Does D&D 4e handle martials vs. casters right?

even the seeker focuses solely on weapon attacks

You made me laugh out loud in public

Makes sense, you like your games to be simulationist, which is something 4e doesn't really try very hard to be

Yes. Except for a few moves the game is perfect.

The combat is slow as hell. The game is basically all combat, I don't see how people enjoy it. I say this as someone who tried really really hard to enjoy 4E. I wanted the game to be good. And when you're just crawling a dungeon it's alright. It's not great for a miniature based tactical battle game.

As far as trying to use the system for anything but fighting, well, there's some utility around. It exists. It's no good though, and it's extremely bare bones. And completely ruined by combat taking you completely out of any sort of story might be going on for most of the session.

Far from the worst version of D&D in my opinion, but I don't really like D&D in the first place and I feel like this game stole a lot of my time because of the popularity it held in the local gaming circle. I really wish I had tried branching out to different systems and settings in general earlier, before I bought in so heavily. That's on me though.

the exact opposite actually

What are your favorite systems?

Depends on what you mean by right.

Did they balance them? Yes. Did they make an engaging roleplaying game out of them? No. Did they make a good combat game with them? Yes. Did they make a good system for making adventures with them? No.

Hm?

>4e's combat mechanics feel very detached from reality

Assuming you're the one who said this, it almost directly translates to "4e is not simulationist". Simulationist games are games that try to replicate a reality. The more the game rules represent the rules of the universe, rather than the rules of a game, the more simulationist the game is.

>The combat is slow as hell.
Combat is over in 2-5 turns. If that takes too long, maybe you should stop wasting 5 minutes every time your turn comes up.
>The game is basically all combat
People say this about D&D in general.
It certainly has more and better tools for out of combat stuff than your pic related.
>combat taking you completely out of any sort of story
Why do you have any sort of combat that's unrelated to the story?

That's a really tough question. It depends on the setting, the group, and the tone. For post apoc, I really enjoy pallidium's TMNT after the bomb. It's bulky and junk and completely a pain to play like any pallidium game but I love it. I also really enjoy Twilight 2000 for a more realistic simulation type game. Twilight 2000 has a terrible system if you want a quick game, but that's not a bad thing for twilight 2000 because you're not playing a quick narrative game with it. The 4E version of Gamma World is a hell of a lot of fun to play at parties but actually doing anything coherent with it seems laughable and it inherits a lot of the problems of 4E, but it matters less because it's not trying to be that sort of role playing. It's trying to be a wacky combat game.

Have you ever seen the Firefly RPG? That was pretty fun and I think that it kept things moving pretty well. It had problems, and it could for sure get bogged down, but it was fun. My perceived enjoyment of the system probably had more to do with the setting.

My favorite system of all time was probably for a simple party game, Everyone is John. Not because it's comprehensive or I could run any game with it, because you patently can't. It's a game that does exactly what it sets out to do quickly and effectively without getting in it's own way. I've never had a bad time playing it. I've never had a serious argument over the rules. I could sit down with almost any group of people and play it. But it's not something I would use to play a game as a space cowboy, or as a mutant rat man surviving in the wastes, or as a shell-shocked combatant in a cold war gone hot.

is not the original guy, but as the original guy do agree with him. I don't play simulationist systems as a rule (depending on what you'd call simulationist), but the fact that 4e seemed to consist of 2 different games really broke my immersion every time we had to switch between the two.

A simulationist game is something like 3.5. Where you can imagine a world. A weird world to be sure, but a world nonetheless, that runs on the rules of the game as rules of nature

There is no jumpp from non-combat to combat in 4e. Just like most game, combat forces strict turns, but that's it.
Things you do out of combat:
>use skill
>use item
>navigate
>interact with environment
>use power
>use ritual
Things to do inside combat:
>exactly the same, but because combat takes little time, rituals are only relevant as things you prepared beforehand, or things you try to stop or protect

Did you even play this game when it was popular? 4-5 rounds is the low end, ususally it was 6-7 rounds. each round was roughly 10 minutes long with a group of 4. That's an entire hour for one combat encounter. One. If your rounds were speedier you used a house rule, I can almost guarantee it. Or your tactical play was negligible.

>not the original guy, but I make the exact weird counter-factual claim
Simulationism is not about reality. It's about simulation (it could be a genre you're trying to simulate).
In which case 4e is pretty simulationist - if simulating an episodic, adventure-focused high-fantasy is what you're looking for.
You take that premise and suddenly things stop being vague-abstractions for gameplay's sake and start making sense - e.g. an encounter power becomes not "literally that thing I do once and get too tired to repeat it" but "That cool thing I do once per scene, otherwise it would get boring"

Sage and report. This is bait, you retards. Same as the stat thread, same as the hp thread. Stop giving the sad little shit his (you)s.

No, that's narrativism. The replication of a form of narrative

>tactical play
Tactical play does not mean "everyone discusses every little action in great detail until turns take 10 minutes per round".
Sure, I have seen the thing you're talking about - but I have seen it with almost any game that offers meaningful choices in combat. It's not something that can be blamed on the game engine.
Hell, I have even seen players that take 5 minutes per turn, not round(so 20 per turn). They do the same in 4e, 3e, RC, GURPS, 40k, Exalted, Star Wars and even fucking Heroquest.

See, this is where we'll hit problems, because my argument is based entirely on how the game feels to me. Maybe its the grid-based nature of combat, or the fact that powers are statted almost entirely for use in-combat and rites are almost completely for use out-of-combat.

>not the original guy, but I make the exact weird counter-factual claim
Believe what you want, my friend. Like I said, the nature of simulationism is pretty loose, so whatever system I said I played there'd be some schmuck who goes "that's not a REAL simulationist game" (Unless I said gurps or something I guess)

I see your understanding of narrativism is also flawed. Let's make this quick:
>Gamist - concerned with the game as a game.
>Narrativist - concerned with the game as a method to build a compelling narrative.
>Simulationist - concerned with the game as a simulation.
4e concerns itself with being fair, balanced, making the gameplay challenging(everything is stronger than the player characters, if you don't use tactics and team-play you will die). So it's Gamist focus is obvious.
4e does concern itself with building compelling narratives - but does not offer tools to affect the narrative, does not control characterisation - it outlines everything you need, but leaves it outside the rules. In terms of Narrativism, it's barely there.
4e simulates a specific genre and world type. It even spells out the genre conventions in the DMG (and offers ways to subvert them). Almost everything that happens in the game is a result of the simulation, all narratives are emergent from "events as they unfold", everything is focused on what characters do and how they do it. There is extreme focus on what the characters themselves know and can do. It is obvious 4e is very strongly Simulationist.

Weird view of it. It makes gamist and simulationist much, much more broad than narrativist

Nobody said GNS is perfect.
If you want a slightly different take:
>G - "What would help me win?"
>N - "What would make for a better story?"
>S - "What would my character do?"

3e is the ONLY GAME where that is a problem, so shut the fuck up, 3e was DEAD ON ARRIVAL.

Clearly you've never played Shadowrun,. Rifts, WoD, or Rolemaster.

then introduce a timer for turns.
Or just ban out of character talking during combat.

"the DM cannot enforce game flow" is not a valid argument against having a good combat system in a game that is, and lets not delude ourselves we are talking DnD here, primarily about combat.

Neither have you.

I've played quite a bit of nWoD, I've never come across a problem with it. And in Shadowrun, well, a party of all magic users will come across problems an all-caster party in 3.5 would never encounter

I have however never played oWoD, rifts or rolemaster

I DM two 4e games, and can agree with the "two speeds" feel you're kinda talking about.
I play online, but based on the physical game supplements I have, it seems that most times you're not fighting you're not using a map. This makes my players intuit when they're going to fight, even if the fighting is optional, and makes them act differently than if I was just giving them a splash image and some description.
I don't know if that's just /my/ players, but I doubt it. It would seem a natural part of the human psyche to prepare for something, even subconsciously, when you know it's going to happen.

Well, at least it's balanced

>Does D&D _e handle ________ right?
no

Why would you show the map before the battle has started?

I'm glad someone gets what I'm on about.
Regarding playing online, try not to show players a map until they're already in the fight. Otherwise you're right, people start getting touchy. I usually keep a few 'cover pages' with art of whatever city they're in ready so I can throw that up in the meantime.

>bittter contrarian has to senselessly complain about something popular

Thanks for reminding me I'm on Veeky Forums.

Have you ever played other games with those players?
Because yes, it does sound like it's an issue created by the people around the table.

That's easy enough

Leave them on the previous map until after they need to roll initiative

I don't now, but when they're exploring a whole dungeon and I make the whole thing in roll20 then it can mitigate it a bit, since rooms with and without combat get a battelgrid.
I like spash pages to help set mood.

Problem I found with leaving the previous map up is that players subconciously think that they're still somehow operating on that map. Its weird, and I only ever noticed it from when I joined a short campaign as a player. It's quite hard to imagine you're outside a castle in the rain when there is a map in front of you quite definitely telling you you're still in that tavern brawl from half an hour ago.

It sounds like you played at launch, which means pre-math updates. It was a legitimate complaint during that time, but they actually fixed it with the Monster Manual 3/Monster Vault, tuning the math to make the combat a lot faster and more dangerous, which improved the system a great deal. I can completely understand being turned off by it in its initial state though.

Not him, but I've had that issue with a couple of groups, both with and without me as DM. I mean I guess you could blame me, because its only me and the system that are the common factor in the two games.

Or Pathfinder, if you're being generous and considering it an actual different game from 3.5.

Honest question here: is it true that most of the powers are samey? Like...

Powername
Weeb description
Target: one/many creature/s
Attack: ability vs ac
Hit: 2 [w] + ability modifier

t. a faggot who never had the chance to play 4e

In combat it's mostly pretty even, obviously.
Outside of combat it's more like any other edition: it depends on how the GM adjudicates and how interested the players are. It's easy for the more magical characters to stand out and be important because of Rituals.

And their attempt at making martial rituals (the specific name escapes me at the moment) just gates off normal skill actions behind level/money/access barriers. In a campaign where you're featuring them you're outright making martials worse.

The only thing that's 'samey' about them is the format and structure. Most powers involve an attack roll, attack one of the four defences and do damage on a hit.

However, what adds variety in play is how all those various elements interact, along with the additional effects various powers have.

Forced movement, debuffs, granting attacks to allies, unique effects that can manipulate enemies or the battlefield... There's a huge amount of variety under the hood, just presented in a way that's really easy to quickly use and understand.

Powers are also not the only thing in the system. Rituals have a lot of the utility effects that wouldn't fit in the Power format, but there are also utility powers which work in completely different ways. Pic related as just one example.

4e feels like it tried to copy Exalted Charms, but did them like feats in 3.5e.
That is they needed to have a bunch of little ones that give only +1 or +2 bonuses or are extremely similar to each other.

Half of the At Will powers for martials would be combat maneuvers in any other sensible systems.

Thanks for the clarification user.

But that's not how powers are at all?

And what At Will powers? Can you actually give examples?

Their presentation is the same, but things like keywords, conditions of use, and secondary effects are a big fucking deal. If you've played Fire Emblem, you know how useful something as simple as shove or swap can be in a tight situation, most powers in 4e are like that.

If you ever do play 4e just make sure you don't play the core books only. All the alternate subsystems like the expanded character background stuff, boons, and skill powers, are actually really important to making 4e fun and having player characters feel more distinct.

Alternatively play Gamma World 7e which is 4e Lite in a postapocalyptic setting where characters might be things like a hivemind of cockroaches or a cyborg yeti.

Not exactly. There are different in how "many creatures" is specified, and most powers are quite different in how they play. That said, Hit being XdY+stat modifier or X[W]+stat modifier is common, attack has differences (weapon attack versus Reflex or Fortitude is more accurate than implement attack versus a NAD). That said, most of them are notable for other things - from forced movement, giving extra movement, situational damage, status condition, giving allies things like temporary HP and Defenses, forcing rerolls, when the attack happens (this is very important), granting allies attacks, increasing crit range, diminishing enemy damage... You name it, there's probably a 4e power for it.

For example, the Rogue has options that range from adding +Charisma modifier to damage to targeting Reflex to shifting before the attack to attacking the enemy if he gets attacked back.

The format is the same.
The effect is very varied.
Example warlord:
>pull an enemy towards you, 2 allies charge the enemy
Example monk:
>punch an enemy, that enemy then attacks someone of your choice (think of the typical bar-brawl shoulder-tap)
Example ranger:
>target ally that failed a skill in which you are trained - they try again with a bonus from your Wisdom
Example warlock:
>target an enemy that attacked you, they are now Dominated

Martial Practices... like most of the Mearls-motivated Mearls-era additions, the less said about them, the better.

4e has a few qualities of powers. Encounter (recharges with a five minute rest), Daily (recharges with an eight hour long rest), At-Will (you can use it to your hearts content). Everyone starts with at least 2 At-Will powers, 1 Encounter power and 1 Daily power. Keep in mind that healing falls under Encounter power but it can be used multiple times and doesn't take a full action, meaning you can heal and whack someone in the head.

Look at the level 1 At Will's for Fighters. They're basically a normal attack with some slight extra damage or they push them 1 square or hit easier. They're unimaginative as fuck.
Same can be said of the Dailies and Encounter powers. Whoopie, I swing slight harder once per encounter or day. At higher level they get slightly better with auras that damage people around you or heal you over time, but the vast number are just slightly better basic attacks.

Better question, why do basic attacks exist when I can constantly do one of these maneuvers? There's very little reason other than effects which are based on your basic attacks.

That's a reason to get rid of basic attacks, not At Will's IMO. I like At Wills because they let you add some variety to your basic combat options without overwhelming you with choices, and I guess I just don't agree when it come to low level martial powers. I find having options like that really fun, and it adds a lot to the complexity of combat.

It's more to do with everything else. Martials are some of the best classes in the game because the more you understand how the game works the better they are. They're very much focused around the basics of positioning, high damage through multiple attacks and striking first.

I expressly disagree.
I should be able to disarm some without needing a power to do it. I should be able to parry someone without needing a feat to do it. This is what literally all other systems but DnD and their clones let you do.

Martials should be the masters of tactics and combat skills.

Because you can basic attack with weapons you don't have a manoeuvre for. Rogue At Wills only work with certain weapons, so if for some reason they pick up a greatsword in a fight they need to be able to attack.

>Better question, why do basic attacks exist when I can constantly do one of these maneuvers?
Opportunity attacks, and other powers which grant allies the ability to do basic attacks.

>I should be able to disarm some without needing a power to do it

You can. Having the power just means you can pull it off reliably and (often times) along making an attack.

> I should be able to parry someone without needing a feat to do it.

That's what your AC represents, or at least one of the things it can. You also get actions like defensive fighting/full defense if you want to focus on defense without needing a feat.

>This is what literally all other systems but DnD and their clones let you do.

Even 3e lets you do it, it just stacks a shitload of penalties. All the other D&Ds handle it actually pretty well.

>Martials should be the masters of tactics and combat skills.

They pretty much are, both in 4e and pre-WotC.

That one square can make the difference between something being hit once and being hit three times, or shifting a dastard aside so you can charge in and geek the mage behind him. They're not unimaginative, YOU are. There are times in d20 I would've killed a man for a reliable way to get someone out of my way.

i found 4e combat usually lasted as long as 3.5, but where most 3.5 combats were over or essentially over in one or two turns a good 4e combat could last 5-8

Isn't there a minion that explodes when you kill it, making shift attacks necessary?

>Weeb description
Read the OP. Is that anime?

>Martial Practices... like most of the Mearls-motivated Mearls-era additions, the less said about them, the better.

I love the idea. Basically, it's expanding the ritual system to non-magical skills. Should have been a core component, really.

Dunno about exploding but I'm sure there's a bunch with on-death effects

I think it does since it not only makes combat a relatively equal playing ground but it also makes out of combat a relatively equal playing ground. The Ritual Caster feat can be taken by just about anyone and there are some martial equivalents in one of the Martial Power books if the person doesnt have one of the knowledge skills required for Ritual Casting. It is all pretty equalizing, keeping both martials and casters of all types in the running for options both in and out of combat.

Particular classes do outshine others in their specific combat role and there are some disparages between optimized and unoptimized characters but they are pretty negligible when compared to the disparages in other editions between martials and casters. There doesn't exist one class or one set of classes that blatantly outshines all the others. Nor is there any set that can do everything while the others are restricted by the mundane. In all, I think 4e does equal power level characters very well. It keeps the balance set in combat and extends it outside of combat by not shutting off options to particular classes just because unlike other editions and even many other class-based games.

To some, arguably.

Nice copy pasta

The problems with Martial Practices:
>terrible execution
less than 10 actually let you do something new that was not covered by skills before
>terrible conception
All of them are boring and mundane. You never see a Ritual that is just "take 10 on Arcana."

All in all, the core idea about Practices - as some unique, non-magical counterpart to rituals and Alchemy is sound - but nothing about the execution or concept is.

But at least they're free for martials to take and use.