A question from a 4E apologist.

[Murtak]

3E is not 4E. We can agree on that, I'm sure. And one of the differences is that 4E moves away from "The Tactics of the Character Sheet" and puts the tactics on the field.

False.

I would rather do that. I prefer a system where you make your character how you want it, and then you find the tactics to make that character work in the field, than one where... as so many people have observed... "the most important strategic decision you will ever make is your character class".

We'd like to actually have balanced classes so you can play what you like to play and be fine without the DM bailing you out.

That doesn't appeal to me as a player. On an intellectual level, yes. I went through my dumpster diving phase with GURPS, of all things. I grok the appeal, even as I never got into 3E enough to do it there. But when you're making a "combat solution character" like that, well, okay, I guess maybe you can have a point of pride for having created the inputs most likely to produce the desired output out of the cumulative random algorithm that is an entire combat.

Ever notice how 99% of the dumpster diving is done for melees? That's because the casters don't need to. The melees do. Power up melees to the level of the casters (and more importantly monsters) and dumpster diving disappears.

Your problems with 4E all amount to the fact that the "game" you prefer to play with 3E... stack the inputs... doesn't work as well and doesn't produce as interesting results as when you play it with 3E.

Actually that is the only part of the game that is left.

The system is just fine for what I want, which is when I can make a Halfling Warlord and then get out there and make it work.

It doesn't work if the DM has to bail you out.

You guys don't like the game we're playing, which is 4E as written. I'm not interested in the game you're playing, which is the 3E character generation metagame.

What you see on this board is game design. We have a separate forum for what happens in actual games.

To me, that's pretty much the end of the story. I just have a hard time understanding how you get past the massive dissonance between conflicting views I see espoused here.

I think Roy is an ass, Frank has a tendency for hyperbole and PhoneLobster can't let go of an idea once he has conceived it. But that doesn't mean I can't respect them. And I'd rather get into a shouting match here and come out with some useful opinions than read your clueless rants with not one fucking argument behind them.

I still don't have an answer to that, but I don't really care. There are more fun things I could be doing with 4E than arguing its merits to people who aren't interested in the things it's meant to do.

Which is? You haven't named one which has not immediately been debunked. You have not provided any arguments for your case. Why should we believe you?

[mean_liar]

Actually, AE, there's a formula for determining optimal foe-choice. In a nutshell, you quickly figure the damage per round per foe: exact numbers are nice but unnecessary here, as it boils down to (attack - defense)/20 * avg damage to determine how much rough damage an enemy pumps out each round.

Then, you have a good idea of how much HP they have, their Defenses, and how much attack and damage you have, which all equates into a rough guess as to how many rounds the target will live against a concerted attack.

Then it's an optimization problem: you're looking to eliminate the most-damaging foes as quickly as possible without concentrating on big bads, since they last longer.

This is, incidentally, why you generally target Minions before anything else as their damage-to-defense ratio is so horribly clear.

On a lark I actually worked up a rough spreadsheet that lays out the optimal targeting, but its basically everything that you'd expect to see.

That you think we're all somehow goofy-dumb is really, really insulting, especially when you think that "everything sells at 20%" and "having -12 to enemy saves" is okay.

[FatR]

It's a great intellectual exercise to crunch the numbers and say "Well, this one is clearly advantageous", but unless you've got a boring DM running boringly straightforward scenarios with the same monsters and playing them all like poorly programmed mobile objects in a video game, the "edge scenarios" will come up, and if you don't have anything to deal with them... or you're not looking for them because you've written off the +2 or the slide one square or anything that's not straight DPS... you're not playing the game optimally, and your fights will last longer and your party will die more often.

Thing is, 4E doesn't really have any "edge scenarios" that can actually be solved by specific counters. Unless GM very specifically and deliberately tries to get you with puzzle encounters and homebrewed monsters, there are no alternative options that can resolve situations which being good at DPS/stunlocking can't.

[AlexandraErin]

clikmil:

You want numbers? Okay, here's the numbers. These numbers were already part of the conversation, I figured they didn't need repeating.

(A number between 4 to 12, representing a broad range of typical combats across levels) vs. (10 to 20, the number of rounds I hear as "typical" around here).

4 to 12 is typically less than 10 to 20.

It takes too long to win a combat the way you guys play, during which time you are exposed to more damage and are more likely to die.

@Murtak:

You guys honed your concentrated fire tactic on 3E. 4E is different. How? More HP, harder to get someone a big enemy down in a single round, no instant death or all or nothing save-or-die effects. If you can bring the big guy down FAST, focus fire.

But let's talk damage per round.

The difference in damage potential between ranks of supporting monsters is typically less than the difference in their HP.

Minions are the extreme example: 1 HP, damage is usually based on an average attack roll of a monster of their level.

You can have four people pile on a regular monster, or you can attack four minions. Attacking four minions will result in an instant change in the battle situation... there will be less damage afflicting the PCs.

You could argue that the PCs using powers like Cleave or other melees with damage splash effects will take care of the minions anyway in the course of things, but this only holds true if all the minions rush into melee against the PC who's got the damage splash and none of them have missile attacks.

If there are minions with bows, or the minions aren't dogpiling on your "Cleaver", the minions will persist and do damage every single round.

If you know you can't take out (or negate the effectiveness of) a non-minion the first round of combat with focused fire, then focused fire is the strategy that results in you taking the most damage over the course of the battle, in most scenarios that involve minions and other monsters.

Then we have the boss battle model: one elite or one solo, plus guards (and maybe some minions). If the boss takes twice as much HP damage to drop as the guards, but is not doing significantly worse damage, then it's a better use of your damage potential to split between two guards: in the amount of time it takes to drop the boss, you've taken two damage-dealers out of the mix, not one.

Math: Say the boss does 1.5 times the damage of the guards and has 200 HP. Say the guards have 100 HP. If my party can do 200 points of damage to get (2x Guard Damage) out of the fight instead of (1.5x Guard Damage), it's "dumb" to take out the boss.

Also, if their hit percentages are similar, then Two Guards are more likely to hit once on a given round, collectively, than One Boss. It's the same advantage as "twin strike".

And if there are minions who are doing damage every round... something's got to be done, or they're going to be killing you by attrition. You can mop up their damage with a single attack, lowering the damage your party takes every turn.

Of course, tactics must adapt to situation... if the boss has a power that's being used to buff the guards or to wipe the floor with the PCs, then yes, everybody dogpile on the boss.

Also, "numbers" matter in ways besides damage: a boss is a single unit that can be more easily avoided by the squishes than can two guards. Again, powers can make a difference. This is why, in 4E, the tactical decisions you make in combat matter as much as the ones you make at gen time.

All of this above holds true no matter which style/theory of combat DMing you're following. As a PC, you can change the battle in your side's favor faster and take less damage over the course of the encounter by bringing down the minions and the guards than by dogpiling on the heavy bruiser.

[Roy]

I think Roy is an ass...

Fuck you, and suck a barrel of cocks.

Edit: More straw men about willfully misunderstanding how focus fire actually works. Where the fuck are the Captcha codes when we need them?

[mean_liar]

I cannot believe you think any of what you posted above is at all groundbreaking, interesting, or (in certain parts) true.

Padded Sumo is mostly a gripe about MM1 Solos, which suck ass. Their HPs are too damn much and you WILL use your At-wills against them in a slugfest because your Encounters and leftover Dailies didn't do the job... until you can just kill them outright because you're lvl 21+ and twinked like a good minmaxer should be.

You outright admit it when you complain about grindfests with your Ranger and having the GM puzzle monster and Tea Party the Solos.

[MartinHarper]

If they're all bunched up, it's Wizard time, but if they're spread out, you got to spend a turn (or two if you miss... Sure attacks for the win there)

Hardly. Cloud of Daggers will net you a kill 100% of the time against minions. Sure Strike is sub-par even in the very narrow field of clearing well-spaced minions.

However, well-spaced ranged minions do maintain their xp value all the way to mid-heroic. The problem is that they don't last longer than that, and other minions are overpriced from level three. It's a shame, because otherwise the 4e guidelines for encounter construction are mostly decent. I understand that MM2 minions are better, though.

Play the game as written, it works.

Quick reminder of how the game is written:

Smart monsters plan their attacks and choose the best course of action

Having said that, so far I haven't had a problem with my monsters always ignoring the defender and hitting the squishies. Many monsters are dumb, and often the best course of action is to gang up on the defender.

[AlexandraErin]

@FatR:

There are edge scenarios, though, in the game as written. If your strategy revolves around stunlocking, you're fucked by hyrdras, and there are hydras that go all the way up to the epic level.

Sure, you can just use your Orb of Imposition power to kill them with a save ends ongoing damage power, but to think of that you can't be thinking of your non-stun spell slots as wastes.

And ongoing damage isn't the "Party's over, everybody go home" solution that stunlocking is, which is exactly why it's what you save for the edge scenario. You've still got to kill the thing. Ongoing damage gives you the equivalent of another party member giving it a good hit every turn but it doesn't win the battle right away. If it were as instantly effective as stunlocking, it would be the centerpiece of the orbizard and not stunlocking.

Your primary strategies can be pretty good, but they're not gamebreakers in and of themselves. I'd let a player use those builds in my game, as long as they don't throw a fit when every battle doesn't line up in accordance with the assumptions they based their build strategy on.

[Murtak]

You guys honed your concentrated fire tactic on 3E. 4E is different. How? More HP, harder to get someone a big enemy down in a single round, no instant death or all or nothing save-or-die effects. If you can bring the big guy down FAST, focus fire.

False on all points. 3rd is actually deadly enough to ensure focus fire is overkill. Longer fights encourage focus fire, not shorter ones.

Minions are the extreme example: 1 HP, damage is usually based on an average attack roll of a monster of their level.

You can have four people pile on a regular monster, or you can attack four minions. Attacking four minions will result in an instant change in the battle situation... there will be less damage afflicting the PCs.

And if you bothered to read my previous post you might have noticed that little point about "enemies die in one round already". Thanks for proving my point though.


This may not be obvious to you, but "focused fire" does not equal "always attack the biggest guy". It means you attack the enemy most dangerous in relation to their defenses. And you pile on enough firepower to make sure he goes down as fast as possible. So what you regard as "tactics" is just a single tactic - namely "focused fire". Now please excuse me, the irony is dripping on the floor here.

[mean_liar]

I believe a Bloodmage Orbizard can actually do all of that at once.

[AlexandraErin]

@MartinHarper:

Not hardly hardly at all. Er. You know what I mean. A Wizard with Cloud of Daggers can kill a minion a round, but that's it. If there are four minions taking the place of a single monster in an encounter, the Wizard's going to spend four minions on clean-up duty, or you have everyone take out a minion and get it over with. Which way's faster is going to depend on battlefield conditions and what the minions are doing and what's in the way.

And there are edge scenarios for this, too. Minions with bows with a range of 20. The Wizard can magic missile the minions, the Wizard can spend two turns to move into range (attacking something else in the middle, or taking a magic missile potshot at the minions), the Wizard can give up a standard to double move and attack the minions the next round.

I would not be surprised if Cloud of Daggers receives an errata to its lingering, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it stays as written (with the area notation standardized, though, I hope), because it's not the little black dress of minion killing that everyone thinks it is.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone says "Why does the Wizard have magic missile when it's worthless?", but... in edge scenarios like this one, it's not. If I'm a Human Wizard, it's going in my bonus slot at least, because it can hit shit that other at-wills can't.

[Ravengm]

You guys don't like the game we're playing, which is 4E as written.

I'm pretty sure you mean "as intended". Because many of the examples you've given us hinge on using flavor text as law. The Paladin's Challenge gives some minor penalties for not attacking the Paladin, but nowhere in the description does it say you actually have to attack anyone. Yet all of the monsters in games you're playing seem to do just that.

If you want to play the game the way the designers intended, then sure, go for it. It works pretty well for that. But if you try to play it in another direction, then the game falls apart pretty fast.

For example: the "iconic party" is a mix of roles, and probably a mix of melee and ranged characters too. However, the game actually plays better if your party is entirely compromised of Rangers that use bows. That way everyone can use the same party tactic, instead of hacking together a strategy that can involve everyone.

Even better is when some powers almost explicitly encourage same-party playstyle. Take a look at Knights of Unyielding Valor (Cleric power, PHB). If your entire party is Clerics, then you're going to be trapping a fairly significant amount of squares. It's just shooting fish in a barrel after that. But you can't do that unless you have mostly Clerics in your party.

[Roy]

Lulz. And now we're at monsters with bows break the game. Proceeding as usual.

[AlexandraErin]

@Murtak:

Okay, I admit it: I assumed that your focus fire strategy must have worked in high level 3E play because if not I couldn't understand why you thought it was a good idea in 4E, since it seems to result in combats that grind, are unwinnable except with precisely formulated builds, and result in TPKs when playing published scenarios. I figured you were sticking with what worked before.

I don't define one person attacking a minion as focus fire, but I agree with your criteria/decision tree on its face. Mathematically, four people blasting at the same minion until one of them hits and then moving onto the next is the same thing as each targeting separate identical minions and then ganging up when one drops.

On a practical level, on the battlefield as events are unfolding, one may make more sense than the other as different characters have differing opportunities to take out minions. Things will be different depending on the melee/missile mix*, how many ranks of bad guys you're facing, whether one side has the other surrounded, etc.

I put the * there because I've seen it said that there's no reason to mix. The DM has reason to mix: if you've got nothing but melee, archery minions are the equivalent of your entire team is poisoned and can't save as long as he's got melee to shove in your face. If the DM is mixing missile with melee, you've got a reason to do the same. Luckily, there are versatiles: a dagger rogue... or even a rogue who primaries with a bigger weapon but carries daggers, and if your cleric is really dedicated to Righteous Brand so often that you'd never use another melee power, you might as well put lance in the other slot.

I mean, if you know your DM doesn't put much stock in minions and you'll never face the scenario where you've got soldiers in between you and archers on the other side, or at least you won't until everybody's got a power that lets them do a jump/teleport/fly-your-speed once an encounter to get to the minions, then there's no reason to mix missile and melee.

And the subject of what targets you have the opportunity to attack applies to taking out two guards. If the battle field is dynamic, it may be that half the party concentrates on one and the other half on another. You may give up more hits in order to keep on one than would make it worth your while. You've got to look at the situation and figure out what works best.

We can wrangle the definition of "focused fire" until "focused fire" means "everyone attacks whoever it makes the most sense to attack", which is a good rule of thumb to follow in general... but with the whole party following it, it won't always result in everybody attacking the same target, and does require thinking tactically to identify the best one.

Of course, that all depends on how fluid combat is. If the DM is dedicated to "focused fire = better = smarter = the monsters will do it", then combat can be pretty static once everyone's in position, but that's why some monsters do more damage on a charge and some do extra damage on combat advantage and some have blasts that catch allies and some gain bonuses if they move X squares, so that having the monsters play "smart" doesn't necessarily equate to following this style of bunching up minis in the middle.

On the subject of playing monsters smart: if the guards have missile attacks and they know the PCs are going to be working to bring one down as fast as they can, it can make perfect sense for them to split up to make that as difficult as possible. That way they both stay alive longer and do more damage. If they can keep the PCs in the middle of them, they're not even necessarily giving up their focus. If the situation of the battle allows for it, it's a smart move.

The edge scenarios I keep talking about assume that some combats will be different from each other, and that people are moving around. "Line up and everybody swing until the other side's dead, using the default maneuver" won't produce them very often, but even if the DM's playing by your guys' favored logic, there are reasons for them to move.

[MartinHarper]

A Wizard with Cloud of Daggers can kill a minion a round...

Which is significantly better than a Fighter with Sure Strike.

And there are edge scenarios for this, too. Minions with bows with a range of 20.

This edge case is not making Sure Strike any better.

[Doom]

Oh, just for fun, I'll play a little.

I play a dagger rogue in one game. The virtue of daggers is you can throw them. I use magical Distance Daggers for extra range. The "all magical throwing weapons are returning" mechanic really increases a rogue's versatility after the opening levels.

It's also a little goofy, and totally warps the gaming world. Why bother making multiples of weapons (even arrows), when it's so much cheaper just to enchant a single one? And like that, 'siege warfare' and many related concepts go right out the window.

A personal quibble, but things do get strained a bit when a player pulls Blinding Barrage on my table, throwing a single dagger half a dozen times, or more.

It lets me move around a lot, it means I can attack every turn even when I'm retreating, and this makes the Warden the "easy target" by comparison.

That it does, that moving around is plenty bizarre, especially the moving behind walls, then coming out a few seconds later to deal much extra damage (because my monsters have no memory, like in an MMO?) One of my players is using a shadow assassin, deliberately triggering opportunity attacks to deal damage to a horde of monsters as he runs by them.

It's neat, but it IS a little odd that he's holding a crossbow and dealing this kind of 30+ damage a round just by moving. I don't even understand what a 'wizard' of DnD4.0 is for, since he has nothing that any other class doesn't have in abundance.

Sly Flourish. At-Will with bonus Charisma damage on top of Dex. Weapon power, melee or ranged. Works with a thrown dagger as well as one in the hand.

How exactly does that charisma deal extra damage, exactly? It's the repeated slaps in the face like this that really do bug some folks. I know, you can give some puffball rationalization for it...but some folks to think words should have meaning.

If monsters chase me, they get hit with that every round, whether they catch me or not. They give up rounds where they can't hit anyone and/or trigger the Warden's powers and/or get opportunity attack to chase me, or they stick to the Warden.

It's a good theory; strangely at my table the rogues keep getting beatings, not sure why, although they both (two campaigns) operate that way. Heck, one of them has even in a Warden party.

Sure, I'm not doing my Sneak Attack damage every round this way, but there's a reason SA does more damage than Hunter's Quarry or Warlock's Curse. If an ally's power throws me a combat advantage, I can get it off a thrown dagger just as easily as I could from being in position. If not, I use it when I can get into a melee position with flanking.

Seriously, if you're not getting sneak attack nearly every round, you're doing it wrong. Using that semi-invisible dagger? Should carry one with you just for that purpose...then toss in the three or so relevant abilities that give you combat advantage.

Don't you play in combats with walls much? The whole 'duck behind the door' thing is pretty reliable, after all.

This strategy would fall apart if at the start of combat the DM said, "Look, I know your strategy and fuck you. Everybody dogpiles on the dagger girl until she's dead." And in fact, every once in a while... when fighting recurring foes, for instance... our tactics are being countered by the monsters.

Funny thing, my Expedition monsters (police robots) get a basic (i.e., candidate for opportunity) attack that targets fortitude.

And, just like that, the whole rogue character concept falls apart, at least for that battle. Heck, I wasn't even trying, just went off the rails over a single NAD. How was I to know that all opportunity attacks are only supposed to target AC...why should they, exactly?

And sometimes it needs to be adjusted because we're fighting in the proverbial closet. Sometimes it needs to be adjusted because we're fighting in a wide open field. I see the people on this forum responding to situational changes like that by going "Oh so the system assumes all fights happen in X." No, the system assume your DM is there for a reason and will provide varying scenarios.

Closets have walls, you can exploit stealth easy then. Open fields have kiting, not exactly a difficult to figure tactic.

And this doesn't mean that in all cases where our tactics work the DM is humoring us.

Wait a second: later on, you deal with the 'orb wizard' issue by completely warping the encounter beyond all sane measures of difficulty for him.

So, um, do you have a problem with the DM humoring the players, or not?

In our paragon tier campaigns, 6 to 10 is a little more typical, and we've had ones that go higher. But then we're infiltrating a fortress and our DM tends to have noisy fights trigger encounter cascades so it's more like "two or three encounters in a row". Same amount of rounds per encounter when divided up.

I don't know how you're slogging through these things so fast. A 6 round fight, really? Must be below your party level or something. Paragon fights are easily taking 12 rounds here, guess I can take down some stats and make sure, although 2 hours a fight seems about right (it's all I can to do squeeze 3 encounters in a 7 hour night, and that's when I'm extensively using rails).

The climactic battles she's set up... and she likes the Boss Battle model... are against foes that probably would TPK us if we're not careful or that would devolve into a boring grind if we didn't come up with a creative solution... some being "puzzle fights" where elements in the room can be used to defeat the boss once bloodied, and some being creative use of skills and roleplay...

Ooh, I'd love to see these boss monsters, there are only a couple MM creatures that are both 'level appropriate' and even remotely capable of a TPK (my froghemoth will do a potential 140 points of damage, I'm hoping to maybe take down one character with it...but we'll see). Back to the point, what boss monster deals TPK-type damage?

And even the boss fights are winnable by the numbers, with a careful party.

Would love to see those numbers, to get an idea of a level appropriate boss monster that can do TPKs in a winnable fight for the numbers, as you say.

I did a quick Google to find what people on other forums are saying about their experiences... it seems our group isn't some freakish anomaly that's playing it wrong. I'd link to the examples but I know how you guys feel about other forums... still, if most people are wrapping combat up in under 8 rounds and you guys are complaining about "Padded Sumo", maybe you should examine your assumptions about what the best approach to combat is.

Certainly, experiences vary, but TGD is hardly the only place where these issues have been noted, discussed, and demonstrated. It really seems like simple number crunching would reveal 'under 8 rounds' to not be typical, except at low levels.

I don't feel like sitting down to do it, but simple expectations of level 10 party damage output vs a typical AC/HP sum encounter should show something's not right about 8 rounds. For example, in order for a Chuul to be defeated in 8 rounds against a character with a 50% chance of hitting, he'll have to deal 28 points a hit on average, every round. Even considering dailies and encounters, that's a little steep for a 'basic' level 10 character, eh? Can you provide 5 distinct such characters, especially ones that aren't exploiting obvious loopholes (eg, orb wizard)?

Note, this is for a 'level appropriate' encounter, so burning every daily power here is being rather generous.

As an example: if you all open with your biggest attacks and you take a "focused fire" approach, you're going to get the Big Guy down to 0 faster... but until you get him down, you're still taking the same damage per round from everybody else. The assumption that Focused Fire grants an overwhelming advantage in this edition just doesn't bear out.

Interesting how you use tactics so very, very, poorly here. Is this truly your best understanding of how Focused Fire works?

But, perhaps I'm wrong. Can you discuss how dealing 90% damage to all the monsters first, before killing on them, would be superior in some way?

If people are looking for the opening in where they can use their powers to make the most immediate difference... oh, that guy's got to be within my daily attack power of being dead...

Wow, you can't be serious. Why would you wait like this, wasting potential bonus effects of a dailing power, wasting potential damage that could have killed the 'guy' a round, or two, earlier?

Tactics.

Minions can do as much damage as non-minion mooks by design

No they don't, not even close, past level 5 or so. And there are so many mass attack/autodamage options that using them past that point is just plain stupid, unless you go way, way, beyond the wonky guidelines of the DMG.

That's the other weird thing I keep running into when I read your threads: the bizarre notion that anything 4E doesn't cover is "forbidden". I've seen FrankTrollman say more than once that you're not "allowed" to touch corpses because they "don't exist".

Well, so much bizarre stuff works 'just because' (eg, charisma dealing bonus damage, Intelligence characters, even unconscious ones, still enhancing AC defense, acid attacks that deal subdual damage, etc, etc), that intelligent players are browbeaten into just not asking questions.

Frank's comment, I believe, is in regard to players not being able to touch the (theoretically) magical weapons and equipment the monsters use on them. Granted, 'old' Dungeons and Dragons had the annoying 'Drow' enchanted things that crumbled to dust in short order, but at least it made the effort of making some sort of sense.

Whatever. I'm not going to have the tactics argument with you guys because you're arguing that the sky is green and 2+2=7.

I don't believe I've seen anyone making any sort of such argument. You're ranting more than a little, and striking out in many different directions, but that's ok. I will, however, join my voice to those asking you to focus a bit on what you want to discuss in rational detail, and perhaps you should consider toning back the general blanket attacks.

People are out there playing the game right now and they're making Elven Battleragers work and they're playing mixed melee/ranged and they're wrapping combat up in under ten rounds without using "orbizards" or stacking as many damage exploits as they can.

Certainly, and there are folks on the Gleemax boards that think a TWF ranger with strength 8 is an AWESOME design (really wished I saved that thread), and I seem to recall some guy there bragging about how he singlehandedly wiped out an army of epic level half-dragons with epic gear (granted, he was his own DM).

But, rather than deal with such cases, let's just talk the mathematics involved. It's easier, and makes more sense.

your epic level orbizard against me sometime. You guys' strategy wouldn't show what advantage it does show...Orcus's lair...alliance with Tiamat...bunch of Chaos Hydras to fight for him?

Your rant is contradictory to your own claimed beliefs, and cranking up the challenge level by a factor of, what, 4, is hardly playing fair, eh?

Even if you've got mounted archers who can fly, what do you do when it's time to go down the stairs into the tunnels with low ceilings and fight monsters there?

Really, more to it than that, as that discussion is also a commentary on the goofy cover rules, and the goofy archery rules in general.

These things aren't examples of a broken system being fixed by the DM. It's just the way the game works... .

Yes, examples of a completely different game unrelated to Dungeons and Dragons, a 30 year old system with many flaws. Instead, it's a completely new system with many more flaws, in addition to many of the flaws of D&D, that tries to pass itself off as the same game, while not offering any of the advantages of a 30 year old system whose name it uses.

The system works just fine at giving the DM the tools that the DM needs to give the players challenges that they can struggle against. That's all the system can do. That's all it should do.

If this were true, why completely destroy the 'old' game as badwrongfun, in favor of this new thing?

Normally I'd say, "To each their own", but... your way of playing 4E doesn't produce an advantage in party survival or wrapping fights up and it doesn't make the game more fun even for you.

It's not so much a way of playing (although it is that, too), but a way of thinking. Why roll a d4 for damage when you can roll a d6 and everything else is the same? I respect your decision to roll a smaller die, but I find heeding the words of those who comprehend why the larger die is better more worthwhile.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can't help but be amused that A. Erin hasn't been here for even a day but already knows to just ignore PR and Roy.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Silence, fatty.

I'm ignoring you until you grow the fuck up. How will I know? I have no idea...

[AlexandraErin]

@Roy: No, monsters with bows don't break the game. That's a winnable scenario. It just breaks the assumption that a party that's all melee or all missile is better than one that mixes.

Someone can say that an all archery ranger party would win that encounter. So what, when you make your all archery ranger party, the DM obliges you with scenarios that they're tailored to own?

This is the point I'm making: orbizard is not good against everything, archery is not good against everything, trapper clerics aren't good against everything. You guys think that 4E DMs go easy on your players, but unless it honestly is just an intellectual exercise to come up with a single scenario and then show how one build owns that scenario, your DMs have to go pretty easy on you to let a troop of four or five monospecialized characters of the same build waltz through an adventure.

A fight, yes. A whole arc?

@MartinHarper: That edge scenario wasn't about making Sure Strike better. It was showing the scenario where Cloud of Daggers isn't better than Magic Missile, at least not to the point where it makes Magic Missile obsolete. Magic Missile gives you a chance to take a minion out while you move in to where Cloud of Daggers can hit.

Yeah, Cloud of Daggers is better than anything a fighter can pull for taking out a single minion. I actually differ from the designers on one score: I don't think it's a mistake or dilution of Controller to make them good at mopping up minions. It's not worth wasting a stun or sleep on minions, and attacks that they have that would shift or daze or penalize usually kill the minion outright. Killing is control for minions.

And no, I'm not saying that combat must only take place on football fields so that magic missile will be worth using... this is an edge scenario because most combat environments aren't that big.

@RavenGM:

I mean as written. I'm not emailing Andy Collins and asking him about his intent. I'm reading the books and then playing that game.

[MartinHarper]

A 6 round fight, really? Must be below your party level or something.

Erin's party can run three encounters in a row and not die. They're below party level. Alternatively, the DM may be following the advice in Dungeon, and making the last 2-3 monsters in an encounter die as soon as they're hit.

[Murtak]

AlexandraErin, what you don't get is that different games actually have different tactics. In Shadowrun (3rd edition especially) wound penalties strongly encourage you to at least wound every significant opponent. In 3rd edition scry-and-die lets you assassinate people in spite of layered defenses and hundreds of minions. In Feng Shui the basic mechanics encourage you to attack multiple minions at once. Of the hundreds of possible tactics 4th edition chose one. I call it focused fire, you call it attack-the-foe-with-the-highest-danger-potential-in-relation-to-his-defenses-keeping-in-mind-the-terrain, but it is still a single tactic, with only slight differences in execution. Any MMORPG has more, amusingly mostly because they actually have aggro mechanics.

[MartinHarper]

@MartinHarper: That edge scenario wasn't about making Sure Strike better. It was showing the scenario where Cloud of Daggers isn't better than Magic Missile, at least not to the point where it makes Magic Missile obsolete.

Who in this thread has argued that Cloud of Daggers makes Magic Missile obsolete? Certainly not me. Please, try to respond to what we actually say, not what you think we say.

Sure Strike sucks. It is a waste of ink. You disputed this fact in your first post. Do you still dispute it, or have you come to your senses?

[Psychic Robot]

I can't help but be amused that A. Erin hasn't been here for even a day but already knows to just ignore PR and Roy.

I made accurate points.

[Ravengm]

I can't help but be amused that A. Erin hasn't been here for even a day but already knows to just ignore PR and Roy.

I made accurate points.

Albeit in an immature way.

[Roy]

I can't help but be amused that A. Erin hasn't been here for even a day but already knows to just ignore PR and Roy.

Fuck you, and suck a barrel of cocks. No joking smiley. She's ignoring me because I tore her apart the fastest.