D&D: Challenge vs. Peril
Jul. 19th, 2009 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinThis is the first of a few D&D related posts I'm going to be making, looking back on last week's experiences while they're still fresh in my mind. I'll be making liberal use of the cut tag, for those who aren't interested in such. Don't worry. I'll be getting back to other topics tomorrow, after I do the day's writing and then tackle my email inboxes.
One recurring complaint I've read about D&D4E runs along the lines that it's too easy, that there's little genuine peril in combat situations, and that the player characters are overpowered.
That's something I can sort of see going both ways... on the one hand, there is definitely a more pronounced "Big Damn Heroes" feel straight from level one. That's something that I like about the game. But on the other hand, you're fighting monsters with statistically similar HPs and hit rates and damage inflicting abilities as you. Back on the first hand, you've got abilities like daily powers and healing surges and action points that you can use to get yourself out of most perilous situations, if you can figure out how to use them effectively.
And I think it's that last point that's most important: if you can figure out how to use them effectively. Combat/adventuring in 4E is not "perilous" in the sense that it was in previous editions, with "roll a saving throw or die" effects and attacks that scaled up to involve double digit numbers of dice being rolled for damage. 4E is simply designed so that a bad roll of the die won't kill you. In a balanced encounter with a natural or logical or balanced distribution of the monster attacks, there will be enough back and forth that you will know when your character is in trouble and you will have time to address it.
Thus combat becomes "challenging" instead of "perilous", which is how I prefer it. It's so much more rewarding to know that you won by your own actions than because of lucky die rolls.
I know some people prefer a bit of unpredictability. In one session we played, the DM brought over a critical hit system from another game (Rolemaster? I don't remember. It involves a lot of tables, so I'm going to say Rolemaster.) with the main intention of adding more flavor to combat, but the side effect of making combat a lot more random. PCs and non-minion monsters could both be brought down now with a single hit.
"Realistic" insofar as in real actual deadly combat that can happen, but in my opinion it changes victory from a personal accomplishment to a happenstance, and so I passed on the offer of using them when I ran my first session.
(Also, I'd rather encourage players to bring their own flavor to their attacks and the resulting visuals.)
If the DM is following the guidelines for encounters, then whether it's canonically easy, moderate, or hard, then victory is always within your reach, as long as you're willing to stretch a little go get it. Teamwork, tactics, lateral thinking... anything that gives you an edge against your opponents. This is where the roles, the mechanic that I've been told "don't do what they're supposed to do" really come into play. I've spent the last week and a half either playing or DMing pretty much every night, in sessions lasting anywhere from four to ten hours, and I feel very comfortable saying that the game designers knew what they were doing there and they nailed it.
I gave my players an action climax on the last night we were running my campaign that involved a massive battle against forces combined from several enemy factions they'd been engaging with on a trek across dangerous wilderness... as the party was about to cross over into a heavily patrolled region, their enemies combined forces to make a final stand to stop them. I told one of the more tactically-oriented of them (our other main DM,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gamingdragon) that I knew they'd be able to win but that it would require more coordination than they'd been showing.
Our group does not do much to discourage "tactical table talk" during combat... that is, none of us as DMs decree that you can't have any out-of-character discussion of what you're going to be doing. Some people banish this sort of thing with a cry of "realism!", but to my way of thinking, it's a handy way of simulating the benefits of years of teamwork and experience working together that the player characters may have. A two minute discussion of who's going to do what could actually be summed up in character as "Just like Yhenti Pass! Remember?" or "You all know what to do!"
That, coupled with our tendency to start campaigns at arbitrarily chosen levels instead of playing up through the ranks (if we were able to play more often, we probably wouldn't do this so much, but we want to see what the higher levels are like) means that combat goes a bit slower than it would, but the more we do it, the faster it goes, because the more often the players really can go, "You know what to do!" or "Remember when we fought the _______."
They won the battle. Some of them came close to dying in the process, but they won.
My experience with previous editions... both personal and by proxy, reading and hearing others' accounts, was that when you came close to dying, you either legged it (and hoped you didn't get shot in the back or chased down) or you started praying to roll really well or (if you're that sort of player and have that sort of DM) you forget about attacks and defenses and attempt an unconventional solution. And pray to roll really well.
Any of those things can happen in 4E, but my experience as a player and as a DM has mostly been that when a player character comes close to dying, they start fighting harder. They use their action point and/or second wind. They bust out the daily moves. They do something daring, including maybe risking an opportunity attack, to get out of the immediate peril or they pile on everything they've got in order to end it.
This kind of thing was sometimes sort of possible with a wizard or sorcerer in 3E, but usually if they found themselves in that sort of situation it meant they'd spent all their spells.
On the subject of people coming close to dying: the healing surge mechanic has been maligned as being a gimmicky video gamey mechanic that makes no in-universe sense, but I love it.
The much-derided mechanic of being able to heal from being "almost dead" by resting for six hours makes a lot more sense when you realize that having three HP isn't the state of being almost dead, it's the state of being worn down from previous hits to the point where an enemy can slip in a fatal blow. If your wounds didn't kill you in the first place, a good night's sleep certainly can cure that.
An inspiring cry from the party's Warlord, a rousing speech from the party's Bard... you throw off some of the pain and fatigue and keep fighting (spend one healing surge, regain 25% of your HP). A few quiet minutes after the battle and before the next one during which you can clean your wounds, adjust your shield and your grip on your weapon to compensate, and recover from the shock and you're good to go for the next fight (spend 1-4 healing surges to regain 25%-100% of your HP), but maybe not another one after that (oops, ran out of healing surges.) But after a night's rest, with your wounds bandaged and maybe some numbing herbs applied, and you're in fighting form the next day.
There's always been the handwave in previous editions of D&D that those dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of "Hit Points" you could build up are an abstraction of many things, including your character's luck and ability to avoid the worst of the blow and so on... you can't really be stabbed two hundred times and live. It's never really played out like that, though. There's already a hit-or-miss mechanic that works separately from and independently of Hit Points, and acrobatic or nimble or luckier or savvier characters don't get more Hit Points, and spells called "Cure Light Wounds" restore Hit Points. In practice, they always play as "how much damage you can take."
With the healing surge mechanic, it works out so much better. It takes much less fewer hits to winnow someone down to within spitting distance of zero, but if they get a chance to step back and use their second wind... or they get some timely words of inspiration or a prayer of intercession from the party's leader, they get back 25% of their total HPs (and possibly some change). With most of your excess hit points stored in the form of healing surges that must be triggered by events like those, it feels a lot more like Hit Points are what the fluff says they're supposed to be.
It's not that the Rogue can take three halberds-strikes and be perfectly okay but the fourth one kills her. It's that she was able to keep the first three from killing her but they took enough out of her that the fourth one will kill her. As I said, the fluff behind the mechanics has always presented it that way, but the healing surge mechanic actually makes it feel that way. You can shake it off, once per combat or again with help from the party leader or if somebody does something particularly triumphanty.
And that all contributes to the shift from "peril" to "challenge". In 4E, while you never start out one hit away from dying, it also never takes too many hits from a level-appropriate enemy to take you down into the danger zone.
In our first 4E session ever, when we were still learning the game and when none of us had grasped just how different a paladin as defender-who-heals was from a cleric as leader was, or even how different a ranger as striker was from a paladin as defender, our characters never actually did die before we decided to switch things up with different classes. We felt like we were losing every combat because our HP kept dropping near to zero and because... well... it sure didn't feel like we were winning them. Even after we got a better handle on classes and roles, we still were kind of left with the impression that the balance was weird because we had to keep coming up with clever tactics and using teamwork and such to defeat "ordinary" encounters.
Eventually we figured out that this was the point, but when everyone has years of experience with fights that are either stacked for or against you... that you're statistically slated to either win or lose on average... it can be disconcerting to have every fight go like that. My bard, Pallas's, habit of proclaiming "We're winning!" all the time grew out of me doing that out of character when it seemed like the other players were disheartened or frustrated.
It's a very different paradigm. It takes some getting used to. But I like it. It's rewarding, the same way that it's more rewarding to win a game of poker than a randomized high card draw.
(And the fact that you have more time to recognize that you're in trouble and do something about it can work for the monsters' side, too. Most of my current campaign is outdoor fighting against intelligent opponents, and most of the fights have involved an opponent or two... or six, for the larger-scale ones... fleeing when it becomes apparent they're about to be killed, thus setting the stage for the climactic battle. Twice the party's defender... a Warden... was able to prevent a major foe for a given encounter from escaping.)
Preamble:
In the oldest of old school D&D, of the style championed by Gary Gygax (may he rest in peace), a balanced combat was one where the party might win, if the dice went their way.
In most of the intermediate incarnations, a balanced fight was one where the party would win, unless the dice went against them.
In the newest edition, a balanced fight is one where the party can win, if they're willing to fight for it.
/Preamble
One recurring complaint I've read about D&D4E runs along the lines that it's too easy, that there's little genuine peril in combat situations, and that the player characters are overpowered.
That's something I can sort of see going both ways... on the one hand, there is definitely a more pronounced "Big Damn Heroes" feel straight from level one. That's something that I like about the game. But on the other hand, you're fighting monsters with statistically similar HPs and hit rates and damage inflicting abilities as you. Back on the first hand, you've got abilities like daily powers and healing surges and action points that you can use to get yourself out of most perilous situations, if you can figure out how to use them effectively.
And I think it's that last point that's most important: if you can figure out how to use them effectively. Combat/adventuring in 4E is not "perilous" in the sense that it was in previous editions, with "roll a saving throw or die" effects and attacks that scaled up to involve double digit numbers of dice being rolled for damage. 4E is simply designed so that a bad roll of the die won't kill you. In a balanced encounter with a natural or logical or balanced distribution of the monster attacks, there will be enough back and forth that you will know when your character is in trouble and you will have time to address it.
Thus combat becomes "challenging" instead of "perilous", which is how I prefer it. It's so much more rewarding to know that you won by your own actions than because of lucky die rolls.
I know some people prefer a bit of unpredictability. In one session we played, the DM brought over a critical hit system from another game (Rolemaster? I don't remember. It involves a lot of tables, so I'm going to say Rolemaster.) with the main intention of adding more flavor to combat, but the side effect of making combat a lot more random. PCs and non-minion monsters could both be brought down now with a single hit.
"Realistic" insofar as in real actual deadly combat that can happen, but in my opinion it changes victory from a personal accomplishment to a happenstance, and so I passed on the offer of using them when I ran my first session.
(Also, I'd rather encourage players to bring their own flavor to their attacks and the resulting visuals.)
If the DM is following the guidelines for encounters, then whether it's canonically easy, moderate, or hard, then victory is always within your reach, as long as you're willing to stretch a little go get it. Teamwork, tactics, lateral thinking... anything that gives you an edge against your opponents. This is where the roles, the mechanic that I've been told "don't do what they're supposed to do" really come into play. I've spent the last week and a half either playing or DMing pretty much every night, in sessions lasting anywhere from four to ten hours, and I feel very comfortable saying that the game designers knew what they were doing there and they nailed it.
I gave my players an action climax on the last night we were running my campaign that involved a massive battle against forces combined from several enemy factions they'd been engaging with on a trek across dangerous wilderness... as the party was about to cross over into a heavily patrolled region, their enemies combined forces to make a final stand to stop them. I told one of the more tactically-oriented of them (our other main DM,
gamingdragon) that I knew they'd be able to win but that it would require more coordination than they'd been showing.Our group does not do much to discourage "tactical table talk" during combat... that is, none of us as DMs decree that you can't have any out-of-character discussion of what you're going to be doing. Some people banish this sort of thing with a cry of "realism!", but to my way of thinking, it's a handy way of simulating the benefits of years of teamwork and experience working together that the player characters may have. A two minute discussion of who's going to do what could actually be summed up in character as "Just like Yhenti Pass! Remember?" or "You all know what to do!"
That, coupled with our tendency to start campaigns at arbitrarily chosen levels instead of playing up through the ranks (if we were able to play more often, we probably wouldn't do this so much, but we want to see what the higher levels are like) means that combat goes a bit slower than it would, but the more we do it, the faster it goes, because the more often the players really can go, "You know what to do!" or "Remember when we fought the _______."
They won the battle. Some of them came close to dying in the process, but they won.
My experience with previous editions... both personal and by proxy, reading and hearing others' accounts, was that when you came close to dying, you either legged it (and hoped you didn't get shot in the back or chased down) or you started praying to roll really well or (if you're that sort of player and have that sort of DM) you forget about attacks and defenses and attempt an unconventional solution. And pray to roll really well.
Any of those things can happen in 4E, but my experience as a player and as a DM has mostly been that when a player character comes close to dying, they start fighting harder. They use their action point and/or second wind. They bust out the daily moves. They do something daring, including maybe risking an opportunity attack, to get out of the immediate peril or they pile on everything they've got in order to end it.
This kind of thing was sometimes sort of possible with a wizard or sorcerer in 3E, but usually if they found themselves in that sort of situation it meant they'd spent all their spells.
On the subject of people coming close to dying: the healing surge mechanic has been maligned as being a gimmicky video gamey mechanic that makes no in-universe sense, but I love it.
The much-derided mechanic of being able to heal from being "almost dead" by resting for six hours makes a lot more sense when you realize that having three HP isn't the state of being almost dead, it's the state of being worn down from previous hits to the point where an enemy can slip in a fatal blow. If your wounds didn't kill you in the first place, a good night's sleep certainly can cure that.
An inspiring cry from the party's Warlord, a rousing speech from the party's Bard... you throw off some of the pain and fatigue and keep fighting (spend one healing surge, regain 25% of your HP). A few quiet minutes after the battle and before the next one during which you can clean your wounds, adjust your shield and your grip on your weapon to compensate, and recover from the shock and you're good to go for the next fight (spend 1-4 healing surges to regain 25%-100% of your HP), but maybe not another one after that (oops, ran out of healing surges.) But after a night's rest, with your wounds bandaged and maybe some numbing herbs applied, and you're in fighting form the next day.
There's always been the handwave in previous editions of D&D that those dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of "Hit Points" you could build up are an abstraction of many things, including your character's luck and ability to avoid the worst of the blow and so on... you can't really be stabbed two hundred times and live. It's never really played out like that, though. There's already a hit-or-miss mechanic that works separately from and independently of Hit Points, and acrobatic or nimble or luckier or savvier characters don't get more Hit Points, and spells called "Cure Light Wounds" restore Hit Points. In practice, they always play as "how much damage you can take."
With the healing surge mechanic, it works out so much better. It takes much less fewer hits to winnow someone down to within spitting distance of zero, but if they get a chance to step back and use their second wind... or they get some timely words of inspiration or a prayer of intercession from the party's leader, they get back 25% of their total HPs (and possibly some change). With most of your excess hit points stored in the form of healing surges that must be triggered by events like those, it feels a lot more like Hit Points are what the fluff says they're supposed to be.
It's not that the Rogue can take three halberds-strikes and be perfectly okay but the fourth one kills her. It's that she was able to keep the first three from killing her but they took enough out of her that the fourth one will kill her. As I said, the fluff behind the mechanics has always presented it that way, but the healing surge mechanic actually makes it feel that way. You can shake it off, once per combat or again with help from the party leader or if somebody does something particularly triumphanty.
And that all contributes to the shift from "peril" to "challenge". In 4E, while you never start out one hit away from dying, it also never takes too many hits from a level-appropriate enemy to take you down into the danger zone.
In our first 4E session ever, when we were still learning the game and when none of us had grasped just how different a paladin as defender-who-heals was from a cleric as leader was, or even how different a ranger as striker was from a paladin as defender, our characters never actually did die before we decided to switch things up with different classes. We felt like we were losing every combat because our HP kept dropping near to zero and because... well... it sure didn't feel like we were winning them. Even after we got a better handle on classes and roles, we still were kind of left with the impression that the balance was weird because we had to keep coming up with clever tactics and using teamwork and such to defeat "ordinary" encounters.
Eventually we figured out that this was the point, but when everyone has years of experience with fights that are either stacked for or against you... that you're statistically slated to either win or lose on average... it can be disconcerting to have every fight go like that. My bard, Pallas's, habit of proclaiming "We're winning!" all the time grew out of me doing that out of character when it seemed like the other players were disheartened or frustrated.
It's a very different paradigm. It takes some getting used to. But I like it. It's rewarding, the same way that it's more rewarding to win a game of poker than a randomized high card draw.
(And the fact that you have more time to recognize that you're in trouble and do something about it can work for the monsters' side, too. Most of my current campaign is outdoor fighting against intelligent opponents, and most of the fights have involved an opponent or two... or six, for the larger-scale ones... fleeing when it becomes apparent they're about to be killed, thus setting the stage for the climactic battle. Twice the party's defender... a Warden... was able to prevent a major foe for a given encounter from escaping.)
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I'm trying to beat my old record at pointless nitpicking
on 2009-07-20 10:35 am (UTC)Oh well, anyway. It's pretty easy to see why not everyone likes it when each and every hit, even from the puniest of goblins, carries a real risk of crippling or killing your precious hero. I think the big issue is really in whether you want combat to be the field of glory where Big Damn Heroes show their mettle or a field of blood where widows and orphans are made.
Re: I'm trying to beat my old record at pointless nitpicking
on 2009-07-20 03:02 pm (UTC)I recall Legend of the Five Rings being another game system that's very big on the lethality of combat, particularly iaijutsu duels. One of the first things I hear as advice for new players is not to get into fights unless it's absolutely necessary because it can be so very easy to die.