4e Quick Rules Primer

[CatharzGodfoot]

1204346743[/unixtime]]Not much else in the way of 'Mexican eatery' around Baltimore city in the northern areas... yet.

Heh. My girlfriend flew out there yesterday to check out a grad school program. Apparently they catered the worst "mexican" food she's ever had. And she's from Minnesota.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

When they say "controller" they don't mean a guy who puts up walls of force and shit like that. No, as best as I can tell, "Controller" means: guy who deals damage to lots of enemies at once, because throwing fireballs around the room is fuckin' cool!

The rpoblem is that I think they actually mean both. You're going to get sleep and all that crap, but you also get fireballs. So I think it'll mean we're back to the point where the wizard can do everything.

As I understand it, the deal is that controllers damage/take out multiple enemies (as opposed to strikers, who do the same thing to one opponent at a time). Sleep fits right into that paradigm. I just wonder who gets charm spells, if those are in 4e.

Last I heard it was 11+. I know that's not a huge difference, but at least it's an even coin toss. Have they confirmed that it's actually 10+?

The quick rules pdf says 10+. I'm holding out hope that somebody had a brain fart when putting together the sheet.

One could easily say "I'm a psychic Psion" and play a Wizard.
Same with any other name, be it Shaman, Channeler, Sorcerer, Mystic, Ascetic, or SuperMagicAnal[EDITED].

Sure. And just call your powers talents instead of spells. That's the advantage of having all the powers use the same mechanics: the "power source" is mostly flavor text (unless they're taking the Mutants & Masterminds approach and creating anti-prayer fields). In fact, one of the playtesters supposedly played a psion wizard.

About the actions description: It actually works the way Voss and others said. I just didn't phrase it very clearly in the wee hours of the morning.

[Harlune]

I really don't care much about the whole psionics flavor stuff... my preference towards the class was that it was pretty much the sorcerer created by someone whose design philosophy wasn’t 'the player should be horribly punished for not playing an vancian caster' and the spell list just felt like it was actually made with a caster, who only has a limited number of spells known, in mind. None of this different buff spell for every stat, debuffs that just outright stop working after creatures hit a certain level regardless of saves, or praying your gm isn't about to have the party be attacked by fire elementals right after you picked scorching ray as your new spell for that level. Everything is flexible, versatile, can scale up as you level somewhat and even be quicken if you want.

Granted... psionics' new age crystal, will-to-power pychoplasma flavor crap is still better than 'my great-great grammy did the nasty with an infernal fey dragon from the holy plane of fire and so now I can shoot lightning out my arse three times a day because I'm charming and good with people'

But at any rate, given that 4ed seems to want to go back to rigid class roles and lots of weapon/armor/skill/ability limits and restrictions, I don’t have much hope..
.

[Voss]

Interesting note on the charm spells... last I heard they were largely stripped from the wizard (other than a few 'basic' ones) and the design space saved... for psions.

[Voss]

Combat actions! Thread here- http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220310
Slow really does suck

The following is from Xath, one of EN World's moderators, and one of EN World's press representatives at D&D Experience:

While I havn't been able to get my hands on one of the coveted 4e preview rulebooks, I've been able to glean a few things about complex combat maneuvers from playtesting. Thanks to my 8am 4e preview group for having their characters pull some of these stunts!

The big ones we looked into were Trip, Grapple, Disarm, Bull Rush, and Full Defense. On the way, we also discovered a few conditions.

Trip & Disarm - Trip and Disarm are no longer normal combat maneuvers. In order to attempt either, you're going to need some sort of power or class ability.

Bull Rush - To initiate a bull rush, you need to make a Strength Check vs. the target's Fortitude Defense. This does not provoke an Opportunity Attack (formerly AoO). If you succeed, you may push the target 1 space. The margin of success doesn't matter, and 1 space is the maximum that a target can be moved with Bull Rush (without taking special abilities).

Push, Pull, & Slide - These are the methods by which you move a target in 4e. You can push a target forward, diagonally forward or to the side. You can pull a target towards you, diagonally towards you, or to the side. And you can slide a target in any direction.

Grapple - You can attempt a grapple check with anything that is within 1 size category of you. To initiate, you make a Strength Check vs. Reflex Defense. This also doesn't provoke an Opportunity Attack. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, you cause your target to be "Immobilized" for one round. The target can escape his immobilized condition using an Acrobatics or Athletics check. You may move the target 1 square by succeeding on an additional grapple check in the following round.

Immobilized - Deciding to immobilize a target is essentially like a PC deciding that he would like to spend his combat rounds as a Tanglefoot bag. An immobilized target can still attack normally, but cannot move. Foes around an immobilized target receive Combat Advantage against him.

Combat Advantage - You get a +2 to hit the target. Flanking a target allows you to have Combat Advantage against a target, as do most physical afflictions (such as being immobilized or prone). Being on fire, however, does not grant foes combat advantage.

Stunned - If you are stunned, you can't take any actions for a round, but you no longer drop all of your held items.

Slowed - The movement of a slowed character drops to 2, and this applies to all movement types except for teleportation.

Charging - Charging in combat grants a +1 to hit, and no penalty to AC.

Full Defense - You don't take any actions, but you get a +2 to all defense scores until the start of your next turn. As far as we can tell, there's no rule yet for fighting defensively.

[virgil]

It's looking more and more that they decided to remove swathes of options from players, then downgrade the options they still have, and force everyone to shuffle tiny numbers around until they're aligned into an alpha strike. Or you could skip the alpha strike strategy, like 'normal' players will, and press the attack macro each round.

[Voss]

No, alpha strike seems the way to go- and actually seems like the 'normal' way to play. Open up with your big guns and hope you whittle down the opposition to a managable level, and then just bash on them. (Though you want to save your daily powers for the big encounters)

Heres an interesting thing- saves to end an effect on you happen at the end of your turn, which I missed at first. Thats a big deal for a lot of effects since it means a lost turn.

Take the grapple rules for example. It seems, on the face of it, rather easy to repeatedly immobilize an ogre. His reflex is probably low, so he gets immobilized, and can't get rid of it till the end of his turn. On the other hand, it doesn't really mean anything, since he can still beat on fighter, since it doesn't actually prevent him from attacking. The hell?

[virgil]

The attack macro I'm envisioning is merely using every encounter power until you're out and then using the at-will stuff.

An alpha strike would involve being a borderline accountant, attempting to get every 1/encounter effect activated on a single power, squeezing any possible bonus for the situation; probably stockpiling on any number of magic items that have a free action activation.

It's a matter of mindset, one is recklessly whipping out a rail gun and going willy-nilly, the other is a precisely aimed tac nuke.

[Voss]

Ah, I see. It looks quite doable, too

I can see some easy to do alphastrike things just in the sample characters. Oddly enough the easiest is on the cleric.

He can use his two divine channeling abilities, one gives +1 (or rather +chr mod, they just made this character shitty to make us think that clerics are weaker in 4e) to his next attack, and the other gives +1d10 radiant damage to an attack that already inflicts radiant damage [read: positive energy], both of which are free actions, and then opens up with his lance of faith ability.
Which was +4 vs reflex, d8+4 radiant damage, and is now +5 vs reflex d8+d10+4 radiant, and then an ally gets a +2 bonus to his attack against that target.

Then the warlock moves up so can take advantage of his prime shot ability (+1 to hit if he is closer to the target than his allies), curses hit, nails it with eldritch blast a +7 (instead of +4) vs. reflex, does d10+d6+4, probably drops it, and teleports back with Misty Step ability.

Thats a lot of combo action coming out unoptimized, sample first level characters. Now the party has dropped one opponent, and their odds of survival just went up massively.

The sad thing is, I'm already starting to see tiers for the classes. Don't know if it will bear out over 30 levels, but I'm getting a clear picture of shitty and good at first level. There's actually enough stats running around over at Enworld to run some trial combats. It may be worth trying out and find out exactly how stupid it all is.

[Leress]

So does this mean that "we" will break 4e before it even hits the selves?

[Voss]

Its certainly a possibility. At least a small piece of it, since we don't have access to most of the feats and powers. I can almost certainly optimize those characters better than they did. And I can certainly see good & bad tactics, and good and bad character decisions.

I suspect, however, that its rather broken out of the box. There is a lot of stuff that you just can't do, and more that the game just doesn't care about. I only suspect, though, because part of it is that they give a lot of weight to shit that I don't care about at all, and neglect areas I think are important. Still haven't seen a lick of anything that doesn't involve combat, for example.

[Draco_Argentum]

Having the party combo effects for maximum awesome isn't a bad idea.

[Voss]

No... until they start doing the exact same combo effects every encounter because its clearly superior to anything else they could do. Then it becomes lame and sad.

[Koumei]

1204420916[/unixtime]]So does this mean that "we" will break 4e before it even hits the selves?

Why not? Didn't Frank do that with 3.0 or 3.5? Pointing out Balor Mining and Phoenix Duplication before the books even came out?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

He can use his two divine channeling abilities, one gives +1 (or rather +chr mod, they just made this character shitty to make us think that clerics are weaker in 4e) to his next attack, and the other gives +1d10 radiant damage to an attack that already inflicts radiant damage [read: positive energy], both of which are free actions, and then opens up with his lance of faith ability.
Which was +4 vs reflex, d8+4 radiant damage, and is now +5 vs reflex d8+d10+4 radiant, and then an ally gets a +2 bonus to his attack against that target.

This looks like what they did with 3e. You initially didn't think the cleric was overpowered because their iconic cleric picks the Healing domain and prepares two cure light wounds every day.

At least it's nice that the cleric gives his allies bonuses while he's kicking ass. Based on the discussion in the rogue thread, I suspect that strikers are going to be really annoying: able to take some targets out in a single stroke without doing anything for the rest of the party. All those free action powers (seriously? free, not minor actions?) kind of disturb me, though.

[Draco_Argentum]

1204424462[/unixtime]]No... until they start doing the exact same combo effects every encounter because its clearly superior to anything else they could do. Then it becomes lame and sad.

I'd still rate that ahead of using the exact same powers every time with no combo effects. At least this way its teamwork.

[Crissa]

Sounds like the MMO paradox: Strikers (DPS) don't generally need help, but Leaders (healers) and Protectors (tanks) can't do anything without Strikers.

-Crissa

[Fwib]

1204400866[/unixtime]]

Grapple - You can attempt a grapple check with anything that is within 1 size category of you. To initiate, you make a Strength Check vs. Reflex Defense. This also doesn't provoke an Opportunity Attack. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, you cause your target to be "Immobilized" for one round. The target can escape his immobilized condition using an Acrobatics or Athletics check. You may move the target 1 square by succeeding on an additional grapple check in the following round.

This one jumped out at me - size Tiny babies are impossible pick up by size Medium adults, since they are ungrappleable!

[Zherog]

1204457241[/unixtime]]

1204400866[/unixtime]]

Grapple - You can attempt a grapple check with anything that is within 1 size category of you. To initiate, you make a Strength Check vs. Reflex Defense. This also doesn't provoke an Opportunity Attack. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, you cause your target to be "Immobilized" for one round. The target can escape his immobilized condition using an Acrobatics or Athletics check. You may move the target 1 square by succeeding on an additional grapple check in the following round.

This one jumped out at me - size Tiny babies are impossible pick up by size Medium adults, since they are ungrappleable!

Heh. That was the first thing I thought of, too. Wanna bet they fiddled with size categories, and a baby is now Small? I mean, my daughter (she just turned 7) is a tad over 4' tall. As best as I can tell, that makes her Medium sized.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Hah! You want to play Alpha Strike? It is actually surprising easy from what I've read.

First of all: I like that wizards get some at-wills. I have been toying with the idea that wizards should have unlimited spells of level (max level castable - 4) just for flavor. If you can cast 4th level spells, you should be able to cast Mage Hand all day long and not care about it. The "magic missile" is a solid option for the wizard as the battle winds down (previously the wizards have not had reliable options for taking down Held opponents).

Anywho, let's play Alpha Strike. Party is composed of 2 wizards and a rogue. Party sneaks up on leader in the encampment. Rogue goes first, waits for wizard1. Wizard1 casts sleep (45% chance to drop enemy). If successful, rogue takes the coup de grace. If fail, wait for wizard2, rinse, repeat. Note: you can do this all day.

Sleep is a solid option for "we are winning and would like to take minimal losses". The boss monster has 50% of hp remaining and gets 4 attack per round. It is fairly certain that he will lose to the party of 4 (wiz, rogue, fighter, cleric). The wizard casts Sleep every round in order to take away some of those attacks.

As I understand it, Charm Person is gone, and it should be. I mean, let's face it, out of combat it is an "I win, your NPC does what I tell him to and I want him to let me store his valuables for a period not to exceed 3 weeks". In combat it can be the "target opponent join the side of righteousness/evil and throws itself in the way of it's previous friend's blades". Additionally, you got control of that creature for the entire day, so you can use it next battle too.

Also, WTF is up with Grapple? Okay, let's say that I'm playing a wizard, right? Okay, a Troll comes up and lifts me in the air above his head. Okay, so, I um... stab him in the face? blast him? charm him? sleep him? Um, this hasn't really hindered my options.

Next scenario: Cleric summons 2 Psuedonatural Tigers, who pounce on a troll, grappling it. The troll, um, kicks them in the balls...

Maybe I'm missing something: why would you ever start a grapple? I guess others get Combat Advantage against a grappled creature, but there is no real reason to try to even escape the Immobilized status.

[Voss]

Wait. Problem with your wizards and rogue sleep scenario. Sleep doesn't drop anyone immediately. It works like this:
wizard casts sleep. target is slowed, no matter what. Target acts, can only move two squares, but has all his other options. Then, after he acts, he makes a save roll. If the spell hit him in the first place, and he fails his save, he goes unconscious, and has a chance to wake up at the end of each of his following rounds. If the spell missed him originally, he's just saving to make the slow effect go away.

And that assumes that he has nothing affecting his saves (such as a cleric giving him extras, or just being a hobgoblin, who get immediate saves once per round).


And, coup de grace- its just a crit. So max damage, unless you have ++crit weapons. No chance of killing or anything like that. So executioners are back to sawing through someone's neck for several rounds (you don't die until -1/2 your hp).

Yep- grapple is just for combat advantage, but you give up your normal attacks to do it. You can get CA just by flanking them, or apparently, knocking them down in some way, or one of several other things. So grapple went from fairly complex, but useful to dead simple, but worthless outside of very, very specific situations. Like trying to stop someone from fleeing.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Well that sucks. I was under the understanding that the Slow effect at least did the same thing that it did in 3.5, by limiting people to a move OR standard action. Argh, no coup de grace? AND people die at -50% hp?! That... sucks actually.

So, you, um, can't assassinate people. Ever. That makes me cry.

Edit: and people have a decent chance on jumping up from the grave. Why do they hate the rogues so much?

[Username17]

The purpose of Grapple is that if you make two consecutive attacks against their Reflex on two consecutive turns you can throw them a square. This means that if you are fighting anything on a cliff, you can Grapple them (attack against Reflex), and if you succeed they must spend their turn attempting to "break your grapple" otherwise you can throw them off a cliff the next round by making a Reflex attack.

Grapple is a two tur instant kill against anything within 1 size category of yourself standing next to a terrain hazard.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1204489370[/unixtime]]Why do they hate the rogues so much?

Basically because they're playing Final Fantasy D&D now. Boss monsters have massive amounts of hp, and the one shot kill just doesn't even exist because it'd be ridiculously overpowered in the current paradigm.

They want battles to be long drawn out affairs where you're repeatedly hacking shit until it falls, meanwhile you're doing the final fantasy style pheonix down shuffle with your PCs since you can bring them up instantly in one turn.

Assassinations just don't factor into that concept at all.

Grapple is a two tur instant kill against anything within 1 size category of yourself standing next to a terrain hazard.

Not quite. Remember that in 4E they're making anything that isn't happening on team monster pretty trivial. That whole Fearless article pretty much said how he didn't care if he feel down a hole or something. I doubt terrain is going to matter much. If anything they're making it less meaningful. Even cover is only a +2 modifier, so I think terrain in generally will basically suck.

[Voss]

Actually terrain is going to litter the battlemat. Especially pits and traps, and things to fall in, at least if you're using the basic assumptions. Expect lots of published shit with battles at the edges of cliffs or chasms, or star wars style architecture (or floating islands and crap, which have apparently exploded into existence in the Forgotten Realms).

Cover is -2, total cover (arrowslit type deal) is -5.