Bryce said...

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I took you at your word that you are playing a heavily modified version of 4e that incorporates more early edition elements, but that BtB 4e does not. (Also that you were using the 3e Eberon setting.)
No, I play a lightly modified version of 4e, because 4e requires very little modification to run in an old school fashion. And most of my mods are not necessary to play it old school, they are houserules I introduced for other reasons. The only real modification is GP=XP. And many of the "mods" I talk about are using existing rules in a BtB legal manner that is just not something the designers thought of.

Yes and no. The WoW take is accurate in that 4e explicitly incorporates the concepts of tank, controller, and healer into the game. Tanks have game mechanics to force opponents to target them over squishier, easier prey. "Marking" an opponent (which was always funny for my group since our tank was a wolf shifter) is something I think was introduced with 4e.
The similarity to MMORPGs is superficial. 4e Defenders are not tanks. They have a very limited ability to soak up damage, to the extent that a really well played party will ensure that the "squishes" are targeted at least some of the time to take pressure off the Defender. Their primary function is to restrict enemy movement and make it more difficult for the enemy to target artillery and controllers. They are really more like a specialized melee controller. 1e Fighters and Paladins are much more like a "tank" than a 4e Defender is.

The "marking" mechanic was introduced in 4e; the name comes from man-to-man defence in basketball. Defenders who mark choose a single enemy to harass and make it more difficult for them to attack the Defender's allies. There are also Defenders that defend a zone instead, giving up that marking focus to provide a weaker defence over an area instead of man-to-man. Also not really like video game tanking.

4e Leaders are healers but that is in many ways a secondary function, and many other classes find ways to heal themselves or heal others in a limited way. Their primary function is to make other characters more effective using various methods, like granting bonuses to attacks and defences, and by granting allies extra attacks or extra movement. The best thing a Leader can do is make other characters better at what they do.

The controller role is present in 4e and MMORPGs, but I would argue that is because MMORPG's stole it from tabletop RPGs. Wizards in 4e control the field by doing the exact same things that magic-users in early edition D&D did; area of effect attacks and "debuffing" enemies (making it harder for enemies to be effective; think sleep or slow or confusion).

The other role is Strikers, which are high damage output, usually single target melee or ranged characters. They are primarily damage delivery vehicles. Melee Strikers are highly mobile, with abilities designed to circumvent Defenders so that they can access enemy leaders and controllers; ranged Strikers often have enhancements that help them target enemies who have cover. They tend to be low AC, low HP "glass cannons"; think a Thief with a DM that is relatively generous about allowing backstab. Also D&D fighters, once they start getting multiple attacks; multiple attacks is one of the most common ways that Strikers deal a lot of damage. Think a high dex fighter using two weapons instead of a shield, and lightly armored to increase mobility. Or a magic user who focuses on single target, damaging spells like magic missile, lightning bolt (which not technically single target but is often used that way), disintegrate, etc. Or the Archer from Best of Dragon Vol. IV. None of which was invented by WoW.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
I'll take your word for it that what you just described can work with the rest (non-combat) elements of the early edition D&D, but all of it has a very modern, small team, military feel that is verisimilitude breaking for me and explains why many couldn't swallow the 4e pill. Maybe it was a (military) MMORPG precursor, before the on-line tech was fully there...but that's what it calls to my mind.

It's probably even further away from the story-gaming mainstream than classic D&D, and the role-players will feel like cogs if their alternate-selves are referred to as "defenders", "strikers" and "controllers".

Also, tactics in general (e.g. sports teams), are of interest only to a very small, hard-core, minority. How did WotC not anticipate a backlash?
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
The similarity to MMORPGs is superficial. 4e Defenders are not tanks. They have a very limited ability to soak up damage, to the extent that a really well played party will ensure that the "squishes" are targeted at least some of the time to take pressure off the Defender. Their primary function is to restrict enemy movement and make it more difficult for the enemy to target artillery and controllers. They are really more like a specialized melee controller. 1e Fighters and Paladins are much more like a "tank" than a 4e Defender is.

<snip> None of which was invented by WoW.
Well. Sort of. The 'idea' of the tank, the dps, the healer, those were all present in inchoate forms in the earlier versions of the game. They didn't necessarily have game mechanics (particularly with the tank).

The standardization of these things probably happened with the MMOs (not WoW in particular, WoW was simply the most popular of the bunch). To successfully complete instances you had to have a tank (not necessarily to soak up damage but to be the target; they were supposed to mitigate most of the damage, and more importantly they had mechanics that drew the attention of the mobs to them [threat]), a healer, and some damage dealers. As time went on this got even more standardized. I dabbled in LOTR online briefly and I noticed that each class gave a description of what their function was (similar to controller, dps, tank, etc). I then noticed a little bit later that that terminology jumped into WoW's character creation screen as well.

The big thing 4e seemed to do (at least from my perspective) was bring a sort of 'threat' mechanism in with the 'tank' classes.

Another more direct steal from WoW and MMOs seemed to be the highly valuable magic dust you could get from 'disenchanting' old magic items. What's that called again? We didn't actually use it when I was playing 4e. Was it even that big a part of the game in general?
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
<snip>
It's probably even further away from the story-gaming mainstream than classic D&D, and the role-players will feel like cogs if their alternate-selves are referred to as "defenders", "strikers" and "controllers".

Also, tactics in general (e.g. sports teams), are of interest only to a very small, hard-core, minority. How did WotC not anticipate a backlash?
It was a big part of the story-gaming, actually. You had the set pieces you would go to as you'd move further on your quests. Go to a dungeon, kill a few mobs, have the cut scene (BOXED TEXT) to give story exposition, then continue to the next 'dungeon'.

As for the tactics, well, that actually is a much bigger deal than you realize. New players were more primed for that sort of thing from their introduction to RPGs via MMOs.

The tactics thing was a big part of 3e and that was a huge success.

The problem with 4e, at least according to one of their designers, was that they saw that the audience would accept big changes (in 3e) so they thought they could make even bigger, radical changes. It backfired. But that wasn't the only thing that caused 4e to fail.
 

The Heretic

Should be playing D&D instead
Yes? Don't leave me hanging...
Doh! Sorry, I'm at work. Then again the samples I'm waiting for appear to be delayed...

There were several things that did it in. First, they got rid of their magazine division (well, the paper part of it). The preview articles in Dragon were a huge influence on my decision to check out 3rd edition. Without the constant bait I would've gotten from articles in Dragon I had nothing whetting my appetite for the expansion.

It followed too closely on 3.5 (which itself was a terrible thing).

And more importantly, due to OGL it had a very strong competitor (Pathfinder). In fact, this ties in to the thing with Dragon. I had a subscription and since the magazine was no more, Paizo started sending me Pathfinder adventure paths modules instead to fulfill the subscription. They ended up having me hooked.

And then there was the "Nintendo" angle. IIRC Nintendo almost sunk the WII because they didn't allow third party games for the whole first year. WOTC had a similar issue with 4e. There was a lot of dreck with 3rd party 3.0 and 3.5 publishers, which they were trying to avoid, but they tightened the screws TOO much.

And finally 3rd edition benefited from a wave of nostalgia for D&D. 4e did not. 5e was lucky because of Stranger Things.

(I'd elaborate but oh look, the mail's arrived!)
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I'll take your word for it that what you just described can work with the rest (non-combat) elements of the early edition D&D, but all of it has a very modern, small team, military feel that is verisimilitude breaking for me and explains why many couldn't swallow the 4e pill. Maybe it was a (military) MMORPG precursor, before the on-line tech was fully there...but that's what it calls to my mind.

It's probably even further away from the story-gaming mainstream than classic D&D, and the role-players will feel like cogs if their alternate-selves are referred to as "defenders", "strikers" and "controllers".

Also, tactics in general (e.g. sports teams), are of interest only to a very small, hard-core, minority. How did WotC not anticipate a backlash?
Dude, if you don't think small team tactics exist in AD&D you need to revisit @EOTB's posts on tactical considerations in the segment based initiative system, not to mention the rules on charging, special attack bonuses, positioning, flank and rear attacks, and attacks against stunned, prone, held, invisible and disengaging opponents on pp. 66-70 of the DMG. 4e adds some maneuvers, but all that really does is enable and standardize things that players ought to be attempting, and DMs ought to allow, in early edition D&D anyway.

EDIT: if I played AD&D now, you bet your ass I would be leveraging those rules for all they are worth, and doing things like trying to shove enemies into positions where they were flanked on both sides, or breaking the line to enable the thief to attack the back row. How would you adjudicate that?

IMO the need for defender, striker, controller and leader roles was overstated; lots of characters don't fit neatly into those roles, and lots of players don't talk in those terms. It does provide a language for describing combat, but no more than the jargon used to describe sports. But I guess you think interest in sports is also an unusual thing? Talk to me when newspapers have a dedicated "Tabletop Gaming" section (chess doesn't count).

It was a big part of the story-gaming, actually. You had the set pieces you would go to as you'd move further on your quests. Go to a dungeon, kill a few mobs, have the cut scene (BOXED TEXT) to give story exposition, then continue to the next 'dungeon'.

As for the tactics, well, that actually is a much bigger deal than you realize. New players were more primed for that sort of thing from their introduction to RPGs via MMOs.

The tactics thing was a big part of 3e and that was a huge success.

The problem with 4e, at least according to one of their designers, was that they saw that the audience would accept big changes (in 3e) so they thought they could make even bigger, radical changes. It backfired. But that wasn't the only thing that caused 4e to fail.
This surprised me when it was pointed out to me a few years ago [EDIT: it turns out is was last spring, it just feels like years], because I thought the emphasis on player skill in 4e lent itself more to old school playstyles. I think it was @Pseudoephedrine who pointed out that the character options were presented and used in a way that supported OC/Neo-trad styles of play (so, not exactly storygames).

Doh! Sorry, I'm at work. Then again the samples I'm waiting for appear to be delayed...

There were several things that did it in. First, they got rid of their magazine division (well, the paper part of it). The preview articles in Dragon were a huge influence on my decision to check out 3rd edition. Without the constant bait I would've gotten from articles in Dragon I had nothing whetting my appetite for the expansion.

It followed too closely on 3.5 (which itself was a terrible thing).

And more importantly, due to OGL it had a very strong competitor (Pathfinder). In fact, this ties in to the thing with Dragon. I had a subscription and since the magazine was no more, Paizo started sending me Pathfinder adventure paths modules instead to fulfill the subscription. They ended up having me hooked.

And then there was the "Nintendo" angle. IIRC Nintendo almost sunk the WII because they didn't allow third party games for the whole first year. WOTC had a similar issue with 4e. There was a lot of dreck with 3rd party 3.0 and 3.5 publishers, which they were trying to avoid, but they tightened the screws TOO much.

And finally 3rd edition benefited from a wave of nostalgia for D&D. 4e did not. 5e was lucky because of Stranger Things.

(I'd elaborate but oh look, the mail's arrived!)
I think this is all true. I think it was also an issue that they released it before they had perfected the math, so that early adopters were playing a game that just didn't work very well and was, frankly, pretty dull. I also agree with people who suggest that if they had marketed it as a parallels system (like the Basic/Advanced Split) instead of dumping all the 3e players, it would have been better received.
 
Last edited:

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Yeah, a big part of why I play AD&D is its marriage of the war game tactical engine with the flavor of fantasy elements I prefer. 2E kept the flavor of fantasy elements but where it chose to simplify the rules disproportionately impacted the tactical element to a degree that makes me bored.
 

Malrex

So ... slow work day? Every day?
It's cool. I'm just trying to establish the playing-field for all discussion that includes healthy disagreement. If you think back, I have often urged those who don't like what I'm saying to just dismiss it/me. I've said many times I am not an authority figure. You don't need my approval to play your game the way you like it. Disagreement doesn't need to escalate...or collapse into silence.

As for the gladiator: you are talking to the guy who rather delete the paladin-class and just have the knight/paladin/cavalier/barbarian be the fighter class with a bit of player panache thrown in. In the REAL WORLD, I don't see any difference between a trained gladiator and a high level fighter. They represent a high level of martial skill (or they die young!). I wouldn't give them any special skills---and that's my beef with paladins. Choose, you stinkin' a-hole! Be a knight=fighter or be a holy-crusader=cleric...and then ACT however you think is appropriate for the type of PC-image you want to project. Be good! Give away your treasure! etc. Why do you need paladin super-powers and an entitlement for a super-horse to act that way? I know why players like extra class super-powers...but I don't know why they are necessary to have fun playing the game. I don't. Not even as a player myself...once I got beyond the initial 12-year-old wish-fulfillment phase of the D&D of my youth (ranger, baby!), and started playing with a solid group with a good DM (magic-user, 1d4 hp, one-spell at 1st level, and a spell book that's so delicate it seems to spontaneously combust).

No insult directed at anyone---I am just being honest.

So if a player wanted to be more gladiator-like in my game --- he would have to go fight in an arena. (Duh!)

What I would do to facilitate that as a DM would be...
  • put an arena in one of the towns, villages or cities.
  • Map and key the location and NPCs in it.
  • Figure out what he might have to do to get accepted to it. Is there a training school? Are you enslaved? etc.
  • figure out how to have staged combat: what weapons, varying terrain, traps, poison?, etc
  • figure out some interesting NPC drama for behind the scenes
If my player got accepted into gladiator school I might have them acquire a few special talents then, like additional weapon proficiency than the fighter standard slots (maybe at double the normal rate?). I might even start using those double-proficiency bonuses from OSRIC...but just for that one character that went into the world and sought out that reward by assuming some risk. Gaining special skills would be 100% equivalent to finding treasure. I would also decide on a nice little whip & net mechanic for the arena combat and beyond. There would probably be some XP awards for winning a round. Maybe it's a good way to shoot up a few of the lower levels. etc.

Most importantly, I would re-watch (Ridley Scott's) Gladiator, Spartacus and Ben Hur and then brain-storm some fun twists to throw at the players. Maybe the non-fighters in the party get to be the manager/promoter. Maybe there's some big prize to be won. Maybe a fight is fixed. Whatever!

Could be tons of fun...but also probably short lived (like six months or a year?) because it could get old or else we'd all have been playing Arenas & Lions for the past 30 years. It would be after all, just a single or set of adventure locations. My players would steer and decide whether they lingered, or decided to hit the road. In a good long-term campaign, the environment keeps changing.

BUT REMEMBER, HE'S STILL A STANDARD FIGHTER CLASS. (boo hiss?)

Point being: You are not a gladiator in a dungeon, any more than you are a knight in a dungeon. In a dungeon, you are an explorer and meat-shield...so you might want to get yourself some plate mail and a (magic) sword. Don't ya think?

Heck, if you can find one---get yourself a raygun too mo'fo! :p

To me, that's the OD&D way. -- which is only possible only when you make the world, as oppose to trying to buy it pre-stocked. --
Your way makes a bit more sense to me now, thanks for sharing. I could see some problems coming from that--if you have multiple players wanting to be various different things (1 gladiator, 1 pirate, 1 battle mage, etc.) and how you would balance the time out. Maybe several 1 on 1 sessions then bringing everyone together when/if they were ready to do a adventure?

Your example reminds me of my thoughts for my adventure Special Area: The Ranger's Hideout (that you reviewed)...for the player who wanted to be a ranger. A location based adventure where they could test ranger skills as they leveled up, etc. That was the idea I was trying to get behind anyways, much like your arena/location idea for the gladiator.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Yeah, a big part of why I play AD&D is its marriage of the war game tactical engine with the flavor of fantasy elements I prefer. 2E kept the flavor of fantasy elements but where it chose to simplify the rules disproportionately impacted the tactical element to a degree that makes me bored.
Sounds like you play 1e for the same reason I play 4e.

I note that in both editions both timing and positioning have a significant impact on tactical decision making. I also think that the positioning game is easier to pick up than the timing game in both editions.

The positioning game is similar in both editions (4e built on 3e which built on 1e), but the timing game is very different. In 4e the attack order is random, based on initiative rolls, but there is an ability to change your position in the initiative order by either delaying your turn, or "readying an action" to be triggered when an event occurs (e.g. "I get ready to swing if any enemy comes into range"). I think 3e and 5e may have similar rules. Noobs generally only delay if there is nothing they can effectively do when their turn comes up; more experienced players might delay their turns to occur after an ally has done something to set them up.

What I have never seen anyone other than myself do is to delay almost the entire team's turns in order to coordinate attack order and ensure there are no enemy actions in between to spoil your plan; basically, the team waits until everyone is ready before they move. What you tend to get instead is characters acting as soon as their turn comes up, which often results in characters getting isolated from each other as the quicker team members rush in and get cut off from the rest of the team by enemy interventions. I'm curious if any of the 3e and 5e players have seen this or have opinions on this.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
there is an ability to change your position in the initiative order by either delaying your turn, or "readying an action" to be triggered when an event occurs (e.g. "I get ready to swing if any enemy comes into range").
Same thing in 1E. "Delay" is listed as a choice. It doesn't go into it all the ways you can use delay to any depth, but I think for war gamers used to the phrase "having the initiative" in context meaning "have the advantage of doing whatever they choose, whether smart of dumb" (aka "the germans held the initiative on the eastern front in '41 and '42, while the soviets held the initiative on the eastern front for the rest of the war") - I'm confident "initiative" was always presumed to be understood the same way in D&D, and never was intended to be the single point of time in a round where the initiative holder's action must occur.

At least, this is the way I've always ran it. If you have the initiative you can act starting on your segment...or at any moment you choose afterwards. It's the only way that makes sense of the rules that are there for delay and the historic meaning of the word.

What I have never seen anyone other than myself do is to delay almost the entire team's turns in order to coordinate attack order and ensure there are no enemy actions in between to spoil your plan; basically, the team waits until everyone is ready before they move. What you tend to get instead is characters acting as soon as their turn comes up, which often results in characters getting isolated from each other as the quicker team members rush in and get cut off from the rest of the team by enemy interventions.
Valid, but most players aren't tacticians to this degree. And they may not realize its an option if their experience is mostly under a DM who makes them act when they first can act.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
Valid, but most players aren't tacticians to this degree. And they may not realize its an option if their experience is mostly under a DM who makes them act when they first can act.
Except that in 4e "delay" is a formal rule, and player a accessible rule (it is in the PHB). But I suppose many set piece battles in published 4e adventures nudge players into not doing this. Mainly by making battlefields too small, or starting the encounter with the two sides very close to each other.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Other editions of D&D (including 1E) aren't really any better for teaching the tactics either, or publishing scenarios where using them is intended to provide the difference.

All the books through the DMG simply presume the players have war gaming experience and so only need the variance of the fantasy element explained in depth, and afterwards all the books realize their target market had radically changed.

I'm not very familiar with 4E, but it sounds like they tried to go back to tactics while slaying sacred cows along the way and it was just too much change.
 
Last edited:

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I don't really buy the argument that 4e was this huge change. The presentation was different, but from what I can see 4e had more in common with 3e than 3e did with 2e. I think a bigger factor was the change in the D&D gaming culture that WotC had facilitated.

When 2e came out, Dragon was filled with all sorts of experimental DIY stuff, and adding to game mechanics was just part of the culture. Plus Dragon also supported a lot of different games with different mechanics, so people were open to them. And 2e was backward compatible so 1e and B+ players could theoretically use the new content.

I wasn't around when 3e came out, but my impression is that by that time a lot of people were a bit tired of the Chainmail chassis and were ready for a change, so they didn't alienate anybody. But when they brought out 4e, 3e was still popular and a lot of people were attached to it, and it was viewed as a blatant ploy to force 3e into obsolescence so they could sell more books. And by then Dragon was a vehicle for only official D&D content, and did not support either rules tinkering or looking at different systems, so nobody was open to messing with the system.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
That could be too. I wasn't in the 3E-4E-Pathfinder split-up scene at all, and only read bits and pieces of testimonials on the internet at the time.
 

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I'm curious if any of the 3e and 5e players have seen this or have opinions on this.
Yeah. There's players who can't wait to roll dice (and they tend towards 'Tanks' and 'Chargers' in every campaign we play) who need to be reigned in by the planners among us. I tend to enjoy support or precision rolls, so if I have a plan I usually scream at these guys to do a wait action so they don't get isolated or blasted by an AoE. I don't think that's unique to any particular edition of the game.

When it comes to combat, some people are here to game the rules and immerse themselves in tactics and some are here to Leroy Jenkins.
 

The1True

My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
I wasn't around when 3e came out, but my impression is that by that time a lot of people were a bit tired of the Chainmail chassis and were ready for a change, so they didn't alienate anybody. But when they brought out 4e, 3e was still popular and a lot of people were attached to it, and it was viewed as a blatant ploy to force 3e into obsolescence so they could sell more books. And by then Dragon was a vehicle for only official D&D content, and did not support either rules tinkering or looking at different systems, so nobody was open to messing with the system.
I like what you're saying here and it makes a lot of sense but despite this excellent logic...

I don't really buy the argument that 4e was this huge change.
in the end I was excited for a new edition of the game and picked up the books and the introductory adventure and bullied my group into picking up the Players Handbook for themselves. We embarked into 4e with great optimism, but the change really was jarring. We needed cards like Magic the frickin Gathering to go along with our player sheets. There were weird cool-down powers for even mundane classes like fighters. The first goblin we met had like 80 hp and took half an hour to fight. The DM was rolling saves for us (I fell in a pit because the DM failed a save for me! Boo Hiss!) The 1st lvl thief and wizard were consistently dishing out more DPS than the ostensibly super-badass dragonborn paladin. The list of grievances goes on...

And some of the things I just listed might have been features instead of bugs. That paladin wasn't supposed to be charging but actually tanking and holding agro. Look at me, I'm talking like a WoW nerd now. And that was the final straw. If I wanted to play MtG or WoW, I'd go do that.

Much respect to 4e. Early on, when we were all Fresh Hells to Contend With here, I dissed 4e because it seemed like an easy target, and Beoric clapped back with a measured and thought-provoking response that shut me the fuck up. It sounds like a groovy game, so take my above criticism as the opinion of one group of d20 munchkins. My point of contention here is that it very much was a jarringly different game than the 2-3.5e progression my group had been on. I would imagine the jump from 1-3.5e without a stop at 2.5e's CS&T and ToM along the way would feel equally disturbing.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
What I have never seen anyone other than myself do is to delay almost the entire team's turns in order to coordinate attack order and ensure there are no enemy actions in between to spoil your plan; basically, the team waits until everyone is ready before they move.
My players did that last night in the second round while fighting a beholder. No foolin'! (My son is quite a tactician.)

There was a post over on Grognardia very recently about 2e (mainly the art), but in the comments mentioned they dumped segments. Is that true? While I know we didn't use them back when I was a young lad because that group had been playing OD&D prior to AD&D's release, but for an adult's mind...what is so hard to understand about them?

Your way makes a bit more sense to me now, thanks for sharing. I could see some problems coming from that--if you have multiple players wanting to be various different things (1 gladiator, 1 pirate, 1 battle mage, etc.) and how you would balance the time out. Maybe several 1 on 1 sessions then bringing everyone together when/if they were ready to do a adventure?

Your example reminds me of my thoughts for my adventure Special Area: The Ranger's Hideout (that you reviewed)...for the player who wanted to be a ranger. A location based adventure where they could test ranger skills as they leveled up, etc. That was the idea I was trying to get behind anyways, much like your arena/location idea for the gladiator.
I would say "yes" and "no", and that gets back to why we had such different notions on how that adventure should play out.

You envisioned it as a side-thing, something a player did solo to use/boost their character-class skills via short, little, one-session set-pieces.

I kept seeing it through my typical lens of "a place where you'd want to adventure and where those class-skills might come in handy". There would be enough going on (and the rabbit hole would lead ever deeper), so that the whole party would want to get involved even if it didn't spot-light them. They would simply get caught up in the drama of the environment. So to me, the Arena is a fully fleshed out adventure location with tons of stuff going on...not a mechanism to facilitate a player's desires about his character. Inverted thinking, really. It would probably end up a place that would frustrate a player's idealized character-notions-of-self---and be a constant challenge, as opposed to vehicle to stardom.

In our home game, when one of the players goes off to do something, the most frequent admonishment I have to make to the others when they interrupt and try to say something to one of the NPCs is "You are not there!". This is quickly followed by them telling the player that is there, "Ask them <XYZ>!" or "Say to them <this>!".

There should be important things to learn (about the environment) even if you are just a passive eavesdropper...so you pay attention. There is no read-aloud, so you had better stay on your toes even when it not "your turn" if you want to learn something (no mouth-breather dumb-phone gazing).

The goal is to create an environment that is compelling, so that it doesn't matter if it's your character doing it, another player's, one of the party's henchmen you took control over temporarily, etc. That's the focus the early edition "meta/detached" (i.e. non-r-r-r-role-playing) gaming style: moving the world's levers and seeing what "you" (the player, not the character) can make happen.

That kind of player/character disassociation is a sharp contrast to the kind of thinking that breeds...
...the ostensibly super-badass dragonborn paladin.
yeeee-up. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
in the end I was excited for a new edition of the game and picked up the books and the introductory adventure and bullied my group into picking up the Players Handbook for themselves. We embarked into 4e with great optimism, but the change really was jarring. We needed cards like Magic the frickin Gathering to go along with our player sheets. There were weird cool-down powers for even mundane classes like fighters. The first goblin we met had like 80 hp and took half an hour to fight. The DM was rolling saves for us (I fell in a pit because the DM failed a save for me! Boo Hiss!) The 1st lvl thief and wizard were consistently dishing out more DPS than the ostensibly super-badass dragonborn paladin. The list of grievances goes on...

And some of the things I just listed might have been features instead of bugs. That paladin wasn't supposed to be charging but actually tanking and holding agro. Look at me, I'm talking like a WoW nerd now. And that was the final straw. If I wanted to play MtG or WoW, I'd go do that.
I used the power cards exactly once, and never used them again. Much easier to just use character sheets with the details of the powers printed on them. Marketing cards to track powers was a dumb idea from the start.

The cool down period for "martial" classes isn't limited to 4e (I think in 3e barbarians have a limited number of rages per day, for example), but it is legitimately jarring without a decent explanation for it. The best response if that bothers you is to play another class, and they eventually introduced the "Essentials" line of variant classes that no longer had martial daily powers. I personally have combined a minor rules tweak with an in-world explanation that (I think) makes them easier to wrap your head around.

The tough goblin suggests to me that you were in the Keep on the Shadowfell, and encountered a goblin that had the equivalent of class levels (Balgron the Fat, 49 HP). Part of the reason it took so long to fight was likely because, as I mentioned previously, they screwed up the math when they first published the books, so neither monsters nor PCs were doing enough damage. Also, the first module, Keep on the Shadowfell, was published before the original incarnation of the rules was even finalized, so it was even worse.

I'm assuming you were using the Dragonborn Paladin pregen from the Quickstart Rules. Yeah, he wasn't meant to be a charger, because none of his abilities work on a charge (unlike the Dwarf Fighter, who is also a "defender" - characters occupying the same so-called roles could actually funciton quite differently). That paladin was best off to mark an enemy, then walk up and engage; he also needed to stay close to the other party members because he was a secondary healer. And I'm sure it didn't help that the marking mechanic for that iteration of the paladin was later found not to work particularly well and was significantly changed. But that paladin in particular was a dull, dull character to run. The fighter was much more interesting.
 
Top