How much of the anti-4E sentiment is actually justified?

[Plebian]

apart from the druid, the core three? and depending on what you wanted you could always flavor a swarm druid as a swarm of incredibly cute animals. that'd be pretty damn fun, actually, I'll have to remember that.

and, really, that's only if you're wanting to incorporate it in your attacks; if it's just a flavor thing? yeah, you're a druid, of course you can be hanging out with the cast of Bambi because it's what you want and doesn't provide mechanical advantages. you don't need a Summon Thumper power.

[Plebian]

And this is the issue with minions that's an even bigger problem. There IS autodamage in 4e, lots of it once players get some levels, and minions become a complete non-threat by paragon. Instead of dying due to hearoic abilities, they're killed by bookkeeping entries.

there are certainly some autodamage powers but they're all very limited in how many targets they can effect and most require an attack roll to initiate

Thus, an entire class of creatures, much like solos (and to some extent elites), doesn't really work right out of the box, if at all.

you just insist on making wild claims about a system you have no knowledge of, don't you

I do admit that "minions don't have 1 hp when not in combat" is an interesting point of view, but I am curious where in the DMG where I can find the HP of minions outside of combat; there are other ways to take damage besides combat, after all.

and what ways would those be? why would they effect minions at all? would you require a 2e or 3e DM keep track of the life story of every monster he ever introduced on the off chance they got crushed by a landslide before meeting the party, or something equally inane?

I mean, I know you're just here to try and tardflail at 4e but you should at least put some effort into it.

[Data Vampire]

Okay, the point you are missing is that you can't have a fight against minions in a sandstorm that slowly damages everyone, which is totally a scenario that is fun, interesting, and used.

You know a question has been bothering me for a while. What exactly are the rules for a sandstorm in 4E? I looked and cannot seem to find any.

[Plebian]

seems like it'd just be something the DM set up, so maybe ongoing 1 per round if you're unprepared? even so it'd have to be one truly incredibly sandstorm to do physical damage that quickly, and you'd be in more danger of just being buried, it would seem.

[Doom]

Armor of Agathys doesn't require an attack roll, neither does Flaming Sphere...that's what, level 1? Both trivially can affect several minions a turn, and have no upper limit to how many they can kill; taking these abilities makes minions irrelevant, and doesn't represent any sacrifice of losing 'other' powers, as these abilities are quite effective against monsters that make sense, too.

Shadow Assassin has a paragon path ability that, when combined with halfling racial powers, can take out literally dozens of minions a turn.

D'oh, actually showing a troll wrong. Next up, I'll make a prediction about whether the sun will come up tomorrow.

[CCarter]

apart from the druid, the core three? and depending on what you wanted you could always flavor a swarm druid as a swarm of incredibly cute animals. that'd be pretty damn fun, actually, I'll have to remember that.

and, really, that's only if you're wanting to incorporate it in your attacks; if it's just a flavor thing? yeah, you're a druid, of course you can be hanging out with the cast of Bambi because it's what you want and doesn't provide mechanical advantages. you don't need a Summon Thumper power.

To answer my own question, the gnome alone would be at least PHB and MM + Martial Power for tempest powers + whatever has the hybrid rules: the multiclass rules and TWF rules in the PHB are at best a joke (A feat to get +1 damage regardless of whether I have a lit torch or +6 vorpal longsword in my offhand? Hurrah!). Another sourcebook for the druid (which one, I don't know offhand) and I'm doubting the rogue is constructeable at all.

[Plebian]

To answer my own question, the gnome alone would be at least PHB and MM + Martial Power for tempest powers + whatever has the hybrid rules: the multiclass rules and TWF rules in the PHB are at best a joke (A feat to get +1 damage regardless of whether I have a lit torch or +6 vorpal longsword in my offhand? Hurrah!). Another sourcebook for the druid (which one, I don't know offhand) and I'm doubting the rogue is constructeable at all.

oh so you weren't asking if it would be possible you were asking for specific builds, also the rogue is possible only you'd never be doing sneak attack damage because you're using a big fuckoff axe.

now if you're not pinned down into "it HAS to say this next to class or I cannot have fun" you can just make a melee ranger because, in character, class names don't exist even a little bit unless you think everyone runs around labeling themselves, which is a really silly idea I would think that people past the "is there a tavern? I go in and ask the bartender for ADVENTURE!" stage

also Assassin could wield your axe, if you want a stealther who goes around swinging a giant axe.

[tussock]

because, in character, class names don't exist even a little bit

because, in character, like, no one's ever going to notice I can cast flaming sphere once a day. No one in the real world would ever call a human being a "boxer", or "rocket scientist" just because that was a fair representation of their skill set which common to that profession, after all.

Dick head.

[Psychic Robot]

What edge case are we arguing now? Are we herding the monsters down a corridor to check for traps?

If the PCs set traps for the monsters, then yes. And if the monsters are forced through an area with hazardous environmental conditions, then yes.

Any of them?

No. If the goblin king is a badass (and he should be a badass), then he isn't randomly killed by a low-level mook with an arrow. Why? Because he wouldn't be the goblin king then, as the guy who is stronger than the goblin king would be the goblin king.

So the same as when you threw severely underpowered enemies at the players as some kind of reward for showing up to play a game, and an unconnected attack at the system for no discernible reason?

Yes.

[Plebian]

because, in character, like, no one's ever going to notice I can cast flaming sphere once a day. No one in the real world would ever call a human being a "boxer", or "rocket scientist" just because that was a fair representation of their skill set which common to that profession, after all.

Dick head.

if there's a profession that fits, sure, call it by the profession name. but do you honestly think "rogue" or "fighter" is anything anyone would actually use to describe themselves?

No. If the goblin king is a badass (and he should be a badass), then he isn't randomly killed by a low-level mook with an arrow. Why? Because he wouldn't be the goblin king then, as the guy who is stronger than the goblin king would be the goblin king.

so the guy who happens to be stronger than the goblin king should be the goblin king even though there's no reason for him to know the goblin king or that he's more powerful than the goblin king and there's no way to even know if he wants to be the goblin king

and lets not consider at all that royalty has usually not been any indicator of combat prowess at all, because then you'd just look stupid

[Archmage]

Outside of combat, nothing has HP as it's not relevant. When the PCs aren't doing the damage, there's no reason why an arrow can't kill a goblin king as easily as a goblin minion.

This is not going to be a popular opinion around here. I actually think you're arguing in good faith, Doctor Loggins, so let me attempt to explain.

The Den consensus (if such a thing can be said to exist) is that mechanics must create the desired flavor of the game, not the reverse. The key is that by and large this is a forum about game design. The game's rules are the physical laws of your game universe. They may not and probably do not emulate real life perfectly.

Consider the 4e rules for starvation and thirst.

1) After three days without water, you must make an Endurance check (DC 20) that gets progressively harder if you make the check (+5 per day). It's not clear whether that resets to DC 20 when you fail a check. Let's assume it doesn't.

2) The penalty for failing a check is loss of a healing surge. You cannot regain this healing surge until you get water. If you have no surges, you take damage equal to your level.

Therefore:

3) A 1st level party with access to surgeless healing (a single cleric who knows the cure light wounds power works) can go indefinitely without water. They run out of surges and then take 1 HP damage per day. The cleric can use the daily power to restore a surge's worth of HP to an ally without a surge needing to be spent (or for the target to have any surges at all). By cycling through the party, the cleric's divine blessings sustain the party without food or water forever. Sure, they have no healing surges and may not survive combat, but that's not important--they don't need food or water to live, which is a sign that the rules are massively fucked up as written!

If you want to run a setting where food and water are scarce resources and the PCs are supposed to care about them (Dark Sun)...you really can't. Not unless you change the rules. Your PCs can realistically survive drinking fresh water once a month and still have surges on hand to do combat.

If these are the rules, stating that starvation and thirst pose a danger to PCs is flavor text, which is fine on its own, but the fact is that it's lying flavor text. And Denners cannot stand flavor text that lies. If the flavor text says black lotus poison is one of the deadliest poisons ever concocted but a dose deals 5 poison damage per round (save ends) we will be pissed.

Sometimes rules produce an "unrealistic" result. If you want a realistic result, you have to change the rules (and acknowledge that you are doing so). Or, you have to accept that the laws of physics in the D&D universe are clearly not the same as the real world. HPs are supposed to be an abstraction, but high-level characters in D&D can survive 200-foot falls! There's certainly acrobatic skill involved in reducing how much you're injured by a fall, but you can't chalk up the fact to survive 20d6 falling damage to "the ability to roll with the punches" or whatever. You either have to accept that there are people in D&D who really can fall 200 feet and walk away with minor bruises because they are just that tough or you have to write a house rule that makes falling more lethal. Those are your two options.

Writing flavor text that doesn't make sense if the rules are followed to their logical conclusion is bad design. If the flavor text describes one outcome to an action, and the rules describe another, the rules win--and the fact that you can change them does not negate this fact.

So, yes, if Grarg the Goblin Lord is an adversary the PCs have faced in combat and they know he's bigger and tougher than any one of them, it is going to be very confusing when an assassin's arrow miraculously kills him in a single shot--especially if the PCs fight the assassin later and his ranged attacks only deal 1d8+1 damage. You can handwave things, but handwaving things to produce a result that is entirely different from what would've happened if the game's rules were actually being followed is generally considered totally unacceptable around here.

[Plebian]

you do realize that the same argument applies to prior editions, and any tabletop ever, and as such is a nonargument, right? you're nitpicking something that no tabletop will ever do well because anything properly simulating realism is stupidly complex.

edit: as an example; it is literally impossible to die from starvation or thirst in 3e. since a lack of food or water only ever does nonlethal damage which cannot ever kill you, it can only drop you to unconcious.

but but but REALISM

seriously if you're looking for consistent realism in all factors just do your normal thing in real life, no tabletop will satisfy you.

So, yes, if Grarg the Goblin Lord is an adversary the PCs have faced in combat and they know he's bigger and tougher than any one of them, it is going to be very confusing when an assassin's arrow miraculously kills him in a single shot--especially if the PCs fight the assassin later and his ranged attacks only deal 1d8+1 damage. You can handwave things, but handwaving things to produce a result that is entirely different from what would've happened if the game's rules were actually being followed is generally considered totally unacceptable around here.

I like how you add new qualifiers so that the party knows he has more HP than they do. and obviously it couldn't have been a specially prepared arrow, like with poison or a Arrow of Slaying, because that'd be silly!

hey look both of those options achieve the required result and include the game's rules being followed

[Archmage]

yedit: as an example; it is literally impossible to die from starvation or thirst in 3e. since a lack of food or water only ever does nonlethal damage which cannot ever kill you, it can only drop you to unconcious.

Yes, and that's bad, too--if starvation and thirst are supposed to be dangerous.

I didn't say 3e's rules were good. I just used starvation/thirst as an example because it produces such a starkly unrealistic outcome.

Do you have nothing to say about the concept of fluff needing to be supported by rules rather than handwaved aside from "RPGs can't and shouldn't try to be realistic, so herp derp?"

tl;dr: If you follow the game's rules and something "unrealistic" occurs, you have two choices. Decide "that's how it works in the game world even though that's 'unrealistic'" or write a new rule that produces the outcome you want.

[Novembermike]

and lets not consider at all that royalty has usually not been any indicator of combat prowess at all, because then you'd just look stupid

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II_of_Spain.

The king bit means he's a badass.

[Plebian]

yedit: as an example; it is literally impossible to die from starvation or thirst in 3e. since a lack of food or water only ever does nonlethal damage which cannot ever kill you, it can only drop you to unconcious.

Yes, and that's bad, too--if starvation and thirst are supposed to be dangerous.

I didn't say 3e's rules were good. I just used starvation/thirst as an example because it produces such a starkly unrealistic outcome.

Do you have nothing to say about the concept of fluff needing to be supported by rules rather than handwaved aside from "RPGs can't and shouldn't try to be realistic, so herp derp?"

tl;dr: If you follow the game's rules and something "unrealistic" occurs, you have two choices. Decide "that's how it works in the game world even though that's 'unrealistic'" or write a new rule that produces the outcome you want.

to an extent some fluff should be supported but trying to simulate reality is going to do nothing but create horrible inconsistencies because while reality all ties together no ruleset ever will. it's at the very best a fast and loose approximation.

[Novembermike]

Do you have nothing to say about the concept of fluff needing to be supported by rules rather than handwaved aside from "RPGs can't and shouldn't try to be realistic, so herp derp?"

It would be closer to say that "Simple RPGs can't and shouldn't try to be realistic". DnD is pretty much Baby's First RPG. The players build characters of a certain level, the DM grabs encounters that correspond and hopefully everything just works. In order to do this, it has to sacrifice a lot. It has a lot of abstractions like levels, classes, hp etc that tend to immediately break verisimilitude, but it uses these because they make the game simpler to play.

If you're honestly interested in simulationist table top games, try GURPS or some of the other systems that aren't burdened by all of the shit that DnD has. They still aren't great, but they at least don't have to force everything into the HP paradigm.

[Psychic Robot]

so the guy who happens to be stronger than the goblin king should be the goblin king even though there's no reason for him to know the goblin king or that he's more powerful than the goblin king and there's no way to even know if he wants to be the goblin king

and lets not consider at all that royalty has usually not been any indicator of combat prowess at all, because then you'd just look stupid

Things are a little different between real life and a game where being tough means you can literally take more knife wounds than someone else.

[Plebian]

so the guy who happens to be stronger than the goblin king should be the goblin king even though there's no reason for him to know the goblin king or that he's more powerful than the goblin king and there's no way to even know if he wants to be the goblin king

and lets not consider at all that royalty has usually not been any indicator of combat prowess at all, because then you'd just look stupid

Things are a little different between real life and a game where being tough means you can literally take more knife wounds than someone else.

actually we've already been over that HP is not actually a measure of physical health because that'd be ever so damaging to verisimilitude. it's an abstraction of any number of things; plot armor, parries, dodges, scrambling to safety, et cetera. but most definitely not a measure of physical health, it'd just be silly to assume that the exact same hit from a ballista bolt impales one guy dead but makes the other guy just walk around with a five-foot shaft in his chest for a bit.

[K]

Outside of combat, nothing has HP as it's not relevant. When the PCs aren't doing the damage, there's no reason why an arrow can't kill a goblin king as easily as a goblin minion.

This is not going to be a popular opinion around here. I actually think you're arguing in good faith, Doctor Loggins, so let me attempt to explain.

I applaud your faith in your fellow man, but I can't believe that people who are pulling out the Oberoni Fallacy like it's 2001 can be arguing in good faith.

[Psychic Robot]

actually we've already been over that HP is not actually a measure of physical health because that'd be ever so damaging to verisimilitude. it's an abstraction of any number of things; plot armor, parries, dodges, scrambling to safety, et cetera. but most definitely not a measure of physical health, it'd just be silly to assume that the exact same hit from a ballista bolt impales one guy dead but makes the other guy just walk around with a five-foot shaft in his chest for a bit.

Translation: I am an autist who cannot see the forest through the trees.

[Plebian]

I applaud your faith in your fellow man, but I can't believe that people who are pulling out the Oberoni Fallacy like it's 2001 can be arguing in good faith.

you don't actually know what the Oberoni Fallacy is, do you

it's okay, you can admit it

Translation: I am an autist who cannot see the forest through the trees.

Translation: I cannot come up with any argument against that so will resort to accusing someone of being autistic

[Psychic Robot]

If you can't understand the argument behind the exaggeration I was using as rhetorical technique, you may have Aspergers.

[Plebian]

If you can't understand the argument behind the exaggeration I was using as rhetorical technique, you may have Aspergers.

you don't actually know what rhetorical means, do you

I mean it doesn't surprise me, this board is filled with people that just repeat terms they've heard used like they apply, but damn man.

[Psychic Robot]

The only reason you're not going on ignore is because watching you post is mildly entertaining.

[Almaz]

I mean it doesn't surprise me, this board is filled with people that just repeat terms they've heard used like they apply, but damn man.

That sentence.

I do not think it means what you think it means.