The concept of level

[hogarth]

What's this supposed to mean?

If you give a fighter extra stuff she does better than a fighter without that stuff?

Some folks were whinging about how 4E is "broken" because everyone in your party can play an archer on horseback and then refuse to participate in any adventures that don't allow you to ride around shooting monsters full of arrows. So even if you're theoretically balanced by the fact that your archer sucks in enclosed spaces, it doesn't matter because you tell the DM to suck your hairy balls when he suggests adventuring in the Tomb of Horrors.

It's a pretty lame argument, like saying "I can never lose a chess match because I always flip over the game board when I start to lose."

[RandomCasualty2]

Some folks were whinging about how 4E is "broken" because everyone in your party can play an archer on horseback and then refuse to participate in any adventures that don't allow you to ride around shooting monsters full of arrows. So even if you're theoretically balanced by the fact that your archer sucks in enclosed spaces, it doesn't matter because you tell the DM to suck your hairy balls when he suggests adventuring in the Tomb of Horrors.

It's a pretty lame argument, like saying "I can never lose a chess match because I always flip over the game board when I start to lose."

Yeah, any argument that revolves around just turning down quests until you get a narrow niche quest is just being a total asshole of a player. Part of the game assumes that you'll have to face a variety of challenges. Saying that your characters focus on one exclusive adventure setup is bullshit.

[Kaelik]

I’m going to partially agree with JE and against the common wisdom here. A classically designed character will (when push comes to shove) have a higher CR than his actual level would indicate (or in odd cases such as a horrid multiclass a lower CR). The reasons for this are many and include the fact that equipment (and most of D&D still was equipment driven) for PC and non PC were radically different. The real question is how much above CR would the average PC be? 10% 50% ?

The fact is that level and CR were “balanced” by using seat of the pants arguments, making assumptions that are, in general, flat out wrong.

Except that in a Tome Game, magic teh items are equal for NPCs and PCs.

That was one of the points of Book of Gears items.

Magic stuff scales to level, so right off the bat, if you are a level 10 Fighter, and have 8 magic items, and an NPC you run into has eight magic items... And you both have all the same numbers right there.

You might have some utility stuff he doesn't, like SR or Blindsight. But you might not, because half the point was that you could fight someone with just as much gear as you, but you wouldn't end up twice as powerful afterword, because you can still only use eight items.

So yes, now you have two swords of Fire, and two swords of Ice. And that's great, but you can't sell the Swords of Ice to get anything better than what you already have.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yeah, any argument that revolves around just turning down quests until you get a narrow niche quest is just being a total asshole of a player. Part of the game assumes that you'll have to face a variety of challenges. Saying that your characters focus on one exclusive adventure setup is bullshit.

Of course, if a simple intuitive action trivializes the vast majority of adventures that you do have that's a problem anyway. I mean, mongol archers are an autowin outdoors (especially in 4E, with slow monsters who often can't get ranged attacks) but it's not like the archer suddenly becomes screwed when the adventure goes indoors--the rangers reveal that they hybrid-classed rogue or they're STR/DEX rangers and pull out the swords or they just shift & shoot. They just fight at slightly reduced effectiveness. So while I feel you with the idea of adventure avoidance, mongol archers are a huge problem in 4E. It's not even like Monkey in a Barrel, you just do something that makes sense.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I'm with Lago here. I thought mongol archers were just a subset of a general problem with archers being overpowered in 4e because of all those slow monsters without range attacks. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the reasons archer rangers own everything (in addition to the fact that they can take those "two weapons or a bow" powers and still be okay in melee).

[RandomCasualty2]

Of course, if a simple intuitive action trivializes the vast majority of adventures that you do have that's a problem anyway. I mean, mongol archers are an autowin outdoors (especially in 4E, with slow monsters who often can't get ranged attacks) but it's not like the archer suddenly becomes screwed when the adventure goes indoors--the rangers reveal that they hybrid-classed rogue or they're STR/DEX rangers and pull out the swords or they just shift & shoot. They just fight at slightly reduced effectiveness. So while I feel you with the idea of adventure avoidance, mongol archers are a huge problem in 4E. It's not even like Monkey in a Barrel, you just do something that makes sense.

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, they're a pretty big problem. But the thing with 4E is that it was designed to be a dungeon game, and pretty much the main assumption it makes is that any monster you encounter will be in terrain advantageous to the monster. It even pretty much talks about putting monsters in good terrain for them in the DMG. So really, anything you do happen to encounter in the open plains should either be really fast or have range as good as a longbow.

[Orion]

Though it IS strange that *virtually no* such monsters exist.

[Draco_Argentum]

Why is gaining an advantage unfair? Aside from the basic idea of incentives where without gaining an Advantage of some kind there is no reason to do anything, there's the really blatant elephant in the room: what if everyone gets an advantage? Unfairness as regards to gaining an advantage is not that one person gets an advantage, other people could get the same advantage and that would still be fair. Heck, it's not even getting an advantage that other people don't get: other people culd get different and equally valuable advantages and that would be fair as well.

Let me have a go incase noone wants to talk as opposed to yelling insults.

What if the whole party picks the same advantage then simply avoids fights where it doesn't apply? This is just the mongol problem. If its possible to min/max the party at all the game is going to be ass because the breadth of characters who can be in a given party is reduced. 4e does this quite a lot actually, all melee or all ranged is better.

I'd rather the rules didn't dictate that one dimensional parties were the most powerful, no matter what that one dimension happens to be.

[MGuy]

I've actually never seen a 4e gaming group that went all melee or all ranged. I think 4e deserves a thumbs up for being able to support groups that don't play in the optimal way. In all but the most strict systems there are probably always gonna be ways to min/max and if a group decides to do that to gain the best possible benefit shouldn't they be rewarded for their efforts by obtaining the complete advantage they were looking to make? I think a game can survive having a couple of strategies that pull out ahead of the rest as long as it can support people who decide not to do that.

[Username17]

What if the whole party picks the same advantage then simply avoids fights where it doesn't apply?

The purpose of throwing in RPS stuff in the first place is to encourage teamwork. If your team works better because everyone went Rock, you're doing it wrong.

So yes: 4e is doing it wrong. Archery should synergize in some obvious way with melee.

-Username17

[Starmaker]

I've actually never seen a 4e gaming group that went all melee or all ranged. I think 4e deserves a thumbs up for being able to support groups that don't play in the optimal way.

That's a mix of Oberoni and Role vs Roll. The game is more interesting with a varied party. When I create a character I want to get info on what the other players are creating to tie in backstories and develop common goals, not to plan a battle strategy for all the battles from now till forever. I don't want a "someone has to play the wizard". Three characters, taken at random, should be able to form a "well-rounded" party no matter what their archetypes are. (Unless some sort of fandom is concerned, people will create different characters.) I want players choose their archetypes independently and advance organically. 4e has it backwards: the party should form a battle plan before they even create characters but individual powers are not synergistic. The character is built from 1 to 29 at once (and wins 4e at 30).

A mix of different archetypes and abilities adds complexity. It's also what people want to play. A complex and fun strategy should beat a simple and unfun one. This is simply not true in 4e, and that's why it is shit.

[MGuy]

I'm not saying 4e is good but it is easily survivable by characters who aren't all that good. When I first played the game I chose to be a paladin (Needless to say I was dismally disappointed) all the way up until the 2nd player's handbook hit the shelves (at which time I quit) and despite the fact that in every game I felt like I couldn't actually do the job I was SUPPOSED to be able to do. Actually. In remembering it I forgot my point. Well I didn't die and hardly ever fell in a fight despite having different people/classes with varying degrees of experience at the table on any given night. That's gotta be worth at least one gold star if only for that right?

[Starmaker]

in every game I felt like I couldn't actually do the job I was SUPPOSED to be able to do(...)I didn't die and hardly ever fell in a fight despite having different people/classes with varying degrees of experience at the table on any given night.

If you're allowed to not do your job in combat and it doesn't affect the results, the game sucks. I'd go as far as to say that the activity does not qualify as a game anymore. When players don't need to exert themselves to achieve desired results, the competitive part is absent and mechanics aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

[Username17]

I'm not saying 4e is good but it is easily survivable by characters who aren't all that good. When I first played the game I chose to be a paladin (Needless to say I was dismally disappointed) all the way up until the 2nd player's handbook hit the shelves (at which time I quit) and despite the fact that in every game I felt like I couldn't actually do the job I was SUPPOSED to be able to do. Actually. In remembering it I forgot my point. Well I didn't die and hardly ever fell in a fight despite having different people/classes with varying degrees of experience at the table on any given night. That's gotta be worth at least one gold star if only for that right?

No, that's just setting the assumed difficulty very low. You could accomplish the same thing in 3rd edition D&D by sending the party to Acheron and just having them fight larger and larger numbers of goblin warriors with and without worgs.

If anything I think that setting the difficulty so low that a badly made character with allies who are not working with him in any meaningful way, thrashing around doing actions basically at random still never feels like they are in any real danger is fucked up. That is worth zero stars.

-Username17

[MGuy]

Point taken.

[Roy]

Though it IS strange that *virtually no* such monsters exist.

They all got farmed out by the level capped Mongols who then had their capped characters forcibly removed from the world.