WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

[TrogsTavern]

What if followers just added more reaction-type actions to the person they follow instead of acting on their own? That way using a follower would work more like a power. Take an attack at me and miss? My follower gets an immediate attack against you. By making their actions reactive instead of active it won't take up any more turns at the table but it will grant some sort of bonus. Or have a follower able to "take a bullet for you" by taking damage intended for you once you are bloodied. That type of thing.

 

[KarinsDad]

What if followers just added more reaction-type actions to the person they follow instead of acting on their own? That way using a follower would work more like a power. Take an attack at me and miss? My follower gets an immediate attack against you. By making their actions reactive instead of active it won't take up any more turns at the table but it will grant some sort of bonus. Or have a follower able to "take a bullet for you" by taking damage intended for you once you are bloodied. That type of thing.

This is interesting and thinking outside the box, but ... yuck. That's real mechanical and artificial sounding.

PC 1: "Here's my Robby the Robot cohort. He takes damage for me."
PC 2: "What's a robot?"

 

[Sora Justice]

Jus~ti~su~

The economy of actions is such that, as some players have more and more turns associated with their character in each round, many other players have less and less fun. Period. There is literally no way around this and if you believe you have found a way around this, I am fully glad you are not on the 4e design team, because you are wrong.

On account of this, some sort of neutering of cohorts, summons, and other means of attaining multiple actions must be put in place in the rules as written now, with this fourth edition. Why, you ask? Because 4e D&D is about fun, and though they may not do it maliciously, the Dausuuls and KarinsDads of the world will point at the rules and exclaim that they are justified in taking two to four times as many turns as everyone else at the table, and the Wormwoods, Storminators, and Saishuu_Heikis will sigh, because that's what the book says, so even though it tramples on their fun, many of them will not realize how wrong it actually is, and let it keep happening to them for another eight to ten years.

For the rare few who don't find it unfun to wait for your fellow players to finish ordering their menagerie about, they can always house rule it back in in their private games. As a house rule that departs from an explicit guideline of the new edition, it should be generally rejected by all groups save for those that are absolutely certain that it is what they want. That way those few can have their fun, and everyone else can have twice to four times as much fun as they had in previous.

 

[KarinsDad]

The economy of actions is such that, as some players have more and more turns associated with their character in each round, many other players have less and less fun. Period. There is literally no way around this and if you believe you have found a way around this, I am fully glad you are not on the 4e design team, because you are wrong.

I've seen a boatload of fun at a table when a cohort or companion does something above and beyond. How is that "less and less fun. Period"?

No exceptions?

On account of this, some sort of neutering of cohorts, summons, and other means of attaining multiple actions must be put in place in the rules as written now, with this fourth edition. Why, you ask? Because 4e D&D is about fun, and though they may not do it maliciously, the Dausuuls and KarinsDads of the world will point at the rules and exclaim that they are justified in taking two to four times as many turns as everyone else at the table, and the Wormwoods, Storminators, and Saishuu_Heikis will sigh, because that's what the book says, so even though it tramples on their fun, many of them will not realize how wrong it actually is, and let it keep happening to them for another eight to ten years.

Ok. I vote for limiting number of cohorts or companions per player to one as the official form of neutering. If menageries are the problem, get rid of menageries. Limit numbers for each table to what is comfortable for that table. Don't change a cohort or companion (or even a summoned creature) to a static bonus as a form of neutering.

Roleplaying cohorts is fun. Turning them into a game mechanic is boring. Getting rid of cohorts, companions, and summoned creatures completely is not fun for some people and the game is about fun.

For the rare few who don't find it unfun to wait for your fellow players to finish ordering their menagerie about, they can always house rule it back in in their private games.

For the rare few who find it unfun to wait for your fellow players to finish ordering a single measly cohort or companion about, they can always house (or even DMG optional) rule cohorts to be a static bonus, or to even have zero cohorts in their private games.

 

[Wormwood]

What if followers just added more reaction-type actions to the person they follow instead of acting on their own?

Very nice.

It adds a minor minion benefot, but without the slow tactical BS that I normally suffer through with Doolittles.

Definitely food for thought.

 

[KidSnide]

One thing that would certainly help this discussion is some good guidelines on creating NPCs. For example, say that your 8th level party is light on defenders and wants to hire someone. It would be nice to be able to create an NPC with 8th level attacks and defenses who will be much less complicated to run than a full fledged PC. Whether the GM runs the character or a player is double-fisting, it is easier to run a simple character that can still (somewhat) fulfill the required role.

You might imagine taking the fighter class, but losing the class abilities other than basic marking while taking half the feats and powers. I hope to see something kind of like this, since it would be a useful way to create soldier “monsters” out of arbitrary races. It’s sort of a 4E warrior class, but it might be built by taking the suggested 8th level soldier base stats and adding a small collection of appropriately leveled powers.

In any case, if you’re adding such a character to the PC party (instead of using it as something to kill), then we would need to know how to adjust the suggested encounter difficulty. If you think (as I speculate) that a fully built out Nth level character with a PC class is probably an Elite Nth level challenge, then that 8th level “soldier” probably counts as 1/2 of a PC for purposes of party balance. So, your Warlord/Rogue/Warlock/Wizard party can hire a pair of level-appropriate soldier-NPCs and be balanced as a 5-person party.

Such a calculation would also help cohort analysis. As OP notes, simply having a cohort is an incredibly powerful character ability because of the action economy. However, if we are looking at half-strength “NPC class” cohorts, it might be possible to generate a working balance. A 4-level difference is a doubling of power in 4E. So, if a standard NPC build is half the power of a PC, then such a build at party level - 4 would be 1/4 of the power of a normal PC. Such a character would be theoretically balanced if you added him to a PC that is 2 levels below the rest of the party (at 3/4 normal power).

I don’t know if it would be satisfying to play a character that was 2 levels below the rest of the group along with a 4-level down gimped 2nd character. In 3E, it would be terrible, but the level scale is supposed to be shallower in 4E. I think similar 3E math would have you playing a character that was 1 level down from the rest of the group with an adept or warrior cohort that was 2 levels down from party average. (YMMV, but that strikes me as fair, although probably not a character I would want to play.)

 

[Hussar]

I've seen a boatload of fun at a table when a cohort or companion does something above and beyond. How is that "less and less fun. Period"?

Really? So, when the cohort offs the BBEG in a lucky shot, the rest of the party is really excited? More excited, or at least equally as excited as when a PC does it?

How about the other 99% of the time when cohorts are just time sinks that turn player's turns into 30 minutes long?

To be honest though, it's not really that one cohort or NPC is a huge problem. It shouldn't be soaking up large amounts of table time. It's that certain classes can suddenly snowball their actions way beyond the norm. A summoner gets 5 creatures and now his turn takes significantly longer. He spends another round and now has 10 creatures. Plus his cohort/animal companion. Plus his own action.

That's the real problem.

 

[WyzardWhately]

So, I guess the MOST FUN POSSIBLE would be to kick out the rest of the players, and have a solo adventure?

 

[KarinsDad]

Really? So, when the cohort offs the BBEG in a lucky shot, the rest of the party is really excited? More excited, or at least equally as excited as when a PC does it?

Yup, pretty much. We have a pretty decent group at the moment. Team players who are more interested in achieving the goal than in personal glory. They get fairly excited when anyone offs the BBEG. Or, at least based on the amount of jokes, cheers, and laughter when it happens.

How about the other 99% of the time when cohorts are just time sinks that turn player's turns into 30 minutes long?

I don't consider a single cohort or companion per player to be a time sink and my players have not mentioned it either.

To be honest though, it's not really that one cohort or NPC is a huge problem. It shouldn't be soaking up large amounts of table time. It's that certain classes can suddenly snowball their actions way beyond the norm. A summoner gets 5 creatures and now his turn takes significantly longer. He spends another round and now has 10 creatures. Plus his cohort/animal companion. Plus his own action.

That's the real problem.

Agreed. Address the real problem.

 

[small pumpkin man]

One thing that would certainly help this discussion is some good guidelines on creating NPCs. For example, say that your 8th level party is light on defenders and wants to hire someone. It would be nice to be able to create an NPC with 8th level attacks and defenses who will be much less complicated to run than a full fledged PC. Whether the GM runs the character or a player is double-fisting, it is easier to run a simple character that can still (somewhat) fulfill the required role.

You might imagine taking the fighter class, but losing the class abilities other than basic marking while taking half the feats and powers. I hope to see something kind of like this, since it would be a useful way to create soldier “monsters” out of arbitrary races. It’s sort of a 4E warrior class, but it might be built by taking the suggested 8th level soldier base stats and adding a small collection of appropriately leveled powers.

Like some sort of Minion, which only ever has one attack roll, doesn't have a great deal of in built options, has flat instead of rolled damage, and which has been specifically optimized to take as little time at the table as possible?

Admittedly, the extremely low hp/damage thing might be a problem, but it shows they've been thinking about that kind of thing. I still think summoned creatures should relying on the casters actions is a good thing, (because it allows a summoner class to summon things that actually have options, notice that in the original post, Rodney was talking about how he though is was an option so that summoned monsters didn't have to be nerfed) but obviously summoned creatures aren't going to be the only types of "hangers on" around.