A question from a 4E apologist.

[AlexandraErin]

Hi, my name is Alexandra Erin. You may remember from such threads as "HAHA THIS DUMB BLOGGER LIKES THE SYSTEM WE DON'T".

I have a question that's itching at the back of my brain and I was just going to pose it rhetorically in my blog, but I know my blog mostly gets responses from people who share my feelings and I'd rather have some answers than an echo chamber.

There are two particular sentiments I've seen put forward about 4E, repeatedly and it seems by the same people, that seem to contradict each other. Note that I'm not asking for an explanation of each sentiment individually, because I understand the supposed reasoning behind them.

I'm asking how one person can hold the two views.

One is that abilities which involve a net difference of 2 to the attack roll (the "Sure" at-wills, marking penalties, etc.) are so worthless that their inclusion is kind of insulting.

The other is that the game is designed so that only a very limited number of race/class combinations are viable... Dragonborn have +2 to Strength and Charisma so it's obvious the designers consider "Dragonborn Paladin" to be redundant, and so on.

Now, I can do math as well as anyone and I've seen the level progressions for monsters and players... and math tells me that a +2 to a given attribute translates in Numbers We Actually Care About to a +1, +1 to hit and damage with abilities that use that attribute.

If the +1 you get to relevant attacks from being the member of the "right race" is so crucially significant that you can't imagine anybody willingly playing a race/class combination that doesn't capitalize on that advantage in the most direct and efficient fashion possible, how can a +2 be viewed as insignificant?

I understand that some of you prefer to play in a way that strips combat of all tactics and approach it purely as a game to be won with calculations of most damage in least amount of time, and that when you play that way a lifetime +1 will mean over the course of your character's career than a situational +2 as it will lead to a 5% higher hit rate for your high-damage attacks, but...

Well, it's bizarre to me that people can cling to that +1 like it's a lifeline to the point of believing it's impossible to play the game if you don't handcuff yourself to it, and then go, "+2? Pffffffffft. What's that garble?"

[Josh_Kablack]

Here's where you completely lost me:

I understand that some of you prefer to play in a way that strips combat of all tactics and approach it purely as a game to be won with calculations of most damage in least amount of time

Just to be sure I went and looked it up:

Main Entry:
tac·tics Listen to the pronunciation of tactics
Pronunciation:
\ˈtak-tiks\
Function:
noun plural but singular or plural in construction
Etymology:
New Latin tactica, plural, from Greek taktika, from neuter plural of taktikos of order, of tactics, fit for arranging, from tassein to arrange, place in battle formation
Date:
1626

1 a: the science and art of disposing and maneuvering forces in combat b: the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end. 2: a system or mode of procedure3: the study of the grammatical relations within a language including morphology and syntax

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm asking how one person can hold the two views.

One is that abilities which involve a net difference of 2 to the attack roll (the "Sure" at-wills, marking penalties, etc.) are so worthless that their inclusion is kind of insulting.

These are kind of different categories of questions but I can quickly answer them.

Sure Strike subtracts an ability score from damage but increases the operand after that by x1.1, because you have a 10% greater chance to hit on the d20 roll.

Say you have two 10th level guys, one using a Melee Basic Attack and the other using Sure Strike. The first guy hits enemies 60% of the time, the second 70% of the time. They have an average damage of +20 and +15 respectively (+5 of that comes from strength, a reasonable score for a character of this level).

MBA guy: 12 average DPR, Sure Strike Guy: 10.5 average DPR.

But how about at really high levels then? Let's fast forward a bit. Same attack difference, the guy with a MBA has an average damage of +40, Sure Strike guy with +32 (+8 of that comes from strength)

MBA guy: 24 average DPR, Sure Strike Guy: 22.4 average DPR.

That's why Sure Strike is called a trap. It does less damage than a melee basic attack and has no rider effects. You could've gotten something like Reaping Strike or Crushing Surge or Tide of Iron and both done more damage and have a rider effect. The only time Sure Strike is useful is when you're using it to deliver some kind of rider effect from a magic item or something.



As for the marking thing, it's pretty simple. Marks generally don't do enough to make people care. The paladin mark, for example, does such piddly damage that at higher levels all it's good for is the -2 to attack. There are some exceptions, like the Hospitaler Class Feature and the Shielding Swordmage feature, but the fact still remains that:

A) 'Defenders' don't have all that much higher AC than the rest of the party. This difference will continue to shrink with the release of more sourcebooks since offensive options are prioritized more than defensive ones. You can see it with Rangers--old builds used to have them take things like Hide Specialization and Iron Will but those feats got scuttled to make room for things like Rending Tempest and Ferocious Critical.

At low levels, before padded sumo really takes ahold, things like ghouls and needlefang drake swarms and chuuls can gang up on the defender and ice her in a couple of rounds.

B) Defenders can only really hold off one enemy at a time. Monster parties have anywhere from 3 to 14 monsters at a time. So even if they have a rocking mark like the Hospitaler Paladin, they pretty much just hold off one enemy while their buddies swarm past and gangbang the smushiest member.

I go a lot more into detail in my 'Anatomy of Failed Design: Role Protection' thread and I'll bump that if you want.

[AlexandraErin]

Lago, the problem is that a 10% shift in a hit chance that's already a fraction of 100% is not going to equal a 1.1 multiplier to damage. It will be more significant than that at any level.

The extreme example I could give is the differene between a 0% hit chance and a 10% hit chance, or a 10% hit chance and a 20% hit chance. Both would be represented by a difference of 2 numbers on a 1-20 random number implement, the same as the difference between a 90% hit chance and a 100% hit chance, but only that latter far extreme would behave the way you're expecting it to.

(And even then the shift from "hits 90% of the time" to "hits 100%" of the time would be slightly more than x1.1)

Likewise, the 2-3 percent difference in a Defender's AC doesn't equal 10%-15% less damage to the Defender or 10%-15% more damage to the Rogue.

Let me give you an example. Level ones. Swordmage AC 20, Rogue AC 17. I don't think I need to explain to this board how I arrived at those numbers. Goblin, +5 to hit, will strike the Swordmage on a roll of 15 or higher (6 out of 20 rolls will hit, 30% hit rate). Rogue will be hit on a 12 or higher (9 out of 20 rolls will hit, 45% hit rate).

That's two hits on the Swordmage for every three on the Rogue.

The Rogue is not taking 15% more damage than the Swordmage there.

The Rogue is taking FIFTY percent more damage.

I used the Swordmage and Rogue because the difference between "x% hit bonus" and "getting x% more hits" shows up really starkly when it works out to 45% and 30%, but it's not like it suddenly scales down to your expected scale where 10% means the difference between nine and ten instead of the difference between nine and seven, or five and three.

And this is why marks are significant even without a spank power attached: because if you're playing on the math... and you understand that math... they ameliorate most of what is a significant difference in the odds a hit will land (and by extension the amount of damage done averaged out over time).

That's why saying that a +2 to is the same as doing 10% more damage just doesn't work.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Finally, as for the racial thing, races aren't just there for the ability scores, they're also there to qualify for feats.

For example, if you want to be a Pitfighter Ranger (and you should, they have awesome burst damage) you need to be a Longtooth Shifter, a Bugbear, or a Half-Orc. Why? This is why:

Starting stat array: STR: 18 WIS: 16 DEX: 13 CON: 13

When you get to level 21 and take your level in Demigod (and put a +2 in STR and DEX), you can afford all of the feats you need: Rending Tempest, Weapon Mastery, Prime Quarry, Improved Prime Shot, Chainmail/Scale/Plate Armor proficiency, all that happy horseshit.

Or if you want to be an Orbizard, you want to be a Deva or an Eladrin. Why? This is why:

Starting stat array: INT: 18 WIS: 16 DEX: 13 CHA: 12
So when you get to level 21 and you take a level in Archmage, you can get all of the feats you need: Spell Focus, Wizard Implement Mastery, Dual Implement Spellcaster, all that happy horseshit.


This is even before we get into the fact that feats released in expansion material tend to favor the 'haves' over the 'have-nots'. Draconic Arrogance, Dwarven Stoneblood, Versatile Master, pretty much cemented Dragonborns' status as Tide of Iron Masters, Dwarves as Battlerager Fighters, and Half-Elves as high-level avengers.

[Roy]

The tactics bit has already been covered it sounds like.

Last I checked, the Sure Strike was called a trap because it was being compared to an extra attack move. And you'd always or almost always get better results by using the extra attack move. What Lago said also works though.

Now, where's the easy reference to every thread that dissects 4.Fail?

Edit: The enemy in that example is still better off attacking the Rogue, because the Rogue is easier to hit, and a higher priority target. What's that mark doing, again?

[Username17]

First, I have no idea who you are.

But basically it comes down to the way D&D 4e combat operates. Namely that you're going to have to attack a great many times. Getting a one time +1 or +2 to a single roll is kind of insulting, because it requires you to recalculate everything despite the fact that it will only come up once in ten or even twenty times you do it. +1 is not worth taking time out of your day to recalculate your numbers for. On the flip side, getting+1 over the entire time is different. It's no "effort" on the part of the people playing the game because it is the base number. And beyond that, you're now playing the other end of the math scale - the "how many turns will this shave off my battle?" end of the scale.

When you are in the position of making the same attack over and over again until it hits, you're looking at an equation that looks like Hit Points / Average Damage / Chance to Hit. When you add +1 to the modifier, you increase damage by 1/damage and you increase the to-hit by 5%, which is a relatively larger bonus the lower the original damage is and the lower the original chance to hit was.

No let's take a step back and compared to 3rd edition, where fights are over much quicker, people do more damage, and people hit more often with their attacks. A +1 to-hit when you hit on a 4+ is a 5.3% increase in damage per round, and is going to be noticeable in 14.3% of 3 round combats. That's good, but it's not life changing.

But let's hop into 4e again for the moment. Combats take 10 to 20 rounds. You only hit on an 11+. Your +1 to-hit modifier increases your damage per round by 10%. That +1 to-hit modifier actually comes up in 40% of 10 round combats, and most of the time in 20 round combats.

So yeah. A +1 or +2 one-round modifier is small and insulting and a pain in the ass. It's like this in 3e and it's like this in 4e. It's frankly more like this in 4e, because a single round means so much less in 4e. And at the same time, a permanent +1 means a lot more in 4e because you roll a lot more dice.

The two ways it fails are not incompatible, it's a mathematical fact that derives from the thing where you roll more dice at a lower chance of success.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Lago, the problem is that a 10% shift in a hit chance that's already a fraction of 100% is not going to equal a 1.1 multiplier to damage. It will be more significant than that at any level.

Nevertheless, it's only on 1 out of every 10 attacks (not hits) that you'll notice any difference at all. The other 9 attacks, you either would've hit (in which case you might as well have done more damage) or missed (in which case, who cares?) anyways.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago, the problem is that a 10% shift in a hit chance that's already a fraction of 100% is not going to equal a 1.1 multiplier to damage. It will be more significant than that at any level.

The extreme example I could give is the differene between a 0% hit chance and a 10% hit chance, or a 10% hit chance and a 20% hit chance. Both would be represented by a difference of 2 numbers on a 1-20 random number implement, the same as the difference between a 90% hit chance and a 100% hit chance, but only that latter far extreme would behave the way you're expecting it to.

And I'm glad that you didn't because you aren't supposed to fight in encounters that far outside of the RNG in 4th Edition.

It's actually much more likely to be pushed off of the top end of the RNG, though, what with things like Righteous Brand and Lead the Attack--which only makes Sure Strike that much more trappy.

Let me give you an example. Level ones. Swordmage AC 20, Rogue AC 17. I don't think I need to explain to this board how I arrived at those numbers. Goblin, +5 to hit, will strike the Swordmage on a roll of 15 or higher (6 out of 20 rolls will hit, 30% hit rate). Rogue will be hit on a 12 or higher (9 out of 20 rolls will hit, 45% hit rate).

No one is saying that marks are entirely useless; as you pointed out it does lower the enemies' hit rate. It's just that they don't go nearly far enough in actually creating a role.

Defenderness doesn't nearly overcome the overwhelming advantage that is focus fire in this edition. If the DM doesn't humor the players, here's what normally happens: the defender holds off one enemy and the monsters swarm past them and gangbang whoever is the most dangerous. And even if it did, defenders don't actually have that much higher defenses than everyone else to protect them if they do become the target of focus-fire.

[RandomCasualty2]

This is even before we get into the fact that feats released in expansion material tend to favor the 'haves' over the 'have-nots'. Draconic Arrogance, Dwarven Stoneblood, Versatile Master, pretty much cemented Dragonborns' status as Tide of Iron Masters, Dwarves as Battlerager Fighters, and Half-Elves as high-level avengers.

Yeah, the racial specific feats, much more so than the ability modifiers, are the true thing that bends your arms behind your back and forces you to take a given race/class combo.

Like honestly, who wouldn't make a dwarven battlerager?

The real problem is that feats in 4E tend to suck, except for a select few awesome ones. So you do everything you can to qualify. The bad news is that the designers made many of those good feats into racial feats.

[AlexandraErin]

@Roy:

The Rogue's only easier to hit if it's specifically a Swordmage or someone else who can swing a net +3 AC. If it's +2, then the mark means the Rogue's exactly as easy to hit. If the Defender is standing ground and the Rogue's mobile, the Rogue's hard to hit in ways that don't boil down to %/DPS calculations.

As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic. If you want to play that way, more power to you, but I don't understand why you wouldn't rather play an MMO if that's what you're going for. I've read you guys sneering at the idea that we 4E defenders are saying the system isn't broken because the DM can fix it. No, actually, the system isn't broken because it posits a DM and not a competing player at your game of DPS Battlechess.

But even ignoring the in-game/meta-game distinction of "Who do I make this character/gamepiece attack?", if the Defender is sticking to the monster and the Striker is moving away from the monster, then the monster's giving up attacks and taking hits to chase the Striker, isn't it?

@Frank:

Recalculate numbers what? I think you're hung up on the old paradigm where buffs needed to be tracked because they lasted X rounds and stacked. 4E combat goes so much faster for my group because you don't have to stop to rebalance your books.

I roll a die, add what I always add, and then add 1 or 2 if I've got a temporary bonus. That doesn't even register as "calculation" to me. And when a difference of 2 can result in a significantly higher probability of hitting, it's worth the processor cycle.

For instance, the difference between "6 possible die rolls out of 20 will hit" and "4 possible die rolls out of 20 will hit" means you're hitting 33% more often with a +2 in that case.

It's funny to me how a board full of people who insist they're playing "optimally" can't make a combat last fewer than 20 rounds and report so many monsters as "problematic" for the number of TPKs they produce.

Where's that thread where you guys talk about being unable to make it through the climaxes a of heroic tier published adventure without encountering 2 total party kills?

The bottom line is that you guys throw tactics out the window and then complain that combat is boring and hard. If you thought it was fun that way, I'd say more power to you, play the game as you want to play it.

But you're choosing to play it in a way that's boring and hard, and then complaining about it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The real problem is that feats in 4E tend to suck, except for a select few awesome ones. So you do everything you can to qualify. The bad news is that the designers made many of those good feats into racial feats.

This was an intentional design decision by Andy Collins.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080502a

Original Design Intent

Before we began 4th Edition design, James Wyatt decided that he wanted a player character’s race to matter a lot more in 4E than it did in 3E. Andy Collins and I heard about James’ decision during our first week of brainstorming together. James said something like, “I won’t be happy with this design unless it gives me a reason to care about what race I am all through a character’s career. Not just something that happens at first level.” That sounded great to me and Andy.

Racial Power Related Feats

The logic for these feats is that you’re the only race in the game that can pull off a stunt that everyone else envies. Letting you choose feats that utilize your racial power makes you feel even better about your power. You’re opting to improve an already good power instead of choosing a feat that could shore up a weakness, so we aren’t shy about making racial feats a good deal.

Different article, same bullshit.

3) Modifications to racial powers.

The Player's Handbook only dabbles in this category, but some of these feats are already among the most compelling in the game. Few dragonborn characters don't consider Enlarged Dragon Breath, and I have yet to meet an elf who didn't pick up Elven Precision pretty quickly. Personally, I like these feats because they're straightforward in their effect and almost guaranteed to come up in every encounter. That means the player can understand the feat's value easily and can witness its utility often.

I really, really hate that this jackass is in charge of D&D. I hope he gets fired and has to do actual work for a living.

[AlexandraErin]

@Roy:

And as for the comparison to an extra attack move... granted, attacking the same target with two arrows works out to doubling your chances of hitting it with a single arrow, with the possibility of a bonus payoff when you hit with both that's just going to go up as your damage modifiers increase. Yes. That's not something I'm going to argue about. Twin Strike is so great that if I were playing a Ranger who had it and Careful Shot, Twin Strike would be my default move.

But it would be my default move no matter what's in that other slot, then most rounds it won't matter what's taking up space in the other slot. Which means I can put any other power in there, and if I'm smart and interested in avoiding Total Party Kills and ending combat faster and keeping things interesting, I'm going to be looking for the situations where the other power's going to offer me an advantage.

It's a great intellectual exercise to crunch the numbers and say "Well, this one is clearly advantageous", but unless you've got a boring DM running boringly straightforward scenarios with the same monsters and playing them all like poorly programmed mobile objects in a video game, the "edge scenarios" will come up, and if you don't have anything to deal with them... or you're not looking for them because you've written off the +2 or the slide one square or anything that's not straight DPS... you're not playing the game optimally, and your fights will last longer and your party will die more often.

What's the alternative? Make all powers exactly as useful under universal conditions? How is that interesting? How would you accomplish that without making everything terribly bland?

Of course, the criticism is that 4E is terribly bland because you're using the same default move most turns.

Well, let's compare this to 3E. I'm an archer... or a melee fighter, for that matter... starting out at level 1. What's my default move? "I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack." You can flavor that all up, but the game's not helping you much. 4E suggests flavor for the default attacks (which, this being a Pretendy Fun Time Game, are all just dice and numbers under the hood) and gives you an option to use when the situation presents an opportunity.

[AlexandraErin]

@RandomCasualty2:

Who wouldn't want to make a Dwarven Battlerager? The person who wants to play as an Elven one. I'm not going to say "NEVER LOOK AT THE MECHANICS", but this forum seems to have stared at them until they've gone mad.

So much of the anti-4E grousing seems so contradictory to me... I see complaints that the classes are too bland, but when the designers purposefully make things that give the races distinct flavors, it's called bad design.

You know what the alternative to all these racial feats is? More racial powers, and then you've got humans who can't do shit looking at tweaked-up races that are full of munchkin powers and carry a level equivalency... or you're looking at 2E, where the other races weren't that impressive to begin with but had level caps that hardly mattered.

Part of the design intention behind having so many racial feats was to bring everybody closer to the same level so they didn't have to come up with arbitrary penalties, but it still allow you to elf-up your elf or dwarf-up your dwarf (FR uses this as the implementation of subraces, to good effect*). Along with with racial paragon paths, it's a great way to make races that are more than just re-skinned humans but don't overwhelm the game with exploitable abilities.

I've read Mr. Collins's quotes about racial feats, and I agree with him: the appeal of them is obvious. I also think it's important that the book include feats whose advantage is obvious. That way, people who look at the game with only a basic understanding of how things will actually play out "in the wild" can figure out what's good to pick. Everybody playing 4E during the development cycle and launch was a "newbie" to the new system, so it's not surprising that the feats whose utility was obvious got picked again and again.

And some people will just stick with what they like, when they find that something works, but some people eventually move on. They figure out how the game works and they figure out the advantages of the less obvious feats, and as a result they're able to play different more different types of characters and employ different tactics (which may be better in some situations)...

The obvious advantages are made obvious for a reason, whether we're talking about your race/class combo, or your feats, or your at-will powers, or your big guns.

But the game's a lot richer when you let go of the wall and wade away from the shallow end of the pool.

............................

*Edit to add that it's about the ONLY thing in the setting that's employed to good effect, it's like they came up with small way of keeping a piece of old FR flavor using the new mechanics and then decided to blow up the world for the rest. The FRPG is like a crap sandwich: delicious player content at the front, delicious player content at the back, crap in the middle. I think they must have learned their lesson, though, because the Eberron one has more setting-portable player content and less stuff that belongs in a travelogue for people who care about the setting.

[violence in the media]

[quote="AlexandraErin]
As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic. If you want to play that way, more power to you, but I don't understand why you wouldn't rather play an MMO if that's what you're going for. I've read you guys sneering at the idea that we 4E defenders are saying the system isn't broken because the DM can fix it. No, actually, the system isn't broken because it posits a DM and not a competing player at your game of DPS Battlechess.
[/quote]

Why is it always the people who claim that they're all about the tactics the same ones to insist that the DM shouldn't be playing the monsters intelligently and with a life-or-death desire to win?

Against appropriate challenges, if the DM isn't trying to kill your characters, he's wasting everyone's time and you need to quit pretending that you're engaging in tactical anything.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What's the alternative? Make all powers exactly as useful under universal conditions? How is that interesting? How would you accomplish that without making everything terribly bland?

I'm glad you asked that, Erin.

Let's take a character, Green Arrow. Everyone knows who this guy is: he's Batman, but with a sunnier attitude and more green. He also uses a variety of trick arrows to help him out in combat.

Let's see what's in his quiver:
Ice Arrow
Buzzsaw Arrow
Rope on an Arrow
Boxing Glove Arrow
Smoke Arrow
Explosive Arrow
Ricochet Arrow
EMP Arrow

And so on. Which of these arrows is the best? The answer: we don't know. We could all come up with situations where a Buzzsaw Arrow would be useless or a Smoke Arrow would be the go-to effect. But the thing is, we don't know ahead of time which arrow would be good. But the arrows are all generically useful in generic situations. We don't have arrows in our arsenal like Soul Crusher Arrow or Apple Arrow where we can look at them ahead of time and go 'use this one first' or 'pfffft'.

That's what we build the power base off of.

Now, for games that do want to use Apple Arrows or Soul Crusher Arrows--and D&D is one of those games--we need to have a scheme in place to make sure that the fight isn't dominated by people using nothing but SCAs or never use AAs. That's where the resource management system comes into place.

1E to 3E D&D decided to use a Vancian and Psionic spellcasting system for the most part, which gave us very mixed results. Vance casters did end up cycling through SCA, the trick arrows, and AA through the day but they did it in a pattern that was kind of boring. Psions were even worse; they used nothing but SCA unless a situation came up when another arrow would clearly be better.

4E took a step backwards from this and gave us the Five Moves of Doom: You use one or two dailies depending on how many fights you have left in the day, you use all of your encounter powers, then you use your At-Wills. Sometimes you use all of your moves in the same order. That is just piss-awful.

Now resource management is an extremely complex topic on these boards and no one has come up with the best solution to it. But even if you agree that moves shouldn't be exactly the same, you do have to admit that 4E's system is not an improvement.

Well, let's compare this to 3E. I'm an archer... or a melee fighter, for that matter... starting out at level 1. What's my default move? "I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack." You can flavor that all up, but the game's not helping you much. 4E suggests flavor for the default attacks (which, this being a Pretendy Fun Time Game, are all just dice and numbers under the hood) and gives you an option to use when the situation presents an opportunity.

1) Everyone here hates 3E's full-attack scheme for sword-based classes. Even if it was level-appropriate (it's not) it still blows and makes us cry. Book of Nine Swords sucks in many fundamental ways, but damn if we didn't like it anyway.

2) 4E's system still isn't all that better than 3E's. Okay, let's build ourselves a Tempest Fighter. They use a double-sword and have an array of STR/DEX/CON and go into Kensei.

So let's get them some powers.

1A- Dual Strike, Footwork Lure
1E- Funneling Flurry
1D- Villain's Menace
2A- Pass Forward
3E- Rain of Blows
5D- Crack the Shell (gets retrained into Rain of Steel later when we can ladel on enough damage bonuses)
6U- Settling the Score
7E- Hampering Flurry
9D- Jackal Strike
10- Defensive Resurgence
11E- Masterstroke
12D- Ultimate Parry

What am I doing all that differently from a 3E fighter here? I have a lot more bullshit effects to play with and keep track of, but honestly I'm doing the same thing. I have a power that slides and another that slows--that's kind of cool, I guess. Uh... am I missing something here? Where's the tactics? Where's the excitement?

There isn't any, and you know why? This is why:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20090119

Andy: The biggest change in design philosophy for feats in 4th Edition was the exclusion of those feats that offered the character entirely new combat options (or in 4th Edition terms, new powers). Everybody thinks of Spring Attack, but I count roughly two dozen feats in the 3E PH alone that either grant new powers (Whirlwind Attack, Rapid Shot) or turn an effectively unplayable option into a key tactic (Improved Trip, Two-Weapon Fighting). Over the lifespan of 3rd Edition, this category proved the most exciting one to mine for new ideas. That's hardly surprising, considering that half the characters in any given party probably relied on feats for most of their "powers."

Jeremy: But while creating feats for 4th Edition, we took this option off the table. Cleave, Manyshot, and other favorites rightfully turned into powers, leaving big shoes to fill in the feat list.

THAT'S RIGHT, KIDS. Sword-based classes do the same bullshit they did before, only now they call them powers instead of feats.

And somehow the Fighter has gotten a lot more exciting in 4th Edition for some reason.

Have I mentioned how much I hate these bastards?

[Murtak]

As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

Funny, you seem to "know" things which are just flat-out wrong. Just about everyone on this board would love to see more tactics. What may be different from what you are used to though is that no one here pretends to see options that don't exist.

And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic.

No, that is called having a brain and using it, no matter whether you are playing a MMORPG and eliminate the NPC that spawns adds, you are playing DnD and geek the wizard before he has a chance to act, you are playing Battletech and target the Rifleman before going for the Banshee or you are in a real war and engage the lone SAM battery instead of going for one of 500 tanks.

Recalculate numbers what? I think you're hung up on the old paradigm where buffs needed to be tracked because they lasted X rounds and stacked. 4E combat goes so much faster for my group because you don't have to stop to rebalance your books.

I don't actually play 4th, but from what I remember of the previews, wasn't 4th the edition with dozens of little conditional +1 bonuses? Wasn't 4th the edition with long-ass-combat? Wasn't 3rd edition infamous for having fights as short as one round? How could 4th possibly be faster than 3rd?

The bottom line is that you guys throw tactics out the window and then complain that combat is boring and hard. If you thought it was fun that way, I'd say more power to you, play the game as you want to play it.

What tactics? I haven't seen anyone put forth anything regarding 4th edition that I could not automate with a script. The entire game is so devoid of creativity it puts all MMORPGs I ever played or even heard about to shame. Finding the highest numbers possible is fun exactly once, and then it's boring - and that is already the most exciting part of the game. The rest bounces between laughably easy, insanely hard and broken as written, with a little nonsense thrown in on the side. 4th edition has all the bad parts of MMORPGs and none of the good ones, and the people on this board point that out because they don't like it. You seem to like it, fine, go ahead play in your reductionist pseudo-MMORPG-world. I can't imagine why you like it, but as long as you do, great. But don't tell me or the others here we suck because "we don't like tactics". We do actually. 4th edition just happens to not have any.

[AlexandraErin]

@Lago:

I read things like "If the DM doesn't humor the players" and I can't believe that I haven't been lurking on two different forums for the past day, that it's not two different groups of people who are at one turn complaining about 4E's "anti-immersiveness" where they imagine rules that say that bodies vanish when killed and PCs are forbidden from interacting with "sprites", and one group that sneers at the idea of immersion.

The thread that I referred to at the top of my post was about my comments about Divine Challenge, and someone in that thread said words to the effect of "It's not like the Divine Challenge is a supernatural compulsion. What if it's used on an animal? What if there's no common language?" And yet the PHB says, in so many words, that it is a supernatural compulsion and it does transcend language and intelligence barriers.

To me, taking the game rule book at its word is not humoring the players. It's a soft mechanic... somewhere between an actual rule and flavor... but it's there.

I can easily imagine a DM saying, "Well, I've crunched the numbers and it's not going to hurt 'my guy' enough to make it not worth attacking 'your guy'"...

I just can't wrap my head around this same DM caring about "immersiveness".

They have the damage penalty given for the exceptional scenarios. Examples of when I would have someone ignore a Divine Challenge: enraged predator, berserk humanoid, construct that we can presume is under a similar compulsion from whoever's directing it, or Big Dramatic Bad Guy who creates a Big Dramatic Moment.

Is that Magic Tea Party? Sure it is, albeit guided by mechanics. It's Magic Tea Party to play the race the book says is sneaky as sneaky and the race the book says is aggressive as aggressive. And this is the only way you ever in any edition of any roleplaying game get combat that isn't just throwing dice and adding numbers, which is boring and bland and repetitive and is pretty much the definition of a grind.

[Quantumboost]

As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic.

The bottom line is that you guys throw tactics out the window and then complain that combat is boring and hard. If you thought it was fun that way, I'd say more power to you, play the game as you want to play it.

You seem to be going off on this "throw tactics out the window" thing a lot.

The idea is that you think about what resources you have available, what your goals are, and how to most effectively accomplish your goals. That's what tactics involve; that's what tactics are. This process often includes the use of math and simplification, because that together makes the decision easier and more precise. In other words: reducing the game to the minimal possible set of desirable actions is the entire point of there being tactics.

Additionally: "high-priority target" isn't MMO PvP logic. It's part of that whole "how to most effectively accomplish your goals". Would you seriously bat an eye if I referred to, say, an enemy's capital city in Civ4 as a "high priority target"? I'd hope not. That's because the entire idea of having "high priority targets" is to decide what to expend your resources acquiring, affecting, or defeating in order to accomplish what you want to.

The problem we here have with the "tactics" in 4E is that they're so easy to reduce to the point where it's "Attack Item Run". That's not a problem with the idea of reducing the system - it's a problem with the system. 4th edition literally boils down to your DPS and healing versus their DPS and healing, which is raw numbers which can be simplified to one number. In a game where there were actually tough decisions tactically, you couldn't do that. That's the point.

Well, let's compare this to 3E. I'm an archer... or a melee fighter, for that matter... starting out at level 1. What's my default move? "I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack. I attack." You can flavor that all up, but the game's not helping you much. 4E suggests flavor for the default attacks (which, this being a Pretendy Fun Time Game, are all just dice and numbers under the hood) and gives you an option to use when the situation presents an opportunity.

You... have read the Tomes haven't you? Stickied link thread, third from the top in this forum? I doubt *anybody* here is advocating a 3.5 Core fighter archer vs. 4E. The complaint is that every class in 4E is like the fighter archer in the former edition, so you can't actually choose not to play like that. But try comparing them to one of the classes considered worthwhile in 3.5E, like say the Cleric, or Wizard, or Beguiler, and the 4E classes fall far, far short in playstyle versatility.

[Judging__Eagle]

@Roy:

The Rogue's only easier to hit if it's specifically a Swordmage or someone else who can swing a net +3 AC. If it's +2, then the mark means the Rogue's exactly as easy to hit. If the Defender is standing ground and the Rogue's mobile, the Rogue's hard to hit in ways that don't boil down to %/DPS calculations.

As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

Right. You're talking to people who've played entire 3ed adventures with parties made entirely of spell casters or focused-fire precision-dice characters. Those are entire strategies that require a whole different set of tactics than what most players or DMs expect.

The "tactical" options that people here go for are not only impossible in 4e, but actually not available compared to 3e.

Personally, I like to convert enemies; a very old strategy to which there are many tactics to achieving. However, I can't convert enemies to work for me, there are no built in mechanics for doing so. Instead it's just "kill monster" or "run away", and that's bullshit.

Also, you seem to still have failed to read the definition of Tactics. It was one of the early responses to your post. I'd recommend reading it.

And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic. If you want to play that way, more power to you, but I don't understand why you wouldn't rather play an MMO if that's what you're going for. I've read you guys sneering at the idea that we 4E defenders are saying the system isn't broken because the DM can fix it. No, actually, the system isn't broken because it posits a DM and not a competing player at your game of DPS Battlechess.

No, it's not MMO PvP Logic. It's just straight logic.

If there's a dumbass motherfucker in heavy armour that you can't hurt; and who can't hurt you, are you going to bother with him?

Will you instead go after his squishy friend who actually is hurting you? and who you can easily hurt, and probably kill?

Seriously, don't force your non-immersion on me and tell me that you're using "logic", it's not cutting it, and you're not using any semblance of logic.

Also, any system that "The DM can fix" is.... a failure.

It should have been "fixed" by the motherfucking designers. The fact that we have to 1) Pay for this POS and then 2) Fix this POS ourselves is highly insulting.

If I sold you a pair of shoes; and the tongue was too large; and the laces were too short and I told you "Well... you can fix it, so it's fine." Would you be happy about how I gave you an obviously badly made product?

Well... perhaps you would, since you're staunchly defending 4e.

But even ignoring the in-game/meta-game distinction of "Who do I make this character/gamepiece attack?", if the Defender is sticking to the monster and the Striker is moving away from the monster, then the monster's giving up attacks and taking hits to chase the Striker, isn't it?

If the striker is a dagger rogue, he's not going anywhere. Therefore he's still a viable target. That's a failure.

You're failing, since your argument point here doesn't make sense.

Are all rogues ranged attack rogues?

Can rogues even be ranged attack rogues?

Iff* they're all melee rogues; this point you tried to make fails so fucking hardcore it's hilarious.

*: Yes, "if, and only if".

@Frank:

Recalculate numbers what? I think you're hung up on the old paradigm where buffs needed to be tracked because they lasted X rounds and stacked. 4E combat goes so much faster for my group because you don't have to stop to rebalance your books.

I roll a die, add what I always add, and then add 1 or 2 if I've got a temporary bonus. That doesn't even register as "calculation" to me. And when a difference of 2 can result in a significantly higher probability of hitting, it's worth the processor cycle.

For instance, the difference between "6 possible die rolls out of 20 will hit" and "4 possible die rolls out of 20 will hit" means you're hitting 33% more often with a +2 in that case.

It's funny to me how a board full of people who insist they're playing "optimally" can't make a combat last fewer than 20 rounds and report so many monsters as "problematic" for the number of TPKs they produce.

Trust me, if someone here could figure out a way to end fights in one round, we would have.

I mean, Frank didn't write up "Spell that Fvcking Kill People" for no reason. I think that someone (might have been me) asked him, and he kindly wrote up a lost of SoDs/SoS', and then a list of Utility spells.

Where's that thread where you guys talk about being unable to make it through the climaxes a of heroic tier published adventure without encountering 2 total party kills?

The bottom line is that you guys throw tactics out the window and then complain that combat is boring and hard. If you thought it was fun that way, I'd say more power to you, play the game as you want to play it.

But you're choosing to play it in a way that's boring and hard, and then complaining about it.

Believe me, if the RAW had an easier way, we would have found it.

Personally, I think that some of the best people for game design and adventure and campaign writing are on these boards. We've cranked out commercial level quality games for kicks (See: Dead Man's Hand, Warp Cult, Dungeon Crusade, SAME, AWoD, the Tome Material).

[AlexandraErin]

@Murtak:

Yeah, I read you guys saying that there are no tactics and you would love it if there were.

And I also see you guys saying that a DM who has the NPCs act naturally for the situation with any given value of "the situation" other than "Dude, we're in your basement playing D&D so I know to geek the Wizard and all my little game pieces act accordingly" is "humoring the players" and that therefore the only valid tactics are the ones that will block that.

And I also see you guys acting like the only way to play the game is to crunch numbers and go for the most obvious advantages in DPS.

And then I see some of you talking about how the pre-written monsters and scenarios are problematic because even when you optimize to the max they're still TPKs.

And then for bonus fun and games some of you complain that 4E ruins the immersion.

And then I don't know whether to laugh at you or to weep for humanity. All the pieces are there... right there... in front of you. You've been given a box of LEGOs and you're laying them out in a straight line and saying, "God damn, this line-making toy sucks. The people who have fun with these things must be idiots."

[hogarth]

How did we get from "Is a +2 bonus really useless?" to "YOU GUYZ ARE MMO PLAYERS U SUCK"?

[Lago PARANOIA]

How did we get from "Is a +2 bonus really useless?" to "YOU GUYZ ARE MMO PLAYERS U SUCK"?

Probably when I started calling Andy Collins a bastard and wanted him to get fired.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Though seriously, AE, it seems that you have a lot of things you want to talk about.

That's fine, but this thread threatens to explode into a shouting match. If you want to compose an action list I would be happy to point you to other threads or spin off a discussion from there.

But 'Sure Strike is a trap' to '4E sword-based classes are better than 3E sword-based classes' are quite a topic shift. And honestly, you probably don't want to get me talking about races--that's one of the few areas of game design that actually make me go from 'comically amusing mad' to 'actually angry'. That should totally be a different thread.

[Murtak]

And I also see you guys saying that a DM who has the NPCs act naturally for the situation with any given value of "the situation" other than "Dude, we're in your basement playing D&D so I know to geek the Wizard and all my little game pieces act accordingly" is "humoring the players" and that therefore the only valid tactics are the ones that will block that.

I'm not even sure what you are trying to say here, but I am going to give it a shot. To me it seems like you seem to say that attacking the wizard over, say, the iconic fighter in 3rd edition is somehow "unnatural". In fact, the exact opposite is true. We are (barring low levels where attacking the fighter is actually sometimes a good idea) dealing with professional adventurers here, who, if they have any brains at all, will correctly deduce that the single opponent most likely to wipe them out is the wizard. TO make things worse the iconic fighter is incredibly easy to delay almost infinitely (or even kill) with even low level effects. Under these circumstances making the fighter a priority target is braindead, and unless you are playing a character with an Int below 5 it's bad roleplaying to boot.

And I also see you guys acting like the only way to play the game is to crunch numbers and go for the most obvious advantages in DPS.

And then I see some of you talking about how the pre-written monsters and scenarios are problematic because even when you optimize to the max they're still TPKs.

And then for bonus fun and games some of you complain that 4E ruins the immersion.

And then I don't know whether to laugh at you or to weep for humanity. All the pieces are there... right there... in front of you. You've been given a box of LEGOs and you're laying them out in a straight line and saying, "God damn, this line-making toy sucks. The people who have fun with these things must be idiots."

As has been pointed out to you already, 4E is so damn simplistic it is easy to mathematically prove that the straight line is the best choice even in situations where the circle is supposed to be best. Or, to put it another way, I don't care what powers a "defender" has - as long as I know he prevents less damage, takes the same damage and deals less damage than a "striker" than he is flat-out inferior. Even I know high level 4th edition wizards still win encounters without even getting attacked. Nothing changed there. But literally thousands of valid options have been cut from the game, and that is frankly insulting to those who payed for the books.