Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[Jack99]

Correct. All monsters/NPCs of X have an AC of Y+(12-16).



joe b.

Technically, that's the guideline. Nothing in the rule forbids you to go outside that range. Then again, rumour has it that Mearls, Wyatt, Heinsoo and Collins all have ninja-suits and are not afraid to use them, so you never know.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

"The guards are proportionate to our level, so we'd get no help from them" is as metagame as "the guards are higher level than us, so they can help us".

It's not metagaming if it's based on in-game experiences. "Remember how the guards tripped and disarmed the barbarian in 2 seconds when he refused to surrender his axe on entering the city? And how they spotted our invisible rogue sneaking out of the shop? Well now that we're on good terms with them, we could use that kind of talent on this mission."

By the basis of the story?

Right, and part of the story is established characters or creatures providing a benchmark. If the tribe of stone giants needs front-line melee help, and we have a rough in-game idea of how strong stone giants are, we can expect we're in for a real challenge. If the prisoner escaped from under the guard of Callastian the Ranger Lord, then we can judge there's magic involved or he's a sneak of unparalleled skill. If the portal to the Abyss is resisting the attempts of the archmage Gunthley to close it, then we aren't going to have much luck with the direct approach.

In a more "tailored" game, none of this matters. Players expect that if the DM puts a challenge in front of them, they are to face it. In a more "status quo" game, including many sandbox games, that is not the case. PCs are expected to decide on their own whether or not to confront a challenge based on their best understanding of the nature and difficulty of the challenge.

 

[EroGaki]

Um, aren't you arguing FOR 4e here. Certainly as a DM, 4e is looking way more attractive

As a DM, all I'm seeing is more headaches using the pre 4e approach as now I have to explain "WHY" for pretty much everything....

"Ok, I have to give him a super high DEX but wait that now affects his other stats such as initative, skills and reflex save..."

"ok, maybe I'll just say he is wearing a really good pair of Bracers of armour, but now the PCs have it and the wizard isn't hittable at all"

"ok, I'll use say a prestige class...ah, hell, now Johnny asking about it"

Why is it wrong for a DM to want to say

"Ok, I want my 10th level party to fight Blackbeard's crew - here's what the AC and to hit needs to be"?

Korgoth, seriously, pre 4e, did nobody do this? Was I the only DM that did this before 4e actually gave guidelines.

I have a problem with this. I may be in the minority, but just deciding "I want the pirate to have an AC of 21" and not backing it up feels like cheating.

I've DM'd my fair share of games, and I know firsthand the headache it can cause, especially in situations like the pirate, but I don't like bending the rules to that extent; I like to play the same game and use the same rules as the player. If a player asked me how it is possible for a bare-chested pirate to have a high AC, I would like to actually be capable of answering within the rules of the game. Basically, I tend to dislike using the DM Card and saying "because I said so."

That's not saying that some special abilities/powers/pacts that the PC's don't have acess to can't be invented; it is a magical world after all. I'm just saying that the players are bound to the rules of the game; the DM should be too.

As a player, I would feel cheated if my DM did this. But then, I guess that's why I don't play 4E; I like both DM and players being on the same page rules wise.

 

[Fifth Element]

I am stating that if you take all the people who say they couldn't handle 3E, that it was to difficult for them to DM, that these people as a group will not be as good at DMing as people who had no problem with it.

I completely agree that tastes differ and that has no bearing on skill in any slight way.

But there are plenty of people who feel free to go on and on about their own inability to deal with 3E. It was to hard for them. They say so.
If half a group of people say the fast pitch cage is to hard to hit, then I assume that the guys who can hit the fast pitch are better at hitting. If they all go to the slow pitch cage they may all be able to hit. But I'll bet you good odds that the guys who were hitting the fast pitches are doing a better job of driving the slow pitches where they want them to go.

The problem with this is that there's no objective definition of being a "good DM". You might have a guy who develops wonderful plots and interesting characterizations, makes his own high-quality, useful player handouts, etc, etc, but sucks at math, making 3.X, particularly at higher levels, hard for him to DM. Is this guy not a "good DM"? I don't think that's fair to say.

Conversely, you can have a guy who's a real rules master, and can handle all kinds of spell-like effects being in place at one time, and run multiple monsters without confusion, but otherwise sucks as a DM. He has no trouble with 3.X, but if you ask his players whether he's a "good DM" you'd probably get a mixed response.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Nor do the numbers mean anything to me. I just don't care what method was used to create the 21. All I care about is whether it's proportionate or not.

I'd describe him as parrying or dodging.

To me, explaining the why of an AC is like explaining the why of hitpoints. Regardless of his AC, how can this barechested guy of X level take Y damage before dieing? Why can he fight the same way at max HP as he does at 1 HP? To answer all these questions, we create abstract explanations of hit points. So why is AC different?

It isn't different. The why of HP is important to me, too.

 

[Derren]

In a more "tailored" game, none of this matters. Players expect that if the DM puts a challenge in front of them, they are to face it.

And thats exactly how 4E works. Because of the abstraction there is no way for the players to know how hard or dangerous something is beforehand, short of metagaming, anyway. So instead, everything is exactly so dangerous that it is a challenge for the PCs, not more, not less, no matter if that kind of challenge the enemy provides makes sense.

And god beware when NPCs fight as allies of the PCs in a battle against minions. Is the presence of the PCs already enough to downgrade a monster to minion status? Or does the monster has normal HP against the NPC and is only a minion when the PCs attack him?

 

[Rechan]

It isn't different. The why of HP is important to me, too.

I really don't know how to respond to that.

 

[Ariosto]

The orcs are assumed to have an existence "off-screen" that is much the same as their existence "on-screen."

There's a critical difference. The amount of "stage management" and "cast management" a Game Operations Director is apparently expected to do in 4E is not everyone's cup of tea.

This particular stew of "story telling" and "war game" elements seems to me pretty half-baked for a human-moderated game. As I mentioned earlier, my gut tells me that it's probably a dead end -- but I could be wrong!

 

[Jack99]

And thats exactly how 4E works. Because of the abstraction there is no way for the players to know how hard or dangerous something is beforehand, short of metagaming, anyway. So instead, everything is exactly so dangerous that it is a challenge for the PCs, not more, not less, no matter if that kind of challenge the enemy provides makes sense.

Regarding this, 4e works exactly like the DM wants, just like every other edition of D&D.

 

[Fifth Element]

I have a problem with this. I may be in the minority, but just deciding "I want the pirate to have an AC of 21" and not backing it up feels like cheating.

This has always been a part of D&D, I think. Before 3E, monsters just had an AC, with no details of the how the number came to be.

In 3E, the situation really didn't change much. Despite the fact that monsters had the components of their AC spelled out, there was a giant fudge factor that allowed you to effectively assign the AC you wanted: the natural armour bonus. Need your monster to have a higher AC to challenge a party of the appropriate level? Easy, add a few points of natural armour.

This goes away if you build your monster/NPC just using class levels, but that's a lot of work if you do it for every NPC.