Please stop with the trolling crap. If you don't have anything productive to say then please find another thread to inhabit. Name calling isn't welcome here.
Zero to Hero!
- Thread starter ForeverSlayer
- Start date
Please stop with the trolling crap. If you don't have anything productive to say then please find another thread to inhabit. Name calling isn't welcome here.
I think you might mean one thing but your wording make sit seem like something else. When we enter our DM has no intention other than running the monsters as they are written. I mean I don't know of any other way to put it. He doesn't fudge dice, or change the write up on the fly. We all roll our dice, as well as the DM, on the table for everyone to see. There are no other intentions except to play the monsters. If they kill us then they kill us, if we kill them then we move on.
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wlmartin
Explorer
I think the spirit of this post has been trying to highlight that it is not easy to die. D&D to me has never been about playing a Wargame.
In highschool all of my mates were playing Warhammer, collecting really cool Hybrid and Space Marine figures having spent hours painting them to play it.
I wasn't into that, I and a few geeks found the D&D club and we played with crappy little metal minis but the experience was overwhelming.
I didnt care if i lived or died... to me it wasnt about racking up points on a scorecard. I think I died quite a lot in 2nd edition AD&D but considering that this meant I had to sit out of the game for about an hour until I could get raised somehow, I didn't like this at all.
I understand that the OP isn't a sadist (i think!) and doesnt want to suicide his player so he can spend the next 2 hours of the 5 hour session bored waiting for a raise dead spell... I think it is more that he doesnt like that there is less fear of death or risk involved.
I can understand that but what I do not understand is that this isnt like he is playing Monopoly and wants to switch the Brown Tiles for the Dark Blue ones... D&D is a set of core rules that if you think cleverly and tweak them you can create a game you like.
Remove Second Wind
Start Players at 5th level
Restrict using Healing Surges to outside of Combat
Restrict the amount a Healing Surge heals
Make 0hp for players = death
Create encounters with +1/+2 level monsters and decide to either include or exclude the XP/Treasure bonus for them being a higher level
These and many other things effectively can increase the risk involved in playing the game and it doesnt take a genius to use them.
There really is no argument here. If anyone including the OP doesn't agree that WotC built 4e right, post it to the WotC forum where there is a chance it could be heard and acted on... Posting it here when there is a clear remedy in House Rules is like complaining to your fellow restaurant patrons that the soup is cold... what do they care? Speak to the chef!
How about I politely suggest that looking to ignore DM intent is misguided. One can try to keep your combat and world building activities separate (I try to, for instance), but there is still intent in how the encounter is designed, how much of a threat it's meant to pose to the PCs, and what tactics work well given what the adversaries could reasonably know of the party.
Now, I make no bones about that I prefer 4e, and this is one of the reasons why. I can threaten the party legitimately, without fear of them being unduly low or unduly high on resources, removing some of the really high swing on combat, and making PCs slightly more durable overall. I can, and do, still kill PCs. Quite easily.
Now, that's just my opinion, and I don't pretend that it's more valid than any other, but I do believe that was some of the design intent in the system, and I like it. If you don't, that works too. But I don't think it speaks ill of 4e. I'd like to hear if you had any ideas as to how to make an upcoming party feel more fresh off the farm, it'd be a fun way to start a campaign.
wlmartin
Explorer
ForeverSlayer, it is not name calling - You do appear to be trolling
Wikipedia : Troll (Internet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Your posts are often inflammatory
I wouldn't say they were 100% off topic, but considering the spirit of this forum is to encourage positive ideas about 4e, you are going against the grain
You do seem to want to provoke an emotional response from the members here.
You are Trolling - it has been pointed out to you before.
We are not calling you a Troll to insult you, it is our opinion of you based on how you act and if you want us to stop - please stop trolling
wlmartin
Explorer
The problem with the OP is that he doesn't want to talk about fixing the problem at hand and appears to want to encourage others who dislike it as he does to join him in talking bad about it.
If it were me and I had an issue with the 4e system as he does, I would want to talk about ways to make it work better for me. D&D is unique in one key thing.. the DM.
Other games have GMs but they are more there to referee the group rather than a DM who's role is to narrate, direct, produce the story.
D&D is a lot like a movie. Most people only see the PCs, what they do and their motiviations much like Actors in a movie. Without the Producer/Director of the movie, they would just be random people talking at a bus stop...
I digress, my point is that because the DM is the vital component in the D&D game... if the DM is able to work with the needs of the players (such as the OP) and providing that it is the will/desire of the majority/all of the players then why not make a Death System that provides more risk.
Unfortunately the OP seems intent on dragging this and almost every discussion about the evils of 4e out to become a debate on the system as a whole instead of discussing methods to improve it for his local game..
malraux
First Post
But setting up the encounter, choosing who to attack, where to move, which power to use, etc, all can be influenced by dm intent.
Pentius
First Post
Basically this, except I'd go a step further, and say that these things cannot escape being influenced by DM intent. Even if all your DM is thinking about is to build some level and story appropriate encounters, and then play them as written. Your Dm has ideas, even if he's not consciously thinking about them, of what an 'appropriate' encounter is, what 'appropriate' monster actions are, that go outside the guidelines in the book.
Yep. My monsters trend towards smarter than average. They won't ignore a distracting mark unless it's salient to do so, will attack the one making everyone else better, try to avoid the obvious meatshield in preference of the ones doing damage, try to sneak and flank... and that's just the dumb beasts.
GM intent plays real heavy into that, even rolling entirely in the open.
malraux
First Post
Conversely, I'll almost always ignore a mark, unless the mark makes the attack impossible. It activates a PC's power, makes him feel good about doing his job, etc. And in general, because defender AC tends to way out scale other PC ACs, it often makes sense as well.
But more importantly, this is a good example of why DM intent matters even when rolling in the open and even with the same batch of monsters.
