[Diversion] How D&D 4E has become a relative resistance game

From: Todd Gardiner <todd.gardiner_at_...>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:47:42 -0700


Monsters now fit into roles. They have some powers that are used in combat, usually to make the monster flavorful, and base to-hit and damage amounts. DMs can then adjust the HP, defenses, to-hit and damage values by a formula to bump the "Level 12 Skirmisher" to the appropriate level. The formula is based on the monster role and the characters' level. These formulas work because magic item bonuses are more regulated by level, the level-up tables are level-based and not class-based, and there are few other modifiers by which a player can "over-power" the scheme and min-max. Lots of gaming groups feel like this is a straight-jacket. But there is no explanation for players that the "Pass/Fail" cycle has been encoded into the rule system so that it is much easier for a DM to create a story with exciting ebb and flow, where the players demonstrate mastery at one moment and cling by their fingernails the next.

Let me throw out an example:

Here is a monster listing from the Monster Manual:

Flameskull Level 8 Artillery
Tiny natural animate (undead) XP 350
Initiative +7 Senses Perception +11
HP 70; Bloodied 35
Regeneration 5
AC 21; Fortitude 18, Reflex 23, Will 21
Immune disease, poison; Resist 10 fire, 5 necrotic; Vulnerable 5 radiant Speed fly 10 (hover)

Melee - Fiery Bite (standard; at-will) ✦ Fire Reach 0; +10 vs. AC; 1 damage plus 1d8 fire damage.

Ranged - Flame Ray (standard; at-will) ✦ Fire Ranged 10; +12 vs. Refl ex; 2d6 + 6 fi re damage.

Area - Fireball (standard; encounter) ✦ Fire Area burst 3 within 20; +12 vs. Refl ex; 3d6 + 6 fi re damage. Miss: Half damage. The flameskull can exclude two allies from the effect.

Mage Hand (minor; at-will) ✦ Conjuration As the wizard power mage hand (Player’s Handbook 158).

Illumination
The flameskull sheds bright light out to 5 squares, but it can reduce its brightness to dim light out to 2 squares as a free action.
Skills Stealth +12

No more hit dice, no more fixed saving throw targets for effects, just basic attack powers and defense numbers. Now, to convert this monster (which, by "proper encounter design" as per the DMG, is only one of several encounter foes), you would follow these instructions from the DMG:

Boosting a monster’s level is easy. Just increase its attack rolls, defenses, and AC by 1 for every level you add. For every two levels, increase the damage it deals with its attacks by 1. The monster also gains extra hit points at each level, based on its role (see the “Monster Statistics by Role” table on page 184). Decreasing a monster’s level works like increasing it, but in reverse. This process works best for adjusting a monster’s level up to five higher or lower. Beyond that, the monster changes so much that you’d do better to start with another creature of the desired role and level range.

On the other hand, Skill Challenges are the system for running non-combat encounters for the players. First, in 4E it is important to understand that all skills have a base value equal to half your level. If you are Trained, you get another plus 5, if you are also Focused in that skill, another plus 3, which is about as high as you can get over your comrades. (And for a few skill tests, you must be Trained in order to attempt it).

My biggest complaint here is that the skill list is rather short. But with brevity, list of skills each get more relevance. Thus the skill Thievery includes everything you can think of that is not in the skill Stealth.

What is a "Skill Challenge"? It's a series of roles, each player getting a chance to contribute, where the goal is to get the required number of successes before rolling too many failures. The difficulty of those skill rolls are based on the adjudication of relevance of the skill and how the player describes using it and some "base resistance" for the overall goal the players are trying to achieve.

(Note from the monster listing above, he has a skill or two that would be used in combat, but should the players be in a Skill Challenge against this foe, the DM would be getting target numbers (e.g. in HQ-talk, the resistance numbers) from the difficulty he has set for the challenge, not from the monsters unlisted abilities.)

This is used to model everything from extremely complicated room-sized traps, to the extended negotiation with the diplomats of the King's Court in order to gain their aid in convincing the king to send troops to aid a village. Players themselves decide which skills they use and how it is described as aiding the effort. The DM then adjudicates.

Since there is a lot of "fuzziness" here, the majority of people I have heard from don't like Skill Challenges. But then, the same might also be true of HQ1 and its descendants. Some people need hard numbers and 100% tactical play in order to have fun.

In my opinion, this makes D&D 4E both more like 1st edition and as far from it as ever. If you peruse those rules, you'll find that there is NOTHING but combat rules in them. Yet I seem to remember telling complex stories with lots of roleplaying, somehow made more possible by not having stats for anything outside of combat. 4E is dressed like it's all-combat, all the time. But then you run into this interesting new tool, the Skill Challenge, and suddenly you can do things out of combat and there is a feeling like it's not solely in the DM's hand to make everything up out of whole cloth.

So, in the end, are "the numbers fixed" in D&D 4E? Well, the Monster Manual does give fixed stats for the foes. But there are tools to turn any foe into a challenge the the characters' current ability. Thus is it now a non-fixed system, where one Flameskull is different from another, solely because of story needs.

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