recent d&d deathwatch data

[Swordslinger]

For modules this isn't a big deal, since it works out the same. When the adventure is fluid, however, this leads to foolishness like a moat being harder to cross as a 13th level character than a 1st level character. DMs can (and should) try to describe it by saying that it's magical water with crocodiles in it, but there's nothing to enforce that. It's extremely obvious with game effects like Diplomacy.

If your DM has trouble describing things in a flavor that tells a good story, then he sucks. End of story.

You admit that 4E's system can run an adventure (modules) the very same way that prior editions can and you guys acknowledge that. The only flaw can happen in adventure creation and other DM failings. I don't see what remains to be talked about here.

[TheFlatline]

For modules this isn't a big deal, since it works out the same. When the adventure is fluid, however, this leads to foolishness like a moat being harder to cross as a 13th level character than a 1st level character. DMs can (and should) try to describe it by saying that it's magical water with crocodiles in it, but there's nothing to enforce that. It's extremely obvious with game effects like Diplomacy.

If your DM has trouble describing things in a flavor that tells a good story, then he sucks. End of story.

You admit that 4E's system can run an adventure (modules) the very same way that prior editions can and you guys acknowledge that. The only flaw can happen in adventure creation and other DM failings. I don't see what remains to be talked about here.

Bullshit. Any module/adventure that is built around scarcity of resources on the player's behalf is slaughtered in 4th edition.

Case in point: One of my players' favorite adventures in 3.x that I ran dealt with werewolves attacking a town at night, and over the course of one night, the players had to save as many villagers as possible and space their healing and blasting powers out as much as possible. It was a tense, fun adventure.

I tried running it in 4th, and it sucked. Having 70-80% of your capabilities refresh every encounter means there's no such thing as a scarcity of resources.

The at will/encounter/daily paradigm in 4th changes how adventures flow fundamentally.

[TarkisFlux]

from the official WotC Twitter account:
"So for those looking for more info abou the #dnd books missing from the schedule, first news will come in the next Ampersand. Likely more conversation to follow."


http://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/24977883537608704

http://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/24977910049808384

So there's no discussion on the follow-up to this (e.g. D&D Miniatures getting the axe, books returning to hardcover format instead of softcover)?

There's a little, but nothing really interesting right now. Here's a dry version of some of the articles floating around: link.

[ScottS]

I don't see what remains to be talked about here.

a) The fact that the DCs follow you as you level mean that in practice, you never "get better". Technically, easy tasks that you can blow past after level N exist, but they're all in the "content" that you've "levelled out of". All the locks switching from DC 20 to DC 30 after level 10 means that all the Thievery advancement I did in the meantime was pointless. Having to pass level-appropriate DCs in skill challenges means that I'm still always rolling at a 65% success rate (or whatever) regardless of how supposedly "good" I am at that point.

Having a mechanics based argument on why DC 30 is a "hard" check for a particular skill would be welcome and useful (similar to the early 3e stuff on why Jump etc. scaled in an appropriate fashion), but this isn't even an "explaining/fluffing the DC" argument; it's an "I'm always making the exact same checks, just disguised by the larger skill mods vs the larger DCs" argument.

b) I'd argue that there's an expectation in other parts of the game, that PCs get to "graduate" out of bullshit mundane tasks like lockpicking etc. once they get out of the first few baby levels. This refers to obvious stuff like knock/invis for casters, but also to older ed. skill-type stuff like the Gygaxian "thief function" tables (where you start capping out at 99% around name level, i.e. "you essentially autopass unless the DM throws some special double-secret-probation modifiers at you"). Having the DCs follow you upward as you raise your skill means that you never get to stop dealing with that crap. This might have been the exact point in 3e/4e (niche protection, making sure rogues have something to do over the entire level range), but there's a boot-stamping-on-a-PC's-face-forever aspect there that runs contrary to what "levelling" is supposed to mean.

(I don't know what all the counterarguments to fixed DCs are, but on the face of it, I'd be totally happy with a "DC 25 is the highest you'll ever have to face for this task" statement for some of the unopposed skills, and if the PC can jack his skill mod to +24, then he's just that awesome. The last time I discussed this, I think one guy wanted some kind of diminishing-returns cost built in as you approached the cap, rather than "all ranks cost the same" as in regular d20.)

[Swordslinger]

a) The fact that the DCs follow you as you level mean that in practice, you never "get better". Technically, easy tasks that you can blow past after level N exist, but they're all in the "content" that you've "levelled out of". All the locks switching from DC 20 to DC 30 after level 10 means that all the Thievery advancement I did in the meantime was pointless.

Welcome to RPGs. Constantly moving on to bigger and tougher challenges is an iconic trope. How is this anything new relating to 4E?

b) I'd argue that there's an expectation in other parts of the game, that PCs get to "graduate" out of bullshit mundane tasks like lockpicking etc.

If the DM elects to have his world not include locksmiths capable of stopping master thieves, he can easily do this by not including any high level locking picking challenges. There is nothing in the game that forces an adventure to have high level challenges in every skill.

[Username17]

Welcome to RPGs. Constantly moving on to bigger and tougher challenges is an iconic trope. How is this anything new relating to 4E?

Because in 4e, the challenges don't get any bigger. They just get "harder" while you get "better". Rather than setting up the game to be that you have to pick normal locks, then masterwork locks, then magic locks - the game just tells you "locks". And those locks scale to you.

So not only could you just be picking the same looking locks, but if you go from one DM to another, or from an adventure written by one person to another, you can get to situations where you are confronted with apparently easier tasks that nonetheless have higher DCs. The super magic lock in the low level adventure is DC 20. But the completely normal and unexciting lock in the mid level adventure is DC 25.

In short: because there is no scale of objective DCs and there is just
the level pile, then besting harder DCs never means anything. Making a DC 25 just means that you're high enough level to have had a DC 25 set for you. Not that you've done anything worthy of mention in-world.

The level treadmill is so front and center that there isn't even the illusion of progress. Gaining levels is completely meaningless.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

If the DM elects to have his world not include locksmiths capable of stopping master thieves, he can easily do this by not including any high level locking picking challenges. There is nothing in the game that forces an adventure to have high level challenges in every skill.

First of all, that's just plain wrong. It's especially true for the social skills. Just look in the damn 4E DMG. That sample skill challenge would work just as well for a low-level party as a high-level party, even though it's complete bullshit that high-level characters would have to jump through so many hoops for such a low-level effect.

Second of all, there just aren't that many skills in 4E. I have been to skill challenges where the DM did the whole 'can't spam the same skill 10 times' thing and it's the saddest shit ever. People looking for excuses to use their Religion or Intimidate skill in a 'track down the forest hideout' skill challenge because they don't have anything else that could even feasibly work.

This was a 'problem' in 3rd Edition, too, in that a lot of skills just became obsolete after a certain point for one reason or another. But there was no unified structure to shoehorn them in, unlike skill challenges. If a DM is phasing out skills after a certain point, then he's fucking neutering the players. And unlike in 3E, even when the rogue gets to the point of 'I can disable any trap I feel like and sneak by almost anyone without even touching the dice', you don't even get the consolation prize of being useful. I mean, even when locks stop being an obstacle to the party the rogue or whoever is still the only one who can do it; they still get at least the feeling of 'oh man, I'm so useful'. Which is denied to them under this setup.

[TheFlatline]

Welcome to RPGs. Constantly moving on to bigger and tougher challenges is an iconic trope. How is this anything new relating to 4E?

In 4th edition the same lock that I pick at 5th level and at 20th level will have two different DCs. In fact, even though I may have a better chance of succeeding at 20th level, in game terms, the DC could be higher, which means the same lock is harder to pick at 20th level than at 5th level.

Ah, but you say that a DM would retain that same DC for the skill? Yes well, now you're more or less houseruling.

[Fuchs]

That's another aspect of 4E that's a trope in CRPGs. You go from green to erd kobolds, and from mundane to glowing locks, but it all feels the same in practise.

[Username17]

That's another aspect of 4E that's a trope in CRPGs. You go from green to erd kobolds, and from mundane to glowing locks, but it all feels the same in practise.

It's sort of worse than that. While 4e does manage to turn the green kobolds into red kobolds, there isn't actually anything to make the mundane locks glow. The skill challenge system is so half assed that the game doesn't bother telling you what to palette swap the locks into. You tell it what level you are, it tells you what the DC has scaled to, and then it is up to the DM (or adventure writer) to justify why those DCs are what they are. There isn't even a set of guidelines as to when the locks start glowing. The designers of the game care so little about the final project that they don't even bother giving a set of examples.

4e is longer than Remembrance of Things Past or the Wheel of Time, and not once have they bothered to even give a green kobold/red kobold description for the skill challenges through the levels.

-Username17

[tussock]

Constantly moving on to bigger and tougher challenges is an iconic trope. How is this anything new relating to 4E?

Low level challenges in AD&D are the Kobolds can kill you in one hit, and there's 12 of them with shortbows behind cover over there, ohfuckno.
High level challenges in AD&D are the King is under the sway of a powerful Demon, and there's a thousand ways you might choose to solve that which will all make any pre-written adventure go cry in the corner.

In 4e the DCs on the locks just get bigger, ever so slightly slower or faster than someone's lock picking skill, and you still basically have to pick them, rather than walking in through the ethereal, or shadow, or astral, or the rocks, or the future, or their dreams, .... 4e's "change" is that it's not Kobolds behind rocks, it's a Great Wyrm Dragon behind bigger rocks, all in that "sweet spot" (which is really just where the AD&D experience tables got cruel and all the designers spent a long time playing in their formative years).


But in 3e the casting of spells is far too easy, you regain the big ones too easy, casting the game-killers doesn't fuck you up, and resisting magic is too hard, making the grunts irrelevant once the casters have a few spare (they basically were in AD&D anyway, casters totally didn't need the help).

So 4e buried magic in a Martian scale mountain of nerf to compensate, which means the game never really changes. Which was a design goal. The Kobolds just keep getting more AC and HPs, and eventually you call them Dragons. AD&D monsters topped out like that with Bugbears. Beyond that they had to be radically different, more and more flat immunities to give them a chance, which meant very different tactics (Beholders not good to throw spells at, nor surround, but you can target their anti-magic, and so on).

[Swordslinger]

Ah, but you say that a DM would retain that same DC for the skill? Yes well, now you're more or less houseruling.

Ok, you're a moron.

You're telling me that if you play the same module (which presents a fixed DC) at a different level, that printed DC somehow changes? Keep on the Shadowfell doesn't magically rewrite itself when you turn your head.

@Frank: It's the DM and/or the module designers job to describe the things you run across in an adventure. Game designers write rules. If your DM can't describe the world adequately or make it seem like the PCs are making a difference in the world, he sucks. Find a new one.

@tussock: Reasonable complaints, but not related to scaling skill DCs, since obstacle bypass abilities make DCs irrelevant. The opinion of whether having lots of obstacle bypassing abilities is good for the game is a separate discussion in itself, which I'm not getting into here.

@Lago: I hate repeating myself. The DM is under no obligation to make the challenges level appropriate. The DM can easily make it such that level 11+ locks don't exist in his world, same as he can say that balors don't exist. Whether he should do that or not is beyond the scope of the discussion.

[Lago PARANOIA]

@Lago: I hate repeating myself. The DM is under no obligation to make the challenges level appropriate.

If they do that then they're houseruling. The DMG gives very strict guidelines for skill challenges. It does not say 'throw in a DC that makes sense' or 'if you want to cockblock a PC, throw in a DC 40 skill challenge for heroic-tier players'. It gives you three DCs for each range of levels and you're not supposed to deviate from them.

The DM can easily make it such that level 11+ locks don't exist in his world, same as he can say that balors don't exist.

And if you do that, you're fucking over people in skill challenges. You're declaring vast swatches of skills suddenly useless because there's no longer any functional randomness so you just automatically go 'it always succeeds'!.

That would be fine, but in 4E you don't get hits for auto-successes in skill challenges. You NEED to have that damn Thievery or whatever roll because otherwise you won't get credit for it, because that's how skill challenges are structured. So you're faced with the dilemma of having DC 30 locks or declaring that in order to maintain WSoD you're going to nerf the applicability of the Thievery skill. That sucks.

Whether he should do that or not is beyond the scope of the discussion.

No, it's not, you just want it to be to dodge the question so we can ignore the issue of how broken skill challenges are. The DM shouldn't structure his world to give the finger to players.

If it weren't for skill challenges (and 4E's rising tide lift all boats approach to skills, but whatever) a rogue could still feel sufficiently badass by treating locked doors as paper walls; but with skill challenges in the game, they're then being fucked over.

[LR]

@Lago: I hate repeating myself. The DM is under no obligation to make the challenges level appropriate. The DM can easily make it such that level 11+ locks don't exist in his world, same as he can say that balors don't exist. Whether he should do that or not is beyond the scope of the discussion.

He shouldn't have to. It's not the DM's job to describe how the skill system makes sense, because that job was supposed to be done for him. That is why RPGs books are made and we don't just play MTP all day. If you buy a book, you are buying it with the expectation that all of the rules you will probably use are already covered by the book. If the books does not give guidelines for what locks are magical and nonmagical, then that's a missing rule. If the DM adds in guidelines for himself, he is not "creating the setting", he is making a houserule. The DM is having to spend time and effort that was supposedly spent for him when he bought the book. If the DM changes the setting, it should be because of a a mutual desire of all players (including the DM) to play in a different world than what is offered by default. It should not be because the default setting has large sections which are undefined.

[TheFlatline]

Ok, you're a moron.

You're telling me that if you play the same module (which presents a fixed DC) at a different level, that printed DC somehow changes? Keep on the Shadowfell doesn't magically rewrite itself when you turn your head.

Hey dipshit, I wasn't talking about pre-printed modules. I'm talking about using the rules in the DMG. If you think I'm suggesting that print magically alters itself, you need to go back to huffing paint thinner. So stop sidetracking the point.

Using the rules in the DMG, if I go pick the Lord Mayor's front door lock, go off and gain 10 levels, and then come back and pick the same lock again, the DC to pick that lock will have changed according to the skill system. The odds of my success have probably changed too, but if I have a 100% chance of succeeding against a DC 15 and DC10 set of locks, literally, the DC 15 lock is more difficult than the DC 10. I just am so skilled I can't fail.

The skill system says that as you get better at doing something, everything becomes harder to do.

So quite literally, the Keep on Shadowfell *should* rewrite itself when you turn your head according to the rules in the DMG. That pre-printed modules use static DCs for their locks means that technically, they're houseruling.

Our point is that if you play rules as written, they're counter-intuitive, not very fun, and really fucking stupid.

[Swordslinger]

If they do that then they're houseruling. The DMG gives very strict guidelines for skill challenges. It does not say 'throw in a DC that makes sense' or 'if you want to cockblock a PC, throw in a DC 40 skill challenge for heroic-tier players'. It gives you three DCs for each range of levels and you're not supposed to deviate from them.

It tells you the DC based on the level of the challenge. But nothing says the level of the challenge always has to equal your party level.

Seriously find me a place where it says that every skill challenge must equal the party level? We see it in modules that it's a static fucking DC, and until you present evidence otherwise, you're just talking out of your ass like Flatline is.

And besides you just said that they're guidelines so... yeah, dude.. just give it up. You're even contradicting yourself now.

And if you do that, you're fucking over people in skill challenges. You're declaring vast swatches of skills suddenly useless because there's no longer any functional randomness so you just automatically go 'it always succeeds'!.

Some people want a point where there doesn't exist a lock that can stop you. And well whatever, if the DM feels the same way, he can do that with his world in 4E. I don't advocate trivializing skills in that fashion, but if your group feels it adds more immersion, then whatever, knock yourself out.

No, it's not, you just want it to be to dodge the question so we can ignore the issue of how broken skill challenges are. The DM shouldn't structure his world to give the finger to players.

Skill challenges are crap. But that has nothing to do with the subject on 4E DCs being challenge level based and not based on arbitrary labels.

@Flatline: You have no idea what you're talking about. You keep ignoring that DMs don't have to make every challenge level equal to party level, just like every encounter level doesn't exactly equal party level. Until you understand that, you can't add anything constructive to this debate and are not worth my time to respond to.

@LR: If arcana can help open the lock, then it's magic. If it's only thievery, then it's mechanical. Yes, the mechanics do account for that. What they don't do is set arbitrary word groups like: Good lock, poor lock, excellent lock. But I mean fuck, are you telling me your DM is so stupid that he can't figure out that he should describe a lock that can challenge a paragon character as high quality? Are we writing RPGs for the mentally handicapped or what?

[shadzar]

@Lago: I hate repeating myself. The DM is under no obligation to make the challenges level appropriate.

If they do that then they're houseruling.

I think this is a good sign of the deathwatch for D&D, the fact that people don't want to divert form the rules, but find so many problems with them and want these "professional designers" to make the game with the rules they agree with.

That is the big problem many rules hounds have, is they think the rules have all the answers. I am again reminded of my sig and what it says about rules. Also the simple fact, there can't be a rule for everything...nobody would buy a 60,000 page book set to cover every possible thing that people could come up with, and even the real world cannot agree on enough things to make rules for humanity, so how could you expect these designers to make it work for games?

So if people are wanting a more rigid ruleset, then the stress and pressure being applied to find a way to make one everyone agrees on, is causes the spine of D&D to break and crippled it.

[LR]

@LR: If arcana can help open the lock, then it's magic. If it's only thievery, then it's mechanical. Yes, the mechanics do account for that. What they don't do is set arbitrary word groups like: Good lock, poor lock, excellent lock. But I mean fuck, are you telling me your DM is so stupid that he can't figure out that he should describe a lock that can challenge a paragon character as high quality? Are we writing RPGs for the mentally handicapped or what?

I'm not sure how any DM could figure that out without making some kind of houserule when 4e doesn't have any real measure of power. If I were the DM, I'd probably give them average locks as Paragon is about the point where a 4e character is finally worth enough to lick the shoes of a 1st-level Adept. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to give them locks forged from the crying souls of baby angels, because as far as I'm concerned, 4e characters never get past the point where they could be foiled by the works of a mundane locksmith, and the 4e core rules don't ever cover that subject.

[Archmage]

Fuck the lock example. The lock example is bad and people should stop using it. The skill you really need to look at is Acrobatics.

Acrobatics is the Balance skill in 4e. You would think that different types of difficult terrain would require different check DCs. And they do, but the DC is not keyed to the kind of difficult terrain. It's keyed to challenge level.

4e's rules don't tell you that the DC to avoid slipping on gravel is X, a greased floor is Y, and a sheet of ice is Z. They give you the DC for an easy/medium/hard challenge for level Q.

You don't have any idea what that means in the context of the game universe. You don't know that a 1st level character trained in Acrobatics will be able to manage loose gravel but that they'll surely fall on their ass if they try to waltz across a frozen pond because the rules don't tell you. You can't even begin to guess what feats a character with a +30 Acrobatics check is capable of because at no point does check result get compared with actual obstacles.

So in a published module, characters being forced to balance on an inch-wide beam might have to make a DC 15 Acrobatics check, or a DC 20 check, or a DC 30 check, or...whatever. And that DC is not based on the fact that it's a one-inch beam versus a six-inch beam. It's not based on anything the PCs are experiencing in the universe of the game. It's purely a mechanical extrapolation based on how hard the check is supposed to be for characters of level Q. Within the same module, the writers are probably going to be consistent. But I bet you can find two modules both of which involve balancing on a one-inch beam (or some other example) where the task being performed is basically identical but the DC given for success is wildly different.

(Compare 3.5e, where I can reference the table and see the very slippery 12-inch wide plank of wood over the gap I want to cross requires a Balance check result of 10 to avoid falling, and a result of 15 if I want to make progress walking).

[Swordslinger]

But I bet you can find two modules both of which involve balancing on a one-inch beam (or some other example) where the task being performed is basically identical but the DC given for success is wildly different.

The rules compendium has some slight information on 4E acrobatics, which states if a DC is moderate or hard for going balance beam style of various widths. I think 6 inches or less is hard while a larger balance beam is normal. Beyond that, the actual slipperiness of the surface would determine the level of the challenge.

Levels of slipperiness aren't easily describable in plain english. Some ice can be less slippery than others, depending on how dirty it is, how smooth it is, if the ground is sloped and a variety of other factors. There are no regulation issue sheets of ice that dungeon makers buy that are maintained in pristine condition, without dungeon dirt, monster slime, or what not getting all over them. The end result is that you couldn't tell me if the ice covered floor would be slipperier than the slime covered floor. So you couldn't tell all that much by looking at it, and neither could your character. Sounds fine to me.

In dungeon scenarios, there are so many variables that giving out static DCs is usually pointless for the majority of tasks.

@LR: I think you underestimate most DMs. Most people know very little about lock mechanics and simply using terms like "Poor", "Adequate", "Good", "Mastercraft", "A one of a kind lock created by the world's greatest locksmith" would be adequate to give them a general idea of where they're at. You could even just say it's an easy challenge, it looks relatively challenging, or it's beyond their abilities.

[Username17]

The rules compendium has some slight information on 4E acrobatics, which states if a DC is moderate or hard for going balance beam style of various widths. I think 6 inches or less is hard while a larger balance beam is normal. Beyond that, the actual slipperiness of the surface would determine the level of the challenge.

This right here is why it is so painful to discuss anything with 4rries. You just won the argument for your opponents. Own goal.

You just admitted that a balancing act of certain width was defined in terms of difficulty for the player, rather than any actual value. So balancing on a thin ledge has a different DC if you encounter that ledge as a 6th level character vs. encountering the same ledge as a 12th level character. Exactly the problem people were complaining about that you poo-pooed. And yet, there it is: in your own assessment of how the challenge works.

-Username17

[Orion]

Not quite, Frank. The 4rry argument is this:

Every skill check has

1: a "difficulty", easy, normal, or hard
2: a "level."
3: The final DC is produced by crosschecking 1 and 2.
4: The printed examples fix a certain width of balance beam as a certain difficulty.
5: They don't specify in any way what level a challenge is.
6: Therefore, objective level scaling exists. A 6-inch strip of wood is a Hard 6th level check, while a 6-inch strip of ice is a Hard 11th-level check. Or something.

I haven't checked the books to see whether that's accurate. It is obviously ridiculous to have 2 axes varying independently produce DCs for no reason. But, technically, even if one axis is fixed you CAN smuggle flavor scaling in on the other one.

[Fuchs]

The end result is that you couldn't tell me if the ice covered floor would be slipperier than the slime covered floor. So you couldn't tell all that much by looking at it, and neither could your character. Sounds fine to me.

That's major failure. The idea that a highly trained and experienced character can't guess how difficult a task will be is stupid. Knowing how slippery something is is part of what separates someone with 10 to balance from someone with 30 to balance.

[Swordslinger]

You just admitted that a balancing act of certain width was defined in terms of difficulty for the player, rather than any actual value. So balancing on a thin ledge has a different DC if you encounter that ledge as a 6th level character vs. encountering the same ledge as a 12th level character.

Once again, because you're a fucking retard, I'll repeat this one more time in the vain hope that maybe it might get through your skull and create some understanding: Just because there are DC by challenge level doesn't mean that every challenge has to be of a level equal to the PC's level.

Does every monster in your 3E games have a CR exactly equal to the party's level? Of course not.

Stop being a dense obtuse fool.

[TheFlatline]

You just admitted that a balancing act of certain width was defined in terms of difficulty for the player, rather than any actual value. So balancing on a thin ledge has a different DC if you encounter that ledge as a 6th level character vs. encountering the same ledge as a 12th level character.

Once again, because you're a fucking retard, I'll repeat this one more time in the vain hope that maybe it might get through your skull and create some understanding: Just because there are DC by challenge level doesn't mean that every challenge has to be of a level equal to the PC's level.

Does every monster in your 3E games have a CR exactly equal to the party's level? Of course not.

Stop being a dense obtuse fool.

You're houseruling now dude.

You may say that a 6 inch balance beam is a hard challenge for a level 1 character- say that comes out to DC 15.

However, you may say it's an easy challenge for a level 15 character. An easy DC for a level 15 character is say 20.

Which means in absolute terms, the balance beam has gotten harder to walk along in 15 levels. You're just so much more skilled that it's not a big deal.

Saying "the balance beam has a DC15 to walk on now and forever" is a houserule, not rules as written.