Hilarious 4e Anti-Immersion

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:53 pm

So, what are some examples of this sort of thing. I played 4e only briefly, and tried not to fight the current, so I wasn't looking for any.

Is there really stuff like: 'Oh, you can summon fire to burn mobs enemies, but not scenery grass?'

sake · Post by **sake** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:31 pm

To be fair, 3ed had that sort of silliness too. Fiery bursts of magic that didn't actually ignite anything or have an blast effect and all that.

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:43 pm

sake wrote:To be fair, 3ed had that sort of silliness too. Fiery bursts of magic that didn't actually ignite anything or have an blast effect and all that.

Can you be more specific? A lot of the fire spells, like Fireball and Flaming Sphere and Fire Seeds specifically mention how they set things on fire and melt them.

Indeed, consider this thread open to submission of hilarious 3.x anti-immersion as well, but be specific.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:00 am

Well, it's partly taste. Still, off the top of my head, I've seen comments that:

Certain classes having encounter/dailies:

"Quick, Thor - throw your hammer at him!"
"Umm... sorry, I already threw my hammer once today, and now I can't remember how that works."

Minions get negative immersion points for the "no damage on a miss, but the smallest amount of auto-damage is lethal" mechanic.

Some powers that have insufficient flavour text. So you know that Come and Get It forces enemies to move next to the fighter, but you have to guess that this is because the fighter yawns really hard.

PCs have much more magical stuff than NPCs and Monsters, for seemingly no reason, though the stuff that NPCs and Monsters have is better, on average, than the stuff that PCs have.

Skill Challenges encourage folks to care about mechanics when they want to care about bluffing the Queen of the Desert.

The object damage rules are wildly unrealistic if the DM doesn't intervene regularly.

shau · Post by **shau** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:14 am

The item system. To be more specific, the fact that enemies drop stuff like Diablo mobs do.

Healing surges: I have no idea what this supposed these are supposed to represent in the real world. You try describing the idea of "I can heal very quickly once per combat or every five minutes thereafter, but I can only do this a certain amount if times per day dependent upon my job." and not have it sound fake.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:57 am

shau wrote: Healing surges: I have no idea what this supposed these are supposed to represent in the real world. You try describing the idea of "I can heal very quickly once per combat or every five minutes thereafter, but I can only do this a certain amount if times per day dependent upon my job." and not have it sound fake.

Seems like the sort of recovery system most action heroes have. Where they get beat up in one scene, but in the next they're fine.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:48 am

The point of healing surges was to make it so that a hero can make their way through a workday of variable but ultimately limited workday without being significantly weakened from encounter #1 or #3 because of their health.

I mean, really, if you had no healing in your game and just gave everyone the hit points they were supposed to have up ahead of time, how the heck do you threaten heroes who are on their first or second encounter? You don't. You either up the challenge to force them to burn all of their spoon at once (and eliminate the whole point of having multiple encounters) or you bore the hell out of the players for encounters #1 and #2. If they have no chance of losing the first two encounters because they have so many hit points, then where's the suspense?

NoobCrusher · Post by **NoobCrusher** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 4:00 am

shau wrote: Healing surges: I have no idea what this supposed these are supposed to represent in the real world. You try describing the idea of "I can heal very quickly once per combat or every five minutes thereafter, but I can only do this a certain amount if times per day dependent upon my job." and not have it sound fake.

Hit points are an abstract concept. Every time you lose them it doesn't necessarily represent a wound. It could be you defending an attack but becoming more fatigued. Technically speaking, the only damage that has to be a wound is that which drops your character to 0 or below. And even then, an enemy can opt to make it a non-lethal knock-out.

Losing half of your surges when failing to navigate through a swamp represents fatigue as well.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 4:53 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I mean, really, if you had no healing in your game and just gave everyone the hit points they were supposed to have up ahead of time, how the heck do you threaten heroes who are on their first or second encounter? You don't. You either up the challenge to force them to burn all of their spoon at once (and eliminate the whole point of having multiple encounters) or you bore the hell out of the players for encounters #1 and #2. If they have no chance of losing the first two encounters because they have so many hit points, then where's the suspense?

What I do for my 3.5 games now is just give the PCs full HP at the end of each encounter. HP, like ToB maneuvers are simply something that comes back, which makes the fighter types true kings of daily endurance. Burning a spell slot means it's gone for some period of time. Burning up HP only hurts you if you totally run out. When you run out, then you can actually take some degree of lasting injury that may afflict you for the rest of the adventure.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:58 am

Anti-immersive stupidity:

Daily and Encounter powers that have no reason to be limited to once a day/encounter. See Whirlwind Attack. You could set up the exact same situation, but won't be able to use your daily again, because, hey, "it's not exactly the same somehow". Those kind of powers just appear as giant "Hey, it's just a game!" signs to me.

Schrodinger's Wound: If below 0 hp, until you make your save or fail it for the third time, you have no idea whether the blow that struck you down was just a nick (you can get up again with no serious wounds) or a fatal blow (major blood vessel cut, you're bleeding to death). And so your friends, no matter how much knowledge about anatomy and medicine they have, not even if they had a spell running that let them see any wound you took, have no idea whether you're just knocked out or dieing.

At least without healing surges I can rule that the blow that struck you unconscious did actual damage, and how much, since you'll not be able to jump up as good as new with a healing surge expended, but require time or magical healing.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:05 am

The merchants rule is pretty ridiculous. You can buy any item in the game from peddlers without a roll, but if you kill a peddler they don't drop a smorgasbord of level appropriate equipment. Also they sell everything to you at a +20% markup except residuum which they sell to you at cost. This despite the fact that in the hands of an enchanter (or anyone trying to make a living on rituals), residuum is literally twice as valuable as its gold cost. So the item merchants seriously screw you on every thing except the stuff they personally get financial benefit from holding onto.

-Username17

Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp · Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:06 am

NoobCrusher wrote:
shau wrote: Healing surges: I have no idea what this supposed these are supposed to represent in the real world. You try describing the idea of "I can heal very quickly once per combat or every five minutes thereafter, but I can only do this a certain amount if times per day dependent upon my job." and not have it sound fake.
Hit points are an abstract concept. Every time you lose them it doesn't necessarily represent a wound. It could be you defending an attack but becoming more fatigued. Technically speaking, the only damage that has to be a wound is that which drops your character to 0 or below. And even then, an enemy can opt to make it a non-lethal knock-out.

Losing half of your surges when failing to navigate through a swamp represents fatigue as well.

All the descriptions from the 4e game describe "Hits" and "Taking Damage" so what you're saying while fine for houserules is not the default state of the game.

No you get Stabbed in the Face and Take 11 Damage

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:37 am

The enemy can't really make the last blow a wound. If you make your save then it wasn't a wound, just a knock on the head, since after a healing surge you're up and running again. Only when you fail your save it is a wound - a deadly wound even.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:55 pm

Simplest anti-immersion thing in 4e:
death.

You've got a guy down, helpless and bound. You can't just kill him. You've got to saw through all his hit points over again.

Well, OK, or he's a monster, and he dies at 0 and you can't take him captive.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:03 pm

Padded Sumo, till death do us part.

Amra · Post by **Amra** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:00 pm

Yeah, that really really sucks. How're you supposed to kidnap the bad guy and terrify the information out of him when? Oh, I forgot, you're not. Even if you somehow manage to flange getting one of the mind-flayer's Ogre minions tied up so you can learn the layout of the underground lair, he'll die from the fucking rope-burns before you can ask him a question.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:14 pm

Amra wrote:Yeah, that really really sucks. How're you supposed to kidnap the bad guy and terrify the information out of him when? Oh, I forgot, you're not. Even if you somehow manage to flange getting one of the mind-flayer's Ogre minions tied up so you can learn the layout of the underground lair, he'll die from the fucking rope-burns before you can ask him a question.

This just gave me a funny idea.

Every minion has a CAT in their pocket. It is just an ordinary cat, except smart enough to be trained to scratch the minion if things are not going well for it. So they capture the minion, and try to get information out of them? The CAT pops the minion instantly, so you can't learn anything.

The sad thing is that as utterly stupid as such an idea is, it would actually fit right in with all the other 4.Fail bullshit.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:36 pm

Amra wrote:Even if you somehow manage to flange getting one of the mind-flayer's Ogre minions tied up so you can learn the layout of the underground lair, he'll die from the fucking rope-burns before you can ask him a question.

He won't, because you can knock anyone unconscious instead of killing them when you take them to 0 hit points. Even if you're attacking them by dropping rocks on their head. Non-lethal rocks fall, everyone is unconscious.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:38 pm

Wait, CdG doesn't exist in 4e?

Fuck the what.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:40 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Wait, CdG doesn't exist in 4e?

It does, but it just does an automatic crit. You can end up CdGing a healthy person a few times before killing them.

Lich-Loved · Post by **Lich-Loved** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:43 pm

MartinHarper wrote:Non-lethal rocks fall, everyone is unconscious.

This really, really should be a sig for someone that posts in 4e forums.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:59 pm

Funny how they went from DNS (that's Death No Save) to Just Can't Die.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:49 pm

You can also knock enemies unconscious with a fireball, lightning, or even acid attack in DnD4.0.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:05 pm

Doom314 wrote:You can also knock enemies unconscious with a fireball, lightning, or even acid attack in DnD4.0.

Big T swallows you, chews a bit, and makes you swim in stomach acid for a few hours. You are unconscious.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:59 pm

Hey! Unconscious? I still have a healing surge and can roll a natural 20 to jump up to my feet and get devoured for several more rounds!