The Gaming Den

When are we going to have some arguments in favour of 4th Edition in the "Arguments in favor of 4th Edition" thread, I wonder? Thus far there have been "Arguments as to why 4th Edition mostly doesn't suck any worse than 3.x Edition except for when it does," but nothing substantive as to why you'd play it over a previous edition of D&D.

To be sure, there have been some mentions of "balance". Balance always seems to come up; almost as though three generations of role-players had been crying into their Doritos and refusing to play Rogues and Fighters over the disparity between warrior classes and spellcasters, but that is manifestly not the case.

In all honesty, perhaps it's unfair to expect the title of this thread to be fulfilled. There can't be any compelling arguments in favour because the arguments *against* are fundamentally unaddressable, at least from my point of view. It's not that I won't listen - I am, I really am - but nothing you can say to me will change the fact that there's a load of stuff I want to be able to do and have always been able to do in D&D that I just flat-out *can't* in 4th Edition and never will be able to.

4th Edition isn't a different system for playing the game of D&D, it's a different game altogether with some of the terminology borrowed from D&D - just like most of the older TSR-franchised computer game versions were - and you either like that or you don't.

And I really, really don't.

...Which, of course, demonstrates the "smash in the door" ideas that permeate the entire fucking game. 3e might be broken, but it was focused on creating a believable world for players to explore. 4e says, "Fuck it," and goes straight to the wargaming.

I'm sorry, this is the believable world that the tomes on this very site have torn to shreds? Infinite gold, wish economies, the whole bit? Or is it the one in the tomes that, while seemingly bizarre at points, makes a fair amount of coherent sense? Or maybe it's FR?

Rules, in general, stretch disbelief. A 3e fighter can jump off a 100 foot cliff, take a handful of d6's in damage, stand up, go on a four hour hike, then hack apart goblins for a while. 4e has its own brand of silliness in several areas.

"Believability" is subjective, relative, and all sorts of other kinds of variability. I mean, on the surface, the stuff presented in the tomes seems inane, but it makes sense within the rules. 4e has a different kind of believability. Yes, it probably does require more suspension of disbelief, or at least a more consistent level of it. Some stuff is just plain wacky. But then, so is a chainmailed fighter getting killed by a housecat or a raven.

Oh sure, it might not be. But that's just it: you don't know. Because NPCs don't have feats. NPCs don't use rituals at all. Or rather, they do, they just use completely different rituals than PCs do and there are no rules for those rituals. Animate Dead is a ritual that specifically every NPC with the "Shadow Master" template knows that doesn't have any rules at all.

Do you not see why this is a problem?

A statement: Monsters, non-combat NPCs and PCs are each designed to perform a different role. I'd say that's true - monsters aren't expected to last more than one encounter, PCs are, and other NPCs aren't really intended to fight. In 3e, and in a lot of other systems, all three use the same rules, or remarkably similar rules.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm statting up a goblin rogue that won't last ma number of rounds with single digits, I don't spend his 64 skill points. I pick some rogue skills, work out the bonus, and go "hey, that'll do." When I'm making a wizard, I don't list every spell he knows - I list what he has memorised, because the rest will likely be irrelevant.

Regarding the shadow master, I'll admit I don't know what source that's from, so I can't say much on the matter. If there is a nonexistant ritual, then yes, that's a rather dire problem, but one I have trouble believing was intentional. It may be a typo or some other stupid error - it may not, I just can't see how that could make sense to anyone.

Probably? How would you know?

Leaving aside the fact that the 3rd level Hobgoblin Soldier in the actual Monster Manual is equipped with some set of Scale Mail, which in turn is 5 GP more than Chain, there's the little niggling detail that what people get for labor is undescribed in the 4e rules. You literally have no idea what a 3rd level militiaman makes. Hell, the 3rd level "Human Guard" has a fucking suit of Chainmail. (MM, p. 162)

Even talking about the economy or background of the 4e world is full of failure, because there is straight up no direct information. And the information that there is can charitably be called contradictory.

-Username17

Point to you. I carried over the income of the 3e commoner.

Alright. Given that all of the militia and low-level soldiers are carrying nonmagical equipment, we can assume there's a reason for that. Cost is the obvious one. Scarcity of ritualists? Scarcity of residuum - not so likely, given the frequency that adventurers get it... anything else?

Amra wrote:When are we going to have some arguments in favour of 4th Edition in the "Arguments in favor of 4th Edition" thread, I wonder? Thus far there have been "Arguments as to why 4th Edition mostly doesn't suck any worse than 3.x Edition except for when it does," but nothing substantive as to why you'd play it over a previous edition of D&D.

It's a different feel. 4e is those "levels 4-14-ish" levels, and has, I find, a focus on position and tactics that 3e lacks. My 3e group - who I enjoy DMing for a great deal - tend to use specific tricks or tactics. One character has an entangling breath weapon. He'll use this 3 rounds out of 4. That's not a bad thing, necessarily - when he needs to, he can whip out a few different options, but that is pretty much always option A, because he's specialised in it, it works best. Meanwhile, when I have played 4e, you select your options based on terrain, positioning, etc. The fact that all the powers use the same template just makes the differences shine more.

Your mileage may vary, of course. That's just what I've seen. For as long as I've played 3.x, casters got their favourite spells, everyone else got their tricks, and they spammed them wherever they were even slightly applicable, because that specialisation meant that, even if it wasn't ideal, it was still better than anything else that wasn't specialised.

In 4e, grabbing someone and pushing them off a cliff is a viable option (Actually, I think we put in a minor house rule that you could push a grabbed critter off a cliff, rather than just pulling them. Feel free to discount that if you wish).

In all honesty, perhaps it's unfair to expect the title of this thread to be fulfilled. There can't be any compelling arguments in favour because the arguments *against* are fundamentally unaddressable, at least from my point of view. It's not that I won't listen - I am, I really am - but nothing you can say to me will change the fact that there's a load of stuff I want to be able to do and have always been able to do in D&D that I just flat-out *can't* in 4th Edition and never will be able

A valid viewpoint. Can I ask, though, three questions:

One, can you give us some examples of what you can't and will never be able to do in 4e?
Two, if there were to appear a way to do some or all of these, would you reconsider the system?
Three, do the other systems you play all allow you to do these?

Tic wrote:Regarding the shadow master, I'll admit I don't know what source that's from, so I can't say much on the matter. If there is a nonexistant ritual, then yes, that's a rather dire problem, but one I have trouble believing was intentional.

Sorry, it's a "Death Master" and it comes from the DMG of 4e.

DMG, p. 178 wrote: “Death master” is a template you can apply to any humanoid, usually a cleric, wizard, or warlock. It represents a spellcaster who has delved into the secrets of necromantic lore and used them to create and control the undead.

How is this not intentional? Did you not read the "Economy of Actions" articles? They create undead. Rules for creating undead do not exist by design.

It may be a typo or some other stupid error - it may not, I just can't see how that could make sense to anyone.

Well, it's specifically not supposed to make sense to anyone.

Edit Add:

Tic wrote:Alright. Given that all of the militia and low-level soldiers are carrying nonmagical equipment, we can assume there's a reason for that. Cost is the obvious one. Scarcity of ritualists? Scarcity of residuum - not so likely, given the frequency that adventurers get it... anything else?

Well, as previously noted, enemies of level 1-5 are considered to have unenchanted equipment. Enemies of level 6-10 are considered to have +1 Magic equipment, but player characters only get non-magical equipment when they loot them. You can't come up with an in-game reason for that, because it doesn't make any sense.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

Tic wrote:Regarding the shadow master, I'll admit I don't know what source that's from, so I can't say much on the matter. If there is a nonexistant ritual, then yes, that's a rather dire problem, but one I have trouble believing was intentional.

Sorry, it's a "Death Master" and it comes from the DMG of 4e.

DMG, p. 178 wrote: “Death master” is a template you can apply to any humanoid, usually a cleric, wizard, or warlock. It represents a spellcaster who has delved into the secrets of necromantic lore and used them to create and control the undead.

Alright, got it. I can't see animate dead, though. I just see that it starts with four undead minions, and can summon four more as an encounter power.

How is this not intentional? Did you not read the "Economy of Actions" articles? They create undead. Rules for creating undead do not exist by design.

No, but rules for summoning do. That's the cheap answer we'll get until such time as undead or golem creation appears, if it ever does. I'd like better rules as well. Never liked 'summoning' undead.

It may be a typo or some other stupid error - it may not, I just can't see how that could make sense to anyone.

Well, it's specifically not supposed to make sense to anyone.

Presumably, nothing in the game was designed with the explicit goal of not making sense. If it doesn't make sense, someone - or several people - stuffed up.

Edit Add:

tic wrote:Alright. Given that all of the militia and low-level soldiers are carrying nonmagical equipment, we can assume there's a reason for that. Cost is the obvious one. Scarcity of ritualists? Scarcity of residuum - not so likely, given the frequency that adventurers get it... anything else?

Well, as previously noted, enemies of level 1-5 are considered to have unenchanted equipment. Enemies of level 6-10 are considered to have +1 Magic equipment, but player characters only get non-magical equipment when they loot them. You can't come up with an in-game reason for that, because it doesn't make any sense.

-Username17

Alright, got it. Yep, that's stupid. That's... yeah, stupid works. I'm guessing that's a wealth-balance thing, yeah? Meh. Note to self: change that in any future games I run.

It's a sprite thing. Know how when you kill an enemy with a sword in a video game, but there is little to no chance you actually find a sword when you defeat them? Yeah, the sprite shows a sword, but very few of them actually have swords if any do at all. That sort of thing is acceptable in video games and MMOs and whatever, because you really don't expect any consistency in the first place. And there's possible hardware limitations as well.

But to have that happen in a tabletop game, where the only possible limitation that would prevent it is the brainpower of the DM and/or players is either:

1: WotC calling your gaming group fucking stupid. At which point you should tell them to suck on a barrel of cocks and not buy their products.

2: WotC Epic Failing by trying to intrude upon a niche they cannot possibly gain any ground in, because computers fucking DO MATH faster than people. And when your game is all about grinding on the MOBs, you want the math to go fast, and throw in some pretty graphics so players don't get bored. These ARE prohibited by the hardware limitations of DM and/or player brains.

tic wrote:Rules, in general, stretch disbelief. A 3e fighter can jump off a 100 foot cliff, take a handful of d6's in damage, stand up, go on a four hour hike, then hack apart goblins for a while. 4e has its own brand of silliness in several areas.

Oh yes, yes it does, and whilst I'm aware I'm now jumping in on another conversational thread I'd just like to say: I couldn't give a shit about minor oddities like that. This is where I'm with Lago on "Broken rules vs. No rules".

I fixed the falling damage rules for my 3.x campaigns in thirty seconds flat with the words: "before we start, everyone, you should be aware that falling damage in my campaigns is 1d6 per 10ft per 10ft". I'd love to tell you that everyone understood that right off the bat, but that's where the rest of the 30 seconds came from

This isn't a pop at 4E falling rules, although there's no excuse for them being almost as bad as 3.5, which they are. The point is that I just don't care about shit like that because I can seriously work a fix in no time.

A statement: Monsters, non-combat NPCs and PCs are each designed to perform a different role. I'd say that's true - monsters aren't expected to last more than one encounter, PCs are, and other NPCs aren't really intended to fight. In 3e, and in a lot of other systems, all three use the same rules, or remarkably similar rules.

I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm statting up a goblin rogue that won't last ma number of rounds with single digits, I don't spend his 64 skill points. I pick some rogue skills, work out the bonus, and go "hey, that'll do." When I'm making a wizard, I don't list every spell he knows - I list what he has memorised, because the rest will likely be irrelevant.

But... but... that's a living, breathing argument against 4E. NPC's are WTF *different*?!? This is exactly what pisses me off about the design philosophy because it buys straight into the "never forget you're in a game and the people and creatures you encounter are less real than you are" MMORPG shit.

Yes, I take short-cuts with some NPC's, but more often than not my *proper* villains are fully statted out. The thing is, the monsters and the creatures *do* have an existence independent of the PC's; they have to have, because I like games where you don't absolutely, positively have to kill every last motherfucker in the room. If there's a possibility of a confrontation ending with someone captured rather than killed, you've got to do things like "give the NPC's proper equipment and class levels" otherwise you can't answer the players' questions when they've won.

I can, if I want to, wait until the PC's have nobbled the goblin wizard and then quickly scribble down some skill-points and decide semi-randomly what spells he has in his spellbook if the players care, and not bother if they don't, because there are rules for it all. I don't have to use them, but they're there if I *want* to. Saying "Yeah, but monsters and NPC's are only there for the PC's to defeat" is so completely contrary to what I want out of a role-playing system that I'm not even sure where to start describing it.

Seriously, please, THINK. 4E takes away my options because the rules for NPC's and monsters seriously comprised entirely of "they can just do shit". It may be your play-style to have every creature and NPC the player characters meet fall into the categories "Something to be killed" or "Something to distribute information and not otherwise to be interacted with in any meaningful way" but that is not how I like to run, or play, my role-playing games.

I want to be able to play roles, not just have endless combat encounters, which means I want to be able to *steal* that +4 Doohickey of Importance from the bad guy and hold it to ransom against him releasing the hostages. 4E explicitly does not allow that sort of thing. I *want* lower-level characters to be able to come up with really cunning ploys to relieve higher-level NPC's and monsters of their equipment, but if the NPC's and monsters don't have any rules governing their creation I can't allow them to do that.

It's a different feel.

It's a different game. Characters can't do all the things they've been able to do forever; they can't burn the door down with a Flaming Sphere, they can't fly, turn into things, charm the guards, steal the enemy wizard's Staff of Coolness, or take up rewarding careers as Zombie Whisperers. All they can do is kill shit, and that is sad.

4e is those "levels 4-14-ish" levels, and has, I find, a focus on position and tactics that 3e lacks.

Then you've been playing 3e all wrong. To be sure, positioning is a more important element in 4E, but that's because it's what a very high proportion of the friggin' powers in the book *do*.

My 3e group - who I enjoy DMing for a great deal - tend to use specific tricks or tactics. One character has an entangling breath weapon. He'll use this 3 rounds out of 4. That's not a bad thing, necessarily - when he needs to, he can whip out a few different options, but that is pretty much always option A, because he's specialised in it, it works best.

Yeah, but the next character he generates will have another most-effective schtick, and the next character another, and the next character another, and another, and another, and they might all be the same class. Or he might go for a generalist who does more things and still be the same class. The point is that (almost) any class can take any number of different approaches and be effective with them. One Rogue can be practically unrecognisable from another, and multi-classing means you can play dozens or even hundreds of effective characters who all have their different things. 4E does not allow that.

I've actually DM'd a 4E game for some of the 4E game designers and they conceded those points, although they still maintained that the balance was the thing that made it all fun. The fact that everyone is either doing damage or putting on some tiresome push/pull effect is FUn, with a capital Fuck-U. I got nothing but embarrassment when I tried to talk about Skill Challenges, and a quick disclaimer that they didn't work on those bits.

In 4e, grabbing someone and pushing them off a cliff is a viable option

Um... in what way is it more viable than in 3E? There are more powers that will do it, granted, but it's no more effective apart from "having no damage cap" and if you think that's a big plus in favour of 4E... Well, you're a reasonable guy so I'll assume you don't.

Amra wrote:In all honesty, perhaps it's unfair to expect the title of this thread to be fulfilled. There can't be any compelling arguments in favour because the arguments *against* are fundamentally unaddressable, at least from my point of view. It's not that I won't listen - I am, I really am - but nothing you can say to me will change the fact that there's a load of stuff I want to be able to do and have always been able to do in D&D that I just flat-out *can't* in 4th Edition and never will be able

tic wrote:A valid viewpoint. Can I ask, though, three questions:

One, can you give us some examples of what you can't and will never be able to do in 4e?
Two, if there were to appear a way to do some or all of these, would you reconsider the system?
Three, do the other systems you play all allow you to do these?

One: maybe. I've already done so in dozens of places and I've run out of time right now.

Two: possibly; unlike some perhaps, my biggest beef with the system isn't what it does, but what it can't do. On the other hand, if you changed it to the extent required, it seriously wouldn't be the same system any more so this may be an imponderable.

Three: No system allows you to do everything, but 3.5 lets me do all the big things I expect a sword-and-sorcery fantasy system claims to do. In fact, the question in this context is only really valid if phrased "Does the D&D you play allow you to do the things you want to do but can't in 4E?" and the answer is "yes".

Amra wrote:1d6 per 10ft per 10ft

Sorry, I'm going to have to be like, "Wat." Do you mean to say that a fall of 10 feet is 1d6 damage, a fall of 20 feet is 4d6 damage, a fall of 30 feet is 9d6 damage, and so on?

Tic wrote:I'm sorry, this is the believable world that the tomes on this very site have torn to shreds? Infinite gold, wish economies, the whole bit? Or is it the one in the tomes that, while seemingly bizarre at points, makes a fair amount of coherent sense? Or maybe it's FR?

Hey, I said it was focused on creating a believable world, not that it succeeded. Also, a lot of the wealth-generating tricks would have serious in-game repercussions. If someone goes around chain-binding efreeti, he's probably going to have find that backfiring when a group of annoyed efreeti show up at his door. Similarly, the "wall of iron, then fabricate" stuff is going to destroy economies. Sure, the PCs might make a few grand off it initially, but then the demand for swords and armor is going to drop precipitously. And then angry blacksmiths around the kingdom are going to wonder why Mage*Mart put them out of business with its superlow prices, and they're probably going to pay said Mage*Mart an unhappy visit, with torches and pitchforks and other such things. And if the PCs decide to kill the people, they're going to be outlaws, and that's a whole new adventure for them to go on.

Rules, in general, stretch disbelief. A 3e fighter can jump off a 100 foot cliff, take a handful of d6's in damage, stand up, go on a four hour hike, then hack apart goblins for a while. 4e has its own brand of silliness in several areas.

Well, yeah.

"Believability" is subjective, relative, and all sorts of other kinds of variability. I mean, on the surface, the stuff presented in the tomes seems inane, but it makes sense within the rules. 4e has a different kind of believability. Yes, it probably does require more suspension of disbelief, or at least a more consistent level of it. Some stuff is just plain wacky. But then, so is a chainmailed fighter getting killed by a housecat or a raven.

4e has a far greater level of suspension of disbelief than 3e. Even if the 3e rules had huge issues, they at least tried to create rules that would be used in a convincing world. In 4e, you can't do cool things like cast shrink item because a) it's too complicated (oh noes, fucking math), and b) the devs assume that the DM doesn't have the balls to say, "Nobody wants to buy a fucking adamantine door, so stop shrinking all of them and trying to pawn them off."

Psychic Robot wrote:

Amra wrote:1d6 per 10ft per 10ft

Sorry, I'm going to have to be like, "Wat." Do you mean to say that a fall of 10 feet is 1d6 damage, a fall of 20 feet is 4d6 damage, a fall of 30 feet is 9d6 damage, and so on?

He's using a physics idiom. Think of the rate you rack up falling damage per 10' increment as speed, and the figure he quoted as the acceleration. The damage you take when you hit the ground is, therefore, the distance in this analogy. The distance you fell actually plays the role of time in this analogy.

Even with this crazy analogy, we can't apply the normal equations of velocity to the damage accumulation because it's all integers in D&D, and the velocity equations assume real numbers. The analogy is mostly fruitless since you still have to use the triangular numbers formula (n + n.n) / 2 to calculate damage.

Amra wrote:This is exactly what pisses me off about the design philosophy because it buys straight into the "never forget you're in a game and the people and creatures you encounter are less real than you are" MMORPG shit.

More importantly, this isn't even a design feature in MMORPGs, its a limitation and as far as I know the current trend goes towards mimicking player behaviour (and, in the case of Love, towards entirely independant action).

tic wrote:When I'm making a wizard, I don't list every spell he knows - I list what he has memorised, because the rest will likely be irrelevant.

Do you ever have a Wizard in your party ever? They might care about what spells are in the spellbook. Seeing as that's the main way they get to use a bunch of awesome spells.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: The point I was trying to make was that the game doesn't end if there is one organization in the setting that has all of the toys--so there's no reason for you to be afraid of the threat of infinite wealth.

And what you're seemingly missing is that making huge mounds of gold does not make infinite wealth. Seriously, outside of creating magical items and jewelry, gold has no secondary use in the time period in which D&D takes place. And gold being the raw resource for magic items is only like that in order to simplify the system, not because of any magic properties.

Well, if you say gold is wealth, then infinite gold = infinite wealth.

Gold is either a currency or its not a currency. And if it is a currency, then you can buy stuff with it.

If you don't want a society where people hold hands and chant all day to get things done then rituals should either be unable to replicate natural labor or they require some other sort of cost to use them.

Yes. I know. This is why I've been saying that rituals should be more expensive than doing it with manual labor. The wizard can conjure a castle in a day, but it costs way more than having a bunch of peasant laborers build it in years. Because ritual components are fucking expensive. So you can't just go casting summon castle whenever you want.

I really can't believe how you're failing to see how the situation you describe like a low level character having to go to a high level character for something as incredibly basic to D&D society as curing a disease or blessing crops WON'T CREATE THE EXACT KIND OF SITUATION YOU'RE CRITICIZING WHERE PEASANTS HAVE TO SUCK WIZARD COCK.

Well to some degree you want them to depend on higher level people. I mean part of that is the point to D&D that the world needs heroes and when the village gets under attack, or falls stricken with disease, they put out a call for heroes.

Now, what I don't want is for peasants to be completely useless. The point where your laborers get slaughtered and the king doesn't even care because his wizard can just replace any work they did for free, and tax money doesn't matter because the wizard can also conjure infinite gold.

I want there to be some reason for peasant labor to matter, and I feel like the best way to do this is to say that peasant labor is cheaper than doing the same thing magically. The kingdom would rather feed itself through farming peasants than clerics conjuring food, because conjuring food takes more resources (in terms of ritual components versus farming expenses).

Conjuring demons to serve you in battle should draw from the same pool of resources you use to spit fireballs or swing triple slash. Having castles be build should not reduce the amount of swording you do nor should you be allowed to get more fireballs by living like a bum.

Well, really conjuring an ally should be the same system as hiring a merc. If you can go to a tavern and pay some guy with a sword 150 gp to help you, then it's okay for gold to hire allies, and whether you're getting them from a binding circle or the local hackmaster's guild, I don't feel it should matter. Warlords go out and hire giants and trolls to fill out their armies, wizards summon demons from the planes. In any case, the resource cost for hiring those should be generated via the same system.

Now, balance wise, you're right that combat allies should draw from your combat pool (probably in addition to having a gp cost). But you have to be willing to do that for mercs and hirelings as well as planar bound demons.

Kaelik wrote:

tic wrote:When I'm making a wizard, I don't list every spell he knows - I list what he has memorised, because the rest will likely be irrelevant.

Do you ever have a Wizard in your party ever? They might care about what spells are in the spellbook. Seeing as that's the main way they get to use a bunch of awesome spells.

Yeah, ultimately that's one of the benefits of 4E (and possibly the only benefit) is not having to bother statting up a bunch of stuff like NPC wizards spellbooks.

The ability to create monsters quickly is the strongest argument in favor of 4E. Where in 3E, this is impossible without cutting corners, like not fully doing skills or leaving off the spellbook. Creating monsters fast is very important because slow generation leads to railroading.

Well, if you say gold is wealth, then infinite gold = infinite wealth.

Gold is either a currency or its not a currency. And if it is a currency, then you can buy stuff with it.

Infinite gold does not create infinite wealth in the same way that printing trillions of dollars does not create more wealth.

What I'm trying to say is that even if gold is used as a currency in D&D, even if the PCs find a gold loop in the game it won't matter at all since after the economy crashes they'll find a new form of currency. Maybe they'll even start to use fiat money if you crash the economy enough.

Now, balance wise, you're right that combat allies should draw from your combat pool (probably in addition to having a gp cost). But you have to be willing to do that for mercs and hirelings as well as planar bound demons.

The problem with this is that there's too much overlap with your combat and noncombat pool.

In 2E D&D, even though you couldn't buy nor make magical items with gold, gold still got you a degree of power. You needed it to buy swords and equipment. But really, while there was a huge difference between owning 100 and 10,000 gold pieces, the difference between owning 10,000 gold pieces and 100,000 gold pieces wasn't all that exciting. So mining the elemental plane of earth for millions of gold pieces didn't change your power level all that much. I mean, really, even if you were able to be in charge of an army of thousands of knights dressed in fullplate and armed with greatswords and crossbows, does that really change your adventuring all that much? Not really, because when you actually get into combat you can only bring along a couple of them--and then they only function as redshirts.

However, if you let people start hiring demons and shit with that kind of cheddar then it becomes a huge balance problem.

So what I guess I'm saying is that the mercenaries you hire with your non-combat pool should be small and weak. If you want anything stronger, you need to use your combat pool.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Infinite gold does not create infinite wealth in the same way that printing trillions of dollars does not create more wealth.

What I'm trying to say is that even if gold is used as a currency in D&D, even if the PCs find a gold loop in the game it won't matter at all since after the economy crashes they'll find a new form of currency. Maybe they'll even start to use fiat money if you crash the economy enough.

But heres the thing. The world existed before the PCs and the PCs wouldnt' be the first people to think about infinite wealth loops. Archmagi are genius level intellects and would have thought of that shit before the PCs characters were even created.

So there's no chance to crash the economy. The economy has already been crashed, before the PCs are already made, and some kind of stable economy has to exist.

Now I don't care what that economy actually is. But it's not going to be something that can be broken by the first PC to hit paragon or epic wizard. Because those existed before the PCs were even created, and would have already broken it.

So whatever economy exists is going to be unbreakable with currently existing magic.

In 2E D&D, even though you couldn't buy nor make magical items with gold, gold still got you a degree of power. You needed it to buy swords and equipment. But really, while there was a huge difference between owning 100 and 10,000 gold pieces, the difference between owning 10,000 gold pieces and 100,000 gold pieces wasn't all that exciting. So mining the elemental plane of earth for millions of gold pieces didn't change your power level all that much. I mean, really, even if you were able to be in charge of an army of thousands of knights dressed in fullplate and armed with greatswords and crossbows, does that really change your adventuring all that much? Not really, because when you actually get into combat you can only bring along a couple of them--and then they only function as redshirts.

However, if you let people start hiring demons and shit with that kind of cheddar then it becomes a huge balance problem.

So what I guess I'm saying is that the mercenaries you hire with your non-combat pool should be small and weak. If you want anything stronger, you need to use your combat pool.

Why do mercs necessarily have to be weak? If you're pretty powerful you go out and hire trolls and giants instead of goblins and kobolds. Maybe you even took all your gold and hired a dragon (dragons do love gold after all).

People are always going to be able to hire stuff, even if it's just some higher level fighter. Hell, a lot of D&D is based on the king coming to you with a pile of gold and saying "Deal with my problem." And if your PCs are high level characters for hire, you can reasonably expect that some others exist too.

Having a hard limit to how many NPC allies you can bring into the dungeon is a good thing, so tying it to the combat pool isn't a bad idea. But everything needs to factor into that, not just shit you get through a binding circle but also people you hire in the tavern. There's just no guarantee that summonable creatures will always be more powerful than shit that you can hire. Storm giants and dragons can be just as powerful as demons and devils.

FrankTrollman wrote:As previously noted, enemies of level 1-5 are considered to have unenchanted equipment. Enemies of level 6-10 are considered to have +1 Magic equipment, but player characters only get non-magical equipment when they loot them. You can't come up with an in-game reason for that, because it doesn't make any sense

Page 187 of the DMG says: "You can think of {the magic item threshold} as representing feats you're not bothering to choose, low level magic items, or the NPC's intrinsic power".

So, in my 4e game, the magic item threshold represents the NPC's intrinsic power, per option 3 in the DMG, and therefore I don't have any of this nonsense about disappearing magic items. I'd recommend that approach. There's still a bit of weirdness whereby NPCs get an intrinsic enhancement bonus when they hit level 6 and PCs don't, though.

FrankTrollman wrote:NPCs don't use rituals at all. Or rather, they do, they just use completely different rituals than PCs do and there are no rules for those rituals.

NPCs can use the same rituals and ritual scrolls as PCs, per DMG p188. Wizard NPCs and Wizard template Monsters both get the Ritual Casting class feature.

Amra wrote:When are we going to have some arguments in favour of 4th Edition in the "Arguments in favor of 4th Edition" thread, I wonder?

1. It's easier to DM for bad/new DMs, and gives better results for them.
2. It's easier to play for bad/new players, and gives better results for them.

Given the number of d&d threads I read complaining about d&d players that suck, these seem like big advantages.

Amra wrote:If there's a possibility of a confrontation ending with someone captured rather than killed, you've got to do things like "give the NPC's proper equipment and class levels" otherwise you can't answer the players' questions when they've won.

Hmm. What questions are you thinking of? I might want to know their Thievery modifier in case they get tied up, but generally I'd be more concerned with fluff than crunch in that scenario.

Edit: stupid quote tags.

Amra wrote: Seriously, please, THINK. 4E takes away my options because the rules for NPC's and monsters seriously comprised entirely of "they can just do shit". It may be your play-style to have every creature and NPC the player characters meet fall into the categories "Something to be killed" or "Something to distribute information and not otherwise to be interacted with in any meaningful way" but that is not how I like to run, or play, my role-playing games.

I want to be able to play roles, not just have endless combat encounters, which means I want to be able to *steal* that +4 Doohickey of Importance from the bad guy and hold it to ransom against him releasing the hostages. 4E explicitly does not allow that sort of thing. I *want* lower-level characters to be able to come up with really cunning ploys to relieve higher-level NPC's and monsters of their equipment, but if the NPC's and monsters don't have any rules governing their creation I can't allow them to do that.

This I found rather odd. The fact that 4E doesn't have specific guidelines you have to follow means that you do have more options. You are no longer limited to saying "This NPC is a 3rd level wizard and can just do wizard stuff" You can basically have that NPC do whatever the fuck you want. Yet oddly you're saying that this somehow takes away your options.

As far as stealing artifacts from NPCs, 4E is lacking disarm rules, but that's really about it. As far as ways to steal shit in 3E versus 4E, the only thing you can't do in 4E is knock the shit out of the guys hand and have a party member grab it and run. Which is a limitation, but not really a huge one. If it's really that big of a deal, you can easily just create a disarm maneuver house rule.

If you're arguing that 4E NPCs don't have significant magic items to steal, that's largely true of 3E as well. NPCs in 3E didn't have important artifacts, they had minor trinkets like +1 rings and shit. If they had an artifact that was worth stealing, it was always something the DM had to give them (whcih totally went over their wealth limit rule). And not surprisingly a 4E DM can do the exact same thing.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:But heres the thing. The world existed before the PCs and the PCs wouldnt' be the first people to think about infinite wealth loops. Archmagi are genius level intellects and would have thought of that shit before the PCs characters were even created. So there's no chance to crash the economy. The economy has already been crashed, before the PCs are already made, and some kind of stable economy has to exist.

Now I don't care what that economy actually is. But it's not going to be something that can be broken by the first PC to hit paragon or epic wizard. Because those existed before the PCs were even created, and would have already broken it.

One: there's no guarantee that PCs won't be the first high-level characters in your setting to be able to use that kind of magic.

Two: Just because something is possible doesn't mean that it'll be done, even if it's beneficial and has no cost associated with it. For a real-world example, a better economy than the gold standard (fiat money) has been staring countries in the face for centuries. Some countries, including the United States, have actually gone to fiat money only to go back to the gold standard--even though the advantages of fiat money are obvious!

Three: Just because someone has the ability to crash the economy doesn't mean that they're going to. Imagine you are the cabal of archwizards who own all of the sources of water in the Desert Country of Fire, Kefin. Obviously, this means that you own everyone's ass in that country. The currency is liters of water and people trade water rights like they do property.

So one day, one of your wizards comes upon a secret formula to open a portal to the elemental plane of water, multiplying the water in your country severaltimes fold. So does this change. anything for you? Fuck no. You already own everything or nearly everything. If you didn't you wouldn't be an archwizard. The only problems happen when someone not part of your economy or on the short stick of your economy decides to crash it by introducing lakes and lakes of the stuff--and only archwizards can do that anyway.

So if this person discovering the formula is you, you can keep it to yourself and not disturb the status quo. Or you can inform the archwizards of your discovery whereupon they either induct you into their ranks to let you in on the scam or they try to kill you. Or if they fail at that, you crash the economy and... from a gameplay standpoint, nothing happens. Nothing's become more or less balanced by this, all you did was introduce a new kind of adventure.

So what's the aversion to actually having a completely fucked-over economy? Infinite resource loops do not create any kind of gameplay problem. They do screw over certain kinds of settings, but:

1) Some settings require ridiculous amounts of a resource in order to even function in the first place and--

2) Why should the setting be that static in the first place?

Why do mercs necessarily have to be weak? If you're pretty powerful you go out and hire trolls and giants instead of goblins and kobolds. Maybe you even took all your gold and hired a dragon (dragons do love gold after all).

They don't, but you should never be able to trade your non-combat resource pool to get mercenaries more useful than 'Steve, the idealistic squire in chainmail'. Otherwise you have a situation where PCs don't wear nice clothes or even have houses because it would cut into their 'hire an Ogre Magi!' fund.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: One: there's no guarantee that PCs won't be the first high-level characters in your setting to be able to use that kind of magic.

If it's a custom spell that breaks the economy sure. But if it's a spell from the PHB, then it's assumed some wizard already created that spell at some point (because it exists somewhere). In which case, being a smart mage he'd have already exploited it.

Two: Just because something is possible doesn't mean that it'll be done, even if it's beneficial and has no cost associated with it. For a real-world example, a better economy than the gold standard (fiat money) has been staring countries in the face for centuries. Some countries, including the United States, have actually gone to fiat money only to go back to the gold standard--even though the advantages of fiat money are obvious!

If it can be done by one person, then yes it will have been done. Infinite wealth bullshit is painfully easy to accomplish. It's like saying some guy in the real world who could predict lottery numbers and make millions without risk or effort wouldn't use that for some reason.

Three: Just because someone has the ability to crash the economy doesn't mean that they're going to. Imagine you are the cabal of archwizards who own all of the sources of water in the Desert Country of Fire, Kefin. Obviously, this means that you own everyone's ass in that country. The currency is liters of water and people trade water rights like they do property.

But by the same token, it doesn't matter that you own everything because you have infinite wealth. Basically the only reason you'd want to keep things from the people in this scenario is because you're a total dick. It's not even a matter of being neutral and out for yourself. This is a matter of just wanting to oppress people for the sake of oppressing them. You're not even interested in the bottom line at that point, you're just interested in actively suffering. And while certain backwards slave regions may exist like this, I have the feeling that most of the world would not be like that, unless the world is all evil sorcerer kings like dark sun.

So what's the aversion to actually having a completely fucked-over economy? Infinite resource loops do not create any kind of gameplay problem. They do screw over certain kinds of settings, but:

Because if the economy is fucked, then it's very hard to get the PCs to do anything unless they're good alignment. One of the most common adventure hooks is "I'm paying you to do this."

If you don't have currency, then you can't really have any kind of coherent economy unless you want to have PCs spend several sessions bartering. And if barter is the economy then still there's a reason to acquire infinite goods.

It's never a good idea to say anyone has infinite wealth. Even if they can conjure gold, there should be a limit to how much gold they can make in a day.

They don't, but you should never be able to trade your non-combat resource pool to get mercenaries more useful than 'Steve, the idealistic squire in chainmail'. Otherwise you have a situation where PCs don't wear nice clothes or even have houses because it would cut into their 'hire an Ogre Magi!' fund.

I'm not really sure how you'd achieve that, aside from putting a cap on the number of hirelings you can have. Because a guy with a good diplomacy should be able to go and hire monster troops. Evil warlords do that all the time in fantasy.

The only way I can really think of is to create some kind of metagame cap where you can only hire so much, or try to give some benefit to having houses and fancy clothes. Like some kind of status modifier, maybe have it affect how much you get paid for quests or something like that. So the long term investment is to buy big houses and statues of yourself so you seem more like a big shot. Where as if you don't have that, people dont' pay you as much.

RC2, just because you can have infinite oranges doesn't mean you have any bazookas. It is perfectly possible to allow people to have infinite gold if it cannot buy them, say, a flaming vorpal sword of rending, because in fact, they WILL do stuff for the guy offering (or TO the guy offering) to pay them with it.

I don't understand why people think the ability to make something of value every day qualifies as an infinite wealth loop. It's just a job. Whether it has any meaningful impact on the overall economy or not is mostly dependent upon how much the value produced on a daily basis.

But I remind you that today's economy staggers along when the owner of McDonalds makes a thousand times what an employee of McDonalds does, and the owner of the global steel monopoly makes a thousand times that.

-Username17

Mister_Sinister wrote:It is perfectly possible to allow people to have infinite gold if it cannot buy them, say, a flaming vorpal sword of rending, because in fact, they WILL do stuff for the guy offering (or TO the guy offering) to pay them with it.

Well if you can't buy certain items, then that means that you're now in the situation where you're sucking wizard cock to get the item crafted for you, in which case, that's still going to take gold. Even if you don't have mage mart, having infinite currency means you can commission anything.

Now, the wish economy gets around this by having planar currency, which is just basically ubergold that magic can't replicate. But the problem here is that because you can break the gold economy, then low level people really have nothing to fight for. But at that point, why just say gold can't be replicated by magic and just have people use that, instead of declaring gold is useless and then layering on some higher level economy.

Or just have commoners deal in copper peices and use gold and platinum for high level currency. It should be more like Shadowrun where the megacorps deal in the same nuyen as everyone else, they just have a lot more zeros behind the numbers they're dealing with.

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't understand why people think the ability to make something of value every day qualifies as an infinite wealth loop. It's just a job. Whether it has any meaningful impact on the overall economy or not is mostly dependent upon how much the value produced on a daily basis.

But I remind you that today's economy staggers along when the owner of McDonalds makes a thousand times what an employee of McDonalds does, and the owner of the global steel monopoly makes a thousand times that.

The issue is that you don't want it to be more profitable for people to work mundane jobs than to adventure. For you to get adventurers, then adventuring (at least level appropriate adventures) always has to be more profitable than doing other shit.

Nobody really cares if the mage can make a token amount on his off time to sustain his lifestyle. So Elminster creates walls of iron (or maybe just gold directly) to afford the lavish food and maintenance on his tower. That's fine. But it shouldn't be some kind of trick where you get more money managing a bar than you do actually going out and killing dragons.

At no point should owning a business be your primary source of income in an adventuring game. It should be rather insignificant compared to the other shit you're doing and mostly would exist to pay bills, like maintaining armies, castles, temples, etc.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:At no point should owning a business be your primary source of income in an adventuring game. It should be rather significant compared to the other shit you're doing.

Why? What's wrong with having a day job? Why can't an adventure be something you do for a cause? To get the girl, to raise the dead, to overthrow the tyrant.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

RandomCasualty2 wrote:At no point should owning a business be your primary source of income in an adventuring game. It should be rather significant compared to the other shit you're doing.

Why? What's wrong with having a day job? Why can't an adventure be something you do for a cause? To get the girl, to raise the dead, to overthrow the tyrant.

Because if you could get your WBL hit with less/no risk, everyone would do that. So they have to ensure the game remains about killing things and taking their stuff.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:I don't understand why people think the ability to make something of value every day qualifies as an infinite wealth loop. It's just a job. Whether it has any meaningful impact on the overall economy or not is mostly dependent upon how much the value produced on a daily basis.

But I remind you that today's economy staggers along when the owner of McDonalds makes a thousand times what an employee of McDonalds does, and the owner of the global steel monopoly makes a thousand times that.

The issue is that you don't want it to be more profitable for people to work mundane jobs than to adventure. For you to get adventurers, then adventuring (at least level appropriate adventures) always has to be more profitable than doing other shit.

Nobody really cares if the mage can make a token amount on his off time to sustain his lifestyle. So Elminster creates walls of iron (or maybe just gold directly) to afford the lavish food and maintenance on his tower. That's fine. But it shouldn't be some kind of trick where you get more money managing a bar than you do actually going out and killing dragons.

At no point should owning a business be your primary source of income in an adventuring game. It should be rather insignificant compared to the other shit you're doing and mostly would exist to pay bills, like maintaining armies, castles, temples, etc.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that people want money. This is only rarely true, as "money" is just a number or a quantity of stuff you don't actually want. What people want is stuff, and in today's world money is a really good way to get that stuff.

Personally, I don't actually care what the actual number balance of my bank account is - I care whether it can get me tasty food, or how long it can sustain my MMO habit, or whether I can use it to fund cybernetics research so I can get eyes that also shoot lasers.

So if adventurers can get way more money working a day job, but the stuff they really want can only be found by going on an adventure - the day job happens during downtime, and they'll go on adventures.

This is easy to enforce - you remove the price tag from the stuff the PCs actually want, which are items that give them super powers. You *can't buy* superpowers with anything resembling the currency you use to buy food and other mundane stuff. High-end items cost *other high-end items* if you get them via transactions at all. This is the idea behind the Tome planar currencies after all - they're high-end items that happen to not give you superpowers just yet.

In short: You can't buy magic items, and there is no wealth-by-level.