What you like/dislike about 4E

[GawainBS]

But if you extrapolate that to, let's say, items, the whole things crumbles. Suddenly, a table burns faster, because the encounter is a higher lvl?

[Alastar]

Also, by your reasoning, fireball should kill everyone.

[brislove]

Standing in a ball of fire should kill you, if it's burning. Fireball is not a fire, it's an explosion, something that you can learn to cover up from, it singes your arms, your hair, or your shield. Standing in a fire is gonna hurt. Fireball is an explosion of heat instantaneously. I would argue that these are quite different circumstances.

why does the table burn faster? those damage numbers explain how much damage should do to creatures of appropriate levels. Why would it be doing extra damage to the table?

[GawainBS]

Why wouldn't it? It's called ruling with two measurements if it doesn't. Just trying to point out the sheer stupidity of such a table.

[highbulp]

Why wouldn't it? It's called ruling with two measurements if it doesn't. Just trying to point out the sheer stupidity of such a table.

How is having a set of baseline DCs and damage ranges stupid?! It isn't a table that says "fire does this much damage." It's a table that says "an appropriate amount of damage at level X is this."

It's a table to assist the application Rule 0. That's it. No, it doesn't apply in all cases. It isn't <i>meant</i> to apply in all cases.

*trying to avoid Oberoni*

Yes, D&D 4e does not provide rules that tell you how fast a wooden table burns. That is a flaw (or not) in the system. So how fast does it take for a table to burn? As much time as the story requires, or whatever the DM decides. If you need help deciding something involving damage to players or monsters (which is pretty common in D&D), or you need help deciding how hard it is for a character to perform an action (also common in D&D), you get a table that gives you some basic guidelines based on level. That's it.

It may be a flaw that it doesn't apply to everything. But call the presence of advice for action resolution in the DMG "stupid" is just that.

[Josh]

How is having a set of baseline DCs and damage ranges stupid?! It isn't a table that says "fire does this much damage." It's a table that says "an appropriate amount of damage at level X is this."

Why are you leveling up then?  An easier solution is to remove advancement.

You don't make it more challenging by making the fire hotter.  You make it more challenging by:
Putting in more fires
Putting the fight on a balance bar above a fire
Putting the fight in a fire so the PCs take damage every round.
Throwing in spinning traps

By this same logic you could just change creatures by making them have higher stats.  Why are their multiple creatures?  You could just make existing ones tougher.

[highbulp]

You don't make it more challenging by making the fire hotter.  You make it more challenging by:
Putting in more fires
Putting the fight on a balance bar above a fire
Putting the fight in a fire so the PCs take damage every round.
Throwing in spinning traps

By this same logic you could just change creatures by making them have higher stats.  Why are their multiple creatures?  You could just make existing ones tougher.

These are not mutually exclusive. I can make the fire hotter, or by adding more fires (or a trap), or both. Similarly, I can make the same monsters tougher, or I could have different kinds of monsters. Or I could do both at the same time. Either could be fun to play--that depends on the encounter design/story-telling skills of the DM.

Why are you leveling up then?  An easier solution is to remove advancement.

A very fair question. This is indeed a fundamental logic flaw in many games and stories. It's what leads to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. We probably do it because "advancement" is fun and rewarding, and good stories have a build up of conflict--that's how they stay interesting. So I'm willing to accept that logical flaw for the purpose of a better story. I guess it's just within my personal limit of my suspension of disbelief.

It sounds like you've played more games than I have, Josh--are games without advancement (I'm sure there are some) overall better than games with it? I'd imagine there are good and bad games of both types--that they are just different, not necessarily better or worse. Though that feels like a heavy discussion that may belong in a different thread.


The point is, the chart isn't saying that the same fire (or monster, or whatever) has to do more damage as you gain levels. It's saying that the game is designed around fires (or monsters, or whatever) you encounter at a certain level dealing a certain amount of damage.

I think I'll try and stop hitting this point now... I'm not sure I can explain it any better at this point.

[Josh]

These are not mutually exclusive. I can make the fire hotter, or by adding more fires (or a trap), or both. Similarly, I can make the same monsters tougher, or I could have different kinds of monsters. Or I could do both at the same time. Either could be fun to play--that depends on the encounter design/story-telling skills of the DM.

Lets try a different tact.  You have a character of power level A and a challenge difficulty of B.

If you advance the character to A+1 and simply make the challenge B+1.  You are essentially just playing A->B, because A+1->B+1 == A->B. 

Also it can be fun to play the same thing over and over, boredom at sameness is the issue.  A good designer will do what I am talking about, thats one of the things that makes them good.  This is the Protestant/Catholic goodness paradigm.  Catholics believe that good works make good people, Protestants believe that people who are good do good works.  Under external observation they act exactly the same, they are even the same in motive, they differ only in how you perceive the nature of goodness.

A very fair question. This is indeed a fundamental logic flaw in many games and stories. It's what leads to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. We probably do it because "advancement" is fun and rewarding, and good stories have a build up of conflict--that's how they stay interesting. So I'm willing to accept that logical flaw for the purpose of a better story. I guess it's just within my personal limit of my suspension of disbelief.

Advancement is fun.  As is taking on new and interesting challenges.
Higher level creatures are fundamentally different, rather than the same abilities with higher bonuses.
I

[Alastar]

Standing in a ball of fire should kill you, if it's burning. Fireball is not a fire, it's an explosion, something that you can learn to cover up from, it singes your arms, your hair, or your shield. Standing in a fire is gonna hurt. Fireball is an explosion of heat instantaneously. I would argue that these are quite different circumstances.

why does the table burn faster? those damage numbers explain how much damage should do to creatures of appropriate levels. Why would it be doing extra damage to the table?

Wall of fire than.

[brislove]

Wall of fire DOES kill creatures, it does more damage then the appropriate damage/level table during the levels that you are assumed to be using it.

3d6+int per round is larger then 2d8+5 I also disagree with the example. I don't think the braizer should be a high damage option, however I would give it high damage because it is coupled with the swinging kick, after that I would consider it low damage, or medium at best if it's a large braizer.

It takes some time to get burnt unless you are surrounded in flame by a bonfire, and you will be wearing some clothing that should protect you from the flames to a reasonable degree, you are adventurers after all.

Sure wall of fire doesn't scale, should all the powers be based on this table and have them do "limited damage: high" then I would feel like leveling up had become pointless, except to gain class abilities.

Ultimately people like to have some tangible advancement, damage/attack bonus things all seem to scale, but you get more powers, more options, more class abilities, more everything as you level. health/attack bonus/defenses. These things only scale (imo) because they show a difference between higher and lower level (then you) monsters, lower level being easier to hit ect. Again showing that you are getting stronger. You can go back and fight that kobold army when you are level 10 and it's obviously a much easier encounter.

[heffroncm]

Ultimately people like to have some tangible advancement, damage/attack bonus things all seem to scale, but you get more powers, more options, more class abilities, more everything as you level. health/attack bonus/defenses. These things only scale (imo) because they show a difference between higher and lower level (then you) monsters, lower level being easier to hit ect. Again showing that you are getting stronger. You can go back and fight that kobold army when you are level 10 and it's obviously a much easier encounter.

The problem isn't directly with combat encounters.  The scaling of creative action damage aside, many are looking at the chart as it is written and seeing that for actions not covered by the rules, you always set the DC by the level of the character attempting the action.  This means that if the stunt recquires an 11 for a level 1 character to pull off, and for some inexpllicable reason still recquires an 11 for a level 11 character to pull off, then there has been no advancement in the ability of the character to pull off that stun in 10 levels of gameplay.

The table on page 42 is a GREAT tool.  However, the context, examples, and text on page 42 tell you the worst possible way to make use of the table.  To get anything good out of it, you have to take the table completely out of context and use it in your own creative way.  This is just short of simply setting the DC on your own with no system guidelines, making it little better than DM fiat.

[Eepop]

I see the table as saying "This is what you can expect a character of this level to accomplish with a reasonable level of success". 

If what the character is trying to do shouldn't be a challenge, you should either not be using the table at all or using a DC/damage of a lower level.  If it should be very difficult or impossible, use a higher level DC/damage.

Instead of having to just know what a good DC was (3.5E), you've got some guidelines to work with here.