Mythbusting: Nondescript Powers

Sometimes people treat powers like “buttons” that they just routinely mash over and over again, paying little heed to anything except for the power’s effect. For some reason, they never had a problem with this in older editions despite the fact that spells never had default descriptive text until 3rd Edition saw the release of Spell Compendium, while 4th Edition provides it for everything. On one hand I think its true that it draws you out of the immersive qualities of the game if you dont put effort into describing the appearance of an action, but thats not the fault of the edition especially when you consider that the homework was done for you.

Now, this can be especially true for players that just jot down power names and a brief rundown of the effect, or for people playing new classes. For example, its easy to know that burning hands is an area effect that deals fire damage, but what does it look like? That brief description adds an immersive layer to the game that helps spark the player’s imagination. If you’ve played older editions you can guess or assume that it looks like a cone of fire erupting from the caster’s hands, but what about more esoteric powers like life tap (artificer) or your glorious sacrifice (dark pact warlock)? In this case its a simple matter of openinig a damn book and reading the description.

Just to be clear, this is not anything new. In any edition players could roll dice and wait until the DM determines the outcome. If anything, powers and their descriptions provide narrative for the context of the action and effect. For example, in 3rd Edition and prior if a fighter makes a melee attack, you would make a roll and if successful roll damage. In the narrative, this strike could mean many things, especially when you consider the abstract nature of hit points and the fact that hit point loss does not always mean physical trauma.

4th Edition takes this concept and adds a foundation to it. If you use tide of iron, for example, we know that you try and attack your foe and then follow up with a shield bash that knocks them back. The exact details are up to the DM and/or players to determine, but at the least everyone gets a starting point to work with if you like to mentally envision the flow of combat. You might smack the monster in the face, causing them to stagger back, or they might have actually dodged your sword swing and the damage comes from the fact that you collide into them with your shield and push them back. Maybe you just charged into them and use the force of the charge to shove them away.

If you’re a player who really digs these sort of things, like myself, then really you should have a vague understanding of what it looks like from the get-go. I take this a step further and stylize a lot of my own powers. For example, I had a fey-pact warlock whose teleport effects would make it look like that he collapsed into a pile of rotting leaves and reformed elsewhere, and his eldritch blast was a green bolt of twisting energy with golden motes that looked like swirling leaves.

The problem with me when it comes to combat narrative, is that I quickly grow bored with explaining the results and effects over and over again. In 3rd Edition when Red Jason played a human warblade, it got tiresome describing him cutting goblins and the like in half constantly. I tried to mix things up a bit by having him do other things, like tearing the wing off of a chimera (even though he was using a sword attack), but in the end it was like putting Mortal Kombat finishing moves or Final Fantasy summons on repeat: they’re cool the first few times, but quickly get old.

What I do like about the powers is that they help mix things up and provide some diverse ways to describe attacks, but even after it gets old at least players have a nice default image to put into place. For example, everyone knows that when the fighter uses tide of iron, that he is somehow knocking the monster back, even if you dont specifically describe it each time. In the end I think that of all the editions that 4th Edition lends itself most easily to game narrative. You get a ready source of description to spice things up with, even if you didnt care to use it in the first place.

Mythbusting: Everything’s The Same

In 3rd Edition there were three progressions for your Base Attack Bonus (a value that was added to all attacks)and two for Saving Throw Progressions (you used to roll a save against a target DC, which is an inverse of the way 4th Edition does it).
4th Edition gives every class a blanket bonus of +1 for every two levels, regardless.

3rd Edition gave each class a list of skills that you could purchase bonuses in easily, and whatever else cost double for the same bonus. These skill bonuses could be augmented by race, feats, magic items, etc, but otherwise saw no increase unless you invested skill points into them.
4th Edition gives everyone a +1 bonus for every two levels, and a +5 if you are trained in the skill. Race, feat, and other stuff apply, but you never invested anything else after that: everything increases every other level at a constant pace.

Most often this statement is aimed specifically at powers. Attack powers follow the pattern of making an attack roll to determine success, and then letting you deal damage and/or some kind of effect if you hit. While each power might follow an identical pattern of roll-and-effect, there is more to it in the actual narrative of the game and style of powers.
In 3rd Edition, attacking came in two flavors: you either made an attack roll, or if you were a spellcaster you selected a creature(s) and it had to make a “defense” roll. Single roll, and the only variance was who had to roll it.

4th Edition made things more consistent by making it so that if you wanted to attack a creature, you make the roll, no matter how you are going about it whether by sword or spell. I like this kind of mechanical consistency because it also makes it a lot easier to generate rules to determine if your ability works or doesnt. In 3rd Edition the saves got pretty wonky, and since they were based on Hit Dice and type it could be very difficult to make a monster with saves that werent too high or low for its Challenge Rating. The designers are free to focus on one set of functioning mechanics and then just move on.

I contest that 3rd Edition was far more guilty of “samey attacks” than 4th Edition since classes followed the roll-and-damage pattern without any kind of variance. Barbarians, fighters, paladins, and rangers all did largely the same routine: make an attack roll, deal damage if you hit. Rangers didnt have the mobility they did now, barbarians did inferior damage to everyone else unless they were raging (they broke even with fighters due to Weapon Specialization), and paladins could call on their god for divine power once per day…if the target was also evil.

4th Edition adds context to powers so that even if on a pure mechanical analysis they perform similar or even identical functions, they wouldn’t be described as such. That’s a big deal for me: classes feel and play differently than they used to. As a rogue, I feel more nimble and agile than a fighter, even though we both like move right up to a monster and stab at it. As a wizard I don’t feel like a sorcerer, who was actually virtually identical in every respect except for class features (which didn’t amount to much).

To sum it up, I’ll concede that in 4th Edition many things seem the same if you look at it from a purely mechanical standpoint. If you strip away the power sources, context, and narrative, you’ll probably find that many things follow an identical routine. However, I would say that 3rd Edition is far more samey in that regard since so few things did anything more than just plain damage. I think that both games would be said to have samey things, but 4th Edition doesnt have nearly as many, and if you add in a bit of description then it becomes much more diverse than it already is.

In closing, if elements in 4th Edition are samey, then elements 3rd Edition are virtually identical to themselves.

Mythbusting: The Magic Missile "Gatling Gun"

Red Jason has proposed a kind of column where one or both of us tackles popular “myths” concerning 4th Edition. As per his request, I’m going to start things out by talking about the spell magic missile.

A common complaint against wizards in D&D is that, unlike the predecessors, they can cast spells all day. Prior editions had a cap on the number of spells you could cast, most recently modified by having a high Intelligence score. Spell slots were doled out on a per day basis, so once you ran out of actual magic you were powerless until you took a long nap and browsed your spellbook. This was how previous D&D editions balanced mechanics: they limited what you could do each day. The downside is that it lead to the “15-minute day”, where you adventure for a quarter of an hour, burn out all your best abilities, and then tuck yourselves in for the next 8 hours or so before having another go.

1st-level spells were really tame, by which I mean that in a lot of cases were inferior to mundane weapons. Magic missile, for example, dealt 1d4 + 1 damage. Period. The average damage output for this was 3.5, while a light crossbow would deal 5.5 damage on average. The only advantage that magic missile had was that it had a long-range-that-you-never-used, and would automatically hit. The downside was that you could only reliably fire off about 3-4 of these things a day. Going by the default encounter-rate-that-no-one-used, you could expect to plow through about 3-4 encounters before necessitating nap-time.
So, you could basically fire off one shot per combat, but 3.5 damage isnt really that useful. Against any typical level 1 warrior monster, you couldnt kill them unless you rolled maximum damage and they had an average Constitution.

What could you do? If you ran out of magic, you were reduced to a really useless almost-warrior. You could fire off a crossbow that wouldnt hit, or try to whack things with a staff that wouldnt hit. Mostly you could end up being a reliability that probably had a better Knowledge (arcana) skill than anyone else.

4th Edition wizards are much different. They have spells that they can use all the time, which has lead some to conclude that they are now magic missile-gatling-guns. This is blatantly false. At best a wizard can reliably loose his magic half as fast as a ranger can arrows, even if you factor in action points. If anything, it was worse in 3rd Edition when a wizard was able to launch multiple missiles per casting. I think the major problem for some is not that they can cast magic missile ever round, but that they never run out of magic. My question is if this is actually a bad thing.

Wizards are supposed to be wielders of arcane power. Is it really so bad that they can consistently fire off minor blasts of eldritch force once every six seconds? Does it somehow destroy the D&D game? NO. If anything I think it makes more sense than a wizard scrambling around his allies trying to avoid getting hit while pathetically loosing ineffectual crossbow bolts at monsters who are spending swift actions to stifle laughter.
Mostly this assertion just screams of nostalgia. You remember the “good old days” when you could only cast one spell each day, and had to leech off of the party so that they could carry you through the dungeon until you hit a point where you were finally useful. You can argue skill uses and social-roleplaying all you want, but scavenging off the success of someone else doesnt sound like a good time to me. I’d rather pull my own weight.

Challenging Myths

Save-or-die effects are challenging.

SoD effects are not challenging because there is nothing that can be done to stop them, and success or failure hinges on the results of one completely randomized roll. You can argue that there are abilities that can negate SoD effects, but you must either spend a lot of money to get them (thus reducing your overall effectiveness in other areas) or be aware that what you are fighting can do those things. Even then, an item that might negate the effects of a symbol of death or finger of death spell will not work against other SoD effects such as petrification or poisons that deal high amounts of Constitution damage. They are not challenging because there is no skill involved: its pure chance, like gambling. You can sway the odds in your favor all you like, but since a natural 1 always fails there is always a 5% chance that you will just immediately drop death, regardless of other conditions.

Compare this to challenging encounters, once an encounter starts there are many things that can be done to help determine the overall success of the encounter: one roll will not determine whether the party succeeds or is defeated. Combat encounters are challenging because they largely hinge on player skill, with some chance thrown in.

Traps are challenging.

For most of the same reasons above, traps are also not challenging. Traps are hidden throughout a dungeon, not always in spots where you would expect (pit traps in the floor, for example). Sometimes “clever” DMs will think of an expected space, and put it somewhere else to trick the players (placing a pit trap 10-feet away from the door, instead of in front of it). Aside from the detect traps spell there is no passive way to detect traps, so players have to guess where one might be and make a Search check. If they find it, they must then make a completely randomized roll to disarm it: this again becomes gambling instead of player skill, as the trap will automatically be sprung if the player rolls bad enough. There isnt a way to determine the difficulty and make decisions to affect your results or to mitigate the impact of the trap.

To make matters worse, if you fail you are automatically denied a XP award as well. They are only worth XP if you successfully disarm them and if you fail, the trap punches you in the nuts and thats that. Better luck next time.

Preparing spells is challenging.

Having to select which spells you are going to use ahead of time isnt challenging because you all too often have NO idea what you are going up against in the day. A fighter will generally be very, VERY useful in every combat scenario (and a warblade even more so). If a wizard chooses badly, then he can become utterly useless throughout the course of the adventure. If the wizard chooses well, then he becomes effective.
As someone who has played a lot of wizards (and its my favorite class), I can say that I tended to leave a lot of slots open and choose mainly defensive magic or spells that didnt deal “common” energy types (primarily cold and fire). I tried to pick mostly force spells and things that would allow me to control combat without actually dealing energy damage. This makes it incredibly difficult to make a thematic spellcaster because if you go into an adventure with stuff thats the same energy type, you are useless. Leaving slots open only works so well, as it takes a lot of time to fill them up (and by then it might be too late).

Preparing spells shouldnt be a challenge anyway, as its a fundamental that the class is built on. It would be like saying that fighters should have a hard time picking their weapon because some monsters are immune to swords, or axes, or whatever.

Being useless is challenging.

The normal way that this is worded is actually, “part of the challenge of the game is that you arent useful all the time.” Useless isnt challenging, it just means you are useless. Everyone else that has a purpose gets to have fun, while you do not. The usefulness of a character should not come from the class you chose or the class features you picked. Too often spellcasters end up being useless because they run out of spells, or because their array of spells is useless (particularly true of sorcerers and bards). If a character isnt being useful, then the player probably isnt having fun. So I guess being useless isnt useless so much as boring.

There is no challenge with having a useless character. It could be said that its challenging to avoid making a useless character, perhaps, but not ending up useless due to randomized chance.

Elements that only one character can overcome are challenging.

The other side of the coin is sheer usefulness. Situations that only one character can overcome are not challenging because its also essentially randomized. If an adventure has locks or traps, only a rogue is geared to resolve those challenges. If the rogue is dead, lacks sufficient skill, or the party just doesnt have one at all, then the game grinds to a halt. This is not challenging, its a combination of annoying and boring (again).
Similarly, if a “challenge” requires the use of a single, specific spell (such as dispel magic) that the party lacks, the same thing happens all over again. Most DMs will simply remove elements that their players are incapable of overcoming due to lack of resources or powers, but this can still happen in games where DMs are aware of their player’s capabilities and planned accordingly, only to discover that they couldnt overcome it anyway (maybe due to character death, bad rolling, or because they didnt prepare that one spell).

Such elements arent challenging because its like a form of gambling: one randomized ability or skill is necessary. This is why in many DM resources it recommends allowing for multiple methods to overcome a challenge.

Dying is challenging.

Again, the way this should be worded is that, “part of the challenge of the game is that you can die.” This is typically said in response to people suffering the misconception that you cannot die in 4th Edition. Death is a form of failure (it is not a challenge), but failure is not what makes a game challenging. The fear of failure is what keeps people from just sheathing their swords and ignoring the monsters or whatever. There are numerous ways to fail in a game, with death being the most extreme. This doesnt have to be the only form of failure (retreat, loss of resources, loss of potential reward) are all forms of failure that still allow the game to continue on while still giving the players incentive to try.

Character death cannot be challenging because it is not a challenge that can be overcome. It is just one of many forms of defeat.

So what is challenging?

Currently in 3rd Edition I would say that the most challenging parts of the game are solely combat encounters, or elements within combat encounters. During combat characters have various choices that they can make which generally fall into two categories: attack forms and maneuvering. Character placement can affect the course of combat, and how you attack (whether you are picking a spell or determing how much BAB you are pouring into Power Attack) are all tactical decisions. They typically use randomized rolling, but are greatly influenced by other choices you made (such as how high of a Strength you wanted, whether you are buffed up, and the weapon you are wielding).

This is a problem because D&D typically involves a lot of other dangerous elements that fall outside of pure combat: social encounters, for example, are not challenging because they hinge on a single roll that almost always can be incredibly easily made (especially by a bard).

Trivial things should not contribute to the overall success or failure of the game (such as race, feat, or skill choice). Trivial actions should also not (such as touching a wall or trying to open a door). A good challenge is one that the players can ascertain and make decisions to overcome as opposed to randomly punishing them for otherwise innocuous actions. Players who walk down a hall and get hit for 25 points of damage from a stone block might survive, but they arent going to be happy about it. Players that make a tiefling warlock and are driven out of every village because, “tieflings are evil” will similarly not have fun. It might be “realistic” but its not challenging.

This does not mean that you cannot use ambushes. This does not mean that you cannot use traps. In a good ambush encounter the players might take the first series of hits, but they can still react and retaliate: they arent getting hit and instantly losing, or taking damage only to find that the monsters arent there anymore (and that they cannot be followed or discovered). A good trap allows for everyone to participate in its destruction: fighters can try to block dart attacks while the rogue tries to jam the gears (and other characters try to hack apart other sections of the trap). Sure, you might take damage, but you can at least have a chance to react instead of the DM saying, “okay you take 8 points of damage and make a Fort save from poison,” and that no, you wont get XP and that no, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Since D&D is a game and not a reality simulator, the fun-factor is important. Too often people forget that really, you’re playing a game and you shouldnt feel punished or angry for doing so.