Several of those things have been done as Skill Challenges, one is a sample in the DMG (audience with a Duke, rather than a King, IIRC). It's a new aproach, though, and though it's improved with each update, it's still far from ideal.
Okay, so yes, I suppose I exaggerated by saying *no* support -- but the general solution people are posing is Skill Challenges. I don't find that to be enough. I want players to be able to have feats and abilities available in those settings, as well. Relying on Skill Challenges for everything "non-adventuring" seems dull and predictable.
There is, indeed, no support for non-Adventuring activities (like setting up a magic shop and selling potions for a living, or buying a farm and settling down) because they're not in the scope of the game. Skill Challenges are meant to handle non-combat (or non-RPG-workable-combats, like resolving a huge battle) adventuring resolution.
There are certainly some feats and utilities that can work in a Skill Challenge - the best are of use both in combat and in such challenges. If Skill Challenges come up often in a given campaign, I'd expect players would eventually ferret them out.
And even then, in the core rulebooks, Skill Challenges are still typically presented as Encounters anyways....which still feels like it's pigeonholing me into a structure of play -- a structure I may want to break free of often.
Ultimately, encounter design is a convience for the DM it makes your life easier. But, if you're already an experienced DM, nothing stops you from taking different aproaches. You could run a series of micro-combats with no short rest, like the old room-by-room clearing a dungeon of orcs two and three at a time; you could have an 'investigation' run as a long RP session punctuated by skill checks that branch the scene rather than provide success. The tools are still there to do it the hard way, but the easy ways presented do make just how hard the hard way can be a little more evident.
most of what you want to bring back would make me not at all interested in D&D.
Seconded. Heck, everything he doesn't like about D&D is what I LIKE about D&D.
Bingo... and hell the rest sounds like gee make "more" work for the DM by assuming a need for something you will never interact with .. might as well put your sim in a computer.
most of what you want to bring back would make me not at all interested in D&D.
Seconded. Heck, everything he doesn't like about D&D is what I LIKE about D&D.
Bingo... and hell the rest sounds like gee make "more" work for the DM by assuming a need for something you will never interact with .. might as well put your sim in a computer.
Beside for the guys who don,t like the changes, there is those 'retroclones'. Including Pathfinder *spat on ground*.
1.) A first level PC in 4E is similar in power level, survivability, etc... to a 5th level 3.5 (and earlier PC). A 30th level 4E PC is similar to a 13th level PC in prior editions. In other words, 30 levels of advancement feels like about 8 levels of advancement to experienced players. We don't really feel like we're struggling through the early era we remember where a single goblin arrow could spell disaster - and we don't experience those high level days where we shape the world around us. Those were part of the D&D game - and I miss them when I play 4E.
2.) The classes are too similar. In 3.5 and earlier, a wizard felt, looked and operated differently than a fighter. In 4E, there are a plethora of powers out there - spread across all of the classes - that feel too similar. This took the magic out of magic. The 4E system is great for martial classes, but I feel like it robbed the other classes of their core.
3.) The game is too safe. The game is designed to keep the PCs up and fighting if you play it according to the recommendations in the books. I often feel like I'm playing a video game on 'easy' as opposed to 'normal' or 'hard'. I need there to be a risk of failure for combats to mean something. The most common failure risk should be death. If PCs use horrible tactics, have horrible luck, or have a combination of poor luck and poor tactics, they should DIE. The most memorable moments in my 30+ year D&D experience has been the death of my favorite PCs.
4.) The game is too balanced. The designers of 4E were very good at identifying things that broke the game by giving something too much of an advantage. Being able to fly up in the air and attack with a bow against an army of ogres with no ranged weapons was devastatingly powerful. However, the efforts to prevent these types of antics by removing flight (or the most part) from the hands of PCs stole the feeling of a magical world. Invisibility, flight, teleportation, etc... mayhave been broken in old editions, but they were part of the core of the game and the absence of the old ways these things worked is felt.
5.) The plethora of spells that wizards, clerics, druids, etc... had at their disposal was a big part of prior editions. The transition of some of these things to rituals was a nice idea in theory, but failed in practice.
I agree, you make some good points.
Unfortunately a lot of the changes you mention were done on purpose as a "feature".
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Also, You are one of the most level-headed people yet. I include you in a short list, at least currently of people such as Foxface, Wrecan, Mbecon (sp?) and very few others that I actually feel like I can talk to, instead of feeling like no matter how polite I am, I'm still "arguing". So you have that going for you.
Thanks, it was also very welcoming to talk with you. I've literally played D&D longer than I've been alive (like, when I was still embryonic, my parents would roll up characters for me while playing with their siblings/friends), and have DM'd numerous systems for a couple decades now (there's a couple dozen core rulebooks from various games on the bookshelf next to me), and yet, I've refrained from posting here regarding my initial experiences with 4e over the past few months because I see a lot of dismissiveness of people's valid interests (like spitting over Pathfinder on a post above mine, as an example) from multiple sides. I started off strong in this thread (and chose this particular thread) expecting that, and while I did see it a bit, I am glad you and others here were more conversational.
I do own somewhere around 30 different 3e books (but outside of the 3 core, the rest were supplements, I never bought continuations to the PHB or DMG for 3/3.5e, either). But I do only have the base 3 for 4e -- so, I may work with DMG 2, and see where that takes me and my group. I spend an inordinate amount of time completely restructuring the play experience in various systems, from things as simple as having each character reroll initiative each round, to implementing the Rune Quest hit location tables, to creating days-long psyonic negotiations, to months-long court battles. It's awesome when more than just skills, but players' feats, powers, abilities, and even equipment can play into the outcomes of those. Until 4e, I always felt D&D had the most mature systems for flexibly making those kinds of adjustments. I was super disappointed when all the powers for characters were effectively combat or bust from the PHB -- I felt like I walked back into Chainmail. There wasn't even a Leadership feat...which played prominantly in the majority of our 3e games. I thought of everything I'd have to create from the ground up again, and was very put off. All the books with various rules that I had tabbed no longer worked within the system, just like moving from AD&D to 3e all over (but I made that move to let THAC0 rest in much needed peace). I wasn't going to move from what I felt was a more flexible and complete system, to something that I felt (and still do feel) didn't provide the resources needed.
It's how I DM. I've been known to build entire classes just for a single NPC. In addition to the open mass warfare combat rules, I've already built 8 classes within an entirely new class superstructure (called "Overclasses" because what I needed just wasn't present in the rules), just for the 3 sessions of 4e I've played so far. And if I wasn't playing with almost completely new to paper/pencil RPG players (because I moved), I'd have more done, but I don't want things to be too complex too early for them. I already know I'm going to completely reshape the ability retraining system that exists should we continue playing 4e. Soon, I'll probably build a new structure of powers that function somewhere between the powers granted by class and rituals (already testing game impact), as well as port over from 3e my old Webshaping system for on-the-fly spell/power modifications by X-mas.
RPGs provide an outlet for me to build worlds, languages, creatures, and systems -- flexibility is key.
Also, you show me the purple line, and I have no clue what it even means.
Think of the numbers across the bottom as Level, and the numbers along the left side are probability. The purple line is optimal, maybe about 1% or less of the population of a large town is disabled or crippled in some way and represents things at "Level 0," ~7% of the population is Level 1, about 15% is Level 2, 20% is Level 3, another 20% is Level 4, then percentage starts going back down again. The highest level characters in the town are probably things like the Court Vizier, or the Captain of the Guards -- they might be upwards of Level 10 or 11. Level 20 along the purple curve might be like 0.0001% of the population, or 1 in a million...maybe a single person in an entire Kingdom is Level 20, but not in a town. The orange curve might be useful for distributing power levels in a low power game, or perhaps a city that was involved in sporadic, but lots of warfare for the past 100 years. The high death toll has dramatically affected the power distribution of the people. Honestly, think about it...if the players are the *only* ones capable of defeating the prolific amount of threats in the world, how the heck did the kingdom or world even survive without them? The light blue curve might represent the power distribution in a high powered setting, or perhaps an elite unit of soldiers culled from multiple kingdoms to face a common threat.
Does that help?
IF that's your style, it can be accomplished, but it takes more than the standard rules to do so, which I suppose is what this is more about: what should or should not be standard, or in the standard rules. Mbec and I have had this discussion too.
I can say, the 4e DMG really, really disappointed me. Even your comment in a separate thread, that *for some reason* overland travel was in the PHB but not the DMG (or expanded to encompass additional modes of transport, like nautical voyage durations) highlights the point I'm making about resources needing to be available, especially at the core of the game.
Also, you show me the purple line, and I have no clue what it even means.
Think of the numbers across the bottom as Level, and the numbers along the left side are probability. The purple line is optimal, maybe about 1% or less of the population of a large town is disabled or crippled in some way and represents things at "Level 0," ~7% of the population is Level 1, about 15% is Level 2, 20% is Level 3, another 20% is Level 4, then percentage starts going back down again. The highest level characters in the town are probably things like the Court Vizier, or the Captain of the Guards -- they might be upwards of Level 10 or 11. Level 20 along the purple curve might be like 0.0001% of the population, or 1 in a million...maybe a single person in an entire Kingdom is Level 20, but not in a town. The orange curve might be useful for distributing power levels in a low power game, or perhaps a city that was involved in sporadic, but lots of warfare for the past 100 years. The high death toll has dramatically affected the power distribution of the people. Honestly, think about it...if the players are the *only* ones capable of defeating the prolific amount of threats in the world, how the heck did the kingdom or world even survive without them? The light blue curve might represent the power distribution in a high powered setting, or perhaps an elite unit of soldiers culled from multiple kingdoms to face a common threat.
Does that help?
Not . . . really.
It's been 10+ years since I had to take a math class of any kind. I just think of the players as everything the world circles around, and anyone who meets them exists to compel the story forward, nothing more. Then again, I am a video gamer first, and a P&P gamer second.
IF that's your style, it can be accomplished, but it takes more than the standard rules to do so, which I suppose is what this is more about: what should or should not be standard, or in the standard rules. Mbec and I have had this discussion too.
I can say, the 4e DMG really, really disappointed me. Even your comment in a separate thread, that *for some reason* overland travel was in the PHB but not the DMG (or expanded to encompass additional modes of transport, like nautical voyage durations) highlights the point I'm making about resources needing to be available, especially at the core of the game.
Ships and other vehicles are in the Adventurer's Vault, a good variety of treasure rules are in the first Draconomicon, a majority of good rules to expand and diversify Encounters are in the DMG 2, and from what I hear Henchmen and Strongholds are in the very recently released Mordenkiene's Magical Emporium. So yeah, the stuff you are looking for is everywhere. If I were to guess as to the reason for this, the first would be "to sell more books"; I mean, if what you need is in 4 different books, hopefully you'll spend $80+ instead of $50 on one book that has everything, right? Not saying it's a good idea, and I don't even have all the books in the edition, though most of them up to Essentials and even some beyond that point contain enough material useful for DMs that I'll eventually get them. So yeah, they'll eventually snag more money out of me because of that one. However, I think the biggest reason, really is balance; the need to make sure henchmen, strongholds, etc did not destroy the "action economy" of an encounter by unbalancing it. It's the one place that the designers have honestly been pretty unflinching; instructing a familiar to move means that the player must spend their own movement action, likewise with a summoned monster, etc. This was done it seems to limit the "I summon an army and march" attitude. Part of me agrees with it, and part of me does not, but there it is. The most likely answer to why they spread things out so much is to make more cash and to balance the elements so that they would not upset the game system. They may have gon too far, but I am happy they take such a strict attitude on the balance. I mean, Mimics took them until the Monster Manual 3 to get into this edition due to their unusual nature, and I waited for them and most of the reason I bought the MM3 was because of them, because they are iconic, and because they make wonderful sense within the world view (abberant beings of the Far Realm with a desire for, well, eating living flesh and disguising themselves, like crazy Lovecraftian Dopplegangers) as well as being mechanically balanced.
So I suppose they got me by both ends, as it were. YMMV.
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quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
1.) A first level PC in 4E is similar in power level, survivability, etc... to a 5th level 3.5 (and earlier PC). A 30th level 4E PC is similar to a 13th level PC in prior editions. In other words, 30 levels of advancement feels like about 8 levels of advancement to experienced players. We don't really feel like we're struggling through the early era we remember where a single goblin arrow could spell disaster - and we don't experience those high level days where we shape the world around us. Those were part of the D&D game - and I miss them when I play 4E.
2.) The classes are too similar. In 3.5 and earlier, a wizard felt, looked and operated differently than a fighter. In 4E, there are a plethora of powers out there - spread across all of the classes - that feel too similar. This took the magic out of magic. The 4E system is great for martial classes, but I feel like it robbed the other classes of their core.
3.) The game is too safe. The game is designed to keep the PCs up and fighting if you play it according to the recommendations in the books. I often feel like I'm playing a video game on 'easy' as opposed to 'normal' or 'hard'. I need there to be a risk of failure for combats to mean something. The most common failure risk should be death. If PCs use horrible tactics, have horrible luck, or have a combination of poor luck and poor tactics, they should DIE. The most memorable moments in my 30+ year D&D experience has been the death of my favorite PCs.
4.) The game is too balanced. The designers of 4E were very good at identifying things that broke the game by giving something too much of an advantage. Being able to fly up in the air and attack with a bow against an army of ogres with no ranged weapons was devastatingly powerful. However, the efforts to prevent these types of antics by removing flight (or the most part) from the hands of PCs stole the feeling of a magical world. Invisibility, flight, teleportation, etc... mayhave been broken in old editions, but they were part of the core of the game and the absence of the old ways these things worked is felt.
5.) The plethora of spells that wizards, clerics, druids, etc... had at their disposal was a big part of prior editions. The transition of some of these things to rituals was a nice idea in theory, but failed in practice.
1) A feature - fluke die rolls being fluke death over trivially created characters... shrug not something I miss nor did I like the bob1 bob2 bob3 disattachement and the other elements that uber fragility encouraged.. my only experience with high levels from back then was being a side kick baggage carrier class and seeing the thief be made useless by rote use of summoned creatures and a hand full of scrolls ... so all of this is something on my hated list. That high fragility encouraging cowardous... instead of my choices having an impact on success or failure in the fight the only choice that mattered was pre-fight. 2) The classes or even individual builds within a single class do not play similar there choices in play and the things they have to choose from do not have the same style of impact.. none of it - this is just ignorance. Players getting equal opportunity to have significant impact on the fight does not make the kinds of impact nor the choices the same. 3) The game is as dangerous as the dm and players want it to be. And if death is the only failure then you tell really short monotonous stories I am not interested in. 4) and 5) there is no such thing as too balanced - choices having some impact without being overwhelming that is a good thing - basically claiming its not D&D if its not broken with wizards ruling the roost....see 1 that is a feature.
I spend an inordinate amount of time completely restructuring the play experience in various systems, from things as simple as having each character reroll initiative each round, to implementing the Rune Quest hit location tables, to creating days-long psyonic negotiations, to months-long court battles. It's awesome when more than just skills, but players' feats, powers, abilities, and even equipment can play into the outcomes of those. Until 4e, I always felt D&D had the most mature systems for flexibly making those kinds of adjustments.
I know what you mean. I'm an inveterate system tinkerer going way back. D&D prior to 3e had a community that was very accepting of variants and house rules. You talked to a fellow D&Der at a con in 1985, you traded spell-point systems and experiences with critical hit variants, and ways to get your characters through 1st level alive and what to do with them at 12th+ and on and on.
As the game matured it became a little less open to variants, because it was increasingly colossal without 'em by the end of 2e AD&D's run, on the one hand. But, really, it was the sea change in the community with 3e that really put a chill on it. 'House rule' became a dirty word, 'variant' fell out of common usage entirely, and 'RAW' became the holy grail. Sad. But, while you could no longer find many fellow enthusiasts to share them with, you could still tweak the game to your heart's content for your own little group. The rules were still loose, and not that, well, not that worth preserving, really.
4e changed the face of the game. It put balance and consistency on a pedestal and - combined with the prior 8 years of shunning house-rules, there was little to do with it. It worked, and worked well - balanced, consistent, playable, and focused. If you messed with it, you'd immediately notice that it started working less well. It needed one of those 'no user serviceable parts' warning labels. Making classes for 4e was the worst. A novel class demanded a hundred or so equally novel powers.
Essentials, as much as I dislike aspects of it, did lower the bar on class creation a lot. Creating a new 4e class was hurculean - I banged away at one for months on end before giving it up. Creating an E-style class is the work of a lazy afternoon.
I was super disappointed when all the powers for characters were effectively combat or bust from the PHB.
The focus is heavily on adventuring in 4e, non-adventuring not being the focus of the game. As for combat focus, that's long been a criticism of RPGs. D&Ds roots are in wargaming and it's never strayed so far from those roots that combat wasn't a primary, if not the primary, focus. Perhaps you've so extensively re-worked AD&D and 3e that you were creaditing them with a breadth and flexibility that you flogged into them. Because, yes, if you heavily modify your games, a new game is going to take a lot of work to whip into shape...
There wasn't even a Leadership feat...which played prominantly in the majority of our 3e games.
Rejoice, followers and henchmen have been resurrected in - oddly - the Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, available at a Friendly Local Game Store near you... but not Amazon.
It's been 10+ years since I had to take a math class of any kind. I just think of the players as everything the world circles around, and anyone who meets them exists to compel the story forward, nothing more. Then again, I am a video gamer first, and a P&P gamer second.
I used to very strictly view the DM's function as being the enemy of the players. It was only the restrictions on the rules for creating balanced encounters that stayed the DM's hand from completely decimating the party. I've eased up on that quite a bit, particularly for the campaigns that people become really interested in continuing (which helps me, because I built a whole world) -- but sometimes I just itch to be destructive. If I ever preface a session by having each player build multiple characters...things are about to get ugly
I mean, if what you need is in 4 different books, hopefully you'll spend $80+ instead of $50 on one book that has everything, right?
No, if what I need (which includes, the rules needed to manually build everything else) is in the 3 core rulebooks, I buy those....then I buy a dozen or more supplements. If what I need is spread across a dozen supplements, I pirate everything.
I think of it like a car...if I purchase a high quality, very nice car, that has what I need base, I'll probably purchase a bunch of accessories for it. If I buy a crappy car, I'll not only probably not buy any accessories, I'll probably not buy from the same company again. Plus I'll feel tricked if I previously bought a high quality car from them, and this is supposed to be the "upgrade."
As the game matured it became a little less open to variants, because it was increasingly colossal without 'em by the end of 2e AD&D's run, on the one hand. But, really, it was the sea change in the community with 3e that really put a chill on it. 'House rule' became a dirty word, 'variant' fell out of common usage entirely, and 'RAW' became the holy grail. Sad.
I KNOW! It was so stupid, too, given the fact that 3e was OGL'd! House rules were the standard in my group, and we spent time finding enclaves for them online, but not in the general community.
Essentials, as much as I dislike aspects of it, did lower the bar on class creation a lot. Creating a new 4e class was hurculean - I banged away at one for months on end before giving it up. Creating an E-style class is the work of a lazy afternoon.
Perhaps I should look into Essentials then, as well...given I've already created 8 10-level Overclasses for 4e encompassing 240 new powers. Because F doing that again.
Perhaps you've so extensively re-worked AD&D and 3e that you were creaditing them with a breadth and flexibility that you flogged into them. Because, yes, if you heavily modify your games, a new game is going to take a lot of work to whip into shape...
Perhaps indeed; I may not be compensating for my own mods, leading to additional bias.
Rejoice, followers and henchmen have been resurrected in - oddly - the Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, available at a Friendly Local Game Store near you... but not Amazon.
Good. As long as I'm not having to buy a whole book just for that feature.
