Why I think you should try 4e (renamed)

[FireLance]

Did you ever fight Minions in 4E? They are not paper tigers. They kill you if you ignore them or treat them as if they were no threat. Just like any other monster of their level. It's just that you get 4 of them instead of 1 of them pitted against you. Fighting through a horde of Orc Minions can be a spectacularly rewarding experience, because bodies are dropping left and right. But... they can actually overpower you.

Indeed. You can characterize minions as mobile traps or skill challenges if that fits better with your view of the world, but they are still supposed to be a threat*. Defeating four minions is supposed to be as much of an accomplishment as defeating a standard monster of the same level.

[SBLOCK=*]Actual threat level may vary depending on party composition.[/SBLOCK]

 

[Psion]

I have to agree, I enjoy the sandbox-style play you're talking about here, and its become the de facto way I run my games. And you know what? Absolutely NOTHING prevents you from running this kind of game using 4e. In fact, I've been doing it for over a year now with no hitches.

Good on you.

My post wasn't a commentary on 4e (per se) so much as the expressed philosophy upthread that combat should always be an option.

I believe I've already stated nothing stops you from doing this in 4e. But I do believe expectations can be an obstacle if you have players who carry assumptions about "scaling challenges" with them.

(Ed: And I will note, from experience, this expectation wasn't absent in the average 3.5 gametable, either.)

 

[Dimitris]

I still haven't checked the 4e. We don't see a good reason to do that. We know the 3.5e rules. We know the changes we need, to adapt the game to our style of play. We are not in need for another system. We are expecting the Pathfinder rules as a set of new ideas to refresh (not change) our system.

The 4e reminds me a card game. A lot of special exceptional powers to be combined and produce a more interesting encounter. And I am saying "interesting" not necessary more "true" or more "believable" etc. Of course the battle system was always in the core of the D&D system but the discussions I remember were if we have to change this or the other rule in order to produce a more believable scene, depict a little bit better a situation etc. Now 4e adds sets of special powers/actions etc, to make the GAME more INTERESTING, but not to make the STORY more BELIEVABLE and so the EXPERIENCE more DEEP.

And as I have said before there are a lot of really challenging tabletop and card games: Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphratis, Caylus, Agricola, Dominion etc

Dimitris

 

[Psion]

last I checked, in Gary's, one warning was more than enough.

If that's the way you roll, that's fine. As long as you are willing to have the players re-roll characters.

As for me, I don't consider DMing philosophy automatically correct just because Gary uttered it. I think you've mistaken me for someone else. I'm not so much of an old school viking-hat DM who is out to buzz-kill the adventure because someone didn't quite get that they were no longer playing in a world of scaled challenges that they could invariably take on.

What you are doing is trying to save their asses instead of letting them face the consequences of their actions.

You are mischaracterizing my position. There would certainly be consequences. But weighing the impact to fun at the table of having to stop and re-roll characters, I might let them get by with consequences that have less impact than the one simply plugging into the combat system would naively lead me to.

But there would be consequences. And I would hope that they learned a thing or two about the dangers of the world they live in for the next time they stumble into bigger trouble than they are ready to face. If that lesson didn't take, the next time the lesson might need a bit more sting, and less generosity might be required.

But if you think I'm going to be shamed for approaching the situation generously, you'd be mistaken. It's indispensable for enjoyable sandbox play. Letting the players wander around as if they were blind in a minefield is not conducive to enjoyable sandbox play.

Despite your attitude, nowhere in troll lore does it state that they leave carcasses laying around everywhere where they hunt. In fact, one might be tempted to say just the opposite. Trolls devour everything and leave nothing behind. Besides, the troll was just one example. It could easily have been a stealthier monster (a lurker!).

That's fine. If the party wandered into an inescapable deathtrap with no chance that the player's actions could facilitate their escape, I'd be wrong then, too.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I know this is late in the thread, but it also captures another genre convention.

The Inverse Ninja Law + The Big Monster.

The protagonists encounter Monster X. The first time they fight Monster X, Monster X is hard to kill. It's a bastard on legs. Maybe it has a weak point that's difficult to hit, or a tough hide, or is just durable.

Later, there's suddenly a ton of Monster X's. But the protagonists mow through them. Not only that, but the protagonists never miss when they're faced with a large number of Monster X's.

While this is indeed a staple of genre fiction, that fact does not make such a convention any less stupid.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That's an overused and redundant example. I've never seen a single group that didn't recognise the silliness of that and rule it out. That's a far cry from the current model of "if it's in the rules it must be essential to the maths, so we can't take it out".

Moreover, that example would be dealt with simply by following the guidelines in the DMG re: ineffective attacks.


RC

 

[AllisterH]

That's an overused and redundant example. I've never seen a single group that didn't recognise the silliness of that and rule it out. That's a far cry from the current model of "if it's in the rules it must be essential to the maths, so we can't take it out".

Ah, I know Rechan was just joking about the cat but there _IS_ something I would like to point out.

If the mechanics of the gameworld are represented in the rules, why are you throwing out the rules? Isn't this tantamount to saying that the mechanics DO NOT model the world?

(As an aside, I thought the 3.x DMG explicitly said to ignore this type of attack anyway?)

EDIT: Sandbox play

Ok, Psion I'm really getting confused....If you're giving hints as to what is over _THERE_, aren't you basically dictating where they'll go.

My understanding of sandbox play was that the "players" have to find out themselves by either research or first hand experience and not by the DM dropping hints such as "trolls live here and you can see their evidence".

As Rechan points out, what happens if it is a displacer beast, a creature known for being stealthy?

(this discussion has been interesting since the terms being used by everyone seems to be highly dependant on their frame of reference)

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have to admit I've never understood "The rules must properly simulate activities for DM solo-play". If there aren't characters in a scene, it fundamentally never happened. The DM can totally introduce past scenes, off-camera, even I suppose a hypothetical Demon Minion tripping and breaking his own neck somewhere, but it doesn't actually happen in the imagined game world until the DM tells the group that it happened. Before that, it's just game prep. So I just don't see the need for the rules to fulfill that purpose. It's not a part of play.

I do understand that some people prefer symmetric/PC-neutral game designs, where you could run all that stuff without any players present and it'd work out the way you'd want it to. I'm not denigrating that preference. I just don't see that not fulfilling that preference is a design flaw.

The DM can always determine the outcome of events that do not involve the PC's without resolution mechanics. A consistently run game world populated with constructs that have stable objective attributes in relation to one another aid in making those outcomes more logical. If there are things in the world with a value that can shift depending on who is or is not present, then a logical determination of an outcome for a given event becomes harder to make.

I could perhaps buy into the minion nonsense if there were any rhyme or reason to the minion status and it was applied across the world as a whole. For example if a given creature was treated as a minion to anything X number of levels over it's own at least there would be some benchmark for making the determination. It would have to apply equally to PC's and monsters of course. A 1st level PC charging in against a level 10 dragon should be swatted like a fly. A minion of "equal" level to a regular monster (or the PC's) just doesn't make sense.

If there are two monsters of the same level standing next to each other what exactly makes one a minion and the other not? Aside from the MM saying so that is.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Moreover, that example would be dealt with simply by following the guidelines in the DMG re: ineffective attacks.


RC

IIRC, the core rules give you the rules for the level 1 Commoner and the DMG contains the cat statistics? What are the cat statistics for - if it can't kill the Commoner, who can it use these attacks on?
Aside from this, I seem to remember that the rule on ineffective attacks mostly applies to attacking objects, not creatures?

BUT:
No, don't answer. The Cat vs Commoner thing is just a joke and it does not say anything at all about the quality of a game system or play style or whatever. Some designer thought it would be could to have some statistics for a cat, doesn't mean the system is flawed. It's just that the specific way he chose to model it with the system is flawed. That happens all the time.

The only thing it highlights is how you can use models "wrong" and that you have to put some thought into it. The Cat vs Commoner thing is an example of a model used "wrong" because the model makes a prediction that doesn't mesh with your expectations, based on believability concerns.

Deciding that level 10 parties don't fight level 1 Kobold Skirmishers but Level 10 Kobold Minions is similar, but with another goal - instead of being concerned with believability, you think about the gameplay experience.

But the rules do not make any assumptions regarding this. They don't tell you have to switch a Kobold Skirmisher to a Kobold Minion or anything. If you find this unrealistic or inconsistent, you ignore this option. The rules give you the guidelines to tell you that a level 1 monster against a level 10 party is not a good challenge. But that doesn't mean the system makes it impossible to do it. It is just not a good challenge. It doesn't force you to adopt a new playstyle where everything is "level appropriate". The naive assumption put forth by the guidelines is more that you don't send Kobolds against a level 10 party by default, not that you come up with Kobold Minion stats - if you want to keep it challenging.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The DM can always determine the outcome of events that do not involve the PC's without resolution mechanics. A consistently run game world populated with constructs that have stable objective attributes in relation to one another aid in making those outcomes more logical. If there are things in the world with a value that can shift depending on who is or is not present, then a logical determination of an outcome for a given event becomes harder to make.

I could perhaps buy into the minion nonsense if there were any rhyme or reason to the minion status and it was applied across the world as a whole. For example if a given creature was treated as a minion to anything X number of levels over it's own at least there would be some benchmark for making the determination. It would have to apply equally to PC's and monsters of course. A 1st level PC charging in against a level 10 dragon should be swatted like a fly. A minion of "equal" level to a regular monster (or the PC's) just doesn't make sense.

If there are two monsters of the same level standing next to each other what exactly makes one a minion and the other not? Aside from the MM saying so that is.

The Minion is the poorly trained, physically weaker, badly equipped one, with poorer morale, compared to the other.

What makes one medium size guy a Level 10 guy and another medium size guy a Level 1 guy?

What makes one uninjured guy have 20 hit points and another uninjured guy have 40 hit points?