Why did 4e fail?

Old One Eye · January 23, 2014, 07:43:11 PM

Quote from: S'mon;725718I normally do it in semi-sandbox session where I might plan stuff out 1 session in advance, based on the events of the previous session. I find 4e doesn't work well for pure sandboxing where the GM has no idea what monsters the PCs will fight in advance of play. Apart from the stats issue, I need to bring along minis for the monsters the PCs might meet. When I tried to do sandbox 4e I went with pre-rolled wandering/random encounters, usually three for a session, plus the likely static encounters. It still didn't work great as the PCs would often encounter statics too high or low level for them, and neither worked well in the combat system.

What 4e really shines at IME is a Superhero Team type model, which is more reactive than sandboxing. Lots of interpersonal stuff and drama alongside occasional big multi-page battles that use the XP budget system.

The issue I had with 4e sandbox was that monsters were stretched to spread across 30 levels, and so, a slimmer percentage of monsters was within reasonable fighting range.

Eliminating the +1/2 level bonus to everything completely eliminates this issue and makes the game incredibly smooth to DM.

Bloody Stupid Johnson · January 23, 2014, 08:02:56 PM

Quote from: S'mon;725895What do you think happens IRL if you put a guy with a greatsword vs a guy with a shortsword? The greatsword guy pokes the shortsword guy whenever the shortsword guy closes to strike, while the greatsword guy can strike while staying out of shortsword guy's reach. That's the main difference between the weapons - not amount of damage inflicted by a strike.

I suppose it works if you look at it that way.

Sacrosanct · January 23, 2014, 08:28:59 PM

Quote from: S'mon;725895What do you think happens IRL if you put a guy with a greatsword vs a guy with a shortsword? The greatsword guy pokes the shortsword guy whenever the shortsword guy closes to strike, while the greatsword guy can strike while staying out of shortsword guy's reach. That's the main difference between the weapons - not amount of damage inflicted by a strike.

Unless he's got 2 short swords against the 2 handed sword

Bloody Stupid Johnson · January 23, 2014, 08:36:19 PM

If it was T&T and you had two shortswords then you'd have 6 dice too...

Exploderwizard · January 23, 2014, 08:43:19 PM

Quote from: Sacrosanct;725949Unless he's got 2 short swords against the 2 handed sword

Sigh.

SCA combat is rarely a good example of what a weapon or fighting style is capable of.

The two sword fighter was actually fighting with two broadsword sized weapons, not actually shortswords. This narrows the disadvantage somewhat. However:

1) The SCA frowns on greatsword thrusts to the face. The 2 handed sword fighter in the video negated his reach advantage by not establishing a point defense.

2) Assuming he declined to thrust, targets below the knee are not valid in the SCA. In a real fight he would chop the other guy off at the ankles.

LibraryLass · January 23, 2014, 10:07:54 PM

Quote from: Old One Eye;725928The issue I had with 4e sandbox was that monsters were stretched to spread across 30 levels, and so, a slimmer percentage of monsters was within reasonable fighting range.

Eliminating the +1/2 level bonus to everything completely eliminates this issue and makes the game incredibly smooth to DM.

That seems like it would make high level monsters virtually unhittable, though, would it not?

Sommerjon · January 23, 2014, 11:40:57 PM

Quote from: CRKrueger;725855There's not a single book published that doesn't have a typo. There's a difference between that and a book that never went through any editing or spellchecking before it was published.

Dissociated mechanics, like providing rules that are meant to give the player, not the character, tactical options to make the minigame of combat interesting is a hallmark of 4e design. That the option may make no sense in the context of the character wasn't even a design consideration.

Riiight.:rolleyes:
If you have 60 rules and 11 are dissociative you're good, but once it hits 15...

tanstaafl48 · January 24, 2014, 12:14:49 AM

Quote from: LibraryLass;725981That seems like it would make high level monsters virtually unhittable, though, would it not?

I believe monsters have a similar system (their defenses scale linearly with level) so I assume he means removing both ends of it.

Bedrockbrendan · January 24, 2014, 12:31:17 AM

Quote from: Sommerjon;726010Riiight.:rolleyes:
If you have 60 rules and 11 are dissociative you're good, but once it hits 15...

I think the problem for a lot of people it was more than. Not everyone felt this way, but for me martial abilities you could only use once a day or once and encounter felt very disconnected from the in game events. Rage x times a day was something I could handle, but a whole system built around fire and forget combat abilities was too much for me. So it wasn't like going from 11 to 16, it was the core system and design philosophy itself.

Does that make 4E an objectively awful game? No, absolutely not. But I think there are reasons why some if us didn't like it. To me it all just felt too hand wavy.

Sacrosanct · January 24, 2014, 01:46:12 AM

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;726019I think the problem for a lot of people it was more than. Not everyone felt this way, but for me martial abilities you could only use once a day or once and encounter felt very disconnected from the in game events. Rage x times a day was something I could handle, but a whole system built around fire and forget combat abilities was too much for me. So it wasn't like going from 11 to 16, it was the core system and design philosophy itself.

Does that make 4E an objectively awful game? No, absolutely not. But I think there are reasons why some if us didn't like it. To me it all just felt too hand wavy.

This is how it is for me as well. I play sports. The analogy I like to use is that 4e made me feel like I could only dunk once a quarter. Or I could only hit a 3 point shot once a game. That doesn't make sense in my head. If I have the ability to dunk and make a 3 point shot, I should be allowed to attempt it whenever the scenario presents itself.

The counter argument I've heard to this is, "Well, it just means you are guaranteed to make a 3 point shot when you want."

Hell, that's even more disassociative, in my mind. So yeah, I get how a lot of people aren't bothered by that, and more power to them. I'm not taking away their game. But my mind has a hard time grasping concepts like that for mundane actions.

LibraryLass · January 24, 2014, 01:55:53 AM

Quote from: tanstaafl48;726016I believe monsters have a similar system (their defenses scale linearly with level) so I assume he means removing both ends of it.

Ah. Okay. That could work.

Black Vulmea · January 24, 2014, 02:09:45 AM

Quote from: Black Vulmea;725678'cause, without that epidemic of actual play instances, this is nothing more than third-degree system wankery.

And 3 . . . and 2 . . . and 1 . . .

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;725703Please remove your infernal Gygaxian tunnel vision, and admit that numbers have an actual meaning. According to the numbers for the actual game mechanics of fucking cats, they're a legitimate match for many normal humans, demi-humans, and humanoids. Even smaller critters....such as rats, squirrels, and crows are a slight problem for zero-level guys, via their game mechanics. Stats don't lie.

Case in point.

Lest anyone be fooled by Lambchop's bilious wankage, the rules for house cats in 1e AD&D are indeed completely borked - stories of people mauled by their pets notwithstanding - which is why I, possessed of both a shred of common sense and a modicum of self-restraint, never used them as written. Anyone who did deserved whatever ridiculous outcome they got.

S'mon · January 24, 2014, 02:25:49 AM

Quote from: Old One Eye;725928The issue I had with 4e sandbox was that monsters were stretched to spread across 30 levels, and so, a slimmer percentage of monsters was within reasonable fighting range.

I remember that being a problem when I ran the game in 2009 with MM + MM2, but by now there's a good amount of stuff across the level range. The problem is more IME the narrow range of levels the PCs can fight, Party Level -2 to +4, roughly, or the system gets creaky. This was a problem in 3e too but in 3e low level critters died fast & easily, high level critters killed the PCs fast & easily. In 4e lower level critters die slow and boringly, higher level critters used to mean an endless drag, but post MM3 they work better.

The Ent · January 24, 2014, 03:33:50 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard;725959The two sword fighter was actually fighting with two broadsword sized weapons, not actually shortswords.

[Extreme pedantry]In Rennaissance England a one handed sword - cut & thrust, aka "broadsword", like a light medieval sword - was called a "shortsword"; a "longsword" was a two-handed sword...thus he's actually fighting with "shortsword"-sized weapons...[/pedant]

Exploderwizard · January 24, 2014, 09:11:46 AM

Quote from: The Ent;726058[Extreme pedantry]In Rennaissance England a one handed sword - cut & thrust, aka "broadsword", like a light medieval sword - was called a "shortsword"; a "longsword" was a two-handed sword...thus he's actually fighting with "shortsword"-sized weapons...[/pedant]

Man......gotta love that historical weapon creep. Thus a gladius became a "dagger".