A few weeks ago, I was playing in my bi-weekly 4e game. (Wait, is bi-weekly every other week, or twice a week, I can never remember…let me try again.)
A few weeks ago, I was playing in my every-other-week 4e game, when one of the common complaints about 4th edition became clear to me. It was when the party’s fighter/paladin started beating a large spider to death with a smaller minion spider as an improvised weapon. For the second time that encounter. I’ll wait while you get that image in your head.
Our group needed to go tame a few giant spiders in this cave for a sort-of carnival show, in exchange for VIP passes so we could talk to a few of the guild wizards back there. It was a fairly typical 4e encounter with a twist (Something this DM specializes in), rather than kill the giant spiders, we had to grab, then collar them. So no killing the large, vicious insects, but killing their smaller and swarmier cousins was totally fine.
So my warlord, the fighter/pally, and a druid made our way to the cave where the giant spiders were at, and we were doing good for a bit, but got into trouble. Thinking on his feet, the fighter, flanked by two minion spiders and grabbed by one of the giant spiders, said, “Can I pick up one of the smaller spiders and use it to beat the large one back?”
Silence came over the Skype channel, as I can imagine the druid’s player and the GM’s face were mirrors of mine: WTF, that’s kinda cool, and WTF, in that order. “Sure, give me a grab check against the spider, then an improvised weapon attack if that succeeds against the large one.”
It worked. And it should have worked, because this player’s whacky plans generally seem to work. This is, to my knowledge, the player’s only 4e game, spending more time on Star Wars and 3.5. And his character is always, at least once a combat, doing zany things like this. Jumping on a dragon and kicking it in the groin. Leaping 50 feet onto another dragon’s back.
It used to bug me, to a point. He wasn’t using his fighter or his pally powers a lot of the times. He seemed to forgo a perfectly good encounter power only to do something zany to hog the spotlight. But, as I watched him inflict massive archanoid on archanoid damage, my view shifted and realigned.
He wasn’t trying to hog the spotlight, just do something in character. His selection of powers before him weren’t absolute choices, but rather guidelines for when he couldn’t think of something creative to do.
A lot of the detractors of 4th edition have said that the powers setup remove a lot of the creativity of the game. Before, sure a warrior could just bash or trip someone, but the player had full control to describe it, to paint the scene with their actions. In 4e, you get more options, but all the description is done for you.
I never agreed with that argument. Each of our 4e powers give a mechanical effect, but you can rename it or describe it how ever you want. My skirmishing warlord may be using staggering shot, which can knock an enemy prone. But when I use it, since he’s using a lacrosse stick and a stone pellet, he’s trying to bank a shot off the tree behind the Wendigo to bean the abonination in the back of the head.
Yet even that is a limiting factor, or it has been for me. I had plenty of choices before me, but they were the only options I thought available to me; anything outside the 10 or so powers did not exist. The fighter/pally mentioned above is the opposite: he tries new things, immerses himself into the scene and looks for things outside red, green or black powers to try. And that’s not to say everything he tries is successful. He’s fallen face first off of boulders trying to stab something in the air, or even when he lands on the back of a dragon 50 feet down successfully (ie he passed his check) he’s still taking half falling damage or facing the beast on his own. With good creativity, a grasp on the given scene, and a flexible enough DM all sorts of options present themselves.
I guess the take away from this for players of 4th Editions is this: next game night, once per encounter, put your cards away, or close up iPlay4e, or cover up your character sheet. Ask the GM if you can do something not on any of your cards or is a nominal action in the Player’s Handbook. Swing from a chandelier, cut the rope so the sail falls on the bad guy, siphon some of the necromancer’s arcane power to weaken his zombies. Do something iconic with your character that forces the GM to use page 42. Even if you fail, I’m sure it will be much more interesting, tell a better story, then blindly using an at-will power.
And stories are, in the end, what this game is all about.
Mike Hasko .-._. PsychoPez
So, what ‘outside the box’ actions have your characters done, and how well were they received by players and GMs at the table?
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