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## A question from a 4E apologist.

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Roy
  Prince
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  Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:53 pm

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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:13 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:@Roy:
> The Rogue's only easier to hit if it's specifically a Swordmage or someone else who can swing a net +3 AC. If it's +2, then the mark means the Rogue's exactly as easy to hit. If the Defender is standing ground and the Rogue's mobile, the Rogue's hard to hit in ways that don't boil down to %/DPS calculations.

Exactly as easy to hit by AC based attacks... probably lower HP, and probably higher damage. And if this is not true, the precious little 'roles' fail because the defense guy isn't actually the defense guy, and the damage guy isn't actually the damage guy.
Also, you can move and attack in the same round. All that means is they're doing the Murder Tango.

> As I said, I know you guys strip the game of all tactics and play it like it's a video game where your choices are ATTACK ITEM RUN,

First off, stop wanking to that straw man. Or fingering yourself, if your username is any indication. Your lies are highly offensive, and should be met with offense in turn.
Second, tactics do come down to the commands you use. That word does not mean what you think it means.
Third, I find it ironic it's the apologetics comparing 4.Fail to video games this time. Though yes, it does boil down to that as everything is a basic stat contest, and if your numbers are bigger you win. Otherwise you save and reload.

> And "Higher priority target" is MMO PvP logic. If you want to play that way, more power to you, but I don't understand why you wouldn't rather play an MMO if that's what you're going for. I've read you guys sneering at the idea that we 4E defenders are saying the system isn't broken because the DM can fix it. No, actually, the system isn't broken because it posits a DM and not a competing player at your game of DPS Battlechess.

Double irony: It's the apologetics making MMO references.
But no the fuck it isn't. See that guy who hurts you worse? You fucking kill him first, because you don't want to die. Full stop. Sure, MMO aggro amounts to the same thing, but it is by no means exclusive to them. Enemies will always target characters in order from highest to lowest threat, and they will always focus fire because HP damage does nothing until it kills, and as this is a basic rule of the world everyone knows it.

> But even ignoring the in-game/meta-game distinction of "Who do I make this character/gamepiece attack?", if the Defender is sticking to the monster and the Striker is moving away from the monster, then the monster's giving up attacks and taking hits to chase the Striker, isn't it?

And usually it's the apologetics who bring up 'no iterative attacks' as a good thing, yet here you are making out as if the MOB (and that's what it is, see existing works for why the system breaks when you treat enemies as anything but) is incapable of both moving and attacking in the same round, despite it getting a Standard and a Move. So yes, they do the Murder Tango across the closet squares. While the Defender chases. Cue Benny Hill music. Meanwhile, the other 4-12 MOBs do whatever the fuck they want, since the 'defender' can only defend against a tiny fraction of the enemy force.
And oh yeah, if for some reason they did get pulled his way, he'd die to focus fire in very short order because his defenses are only marginally better at best. But the damage? Much lower. Well, unless you're a Fighter, but that doesn't really count since the devs deliberately busted their own chops with that class.

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
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Maxus
  Overlord
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  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

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Post by Maxus » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:16 pm

Also...A game can be broken and still be fun. I mean, there's people who can have fun with anything.
That's cool. 4e is a fun, easy-to-run game.
But the designers should have enough pride in what they produce that they make something good. Or work to fix it when it's not good. Turning out crappy mechanics and then having people go, "The DM could fix it! It's still okay" is not very impressive.
So, really, our complaints aren't much about the fun-factor of 4e. It's about the low quality of the rules and how often the DM has to step in and say, "Uh, yeah, it works like that. Definitely, sure, it does. That's totally what they meant to happen, so that's what actually happens."
I mean, monsters can be smart. Smarter than us sometimes. I wouldn't put it past them to put a less-armored party member down right NOW rather than beat on the guy in the tin can. But doing that causes some problems.
If I were writing a Defender, I'd give them a power which lets them attract fire. Seriously, they'd be able to stand up in front of a crowd of goblins and say that goblin mommas all have orcs on the side on the side, or something. Or even just a small-scale one that means he can call out one enemy to do one-on-one. Not some kind of mark--provoke an enemy so it will come and square up with you.
But then I'd have to give him the defenses to cope with the additional attention. Because it looks like that if all the monsters DID focus on the Defender...He'll be stomped down.
Last edited by Maxus on Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.
--The horror of Mario
Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Lago PARANOIA
  Invincible Overlord
  Posts: 10555
  Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:18 pm

And who could forget the one phrase associated with Shadowrun that any tabletop RPGer will recognize?
'Geek the mage first.'
Target the squishy-but-useful guy is a universal tactic in gaming; not just tabletop gaming, either. It's not metagaming at all if there are four equally-contributing party members to go after the easiest target.
But anyway, due to the way hit point inflation works in 4E, a 20th level warlock can expect to have 40 hit points or fewer than, say, a fighter. And because their stuff is tied up in ranged attacks, they can't use their stuff without powers like Expeditious retreat.
And yes, the game does encourage the monsters to ignore the defender and swarm past them to attack the squishy guy. Why?
Average hit points of 16th level monster: 160
Average OA damage of a 16th level defender: 25

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Psychic Robot
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Post by Psychic Robot » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:22 pm

This Alexandra chick is as retarded as her blog made her out to be.

> Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.

> Ant wrote:

> > Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?

> You do not seem to do anything.

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Roy
  Prince
  Posts: 2772
  Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:53 pm

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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:25 pm

> Psychic Robot wrote:This Alexandra chick is as retarded as her blog made her out to be.

Lols. I'm not even touching her other reply to me. It's one big straw man, and this thread is getting chain smited as is.
It would be better if she started asking us what our crimes were.

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
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Psychic Robot
  Prince
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Post by Psychic Robot » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:25 pm

Having monsters act in accordance with their Int scores, apparently.

> Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.

> Ant wrote:

> > Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?

> You do not seem to do anything.

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Roy
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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:27 pm

> Psychic Robot wrote:Having monsters act in accordance with their Int scores, apparently.

No, that's not it. Treating them as Int > - shatters the entire system.

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
Top

Psychic Robot
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  Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 10:47 pm

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Post by Psychic Robot » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:32 pm

I think that all characters in 4e should have little tags above their heads that state their class role. This would allow the monsters to converge upon the defenders and ignore the strikers and leaders. (They're already going to ignore the controllers, so that doesn't really matter.)

> Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.

> Ant wrote:

> > Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?

> You do not seem to do anything.

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NineInchNall
  Duke
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Post by NineInchNall » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:35 pm

To borrow from The Neverending Story: Is she ... a nutcase?
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
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Roy
  Prince
  Posts: 2772
  Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:53 pm

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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 7:54 pm

> Psychic Robot wrote:I think that all characters in 4e should have little tags above their heads that state their class role. This would allow the monsters to converge upon the defenders and ignore the strikers and leaders. (They're already going to ignore the controllers, so that doesn't really matter.)

That is honestly the only way the edition makes sense. After all, the apologetics love talking like 'don't waste dailies on minions' as if it were somehow possible to deduce the fact they can die from a housecat when the MOB next to it is going to take several rounds to kill (and there are many of him) and the one next to that will be a 20 round grind fest.

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
Top

AlexandraErin
  1st Level
  Posts: 29
  Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:02 pm

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Post by AlexandraErin » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:01 pm

I play a dagger rogue in one game. The virtue of daggers is you can throw them. I use magical Distance Daggers for extra range. The "all magical throwing weapons are returning" mechanic really increases a rogue's versatility after the opening levels. It lets me move around a lot, it means I can attack every turn even when I'm retreating, and this makes the Warden the "easy target" by comparison.
Sly Flourish. At-Will with bonus Charisma damage on top of Dex. Weapon power, melee or ranged. Works with a thrown dagger as well as one in the hand.
If monsters chase me, they get hit with that every round, whether they catch me or not. They give up rounds where they can't hit anyone and/or trigger the Warden's powers and/or get opportunity attack to chase me, or they stick to the Warden.
If she's in her Winter's Herald form, they usually stick to her anyway just because it's hard to move away over the icy ground... they give her an opportunity attack to move away, fail to catch me, she catches them, attacks and marks them again. They never get away and they never get unmarked.
Tactics.
Sure, I'm not doing my Sneak Attack damage every round this way, but there's a reason SA does more damage than Hunter's Quarry or Warlock's Curse. If an ally's power throws me a combat advantage, I can get it off a thrown dagger just as easily as I could from being in position. If not, I use it when I can get into a melee position with flanking. I can get one round if the monster's a shifty, mobile type, or more if the monster's determined to tank.
If I get pinned down, I've got my encounters and dailies. Blinding barrage? Oh, the monsters that were chasing me are blind. Combat advantage. Easy escape, or a quick Sneak Attack, and now they're all wounded, too.
And if the monsters are determined to avoid the big mace-swinging Warden and chase the squishy, it's child's play for me to keep the Warden between me and them since I can move through her threatened squares, her square itself, and the difficult terrain she's creating (it's in the Winter's Herald description that it doesn't affect allies... they did learn from the Wizard) while they can't.
This strategy would fall apart if at the start of combat the DM said, "Look, I know your strategy and fuck you. Everybody dogpiles on the dagger girl until she's dead." And in fact, every once in a while... when fighting recurring foes, for instance... our tactics are being countered by the monsters.
And sometimes it needs to be adjusted because we're fighting in the proverbial closet. Sometimes it needs to be adjusted because we're fighting in a wide open field. I see the people on this forum responding to situational changes like that by going "Oh so the system assumes all fights happen in X." No, the system assume your DM is there for a reason and will provide varying scenarios.
And this doesn't mean that in all cases where our tactics work the DM is humoring us. The DM also isn't saying that rocks fall everybody dies, or dropping us into acid, or having the first door in the dungeon be a portal to the Abyss covered with a perfect illusion of an empty room. Is that humoring us? It's not an accomplishment for the DM to "beat" the party. It is an accomplishment for the DM to provide a scenario where the players -can- win through their actions but might not.
In our heroic tier campaigns, not counting the first session where we didn't know what we were doing and combat went about like what you've described, we have only had one encounter that went into the double digits and that lasted 12. I actually think the next highest one was eight. More typical ones 4 to 6.
In our paragon tier campaigns, 6 to 10 is a little more typical, and we've had ones that go higher. But then we're infiltrating a fortress and our DM tends to have noisy fights trigger encounter cascades so it's more like "two or three encounters in a row". Same amount of rounds per encounter when divided up.
The climactic battles she's set up... and she likes the Boss Battle model... are against foes that probably would TPK us if we're not careful or that would devolve into a boring grind if we didn't come up with a creative solution... some being "puzzle fights" where elements in the room can be used to defeat the boss once bloodied, and some being creative use of skills and roleplay... yes, this is Magic Tea Party land, but what's the point of playing a game with a human brain adjudicating results on the fly if it's not so you can do things that exceed the scope of the system's programmed results?
And even the boss fights are winnable by the numbers, with a careful party.
I did a quick Google to find what people on other forums are saying about their experiences... it seems our group isn't some freakish anomaly that's playing it wrong. I'd link to the examples but I know how you guys feel about other forums... still, if most people are wrapping combat up in under 8 rounds and you guys are complaining about "Padded Sumo", maybe you should examine your assumptions about what the best approach to combat is.
As an example: if you all open with your biggest attacks and you take a "focused fire" approach, you're going to get the Big Guy down to 0 faster... but until you get him down, you're still taking the same damage per round from everybody else. The assumption that Focused Fire grants an overwhelming advantage in this edition just doesn't bear out.
If people are looking for the opening in where they can use their powers to make the most immediate difference... oh, that guy's got to be within my daily attack power of being dead... the party's taking less damage in the long run, there's less need to spend actions healing, there's less death. Minions can do as much damage as non-minion mooks by design... there are times it does make sense to spend your encounter or your daily to take out a bunch of minions.
At the deeeep end of the experience pool, combats against epic foes do last quite a bit longer, but unless you're playing a Random Monster Generator and it came up Demon Lord or Ancient Dragon, chances are there's a reason the characters are there and when you've got the thing bloodied and all its minions and helpers are dead... what? If things grind to a halt there, what's the DM doing? Is the End Game Scenario he came up with really just "beat on the thing until it dies?" Jesus. If you're NOT out to play a video game, that means it's time to get creative.
...
And who says there's no way to convert enemies? Ideally you do that before the battle is joined.
4E has the best mechanic in the world to do that. You guys call it Magic Tea Party. I call it roleplaying.
In 3E, they felt the need to cover it to the same degree of mechanistic precision that they did combat, and the result was the Diplomancer, and the result was also a lot of DMs going "Um, no. He's not buying it." and players going "But lo, does not the Good Book say...?" or a lot of DMs throwing up their hands in the air.
Magical Bible Study instead of Magical Tea Party. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.
That's the other weird thing I keep running into when I read your threads: the bizarre notion that anything 4E doesn't cover is "forbidden". I've seen FrankTrollman say more than once that you're not "allowed" to touch corpses because they "don't exist".
...
Whatever. I'm not going to have the tactics argument with you guys because you're arguing that the sky is green and 2+2=7. People are out there playing the game right now and they're making Elven Battleragers work and they're playing mixed melee/ranged and they're wrapping combat up in under ten rounds without using "orbizards" or stacking as many damage exploits as they can.
Incidentally, if you guys think that the style of DMing monsters I advocate is "playing dumb" and "humoring the players", you should try your epic level orbizard against me sometime. You guys' strategy wouldn't show what advantage it does show except you only play with DMs who run monsters in a way that humors your expectations. What does your orbizard do when you get to Orcus's lair and find out he's made a strategic alliance with Tiamat, being well aware of the rise to power of a mortal wizard with the strange ability to stun the most powerful of creatures indefinitely? Or if that strains credulity (it does to me, a bit) then he went into the elemental chaos and rounded up a bunch of Chaos Hydras to fight for him?
(Mechanics note: stunlocking Tiamat = one of her heads loses its turn. Does not stack. Chaos Hydra = similar but stuns and dazes can be stacked).
I'll play Orcus like he's a demon lord of the undead and not a game token being controlled by a number-crunching nerd, but I won't play him like a chump just waiting to be overthrown by a mortal who thinks he learned a new trick with a conjuror's crystal ball. That is playing dumb.
Maybe the reason that orbizard (or mounted archers, or winged archers) hasn't been errata'd is because people who aren't you guys understand that the overwhelming advantages you spot depend on a narrow set of assumptions holding true. Even if you've got mounted archers who can fly, what do you do when it's time to go down the stairs into the tunnels with low ceilings and fight monsters there?
("Fie on you! There Good Book says aught of horses not being able to climb stairs!" I suppose will be the answer there.)
These things aren't examples of a broken system being fixed by the DM. It's just the way the game works... which conspicuously models how life works. What's the best in some situations isn't the best in others.
The system works just fine at giving the DM the tools that the DM needs to give the players challenges that they can struggle against. That's all the system can do. That's all it should do.
There's a whole herd of teal;megaloceroses up there and I don't imagine most of you will read them or that it will make a difference in any one's opinion, but... gah.
Normally I'd say, "To each their own", but... your way of playing 4E doesn't produce an advantage in party survival or wrapping fights up and it doesn't make the game more fun even for you. I can understand not liking a system that doesn't map well to your favored style of play, but that's not a broken game. It's just a game that fails to appeal to you.
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AlexandraErin
  1st Level
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Post by AlexandraErin » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:09 pm

Oh, and a final note about minions: I've never heard anyone come up with a compelling reason why the party of seasoned fighters, savvy rogues, lerned wizards, and insightful clerics wouldn't know the less-trained rabble from the seasoned warriors among the monsters you're fighting, no "tag over head" required.
My group uses different tokens for minions (the less impressive miniatures, if we have enough, or flat cardboard counters), and the flavor text makes it clear that they're the ones whose knees are knocking or who have flimsier gear or whatever.
(And the much-despised developers agree on this score: be flavorful as you like, but the game works best when the party knows who are minions and which baddies are bloodied.)
You guys on this forum talk about immersion like it's something that comes in a box and you paid extra for it and it's not in package. If the DM's not setting the scene and you're not imagining it, then any roleplaying's game mechanics are going to seem weird and arbitrary. Witness Order of the Stick... do you think the worlds that 3E is emulating are supposed to really work like that?
Last edited by AlexandraErin on Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Roy
  Prince
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  Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:53 pm

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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:10 pm

The bot sure does love the usual strawman spam, oberoni spam, and 4.Fail is really good if you don't actually play it spam.
I call you a bot because you spout the same drivel that has already been dissected and eviscerated countless times and proven to be such, such that you are virtually interchangeable with any of the other apologetics.
Seriously, what is that? A party line, or a sign 4.Fails really love their alts?

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
Top

Psychic Robot
  Prince
  Posts: 4607
  Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 10:47 pm

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Post by Psychic Robot » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:16 pm

You are stupid and probably the size of a small manor.

> Sly Flourish. At-Will with bonus Charisma damage on top of Dex. Weapon power, melee or ranged. Works with a thrown dagger as well as one in the hand.

lololol
So your rogue is somehow throwing into melee without suffering some major penalties? (Or did they get rid of that in 4fail?) I mean, shucks, it's almost as if the monster can make an attack against one of your allies and then move to run you down. Your wonderful 1d4 + 7 damage from Sly Flourish isn't going to make the monster care any more about you.

> As an example: if you all open with your biggest attacks and you take a "focused fire" approach, you're going to get the Big Guy down to 0 faster... but until you get him down, you're still taking the same damage per round from everybody else. The assumption that Focused Fire grants an overwhelming advantage in this edition just doesn't bear out.

Because minions are so dangerous.
Fail.

> I did a quick Google to find what people on other forums are saying about their experiences... it seems our group isn't some freakish anomaly that's playing it wrong.

If they're all playing the way the designers intended, there's no problem. In fact, this is exactly how you advocated playing in your failblog post: attack the defenders, ignore the important party members.

> You guys call it Magic Tea Party. I call it roleplaying.

Silence, fatty. You are characterizing us criticizing 4e as requiring Magical Tea Party as not roleplaying, which is an ad hominem, false dilemma (lol roleplayers vs. rollplayers), and a strawman (given that Magical Tea Party does not mean what you think it means).

> Magical Bible Study instead of Magical Tea Party. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.

The 3e rules allow for DM fiat. The 4e rules require it. And your argument boils down to, "B-b-but 3e d-did this!" As I've noted in the official thread, that's not an argument, you sow.

> At the deeeep end of the experience pool, combats against epic foes do last quite a bit longer,

So you're going from "eight rounds" to "quite a bit longer"? You've just admitted that Padded Sumo exists, and you're flailing as fast as you can fail.

> but unless you're playing a Random Monster Generator and it came up Demon Lord or Ancient Dragon, chances are there's a reason the characters are there and when you've got the thing bloodied and all its minions and helpers are dead... what? If things grind to a halt there, what's the DM doing? Is the End Game Scenario he came up with really just "beat on the thing until it dies?" Jesus. If you're NOT out to play a video game, that means it's time to get creative.

Random encounters exist, fatty. Epic-level creatures are there to facilitate four encounters per day. (Which the game depends on, by the way.) Your argument is literally "yeah the system sucks but HANDWAVE HANDWAVE HANDWAVE OBERONI LOL."

> you should try your epic level orbizard against me sometime. You guys' strategy wouldn't show what advantage it does show except you only play with DMs who run monsters in a way that humors your expectations. What does your orbizard do when you get to Orcus's lair and find out he's made a strategic alliance with Tiamat, being well aware of the rise to power of a mortal wizard with the strange ability to stun the most powerful of creatures indefinitely? Or if that strains credulity (it does to me, a bit) then he went into the elemental chaos and rounded up a bunch of Chaos Hydras to fight for him?

Then you've drastically increased the difficulty of the encounter. Congratulations! I can also increase the CR of an encounter by 10 when the wizard is stomping everything in 3e.

> Count Arioch wrote:I'm not sure how discussions on whether PR is a terrible person or not is on-topic.

> Ant wrote:

> > Chamomile wrote:Ant, what do we do about Psychic Robot?

> You do not seem to do anything.

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AlexandraErin
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Post by AlexandraErin » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:21 pm

You guys like math.
Here's math:
You guys get more TPKs than are normal and take longer to win the fights that you do win. That's a simple greater than-less than situation.
Explain to me how it is that you don't suck at playing 4E.
Now explain to me how this is the system's problem.
Playing rules as written, with minimal use of DM Fiat and often no use of it inside combat, other groups do better than you. They survive more often. They end battles faster.
The problem's not with the system.
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Judging__Eagle
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Post by Judging__Eagle » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:22 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:@Murtak:
> Yeah, I read you guys saying that there are no tactics and you would love it if there were.
> And I also see you guys saying that a DM who has the NPCs act naturally for the situation with any given value of "the situation" other than "Dude, we're in your basement playing D&D so I know to geek the Wizard and all my little game pieces act accordingly" is "humoring the players" and that therefore the only valid tactics are the ones that will block that.
> And I also see you guys acting like the only way to play the game is to crunch numbers and go for the most obvious advantages in DPS.
> And then I see some of you talking about how the pre-written monsters and scenarios are problematic because even when you optimize to the max they're still TPKs.
> And then for bonus fun and games some of you complain that 4E ruins the immersion.
> And then I don't know whether to laugh at you or to weep for humanity. All the pieces are there... right there... in front of you. You've been given a box of LEGOs and you're laying them out in a straight line and saying, "God damn, this line-making toy sucks. The people who have fun with these things must be idiots."

Really? The pieces are right there?
Wow. Show me. Honestly, show me in the book where what you are saying is true.
Until then, you're flat out lying.
As for "focus firing" the damage dealers..... that's uhm.... remarkably normal. Unless you're facing a mindless creature, anything with an Int Score of 5+ will realize "oh geez, I can't hit this guy in metal; but his friend is hurting me really badly, I'm going to get rid of him first."
I mean, fuck WOLVES have at least that level of tactics and strategy when they go after their prey. They know to target all of their pack at the weakest prey animal in a group.
Lions, and Tigers and Bears all do the same shit as well.
I don't see what's so hard to grasp about the naturalness of attacking the weakest possible enemy first.
Anything else is literally breaking not only immersion, but my sense of belief.
Right now the "defenders" have no abilities that force enemies to attack them. A minor debuff does not cut it. Not only that, but if the monsters all decide to focus-fire on the defender (because say, the group has got a really sweet choke-point going on, and the tank is blocking the doorway); the tanks currently can't survive that much of a beatdown.
As for "tactics".... tactics can only be created with what is available. I don't see how you can be so fucking stupid as to realize otherwise.
Since we only have character stats, and don't have the actual dungeon mapped out, we have to develop the best possible tactics for the character sheet.
You realize that if you can build a character that is sick in terms of power, than using them on the table-top is an almost foregone conclusion, right? Right?!
I guess you're not realizing this yet.
Look at The Wish, and The Word. Frank and Kieth's submission was considered "so strong" by the participants and judges that the competition that they submitted the characters to had it's rules retroactively changed in order to disqualify two people who the CharOp boards didn't know that well. They seriously changed their own rules so that the entry that would obviously win, could no longer do so. The best that the WoTC charop boards gets broken by the best people here.
I'll tell you what. You make a 3.5 edition, level 14 melee character with no innate spell casting that can survive a fight with 8 48-HD Elementals, and we'll talk. If you're able to build and plan out how to face that sort of challenge, then "maybe" you have some tactical and strategic ability.
Seriously, this is the level of tactics that TGD people have to pull off. We can build characters that can face things far above their challenge rating, and succeed.
There's no limits on your material, core WoTC stuff, WoTC splat books, I'd prefer no 3rd party stuff since it's usually useless; I recommend Tome material.
Until you can prove that you have the slightest shred of tactical ability, all of your mentioning of the word makes me think of you the same way that my brother thinks of people in judo or akido or any other "martial art"; as a useless chump that he could kill, and that don't realize they're wasting their fucking time with anything that's not a "combat system"/"killing system".
When you grow up, we'll be glad to have you, but until then, we'll mock your errors until you improve.
Who knows, you might even be the next Lich-Loved. He's obviously changed his mind, even if he doesn't post his projects.
The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.
While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.
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hogarth
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Post by hogarth » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:28 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:You guys like math.
> Here's math:
> You guys get more TPKs than are normal and take longer to win the fights that you do win. That's a simple greater than-less than situation.

Really? Out of curiosity, how many TPKs do I get, and what's the normal amount?
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MartinHarper
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Post by MartinHarper » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:29 pm

> Lago PARANOIA wrote:That's why Sure Strike is called a trap. It does less damage than a melee basic attack and has no rider effects. You could've gotten something like Reaping Strike or Crushing Surge or Tide of Iron and both done more damage and have a rider effect.

Reaping Strike is the killer, because it always has a better average damage than Sure Strike, regardless of the target's AC. Exception: minions, for which Cleave is almost always better.

> violence in the media wrote:Why is it always the people who claim that they're all about the tactics the same ones to insist that the DM shouldn't be playing the monsters intelligently and with a life-or-death desire to win?

Playing the monsters intelligently probably means that the monsters run away on round one. Certainly players would run away on turn one if they were in the position the monsters were in.

> AlexandraErin wrote:Examples of when I would have someone ignore a Divine Challenge: enraged predator, berserk humanoid, construct that we can presume is under a similar compulsion from whoever's directing it, or Big Dramatic Bad Guy who creates a Big Dramatic Moment.

Yes. Also, I would have any professional soldiers, anyone with training in martial arts, and anyone with a decent Will defence be able to ignore the 'compulsion' aspect of Divine Challenge.

> Psychic Robot wrote:So your rogue is somehow throwing into melee without suffering some major penalties? (Or did they get rid of that in 4fail?)

Indeed they did: everyone gets 'Precise Shot' for free. I think that's fine.
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AlexandraErin
  1st Level
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Post by AlexandraErin » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:31 pm

@Psychic Robot:
Of course you can adjust encounters in 3E. You can do it in any roleplaying game. Again, human judgment is the difference between a DM and a server.
Minions aren't dangerous? In our mid-heroic campaigns, bowman lackeys have proven to add quite a lot of danger to a combat. Four of them equal one monster. Hit for six damage. If four of them are attacking one person, that person's taking 6-12 damage every round. You compare that to the best attack of the soldiers and it's not great, but it's happening every round. It's like fire or poison effect that you can't save from. If they're all bunched up, it's Wizard time, but if they're spread out, you got to spend a turn (or two if you miss... Sure attacks for the win there) hunting them down because otherwise the damage they're dishing is going to be the difference between you being bloodied and you being dead.
You guys crunch the obvious numbers but then you ignore the other stuff.
"If they're all playing the way the designers intended, there's no problem. In fact, this is exactly how you advocated playing in your failblog post: attack the defenders, ignore the important party members. "
You don't have to "ignore" the other members. Combats in 4E can be big enough that there's love for all.
But yeah, in a nutshell. Play the game as written, it works. If you don't play the game as written... well, you're on your own. You're ignoring the parts of the game you don't like, which is fine... everybody homebrews and houserules, but your changes don't work well with the system and you're blaming the system for that. Well, okay, flexibility is a virtue, but that doesn't mean the people who like the system for what it does are doing something wrong or that the designers failed in their task, when the system works when you run it as written.
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NineInchNall
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Post by NineInchNall » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:37 pm

> hogarth wrote:

> > AlexandraErin wrote:You guys like math.
> > Here's math:
> > You guys get more TPKs than are normal and take longer to win the fights that you do win. That's a simple greater than-less than situation.

> Really? Out of curiosity, how many TPKs do I get, and what's the normal amount?

I'd like an answer to this one.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
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erik
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Post by erik » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:41 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:You guys like math.
> Here's gibberish:

You'll get farther with actual math and arguments than telling us what we do or what we think. Assuming you have any actual math or arguments.
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Murtak
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Post by Murtak » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:44 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:You don't have to "ignore" the other members. Combats in 4E can be big enough that there's love for all.

If you can focus your fire onto one target you should, unless one of the following applies:
- The target already dies in one round.
- The target loses combat effectiveness faster than it loses HPs.
- You gain some sort of penalty for ganging up, or lose out on something by not attacking multiple targets. (and even then, you have to weigh whats more important)
Anything else is dumb and therefore bad roleplaying, no matter whether the players do it or the DM does. Yes, this isn't fun - and that is why 4th stinks.
Murtak
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AlexandraErin
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Post by AlexandraErin » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:44 pm

@Judging Eagle:
Your "game" doesn't appeal to me even if I "win" it, so I'm not interested in your challenge.
3E is not 4E. We can agree on that, I'm sure. And one of the differences is that 4E moves away from "The Tactics of the Character Sheet" and puts the tactics on the field. I would rather do that. I prefer a system where you make your character how you want it, and then you find the tactics to make that character work in the field, than one where... as so many people have observed... "the most important strategic decision you will ever make is your character class".
That doesn't appeal to me as a player. On an intellectual level, yes. I went through my dumpster diving phase with GURPS, of all things. I grok the appeal, even as I never got into 3E enough to do it there. But when you're making a "combat solution character" like that, well, okay, I guess maybe you can have a point of pride for having created the inputs most likely to produce the desired output out of the cumulative random algorithm that is an entire combat.
But that's not an endless font of fun for me, and it's as far divorced from anything that has to do with the words "role", "playing", or "game" than anything I can think of. It's an exercise.
Your problems with 4E all amount to the fact that the "game" you prefer to play with 3E... stack the inputs... doesn't work as well and doesn't produce as interesting results as when you play it with 3E. And you know, you're right about that. You're wrong about it being a fault of the system. The system is just fine for what I want, which is when I can make a Halfling Warlord and then get out there and make it work.
Note: I'm not really that into Halfing Warlords. But after our first session resulted in endless grind battles and a near TPK, I decided to make an "Oh Fuck It" character and settled on Halfling Warlord. And it was midway through the first battle with this character that it all just clicked.
And the guy who DMed that session is not someone who does my immersive DMing in combat. He's very straightforward when the map comes out. But I did better with the Halfling Warlord than I had with my Elven Ranger.
You guys don't like the game we're playing, which is 4E as written. I'm not interested in the game you're playing, which is the 3E character generation metagame. To me, that's pretty much the end of the story. I just have a hard time understanding how you get past the massive dissonance between conflicting views I see espoused here. I still don't have an answer to that, but I don't really care. There are more fun things I could be doing with 4E than arguing its merits to people who aren't interested in the things it's meant to do.
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Roy
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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:53 pm

> clikml wrote:

> > AlexandraErin wrote:You guys like math.
> > Here's gibberish:

> You'll get farther with actual math and arguments than telling us what we do or what we think. Assuming you have any actual math or arguments.

She doesn't, in typical 4.Fail style. Which is why she's scratching and flailing for piddly shit, also in typical 4.Fail style. And getting counterattacked for massive damage.

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
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Roy
  Prince
  Posts: 2772
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Post by Roy » Thu Jul 23, 2009 8:58 pm

> AlexandraErin wrote:You guys don't like the game we're playing, which is 4E as written. I'm not interested in the game you're playing, which is the 3E character generation metagame. To me, that's pretty much the end of the story. I just have a hard time understanding how you get past the massive dissonance between conflicting views I see espoused here. I still don't have an answer to that, but I don't really care. There are more fun things I could be doing with 4E than arguing its merits to people who aren't interested in the things it's meant to do.

...

> AlexandraErin wrote:The climactic battles she's set up... and she likes the Boss Battle model... are against foes that probably would TPK us if we're not careful or that would devolve into a boring grind if we didn't come up with a creative solution... some being "puzzle fights" where elements in the room can be used to defeat the boss once bloodied, and some being creative use of skills and roleplay... yes, this is Magic Tea Party land, but what's the point of playing a game with a human brain adjudicating results on the fly if it's not so you can do things that exceed the scope of the system's programmed results?

> Draco_Argentum wrote:

> > Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.

> Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?

> Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.

> Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.

> Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.

Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
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