WOTC Blog: Aftereffect and condition/effect supplement

[catsclaw227]

From Peter Schaefer's Blog:

And here's something I would've blogged about a week-point-five ago if I'd had the leisure: aftereffect. SRM came up with it in a monster dev meeting and we all hashed out what it meant. And just like that, we have a very robust condition/effect supplement. Which is pure awesome. There's a real joy in constructing a rule or ruleset that is flexible, strong, and intelligently universal all at the same time.

This is an interesting inference here. I wonder if he is talking about lingering effects of a battle with a monster, like an area of effect thing, or if he is referencing the after effects of certain attacks that bestow a condition, like nausea or something similar.

Has anyone seen any other references to condition/effects in 4e and what aftereffect might be?

 

[Li Shenron]

I was thinking about just a streamlined (and hence easily expandable) table of effects for special monster attacks, but not sure.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Let's say conditions persists until the end of the encounter, it stands to reason aftereffects last until the end of the day (or up to a given point). Where a condition gives you a mechanical penalty to attacks, et c, an aftereffect might be more subtle, often in the realm of role-playing.

E.g. Fighter Bob is scorched by a dragon's breath. In the encounter he takes damage which will soon be healed. An aftereffect is that Fighter Bob will look charred until he buys a new outfit.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I get the feeling he is talking about a situation where during battle an effect/condition behaves one way, and after the battle the effect/condition behaves differently.

Perhaps you might get posioned in battle, which does something like slowly drain HP during battle, but while you are not in battle, it just gives you a penalty to various skill checks. Something that helps distinguish the strain of being in battle vs. having a chance to rest, and might help clean up duration problems.

But this is all just a wild guess.

 

[hazel monday]

I have absolutley no idea what this guy's talking about. Sounds like marketing-speak to me.

 

[Cadfan]

You know how one of the big themes of 4e has been consolidating mechanics?

Having one term, aftereffect, for lingering effects of spells, abilities, attacks, conditions, etc, might be one of the consolidated mechanics.

 

[Wormwood]

You know how one of the big themes of 4e has been consolidating mechanics?

Having one term, aftereffect, for lingering effects of spells, abilities, attacks, conditions, etc, might be one of the consolidated mechanics.

Speculative---but logical.

Once more, I find myself hoping you are correct.

 

[Baby Samurai]

"I don't want to be responsible for any delayed aftereffects."


"…Aftereffects?"

 

[Goobermunch]

I have absolutley no idea what this guy's talking about. Sounds like marketing-speak to me.

Not really. Sounds like designer-speak. There's clearly a mechanic they've got in mind that he wants to talk about. He just hasn't had the chance to do so.

Marketing-speak would be something like "Aftereffects are a unique new way of monetizing existing monster capital post-encounter cycle to synergize with extant resource limiting factors."

--G

 

[Irda Ranger]

The Mire of Minauros spell used in a playtest has the primary effect of being a ranged acid attack, and the aftereffect of leaving a pool of acid which shaped the battlefield. A cold-themed monster that didn't make the cut for MM1 (discussed in the podcast) had a ranged ice attack that had the aftereffect of leaving a sheet of ice on the floor, causing slippery footing.

"Aftereffect" is just another way of saying "secondary consequences" of a given action. This can have a lot of cool applications for spells, monster abilities, poisons, disease, etc.

I've always had these in my games, but I kind of made them up as I went along using logical reasoning. It will be nice to have some of this codified into rules.