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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 6:57PM
#21
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Date Joined:
Sep 15, 2006
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It's not that hard to get 4e to conform to a more "believable" play style. Just ignore a few powers and rule a few others don't work in particular situations.
Which is what most of us are advising the OP not to do because it compromises the balance of the system.
Not really that unbalancing. The Fighter has plenty of powers to choose from removing a few won't hurt, and if the DM puts restrictions on something like "Come and Get It" that you don't like then choose another power. No big deal.
Or you could just use the Essentials version of martial classes.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 6:58PM
#22
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2010
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A good one to ignore would be "archer's stair case", which I find totally ridiculous.
I think part of my problem is that I have very mixed feelings about really cinematic play. I'll take Coen brothers over Michael Bay any day of the week. That being said I do enjoy a kind of pulp feel from time to time. However, I find it draining, unfun and uninspiring as a dm to try to come up with weird ways to justify why a PCs powers work in situations where they don't readily make sense, and accepting the numbers and just moving on is equally unfun IMO. I like it better when the players come up with something, but I haven't had much success with that.
If someone is playing in your game and you would like them to justify the use of a power in certain rare situations, I think that is reasonable. It is your game and you run it. *However*, only if this is a rare occasion because no player wants to constantly justify to the DM why and how they can use their legal power that they are using.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 7:03PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Sep 15, 2006
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A good one to ignore would be "archer's stair case", which I find totally ridiculous.
I think part of my problem is that I have very mixed feelings about really cinematic play. I'll take Coen brothers over Michael Bay any day of the week. That being said I do enjoy a kind of pulp feel from time to time. However, I find it draining, unfun and uninspiring as a dm to try to come up with weird ways to justify why a PCs powers work in situations where they don't readily make sense, and accepting the numbers and just moving on is equally unfun IMO. I like it better when the players come up with something, but I haven't had much success with that.
You could play Essentials-only (or just for martial classes).
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 9:16PM
#24
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I definitely understand what you mean, but like others before... try to remember that Wizards isn't perfect. The rules of the game- they're not complete! They're up to you! When you see what they left undone, fix it. You're not "cheating" to fudge things, you're literally completing what they left undone.
I, like you, have a big problem when things are just too unrealistic. I don't like to "just play it" if it seems completely ridiculous. If erasing the fluff for your own fluff isn't what you're willing to do, well... that's your call, but that's what I'd do, from one guy who hates goofy occurrences to another.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 9:28PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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I've noticed a lot of situations in 4E play where a player wants to use a power, but the way the power is described doesn't make any in game sense that it would actually work in the situation the player is trying to use the power in.
Ah. No worries: the description is just a suggestion. Describe it some other way that does make sense. If you can't think of anything, just resolve it mechanically and don't sweat the small stuff.
If you /really/ like having a visualizeable 'narative' or 'fiction' going like a movie in your head, just take it as a fast cut. The character raises his weapon/implement, there's a dramatic close-up on his face, then a series of fast, blurry cuts (film term, not blade attacks), frenetic incidental music and flashes that are completely indecipherable, and the character is standing over his enemies while they suffer whatever the heck his power just did to them.
Example: There's a couple of rogue powers that let a rogue temporarily blind a foe by apparently slashing the foe and thus causing blood to get in his enemy's eyes. Well what happens when the rogue tries to use such a power on a creature like an air elemental that has no eyes and doesn't bleed?
If the creature is 'blind' (it's a keyword), nothing: it just takes some damage and doesn't care that it's been 'blinded,' because it never seen anything before, anyway. Otherwise, it's blinded until the condition ends. I'd suggest first trying to figure out /how/ an eyeless air elemental sees in the first place, from there you might be able to come up with how a handfull of shuriken to the 'face' might be a problem for it.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 9:37PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Aug 11, 2006
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The thing is that the power is already justified within the system, and ratified by you and the other players as part as choosing to use D&D as the basic framework for your shared game of make believe. The fighter gets to use his encounter beanie which everyone else gets to achieved a desired result, get the wizard in his face and try to hit him with a sword.
How? that's where this shared game of imagination gets fun.
Maybe the fighter dropped the bomb of all your momma jokes,
maybe the fight is one a rocking ship and the wizard stumbled, and slid towards him,
maybe he was trying to get away from another party member and he went right into the fighter, instead
or the fighter swung his sword in a spiral creating a temporary vacuum that sucked everyone into him. I don't know. You can drap whatever fluff you want over the crunch and tailoring said crunch to the specifics of each fight helps get the fights unique in their experience.
Letting the fluff dictate the mechanics however is the path that leads to "This is why fighters can't have nice things." It may not be the intention but that is how it usually breaks down in play because every else has the "it's magic" excuse.
Yes, you can rule that certain powers don't work in certain situations and the balance of power won't be impacted greatly (usually) but have a better reason than "that's not realistic" in a D&D game. There's an fire elemental that the BBEG prepped to get healed from the party's pyromancer's fire attacks, the fighter is fighting Sire Demclye, the elf duelist who has survived in his profession for over 250 years, and come and get it is old hat to him. But it is annoying to the fighter to get beat with the reality stick not because he feels entitled (which he kinda is) but because before the game everyone has decided that each gun in our cops and robbers game holds six bullets and then telling me that two of mine are duds in the middle of play.
So yeah if I were playing a fighter in your game and something comes up I would roll with it and just make sure later if this would be a common occurrence,and if so if you thought other powers were too unrealistic too so I could avoid those powers, or multi class into a magic user class and flavor everything with "It's magic".
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 10:03PM
#27
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Players are welcome to voluntarily decide that their own powers don't work without [whatever justifying circumstance], but if they're not being exploitative it should work the way it says it does. The fluff text is generally terrible anyway, so who cares if they're contradicting it?
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 10:03PM
#28
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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Yeah, that's about what I thought people would more or less. say Unfortunately, that stuff really grates and me, so I'm thinking it's probably time for me to find a new game.
Or else ignore what everyone else here said and just play the game as it makes sense. My group would not be upset if they failed to "blind" something without eyes. Why? Because it makes sense. As long as you explain things up front, then things should be fine. This game is "gamist" only if the people playing it want it to be. That's the great thing about D&D. However, if you are going to start modifying powers based on common sense, make sure to be aware that the fights will be harder than usual and to compensate the party accordingly.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 10:33PM
#29
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Date Joined:
Dec 27, 2008
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As far as I am concerned, there are several powers that make sense basically never, at least the way they are written. You just have to roll with it. In my opinion expecting the flavor lines of a power to make sense as written any more often than very occasionally is expecting too much. The devs simply cannot write your combat encounter for you.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 26, 2010 - 10:58PM
#30
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Date Joined:
Jun 19, 2008
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The problem with the "description of power does not fit the situation" is that "spells" always seem to fit the description because they are *magic*" and martial arts stunts may not, because they are some how more *real world*
You have to get over that first of all.
If you scrutinise every power in the same way as "come and get it", you should also start telling players who play wizards that their PC's fireball does not make sense occasionally - it might not make sense *ever* if you don't accept that it is supernatural (things can be supernatural even if they are not obvious spells). The martial powers are also the result of supernatural skill - some resemble real world stuff more than others.
If you don't like supernatural fighters or rogues, tell your players and see what they think. If they think like you, they will not pick such powers. If they want to play supernaturally skilled swordsmen, you have to either go with it or they will look for another DM.
The game is a compromise of the DM's and the players' wishes. Both need to be flexible to some extent. You found something you don't like, but you should also think about what the players like.
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