[Not 4e] What will we see from 5e?

[Psychic Robot]

So you're saying that I'm committing the Oberoni fallacy because I think the DM should use their brain? Interesting.

In the words of Roy: hurk hurk durk hurk.

No, I'm saying that a DM shouldn't intentionally set up a fight that the PCs have no hope of winning.

Stop. Right there. In a well-designed system, the PCs would have a chance of winning against a bow-wielding deathlord. They could, I don't know, fly after him.

Except it could be a problem if nobody in the party can fly, teleport, or shoot their ranged weapons hundreds of feet/have no ranged weapons.

That being the case .1% of the time.

since a party with ranged weapons could fight back, and there is at least one paragon path that grants flying.

And they're grinding down the deathlord's HP faster than he's grinding down theirs?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

In one argument, you said that people should be "roleplaying their characters" instead of using the best tactics. Then, in response to someone's complaints about 4e's lack of support for non-combat, non-dungeon challenges, you basically said that "D&D has always been a combat-centered game."

Are you talking about when I posted about skill challenges with that bolded part? If so, I definitely did not say or imply that a group should roleplaying instead of using perfect tactics. I said that my group, rarely, will do this during a skill challenge in a way that hinders party success.

Unless you're referring to the part where I at most implied that having a team of ranged specialists was bad roleplaying (I actually took this back shortly afterwards), you took what I said completely out of context.

It's possible I misunderstood your point, since I read about 3 pages of long posts in one sitting. I just remember reading your comment about how "D&D has always been combat-centered" and thinking "Wait, didn't he say that bad rules were okay because this is a roleplaying game and people shouldn't pay attention to tactics?"

[Hotpants Joe]

In the words of Roy: hurk hurk durk hurk.

You're making yourself look bad by quoting him, but it's good to know that you have nothing to say back to this.

Stop. Right there. In a well-designed system, the PCs would have a chance of winning against a bow-wielding deathlord. They could, I don't know, fly after him.

In your 3rd Edition example, the DM could give the flying super ranged attacker enemy a dispel ability that removes the PCs' ability to fly. The party may also have teleportation abilities, but at that point what good is it without flight?

I'm ignoring the part where this is a ridiculous argument. You're saying that 4th Edition isn't a well-designed system because the DM can intentionally put the party in an unwinnable fight when unlikely conditions are met? That's completely retarded.

You're still pretending that the DM has no brain and will purposely screw over the PCs just because. You can still do this in 3rd Edition by putting a low level party up against a high level encounter. Hell, you can do this in any system.

That being the case .1% of the time.

All martial/non-druidic divine caster/spontaneous arcane caster without the fly spell party without magic items that allow flight? It seems about as likely as having no longbow users in a 4e party. And you can still give your super flier lots of healing, the ability to dispel magic, and near-unlimited magic missiles/save-or-die spells. I'm not sure that 3rd Edition meets your requirements of a well-designed system based on this alone.

And they're grinding down the deathlord's HP faster than he's grinding down theirs?

Depends. What's the maximum range on that bone bow? 40? That'd be the same as a longbow-wielding ranger, in which case the rest of the party has a chance to support him while he plays sniper.

[Hotpants Joe]

If you can ride a Riding Horse and have it take a double move to move 20 spaces, then 65% of the enemies for levels 1-10 cannot fight you back.

You have to split actions with your mount, so on a turn where you double move, you can't do anything else.

Can you break down that table a bit more? It seems to me that enemies, especially ranged ones, can fight a mounted archer even in an open field. It's hard to say without knowing the range of the ranged monsters' abilities.

[Caedrus]

Maybe we'd like to play a general fantasyg roleplayin game where we can use bows or play falcon knights or go outside without the game breaking?

[Psychic Robot]

You're making yourself look bad by quoting him, but it's good to know that you have nothing to say back to this.

Because it didn't warrant a response.

In your 3rd Edition example, the DM could give the flying super ranged attacker enemy a dispel ability that removes the PCs' ability to fly. The party may also have teleportation abilities, but at that point what good is it without flight?

You're comparing a monster picking up a bow to giving it a spell-like ability and auto-dispelling flight.

I'm ignoring the part where this is a ridiculous argument. You're saying that 4th Edition isn't a well-designed system because the DM can intentionally put the party in an unwinnable fight when unlikely conditions are met? That's completely retarded.

No, what's retarded is that the system disintegrates if you give a monster a bow. Your failure is self-evident.

You're still pretending that the DM has no brain and will purposely screw over the PCs just because. You can still do this in 3rd Edition by putting a low level party up against a high level encounter. Hell, you can do this in any system.

Again, this isn't the DM trying to screw the party over--it's the DM giving the deathlord a ranged attack and acting like it has the 24 Int that it's supposed to have. Fuck you for trying to weasel out of that.

All martial/non-druidic divine caster/spontaneous arcane caster without the fly spell party without magic items that allow flight? It seems about as likely as having no longbow users in a 4e party. And you can still give your super flier lots of healing, the ability to dispel magic, and near-unlimited magic missiles/save-or-die spells. I'm not sure that 3rd Edition meets your requirements of a well-designed system based on this alone.

Bullshit. 3e has a variety of ways to circumvent this particular problem, and the game flat-out stops functioning without magic. Go on and squeal about how this is a "victory" of 4e over 3e because 3e requires magic. Allow me to preemptively reply to tell you to fuck yourself.

1. 4e is still magic item dependent.
2. 4e is "everything's the same lol," so there's no huge difference between a wizard and a warlord (fuck, they can both do magic, can't they?).
3. 4e is designed in such a way that playing the game outside of the supported play style destroys the game.

Depends. What's the maximum range on that bone bow? 40? That'd be the same as a longbow-wielding ranger, in which case the rest of the party has a chance to support him while he plays sniper.

The deathlord will smack down the ranger long before the ranger smacks him down.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

If you can ride a Riding Horse and have it take a double move to move 20 spaces, then 65% of the enemies for levels 1-10 cannot fight you back.

You have to split actions with your mount, so on a turn where you double move, you can't do anything else.

Can you break down that table a bit more? It seems to me that enemies, especially ranged ones, can fight a mounted archer even in an open field. It's hard to say without knowing the range of the ranged monsters' abilities.

What that table basically means is thus

If you have a Maximum Speed of X, you beat all monsters' threat Range of <X. For example, on a Riding Horse, you have a Maximum Speed of 24. On an open field you will beat any monster with a threat range of 23 or below.

What is threat range?

Threat range is how many squares away a monster can affect in one turn. For example: Most monsters have a 6 speed and a 1 Reach. They can Run+Charge to Attack a Square 15 squares away (8 Run+6 Charge+1 Reach). If a monster has a Ranged attack of 10 and speed of 8 and reach of 2, it's threat range is (10 Run+10 Shoot +2) 22.

[Hotpants Joe]

Because it didn't warrant a response.

It didn't warrant a response from you because my point keeps flying over your head. If a hypothetical situation occurs where a fight is unwinnable by PCs, a DM should simply not introduce it. Period. It's bad DMing practice, and any non-shitty DM will know this. This isn't Oberoni talking here. This is an extremely simple concept. This isn't the DM bending over backwards to prevent a bad situation from occuring. This is common sense.

You're comparing a monster picking up a bow to giving it a spell-like ability and auto-dispelling flight.

Specifics aside, the point I'm making is that you can bend the rules of just about any system to bring about a broken scenario. 4e is pretty simple compared to 3e. If a DM can't realize a case where a situation he is about to put his PCs through is broken, then that DM just plain fails and hasn't done his (relatively easy) homework.

No, what's retarded is that the system disintegrates if you give a monster a bow. Your failure is self-evident.

You're giving the monster a bow, assuming it's ambushing the party in an open field, and giving the players no way to retreat or avoid the combat in any way. Any way you cut it, it's pretty much the same as setting up an unwinnable fight in 3rd Edition.

Besides, if the party has a decent ranger this isn't a broken fight. Keep reading.

Again, this isn't the DM trying to screw the party over--it's the DM giving the deathlord a ranged attack and acting like it has the 24 Int that it's supposed to have. Fuck you for trying to weasel out of that.

Assuming you're right about the deathlord with the bow ambushing the party in a totally open field being an unwinnable fight, then it is still the DM trying to screw the party over. I'm not sure what makes you think that a DM essentially sitting down with his players and saying, "Guys. Give me your character sheets. You're all dead." is a realistic scenario.

And fuck me? Try not to take losing an argument so personally.

Bullshit. 3e has a variety of ways to circumvent this particular problem, and the game flat-out stops functioning without magic. Go on and squeal about how this is a "victory" of 4e over 3e because 3e requires magic. Allow me to preemptively reply to tell you to fuck yourself.

If you get to throw hypotheticals about 4e brokenness my way, I get to do the same for 3e. The hilarious part is, the number of ways in which you can break 3e is exponentially higher than ways you can break 4e.

4th, and any system, has an extremely simple solution to circumvent this particular problem. It's called don't do it. Again, common sense.

1. 4e is still magic item dependent.
2. 4e is "everything's the same lol," so there's no huge difference between a wizard and a warlord (fuck, they can both do magic, can't they?).
3. 4e is designed in such a way that playing the game outside of the supported play style destroys the game.

1. So?
2. How can a warlord do magic?
3. 3e is destroyed by playing outside of the supported play style as well, and in worse ways.

The deathlord will smack down the ranger long before the ranger smacks him down.

Can you show me where this bone bow comes from that does 4d10 base damage? I'm not seeing it anywhere. His Dark Scythe ability uses his scythe and wouldn't be useable with a basic ranged weapon like a longbow. So the most he'd be doing is 2d10+magic mod+base dexterity mod. For the ranger, let's go ahead and use the level 30 version here: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1157094

If you want to pretend he's at level 28, take away 4 points from his to-hit rolls and damage rolls, 3 from AC, and take away 12 or so hitpoints. We might assume he has a +5 weapon and is slightly less than completely optimized. This still means that the ranger can:

[*] Can knock him prone with Great Ram Arrow hits (this means falling + 4d10 damage if it hits and he could coordinate it with his allies).
[*] Hit with other multi [W] damage + effects that do significantly higher average damage than the deathlord's basic attacks. Even twin strike, an at-will, has a higher average.
[*] Has the support of his allies, which can include aiding AC, healing, and buffs.

Things are looking pretty good for the ranger.

[Psychic Robot]

It didn't warrant a response from you because my point keeps flying over your head. If a hypothetical situation occurs where a fight is unwinnable by PCs, a DM should simply not introduce it. Period. It's bad DMing practice, and any non-shitty DM will know this. This isn't Oberoni talking here. This is an extremely simple concept. This isn't the DM bending over backwards to prevent a bad situation from occuring. This is common sense.

Bullshit. The PCs are allowed to go up against unwinnable fights. What do they do? Beat a hasty retreat and come up with a plan to defeat the enemy.

Furthermore, this "unwinnable fight" is giving a monster a bow when it is not in an enclosed area. An unwinnable fight in 3e is gating in epic-level creatures at level 17--and even then, the cleric or wizard can counter that by doing the same thing.

Specifics aside, the point I'm making is that you can bend the rules of just about any system to bring about a broken scenario. 4e is pretty simple compared to 3e. If a DM can't realize a case where a situation he is about to put his PCs through is broken, then that DM just plain fails and hasn't done his (relatively easy) homework.

You are saying that you're "bending the rules of the system" by giving a monster a bow in an unenclosed area.

Do you realize how insane that sounds? This is MMORPG logic. "Bending the rules of the game": an action any perfectly intelligible creature would take. In other words, 4e accommodates one style of play: no roleplay, no tactics, hack 'n' slash only, FINAL DESTINATION.

You're giving the monster a bow, assuming it's ambushing the party in an open field, and giving the players no way to retreat or avoid the combat in any way. Any way you cut it, it's pretty much the same as setting up an unwinnable fight in 3rd Edition.

No. Fuck you. That fight should not be unwinnable. Flying monster + bow = common sense. In a system that isn't a giant piece of shit, that is not unbeatable.

Assuming you're right about the deathlord with the bow ambushing the party in a totally open field being an unwinnable fight, then it is still the DM trying to screw the party over. I'm not sure what makes you think that a DM essentially sitting down with his players and saying, "Guys. Give me your character sheets. You're all dead." is a realistic scenario.

Fuck you some more. It is not dickery to play monsters intelligently. It's one thing when you use the angelic sunder squad (angels teleport in, sunder everyone's equipment, then teleport out) because it literally destroys the game. It's another thing when you have a monster bring a back-up weapon.

And fuck me? Try not to take losing an argument so personally.

laughingelfman.jpg

If you get to throw hypotheticals about 4e brokenness my way, I get to do the same for 3e. The hilarious part is, the number of ways in which you can break 3e is exponentially higher than ways you can break 4e.

3e is more broken, but the brokenness is far more complex than 4e. 4e's brokenness is so retarded that even a caveman could do it. 3e's brokenness generally involves a) some degree of system mastery, and b) mathematical complexity. Few neophyte D&D players are going to look at gate and see how broken it is--their eyes are going to glaze over at "HD" and they're going to look at meteor swarm with its explosions.

4th, and any system, has an extremely simple solution to circumvent this particular problem. It's called don't do it. Again, common sense.

Again, Oberoni fallacy.

1. So?
2. How can a warlord do magic?
3. 3e is destroyed by playing outside of the supported play style as well, and in worse ways.

1. So I negated your argument even before you made it. It's like I'm a fucking chessmaster, maaaaaan.
2. Healing shouts, enemies magically moving off of cliffs, that kind of shit. (Inb4 "HP IS NOT EVEN DAMAGE" because that's an entirely different thread about how 4e rapes the game in the ass.)
3. Prove it.

Can you show me where this bone bow comes from that does 4d10 base damage? I'm not seeing it anywhere. His Dark Scythe ability uses his scythe and wouldn't be useable with a basic ranged weapon like a longbow. So the most he'd be doing is 2d10+magic mod+base dexterity mod. For the ranger, let's go ahead and use the level 30 version here: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1157094

DMG guidelines states damage as being 4d10 damage for a lurker.

If you want to pretend he's at level 28, take away 4 points from his to-hit rolls and damage rolls, 3 from AC, and take away 12 or so hitpoints. We might assume he has a +5 weapon and is slightly less than completely optimized. This still means that the ranger can:

[*] Can knock him prone with Great Ram Arrow hits (this means falling + 4d10 damage if it hits and he could coordinate it with his allies).
[*] Hit with other multi [W] damage + effects that do significantly higher average damage than the deathlord's basic attacks. Even twin strike, an at-will, has a higher average.
[*] Has the support of his allies, which can include aiding AC, healing, and buffs.

Things are looking pretty good for the ranger.

I'm not bothering to look over somebody's character and then meticulously comparing it to the deathlord. We can even suppose that the ranger wins against a single deathlord. Fair enough, since you're pitting one monster against four or five other characters--that runs into the economy of actions issues. Spend the XP budget for an entire encounter, though, and then get back to me. Or turn that deathlord into a solo, just for kicks.

[Username17]

If you say that the DM should "use their brain" or "use common sense" or "fudge things a bit" or any other thing that means exactly the same thing as "Not use the rules as printed" as some sort of excuse for why a problem doesn't exist, then YES you are using the Oberoni argument. And it is a priori invalid. And you should feel ashamed, because people have called you on it like fifty gajillion times.

Look, I'm aware that a skilled an experienced DM is actually a better judge of player and monster threat than any challenge measurement system could ever hope to be. But that doesn't excuse the actual in game challenge systems for being bad. In fact, quite the opposite because the challenge metrics are for inexperienced DMs. If you use the challenges the game tells you to use, and the players get stomped without having a chance, that's the game's challenge system being fucked. And the fact that a DM who was more familiar with the game could have ignored those guidelines and just gone off and did his own thing excuses nothing at all.

Your constant crutch of "competent DMs will..." is wearing thin. Stop being such a dumb fucking [EDITED]. I'm serious. The rules and the guidelines are the things that 4e D&D is asking me to pay money for. Not the cool stories that I can personally tell, not the elaborate matrices of comparative effectiveness I can make between the characters the players make and the monsters as I evaluate them. Just the things in the actual book. If I'm supposed to ignore them to be a "good DM" then you're making an incredibly bad argument for me spending money on those books, aren't you?

-Username17

[Roy]

In the words of Roy: hurk hurk durk hurk.

Those were originally your words.

3.5 has plenty of things with flight, teleport, and dispel. They're called 'mid and high level outsiders and dragons, aka most mid and high level enemies'. And they aren't even that big of a deal. Because there, you get real abilities that can counter that.

Dumbfuck Joe is whining about a dumbfuck mob holding a bow. This is a solid statement of his intelligence. Not to mention he is comparing the two as if they were actually equivalent. Final Destination indeed.

Hell, you don't even necessarily get an unwinnable fight by throwing level 17 PCs in 3.5 at epic monsters. Depends on the monster, but they can beat the lower end ones with some effort. Without use of Gate themselves.

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

[Just another user]

Seriously? You just told me not to use the monster's abilities against the PCs. That's...that's sad.

Instead, be saddened by your own idea that the DM -> Player relationship is adversarial and that the DM should give the Deathlord a powerful ranged weapon and allow it to fly around in an open field and shoot the PCs to death just because he can.

So, what are you saying is that the GM should play the Deathlord like a moron?

deathlords:let's see, I can fly, many adventurers can't, maybe I should use this to my advantage? using some ranged attack or something.
Naaaah, that would not be fair, I'd just go into melee so they can kill me easily. After all I'm just a pawn in a RPG, it is not like I want to survive.

[Roy]

Now you see why I go out of my way to use the term MOBs to refer to 4.Fail enemies. Because not only do the players want them to be MOBs, the game breaks right in half the moment they display an inkling of intelligence so they literally cannot be ya know, credible threats or monsters or enemies or otherwise capable of honestly answering to a term that does not begin and end by insulting their intelligence.

[Roy]

And since the original topic is hopelessly lost...

*points at title*

So what have we got here?

Skill Challenges (aka, everything out of combat) is conceptually flawed to the point of non usability, thereby flat out negating it.

Very few enemies can deal with basic tactics such as moving around quickly while using ranged attacks, thereby making Mongols an easy Win build. This flat out negates outdoor combat.

Combat is all about the focus fire (not new), the stunlocks (new), and the massive grind (new). This not only completely negates indoor combat, but it invalidates one of the very few alleged advantages left - that you aren't spamming the same moves over and over.

As these simple broad strokes cover every fucking thing, the entire system is made of Fail.

I know I'm missing some stuff here.

[Hotpants Joe]

Bullshit. The PCs are allowed to go up against unwinnable fights. What do they do? Beat a hasty retreat and come up with a plan to defeat the enemy.

If the PCs can run away and formulate a plan to win, it's not an unwinnable fight, and this argument crumbles because a party could conceivably counter the "flying monster with a bow" situation. Way to backpedal. I've been talking about actual unwinnable fights where the PCs have to die this whole time, and you've been using a bad example to support it.

Do you realize how insane that sounds? This is MMORPG logic. "Bending the rules of the game": an action any perfectly intelligible creature would take. In other words, 4e accommodates one style of play: no roleplay, no tactics, hack 'n' slash only, FINAL DESTINATION.

So either I have to advocate DMs being douchebags, or I'm subscribing to MMORPG logic? It's possible to play intelligent monsters that use good tactics without intentionally breaking the game all the time.

Do you realize how dumb you sound here? You're basically saying that because you can give multiple level 28 monsters a bow and have them fly around on an open field combat to focus fire PCs down, 4e is totally broken and that 4e is incapable of accommodating tactical combat. That's ridiculous. For this one instance of unbalancedness, there are hundreds of other fights that are balanced.

Yet you're insisting that this alone makes 4e a poorly designed system. Even worse, you're touting 3e as superior in this regard, even though you can break it so very, very much worse and more frequently than you can break 4e.

Fuck you some more. It is not dickery to play monsters intelligently. It's one thing when you use the angelic sunder squad (angels teleport in, sunder everyone's equipment, then teleport out) because it literally destroys the game. It's another thing when you have a monster bring a back-up weapon.

Since when does playing a monster intelligently = intentionally breaking the system? You don't have to pit PCs against multiple deathlords with bows. I mean, you can play monsters to their proper level of intellect and still give PCs a challenging combat without it being 100% one-sided.

3e is more broken, but the brokenness is far more complex than 4e. 4e's brokenness is so retarded that even a caveman could do it. 3e's brokenness generally involves a) some degree of system mastery, and b) mathematical complexity. Few neophyte D&D players are going to look at gate and see how broken it is--their eyes are going to glaze over at "HD" and they're going to look at meteor swarm with its explosions.

4e is easier to break because it is simplified compared to 3e. My point still stands about 3e, though. And while it may be easy enough to break the game by doing something simple like giving 5 deathlords a bow and having them fly around and focus fire PCs from the sky, I just don't see any more of a reason to do it than to intentionally break 3e with something more complex.

Again, Oberoni fallacy.

I don't see what's so Oberoni about the idea of not defeating the purpose of running a game by not putting the players into a situations they can't possibly handle. But okay.

1. So I negated your argument even before you made it. It's like I'm a fucking chessmaster, maaaaaan.
2. Healing shouts, enemies magically moving off of cliffs, that kind of shit. (Inb4 "HP IS NOT EVEN DAMAGE" because that's an entirely different thread about how 4e rapes the game in the ass.)
3. Prove it.

1. Not really, since I never said anything about 4e having a victory over 3e because 3e requires magic. You love strawmen.
2. Warlords yell at people to invgorate them. It's not magic. And yes, sorry, but HP isn't always real damage and it is relevant. You don't get to be selective just so you can say warlords are somehow magic. Moving enemies around is part of their tactical maneuvers too. Again, not magic.
3. If you know as much about 3e as you claim to, you should know exactly what I mean.

I'm not bothering to look over somebody's character and then meticulously comparing it to the deathlord. We can even suppose that the ranger wins against a single deathlord. Fair enough, since you're pitting one monster against four or five other characters--that runs into the economy of actions issues. Spend the XP budget for an entire encounter, though, and then get back to me. Or turn that deathlord into a solo, just for kicks.

Nice backpedaling again. Since you love caps so much,

"OH YEAH, HOW ABOUT IF I SEND 5 DEATHLORDS WITH BOWS AFTER THEM?? WHAT THEN??"

[Hotpants Joe]

If you say that the DM should "use their brain" or "use common sense" or "fudge things a bit" or any other thing that means exactly the same thing as "Not use the rules as printed" as some sort of excuse for why a problem doesn't exist, then YES you are using the Oberoni argument. And it is a priori invalid. And you should feel ashamed, because people have called you on it like fifty gajillion times.

There's nothing wrong with making a few adjustments as a DM. This happens in 3rd Edition a lot too, like when people don't bother to calculate encumberance and the exact weight of all objects they are carrying.

I mean, yes, if a DM does need to adjust something over what is exactly printed in rules, then it is technically a problem. But like I said before (which somebody agreed with but apparently you ignored), if there are enough good parts of a system then I don't see why making minor adjustments for the bad parts make the system unplayable and worthless.

Look, I'm aware that a skilled an experienced DM is actually a better judge of player and monster threat than any challenge measurement system could ever hope to be. But that doesn't excuse the actual in game challenge systems for being bad. In fact, quite the opposite because the challenge metrics are for inexperienced DMs. If you use the challenges the game tells you to use, and the players get stomped without having a chance, that's the game's challenge system being fucked. And the fact that a DM who was more familiar with the game could have ignored those guidelines and just gone off and did his own thing excuses nothing at all.

I do agree with this, but you also have to consider how often this becomes a problem with any given system. Do the problems outweigh the good parts enough to condemn it?

It isn't even just DMs that are familiar enough with the game in question (4e) that are capable of making minor and effective adjustments. It's DMs that are familiar even on a basic level with numbers and balance in just about any system at all.

Your constant crutch of "competent DMs will..." is wearing thin. Stop being such a dumb fucking [EDITED]. I'm serious. The rules and the guidelines are the things that 4e D&D is asking me to pay money for. Not the cool stories that I can personally tell, not the elaborate matrices of comparative effectiveness I can make between the characters the players make and the monsters as I evaluate them. Just the things in the actual book. If I'm supposed to ignore them to be a "good DM" then you're making an incredibly bad argument for me spending money on those books, aren't you?

-Username17

It's not a crutch, though. You have to pay attention to where I'm applying this philosophy: in response to these extreme scenarios people are posting as 4e gripes, like Mongols & Yurts. And now you just make yourself look bad by resorting to insults. Nice going. I'm planning to make a more comprehensive post about skill challenges that even you probably won't be totally dissatisfied with, because believe it or not, your long post on the subject made me think about it despite a few bad assumptions it had at key points.

But knowing you, you'll just take the extreme viewpoint and condemn the entire system because you assume that DMs shouldn't have to exercise any form of judgment whatsoever. So I'm not even sure it's worthwhile until you can move beyond this binary mode of argument that amounts to "either the DM can act like computer AI or the system is no good".

In the end, it's just as weak of an argument as the Oberoni fallacy is. The true one, mind you. Not this fake Oberoni you keep throwing at me which apparently means "anything other than using rules verbatim in every instance without exception". Even if I'm using the rules as printed 98% of the time, this is still apparently a failure of a system in your eyes that isn't worth your time or money.

[Username17]

But knowing you, you'll just take the extreme viewpoint and condemn the entire system because you assume that DMs shouldn't have to exercise any form of judgment whatsoever. So I'm not even sure it's worthwhile until you can move beyond this binary mode of argument that amounts to "either the DM can act like computer AI or the system is no good".

Oh for fuck's sake.

Look, this is an example of a reasonable argument:

"This rule problem has an easy fix, which I use."

This is an example of a completely unreasonable argument that is physically painful to wade through:

"This rule problem is not a problem because it can be fixed."

Maybe you're just incredibly shitty with words, but you go between the two of them interchangeably. That's not acceptable. And stop whining like you're some kind of martyr every time you get called on it. You're not a martyr. You're just really bad at making points.

Cut your posts shorter. Stay on topic. And double check them to make sure that you aren't throwing in logical contradictions into your pieces before you post them. And while we're on the subject, it's fucking insulting for you to constantly put value judgment words on doing things the way you personally do things. I am sorely tempted to skip over any and all of your posts when you start ranting about what a "good DM" would or would not do. Seriously. I'm a good DM. I don't do things the way you do. There are whole threads about what a good DM can or should do, and this isn't it.

This thread is about two things: the sales of the D&D 4e game and the rules of the D&D 4e game. Every time you discuss DMing tips you are spamming this topic with off topic bullshit. And yes, I am aware that some of the people arguing against you have had shit arguments. But let's face it: your ally in this thread was fucking Frantic, so you aren't winning a lot of points there either.

-Username17

[Roy]

He's still doing that.

That of course refers to where someone says 4.0 cannot do [thing x] at all and he counters with a system that can do [thing x] is good. And that's all fine and good, except he makes out as if he is disagreeing and attempting to prove the other person wrong with the implication that 4.0 does those things. What he's actually doing is saying things that are either irrelevant, that prove the other person right, or both.

What is perhaps more telling is that he thinks entire subsystems needing full redesigns from top to bottom, and these are major fucking subsystems is in any way other than conceptually comparable to the stuff you'd need for a 3.5 game to work... which generally means banning PHB non casters not named Rogue and replacing them with ToB stuff and a few others. And there's a bit more to it, but regardless there's no comparison between a few house rules, or even a few fucking PAGES of house rules and needing to redo over half the system just to use it at all.

And now the amusing bit. When he said 'either the DM can act like computer AI or the system is no good' he was obviously intending hyperbole there. Yet, despite this he is entirely and ironically correct. The moment MOBs stop acting like MOBs and start showing some intelligence, they start slaughtering PCs all over the place. Even just basic things like 'hit the same guy until he stays down, because he won't be slowed in the slightest until then' are more than sufficient to break 4.Fail. And it's not even that hard to see why - just like MMO MOBs, enemy difficulty is determined by pile of stats. And you're supposed to auto attack their numbers with your numbers and hope they zero out before you. If they were also smart they'd annihilate you, because they're just better.

And just like MMO mobs, they are also trivialized by basic tactics, same as you are. Which is why most of them label things like finding ways to stab sharks from the sandy part of the beach an exploit and ban for it. You aren't grinding their numbers with your numbers, so you're Doing It Wrong and will be punished severely for having the audacity to be as smart as a BLT sandwich.

TL;DR version: Both 4.Fail and MMOs try to make players play just as terribly as their MOBs. Also, Joe loves self defeating and irrelevant arguments. Slippery slopes as well.

Edit: And Frantic was only in it because both of them got BAW BAW BUTTHURT I smited them. In any case, Frantic is a child raping fuck, and who would want to willingly associate with that?

[RandomCasualty2]

"This rule problem is not a problem because it can be fixed."

Maybe you're just incredibly shitty with words, but you go between the two of them interchangeably. That's not acceptable. And stop whining like you're some kind of martyr every time you get called on it. You're not a martyr. You're just really bad at making points.

Well, honestly I think it becomes more of a case of
"This rule problem is not a problem because it can be fixed easily."

Remember, that both 3.5 and 4E are horribly broken. Nobody plays 3.5 RAW beyond like level 5 and for good reason. The game is just that easy to break in half. The moment your party can buy a candle of invocation, the game pretty much ends.

4E on the other hand has its own list of problems... starting with the fact that skill challenges don't work at all, and tactical combat is really boring.

But I don't think anyone is saying their chosen game is perfect or which can be run RAW.

It isn't even a question of which rules set has fewer problems, it's a question of which has problems that can be fixed with the fewest amount of house rules.

[Psychic Robot]

Image omitted.

That does not belong on the forums.

If the PCs can run away and formulate a plan to win, it's not an unwinnable fight, and this argument crumbles because a party could conceivably counter the "flying monster with a bow" situation. Way to backpedal. I've been talking about actual unwinnable fights where the PCs have to die this whole time, and you've been using a bad example to support it.

They can't counter a flying monster with a bow. Fail.

So either I have to advocate DMs being douchebags, or I'm subscribing to MMORPG logic? It's possible to play intelligent monsters that use good tactics without intentionally breaking the game all the time.

Do you realize how dumb you sound here? You're basically saying that because you can give multiple level 28 monsters a bow and have them fly around on an open field combat to focus fire PCs down, 4e is totally broken and that 4e is incapable of accommodating tactical combat. That's ridiculous. For this one instance of unbalancedness, there are hundreds of other fights that are balanced.

A flying monster with a bow is imbalanced. Do you realize how incredibly retarded that makes the entire system? Do you realize how incredibly retarded you are that you think having a flying monster use a bow is broken?

Yet you're insisting that this alone makes 4e a poorly designed system. Even worse, you're touting 3e as superior in this regard, even though you can break it so very, very much worse and more frequently than you can break 4e.

Again, 3e might be more broken, but it generally takes work to break it. 4e is broken by a flying monster with a bow.

Since when does playing a monster intelligently = intentionally breaking the system? You don't have to pit PCs against multiple deathlords with bows. I mean, you can play monsters to their proper level of intellect and still give PCs a challenging combat without it being 100% one-sided.

You heard it from the horse's mouth, folks--giving a flying monster a bow is breaking the system. Personally, I'd think a reasonable encounter would be two soldier sorrowsworn with two deathlords with bows. But that's just me.

4e is easier to break because it is simplified compared to 3e. My point still stands about 3e, though. And while it may be easy enough to break the game by doing something simple like giving 5 deathlords a bow and having them fly around and focus fire PCs from the sky, I just don't see any more of a reason to do it than to intentionally break 3e with something more complex.

Because it demonstrates how shitty the entire system is.

I don't see what's so Oberoni about the idea of not defeating the purpose of running a game by not putting the players into a situations they can't possibly handle. But okay.

Oberoni is "the rules aren't broken because the DM can change the rules." Not pitting the PCs against a flying monster with a bow is dumbfucktarded, particularly in D&D, where you have harpies and shit. It's one thing to put the PCs in a sealed room and then fill it with water. It's another thing to have flying monsters kick everyone's ass on accident.

1. Not really, since I never said anything about 4e having a victory over 3e because 3e requires magic. You love strawmen.
2. Warlords yell at people to invgorate them. It's not magic. And yes, sorry, but HP isn't always real damage and it is relevant. You don't get to be selective just so you can say warlords are somehow magic. Moving enemies around is part of their tactical maneuvers too. Again, not magic.
3. If you know as much about 3e as you claim to, you should know exactly what I mean.

1. You are dumb as a sack of shit. You couldn't have made that argument because I anticipated your making it before you made it.
2. It's magic. You're dumb. Own the Battlefield. Bloody Path. Come and Get It. All examples of martial characters doing magic (or what amounts to magic).
3. I believe I said "prove it," not "dodge the point."

Nice backpedaling again. Since you love caps so much,

"OH YEAH, HOW ABOUT IF I SEND 5 DEATHLORDS WITH BOWS AFTER THEM?? WHAT THEN??"

Isn't an even-level encounter supposed to be a relatively easy fight in 4e? Eat shit and die. What if the party doesn't have a ranger? WHOOPS LOL

[Kaelik]

Okay, done wading through shit:

1) Argument of the day: Mongols -> Monsters picking up bows -> Monster kite of win.

a) Actually, the Ranger totally loses to the Deathlord, because the Deathlord stays out of the range of all dailies/encounters/at-wills. It's seriously just Basic attack vs basic attack, calculate numbers.

b) How did we get the numbers for monster kite? We broke the rules and added a whole new ability to the monster at no cost to the monster. This ability followed the DMG guidelines for it's level, and it turns out, it's range 40 basic attack is better than it's melee basic attack. That's bullshit, and clearly the DMG guidelines that tell you that 50% of MM monsters should have ranged 40 attacks that do more damage at higher ABs than their actual abilities is bullshit. Those guidelines can burn.

c) Because those guidelines can burn, we are back to the part where a level 15 monster picking up a bow can't even hit a level 15 character with it, and therefore, Mongols are still awesome.

d) Table of info: How the fuck does reach add to range attacks? If it's range 10 they can use it 10 squares from their present location, not 10 squares from their reach. Magic Missile is range 10, you cannot Magic Missile an enemy 11 squares away just because you have reach 1.

e) Actual substance: No, Mongols do not destroy the entire game, just one large part of it. Just like Skill challenges retardation and terrible rituals/ritual rules don't destroy the whole game, just the non-combat part of it.

But when you add all the parts that are ruined together, you get the vast majority of the game.

2) Skill Challenges: You totally missed the point. It's not just that the math is bad, or that they are easy, or that they are hard. Skill challenges have goals:

a) Make it both formulaic and easy to set up non combat related challenges for PCs.
b) To involve all the PCs in the above challenges.
c) To make the above challenges dependent on the strengths and weaknesses of the characters, and how well they apply to the situation.

Skill challenges objectively fail to meet any of those goals.

a) It is not in any way formulaic, because no two people in the universe even agree on what a skill challenge actually is. People don't even use skill challenges for the same types of things, much less follow the same rules for a given situation.
b) The rules as they exist actually discourage participation. Yes, it is totally possible to ignore those rules. But the rules do actually discourage participation by anyone besides the highest bonus. If there was an easy fix for this that didn't screw over one of the other two goals, it probably might have been presented in one of the 4 revisions of skill challenges that also all failed to meet these goals.
c) Every skill challenge ever results in people using magical tea party to describe why they always use the one skill they have the highest modifier in. That would be okay in Black Forest where the strong guy uses strong to solve all problems and the smart guy uses smart for everything. Black Forest is supposed to work like that. But that is directly contradictory to the goal of skill challenges. If your Minotuar Fighter literally never once uses any skill other than Athletics in any skill challenge, and your Halfling Rogue friend always uses Thievery, or whatever it's called, then those other skills shouldn't exist, and everyone should just have a talent which they use to solve problems.

That is why skill challenges fail. Not because the math is bad (though it is). But because even if you fix the math, it still motivates people to do the exact opposite of what it was intended to do.

3) You make a huge deal about how if they game is mostly good, why quibble over the bad. You are missing the point. The game is mostly bad. 3.5 has a lot of flaws and requires a lot of work, but the payoff is truly epic stories of sheer awesome that make me weep to hear. The payoff for dedicating yourself to fixing all of 4es problems is that you get a mediocre minis game for 3 times the cost of a better one.

Just because you revived this thread to defend 4e, I'm going to now give a list of the problems I have with it so that we can create some new tangential arguing directions. This is a list, not an argument, so if you don't understand a point, please ask me to present the actual argument about it. Though I'm sure you'll get some/most of the short hand yourself. Also, this is assuming I want to use it as a RPG, not a minis game, since the problem with it as a minis game are different, but do overlap in some areas.

1) Rituals are terrible. They cost long term power for short term gain.
2) Rituals are terrible. They don't do anything meaningfully worth the time, much less the cost.
3) Rituals are terrible. They take very long for no reason that makes any sense to anyone. This very length removes what few uses they might have had.
4) Skill challenges are terrible. They don't create a fun noncombat resolution mechanism. They just make people roll a lot of dice.
5) The Power system is terrible, you don't have enough uses of encounter/dailies to have interesting battles, and at wills are not tactically interesting except for odd characters like Wizards.
6) The Power system is terrible, you can't use abilities multiple times for any reason, and that makes no sense and deprives the game of tactical and strategic complexity.
7) The Power system is terrible, all the powers are pretty damn boring in what they do.
8) The save system is a useless kludge that exists only to keep "roll a saving throw" in the game, and it doesn't even do that right. It is the worst method of duration control ever.
9) The six attributes aren't even really six attributes, just ways of punishing characters by making them need Str and Con, or Int or Str instead of Dex or Con (which are objectively superior).
10) Their are eight abilities called "Evil Eye" and they all do something different. This makes no sense and is terrible.

[MartinHarper]

If they don't have a range 40 attack or a high fly speed or stealth or protection from arrows, then they don't go onto the Featureless Plain of the Flying Sorrowsworn Death Rangers when it's sunny. Just like you don't go fighting the kraken if you can't breathe underwater. I mean, why are the PCs even going to this plain in the first place? Can't they just teleport past it to some place with, you know, features? Or just buy some longbows and flying mounts already?

If one side of a battle is (a) always faster and (b) always has longer range, then that side will win in open battle. If one side is (a) airborne and (b) ranged, and the other side is neither, then that side will win in open battle. That's not a bug, that's a feature. If you have a combat system where the tortoise swordsman can beat the hare archer, then you have a combat system that shatters my suspension of disbelief. If you have a system where pikemen are a good defence against bombers, then you have a bad system.

[Psychic Robot]

You're completely missing the point--which is, namely, that the PCs should have ways to counter the flight of the deathlord. They're level 28, for crying out loud.

[MartinHarper]

Actually, the Ranger totally loses to the Deathlord, because the Deathlord stays out of the range of all dailies/encounters/at-wills. It's seriously just Basic attack vs basic attack, calculate numbers.

Ranger powers are mostly range: as weapon, so they can be used. The fighter is down to basic attacks, though.

[MartinHarper]

You're completely missing the point--which is, namely, that the PCs should have ways to counter the flight of the deathlord. They're level 28, for crying out loud.

They do:
a) archers
b) flight
c) stealth
d) total cover
e) waiting for it to rain or snow or be foggy or night
f) not going onto the featureless plain
g) whatever counters the DM invented for the monster he invented.
h) etc

Look, your flying deathbows are lame, because they are totally counterable. By contrast, my ghostbows are Phasing and have Phasing attacks, and shoot the PCs through the walls and floor. Now the PCs are screwed everywhere except the Plane of Air. My demonstration of 4e's brokenness is much better than yours.