D&D General Why is D&D 4E a "tactical" game?

[pemerton]

None of which changes the fact that they have different entries in the book and different stat blocks. It's kind of like saying that a 5E guard is the same as a champion because they're both human.

I don't get this.

Imagine Gygax's game back in the 1970s. A 9th level fighter leads an army. If that fighter PC gets into a fight with one of their mercenaries, we resolve the fight using the Book 1 combat system or (once it's published) the AD&D system: attack matrices, AC, hp etc.

But if the whole army rises up against the fighter, and it becomes like Conan wading through a horde of opponents, that is not going to be resolved the same way. To resolve that sort of fight you use Chainmail (or maybe Swords & Spells?), with the fighter represented as a Superhero and the mercenaries having their own Chainmail-esque mechanical representation.

No one thinks that this difference of mechanical representation and resolution means anything has changed in the fiction. It's something that happens at the table to achieve the desired game play.

In 4e D&D, the mechanical representation of a hostile Ogre (or Orc, or whatever) is changed, depending on the context in which it is being fought. If it is being fought by one or more PCs who are considerably weaker than it, we represent it as a Solo or around about their level. If it is being fought by PCs who are more-or-less a match for it we represent it as an Elite or a Standard of around about their level (there is obviously some room to move here, corresponding roughly to how much more or less). If it is being fought by PCs who are more than a match for it, we represent it as a Minion. And if it is part of a horde of Ogres being cut through by a Beowulf-like Ogre-slayer, we can stat up an Ogre swarm.

The entries in the Monster Manual, with their corresponding stat blocks, are not like entries in Gould's guide to birds: they are not an imagined naturalist's account of different creatures she once encountered. Those entries are game-play tools, providing us with a range of different mechanical representations of an ogre to perform the various tasks described in the previous paragraph. For whatever reason, a particular RPGer may prefer their Monster Manual and its stats to be amenable to treatment, in imagination, as a fictional naturalist's handbook. I don't really get it - why would a naturalist, even an imaginary one, use purely gameplay notions like hit points and damage dice? - but whatever floats your boat!

But having a particular preference doesn't justify reading a work written to satisfy a different preference in a distorted fashion!

EDIT: Mostly ninja'd by @bert1001 fka bert1000 in post 356.

 

[Mordhau]

I experimented a lot more with the 13age mooks than 4e minions - but some of the same principles apply.

13th age changes minions in that instead of having 1hp they have a relatively small amount of fix hitpoints, but if you do more damage than their total hitpoints that damage carries over into others in their group. This is an improvement because it means it doesn't feel like so much of a waste to target a single minion with a main attack. 13th Age also has double strength and triple strength mooks(double or triple damage and double or triple hit points) which fill a useful middle space between normal monsters and mooks.

But I found that it's what you can do when experimenting with group abilities that make's it very interesting.

Firstly, the basic tactic in most versions of D&D is pretty similar. You want to focus fire on one monster and take it out before doing that to the next one. If the DM is playing tactically the monsters want to be doing that to - the tactics basically then come down to who can best exert control and position to achieve their goal more effectively. Mooks/minions allow this tactic to be completely disrupted.

13th Age has the escalation die which can easily be imported into 4e, but if not similar things can added.
Consider the following property: "When the number of mooks of this kind outnumber the PCs the PCs cannot use the escalation die." This both strongly incentivises the PCs to go for the minions first and also means if reinforcements arrive things swing back against the PCs again, prompting them to change their tactics.

I found this was also lent a way of constructing mook monsters that scales while somewhat hiding the arbritrariness of the mook/nornal monster divide. In 13th Age a level 1 triple strength mook is about equivalent in effect to a normal monster (more damage, less hit points, so a quite variaton). At level 3 the level 1 triple strength mook has the same hit points and damage as a normal mook of that level but it's defences and hit chance are lower by 2. Pick one of those and give them a +2 bonus in a sufficently sized group using some kind of pack tactics and you now have what is basically a level 1 monster that has translated into a level 3 mook without a single change in the rules in regard to how the monster functions.
(Or in other words you can have the organic transition that 5e wants to have, by building on the 4e foundation with just a little bit of clever thought to monster design and abilities).

Eg

Orc level 1 Triple Strength mook.
Overwhelming threat: When there are more Orcs in a group than the PCs, PCs of level 4 or below cannot use the escalation dice. When there are more than twice the number of orcs than PCs, PCs of level 7 or below cannot use the escalation die.
Pack tactics. When two Orcs attack the same PC they gain a +2 to hit.

And you can level them up further they by giving them a leader that gives them moral bonuses.

 

[pemerton]

Different stat blocks represent different creatures to me.

This is like someone chucking out Romeo and Juliet because they disagreed with the proposition that Juliet is the sun, inter alia on grounds that her diameter is only 1 metre or so and her surface temperature is in the neighbourhood of 300 K.

Once it is pointed out that the play is not an encyclopaedia, and that the words being put in Romeo's mouth are metaphor and poetry, it would be stupid to insist nevertheless that the play is worthless because unable even to tell the difference between a human being and a stellar body.

Likewise with 4e D&D. When someone points out that in the 4e Monster Manual, and in the 4e paradigm more generally, that different stat blocks need not represent different entities in the fiction, why do you insist on reading it as if they do?

 

[pemerton]

You don't have to have full blown mook rules to make fights non-tedious.

That might depend on the system. I certainly think 4e D&D benefits in this respect from its use of minions and swarms!

 

[Garthanos]

But by the time you are poking that dragon with a piece of steel, it's no long steel, and you no longer are walking around as mundane.

Remember magic items are completely optional and oooh so impressive and interesting, you get a +2 on your attack, how fascinating, your agency and empowerment is great. /sarcasm. Good thing you can be the servant of the caster class perhaps they will provide those magic items you need. /hyperbolic sarcasm.

1e also had that optional magic items its not a new element.

Although there are edition differences of course there is 3e where you have "Lets just hope they don't notice the Druids Bear can out fight you."

Your friends speak directly with their God, the Spirits of the land, or have unraveled the mysteries of creation.

yup they are pretty godlike on their own ... no magic items required.

And the thing that really sunk it home this is back was in 5e the best defender build is a multiclass caster. (or 85 percent caster with just a dabble otherwise)

My less sarcastic/less hyperbolic reply, I think was already expressed but I can be redundant, is that in 4e there were more than one story about how one became awesome and its actually wrapped up in player choices.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

People like what they like. I don't understand why anyone other than farmers and construction workers, people who need to haul stuff, like pickup trucks. Yet they're everywhere in the US. Doesn't make people who love their trucks wrong, just means I prefer a different option. I gave 4E the old college try. I really, really tried to like it. But eventually I just burned out on it. In part that's because in the games I played the role playing and creative aspects were minimized for reasons I still can't fully explain.

Unfortunately this is not what happens in just about every 4e thread. If it was only:

"Let's talk about the best vehicles!"
"I like trucks!"
"I don't like trucks. They're gas guzzlers and 90% of the time the flat bed goes unused by most of the owners"

THIS kind of conversation is fine and I'm sure you'd find a bunch a people that will engage.

But sadly, you get a lot of this in 4e threads:

"Let's talk about the best vehicles!"
"I like trucks!"
"You know, I don't really consider trucks vehicles. Vehicles need to be totally enclosed spaces."

This is the 4e isn't an RPG stuff.

OR you frequently get:

"Let's talk about the best vehicles!"
"I like trucks!"
"You know, I don't really see why people like trucks. When you put people in the flat bed in back it's dangerous, uncomfortable, and can get cold or hot."
"Well, the flatbed is really meant to haul cargo and does it a lot better than a car."
"I'm going to put people in the back."
"Well, you're better off getting a car then".
"Man, trucks suck!"

This is you insisting that the same fictional items can't be represented by different mechanics for different purposes. (although you seem to have walked this back but I can't really tell?)

This is also the people insisting that everything must scale to the Level tables when that produces nonsense and another way to think about it has been presented.

It's like playing basketball in high heels (unless you're Prince) and complaining that the game is really hard on your ankles. Someone else points out that many people find the game more enjoyable in sneakers. You can either put on sneakers and try it that way, OR if high heels are an absolute must for you to play sports then you can at least imagine how the game might work while wearing sneakers.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, it's a bit of a strength actually.

It's almost trivial to alter what Level X means for skill checks and skill challenges depending on the campaign world.

And WotC even published examples of this. Neverwinter pushes paragon fiction into the upper heroic tier. (One upshot: the Neverwinter Mind Flayer stat blocks are not suitable for a default 4e game.) And Dark Sun stretches paragon fiction into the epic tier. (One upshot: there are many Epic Destinies that don't really make sense in Dark Sun.)

 

[Garthanos]

And WotC even published examples of this. Neverwinter pushes paragon fiction into the upper heroic tier. (One upshot: the Neverwinter Mind Flayer stat blocks are not suitable for a default 4e game.) And Dark Sun stretches paragon fiction into the epic tier. (One upshot: there are many Epic Destinies that don't really make sense in Dark Sun.)

I have taken to liking custom homebrew Epic Destinies... I am thinking of linking Paragon Paths with flavor and fiction that blends into them so perhaps I am considering stretching Epic Flavor back to Paragon.

PS: I have also started thinking of these Destinies as having signature adversaries and other things like that.

 

[pemerton]

I don't believe that 4e actually suggests minionising ogres anywhere.

I think it implies it, by publishing (in the original 4e MM) an Ogre Bludgeoneer (L16 minion) alongside an Ogre Savage (L8 brute). These are basically the same creature with different mechanical representations. (An Ogre Thug (L11 minion) seems like a Savage or Bludegeoneer caught on a bad day.)

 

[Aldarc]

But try explaining that? Obviously I didn't play the game (I played it for years), I'm misrepresenting the concept (I understand it, I just prefer 5E's approach), I'm trolling or gaslighting.

You were gaslighting because you tried sweeping under the rug the fact that you had been talking about a specific concept (i.e., minions) with people who had been correcting the accuracy of your characterization of them.

But I'm pretty sure you'll just write me off as another "hater" because I don't care for something you happen to like.

I'm fine with people who dislike 4e. I'm not fine with people who make it a regular habit to thread-crap in 4e topics to stir up edition war sentiments while retreating behind motte-and-bailey arguments and then claim to be victims under attack.