Quote from: jeff37923;292741There's always the lemming-like following of a brand name...

I like to call this the "people too stupid to know they aren't having fun" theory.

If someone bought a game based on name brand and was not pleased by it, they simply wouldn't continue playing. They'd find another hobby or another game entirely. People lead busy lives after all.

Interestingly enough, I just converted my dwarf from my friends 3.5 D&D campaign into 4e D&D.  This is the good counterpart to the all goblinoid party we're running in his home brew setting.

He's a dwarven 4th Battlerager fighter.  I took the Improved Vigor, Dwarf Stoneblood, and Dwarven Weapon Training feats.  He uses a heavy shield, wears chainmail, and uses a warhammer.

So, his attack is +9 vs. AC and does 1d10+7 damage with the warhammer.  

Here are the effects on combat due to Battlerager Vigor:

• When he is hit by an enemy, he gains 8 temporary hit points.
• When he hits any enemy in combat with an invigorating power, he gains 6 temporary hit points.
• While he has temporary hit points and wears chainmail or no armor he gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls.

So, this means that if both that he is hit and he hits his foe, then he can gain 14 temporary hit points in one round.  However, currently, that's the maximum temporary hit points he can have at one time.

I don't think that this is so overwhelming, or imbalancing.  The biggest detractor from this fighter build is the damn bookkeeping.  I almost just went straight sword & board fighter just to avoid the bookkeeping, but I haven't tried this build yet and thought I would give it a chance.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;2927354. People who do not play cannot be counted on to judge anything, in the same way, deaf people can not be music critics.

Untrue. A better comparison would be to say that people who have directed an orchestra for years, including master pieces like say Don Giovanni, The Niebelungenlied and others wouldn't be competent critics of a rendition of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik because they haven't directed it themselves.

Which obviously is a fallacy.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;292735I dunno, I'm actually starting to enjoy the controversy.

I'm enjoying the heck out of it. I'm still not playing D&D, mind you, but I'm loving the critics dashing themselves against the facts.

'Different' is not a subset of 'more powerful'.

Quote from: Drohem;292744Int
So, this means that if both that he is hit and he hits his foe, then he can gain 14 temporary hit points in one round.  However, currently, that's the maximum temporary hit points he can have at one time.

Really? Because I see that as being almost as good as having damage reduction 14.

There also seems to be some confusion as to how exactly the temporary hit points do or do not stack on top of each-other (I think you have it right, but I have seen several interpretations, some of which are far more powerful).

The broken-ness mostly shines through when fighting minions. Even if the battle rager never hits with an invigorating power, the first time a minion hits him he gets more temp hitpoints than the damage he takes, and every hit after that not only fails to cut through his temporary hp buffer, but also renews the battle ragers temporary hitpoint pool.

Quote from: ConanMK;292787Really? Because I see that as being almost as good as having damage reduction 14.

The thing is that I can't count on 14 temporary hit points just because that most possible.  Not only do I have to be hit, I also have to hit a target with an invigorating power.  Currently, at 4th level, I have two invigorating powers; Knee Breaker (encounter) and Bell Ringer (daily).  This means that, at most, I could possibly get 14 temporary hit points twice in a fight, if I blow my wad and use both invigorating powers.  After that fight, it's only possible to achieve a 14 temporary hit points once in a fight until an extended rest.

Quote from: ConanMK;292787There also seems to be some confusion as to how exactly the temporary hit points do or do not stack on top of each-other (I think you have it right, but I have seen several interpretations, some of which are far more powerful).

I don't how there could be several interpretations on how temporary hit points stack for the Battlerager Vigor feature.  It is fairly explicit, and plainly states that temporary hit points granted by the Battlerager Vigor class feature and those granted by using a power with the invigorating keyword stack together.

Quote from: ConanMK;292787The broken-ness mostly shines through when fighting minions. Even if the battle rager never hits with an invigorating power, the first time a minion hits him he gets more temp hitpoints than the damage he takes, and every hit after that not only fails to cut through his temporary hp buffer, but also renews the battle ragers temporary hitpoint pool.

Well, it says in the Battlerager Vigor description that any temporary hit points are gained after damage is taken from the attack, and not gained before the attack's damage is applied.  If my character never uses an invigorating power, then he will only receive 8 temporary hit points a round, and that is only if he's hit by an enemy that round.  

Honestly, I don't see this as broken.  We're talking about, usually, 8 extra hit points.  Sure, it's a nice little buffer, or you could call it damage reduction, but it's not 100% reliable, and the amount of extra temporary hit points isn't significant enough be game breaking.  8 hit points could easily be sucked up in a critical hit, a high damage roll, or by being hit by multiple attacks in a single round.

Quote from: Spinachcat;292708What a crock of shit!

You never sat down and there were 2 fighters and 2 clerics and volunteered to play either a thief or a mage?  You never talked with the other players about making sure that there were not three pilots, two medics and no engineer?  You never choose to multi-class into an area that was missing from the party?  You never decided to make a ranged attacker in a group that only had melee guys?

What laughable bullshit.



Sure.  4e just makes it easier.  



Absolutely unplayable!!!

For the record, 4e has mechanical assumptions that you will have +X at certain levels.   If the GM does not want magic items in his campaign, he simply needs to assign +1 attack and +1 defense bonus at certain levels and the game stays finely balanced.

You can easily run a 4e game with zero magic.  No spellcasters and no items whatsover.   Just men and steel versus monsters.   Your party would have fighters, rogues, rangers and warlords and you could do that just with the PHB and the Martial Powers book if you wanted to get fancy.

And that campaign would rock!



Did you walk 5 miles in the snow to each of your games?   If not, you're not a real gamer.



All those games were published pre-WoW.  

The MMO design creed is "combat balance" and "always useful, all the time".   When designing RPGs in the MMO age, it makes sense to create an RPG with much more balance in chargen and combat than previously IF you want to sell to teens and young adults instead of just selling to legacy gamers.

Also, the balance factors make the game easier to DM.   If it easier to DM, more people will feel comfortable sitting in the Big Chair and thus more gaming groups can be spawned.

A somewhat vitrolic response to what was aimed as a somewhat light-hearted barb at the meta-game speak and min-max number crunching that was filling the discussion but I shall answer nonetheless.

Have I ever sat down and seen 2 clerics and 2 fighters and ..etc ?
Not since I was about 12.
Just not he way we play. We would be more likely to turn that situation into a holy crusade in which each PC had to be a member of a holy cult or something.
The concept is really all that matters.

In a game where we were in some sort of crew and needed pilot medic etc teh GM would probably outline the roles from the off and we woudl each take one and then build characters.
I have never chosen to multi-class into an area that was missing from the party no.

But all these things are actually a scale away from where you are coming from. You are not saying 'In a game do your characters make choices that make the group stronger' You are saying that from the outset the party should think about sitting down and making sure specific powers complement and fit together well. So I take power x because it gives you addition +2 when you use power z. That is a degree further away from roleplaying than I am happy to go. I have no problem with it in a game of HeroQuest or some other tabletop tactical thingie and I love those games.

Re magic items it's a shame the DM no longer has total control over the world they have created. D&D's strength, I always thought, was that it was flexible enough to allow a huge range of Fantasy genres to play out.
Our games were typically lean on magic items and those that existed were either minor or artifacts of some nature that had a global effect.
I am sure you could strip the magic equip out if you spent some time thinking about it though.

I am glad you can play a game with no magic (don't you contradict yourself here from your previous statement?). Standard D&D was always faulted in that due to its HP system (we revised it with an in house rule years ago that is much close to the 'new' HP system but with underlying wounds). The longest continual campaign I played it featured 2 key characters a thief and a barbarian with an occassional dwarven fighter and a wizard and we seemed to do okay.

No we don't really get a lot of snow round here. Is snow essential for 4e?

I find the problem with always useful all the time is that it removes a degree of invention and sophistication from the players. Don't you recall the fun of the old days when you would take some daft seemingly obscure character skill or spell type and build something round it that was totally unique. Sometimes it worked sometimes not. You know the spell caster that specialised in Divination only, the cleric who worships the god of Numbers and Logic and has no access to combat or healing spells, the Riddlemaster bardic kit?

I suspect its just because I am getting old.

Anyway I have to finish writing this murder mystery for tonight or I will have 50 unhappy guests. Thank you for taking the trouble to respond to my queries.

I will say this for 4e...

The fact that the best game breakers we can come up with are the pre-eratta blade cascade feat, the messed up skill challenge math, and the debatably broken dwarf battle rager, (plus I'm sure you can do something sick with a half elf bard and taking powers from multiple classes), then it is possibly one of the hardest games to break out there right now.

Of course that could always change as new supplements roll in and the power creep curve continues.

Quote from: ConanMK;292787Really? Because I see that as being almost as good as having damage reduction 14.

There also seems to be some confusion as to how exactly the temporary hit points do or do not stack on top of each-other (I think you have it right, but I have seen several interpretations, some of which are far more powerful).

BRV is sad, because it's probably more complicated than it should be.  There's absolutely a single right way to handle it, but I can completely see how a group of folks could be confused.  (It's probably the most complex class feature in 4e.)

OK.  The general rule in 4e (and in 3e, IIRC) is that temporary HPs don't stack.  That is, if I have 3 temporary HPs and gain 5 from something, I now have 5.  If I have 5 THPs and gain 3, I still just have 5.

Battleragers get one additional perk in their class features - if they hit (not just attack, but actually hit) with an Invigorating power, the THPs gained from that will stack with anything else they have.

That's pretty much it.  When they gain THPs, they ask 2 questions:

(1) Did I get these by hitting with an Invigorating power?
  YES: Add these to your current pool of THPs.
  NO: Go to question 2.
(2) Is the amount of THPs I gained more than the number of THPs I currently have?
  YES: Replace your THPs with the new higher amount.
  NO: Ignore these THPs.

That's pretty much it.  Sometimes people think there are somehow two "pools" of THPs, that must be maintained separately, but fortunately it's not THAT tough.

Still, I think it's a clunky and non-intuitive mechanic that's not well-explained.

QuoteThe broken-ness mostly shines through when fighting minions. Even if the battle rager never hits with an invigorating power, the first time a minion hits him he gets more temp hitpoints than the damage he takes, and every hit after that not only fails to cut through his temporary hp buffer, but also renews the battle ragers temporary hitpoint pool.

Yep, Battleragers more or less can't be hurt by melee minions, especially at low level - unless those minions have an Aura effect like Charnel Rats or something else unusual.

They are screwed more than most characters against ranged minions, though.  They are likely to have lower defenses than a non-Vigor fighter, and they're basically archer- and wizard-bait.

-O

Quote from: ConanMK;292795I will say this for 4e...
 
The fact that the best game breakers we can come up with are the pre-eratta blade cascade feat, the messed up skill challenge math, and the debatably broken dwarf battle rager, (plus I'm sure you can do something sick with a half elf bard and taking powers from multiple classes), then it is possibly one of the hardest games to break out there right now.
 

Yes I agree that 4e has nigh unperterbable game ballance but I'm still wondering about the other part of Pundy's question.
 
How distinct are the options? The difficulty of achieving game ballance is perportional to the difference between the elements ballanced.
 
My initial reaction is that 4e achieves game ballance by limiting options to a very narrow spectrum. I.e. You don't need a Cleric because because everyone has healing. PC's who cannot heal themselves have been banhammered. You don't need a magic-user because everyone has daily powers. PC's who cannot have been banhammered. The classes are nearly identical and thus achieving game ballance is trivial.
 
So in the devil's advocate's corner, we already have an example from this thread where PC large weapons were "game ballanced" with the banhammer 'player characters should never use big weapons.' And on the side of diversity we have what exactly?

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;293071My initial reaction is that 4e achieves game ballance by limiting options to a very narrow spectrum. I.e. You don't need a Cleric because because everyone has healing. PC's who cannot heal themselves have been banhammered. You don't need a magic-user because everyone has daily powers. PC's who cannot have been banhammered. The classes are nearly identical and thus achieving game ballance is trivial.

That's one of those features that emerges during play, honestly...  The classes are similar in structure, but very different in function.

Everyone can take a single second wind action (and lose their attack) per combat.  This is some amount of healing, but it hardly obviates the need for a cleric (or warlord or bard or shaman or artificer - any will work).  Characters can multiclass to pick up healing, too, if need be.

Everyone also has daily powers, but they're very different from the Wizard's.  A Wizard's daily power might be a big explosion at a distance.  Or it might summon a creature or flaming sphere to aid the party.  Or it might give some lasting status effects to a lot of things.  A fighter's daily will always involve their weapon, and it's generally some variety of hitting something really hard.

Class features and power selection make all the difference.  (Feats somewhat less so, but they're still important.)

So far, every class I've seen plays differently from every other class.  The similarities are only skin deep.

-O

Over at the wizards d&d board they have the optimization forum and they have builds that no sane gm will allow..

http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18147290&postcount=295

that is just one..
most games are broken. the degree of brokenness just differ.

4th aint THAT bad.. even if the linked build are insane..

No, I get that there are differences. I'm just saying that they're small differences. I know from the game I played, for example, that the cleric's battlefield clutter powers are all gimped in some way or another and that those small differences are easy to miss on a casual read through. On the upside, the Cleric's healing powers seem to have a leg up on everyone else. They're different sure, but not it's not a huge world of difference.
 
Like your comment about how the cleric is interchangeable with or warlord or bard or shaman or artificer for healing -- that's because there's a very narrow spectrum of classes. All of them are kinda-sorta the same class. There are thematic differences sure, but it is nothing like the diversity in trying to ballance a superhero game for example.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;293092There are thematic differences sure, but it is nothing like the diversity in trying to ballance a superhero game for example.

Well, few games will have the diversity of a superhero game, so I think that's kind of a poor measuring stick.

What I'm saying is that, even within the class roles, each class plays very differently.  For example, clerics and warlords are both Leaders.  As a Leader, they have an ability to do some healing - that's a constant.  However, a Warlord's primary duties are arranging the party tactically around the battlefield, while enhancing their attacks.  Clerics, OTOH, can cast prayers at range or close-up, inflict more conditions on enemies, and blast undead.

Like I said, it's one of those things that arises in play, and if you've just read through the PHB, you could very easily miss it.

-O