Game-design is interesting to me, to the point I can see beyond Zapp's vocal way to express his thought/analysis and see the facts and the statistical reasoning beyond his opinion.
Can his manners be annoying to readers? Yes, of course. It depends on your patience.
Personally I got more annoyed by denialism or proposal for "simple fixes" to handle a statistically-crazy system, and I can understand were his salty comments come from, since I felt the same frustration with 4th edition CORE rules the very day they got presented (since my previous experience with games with opposed rolls mechanics, both RPGs and miniature, the issues this core mechanics bring in were evident to me) ...probably I would be even saltier if I dedicated years of RPGing trying to save 4th edition at all costs.
Having said that...
before the fight you are calling for (
and no one is interested in) will ensue let me express some thoughts before this topic will be derailed into oblivion:
First off, this seems to be a little irrationale and emotion driven:
OldPlayer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 2:20 pm
Also you are comparing core rules, 1,5 y out with a full grown system with all extensions and years of dev.
No amount of publications will ever save a problem born in the very core mechanic. And in NO WAY 2nd edition publications touched the core system to make it better with each published book. Are you familiar with 2nd edition? The system started and stayed the same through the whole line. Same with Dark Heresy and the whole FFG 40k lines, if it matters.
OldPlayer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 6:22 am
And another thing. 4e is still relatively new. The more you play a system the better you get at it hopefully
With practice you will get better at anything: playing an out of tune piano, riding a bike with flat tire, ...it says nothing on HOW GOOD is the instrument you are using in the first place.
easl wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 7:35 pm
Graak wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 10:45 am
What 4th edition provides intead is a crazy statistically-unstable mechanic that (thanks to opposed rolls and cumulative advantage) can be described as a ball that rests upon a hill: as soon as it goes one side it will snowball (the same happens when you start with a lot of advantage or a better stat than your opponent).
You're right for WS vs. WS. But I'm not sold on the idea that that's a great 4ed combat. Remember, advantage applies only to
appropriate combat rolls (p. 164, under "Benefits of..."). Meanwhile, failing
any contested roll or suffering
any condition loses you all advantage (same page, under "Losing..."). I think the combat is supposed to be a bit more tactical (albeit abstract-tactical) than just trading blows. If you're facing an opponent who'h gotten some WS Advantage, you don't keep trying WS vs. WS, that's just stupid. You throw an Intimidate vs. their Cool roll at them to make them afraid. They don't get to apply their advantage to it, and since they've pumped all their Exp into WS, they fail and all that Advantage goes away. Or you throw a Stealth vs. Perception roll at them to 'move behind them.' You use an entangling ranged weapon on them. Ranged means can't be opposed by WS, and even if it doesn't damage them, the condition removes their Advantage. And so on. To extend your analogy, when the giant boulder starts building up speed as it rolls down the hill, you don't push back; you figure out a way to go around. What can you do to avoid having to deal with it head on?
The side being steamrolled by advantage should not merely keep doing the same thing over and over again. They should switch tactics. And that should go for both PCs and NPCs; when PCs rack up advantage, the NPCs should use their other skills and talents to so that the melee monster has to make
different opposed rolls. That NPC non-combative priest leader type? Have them
Blather the pit-fighting dwarf. Charm vs. Intel. Dwarf loses...loses all advantage and becomes stunned, losing possibly several rounds of doing anything. Or the NPCs should be looking to inflict conditions on them. And on the PC side, while the dwarf pit-fighter may greatly enjoy putting each and every experience point into his primary melee skill, someone else had better think about ways to inflict conditions or create other opposed rolls in combat, in case the GM decides to throw a 120-skill melee monster at the party. That Lawyer career is suddenly looking a lot more combat relevant, aren't they? Sure, the dwarf does more damage...but you can temporarily stun-lock an opponent, and that's really good too.
I can see your whole "Hey, that enemy is "on fire", he's butchering us: let's distract him with some blahblah". It can be cinematic and in fact it has been seen in various movies (the 1st Guardian of the Galaxy had a scene like that in the last battle iirc).
But scenes like that should be the exception, otherwise every combat slips into a farce. I can't see a reliable way to manage 4th edition swingyness+snowball effect in that.
Orin J. wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 3:04 pm
OldPlayer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2020 2:20 pm
Opposed rolls are not a problem in 4e, they are good. Cumulative adv and +60 bonuses yes but easily fixed.
opposed rolls are specifically a problem in 4th Ed., because they're done off a single die roll so there's no curve to balance against. this means both that all things being equal there's no way of telling who is going to win a roll and by how much, and that every advantage one side has is indirectly doubled as a +10 to one side's roll means there's now 10 that the advantage side can roll and automatically "win" and also 10 the disadvantaged side can roll and automatically "lose" meaning that every bit of skill has to be carefully balanced to avoid snowballing.
and that's before throwing in advantage and the overstacked bonuses. i normally leave off on this stuff but you came off as trying to goad zapp into picking a fight so i figured i'd correct you first.
In short, this. Advantage only make it WAAAY worse.
I could spare some words in defense of D100 opposed systems though, an example: ECLIPSE PHASE. Why? Well, in EP combats should be scarce and dangerous (and you still can come back from death, btw), way scarcer that the usual WFRP published adventure implies, just to be clear (it's a post cyberpunk setting where hacking and social themes are at the same level combat is for games like D&D).
In EP the opposed rolls works like this "opponents rolls D100, if both succede the hightest wins".
I hope you guys can see the difference with 4th edition.
No Degree of Success is calculated and it has no implication on damage inflicted or bonus for attacking the round after (advantage).
Yes, it's swingy, but there are no mechanics that augment the swinginess into snowball effect!
Bye!