D&D 4th Edition - The positive, constructive thread, Negativism, go post elsewhere! Options

[DTFarstar]

Karon- Warlord
Barath- Fighter

Observing the flow of battle, Karon waits for the right instant and shouts at Barath "Right thrust low!". Trusting his friend Barath leaves himself open and drops low, left arm stabilizing him on the ground and the orcs clumsily swung club caresses his hair, his right arm flick back and then forward in a thrust, capitalizing on an opening he might never have seen on his own.


I typically like to describe most combats from an end of turn perspective so it would fit even better into the overall frame, but if you are playing DnD and can't let something like this slide, then it probably isn't the system for you. Not trying to be offensive, just saying the ability to help your friend attack is the least of the logic shattering things that happens if you think about it too hard. The main thing I've noticed that helps with things like this is to think of each combat round as it's own little time frame and realize that everyone's actions occur at roughly the same time in that combat round.

Chris

[raphabonelli]

I typically like to describe most combats from an end of turn perspective so it would fit even better into the overall frame, but if you are playing DnD and can't let something like this slide, then it probably isn't the system for you. Not trying to be offensive, just saying the ability to help your friend attack is the least of the logic shattering things that happens if you think about it too hard. The main thing I've noticed that helps with things like this is to think of each combat round as it's own little time frame and realize that everyone's actions occur at roughly the same time in that combat round.

No offence taken... i´ve already said that D&D4ed is not for me to GM.

Even thinking "in the end or turn perspective", still strange to me. After using all his action, if the players ask for me for one more attack i would say "no, you're not fast enough"... but, then again, he will do one more (or even more if the party have more then one warlord on the group) attack. At least for me, there should be a limitation of how fast the character could attack... no matter if the Warlord scream to him or not.

But i can understand your description, and i guess it work. Just that is not my take this system... just to much abstract for me.

[Kingboy]

And I agree that $15 a month is a bit much, but it all depends on whether or not I'm gonna use it, and exactly how flexible and powerful the site ends up being.

Speaking of flexible, is there word yet on payment options for all of this yet? I ask because, having spent my time in the MMO trenches, I'd personally never pay for anything like that (or a standard MMO for that matter) on a recurring subscription basis. I much prefer "time cards". They are much more flexible, available to anyone regardless of age or credit card availability, and more importantly to me, are not an automatic source of income for the billing company whether I use the site or not.

[Caine Hazen]

We're playing through right now, typing during the drink break. So far I''m having fun, and the fights are playing smooth. And I have brough thte glory of BubbaThulu to many people's lives.

I like my Warlock much.

[baburabi]

okay,

just now have a chance to sit down and reply

I was in that game with Caine (thanks Bull), it was my first time even cracking open the books for more than a glance and i must say had a lot of FUN, it is most definelty very different from previous editions but has enough left in there to still be DnD, it definetely PLAYS much better than it READS!

My only criticism i have for all those people who say it isnt roleplaying anymore is WHAT?! When has a games rule system ever determined how to roleplay your character.

[Cantankerous]

okay,

just now have a chance to sit down and reply

I was in that game with Caine (thanks Bull), it was my first time even cracking open the books for more than a glance and i must say had a lot of FUN, it is most definelty very different from previous editions but has enough left in there to still be DnD, it definetely PLAYS much better than it READS!

My only criticism i have for all those people who say it isnt roleplaying anymore is WHAT?! When has a games rule system ever determined how to roleplay your character.

The game rules system makes it impossible to role play a human being in 4ED&D. Human beings do not go from a quarter inch from dead (negative hit points) to completely fine and able to perform at absolute peak efficiency (full hit points) after a spare few moments breather. We had this happen in game, where the groups Fighter made a heal check on the Cleric in combat (the Cleric was at -1 HP, dying as per the rules) to allow him a second wind healing surge. The combat then ended and the Cleric used three more healing surges immediately to go from dying, to 2hp below maximum immediately, with NO MAGIC and no other reason than he took a few moments to get his breath.

When the game system makes it impossible to get hurt (oooohh, you can die, obviously, but getting an actual wound must be completely impossible) in combat it makes role playing more than difficult. It makes it untenable for anything even vaguely man like.


Isshia

[baburabi]

yes it is not realistic, but when has DnD ever been realistic

and yes the healing system is one of the things im not completely sold on, i need to play more to se how many times that kind of situation comes up

but still the pc are supposed to superheroic more than "human" bigger than life heroes so i dont see where that changes how you would roleplay, for one that only affects combat situations, which in my campaign is less than half of the adventures usually, and two your combat tatics and actions should be determined by your archtype (or what is it they call it ... role) not "how quickly will i recover from this?"

[deek]

While I agree, its not realistic, I can also say I have not been in a world with magic, monsters and adventurers crawling through dungeons with a magic wand.

The whole healing system, surges and the like, are a game mechanic to allow the group to go longer without needing to rest. I played in my second session last night and we had two more combats as we entered a decrepit manor house. I'd say our group of 5 was average 2 or 3 healing surges per encounter, which included taking a short rest to replenish our encounter powers.

Its a game mechanic, and frankly, works quite well in practice. Now, if you need to justify this or don't like the fact that at the end of the day, your hero is going to be at 100% (as it only take 4 surges for anyone to get back to full health) without magic...well...I don't know what to say. There are a lot of rules in a lot of games that I don't necessarily see an easy way to justify, but it is a game and the rules are there for a reason.

I suppose you could do away with healing surges, but then you make a lot of powers somewhat useless. For me, at the end of the day, we are playing heroes and I don't need an in-game justification on how my group just barely got by the epic fight but after a 5 minute rest we are back to full power, maybe minus some daily powers...

[Cantankerous]

The problem isn't realism...who wants realism in a fantasy game, but rather verisimilitude.

If you have even the thin excuse of magic you can ignore such stupidity, it's magic after all, it doesn't have to make sense, even in a vague way, or act in an understandable manner because who can dispute it?

BUT

Healing is a natural thing. If you do this to healing it is no different from all water now suddenly being tens of thousands of degrees hot and freezing you therefore on contact. If it should make sense BECAUSE it is supposed to represent a part of the natural and normal environment, you don't fuck with it thoughtlessly, which is what has been done.

And it isn't just the PCs who heal this way. If you pick up a barmaid who is traveling with the group for whatever reason, she too can do this (the healing surge). This has nothing to do with being larger than life. It's there WoW for the table top solution to having everything work the same way for everyone.

The barmaid gets wounded unto death by a broadsword stroke that brings her to -1 hit points. Ohhh, no! Never fear, the most it can take her to heal back to full and complete health is two days of taking normal six hour naps after having worked all day in the bar from fifteen minutes after having taken her deadly wound!

Verisimilitude is an important component of actual ROLE (as opposed to Roll) Playing. If normal, natural things don't work in something at least resembling broadly the same way they do for us, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify with the character. If water suddenly flows upwards, naturally, normally, and gravity only works every other Thursday and water is suddenly dry....

And if you heal from near death to perfect health in two days if you are the average peasant ...

The game fails to be a Role Playing Game. If they were to market it as a Roll Playing Game so that Role Players wouldn't waste their money on it, it would be far more palatable.



Isshia

[DTFarstar]

If healing surges bother you, then find a way to explain them. I am going to run a little 1 or 2 shot dungeon crawl just to test the system for me and my friends sometime soon- maybe tonight- and I will probably explain healing surges inside and outside of combat differently simply because of the flavor.

During combat, healing surges will mostly just be a focus thing.

Wizard - "Klavas stops for a moment and concentrates- compartmentalizing his pain and storing it away for later- allowing him to push his body past the point it would normally stop."
Angry Fighter - "Baras roaring in challenge, is momentarily overcome by his rage, no longer feels the wounds on his legs as nothing matters beyond the next kill.

Keep in mind that the human body can sustain massive trauma and survive. In fact, it is a lot less likely that you will die if that trauma is spread out. Healing surges actually almost represent the ability of the human body to take X amount of trauma and go into shock, and either die or wake up and be capable of taking more punishment.

Out of combat will be more meditative. Especially for the cleric, something along the lines of "Darian reaches out and connects with his god for a brief instant that lasts an eternity- feeling his love and approval(anger and pain, stoic dedication, etc.) rewarded, Darian wakes mere seconds later to find that a pleasant aftermath of his brief connection is that some of his wounds have closed."

Similar things could be used for the other classes.

Chris

[Malicant]

A Hero goes from -2 to full health in minutes? "Dude, weren't you like dead?" "Yeah, but I'm better now" classic TV trope. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Bull]

Yeah, healing is now an Action Movie Hero kind of thing, more than an actual physical representation of damage.

[Caine Hazen]

A Hero goes from -2 to full health in minutes? "Dude, weren't you like dead?" "Yeah, but I'm better now" classic TV trope. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Except there are no negative HPs now, you drop to zero and get 3 saves before you die. Also as a note, most characters can only get 1 "second wind" (healing surge) per encounter, they still need Warlords, Paladins and Clerics to get them any more healing surges, thus their roles are not negated completely. As a second wind equals 1/4 of the starting HPs its not too big a gain.

People who can't abstract HPs past damage are sad sad souls indeed.

[Moon-Hawk]

Except there are no negative HPs now, you drop to zero and get 3 saves before you die.

That's not entirely true. You don't lose hp when you're dying, and if you get healed you apply that healing from zero rather than from your actual negative hp (so any negative hp you had are instantly forgiven), but you still track your negative hp, and when you hit negative hp equal to your bloodied value you die, irrespective of death saves.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to kill a downed enemy.

[Moon-Hawk]

As for the healing surges, I agree with the action movie metaphor. If you get all beat to hell (like the protagonist does at the beginning of the action movie) and then use your healing surges to get up to full hp, even if you rest for a day and get all your surges back, you still look like hell. You still have manly cuts on your face, and bandages, and you wince heroically when you take your shirt off, and maybe you limp a bit, but when the next big fight comes, do you hobble for a moment and then get whooped? Of course not, the big action hero suddenly fights fantastically, his abilities apparently unhampered by his previous injuries (*handwave* adrenaline *handwave*), and then at the end of the fight he wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, fires off a witty one-liner, and goes on to fight the next set of baddies.

So you have to think of it as: full hp (end even full surges) does NOT necessarily mean you are not hurt. This is a big departure for some people, and I think they're having some trouble looking at it like that, or maybe just refuse to. It means that your action-hero abilities are unimpeded. You may well be hurt, and look like hell, and you should be role-playing that, but you can still roundhouse-kick-to-the-face as well as ever.

Here is it:
Hit points and healing surges are not health, or wounds, or luck, or dodging ability, they are plot points, which mechanically represent how many successful attacks you can withstand before you get a big GAME OVER, and there is no reason why their fluffy description should be consistent from attack to attack, character to character, or moment to moment.

[Bull]

I'd like to see (And at some point, expect to see) some additional rules to add to the whole HP thing. If I ever run D&D again full time, I might add something to them myself. Something similar to what Star Wars d20 did, with HP and... I don;t remember the term off hand., But basically you had the standard HP pool that kind of worked like stun damage, or cinematic damage, and then you also had a "real" set of points that represented actual, serious damage.

The mix of the two would be nice, I think, for long term play, and to make the PCs feel a little more threatened. Though considering how badly I was kicking them around with Kobolds at Origins, not sure they need to be threatened much more (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[baburabi]

uuhhhhmmmmm ..... yeah i dont think we needed threatened anymore than we were

[Wounded Ronin]

Bah, we should just make Max Payne: The RPG already. It'd have more angst roleplay than a game of Vampire!

[Bull]

uuhhhhmmmmm ..... yeah i dont think we needed threatened anymore than we were

Look, just cause your fighter ate a crit on turn one, random max damage on turn two, and another crit on turn 3...

Heh. Good times. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bull

[Cantankerous]

Except there are no negative HPs now, you drop to zero and get 3 saves before you die. Also as a note, most characters can only get 1 "second wind" (healing surge) per encounter, they still need Warlords, Paladins and Clerics to get them any more healing surges, thus their roles are not negated completely. As a second wind equals 1/4 of the starting HPs its not too big a gain.

People who can't abstract HPs past damage are sad sad souls indeed.

Hit points aren't just damage, but according to both the DMG and the PHB they represent the amount of damage your character can sustain. They don't even say, in those books, that it ALSO represents this, which is what I have been saying. Their direct quotes talk about how much damage the character can sustain.

What's really sad is fan boys who will eat garbage because it has a certain label on it and compliment the chefs on the taste and then damn anyone who dares say: "but it's garbage".


Isshia

[Fuchs]

Star Wars D20 revised had the hp mechanics very well done and explained with their WP/VP system. D&D 4E can do the same if one subs the sub-zero mechanics for the WP.

[Cantankerous]

I could probably easily live with a system that used hit points to track just fatigue/luck/will of the gods/skill if below it there did exist a negatives "wound point" type system. I should have thought of that idea myself, as it's integral to GURPS and has been for more than 20 years, but now the problem becomes designing a working universal one that doesn't destroy other balance issues.

And then fixing the skill challenge system.

And then fixing the rigidity of the not only class, but class and "role" (Controller, Defender, Leader, Striker) system.

Ahh, the hell with it. It's just not worth it.



Isshia

[Cantankerous]

Here is it:
Hit points and healing surges are not health, or wounds, or luck, or dodging ability, they are plot points, which mechanically represent how many successful attacks you can withstand before you get a big GAME OVER, and there is no reason why their fluffy description should be consistent from attack to attack, character to character, or moment to moment.

The problem is you can't plot point an RPG like you can a movie... unless you don't want the RPG to do ANYTHING but be able to reproduce (cheesy) movies.


Isshia

[Daier Mune]

What's really sad is fan boys who will eat garbage because it has a certain label on it and compliment the chefs on the taste and then damn anyone who dares say: "but it's garbage".

vs. the people who continuously nitpick at details in something for the explicit purpose of finding something to hate. kind of equally sad in my eyes.

[Particle_Beam]

vs. the people who continuously nitpick at details in something for the explicit purpose of finding something to hate.

Yeah. And what is even sadder is that these nitpicking people are still eating the garbage they decried upon, old and new "garbage".