T w e n t y S i d e d

I recant on yesterday’s complaints about the combat in 4e. Part of my complaint was based on the misconception that once-a-day powers reset at midnight, which is arbitrary and mechanical. (Part of the problem is that I’m reading both the PHB and DMG at the same time, scattershot, instead of just sitting down and reading them in an organized or responsible manner.) But the main reason I objected to the powers was that I couldn’t see the cinematic / dramatic / possibilities it opened up, because I’m so used to combat being a break in the roleplaying.

The fact that players can try tricks and stunts and improvise with the environment is exactly the sort of thing I’ve always wanted to do, but found the books got in the way. Early in my DM career I tried a few fights with epic scenery (like a rope bridge in a storm, which is right out of the 3.5 DMG) and while they were nice, the setting didn’t really translate into more interesting combat. It was just something cool I described before we began the fight on a stark grid, standing next to each other while we rolled lots of dice. If a player had decided to cut the bridge, or attempt to push their foe over the side, I would have been at a loss. First we’d have to muck about with attacks of opportunity, then I’d have to figure out if this sort of thing was already covered and if there were rules governing it, and then (assuming they didn’t) I’d make up some ad-hoc way of resolving it and the mechanics would feel rudderless. Are we setting precedent here? Am I going to regret doing this? Is this going to imbalance things later?

The page 42 rule – where page 42 of the DMG gives you rough guidelines for all sorts of improvisational situations – is something we could have done in 3.5, but having it in writing gives a certain sanction to this sort of business, and gives players the assurance that while the current action isn’t provided for in the books, the DM is still being governed in some way by the rules and not surrendering to anarchy or capricious whimsy.

I like Rule 42 so much I’m going to drag it along with me – as best as the rules allow – on our Star Wars campaign. (We’re using d20. I understand there is a d6 version as well, but the d20 is the sourcebook I have, so we’re going with that.)

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The two most notable things I’ve seen said about 4e are:

1. The system is more streamlined, leading to more roleplaying.
2. The system is more rigid, leading to less roleplaying.

I’m not done reading, much less absorbing, the fourth edition books, but it looks to me like both of these statements are true.

The system is certainly more rigid. There are “roles” in every party. (Combat roles, that is.) Someone to absorb damage, someone to deal damage, someone to manage crowds, someone to heal. The 4e manual calls them defenders, strikers, controllers, and leaders. These roles have existed in MMO games for years. The four-person team with one person for each of these jobs is so common that even the jokes about how cliché it is are old and stale. The classic D&D adventuring party is a fighter, a rogue, a wizard, and a cleric. Note that this is the ideal setup for both an adventuring party and a sitcom.

How it looks to me so far is that the system is less open to roleplaying because it wants to railroad you into a narrow idea of what an adventuring party is and what they do. But if you already play that way, then the rules are less cumbersome (because they’re not trying to accommodate all those other sorts of parties) and so you can get in a fight and get back to the plot with less time fussing around with numbers and charts.

So what it looks like to me is that 4e D&D is just specializing more than it has in the past. This is a trend that’s been going on since before I got into gaming. We’ve been moving away from monolithic systems that try to be all things to all groups, to more focused systems that are easier to learn and use but are a lot less flexible. Pirate games. Space games. Superhero games. Mob games. Etcetera games.

I haven’t tried to run a 4e battle, and that experience probably won’t come for some time. My group is in the early, faltering stages of trying to get a game going during the season of cookouts and nice weather. And when that game does get going, it will be our long-awaited Star Wars game. So I’m not going to be qualified to really comment on the thing in detail any time in the foreseeable future. So, I’ll hold off on the criticism until then.

I’m just messing with you. Let’s do this:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “D&D 4th Edition:
First Impressions”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.