Comments on: Getting Into the Moving Parts

By: Driving Blind - Rob Talks About the Moving Parts of 4th Edition

Driving Blind - Rob Talks About the Moving Parts of 4th Edition — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:59:13 +0000

[...] 3rd, 2008 Rob rocks some 4e knowledge over on The Scramble:http://www.onebadegg.com/egg/2008/10/getting-into-the-moving-parts/Did I mention One Bad Egg has a twitter?http://twitter.com/onebadeggTags: d&d, one bad egg, [...]

By: rob

rob — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:42:13 +0000

Since it’s not GSL, I can actually use page numbers! Check out upper right on page 274 (The ‘Attack Bonuses’ sidebar) and upper left on page 275 (“Defense Scores” sidebar). Most of the bonuses are explicitly singular (‘An item bonus’, ‘A power bonus’ and so on) but racial, feat and untyped bonuses are explicitly plural.

However, this got me looking at the text, and there’s definitely a contradiction, since page 192 says bonuses of the same type don’t add together (which had been my initial reading of it).

Now, it is possible that the use of plural is to suggest a racial feat and a racial feat, but as such I have no idea why racial and feat bonuses don’t just get their own lines.

Bah. I find this annoyingly, but I think I may have to retract my statement – assuming the sidebar at the bottom of 275 is the most authoritative, (it’s a bonuses never stack one) that trumps the attack and defense calculation sidebars, as much as I’ll stand by that being a plain english reading of those sidebars.

By: NMcCoy

NMcCoy — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:08:09 +0000

Wait, feat bonuses stack? I was pretty sure the book explicitly said otherwise.Or did you mean that feat bonuses, racial bonuses, and untyped bonuses stack with each other? Not all bonuses granted by feats are feat bonuses, and design-wise, you only need one “stacks with everything” bonus type. Can you give me a citation for where it says feat bonuses stack?

By: rob

rob — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:25:44 +0000

Diagonals are very much their own creature. It’s true, you can’t make a diagonal wall, but that’s part of the larger limitation of the grid more than a wall specific problem.

You’re right about the Eladrin, but notably that defense is still one of the “points” in their favor, so the cost of it accounted for fairly explicitly, but it’s still accounted for.

‘Personal’ is a bit of a weird one, and while it’s a simplification to call it an attack type, it’s the best shorthand since attack type also implicitly incorporates range. There’s even a little qualifier that even though they’re called attack types, they apply to utility powers as well. The PHB categorizes it under “Attack Type and Range” but it kind of spills over into the next page as an afterthought, so it’s definitely an odd man our.

By: Nick Wedig

Nick Wedig — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:53:18 +0000

Some of the preview material did have Line effects, but it looks like they removed them.

The wall that can’t change direction has a weird quirk that it has to conform to the battle grid: Could you make a diagonal wall? In character there’s no reason the pillar couldn’t fall 45 degrees off from surrounding walls.

RE: Eladrin and Warforged: Eladrin get a bonus to Will to make up for the fact that both their stat boosts go to the same defense. I think Warforged get something similar in their Dragon magazine article.

RE: Personal is an attack type? I think you mean types of powers. You could theoretically have an attack that only affects yourself, but that would have very limited utility.

By: rob

rob — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:40:03 +0000

My suspicion is that it was a KISS decision, and a line would have been in the same category as a cone or other non-square shape. Also, they might not be as bothered by saying “A wall that can’t change directions” as much as I am.

-Rob D.

By: justin

justin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:20:43 +0000

Which begs the question: Why didn’t WotC do this for 4e? Of course, they have a lightning bolt power for the wizard and a lightning breath weapon for the blue dragon, inter alia, which are all treated as simple ranged attacks. Thoughts? Fear of area type bloat?

By: rob

rob — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:24:39 +0000

Line is just as good a name for it – in my mind it’s bolt because that’s how I remember lightning bolt behaving in 1e – arbitrary length but 1 square wide in a straight line. Aside from the throwing a hadokken at people, one place where this came up is a Witch Doctor attack that calls up a column of stone which then topples over onto enemies. Template-wise, it’s a wall that doesn’t change directions, but I’d love to just be able to call it a bolt (or ray or line or whatever).

-Rob D.

By: Jim DelRosso

Jim DelRosso — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:07:28 +0000

“I still have no idea why there’s no ‘Bolt’ or ‘Ray’ area type. You can fake it by saying a wall which can’t change direction, but that’s kind of a pain.”

Would bolts and rays be best represented by ranged attacks in 4e, or is there an aspect to those kinds of attacks that I’m forgetting? Do you want something more like the 3e (and earlier) “line”?

Great post, by the way! I’m loving apelords, and I can’t wait to see what else ya’ll do with 4e.

Jim