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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 10:44AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2007
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Early on its clear that with a design goal to encourage theatre of the mind the combats had to be simplified back to "walk up to monster and swing" While 4E had slowness issues due to off turn attacks and "blue Mage" game play with all the free and immediates, it also had combats with use of pull, push, slide, or signaling conditions like bloodied made for much more dynamic combats.
While its clear that replacing "five feet equals one square" gets you back to miniatures math, the closest we had to anything where tactical positioning could matter is the denial of movement on the guardian theme at third. The lack of flanking and loss of opportunity attacks meant players in range of a monster had nothing else to do on their turn with the move action so they could walk in circles around the monster for goofs
Fast? Yes
Simple? Yes
Boring? Yes ... (due to lack of meangful choices)
Already it's clear as a DM that a big bad evil wizard needs dozens of goons simply to occupy space in front of them as a form of living shield otherwise players will simple walk past them and kill the big bad evil Mage.
Another issue is a return to "fights that don't matter". If you win initiative you will decimate the other side and if it's an attrition fight of no significance other than to whittle away some HPs like the classic two goblins guarding a gate, then winning initiative is more like a skill challenge ... If you beat the monsters then skip the fight because there are no interesting combat mechanics anymore and the fight has no challenge.
Caves of chaos quickly becomes "can we skip the trash fights and skip ahead to something that matters?". There'd is only so much role play mental gymnastics a GM can do to cover up this bland mayo on white bread combat system.
EDIT NOTE: Yes i know this is early on and that other modular components could be "tacked on" to add spice. However even in its simplest form I am not sure we have a combat system that "feels" fun. There is a post later in the thread on how simple player combat choices are, but I will note here that returning to the 15 minute workday of nuke until injured then take a day or two off and repeat just no longer "feels" heroic.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 10:57AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2006
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I agree. Caves of chaos quickly becomes "can we skip the trash fights and skip ahead to something that matters?".
Trash fights heh? Sounds like WoW's dungeons.
Something that matters? Like a boss with epic loot? Also sounds like WoW.
With all the people that said 4E was too much like a videogame, like WoW, I'm surprised the encounters in D&D Next feels like this.
But again, this was a playtest about core rules, not about monsters or character options.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 11:27AM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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This is the biggest problem D&DNext will have. Trying to be mainstream enough so it can attract modern gamers, which have more experience in computer games, than tabletop. This approach made 4e a failure (in my mind), but from what I've read so far, this game has better overall potential. Time will tell.
"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 11:45AM
#4
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This game has the potential to attract some grognards while simultaneously alienating 4e and many 3e consumers who enjoy interesting and tactical combat. Also, good luck attracting new consumers with such boring classes and combat mechanics.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 12:06PM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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This game has the potential to attract some grognards while simultaneously alienating 4e and many 3e consumers who enjoy interesting and tactical combat. Also, good luck attracting new consumers with such boring classes and combat mechanics.
Please try to remember that this is a playtest and the majority of the options that will be available to you once this hits shelves is not there right now and what IS available to you is still being refined.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 12:14PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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This game has the potential to attract some grognards while simultaneously alienating 4e and many 3e consumers who enjoy interesting and tactical combat. Also, good luck attracting new consumers with such boring classes and combat mechanics.
Ah yes. Grognard is the FotM term being used now. Oddly enough, your statement contradicts itself as you say it will 'attract some grognards while simultaneously alienating 4e and many 3e consumers who enjoy interesting and tactical combat.' Grognards are old soldiers/gamers as well as wargamers (which are tactical combat gamers).
Anyway, they haven't really given us a ton of info concerning this game and it is a playtest, not an actual game yet, so it's probably a bit early to tell who it will attract or alienate. You can't make everyone happy all of the time.
"Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 12:31PM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 25, 2012
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Yeah, it's going back to pre-4e design. This is to be expected. Ah yes. Grognard is the FotM term being used now. Oddly enough, your statement contradicts itself as you say it will 'attract some grognards while simultaneously alienating 4e and many 3e consumers who enjoy interesting and tactical combat.' Grognards are old soldiers/gamers as well as wargamers (which are tactical combat gamers).
Regardless of what the original meaning may have been (and I'm not sure it was what you think it was) the term "grognard" now refers to players of older editions who, having no sense of game design, actually like aspects of those games based purely on familiarity and not based on actual merit. Thus WotC brings back the bad bits of older editions, including fights that are somewhat boring, especially for martial characters.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 12:49PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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"grognard" now refers to players of older editions who, having no sense of game design, actually like aspects of those games based purely on familiarity and not based on actual merit.
Not necessarily. It can also refer to a player who plays the older edition because they're more creative in and out of combat than "I run up and swing my sword." They are players who don't need a "push" power to know that you can bum rush an enemy. They will happily swing from the chandelier without first asking if they can get a bonus for doing so.
Let's not devolve into name calling just because you don't like a particular play style. State your issues with the mechanic and move on.
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 12:55PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2011
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"grognard" now refers to players of older editions who, having no sense of game design, actually like aspects of those games based purely on familiarity and not based on actual merit.
Not necessarily. It can also refer to a player who plays the older edition because they're more creative in and out of combat than "I run up and swing my sword." They are players who don't need a "push" power to know that you can bum rush an enemy. They will happily swing from the chandelier without first asking if they can get a bonus for doing so.
Let's not devolve into name calling just because you don't like a particular play style. State your issues with the mechanic and move on.
thats putting a LOT of the game in the DM's hands. what happens when you have a bad DM?
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1 year ago ::
May 25, 2012 - 1:11PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2007
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thats putting a LOT of the game in the DM's hands. what happens when you have a bad DM?
Bad DMs will ruin any edition of D&D. That's nothing new... but that's not the point. I object to the use of "grognard" as a pejorative to attempt to debase the opinions of players of older editions.
What also concerns me is that people are ignoring the fact that WotC has clearly stated that there will be more tactical layers in the core. If one reads the design goals of the classes, you can quickly see there are a lot of tricks or "martial powers" (for lack of a better phrase) that they have been working on for the martial classes that [apparently] were not ready for this iteration of the playtest. However, if you go back a read the design goal articles, there's clearly a lot of content to come to allow the martial combatants to better control the field of battle.
What's worse is that there is a lot of "This mechanic sux. That mechanic sux. 5e sux!" when better feedback would be written like this:
"In our play, we found the lack of opportunity attacks meant that the ranged classes are not protected by the martial classes. Also, the ranged players felt overly penalized for firing into melee."
As opposed to "Grognards are taking the game backwards! This is totally boring. I'm basing my entire opinion on the earliest available alpha print of the playtest rules... and 5e sux."
Which is the more helpful input?
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