I really don't get it: Bulmahn&Co. and Game Balance

[RandomCasualty2]

Then here's a question:

Disregarding some of the aesthetic changes (such as dragonbortions), is 4e more or less like D&D? And is this a good thing or a bad thing?

That's a pretty loaded question. By definition, the more changes you make, the less the new product will be like the prior edition.

As far as capturing the feel of D&D, I feel that the combat system does a good job of that, at least in the limited playtests that I've run using the DDXP material (haven't played KotS yet). The game is still relatively tactical, and the monsters feel more diverse and interesting than ever.

Really, all the classes except the wizard felt D&D to me. The wizard is in sorry shape, given that he's been turned from a battlefield controller to a pure area blast machine. You've got one spell, sleep that controls actions, and that's your daily. I'd have liked to have some stuff like daze humanoid or grease or something. While I haven't actually played the wizard, based on how I've seen him played, he just didn't feel like the D&D wizard we're all used to. No illusions, no incapacitation spells beyond sleep (which was fairly decent actually, but you could only use it 1/day). It's not so much that the wizard was ineffective, so much that he lost the initial flavor of the wizard of prior editions and really felt more like a warmage than a wizard.

Aside from that, the other classes are fun and interesting, and the monsters are especially great.

In fact, if you ignore the wizard, I'd say 4E feels more like D&D than prior editions. The tactical combat system is much improved. I didn't really the MMORPG feel at all for 4E. It played pretty much like I'd expect a tactical wargame to play. It was just a more interesting wargame than prior editions.

Of course, these are just level 1 characters. Whether the math holds up or falls on its face at higher levels, I don't know. Also, it seems evident based on what we know about higher level abilities that playing a high level character may not feel like a high level character anymore. I suspect that the real problems with 4E will tend to surface around mid to high level.

I'm also somewhat concerned about solo monsters. While we never used one in my sessions, they seem like their super high hp will really make the combat drag on and on, and it will have little tactical value beyond being a bunch of PCs surrounding a big monster beating on it. That legitimately concerns me, as the system doesn't seem to mesh well with solo battles at all. It's much more interesting to have the PCs face off against 2 or more monsters with different roles.

[JonSetanta]

Been on both sides of that.

Same here. And yet, more often, as The Spock.
The exotic oddball that mysteriously 'gets the girls' yet isn't represented as open of a heartthrob or hunk as Kirk was.
When The Spock talks, takes action, or does that little eyebrow quirk, it's an event to be remembered, even if it was insignificant to the scene.
The Spock draws attention even when not doing anything, so being the cryptic, slightly out of context, logical alien is a double-edged sword.

He's a LOTR elflord of scifi.

[K]

As far as I can tell, LotR is around level 3-5. Gandalf is seriously tossing down Pyrotechnics and Knock and stabbing people with a sword most days. Ring Wraiths are CR 5 Wraiths who are wearing NPC equipment and a pack of those is hardcore when you are 3rd level but by the end they get killed because people are finally high enough level. Saruman is 6th level and has Leadership and we never see Sauron because he's a lich (and liches have to be at least 10th level so he needs to be behind the scenes or he'd kill PCs).

The main problem I have with that argument is the mass numbers of orcs and trolls that the Fellowship ends up killing. A 3rd level character just isn't going to kill off mass numbers of orcs like that without getting taken out themselves, especially with no healing.

They actually counted, so they really only killed like 30 orcs in one battle, which is well within what a 6th level character can do as long as we remember that the orcs are 1st level warriors. Heck, every arrow an archer shoots should kill an orc.

Toss Cleave onto the dwarf and ranger, and it's not even impressive.

The battles even have orcs stuck on chokepoints or spread out on a battlefield. Their kills are not even high for those kinds of situatioms and they'd have plenty of HPs for those kinds of situations.

Don't go by Gandalf, he's a DMPC with plot device abilities. Go by what the warriors do.

I don't see why. Even the fight with the Balrog is like a shatter, a feather fall, and a lightning bolt to finish. At some point someone gives him a raise dead, but that doesn't really have to be explained considering the other NPCs with their fingers in the plot (Sauron, the various elven nobles, Saruman, etc).

[Calibron]

Killing a ton of orcs at low level is D&D, it's just not 3.X D&D.

[Koumei]

...and I'd have to be paid actual money to sit through the movies of LotR again. I'll accept nothing less than oxy or morphine to read the books again.

I like to think of Romance of the Three Kingdoms as what low-level D&D should be: you are a PC, therefore without even busting out overt powers you can kill more people than you can count (to be fair, people like Lu Bu and Xiang Fei probably couldn't count very high).

The one caster who springs to mind didn't do anything flashy - he only changed the weather, and "You didn't do that, the weather was going to change and you just waved your hands before that." is a lot easier to argue than "You didn't do that, that ball of fire just happened to spring forth from where you were extending your hands!"

But he still made an effect that was both important and big. People were scared when Guan Yu came back as a ghost, and when they thought Zhuge Liang had come back as a ghost. And named characters only had to worry about other named characters (and stress-induced stomach ulcers, the stress stemming from other named characters. And blood pressure causing death through pressure build-up in the skull). The masses of mooks sort of existed as slow effects, and to vaguely shape the battlefield - they could count as walls, perhaps, although walls that can be hacked apart.

[Voss]

I'm also somewhat concerned about solo monsters. While we never used one in my sessions, they seem like their super high hp will really make the combat drag on and on, and it will have little tactical value beyond being a bunch of PCs surrounding a big monster beating on it. That legitimately concerns me, as the system doesn't seem to mesh well with solo battles at all. It's much more interesting to have the PCs face off against 2 or more monsters with different roles.

I agree with this worry. My one trial with the solo dragon went badly, and makes me want to never do it again.

Elites are similar, frankly. The big bump to hit points and defenses makes them hard, but artificially hard. I just ran through the last 3 battles of KotS. The first was fairly interesting, but easy. The second was definitely challenging but not dull. The final battle. Wow. TPK, and almost an unavoidable one. The boss is 8th level, elite, and there are several environmental effects that buff him further: A magic circle, which he can teleport to (once) during the encounter, gives him another +2 to all his defenses and heals him 5 at the start of every round. Plus a hazard that can attack people attacking him at the back edge of said circle, which also heals him for 5 every time it hits. Since his elite status gives him 186 hit points to start with, this becomes an issue. The party is (at level 3, and with all the magic items in the adventure) largely attacking at +6 to +9. His defenses, in the circle, are 21 to 26. Without the elite status and if the circle healed or buffed defenses, it could be an interesting and dangerous fight. With everything, its just insane.

The party took down the other three creatures in room easily enough, but took a fair amount of damage doing so, which is fine. By the time they turn to him, he bamfs to the circle and just starts wailing on them- while they roll for the skies. The rogue tried to shove him out of the circle and actually managed to succeed, eventually, but at that point he was so close to death that the big bad just smacked him down and walked back into the circle. They did manage to get him down to about half hit points, but he was swinging high and hard, and after they used everything but their at wills, they weren't swinging hard enough anymore (and they never were swinging high enough).


So yeah, the elite and solo monsters don't come across as well though out. They might be passable, if it bit boring, if they're actually level appropriate, but true to form, WotC cranks the final encounter way, way up.

There are a couple other solo and elite monsters in the module, I'll need to try them out, but on paper I can tell a couple things.
One solo is batshit crazy, and has *way* too many hit points (300+), and can potentially drop a character a round for two rounds. And is only somehow level 4.

The other solo isn't as bad. Its got a lot of hit points, but the attacks aren't that strong, and its defenses are fairly low, low enough that most of the characters are consistently hitting on 10+. Given what it is, losing the defense and hit point bonuses probably wouldn't hurt. The fight would last long enough to be interesting without dragging, which will probably happen with 200 hit points for a 3rd level critter.

The elites in the module are also a mixed bag. The first one isn't too bad by himself, but for some reason he's in a level 6 encounter (and the party is still first level at this point), and there is just way too much in the fight, even though its divided into 2 waves. His abilities make him a bit too good, to my eyes. Again, without the elite bonuses to hit points and defenses, he looks like a challenging and interesting fight. With them, its a bit too much crazy.

Elite #2 is an ochre jelly. It isn't bad. running this encounter straight up should actually work. Taking the elite bonuses away might actually make it too weak.

Elite #3 is a gelantinous cube. Definitely dangerous, but not because of the elite hit point/defense bonuses. No, this sucker is dangerous because of its engulf ability, and with its action point, and inherently stealth nature, it can conceivably engulf the entire party in a single round. And then they all take 10 damage each until they escape, and most of the party will have a damn hard time escaping. Escaping is a athletics or acrobatics skill check against its fort or reflex defenses, so losing the elite bonuses would make escaping easier.

So, yeah. I can see what they were trying to accomplish, but I don't think it works out. The math for the game is pretty consistently good for normal encounters. Both on the attacking end and damaging end. Elite and Solo tags basically kick the math in the nuts to artificially extend the combat, and at that point in turns from interesting tactical options to grinding something down, 3rd edition style (but without the SoDs).

[Voss]

Oh, yeah. The wizard. I agree, he's largely a warmage, which is a bit of a let down from prior editions. But I think it needed to be done, as the wizard has been 'God among mortals' able to almost anything and everything for far too long.

They did emphasize the area attacks too much, however. Unless you're constantly fighting packs of minions, a bunch of lower damage, but area attacks don't have much of an impact. Its also the first role you can pretty much do without, for much the same reason. Between the dragonborn breath weapon, the wizard training feat and the half-elf's ability to take an at-will power from any class and use it 1/encounter, you can cover the 'thin out the minions' role just fine without an actual wizard.

The info about rituals will make or break the class. If they're limited to wizards, you've got the potential for 'god among mortals' again (depending on how they work), if anyone can get them, wizard's might as well be a multiclassing feat chain that you can just cherry pick.

[RandomCasualty2]

The info about rituals will make or break the class. If they're limited to wizards, you've got the potential for 'god among mortals' again (depending on how they work), if anyone can get them, wizard's might as well be a multiclassing feat chain that you can just cherry pick.

From what I've heard, ritual casting will be a feat that anyone can take (though the wiz gets it for free).

As for the warmage aspect, I find that pretty boring. I mean we all know that battlefield control has to be toned down, but it'd still be nice to have a few useful control abilities. Just simple stuff like a 1 round stun that targets a creature's will defense, or something to knock a group of creatures prone or something. The game seems like it could use a status condition guy, since as it seems so far, everyone is just about doing damage.

As far as the solos, your playtests pretty much confirmed my fears about them. I think I'm probably not going to use solos at all in my games. If I want a "solo" experience, its probably better just to use an elite that's a few levels higher, since the solos just have a ridiculous amount of hp. I mean, with the dragon, is it even possible to beat that thing with 6 level 1 characters? Because it seriously didn't seem like it from what I saw. And the wizard is completely useless against that thing.

I'm not surprised about the TPK brutal final battle in KotS, as that's par for the course for WotC regardless of the edition. For whatever reason, they like making their modules ridiculously difficult. I don't know why. It also leads to a lot of killer DMs too who look at that crap and think that's the way it's supposed to be set up.

It seems they were going for a Final Fantasy style boss monster with the solos, but it really doesn't work out well at all.

[Voss]

From what I've heard, ritual casting will be a feat that anyone can take (though the wiz gets it for free).

I've heard this too, but some of the info from the D&D XP infodump was apparently changed before the books went to printers. So I'm skeptical until I see it. Hopefully something useful will appear in the rituals excerpt on wednesday.

As for the warmage aspect, I find that pretty boring. I mean we all know that battlefield control has to be toned down, but it'd still be nice to have a few useful control abilities. Just simple stuff like a 1 round stun that targets a creature's will defense, or something to knock a group of creatures prone or something. The game seems like it could use a status condition guy, since as it seems so far, everyone is just about doing damage.

Yeah, I'm finding the wizard dull as well. A few things were in a photo of the book a while back, from the mid levels, and there are some status conditions there, but if it only gets them at mid-levels, I'm not sure its worth playing through the low-levels. But at 13, the wiz gets a choice of a per encounter blind, immobilize or difficult terrain effect (which also does damage), at 15, there are more dailies that hand out others.

They do seem to like forced movement effects- push/pull/slide X squares, and sometimes they're useful, but the KotS rogue has no other additional effects but forced movement ones, and quite often, you don't want to use them, because you're pushing the target out of flanking or freeing it up from the defenders so it can attack whoever it wants.

As far as the solos, your playtests pretty much confirmed my fears about them. I think I'm probably not going to use solos at all in my games. If I want a "solo" experience, its probably better just to use an elite that's a few levels higher, since the solos just have a ridiculous amount of hp. I mean, with the dragon, is it even possible to beat that thing with 6 level 1 characters? Because it seriously didn't seem like it from what I saw. And the wizard is completely useless against that thing.

Heh. The only succesful dragon kills I heard about involved the wizard getting lucky and sleeping it. But the odds are so ridiculously against that it isn't something you can count on.

But yeah. I just tried out the level 3 solo, a slime beast. It wasn't terrible, definitely not a slaughter, but... the extra hit points just don't make the combat worth anything. Slipping it down from solo to elite would be fine. 70 less hit points wouldn't make it less threatening, and I wouldn't miss the last 3 or 4 rounds of combat where the characters are just beating on it. Between the daze & weaken effects (and 4e daze is a killer, since you're down to a standard, move OR minor action, and with as mobile as the combat gets, this pretty much gimps melee characters for 1-3 rounds), the double attack, the action point and the ongoing acid damage, this thing can really rip up a party. It dropped the paladin, mauled the cleric and kept the fighter from being effective for a round, and forced the party to burn through quite a bit of healing. But all that happened in the first 2/3rds of the encounter. The end was just 'we hit it again'.

I am almost certainly dropping the elite tag, and downgrading solos to elites. Some sort of environmental hazard or effect can compensate for the solo fights if they really need them (this last didn't). And elites just have to go. The verisimilitude is seriously off. (A leader with an extra 70 hit points more than the troops he's leading feels very wrong in edition where HP are fairly static). The extra defenses make it swingier (a bad combination with the extra hit points), and overall the extra rounds of combat just aren't interesting enough to make it worthwhile. The extra abilities and options (and action points) that they have over other monsters makes them dangerous enough without monkeying with the math. It comes off as a very strange decision, because I have yet to see it work well.

I'm still debating minions too. They feel really strange when mixed in with other creatures. *This* kobold can take a beating, but *that* kobold dies if you hit him with a rock. If I ever need a swarm of kobolds at level 11 or so, I could see level 11 kobold minions. Attacks and defense numbers that are appropriate, but one shottable, because you'll probably be doing that to actual kobolds at that level anyway. So I can see just having them die at that level. However, without the numbers that minions provide, a lot of the encounters in module would be... sad. But that largely seems to be a problem at level 1- you can't dip into lower level monsters that are still relevant 2-3 levels later because the math works, so it involves a kludge that can be fun, but breaks verisimilitude like an old stick.

I'm not surprised about the TPK brutal final battle in KotS, as that's par for the course for WotC regardless of the edition. For whatever reason, they like making their modules ridiculously difficult. I don't know why. It also leads to a lot of killer DMs too who look at that crap and think that's the way it's supposed to be set up.

Yeah, I've noticed that. It seems to be a product of some odd thought processes. A level 6 guy with the magic circle benefits would have been threatening enough, particularly with the rest of the encounter. Level 8 and elite is just the short-bus to crazy town. But its MOAR EPIC!!! seems to win over the party not getting pasted.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

You know what this game needs? Bonus forms!

Wait, wait, hear me out. When you are Goku fighting Freiza on the planet of the Nameks, and you've burned all your one-shot powers for the day and he transforms into his Final Form (which can be at an arbitrarily high number such as 7), that's when you know it's epic. Boss monster getting pounded and combat is boring after you've used all of you 1/encounter abilities? He needs an Extra Form where he gets another 70 hit points, an extra (signature) move, and the combat doesn't sway from "we hit him again".

After all, Final Fantasy does it.

[JonSetanta]

and the half-elf's ability to take an at-will power from any class and use it 1/encounter, you can cover the 'thin out the minions' role just fine without an actual wizard.

*coughclasslessahem*

And agreed, the game does need alternate forms for the 'important encounters' as well as the PCs.
Do Outsiders/fiends/demons finally have built-in humanoid shapes too? Or are those still done with SLAs?

[MartinHarper]

How easy would it be to convert a solo to an elite or an elite to a normal?

From what I've heard, ritual casting will be a feat that anyone can take (though the wiz gets it for free).

From ddxp, the cleric seemed to pick it up for free too.

[RandomCasualty2]

They do seem to like forced movement effects- push/pull/slide X squares, and sometimes they're useful, but the KotS rogue has no other additional effects but forced movement ones, and quite often, you don't want to use them, because you're pushing the target out of flanking or freeing it up from the defenders so it can attack whoever it wants.

Yeah, really in my playtests I found very little use for most of the forced movement. Unless you're standing next to a cliff or something, it just feels almost useless. I guess you could maybe use it to suck someone into the midst of your party so you could all beat on them, but that's about it.

Heh. The only succesful dragon kills I heard about involved the wizard getting lucky and sleeping it. But the odds are so ridiculously against that it isn't something you can count on.

Yeah, which really surprises me, since sleep feels like an awful thing to use against the dragon. Using his wand of accuracy and sleep he's got a +7 to hit. against a will of 18. That means that it's a flat 50/50. Of course, for sleep to really work, the dragon has to fail its save. Which it has a +5 to saves, meaning that it fails only on a 4 or less, 20% of the time. That means that your 50% chance just went down to 10%. Not good odds at all.

I am almost certainly dropping the elite tag, and downgrading solos to elites. Some sort of environmental hazard or effect can compensate for the solo fights if they really need them (this last didn't). And elites just have to go. The verisimilitude is seriously off. (A leader with an extra 70 hit points more than the troops he's leading feels very wrong in edition where HP are fairly static). The extra defenses make it swingier (a bad combination with the extra hit points), and overall the extra rounds of combat just aren't interesting enough to make it worthwhile. The extra abilities and options (and action points) that they have over other monsters makes them dangerous enough without monkeying with the math. It comes off as a very strange decision, because I have yet to see it work well.

Yeah, possibly just make the elites just have better defenses or just make them higher level standard monsters would be better than giving them the large hp boost I think. I think I'll try it out as is for a few battles and if it totally sucks I'll go about some fix like that.

I'm still debating minions too. They feel really strange when mixed in with other creatures. *This* kobold can take a beating, but *that* kobold dies if you hit him with a rock. If I ever need a swarm of kobolds at level 11 or so, I could see level 11 kobold minions.

I sort of like the idea of minions. It totally kills the idea of any sort of simulationist consistency in the game, since you're really just designing a challenge for PCs as opposed to real monsters. I tend to believe that there aren't these glass cannon kobolds running around, but sometimes a kobold might be done as a level 3 standard monster for low level PCs, or a level 5 minion for higher level PCs. Depending on the kobolds importance to the story.

And that's kind of nice. To low and mid level heroes, ogres might be a real threat. But to high level heroes, they're just another mook.

[Voss]

How easy would it be to convert a solo to an elite or an elite to a normal?

Easily. The tags just raise HP by 150% and raised all defenses by 2. So -2 and divide hp by 3, then multiply by 2. So the 204 hp slime beast becomes a 136 hit point slime beast. Still won't drop instantly, but its a ~4-5 round combat rather than an ~7-8 round combat.

Maybe take away the action point and drop one of the more interesting special attacks if you really want to make them absolutely normal.


@sig. Classless? Eh. Never seen one that works well.
Not sure about everything, but the succubus does, and its fairly straightforward. Its on an excerpt or preview on the WotC site somewhere. Nice and short too: the bitch looks like any normal humanoid she wants to look like. Its easily dropped in on another monster.

[Voss]

Yeah, really in my playtests I found very little use for most of the forced movement. Unless you're standing next to a cliff or something, it just feels almost useless. I guess you could maybe use it to suck someone into the midst of your party so you could all beat on them, but that's about it.

I can see some use for it, but you pretty much have to have a dedicated team (or a lot of hazards to dump enemy into it). A rogue and warlord that know what they're doing can do some crazy juggling effects on enemies, but they have to be really coordinated about it. Add in a defender or two to block and hammer other monsters, and a warlock or ranger to stalk the edges of the combat and you've got a really effective party.

Yeah, possibly just make the elites just have better defenses or just make them higher level standard monsters would be better than giving them the large hp boost I think. I think I'll try it out as is for a few battles and if it totally sucks I'll go about some fix like that.

Somewhat higher level monsters can work. A monster 3-4 levels higher than the party can be effective without being overwhelming (i ran quite a few gnolls against the D&DXP characters), but for a first level party, they eat up a lot of the XP budget, so you often have too few monsters around to make a good fight of it.

I sort of like the idea of minions. It totally kills the idea of any sort of simulationist consistency in the game, since you're really just designing a challenge for PCs as opposed to real monsters. I tend to believe that there aren't these glass cannon kobolds running around, but sometimes a kobold might be done as a level 3 standard monster for low level PCs, or a level 5 minion for higher level PCs. Depending on the kobolds importance to the story.

And that's kind of nice. To low and mid level heroes, ogres might be a real threat. But to high level heroes, they're just another mook.

I can find a place for them for higher level PCs, its just the mix of equal level minions with equal level real critters that bugs me.

Except the giant rat minions. I can accept the idea that a 2 foot rat dies to a sword or spell without much effort involved.

[RandomCasualty2]

I can find a place for them for higher level PCs, its just the mix of equal level minions with equal level real critters that bugs me.

Except the giant rat minions. I can accept the idea that a 2 foot rat dies to a sword or spell without much effort involved.

Yeah, it's a little bit odd that you've got stuff that dies in one hit, and standard creatures that die in 3-4, but nothing that dies in 2 hits.

I mean I guess I can live with it, but it's just a little weird.

[Voss]

The article on rituals isn't terrible.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080528a

Time and component costs are the key factors, and pretty much no in combat casting.

The only one that strikes me as really odd on the list of the first 10 levels is...
Silence. Thats a pretty specific effect,

Anyway, elsewhere it has been posted from the printer's pdf that Ritual Casting is indeed a feat. So, hurrah.

[Calibron]

Tenser's Floating Disk is a ritual. Why? Why even bother?

[Voss]

Its classic and its not worth being an actual power (which you get a very limited number of). Hence... ritual.


Apparently, as an aside, there is an upside to being a wizard- start with a ritual book with 3 level 1 rituals, and get some others as you go up in levels.

[Leress]

Knock is a level 4 ritual? Water breathing level 8? Many of these utility spells have been shot to hell. They pretty much lose the whole "utility" aspect of the spells when it takes such long periods of time to cast.

[Voss]

How so? Assuming water breathing lasts a good long while, why does it matter if you have to take 10 minutes before going swimming?

Its still not something you're going to need every day or use in the middle of a fight.

[Leress]

How so? Assuming water breathing lasts a good long while, why does it matter if you have to take 10 minutes before going swimming?

Its still not something you're going to need every day or use in the middle of a fight.

It is more to do with the level that you get the abilities.

[Voss]

Ah. I was confused by your comment on utility being lost by the casting time.

That said... knock is one level later and waterbreathing... 3?

[JonSetanta]

@sig. Classless? Eh. Never seen one that works well.

Why did just half-elf get the "ignore all class boundaries" ability?
They could have just as easily given similar 'uncapping' to every class for varied options.
They were so close to breaking the inter-class boundaries and they fucked it up.

[Voss]

Well, honestly they didn't want to break the interclass boundaries. One of their actual goals was to make each class more distinct, not blend them in an amorphous mass. This is seriously a 'its not a bug, its a feature' moment, because its what they actually wanted to do (though I'm not a 100% on how well they did it).

Its one of the reasons multiclassing is more limited. As for the half-elf... honestly it needed a useful schtik. Cross-species breeding aside, they are good options for several classes, and not bad choices for several others. And since you have the option to match the extra power to one of your good stats (charisma or con), you'll be just as good with it as you are with your normal abilities. And frankly, its just an at-will power that you can use as an encounter power. Its a nice piece of versatility, but its very far from 'ignore all class boundaries'. Its one power, at chosen level 1, unchanged forever. You don't get any class features, encounter, daily or utility powers, and it doesn't help you qualify for feats, paragon paths or anything else.