Quote from: Omega;887138Me and every player I showed it to hated the near totally random chargen system. A buggy system no less. Remove some of the excessive random and yeah its fun.

The chargen is random as you want it to be. I am surprised the RAW dialed 4e GW chargen to 11 on the random scale, but that's easy to house rule. It's not like there were disparity in the quality of powers. There were different flavors, but 4e GW didn't min/max out of the box - though I hear the CCG packs had some power creep.

The big coolness for 4e GW is the reskinning of power. You can fly? Want wings? Cyborg jetpack? Psionic levitation? Elemental magic? That encouraged a lot of creativity.

Quote from: Cave Bear;8872074E is very much its own thing. Just embrace what 4E is and focus on making it the best possible game it can be.

Bad Cave Bear! That's a 2 Day Topic Ban for attempting to have reasonable discussion in a 4e thread!!

You've triggered the children!!

Quote from: Cave Bear;887220I. Combat Pacing

I use Morale rules.

Nothing except for the mindless fight to the death.
At the top of each round, Bloodied foes get a Saving Throw. If they fail, they flee. Otherwise, they are caught in the madness of combat and keep chopping away.

This speeds up combat hugely.

Quote from: Cave Bear;887220Reason 1: Monsters have too many hit points.

The Morale rules solve much of this.

However, even this can be a problem at higher levels. At the Paragon Tier, I also used the Glass Cannon solution where I cut the HP in half and added 1 die of damage to all attacks.

Quote from: Cave Bear;887220Reason 2: Whiff factor; attacks miss too frequently.

I only saw the Whiff factor as a problem with Dailies. We had a house rule that all Dailies came with a +2 Attack bonus.

Your solution of Expertise is a free feat sounds fine too.

Quote from: Cave Bear;887220Reason 3: Late combat feels like a boring slog compared to the exciting 'alpha strike' of the earlier rounds.

Again...the Morale rules solve this.

Another solution comes from 13th Age: the Escalation Die. Each round, the PCs get a bonus based on the number of rounds (up to 6). This creates an interesting dynamic where you might save Encounter powers to later rounds to get a big bonus.

If you're a nasty GM like me, you let the PCs and the Monsters use the Escalation Die so combat becomes deadlier for everyone.  

Quote from: Cave Bear;887220Reason 4: Players take too long to select actions on their turn.

I didn't have this problem much in the Heroic tier, but damn, it showed up in Paragon and insanely in Epic.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;887221The Ranger Class.  Mechanically speaking, Twin Strike was the most power ability in the game, everything was compared to it, for utility.

Note that Twin Strike does 1W damage, no damage bonus from Ability scores. Thus, if a Ranger has +4 Dex bonus and Long Bow, then he could do

Careful Attack +8 Attack, D10+4 Damage
or
Twin Strike +6 Attack, D10 Damage, but 2 attacks

D10 equals 5.5 damage.
If you hit with Careful Attack, you do 9.5 average
If you hit once with Twin Strike, you do 5.5 average
If you hit twice with Twin Strike, you do 11 average

So Twin Strike is a great at-will power, but I don't think its overwhelming. If you see the foe is armored, its a much better bet to Careful Attack and get that +2 Attack bonus and the DEX bonus Damage.

Quote from: Omega;887224Totally YMMV of course if the GW version is any indicator. That feels more like an RPG and does not have the heavy board game feel. Did come with lots of pogs and battle maps though.

Here's the joke. 4e GW is way more of a boardgame than 4e D&D, but the name D&D carries phenomenal emotional baggage and that baggage brings expections that GW's name does not.

If WotC had just continued 3e and launched 4e as "Dragonstrike: the RPG" as a separate line, then there would not have been a Pathfinder and "Dragonstrike: the RPG" would have plenty of fans too.

Quote from: Cave Bear;8872324E's gameplay outside of combat leaves something to be desired. The designers included skill challenges as an all purpose solution to devising non-combat encounters but it comes off as a bit... stilted? Bland?

Skill challenges worked in the 4e playtest because they were really loose and flowing, and that's how I ran them. But as presented in the PHB and DMG, they are a real mess.

You don't actually need them. You can just use skills and powers outside of combat without the "skill challenge" matrix of Wins/Losses. FOR ME, I really liked those because I encouraged lots of fast, flowing creativity around the table. But the "everybody roll your STR three times and give me the tally" was idiotic and I never used it that way.  

Quote from: MockingTone;887249I would fix 4E by removing lolis!

Welcoming Mocking Tone!!

You're right. Lolis was the problem in 4e.

BTW, WTF is a lolis?

Quote from: cranebump;887416Yknow, I've heard this comment a few times. Having never tried this iteration, I am curious as to why it seems to be a better experience when running GW? Do the system mechanics fit better with the genre conceits?

I like 4e D&D, but I loved 4e GW.

Chargen is especially interesting IF you encourage reskinning while toning down the gonzo. That just requires talking with players and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Combat is deadlier. Instead of worrying about heaing surges, you either survive the combat and regain all your HP or you die. Damage output seemed higher too (I'd have to crunch numbers, but it felt that way).

Rules are streamlined. There's 10 levels. You had less powers, so the everyone was encouraged to roleplay instead of looking to the RAW for the answer.

As for the Gamma World-ness of it, 4e GW is my second favorite GW (my first is GW 1e) because the collision of all realities setting allows for lots of crazy stuff and thus an auto-conceit for why weird techno shit would be laying around various places and for why your PCs could pick up little temporary powers.

It's a huge shame WotC did not advertise 4e GW like a mofo. It could have been a YUUUGE hit with teens because it didn't carry D&D baggage and it had that insano kitchen sink that teens love (and those of us who are just graying teens).

Quote from: Cave Bear;887439If you're not going to make your own arguments then why do you even bother to comment?!

Because it's pretty retarded to not see a difference in utility between:

1) free action, per encounter, ability that affects all damage, that is basically unstoppable and will occur at all times.

2) Spell (so, limited use, and a 4th level on at that), pricey component, that only affects a limited class of damage (basically non-magic weapons, for the SRD version), limited duration (10 min/level), can be circumvented in several common enough ways, and limited amount of damage stopped in any event.

Didn't the Arcana one only block 2-5 attacks? If so, it should be obvious that 2-5 is somewhat below infinity, no?

Since it's not obvious to you on the face of it that one is these is not nearly as generally useful as the other, I doubt much else I have to say would make sense. Did the OP start a troll thread?

Anyway, back to the point for those interested in legitimate discussion, with a party of level 10 characters, each with an uber-power, each with a half dozen or so other semi-uber-powers, plus another handful of special-effect powers...it really does become a mess of special abilities firing off, pretty much every encounter.

Then when the Big Bad shows up, you get twice of much specialness firing off, because Action Points (again, note how 5e responded to the Action Point problem by restricting it to one class, if memory serves) and super-uber powers.

I'll grant D&D never has functioned particularly well at high levels (though, in my opinion 5e does it best), but 4e's hyperexceptionalist design just caused a complete collapse around level 10 (with pretty big cracks at level 5).

So, I'd scale back the powers every level thing. Honest, in 2e, getting your hit points doubled at 2nd level was actually very nice.

Quote from: Doom;887466Because it's pretty retarded to not see a difference in utility between:

1) free action, per encounter, ability that affects all damage, that is basically unstoppable and will occur at all times.

2) Spell (so, limited use), pricey component, that only affects a limited class of damage (basically non-magic weapons), can be circumvented in several common enough ways.

Since it's not obvious on the face of it that one is these is not nearly as generally useful as the other, I doubt much else I have to say would make sense.

The Battlemind powers you referenced were daily powers (limited use).
And higher level ones at that!
Of course they should be highly effective at what they do. If they weren't, you would be complaining about the Battlemind's lack of power at higher levels!

*edit*

Quote from: Spinachcat;887458...

I use Morale rules.

Nothing except for the mindless fight to the death.
At the top of each round, Bloodied foes get a Saving Throw. If they fail, they flee. Otherwise, they are caught in the madness of combat and keep chopping away.

This speeds up combat hugely.



The Morale rules solve much of this.

...

Again...the Morale rules solve this.

...

That is a good rule.

While I still hold that any potential 4E clone/heartbreaker should focus on playing to 4E's strengths, there really is a lot of good stuff that 4E could adopt from Moldvay Basic and other TSR-era versions of D&D.

QuoteSkill challenges worked in the 4e playtest because they were really loose and flowing, and that's how I ran them. But as presented in the PHB and DMG, they are a real mess.

You don't actually need them. You can just use skills and powers outside of combat without the "skill challenge" matrix of Wins/Losses. FOR ME, I really liked those because I encouraged lots of fast, flowing creativity around the table. But the "everybody roll your STR three times and give me the tally" was idiotic and I never used it that way.  

I'd like to see those rules. Were they in that 'Wizards of the Coast: Worlds and Monsters' book?

QuoteWelcoming Mocking Tone!!

You're right. Lolis was the problem in 4e.

BTW, WTF is a lolis?

You know. Like a Touhou.

Quote from: Spinachcat;887458...

I use Morale rules.

Nothing except for the mindless fight to the death.
At the top of each round, Bloodied foes get a Saving Throw. If they fail, they flee. Otherwise, they are caught in the madness of combat and keep chopping away.

This speeds up combat hugely.



The Morale rules solve much of this.

...

Again...the Morale rules solve this.

...

That is a good rule.

While I still hold that any potential 4E clone/heartbreaker should focus on playing to 4E's strengths, there really is a lot of good stuff that 4E could adopt from Moldvay Basic and other TSR-era versions of D&D.

QuoteSkill challenges worked in the 4e playtest because they were really loose and flowing, and that's how I ran them. But as presented in the PHB and DMG, they are a real mess.

You don't actually need them. You can just use skills and powers outside of combat without the "skill challenge" matrix of Wins/Losses. FOR ME, I really liked those because I encouraged lots of fast, flowing creativity around the table. But the "everybody roll your STR three times and give me the tally" was idiotic and I never used it that way.  

I'd like to see those rules. Were they in that 'Wizards of the Coast: Worlds and Monsters' book?

QuoteWelcoming Mocking Tone!!

You're right. Lolis was the problem in 4e.

BTW, WTF is a lolis?

You know. Like a Touhou.

Quote from: Cave Bear;887467The Battlemind powers you referenced were daily powers (limited use).
And higher level ones at that!
Of course they should be highly effective at what they do. If they weren't, you would be complaining about the Battlemind's lack of power at higher levels!

My goodness, did my memory fail again? I could have swore there was an at-will power that had a 55% chance of blocking all damage.

Oh wait, here it is, funny nobody else could find it:

Iron Defense    Iron Guardian Utility 12

Your skin becomes as hard as iron, allowing you to shrug off even the deadliest blows.
 At-Will + Psionic
 Standard Action     Personal
 Effect: Until the end of your next turn, roll a d20 whenever you take damage. On a 10 or higher, the damage is reduced to 0. Otherwise the damage is halved.

Now toss this in with all the other abilities that shift/displace/ignore damage...

Anyway, here's a discussion of *just* battlemind powers at first level, I don't even want to know how many pages it is.

Just to keep track of all this is *nuts*...now put 4 other players around the table. Good luck keeping track:

... how well the battlemind can defend her party mates. In this second article on the new psionic defender I'll take a look at how well she can defend herself.

As mentioned in the prior article, a battlemind  starts out knowing how to use scale armor and a heavy shield. This would give a starting battlemind AC 19.  You could take  Armor Proficiency (Plate) for a single point gain in AC, but that requires Strength and Constitution 15.

For a Con/Str, Con/Wis, or Con/Cha bonus race, using the beginning ability score array of 16, 15, 14, 11, 10, 8 would wind up 18, 16, 15, 11, 10, 8. These are decent level stats if you are willing to forgo a starting Con 20, or Con 18 + Wis or Cha 18 array.

A tertiary Strength based battlemind build is not as unintuitive as you might think. Aside from opening up plate armor use, it helps to ameliorate a semi-defense related deficiency of the battlemind – opportunity attacks.

Unless Strength is boosted or one of the Melee Training feats are chosen, the battlemind is restricted to rather lackluster OAs. With blurred step's limitations outlined in my previous post, there is very little a non-OA optimized battlemind can do to deter enemies from simply walking away unscathed.

Simply put, without a lot of forethought and careful building, the battlemind is not very adept at opportunity attacks.

Sorry about the side trip into OA-land. But the flaw in the build needed to be addressed. Back to self defense!

Hit points are pretty good for a battlemind. With Constitution the primary stat, you know you'll be  tough. At 1st level you get 15 + Constitution, then 6 per level afterward. A typical battlemind with an 18 Con will have 33 hit points, 16 bloodied value, a surge value of 8, and 13 surges per day. If you wanted to burn a feat on Toughness you could be looking at 38 hp, 19 bloodied, 9 surge value, and 13 surges.

There are two encounter powers in the class feature Psionic Study, a battlemind may choose one of them.

Battle resilience is a Wisdom based defensive free action that gives 3 + Wisdom modifier resists all until the end of your next turn. It triggers off an attack hitting or missing you for the first time in an encounter.

Speed of thought is a Charisma based offensive positioning free action which allows you to move 3 + charisma modifier when initiative is rolled for the encounter. This can be used in a surprise round. Obviously it is very effective at getting the battlemind into the fray early. Considering Dexterity is a low priority for most defenders, initiative modifiers are usually low as well. This power will help overcome the slow and lumbering defender stereotype.

However, as this article is (mostly) about the battleminds personal defense, we'll look more closely at battle resilience.

Battle resilience suffers from some of the ambiguity of other battlemind powers. It is a free action with a trigger. A free action takes no time (or very little time) and can be taken on your or another combatant's turn. Thus, strictly speaking, as soon as the attack is made against the battlemind, she can use battle resilience.

The ambiguity of this depends on how your DM rules free actions and where in the resolution of the triggering attack you may use the power and gain the resistance.

Battle resilience is usable ONLY on the first attack against you during an encounter. Thus its usefulness is already severely limited.

If your DM allows free actions at any time, you could wait until you see if the attack hits and trigger it before the damage is dealt. Thus you save yourself 3 + Wis mod initial damage. I feel this is the intent of this power – to absorb some of an opening attack's damage and provide possible defense against further damage until the end of your next turn.

If your DM only allows the power to trigger after the attack is resolved battle resilience becomes somewhat less useful. It can still help soak up further attack damage until the end of your next turn, but that initial hit still gets through fully. And it is quite possible no other damaging attacks are sent your way before the power ends.

To muddle things even more, your DM's ruling on what constitutes an attack can affect whether you avoid any damage from the initial attack. Let's say you have a Wis mod of +4 giving you a resistance 7 all. Then a power or ability with multiple to hit and damage rolls are used against you –  claw/claw/bite for 7/12/14 damage. If your DM rules an attack is a single d20 roll, you would take 0/5/7  damage. If your DM rules all d20 rolls included in a power are considered one attack, then you would take 0/12/14 damage. A difference of 12 damage vs. 26 is significant.

You may want to discuss with your DM what he considers an attack.

The battlemind's four current at-will standard attack powers each have a defensive aspect to them, actually giving the defender some minimal (mostly) single target controller ability, too. All of them are Constitution vs. AC and does 1[W] + Constitution modifier damage on a hit, unaugmented.

Demon dance does psychic damage opposed to the rest of the level 1 at-wills' untyped damage.  It also imposes a -5 penalty to opportunity attack rolls until the end of your next turn. Positioning just got a little less hazardous for you and your allies with an effective +5 to your AC.

Augment 1 is more situational by removing the target's threatening reach. there are not too many baddies out there with it, but when you do run into one, this could be useful.

Augment 2 does more damage (2[W] + Con mod) and the target cannot make opportunity attacks until the end of your next turn. More easy positioning when needed.

Iron fist grants the battlemind resist all equal to the battlemind's Wisdom modifier. Less damage taken equal more health retained and more hits able to be withstood. If you have someone in the group who offers THP, paired with resist all you could be taking little to no damage from most attacks. Resist all is also great against ongoing damage. Just remember, damage resistance does not stack; only the higher damage resistance is effective. So if you have someone in the group who offers damage resistance, this ability is less useful.

Augment 1 changes the resist to fire resist 5 + Wisdom modifier. More situational, but useful.

Augment 2 just does more damage,  2[W] + constitution modifier.

Bull's strength pushes the target 1 square. This is okay for some positioning options, but it is limited. A slide would have been better. Pushing your target away is contrary to a defender's role. you really want those suckers focused on you, and within weapon range. If you push the enemy away, it is like giving it a free shift back from you. This has minor use, but overall is counter-productive. (Yes, I realize you do not have to push the target, but then you are making a glorified basic attack.)

Augment 1 increases your reach by 1 for this attack. Now it's getting more useful. In tight quarters and something is harrying your squishies? No problem, augment bull's strength with a power point, reach right past the baddies surrounding you, and shove the annoying bugger right out your squishy's grill!

Augment 2 makes this attack a blast 3. It is against all creatures, not just enemies, so you need to take some care your allies are not in the way. This is an effective minion clearer as well as an Oh Sh!t attack. It still pushes any target hit 1 square. If your group lacks good minion control or other AoE damage, this is practical, if limited in use by available power points.

Twisted Eye gives the target a penalty to attack rolls equal to the number of your allies adjacent to it on hit. The penalty lasts until the end of your next turn. Two factors play into this power: how many mêlée allies you have and how willing they are to position themselves properly for this to be effective. Melee light partys will see less effect from this than those with at least 3+ mêlée, or at least ranged willing to move into harm's way. This becomes very effective in heavier mêlée groups against single targets, especially élite and solo targets.

Augment 1 allows this at-will to be used in place of a basic mêlée attack. I wish this were part of the base power and did not cost a power point. But, in later levels, with more than the initial 2 power points to spend, this might become more useful.

Augment 2 also blinds the target until the end of your next turn. This is actually pretty great. The target is now granting combat advantage, everyone has total concealment from it, and it cannot flank.

Whirling defense marks the target until the end of your next turn. Wow! You could conceivably have THREE (!!!) marked targets at once with continued use (and hits) of this power (and augmenting battlemind's demand to mark two others). Useless against minions as a hit will pretty much explode them.

Augment 1 boost your mind spike damage by your Charisma modifier if you use it before the end of your next turn. Gambling one power point a marked target adjacent to you will attack someone besides you is risky. It depends on how the DM plays the marked creatures. If he often ignores marks to attack others, then it might be worthwhile.

Augment 2 turns this into a close burst 1. Another nice minion sweeper or a way to get a group of enemies focused on you for a round. The biggest drawback of this is mind spike is an immediate reaction, so even if you are able to punish one mark ignoring bugger, the others can pretty much do so with impunity –  aside from the -2 penalty to their attack rolls.

Which two would I take at first level, you ask?

Demon dance and twisted eye have some nice synergy. You can set your allies up to position themselves with less hazard adjacent to your main target, then impose a hefty attack roll penalty on it. I also like the blinding aspect of twisted eye's augment 2. But this combo really needs at least 3 mêlée in the party to be effective.

I would probably take iron fist for the resist all (especially if paired with a THP tossing leader), twisted eye for the possible attack roll penalty and to blind a target to help set up a nova, or whirling defense for the added mark and possible minion sweeper use.

The level 1 daily disciplines also have some defensive uses to them, though I will not go into as deep of detail as i did with the at-wills. (Go buy the PHB3, you mooching buggers!)

Allies to enemies – psychic damage, and a forced mêlée basic attack? This does not sound as bad as it might. It all depends on how much damage the BBEG or his henchmen are capable of doing with that basic mêlée attack. Thus it is a bit situational. Not a horrible choice, though.

Aspect of elevated harmony – self-healing and the ability to gain some THP off augmented at-wills. Nice if the party lacks sufficient healing. Even better when you start getting more than 2 power points. Otherwise pass.

Psionic anchor – teleport the target to a square next to me when it ends its turn? Yo-yo sticky. The target can still move away and attack others, this just makes it annoying to do so. If you use it on a non-marked target it increases in value.

Steel unity strike – Why does this make me think of Jimmy Hoffa? This does more damage than the other three level 1 dailies and you go into a stance. A very special stance which allows you to make a 2[W] + Con mod damage Constitution vs AC attack against any marked adjacent enemy that moves without shifting. Can you say non-gimped opportunity attack? A decent choice if you want better OA's on your marked baddie and do not have the Strength tertiary build....

Seriously, this is overboard.

Quote from: Doom;887469...

Seriously, this is overboard.

Well, first off that's charop shit. Nobody but autistic savants and minmaxers actually play that way at the table.

It isn't even terribly complicated charop shit though. The text only looks complicated because you posted a lot of it in one big chunk.
You can make any topic appear complicated if you present it in dense blocks of text.

Quote from: Spinachcat;887458BTW, WTF is a lolis?

It's a pejorative term used to infer pedophilia.  However, it's a Japanese term to denote an animated female character with an underdeveloped figure.  It's a shortening of the word Lolita, as per the movie with the same name (Yes, I know there's a novel, but the Japanese use the movie.)

Note that the characters may seem under-aged, often is the eldest female.  In fact, the Japanese Animation shows that use it tend to have characters younger with clearly more developed figures a very common gag.

Quote from: Doom;887469My goodness, did my memory fail again? I could have swore there was an at-will power that had a 55% chance of blocking all damage.

Oh wait, here it is, funny nobody else could find it:.....

Seriously, this is overboard.

Iron Defense    
At-Will + Psionic
Standard Action     Personal
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, roll a d20 whenever you take damage. On a 10 or higher, the damage is reduced to 0. Otherwise the damage is halved.


"What's Doomy doing this round?"
"Standing there and Iron Defensing?"
"Wait what was that? you moving and then Iron Defensing? KK."
"What do you mean why isn't anything attacking you?  You're not doing anything"

Quote from: Sommerjon;887478Iron Defense    
At-Will + Psionic
Standard Action     Personal
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, roll a d20 whenever you take damage. On a 10 or higher, the damage is reduced to 0. Otherwise the damage is halved.


"What's Doomy doing this round?"
"Standing there and Iron Defensing?"
"Wait what was that? you moving and then Iron Defensing? KK."
"What do you mean why isn't anything attacking you?  You're not doing anything"

What, seriously?

All I knew about Battleminds before today was that they were psionic defenders with an ineffective marking mechanic and a feat tax (they need the Melee Training feat just to pull of opportunity attacks... defenders are supposed to be good at opportunity attacks right out of the gate.)

Holy shit, that's a terrible defender power.
Enemies then have no incentive to attack you instead of your allies.
It doesn't even matter if Battleminds are indestructible if they can't do their damn jobs.

Quote from: Spinachcat;887458The chargen is random as you want it to be. I am surprised the RAW dialed 4e GW chargen to 11 on the random scale, but that's easy to house rule. It's not like there were disparity in the quality of powers. There were different flavors, but 4e GW didn't min/max out of the box - though I hear the CCG packs had some power creep.

The big coolness for 4e GW is the reskinning of power. You can fly? Want wings? Cyborg jetpack? Psionic levitation? Elemental magic? That encouraged a lot of creativity.

Here's the joke. 4e GW is way more of a boardgame than 4e D&D, but the name D&D carries phenomenal emotional baggage and that baggage brings expections that GW's name does not.

If WotC had just continued 3e and launched 4e as "Dragonstrike: the RPG" as a separate line, then there would not have been a Pathfinder and "Dragonstrike: the RPG" would have plenty of fans too.

I like 4e D&D, but I loved 4e GW.

Chargen is especially interesting IF you encourage reskinning while toning down the gonzo. That just requires talking with players and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Combat is deadlier. Instead of worrying about heaing surges, you either survive the combat and regain all your HP or you die. Damage output seemed higher too (I'd have to crunch numbers, but it felt that way).

Rules are streamlined. There's 10 levels. You had less powers, so the everyone was encouraged to roleplay instead of looking to the RAW for the answer.

As for the Gamma World-ness of it, 4e GW is my second favorite GW (my first is GW 1e) because the collision of all realities setting allows for lots of crazy stuff and thus an auto-conceit for why weird techno shit would be laying around various places and for why your PCs could pick up little temporary powers.

It's a huge shame WotC did not advertise 4e GW like a mofo. It could have been a YUUUGE hit with teens because it didn't carry D&D baggage and it had that insano kitchen sink that teens love (and those of us who are just graying teens).

1:  The main problem was the designers saw fit to insult you for not wanting to do the total random chargen. That irked people. They liked the freeform nature of it. Just didnt like being insulted right out the gate.

2: Yep, the ability to call it whatever, even the races.

3: The modules and the CCG try to make it more a board game. But the core itself doesnt. But then the whole game was schizophrenic in what it wanted to be. But would we get the cool TV series with the same Dragonstrike actors?

4: Really? Its hard to tell... :cool:

5: You also have to unbreak chargen. As was you could not actually get a human character by the rules. And it wasnt all that goofy really. The Sasquatch even is a nod to to Alternity GW.

6: The explanation of combat is a little garbled. But seems like it is at least somewhat faster after all calculations since you add your level and any mods to your to hit roll vs the target AC. You dont auto heal after combat. But a 5min short rest is pretty quick.

7: Verily.

8: 4eGW is my most disliked for the setting which both utterly fails to be Gamma World and pisses all over the franchise more than White Wolfs d20 GW did. Which is an accomplishment. Would have been more appropriate calling it Gammarauders.

9: It seemed to be tailor made to repulse older GW fans to one degree or another. I think the lack of focus would have not clicked with players new to GW either as the book jumps all over the place in tone. You have the loony land slapstick tone, the serious RPG tone and then the circus freak horror tone, and the TORG cosm tone. None of which is focused on enough. d20 GW at least focused on the nanotech and transhuman theme. 4e GW has no focus. And yeah.

For a testbed proof-of-concept platform it was not advertised. In the end. Be glad it failed as otherwise 5e D&D might have been saddled with that damn CCG. Imagine having to "collect" half your spells and magic items from random boosters. ugh!

But still. for a 4e RPG it moves along relatively well.

What I dislike more of GW 4e is that the goofiness is a lie. It's just gloss, a veneer. The game itself is still D&D and is all about careful tactics. If you play the game in the goofy spirit in which it is presented you will end up dead very quickly.

Oh sure, the authors get to make the jokes about clown feet mutations and inflatable dolls shields, the players are forced to look past the joke and treat those items seriously. It produces a terrible disconnect.

Quote from: jeff37923;887396For the curious, 4E gets shit upon because it was a miniatures skirmish game sold as a role-playing game and shoved down people's throats as D&D. No crime if you like it, but it is not as suited to being a RPG as it is a tabletop computer wargame simulator.

I honestly do think there is very little wrong with the system when you use it for what it is designed for, stuff like Blood Bowl or Space Hulk. The OP and most of the posters here agree that 4E was too focused on combat or else this thread about "How to fix 4E" would not exist because it didn't need fixing to be a RPG.

I dunno, my group has plenty of time and fun role-playing in 4e. What rules actually make a game force role-play? From my limited D&D experiences (AD&D 2e, 3.PF, 4e and 5e) the amount of role-play put into the system is almost always derived from the people playing, not rules thrust at us. One can, quite simply, play most (if not ALL) editions without any regards to role-play and just focus on the combat side of the system.

When most people talk about the non-existence of RP in 4e it's usually because they equate 4e's Skill Challenges to what surmounts as Role-Play and there not being enough time to RP in between all the lengthy combats. Skill Challenges, as written in the DMG/PHB, were an abysmal mess. I never used them like they said to in the first books. I did like the formula however not the implementation. A Skill Challenge was great if the players didn't know they were actually in one. And here's the kicker, they should almost ALWAYS be decided as the players are role-playing. Their in-game decisions and how they RP their characters in the scenario can simply by-pass certain checks in Skill Challenges or complete one entirely.

Comparing 4e to 3.5 there were many times combat was the key focus of the game. 90% of the feats, prestige classes, and class features enhanced or modified things you did in combat. Yet the non-existence of RP isn't stated anywhere in 3e. Miniatures were heavily pushed as a game supplement and even mechanics helped foster the idea that they were almost required to play. Yet no one accuses them of being a Mini-Skirmish game. Why? It can't just be push, pull, and slide effects (which 3e had too).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397There was a time period where I was running D&D3, OD&D, and D&D4 in various configurations with many of the same players crossing over from one system to the next. I was also recording the sessions, which allowed me to do very accurate comparisons about combat length across systems.

What I found was that:

(1) Assuming a similar number of combatants, the average length of time to resolve a round worth of actions was generally comparable between all three systems (with D&D4 possibly being slightly longer, but not significantly so).

(2) The length of combats in OD&D and D&D3 were generally comparable. However, when measured across all combats OD&D averaged slightly less time per encounter because OD&D has more spells that instantly end an encounter (compared OD&D's sleep spell to D&D3's, for example). (This was somewhat counteracted at my table because ubiquitous hirelings generally increased the average number of combatants in OD&D compared to D&D3.)

(3) D&D4, on the other hand, featured combats that took two to three times as many rounds to resolve as comparable OD&D and D&D3 fights. And this directly translated into longer fights.

A uniform methodology doesn't solve this problem because, whatever the methodology is (i.e., the goblins cut and run when half of them have been killed), it still takes longer to get to that point in the fight.

I think part of the problem was that every goblin or monster used were all standard monsters of different roles. While those encounters occurred in published adventures, casual games were much different. I'd probably never run an encounter where the PCs were going up against 5-6 creatures of significant hit points. That would be.....long. Instead I pit them up against a couple of hit point intense monsters and fill the rest with things like minions. Minions helped set larger scale scenes where PCs can engage with mowing down many enemies but can succumb to be getting overrun and swarmed while one or two big-bads are wading in and dealing significant damage.

Also, and this is what I was talking about earlier, why didn't anyone ever change the monsters' HP mid-combat? If I felt a combat was slogging through and losing it's effect, make the next hit on the monster kill it if it's bloodied (just 1/2 it's HP gone). I adjust HP on the fly to make for more dramatic games and keep the action flowing. If you're using another at-will again just because you're out of Encounter powers and most of your dailies and the intention of the encounter is to drain you of your resources, job done and move on.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397(4) D&D4 fights were also longer on average because (a) there were no abilities that instantly ended encounters and (b) the relative lack of strategic play (i.e., resource ablation over multiple encounters) made the range of meaningful combats much smaller (which meant a lack of easy, quick fights; in OD&D and D&D3 you can get 7th level characters quickly mopping up a half dozen goblins; in D&D4 such an encounter would be entirely pointless).

Most combats in 4e aren't throw-a-way ones. They're not intended to be. You can do it, sure with minions, but if the combat isn't going to be significant or important, why are you doing it? Or if you like more sand-boxy style campaigns where there's a possible fight around every bend in the road, use minions for the most part with LOTs of them and then occasionally throw in a big-bad for more effect. One of the things I hated in v3.5 were combats that took 10 mintues and our 6th level characters got like 25 XP for killing some rats or Kobolds. At that point, getting out dice and fighting really isn't even worth the break in role-play for some measily XP and copper coins.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397The other problem contributing to fights that last "too long" in D&D4 was the design decision to reduce the number of abilities that monsters have. The logic was that a monster only survives 2-3 rounds, so if they have more than 2-3 things to do it's pointless. This logic was always flawed (you can encounter the same creature multiple times; there may be multiple versions of the creature in the same fight; tactical flexibility is a thing), but it was particularly disastrous when you also increased the length of combat.

Hm, I'm not really sure I follow. In most of my v3.5 games monsters usually had 1 schtick to do. They could attack with a weapon (like natural ones or ones carried) or they had some special feature from a tacked-on class or template. The only time it was more of a thing was spellcasters later on and then the DM had to search through the PHB for each spell and how it works and the amount of bookkeeping was a serious drag on the encounter and game. By keeping the amount of capabilities to a quick-reference minimum it cut down on how much time the DM was going back into the spell section for DCs and number of damage die, etc.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397The result was a systemic bias towards combats that shot their load and then... just continued happening for some reason for another hour.

My 4e combats never took longer than an hour. Group synergy and players not suffering from taking too long to choose their action and all meshing well their their own tactics tended to make combats go fast. A seasoned group does have that effect though, regardless of the system being used.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397I've found that games with a preponderance of dissociated mechanics tend to create mechanics-only play even among players who don't engage in that behavior in other systems.

*shudder* yea I've read the article. What I find funny is the utterly complete lack of the article also pointing out how often it's occurred in other systems, namely 3rd edition in splended amounts. Dissociated mechanics is, I've found, just another way to say "Fighters can't have nice things."

Quote from: Justin Alexander;887397Once you've surrendered yourself to simply accept that you can only attempt to do a backflip once per day because that's what the Backflip ability says, it follows that you can only target creatures (and not objects) with your Scorching Burst because that's what the ability says. Once you've broken the mechanics-fiction loop, it tends to stay broken (or at least takes some effort to get back up to speed).

Nah, I think the those DMs were far more concerned with opening up a flood gate with at-will magics and powers that they didn't want to open for fear of making them overpowered. It doesn't, but that's the fear I've always heard float around. Like in Pathfinder there are LOTS of DMs who hate that cantrips are at-will. Same as in 5e too. Certain daily Exploits in 4e can easily be hand-waived as stunts a human body cannot easily and readily do over and over or because a monster has caught on to the attack and will be ready if a player tries it again. OR the DM, not liking that explanation, can just make all powers Reliable if they miss and allow PCs to downgrade if they want to do X, Y, or Z power again. If, for example, a 7th level Fighter used a 3rd level maneuver, I'd be fine with him asking to replicate the attack using a higher-level encounter power in it's place. Same thing with Dailies too.

Quote from: Soylent Green;887489What I dislike more of GW 4e is that the goofiness is a lie. It's just gloss, a veneer. The game itself is still D&D and is all about careful tactics. If you play the game in the goofy spirit in which it is presented you will end up dead very quickly.

Oh sure, the authors get to make the jokes about clown feet mutations and inflatable dolls shields, the players are forced to look past the joke and treat those items seriously. It produces a terrible disconnect.

This is what I mean by the schizo nature of it. Like there were four different writers. And none were on the same page as the others. The end result is an incoherent mess of a setting that isnt a setting at all.

Quote from: Sommerjon;887478"What's Doomy doing this round?"
"Standing there and Iron Defensing?"
"Wait what was that? you moving and then Iron Defensing? KK."
"What do you mean why isn't anything attacking you?  You're not doing anything"

Actually, by the time the characters reach this level, there are quite a few ways to attack that don't require a Standard action, and quite a few ways to take more than one attacking action a round.