How would /tg/ feel about a tabletop game that literally designs

>>54472385
Ideally, that's how it should be.
But I'm a fan of the idea of scaling in pretty much all areas, but at different rates.
Ie. A high level tank still has some very good DPS and even a little healing utility.
Or a high level healer can still hold their own in pure combat as well

Proper progression is the name of the game.

>>54472385
This is literally just D&D 4e. It exists and is extremely good as a skirmish scale wargame, highly flexible and enjoyable in that area. I heartily recommend it for this purpose.

>>54472385
Since you're describing DnD 4e, we already know the answer:

/tg/ almost unanimously hated it until 5e came out, and now some contrarians are hopping on board with the handful of people who actually liked it to pretend like it was the best version of DnD the whole time.

>>54472385
Works for games where the mechanics are supposed to be gamey and divorced from roleplay (see: D&D 4E). Doesn't work for games where mechanics are supposed to be either a simulation of character abilities (see: GURPS) or where mechanics are designed to work alongside roleplay/be little more than adding a sense of fairness and risk to what would otherwise be freeform (see: FATE).

>>54472385

I hate healers. They can break a setting and make combat absurd. I preffer buffers.

>>54472385
tanks only exist because of the aggro system used in MMOs.

>>54472419
its because 5th E tried to be the happy medium between 4th and 3.5. And does neither job better. At this point I've lost faith in wizards to produce non designed by committee tabletops.

>>54472385
>How would /tg/ feel about a tabletop game that literally designs its classes like an MMO?
I enjoyed 4e.

>>54472412

>Skirmish scale wargame

D&D 4e is an RPG, and is no less an RPG than any other edition of D&D. It doesn't even fucking work as a wargame.

>>54472449
Maybe they will learn and 6e will be good

>>54472385
MMOs that follow that triangle are such trash. Why simplify everything to that degree if you're not trying to make a quick buck off of a complacent userbase?

I do suppose that the division of labour works nicely in tabletops but I prefer nuance.

>>54472439
Seriously though, if you're not healing, dealing damage, OR at the very least distracting enemies and getting the pressure off your teammates by "tanking"...what in the everloving fuck ARE you doing?

>>54472385
Ideally, classes should have a function in combat that they're good at, assuming you are using a class based system.

To use 4e as an example, it's probably the only edition where a baseline Fighter actually has a way to defend his party members that isn't standing in front of them and hoping they'll be attacked.

In some ways, the 4e Fighter is also the least like an MMO tank compared to other editions. In AD&D or 3.5, the only way a Fighter can protect a party member by default is by simply having more health and AC, and 'tanking' it directly.

In 4e, you instead defend more proactively. You attack an enemy, giving it a penalty if it tries to swing at anyone else, and taking a slice out of them if they do. However, Defenders in 4e aren't exactly tanks, since they actually want enemies to sometimes violate their marks. If you play it strictly like MMO aggro, any Defender will quickly run out of health and healing and will be missing out on a lot of extra value.

In any case, it would be worse design to simply have classes that only do damage, while other classes get to do all 3 depending on what spells they prepared that day.

>>54472477
Hampering enemies by status effects at range. Or giving buffs or extra actions to your allies.

>>54472512

Your false dichotomy is showing

>>54472512
>wanting to have teamwork and defined classes in our cooperative dungeon combat simulator is BAD and WRONG

If 90% of the rules are going to be about combat, then they should at least be good rules.

>>54472385
Fuck off with your constant 4e threads and try an actual rpg

>>54472462
At this point that kind of thing sounds like an abused spouse explaining away black eyes

>>54472545

There is no useful definition of RPG which excludes 4e while including every other edition of D&D.

>>54472466
The concept is simple but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The thing that differentiates a good RPG from a bad one is how fun, intriguing, and deep the combat is on a base level, and how well it scales IMO. The overall concept of the three "quintessential roles" does not take away anything from the game. That's like saying "oh, this fighting game sucks because the only way you win is by doing more damage than your opponent". It doesn't work like that. The core concept means NOTHING except to anchor your game to a central point so you don't create stupid useless bullshit.
>>54472504
I'd still put that under "healing" I suppose. Healing kinda extends to buffs/debuffs and whatnot.
>>54472512
>hurr hurr wanting good combat means that roleplay has to suffer even though they're completely isolated

>>54472385
Controllers
Artillery
Skirmishers
Leaders
Support

4e's core concept is based off of this. Whether you are one of the plebs that think that must mean "Video game" is another matter.
But Tank DPS and Healer by another name are still the same.

>>54472538
>>54472531
>Munchkins are still trying to justify ruining tabletop.

I guess at least you made a lot of Capitalists a lot of money.

>>54472568

I'd argue that they're not isolated- Good combat systems add to and enhance the roleplaying experience by letting you convey your characters personality through their actions, giving you mechanically tangible consequences connected to how they react to a crisis.

>>54472568
>even though they're completely isolated
This is your problem. You play D&D like it's a JRPG.

>>54472558
It WoW with dice. 4th e was actually kinda fun but there were basically 3 classes with different flavors and no practical mechanisms for roleplay or customization.

If thats your thing rock on. But in comparison to more robust systems that offer a tonne of agency like the white wolf games, 4th e looks pretty thin.

>>54472588

Lying isn't cool, anon.

>>54472568
Eh, crowd control (debuffing) is more like tanking and buffing is more towards healing, definitely. In any case, you can RP that perfectly, especially if you ramp up that for people to actually be able to do the fun shit that works, and if you amp up the realism it can get quite like a simpler version of XCOM's gameplay.

tl;dr: good, wargame-like combat in RPGs is not a bad thing, especially since it can be represented.

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>>54472593
no u?

>>54472622

>Wanting my character, a competent hero with the skill necessary to do their job and do it well, to be mechanically represented in a competent way that lets them do their job well, is rollplaying!

>>54472582
Yeah, and for the teamwork based dungeon-crawler that D&D pitches itself as and many other fantasy games lean towards, the group should default to being people who bring something to the table.

It wouldn't be much fun playing a knight who can't do something as simple as stopping a bunch of goblins from running past him and killing his friends, and it would leave a sour taste if the mage of the group can simply step forward and solve all the day's problems without anyone else needing to contribute.

Having roles helps reinforce the idea that the party is a team of specialists that need eachother to succeed.

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>>54472599
You think the MMO model is realistic?
>please hold my keks, there are to many for me to handle

>>54472641

I completely agree. I was just arguing against the idea that RP and combat is disconnected.

>>54472582
Decent point. But a lot of the times, things might not truly convey how your character is feeling anyways? The class structure is rigid so you'd have to reflavor some things to make sense for characters that don't "fit the mold"

For example: in one of our campaigns, a fellow player has the most nonchalant and passive barbarian ever. How does he roleplay having incessant rage? Being genuinely angry at his opponent? The answer is he doesn't. Because he doesn't fit the mold. He just rages and that's it. Little to no roleplay in combat
Also, right now I play a rigid, militaristic, monk who ultimately wants to see his leader own a glorious kingdom. What subclass do I take?....path of the open palm. It makes little sense but I'm trapped in this box where I can't roleplay these decisions in combat, because that kind of monk doesn't *exist* in the game.

>>54472641
>It wouldn't be much fun playing a knight who can't do something as simple as stopping a bunch of goblins from running past him and killing his friends, and it would leave a sour taste if the mage of the group can simply step forward and solve all the day's problems without anyone else needing to contribute.
>basically any 3.5 game

That being said Id take a game that offers me agency than a game that assigns me a role. It works for a video game but a pnprpg that emphasizes both combat and roleplay should have a nice blend. Which is why 3.5 is still the best version.

>>54472679

How does that logically follow at all? Assigning combat roles doesn't take away agency in any way.

>>54472639
>I need to win at every game and can't even handle fictional failures.

>>54472695

And here you go into false dichotomies again. Wanting my character to be competent doesn't mean I can never fail, just that when it comes to my area of expertise and competence, I have a reasonable chance of success and being able to contribute to the group.

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>>54472694
I want to play a unique charachter with a unique playstyle
>SURE! please select from our robust options!
>lol jk you either take damage, deal damage, or be healbitch.

>>54472588
>3 classes with different flavors
>no practical mechanisms for roleplay or customization

Let's just analyze the class with the least people in the game: the Defender.

>Fighter
Hypercompetent soldier that excels at protecting allies by not giving enemies an opening when they try to move away.

>Paladin
Blessed champion of the gods that can bless his own allies, protect himself and can lay divine punishment over multiple enemies.

>Warden
Tribal champion that infuses himself with the spirits of nature, manifesting them in ways that directly alter the field of battle.

>Swordmage
Arcane specialist that uses his blade to canalize magic, using his magic to soften up attacks towards anyone, and also to move very quickly across the battlefield.

>Battlemind
Psionic warrior that excels at dashing across the battlefield at really fast speeds and fucking with enemies' heads.

>>54472647
Not the notion of a MMO model, but an average army 3-4 people fireteam is composed of people with different skillsets working together to protect one another and cover weak points. You don't have everyone trying to coordinate everything, a full sniper fireteam or anything like that.

>>54472695
>It's ok to be a limp-wristed villager while your friend is a super powerful wizard who can bend reality with his dick!
It's more about keeping everyone roughly on the same level and being able to do different things that actually matter.

>>54472712
Post your most recent character.

>>54472721

So you know nothing about how the system actually works, got it.

Having roles doesn't mean not having unique playstyles. It actually gives more room to create robust frameworks for character mechanics, as well as letting players customise characters within those frameworks, gaining extra capabilities outside them without fearing that they'll lose effectiveness for branching out.

>>54472721
There are many methods to do this, also you're forgetting buffing and debuffing.

>>54472729
If you think that is necessary, you are missing the point of role playing entirely. Gandalf fought in the same battles as Merry and Pippin.

>>54472731

Why?

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>>54472729
Lets be realistic, those are all just different flavors of the same fucking tank.
>striker: DPS
>Leader: Healbitch
>Controller: CC

All were missing is a spare striker or controller and were ready to run our instance!

>>54472767
So that we can all judge your as being a powergaming roll player that we already know that you are.

>>54472752

What are you even talking about? Lord of the Rings wasn't an RPG.

>>54472729
This.
>>54472752
Ya, and how do you think the players playing Merry and Pippin feel, getting absolutely outclassed and cucked by a great wizard like Gandalf?...all for the sake of "roleplay"

Balance is really fucking important unless you're playing with an extremely experienced group that doesn't mind big power gap differences.

>>54472789

They all function in completely different ways, is the point, which torpedoes the argument he was replying to.

>>54472791
Ikr, it was just a dumb movie for kids!

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>>54472385
/tg/ hated 4e, so you know.

But since Pathfinder went full furfag and people actually tried 5e and learned that shit painted white is still shit when you try to eat it, there's been a bit of a renaissance for 4e.

>>54472752
Other anon, but: In a role playing GAME, the latter should be as important as the former. Otherwise one would do theater/freeform, if the latter is lacking. Or go play some vidya, if the former is lacking.

Not that the MMO triangle is a good framework. But sure beats no framework at all.

That's an incredibly reductionistic point of view and you know that. That's like saying every caster is the same in 3.5.

Oh wait, casters in 3.5 were far, far more like one another than casters between 4e because their spells were the fucking same, while 4e has actually different spells for casters and they behave differently.

>>54472721
Which is where you get characters with secondary rolls, or effects that don't strictly fit into the main category of what you're doing.

That said

>unique playstyle
>class based system

The entire point of classes is to give you a basic framework that your character fits into. You can have stuff within that that sets you apart, but at the end of the day, your class should be able to bring something to the table.

>>54472790

If you've already come to a conclusion, why should I bother?

And it's not like if I posted a 4e character sheet you'd have a clue how to interpret it anyway.

>>54472809
Well, you got it right on the movie part. I heard it was also a book, but I dunno.

>>54472805
>Balance is really fucking important unless you're playing with an extremely experienced group that doesn't mind big power gap differences.

Why do you think this is? Because the old games had the possibility of big power gap differences and then assholes like you broke out the cheese and whine because all you know how to play is power fantasies.

>>54472838 was a reply to that post: >>54472789

>>54472808
You don't know a damn thing about mechanics dont you?

They all fulfill the same exact functional roll, with just enough variation to provide the illusion of choice.

Im sorry your favorite tabletop is just WoW with dice. If thats your thing rock on, but as far as tabletops go it offers the least agency.

>>54472845
>I'm a powergaming faggot, but I don't want to show proof on the internet and lose this bullshit argument.

Fuck off, powergaming faggot. You ruined Dungeons and Dragons for the rest of us.

>>54472864

Thanks for proving your ignorance. We can safely ignore you now.

>>54472873
Have you tried not playing a broken system instead of crying?

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>>54472853
This isn't even an argument you fucking troglodyte

>>54472853

>People being able to equally contribute in a team based cooperative game is a bad thing

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>>54472845
Its cute you think 4th e char sheets are complicated or esoteric.

>>54472875
To much truth for ya huh? I did have some fun with 4th e but in comparison with whitewolf shadowrun or even 3.5 it was unbearably restrictive.

>>54472896

>If you aren't ignoring the 'Game' half of 'Roleplaying Game', you're doing it wrong

okay

>>54472881
Have you tried not jerking off about how powerful your imaginary wizard is and playing a game for the mutual enjoyment of everyone involved instead of trying to win at something where there are literally no stakes involved at all and that will never have any effects outside of the imaginary lives of imaginary characters in an imaginary world?

>>54472873
Your level of ass pain could be seen from space famalam.

No one is forcing you to play 4e you gigantic cockstain.

>>54472899

They're not that complicated, but you clearly know nothing about the system so it would be meaningless to you.

>>54472789
The Defenders in 4e I would argue excel even more in terms of different playstyles.

The Fighter wants to be surrounded by enemies, and be striking them so that he can punish them with heavy damage when they try and move away.

The Paladin prefers to challenge the biggest guy in the fight, and take him on in 1v1 combat, his mark functioning from a range as he nullifies the guy's attempts to function.

The Warden wants to be in a big group like the fighter, but doesn't punish with damage. Instead, he wants to root them all in place, make them punch him, so that he can heal himself, buff his allies, and become even more unkillable. Probably the only direct 'tank' in the game.

The Swordmage wants to mark someone, and then zip as far away as possible so that the enemy is either wasting time chasing them, or is forced to violate their mark and let the swordmage get their effects off.

The Battlemind's mark punishment mainly involves staying right on the enemy's heels, constantly hammering them down in a relentless advance if they try to move away.

In spite of them all having the same job, they accomplish it in different ways.

>>54472907
You were the kind of faggot little kid who would claim you had a force field when playing cops and robbers, aren't you?

>>54472864
Maybe I want to play a defender that protects his allies by creating zones and causing enemies not to move; maybe I want to play a defender that protects his allies by rushing to them at the last moment possible and redirecting the attack; maybe I want one that can protect his allies by softening the blow of an attack from far away.

Those are all very different ways of protecting your allies.

>>54472896
Why did it kill RPGs? No circular logic, what inherent thing of RPGs did "crybabby powergaming metagaming faggot Munchkins" kill?

>>54472922
You powergaming faggots ruined an entire industry full of games. There is literally nothing worth playing because you faggots ruined the entire industry.

>>54472932

Nah, I'd just argue that if someone got a force field, everyone else should get something roughly equivalent. Y'know, balance.

>>54472924
The Paladin just really wants to draw the attention of every enemy while challenging one guy in particular and the Swordmage really wants to stop one guy from afar while doing his best to root another guy in place.

>>54472935
If you don't already understand why metagaming faggots ruined RPG's, you never will.

>>54472942

>The games everyone likes are bad because I say so!
>All these people making new products and making money off new audiences are awful!

>>54472917
Yes, I'm doing it right now and casters a shit.
You're still crying because you're bad a system that wasn't made for you to do what you want, though. Try something else or learn how to play.

>>54472968
No, please, enlighten me, oh great grognard, for I am a 19-year-old moron who wasn't around for the great days of old where people actually roleplayed.

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>>54472923
My fellow negro i've been dming since you were likely in diapers. 4th E was a pleasure to run but it was fucking weak to play. The most fun I had was with Avenger because it basically instagibs BBEG's, which is always good fun for DM tears. But it got boring faaaaaaaaaaaast.
>>54472924
But they all do this
>stand in one place and taunt to tank damage
in one way or another. The Druid, warrior, paladerp, and deathknight all tanked differently as well. But they were all still bloody tanks. Your agency is restricted to your roll. The biggest problem I had playing 4th ed is combat is pointless unless you have at least 4 players to fill all the rolls. Some of my favorite time at the table is when one player gets into shenanigans on their lonesome and isnt fucked because all he/she knows how to do is soak arrows.

>>54472968

What the fuck does metagaming have to do with any of this?

>>54472995
>But they all do this
>>stand in one place and taunt to tank damage

No, they literally don't. Half of them don't even want to stand in one place, and most of them don't even want to be tanking damage, since that means they're dying without getting any benefit out of their mark.

Stand in one place and tank applies to the Warden and literally only the Warden.

>>54472995

Man, all those years, some actual play experience, and you still completely failed to understand the system? That's just sad.

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>>54473028
ok squire, clearly I don't know anything about mechanics or game design. Therefore my legitimate critiques of wow with dice are facile. Master debater you are.
>>54473026
Yes some move around a bit but its still all around damage mitigation. That is your role comrade, do as your fucking told XD

>>54472970
>You're bad at playing dice-roll-paperwork.

You still think that being "good" at dice-roll-paperwork matters. Good on you, you can do middle-school-tier probability!

You will never get it and me and mine will always hate you and everything that you represent. You killed the entire industry.

>>54473053

You're clearly demonstrating you don't understand the game by the misinformation you keep spouting. It's just makes your claims of experience even more pathetic.

>>54472995
>The biggest problem I had playing 4th ed is combat is pointless unless you have at least 4 players to fill all the rolls. Some of my favorite time at the table is when one player gets into shenanigans on their lonesome and isnt fucked because all he/she knows how to do is soak arrows.

4e combat is actually still quite functional even with only a 3 or 2 person party, or if you're missing a role. The DMG actually gives rather extensive advice on what to do for groups that are missing something by modifying enemies or accounting for the altered playstyle.

As for running off solo, that's often terrible to do in RPGs anyway since there are 3+ other people at the table who are forced to sit around while you jack off, but even in those cases it's no different than any other edition. Just because the Defender doesn't have team-mates doesn't mean they can't make use of their general abilities of crowd control to help themselves and grind down what they're fighting.

The thing you don't seem to be getting is that having a role doesn't mean the class is 100% only that role and 0% anything else. Being a defender does not magically make you into an unmoving brick that enemies are magically compelled to attack.

>>54473013
The only reason why "system balance" ever matters is because of metagaming powergaming faggots.

Steve Jackson Games made Munchkin to mock these people. The statistics are supposed to be tangential to what you do in the game, but these morons use them as the center stage.

>>54472944
Balance in a game where if someone points their finger at you and says BANG you die?

This is my first post in this thread, but that is kind of a silly point to make here. I'm not sure who is trolling who at this point.

>>54473065

>killed the entire industry
>larger and more profitable than ever

>>54473053
>Yes some move around a bit but its still all around damage mitigation

Yeah, it's damage mitigation. Defenders help the party by preventing enemies from dealing as much damage to their allies, and punishing them for doing so.

What's the problem with this? You picked a Class. That class excels at defending others. If you wanted to be dealing lots of damage, you should have picked a class that excelled at doing that.

What character or concept are you incapable of playing because the game mechanics support a class being good at a particular task?

>>54473092

So you don't actually understand why it matters, got it.

Hint- It has nothing to do with optimisation and powergaming. There's a reason 3.PF is still the favourite system of optimisers and powergamers everywhere.

>>54473109
Fast Food is larger and more profitable than gourmet cafes, too.

>>54473082
How many times do I have to point out I know 4th E has "some" variation. But by its bloody design it is meant to be played in a very specific way. I found that lack of agency highly restrictive. If you don't and you are okay with the amount of agency 4th e grants than good on you.

Roles in and of themselves restrict agency. Its like the designers are saying
>you will play this game our way not your way
and I don't like that.

>>54473065
Yeah, in that game, it matters. It IS the game, you know. The game part of, you know, the game. That you should, you know, be playing.

>You will never get it
I'm sure I won't, because I'm still having fun.
>You killed the entire industry.
Excellent! Being harmful to you was a delight. Now you can go back to your improv sessions since the industry is dead.

>>54473148

...So, the designers actually having design goals is a bad thing?

>>54473109
Here come the people saying "profitable" and "popular" don't make a game "good".

Just a head's up.

>>54473132
>they actually think I thought that 3.5 / Pathfinder was the height of TTRPG

kek. it's past your bedtime kiddo.

>>54472385
Dnd 4e is this although it makes it less boring.
"Tanks" don't exist. Instead, defenders aggressively punish enemies that hit their allies.
Leaders heal as a minor action, so they still get to devote their turn to doing something interesting. Again, they can be more aggressive instead of reactive by enhancing allies' offensive abilities with buffs.

>>54473160

That's neither here nor there, though. Just pointing out his post is factually incorrect. The industry is fine. His preferred flavour of RPG might be less popular now, but that's his problem.

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>>54473119
Ok heres a good example (btw I should say I don't play dnd anymore, its kind of babbies first tabletop IMO) But one of my favorite chars to run in 3.5 was a fighter/lock combination. The fighter meant I was capable of engaging in melee and specializing in a combat style and the lock added a tonne of utility spells and extra damage. How would I replicate that in 4th?
>protip you cant
>I tried
>allot

Its like the system discourages creativity, its why I don't play 5th. A multiclassed char will always be weaker than a straight level char.

>>54473148
I understand the emotional reaction there. But when you step back, it turns out the way it wants you to play is the way people usually played when they had more "agency."

>>54473175

That's a strange assumption to leap to.

>>54473092
Meta/powergaming is actually playing the game well.
If the result ends broken, it is the fault of a bad system, not of a good player that knows his shit.

>inb4 "STOP ENGAGING WITH THE MECHANICS YOU ARE EVIL REEE"

>>54473201
That's a Swordmage, anon. Or a Paladin|Warlock. Or a Swordmage|Warlock.

>>54473201

Swordmage? Melee Warlock? Either one as a multiclass or Hybrid?

That's fucking easy to do in 4e.

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>>54473159
what the fuck is with your defensiveness? as I have said repeatedly, if you like it than that is a good thing.

All I have been saying this whole time is why I don't and the reasons for it.
>sometimes I forget how touchy neckbeards are

>>54473119
I can't play someone who sucks at combat to show off my cool roleplaying skills.

>>54473152
>I have fun bullying people out of social spaces using statistics and loaded dice.
You weren't harmful to me. If I needed to find a nice game full of grogs, I still could, but I spend my free time bicycling and doing art projects and sometimes trying to wake the good youngsters who are still out there who can see past your toxic bullshit to what was actually good about RPGs, because they know that you aren't it.

>>54473234

It's just strange to argue that the system having goals in mind somehow restricts your ability to enjoy the system. Would you prefer it be an unfocused mess?

>>54473224
>>54473232
Nope, absolutely not. I tried, they just functioned as shitty versions of tank/cc. Hybrids (like 5th) dont function very well at all.

This thread has gotten to such a ridiculous point. I really feel like there's one guy here who's entire opinion can be summed up as: "I don't like playing games with classes, as they are too restrictive for my creative play-style" but he's being such a royal ass-hat about it that everyone took the bait.

>>54473259
They do, but most people fail at building them because they run a very, very tight line of insanely good and actually quite bad.

For example, did you seek high AC? 18 on both attack stats? Ways to use your CC from the Warlock to enhance your defending?

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>>54473248
No, if we take a system like shadowrun or NWOD's vampire by contrast you are given a tonne more agency in your character choices.

The designers made 4th e to be like an MMO because at the time WoW was the world devourer of nerdom and they thought they could cash in. In comparison to other RPG's it does not hold up in the agency department. It is a highly functioning turn based war game however.

>>54473259

...How did you expect them to function?

>>54473275
No I said I don't like thing for reasons.
>and the butthurt of a thousand sperglords took to their keyboards

>>54473287

Given how imbalanced they are, Shadowrun and WoD are arguably more restrictive. WoD's 'classes' are its various splats of supernaturals, which all share a common mechanical framework, while Shadowrun basically has built in classes as the system forces you to commit to magic or cyberware to hit the basic competency for your role in the party, outside of weird specific shit like Mr Lucky.

>>54473309
What reasons?

>>54473201
For 4e? That's pretty easy. Play a Warlock, probably Fiend for Constitution focus with heavier armor. Take Eldritch Strike so you have a solid Melee basic attack At-Will. Then you have your damage covered, along with the various spell utility and control warlock brings with it. Utility can be expanded further by Ritual spells. Melee capability can be added onto with feats. I believe the White Lotus group is good for Arcane At-wills. Multi-class feats for another melee class would also be a solid option, Battlemind if you wish to stick with Constitution, or you could go for a more mixed or Charisma-based Warlock and gain access to some of the classes with Charisma melee capabilities.

And of course, a Hybrid class alongside a multiclass could get you even more functionality.

Honestly, the only way this doesn't work is if you're 100% stuck on the fact that it has to be a Fighter and Warlock. But then I'm forced to ask why the specific name of the class is so important to your concept.

>>54473317
If you were purely in it for the meta, as one RP focused fa/tg/uy has kindly pointed out.

>>54473194
If you love Golden Corral, nobody anywhere thinks you have good taste in food.

>>54473332

It's not even about the meta. It's about fundamental assumptions the system itself makes about character competence to ensure that, by the rules your given, your character will function as intended. Finding the theoretical limits of a system is completely separate from meeting its baseline assumptions, which does take a lot of work in both WoD and Shadowrun, and can be extremely punishing if you fail to do so.

>>54473259
Part of your problem might be that Warlocks are pretty weird as far as strikers go, being lower on damage but better on crowd control.

Oddly enough you may have done better by going for a Dragon Sorcerer, since they get a bunch of raw damage easily, and can use Strength for melee attacks. A few multiclass feats and you'd have some skill with a blade on top of your arcane blasting.

>>54473332
Yep.

Metagaming isn't the point.

The numbers should follow the character concept, not the other way around.

>>54473240
You made me put on the Britney Spears song and everything.

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>>54473330
Bro your missing the point entirely. From a purely meta standpoint it somewhat approximates. But I enjoyed that combo for a variety of reasons, and the lock in 4th E just felt like a fucking cartoon. Not a dark wizard that sold his/her soul.

But I digress, clearly 4th e is for the meta heavy and I could see why it is far more appealing than other systems for this reason. But its whole aesthetic and design... Just not for me.

>>54473364

And if the character concept is that of someone who is competent and good at what they do, then the numbers should be properly chosen to reflect that in the terms of the system.

>>54473370
Some capitalists realized that they could market games to stupid people instead of remaining niche.

You are the result.

>>54473387

Now you're at a point I can actually respect. Straight up saying it's purely personal preference rather than making some confusing point about design. Nobody is obligated to like a system, there are different games for a reason, so different people can find the experiences they prefer.

>>54473387
>somewhat approximates

Approximates is all you're going to get when you're swapping entire editions.

I will admit that 4e may have rubbed some people the wrong way by being so transparent about a lot of its mechanics, and honestly 4e does require it's own degree of system mastery to understand that a particular character concept might require a class choice or addition that isn't obvious at first. Someone who wants to carry a big sword and kill lots of enemies might assume Fighter is the way to go, when Barbarian is more of what they're after.

Personal preference is fine. The only thing I drew issue with is the idea that classes having a role is somehow a bad thing.

>>54473397
Yeah yeah, sure. The evil capitalists against the enlightened liberator that does art projects, to save us from our stupidity of knowing how to actually play games and guide us to the light of... Pre metagaming DnD?
Well, that is a shitty light, but lead on, comissar! I'll be right behind you, hmhmm.

>edition war threads are back
We had this out of our system for a while. There was a good chunk of time after 5e where edition war threads were rare. What changed?

My personal theory is a combination of quests not bumping them off the bored and system fatigue with 5e, but I'm not sure.

>>54473402
I hate the "class balance gospel" that you fags all seem to parrot like it's some kind of immutable truth about the way games should work, like the rules should be competitive vidya-game-tier and that there should never be a way to make a character that isn't exactly as powerful as any other character at the same "level" because it would immediatly be the "only worthwhile choice" because "of course making the most powerful character possible is the winningest thing to do so it is mandatory"

>>54473389
If you don't understand why that's a bad justification, I can't help you, you're just too stupid.

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>>54473402
>Now you're at a point I can actually respect. Straight up saying it's purely personal preference rather than making some confusing point about design.
>but... but.. thats what i've been saying the whole time sempai

I think you were to caught up in trying to defend your system to realize my argument is "I dont like the system because of how it is designed" not "the system is designed badly" I think in my first post I mentioned that 4th e is a pleasure to run. And it is by far the easiest to DM and as the defacto shoehorn DM of my group of friends I greatly appreciated it for this. But on the player end, both myself and my friends found it a little shallow in certain areas for our taste.

Anyway, good ol 4th E threads never fail to cause tremendous raege. Goodnight lads.

>>54472504
>Hampering enemies by status effects at range.

4e Controllers did that one. They were fun.

> Or giving buffs or extra actions to your allies.

That was the leader role (healing was, save for the cleric, mostly a secondary thing to that)

>>54473439
>He still doesn't realize that there is an entire series of games making fun of his shitty playstyle.

>>54473444

Nothing to do with the former. 5e's bland and inoffensive nature, plus its shoestring budget and lack of content, meant there was very little to actually talk about concerning it. People started realising 4e was actually good, which enraged the 3.PFtard and got the whole shitstorm blowing again.

>>54473444
This is barely an edition war. It kind of just devolved into class vs classless.

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There's a bit of irony that the blandest and most generic PnP on the market gave rise to the deepest and most unique MMO on the market.

>>54473473
It's actually Munchkin powergamers vs. everyone else, but Munchkins never realize themselves for what they are. It's actually core to their archetype.

>>54473447
So... You hate when you can make shit broken by powergaming.
But you hate when you can't too.

Boi, you surr have a lot of hate in that little heart.

>>54473447

Then provide an alternative. All you've done so far is go on about how other people are wrong without giving an example of doing it right, or a real counterargument.

Systems should be balanced. Cooperative games work best when people are equally able to contribute. If someone is more able to contribute than others, this is a detriment to the cooperative experience, as it devalues teamwork and shifts the emphasis from cooperation within the group to supporting the actions of a single person, removing agency and choice from those who find themselves forced into supporting roles.

Also 'A competent character should have competent mechanics' is bad how, exactly?

>>54473494

Why would powergamers want balanced systems? Wouldn't they intentionally want things to be broken and unbalanced as possible, so they could exploit it?

>>54473463
Made by an evil capitalist, I'm sure.
BTW, I'm totally a powergamer. And I'm super triggered by Muchkin, never even touched the filthy cards. The nerve, roleplaying at all is a concept that disgusts me: Just crunch those numbers, kick the door, roll the dice and spray sweet seed all over the table.
Toxic seed. Toxic seed that bullies people right of their safe social spaces. All over their spaces. Hard, hard, hot toxic bullying.

>>54473447
Okay, here's the thing about balance. Picture two games: the first has classes that are roughly equal with eachother, where 1 level in 1 is worth 1 level in another; the second has classes that aren't neatly balanced, where 1 level in 1 class might be worth 3 or 5 in another.

Now, say two groups are trying to play two different games. One group wants a cooperative dungeoncrawl, mostly hack & slash with some light roleplay. The other wants to do their own take on Lord of the Rings, playing as the fellowship and doing a bit of alternate things with heavy roleplay.

The first group will be served well by the first system, since everyone will be contributing and things will run smoothly. The second system might not go over as well if many people are sitting around bored because they picked a class that couldn't add anything to fights, and the DM might have trouble making challenges for such a mismatched party.

The second group might be fine with the second system, since having a powerful mage, middling fighters, and some weak rogues fits with the group they wanted to have. However, by using the first system, they could just as easily decide to start Gandalf at level 5, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas at level 3, and the Hobbits at level 1, and have the same experience.

It is far, far easier to unbalance a balanced game than to balance an unbalanced one.

>>54473495
Nope, I hate neither. I hate it when you and yours actually made shit broken by powergaming so long for so hard that game designers had to turn their games into watery diarrhea to keep you from ruining everyone else's good time.

I don't hate the game. I hate the players.

>>54473515
>yes comrade preach it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U06jlgpMtQs

>>54473556
Oh. Okay then. Keep fighting the powergaming boogeymen and fighting the good fight, anon!

>>54473549
Nobody cares about your rape fantasy. You are a sad pathetic little limpdick piece of shit.

That was piss, not cum, btw. Gross.

>>54473590
I kept at least ten of you dumb faggots arguing with me tonight instead of doing things to run other people's lives.

>>54473387
>and the lock in 4th E just felt like a fucking cartoon. Not a dark wizard that sold his/her soul.

The 3.5 one didn't really give that feeling to me. It felt like a fantasy superhero, wall crawling and shooting the same laser again and again and again.

>>54473605

>arguing

Motherfucker, I've been poking with you a stick and laughing at the dumb shit you said. This has never been an argument. You're the retard at the freakshow.

>>54472449

what it did really well was be simple and easy on new players. For veterans though it feels really lacking. It's been years and still so few options.

>>54473605
So you're some kind of level 70 Social Tank; Autist class or Sperg Class

>>54473593
Nuh-uh. I optimized my pleasure stat for semen, so I'm pretty sure that I roll for at least watery seed +1, even in case of hands-free hard prostate tickling.

>>54473605
>you were an autism specialized powergamer all along
Well played.

>>54473613
3.5 was the beginning of the end...

D&D used to be a game where you made a character to fit your random stat rolls, not one where you made something balanced... That's why they started over with 4th and 5th to make something really different.

Getting a mage to survive to 5th level was a rare and wonderful thing, not a matter of course in every goddamn campaign that had a mage

>>54472385
Class based systems are fucking dumb.

>>54473661
>>54473631
That is probably accurate.
>>54473622
You are a low-tier psychopath with limpdick power fantasies, not anything special. Nobody cares. Nobody is triggered. Nobody is mad. I was baiting you while drinking whiskey and watching TV and posting in two other threads.

>>54472385
The shitty trinity is a terrible idea, and does not lend itself to unique character concepts. It ruined MMOs and it would ruin tabletop gaming.

>>54473529
No, a balanced system means they can cut loose, go all out on optimization, and not break the fucking game in half.

>>54473677

I agree I just wana get XP and invest in abilities/skills w/e. Also HP is stupid when it isn't clearly explained.

>>54472412
>>54472419
>>54472450
>>54472573
4e defenders, leaders, and even controllers are practically nothing like MMO archetypes.

>>54473698
>continued to Mr. Psychopath

You are right about one thing. I do love fucking mothers.

>>54473698
Uh, that wasn't me. That was someone else having fun out of you.
I'm >>54473661 and I was also posting in other threads and eating chips, what do you know.
Also, my dick is indeed kinda limp and smol, but I sex stuff with my butt so I actually really enjoy it, so there you go.

>>54473733

Strikers are about the only one I'd say has a proper MMO translation and that's due to the rather universal nature of 'I hit dudes hard' being a popular focus. At least 4e's strikers (Save you Ranger, back in your corner) had a secondary focus other than 'I just do damage'

>>54473698

>Whiskey, tv and only two threads

pleb

>>54473777
I know. I was responding to multiple people in that one post.

>>54473802
Yeah, but I am the rape fantasy psycho bully.
Gimme my cred, man, I worked hard for it.

>>54473825
No.

>>54473846
;-;

>>54472419
This right here.

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>healing in combat
Healing magic is bullshit and removes all semblance of challenge

>>54474081

>I have no idea what I'm talking about

>>54474095
Name some challenging systems where you can heal up in the middle of combat, and fully charge up in between encounters.

No anon, DnD is not a challenging system.

>>54474346

Define challenging? As 4e is generally pretty challenging by my metrics.

>>54474465
>As 4e is generally pretty challenging by my metrics.
Your metrics are retarded.
4e is the most easymode edition of D&D there's ever been.

>>54474465
Challenging means high stakes, where bad positioning or picking the wrong fight can mean grievous injury to losing resources.

Great example is Dark Heresy.

>>54472385
DnD 4E is basically WoW with (some) names changed.

>>54474489

How is that? 4e took away borderline infinite healing and has the most horribly nasty environmental/disease rules in a long time.

>>54474535

So you mean risky rather than 'This is good at providing a challenge to the group'? That's why Dark Heresy gives you fate points, as it' incredibly easy to have a bad roll fuck everything up.

I'd personally say 4e has positioning/picking your fight carefully be incredibly important. I've seen parties go from easy victory to borderline TPK because the players stopped caring about positioning or didn't think.

>>54472573
The thing that makes D&D 4 a "videogame" is how powers are so detached of roleplaying in general. Its not a bad game its just that powers has nothing to do with the character (only the stats of course).

For example a rogue with a handcrossbow can push a ogre by shooting to them. Why? because it what the power says.

You can do more ludicrous stuff in Anima, Exalted or other wuxia games. But the actions and powers are very coherent with the world around.

>>54474625
I'm fairly sure risky and challenging are synonyms.

How can something be a challenge if there is no risk of failure?

>>54474625
What long term damage can players take in combat? Can critical injury give them stat penalties or destroy equipment? Do players need to worry about conserving resources for the next fight? If they're clearing a dungeon will the damage taken in one room carry over into the next, or do they heal it all up?

How about death? Can't clerics straight up resurrect people at a fairly low level?

>>54472412
I really like 4e but must agree.

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>>54474676

>I'm fairly sure risky and challenging are synonyms.

They are close but not really 1:1. Risky is more about the chance of things going wrong, challenging is more about your ability to mitigate it. Rolling a 20 on a d20 is risky but it's not really challenging as you have no ability to control it.

4e doesn't have a heap of round-to-round riskiness (Most things that will kill you will take more than a single turn to do it) but it's rather challenging as your decisions can make or break a fight. Positioning, use of forced movement or combining your actions with another can really change the effects of a fight.

>>54474744

>Can critical injury give them stat penalties or destroy equipment?

Oh god yes in the first case. Pic related: A very disease you can pick up. If you fail to get it treated by a doctor it will ruin your shit. The ritual to purge it once it hits stage 3 risks costing you 100% of your HP if the spellcaster messes it up. High level diseases are a lot worse.

They also have (Optional) lasting injury rules. It was in an article called Less Death, More Danger! Whenever a character goes below 0 HP you deal them a card from a deck of injuries. Some can be recovered from, some take a risky ritual (Like a disease that's reached a late stage)

>Do players need to worry about conserving resources for the next fight? If they're clearing a dungeon will the damage taken in one room carry over into the next, or do they heal it all up?

That was the exact purpose of Healing Surges. To set a cap on 'This is your endurance for the day'. When you are out of healing surges, you can't get any more healing. So a group that is forced to heal a lot will very quickly run out of resources and have nothing left. Environmental effects (Oppressive heat, smog, frostbite) can also reduce your Healing Surges until it's treated so a trek through a jungle will sap away at the group's ability to keep fighting.

>>54474744
Think of it this way. In earlier editions, each character had a pool of HP. If they lost all of that, they were dead or dying. While you had healing spells to fill it back up, it was generally intended to be a hard limit. This means that most fights in a dungeon aren't going to kill a player, and a lot of them are merely designed to wear the party down, to bring their HP to a level where dying in a fight is more possible. If the players have around, say, 100 hp, those goblins in the first room aren't a huge threat, because they're just there to shave off some HP.

In 4e, you have a pool of hitpoints that is 25% of your health for the day. You can refill this pool by taking a few minutes, but you're still limited by your total health. In this system, you have 25 hp per fight, and 100 over the course of the day. With this system, the players are always threatened, because any fight within a dungeon could potentially be enough to deplete those 25 HP. Those goblins in the first room do serve the purpose of using up some of the party's daily resources, but are also a threat in their own right. If they do too much damage before you finish them, you can easily have people dead or dying, even if they have Healing Surges remaining. In this way, you can have both the daily management of resources, while also having every fight being meaningful outside of just grinding down the party slowly.

Healing surges also put a daily cap on the amount of healing the party can have, since potions and healing spells also expend them. You can't simply buy a bunch of potions to artificially extend your resources.

As for long-term damage, you don't often see things like critical injuries, but some of the diseases in 4e are quite nasty. Filth Fever is a good example, as it progresses into giving penalties to AC and other stats, reducing their number of healing surges, and eventually locks them at 0 surges until its cured. And the Cure disease ritual costs money and is risky.

>>54472385
is the point of the hypothetical tabletop game to being a boring, unchallenging, monotonous, piece of shit? because that's about all emulating MMO structures is going to do for it.

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>>54474871

Here is the injury cards. You can get each injury in both minor and major versions, which is why they are flip cards. Even the minor ones can be really painful.

4E is actually the best edition of DnD though. Great combat rules and no shitting-in-the-woods autism rules. Roleplay is so much more enjoyable when magic doesn't solve everything.

>>54474744

At the very top of Heroic tier. Level 8+

Even then the price scales with character level (As death holds great heroes tighter. Raven Queen is a bitch) so it never ends up a trivial cost.

You also take a penalty to all actions until you've hit 3 milestones (2 encounters is a milestone), not an amount of time. You need to go out and reaffirm your life to recover from from the trauma, not just rest up.

>>54472385
gamist shit
t. genre simulationist

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b-but I love playing doctors and healers and surgeons and stuff like that.

Please don't take that away

>>54475326
"The target is restored to life with full hit points and healing surges. The target takes a −1 penalty to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws until it has reached three milestones or taken three extended rests."

>or taken three extended rests."

So if I'm reading this right you have to go through the player's HP four times to actually kill them? Seems like a lot. Isn't 8th level midway through the game, and a -1 isn't that great a penalty for coming back from the dead.

I guess 4e, and DnD in general, is really about the combat. Go to dungeon, kill dragon. It's in the name.

I've always preferred systems where combat is more dangerous because it forces the players to actually chose whether or not they want to fight.

I'd rather have fewer combats if they meant that things were actually on the line, rather than a bunch of combats where most are just leafblowing enemies and having HP chipped away.

>>54474762
At the time that it came out, I was all-in on 4e, and had a lot of fun with it.
The relation to the 'MMO trinity' was a talking point for me, AND for a lot of other people who played it.
It's only in the years since that a certain class of butthurt fans felt the need to pretend that the connection wasn't there.
(And just because it DOES work as a 'skirmish scale wargame' doesn't exclude the possibility of it also being a kickass rpg, which it is.)

>>54472477
You're busy being a kineticist defender, giving everyone cocaine, making enemies move at 0.00000 feet per year, and stealing everybody's everything.

>>54475516
That's not what that means. That means the penalty lasts until they've taken 3 extended rests. Granted, -1 isn't that big of a deal, although it will add up if applied to everything. 8th isn't that far into the game either.

But of course, the part he mentioned and you ignored was the fact that it cost a lot of gold, and actually costs more gold as you get to higher and higher levels, so there's a real tradeoff just constantly rezzing people.

>I'd rather have fewer combats if they meant that things were actually on the line, rather than a bunch of combats where most are just leafblowing enemies and having HP chipped away.

This is exactly what 4e does better than any other edition of D&D. 4e's mechanics make it so you can have every fight have a strong threat of death without screwing the players over for the next fight. Other editions basically require pouring a few mounds of cannon fodder on the PCs until they were weak enough to actually get scared.

And another big thing on top of all of this, since rituals aren't learned automatically in 4e, nothing says the Cleric of the group has to get Raise Dead if you don't want him to.

>>54475516

>I'd rather have fewer combats if they meant that things were actually on the line, rather than a bunch of combats where most are just leafblowing enemies and having HP chipped away.

That's what 4e was designed to do. Healing Surges mean you can have fights that drop people to 0 HP without it being immediately 'Fuck it, done for the day' while also meaning that it's got a serious cost long-term.

3.5 has 2 modes 'Your HP lasts you the entire day' and 'Everyone has functionally infinite healing between fights'.

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>>54472385
>Caduceus
>Not Rod of Asclepius
Why are people so stupid?

>>54475566
>>54475608
Sounds really gamey, but in a better way than the other editions. Last time I played DnD was 3.5 which is notoriously boring as fuck.

>3.5 has 2 modes 'Your HP lasts you the entire day' and 'Everyone has functionally infinite healing between fights'.
What I meant is that I prefer modes where 'Your HP lasts you a week or even longer'

I, ANON, SUFFICIENT IN MY AUTISM AND ASSURED OF MY OWN INFALLIBILITY, SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING POSTULATE.

There are FIVE major fantasy roleplaying Archetypes. They are:

>The Warrior, who uses physical ability and might
>The Rogue, who uses cunning and ingenuity
>The Magus, who draws upon the supernatural powers of magic
>The Faithful, who draws upon the external forces of the divine, infernal, or other-wordly
>The Druid, who draws upon the internal powers of nature and the primordial order

Each of these archetypes combines with one other to form PARATYPES.

These Para-types are:

Warrior
• + Magus = Spellsword
• + Rogue = Swashbuckler
• + Faithful = Exemplar
• + Druid = Warden
Druid
• + Warrior = Warden
• + Rogue = Ranger
• + Faithful = Shaman
• + Druid = Witch
Magus
• + Warrior = Spellsword
• + Rogue = Hermeticist
• + Faithful = Warlock
• + Druid = Witch
Rogue
• + Warrior = Swashbuckler
• + Druid = Ranger
• + Faithful = Inquisitor
• + Magus = Hermeticist
Faithful
• + Warrior = Exemplar
• + Rogue = Inquisitor
• + Magus = Hermeticist
• + Druid = Shaman

For a total of 15 core classes

ALL MAJOR ARCHETYPES MAY BE COVERED IN THIS MANNER. FURTHER GRANULARITY CAN BE SUPPLEMENTED BY TRACKS OR PRESTIGE CLASSES (ex. Bard would be a Hermeticist track, drawing upon the lore of the universal song)

PS: FUCK MONKS

>>54475693
I would prefer modes where resources and HP carry across multiple days, but I tend to find players are extraordinarily bad at keeping track of that over the course of multiple sessions.

Arguably, I feel like 4e could manage it if you altered the timescale so that Short Rests were a night's sleep and Long Rests were 3 days or the like, and then pace out the timescale of encounters to match.

Granted, that would also make it hard to have multiple encounters in a day, but not impossible.

>>54475693

>Sounds really gamey, but in a better way than the other editions.

Eh, it's more designed to emulate action movies. Like say, Die Hard. He gets beat to utter shit over the course of that day and things get worse but he never ends up in a state where he's one light tap away from falling down at the very start of a fight. Each fight he goes in with a bit of a second wind and endurance enough to take on a terrorist or two.

>>54475718
You forgot the Psychic.

>>54473259
Swordmage | Warlock is one of the most powerful builds because their features combine so well.

I'm not sure what you could possibly want that that combination doesn't cover.

Hell, even Warlock | Fighter has some pretty good stuff going on, and some very nice support.

>>54475812

Warlock goes well with a lot of defenders (Swordmage and Paladin especially) due to it's great 'Fuck you if you attack me' tricks. It makes shit a lot worse for the marked guy as they are now in a situation between 'Attack the guy with better defences and eat retaliation' or 'Attack his friends, at a penalty, and eat retaliation'

That and Eyebite. Penalties/retaliation if you don't go for the defender. The defender is invisible.

>>54475377
Thinking about it, isn't warrior / rogue / mage setups a genre unto itself now?

>>54475693
>What I meant is that I prefer modes where 'Your HP lasts you a week or even longer'

This is actually a variant rule for 4e for campaigns with less fighting IIRC. You can have a long-rest be a week long with short rest a day long (or any two numbers), to stretch out the time an "adventuring day" lasts.

>>54475935

It works better in 4e than in 5e at least. Since most classes get equal value out of short and long rests.

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>>54475758
4e was made in the age of videogames. People got interested in the roots of RPGs so Wizards made something that they thought gamers could get into. People didn't call 4e "like WoW" for no reason. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, 3.5fags derided it for this because they were just looking for reasons to hate 4e out autistic spite. Stuff like abilities for martials and healing surges, while are very abstractionist or 'gamey', definitely fixed a lot of the things that made 3.5 a total clusterfuck.

How 'gamey' or 'realistic' a game is doesn't really have anything to do with it's quality. There are plenty of very hardcore/realistic games that are total garbage, and there are plenty of very gamey/abstractionist games that are loads of fun.

But please, don't tell me 4e isn't what it is.

>>54475949

What part of WoW remotely resembles healing surges? (Which were what was being discussed) Does WoW have some feature saying 'You've taken too much damage today, you can't play any more'?

>>54472385
My problem with "Aggression" in table top games, is that aggro is meant to tell a computer how much a creature should hate a target. A DM doesn't need that. A DM knows how much a creature should hate a player. "Do the most obvious thing" has always worked.

>>54476000

Yeah, the 3.5 Knight was a shitty shitty attempt to do MMO aggro with it's challenge class feature. It basically turned on a mind-control aura to make people attack him without other options.

4e at least made it 'Penalty/punishment if you attack an ally' rather than 'You have no choice but to attack me'

>>54476000
>>54476081
The penalty/punishment system for marking works a lot better, since that works with the idea that the DM can judge for creatures, rather than trying to override it.

The creature knows what is and isn't a threat, and 4e makes it so that a Fighter swinging a sword at it is registered as a larger threat, as the Fighter is messing with their movements and is ready to lash out if they step the wrong way. Makes the decision to go after that squishy wizard behind them a lot harder.

>>54476109

It also allows creatures to work around it. Fighters are great at lockdown but they are limited to melee for the punishement for example. If one creature can bullrush the fighter away from his buddy, he can get by unmolested.

>>54475765
Again - Fuck Monks. Save some shit for the expansion

>>54472385

The problem cased by this usually stems from using damage as a variable.

Damage should be set the same across all classes. This makes the system more flexible to permutation and makes everyone always capable of contributing.

What sets classes apart should be the stuff they bring besides damage. The "tank" are really just warriors who wear heavy armor. Of course, since they sets them too squarely in a combat niche, they also need other stuff they can do (too many games forget this). Here, stuff like warlords, paladins and rangers can act as inspirations for what sort of non-combat stuff a warrior should do.

The "dps" can stay dps by adding more utility to their damage. Area of effect damage, ranged damage, damage that causes deliberating conditions, etc. Out of combat stuff should be the usual. Roguery, magery, warlockery, etc. "dps" tends to be the most well-thought out classes for some reason.

As for healers, my personal opinion is that reactive healing tends to be a bit shit from a game design perspective. I'd rather see focus on buffing and protection, since that makes the healers more active and also makes them less essential. Some people might chafe at a healer being able to do damage. In that case, give them the ability to transfer their damage dealing capabilities to someone else. Team Fortress/Overwatch did a good job with this.

>>54472385
So, 4e.

Well, it crashed and burned, so, there you have your answer.

>>54476294

>"dps" tends to be the most well-thought out classes for some reason.

People like to be the big number dudes.

I wouldn't 100% agree on 'damage should be the same' but I do think that everyone should be able to contribute with attacks. Even support guys should hand out a nice buff with an attack. Like those 4e warlord attacks that are 'I hit the dude and now all my buddies get +my charisma mod to damage against him for the next round'

>>54476314

Yeah, like I pointed out, I realize some might chafe at the idea that for instance the healer should themselves directly deal the damage. And I agree, it might make everyone feel a bit samey if everyone is doing the same thing most of the time. But in that case, every class needs some alternative method of bringing the same amount of damage to the table. The warlord "my buddies gets a free hit" is a good example of this. Another sample could be a time mage haste:ing someone else.

Either way, the reason you want the damage to be basically the same across the board is because it makes game design much easier. No matter the party setup, you never run the risk of having too few damage dealers to be able to deal with an appropriate threat. Ease of design is an important part, because if the basics are easy, that makes it easier to do the hard stuff as well.

I dislike healers because they tend to become too invaluable to the game design. If you design the mechanics around not needing healers, the healer class becomes fucking useless. If you design around needing healing, the class becomes invaluable. There's usually no sensible middle ground. Because of this I rather prefer that "healers" are replaced by "buffers/support". It's the same niche, just less trouble.

>>54473733
>>54473777
It's not that the archetypes are precisely the same as WoW, it's that they exist in the first place. The idea of building a party based mostly on these defined roles feels very like an MMO, especially when officially sanctioned by Wizards. As opposed to the traditional, more individual character creation of TTRPGs. On TT you're primarily playing a character, not a stat sheet.

>>54475977
The major similarity with WoW was all characters having a menu of limited use/on cool down activated abilities, like (I think) that bar along the bottom of the WoW UI. Having many abilities you can use once/twice/whatever per [time period] with no in-universe justification felt much more gamey than the traditional simulation feel of TTRPGs.

>>54475718
where does my ten thousand year old vampire loli fit on this chart

>>54476445
Wait for the shadow power source.

>>54476415
>The major similarity with WoW was all characters having a menu of limited use/on cool down activated abilities,

FFS, powers are just presentation.

Just because you have "basic attack" in a green box, suddenly the game has a menu? What the fuck?

>>54476415

Yeah, that was my basic complaint with 4e. It basically took me "out of it" to have a bunch of special buttons to push in order to cause special, predetermined effects.

It just kills your immersion when your fighter for some reason is able to push a guy exactly one square backwards exactly three times every fight for literally no reason.

Role playing games should be more like for instance GURPS, where the fighter can break a guys arm of exactly as many times as the fighters wishes to do this.

>>54476478
I had hotkeys to use Knockdown,Trip, Disarm, etc. in Neverwinter Nights so I guess that makes 3.5 a videogame too.

>>54476503

Well, whatever made you think I liked 3.5?

>>54472436
Use shadowrun heal
Can only heal last wound
No broken setting, no broken healer

>>54476513
Like is a different issue, but did you think it was a videogame?

If there was a GURPS videogame (... is there?) that had "shoot him in the arm/leg/face/whatever on hotkeys, would GURPS be a videogame system?

>>54476555

That is misrepresenting the issue though. The issue was that 4e abilities ran on a clear videogame logic. You had a set amount of abilities because you can't learn more because of ..reasons. You can use them only a set amount of time every fight because...reasons.The problem is not that games use an interface when you play them.

It makes sense in a video game, because limiting your resources so you can't spam your best attack all the time makes sense from a videogame standpoint (should be pointed out that we are now talking about RPG games, not Super Mario where you can spam as much as you want). It doesn't make sense if you are supposed to act the role of a knight or something like that though. If you were the knight, you'd just target their shins as many times as you felt was wise.

>>54473733
I really liked their approach to the roles. Would be interested in playing an MMO based on them.

>>54476415

>The major similarity with WoW was all characters having a menu of limited use/on cool down activated abilities, like (I think) that bar along the bottom of the WoW UI. Having many abilities you can use once/twice/whatever per [time period] with no in-universe justification felt much more gamey than the traditional simulation feel of TTRPGs.

So nothing about what was actually being discussed (Healing Surges)

>On TT you're primarily playing a character, not a stat sheet.

But...classes have ALWAYS had things they are good and bad at. All the way back to the start, the fighter was supposed to protect the squishier members of the group as he's the guy who could wear heavy armour. The Rogue/Thief got the big burst damage ability (Backstab/Sneak Attack).

Giving those roles a name doesn't make them start existing. It does however let people know the strengths of a class by looking at it. You could give those roles to basically any RPG with classes.

>That is misrepresenting the issue though. The issue was that 4e abilities ran on a clear videogame logic. You had a set amount of abilities because you can't learn more because of ..reasons. You can use them only a set amount of time every fight because...reasons.

That's been a thing for RPG for basically forever. Why can barbarian only rage for so many rounds a day? Why can a bard only sing for so many rounds a day? Why can a rogue only use slippery mind 1/day? Why can a cleric only turn undead so many times a day? Why can L5R characters only improve the damage of a katana so many times a day? Why can a 7th Sea character take out several people at once if you don't know their name but if they personally matter to you it requires a full fight?

Because Reasons.

>>54476605
>It makes sense in a video game, because limiting your resources so you can't spam your best attack all the time makes sense from a videogame standpoint (should be pointed out that we are now talking about RPG games, not Super Mario where you can spam as much as you want).

The entire D&D genre is based on games where the main point of the game was resource management, be it HP, rations, torches or spells/scrolls/other magic items.

Do you think vancian was chosen because it's so flavorful, or because it's a resource management mechanic?

All 4e does is bring it into fights, as well as give a bit of it to everyone, istead of having the wizard hog it all.

>If you were the knight, you'd just target their shins as many times as you felt was wise.

It's funny because that's exactly what knights do. You even got the class name right.

http://funin.space/compendium/class/Knight.html
http://funin.space/compendium/power/Defend-the-Line.html

The more limited abilities are things that make sense to limit; things that take more effort (and return, are more powerful) than just targeting legs.

>>54476659

Whoops, that last part should have been for >>54476605

>>54476605

>That is misrepresenting the issue though. The issue was that 4e abilities ran on a clear videogame logic. You had a set amount of abilities because you can't learn more because of ..reasons. You can use them only a set amount of time every fight because...reasons.The problem is not that games use an interface when you play them.

The thing is, the Vancian magic system doesn't even represent D&D magic right save for Wizards.

Clerics in the D&D novels never ran off the spell slot system. Both Pool of Twilight and the Cleric Canticle series treated it more like Shadowrun's Drain system. You can channel as much divine power as you want but your body isn't made to take the strain to it will kill you eventually.

Dannielo in the Harper novels didn't have a limit on bardic magic, it was something that could flow through him whenever it was needed and it's limitation was mostly in difficulty to apply.

Sorcerers have never made sense with 'I'm out of spell slots for this specific spell level but my tank is full on every other level'

>>54476605
The only reason it doesn't make sense to you is because you're choosing to think of it in a way that doesn't make sense. The fighters don't actually have a magic push button, they're constantly trying to throw the enemy off their game, but the enemy is constantly defending so big opportunities don't come up that often. The powers are just a means of giving the player narrative control over when these opportunities arise. This is the exact same non-issue as HP being meat points. It stops being stupid the moment you stop choosing to think about it in a way that makes it stupid.

>>54476455
>>54476503
Pretty sure you two have never even read the 4e rulebook at this point. There are these things called powers. Some you can use at will, some once per encounter, some once per day. Might be other cool down lengths, but those are the main ones. Everyone has these. Wizards' ones are fluffed as (& called) spells, clerics have prayers, martial classes have exploits, etc. But they function essentially the same. You have a number of special power buttons you can press so-and-so number of times to do a cool thing. Which is NOT the same as being able to dodge, or whatever. Now, 5e did this a bit too, but it's a lot more subtly, which reduced the MMO feel a lot.

>>54476659
I made that post because I thought Healing Surges were a triviality distracting from the major points of the debate. And your spaghetti is hanging out if you think classes having different strengths is the same thing as having a codified party build system. Without getting too far down that particular rabbit hole, in other editions it may have been mechanically sub-optimal to have an all-rogue (say) party, but in 4e the game specifically told you not to do that, because mechanical efficiency was all it cared about.

>>54476809
*one of the things it cared about

>>54476809
>There are these things called powers.
>>54476455
>FFS, powers are just presentation.

>>54472385
Well, 4E is pretty hated around here, so I'd wager the answer is 'not good'

>>54476831
i dunno, 4e gets a lot of polarized opinions but its not universally ridiculed like fatal

>>54476809

>4e the game specifically told you not to do that, because mechanical efficiency was all it cared about.

Actually, all rogues would work really well. They've got a really good leader paragon path and they have very synergistic striker features. You'd want to end the fight fast but they'd work pretty well. They also specifically gave advice in the DMG for parties that lacked one of the roles or were made up entirely of a particular role.

There is basically no class you couldn't make a party of 4e in and have it work. Some defenders might be a bit redundant but the secondary roles classes can do would make it entirely possible. Paladins could for example go with a Str-based paladin set up for striking, a full Cha-Wis Hospitaler to act as a borderline leader and they are all defenders.

>And your spaghetti is hanging out if you think classes having different strengths is the same thing as having a codified party build system.

How does it differ then beyond actually telling players?

>>54476860
It pretty much is. Look at the thread, it's just 4E fags deflecting justified criticism and common sense arguments with the same tired memes they've been using the last years. It's just that nobody really gives enough of a fuck to actually keep slamming it in dedicated threads like 4E fags try to do with 5E or other DnD editions in general.
I mean, do you see threads were people complain about how FATAL is the worst game ever? No, because everyone knows. Just like everyone know 4E is shit, which is why it failed.

>>54476904
Actually it's just 4E fags deflecting the same tired memes they've seen for years with justified criticism and common sense arguments.

>>54476860
>>54476904
I mean, you could look at the threads:

5eg
07/23/17(Sun)07:45:18
46 replies
25 posters

4E
07/21/17(Fri)20:05:04
72 replies
23 posters

the 4E general is literally a circlejerk of retards to stubborn to accept criticism of their system. Fuck, even the paizo general is more productive, and paizo is pretty a complete shitshow of a company.

>>54476918
And here's the kind of retard I'm talking about.
Persecution complex and false sense of superiority when all the facts points towards him being wrong.

>>54476940
"4E = WoW" is not criticism
"Durr I cannot getted the immersed when martials use special abilitys" is not criticism

>>54476827
Right, I'll run this through for you precisely one more time. "Basic attack" is not the only power. A level 7 ranger can, once per encounter, "slash and stab at surrounding foes with unbound fury, knocking them off balance with thrusts and leg sweeps." And hundreds of other, similar powers that make managing your cool downs one of the major mechanics of the game. A few of this type of thing is fine, but basically all major cations are phrased this way, so that interacting with the encounter takes a backseat to Smörgåsbord Simulator 2008.

Don't underestimate the importance of presentation. Differences that may seem trivial to your autism-addled mind can result in major differences in how people approach playing the game. Especially when one is dealing with genuine, fully functional human being. An example from my own RPG career: there's nothing forcing players to play to a stereotype when creating a dwarf or an elf character. But I've repeatedly found them to be very prone to creating gruff, Scottish dwarves and fey, metrosexual elves, with little character beyond that.. Restricting to just humans (though I wouldn't do it every campaign) often yields better, more individual characters. I'm sure you don't need supervision to extend this to how a difference in presentation of attacks might cause players to approach the game differently.

>>54476660

I know there's elements of resource management. My complaint though was targeted at resource management systems that do not make sense.

There's a reason why I used the "Knight" as an example rather than "Wizard". When we talk about magic we are usually more prepared to accept seemingly arbitrary rules about what is possible and what is not, since hey, it's magic. It's not as if we can verify its functions in the real world.

Though I will say that the 4e system of powers was crappy even for the casters, since the game rules offer no explanation to why some spells are encounter based while others are daily. At least the earlier editions had some sort of explanation, however flimsy it was.

And I'd like to point out I was not referring to any actual classes when I used the term "Knight". I referred rather to a concept to of character in order to show how very gamey mechanics can get in the way of a players sense of immersion when they are trying to immerse themselves in the role a warrior who has attained knighthood.

>>54476940
>Persecution complex and false sense of superiority when all the facts points towards him being wrong.

More annoyance that the same things keep getting trotted out and arguments get ignored if they point out flaws in the memes. Like say >>54476733 pointing out that Vancian magic isn't even good at representing the D&D world outside a single class. Or that Sorcerers and Wizards are more similar than any 2 4e classes.

>>54476969
Go on, keep misrepresenting reasons stated by all the people who abandoned your shitty game and keep wondering why no one wants to play your circlejerked trashheap. You mongoloids are the flat earthers of RPG.

>>54476992
It's not a misrepresentation when that's literally what people are saying.

>>54476990
your autistic failure to understand another's argument on why he thinks 4E is shit is not a "flaw in the meme"
And guess what, DnD came before the DnD noves, so this rightfully should be a criticism of the novels, but sure, use your retard-logic to twist that.

>>54477000
Sure, keep telling yourself that.

>>54477017

>your autistic failure to understand another's argument on why he thinks 4E is shit is not a "flaw in the meme"

Alright, why don't you explain it then rather than just throwing insults?

>>54477017

>And guess what, DnD came before the DnD noves, so this rightfully should be a criticism of the novels, but sure, use your retard-logic to twist that.

I'm pretty sure early D&D didn't actually explain why non-wizards use the spell slot system.

>>54476733

Yeah, I agree that D&D:s flavor of magic is plain crappy. Though I'd admit that by now, the vancian magic of D&D has become so distinct that I can understand why some people want it that way. It's just part about what makes D&D magic "D&D" to them, and I can respect that.

My personal preference is magic that's flexible, but bound by rules of ceremony and held back by dangerous consequences. That or no magic at all, or at least magic that is outside the reach of the players.

>>54477034
You've literally had 10 years to see the arguments. If that didn't get through your cognitive bias, neither will I.
I can, however, insult and shame mouthbreathers like you for entertainment.

>>54477074
"4E = WoW" still isn't a compelling argument and neither is some faggot's immersion being broken because the game isn't simulationist.

>>54477074

>If that didn't get through your cognitive bias, neither will I.

Very well Mr Pot. I just find it very entertaining that 'It's 4e fags deflecting justified criticism and common sense arguments' if you won't make any.

>>54476980
>Don't underestimate the importance of presentation. Differences that may seem trivial to your autism-addled mind can result in major differences in how people approach playing the game.

Wait, so now me being able to divorce the presentation from what it actually means in game is somehow proof of a disability?

What the fuck?

>>54477101

You are using your evil autism powers granted by the High Autism Council And Train Society to be able to maintain suspension of disbelief.

>>54477088
4E = WoW is shorthand for a more complex argument of how the power system reduced possible interaction with the world akin to how a MMO limits your interaction with the game world (in its case due to programming limitations). If, in the last 10 years, you ever honestly and openly had a debate about the flaws of 4E without being in autist-defense mode, you'd know this.
But no, everyone is a meanie who's just meme-ing to upset you.

>>54477092
The criticism has been stated over and over again, some of it in this thread. Repeating it is a point of futility. To you, anyone criticizing it must be a troll. Honestly you should just go and hang yourself.

Any time you think you have a common sense argument chances are you never actually gave it any thought at all.

>>54477158

>4E = WoW is shorthand for a more complex argument of how the power system reduced possible interaction with the world akin to how a MMO limits your interaction with the game world (in its case due to programming limitations).

How does it reduce interaction with the world? You still have skills, you have rituals and the DMG has a section about using powers for another effect in it's improvisation section if you'd like to use a power in a non-combat scenario.

>>54477185
Because, for example, there's more to it, the cooldown is tied to meta definitions like "an encounter" rather than in-game terms like "a short rest".

>>54477223
Actually, a "short rest" that you need to use an encounter power again in 4e is defined as "about 5 minutes". So the only difference between calling it an encounter power and "can't use this ability again until you finish a short or long rest" is time.

>>54477223

...but that's how 4e works. Short rests are how you restore encounter powers. If you don't get a short rest, the power doesn't come back.

I've literally had that be part of the deal with a series of challenges in a Bane temple. There was multiple challenges but you had to do them all one after another without any chance to rest, as it was an endurance test.

>>54477223
Does the 3e bard know how long he can sing? Does the 3e Barbarian know how long he can rage?

>>54477101

Can't say I exactly understand his argument either, but I can try phrasing a new one.

When limiting and designing so-called "powers", (magic, feats of strenght/skill, chi, divine imbuements, etc), the design of the powers have to make sense relative to its source.

Magic gets the most leeway here. Since magic isn't real and also usually portrayed as external to the wizard, you get a lot of freedom with magic. You probably want a few rules on magic though, because otherwise the game and the setting will lose structure. When you make said rules, you do want them to be internally consistent though. If some spells can only be cast once per day and some spells can be cast however many times you want (hell, just make a career as a human fridge why don't you?), there needs to be a good explanation to why everything works this way.

But if your power source is martial prowess, you might run into the problem that your explanations don't jive with real, verifiable fact. For instance, say you can spin around real fast three times per encounter. Two problems immediately present themselves. For starters, your players know there's nothing stopping them from spinning as much as they want in the real world and second, what the fuck is an encounter anyway?

This causes a problem, because the rules of your source (martial prowess) no longer acts according to the players expectations of martial prowess, which essentially makes the source irrelevant to their character.

And before someone accuses me for trying to force the rules of physics on martials while allowing casters to break them, I'll add that it's perfectly fine for a martial to break the rules of physics, as long as the way they break them lines up with our expectations (superhuman strenght, speed, agility, etc).

Smart systems will limit their martials in ways we expect and will make its magic system internally consistent.

>>54477267
You don't have to instantly go 3.x. Many people also hate that.

Mention shit like the BECMI thief's backstab ability first sentence being literally "once per encounter".

>>54477290

Well, to be fair, that's because the BECMI thief won't get the opportunity to hide again once the thief has revealed his location to the enemies. If the thief manages to hide, he's basically reset the encounter, and the next time he stabs someone, it's a new encounter.

>>54477289
>For starters, your players know there's nothing stopping them from spinning as much as they want in the real world

Oh yeah, and I bet they can powerlift any number of times without resting between lifts as well.

This just reeks of out of shape nerds having no idea how physical exertion works.

An encounter power isn't "you hold your sword out and spin around". That'd be a maybe acceptable description for Cleave in a non-serious game, at best.

> and second, what the fuck is an encounter anyway?

Encounter is defined as a period of activity that lasts until you have about 5 minutes to rest. See >>54477255

>>54477321
Yeah that's a good explanation.

It's about on par with "you won't surprise enemies twice with the same trick in one encounter".

>>54477322

>Oh yeah, and I bet they can powerlift any number of times without resting between lifts as well.

So in that case, put a stamina system on the fighters. Make them spend fatigue, which is recovered by eating and resting, rather than going for some heavy handed "three times per encounter/short rest" system.

Let them spin around until they get sick and tired and overexert and hurt themselves. Not until the game from a meta perspective tells them "that's quite enough Timmy, I counted three times".

>>54477289
The per encounter uses are the abstractions used to represent finding only one or two openings to use that awesome spinning move without getting kicked in the metaphorical nuts.

>>54475718
t. deendeefag

>>54477342

The problem here is that "you won't surprise enemies twice with the same trick in one encounter" isn't actually a true. You might actually be able to surprise them multiple times (it could be a stupid enemy!). Furthermore, even if a move is tactically unsound, a stupid person might still try to repeat it. So it's still weird that you'd be locked to a set numbers of repeat in some sort of weirdly defined "encounter" terminology.

You're also being unfair by pretending that the 2e use of encounter and the 4e use of encounter means the same thing. In 2e, "encounter" just means "when you meet someone" or something like that. It's not a very specific term. In 4e, "encounter" is a very specifically defined thing.

>>54472385
I prefer Guild Wars style trinity
>tank and dps rolled into one class
>utility
>damage prevention (and heal as backup)

>>54477348
>Make them spend fatigue, which is recovered by eating and resting

You mean having a short or a long re...

>rather than going for some heavy handed "three times per encounter/short rest" system

So make a system that makes use of resting but doesn't make use of resting?

Look, having 3 points you can spend on using "power strike" or having 3 uses of "power strike" per short rest (or, as defined in 4e, an encounter) is the same fucking thing. This is what essentials martials do.

>>54472385
>How would /tg/ feel about a tabletop game that literally designs its classes like an MMO?

It's called 4ed anon, it already exists

>>54477352

And why does the game have to stop me from getting kicked in the nuts? Why does the game need to think for me? Shouldn't every man have right to make the stupid bet? Spin one time too many, get dizzy and kicked in the nuts?

Getting kicked in your actual nuts is what makes a game feel believable and relateable. Getting kicked in your actual fucking nuts is good game design.

>>54477289

>But if your power source is martial prowess, you might run into the problem that your explanations don't jive with real, verifiable fact.

I'm perfectly ok with people not liking that design feature in a game. Some RPGs focus more heavily on representing the exact physics of the world and others do not. 4e tends to more try to emulate the heroic fantasy genre more than the world it takes place in. A hero very rarely uses the same trick to beat every single foe in a fight down (It's not assassin's creed after all), he varies up his tricks and the big, impressive trick is generally brought out only at a dramatic moment.

It's entertainingly one of the places where people can call an RPG 'A storygame' but that one rarely gets brought out. A lot of the appeal for me with 4e is that it finally felt like the old TSR novels I grew up reading. A Red Wizard of the Towers of High Sorcery wasn't going 'I have 2 more fireballs', they were using the tricks they'd learned and were personally skilled in and often saving the Big spell for a desperate situation.

I'm 100% ok with people preferring games that represent the mechanics of the world itself as a preference. A lot of my annoyance is that a LOT of games get a pass on that. No one bitches that 3.5 or 5e are gamist for it. Or that L5R is gamist. But 4e doing the same thing that other RPGs have been doing for decades gets screams and cries of '4e is an MMO'.

>>54477348

>So in that case, put a stamina system on the fighters. Make them spend fatigue, which is recovered by eating and resting, rather than going for some heavy handed "three times per encounter/short rest" system.

Oddly enough, you are describing 4e's Psionics system. Where you have no encounter powers, just at-wills and power points to upgrade them to encounter-tier. It would have honestly have worked well for non-warlord martials (I'm a bit more iffy on warlords as they are generally more about bags of tricks/versatility).

>>54477386
>The problem here is that "you won't surprise enemies twice with the same trick in one encounter" isn't actually a true

Neither is "can't hide again". Both are a gameplay abstraction.

>Furthermore, even if a move is tactically unsound, a stupid person might still try to repeat it.

He might try, it just won't work. You can easily say your character tries to whirlwind again but he is tired/enemies are ready for it, so you just use Cleave instead.

>So it's still weird that you'd be locked to a set numbers of repeat in some sort of weirdly defined "encounter" terminology.

Unless you make everything into at-will abilities, you WILL be locked into "x times per encounter/hour/day/week/month/whatever", depending on the recharge rate of the mana/stamina/spell slots/rare reagents you need to harvest in downtime.

And having everything at-will is boring as shit.

>>54477419
I dunno, they don't let me try to reach for one more spell when I'm out of spell slots either.

>>54477395

No, it's quite different. If your ability to power strike was tied to your fatigue, climbing up a sheer cliff or running a marathon would affect your ability to power strike. It doesn't though. Thus, per encounter/short rest isn't actually tied to your stamina. Neither is it tied to you overusing the ability, because in that case people who sparred against you earlier would be immune to your powers.

Per encounter/short rest purely a game abstraction that doesn't represent anything real.

>>54477348
They did that with Psions in 4E and it completely and utterly fucking sucked. They did that with Battlemasters in 5E and it ended up being worse than Pathfinder's Fighter. Take the fucking hint.

>>54477442
>Per encounter/short rest purely a game abstraction that doesn't represent anything real.
obviously so. D&D is a predominantly gamist RPG through all the editions, 4E more so than any other,

>>54477443

Works fine in systems that aren't made by WotC though. Probably because there's more than class abilities that are poorly designed in D&D and its derivatives.

>>54477442
Stamina points in that example weren't tied to an exhaustion mechanic.

That said, since you have improvised use for powers, they quite literally translate to not being in your prime if you don't have powers left. You could use power strike for a bonus to breaking down doors or lifting something, for example, but if you didn't have a short rest before it, you don't have that option.

>>54477185
The mental gymnastics people put themselves through just for them to be okay with saying "I dont like x." to themselves is quite sad really.

The whole argument of skills taking flavor out of combat is complete bunk. What's to say I can't add my own flavor ontop of the skills I have laid out before me?

>>54472385
>How would /tg/ feel about a tabletop game that literally designs its classes like an MMO?
Sounds like shit, dude.

>>54477531

>alternative uses of use/day powers

Now that just opens up a whole can of worms. For instance, so I got the power to break down doors exactly three times between each short rest...Does that also mean I have the power to grab hold of something to propel myself straight upwards with power equivalent of that needed to break down a door? Because the the ability to break down does imply a certain amount of physical strength. Furthermore, what if I don't hit the door with my sword, but I instead use my sword as an improvised crowbar? Does that also use an encounter ability? Or, does it use like a quarter of an encounter ability because using a crowbar is easier than hitting the door?

I don't understand why 4e is considered to be like mmorpgs when it's far more like a playable high fantasy novel

"long rests" and "short rests" work far better as narrativistic separations in action as opposed to actual periods of time spent resting. And high-power abilities are limited in usage because it makes them more dramatic when used.

Of course, all of this is just lead up to me saying I want an actual MMORPG tabletop game, with tanks that use MMO-style aggro mechanics and classes that do basically nothing but heal but aren't boring to play as.

>>54477594
At this point if you're a GM you ask your friend to stop asking so many autistic questions like "Hey if i can barrel into a door and break it down, that means i can fling myself into outerspace because its the same amount of force right xd"

>>54477594
>Does that also mean I have the power to grab hold of something to propel myself straight upwards with power equivalent of that needed to break down a door?

I... what?

How are these even comparable? This is the most bizarre argument I have heard in a long fucking while.

HOWEVER... I think there was even some option like that somewhere. Something like expend martial encounter power -> add +5 to strength check/athletics roll for fighters, which would cover both breaking doors and clibing.

>>54477624

Actually, I am the GM. Immersion and sensible mechanics that allow for believable and creative play is my main concern. That's why I have to think about stuff like this, and their implications. That's why I personally chafe at limiting some stuff to "per encounter" (how does my setting even know when "an encounter" is occurring?).

>>54477650
>(how does my setting even know when "an encounter" is occurring?).

This was explained 3 times already. An "encounter" is a shorthand for "activity without at least 5 min break". It's the same shit as "short rest/long rest". It's not ar wishy-washy as a WoD "scene" or something.

Did they have 5 minutes to prepare for the fight? Then they have their encounters available.

>>54477650
There's a difference between immersion in the world and immersion in the story

Most of the time they coincide, a believeable world hosts a believeable story and a dramatic story creates a dramatic world, but in tregards to this individual issue they're torn

"Per encounter" coincides with "per dramatically appropriate scene" and mechanics that work on that scale work fantastically for bringing about greater story immersion, but trying to justify them in terms of world immersion is an excercise in futility, because the only reason why they work that way is because it makes the story you're telling more interesting

>>54477650
Do you chafe when your villain has a spell list with durations measured in rounds and turns?

>>54477650
Maybe you should make your own RPG system then, you can really focus on things that cause you to "chafe."
So after you get done with strength being 1:1 physically possible you could move onto foods giving certain caloric amounts as well as daily fat percentages.. because that provides a much more immersive game world, right?

>>54477680

That's the problem though, isn't it? Per encounter abilities do not bring about greater story immersion (since by their nature, per encounter abilities will wrestle control of the character from the player, thus making game apparent in the middle of the story) and trying to justify them in terms world immersion is an exercise in futility.

In that case, why bother?

>>54477724
Because freeform RPGs are shit and having "clutch" abilities feels awesome

>>54477724
Because it improves the GAME. Again, WotC made classes that used a stamina system instead of AEDU and they fucking sucked in play, every single one of them. It led directly to spamming single moves ad infinitum instead of doing something different every single round.

>>54472385
Not a huge fan of TTRPG trying to be MMORPGs (I believe both have a niche they can cover), but at the very least I can see its merits in making systems more balanced (not in the sense that everyone is equal, but in the sense that nobody is redundant).

>>54477724

>Per encounter abilities do not bring about greater story immersion (since by their nature, per encounter abilities will wrestle control of the character from the player, thus making game apparent in the middle of the story)

I'm not sure I understand that one. It personally feels more immersive rather than less >>54477422 is my general statement why. The ability to control more where you get your dramatic moments rather helps it imo.

>>54472385
i would rather take the rock-paper-scissors style of runescape

melee, ranged, magic

archer has more range than mage and kites them, animal hides protects from magic, and silk or cloth robes do not protect against arrows

melee beats archer, since thick plate stops most projectiles, while soft leather is easily stabbed or slashed through

mage beats melee, since "hold person" effects allow you to open them up to attack without repercussion, and metal plate attracts magic like a lightning rod but does not act like a faraday cage

you can go a mix of 2 or 3, or go pure into a single class

>>54477740

If the 4e design would have been an improvement of the game in its entirety, people would have bitched about the edition less.

>>54477757

I personally prefer systems where you always get a try and failure is dictated not by you running out of "charges", but by your character plain not being good enough/unlucky.

Of course, I'm not here to tell you stop having fun. I'm just here to offer different perspectives o game design, and why many people turned away from 4e in particular (notice that I'm not a fan of other editions of d&d either, and it's not simply because I dislike per encounter/daily abilities on characters that have no reason to be limited in such a manner).

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ITT: Another D&D thread derailed by an autist who cannot let people talk about D&D.

>>54477824
>If the 4e design would have been an improvement of the game in its entirety, people would have bitched about the edition less.

You could make the same argument for New Coke.

>>54477832
But dude he's a GM and he doesn't know what "encounter" means.

>>54477832

To be fair, anyone who posts about pen and paper MMORPGs are just making an excuse to dig up 4e:s corpse for another beating. MMORPG=4e is pretty much burned into people's mind by now, even though the two don't have that much in common.

>>54472385
My gamegroups are comprised of 1 GM and 3 players, so most of the time we (try) play like that.

Doesn't stop the cleric from playing support and being a good tank at the same time, tho.

>>54477824

>I personally prefer systems where you always get a try and failure is dictated not by you running out of "charges", but by your character plain not being good enough/unlucky.

Yeah, I rather like them. Gumshoe for example is a fantastic detective game and it's entirely charge based to let the player decide success or failure (Making it a resource management aspect).

I think it ties back into why I find it more immersive. As it feels more like a story on that front. The hero generally doesn't fail to attempt his big trick when confronted by the villain of the story or use it again and again when the mooks are involved.

It's why I find it kinda funny when 'Storygaming' is thrown as an insult at FATE (When aspects are 100% in-universe things you are taking advantage of) but not at 4e (Which is all about deciding when the dramatically appropriate moment for something is as the player).

>>54477979
>>It's why I find it kinda funny when 'Storygaming' is thrown as an insult at FATE (When aspects are 100% in-universe things you are taking advantage of) but not at 4e (Which is all about deciding when the dramatically appropriate moment for something is as the player).
It's because nobody on /tg/ actually plays the games they talk about and games like 3.PF soured the concept of crunchy systems while Dungeon World soured the concept of story-based systems.

So whenever anyone talks about those concepts, it basically boils down to "that shit was horrible because 3.PF/DW was horrible, eat shit and get better taste faggot!"

>>54476555
the fallout series was supposed to use GURPS, and switched to what they have now at some point during development.
i don't recall why, probably licensing issues or something.

it did keep the hit locations though.

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I can't comprehend the 4fags in the thread trying to say their game isn't abstractionist. Why exactly can my fighter only bull charge once per combat? Why does everyone have the magical ability to seal 1/4 their wounds? These things are purely game abstractions to improve balance and combat.

As one anon said
>Because it improves the GAME.

If you guys want to evangelize 4e convince us that the abstractions are good, not that the abstractions aren't abstractions at all.

>>54479167
>I can't comprehend the 4fags in the thread trying to say their game isn't abstractionist.

I don't think a single person in the thread said that.

>>54479167

They're narrative abstractions. They make sense in the context of heroic fantasy storytelling.

>>54479188
see
>>54477979
>I think it ties back into why I find it more immersive. As it feels more like a story on that front. The hero generally doesn't fail to attempt his big trick when confronted by the villain of the story or use it again and again when the mooks are involved.

>>54479382

Both people quoted are me. I was expressly talking about how the game IS a abstraction, as it's running on story logic for powers.

Heck, I CALLED it 'Storygaming'.

>>54479421
How do you define story logic, and why do you think that's the core design philosophy instead of say game balance, or accessibility?

>Heck,
I didn't know mormons played DnD

>>54475916
i think it's just a playstyle for RPGs. GNS theory might be dubitable but the GNS archetypes are pretty solid and apply.

>>54479671
>How do you define story logic

Using the logic of stories, rather than reality. For example, in a story the hero almost never goes into a fight a hair away from being out of it no matter how beat up he's been before. The big trick of a fighter is rarely repeated in the same fight and almost never in a situation that's undramatic.

It's conforming more to the recurrent motifs of fiction than to an attempt to simulate the world.

I'd also say that all 3 of the things you listed are core parts of 4e. It's not like they are opposed concepts.

>>54479781
>For example, in a story the hero almost never goes into a fight a hair away from being out of it no matter how beat up he's been before.
In fiction the protagonist basically never loses.

>>54479832

Your point being?

>>54479832

Most adventuring days most people don't tend to lose either. You see a hell of a lot more encounters during an RPG than a movie.