The Official "4e Critique and Rebuttal" Thread

[violence in the media]

Alternatively, get rid of the whole "encounter/at will" crap, and change it to "hourly/quarter-hourly", or at least "hourly/at-will", with at-willls being a whole lot less powerful than Seal.

No, you definitely don't want to do that. If anything we want to move the timer away from real world time units and more towards story/cinematic time.

Why couldn't we tie recharge times to more identifiable/recognizable astronomical events? Like sunrise, noon, sundown, moonrise, etc for powers that work on a daily-ish basis. You could use things like the equinox, the harvest or hunter's moon, the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers, etc for things on a longer time scale.

For the daily recharges, you might need to make it a mystical-type rejuvenation that requires no input on the part of the PC and not care that a person who starts a battle at 11:45 and fights until 12:05 gets to use their mega lazor twice.

I'm just trying to think up alternatives to having my Summon Imp, Seven Crescent Cut, and Charm Person powers not work because I'm not involved in a fight or scene, interacting with an important NPC, or some other such bullshit.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why couldn't we tie recharge times to more identifiable/recognizable astronomical events? Like sunrise, noon, sundown, moonrise, etc for powers that work on a daily-ish basis. You could use things like the equinox, the harvest or hunter's moon, the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers, etc for things on a longer time scale.

Oh hell no. That's one of the worst ideas that D&D ever had. I am very glad 4E got rid of that.

[mean_liar]

What's your beef with it, Lago? It's thematic at least.

[violence in the media]

Why couldn't we tie recharge times to more identifiable/recognizable astronomical events? Like sunrise, noon, sundown, moonrise, etc for powers that work on a daily-ish basis. You could use things like the equinox, the harvest or hunter's moon, the Perseid or Leonid meteor showers, etc for things on a longer time scale.

Oh hell no. That's one of the worst ideas that D&D ever had. I am very glad 4E got rid of that.

It's better than the murky timescales of scenes and plot points. I don't want to have to talk to the Queen or find the MacGuffin in order to be able to Disintegrate shit again.

Look at the bullshit of 4e's extended rests. You need 6 hours for an extended rest, but can only benefit from one in a 24 hour period? What the fuck is the point of that? You couldn't just say that everyone gets powers back at sun up and just realize that all adventuring is going to take place between the hours of 4am and 7am on odd days so people can double up? Is it somehow "more realistic" that a wizard needs a nap and a 24 hour block to be able to channel fire?

If you want characters to sleep each day, put in rules for not doing so. If you want them only using certain powers once a day, do that. Don't try and conflate the two goals. That just results in people trying to adjust their sleep patterns to whatever is necessary for power recovery. It's the same thing with "scene" recovery. If my Summon Stone Wall power is tied to that bullshit, I'm going to set up a bunch of important meetings for the day I need to build a castle.

[hogarth]

If you want characters to sleep each day, put in rules for not doing so. If you want them only using certain powers once a day, do that. Don't try and conflate the two goals.

If you're talking to Gary Gygax, you're about 30 years too late. Like it or not, the D&D wizard's bullshit Vancian system of memorizing spells and then needing to rest in order to rememorize them has been constant across all editions.

[violence in the media]

If you want characters to sleep each day, put in rules for not doing so. If you want them only using certain powers once a day, do that. Don't try and conflate the two goals.

If you're talking to Gary Gygax, you're about 30 years too late. Like it or not, the D&D wizard's bullshit Vancian system of memorizing spells and then needing to rest in order to rememorize them has been constant across all editions.

I know, but I figure were deep into houserules and new design land around here, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to soapbox that a small bit. 8)

[Lago PARANOIA]

ml: You can read up on why it was such a bad idea here: http://bb.bbboy.net/niftymessageboard-v ... thread=212

It's better than the murky timescales of scenes and plot points. I don't want to have to talk to the Queen or find the MacGuffin in order to be able to Disintegrate shit again.

I'm sorry, when have I ever advocated tying the resource management schedule to non-temporal events? You might be thinking of RC2, who has advocated such a system.

Look at the bullshit of 4e's extended rests. You need 6 hours for an extended rest, but can only benefit from one in a 24 hour period? What the fuck is the point of that? You couldn't just say that everyone gets powers back at sun up and just realize that all adventuring is going to take place between the hours of 4am and 7am on odd days so people can double up? Is it somehow "more realistic" that a wizard needs a nap and a 24 hour block to be able to channel fire?

Why even do it all asinine like that? Why can't the wizard just need 24 hours between benefiting--or better yet, drop the whole 'once a day' bullshit altogether. Tying replenishment cycles to specific times of the day is needlessly confusing. It's not a great deal of confusion, but there's absolutely no advantage towards doing things that way. So don't.

[violence in the media]

It's better than the murky timescales of scenes and plot points. I don't want to have to talk to the Queen or find the MacGuffin in order to be able to Disintegrate shit again.

I'm sorry, when have I ever advocated tying the resource management schedule to non-temporal events? You might be thinking of RC2, who has advocated such a system.

I know. I was mostly addressing RC2's suggestion of such. But here we are arguing anyway.

Look at the bullshit of 4e's extended rests. You need 6 hours for an extended rest, but can only benefit from one in a 24 hour period? What the fuck is the point of that? You couldn't just say that everyone gets powers back at sun up and just realize that all adventuring is going to take place between the hours of 4am and 7am on odd days so people can double up? Is it somehow "more realistic" that a wizard needs a nap and a 24 hour block to be able to channel fire?

Why even do it all asinine like that? Why can't the wizard just need 24 hours between benefiting--or better yet, drop the whole 'once a day' bullshit altogether. Tying replenishment cycles to specific times of the day is needlessly confusing. It's not a great deal of confusion, but there's absolutely no advantage towards doing things that way. So don't.

How is 1 use/24 hours any easier and less confusing? That's just a longer time cooldown. There isn't much difference between, "Has it been an hour?" and, "Has it been 24 hours?" from a player perspective. Compare that to, "has the sun risen/set today?"

[Username17]

Why even do it all asinine like that? Why can't the wizard just need 24 hours between benefiting

You linked that old thread.

Once in a 24 hour period is just skee ball bullshit where people adventure for 2 hours twice every 96 hours.

Arbitrary rest restrictions between ability refresh is the only coherent power recharge system. 4e's addendum of only allowing one inside a 24 hour period is unenforceable bullshit.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Whoa, hey now, I didn't say anything about skee ball. I just said that it's less dumb than tying it to a solar cycle because you get skee ball and daylight savings time isses.

If I was going to implement a rest restriction, it would just be a flat unit of time if that. In all actuality I'm a fan of the unlimited workday paradigm where accumulated wounds are compensated by giving out limit breaks and bloodied bonuses and all that.

[RandomCasualty2]

It's better than the murky timescales of scenes and plot points. I don't want to have to talk to the Queen or find the MacGuffin in order to be able to Disintegrate shit again.

Well, actually that's a lot less murky than setting it to real time. Usually everyone at the table can agree when a scene or adventure ends. Now, the problem tends to be that you can get hosed in the opposite direction with per adventure refresh, where instead of the 5 minute workday where you're always at full strength, you can be forced to continue past your refresh point by quite a long amount, and it's hard to know exactly when the quest will end.

Still, having some means to force people to keep adventuring is probably a good idea in a game where you want to make resource management mean something and time is nearly free (at least on the short term). In Shadowrun for instance, it's okay for a 6 hour rest to replenish all your spells and you don't run into 5 minute workday problems because in 6 hours, a lot of shit can happen. So you can't just work through a run by hit and run attrition every 6 hours. In D&D though, that's a possibility, so it's a good idea to have some kind of game mechanic to combat that, otherwise people will 5 minute workday you to death.

[IGTN]

A rest mechanic I've been toying with, if you're keeping the D&D3 EXP system:

Every time you gain a level or quarter-level (250 EXP/level, from the beginning of the level), you can rest to gain all abilities that come with it. This takes some arbitrary amount of time (5 minutes, 8 hours, it doesn't really matter). If you don't rest immediately, you can save it, but you can't save up multiple rests.

If you rest at any other time, you don't regain per-day abilities, just daily hit points, attribute damage, and so on. If the entire party agrees, you can take a full rest, which resets you to the last time you were given a free rest and allows you to regain abilities.

Time constraints still apply. Adventures should probably be rounded off at the end, or end-of-adventure EXP totals should be used as reset points instead of quarter-levels.

Tying it to EXP solves the 5-minute workday issue, where you get a quarter-level by completing a workday, regardless of how much time you spread it out over.

This also solves the per-adventure refresh issue by allowing you to just give up on an adventure and get your powers back.

[violence in the media]

I'm interpreting what you just said to mean that a PC only gets to use 4 "days" worth of per-day abilities per level. Am I interpreting you correctly?

What do you mean by this?

If the entire party agrees, you can take a full rest, which resets you to the last time you were given a free rest and allows you to regain abilities.

The whole party has to agree to a rest in order for people to get their abilities back prior to hitting a quarter level mark? Why wouldn't they agree to this? Is this intended to create conflict between the fighter/rogue players and the spellcaster players?

[TarkisFlux]

Actually vitm, I think he means that if the group gives up and takes a full rest that they 'reset' to their last quarter xp condition and lose all of their gained xp since then in exchange for getting their abilities back. So the group gets a choice between pushing ahead for new abilities or giving up and trying again later, but they don't gain in power if they rest more often than intended.

[ubernoob]

A rest mechanic I've been toying with, if you're keeping the D&D3 EXP system:

Every time you gain a level or quarter-level (250 EXP/level, from the beginning of the level), you can rest to gain all abilities that come with it. This takes some arbitrary amount of time (5 minutes, 8 hours, it doesn't really matter). If you don't rest immediately, you can save it, but you can't save up multiple rests.

If you rest at any other time, you don't regain per-day abilities, just daily hit points, attribute damage, and so on. If the entire party agrees, you can take a full rest, which resets you to the last time you were given a free rest and allows you to regain abilities.

Time constraints still apply. Adventures should probably be rounded off at the end, or end-of-adventure EXP totals should be used as reset points instead of quarter-levels.

Tying it to EXP solves the 5-minute workday issue, where you get a quarter-level by completing a workday, regardless of how much time you spread it out over.

This also solves the per-adventure refresh issue by allowing you to just give up on an adventure and get your powers back.

Frankly, tying it to the XP system is bad for story abilities (like charm person). Some shit you want to do with your per day abilities straight up doesn't give xp (divination, building a castle, etc). Instead of this, I'd prefer just cutting per day abilities* to 1/4th and making them per encounter.

*shit that isn't used per combat can just be set aside from that pool and be used with the old per day paradigm.

[RandomCasualty2]

Frankly, tying it to the XP system is bad for story abilities (like charm person). Some shit you want to do with your per day abilities straight up doesn't give xp (divination, building a castle, etc). Instead of this, I'd prefer just cutting per day abilities* to 1/4th and making them per encounter.

*shit that isn't used per combat can just be set aside from that pool and be used with the old per day paradigm.

Well the ritual paradigm is actually a nice way to grant per day abilities that you expect people to use sparingly, but don't want to limit. Things like item enchantment, identification, sending spells, scrying spells, etc. can just be handled as rituals. They take time to do, but don't really drain any of your daily resources.

[ubernoob]

Frankly, tying it to the XP system is bad for story abilities (like charm person). Some shit you want to do with your per day abilities straight up doesn't give xp (divination, building a castle, etc). Instead of this, I'd prefer just cutting per day abilities* to 1/4th and making them per encounter.

*shit that isn't used per combat can just be set aside from that pool and be used with the old per day paradigm.

Well the ritual paradigm is actually a nice way to grant per day abilities that you expect people to use sparingly, but don't want to limit. Things like item enchantment, identification, sending spells, scrying spells, etc. can just be handled as rituals. They take time to do, but don't really drain any of your daily resources.

Good point. I hadn't been thinking of using rituals. Rituals as "No character power cost, minimum level X, takes some sort of action that is not really possible to spend in combat" works great.

[IGTN]

I'm interpreting what you just said to mean that a PC only gets to use 4 "days" worth of per-day abilities per level. Am I interpreting you correctly?

Yes, with two exceptions (see below).

What do you mean by this?

If the entire party agrees, you can take a full rest, which resets you to the last time you were given a free rest and allows you to regain abilities.

The whole party has to agree to a rest in order for people to get their abilities back prior to hitting a quarter level mark? Why wouldn't they agree to this? Is this intended to create conflict between the fighter/rogue players and the spellcaster players?

Tarkis has it right in the next post. You can set yourselves back on EXP in order to refresh your abilities, but only if the entire party agrees (to keep levels from getting out-of-sync). In long downtimes where people are at an EXP "checkpoint," I'd allow desynchronized resting (lots of divinations, etc.)

So, as above, yes, except for uses during downtime and unless you give up on an adventure.

You could do something similar with per-adventure mechanics by giving the option of giving up on the adventure to get your abilities back by giving up the adventure rewards, and allowing use of per-adventure abilities on some sort of timer during downtime (that is, when you can re-use your 5-day cooldown ability by simply saying "five days pass" instead of tracking time while adventuring).

[MartinHarper]

The most recent 4e/penny arcade/pvp podcast explains that players can use Aid Another to make a Stealth check. Because everyone knows that it's easier to sneak an army into Mordor than a couple of hobbits.

[tzor]

The most recent 4e/penny arcade/pvp podcast explains that players can use Aid Another to make a Stealth check. Because everyone knows that it's easier to sneak an army into Mordor than a couple of hobbits.

That reminds me of Gilbert and Sullivan. According to them, the best way to sneak anywhere is to sing loudly that you are being quiet.

With cat-like tread,
Upon our prey we steal;
In silence dread,
Our cautious way we feel.
No sound at all,
We never speak a word,
A fly's foot-fall
Would be distinctly heard –
So stealthily the pirate creeps,
While all the household soundly sleeps.
Come, friends, who plough the sea,
Truce to navigation;
Take another station;
Let's vary piracee
With a little burglaree!

[Psychic Robot]

Bluff, bluff, bluff the stupid ogre.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The most recent 4e/penny arcade/pvp podcast explains that players can use Aid Another to make a Stealth check. Because everyone knows that it's easier to sneak an army into Mordor than a couple of hobbits.

Penny Arcade has a great comic about how stupid it is that all 4e spells do is damage.

[Data Vampire]

Penny Arcade has a great comic about how stupid it is that all 4e spells do is damage.

I sure hope that you meant that all 4E spells deal damage rather than saying that damage is the only effect of 4E spell.
Either way the sleep spell proves that wrong.

[Doom]

True enough, not 'all'...so what is it, n-1, where n is the number of spells? Guess on whether you consider utility powers as spells (eg, spider climb).

Anyway, Sleep (sic) is an aberration, since it doesn't even put things to sleep.

[Torko]

But the fire spell shouldn't actually cause someone to catch on fire. Just make them a little tired.