Major Design Choices of 4e D&D

[Voss]

Running away is also really damn hard, just in a general sense.

A run action is just spd+2, and while I think you can take 2 of those (move and then convert standard->move, but I don't specifically remember if you can run twice) you really aren't outdistancing anyone very quickly, and you are granting combat advantage to everyone for running. But almost anyone in melee with you already can just keep up, and keep swinging opportunity attacks as you try to flee. And thats without special movement effects, slowing you in some fashion or just ranged attacks.

You can try to shift away and then run, but then you are still in range of enemies: walk + charge is going to outdistance you almost every time.

The best you can do, when it comes to running away, is not be a melee guy, and hope the suckers that are melee guys can keep the monsters occupied long enough for you to escape (on the principle that I just have to be faster than you)

Of course this is often true of monsters as well.

As losing fight in 4e is either to the death or surrender, almost 100% of the time, unless one side can't compensate for the other's movement shenanigans. And surrender, unfortunately, falls into the land of magical tea party, and what the DM decrees, happens, because you've wandered far outside the ruleset at this point. The hydra will just eat you, but the gnolls probably will too. For the few things that don't fall into the 'won't automatically eat you' category, you pretty much have to make it up as you go along.


Hmm, Lago. I don't think that counts as evidence that fights are easy. More like evidence that the designer's went with the theory that monsters are solely for stabbing in the face, and all other options need not apply. Fight to the death seems to be the default assumption: no morale checks, no suggestions for what happens if the enemy doesn't have a deathwish.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Most of the TPK monsters are low level. At higher level, you need specific combination of monsters to create a TPK.

Even so, victory is still generally inevitable for PCs. But as someone who just played in an online 4E game where someone walked out on, it is very frustrating to be caught in a stunlock and unable to do anything for 6 rounds while your party plinks away at the damn ghouls with Eldritch Blasts and Thorn Strike.

I think the maximum amount of time people can put up with having no control over their character is 20 minutes. Anything past that and you're going into Super Smash Bros. territory.

[RandomCasualty2]

The worst thing you have to consider is that monsters can retreat easily. Which means that they can basically just run over and get reinforcements and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

That's really one verisimilitude killer in 4E. It's real easy for a bunch of hobgoblins to just flee and put the entire fortress on alert and just swarm the PCs until they die.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Hmm, Lago. I don't think that counts as evidence that fights are easy. More like evidence that the designer's went with the theory that monsters are solely for stabbing in the face, and all other options need not apply. Fight to the death seems to be the default assumption: no morale checks, no suggestions for what happens if the enemy doesn't have a deathwish.

The thing that gets me about 4E is the arbitrary level of difficulty. A team of giant mummies is not difficult at all; you might not even need to heal during the encounter. That fucking ghaele I just mentioned can easily turn an encounter into a TPK.

[Doom]

I concede if the monsters are too powerful for the party, and too fast, the party is screwed...I'm not sure that's any different than most other games, though.

I still believe you're massively overlooking the party's abilities.

Here's what a fight looks like against the level 15 party in my campaign:

Monster moves next to vulnerable character.

Interrupt! Character gets a free move away.

Monster moves next to another character.

Interrupt! Character gets a free shift away.

Monster melee attacks a vulnerable character.

Interrupt! Attack misses, character gets a free move away.

Monster moves next to another character.

Interrupt! Character teleports away.

Monster grabs and immobilizes character, save ends.

Character teleports away, another character grants bonus saving throw.

Monster grabs and immobilizes a character, save ends.

Another character teleports first character away, monster gets immobilized.

Monster lands a critical. Interrupt! Critical negated, or reduced to a normal hit.

Monster lands a 50 hp shot. Double-surge, damage negated.

I'm not saying the characters don't become vulnerable, eventually, but the previous powers aren't dailies (except the double surge one, but there's plenty of other healing, and that 50 point shot is a fluke, not an every round thing), they're encounters. Every encounter has to deal with all that before even one character is at any risk of even being attacked against his/her will.

It takes a good three hours of steadily sandpapering away at the party before they're actually vulnerable to any serious attacks.

Guess I'll crack the MM 1 and 2 and see if the ones you reference have interrupts or something so their attacks count.

[RandomCasualty2]

I'm not saying the characters don't become vulnerable, eventually, but the previous powers aren't dailies (except the double surge one, but there's plenty of other healing, and that 50 point shot is a fluke, not an every round thing), they're encounters. Every encounter has to deal with all that before even one character is at any risk of even being attacked against his/her will.

It takes a good three hours of steadily sandpapering away at the party before they're actually vulnerable to any serious attacks.

Yeah, high level 4E characters have tons of healing and defenses to basically nullify what the monsters do. Its where I think 4E really dropped the ball, because the numbers for the monsters don't take this into account. The monsters are just as relatively deadly as they were at 3rd level, only before they can even start doing damage they have to breach through all the healing and interrupt defenses. Which really leads to the whole padded sumo effect.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not saying the characters don't become vulnerable, eventually, but the previous powers aren't dailies (except the double surge one, but there's plenty of other healing, and that 50 point shot is a fluke, not an every round thing), they're encounters. Every encounter has to deal with all that before even one character is at any risk of even being attacked against his/her will.

It takes a good three hours of steadily sandpapering away at the party before they're actually vulnerable to any serious attacks.

Yes. That's why I and other people have said that encounters are generally pretty easy but sometimes you encounter a Winter Ghaele or a Tormenting Ghost and you're a dead duck.

[Username17]

I see what you're saying about the skill system, and that is how it works. But I don't agree that it constitutes a high level design choice. If Mearls has shown us anything it is that even now there is no top level direction as to what the skill system is supposed to do. Seriously, he drops a new, exciting, and completely fucking different skill challenge version every couple of months. He writes and scraps a new skill challenge arc apparently every single campaign he runs. Probably more often than that.

So I can't really say that anything that happens with the skills is the result of any high level design decision. They seriously seem to have not made any high level design decisions having to do with running the skills yet. There's a bunch of slap-dash holding patterns. And nothing else.

-Username17

[Username17]

Interesting: the inverse of all the 4e major design principles looks like this:

• One player should not roll all of the dice during the action.
• Your choices at first level should be things you can outgrow.
• Your class should be defined by your character at the moment.
• Monsters should be completely integrated with the world and the mechanics.
• Players should be integrated into the economy at all levels.
• Actions should be decided in one or two rolls.
• Players should be active participants and traders in the action economy.
• Proper tactics and advantageous situations should push the RNG to the end.
• Doing damage to enemies should be just one choice among many to participate.
• Players should go most if not all combats without doing any healing in the middle of them.
• The default assumed world should be one in which most of the world is fairly stable and recognizable while scattered “points of darkness” send forth monsters and destruction that players can quest against.
• Effects should have sharply distinct durations to distinguish one from another.
• Characters should not have MMO combat roles defined for them.
• Characters should be allowed to keep their starting stuff if they want to without hamstringing themselves or the party.
• Severe wounds should be severe, and a wound's effect should be comprehensible and fixed when delivered.
• Things should be by default very dangerous and players should lose a noticeable amount of the time.
• Challenges should have relatively fixed relationships to the world, allowing low end PCs and high end PCs to encounter the same things and run or trounce them respectively.
• The abilities and tactics one uses to best an opponent should vary substantially based on what that opponent is and what it is that they do.
• A character should be able to carry whatever they want and should not be defined by their equipment.
• Characters and monsters should not even be buildable who do not have abilities that affect the world outside of the combat minigame.
• All action should be thought of in terms of having long lasting repercussions.
• The customizable part of your character should generate all of your major options.
• The game should not use squares and should acknowledge long distances as well as short ones.
• The players should have abilities in their hands that affect the world and change the direction of the plot.
• Battles by default should end in routes and surrenders rather than one sided butchery.

-Username17

[Morzas]

Bizarro 4e sounds like a game I'd love to play. It sounds sort of like a multiplayer Roguelike. Perhaps Thomas Biskup's ADOM RPG, if it ever gets finished, will be like this.

[virgil]

Things should be by default very dangerous and players should lose a noticeable amount of the time.

I can imagine this being a very hard element to swallow for players, unless you make clear the last item on the list.

Battles by default should end in routes and surrenders rather than one sided butchery.

However, I know at least a couple players who would fight against the idea of defeat tooth and nail. I've seen sessions where survival wasn't possible, and even success (if a triple 20 crit happened) would not actually give any material benefit to them whatsoever; and they chose to charge forward even after a giant sign saying "step here to escape" was placed next to them.

[Doom]

Your class should be defined by your character at the moment.

I believe this would be the absolute most difficult to implement in a tabletop RPG. A player having reasonable mastery of the three or so classes, minimum, necessary to make this goal an arguable reality is alot to ask, unless some classes are fairly simple (crap, we're turning back into AD&D here).

Actually, I remember seeing an MMO at E3 where you played cards to temporarily transform your character from, say, a fighter into a necromancer. Sure wish I could remember the name of it.

[Quantumboost]

Your class should be defined by your character at the moment.

I believe this would be the absolute most difficult to implement in a tabletop RPG. A player having reasonable mastery of the three or so classes, minimum, necessary to make this goal an arguable reality is alot to ask, unless some classes are fairly simple (crap, we're turning back into AD&D here).

Actually, I remember seeing an MMO at E3 where you played cards to temporarily transform your character from, say, a fighter into a necromancer. Sure wish I could remember the name of it.

Hm... the key for this might actually be the possibility that your character can swap out abilities for other abilities that they have. So a character has a set of abilities, and at any given moment he chooses a subset of those abilities in some well-defined manner. The trick would be defining it so that it wasn't so restrictive that players would never swap out abilities, and not so broad that it's identical to always having the full set of abilities.

I wonder... would the "base" class from FFV fulfill this? There, you get abilities by training in the various "well-defined" character classes, and when you unequip your class you get a "base" character who can mix and match the abilities of the various classes, so long as you've advanced enough in the actual class to earn that ability.

It could easily get combinatorial to balance, but... there might be something usable there.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think what Frank was talking about was how new classes along your walk of life completely subsumed your old one.

For example, here's what a character progression would look like:

Young Girl --> Squire --> Angel Knight --> Queen of Seraphim

When this character gets to the final class, her YG/Squire class has little to do with her QoS class and probably doesn't even use a lot of stuff from her Angel Knight abilities.

In this progression, what she picked beforehand doesn't have a lot of bearing on what she is now. I know a lot of people don't like this (I don't for example) but it's certainly a defensible design goal.

[Emerald]

Is it just me, or does it look like anti-4e is pretty much 3e system and 2e DMing/houserules?

All of these are in 3e:

One player should not roll all of the dice during the action: spell damage vs. saves, AoOs vs. immediate actions, etc.

Your choices at first level should be things you can outgrow: Races. Nuff said.

Your class should be defined by your character at the moment: When you hit Incantatrix or Iot7V, you don't care about your (nonexistant) wizard or sorcerer class features anymore.

Monsters should be completely integrated with the world and the mechanics: Monsters and PCs use the same system.

Players should be integrated into the economy at all levels: 3e at least attempts a realistic economy, though it's not always accurate and you do get the wish problem.

Actions should be decided in one or two rolls: Attacks are one roll each, spells are damage + save or save + SR, etc.

Players should be active participants and traders in the action economy: Hello time stop, celerity, summons....

Proper tactics and advantageous situations should push the RNG to the end: You can really fuck with the RNG if you try hard enough.

Doing damage to enemies should be just one choice among many to participate: God/Batman wizard.

Players should go most if not all combats without doing any healing in the middle of them: CLW or LV wands after combat >> piddly healing mid-battle.

The default assumed world should be one in which most of the world is fairly stable and recognizable while scattered “points of darkness” send forth monsters and destruction that players can quest against: FR and Greyhawk are pretty much settled and known, with Eberron being a "mish-mash of light and dark" where the dark parts are widely recognized as such and the light is fairly safe.

Effects should have sharply distinct durations to distinguish one from another: rounds/level, start of next turn, concentration....

Characters should not have MMO combat roles defined for them: Wizards do everything exceptionally well, and fighters...I think we can safely say fighters don't do one thing exceptionally well.

Challenges should have relatively fixed relationships to the world, allowing low end PCs and high end PCs to encounter the same things and run or trounce them respectively: Standard CR system means the same monster is always the same power level without scaling to PCs, and only experience gained therefrom is based on PC level.

The abilities and tactics one uses to best an opponent should vary substantially based on what that opponent is and what it is that they do: Immunity roulette and anti-creature-type stuff.

A character should be able to carry whatever they want and should not be defined by their equipment: Casters can get by with a single spellbook or holy symbol if they really have to; fighters are defined by their equipment, but can carry whatever they want as long as the Big 6 are covered (as opposed to there being one Brutal+Vorpal-esque obviously superior option).

Characters and monsters should not even be buildable who do not have abilities that affect the world outside of the combat minigame: Skills and noncombat gear.

All action should be thought of in terms of having long lasting repercussions: Yay world-changing magic and/or build choices

The customizable part of your character should generate all of your major options: Options come from class features, feats, and spells.

The game should not use squares and should acknowledge long distances as well as short ones: While 3e uses 5-foot increments and refers to squares and spaces, it doesn't use squares-qua-squares, and you have everything from adjacent to 400ft + 40/level

The players should have abilities in their hands that affect the world and change the direction of the plot: Once again yay world-changing magic.

And these are all 2e:

Characters should be allowed to keep their starting stuff if they want to without hamstringing themselves or the party: Since you can't buy and sell magic items by default, the game doesn't assume you'll get anything in particular and thus you can stick with your +1 sword as long as your DM wants.

Severe wounds should be severe, and a wound's effect should be comprehensible and fixed when delivered: Regeneration effects + defined effects for limb loss and diseases/parasites in wounds.

Things should be by default very dangerous and players should lose a noticeable amount of the time: Yay Gygaxian dungeons!

Battles by default should end in routes and surrenders rather than one sided butchery: You damn well better believe you're going to run away or surrender sometimes, whippersnappers!

So yes, Morzas, I agree--3e rules + 2e flavor is a game I'd love to play as well.

[Crissa]

There is a new MMO in which the classes/roles are something you slot into your character, like clothes. So when you group up with someone, you choose to wear the tank clothes and they get the face clothes, or whatever. It was pretty cute, modern spy stuff.

-Crissa

[MartinHarper]

More 4e design goals and rules:
* Single unified mechanic. Roll a d20, add modifier(s), compare to DC. Where two people are involved, the instigator of the action rolls.
* Rules may contradict each other. In this case, the most specific rule wins.
* Shallow learning curve that tops out quickly. Playing tolerably well should be easy. Expert players should gain little benefit from their expertise.
* As easy as possible to DM, if not DM well. A novice DM should be able to prepare for a four hour gaming session in an hour.
* No penalties. Penalties (such as racial penalties or proficiency penalties) make players cry. Instead, wherever possible, provide bonuses and handle the penalty as a removal of the normal bonus.

[Username17]

More 4e design goals and rules:
* Single unified mechanic. Roll a d20, add modifier(s), compare to DC. Where two people are involved, the instigator of the action rolls.

That's the opposite of true. You roll a d8 + 4 for damage unless you critical in which you roll a d6 + 12. That's not a unified mechanic.

* Rules may contradict each other. In this case, the most specific rule wins.

That's not even a design principle. It's the standard way all rules are always written. There are maybe a couple of metarules that crush lower rules or define lower rules, and then some general rules that are used a lot and some specific rules that overwhelm the general ones but not the metarules. That's just how rules are written. Universally.

You might as well try to sneak in "be written in English" or "Involve dice somehow" as a design principle.

* Shallow learning curve that tops out quickly. Playing tolerably well should be easy. Expert players should gain little benefit from their expertise.

I don't know if that was ever a goal.

* As easy as possible to DM, if not DM well. A novice DM should be able to prepare for a four hour gaming session in an hour.

"Be accessible" is not a design goal. It's a writing goal. Like being coherent.

* No penalties. Penalties (such as racial penalties or proficiency penalties) make players cry. Instead, wherever possible, provide bonuses and handle the penalty as a removal of the normal bonus.

They don't do that either. Like with marks.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

I think easy DM preparation was a stated design goal.

[MartinHarper]

Design goal: unified mechanic.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071005

They didn't achieve that fully because rolling for damage was too much of a sacred cow, but it was in the stated objectives. This article also explains that they are trying to "making design decisions that make learning and using the game less difficult". Hence, a flatter learning curve with more accessible rules is one of the design goals.

[Heath Robinson]

A design goal is not a design choice.

A goal is something you aspire to and may fail to achieve, a choice is something that definitely features in the final product. The unified mechanic was a failed goal.

[TavishArtair]

Easy DM or player preparation is more a matter of presentation than game design, again. I'd also argue it's not a 4e design choice... it's a design choice every single person who wants to write makes, so there's nothing distinguishing it as part of "4th Edition" since it's so universal.

[Starmaker]

Please explain what's so shitty about Points of Light by itself that it's not defensible as a design choice. Most of the complaints I've read on the 'net are about someone's favorite setting having been fubar to fit the idea.

[IGTN]

It's not that Points of Light is inherently shitty, as far as I can tell, it's that we're going exactly opposite 4th edition whenever they made a choice. They decided on Points of Light, so we must do Points of Darkness for this project.

It should be fully possible to make a good PoL game (if you decide on exactly what you mean by Points of Light), but that's not what we're doing.

[Username17]

PoL actually makes for pretty lousy world creation as near as I can tell. I mean, it's basically the Diablo II model where you have the town and everything outside the gates is full of monsters. It's inherently railroady, since there isn't a world to really interact with other than whatever monsters the DM happens to through at you.

In Points of Darkness, the player space is open ended and covers most of the world. So the PCs can decide to "go places" and "do stuff" and then ultimately pick their missions. Because they move freely about the "safe zone" it puts the questing into their hands.

In PoL, the players free move is by definition within a point, so they only have one darkness area to go to: outside the PoL they happen to be in. In PoD, the payers free move through a region that abuts dozens or hundreds of darkness areas and they can direct themselves. Or just take the nearest one and let themselves be railroaded. Whichever.

-Username17