|
The more we learn about 4E, the more it seems that it is the "no consequences" edition. It seems there are no negative consequences for evil or foolish actions. Alignment is downplayed, and taking foolish risks is encouraged. "Do whatever you want, the chances of you losing your character are next to nothing." seems to be the mantra of 4E. I don't mind reducing the amount of random mortality in D&D, but it seems that they are going too far in the opposite direction. You need a healthy middle ground. You almost have to want your character to die for it to happen in 4E. That's too much. To be honest, I haven't seen more PC deaths in D&D than I can handle. It happens fairly rarely in the campaigns I DM and play in.
I'm sure you meant to say: "Rocks fall, damn, I rolled a 1 for the rocks to hit all your Reflex Defenses. OK, this bad game continues."
No. More like, "Rocks fall. Damn, I rolled a 17 for the rocks to hit against your Reflex Defenses. Ok, this bad game continues."
The more we learn about 4E, the more it seems that it is the "no consequences" edition.
IMO, its the T-Ball edition. How do you strike someone out in T-Ball? No foul balls, no curve balls, etc. It sounds like everyone hits the ball and the ball is always put into play. So everyone gets to make it to home at least once a game.
|
I'm sure you meant to say: "Rocks fall, damn, I rolled a 1 for the rocks to hit all your Reflex Defenses. OK, this bad game continues."No. More like, "Rocks fall. Damn, I rolled a 17 for the rocks to hit against your Reflex Defenses. Ok, this bad game continues."
How is that any different then the high level rogue that runs head on into an attack with a dragon because he knows that evasion, tumble, and his obscenely high AC will mean that he does not get so much as a scratch or singe on his shiny magic leather armor.
D&D has always suffered from ridiculous systemic problems.
My high level dwarf finds all of the trap when there are no rogues around as it is. Between energy resistance in several flavors, mirror image, ring of feather fall, boots of spider climb, a ton of HP, immunity to enchantment/charm effects, a huge fort save, the ability to heal myself, and a flying carpet who needs a rogue.
Heck I can play reckless right now in 3.5. But the one thing that scares me - save or die effects. They are arbitrary. They kill you dead when nothing else will. Kinda crazy if you ask me.
My apologize David as it certainly wasn't directed at you. I sincerely hope you do enjoy the game. Nothing wrong with that. I was making a point of saying that this is a game for those wanting to "do all for no risk" "No risk, all venture gained" type of play. I read the article. To me, this is an absolute eye balling rolling game session and that aspect I will not apologize for. If I was 10 years old, yes the game might be fun for even me. I suspect you are older and if this style of play is enjoyable for you, I would not take that away from you. Is getting everything enjoyable for free fun to me? No. Why the negativity? I'm sorry if you don't understand. I have no idea how long you have played, time and money invested into the game, or your preferred style of play, so anything I say would be taken the wrong way. I will say this though....there is nothing wrong with seeing the rosier way and sometimes I wish I could do that.
It is alright, although I thank you for the apology! :)
I think at the end of the day, everyone hopes 4E is great! We just have some disagreements over what exactly would make it so.
The author of the article did mention two PC deaths, and I've read of many other deaths before, so I don't think no risk is quite right. But this is likely one of the areas that we really won't be able to tell anything about until it finally comes out.
As for who I am (I didn't see any introduce yourself threads anywhere, although I didn't look hard!) my screen name is ... uh .. my name. I started playing around 10 or 11, and have played for slightly over half of my life (25 as of yesterday). I've probably invested a few thousand in DnD (as evidenced by the four sagging shelves of books in my room) and DM a weekly game that will likely be finishing up the SCAP tonight. And maybe I'm just an optimistic guy, but I'm excited about 4E! :)
The more we learn about 4E, the more it seems that it is the "no consequences" edition. It seems there are no negative consequences for evil or foolish actions. Alignment is downplayed, and taking foolish risks is encouraged. "Do whatever you want, the chances of you losing your character are next to nothing." seems to be the mantra of 4E. I don't mind reducing the amount of random mortality in D&D, but it seems that they are going too far in the opposite direction. You need a healthy middle ground. You almost have to want your character to die for it to happen in 4E. That's too much. To be honest, I haven't seen more PC deaths in D&D than I can handle. It happens fairly rarely in the campaigns I DM and play in.
Alignment is downplayed as far as a mechanic is concerned. You can no more do evil actions in 4E and get away with it than you could in 3E.
I dont know where you are getting the notion that you can do "whatever" and not die. From the sounds of it, its more like you just wont randomly die, which is a good thing.That doesnt mean that players never die.
|
The more we learn about 4E, the more it seems that it is the "no consequences" edition. It seems there are no negative consequences for evil or foolish actions. Alignment is downplayed, and taking foolish risks is encouraged. "Do whatever you want, the chances of you losing your character are next to nothing." seems to be the mantra of 4E. I don't mind reducing the amount of random mortality in D&D, but it seems that they are going too far in the opposite direction. You need a healthy middle ground. You almost have to want your character to die for it to happen in 4E. That's too much. To be honest, I haven't seen more PC deaths in D&D than I can handle. It happens fairly rarely in the campaigns I DM and play in.
This dungeon....it's nothing but ladders, and red slides.
I think at the end of the day, everyone hopes 4E is great! We just have some disagreements over what exactly would make it so.
Can we all agree that if the designers continue to neglect their duties of playing and testing the game and just run ad lib storytelling sessions based on DM fiat that the new edition will not be great?
-Frank
Can we all agree that if the designers continue to neglect their duties of playing and testing the game and just run ad lib storytelling sessions based on DM fiat that the new edition will not be great?
-Frank
I would agree with you frank . . . if that is the case. But I have seen nothing that would indicate the designers are neglecting their duties in the manner you suggest.
Stuff
Its called "sarcasm."
You have to go ~bla bla bla~ or you leave yourself open to this sort of thing.
Noted for future reference. Thank you.
Good to see the return of the "your games suck, 4th Ed is what you really want" tone that we saw missing in the last missive (consistency is underrated, in my opinion).
But seriously, what the hell are they thinking? It looks like the game is devolving into a game of childish make believe that a five year old would find tiresome. There has to be consequences for failure- the bigger the reward, the bigger the consequences. Now PCs are invincible respawning munchkin machines for one prolonged power trip. What next? jump to the safe chair by the DM and you don't roll at all?
I think these guys are drunk when they sit down to play! Is this game being developed by 10 year olds? Mine is 15 and she is going to absolutely hate this, it's childish. Why does the game suddenly have to be about winning?
Thank you- the one thing D&D had was a capacity for abstract thought- to play for it's own sake. Apperantly that sucks- who knew?
If 4E makes risk normalized at all levels then they will have truly accomplished something meaningful. With arbitrary death set aside and death is no longer a 1 away then the real risk taking becomes the heroic stance against evil. Reckless play can be penalized by the GM. To me fear of failure is always more powerful than fear of PC death.
So it's only when the situation calls for overt narrative heroism that the chance of PC death can become a real one? So do I put on a black hood when my players enter the Citadel of Doom, just as a heads up for them? Obviously up to this point the game has been a jeopardy free slay fest, so I'd rather not antagonize them by actually having them actually risk their characters.
The thing is, risking a well loved PC to achieve some lofty quest is well and good, but if there aren't comparable risks up to that final climax, then what's the point? It's just a day dream with numbers to help massage the ego.To put it another way; Superman flies over the burning Metropolis Orphanage. If he saves the kids, he's not a hero, since he's invulnerable- he's just not being a dick and letting the kiddies cook. True Heroism requires putting it all on the line, even when it can mean dying senselessly instead of at a point that a DM deems dramatically appropriate. THAT is the kind of heavy-handed intrusion into my game that's turning me off wanting to even open 4th ed.
|
I find it funny how much people keep stating that "this is D&D for 10 year olds" or "if I was 10 I'd like this version."
Well...guess what? I started playing D&D when I was 10 thanks to the first Red Box Basic set (the red box with Erol Otis art) and haven't turned back from playing the game in each subsequent edition for 25 years.
Has anyone really gone back and read 1st edition or, worse yet, the white box of three booklets? Those are almost unplayable. Actually without either ignoring a lot of rules, or making up your own stuff, they are unplayable. Back in the day people learned to play D&D from people who already knew how to play.
To quote John Eric Holmes in Dragon 52 (you know the guy who wrote the very first blue box Basic set):
When Tactical Studies Rules published the first DUNGEONS & DRAGONS rule sets, the three little books in brown covers, they were intended to guide people who were already playing the game. As a guide to learning the game, they were incomprehensible. There was no description of the use of the combat table. Magic spells were listed, but there was no mention of what we all now know is a vital aspect of the rules: that as the magic user says his spell, the words and gestures for it fade from his memory and he cannot say it again.
When I edited the rules prior to the first edition of the D&D Basic Set, it was to help the thousands (now millions) of people who wanted to play the game and didn’t know how to get started. Gary Gygax acknowledged that some sort of beginner’s book was badly needed, and he encouraged me to go ahead with it.
The fact is that Hasbro, and WotC (as well as TSR back in the day), want new players to play the game. They don't want you to have to "learn" from people who are already playing. They also want to increase the amount of mechanical balance (for us old timers who like games like Hero that are internally consistent).
There are changes, to be sure, and the game is being aimed at being more accessible, to be sure, but don't you all remember what it was like when you first played the game?
I was wide eyed with my first level Magic-User, named uncreatively enough Gandalf, ready for adventure and action and all the stuff I'd read and seen. Instead, I was turned into an Axebeak when I tried to read a scroll to see if it was magical and missed my saving throw on a save or get hosed roll.
That's my first memory as a player and since that day, I have hated save or die effects. I like cinematic action and D&D has always advertised, but rarely delivered (at low levels especially), cinematic action.
Can we all agree that if the designers continue to neglect their duties of playing and testing the game and just run ad lib storytelling sessions based on DM fiat that the new edition will not be great?
Sure! Although like Will says, I don't really think that's what they're doin! :)
|
The more we learn about 4E, the more it seems that it is the "no consequences" edition.IMO, its the T-Ball edition. How do you strike someone out in T-Ball? No foul balls, no curve balls, etc. It sounds like everyone hits the ball and the ball is always put into play. So everyone gets to make it to home at least once a game.
To be fair, when I played Tee Ball (years and years ago), we started with regular pitches. If you got 3 strikes, they brought out the tee, and you had three more tries. Surprisingly, some people did still manage to strike out!
</threadjack>
With my defense of the great and noble sport of Tee Ball over, I'll share my views on this:
I agree that great rewards require great risks, so I don't like the way this sounds either. And knowing that you can't die because the rules won't let you is metagaming at its worst. Stupid characters do stupid things, and they should pay the price for it. As an earlier poster said, that's roleplaying. If you don't want to do stupid (and/or risky) things, put more points in Wisdom and Intelligence and play a smarter character.
As for save or die, shit happens. You could get hit by a bus on your way to work tomorrow. I don't require realism in my fantasy gaming, but a little bit of realism goes a long way. And is save or die such an insurmountable obstacle? I thought raising and resurrection were part of the assumed "equipment" of 3.5.
|
|
I was wide eyed with my first level Magic-User, named uncreatively enough Gandalf, ready for adventure and action and all the stuff I'd read and seen. Instead, I was turned into an Axebeak when I tried to read a scroll to see if it was magical and missed my saving throw on a save or get hosed roll.
Dude, an Axebeak is *so* much more fun to play than a 1st level Magic-User!
This, of course, was 1E, when people would fight to get Reincarnated instead of Raised, so they could come back as a Centaur or a Lizard Man!
|
Contributor
|
I'm just curious, why does everybody who keep saying that this article demonstrates the 4E is risk free keep ignoring the part of the article where Chris says that risk is an important part of the drama of the game and that they've had 2 PC deaths so far?
My only real disappointment is that one of them came back to life, something I was hoping they would ditch or at least limit more. Although he didn't say how difficult it was to bring him back so who knows?
A new player joined our group, and one thing he noted in one game is the lack of detailed combat descriptions for actions. Part of this is due to my admittedly inferior vocabulary skills (putting ranks in those next level, honestly!) but another part has to do with D&D and one of its most fundamental mechanics that effect just about everything in the world: "hit points".
What is a "hit point"? In the first edition Player's Handbook, Gygax has this to say:
"Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has...a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four large warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment...Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers) and magical forces."
In 3.5, the same holds true. Someone posted on the chats that an 'official source' says it represents stamina and morale, but I'm having trouble finding that source at the moment. The point being that hit points, as a universal measurement of 'damage', are IMO allow for a very dramatist interpretation of what actually happens to a character in battle.
And this is where I have trouble describing damage. A fighter who gets "hit" with 20 arrows and is still up: does he really look like a porcupine? Is blood dripping on the ground? The rules are silent, and it's up to the DM to come up with any description he wants. The rules only cover what happens when the character is actually at 0.
The editorial talks about a 40 foot 'drop' (in the mine cart? not sure) and how as a player in 3.5 who was knowledgeable about the rules would be afraid for his character (but only because of his metagame knowledge of the rules). In 3.5, by 10th level this would be a 'fearless' metagame situation; you can jump from a 40 foot drop all you want with little fear (except maybe a few measly coins to McCleric). There is some type of change to the way falling damage works in 4th edition. It seems they are tying in what were Knowledge skills in 3.5 to..."survivability" might be a good word. My guess is that if you're in a tree and fall then Nature knowledge might be able to help you, but if you're underground then Dungeoneering might help. (I'm guessing the Acrobatics skill may also come into play.) Following the tradition of hit points, they might leave the 'how' this helps out of the core books.
That doesn't mean you can't add more simulationist mechanics to this core rule set. In the example of hit points, after our talks the new player came up with a chart where you roll for a hit location and compare the ratio of damage done with the amount of hit points left to determine the description of what happened. It's his interpretation, and it helps for someone like me to run certain games, but it's certainly not the only way chart or system you could come up with. (And this doesn't change the mechanics of hit points, it simply describes, objectively, what hit point damage really does to a character in the game world.) I'm guessing you could do the same to flesh out Acrobatics or Dungeoneering.
The character in the game world may not think that the 'sensible' thing to do is to get out of the mine cart and avoid the 40 foot jump. The player, using 3.5 metagame knowledge on the other hand, does. And the editor poking fun at him for it, which is a little offensive to players who are very good at using 3.5 metagame knowledge. :)
Another underlying theme in the article is that D&D stresses heroism. In the real world people occasionally fall off horses just from riding them and break their necks. In D&D (including 3.5) this will never happen by the rules. Heroes aren't crippled or scarred by mundane things. Using 3.5 core rules, characters will never have their hands chopped off in battle, they won't randomly die from the flu and they won't get the wind knocked out of them when they fall off a roof. In other game systems all of these things can happen, because they are simulating a more dangerous, grittier world. D&D simulates a more fictional world. Specifically, it simulates heroic fantasy fiction, from the trials of Beowulf to Leonidas to Hercules to King Arthur to Conan to Elric.
Does this mean 4th edition is building a bigger backdrop for heroics? It sounds like it's their goal, but let's examine the first example now.
The player has a rogue character. Forget the changes to the way traps are handled ('search' vs. knowledge) for a moment. Let's say you have a 3.5 rogue in the same scenario: there is a yuan-ti corpse holding a scroll tube. The question is, do you open it?
It depends on your perspective:
In Character Reward vs. Perceived 'Risk': How does your character know, in the game world, what the risk is of instant death will be? Has he had a lot of experience opening scroll tubes in dungeon before? How often are things trapped and cursed? How often have the rewards paid off? Is he particularly greedy and carefree most of the time? Are there legends about this particular area?
Metagame 'Risk': Is the DM using Tailored trap CRs or Status Quo trap CRs? A more realistic DM would use status quo CRs, meaning a level 1 party may find a trap that's CR 7 if they're exploring something that is very well protected. What is your search skill? If the encounters are 'tailored', then they're "beatable" by min-maxing search. What level are you? If you're 4th level, most CR 4 traps are going to do hit point damage and probably aren't going to kill you outright. If you're 10th level, however, you may want to stand 45 feet away, as a Wail of the Banshee trap has a fort save DC 23 or die (search DC 34).
In older editions, with tailored encounters the risk of instant, random death actually increases substantially at higher levels (whether it's combat or as they're discussing here with traps). This does not reflect what a 'Tailored' encounter should actually represent: a fair and balanced opportunity for players to use tactics or strategy (short term on the battlefield or long term in the stat block) to overcome a challenge. 3rd edition made great strides towards helping gamist DMs provide fair and balanced encounters and it sounds like 4th edition will continue that support.
But save or die is perfectly reasonable for a Status Quo scenario, which is what simulationism focuses on ("The world is not built around your challenge rating.") And even without seeing the rules, I can confidently say that Status Quo encounters, including traps, will be available and easy to provide in 4th edition. Woe to the player who tries to be fearless in ANY edition of D&D where encounters aren't tailored around the player's abilities! If you really think the scroll tube should be extremely dangerous then ratcheting up the CR will do what you want. The 'fear' of mechanics mentioned in the article has more to do with DMs who are using the gamist EL/CR system and not getting the expected results. In this case, they shouldn't fear that the DM who wants to be balanced will be screwed over by the EL mechanics. The EL mechanics are supposed to work!
This comes back to our discussion on play testing. I asked Paizo about Shackled City, Runelords and their other adventures. James Jacobs responded:
"We don't playtest in-house because we don't have time to do so. It's unfortunate, but true...For the most part, the CR system works pretty well at helping balance encounters, and after developing hundreds and hundreds of encounters, you get to be pretty good at eyeballing things yourself... but it's far from a perfect system, and now and then things get through that are too tough (or too easy). "
The EL/CR system is designed solely for gamism and for the DM and table who want to kick butt (I prefer the term Slayer personally).
Instead of asking whether a player should open the scroll tube or not, let's ask what the DM thinks should happen when the scroll tube is opened?
A simulationist is going to ask "who made this scroll tube, and what powers would they have had at their disposal, and what investment in protection did this scroll tube warrant?" The decision should try to be independent of the player characters capabilities.
A dramatist is going to ask "what impact will the scroll tube's reaction have on the player's story in this campaign?" If the contents are trivial, then the death of the protagonist seem 'unwarranted'. Perhaps the theme of the story is that recklessness leads to death, and thus the character should be punished for his fearless behavior.
A gamist DM is going to ask "what's a fair challenge to the player?" If you're designing a system that says "This is fair to the players" (CR 10 for a CR 10 party) and it doesn't seem fair, then there needs to be rework.
This is what the article is trying to praise: 4th edition can provide the tools to run a better gamist campaign. Does anyone see anything in the article that hints at simulationist hamstringing?
|
|
And this is where I have trouble describing damage. A fighter who gets "hit" with 20 arrows and is still up: does he really look like a porcupine? Is blood dripping on the ground? The rules are silent, and it's up to the DM to come up with any description he wants. The rules only cover what happens when the character is actually at 0.
Watch any action movie / TV series.
John McClane, Rambo, Jack Bauer or whomever Action Muffin of the moment is, gets zinged by bullets, flung through the air, rides explosions into (and sometimes through!) walls, showered in shrapnel, etc., etc. But rarely does a bullet fly right through him (and when it does, it's usually in the shoulder or through the leg or a bicep, which are completely non-vital bits of anatomy in Action Muffins, and do not contain muscles, ligaments, tendons, arteries or bones, so that they can continue to use the afflicted arm (or leg, with a limp) freely.
At the end of the movie, clothes are ripped, scars, bruises, sweat, streaks of blood, but the Action Muffin still has enough 'hit points' to swagger off into the sunset with Mrs. Muffin.
So an arrow, slices across the characters skin, leaving a bleeding scratch, but doesn't stick in unless it's that lucky arrow that takes them below 1 hit point. Sword hits that don't kill the dude probably slam into his side and knock the wind out of him (might have to tape those ribs afterwards!), but they don't open a huge gash or perforate his liver. A morningstar to the face doesn't tear his face clean off in bloody strips, it's more a close-in fighting thing where he mostly got tagged by a backhanded smack of the mace-handle while he and the evil priest were up in each others grills critiquing each others dentition. The wolf's teeth didn't actually break the skin when he gripped the wizard's robed arm, but they did leave nasty bruises and abrasions as the wizard yanked his arm free.
|
|
I definitely agree with those who have posted that it doesn't seem like they are actually playtesting... just sitting around and chatting and telling a story. What 4e mechanic was used for them to be able to splat the monsters on their shields? Which rules define how tough it is to jump a mine cart over a break in the tracks?
All through the article, all I could think was "Who hid Chris' ritalin and how long has he been off it?"
If you're trying to sell 3.5 fans on the new edition, then talk to us in the language we're used to hearing.
I'd also quite like to hear the details of some of these deaths - including mechanics involved.
The article reinforced the idea that 4e isn't for me. They are definitely refining their polarization of the market.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is what the article is trying to praise: 4th edition can provide the tools to run a better gamist campaign.
That's not what they are getting across though. That tirade was pure narratavism through and through. He opens a scroll and gets what? A dangerous trap that is within his capabilities? A puzzle geared towards his proficiencies? A mini-game? A dice roll? Heck no! He gets an arbitrary alien intellect living in his brain that starts acting as a tour guide around the dungeon facility. There's no gamist elements there. There's no simulationist elements either. It's just yarn spinning.
And while there's nothing wrong with narrativist games, I don't need three core books with promised sequels to play a narrativist game. There are some very good narrativist games that fit in a 60 page soft cover - with world over view.
They are traveling down the mine tunnel at high speed and a dark mantle gets a single attack on them as they zoom past. A simulationist or gamist would have the dark mantles survive a missed attack because well, they missed. But a narrativist realizes that the PCs probably aren't coming back this way again and the dark mantles can't catch up to the mine cart at the speed it's going so it doesn't really matter if the dark mantles who fail to latch on live or die. So they just die in a cool looking and narrative expanding fashion and they move on.
And while that kind of gaming can be cool, it doesn't sell me on the books because that kind of event is definitionally not going to be written in the book. The book says "do something cool and move on with the story" and now it falls to me to narrate the action and move the mantle attack forward to its conclusion.
What we are looking at is them passing the buck from the authors to the DM. And then they are sayng "We passed the buck to our DM and he totally picked up the slack!" Fine. That'll happen sometimes. And when I'm in the mood to try to do that I'll play a narrativist game like Münchhausen.
-Frank
That's not what they are getting across though. That tirade was pure narratavism through and through. He opens a scroll and gets what? A dangerous trap that is within his capabilities? A puzzle geared towards his proficiencies? A mini-game? A dice roll? Heck no! He gets an arbitrary alien intellect living in his brain that starts acting as a tour guide around the dungeon facility. There's no gamist elements there. There's no simulationist elements either. It's just yarn spinning.
That may be true (the adjudication methods weren't explained, and we're grasping at straws here), but I was referring specifically to save vs die effects and the level of 'fear'. There should be nothing to fear in a good gamist campaign; if you fail it will be because you made the wrong decision, but the challenge was presented in a rewarding and beatable manner. In a gamist campaign the challenge is the primary reason for play and should not be feared but welcomed!
With 3.5, many times the challenge is feared because in some cases what's labeled as balanced really isn't. The more random, unpredictable and more importantly uncontrollable death effects are the fewer the options available to the players. Gamists want strategy and tactics, and these things require options.
One bit of tidy cleanup. I think there were rules mentioned in the development blogs about falling and collisions. The old rule was 1d6 per 10' drop. The old darkmantle has a whopping average 142 hit points (which is just stupid, but I digress). That would mean that if the vehicle was fast enough to kill it, it would be going a mean of 95 squares a turn, or 475 feet a round. That's fast.
So from a simulationist perspective (by the way Takasi, I have to properly thank you for turning me onto that article) ain't never gonna' happen. So maybe there's a new scaling charge rule as things get faster to give them more punch at faster speeds. Maybe darkmantles just have more reasonable hit points--I think personally that 30 would be fine, though in my games they'd have MUCH less.
Point being that they're not necessarily just making this up. Rules exist for ajudicating this sort of thing, and it's possible they looked it up and went "Dang! We killed it".
Personally I think it's fine to cry foul and say the gameplay here is a little immature, but I dunno I think we've turned this thread into another one of those tired hater threads with all the "not fit for a 10 year old" "impossible to die as a character" "Playtesters goofing off on company time stuff."
Was it a thrilling article? Hardly, but I think there's a better than average chance that folks are doing their jobs and the game isn't the stupidest thing ever made.
One bit of tidy cleanup. I think there were rules mentioned in the development blogs about falling and collisions. The old rule was 1d6 per 10' drop. The old darkmantle has a whopping average 142 hit points (which is just stupid, but I digress). That would mean that if the vehicle was fast enough to kill it, it would be going a mean of 95 squares a turn, or 475 feet a round. That's fast.
My back of my hand math has 475 feet per round = 4750 feet per minute right? Which is a little short of a mile, meaning the cart would have to going ~50mph? That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. (Although in all fairness, the guy holding the shield should probably be taking some sort of beating if the game really has rules for this level of simulation!)
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
A comment and two questions regarding "dying in one roll," from someone who doesn't mind that mechanic:
Let's say that Donan the Barbarian needs to make a Fortitude save or die. After all the modifiers are applied, he'll die if he rolls a 10 or below, live if he rolls an 11 or above.
Question 1 -- Let's say that, instead, we'll roll a twenty-sided die repeatedly. Five sides are black, five sides are red, and the other ten sides are neutral. We keep rolling the die until either the red total or black total is two greater than the other. If the red total is greater, Donan is dead. If the black total is greater, Donan lives.
The chance for living is still 50%, but now we have an indefinite series of rolls rather than one single "save or die" roll.
Do the people who hate the idea of a "single roll sve or die" mechanic consider this to be better? Why or why not?
Comment -- These kinds of things don't happen in a vacuum. Donan needed to do things, the player needed to make choices, that brought the character into this situation.
If you don't ever want to fail a saving throw, don't put your character in a situation where he might have to roll one.
Question 2 -- There are already a lot of game mechanics that ameliorate "save or die" effects, the Luck domain reroll power, Action Points, and so on. Do those make a difference to people's dislike of the perilous save?
|
|
The thing is, risking a well loved PC to achieve some lofty quest is well and good, but if there aren't comparable risks up to that final climax, then what's the point?
I guess I should have said that it is the whole fight against evil. I agree that risk should be there at every stage of the game but it should always be proportional to the reward and to the advancement of the story.
Imagine 1st level hobbit thief Biblo Baggins as he walks out his door and a vicious house cat decides he looks tasty. He is surprised because he failed his spot check. The cat beats him for initiative. The cat charges in the surprise round and crits and confirms. During his first full round the cat crits again - poor dead Bilbo and his 1-6 hit points.
But the DM was only trying to test the combat system. He did not mean to wipe out the party before it started.
PCs should not fear horrible death unless they are actually putting their lives on the line as the heroes that they are. I have seen first level parties decimated by the pit trap at the entrance to a dungeon. They never even got to the first encounter.
Frankly, that sucks.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
PCs should not fear horrible death unless they are actually putting their lives on the line as the heroes that they are. I have seen first level parties decimated by the pit trap at the entrance to a dungeon. They never even got to the first encounter.
Frankly, that sucks.
Hello, CWM. I think you meant to say "They never even got to the second encounter." (grin)
Actually, I think that the entrance to the first dungeon is a great time for a total-party-kill. The players aren't terribly atached to the characters yet; there's no hand-wringing about whether anybody should come and raise their sorry butts.
And it teaches a lesson: dungeons are trapped. I'll betcha the next group of PCs were more careful.
--
The more general point, I'll also have to disagree with. Minor encounters, encounters along the way, side treks, traps, wandering monsters... there always has to be some chance that a character will die.
Otherwise, the players will know that these side encounters can't be deadly, and will take foolish risks. Why even bother to check the doors for traps, if you know that neither the potential trap nor whatever else is waiting behind the doors will ever be really lethal?
I'm reminded of the standard scene / dramatic scene mechanic in TORG/MasterBook, where the dramatic scenes were a lot more lethal than the standard ones, but a serious threat in the standard scenes could still take out a PC.
|
|
I have seen first level parties decimated by the pit trap at the entrance to a dungeon. They never even got to the first encounter.
Frankly, that sucks.
Sure does. And 4th Edition, unless it takes the GM completely out of the equation, isn't going to be able to do a thing to stop a GM from putting something at the entrance of the dungeon that can kill the entire party. That kind of scenario is not the games fault.
The game doesn't have any rule at all that requires one to put a trap at the entrance to the dungeon that can kill the entire party on a bad roll.
It's all GM choice, and if 4th Edition doesn't take away that GM choice, there are GMs out there that will make that choice. Some might even be silly enough to blame the game for their deliberate choice to put something like that at the beginning of the encounter, instead of say, flipping a coin and telling the players that their characters all died of smallpox.
|
|
The more general point, I'll also have to disagree with. Minor encounters, encounters along the way, side treks, traps, wandering monsters... there always has to be some chance that a character will die.Otherwise, the players will know that these side encounters can't be deadly, and will take foolish risks. Why even bother to check the doors for traps, if you know that neither the potential trap nor whatever else is waiting behind the doors will ever be really lethal?
I guess that is a style of play thing. My players know they won't die during an early encounter but they know that I will kill them if they start acting stupid. They know that if they act the hero - the smart and savvy hero - then they will be able to meet the challenges I throw at them.
I like the Star Wars d6 and 7th Sea approach - if a character is trying to be heroic at the right time and with appropriate dramatic flair then the universe should reward him or her.
If they act dumb or reckless then they should be reminded - in the Lovecraftian sense - that doom lurks just beyond the veil.
You know what would make me a very happy D&D player/GM make the game less lethal for low level play and more lethal at higher levels. That combined with the removal of bang-your-dead effects would feel just right.
|
|
Sure does. And 4th Edition, unless it takes the GM completely out of the equation, isn't going to be able to do a thing to stop a GM from putting something at the entrance of the dungeon that can kill the entire party. That kind of scenario is not the games fault.
Its not the GMs fault either. Its also the fault of the mod writer and the whole EL nonsense.
10 foot pit - spikes at the bottom.
4 player party.
Rogue and Cleric in the front Wizards and Ranger in the back.
Rogue misses the search check.
Rouge and Cleric blow the balance check.
They each go splat/poke and die.
GM announces - OK that was stupid. No more pits. You guys are alive as we take a step back in time.
GM (me) takes a pen and crosses out all remaining pit traps from the map.
The more general point, I'll also have to disagree with. Minor encounters, encounters along the way, side treks, traps, wandering monsters... there always has to be some chance that a character will die.
Otherwise, the players will know that these side encounters can't be deadly, and will take foolish risks. Why even bother to check the doors for traps, if you know that neither the potential trap nor whatever else is waiting behind the doors will ever be really lethal?
Again, I don't see anything yet that says in 4th edition DM's cannot introduce a chance for a character to die.
The chance may be minimal or it may be extremely likely.
If the chance of random death is 100% and the only strategy available to avoid it is retirement then the game is a failure IMO.
More importantly, if these encounters are touted as balanced then it's not only a failure but it's also a lie.
...
The chance for living is still 50%, but now we have an indefinite series of rolls rather than one single "save or die" roll.Do the people who hate the idea of a "single roll sve or die" mechanic consider this to be better? Why or why not?
Of course that's not better, since that's the same thing. The idea behind "not dying in one roll" is that the player has a chance to react and decide whether he wants to risk his character's life or whether he wants to back down.
So, it's like you're saying, you need to make choices to put your character in the situation, except now it's explicit. There's less of a chance that you'll stumble into a save-or-die situation by accident, and more of a chance for your character to make a dramatic stand, knowing what the risks and rewards are.
So really, I don't dislike save-or-die when, like you said, it's from a situation that the player has made meaningful choices to put himself into. But I don't think retire a character or keep adventuring is a meaningful choice. Opening a random door or not is not a meaningful choice. Something where there are actual game mechanics saying that "this round, you are much closer to death than the last--are you sure you want to keep fighting?" is much better. And I think that's more along the lines of what's been indicated in 4th edition.
And as a DM, in a way I like it better this way. Death is cheapened when it's random or arbitrary. And if the players choose to retreat, rather than risk character death, it's much more memorable, I think, than just killing them off because they had misjudged the fight.
One bit of tidy cleanup. I think there were rules mentioned in the development blogs about falling and collisions. The old rule was 1d6 per 10' drop. The old darkmantle has a whopping average 142 hit points (which is just stupid, but I digress). That would mean that if the vehicle was fast enough to kill it, it would be going a mean of 95 squares a turn, or 475 feet a round. That's fast.
142 hit points? Which version of the Darkmantle is this? The 3.5 Darkmantle only had 6 hit points. Did they significantly change the monster along the way?
---
I felt, from the way he was describing his character, that he was being overly reckless. However some of the things he described interested me; those were more numerous than the things that irritated me.
I like that it seems that one bad (including things that were good choices overall, but bad in this one specific point) move will not cause the immediate demise of a character. I have had several characters that have died in a single round for such "mistakes" as taking point (as I was the character with the highest AC and hp), standing behind the person leading the party, getting in the way of an orc (with, again, among the highest AC and hp in the party).
I have been de-synthesized to instantaneous character death. It isn't exciting any more. Hell, I've often come to the conclusion to have my character's act without fear (at least in 3.5) because I know the DM can and will kill me at any time no matter what I do and no matter how prepared I am. They are just as likely to kill me when I'm acting stupidly than when I'm acting intelligently.
I like my deaths when they are drawn out over the course of a battle because there is a chance I still might survive the battle and that very minor detail makes the encounter much more exciting for myself.
Hrm. Having read the article, I didn't really get the hate for old edition vibe you got, Dis, but then I haven't been picking up on it in any of the previews really.
I am not certain how you mean hate. Without context, I take hate to mean the vile, nasty, emotion that usually leads to some form of legal intervention. On the other hand, you could mean "hate," in the current usage that encompasses all emotions/thoughts that run contrary to a subject - much like people can say that I "hate" 4th Edition.
But even the latter isn't correct. My point was that the chosen language is insulting to those that enjoy, and perhaps prefer, the older editions. And, I admit, when I reread my post I see I forgot to add in "At least it can be taken as insulting."They can't refer back to older editions, or if they do, only in a positive light?
Can't is a bit strong... But it isn't important. If they can, or can't, doesn't matter. Ideally, they shouldn't. There are many reasons for this, but the one that stands out most to me is that if we take WotC at their word - they intend to keep current customers. If this is true, why even risk alienating them? Don't even mention previous editions.
Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps ;-), you don't know this - but this is how I feel about all advertising. Not just D&D. If you (or a product) can't stand on your (or its) own merits - you have no business standing.
Disenchanter, I think you are reading more into it that you should be.
Oh, I admit that. It has become reflex, unfortunately. But it seems I am not the only one. For what that is worth.
I like that it seems that one bad (including things that were good choices overall, but bad in this one specific point) move will not cause the immediate demise of a character. I have had several characters that have died in a single round for such "mistakes" as taking point (as I was the character with the highest AC and hp), standing behind the person leading the party, getting in the way of an orc (with, again, among the highest AC and hp in the party).
Actually I'm pretty sure that the mistake of "taking point" can still drop you, even kill you.
What they've promised is that you don't roll saves; and that reactions to your actions won't be lethal.
The threat such as it is (and this is more DM dependent than rules dependent) is handed out by Team Monster. You don't "have to worry about rolling a 1 on a save" because you don't get to make saves. Team Monster gets their turn and they hand out their attacks however they want. You no longer die because of your bad roll, you die because the enemies made some good rolls while it wasn't your turn and there wasn't anything you could do about it. If your DM plays with a screen you don't even get to see those rolls, your character just takes a bunch of damage and drops.
In 3rd edition you can go down in one round because both minotaurs chose to charge you and rolled well on their attacks. Or you can go down in one round because the enemy spellcaster cast something battle ending on you and you failed your saving throw. In 4e they have "eliminated" the second option only by redefining it as an attack roll. So now you can be dropped by having the minotaurs hit you with their gore, or by having the enemy wizard cast something game ending on you and "hitting" with it.
Save or Die is dead. Long live Succeed and Win. It's totally different and more fun because the target doesn't get to roll any dice at all.
-Frank
|
|
I have been de-synthesized to instantaneous character death. It isn't exciting any more. Hell, I've often come to the conclusion to have my character's act without fear (at least in 3.5) because I know the DM can and will kill me at any time no matter what I do and no matter how prepared I am. They are just as likely to kill me when I'm acting stupidly than when I'm acting intelligently.
I like my deaths when they are drawn out over the course of a battle because there is a chance I still might survive the battle and that very minor detail makes the encounter much more exciting for myself.
I'm not trying to pick on you but, you sir have a poor DM and no matter what edition you play will have issues. A DM should be impartial but also fair. Especially when it advances the story.
I've run games where I've killed party members out of the blue (Tomb of horrors I'm looking at you), it's nice to remind people they're not strolling through the park there. But I don't have my players jumping at their own shadows and twitching uncontrollably like an ADD ferret on blow. No random save or die minefields. That would detract from the drama of character death. Hard to advance the plot when everyone keeps dying on you or there's a TPK.
It's really quite simple, if you're smart and take precautions you have greater than normal chance of survival. Still things could go against you and you could end up dead through no fault of your own. That's life. Big risks, big wins. If that's a problem then your character should have taken up the profession of baker or something.
If you're dumb and go around kicking in doors, poking, eating and trying on everything at random sooner or later they're going to be sweeping you up with a dustbroom. That's something we like to call consequences.
I don't like a system that encourages this dumb kind of play or coddles players because sooner or later, system or not I'd have to wield that big ol club called logic and take your character out for some ridiculous behavior. And maybe, just maybe that player will learn something.
In 4e they have "eliminated" the second option only by redefining it as an attack roll.
I don't think that's true.
In 3rd edition there are many opporunities at the non "sweet spot" levels of play (starting out and in the mid teens and up) where you might only get one round, if that, to do one thing. So it's 6 seconds and you're dead.
In 4th edition, they are changing the scale of combat time so that you get at least a few rounds (whether that's 30-60 seconds or not, I'm not sure) before anything is probably going to kill you. So while you may still die, you at least get a chance to do something heroic before that happens.
Implying that it's just 'smoke and mirrors' of changing the save roll to an enemy's attack is IMO completely inaccurate.
It's really quite simple, if you're smart and take precautions you have greater than normal chance of survival.
That's one style of play (gamism) that requires a system to allow that.
It is arguable that 3.5 fails to deliver that.
Regardless of precautions, if you play the rules by RAW you have a greater than normal chance of failure even if you follow the EL system. Unless you're in the sweet spot, which is what 4th edition is promising to improve.
If you don't want a gamist campaign then you shouldn't be following a tailored EL system in the first place.
This is precisely what I DON'T like. When I get attacked, I want my saving throw in MY hands, not hidden behind a screen, not stuffed in a secret box, none of that. Even if the saving throw is completely unmakable, I have a CHANCE to roll a 20.