The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[Koumei]

...ah. I'm pretty dense at times, so that could be why. Given nobody else commented on it.

[RobbyPants]

I certainly agree with most of this, but many people seem to be trying to say that 4E is a 'bad' or 'broken' system because of personal umbrage with it. I have no issue with people disliking any system, but I really dislike it when people try to state that something is objectively bad and then give you subjective reasons, or no reasons at all, for it being bad. And this is exceptionally common; the OP is full of statements like that.

There are lots of reasons. It's just they've been hashed out several years ago. I don't think people like having to make the same arguments over and over, just to lose some battle of attrition every time someone new comes up and wants to bring up old issues again. Just for starters:

Anatomy of Failed Design: Skill Challenges

Anatomy of Failed Design: Treasure Parcels

[Darwinism]

I certainly agree with most of this, but many people seem to be trying to say that 4E is a 'bad' or 'broken' system because of personal umbrage with it. I have no issue with people disliking any system, but I really dislike it when people try to state that something is objectively bad and then give you subjective reasons, or no reasons at all, for it being bad. And this is exceptionally common; the OP is full of statements like that.

There are lots of reasons. It's just they've been hashed out several years ago. I don't think people like having to make the same arguments over and over, just to lose some battle of attrition every time someone new comes up and wants to bring up old issues again. Just for starters:

Anatomy of Failed Design: Skill Challenges

Anatomy of Failed Design: Treasure Parcels

Frank's post makes a fair amount of sense though, as usual, he includes a blatant lie to make himself feel better:

As the characters travel through town, it is important that they all make an effort to keep a low profile. When the PCs take one of the actions above, each PC in the group must make a separate skill check. The group, as a whole, must have more successes than failures in order to succeed overall. Otherwise, the group fails (including on a tie).

The PCs can each use a different skill, provided each skill is allowable for that action. Each PC can also aid one other PC. One PC can receive aid from more than one ally.

I man seriously, what the heck is that? It's not recognizable as a skill challenge out of the book. Which basically tells us what we've always known: that the designers just did random stuff and never even paid lip service to the skill challenge rules they were actually writing down. Don't do that. If you come up with something that seems to work better than the original methods, you should write that one down. You should not publish something that has little or no relation to the rules you actually use in your game that seem to be working.

-Username17

That is a perfect example of a well-situated skill challenge, though Mearls did flub on the description of how many successes/failures are needed. This is amusing but understandable; he didn't write the whole book himself. Yet since Frank doesn't like skill challenges he blatantly states that's an example of the designers doing random stuff.

Also, he got pissed that they use the term success and failure for individual skill checks and for the challenge as a whole. That's really damned silly.


Lago's post about wealth levels is just idiotic because he immediately posits that no PC is ever going to retain any loot from an adventure and will instead sell it at 20% of the value, which has been errata'd out to a much more reasonable 50%. So the entire experiment is an exercise in bending the math to get the results you want to find because assuming that no one is going to get gear they want to keep is idiotic by any standard.

But Lago appears to have been traumatized by a very adversarial DM who left him thinking you had to suck off the DM just to get gear suited to your class, so there's that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

But Lago appears to have been traumatized by a very adversarial DM who left him thinking you had to suck off the DM just to get gear suited to your class, so there's that.

In Lago's defense, I have a word for DMs like that. I call them "Most of them".

[Fuchs]

A system that does not rely too much on having a good GM is much better than a system that needs a good GM to work.

[Shazbot79]

But Lago appears to have been traumatized by a very adversarial DM who left him thinking you had to suck off the DM just to get gear suited to your class, so there's that.

Wait...wait..wait...you mean you DON'T actually have to suck off your GM to get magic items?

Man...if I'd known that, I would have saved a fortune in Altoids : (

[Darwinism]

But Lago appears to have been traumatized by a very adversarial DM who left him thinking you had to suck off the DM just to get gear suited to your class, so there's that.

In Lago's defense, I have a word for DMs like that. I call them "Most of them".

This has, fortunately, not been my experience in Florida or Colorado. I guess I'm just fantastically lucky because, damn, I like playing a game without god trying to kill me for playing the game.

A system that does not rely too much on having a good GM is much better than a system that needs a good GM to work.

Which is why I left 3.5 and am playing 4E; a mediocre GM in 4E who only follows the rules as written still makes for a more enjoyable game than the same GM running earlier editions.

[tzor]

Oh, Facts.

Well if you want to get technical: E=MC^2

So each additional E in the game means you can reduce the required number of MCs by the square root of the number that had been required. That means that by switching from 3e to 4e, groups can reduce from the default requirement of 1 MC to ( 1 - sqrt(1) ) MCs.

First of all I think that MC is the IQ of the MC not the numerical count of MC's. Secondly since in such notation placing variables next to each other is multiplication (not addition) EE = E^2 not E*2

Thus to convert EE to E you need to take the Square root of (MC^2)
To convert EEE to E you need to take the Cubic root of (MC^2)
To convert EEEE to E you need to take (MC^2)^-4

And that, in a nutshell, is why AD&D should only be played by college level students, who can appreciate the fine level of this great game. I don't give a shit what they did in E.T. - You need a high intelligence to appreciate this fine work (and a number of really sick perverted ROTC students) and an easy source of lots of graph paper (which can be found at any college bookstore).

4E, on the other hand, can be played in Kindergarden.

[Shazbot79]

Skipping over die rolls where the result doesn't make any difference isn't just common sense, it should be part of the game rules itself. In fact, in 3e it is. That's what the Take 10 and Take 20 rules are all about. The fact that an equivalent mechanic doesn't exist in 4e is a legitimately bad thing.

Yup.

I'm not sure those are different. Certainly in a sufficiently abstract system those can be the same thing, but I rather suspect that they always are. If you can fairly adjudicate the corner cases, you've exhaustively covered the game space pretty much by definition.

I think you're asking for a game with more unified systems (like how in Shadowrun you roll Skill + Attribute to accomplish "stuff") rather than a system with more unique subsystems. But really, while to an extent I agree, I don't really think either idea is wrong, so long as you still cover the entire game space with whatever mechanics you have.

Oh, Arkham Horror only uses one mechanic for doing "things" and it works fine. The problems with the skill challenge are numerous, but I wouldn't say it's impossible to have a system that simple cover your whole game - you just end up with a simple game if you do.

-Username17

I'm torn on this, actually.

I like simplicity in a game. Give me a few broadly applicable skills, a resolution mechanic and a few examples of tasks along with their relative difficulties and I can probably wing the rest.

However, if character building a combat have a much more robust system than out-of-combat challenges, then it can make these portions of the game feel as though they are just filler between the whiz-bang-pow kewl action sequences.

If instead, you manage to distill all of the various categories of out-of-combat challenges and build a dedicated, compelling mini-game around each, then I believe that people might find those portions of the game more satisfying.The problem is that AD&D tried to do this and it was a mess

Which brings me to another concern...exactly how much divide should there be in skill level between an untrained character and an ultra-specialized character?

[Darwinism]

Which brings me to another concern...exactly how much divide should there be in skill level between an untrained character and an ultra-specialized character?

There's no way to quantify this very well but... a really goddamn big one? It should feel analogous to, say, my level of knowledge on physical anthropology compared to a grad student who's majoring in it.

The inherent problem with d20 rolls is always that a genius trained in X skill can usually be shown up by someone who knows nothing just by the genius rolling a 1 and Bob McUntrained rolling a 20.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm really about to lose my patience here.

1) Big fucking deal that 4E increased the selling price from 20% to 50%! It's still a permanent money sink. Going from paying 20% of the phone bill to paying 50% of it ain't gonna cut it in the long from.

2) The selling price of 50% only applies to uncommon items. I bring this up because: YOU CAN'T BUY UNCOMMON ITEMS IN 4.5E.

3) And because of that thoughtless, stupid errata items default to uncommon. As far as I know, they might have changed it recently. If they didn't, though, the increased selling value is even more pointless! The amount of unique magical items in 4E is in the hundreds (thousands if you count enhancement bonuses and a lot of magical items do evolve with enhancement plusses) and that dumbass common list they had didn't even cover two pages worth.


So yeah. If you want Staves of Ruin or Screaming Bows or Feytouched Hides or what the fuck ever, you can't get them now. Under the old system, while the DM could easily screw you out of a plus or two if he wanted to, his power wasn't absolute; you could always sell or craft or use your gold stipend. Under the new and stupid system you flat-out can't get those items unless you're CharGenning at a high level or you suck the DM's dick.

I really don't know what's so hard to understand about this. If I have to explain something so incredibly basic like this to someone who continually accuses me of making shit up or not reading the rules then they're just going on perma-ignore.

[Darwinism]

I'm really about to lose my patience here.

1) Big fucking deal that 4E increased the selling price from 20% to 50%! It's still a permanent money sink. Going from paying 20% of the phone bill to paying 50% of it ain't gonna cut it in the long from.

I... what? Wouldn't a better analogy be, "going from getting 20% of your taxes returned to 50% ain't gonna cut it in the long form?" And even then it's a pretty huge increase though if you do actually sell every item you get it'll still be a shitty amount of gold.

2) The selling price of 50% only applies to uncommon items. I bring this up because: YOU CAN'T BUY UNCOMMON ITEMS IN 4.5E.

Those two statements are really not connected at all, you realize? Also you're still failing to address the biggest issue; who is actually going to sell every item they ever get? Why would you use that as a baseline for determining wealth? Why does wealth by level even matter if you've got decent items for your level?

3) And because of that thoughtless, stupid errata items default to uncommon. As far as I know, they might have changed it recently. If they didn't, though, the increased selling value is even more pointless! The amount of unique magical items in 4E is in the hundreds (thousands if you count enhancement bonuses and a lot of magical items do evolve with enhancement plusses) and that dumbass common list they had didn't even cover two pages worth.

This is somewhat of a legitimate bitch but hey if you've got a decent DM...

So yeah. If you want Staves of Ruin or Screaming Bows or Feytouched Hides or what the fuck ever, you can't get them now. Under the old system, while the DM could easily screw you out of a plus or two if he wanted to, his power wasn't absolute; you could always sell or craft or use your gold stipend. Under the new and stupid system you flat-out can't get those items unless you're CharGenning at a high level or you suck the DM's dick.

Oh. Oh my. You do realize that not every DM is an antagonistic asshole actively trying to kill fun, don't you? My god, Lago, show us on the doll where the DM touched you.

Either that or it's like your, "everyone sells every item," point; if the DM was assumed to be a normal person they would give their players appropriate loot, which they wouldn't have to sell. And then your point about 4E wealth being broken would start to fall apart.

[Winnah]

In order to keep up with team monster, you need to continually upgrade your weapons/implement, armour and neck slot item. That is at least 3 items you want at +1 before you hit level 5, +2 before level 10 and so on. That does not even count items to fill other slots. By paragon tier, your ring slots effectively open up.

As for magical item aquisition, according to the wealth guidelines, you are supposed to receive 3 items every 4 levels plus an a quantity of gold. Chances are high that those items are going to be upgrading an item you already have.

Wishlists are good and all, but keep in mind the treasure parcel system. 3 members of the party can ask for a level 8 item, but if the list says that only 1 level 8 drops then 2 people are shit out of luck until next level. You're forced to compromise in order to keep up with team monster.

Even if you sell your old gear, there is no way you can buy an item of equivelant level. That money goes to paying for lower level items, ritual components, the party rez fund and consumables.

If you're playing a melee ranger, a weapon and implement user or any other type of character that has more than 3 important items, you're gonna be cash strapped for the majority of your career (I have no play experience with epic, so I can't offer any insights there).

edit: There also seems to be a discrepancy with wealth and party size. Playing an 'irregular' sized party has an effect on wealth. I'll look into it when I can be bothered, but it appears that 5 is the magic number and different sized groups actually receive less wealth.

[Darwinism]

Wishlists are good and all, but keep in mind the treasure parcel system. 3 members of the party can ask for a level 8 item, but if the list says that only 1 level 8 drops then 2 people are shit out of luck until next level. You're forced to compromise in order to keep up with team monster.

If you're getting one parcel per level what the hell adventures are you running?


Also many classes will be wearing the same items for several levels and many classes only have one or two magical items they constantly want the best of; armor/weapon for Defenders, weapon (or two weapons) for strikers, implement (or implement and weapon or dual implement) for some casters. Unless you're convinced that you're worthless unless you've got the absolute best items for every level you're perfectly functional even if you only get a single item per level.

[Winnah]

The list I was referring to is on p125-129 of the DMG.

let's see. Imagine I'm awarding treasure for a 5th level party. By the time they hit 6th they should recieve:

Magic items. 1 each of level 6 through 9. And 2000 gold. If three of the players have a level 8 item on their wishlist. 2 of them are shit out of luck until the next level. One member of the party gets no magic items at all.

If a member of the party has the create magic item ritual, they will be able to create a common item of up to 5th level. This way, everyone gets a magic item. Unfortunately, this will eat up 1000 gold, leaving 1k for consumable items, rituals and other expenses (such as food and lodging).

Also many classes will be wearing the same items for several levels and many classes only have one or two magical items they constantly want the best of; armor/weapon for Defenders, weapon (or two weapons) for strikers, implement (or implement and weapon or dual implement) for some casters. Unless you're convinced that you're worthless unless you've got the absolute best items for every level you're perfectly functional even if you only get a single item per level.

Never been kicked in the NADs huh? I've seen a goblin hexer and hobgoblin warcaster nearly TPK a group of experienced players. Thank fuck the Ranger got his +2 brooch of shielding.

[Darwinism]

The list I was referring to is on p125-129 of the DMG.

let's see. Imagine I'm awarding treasure for a 5th level party. By the time they hit 6th they should recieve:

Magic items. 1 each of level 6 through 9. And 2000 gold. If three of the players have a level 8 item on their wishlist. 2 of them are shit out of luck until the next level. One member of the party gets no magic items at all.

If a member of the party has the create magic item ritual, they will be able to create a common item of up to 5th level. This way, everyone gets a magic item. Unfortunately, this will eat up 1000 gold, leaving 1k for consumable items, rituals and other expenses (such as food and lodging).

One guy per level isn't going to get a found magical item by the rules, but just because you don't get the exact items off your wishlist doesn't mean you're shit out of luck and if you only put one item level in the range on your list you don't get the idea of wish lists. I agree entirely that it is pretty stupid that they specify that the level range of the items is always going to be L+1, L+2, L+3, and L+4.

Also I really hope no one's DM regularly tracks things like food and lodging. Do they? That just seems as pointless as tracking arrows or how often your character has to pinch a loaf.

[Winnah]

Current expenses from my wednesday night game. (from memory, I have it written down somewhere).

5gp bridge toll. Actually a bribe so guards would allow my Revenant into the city while armed.

5 gp. Room and storage at inn paid up for next 2 weeks. Paid for food while in city, at rations or made Nature checks while out of town.

10 gold. City guide on 'contract.' Also claims to offer 'protection' from local burglars and pickpockets.

50 gold. Bought maps to 2 unexplored archeological sites.

nearly 150 gold on rituals. Some of them warding party storage, some for divinations, others for utility (corpse disposal, sending messages, etc).

Level 4. have not earned squat since the end of last major adventure. Rest of the party has blown their funds getting my character to make low level magic items and consumables like magic ammunition. Currently own a level 2 item, a level 4 item and a level 5 item. DM has been using RAW treasure distribution.

[Doom]

4e characters really aren't supposed to eat or require lodging--there's not much of a hint in the gamemaster's guide what such things should cost.

This is really the whole issue with "wealth by level". While it's a good guideline for convention tournaments and the like, you just can't use it in home campaigns, as the 'expenses' can vary wildly from table to table.

[Fuchs]

4e characters really aren't supposed to eat or require lodging--there's not much of a hint in the gamemaster's guide what such things should cost.

This is really the whole issue with "wealth by level". While it's a good guideline for convention tournaments and the like, you just can't use it in home campaigns, as the 'expenses' can vary wildly from table to table.

What exactly are 4E characters supposed to do, other than kill monsters?

[Aharon]

@Lago:
Can you buy ritual component fuel for money? I haven't looked at the 4e rules very closely for quite some time, but I think I remember there were items and feats that let you lower the cost of rituals and make you higher level magic items than you normally could.

So if you specifically design a group member for that purpose, would it be possible to work with these rules?

[Winnah]

food and lodging page 222 PHB.

Rules for exposure, starvation and dehydration are in chapter 3 of the DMG.

[Username17]

@Lago:
Can you buy ritual component fuel for money? I haven't looked at the 4e rules very closely for quite some time, but I think I remember there were items and feats that let you lower the cost of rituals and make you higher level magic items than you normally could.

So if you specifically design a group member for that purpose, would it be possible to work with these rules?

The big problem is that if you actually play with the 4.5E rarity rules, rituals can't make any of the stuff you want. Also, you can't buy them from NPCs any more.

food and lodging page 222 PHB.

Rules for exposure, starvation and dehydration are in chapter 3 of the DMG.

Correct. The dehydration "rules" are indeed in there. However, as we discussed previously, the chances of the dehydration rules ever mattering are very close to zero because they are so weirdly generous that the rules might as well be "fucking ignore it".

The game is quite schizophrenic about how much treasure you're supposed to have. 4e's rules for handing out treasure are pretty much impossible to use fairly, and the 4.5E version is staggeringly even worse.

But yeah, the game does tell you to bleed the PCs with ritual costs, lodging, and transportation fees. And the treasure parcel system doesn't have expense accounts factored in. At all.

-Username17

[Shazbot79]

The inherent problem with d20 rolls is always that a genius trained in X skill can usually be shown up by someone who knows nothing just by the genius rolling a 1 and Bob McUntrained rolling a 20.

I'll address this first. I'm not entirely sure this is a problem. This swingi-ness is the whole point of having a randomizer.

If anything, I think that modifiers should be smaller and that the actual roll should matter more than it already does.

There's no way to quantify this very well but... a really goddamn big one? It should feel analogous to, say, my level of knowledge on physical anthropology compared to a grad student who's majoring in it.

There are pretty much 3 different levels of skill proficiency in 4E:

You've got your untrained shlameel. This would be the guy who has no training in the skill in question, and a low stat in the associated ability. He makes a moderate DC of his level only with a lucky roll. Forget about hard DC's.

You've got your competent trained guy. This is the guy who has training in the skill and maybe a racial bonus, but isn't bumping the relevant stat at every possible opportunity. This guy can hit the easy DC most of the time and a moderate DC about half the time. Makes a hard DC with a lucky roll.

And then you've got your uber-specialist guy. He's got training in a skill, a racial bonus, the skill is tied to one of his classes primaries, maybe he's even got feats and magic items. This guy always hits easy and moderate DC's. Probably always hits Hard DC's as well.

At least that's how it's supposed to work. I don't have the latest DC table in front of me, but initially the skill DC's would eventually outpace the second guy because they would scale with level and shlameel and competent guy aren't pumping the relative attribute up. This means that Fighter with training in Endurance, Streetwise and Perception is screwing himself for not taking Athletics since this is one of the only skill DC progressions that he can keep up with. The flipside is that it means every Fighter is going to have training in Athletics, which makes things uniform and boring.

For the record, scaling skill DC's by level really, really bugs me. It's not really an issue in my 4E games, because if I have the party climbing a DC 14 mountain at 7th level, it's not going to magically become a DC16 mountain when they come back at 10th. I'm simply not going to make them roll to traverse it a second time. That said however, I would have much preferred a single skill DC progression from easy to face-slappingly difficult.

Now, if this single DC progression were the case, then how wide should the gulf really be between trained and specialized? How often should an untrained shlameel be hitting a hard DC? Should they be all but worthless in areas which they are untrained? Exactly how far above their weight class should a specialized character be hitting? Should they be virtually guaranteed success in their uses of the skill by the numbers, or should challenges still be meaningful to them?

[tzor]

2) The selling price of 50% only applies to uncommon items. I bring this up because: YOU CAN'T BUY UNCOMMON ITEMS IN 4.5E.

Those two statements are really not connected at all, you realize?

Largo, you realize that you just made my head hurt, and I'm not surprised that Darwinism can't see the obvious implications of the statement. If the players can't "buy" uncommon items, then for whatever percentage how in hell can they sell the item. Ignoring, for the moment that fact that all exchanges requires a buyer and a seller, and since no one can buy the item that means the merchant cannot buy it from the character, there is the question of what happens to the item? Why is he buying the item anyway if not for resale? But he can't "sell the item" because no one else (except apparently merchants) are allowed to "buy" the item. (Unless the PC's are cursed by being special "Yes I can sell this sword to joe farmer, but not to you because you are special.")

Anything that can be sold can be bought; in fact you cannot sell anything without someone else buying that same thing. Anything else is a LOGIC FAULT. The value of something that cannot be resold is ZERO. This is especially true in a system like 4E where only the choosen ones (they are special) can use those items in the first place.

YOu can have this stupid system; I'm heading back to my good old 1E AD&D economics ... now that made far more sense than this shit.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That does it. After all of those pages of me saying and proving that '4.5E makes you suck the DM's dick more than 4.0E' and then Darwinism giving me the canned 'it's not a problem if you have a good DM' response it's blatantly obvious that this guy didn't learn anything and is never going to learn anything.

Is this guy a troll or is he really this stupid? But more importantly, who cares? Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Anything that can be sold can be bought; in fact you cannot sell anything without someone else buying that same thing. Anything else is a LOGIC FAULT. The value of something that cannot be resold is ZERO. This is especially true in a system like 4E where only the choosen ones (they are special) can use those items in the first place.

I don't blame you for this breaking your brain, but don't blame me. I didn't write this screwy system.

As far as I can tell, the entire point behind this system was a ham-fisted attempt to bring 4E power creep under control since a lot of it is linked to the magical item treasury. So they 'solved' the problem by declaring that players have to suck up to the DM to get the goodies they want to--and items that they know aren't broken (but not really, see the Thief fiasco, but these guys are incompetent fucksticks so W/E) get released to the public in order to hide their tracks! If Lightning Glaives are so overpowered that they let the Swordmage turn encounters into jokes it's YOUR fault for passing them out in the first place!

So that's precisely why instead of just declaring all items common and moving the 'problematic' ones to uncommon, they just did a blanket ban. The Adventurer's Vault and Adventurer's Vault 2 along with the magical item sections in the PHB are now useless to most players except as an inspiration for their Christmas wish lists.

That along with the July errata cemented my utter contempt for this edition. It's bullshit of the maximum order; I don't even think Paizo has the naked chutzpah, laziness, and incompetence to do this. I don't even think White Wolf has! As awful as their rules are, at least they have the balls to stick to them. Making them better than the WotC milksops.