An observation

[subplotkudzu]

4E has now been out for nearly a week, and so far I have one, count them one, comment from anyone on my Friends list about it - drcpunk's comment on how the book lays flat while reading it and she's happy the 3E faux-notebook visual design is gone. 

Is everyone as ambivalent about this new system as I am? Did anyone even buy it? Where's the love, people? Or the hate, for that matter?

Comments

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

And in so doing likely designed a game in which I have little interest. I'd like to say that's a pity, but it's really not, because I admire and support the idea of the game being designed to support a specific setting and style of play. I think part of my complaint is that with all of the changes it doesn't feel like the D&D I grew up playing.

I felt that 3E got the idea that their game was a mix of encounter based dungeon crawl and social interaction and did a very solid job of providing that and, better still, leaving it open for others to expand on the social aspects in OGL supplements. That was how I played 1E and 2E, and it's no surprise that it's how I play 3E. the carousing in bars burning through our money, the politics of the cities and towns, playing with spells outside the dungeon, cheek by jowl withthe resource management of Vancian magic, dungeon crawls and jungle voyages.

These are all things I have front and center in my Emirikol game, whereas the high-octane, tactical, encounter-based stuff is secondary at best. This system might very well work better for my Russia campaign, which is designed as an up-front dungeon crawl with a historic justification. But not if Minis are required. We aren't mini folk round these parts....

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

And as for minis, absolutely they're required (or seem to be).

Meh.

So how would this system handle, say, a fencing match between two fighter-types?

And what's with the 23 HP for a 1st level Wizard? do attacks do a lot more damage or something?

[mneme]

I think the idea is that a first level wizard should need about as many hits to fall over as a 23rd level wiz -- so the 23hp are supposed to last longer. And, of course, in a way, attacks -do- do a lot more damage at first level; monsters typically have more HP and do less damage than PCs, but a fighter can lead off with their daily if they want, for, say, 6d6+4 damage if it hits (3w with a greataxe).

Fighter vs Fighter fencing -- ignoring the Str vs Dex question (fighters are always Str based; if you want Dex melee attacks, you need a rogue or to make up your own class), it would be a bit sluggy -- fighters are sticky, and good at punishing opponents for moving, but aren't so good at getting away from sticky opponents themselves. So barring special abilities like an Eladrin's teleport, they'd probably go to melee range and stay there.

They avoided twidly options like total defense and attack defensively, so that option's not there. OTOH, they put the options back, to an extent, in the form of powers -- a 1st level non-human fighter (a human would have one more at-will) would have 2 at-wills, which could be cleave (not useful in a duel), reaping strike (does some damage even on a miss; could be interesting), sure strike (does less damage, but hits more often), or tide of iron (must be using a shield (could be a buckler), normal damage + pushes the target if they're not too much larger than you)), one encounter ability (two that just do normal per-encounter damage + work against/with a group; one that does less damage (as much as an at-will) but knocks the target down, one that does normal per-encounter damage and makes the target slowed (only slows movement), plus a daily (3 choices: one does lots of damage and is reliable (only used up if it hits), another reliable one that does per-encounter level damage and lets you spend a healing surge (heal 1/4 your maximum hp, if you have surges left), and one that does per-encounter damage, is -not- reliable -- but gives you +2 to to hit and +4 to damage for the remainder of the combat, and half that if it misses). (normal damage: weapon + stat. Encounter: weapon x 2 + stat. Daily: w * 3 + stat).

So, if it were to first blood, I'd expect whichever fighter had sure strike to have a signficiant advantage, but not an overpowering one (a +2 is a +2). OTOH, if it were to bloodied (and in 4e, bloodied -- half damage -- is an obvious condition that everyone can see), the dailies might come into play--the third one would be hugely telling if it hit, whereas the others -would- eventually hit.

If it's to unconciousness or death, things get interesting -- level 2 would bring in utilities (like one that gives you, 1/day, regen of 2 + your con for as long as you're bloodied). And at that point, potions would be fair game--and in 4e, drinking a healing potion cost a healing surge (so no unlimited potions), but is a minor (=swift) action. So fighters who were locked in combat and down hp could spend their move and minor actions to drink two potions and keep fighting.

For fencers fighters, level 3 would be where things realy got interesting, as it has the first set of per-weapon abilities. Including, for those wielding light blades (like a rapier), armor piercing thrust (str vs -reflex-, 1w, and if you're using a light blade or spear, add dex bonus to to-hit and damage), precise thrust (str+4 vs ac, 1w, hmm. usually not the best option given the others available...except that it's not weapon-restricted), and Rain of blows (make -two- attacks vs AC, but only if you have Dex 15+ and are wielding a light blade, a flail, or a spear).

[mneme]

Personally, I don't think minis are any more needed than they are in 3E. Yes, there are attacks of opportunity, pushing attacks, zones, etc -- but if anything, the areas are typically simpler (AoO is adjacent-only, except for a few monsters that get "threatening reach" because that's their thing, all areas on a battlemap are square, allies don't provide cover to enemies), and you can do the same things with these mechanics you do in 3 -- describe actions relative to other combatants and based on intent, and assume the characters more or less know what they're doing. Also, the fact that the fighter, frex, can do his "thing" without knowing his precise physical location (because once he's marked a foe, he's assumed to be getting in their way regardless of where they go) and the fact that you can't just lay down a giant pile of conjured creatures to clutter up the map probably makes boardless play somewhat simpler, despite all the pushing.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I've been running 3E (not 3.5) on and off since shortly after it came out and I've never used minis. Nor have I ever really had a major problem. Back when Jonathan Tweet was still writing in A&E he boiled the AoO rules down for me, reducing it to "if you do something that drops your guard, which includes moving more than one pace, people near you get a free swing at you." That was simple, clean and made sense, and has worked for me ever since. The flanking rules are "if you're on opposite sides, the foe is flanked, and you get bonuses" and I assume that all combatants will do what they can to take advantage of that (and defend themselves from it) so a little common sense keeps everyone happy. No Minis required.

I have several aversions to minis - they cost more than I want to spend, they get people focused on a 3'x3' square on the table rather than the tableau in thier head and every time I've played in games that have them I'm seen the characterization and innovation suffer in fight scenes. Your milage may vary, of course, but that's how it seems to me. I just don't have any interest in D&D as a boardgame hybrid. I'll leave that to Battletech (and that might be why i can't get my players interested in a Mechwarrior style game - they don't have any interest in roleplay/boardgame hybrids either).

[mneme]

*nod* And 4e AoO rules are even simpler than 3E ones -- "if you move or attempt a ranged attack while in someone's threat range, you draw an attack of opportunity, but can't draw more than one from the same person, and some movement explicitly doesn't draw (shift, teleportation, forced movement)." That's it, actually; there are no actions other than moving or ranged attack that draw AoO. In some cases, this is because basic actions that used to draw--non-ranged-attack spellcasting, drinking potions, standing up, bull rush, coup de gras, grab (weaker grapple), punch or kick, aid, skill use (including heal)--don't. In others, it's because the action doesn't exist at all as a "standard" action -- disarm, sunder & trip are doable using the new "do anything" rules (basically, ad hoc resolution with a per/level table with difficulties of easy/medium/hard broken out per level), but aren't standard actions any more -- though trip (er, knock prone), certainly, is a not-uncommon power result

Regardless, I think if you can do and prefer 3rd edition without minis, 4th without minis won't be a problem; sure, they refer to distances in terms of squares rather than feet, but you can treat those either as conceptual units (which is, after all, what they are), or multiply by 5 if that's your preference, just like you can treat each round as "6 seconds" or just figure that a round is as long as it needs to be.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm obviously in a mood. I didn't mean to gripe to you about the problems of a system I haven't read, especially when you were kind enough to provide the insight I requested.

No offense intended. Thanks for the mini-review.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

In MMO terms, I'd say it's gone from freeform "wander around, see the world, do the quests, craft a bit, chat with people" to "okay, Monday we'll be raiding this instance. We need two tankers, a healer, a couple of mages. Here's the plan for the first stage..."

[mneme]

Ambivalent, yes. Clearly rushed out -- with fairly significant errata a bare five days after release.

OTOH, looks like fun, and I wanna play it.

Also, I could wish they'd playtested the skill challenge system more -- it's clearly off in several ways (DCs are too high, such that if you follow the rules and don't hand out bonuses like they're going out of style, PCs will fail at 93% of at-level challenges, base system doesn't have enough mechanical interest (no hard "help, defend, or attack full throttle" options like in combat)), and most of the flaws are easily fixable by using a different base.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

with fairly significant errata a bare five days after release.

Oof - that's a bad sign. How long before 4.5?

Something I commented on to others as this was coming out: It sounds like the sort of game I'd support IF they weren't claiming it was D&D. The concepts in it sound workable (even if, by your reckoning, they haven't been playtested enough) but they also don't sound like the OD&D/AD&D that Tweet, Cook and Anderson tried to capture the feel of in 3.0, what with the increased hit points, the powers for fighters and the non-vancian magic. It's not that any of those are bad ideas, but they aren't classically D&D either....

I look forward to more reports from the front lines. Any chance of a review in this months A&E?

[mneme]

What, you don't want to just get it here?

I'd need to play. Hell, I'd like to play, so we'll see.

re eratta: I may overstate a bit; dunno. The MM and DMG errata weren't too bad (just a couple of changes each), but the PH errata ran onto a third page.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I figure in A&E you'd have had mor eof a chance to formalize your thoughts - especially since I know you'll be writing it on the afternoon on the 21st, some week and a half away.

[mneme]

Well, there is that.

Sort of. I'll be helping run a con on the 21st.

Note to self: Finish zine by the 17th or so.

[mneme]

Oh, re magic -- it's not -not- Vancean, either. You get two at-will powers, and they don't grow that much over your career (some; your stat bonus grows over time, probably from 4ish at 1st to 8ish at 30th, and the base damage doubles at 21st level). Beyond that, you eventually get up to 3 encounter powers and something like 8 daily powers -- so the bulk of your different powers are still basically 1/day, even if there are weaker ones you can use over and over again. Um...plus 4 cantrips you can use over and over again, but those aren't directly combat-useful.

Hmm. Re the at-wills, just looking at the wiz, if she takes the best single-target at-will, cloud of knives, she does 1d6+8=11.5 damage with it at first level, going up to ~23 damage at 30th. If she takes Magic Missile instead, going for tradition, she'll do 2d4+4 = 9 damage at first level, going up to 4d4+8 = 18 damage at 30th (with twice the range).

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Another question: I've heard some stuff about more specific setting information in the rules, like Dwarves hating Giants because they were enslaved by them at some point. True or false? Just curious if they did increase their specificity level that would have to get stripped out for a home brew setting.

[mneme]

There is a default setting in the rules (there was a default setting in the old rules, too, but they changed the default setting for 4e).

That said, I don't think a lot of mechanics rely on it--if anything, things get a little more general.

For instance, Dwarves, like in 3e, have bonuses against giants. In 4e, the background says this was because giants were the servants of the primordials, and enslaved the dwarves. In 3E, I think it's just because dwarves don't like giants; they're competing for the same territory. The same (in 3e) for dwarves having bonuses against orcs and goblin-type critters.

However, in 3e, the dwarven anti-giant bonuses are against "giant class" creatures, and the bonus against orcs and goblins are against creatures with the orc or goblin types. So if you wanted to make dwarves who were allied with giants, or orcs or goblins, you'd have to figure out where to move the bonus to. In 4e, dwarves just have a bonus against anything larger than they are; sure, historically, by the default background, this might be because they fought against the giants(&titans), but one could retheme it easily as dwarves hating dragons (and therefore having bonuses for fighting large creatures), or even dwarves, being smallish medium creatures, being...good at fighting things larger than they are. There's no creature time in it except in the background.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I don't see any reason to buy it. I stopped buying D&D back when the little tan books were replaced with Basic and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I haven't even bought the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy books; dungeon fantasy is just not a genre I have any use for.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

By "dungeon fantasy" I mainly mean "kill the monster, grab the treasure, level up, and repeat," regardless of setting.

More broadly, while I'm willing to run campaigns that include regular combat, that tends not to be the focus of what I run; about two-thirds of my players are perfectly happy with a campaign that has little or no combat. When I do run combat, I tend to focus more on combat as a revelation of character and a source of cool dramatic scenes than on tactical calculation. An rpg, for me, is a tool for generating participatory fiction.

[mylescorcoran]

I've bought it, but I've yet to receive it. Ireland is a long way from the heartland of Amazon's warehouses.

I have sneaked a look at the copy a friend had over lunch, and maybe someone I know has a PDF, possibly, maybe, nudge, etc.

I've been reading the ENWorld discussions and I'm quietly hopeful that it's going to be good. D&D in a very specific dungeon crawling, big fighty, 'splosions and everything sort of way. mnemex's comments below seem on the money from what I've read.