-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
This still comes down to making the fiction bend to the rules, rather than the opposite; which is a fundamental problem for some.
That this fiction-bending is here put on the player's plate doesn't change what it is.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Its a powerful ability for players. More than anything else, that's why it popular.
tomBitonti
Adventurer
4E dwarves have “Slow and Solid”, which reduces forced movement distances by one. It seems rather powerful, given how much forced movement there is In 4E
Hatred is too strong here: I freely admit that I dislike 4E, for several reasons. I don’t hate it, and wish well to folks who enjoy it. I‘m prepared to explain what I don’t like about it, but really at best I just try to get folks to understand my (and likely other’s) reasons.
TomB
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Hit points as written (in every edition) are simply too abstract for what they're being asked to represent.
They can't rationally be explained as is. Kitbashing required to split them into tiers - could be Body-Fatigue, could be Wound-Vitality, could be Bloodied-Unbloodied, or (perhaps better yet) some combination of all those.
Then, write up an explanation of what each tier is modelling, how it interacts with various thing including curing, resting, poison, etc., and how each tier affects character capabilities (if at all).
Well, when I read and apply the rules of 4e game I get an awesome game of fantasy heroics.
When you do it, you get a game in which combatants are glued to the ground, movement is stop motion, and notionally skilled warriors can't exert any martial influence over opponents three or so metres away.
To me, this seems to make clear who has the better grasp of the fiction-mechanics relationship intended by the game.
I should have thought to look in at the PHB Monk, OA is where I remembered seeing the ability.
The earliest version is in the 1978 PHB (p 30):
Monks make saving throws on the table used by thieves. . . . If a monk makes his or her saving throw against an attack form, the monk will sustain no damage from the attack, even if the attack was a fireball, for instance. At 9th level (Master of the North Wind) or higher, a monk who fails to make his or her saving throw will sustain but one-half the total potential damage which the attack form would deliver, if possible. That is, a fireball would do 50% of total damage, but the gaze of a basilisk would still petrify the monk.
Gammadoodler
Hero
Ennhh. I think that's a matter of taste. For my money, the fiction of it all is primarliy the province of the DM and the players.
Deciding the fiction is fun and easy. Game balance..less so in both cases.
Autumnal
Bruce Baugh, Writer of Fortune
Look, @pemerton , you have no idea how much Rob Heinsoo always loved Gumby and Ray Harryhausen and wanted to make D&D more like them. I mean, way more than he wanted to format it all like Magic: The Gathering - he’d do these stones and drunk rants about his heroic archetypes back in the ‘80s.
Ok, not really.
Ok, not really.
