What I miss is a nearly complete lack of rules support for skills/feats/abilities/powers/etc to function in a non-"encounter" situation. Quite literally, I hate it as the DM. I cannot overstate that fact. I can get over the part where almost nothing powers-wise has usable rules support for non-combat situations (although I also seriously dislike that aspect), but railroading all events into encounters in order for the players to have rules support to use the various aspects of their character is terrible. I find myself relying on rituals, the afterthought of the PHB, and completely homegrown rules in order to make the world function.
For example, this past Saturday, I had my players involved in open warfare of the 1500 vs. 1500 sized armies type. This is not something that fits well in the "encounter" paradigm (making it work provided serious balancing challenges). Neither do treaty negotions, an audience with a King, airship/galleon combat, environmental disasters, and loads of other "Not-Five-Orcs" events.
The loss of spell schools was also an unfortunate flavor hit, imho, that made it feel a bit less like the D&D I became accustomed to (I felt spell schools were an excellent addition to flavor development; pulling them was a bad idea).
I can easily do any of the bolded in 4th edition. The first two would probably be skill challenges, the third would be several encounters mushed together combined with skill challenges (now fight the guys swinging over on ropes! Now fire the cannons!), the fourth would be a large scale change of terrain, unless the disaster in question had no bearing on battle, in which case it could again be skill challenge based (can you collect enough supplies/dodge the ____/otherwise survive, or do you loose healing surges and days worth of traveling time?). Now that's mechanically. I'm not talking about doing things by roleplay.
Spell schools came back with Essentials Wizard subclass, the Mage.
I suggest for you the Essentials book with the Mage (can't remember which one it is), the DMG2 (gives many advanced ways to sculpt encounters for story and length/epicness, and a better range of skill challenge examples), and possibly the Rules Compendium (with many improv skill examples).
Technically, any time that a PC enters a situation where a scene is being played out, it's an encounter. It's just not always combat encounter. Think of encounters less like combat, and more like story scenes, with all that entails.
I'm not clear on how hopelessness makes a game more fun . . .
Perservering through seemingly hopeless situations is the definition of heroism and can create very satisfying adventures.
I can see this being in a book and being engaging. However, if I am playing a game and only have a slim chance of success, no matter what the format, I'd quit playing that one and play another game. So yeah, still confused.
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby (1937- )
Vanador: OK. You ripped a gateway to Hell, killed half the town, and raised the dead as feral zombies. We're going to kill you. But it can go two ways. We want you to run as fast as you possibly can toward the south of the town to draw the Zombies to you, and right before they catch you, I'll put an arrow through your head to end it instantly. If you don't agree to do this, we'll tie you this building and let the Zombies rip you apart slowly. Dimitry: God I love being Neutral. 4th edition is dead, long live 4th edition. Salla: opinionated, but commonly right. fun quotesShow
If you can't understand how someone yelling at another person would make them fight harder and longer, then you need to look at the forums a bit closer.
quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
This is not something that fits well in the "encounter" paradigm (making it work provided serious balancing challenges). Neither do treaty negotions, an audience with a King, airship/galleon combat, environmental disasters, and loads of other "Not-Five-Orcs" events.
We had an airship fight last session. It was a lot of fun. Not sure what you had difficulty with.
Some people have claimed that 4th edition doesn't have a D&D feel of the previous editions (I don't personally feel so). I would like to hear from people who do, what is the cause of this feeling, i.e. what in 4e causes it.
Class balance, playability, consistent easily-interpreted rules - these are all things D&D has lacked time out of mind, and their presence visciously robs 4e of that precious D&D feel.
Could that feeling be restored without sacrificing class balance and lots of customization options in all classes?
It's that feel you got from playing Basic D&D with other junior-high nerds in 1979. That feeling that is simply not coming back, because you grew up. Trying to re-capture it by making the current ed of D&D as primitive and incoherent and imbalanced as the earlier eds will only result in a bad version of D&D.
Technically, any time that a PC enters a situation where a scene is being played out, it's an encounter. It's just not always combat encounter. Think of encounters less like combat, and more like story scenes, with all that entails.
IIRC the last time we had a discussion to this effect we learned that the two DMGs seem to be suffering a bit of schizophrenia about what exactly is an encounter, with DMG2 saying that in some cases you could consider any scene in the adventure, much like a scene in a story, to be an encounter, while the former DMG claims that it has to be a scene with a risk of failure.
I mean I guess that putting your clothes on in the morning has a risk of failure but I doubt I'd consider it an encounter despite being a (very brief) scene!
I can easily do any of the bolded in 4th edition. The first two would probably be skill challenges, the third would be several encounters mushed together combined with skill challenges (now fight the guys swinging over on ropes! Now fire the cannons!), the fourth would be a large scale change of terrain, unless the disaster in question had no bearing on battle, in which case it could again be skill challenge based (can you collect enough supplies/dodge the ____/otherwise survive, or do you loose healing surges and days worth of traveling time?). Now that's mechanically. I'm not talking about doing things by roleplay.
You miss my point. I can *also* do all of the above in 4th Ed. I can do anything I please in any edition of D&D (and any edition of any RPG, for that matter); I'm the DM, that's what I do. However, in 4th Ed it is literally more awkward, more challenging, and less balanced to do so via the encounter-based paradigm used. Skill challenges are great, but available in any previous system with support for Skills, however, where is my rules support for alter self, suggestion, dominate, and various presenses that characters and creatures can use to their advantage. It's one thing to Slight of Hand a mind-altering powder into a drink, it's another thing for that mind-altering powder to have a *rules-derived* effect under the encounter-based system. There are literally more resources, and more built-in support, in other systems for accomplishing these kinds of things.
I'm not saying I *can't* -- I'm saying there is a lack of support natively built into the class powers/feats/abilities by default for handling non-encounter situations. And because of that, there is an almost total lack of incentive for a player to *choose* a power that does have a non-encounter based effect.
Technically, any time that a PC enters a situation where a scene is being played out, it's an encounter. It's just not always combat encounter. Think of encounters less like combat, and more like story scenes, with all that entails.
Yes, I already do (when playing 4th Ed). I dislike it. It's exactly that which I am saying is not how previous D&D systems felt. I'm saying that it's better to have designed a system that supports combat not being encounters than non-combat being encounters.
I'm not clear on how hopelessness makes a game more fun . . .
Perservering through seemingly hopeless situations is the definition of heroism and can create very satisfying adventures.
I can see this being in a book and being engaging. However, if I am playing a game and only have a slim chance of success, no matter what the format, I'd quit playing that one and play another game. So yeah, still confused.
I agree with both of you here. How prevalent this feeling is should be based on the dynamics of the group. I have been in both situations -- however, I do agree that it is more difficult in 4th Ed to provide a situation where the players feel that sense of hopelessness. But that was honestly the case with 3rd Ed, too (compared to Hero Point based games, like Shadowrun or Mutant Chronicles). It's just even worse in 4th Ed.
4th Ed does have its problems to overcome, too. I find it to be extremely DM-unfriendly, making it annoying or frustrating to provide unique and balanced situations for my players.
I cant make sense of that statement.... in what sense do you mean balanced.
In addition to what I said earlier, the biggest thing I miss from the DMG is the charts of prebuilt (stats-wise) characters for every class at every level (and the 5 non-PC classes). The players aren't just interacting with monsters all day, and I don't want to have to hand-develop stats for townfulls of people.
There was a request on here where somebody wanted to know what stats were needed for a lock smith.. My response was why do I need stats for a locksmith?I thought about it a while and then I came up with things I might want to know about him...like what his attitudes were about magic making locksmiths second class citizens and including that his child that interupts the meeting with the players is adopted and has blue eyes to his brown and that he is quick to anger over any intimations about the quality of his work and that his cousin across town a rival and if you mention him you might finagle a discount price... I gave a description of the smell of clean oils and metal from the shop... the whole point of it was that there was many elements I could think of that I would like to include this character in the story.. .and oops oh he happened to be an ex military man... flip to the monster manual and pick the stats for a minion unless ofcourse his daughter was threatened.
So your desire for "combat" numbers on a page ... shrug neither impresses me as useful nor does it imply that your game is more story oriented.
Some people have claimed that 4th edition doesn't have a D&D feel of the previous editions (I don't personally feel so). I would like to hear from people who do, what is the cause of this feeling, i.e. what in 4e causes it. Could that feeling be restored without sacrificing class balance and lots of customization options in all classes?
Terrible thread idea by the way, better than half your responders at minimum will be on my block list... or ought to be.
Sounds like an excellent thread idea in that case. What does sound like a terrible idea to me is ignoring those with divergent opinions.
I actually agree with your concerns from previous editions regarding caster classes often stealing the show, which is a balance and numbers problem. The way I dealt with that in 3rd Ed as a DM was requiring 3 times as much experience to level for everyone. It dramatically slowed level progression down, allowing more opportunity for balanced character development. The longest campaign I've ever DM'd in 20+ years of doing so lasted over 400 play hours spread across more than 50 sessions. The axe-wielding Dwarf Barbarian was the main character of the story and ended at level 11; no one martial played second fiddle to magic (and vice-versa).
4th Ed does have its problems to overcome, too. I find it to be extremely DM-unfriendly, making it annoying or frustrating to provide unique and balanced situations for my players.
In addition to what I said earlier, the biggest thing I miss from the DMG is the charts of prebuilt (stats-wise) characters for every class at every level (and the 5 non-PC classes). The players aren't just interacting with monsters all day, and I don't want to have to hand-develop stats for townfulls of people.
A couple final points. The organization of information in each book, I thought, was just not good. And the DMG seriously lacked pre-developed charts/tables (and I don't mean "random roll tables" I mean things like the value of land plots and residences of different sizes, climate combat/skill modifiers, siege weapons, etc, etc). It lacked actual usable resources, and felt like a book of advice articles.
Unless the PCs are going to fight every last townsperson, or be allied with them in a fight, the townspeople don't need stats. Instead, you can just use the DCs by level (which are much improved in the Rules Compendium) in lieu of trying to give every NPC stats that will almost never be used. For more fleshed out companion NPCs, the DMG2 has rules for generating those. For simple NPCs, you can get away with the DC table or a simple stat spread plus 2-3 trained skills.
I'm not sure why one would need the game to tell the DM what the value of land is (though from what I remember hearing, Mordenkienen's Magical Emporium does some of this for you; the first Draconomicon also has a bountiful listing of how to make interesting hoards that includes tables for unique art items, more gemstones than listed in the DMG, and strange treasures) . Climate/weather combat/skill modifiers are on page 158 of the DMG. Rain, snow and the like is obscured terrain, and might be difficult terrain on the ground; wind can be an obstacle hazard, the stats for creating hazards and traps are in the DMG2, and mainly use the DCs and damage per level table in the DMG, which has been updated as well to some very respectable levels. There are also Endurance checks to survive severe weather conditions, with a failure costing a healing surge.
Siege weapons are most like traps or terrain powers (also in the DMG2, and wrecan wrote an article here with even more terrain powers, and how to modify existing ones or create new ones), and should be constructed as such.
If you are looking for something that was in a previous edition that you can't find, try the "What You May Have Missed" thread, stickied above, it's usually a great resource for those things you just haven't found or have read a book but don't see something. And if you are looking for something in this edition that you can't find, feel free to post in that thread, politely asking if anyone has seen X.
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby (1937- )
Vanador: OK. You ripped a gateway to Hell, killed half the town, and raised the dead as feral zombies. We're going to kill you. But it can go two ways. We want you to run as fast as you possibly can toward the south of the town to draw the Zombies to you, and right before they catch you, I'll put an arrow through your head to end it instantly. If you don't agree to do this, we'll tie you this building and let the Zombies rip you apart slowly. Dimitry: God I love being Neutral. 4th edition is dead, long live 4th edition. Salla: opinionated, but commonly right. fun quotesShow
If you can't understand how someone yelling at another person would make them fight harder and longer, then you need to look at the forums a bit closer.
quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
Neither do treaty negotions, an audience with a King, airship/galleon combat, environmental disasters, and loads of other "Not-Five-Orcs" events.
The loss of spell schools was also an unfortunate flavor hit, imho, that made it feel a bit less like the D&D I became accustomed to (I felt spell schools were an excellent addition to flavor development; pulling them was a bad idea).
I can easily do any of the bolded in 4th edition.
Easily is putting it lightly .. they are prime 4e adventure and gaming fodder. You basically have to have not read the DMGs to think otherwise.
"If you can't make an interesting human fighter, then you aren't ready to play anything else yet" Edymnion
"The idea of resting up between encounters to fill-up on hit points and spells struck my meta-gaming nine-year-old as a distinct possibility. "Are you mad?" says my seven-year-old "This place is full of monsters!" "jamesgrahamuk
Sometimes that story is short and sometimes it is long. They can be tragic, comic or absurd. Some teach. Some are just to fill the empty spaces in our lives. Rarely it is a transcendent fugue only half remembered but wondered at. And frequently: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare
