|
|
|
|
|
Aubrey the Malformed's page
Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Companion, Pathfinder Modules, Planet Stories Subscriber. 4,690 posts (10,596 including aliases). No reviews. Aliases: Dohrlok, Stone Fist, Vraasht Half-Elven, Aubrey the Demented/Malformed, Rokko, Haad Knut, Gittik, Mona the Malformed, Macmorr.
Profile
|
Recent Posts
|
Recent Reviews
|
Recent posts by
Aubrey the Malformed:
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In my experience, I would say that my players are not the best organised and one in particular takes his time deciding what to do. The relatively restricted attack power options means that there aren't literally dozens of spells and whatnot to go through, so they can decide much quicker. WotC have also make things quite user-friendly - I subscribe to DDI and a lot of the tools, especially character-builder, make this much easier - for example, you can print out your character sheet with all of your character's powers fully described on it, so you don't have search through the books to work out what will happen. Also, they have restricted the number of conditions (e.g. dazed, stunned, and so on) and their impact, while increasing the number of times they might happen to provide tactical options. And the dreaded iterative attack doesn't happen anymore - one attack roll and it is someone else's turn.
But I think restricting powers and the power hierarchy (daily, encounter, at-will) makes it much easier for the players to decide what to do. The system is probably a significant improvement in terms of options for non-casters (a fighter basically doesn't have powers in previous editions, and only sort-of in 3e based on feat choice) but a restriction for caster types. That said, we have one caster in the party (a cleric) and he hasn't complained. He still heals, fights and buffs.
I was surprised by the "takes ages to take down the monsters" comments, but I think it might be if you are using "soldier" monsters (high AC, indifferent attacks) then you don't hit much and they don't do much to you. The PCs in my party seem to do a ruck of damage so it hasn't been a problem for me.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For me, the biggest benefit is the ease of preparation. My players seem very happy with the rules set - they don't seem to hanker after 3.5 or feel that they have lost out. The big thing about 3.5 (both a benefit and a curse) was its immense flexibility and the option available, both in terms of multiclassing, spell selection, feat selection and so on. With 4e, a PC is defined by the powers it has, and the feats and so on have a bearing but only around the margins (feats more or less only give numerical bonuses to existing abilities, they don't grant powers like Cleave). Most feats which provided added abilities have now been folded into class powers instead (again, like Cleave, which is a Fighter power). They have also simplified skills in a similar way to PFRPG (or rather, PFRPG has done it in a similar way to 4e - PFRPG very much comes across as stealing a lot of ideas from 4e, which possibly some of the anti-4e types don't immediately realise).
Sorry to come on like such a fanboy but 4e has really transformed by ability to prepare for sessions, which used to take a massive amount of time (a weekend for a single session), and that for me is the big gain. I haven't really been on the other side of screen much at all, except for a PbP here which hasn't really got into it's stride yet (just beginning the first combat encounter now). But as a rule of thumb, we tend to get through three to four encounters per session (about five hours) as opposed to two in 3.5.
I think, if the GSL had been reasonable and the PHB and PHB2 had been out together, there would have been absolutely no problem at all for Paizo to do its APs in 4e. With just the PHB, maybe it would have been harder as all of the classes and races in 3.5 (with the exception of the monk - that'll be in the PHB3) took until then to come out - it might have felt wrong, although all character races were available as monsters already. I haven't noticed any problems in plotting stuff - in fact, in terms of magical stuff the fact that most powerful magic has been turned into a ritual (i.e. a non-combat process) it may have made things easier (powerful spells are all set out in detail in 3e, in 4e you can more or less make up stuff and it has little game balance implications since it won't happen in combat).
Paizo may have had contractual worries about 4e but in terms of actual adventure design I really don't see where the problems would be. 4e is predicated more around being attacked by lots of assailants at once, whereas the CR system worked off single monsters. This might necessitate some changes to boss fights (or maybe not - you can create Elite and Solo monsters) and may have meant more mass combat. (For example, a fight with a single goblin in RotRL was transformed by Scott Betts into three goblins in his conversion, otherwise there simply would not have been much of a fight to have.) However, it is also pretty easy to bespoke monsters in 4e, as the rules for their creation are pretty transparent. Apart from that, I'm racking my brains as to how 4e changes the narrative of a story and I can't really think of any.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Evil Lincoln wrote:
I'd like to try and bring it back on track. In the OP, I address the issue (raised by Scott a few posts above), the notion that just because it can be "fixed" by a GM doesn't mean it isn't broken. I agree in principle, but I feel that some people use that as a crutch to attack the existing system at every opportunity.
All RPG systems are asked to perform under circumstances that are mathematically unsolvable. Even the notion that any sort of math could "balance" encounters is relatively new, by my reckoning. I think it may be fundamentally misguided, because any logical subset of the infinite possible scenarios we play is STILL too large to analyze meaningfully.
Basically, that bit about "Just because the GM can fix it doesn't mean the system isn't broken" is true, but it raises some essential questions about what is broken, and what can be "fixed" on a permanent basis. If a system is working without any GM intervention for me and my group, but it is not working for you and your group, what then?
Here's an interesting example, and I expect the mechanics-enthusiasts to meet this with some resistance, but I ask for you to consider it with an open mind:
I recognize that in game theory terms, a (perfectly) "rational" player will necessarily choose a certain class (let's say wizard) because it maximizes their play options. So why doesn't everyone in my group play a wizard? Partly this is a "flavor" choice, but there are other factors less often discussed. In my group, not everyone has the time or patience to play a wizard, because that class requires considerably more research and thought to play optimally. The wizard player is being rewarded for his investment — which is something I really enjoy from a game-design perspective, because playing a wizard calls for some very wizardly behavior, poring over tomes and whatnot.
Those who are already hyper-familiar with the rules likely don't account for this investment when they sit at the table and play. But from my vantage point, for...
The problem with the view that if something isn't covered by the rules then the rules are broken is something of a fallacy for me. The absolute number of situation the rules are intended to cover could be effectively infinite. They don't cover in detail, for example, underwater opera singing. The value of a rules set is how it performs under the scenarios it is likely to need to cover. That, unfortunately, will vary depending on the gamers in question. By and large a majority of gamers can come up with a reasonable view of what is commonplace and also uncommon but sufficiently frequent to require coverage. But that will not be universal, and someone will always consider the rules broken because they don't cover X.
As an example, the Denizens (Frank and co) designed a complex treasure system involving parallel currencies to deal with a problem they perceived - how can you get rich but low level people (princlings with inherited wealth, merchants and so on) in a world where treasure seems to be derived from killing things and taking their stuff, and also in a world where you can wish into being whatever you want (including really powerful magic items). It was quite clever and more or less (if you actually ignored real economics) worked. But for me it was a non-problem - my players never cared, and rarely got to levels where Wish mattered, and in any case weren't interested in exploiting rules loopholes like that. So a key problem to which great intellectual effort was expended was simply a waste of time for me, and something I could conveniently ignore in my own game. Plus the solution was as artificial as the system (gold per level) it was intended to replace.
Which is why we endlessly argue (well, actually I don't care that much, I'm more depressed than enlivened by most of this thread) because our experience of what the rules need to cover is subjective. There will be commonalities, but what we experience will differ in the detail. Which is why we have DMs, part of the job of which is resolve these issues as painlessly as possible and just move on. Most of which will probably involve hand-waving. Some people may wish to have complex rules to cover relative trivia, but many won't - that is probably more about personal preference than anything to do with the integrity of the rules.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|