WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

[Kaisoku]

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

Heh, touche. This is what happens when you take a viewpoint and go to the extreme... ridiculousness.

Economy of actions... other players rolling and taking up my time lowers my fun, therefore having other players roll more means less fun. Ultimately, no other players means the most fun for me (always rolling).

Silly isn't it?


A balance is probably the best way to go about it.

Having a single cohort or companion in some form or another is not going to ruin the economy of actions. So let these be statted out fully.
There are plenty of character concepts that allow for this kind of build to not need the cohorts being wussy little +2's or whatnot... so keeping full statted cohort characters isn't a big deal.
As long as it's built balanced, you're basically saying this player's "power" at the table is split between two "in-character" creatures.


Summons and a druid's menagerie can have alternate rules to stop the madness. Summons being glorified spell effects, or multiple creatures being treated as basically one swarm entity essentially (my idea of one attack roll for an area effect style action.. more summons = more damage dice, targets affected, etc).

Making a distinction between combat oriented companions, and utility oriented companions (especially for druids) will help as well. You don't need to fully stat a gecko or a newt companion, etc... stat out it's tricks, and maybe it's defenses (hp and defense stats, if you don't just use the owner's), and be done with it.
That would follow the new Monster creation rules the most, only stat up what you need and roll what's needed.

 

[Hussar]

Whoa, I think we're reaching some sort of consensus here.

Single NPC's don't break the system. Sure, if I have a barbarian cohort, it might add a bit of time to my turn, but, not a huge amount (hopefully).

Now, a spell casting cohort could be a bigger problem, but, I think in 4e context, perhaps not since the caster/non-caster divide has closed significantly. Although, that does add in the problem that now every cohort sinks time.

But, yeah, I'd agree that it's primarily summoning that becomes a major issue. It can spin out of control way too quickly.

 

[Sora Justice]

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?

For the players of whom I spoke, it would have been more fun, period, if it was a character doing something above and beyond rather than a character's goon stable. I'm sorry you couldn't read what I said and foolishly assumed that I implied cohorts could never contribute to fun. They can, but to those players, never in a way that is better than you doing it yourself.

Ok. I vote for limiting number of cohorts or companions per player to one as the official form of neutering.

One doesn't sound like a big number. It's nice and small... one. Until, y'know, you realize that means your turn is twice what mine is. One warm body, one turn at the table. Unless you're the GM, that's only fair.

Limit numbers for each table to what is comfortable for that table.

We're only printing one rulebook. That rulebook has to be what's comfortable for the most people, and "oh, well I'm oooooonly taking twice your turn" sure ain't comfortable. Too many people have believed that for far too long.

Roleplaying cohorts is fun.

For you.

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.

It's about the most fun for the most people. If you're all weird like that and actually want to have cohorts, you can always houserule it back in. For the rest of us, and when you're in our games, we can point to how the design guideline actively says not to trample all over the economy of actions and tell you to shut up and play your character.

 

[Sora Justice]

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

One-on-one games with the DM are great fun. Have you really never met people who love those, or the lots-more-common people who only want a group of 3 or 4 players and one DM?

PRO TIP: There's a reason for this.

 

[Harshax]

I see this discussion being bogged down with trying to slice the bread too thin.

I almost agree with a previous post that the RAW should prohibit one player getting extra actions from additional characters under his control. But then I think, are we playing D&D, the RPG, or D&D the miniatures game? We already have a mini's game, and the Action Economy has been strictly adhered to for that venue. This forum is about the Role Playing Game, and the interpretation of that Action Economy Philosophy should be slightly more liberal.

I wonder how long it will take after the game is released for someone to point out that the Action Economy is broken when it takes 2 minutes for a player to resolve his Daily action, and another player has nothing to do except his Magic Missile attack, which takes 15 seconds to resolve.

*Most* of the disagreement on how to implement the Action Economy is over what is *fun*. My question is, when has D&D ever been fun all the time for every player? I made a funny tease at another poster in which I said not wanting to share playing a summons with everyone else is the equivalent of microwaving a burrito during social encounters. The point was, there's always going to be some aspect of the game which isn't interesting to some players. Heck, even combat can be boring too. So my question is, when did it become the duty of the game designer to make sure a game should rock for everyone all the time. What game designer is foolhardy enough to think that is even possible?

Every edition of D&D had rules which some people choose to ignore. A good game design should try to be modular enough that removing a section doesn't make the whole machine break down. We see some effort to modularize D&D already - we have Power Sources which can be removed completing if a DM wants to run a game where there is no magic, or too much magic. That was almost impossible in any other edition. Why shouldn't we have a modular design for cohorts and critters?

Having a game written *just* for you is certainly possible, if you're willing to pay exorbitant prices for an incredibly limited print run.

Yes, I know some of my sentences appear to be questions, but don't end in a question mark. There's a reason for that.

 

[Sora Justice]

*Most* of the disagreement on how to implement the Action Economy is over what is *fun*. My question is, when has D&D ever been fun all the time for every player?

Never. Thank God this Fourth Edition is trying to make changes.

 

[Harshax]

I'm hoping this post on the Pit Fiend gives us an indication how they'll do summons for PC's.

Infernal Summons (standard; encounter) • Conjuration
The pit fiend summons a group of devil allies. Summoned devils roll initiative to determine when they act in the initiative order and gain a +4 bonus to attack rolls as long as the pit fiend is alive. They remain until they are killed, dismissed by the pit fiend (free action), or the encounter ends. PCs do not earn experience points for killing these summoned creatures. The pit fiend chooses to summon one of the following groups of devils:

* 8 legion devil legionnaires (level 21), or
* 2 war devils (level 22), or
* 1 war devil (level 22) and 4 legion devil legionnaires (level 21)

 

[TrogsTavern]

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?"

How so?

The Pit Fiend's ability to make minions "go and blow yourself up at that guy for me" is pretty much the same sort of thing except as an offensive power versus defensive. And the grell using a grabbed PC to take damage instead uses the same sort of mechanical effect.

Perhaps it is only a once per day ability that someone 10th level or above can use. Below that you might not inspire that kind of devotion from followers. As for a defending option please see below. An excerpt from WotC's new Dungeons of Dread mini. It uses exactly what I was referring to.

Iron Defender

This 3rd-level soldier protects by getting free attacks whenever the guarded creature is attacked. For the skirmish game, this is handled by the Defender ability. You may have already seen the Defender ability on previous creatures such as the Eternal Blade from the redesigned Desert of Desolation figures. If you haven't, here's how it works -- when someone attacks a different creature while adjacent to an Iron Defender, that Iron Defender can immediately attack. This encourages creatures to attack the Iron Defender before any others; a perfect example of how a soldier should work.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's about the most fun for the most people.

Precisely.

I do not think your opinion represents the majority, otherwise, we would have been talking about this over and over again for decades instead of days.

I think you are in a tiny minority.

 

[Stogoe]

Never. Thank God this Fourth Edition is trying to make changes.

I wish there was an emoticon for a slow, dramatic clap, because this was beautiful. Really brought a tear to my eye.