4th Edition Quirks

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 10:58 pm

Attacking dragons while they sleep is the normal method for dragon-slaying. Sure, it might not always work, but how many heroes stand there and tell the dragon to "bring it"? Heck, tactics like getting the dragon drunk or getting it to swallow something heavy so it can't fly before fighting it are pretty common as well.

Honorable combat may work against other honorable warriors, but against something like an ooze, or a zombie army, or a huge creature that can swallow you with one bite, it doesn't really apply.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:36 am

RC wrote:It may well be highly effective and efficient, but it's not the tools of a hero, it's the tools of the assassin.

They are the same.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:55 am

It depends on the kinda of story you have.

On the Hero hand, you have Link.

On the other hand, you have Altair or even Kratos.

I'd sorta like for a setting to allow me to play all of them, you know?

Jacob_Orlove · Post by **Jacob_Orlove** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:56 am

Apparently, all that Vorpal does now is make your dice "explode" (reroll max values and add the new rolls to the total). Weak.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:00 am

Maxus wrote:On the Hero hand, you have Link.

On the other hand, you have Altair or even Kratos.

Actually, Link and Kratos are both of the "kick the door" type, and would be equal losers on a consistent setting with radical tactics (a.k.a. actual tactics) available. You can just handwave parts of the opposition's desire to win if the PCs don't have enough of it themselves.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:05 am

All too often, I see the conflation of two uses of the word 'hero.' The first is an unusually mighty person, the second is an actively moral individual, usually in the context of putting their morality before their own safety. These are distinct uses of the word, though they are more related than the use that means 'submarine sandwich.'

In general, dragon-slaying is performed by heroes of the first kind, who may also be heroes of the second kind, but often are not.

Heroes don't do those sorts of things. At least not fantasy heroes.

Have you ever read the Conan stories? Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser? Kane the Immortal? Hell, most of The Lord of the Rings is an elaborate assassination plot.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:08 am

At the beginning of the Elenium series, you see one of my favourite fantasy heroes in action: he starts off finding a length of wire so he can garotte someone.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:10 am

Sparhawk's definitely not a saint.

And you know?

I like that.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:33 am

Actually, let's see who the examples are:

--Drizzt, who, in the Icewind Dale trilogy, is a pretty cool guy, although he has his flaws--one of which is explicitly shown to be discovering treasure and getting his motivations a little mixed up. His hatred of Entreri is at first based because he honestly hates Entreri because he sees what he could have been--it's a personal hatred until one of his friends tells him he should be trying to stop Entreri because of the harm Entreri poses to, well, everyone.

--Entreri, once he gets his own starring roles, turns out to have a few convictions, but he'll be vicious when he wants to be. He doesn't even try for the philosophical perfection Drizzt does, so he's more fun to read about.

--Garion, from the Belgariad/Malloreon, is the boring hero. I mean, he's a nice guy, but the real reason you read those ten books is because the cast of characters around him is so fun. Once he gets past his adolescent angst, he's pretty much always upstanding and decent and all, and doesn't even get the good jokes.

--Sparhawk from the Elenium/Tamuli is more fallible. He loses his temper, he's perfectly willing to murder a enemy's lackey horribly just to unsettle his enemy, he's devious, he messes up, he doubts his own motivations and has his own fears and weak points.

--I don't think we need to go into Dragonlance characters. I mean, I never really understood what Tanis' personality was supposed to be. He would have been the straight man among an insane crew. ... Well, okay, maybe Raistlin can stand up to some examination.

--I've got this trashy Forgotten Realms novel called Ghostwalker where the hero starts off as a revenge-driven near-psycho seeking to kill four men who'd wronged him some time previously. In the beginning, he actually sneaks into the house, and then the bedroom of one of them while the man's entertaining a prostitute. And as soon as the man's done, he's confronted and killed by the Mysterious Stranger. And the story would have been freakin' awesome if it'd stayed on that track. But, noooooo, it had to have a badly-done romance put in to give it 'broader appeal'.

--Even Harry Potter gives a good example. Not so much Harry, because he's a self-righteous rules-ignoring, massively favored twat, but after I worked out Snape's motivations (a month or so before the last book came out), I found myself liking someone who could be such an unpleasant good guy, and unable to overcome his own prejudices despite being aware, on a rational level, that they're unfounded.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:45 am

That's a good list, really. And the ones who don't have Celestia shining out of their colons are, in my awesome opinion, the better ones.

Another little quirk noticed:

Eladrin are fey.

Eladrin can be Warlocks.

Warlocks can gain their powers from a pact with the fey.

Consider this for a moment. Now imagine a spoiled brat of an eladrin who gets powers from his/her mummy. Level up == increase of allowance.

That is pretty funny, so I can only assume it was unintentional, an a later errata will make it impossible.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 2:11 am

Oh, hey, here's two more...

--Link. He's the right-tool-for-the-right-job hero, who uses his wits and his equipment to kill things many, many times bigger than he is. He doesn't have much magic, so he slogs through a dungeon just to march his happy ass right into the lair of a huge monster. And apparently he's a decent guy.

--Kratos. Massively strong, brutal asshole. Practically the embodiment of stabbing things in the face.

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 2:15 am

So, can you have a party that includes a cleric of himself, an eladrin warlock who's made a pact with himself, and a paladin who draws power from himself?

Go Team Ego!

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:25 am

Maxus wrote:It depends on the kinda of story you have.

On the Hero hand, you have Link.

On the other hand, you have Altair or even Kratos.

I'd sorta like for a setting to allow me to play all of them, you know?

Well even Altair does heroic assassinations. He kills people in broad daylight, with tons of guards around. I mean, that's damn bad ass and ballsy if you ask me. He doesn't teleport in with little risk at night, kill the guy 6 on 1 and then teleport away.

For a lone guy, I'd call Altair pretty heroic, despite being an assassin. There's no problem with striking from surprise if numbers are against you. The enemy still has a big advantage on him given numbers, and he's beating the odds.

Also, I'm not really saying heroes can't have some darkness to them. It's just that in general, they handle stuff in a manly and cinematic fashion, not just striking helpless targets. Even the darker heroes like Kratos or Elric aren't tactical cowards. They burst down the door and start kicking some ass.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:34 am

Jacob_Orlove wrote:Apparently, all that Vorpal does now is make your dice "explode" (reroll max values and add the new rolls to the total). Weak.

You're just saying that because it is a larger absolute bonus for d6 weapons (.7 damage per [W]) than it is for d8 weapons (.64 damage per [W]) or d10 weapons (.61 damage per [W]). The largest bonus for using a Vorpal Weapon is actually for dagger rogues. Not only do they get more [W]s than other people, but they use d4s, which explode more and therefore gain an extra .83 damage per [W].

The math in 4e is bad pretty much everywhere. Makes me wonder why they made such a big deal about fixing the math.

Eladrin can be Warlocks.

Don't do that.

D&D4 has extremely strong Race/Class affinities and there are very small numbers of "effective" builds. Also the game math is predicated on the assumption that you will be using one of them - especially at high levels. Don't play an Eladrin Warlock, because it sucks. Eladrin are kind of on the weak side no matter what you do your bonuses don't fully synergize with any currently published class. But if you do play an Eladrin, you want to be in one of the decent presented archetypes for which there is currently no optimized race: like Control Wizard or Brute Rogue.

There are three kinds of Warlocks, of which only one of them is Charisma based (Fey type), and they are optimized for Halflings, Tieflings, Dragonborn, Humans, or (especially) Half-Elves. The other two are Constitution centric, and thus are optimized for Dwarves, Humans, or Half Elves.

If you're going to play 4e to high levels you have to build your character in the manner that you'd build a WoW character. There are penalties for stepping out of the guidelines and they are large. Being an Infernal Pact Warlock who isn't a Dwarf, Human, or Half-Elf seriously drops your DPS by 17%. Since DPS is your entire job, you can see how that might not be a good plan.

---

Your character should be "Half Eladrin" which means that your mother ives you power as allowance and your father is a human. This makes you use the half-elf stat block which shares literally nothing with humans or any of the varieties of elf. But it does optimize your character for every pact of Warlockery.

-Username17

SphereOfFeetMan · Post by **SphereOfFeetMan** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 11:02 am

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Well most of that stuff, barring contingency requires that you get to act first. Sure, wall of force stops anything, but it does you no good if you lost initiative.

As far as contingency, that depends on how your DM is going to treat it. Most DMs I know don't give contingency the ability to predict the future, only to react to what's already happened. So you could have a contingency "if I get turned to stone" or "if I get killed" but not "If I'm about to be turned to stone or killed"

If you allow contingency to act as an interrupt rather than as a reactive ability, then obviously wizards get a huge boost.

You are thinking way too narrowly. I’ll take just one example, “perceive an attack coming.” Ways to accomplish this:

-Divination spells (Augury, Divination, Clairaduience/Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, Locate Creature, Scrying, etc)
-“Perception” spells (See Invisibility, True Seeing, etc)
-Scouting Minions (Charms, Animated Undead, Summons, Planar Bindings, etc.)
-Spotting them before they spot you (Invisibility, etc.)

When I listed contingencies, I was implying more than just the spell. Your particular Dm’s and their houserules have no bearing on anything. Even so, under your listed restrictions, Contingency is still very useful. For example: “If someone intends, and is capable of, killing me or causing me great harm, and acquires line of effect to me, Teleport me to place X.”

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Defending is more the 4E defender powers, stepping in front of attacks and taking the damage yourself, or having abilities that make it more advantageous for the creature to attack you than your allies.

FFS. You want MMO aggro management to be the bulk of “defense” powers?

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Most of the ways of "defense" stated here consist of taking actions away from foes in an offensive manner. Hold person, forcecage, glitterdust, etc. You're not so much defending as you are debuffing your opponent's ability to act.

That to me is just another form of offense.

Explain to me how the following abilities do not protect your allies, and are offensive:

-You are going to fight a red dragon. You cast Energy Immunity (Fire) on all of your allies.
-You are a reach based martial character, and keep melee enemies from approaching your allies.
-You and your party are desperately fighting some Orcs in a room. There is an adjacent hallway, and you hear a horde of Orcs coming. You cast Solid Fog in the hallway to slow them down.
--Same situation as above, but you instead cast Arcane Lock on the door.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Odd because your stuff just reminds me of watching a game of Rainbow six. The offensive guys have MP-5s, the "Defenders" throw flashbangs and maybe you've got one guy with a lock picking kit. You don't bother talking, ever, since it's alot easier to just run in and flashbang the hell out of people.

Hahaha. This, after I specifically stated my houserule that allows everyone to talk to their enemies without being punished for it.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Heroes don't do those sorts of things. At least not fantasy heroes.

You have a really specific definition of what being heroic is. That's fine, I can respect playing a character or a particular game with really stringent personal codes.

However, your examples really don't bear this out.

-End of Gladiator: It wasn't a "fair and honorable combat." Given the ruthlessness of Maximus in the arena, I personally doubt he would have given up an advantage at the end if he was given a choice.

-Buffy and Angel. I haven't seen a lot of these. They fight Vampires right? They sometimes sneak in and stake the vampires in their sleep, right? Or push them into sunlight? That seems to be exactly contradicting what you are saying.

-Zorro/Record of Lodoss War. Don't know/can't remember the material.

-LotR (angelfromanotherpin's post about assassination plot.)

RandomCasualty2 wrote:...And the fact that I really can't think of a single fantasy hero who kills people in their sleep or makes use of 4 on 1 teleport ambushes, I'm just going to let that speak for itself.

It is irrelevant if you are personally unaware of fantasy stories which contradict your favored conventions. They exist.

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series has multiple examples of teleport ambushes vs outnumbered foes.

George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is nearly an iconic example of gritty fantasy heroes. Nearly everyone, heroes included, play to win, and use "Dishonorable Cowardice."

SphereOfFeetMan · Post by **SphereOfFeetMan** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:34 pm

Back to 4e quirks:

Monster sizes go from Tiny to Gargantuan. There are no Fine, Diminutive, or Colossal size categories. A monster's height and weight are not described anywhere, only what squares they fit in. The Tarrasque is size gargantuan. He fits inside of a 20 ft x 20 ft area. That is kinda sad.

WotC seems to really hate big monsters. They have gotten smaller every edition (3.0, 3.5, 4.0). I wonder how big 4.5 or 5e monsters will be.

Look at the Tarrasques ability scores and their +'s. Has anyone done a John Cooper (Enworld reviewer) style analysis on the numbers in the MM? WotC said "fuck it" to complicated stuff like hit dice, so I would imagine it would be much better. Anyone know what % of monsters are fucked up number-wise?

A random quote from WotC boards wrote:Nitpick. If you read the rules on saving throws on page 279 of the PHB, you find that 1 is no longer an autofail and 20 is no longer an autosuccess.

That means an Epic level Orb-Wizard demigod with spellfocus (-11 to saves) can push normal monsters completely off the Save RNG i.e. making saves impossible for them.

Jacob_Orlove · Post by **Jacob_Orlove** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Jacob_Orlove wrote:Apparently, all that Vorpal does now is make your dice "explode" (reroll max values and add the new rolls to the total). Weak.
You're just saying that because it is a larger absolute bonus for d6 weapons (.7 damage per [W]) than it is for d8 weapons (.64 damage per [W]) or d10 weapons (.61 damage per [W]). The largest bonus for using a Vorpal Weapon is actually for dagger rogues. Not only do they get more [W]s than other people, but they use d4s, which explode more and therefore gain an extra .83 damage per [W].

The math in 4e is bad pretty much everywhere. Makes me wonder why they made such a big deal about fixing the math.

While I agree that's both terrible math and silly, I'm saying it more because the poem now goes like this:

Jabberwocky v4.0
by Lewis Carroll (with additions)

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! One, two! One, two!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:03 pm

In response to that poem, I must now devolve into internet jargon. ROFLMAO

I don't know if the advantage in using a vorpal dagger over a vorpal longsword is significant enough. From what I recall of Deadlands math, it was only the immediately larger die that was of close to equivalent value; as in the d4's total was about equal to a d6, but the d8 was superior. And even then, their attacks don't seem to have all that more dice than any other class, at least not enough to make their d4s beat a d8.

As for races, seems like not much of a change to me. When I first heard about how no race will have a penalty, some people seemed to think that to mean race-class combos will stop being pigeon-holed, which was stupid (not that they'd listen to me). Instead of avoiding a race because of its penalty to your class, you avoid a race because of its inferior bonus.

I still want to imagine a game where Cascade of Blades is obtained before the DM realizes what it can do, then bluff with the local merchant that they want to purchase a couple dozen overly-expensive level 30 items. As soon as the merchant arrives and prepares to receive payment, one-shot him, and keep the gear for yourself. If/When an upgrade is found, you don't need the merchant anymore because you can just Disenchant/Create as you require.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:09 pm

I have the say, that's pretty much how it is. Actually..

...Remind me of something a friend said, back in the early 2000's, that he'd like the see on those battle robot TV shows--a robot that immobilized its opponent, and then ground through it with sandpaper.

"NOOOO! NOT THE PAINT JOB

And that strikes me as what players are doing in 4e. There's trying to use sandpaper to erode this big pile of hit points. I mean, I feel like the monsters and the players should be losing them to old age or lack of food or something.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:52 pm

Maxus wrote: And that strikes me as what players are doing in 4e. There's trying to use sandpaper to erode this big pile of hit points. I mean, I feel like the monsters and the players should be losing them to old age or lack of food or something.

Yeah, 4E went the total opposite way of 3.5. In 4E, every character is very resilient. If you've got a cleric, or somebody with that demigod destiny, you're basically almost invulnerable. In 4E, all you seem to get is great defenses, with very little in the way of offense. So now you're a demigod with 24 points of regeneration until the end of the encounter. which pretty much makes you invulnerable. The problem is that your foes have a huge amouint of HP that you're going to have to saw away at round after round.

I mean 3.5 was ridiculously deadly, but 4E took it way overboard nerfing deadliness from the looks of it.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:56 pm

Aww, now we have the Rocket Launcher Tag edition and the Padded Sumo edition. How cute.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:19 pm

virgileso wrote:Aww, now we have the Rocket Launcher Tag edition and the Padded Sumo edition. How cute.

What's sad is that the 3.5 power model would have made more sense in 4E and vice versa.

in 4E, you're going to grind for a long time, so you really should have like 2-3 powers that you can use each day from each power level you know. Because seriously, you're going to have to be thrown a lot of shit out to kill stuff. It also needs a recovery mechanic similar to ToB (make a basic attack, get all your encounter powers back). The thing is that there's really no need to even have per day magic in 4E, because you're going to see the majority of a character's powers hit the field even at high level, simply because they deplete.

In 3.5, it could have benefited from having only a small handful of daily powers (which are ultra deadly), and forced people to conserve some by using weaker spells, and some spells still could just be at will. You didn't need a huge amount of choices in 3.5, because any one spell or ability has to be lethal, so it's ok if you burn just one daily spell in an encounter. Magic like teleport, save or dies, and so on should be something you can only do once per day and have to be conserved.

IN fact, I'm thinking you may be able to make a better game by dividing the 3E spells into a 4E style: At will, encounter, daily system.

It would make 3.5 combat a bit less deadly if you did something like this:

4th level spells
Daily: Solid fog, charm monster, confusion, stoneskin, Evard's black tentacles, Greater invisibility
Encounter: Enervation, Phantasmal Killer, Ice Storm, Wall of fire, Dimension door
At will: Dimensional anchor, Globe of INvulnerability, Crushing despair, Illusory wall, Bestow curse

Something along those lines. Where you got like one of each from eahc spell level or something (and probably a wizard could swap his out each day).

SphereOfFeetMan · Post by **SphereOfFeetMan** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 6:42 pm

I was thinking of something similar to that recently.

I don't like the idea of daily combat spells. That encourages (and limits) you to only have one hard fight a day. If something is going to be daily, it should be story or character based, and not influence combat.

So it might look like this:
-Top spell levels: 1/encounter.
-2nd tier spells: 1/encounter, although you can recover them if you successfully pull off some recharge trick.
-3rd tier and lower spells: at will.

Noncasters could pretty much stay as they are. Hah.

I have no idea if the above system is balanced or workable. I think it would be interesting to playtest it, and see how it goes.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:06 pm

SphereOfFeetMan wrote: I don't like the idea of daily combat spells. That encourages (and limits) you to only have one hard fight a day. If something is going to be daily, it should be story or character based, and not influence combat.

Yeah, it's probably best if you est it not to per day but to something that's much tougher to recover, like per adventure, per week or even once per level.

So it might look like this:
-Top spell levels: 1/encounter.
-2nd tier spells: 1/encounter, although you can recover them if you successfully pull off some recharge trick.
-3rd tier and lower spells: at will.

Well I feel like it's proably better to try to differentiate the spells within their levels, because that way, you don't ever run into the problem of crazy at will combos (at will charm person ftw!). It also allows a nice way to gradually increase a caster's power. For instance, the first slot of each spell level could be an at will, the second slot you get is an encounter and the third is a daily (or weekly or whatever). When you get four or more slots, then possibly you can let the guy choose which one he wants.

It also allows an internal balancing mechanic to balance spells by level, since you've got suhc large imbalances among spells even of their own level. Melf's acid arrow is seriously something you can do at will. Scorching ray, once per encounter and web, that's a limited use ability.

I have no idea if the above system is balanced or workable. I think it would be interesting to playtest it, and see how it goes.

I'm really not sure how it'd go. I wouldn't really want to eventually have every spell become at will, that's just begging for abuses. Better I think to just have people just get at will spells of a higher level.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:22 pm

RC2 wrote:What's sad is that the 3.5 power model would have made more sense in 4E and vice versa.

Hellz Yes.

-Username17