recent d&d deathwatch data

[ScottS]

That Skill Challenges completely don't work, at all is a really big fucking deal.

As of Rules Compendium (only Ess book I've read so far but I just finished it yesterday), SCs are the same as in the last 4e patch, but "fixed" in the following ways:

They changed the DC chart (again) to widen the spread between easy/moderate/hard; in particular it starts at +7 between mod/hard at 1st lvl and gradually increases through the tiers. (I have no clue how this affects the exact success %ages for the SC, but I assume the goal is to disincentivize "rolling your best skill over and over", when your trained/untrained difference no longer automatically beats a +5 mod/hard spread).

The DC for a paricular skill automatically upgrades from easy/mod to hard as soon as you get 1 success. (naturally this changes the algorithm from "find best skill, roll over and over" to "find best skill, roll until 1 success, find 2nd best skill, roll until 1 success, etc." but I guess it's better than "you must roll a different skill every round")

Anything over complexity 2 is supposed to have arbitrary "advantages" worked into it in some handwavy fashion. (the list of advantages includes the Obsidian "2 successes on a crit" thing and similar stuff; the book doesn't have of the SC "templates" or Mearls examples, so unless there's more in the DM Kit you're pretty much on your own on how to do this)

Aid another DCs now increase with level, and inflict a -1 to the main check if you miss. (another reason to rage at sliding DCs but whatever)

Beyond that I think SCs are the same; it's still 4+2n successes/3 failures, no formal round structure or fixed number of rounds, etc. Footnote is that the rules now say the party gets the full XP even if they fail the challenge. (old-school DMs commence teeth gnashing) "Partial victories/failures" are mentioned but not spelled out.

[ScottS]

I've never heard about 4E falling apart at high-level play, but I'm sure there are plenty of blogs or vlogs or podcasts about Essentials campaigns somwhere on tthe web. Maybe check RPPR's Actual Plays?

I don't have a better podcast to recommend in its place, but the problem with RPPR is that they aren't analytical and pretty much hate 4e combat. The DM only started experimenting with upping the shitty monster damage by the time they got to Epic. 90% of what they do in their game is MTP.

[FatR]

Um, okay? I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is, this:

I've never heard about 4E falling apart at high-level play

is a merely defect of your hearing.

The math being iffy at levels x-y probably doesn't have any bearing on the sales of the game. If the core system is solid, then the math can be fixed with some minor house rules and errata.

Unfortunately, 4E core system is shit and you can't get around this fact without rewriting about 90% of the crunch.
Oh, and did you say "errata"? The ever-expanding avalanche of 4E errata is an endless source of lulz at the expense of people who actually bought into the game.

[Krakatoa]

I did actually buy into the game. 4E is a very solid system. It's hardly my favorite system, but it's the best thing to come out under the brand of Dungeons and Dragons so far, unless you count Gamma World.

[Username17]

I did actually buy into the game. 4E is a very solid system. It's hardly my favorite system, but it's the best thing to come out under the brand of Dungeons and Dragons so far, unless you count Gamma World.

We seem to have a fundamental problem with terminology. What do you mean when you say 4e is a "solid system"? Because last time I checked, the game was composed of a total of two minigames, and one of them did not work at all and the other fell off the random number generator so badly at high levels that the company felt compelled to issue over one hundred pages of errata composed of kludgy math patches that most of the game's fans agree don't fully fix the problem.

What does a game have to do to not get counted as "solid"?

-Username17

[mean_liar]

The only problem with 4e is that we expected better.

As an avid RPG collector, I assure you that 4e is FAR from "shit". I like it for what it is, and would probably prefer it over 3e if only because of its novelty but would choose 2e over that for the same reason. It has unfortunate elements, like every RPG, but its far from unplayable.

I know what a shitty RPG is, and its not 4e. Unplayable is Deadlands. It is Aftermath. It is not 4e.

[shadzar]

I did actually buy into the game. 4E is a very solid system. It's hardly my favorite system, but it's the best thing to come out under the brand of Dungeons and Dragons so far, unless you count Gamma World.

When did you start playing D&D? What did you do for entertainment before D&D? Have you even seen the WotC or ENWorld forums? (those places that kiss D&D's ass but the biggest WotC supporters are even saying 4th is a pile of broken shit even MerrikB one of the biggest 4th edition kiss-asses from its announcement)

D&D as a game is dead, because comments like the above....it has been turned into a brand long ago, and branding is about selling lots of products, rather than selling good ones.

Brands are about quantity over quality....market shares are all that matters to a "brand".

EDIT: just thought of something...werent there recent division of the D&D team? wasnt this what they said they did with the 3.x team so that one could work on 4th, while the other churned out "stuff" for 3.5 and such?

if this is the same thing with the same type of material coming out now for 4th, then that may be the biggest sign that 4th is near its end, because they already have a small team designing 5th edition with a skeleton crew left working on 4th...

seems that is how Mearls or someone put it about how 4th came about and the end of 3rds life cycle....

[Krakatoa]

I made the mistake of assuming I was discussing things with reasonable people.

[shadzar]

I made the mistake of assuming I was discussing things with reasonable people.

on the internet?

seriously though, the bigger supporters of 4th edition from back when i was arguing with Gamer_zer0 and WizO_Paradox on the WotC forums, have turned against 4th edition.

it doesnt deliver what it was billed as, its companion material failed and is failing, namely its digital initiative that shit-canned the hard copy periodicals that would help draw people to it.

4th edition is a good idea for a Marvel super powers game, but needs lots of work to fix that.

you are discussing things with people that have opinions. also consider the amount of errata for 4th...someone somewhere said it was about 100 or more pages...if the system has that many holes that need to be plugged, they its solidity should be in question.

[Leress]

I made the mistake of assuming I was discussing things with reasonable people.

Umm, you haven't made you case that 4e was a "solid" system. Others have shown that most of the game really doesn't function like it should. So don't act like others are unreasonable because they point out the problems with the system.

[TOZ]

I made the mistake of assuming I was discussing things with reasonable people.

I missed the part where you were actually discussing things.

[Krakatoa]

4E is a solid system because it unifies the mechanics and gives every class a role and opportunity to contribute to the fight. If the math breaks down, as you claim, it's certainly problematic. But those elements can be fixed with adjustments to said math.

You can't just fix 3E fighters with adjustments to math. You can't fix Pathfinder with adjustments to math.

[hogarth]

You can't just fix 3E fighters with adjustments to math.

Sure you can. Just have one set of class abilities (the cleric's, say) and relabel it eleven times as "barbarian", "druid", "fighter", "wizard", etc.

Voila! A fighter that's perfectly balanced with the wizard.

(Isn't this basically the 4E method?)

[Username17]

4E is a solid system because it unifies the mechanics and gives every class a role and opportunity to contribute to the fight. If the math breaks down, as you claim, it's certainly problematic. But those elements can be fixed with adjustments to said math.

You can't just fix 3E fighters with adjustments to math. You can't fix Pathfinder with adjustments to math.

But the unified mechanics don't work. They took absolutely everything, said "make it a skill challenge" and gave a pointer to the skill challenge rules. But the skill challenges... don't work. There's no math fix for that.

The combat minigame doesn't give everyone a "role to play" except in the part where every build has a "role" listed on it. But those roles don't actually mean anything. A Striker might very well do less damage than a Controller or a Defender. A Defender might provide more Healing or bonuses to his allies than a Leader. And so on and so on for every role you care to mention. About the only thing you can say for it is that in the combat minigame, everyone tries to kill enemies and everyone does damage. Well excuse me, but so fucking what? It's not like they do balanced or even vaguely comparable amounts of damage. Rangers doing more damage than you do is specifically his "role", and the fact that Warlocks don't is just bad design.

So what's the part where things work? Where is the "solid" part? Can we call Toon or Münchhausen "solid" games because they only have a single mechanic that they use for all the resolutions of disputed actions? Because right now the game of 4e is built entirely around a non-functional Skill Challenge system that after having been amended more than two dozen times in less than 3 years still doesn't work, so everyone just plays full-on magical teaparty to handle all problems outside the little combat minigame. I could seriously call Arkham Horror or even RISK an RPG at that point. If your game doesn't even really have mechanics for what happens after you leave combat, I don't even know if it should be counted as an RPG - let alone a "solid" one.

-Username17

[FatR]

Fixing 3E fighters with adjustments to math is not particularly hard, and there is a ton of fixes to this effect. Sure, they won't be as awesome as optimally played wizards, but that's because optimally played wizards tend to be game-breaking and it is better to tone the bestest tricks down a bit. The main problem lies in the fact that it is hard to find two circles of players who agree on where benchmarks for numbers should lie. And if you aren't weirdly attached to the word "Fighter" on your character sheet, it is not at all hard to push the martial numbers beyond what the game can handle without counteroptimization just with the official materials.

You say that it's easy to fixing 4E with adjustments to math, yet there is 100+ pages of errata already, and the manth is not fixed.

[fectin]

4E is a solid system because it unifies the mechanics and gives every class a role and opportunity to contribute to the fight. If the math breaks down, as you claim, it's certainly problematic. But those elements can be fixed with adjustments to said math.

You can't just fix 3E fighters with adjustments to math. You can't fix Pathfinder with adjustments to math.

That's not a solid system that's the design goal. It's like saying that Local Sports Team is solid because they want to win.
you have to look at results, not just intentions.

[souran]

You say that it's easy to fixing 4E with adjustments to math, yet there is 100+ pages of errata already, and the manth is not fixed.

This is by far the dumbest argument I have ever seen against 4e.

100+ pages of errata! OMG!!!

You realize that there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of errata for magic cards.

4E powers are build like magic cards.

The VAST majority of the errata is adjustment of particular powers.

And when you consider that TONS of bitching has been done on this board about specific power combinations the idea that you are now bitching because they showed some freaking initiative and even reconsidered those powers at all is really trying to have your cake and eat it too.You can't both complain about the powers and then complain when they go back and nerf a power.

[Username17]

The complaint isn't that there are over a hundred pages to errata. The complaint isn't even about the hit points thing, where they issued errata to hundreds and hundreds of pages of text. The complaint is that after issuing all that errata, the core problem is still there. The math is not fixed.

The fact that Skill challenges have been adjusted significantly almost monthly since June of 2008 is a bad sign, but if the final, or indeed any of the skill challenge revisions had fixed the core problem, that would be OK.

But they didn't. The skill challenge system is still broken. And since the best they can come up with is to add more wishy-washy language and hope the DMs at home figure out a way to fix it themselves, I don't have high hopes for them fixing it any time soon.

-Username17

[Krakatoa]

4E is a solid system because it unifies the mechanics and gives every class a role and opportunity to contribute to the fight. If the math breaks down, as you claim, it's certainly problematic. But those elements can be fixed with adjustments to said math.

You can't just fix 3E fighters with adjustments to math. You can't fix Pathfinder with adjustments to math.

That's not a solid system that's the design goal. It's like saying that Local Sports Team is solid because they want to win.
you have to look at results, not just intentions.

Except from what I've played of 4E, they basically have succeeded. My gaming group has a pretty diverse bunch of characters, but we're all able to contribute to a fight and have fun, and we don't have to learn vastly different mechanics when switching from one class to another.

I've not been trying to break the math in casual play, and so far the math hasn't broken.

[mean_liar]

Yeah, that's my experience with it as well, but that's a similar experience to most games: casual play will not break them. So its a meaningless statement to make. What you really want to say about a good game is, "this thing is solid start-to-finish", and by the standards of the Den, there is basically NO game that satisfies that condition. Meanwhile, not breaking a game through casual play remains a pointless measure of how good it is.

There's a strange willingness to forgive how fucked a 3e character can be with how fucked a 4e character can be, relative to the rest of the party. There are still plenty of things to lament with 4e: christmas trees, fiddly bullshit timing of interrupts and actions and what-not, and of course the Skill Challenges. But I'd play 4e... but I'm an RPG junkie. I don't mind broken systems, I just play broken characters in them and have a blast.

Even with all the problems of 4e, you still have a decent-if-mediocre RPG. I feel 3e is a superior game due to its easily-modded nature (as opposed to 4e's 30 levels of powers), but in the end its still decent-if-mediocre. Folks here like to think its utter shit, to which I ask:

"Have you ever played through a Deadlands combat?"

[tzor]

I generally take the contrarian approach. The fundamental design strategy of 4E (minus the skill chalenges ... because they flat out suck) is rock solid. The problem is that the implementation of the design strategy put a lot of holes in the system; things that just can't be fixed by errata.

In once sense this was bound to happen. (Which is why I insist that 4E came out too early.) The design strategy was so radically different that it would have been difficult for a good group of gamers and designers to stress test all the new elements in a non waterfall manner over a course of many major revisions. The designers at WoTC weren't half as good as necessary.

Now go back and throw in the skill challenge system and the wheels fall off the little red wagon (at mach two ... not a pretty picture).

[FatR]

This is by far the dumbest argument I have ever seen against 4e.

100+ pages of errata! OMG!!!

Yes. If your errata is that long, and your game still isn't the standard of balance yet, your game is shit. It might be shit because it is broken from the beginning, or because the powercreep/nerf errata cycle is intentional, but it is shit either way.

You realize that there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of errata for magic cards.

Never noticed that in practice when still playing MtG (unless you count banlists as errata, and they are not really the same thing). If true, this just means that MtG is a worse game than I thought.

[hogarth]

There are still plenty of things to lament with 4e: christmas trees, fiddly bullshit timing of interrupts and actions and what-not, and of course the Skill Challenges. But I'd play 4e... but I'm an RPG junkie. I don't mind broken systems, I just play broken characters in them and have a blast.

I could probably live with all of that stuff, if combat didn't boil down to repeating the words "I use my at-will power" over and over again.

I'm in a play-by-email 4E game and it feels like I should just set my email account to autoreply.

[mean_liar]

Huh. Go figure. I'm in several PbP 4e games and haven't encountered that problem yet. All four are Heroic tier games; perhaps it has to do with how the GM balances encounters. We did have a battle against a Solo (with her extra non-minion cohorts) which had a lot of At-Willing in the 2nd half of the battle... but that's a common, addressable complaint about Solos in general isn't it?

What level are your games at?

[hogarth]

Level 3, currently. It's a slow-moving game. So it probably doesn't help that:

• We're low level, so we don't get that many different powers.
• I'm playing a striker (a sorcerer), so I don't have a lot of different fancy abilities other than "damage + mild side effect".
• Our DM likes having lots of bad guys, but isn't into using minions.