squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Could be! I (incorrectly) assumed it was a gender-thing. They are optimizing risk vs. reward.
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Me and the DMG
- Thread starter squeen
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The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
Perhaps, as stated in the other thread, this is why demi-humans don't work as PC races. You need immersion for that, and an attempt to get in character. If you're more focused on metagaming and min/maxing, then all that matters is that sweet dex bonus for the humans with fake pointy ears on them.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Or, in 4e, readied actions in investing in various out-of-turn actions, which simulate practiced maneuvers that react to other characters attacks.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
This is Greek to me.
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
In 4e the basic initiative structure is that you only roll initiative once at the start of combat, and cycle through it until combat ends. Initiative is rolled individually for all combatants (unless you have a large grouping of similar combatants, where is it acceptable to roll for them as a group to simplify the process.
So the simple thing to do is take your actions on your turn, but there are various ways you can take an action on other people's turns. This is what most people do, just attack as soon as they are ready. And then they wonder why the fighter, for example, who ended up very early in the initiative order and immediately charged, ends up surrounded by enemies and pounded into the dirt until anyone else has a chance to do anything.
However, you can wait and delay your turn instead. In that case, you can jump back in to the initiative order at any time (well, not in the middle of someone else's turn, but as soon as it is finished). If you do so, you stay at that initiative position for the rest of the fight, unless you do something else to change it. You can use this if no opportunities have arisen and you ust don't know what to do, or to coordinate actions with your allies.
On your turn you also have the option of giving up your attack to "ready an action", such as setting your pike to receive a charge or hitting the first creature that comes around the corner. Mechanically, you are delaying a portion of your turn until a certain trigger occurs (which trigger you define). If the trigger never happens (you aren't charged, or no one comes around the corner), then nothing happens until your turn comes up in the initiative order again. If the trigger does occur, you take the action which you predetermined (which if you play your cards right can actually interrupt and negate the enemy's action), and your position in the initiative order changes so that for the rest of the fight your turn comes up right before the guy you just swung at. Readied actions don't have to be attacks, but they usually are.
Certain things trigger opportunity actions, usually opportunity attacks. For example, if you are fighting with someone and on your opponent's turn he turns his back on you to move away (as opposed to backing away slowly), you get a free swing on him. IIRC there is a similar mechanic to this in 1e. You also get an opportunity attack if someone tries to run by you to get at someone in the back row. Fighters tend to be opportunity attack specialists, and it is possible to build strategies around tempting enemies to incur opportunity attacks.
In addition, there are practiced maneuvers. Most of the maneuvers that you learn are things that you do on your turn, but you can instead learn maneuvers that can be triggered by things that happen outside of your turn. An example is fighters who "mark" an opponent, by which they are basically saying "keep you attention on me or I will punish you for it". If the marked opponent takes his attention off the fighter in order to attack the fighter's ally, the fighter gets a free swing at him. The advantage of learning a triggered maneuver is that if the trigger occurs you get an extra action on your round. The disadvantage is that if the trigger does not occur then you can't use the maneuver; whereas if you learned an ordinary maneuver instead you are pretty much guaranteed to get a chance to use it.
Finally, other allies can grant you attacks outside of your turn. Leader types can point out an opening, and some other types can create an opening by distracting an opponent or pushing them out of position. Basically, they have learned techniques that allow them to give up part of their turn so the heavy hitters can take a swing instead.
So instead of a fixed 3/2 or 2 attacks per round, 4e characters by default get one attack per round, but they can increase that if they can encourage opportunity attacks, or learn maneuvers that let them take attacks outside of their turn, or have allies who grant them attacks outside of their turn.
So while the core initiative mechanic is much simpler than 1e, there are a variety of ways to take actions points in the initiative order outside of your turn, and these generally result from tactical decisions and/or training decisions made by the characters.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
The combat system in 4e was actually pretty good, even if it didn't feel like D&D. Each person had three actions...a combat action (I think), a move action, and a free action. They were tiered. You only got one of each, but you could convert a given one to one of the lesser actions if you wanted. So if you couldn't attack, you could convert that combat action to a move action and move twice. The free action was for minor stuff, like 'concentrating' on a spell.
I only played 4e, never DM'ed it. I had a Dragonborn Warlord, and I had a lot of fun playing him. In fact, eventually I took a feat that allowed me to do a breath weapon once a day as a free action, and I further modified it with feats to do some nifty stuff (allies in there would be unhurt, and could do an action or something like that). The combat would eventually get kind of same-y after a while, and the rest of the game was just too weird (other spells are rituals, and they take 10 minutes to cast? we have to defend this guy 10 minutes while he casts passwall? UGH) and too far removed the original (I heard they had to do a doozy on Forgotten Realms, not a bad thing actually).
As a tangent to a topic in DP's 5e thread, I did try to play my Dragonborn as more than a human in a rubber lizard suit. I tried to envision him as being slightly more primitive, as a lizardfolk almost, so he'd often try to take trophies from our kills. One of the other characters didn't like that.... ("I take some of his teeth." "NO you are NOT going to do that!" "Sure I am, it's part of my culture.")
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
@Beoric : Does sound kind of fun...the only thing that raised my hackles was the part about learned maneuvers (i.e. having special, learn-able abilities to customize your hot rod). I just got a thing against that. But the nuances that allows more combinatory group tactics sounds (potentially) fun and fairly easy to merge with traditional D&D melee.
Does combat slow down much compared with 1e, after you add all that jiggering?
Does combat slow down much compared with 1e, after you add all that jiggering?
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
To each his own, but I would point out that real martial arts and combat techniques have these sorts of stances and maneuvers.
I find it about the same as the way I played 1e (ignoring weapon v. AC and most of the initiative rules) if you know your character and are prepared. My turns don't usually take any longer - unless I start losing, then I think very hard about strategy, but I did the same thing in AD&D.
A lot of people complain about it being slow, but it generally stems from players and/or DMs not knowing the abilities of the characters they are running, and not bothering to think about what you are going to do until their turn comes up. You don't want players in a 4e group that aren't interested in thinking ahead, or get bored when its someone else's turn.
Some sorts of characters require less thinking than others, so I would steer new or slow players towards them. I usually use those classes for recruitable NPCs so they are easy for the players to run.
Also, since in my campaigns if you want to learn a new technique you usually have to find someone to teach you, I can restrict the availability of the more complicated techniques. This approach makes me a heretic on the 4e boards, BTW.
gandalf_scion
*eyeroll*
With respect to 4e combat, a quick glance at a 4e stat block is very revealing. They are very long and cumbersome. As a long time wargamer, I can clearly see how 4e tried to mimic the "objectivity" of table top wargames. That's a design choice that took the game away from the adventure focus of earlier editions.
Pseudoephedrine
Should be playing D&D instead
I found 4e combats to be significantly faster and more dynamic than 3e. Where 4e really fell down for me was in the skill challenge system, which was terrible. I both used it straight as a referee and significantly modded it. At a certain point, the mods and variations had gotten so massive and drastically different that I just basically asked myself whether I was still even using 4e outside of the combat system, and the answer was basically "No" so I stopped and played different systems instead.
As far as 4e heartbreaker go, I think Heroes Against Darkness hits a lot of what I liked about 4e but is simpler and more straightforward. The skill system is underdeveloped, but at least it doesn't have the elaborate framework of skill challenges to have to knock down in the first place.
As far as 4e heartbreaker go, I think Heroes Against Darkness hits a lot of what I liked about 4e but is simpler and more straightforward. The skill system is underdeveloped, but at least it doesn't have the elaborate framework of skill challenges to have to knock down in the first place.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
I don't know, but I have a feeling that the answer is no. After the freewheeling 3rd edition OGL days they clamped down on the license. Shot themselves in the foot really. That's why Paizo decided to make their own game, Pathfinder.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
I don't think my group ever used this. What is this 'skill challenge system' of which you speak?
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
The quickstart rules are free on DrivethruRPG. I know they are missing errata, but the basic concepts are the same.
Yes, the official stat block took about a quarter page. Given changes in font size it would be about the same as an average 1e monster entry, although it is fair to say that the early ones are very slanted toward combat. Later in the edition they changed that and produced some very good monster entries that were a lot more evocative.
Although it was never done in official products, it is possible to shorten the stat blocks just like you would in early edition D&D modules. I can usually get it down to about 4 lines.
I'm linking two free modules so we have a frame of reference to talk about this. Keep on the Shadowfell was actually written before the rules were completely ready, so some of the mechanics are different in the core books. Khyber's Harvest was also very early, but is indicative of the actual ruleset before they realized how badly they had borked the math and had to make a bunch of changes. To be clear, I am presenting these to illustrate mechanics with a free product, mot because they are great products - although Khyber's Harvest is pretty evocative, IIRC.
Take the Cultist Eyeblade on p. 8 of the pdf of Khyber's Harvest. That stat block could be written as follows:
Also, even the worst 4e stat block isn't as long and miserable to read at 3e stat blocks. At least 4e stat blocks have whitespace.
Fair. Most people who still play 4e don't use skill challenges, even the hard core combat porn types.
It was billed as a way of encouraging freeform noncombat play, but ended up creating an incentive for players to scan their character sheets for their best skills and try to find a way to shoehorn them into the challenge. Player: "I, erm, try to impress the king with my Athletic skill so he will send us on this mission." Response in the module: if the Athletics check succeeds, gain one success in the skill challenge; otherwise gain one failure. Me: "What are you going to do, do pushups in the throne room?"
You know how I'm always saying that most 4e mechanics support old school play, despite the designers' intentions? And that the real problem was with presentation of the mechanics in the modules? Well the skill mechanic is the almost opposite. The designers set out to create a way to support DMs and players who wanted a freeform style of play unfettered by rigid rules, and ended up placing freeform play into a skill challenge straitjacket.
It didn't help that I'm pretty sure there was a directive that all 4e adventures, including those in dungeon, had to include a skill challenge. Which meant you had module writers shoehorning them into situations where they really didn't fit. Also, because they were mandatory for designers, they ended up being gates the players had to get past in order to play, which meant module writers made them essentially impossible to fail. You can find examples in both of the modules I linked; the "Finding Doria" challenge in Khyber's Harvest is one of the least offensive examples of the mechanic.
Its not worth explaining the mechanics because (a) they aren't worth knowing, and I have no intention of defending them; and (b) they are entirely optional, so you can run campaigns without missing them at all.
Pseudoephedrine
Should be playing D&D instead
It's the core procedure meant to be used for out-of-combat challenges that depend on character skill and that affect the entire group. You roll initiative and act in order, characters each explain how a relevant skill applies and roll it, no two characters can use the same skill in IIRC the same round. You're trying to build up successes before you reach a critical # of failures. The 4e team ended up heavily errata-ing page 42 of the DMG repeatedly trying to get the system to work properly, so the # of successes and failures you're aiming for varies depending on which errata version you're using.
It's meant to solve the problem in 3e of challenges where effectively only one character would do the bulk of the work resolving the problem because they had the right skill maxed out, and everyone else would sit around waiting for them to roll high enough.
That doesn't surprise me at all, TBH.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
Here's another table for this crazy thread. I've double-posted it over an K&KA, so sorry if you are reading it twice.
There's a rule about helmets in 1e/AD&D that says if you choose not to wear one, then an intelligent attacker (in close quarters) will aim for your unarmored (AC 10) head with 1 in 2 attacks. The random chance (unintelligent attacker) of getting hit is 1 in 6 plus a hit vs. AC 10 (nekid). So I wondered what affect on your effective (total) AC this AD&D rule has.
NOTE: There's also a rule in AD&D that says you have to remove your helmet to listen at doors. I think they kind of go together.
The rest of the post is copied from the thread on K&KA:
----------------------------------
So, my self-answered question related to this topic is thus:
You are Frodo wearing a mithril chain-shirt (AC 0?), but no helmet...
I wrote a small program in my home brewed MATLAB clone and performed 20,000 trails, using the to-hit tables in the 1e DMG and the 20-always-hits rule. I then looked at the 1 in 6 change an unintelligent creature will accidentally strike at your naked (AC 10) head, and then finally with a 50% chance an intelligent monster will go directly for your bare noggin.
Here's the result if you are being attack by a 1 HD monster, e.g. Frodo gets attacked by an Orc
This basically says that for anything below leather, not wearing a helm has little effect (as expected). That means Merlin in the old Excaliber movie was sporting a metal skullcap presumably to just hide his bald spot.
Around chainmail class AC, forgetting your helm at home starts to hurt you. Versus an unintelligent 1 HD monster, you loss about 1 AC point of protection. Versus an intelligent attacker, you lose about 2-3 points of AC.
In plate mail w/ shield, you lose -1 AC vs. the foolish, but a whopping -4 AC against the wise.
If you are Frodo fighting the Orcs in Moria, and you are more concerned about keeping your armor class a secret from your allies than staying safe, then your awesome body AC of 0 (or even -2) drops to AC 2 (plate+shield) versus a stupid orc, and to AC 5 (chain) versus a smart one (up close).
The spear chucking Orc in Moria, shouldn't have used a missile weapon --- because he, like Thor against Thanos, "should have gone for the head." (I'm sure that, has he lived, Sauron would have made the finer points of combat clear to him at his annual performance evaluation.) Thor too learned his lesson, and held on to his axe for the sequel.
What about higher HD monsters, you ask?
Here's the chart for a 4 HD attacker
You see the attack matrix hasn't really changed much --- it's just biased upwards by 5% x HD, or +20%, but the always-hit-on-20 curve-flattening effect disappears from the extremely good AC results.
Still, let it soak in. AC -2 without a helmet vs. an above-average Ogre:
--> 50% chance of being hit
How about AC -2, no helm, versus a genius Troll (6 HD) with three attacks per round???
--> it's 60% to-hit per attack (40% miss) which works out to be a 1-0.4*0.4*0.4 = 93.6% chance of it landing at least one blow!
Compare that to just a 65.7% chance it would have against you if you weren't so image-conscious!
So...
I've got this thief with an elven chain-mail shirt. He says he doesn't wear a helmet.
How should I indicate to him that it's hurting his AC?
There's a rule about helmets in 1e/AD&D that says if you choose not to wear one, then an intelligent attacker (in close quarters) will aim for your unarmored (AC 10) head with 1 in 2 attacks. The random chance (unintelligent attacker) of getting hit is 1 in 6 plus a hit vs. AC 10 (nekid). So I wondered what affect on your effective (total) AC this AD&D rule has.
NOTE: There's also a rule in AD&D that says you have to remove your helmet to listen at doors. I think they kind of go together.
The rest of the post is copied from the thread on K&KA:
----------------------------------
So, my self-answered question related to this topic is thus:
You are Frodo wearing a mithril chain-shirt (AC 0?), but no helmet...
What's your effective AC in AD&D?
I wrote a small program in my home brewed MATLAB clone and performed 20,000 trails, using the to-hit tables in the 1e DMG and the 20-always-hits rule. I then looked at the 1 in 6 change an unintelligent creature will accidentally strike at your naked (AC 10) head, and then finally with a 50% chance an intelligent monster will go directly for your bare noggin.
Here's the result if you are being attack by a 1 HD monster, e.g. Frodo gets attacked by an Orc
This basically says that for anything below leather, not wearing a helm has little effect (as expected). That means Merlin in the old Excaliber movie was sporting a metal skullcap presumably to just hide his bald spot.
Around chainmail class AC, forgetting your helm at home starts to hurt you. Versus an unintelligent 1 HD monster, you loss about 1 AC point of protection. Versus an intelligent attacker, you lose about 2-3 points of AC.
In plate mail w/ shield, you lose -1 AC vs. the foolish, but a whopping -4 AC against the wise.
If you are Frodo fighting the Orcs in Moria, and you are more concerned about keeping your armor class a secret from your allies than staying safe, then your awesome body AC of 0 (or even -2) drops to AC 2 (plate+shield) versus a stupid orc, and to AC 5 (chain) versus a smart one (up close).
The spear chucking Orc in Moria, shouldn't have used a missile weapon --- because he, like Thor against Thanos, "should have gone for the head." (I'm sure that, has he lived, Sauron would have made the finer points of combat clear to him at his annual performance evaluation.) Thor too learned his lesson, and held on to his axe for the sequel.
What about higher HD monsters, you ask?
Here's the chart for a 4 HD attacker
You see the attack matrix hasn't really changed much --- it's just biased upwards by 5% x HD, or +20%, but the always-hit-on-20 curve-flattening effect disappears from the extremely good AC results.
Still, let it soak in. AC -2 without a helmet vs. an above-average Ogre:
--> 50% chance of being hit
How about AC -2, no helm, versus a genius Troll (6 HD) with three attacks per round???
--> it's 60% to-hit per attack (40% miss) which works out to be a 1-0.4*0.4*0.4 = 93.6% chance of it landing at least one blow!
Compare that to just a 65.7% chance it would have against you if you weren't so image-conscious!
So...
I've got this thief with an elven chain-mail shirt. He says he doesn't wear a helmet.
How should I indicate to him that it's hurting his AC?
- Start describing that the smart monsters are taking head-shots at him?
- ...or just show him this chart?
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squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I'm going to add one more patronizing comment related the 1e DMG --- imagine if such a table had been included originally?
Would anyone have been confused, ignored, or forgotten the helmet rule?
I think Graphics really help to drive a point home, and make it stick in our minds.
So, since this is a forum about Adventure and Product Design --- a take away:
(Agreed? Good. Now, go head and keep skipoing over the posts about icons and other formating tips over in the Illusion thread. [/rant])
Would anyone have been confused, ignored, or forgotten the helmet rule?
I think Graphics really help to drive a point home, and make it stick in our minds.
So, since this is a forum about Adventure and Product Design --- a take away:
Good presentation is fundamental to good communication.
(Agreed? Good. Now, go head and keep skipoing over the posts about icons and other formating tips over in the Illusion thread. [/rant])
DangerousPuhson
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Why don't you just tell your player "you know there's a rule about helmets affecting armor class, right?", and if he doesn't listen then he can live with the choice he's made? You'd probably get more response to your posts if they didn't seemingly over-complicate what most would consider a pretty straightforward situation... I get that you're keen to dissect every facet of the game and really get into the number-crunch mechanical grit of the rules, but I think you might be overestimating the amount of people on here who are similarly motivated.
When the forum touts "adventure design", it doesn't mean the same thing "system design". I think more people are here to discuss the former rather than the latter, and so you'll see more participation in threads dealing with the former over the latter. Exception: arguments seem to bring the boys to the yard, so maybe if you start an argument about what you want to talk about you'll get the active participation you crave (I do not recommend this approach, for sanity reasons).
It probably doesn't help things to see a veritable TED Talk on the subject culminate into a common-sense adage like "Good presentation is fundamental to good communication" either. Just saying.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I posted the tables here (after the K&KA) because---while I realize very few folks (here) care much about 1e rules and their implications---I thought of a way to try and tie it in to the following:
You are correct about one thing, controversial statements (like the small chide at the end of my last post) seem to elict more of a reaction than detailed content.
Que sera sera.
- the topic of this thread (i.e. dissecting the 1e DMG a.k.a. understanding AD&D System Design)
- Formatting which I believe should be front-and-center as a part of Adventure Design
You are correct about one thing, controversial statements (like the small chide at the end of my last post) seem to elict more of a reaction than detailed content.
Que sera sera.
Pseudoephedrine
Should be playing D&D instead
Just to be salty for a moment, I do wish core rulebooks of games had more diagrams and fewer illustrations. I don't really need more generic fantasy art, but a flow chart of a process, a map with a proper scale, or a well-designed graph are all extremely useful, and I wish more games included them.