Comments on: Is 4E the deadliest D&D?

By: The Recursion King

The Recursion King — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:29:34 +0000

You speak of your way of DM’ing as though it were the only way; many of us sandbox and allow the story to emerge from the PC’s actions and descisions and do not railroad our players along precrafted stories. For us, the facets of system itself can be easily compared, as our players understand that a bad die roll can kill their characters – we even roll our dice in front of them. This is a very different way to play your style. Even encounter selection can be left to random tables; I’m with Gary Gygax on this one; let the first level party encounter 30 orcs and have them learn to hide because the world does not revolve around them.

By: GiacomoArt

GiacomoArt — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:36:01 +0000

To say some rules systems are nastier than others is comparing apples to oranges. A kobold in 1st-edition D&D would be doing well to take on the weakest PC ever in one-to-one combat. In 4E, a room full of kobolds is as much to be feared as a room full of… well, pretty much anything. Meanwhile, I hear, it’s easier than ever to scale an encounter with a dragon for low-level PCs. Monster deadliness varies less by creature type than by monster level. So you can’t just say, “Well, it took 35 goblins to kill off your party in SuperMegaDungeon 3rd-edition, but only 21 goblins to kill off your party in Zookoorooni the Plastering (TM), ergo Zookoorooni is deadlier.” There are a zillion different variables that apply to each game, to every encounter, and to every possible mix of player characters.

The one constant as you jump from game to game is that it’s entirely up to the game master to walk that line between making things too easy for the PCs and for making things too hard. If he thinks it’s time for an encounter/adventure/campaign with a high mortality rate, he’s going to do his best to balance the probabilities involved to cause a high mortality rate. Where the module says, “4 orcs,” he might throw in six. Where the rule book says, “Paralysis lasts until the end of the victim’s next turn,” he says it last three turns. Where he could choose to pit your party against the fluffy chalk-drawing puppets of Sunshine Land, he instead chooses use Blooddrinker the Uber-Vampire Without Pity as your nemesiss for the campaign. And he can do all this without breaking a sweat, whether he’s playing D&D 4E or Steve Jackson’s “Toon”. This despite the fact that there’s no death in Toon — or at least there wasn’t, right up until the point the GM said there was.

MMORPGs may dispassionately generate random encounters with no concern for your PCs’ capabilities or history, but no GM worth his salt is anything close to unbiased. Even if he could pull it off, he couldn’t pull it off nearly as well as a computer does, so the conceit of the impartial human referee that Gygax envisioned as part of role-playing three decades ago has been slain by the information age. The GM is a storyteller, not just some guy sitting there to make sure his players don’t cheat, and whichever set of rules he uses, it’s just a tool to help him create drama. The rules system will have a profound effect on what components he unleashes to accomplish a desired effect, but he will always start with knowing the desired effect and select those components he thinks will best achieve it — even if those components are a set of random tables he chooses to delegate the final decision to.

By: The Recusion King

The Recusion King — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:57:14 +0000

Exactly; all power ultimately rests with the DM, not the rules. However, some rule system are nastier than others, hence, this topic. Ultimately, its not a black and white issue; a nasty DM will kill you with any rules system, whereas a completely neutral one will find that some systems kill characters off more frequently than others..

By: Giacomo

Giacomo — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:20:46 +0000

“That is so the other way around. The game will kill off the PC’s – but the DM may fudge the dice rolls to keep them alive. So the DM may SAVE them by cheating, working AGAINST the game (mechanics and dice rolls).”

This is like saying that you’d rather find yourself in a dark alley with Hannibal Lector holding a chainsaw than with Mother Theresa holding an AK-47, because the AK-47 is the deadlier of the two weapons. Until the DM puts you into a room with a monster, the rules don’t even start to kick in. And it’s entirely up to him whether you’re facing six kobold minions or six hundred ancient red dragons. The DM chooses the adventures. The DM chooses the encounters. The DM chooses whether you’re facing an underconfident coward whole faint at the first sight of a blade, or a bloodthirsty fanatic who’ll keep fighting for five hours after his heart stops beating.

The dice and the rules hold zero power that the DM does not imbue them with.

By: Soveliss Nailo

Soveliss Nailo — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:11:40 +0000

oh and the recursion king is right ur DM must suck big time

By: Soveliss Nailo

Soveliss Nailo — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:10:44 +0000

All right first of all i was taught to play DND on 3.5, they need to stick with that cuz its simpler, i am 18, a senior in high school and this isnt exactly the easiest version of this game, 3.5 was easy for the young to learn, and the may be more powers and extras but in the basic gaming that makes it too easy, with the weak stuff i can set up a small campaign with friends and family in about ten minutes, but with this new version i keep second guessing myself when i set it up, and always haveing to explain the turn base and how to use and when to use certain things. Its time consuming and pointless, most of the games at shops are all 3.5, i have yet to see a 4.0 campaign jump up in bozeman MT or Billings, its always a 3.5 or 3.0 game cuz NO ONE WANTS TO PLAY A COMPLICATED GAME, dont get me wrong, but ADND was easier than this.

By: The Recrusion King

The Recrusion King — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:50:55 +0000

That’s a really interesting point about Wisdom and Intelligence scores.. I wonder how I could work that in to my own Labyrinth Lord campaign… perhaps suggest tactics to players that will benefit them if their stats are high enough (15+ perhaps?). Food for thought. Oh and your DM sucks if he tactically eliminates any chance of you using your powers.

By: Darrien

Darrien — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:05:00 +0000

I am going to have to agree that 4e is the deadliest edition, having played all the previous versions. My experience with 4e is limited to three sessions, all with different DMs and players, but player out the same.
First encounter is with some kobolds on the way to the starting town, village, or hamlet. This is a devastating event in the characters lives and should logically cause irrational fears of them ever wishing to leave town again. However in the bar, tavern, city hall, we are told to leave town, usually in the opposite direction that we had arrived in. We came from the west, but do not worry, adventure is to be found east of here.
The second encounter is also with kobolds, three to five more than the previous encounter. This is the TPW, and the end of the campaign.

Things I do not understand about 4e.
If player tactics are the be-all-end-all of the game, why do characters even have Wisdom or Intelligence scores?

Things I have learned from 4e.
All towns are surrounded by kobolds.
Regardless what special abilities your class may have, they will always be trumped by what a monster can do. Therefore, a character capable of cleaving, attacking two adjacent creatures, will never face two adjacent creatures as they shift to never be side-by-side.
Daily powers with no effect on a miss, never hit.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:47:01 +0000

In general my group is really casual – as the DM I’m the one who own most (if not all) of the books, so if a character dies it’s not like a player can recreate a new PC on their time. So I’m very flexible on keeping people alive- I really don’t want to kill PCs off. I do a lot of fudging of my rolls, and a lot of times my players will be rolling so badly that they probably need a talking to from Colonel Louis Zocchi. Since the games are so casual, I’d rather fudge and keep the fun going.

By: The Recursion King

The Recursion King — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:40:28 +0000

“It’s not really the game that kills PCs, it’s the game master, but 1st edition does the most to encourage DMs to off them.”

That is so the other way around. The game will kill off the PC’s – but the DM may fudge the dice rolls to keep them alive. So the DM may SAVE them by cheating, working AGAINST the game (mechanics and dice rolls).