Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Comparative Marking

Marking is a pretty neat addition to 4e, but the mechanic has brought up questions. These questions are exacerbated by the fact that there are 5 Defender classes each with its own mark. Okay, so marking is basically dividing into two parts: 1) application and sustaining of the mark and 2) what you can do to marked targets. One of the universal parts is applying the Marked condition. This condition imparts a -2 penalty to all attacks the don't include the marker. This is especially great if the Marked target can't attack you!

Application:
  • Fighter: Every target attacked is marked until the end of next turn.
  • Paladin: Minor Action to mark up 5 squares away but you must sustain the mark by either attacking or ending next to your target.
  • Warden: Free Action on your turn to mark all adjacent until end of next turn.
  • Battlemind: Minor Action to mark up 1 (or 2 if augmented) targets up to 3 squares away. Lasts until you use the power again.
  • Swordmage: Minor Action to mark 1 up to 2 squares away. Lasts until you use the power again.
So right off you see some interesting things. Fighters can mark outside of their turn with immediate and opportunity actions. Paladins have the best range (not counting fighters with ranged weapons), although since they need to sustain their marks they have a hard time taking advantage of this without ranged weapons. Wardens can mark a lot of targets, but they all have to be adjacent.

Added Effect
  • Fighter: Immediate Action to get basic attack against adjacent who attacks another or shifts.
  • Paladin: Free Action to do damage AT RANGE when mark attacks another. Once between turns.
  • Warden: Immediate Action to do a vs. Fort attack that causes combat advantage when target attacks another OR Immediate Action to do slide, slow, and prevent shift when mark attacks another target.
  • Battlemind: Opportunity Action to shift when adjacent mark shifts OR Immediate Action to do same damage done by mark to adjacent enemy.
  • Swordmage: Choice of 3 that go off when mark within 10 HITS another target. They can either teleport to be adjacent to the mark and take a basic attack or make it grant combat advantage. Or they can reduce the damage done.
Each type of defender has strengths and weaknesses in the way it marks and can open up different tactics. For example, the Swordmage and Paladin have mark benefits that can be used at range. A Swordmage can mark a target a 2 squares away, get to a spot the mark can't reach within 10 squares, and then constantly reduce its damage as well as give it a penalty. A Paladin with a bow can mark a target within 5 squares and constantly apply mark damage at range while keeping its mark up with a bow attack.

So one tactic I want to bring up is applying a lot of marks in order to give a lot of people the -2 penalty. Although every class has abilities that allow marking multiple targets, only the basic marking of Fighter and Warden really allows this. The danger of this is drawing too many attacks and getting wiped out. Also, the mass marking tends to be limited to enemies close by. One exception is a ranged Fighter. You could build a Fighter designed to mark multiple targets at range, but then your build is getting so specific that you are making valid tradeoffs to act more like a Controller than a Defender.

Another things I want to note is the bonus. Most of these bonuses are Immediate Actions or can only be used once per round. This is a basic tenet of the special extra damage abilities. Warlock's Curse, Sneak Attack, Hunter's Quarry and so on do extra damage only once each round. The special mark extra damage is the same. You can apply it once per turn. The only marking ability that does not follow this is the Battlemind ability to shift as an opportunity and this doesn't do damage.

Defenders mark abilities tend to be useful against targets that try and get away from. Fighters get their attack versus people shifting away. Paladins can do their damage despite the target not being in range. Wardens get their mark attack with reach weapons and can use a movement hampering ability on marked targets at range. Battleminds can shift after targets shifting away and Swordmages can just teleport range attackers back adjacent. Of these, the Fighter seems to be the best in terms of pinning down shifters. A ranged attacker mark by a adjacent fighter had 3 options. They can shoot at point blank. The fighter can then get a free attack and can stop the attack without using his Immediate. The ranged guy can shift away. The fighter can then use his immediate action to attack. Next turn the fighter will be close by and can continue to press the attack. Or they can run away and attack. They take the opportunity attack and don't use up the Immediate action of the fighter, but they can at least make an uninterrupted attack and now have some distance, but expect that fighter to charge you next turn.

Fighter: Fighter are fairly versatile in applying their mark since it can be attached to any attack they make. Their Immediate Action is a basic attack. The drawback of this is you have to be adjacent to make the attack and you might miss, but the advantage is that you get this attack on a shift. Fighters are the only Defender that can mark outside of their action with opportunity attacks.

Paladin: Paladin marks are a little bit like a Fighters in that the target they attack is likely to be the one they mark. But they can only mark one target. This is made of for by the flexibility of not attacking your marked target and instead just being next to them. Paladins can't respond to shifts, but they don't need to since they can do their damage at range. The other drawback shared by many Defenders is needing to use a Minor Action to change marks. The Paladin mark does require the most management since you have conditions to sustain it and can be penalized for letting it drop.

Warden: Marking is really easy. You just hit everyone adjacent. You don't even have to stay adjacent since your mark abilities can hit targets at range or reach. You of course have the issue that you need to hit and you can't mark targets at range, but you can pull people back to you and slow anyone trying to get away. Warden marking is very good

Battlemind: Battleminds have the only Opportunity Action mark ability. This allows them to shift after a ranged unit shifting away, but doing so uses their AoO and the ranged unit can then attack them without worrying about an attack. So they aren't great againt artillery. The have a encounter long mark and can even augment their marking to mark two targets but they don't have to engage the target to maintain the mark like a Paladin, but of course, they can't use their special mark abilities at range either. The neat thing about their marking ability is that they do the damage done by their target. This requires the target to hit unlike the marks noted above, but doesn't require a hit roll like the Fighter and Warden marks. This is very nice against powerful single targets that can dish out a lot of damage.

Swordmage: Unlike some other Defenders that mark at range but then can only use it while close the Swordmage can only mark targets close by, but can then use the mark ability to teleport to the marked target and then get either a basic attack or make it so they grant combat advantage. They also have the option of having damage reduction. These are all fairly nice, but you suffer because your marked target can essentially pull you out of position if you want your mark benefit. The other major drawback is that it requires your marked target to actually hit. You don't get the advantage if they miss. This combined with the fact you need a hit roll probably makes the Swordmage marking the least damaging marking.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Turn Order, Events, and Such - Ramblings

So been working on my battle tracker javascript program. Ran into a technical difficulty caused y an architectural choice. I developed the notion of secret tracker entries that controlled timed effects. These tracking entries would automatically do things like increment conditions and so on. The problem comes up with delaying. When someone has several tracking actions these actions happen automatically when their turn comes up, but a person who is delaying should be able to act before these tracking events go off. For example, Controller A puts an effect on a target that lasts until the start of Controller A's next turn. Striker B wants to delay but also wants to take advantage of this effect. What will happen with my current design is the the effect will turn off because Controller A's turn will start and Striker B will not act while this effect is on. Currently entries do not actually remove entries and just increment them so there is no actual problem in running combats, but this prohibits automatic removal and corrupts the underlying data model.

One possible situation is to have tracking events go AFTER the event that inspires them. This might make sense.

Anyway, this made me start thinking about various conditions and effects and I wanted to oput my thoughts in text.

There are essentially four types of persisting effects that I can think of: a condition you can save against, a condition that lasts until the end of your next turn, a condition that lasts until the start of your next turn, and a condition that lasts for the rest of the encounter. Everything else is an effect confined to your turn or action.

So the question becomes how do these effects interact with delaying and readying. Okay, readying is simple since you basically resolve your turn.. But delaying is a little more complex and forces you to look at the structure of a turn. A turn basically consists of three phases: a start, an action section, and an end. The Start includes ongoing damage and regeneration. The Action section includes your three basic actions and their effects. The End includes saving throws and the end of sustained durations.

A Delay action happens after you Start. This has some interesting ramifications. You can not avoid the ongoing damage by Delaying, but the ongoing damage for the next turn is put off possibly allowing you to be healed in the meantime. It also slows down any regeneration. Although this effect is of note it doesn't really matter that much in terms of durations. If something ends at the Start of your turn Delaying will not stop it automatically turning off when your turn comes up. The End phase is more complex. Effects beneficial for you and sustained duration effects end. (Another interesting effect is that Delaying is really unattractive is you have sustainable powers.) Effects that are negative only end when you take your Delayed action. The book mentions an enemy stunning you as an example, but that is a bad example because you can't actually Delay when stunned. Let's generate an example that is almost as bad. Let's say an enemy Blinds you UENT. Your action comes up and you Delay. The enemy's turn comes up and you are no longer Blind. You can then take you Delayed action while not Blind. So the 'you can't Delay out of harmful effects" actually only applies to harmful effects you put on yourself. Let's take a slightly better example, Heedless Fury gives you a -5 on all your defenses. If you Delay you keep this penalty until you take your action. This is also kind of a crappy example so I will generate a goo, but hypothetical example. Suppose you have a power that causes you to go blind UENT. When your turn comes up you can Delay because you can take actions, but you can not use the Delay to escape the Blindness unlike in the example above where you were Blinded by an enemy. Frankly, I am not sure if there are examples like this in the game, but I expect that this rule is 'defensive' to prevent a hypothetical abuse.

So one question: Can you launch UENT or USNT actions from a free, immediate, or opportunity action? I will have to keep an eye out for that kind of effect since it will impact the program. Well, you can definitely launch such an effect from a Readied action which is technically immediate, but it is modeled as a whole action by the program and it resets initiative so this works nicely.

Okay, back to software. If I change the architecture of my little program to not have 'tracking entries' but instead have effects tied directly to the Start and End this reflects the game better. My notion of tracking entries actually fits with 3.5 and not 4.0 since in 3.5 you have effects that essentially get their own initiative since you Delay to be out of synch with them.

When your turn comes up naturally all your USNT effects should turn off. You then have 3 choices. If you take your turn or ready an action ALL your UENT effects should turn off. If you Delay your positive UENT effects should turn off. If you either take your delayed action or you delayed action is lost when you go to the top of the order all your negative UENT go off. So you can actually have your UENTs go off right before your USNT would go off. Course you probably wouldn't have any USNTs because you didn't act.

Note, you can not Delay in front of yourself. This would allow you to basically allow you to skip your Start phase if you Delayed the entire round.

So this leads to each entry having a list of effects that can be triggered by specific FSM transitions. Back to coding!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Feat Choices

This is going to be more from a player perspective. I was looking through some of the feats and I took a quick look at the 'multiclass' feats. This is when I came across the multiclass leader feats. The multiclass leader feat gives you a a use per encounter of the basic healing power. This is very, very good. A feat you can take at first level that allows you to take a minor action to use a healing surge on yourself or another. Imagine a four player party: a defender, a controller, and two strikers. If each one took a multiclass leader feat at first level they would have twice as much healing as if they had a dedicated leader class.

The drawback is that you can only 'multiclass' to one other class. Once you have selected a multiclass feat to one class you can't choose another (unless of course, you retrain).

Player versus DM

The nature of D&D is a little weird. The DM is essentially a host. His job is to set up the game, tell the story, and make sure people have fun. In this sense the DM is playing together with the players so they can all have fun. But a large part of D&D is tactical wargaming. The DM creates battle scenarios and takes on the role of the enemies. In this sense the DM is playing AGAINST the players. This leads to a little confusion about whose side the DM is on.

In battles, a DM is supposed to make it fun and challenging and not to just crush the players. He has to make it tough enough so that there is challenge, but not so hard that the PCs have no chance. You want to occasionally fudge things so the PCs can survive, but you don't want them to feel like their are no consequences and they can't lose. In a fight they should be struggling to win and being forced to think. A lot of time my players think I am out to get them because I naturally take on the side of the monsters I am controlling. I remember one time playing Champions and a character was attacked on the sewer. I rolled the damage, 4d6. I got a 23 which is an amazing roll so I yelled out "Yes!" and players reported a look of glee on my face. I then realized that 23 points of damage was enough to instantly kill the poor character...

But this adversarial relationship can be dangerous and can infect other parts of the game. Some players go take playing against the DM outside the realm of just combat encounters and engage in excessive complaining, rules lawyering, power gaming, and even attempts to cheat. Now there is a place for complaining, rules lawyering, and power gaming (though not cheating), but any of these behaviors taken to an extreme can be problematic. A player might feel triumph at tricking the DM on some rules point or trying to out argue with a DM or even wear one down with complaints to get their way. A player feeling like they are competing against not just the DM, but the game designers can seek out rules exploits as a way of showing how smart they are and how they can easily disrupt a game. Some DMs may enjoy this kind of behavior since it is something they can 'play against', but as the rules have solidified and grown more defined from first to fourth edition and general rule of "the DM is always right" seems to have weakened in many peoples minds, and the notion of 'beating the DM at the rules' seems to have strengthened.

My personal style is non-competitive. It is one of the reasons I like D&D. I play games to have fun with other people and not to crush or dominate them. So as a DM I don't like having an adversarial relationship with my players. I am working so that you can have fun and having a player complain or try to mess up my game makes it not fun for me. In the past I have let players reduce my enjoyment, but as I have observed myself over the last decade of DMing I realize that one of my chief weaknesses is losing energy. In the beginning I put in a lot of work, but later on I slowly run out of steam and do less work. One big culprit in this is any reduction in enjoying the game. Basically players who I feel are trying to compete against me make it not fun and make me less interested in playing.

In the past I have not been proactive about dealing with this. I would let people stay who weren't enjoyable for me to DM because I needed players and didn't want to be a dick by kicking out people, but I now understand that this doesn't really work. My biggest DMing gap in my post college life was partially due to just being worn down by a player. He wasn't a bad guy, but he made it less fun. Maybe I should have talked to him about this, but I am not sure what I would have said. I think it would have come down to me saying, "Stop complaining, it is making it not fun for me." And he probably would have said that I should stop doing things that made him complain.

Anyway, my post college gaming has been about finding people to game with and becoming friends with them instead of finding friends and gaming with them. This reduces the complications of 'you can't kick out a friend' so I have freedom to say who is in my game and to not use this power to exclude people who aren't going to be fun to play with is something that I have to do to make the game something I will continue to want to do.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Quests

So fourth edition introduced 'Quests' that give you experience and rewards. This idea is most likely borrowed / partially inspired by MMOs. The typical usage is you meet someone who has a task for you. You complete this task, return to them and get a reward as well as experience points. In my own game I am taking a little different approach.

I am trying to make my game very story oriented so I decided to use the quests to essentially spur the characters along their own plotline. Instead of being given generic quests by NPCs I am simply assigning them experience for goals that they basically have anyway. One aspect of this is to have very large rewards for very serious and important goals. This focuses the players on the goals of the characters and rewards people for working on their storyline. This also gives me some room to adjust experience in case one person lags behind. I can focus the story on them and increase their experience point bonuses from their story.