I waste it with my crossbow! Until the end of time!

[Lago PARANOIA]

One of the things I have noticed about 4E D&D is that there are rarely any situations where a players' tactic Just Doesn't Work. There are a couple of situations (like an ooze from the MM2 that spawns rather fierce minions if you use melee attacks) to the contrary, but for the most part you rarely if ever need to go to a backup weapon or tactic.

Now before you accuse me of making yet another rant against 4E, I just want to say that I have observed is that this is what people like about that game. People don't like having their martial artists picking of ghost touch nunchakus (I sure didn't) nor do they really care for wizards having to resort to swinging their staff if they get immobilized with an enemy adjacent to them. I'm in fact sympathetic to the viewpoint that people shouldn't regularly have to engage in actions that break their character concept or have to sit out for an entire combat because they're blaster wizards facing a golem but I also don't care for the idea that a barbarian with a greataxe is just as good for a generic situation as a wizard with a wand of magic missiles.

Thoughts?

[Roy]

It's the primary reason why there is no strategy and tactics in 4.Fail, why 4.Fail is an accurate name for the edition, and why all that really matters is getting your numbers up and spamming the same trick.

On the meta level this gives you four clones and a booster parties.

When the 3.5 Wizard uses something like Silent Image to negate the golem instead of a standard win spell, he is doing something different. He is adapting to changing circumstances, and his decisions do matter. Therefore he is able to meaningfully influence the outcome with his decisions.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

I'm not a big fan of attacks of opportunity or the golfbag of weapons effect that can happen in D&D. I'm of the fan that +1 weapons can hit incorporeal folks without problem with no need for further enchantments.

My biggest annoyance is when people insist on using their greatsword all the time and refusing or forgetting to bring a bow along with them.

This issue can be annoying for Fire Mages who find themselves fighting fire resistant or immune creatures all the time. The flavor is a Fire Mage who always uses fire yet there's a string of enemies he's gimped at fighting.

[NineInchNall]

I also don't care for the idea that a barbarian with a greataxe is just as good for a generic situation as a wizard with a wand of magic missiles.

Thoughts?

This is exactly what the CR system dictates. Against a generic opponent of CR X, a character of any class C and level X will have a roughly 50% chance of victory.

Against a specific opponent the odds may shift to favor one character of class C' rather than one of class C''.

This sort of situation is precisely what we want, because it incentivizes diverse parties without necessitating them. Character A can rely on Character B to pick up some of the slack in a situation in which he's weak; Character B can expect the same of Character C; likewise, character C leans on D, who leans on A to complete the circle.

[Doom]

Part of the reason for this is characters of DnD4.0 hyperspecialize in their weapons (and associated tactics)...past a few levels, DnD4.0 characters simply can't viably use anything but their chosen weapons, forcing tactics to narrow down sharply.

I remember years ago in Dungeons and Dragons, one series of adventures centered around a +5 artifact battleaxe. It was completely understood that someone in the party would be able to use it, and the two (three?) times I did those adventures, it was no problem, there was always a fighter or paladin in the party, at the least, if not a fighter/magic-user or something.

Adventures like that can't exist in DnD4.0. You pretty much have to pick weapons off the Santa list players are supposed to provide, a 'random' weapon is nigh guaranteed to be a useless weapon, even if it's much 'higher level' than what any of the characters are using (any artifact weapons in DnD4.0?).

When I did the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks pseudo-conversion, my DnD4.0 players nearly went ballistic when they found out vegepygmies were highly resistant to piercing attacks (only take 1 point of damage, and I didn't use minions per se). Even the bow ranger, carrying melee weapons, went round after round in frustration with the +3 vicious bow rather than whip out anything else; the thought that a non-magical tool might be better just isn't in the mindset for this game.

[NineInchNall]

And to be fair, that's a much more accessible paradigm than one that forces players to do things that aren't part of their character concepts. It's one of the things that makes the Fire Mage a paragon of good class design: its schtick is never entirely negated, so people can always continue flinging fire - with some fights being easier or harder than the norm. That's the way it should god-damned-be.

It's also why I rather like the Druid as a class. It's pretty good (without being the best) at everything. In fact, it is the true jack-of-all-trades class in the PHB - fuck the bard. In every encounter, the Druid player has something useful and level appropriate to do that is completely in line with the class's flavor.

[Username17]

A character archetype should have something within their playspace defined for every kind of situation they are expected to be confronted with. At the point you are asking Fighters to have remembered to purchase some item that lets them mimic a Cleric so that they can adventure in the planes, your design has failed. At the point in which the party Brujah is left to go play Smash Brothers during the entire party scene because he has nothing to add to the 90 minute negotiation, your design has failed.

But just because the character should have something defined into their play space that allows them to contribute to the situations that the game expects to demand of them, doesn't mean that those contributions should be exactly the same action every time. Indeed, at the point in which the other players can essentially memorize your character's actions and repeat them verbatim whether you're in the room or not - your design has failed.

To have a character's contributions be both in-character and interesting, they should have something defined for them to do that is in character to all of the defined challenge types. It's OK, even desirable for different characters to be differently good at the different challenges in your game, but every character should be able to do something that is in-character.

And that is actually why "Fighter" is such a piss-poor concept for a character. There are lots of challenges that cannot meaningfully be addressed by anything that is particularly describable as "Fighting" so there's just no way for such a narrow and awkwardly defined character to stay in-character while dealing with all the challenges in any RPG worthy of the name.

-Username17

[shadzar]

My biggest annoyance is when people insist on using their greatsword all the time and refusing or forgetting to bring a bow along with them.

I think the big thing in that is that anyone can swing a stick/sword quite usefully after only a few tries, but to use a projectile takes more training and practice. This sits i the back of people's mind as a rel world fact, and thankfully does get translated over into the game.

Could you imagine just anyone picking up a bow and using it effectively the first time. Then you would really have little need for swords at all if this was the case.

[Josh_Kablack]

My issue is that in 4e (and a bunch of other RPGs) the incentives for specializing are so good that which tactic a player will use is going to be decided at chargen, rather than round-by-round, or even encounter by encounter.

I personally would like to see a game where the specializations are either much broader or incentivized much less strongly, so that tactically viable choices are determined by the encounter rather than by the character build.

Conceptually a Fire Mage should mainly deal damage by setting enemies on fire, but should also have other options for dealing with non-flammable opponents. Spells which cause smoke to provide concealment or choke enemies are in-theme. Spells which destroy flammable parts of the environment to deal falling damage to enemies are in-theme. Spells which blind or distract via bright or pretty lights are in-theme. Even melting surrounding rock to encase foes in lava that hardens back to stone is in theme for a Fire Mage. So while a fire mage would find Fireball, Scorching Ray and Burning Hands useless against a Flame Spirit Pyrotechnics would still the ability to blind and confuse such enemies in a meaningful way.

So most, but not all Fire Mage Spells should also be [Fire] spells that deal Fire damage. And then the specialization options (feats, build options, etc) available for Fire Mage should apply to all Fire Mage Spells, even the ones that deal [Blinding Light] instead of fire and the ones that are tagged as [Rock] spells. Because one the player is allowed to dump resources into "does extra damage when doing Fire damage" that punishes them for taking any abilities which do not deal fire damage, and leads to them being not merely limited in options when facing fire-immune creatures, but actually useless. And that leads to the game where each PC is asking the DM "will this adventure be against my character's Kryptonite?" each and every session. And while that's a fine game, it's called Mother May I, which offers only limited roleplaying and replay opportunities

[NineInchNall]

anyone can swing a stick/sword quite usefully after only a few tries

This is false. It is false to such a large degree that I'm genuinely starting to suspect you were intending to be ironic.

[RandomCasualty2]

One of the things I have noticed about 4E D&D is that there are rarely any situations where a players' tactic Just Doesn't Work.

Yeah, this is one of my major complaints about the edition. You can basically pick one schtick and just do that forever. There just aren't any tactical counters to many things, like healing especially.

[Josh_Kablack]

There just aren't any tactical counters to many things, like healing especially.

And on the flipside, there is just about nothing the PCs can do about harmful monster auras. Sure some are [fire] tagged or something so a resistance might apply, but other crap causes difficult terrain (battlebriar) or does untyped damage (lamia) and there is jack you can do about that other than not be in melee.

[RandomCasualty2]

And on the flipside, there is just about nothing the PCs can do about harmful monster auras. Sure sure are [fire] tagged or something so a resistance might apply, but other crap causes difficult terrain (battlebriar) or does untyped damage (lamia) and there is jack you can do about that other than not be in melee.

Yeah, the swarms especially were bullshit, since the crap hit you if you started in the aura, which pretty much wasn't even your choice anyway and there was nothing you could do about it.

4E really should have had auras take effect at the end of your turn, so you had a chance to get away from them.

[hogarth]

One of the things I have noticed about 4E D&D is that there are rarely any situations where a players' tactic Just Doesn't Work.

Yeah, this is one of my major complaints about the edition. You can basically pick one schtick and just do that forever. There just aren't any tactical counters to many things, like healing especially.

I've been playing a sorcerer in a 4E game (I think we're level 2 or 3 right now) and literally 90+% of what I do is say: "I shoot the monster with my Acid Orb". I agree that it wouldn't be an improvement to go to 50% "Acid Orb" and 50% "crossbow", but neither option is very exciting.

[shadzar]

anyone can swing a stick/sword quite usefully after only a few tries

This is false. It is false to such a large degree that I'm genuinely starting to suspect you were intending to be ironic.

Ok pit them against each other. One person that ha never used a sword, and another that has never used a bow, and let them go at each other.

Which will be more effective?

The bow wielder can get a lucky shot, but it won't stop the sword user.

The sword user on the other hand will easily figure out how to not only disable the bow user, but defeat them as well.

Remember that clubs were used before stones were as weapons, because they ARE in fact an easier method to employ, if at times a less effective one.

[Crissa]

shad, I'm not sure what the point is that melee weapons are easier to employ.

-Crissa

[shadzar]

shad, I'm not sure what the point is that melee weapons are easier to employ.

-Crissa

Then maybe try reading from the beginning?

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=131043#131043

It is right there for anyone that actually reads.

[Thymos]

So basically the point to this is never make a character that can only do one thing?

Doesn't this royally fuck 4e concept of role protection?

[RandomCasualty2]

So basically the point to this is never make a character that can only do one thing?

Doesn't this royally fuck 4e concept of role protection?

Yeah, pretty much. But it's a better way to do something. So you have some situations where the sorcerer is invested in counterspelling the enemy mage and the fighter has to get to him and kill him. Other times the sorcerer is preparing some big blasting spell while the fighter holds off the trolls.

Specialties should be more like "Good at stabbing squishy targets, weak against soaking will attacks, strong against soaking physical attacks."

And you swap out actual "roles" as 4E considers them, where sometimes the fighter is the defender.

Honestly, I always thought almost everyone should be able to do some kind of mark, it'd be a good way to fix the focus fire problem if all monsters and PCs could mark people and divide the combat into pairs that way.

[hogarth]

So basically the point to this is never make a character that can only do one thing?

Personally, I'd be happier to have three powers that I each use about 30% of the time than one power I use 80% of the time and two powers I used 10% of the time. Now all of those three powers could do the same "one thing", broadly speaking, as long as there are sufficient occasions for using each of them (e.g. Scorching Ray, Fireball, Flaming Sphere).

My complaint with 4E is that there are hundreds of powers like: "slightly worse than your best attack, but with a side effect that has a 10% chance of actually being useful".

[shadzar]

So basically the point to this is never make a character that can only do one thing?

Doesn't this royally fuck 4e concept of role protection?

That is the same thought I have had about min-maxing/optimizing all throughout the games history.

When your shtick isn't useful, you're screwed.

It was the same trying to make the cleric a walking first-aid kit. There wa so much more a cleric could do, as could any other class in the past.

The narrow view of doing only one thing can lead to many problems, be it choosing a sword only to the exclusion of all other weapons such as bow, or just about anything else.

D&D, for one, is a game about being versatile. You never know what you will run up against, so you have to be ready for anything, or at least be prepared with the knowledge you could run into anything.

[Thymos]

To be honest all these discussions about versatility of characters reminds me of the MegaMan and Castlevania games.

Those games have to let the player have access to Every power in the game in order for that player to vary up their power.

When games, like Pokemon, Oblivion, or Fallout force plays to spend points to gain power, and the points can result in a more powerful option (in Fallout 3 for example there is little point in putting points in anything other than a single weapon category until it's maxed) the player doesn't really have a choice of what he does every combat. He's going to shoot his crossbow.

It seems the only real way to let players do things other than shoot their crossbow at every enemy they come across is to give them points that cannot make them better at crossbow shooting and can make some other option just as good.

To contrast Devil May Cry 1 with Devil May Cry 3, in DMC you had easily enough points to buy every power for your weapons (I had every power maxed out on my first play through of normal mode before I even tried the other modes). The result of this was that for each boss I could choose which weapon I felt like, and switch them up if I felt one would be more effective. In Devil May Cry 3 I did not have this surplus of points, and because of this while initially before I maxed out a weapon I might switch it up, but once one of the weapons became a larger enough increase over the others I wouldn't bother with the others until they were maxed as well.

My point is that to have players diversify what powers or schticks they use we can't hold onto role protection being enforced by only allowing players to do one thing.

This is part of why I like Feng Shui. They don't say that someone can only do one thing, just that they can't do something other than their main thing as well as someone else can do their main thing. To put that into english, while the Killer can use martial arts, he won't be as good as the martial artist, and vice versa with the martial artist using guns. This is unlike 4e, where they want to say that unless the Killer grabs multiclass feat that lets him use martial arts he can't even try to use martial arts.

[A Man In Black]

It seems the only real way to let players do things other than shoot their crossbow at every enemy they come across is to give them points that cannot make them better at crossbow shooting and can make some other option just as good.

Or you can disallow people from putting points in specialties at all. To use the 4e example, if to-hit/damage bonuses from weapons and feats didn't exist, you could have a fighter pick up a hammer to shatter skeletons and pick up an axe to chop up zombies.

[hogarth]

It seems the only real way to let players do things other than shoot their crossbow at every enemy they come across is to give them points that cannot make them better at crossbow shooting and can make some other option just as good.

Or you can disallow people from putting points in specialties at all. To use the 4e example, if to-hit/damage bonuses from weapons and feats didn't exist, you could have a fighter pick up a hammer to shatter skeletons and pick up an axe to chop up zombies.

Or you have broader specialties like "fire magic" which do more than one goddamn thing.

[A Man In Black]

Or you have broader specialties like "fire magic" which do more than one goddamn thing.

"Fire magic" isn't a specialty; it's a theme. It's not an action you take the way hitting a dude with a hammer is; instead, it's a shared attribute of many things you could do.