptake.

PF2 is a fairly huge departure, and had been called "4E+like" by both people who think that is a compliment or an insult, and it should be interesting seeing how that plays out in the hobby.

The varying resource management of different Classes is a strength of classic D&D that 5E consciously embraces and leans into, with great results for that style of play. The 12 Classes might be best thought of in terms of how they uniquely manage resources over the game day (an adventuring unit of ~40-60 combat rounds, which can be a different narrative unit, such as a week rather than a day if "gritty realism" rules making a Short Rest 8 hours and a Long Rest 7 days is used per the DMG).

 

[Campbell]

@Campbell, your post makes sense except I'm not sure that you've got BW on the right side of the divide. Care to elaborate some more? (Eg are you thinking of the GM's flexibiilty in respect of narrating failure?)

Burning Wheel is close, but much like how Fourth Edition's skill challenges can obviate time and place Versus tests and intent based resolution combined with Let It Ride have a similar impact where they are less about specificity of the fiction and more broad strokes. This is less the case when dealing when utilizing Fight! or Duel of Wits. There is also the case that players largely decide what their characters' struggles are. Even though Exalted shares very similar mechanics to Burning Wheel there certain struggles are embedded into the mechanics and themes for particular character types.