The first dwarf comes charging at me, leaving his party behind. Now I'm thinking, "Excellent! I'll eat him quickly and then deal with the rest of his friends before they can even enter my lair." But suddenly I hear someone in the back shout, "Wait, don't do that! I'm next in initiative and I can daze it first." So, poof, the dwarf is back with his party. Some sort of mage-looking dwarf casts a spell at me, but it doesn't affect me! Now the first dwarf charges in again, and I'm all set to maul him, when I hear the same voice as before say, "Hey wait, I use desperate spell and try again." So poof, the dwarf is back with his allies again, and the mage is casting another spell at me. Again it misses! Now the dwarf charges into my lair again, and he swings his executioner's axe at me. His feeble attack is turned aside by my powerful scales. I am getting ready to strike at him again, when I hear another voice say, "Use the action point from our adventuring company." I blink, trying to figure out what is happening . . . what sort of foul magic is this?! So the axe is swung again, and I am able to shift away from the blow. Finally, I can kill this fool. I prepare to strike, when a voice says, "What did I get for initiative? I think I forgot to add the warlord's bonus." So suddenly arrows rain down on my from the distance.
Ha! Priceless.
On a more serious note: this is one of the reasons I institute a "no time travel" policy at tables I DM at.
Sorry WOTC, you lost me with Essentials. So where I used to buy every book that came out, now I will be very choosy about what I buy. Can we just get back to real 4e?
1. Wizards fight dirty. They hit their enemies in the NADs. -- Dragon9 2. A barbarian hits people with his axe. A warlord hits people with his barbarian. 3. Boo-freakin'-hoo, ya light-slingin' finger-wigglers. -- MrCelcius in response to the Cleric's Healer's Lore nerf
The first dwarf comes charging at me, leaving his party behind. Now I'm thinking, "Excellent! I'll eat him quickly and then deal with the rest of his friends before they can even enter my lair." But suddenly I hear someone in the back shout, "Wait, don't do that! I'm next in initiative and I can daze it first." So, poof, the dwarf is back with his party. Some sort of mage-looking dwarf casts a spell at me, but it doesn't affect me! Now the first dwarf charges in again, and I'm all set to maul him, when I hear the same voice as before say, "Hey wait, I use desperate spell and try again." So poof, the dwarf is back with his allies again, and the mage is casting another spell at me. Again it misses! Now the dwarf charges into my lair again, and he swings his executioner's axe at me. His feeble attack is turned aside by my powerful scales. I am getting ready to strike at him again, when I hear another voice say, "Use the action point from our adventuring company." I blink, trying to figure out what is happening . . . what sort of foul magic is this?! So the axe is swung again, and I am able to shift away from the blow. Finally, I can kill this fool. I prepare to strike, when a voice says, "What did I get for initiative? I think I forgot to add the warlord's bonus." So suddenly arrows rain down on my from the distance.
Ha! Priceless.
On a more serious note: this is one of the reasons I institute a "no time travel" policy at tables I DM at.
I do the same thing but I call it a statute of limitations. If your turn is done and we're in the next person's initiative, no turning hits into misses or remembering to do X, Y, or Z.
I do the same thing but I call it a statute of limitations. If your turn is done and we're in the next person's initiative, no turning hits into misses or remembering to do X, Y, or Z.
I run it much the same way. You can "retro" during the course of your own turn, but once the next person rolls a die or uses a power (or actually does something other than just think and/or talk) then it's too late to go back.
Of course, the same goes for my own bad guys, and no matter how on the ball I am as DM, I'm probably more likely to miss something with the monster I'm seeing for the first time than players are with a character they've played before.
In a game I ran Monday someone forgot a -5 penalty when making attacks - the monsters were pretty easy to hit so I didn't question him hitting, but during the next person's turn as they were moving and doing their thing I paused and went 'Hey, wait, did you factor in the -5 cause you only hit this last guy by a couple' and unproned the enemy and said to the player 'Okay, does that change what you want to do?'
I don't think that was unfair, despite being the next turn. I mean, he was +19 to hit and got a 27, I didn't have a ton of reason to doubt he factored it in til the next person was starting to forget about it too
Keith Richmond Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
I don't really have a problem with retcons. Especially when judging high level, many players have 6+ PCs. It is easy to forget what your PC should know, and part of the fun is using that immediate reaction, hard to use utility, cool item you bought for that special corner case...
In general, when I am asked for a retcon, I pause, consider if it really has a detrimental effect on the flow, and if it doesn't, I'm happy to grant it. This is especially true in challenging scenarios.
I am especially forgiving if the intent is clear. For example, the healer is trying to get close enough to two allies to heal/shield them. They move. They heal one ally, then realize they cannot effect the other one. I allow them to reposition, then do what they intended. It isn't a big deal, and it is a whole lot more fun for them.
I am also forgiving of the order in which you do things. You attack, then call AP, then realize you should have used the powers in reverse order. I'm fine with that. Players generally make that mistake because they are trying to go quickly and they blunder the order.
I am not forgiving regarding metagame benefits. If you roll and miss, you can't retcon that away. You can change your positioning, still missing. If you roll and hit, you can't take that roll and transfer it to another power, and I probably won't allow it to go to another target. It becomes too easy to metagame what you do based on results you already have. I'm forgiving of this if the combat has gone long enough and is not challenging, as it can actually save time. A common situation is "Oh, right, you asked me to attack foe X... DM, can I have attacked foe X instead?" I'll allow that if nothing big is riding on the decision.
I often run it (behind the scenes) as monsters can have a 'PC knowledge check' if they're of sufficient level/intelligence/wisdom. So that high level intelligent monsters may know some of the tricks PCs can pull, in the same way that PCs can know what monsters can do. After all, it's a bit silly to say that every monster has been living in a cave somewhere all its life and never heard of adventurers. Heck, some monsters have killed NPC adventurers in their backstory.
I agree with this general plan, except I'm lazier. I just use the monsters's intelligence stat:
Mindless monsters and very low INT (1-5) have no idea what's going on. They know they are marked, but cannot understand what that means. They ignore all effects
INT 6-10 monsters understand the basics. They can distinguish foes' roles and understand marks -- not what will be triggered, but they understand the basic "if I do/don't do X, I will get hurt by person Y"
INT 11-15 monsters understand all common powers and class features of all classes. If I (the GM) know it, they probably do too.
INT 16-20 monsters know exactly as much as I (the GM) can recall. They are thus very easy to run.
INT 21-25 monsters are cleverer than I am, and so, if I do not know a power, I will ask the player t describe it in detail.
INT 26+ monsters are beyond what I can comprehend well. When running one, I might ask players what their plan of attack is, and the monster will anticipate it. They should behave like this is the 100th time they have fought this exact bunch of PCs in this exact situation, and they have learned from every fight.
In practice, most LFR monsters are "at or below my INT" and so I can pretty well just go with "no clue about anything", "understand if/then powers", "like a weak player" and "play naturally", which is fast and works pretty well.
I would only advocate DMing this way if your players do the same. If the 8 INT fighters and barbarians are playing intelligently, then so should the monsters. In addition, if monsters have grown to maturity and are generally in good enough shape to eat adventurers, then they should be assumed to be savvy enough with their abilities to maximize their effects. Similarly, if a band of monsters have been monstering together for any amount of time, they should be reasonably familiar with each others powers and how to maximize their synergies.
All of this, of course, is secondary to the tactics section of the encounter. Perhaps I'm a nasty DM, but I feel like having the monsters intentionally make poor tactical decisions against a highly-tactical party does them a disservice by not providing enough challenge.
