# 6 months later: impressions of 4e



## ferratus (Jan 6, 2009)

Well, it is six months to the day when 4e was released, so I'm going to note what my impressions are of the game, and how it is playing out.  It is going to be more of a nitpick than a praise list because most of the good things that 4e does were apparent right out of the gate and marketed as a feature of why you should switch.   My current level of attitude towards the game is that I feel it is a better play experience than D&D 3.x, but I am also not as excited about 4e as I was six months into 3e.

1) *All powers are not created equal.*  Just like feats, prestige classes, and spells in prior editions, the variables on making an effective power are not always clear.  Examples: 

I found sleep to be a waste of time, since over the course of 5 combats, with an average of 3-4 foes caught in the burst, I put to sleep one hobgoblin.   Sure, the dice were against me, but if you are only 60-70% likely to score a hit, and then only 50% likely to make targets who are hit fall asleep it cuts down on the percentage of foes that are affected.  Then, with a 50% chance of waking up every round, it is difficult to get your party stikers into position to do something about it.  Contrast this with freezing cloud which instantly kills 60-70% of minion enemies (plus whatever attacks affect them on their initiative) and it becomes a no-brainer.  Sleep would only be worth your time if it was errata'd to put minions who you hit to sleep for the entire combat.

Fireball is also a power which you wouldn't bother with.  As a minion killer Freezing Cloud is better, and fireball doesn't do enough damage to put a serious dent in more powerful foes.   Contrast this with stinking cloud, which can do the initial minion killing just as well as fireball, but can linger round after round for the rest of the encounter as long as the wizard keeps sacrificing minor actions.   Sure, Fireball does 2-8 points of damage more initially, but the stinking cloud will get that damage back next round, or the round after that, or the round after that.   Fireball simply needs more damage or ongoing 5 fire damage to be worth it. 

I'm sure there will be some people who will object that there isn't a problem with these two powers, or have an objection to one of the fixes.  Which just goes to show how murky figuring out power balance can be.  Luckily, it is easy to errata a power that is not equal to its peers without changing other aspects of the game.

2) *You need cards. *  Perhaps need is too strong a word, but keeping track of powers is much easier when you have cards you can flip over when you expend an encounter or daily power.  Plus, it is a rather tactile pleasure to use the cards, in the way it is pleasant to roll dice.   What I would really like to see instead of the card decks sold to retailers in March that WotC is planning, would be a card generating utility hooked up to the character generator in DDI.  This would allow players to get errata'd versions of powers fairly easily, without having to sift through the errata documents to find the errata that pertains to their powers.

3) *Use large combats sparingly.*  While you could have a session where you fight several combats with a dozen combatants in each combat before you rest for the day, I would advise against it.   While you can survive such a day just fine, it would be a long, boring, grinding session.  Fighting fewer monsters will still use up some resources, but moves the plot along much faster.   More encounters per day means more breaks from combat, which keeps your players fresh.

4) *I'm wondering if monsters should have less hit points.*  While the monster who just won't die is good for dragons, orc chieftains, werewolves and such... I'm not sure if it is good for every monster.   I don't know about the rest of you, but my 4e combat experience seems to be that the party knows that the battle is won, but it drags on simply because the hp has to be whittled down for another 3-4 rounds.   As a DM and a player I have had combats hand-waved as "finished" to the relief of everybody involved.  I understand why monsters have the hp they do, because when DMing 3.x there is nothing more annoying than monsters not getting their cool powers off before the PC's nuke them.   I think however, that they might have gone overboard, because too often lots of hp remain even after the monster's encounter abilities have been expended.

5) *The DM is the enemy.*   Since combat in prior editions was about maximizing the damage in an attack you dealt, and reducing the amount of damage you took in, you often had to pull your punches for certain characters and classes.  For example, targeting a wizard with a brutish monster was bad form, because he simply couldn't deal with the punishment that the monster can dish out.  In the end then, the DM was your friend trying to help you tell the story rather than an adversary because to be a true advesary he often had to be unfair.

I have never needed to pull my punches in 4e.  I'm supposed to target a wizard with my brutes, my fighters with my skirmishers, my rangers and warlocks with my lurkers and artillery, and all the other things that would have been considered poor form in prior editions.  The players have been given the tools to work together to do something about it.  The defenders are supposed to keep the soldiers and brutes off the strikers and controllers, the strikers are supposed to take out skirmishers and artillery.  If your wizard gets mauled by a brute it isn't the DM's fault anymore, its the defender's and the wizard's fault for not working out the right strategy and leaving the wizard exposed.    Likewise, my monsters work together to try to disrupt and counter the strategy of the player characters.   The adversarial nature of 4e combat means that DM is your enemy rather than your friend and that's the way it should be.   I have never enjoyed being behind the DM's screen so much in 17 years of playing D&D.  

6) *Magical items are boring.*  Magical items haven't been truly magical since 2e.  The item that perhaps best exemplifies this is the gauntlets of ogre power.  If I get gauntlets of ogre power, I want the strength of an ogre, not the ability to do +5 damage once a day.   I don't care if you need to make it an artifact, or an epic level item.  Aside from inappropriate names however, there is also the fact that magical items don't have a sense of mystery or surprise anymore, since they follow the rules more judiciously than even powers do.  

7. *Artifacts are awesome.   *Here is where 4e has improved on its predecessors.  Artifacts have all the wonky abilities you want to give it (eyeballed to be slightly inappropriate to the proper tier), and if you goof up its power level that's okay because it will leave the game in 1-3 levels.  You layer them with curses and powers, and the result is magnificent.  This contrasts favourably with artifacts in prior editions which you could only introduce 1 or 2 artifacts in a campaign, and since they were of a slightly inappropriate power (because they were artifacts) you had to make using them so detrimental that players would never think of using it, and thus it was only for a glorified plot device to get them to try and destroy it.

8. *Skill Challenges aren't working right.*  I think this is a universal consensus among 4e fans and detractors alike.  Aside from getting the math wrong on what difficulty the skills should be, there are problems with the fact that you need far less failures than successes, which means that despite things going well you end up with a failure if one of your players hasn't got the right skill set for the challenge.   Signs of how to fix it are already appearant however.   Giving partial credit for each successful skill checks rather than a pure pass/fail for skill challenges are one example.   Having various problems attached to failed skill checks involved in the skill challenges are another.   I do think however, that the underlying idea of giving everyone something to do in the roleplaying side of the game through skill challenges is genius.   It just needs more depth and mechanics.  Ideally, it should be as well thought out as the combat chapter in the PHB.

I think that's largely my critique of 4e, six months into the game.  Since the thread is here, you might want to post your own critiques that I haven't mentioned, or whether I'm on target with my 8 observations.


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## the Jester (Jan 6, 2009)

Just briefly:

1. The game plays substantially differently than it reads. 

2. Skill challenges are bitchin', but require judicious amounts of dm tweaking to really run well. 

3. The 4eism that everyone should know everything about what's going on with them (e.g. marking/power effects, skill challenge rules, etc) is good- most of the time. But sometimes it isn't- f'rexample, you might want to run a skill challenge that the pcs don't realize that they're in (figuring out that they're being misdirected by gnomish illusions).


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## Echohawk (Jan 6, 2009)

ferratus said:


> What I would really like to see instead of the card decks sold to retailers in March that WotC is planning, would be a card generating utility hooked up to the character generator in DDI.



The Character Builder already generate cards as part of the character sheet.


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## Dragonbait (Jan 6, 2009)

My 2cp

Overall opinion: Agreed. Now that the honeymoon phase is over, I'm not as Rahh4EISMYNEWGODAND3EWUZTHEDEVILRAHH!! as I was before.

1) Agreed. I know that it appears that they tried to make all powers equal, but some are just better. Most of the time, a character only has a 50-ish% chance of hitting an enemy of equal level. Powers with nothing on a miss are a dead end, especially if they target Fort or AC.

2) Agreed, but I did that with 3E so this was nothing new for me.

3) Agreed.. Somewhat. You can use minions to beef up an encounter. My group is fighting duergar and their slaves currently. There are no minions in sight, and most fights are against 5 or 6 baddies. Each combat takes about 45 minutes (especially since duergar casters, which there seems to be a lot of, can do so much delaying tactics) and becomes really boring..

4) Agreed.

5) Disagree. It's a matter of perspective. Some would say this is how it always has been.

6) Disagree. If you get items with properties, its kewl. And now that +1 = +1d6 on a crit, it adds more "oomph" to those basic weapons with plusses.

7) Can't say. I have yet to get one in a game.

8) Disagree. I've done skill challenges and have not run into the problem you describe. In fact, I have yet to see a failed skill challenge.


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## S'mon (Jan 6, 2009)

ferratus said:


> 5) *The DM is the enemy.*   Since combat in prior editions was about maximizing the damage in an attack you dealt, and reducing the amount of damage you took in, you often had to pull your punches for certain characters and classes.  For example, targeting a wizard with a brutish monster was bad form, because he simply couldn't deal with the punishment that the monster can dish out.  In the end then, the DM was your friend trying to help you tell the story rather than an adversary because to be a true advesary he often had to be unfair.




Wow, this is... interesting...  

I've run D&D for 24 years now, it never occurred to me *not* to attack the Wizard!  

Seriously, I've found in 3e the Wizard is often the toughest PC to kill, with his magical defenses and tendency to run away.  Easiest is the raging barbarian, then the Fighter, then the Rogue.  Clerics are difficult - good AC, spells & healing.

I think if I told my players "I'm your friend trying to help you tell the story" they'd laugh.  Then they'd hit me.

My current 3e D&D campaign:
sessions - 9
permanently dead PCs - 8 (3 arcane caster, 5 warrior, 0 divine caster, 0 rogue)


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## Daern (Jan 6, 2009)

After 6 months of side-trek 4e try out sessions, we finally got together to restart the old 3e campaign with converted PCs and such.  I was happy to see that despite some aesthetic gripes (which I share, there needs to be an "old school art" deluxe edition with b/w erol otus/elmore art), my players were enthusiastic about how the game played and the new incarnations of their characters.  
Basically, aside from issues with the art direction, I really like the new edition.  Here's my blow by blow:

1) I agree about Sleep.  Making an auto effect on Minions is a good idea.

2) The Char Gen takes care of customized, plus a few more things like magic items, Action Pt, and basic stats (which I suppose should be passed to the DM during play)

3) I like magic items in this edition.  I like that there are less of them and I like that they do things.  As always, they need a name and a description.  I agree that the artifact rules are really good.  I've converted two major magic items in the campaign into heroic tier artifacts.  One gripe is, as my player said, "What are these doing in the PHB?  You should KNOW you're not supposed to look at this."

4) *I'm wondering if monsters should have less hit points.*  I'm wondering the same thing.  Just might do it, but increase monsters' damage by a die.  The only thing holding me back is...

5) Game balance: As I drove home last weekend I realized for the first time in years I hadn't fudged a single die roll.  No worries at all.  And I was going after the softer targets.  That's really nice.   So, while I'd like to lower hps, and I think in that case damage should go up to compensate, I wonder if that will blow my sweetly balanced game.

6) Skill challenges.  I've only run one of these.  I agree that more in depth rules help.  As it is I had to go into free-form abstract RP mode for the challenge, which is a slight disconnect, but actually really really fun.  just a bit of a high wire act.


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## ferratus (Jan 6, 2009)

To expand on my "DM is the enemy bit" perhaps a story as to why things have changed is in order.

We have two 3rd level characters, a wizard and a fighter walking down a forest road.   They fail their spot checks, and an orc charges out of the brush.  It is equal distance to the fighter and the wizard.  

The logical thing for the orc to do, I think we can both agree, is take out the squishy magic user before turning your attention to the fighter.  He has spells that will disable you, but you can probably survive a blow from the fighter.   However, since the orc is likely to one-hit kill the wizard, the DM would probably be seen as a <impolite phrase> rather than an adversary.  In 4e though, a wizard is able to survive one or two blows from a monster.

If the wizard survives the first blow, the fighter will come to his aid.  In 3e, it is competely up to how dickish the DM wants to be whether he finishes off the wizard or turns to deal with the fighter.  The wizard would have done a full retreat in either edition, but the orc can charge and hit him anyway.  It is only in 4e however, that the fighter can do something about it, by preventing the orc from moving and gaining free attacks if the orc doesn't direct his attacks at the fighter.  

In 4e, I'm an enemy, but not an <impolite phrase> if I pursue the wizard, because the players have the tools to do something about it.


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## Toben the Many (Jan 6, 2009)

Here's a nitpick which also hurts my enjoyment of the game (when I do get to play)....

Because the Defenses of everyone scales up along with the to-hit, usually the PCs have to roll better than average to hit. It's very rare that a PC can roll a 7 or 6 and expect a hit with a power. 

This results in occasional disasters. Like the one recorded during the Penny Arcade session. If everyone rolls at the table badly, and the DM rolls decently, it can result in TPKs or things going south quite quickly. 

A friend of mine said that to counter-act this, he's allowed his PC to stockpile their action points. Apparently this works pretty well.


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## malraux (Jan 6, 2009)

My experience with 4e wizards is that the ability of the wizard to do damage and move monsters around is inversely proportional to the distance between the monster and the wizard.  I sometimes think the wizard in my group specifically separates himself from the party so that he can get more chances to use thunderwave.  Its pretty impressive watching the bodies fly away from him.


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## Arnwyn (Jan 6, 2009)

Very interesting post, and a fun read.


But this:


ferratus said:


> 5) *The DM is the enemy.*   Since combat in prior editions was about maximizing the damage in an attack you dealt, and reducing the amount of damage you took in, you often had to pull your punches for certain characters and classes.  For example, targeting a wizard with a brutish monster was bad form, because he simply couldn't deal with the punishment that the monster can dish out.  In the end then, the DM was your friend trying to help you tell the story rather than an adversary because to be a true advesary he often had to be unfair.
> 
> I have never needed to pull my punches in 4e.  I'm supposed to target a wizard with my brutes, my fighters with my skirmishers, my rangers and warlocks with my lurkers and artillery, and all the other things that would have been considered poor form in prior editions.  The players have been given the tools to work together to do something about it.  The defenders are supposed to keep the soldiers and brutes off the strikers and controllers, the strikers are supposed to take out skirmishers and artillery.  If your wizard gets mauled by a brute it isn't the DM's fault anymore,



has me totally scratching my head. I recognize the individual words (they're in English), but nothing else... I simply do not understand the above.

Does. Not. Compute.


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## Oldtimer (Jan 6, 2009)

I just love an analythical thread like this!

0) I count seven months, but who's counting really (I am, obviously).

1) Agree. There are several powers that are just soo much better. And several that are just lame *cough*sleep*cough*

2) Yes, cards are nice. I've also found that a well-constructed program that generates PDFs à la the character sheets of KotS (where every power has its values precalculated) works fine. And it saves me the time to cut out all those cards. 

3) Agree. Except for the combats where the minions pour out en masse. I love those.

4) Agree. I have reduced the hit points of both monsters and PCs to reduce the grind. Monsters have level * role_factor instead of (level+1) * role_factor and the role_factor is 4/6/8 instead of 6/8/10. PCs don't get the higher number for first level, rather the same number as for higher levels.

5) Agree. There is no need to hold back. If I get an opportunity to whack the wizard, I'll just do it. It will scare the player, but not likely kill his character.

6) Sort of agree. Main problem is that they are in PHB. How can magic stuff be mysterious if it's listed in the Equipment chapter?

7) Agree. I love artifacts. Always have, but now I get to use them more.

8) Totally agree. The idea of running non-combat encounters similar to combats is good... so why didn't they? In combat you are not defeated by your misses, but by the opposition's hits. More combatants on your side increases your chance of winning. Not so in skill challenges. They need to up the DCs again, but remove the idea that failures dictate when you lose. Have a set number of rounds to beat the challenge or have the challenge "attack" you and you fail after being "hit" by the challenge three times. Anything that doesn't result in this backwards situation.

Lots of good thoughts here. There's still hope for this game.


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## ferratus (Jan 6, 2009)

I remembered it being released on July 6th rather than June 6th, though a quick wikipedia check shows that obviously the latter is correct.  Oops.


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## Pseudopsyche (Jan 6, 2009)

ferratus said:


> I think that's largely my critique of 4e, six months into the game.  Since the thread is here, you might want to post your own critiques that I haven't mentioned, or whether I'm on target with my 8 observations.



I'd say your observations are largely on target.  Thanks for sharing your perspective in an objective manner.

For my part, I've realized that 4e is not the magic bullet for which I once hoped.  So far, the biggest problem I'm having is that it's more like a well-oiled machine than a mystical contraption.  I don't brim with creativity to the same extent as some folks in this forum, so I have to work harder to make encounters exciting when the PCs are harder to threaten.  Perhaps in the old days players feared being ganked, but now I worry more about boring them.  I suppose any set of rules requires creativity to bring to life effectively.  Before you had to avoid focusing fire on the wizard; now I have to give monsters reasons to retreat sooner or go out in a blaze of glory.

That said, I still think 4e is the right edition for me.  The single biggest think I love about it is that I can run an entire session without cracking a single book.  As a player, the non-spellcasting classes finally seem more interesting to play, and I'm glad that every class will always have something to do in most encounters.  I'm not sure yet about whether the ritual system is enough to make me not miss the rich spell lists of the 3e spellcaster.


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## SteveC (Jan 6, 2009)

A good thread. For me, a lot of what I hoped would happen with 4E has not emerged, which has saddened me a bit. I tend to think of each edition as an opportunity to bring new people into D&D without the baggage that years of books and supplements bring. To that end, I'd say 4E has been a bust: no attempt has been made to market the product to people outside the game's base, when, arguably, many changes have been made to gameplay to make the game more friendly to these folks. That makes me sad.

The problems I initially saw in the game when it was released have, well, remained problems. Poor multiclassing rules have not improved with age, and the lack of combat spells that don't do direct damage yet still have a role in combat haven't really improved either.

But, even with that all said, I simply can't go back to 3X anymore. The game just runs so much smoother now, and the changes to the skill system have made it much easier to run the kind of game I like to run: a roleplay intense story game punctuated by occasional high energy combats.

I received the Neverwinter Nights expansion disk for Christmas, and I've been trying to play it (it really is pretty good) but I find myself constantly hitting up against the rules, which means that it's likely to be the last 3X CRPG I end up playing.

I'm not surprised at the number of people who haven't gone to 4E, and that a lot of these people have been gaming for a long time: 4E is different enough that it's not going to be the game that a lot of them want to play. I think that this fact, combined with the lack of any real effort to bring in new blood to the hobby was a mistake.

As a last caveat for these comments: they're all personal reflections and not meant to be universal truths. Many of the folks who haven't embraced 4E are some of the people I respect the most on ENWorld, so I hope that no one takes this personally.

--Steve


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## malraux (Jan 6, 2009)

SteveC said:


> A good thread. For me, a lot of what I hoped would happen with 4E has not emerged, which has saddened me a bit. I tend to think of each edition as an opportunity to bring new people into D&D without the baggage that years of books and supplements bring. To that end, I'd say 4E has been a bust: no attempt has been made to market the product to people outside the game's base, when, arguably, many changes have been made to gameplay to make the game more friendly to these folks. That makes me sad.




Every time I turn off my adblocking software, I'm amazed at the number of places I see advertising for 4e.  Sure there aren't lots of tv ads (as with WoW), but its also not non-existent.  The only way to know if they are adding to the ranks of players is through market research, something none of us have access to.


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## Khairn (Jan 6, 2009)

ferratus said:


> 1) *All powers are not created equal.*
> 
> 2) *You need cards. *
> 
> ...




Let's see where I'm at ...

#1 - Agreed
#2 - Sadly agree.  I don't like to use cards, which means that I have to use more notes and more page flipping than I did with 3E.
#3 - Agreed.  The grind of large battles is really ponderous
#4 - Agreed.  Ties in with #3
#5 - Agreed.  The 4E focus on combat has made the GM more of an adversary and less a story-teller.  I'm not certain that this is a good thing.
#6 - Agreed.  Very bland.
#7 - I haven't seen any yet, so I can't say.
#8 - Agreed.  Certainly not working as well as I had hoped.  The system still feels "clunky", but I'm not certain if that is because of a lack of understanding or a problem with the mechanics.

Here are a few of mine.

-Minions give the Wizard and other controllers a purpose.  Without using them, the usefulness of the controller role is severely curtailed.

-Similarity of classes with the same role is a problem.  We need more variety which WotC is attempting to publish.

-The lack of extensive 3PP support (due to GSL) has had an impact on my enjoyment of the game.  I didn't realize just how much I enjoyed 3PP products until it was no longer available.

-Lack of 4E specific settings.  Attractive and creative settings are a selling point.  Re-imagined settings less so.

-I still have fun playing 4E, but I have to work at it more than I want to.

After 6 months I see more about 4E that is slowly becoming positives, which is a very good sign.  But it still has a way to go.


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## WizarDru (Jan 6, 2009)

malraux said:


> Sure there aren't lots of tv ads (as with WoW), but its also not non-existent.  The only way to know if they are adding to the ranks of players is through market research, something none of us have access to.




We only started seeing TV commercials for WoW when they got into the 9 Million+ range of players.  TV has never been that great a vector to attract new players, on a bang-for-your-buck basis, from what I recall hearing.  Print ads in video game magazines, comic books and other publications often prove to be more successful.  Featured articles and web ads in others seem to have been effective.  


D&D, by and large, has market recognition.  Those who are interested in it go to it organically and those who are likely to be drawn into it usually get involved through friends.  I recall WotC's attempts to mainstream D&D when 3.0 came out, and I was under the impression that these were largely considered only marginally successful.  Much of the advertising preaches to the converted.


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## Justin D. Jacobson (Jan 6, 2009)

WRT the too-many-hps issue, one of the WotC designers at one of the Gen Con panels (I forget which one), said you could easily just halve all of the monsters hps and not have a problem. In fact, I got the feeling he was encouraging it.

For my part, I'm liking 4e more and more the more I play it. And, on a somewhat related note, 4e is an absolute dream to design/write for. It's really re-ignited my design fire.


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## Obryn (Jan 6, 2009)

So far, my players and I are really enjoying 4e.  The only problems, for me, come when combat becomes too grindy.  So, in those cases, I'm exercising Rule 0 to shave off a few HPs of certain monsters, when appropriate.  I haven't yet eliminated 25% of creature hit points or anything, but I'm leaving the option open.

I also think that solo encounters are poorly implemented, at least at low levels.  While I'm thankful that there can finally be encounters with a single monster that last more than 2-3 rounds, I find elites to be grindy enough, thankyouverymuch. 

As for cards...  Well, I personally don't like them.  My players, on the other hand, _love_ them.

When I play (rarely), I prefer a checksheet with abilities sorted by At-Will/Encounter/Daily.  I check off the boxes when appropriate, and that's that.  Still, power management is (imho) the most time-consuming part of character management.  I've offloaded some of this from my players, and print out cards for them with the fancy-schmancy color laser printer at work.

I've also noticed that players need to have a bit better grasp on the rules, by and large, than they did in 3e.  This is only a little surprising to me.  A slow player can make a whole combat drag.

Now, with all this said, I think that 4e does what I wanted 3e to do, but largely better.  Not completely, but largely at the very least.  To this extent, when I want to scratch other gaming itches, I have branched out to other games.  At the moment, I am running a 1e game once a month; and will shortly run a d20 Call of Cthulhu game.

Much like SteveC, the smooth & streamlined aspects of 4e - the things it did really well - have spoiled me a bit on 3e.  (And even a bit on SWSE, truth be told...  I think SWSE needs to be more 4e-ified in its combat rules, like removing those pesky full-round actions.)  I would gladly play 3e, but don't want to DM for it.  It's similar to moving from KotOR 1 to KotOR 2; or from Morrowind to Oblivion.  While there's a lot to be said for the earlier games in both series, gameplay improvements in the later games make it more of a chore to play the earlier ones.

At any rate, I'm happy with 4e.  It's not a perfect game, but it does what I want modern D&D to do better than any other game.

-O


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## MichaelSomething (Jan 6, 2009)

I agree with most of the points in the OP.  I would like to point out that Magic items were designed mostly as PC power-ups.  It's the Artifacts' job to be the mysterious, awe-inspiring things.


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## filthgrinder (Jan 6, 2009)

SteveC said:


> A good thread. For me, a lot of what I hoped would happen with 4E has not emerged, which has saddened me a bit. I tend to think of each edition as an opportunity to bring new people into D&D without the baggage that years of books and supplements bring. To that end, I'd say 4E has been a bust: no attempt has been made to market the product to people outside the game's base, when, arguably, many changes have been made to gameplay to make the game more friendly to these folks. That makes me sad.




Just some anecdotal evidence, so make from it what you will, but 4e brought me back, and gain new players (everyone in my group). I stopped playing around '96, and then played one session back when 3e came out. I hadn't played since then. However, I saw stuff about 4e on regular websites I visit, so I took a look. I read the preview books and I was hooked. I liked the changes so I got back into D&D. With that I brought my five players to D&D. So 4E did bring in some new players...



Obryn said:


> I've also noticed that players need to have a bit better grasp on the rules, by and large, than they did in 3e.  This is only a little surprising to me.  A slow player can make a whole combat drag.




Definitely yes.


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## LostSoul (Jan 6, 2009)

Justin D. Jacobson said:


> For my part, I'm liking 4e more and more the more I play it. And, on a somewhat related note, 4e is an absolute dream to design/write for. It's really re-ignited my design fire.




This is how I feel too.  The game seems to be getting better as we're going along.  I think this is because we're getting more used to each other (it's a new group), I'm getting more used to running 4E, and the players are getting more used to the system.

Thunderspire Labyrinth probably deserves some credit for that, too.

I'm looking forward to what happens next.  I think we might play in the Nentir Vale-sandbox for a few levels, depending on what the group wants to do.


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## S'mon (Jan 6, 2009)

ferratus said:


> To expand on my "DM is the enemy bit" perhaps a story as to why things have changed is in order.
> 
> We have two 3rd level characters, a wizard and a fighter walking down a forest road.   They fail their spot checks, and an orc charges out of the brush.  It is equal distance to the fighter and the wizard.
> 
> ...




The 3e Fighter can take an attack of opportunity on the orc if it passes him to get at the Wizard.

I've always done it not as "Shall I be a dick?" but as "What would this orc logically do?".  It sees an armoured man and an unarmoured man.  If it's a high level orc hired to kill the wizard, it attacks him.  But the typical orc will attack the bigger perceived threat - the armoured warrior, not the commoner beside him!  Likewise, when deciding if the orc pauses to coup de gras the wizard - in the typical orc's world, felled opponents can be finished off at leisure.  No way will it waste a round on a CDG.  Contrarily, if the orc has seen the party Cleric heal a PC back onto their feat, THEN it will start CDGing the fallen.


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## Jack99 (Jan 6, 2009)

Justin D. Jacobson said:


> For my part, I'm liking 4e more and more the more I play it. And, on a somewhat related note, 4e is an absolute dream to design/write for. It's really re-ignited my design fire.




And some of us a very grateful for that.. So, when is the next egg coming?


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## Justin D. Jacobson (Jan 6, 2009)

In the OBE pipeline, Fred and Jonathan Walton have a neat product coming out next week called Cultures. It's sort of a PC race "tweaker" founded on interesting ways to look at racial norms.

The full version of Rob's Witch Doctor class is nearing completion.

And the one I'm most excited about: The first installment of Poisoncraft for 4e, which will be a feature on the syrallax, including a couple of versions of the monster, a new poison, and a full encounter. We've also got some exciting news related to the product that I can't announce yet.


----------



## darjr (Jan 7, 2009)

As far as advertising goes, the cute little stunt the D&D podcast did with the PVP guys is paying dividends. They've gone off and are publicizing their own campaign.

Apologies for the aside.

As far as the nth month mark goes, I'm really having fun with 4e. I'm reaping rewards from the growing player base as well. And the idea of a core set with classic art... 1e art style? Yea, I'd like that very much.


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## FireLance (Jan 7, 2009)

Toben the Many said:


> A friend of mine said that to counter-act this, he's allowed his PC to stockpile their action points. Apparently this works pretty well.



This sparked off an idea which may be my next houserule: A character who is bloodied may spend a second action point in an encounter, and a third after he has been brought to less than 0 hp. Less potentially overwhelming than being able to spend all your action points, but it gives the PCs more options when the chips are down. Thanks!


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## Ravilah (Jan 7, 2009)

pseudopsyche said:
			
		

> So far, the biggest problem I'm having is that it's more like a well-oiled machine than a mystical contraption. I don't brim with creativity to the same extent as some folks in this forum, so I have to work harder to make encounters exciting when the PCs are harder to threaten. Perhaps in the old days players feared being ganked, but now I worry more about boring them. I suppose any set of rules requires creativity to bring to life effectively. Before you had to avoid focusing fire on the wizard; now I have to give monsters reasons to retreat sooner or go out in a blaze of glory.
> 
> That said, I still think 4e is the right edition for me. The single biggest think I love about it is that I can run an entire session without cracking a single book. As a player, the non-spellcasting classes finally seem more interesting to play, and I'm glad that every class will always have something to do in most encounters. I'm not sure yet about whether the ritual system is enough to make me not miss the rich spell lists of the 3e spellcaster.




Wow! At first I thought, "Did _I_ post this?" Your experience matches mine almost perfectly (except, perhaps, that I started out with reservations rather than expectations). I'm especially with you in regards to the idea that PCs are harder to threaten and that the "rich spell lists" of 3e are rather missed.

Here's the funny thing for me. I have just not enjoyed DMing 4e as much as 3e (and 90% of what do is DM). I have tried to get my head around what my hang ups are with 4e, but I guess I'm just not sufficiently metacognitive.  I do love the greater simplicity, the skill system (though not skill challenges), and the fact that players are never rendered useless. But, dang it, it just feels more like...like...scrolling down my power menu in a Final Fantasy game!

However, 4e is the first system I have ever enjoyed _playing_. Ever.

Fancy that.


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## vansung (Jan 7, 2009)

I have been playing 4e since it came out and just recently switched to the Pathfinder RPG!

After playing around 10 game sessions of 4e, we always left the game table and felt like something was missing.  For us 4e is a good game, but it just doesn't seem like the game we grew up with and love.  Pathfinder RPG seems to be best of both worlds for us right now.  In the beginning when 4e came out, I was totally into it and loved what changes they made to the game - on paper it looked great.  Through actual play is where I was a little let down.  I am really impressed what Paizo is doing and very impressed with the game design, especially the Adventure Paths.

If you would have told me that I would be writing this now back in June, I would have never believed you!

Keep up the great work Paizo, you got a new loyal customer


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## Jack99 (Jan 7, 2009)

Justin D. Jacobson said:


> In the OBE pipeline, Fred and Jonathan Walton have a neat product coming out next week called Cultures. It's sort of a PC race "tweaker" founded on interesting ways to look at racial norms.



 On the core races? Either way, sounds interesting.



> The full version of Rob's Witch Doctor class is nearing completion.



Finally! Been waiting a long time for that one. 


> And the one I'm most excited about: The first installment of Poisoncraft for 4e, which will be a feature on the syrallax, including a couple of versions of the monster, a new poison, and a full encounter. We've also got some exciting news related to the product that I can't announce yet.



Ah. I thought poisoncraft would be one big book.


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## Jan van Leyden (Jan 7, 2009)

ferratus said:


> 1) All powers are not created equal.
> 
> 2) You need cards.
> 
> ...



1) I don't have a problem with this, because the re-training rules allow players to correct for a "bad" decision. I also expect the qualitative differences between powers to become larger with more powers being published.

2) I'm undecided on this. As DM I enjoy the fact that power cards put information at the player's place at the table. Before 4e it was mainly my job as DM to adjudicate the players' announced actions, but now they have all the needed information to make sound decisions. On th other hand I see power cards as a big road block for introductory games aimed at not-yet-roleplayers: They catapult the players on to the meta-level, where new players should not spend their time. Due to this I've decided not to use 4e (or D&D at all) for my upcoming introductory game.

3) and 4) Combats seem to run in three phases: Minion Sweeping, Tactical Fight and Boss Confronation. The most interesting phase is the Tactical Fight, wherein monster, encounter, and daily powers are used. Players have to make tactical decisions every round, and the final outcome is not yet clear. When only one opponent is still standing, the grinding begins.

I've switched to a "variable" number of HP for bosses or the last monster acitve in a fight. When all other opponents are down and the last one has used its "interesting" powers, it is quietly elevated to Minion-status: the next hit kills it. Because my players don't know about this, their encounter and daily power use has not changed. 

5) The rules are, skill challenges notwithstanding, limited to combat. As PCs are more durable - no 1st level magic user killed by a single blow - the players can react to the situation. Thus, the DM has less need to "save" PCs and can act more like an enemy. But I can and do act as the characters' secret ally nevertheless. When two orcs have separated the mage from the party and cornered him, I still let them miss more often than the die demands.

6) No, not at all! With the model of bonus-plus-power, magic items are way more interesting and variable than ever before.

7) I've never used artefacts...

8) I'm somewhat disappointed with skill challenges as well, having high hopes when Mike Mearls (?) hinted at something as complex as combat rules to handle non-combat situations. Skill challenges work well for simple situations like chase scenes, but less so for complex social interactions, which feel like a duel.

And to add my own points:

9) *Cleric College offers only one class for each deity*
Clerics of different deities feel very much the same. After just watching a cleric in one encounter, you should be able to name her deity - and without spying on the power cards. This is a very old problem with D&D, I know, but which a new edition offers a chance to correct.

10) *Players as bookkeepers*
Each player has up to two bookkeeping phases per turn. Part of the results (status changes) should be communicated to the DM as well, which really creates the need for some modern information tracking tools. It is better than with the 3.5e system, but still demands some undue effort.


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## jasin (Jan 7, 2009)

the Jester said:


> 1. The game plays substantially differently than it reads.



What do you mean?


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## Jack99 (Jan 7, 2009)

jasin said:


> What do you mean?




It reads quite boring, almost like a computer-game. Sorta. But plays like a dream. At least that's what I think (he means).


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## Justin D. Jacobson (Jan 7, 2009)

> Ah. I thought poisoncraft would be one big book.



At the risk of a minor threadjack, Poisoncraft _will _be one (or perhaps two) big books. The big book is Codex Venenorum, Ed. IV, which will include the poison creation rules, all of the poison handling and related rules, and all of the new poisons (something like 80-100). However, all of the material will be expanded from the original book. For example, we will convert all of the monsters from the monster section. But (a) each entry will be expanded itself in the form of additional versions, lair info, full-fledged encounters, etc., and (b) there will also be new monsters too. With the material expanded that much, we have some room to release some of it in small, more tightly focused pdfs, e.g., the syrallax. All I can say is that Poisoncraft fans will not be disappointed.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Well, I was going to post my own thread on this topic, but since this one is already here...

Things I Was Wrong About:
a)The game would be "EZ Mode" and no one would ever die. WRONG! Combats are vicious and at least one PC is getting death marks in each one, on average. I often drift into single digit hit points. If the players do not coordinate well, they are overwhelmed. It's very hard to understand how combat plays just by reading the rules.

b)Lack of choices: Possibly because the campaign didn't start until MP came out, I find that DO actually have to think a lot about my feats and powers as I level up. There aren't as many obvious, no-brainer choices as it seemed at first. Retraining also makes it easy to 'try out' new things.

c)Monsters. It took me a while to get used to the "Monsters aren't PCS!" design model, but once I internalized it, I have found that creating monsters in 4e is a lot of fun, and the fact I can 'hand carve' NPCs means my fears of a lack of detail for them were unwarrented -- an NPC can have as much, or as little, detail as I wish. (I've been working on a "Civilian" monster type for non-combatant NPCs who still need more definition than a name and a trained skill.)

d)Overall feel: I hate to say this, but I am coming to like the fact that magic is less prominent and that PCs have to rely on "mundane" means of solving problems (climb instead of fly, stealth instead of invsibility) well into mid to high levels. (Granted, we're still pretty low level, so maybe this changes.) Despite the "powering up" of PCs in general, in some ways, 4e has a more "realistic" feel.

e)Resource management: At least at low levels, spending surges, action points, and daily powers requires some serious thought and worry. While there's somewhat less resource management in 4e than in 3e, there's enough for me to find it satisfying.

Things I Was Right About:
a)The game feels much more...gamey...than 3e. While in 3e we described our attacks and added a lot of flavor text, in 4e, the number of abilities with no "game world" logic has meant that when initiative is rolled, we basically stop playing D&D and start playing Heroscape with a lot of optional rules. Combat in 4e is FUN, but it feels entirely like a tactical boardgame where we shuffle pieces around. I'm totally disconnected from any sense my character is "there". Likewise, skill challenges are not nearly as involving as just roleplaying it, which is how we used to do it, nor are they as well-done as, say, Spycraft's chase mechanic. The lack of any real integration between feats/powers and skill challenges reinforces this.

b)Constant battles between logic and rules: This is a sort of a side effect of the above. We constantly have situations where the DM tries to use logic and what "should" happen, and the rules contradict him -- and the players, myself included, aren't about to surrender any advantage which wonky rules give us.   While all game systems run into this, including 3.5, the fact that 3.5 was designed to be more simulationist meant it happened a lot less often, and there was a sense of "If the rules and common sense conflict, go with common sense". In 4e, it is very explicit (see "Knocking a gelatinous cube prone") that is the rules and common sense conflict, go with the rules." 

c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class. 

d)Multiclassing. While not totally broken, my ability to create a concept and then create a character to fit it is seriously limited by 4e's multiclassing. It's impossible, for example, to give anyone but a Ranger the ranger's animal companion -- you can't grab class features with a multiclass. The concept of a wizard and, say, a vicious eagle familiar can't be done in 4e -- at least not until WOTC trots out a different "build". I feel very constrained by the fact that many character archetypes basically require either a new class or a new "class feature", with supporting abilities.

e)Attack to do anything. Sorry, but the whole "I need to buff/heal you... find me an enemy!" shtick gets old real, real, fast. At least let the buff part fire without an attack roll if the player wants it to.


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## Jack99 (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Snipped a very long post..
> 
> c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class.




First, let me say that I also do not like the 4e wizard, in fact, it's probably the aspect of 4e that I like the less. But how is he sub-optimal? Any chance you could get a hold of his build/stats/spells/level? I am asking because because the wizards in my campaign have kicked serious butt so far (damage and combat-wise).

Also, for a bit more wizardly-controllery feel (and less damage damage damage), he should take a look at the illusion spells from Dragon (364 iirc), if his DM allows them. They are good and most importantly, different. 

Cheers


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> First, let me say that I also do not like the 4e wizard, in fact, it's probably the aspect of 4e that I like the less. But how is he sub-optimal? Any chance you could get a hold of his build/stats/spells/level? I am asking because because the wizards in my campaign have kicked serious butt so far (damage and combat-wise).
> 
> Also, for a bit more wizardly-controllery feel (and less damage damage damage), he should take a look at the illusion spells from Dragon (364 iirc), if his DM allows them. They are good and most importantly, different.
> 
> Cheers




Well, Thunderwave and a wisdom of 10 -- with plans to raise his Charisma instead of Wisdom as the opportunities arise -- is a big part of it. Picking Sleep as his daily for the first few games didn't help. He's used Acid Arrow twice, and missed both times, doing only half damage. He recently got Fire Shroud, which, because it only targets enemies, is nice. He has never been able to effectively use Shield -- every time he's been hit, it's been by more than 4. The player wears a shirt which reads "The dice are trying to kill me", and it's quite true...


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## Nebulous (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> c)Wizards suck big sweaty... well, anyway. We have a wizard in the group, and I can tell that he's getting very frustrated with the fact he's almost useless in combat, and, since we haven't picked up a lot of rituals yet, no more useful out of combat than anyone else. (Between multiclassing and skill training, most of us have a lot of skills.) The fact that there's really only wizard build (Nuker), no matter how you dress it up, doesn't help. Every level ,he retrains spells, and he still keeps being, let us say, sub-optimal. Great character concept, great roleplayer, great player -- seriously nerfed and boring class.




Well, i agree in that wizards are pretty much just Nukers, but i don't think there is anything suboptimal about them.  They're equally balanced with the rest of the party.  In fact, without the wizard around, our group would have suffered greatly at the hands of minion mobs who would have overrun the others.  Now, i don't actually LIKE the way magic works in 4e, but it does what it was designed to do very well.  Whether i like that or not is another thing.


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## Cam Banks (Jan 7, 2009)

Ferratus crossposted this over at the Dragonlance Nexus forums, so I figured I'd just copy my own reply there, here.

My current observation of the game is that D&D finally understands what it is and what it is supposed to be doing, which means that a lot of features that seem like tactical wargame elements are perfectly fine being there. D&D is an action-adventure game featuring brave heroes who fight monsters and overcome challenges in dynamic environments, gaining power over time so that they will be able to fight even more powerful monsters later and overcome even more powerful challenges.

It has fully embraced this concept and purpose. I don't think a lot of people are going to be terribly happy with that, but I also think that it's the first time since Gygax and Arneson started doing this thing back in the 70's that it has.

The good news for people who like other sorts of play experience is that the RPG market is now catering to many more playstyles than it used to. If you like character immersion, where your personality and emotions are just as important to you as your magic items, then D&D isn't your game, but you may like Burning Wheel. If you like a much more modular sort of framework for your game without the levels and constant MMO-style grind, you'd be better off with something like GURPS. If you want to rule over a kingdom, barony, or even just a company of mercenaries, go with Greg Stolze's REIGN.

I have always found it fairly easy to tweak D&D to suit my play style and that of my friends, and I do it in spite of what the rules are purposed towards. That's why my current Castlemourn 4E game with the folks here at Margaret Weis Productions is filled with intrigue and snarky NPCs and hidden masterminds and stuff, but none of that is really taken care of by the game or even the character sheets. The actual game part is pretty much just combat and dungeon crawling, and that's just how it was back when I first started.

Cheers,
Cam


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

Nebulous said:


> Well, i agree in that wizards are pretty much just Nukers, but i don't think there is anything suboptimal about them.  They're equally balanced with the rest of the party.  In fact, without the wizard around, our group would have suffered greatly at the hands of minion mobs who would have overrun the others.  Now, i don't actually LIKE the way magic works in 4e, but it does what it was designed to do very well.  Whether i like that or not is another thing.




Shrug.

All I know is this: In the two different 4e games I've been in, the wizard has been the least effective member of the party in terms of Killing Things and Taking Their Stuff. From what I can tell, the wizard needs more optimization than any other class to be really effective, and has gone from being the most flexible class in 3.x to the least flexible -- even with the Spellbook feature.

My experience. YMMV. Looking forward to Arcane Power and the PHB2.


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## Theron (Jan 7, 2009)

Generally, my impressions jibe pretty closely with the OP, except that artifacts haven't appeared in any of our games.  To be honest, our 4e experience is still pretty sparse, as we alternate with a long running 3.5 campaign we want to see through to the end, and playtest sessions (some 4e, some other games) for an upcoming convention.  Not to mention a hurricane and the holidays getting in the way.

The biggest issue I've got with the game at this point is Hit Point inflation on elite and solo critters.  The grind factor is probably the one thing really getting in the way of my really loving the system rather than it just be the flavor of the evening with my group.  Granted, 3.5 was the king of the two round combat, when a high-level, prepared group of PCs was involved, but 4e has just gone too far in the opposite direction.

(IMO, YMMV, ONVISOD, etc.)


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## Jack99 (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Shrug.
> 
> All I know is this: In the two different 4e games I've been in, the wizard has been the least effective member of the party in terms of Killing Things and Taking Their Stuff. From what I can tell, the wizard needs more optimization than any other class to be really effective, and has gone from being the most flexible class in 3.x to the least flexible -- even with the Spellbook feature.
> 
> My experience. YMMV. Looking forward to Arcane Power and the PHB2.




I will say this. The wizard seems to benefit a lot from a few levels. While our wizards definitely weren't bad at low levels, they really seem to pick up the slack as we level. The wizard in my campaign is level 10, and he is a very effective member. And he spends a lot of residuum on rituals, making him even more useful out of combat. 

Anyway, here's to hoping Arcane Power will make it possible to make a more wizardly wizard


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## Obryn (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Tons of stuff.



I have to spread XP around before giving you more, but this was a very insightful post.  I agree and disagree (fwiw, I agree that wizards are a bit underwhelming), but it's well-thought-out.  Kudos.

-O


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## Greg K (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Things I Was Right About:
> a)The game feels much more...gamey...than 3e.  I'm totally disconnected from any sense my character is "there". .
> 
> b)Constant battles between logic and rules: .




These are two of the main reason that I do not like 4e from a DM or player perspective and, imo, why it fails as an rpg, but makes a good tactical minis game (I'm just not in to tactical minis games).


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 7, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I have to spread XP around before giving you more, but this was a very insightful post.  I agree and disagree (fwiw, I agree that wizards are a bit underwhelming), but it's well-thought-out.  Kudos.
> 
> -O




Covered.


RC


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## jgbrowning (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> c)Monsters. It took me a while to get used to the "Monsters aren't PCS!" design model, but once I internalized it, I have found that creating monsters in 4e is a lot of fun, and the fact I can 'hand carve' NPCs means my fears of a lack of detail for them were unwarrented -- an NPC can have as much, or as little, detail as I wish. (I've been working on a "Civilian" monster type for non-combatant NPCs who still need more definition than a name and a trained skill.)




This is something I've heard a lot and I completely understand as a publisher (when you have to follow the "rules"), but something I find somewhat mystifying as a DM/Gamer.

When I DM I just make stuff up. I decide what attack bonuses, damage, special attacks, skills etc that I want the creature to have and voila, done. I may write them down, I may not. I never care if it "breaks" the rules because I'm not playing the game published by WotC, I'm playing the game that my group's got going on. As long as I'm internally consistent (and I seem to be), there's no reason to go through the effort to make a "legal" monster or NPC unless I'm publishing it.

Just found the comment odd, and wanted to put in my $0.02.

joe b.


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## Lizard (Jan 7, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> This is something I've heard a lot and I completely understand as a publisher (when you have to follow the "rules"), but something I find somewhat mystifying as a DM/Gamer.
> 
> When I DM I just make stuff up. I decide what attack bonuses, damage, special attacks, skills etc that I want the creature to have and voila, done. I may write them down, I may not. I never care if it "breaks" the rules because I'm not playing the game published by WotC, I'm playing the game that my group's got going on. As long as I'm internally consistent (and I seem to be), there's no reason to go through the effort to make a "legal" monster or NPC unless I'm publishing it.
> 
> ...




Part of it is that I *enjoy* playing the "minigame" of making things -- whether it is worlds for Traveller, vehicles for GURPS, heroes for Champions, or NPCs for D&D. "Just make some  up" isn't fun for me, precisely because there isn't a "Game" for it -- no rules==no fun!

4e is middle-of-the-road. There's rules, but they provide a fairly mundane average which even the designers ignored. And, of course, there's no formal or official means of selecting powers. So there's one "game" in setting the basics, and a second in "tweaking" the numbers and coming up with one or two Cool Abilities which are of the appropriate power level. 

(One such experiment is at Goblin Knifethrower (4e and 3.5) )


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## jgbrowning (Jan 7, 2009)

Lizard said:


> Part of it is that I *enjoy* playing the "minigame" of making things -- whether it is worlds for Traveller, vehicles for GURPS, heroes for Champions, or NPCs for D&D. "Just make some  up" isn't fun for me, precisely because there isn't a "Game" for it -- no rules==no fun!




Ah, ok, that makes more sense to me. I enjoy the "minigame" of world/campaign building in much a similar manner I suspect.

joe b.


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## Arnwyn (Jan 7, 2009)

jgbrowning said:


> This is something I've heard a lot and I completely understand as a publisher (when you have to follow the "rules"), but something I find somewhat mystifying as a DM/Gamer.
> 
> When I DM I just make stuff up. I decide what attack bonuses, damage, special attacks, skills etc that I want the creature to have and voila, done. I may write them down, I may not. I never care if it "breaks" the rules because I'm not playing the game published by WotC, I'm playing the game that my group's got going on. As long as I'm internally consistent (and I seem to be), there's no reason to go through the effort to make a "legal" monster or NPC unless I'm publishing it.
> 
> Just found the comment odd,



How do you determine if it's a reasonable challenge, as well as providing the proper amount of XP? (Keeping in mind that this is coming from a DM who finds that 3e's CR system _works like a charm_ for him and his group.)

I've never been impressed with the "2e school of monster design", for my uses.


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## Lacyon (Jan 7, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> How do you determine if it's a reasonable challenge, as well as providing the proper amount of XP? (Keeping in mind that this is coming from a DM who finds that 3e's CR system _works like a charm_ for him and his group.)




I believe the technical term for the process is "Scientific Wild-Ass Guess".

I don't think it's _that_ hard to gauge the CR of a monster whose numbers are generated from whole cloth against one advanced with class levels, and if you're off by a point or two, it's unlikely the players will complain _too_ much (if they even notice).


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## jgbrowning (Jan 7, 2009)

Arnwyn said:


> How do you determine if it's a reasonable challenge, as well as providing the proper amount of XP? (Keeping in mind that this is coming from a DM who finds that 3e's CR system _works like a charm_ for him and his group.)




I know my player's ACs, HP, damage potentials, magic items and spells. Creating challenges around that information as I wish isn't really any different than doing it "by the book"  - except I get to ignore all the mathy-bits that have to be tweaked to make it work the way I want it to to begin with according to monster creation rules.

Are my player's having fun? Did something I just threw at them make them sweat, yet cheer? Did they have time to flee once they realized they were in over their heads (even if they chose to stay anyway)? That's how I judge a monster or encounter, personally. 

joe b.


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## jgbrowning (Jan 7, 2009)

Lacyon said:


> I believe the technical term for the process is "Scientific Wild-Ass Guess".
> 
> I don't think it's _that_ hard to gauge the CR of a monster whose numbers are generated from whole cloth against one advanced with class levels, and if you're off by a point or two, it's unlikely the players will complain _too_ much (if they even notice).




Short and sweet. 

The rules are just guesses to begin with and guesses that are made based upon an unknown "average" group. I know the group that's going to face on-the-fly monsters. That makes a HUGE difference in the ease in determining challenge, IMO.

joe b.


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## dm4hire (Jan 8, 2009)

As I’ve mentioned in other posts I like the game, but at the same time I hate it.  Some parts of it just don’t feel like D&D anymore.  So I’ve recently decided that 4e is just not what I want.  The downside to this decision has been the realization that I’m loosing interest in D&D period.  I want something more freeform and flowing than what’s offered.  I’ve always bought other games to serve as resource material, but lately I’ve actually started looking hard at them with the intention of replacing D&D after 25+ years of playing the game.  It will be hard finding players as central Iowa tends to favor mainstream games more than less played products, namely D&D and WoD for RPGs and Magic for cards.

Thanks to the thread I started about Dragon Warriors (after stumbling across the mention of it in another post and deciding to buy it to see what it was about) I came across references to other games that led me to Hollow World Expedition.  HEX is a pulp genre game that uses the Ubiquity engine and I liked the dice mechanics so ordered it.  Then I found out that Desolation (post-apocalyptic fantasy) uses Ubiquity also.  Ubiquity is very freeform and flows smoothly, offering almost exactly what I want and have been looking for.

I figured I’d get caught up in Desolation since it’s fantasy and I’ve traditionally as mentioned clung to D&D, but have found I really like HEX more.  HEX has reawakened my imagination as well as hunger for everything that might inspire a game.  I’ve gone out and bought tons of DVDs over the last couple of weeks related to Pulp fiction, including titles such as The Shadow, Big Trouble in Little China, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1950’s version), and Lost World (1960) just to name a few.  I’ve really gotten into the genre.  I haven’t been that caught up in a game, looking for inspiration, in a very long time.

I was excited about 4e, as I was excited about all the other editions, but after playing the game the last few months it’s not keeping my interest.  I agree with one of the above posts with the mention that part of the problem is that you really can’t get much out of reading the books anymore.  I use to read the books repeatedly but with 4e it just seems pretty blah reading wise, especially the FR book.  Too much fluff was cut from it in my opinion.

I’ve canceled all my preorders.  I’m not saying I won’t buy any books, but won’t be buying every book that comes out.  That’s one of the nice things about HEX and Desolation right now.  HEX has two books with a third pending and Desolation is only at the core book with the next in development.  I can handle those numbers and since both games are fairly new it’s like the first days of D&D again and once more the game is growing as I am.  After 25+ years I’m also getting tired of seeing everything rewritten just because there’s a new edition out.  I know people have their favorites, but it seems TSR and now WotC refuse to create something new out of fear it won’t work.  Eberron was the first really exciting thing to happen to D&D in a long time and I really was hoping it was something WotC would do again with 4e, but they appear to have let the idea drop.

The GSL has also brought about a lack of interest thanks to WotC.  Their fear of giving other companies access really put a damper on the market which during the 3.x era 3PPs really helped keep me interested in D&D.  I would pick up other products and wonder how I could incorporate it into the game, if it wasn’t specifically designed as an add-on.  The launch of 3e was accompanied by quite a few products if not at the release date then shortly after.  Add to this WotC’s decision to just abandon all connections to 3.x and you have the big wedge that was driven into place.  4e has only managed to fracture the fan base worse than previous editions ever did beyond edition wars.  I’ve never seen an edition comparison still being discussed for so long after the new release as I’ve seen with 4e.

What I like about 4e is that fighters have been given more options making them worth playing and interesting to say the least.  However I miss the flexibility of certain classes and the necessity of others.  There’s no reason to play a rogue anymore and a wizard is no different than playing a fighter.  If someone told me at my table I was judging “we don’t have a rogue, priest, wizard, whatever” my answer was and still is, “play what you want, let me worry about that.”  A good judge will make a module work without a given class.  WotC decided that eliminating the necessity of a given class was the answer for everyone when the real answer was just give some options so the judge can fix it himself easier.

The best thing I can say about 4e is that it is a great pickup game when you don’t have a lot of time to invest into a game.  Want to play with your friends but only have a couple of hours or meet once in a blue moon then 4e is great as you spend less time thinking about the game as you do playing it.  Although you now spend more time working through a combat unless you modify the monsters which should have been balanced to begin with through playtesting.  Oh wait, they didn’t playtest or at least playtest the way they said they were going too initially.  Some times the game plays like a paper version of an Activision game; I’m waiting for the next patch, i.e. Arcane, Divine, Martial, and Primal books.  I don’t want to wait to play a class the way I really want to.  I should be able to play any class the way I want straight from the book it first appears in.

New books should only introduce variants or themes to a class like past books did.  This leads me to the next thing I don’t like about the game – the use of iconic classes, class features, monsters, and what not as a marketing tool so I’ll buy the next book.  A good core book should be like the One Ring of RPGs, “One book to rule them, one book to find them, one book to bring them all, and at the table bind them.”

I’ll play 4e if I have too, but for the most part I will just sit back and ride this edition out by playing something else for a change.  Change is good.  Then when 5e comes out or as some here in Iowa have speculated on “Advance D&D 4e” I’ll take a look and play it.  Then again who knows, maybe WotC will come out with a class or setting that really catches my eye and I’ll get back into it.  Just have to wait for the dice to fall.


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## Ydars (Jan 8, 2009)

A couple of points occur to me after reading this thread.

The first is the question "Why the need for a new edition?" I do accept that 3.5 has a number of serious mechanical problems but I would like to point out that the CORE 3.5 is almost as stable as CORE 4E (see my comments below); it was the later supplements/splatbooks that, for example, greatly enhanced the powers of spellcasters versus martial classes. This and the number of extra feats and spells, whilst making for a very interesting game, made for some serious issues of game balance. So in a real sense, WoTC (and some 3PPs) created the monster that 3.5E became, so they can hardly now call this out as the reason for a new edition.

From WoTCs point of view, there was obviously a financial incentive to create a new edition because, presumably, of falling sales. I don't accept that the imperative for 4E came from cruising messageboards and finding many complaints about 3.5Es mechanical problems. I think it came from falling sales of splat-books as the market became saturated.

Having decided on a new edition, the stated design goals were to make 4E;

1) attractive to gamers who had not played D&D before

2) easy to learn to play and DM.

3) mechanically much more stable and mathematically more sound than 3.5

4) easier to write/create new material for.

I think 4E succeeds on 1) because I do believe newcomers and those who left D&D for other games have been lured back, though I am not sure this has yet happened in the numbers WoTC wanted/expected.

4E succeeds less well on 2) for me, because now EVERY class has the same problems as the wizard used to have of complicated resource management etc. Is this anywhere near as bad as for high level 3.5 characters; not remotely! But it is FAR worse for a newbie player playing any 4E first level character than for a newbie player playing a 3.5E first level fighter. There is alot more to contend with with the powers and with complicated synergies resulting from movement and PC co-operation.

The characters are now FAR easier to roll up and there is less chance of a completely sub-optimal choice so that is a strong point in 4E's favour. Having said this, if power creep becomes the same problem as it was in 3.5E (and we are already seeing evidence of this e.g. the Druid v Wizard) then the risk is, that 4E will end up as bad as 3,5E.

As for DMing, part of the job (monster creation) has been made enormously easier, but actually running the game looks to have some new and annoying challenges e.g. bridging the gulf between the rules and the roleplaying aspect of the game because of the feeling that combat and skill challenges are sub-games within the main game. This results in a serious disconnect for me and I have't completely found a way around it yet. This was certainly a problem for me during as well 3.5E, but in 4E is it a whole order of magnitude worse.

So what about 3); is 4E inherently better than 3,5E in terms of stability of the mechanics? Well NOT in the case of the skill challenges, where the maths was WAY off from the beginning. This, for me, left all claims by the design team, of the inherent mathematical sophisitication of 4E, in complete tatters; it was picked up by fans within a few days of the release (by Stalker0 and others).

Combat appears to have been made more stable by the simple artifice of increasing the number of rolls that a typical combat relies upon, mainly by increasing monster and PC hitpoints. Mathematically, this greatly reduces the chance that random rolls will result in a variant result because the more times you roll a dice, the closer the result will be to a statistical average i.e. the bell-shaped probability curve. However, this, and the fact that PCs seem to hit only 50% of the time on average, has lead to the accusation of grind in combat.

Level progression and class balance have also been sorted out, but with the result that all classes now feel much more similar than they did in 3,5E. This is why I find the claim that "4E is taking us back to class based system" absurd. What 4E does is to make class LESS important because the mechanical differences between classes are essentially irrelevant, all that changes is the fluff.

The real triumph of 4E is in the design goal; it is SO much easier to create for than 3,5E ever was or could hope to be.


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## Ydars (Jan 8, 2009)

Argghhh; my 500th post and still a goblin sharpshooter!


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## Stalker0 (Jan 8, 2009)

My big positive

1) As I was hoping, the splats are giving me the greater range of options and variety I was looking for. Once all the main class books are out, I think it will round out the edition nicely.

My big negative

1) I'm finding conditions a lot less satisfying than I once did. They take too much time to track on the mat, and its every round again and again. I really wish there were more big damage, no condition powers.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 8, 2009)

Ydars said:


> Argghhh; my 500th post and still a goblin sharpshooter!



You need XP for that - post something brilliant, insightful or funny! Preferably all three! Maybe someone will give you XP for that.


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## Nebulous (Jan 8, 2009)

dm4hire said:


> I’ll play 4e if I have too, but for the most part I will just sit back and ride this edition out by playing something else for a change.  Change is good.  Then when 5e comes out or as some here in Iowa have speculated on “Advance D&D 4e” I’ll take a look and play it.  Then again who knows, maybe WotC will come out with a class or setting that really catches my eye and I’ll get back into it.




In many ways, i hope that 4e fails miserably and is sold off to a third party to develop 5e.  I tremble to think what Green Ronin, Fantasy Flight or Paizo would do with the license.


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## Raven Crowking (Jan 8, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> You need XP for that - post something brilliant, insightful or funny! Preferably all three! Maybe someone will give you XP for that.




Especially if it reinforces popular opinion!


RC


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## ferratus (Jan 8, 2009)

I'd like to add a little to the "wizards suck" theme after arguing about sleep with a friend of mine a couple days ago.

Wizards have changed in one important way, in that they don't base everything off intelligence anymore. In prior editions you just had to have the amount of intelligence necessary to cast the spell (and have a good attack vs. saving throw in 3e) and you just had to pick the best spell.

I ran into problems with sleep because unlike Thunderwave, I didn't realize the importance of wisdom in sleep because it wasn't mentioned in the power. However, sleep is for those wizards who have a 20 Int and a 16-18 wisdom, and an "orb of imposition" class feature. The orb of imposition coupled with that wisdom score means it changes a 50% change of putting a foe to sleep to a 65-70% chance. You need the 20 Int to ensure you hit, because it is for dealing with actual creatures rather than minions. If you want to kill minions, you use freezing cloud.

I could see how sleep could be an effective spell now with those improved chances to hit. I'm still not entirely sure that sleeping minions shouldn't be a solution, but then I suppose then it would have the minion control aspects of freezing cloud and the monster neutralizing power of sleep, making it a no-brainer.

As for needing a 20 Int:

*9) You need a 20 in your primary stat.* While BAB is a deeply flawed system and I'm glad they dropped it, one of the things it did for you was lessen your dependence on your ability scores. When you had +15 BAB, +6 to your primary ability, and a +4 weapon, it is only a small percentage of difference between the starting stat of 16 vs. starting stat of 20. 

However, I've got a 16 Int wizard, and I know that I am hitting 10% less often than the 20 Int wizard. What is more, there is nothing I can really do about to close the gap between me and the Eladrin. Anything I can get to improve my attack, so can he, and monster AC scales more accurately than in 3e as far as I can see.

There are however ability swapping items (like the bracers of mental might) which also favour the guy with 20 stat. So I don't see why it would be a big problem to have "ability topping up" items. Now maybe I'm thinking this way because I miss the 2e 18(00) gauntlets of ogre power, but I don't see why it would be outrageous to have an item that turns a lower ability score into a 20. For example:

_Gauntlets of Ogre Might
Level 8

You are considered to have a strength score of 20 for all strength based skills and strength based checks, but not attacks.

Power (Encounter) You can make a strength based attack as if you had strength score of 20._ 

I simply don't see how it does anything to break the game. It's purpose would be to give the martial characters who have spread their scores for skill purposes (such as diplomacy etc.) a boost back up, and would serve the same benefit as bracers of mental might to help multiclassers be effective at their encounter powers.


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## Nebulous (Jan 8, 2009)

ferratus said:


> _Gauntlets of Ogre Might
> Level 8
> 
> You are considered to have a strength score of 20 for all strength based skills and strength based checks, but not attacks.
> ...





Hmm, i like that.  I don't think it breaks anything either.


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## Amphimir Míriel (Jan 8, 2009)

Apparently Jan van Leyden and me have independently arrived to the same solution to the "grind problem", which is to to identify the precise moment when an encounter is "over" and just end it. 

When all the minions are gone, the artillery is dead and the remaining monsters no longer pose a threat to the party, but still have lots of hp left, it is time to have some of them retreat and to "minionize" the rest.

When done right, the players won't even notice! 



Oldtimer said:


> 2) Yes, cards are nice. I've also found that a well-constructed program that generates PDFs à la the character sheets of KotS (where every power has its values precalculated) works fine. And it saves me the time to cut out all those cards.




Where can one find such a program?


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## Scribble (Jan 8, 2009)

Ydars said:


> The first is the question "Why the need for a new edition?" I do accept that 3.5 has a number of serious mechanical problems but I would like to point out that the CORE 3.5 is almost as stable as CORE 4E (see my comments below); it was the later supplements/splatbooks that, for example, greatly enhanced the powers of spellcasters versus martial classes. This and the number of extra feats and spells, whilst making for a very interesting game, made for some serious issues of game balance. So in a real sense, WoTC (and some 3PPs) created the monster that 3.5E became, so they can hardly now call this out as the reason for a new edition.
> 
> From WoTCs point of view, there was obviously a financial incentive to create a new edition because, presumably, of falling sales. I don't accept that the imperative for 4E came from cruising messageboards and finding many complaints about 3.5Es mechanical problems.




I think they kind of ran into a damned if you do, damned if you don't moment with 3e.

People wanted splats. People like new options and abilities, so WoTC was willing to supply them. Trouble is I don't think the core 3e rules were designed to handle them as well as they could/should have.

So it caused people to want splats, but then get upset because the splats threw things out of whack.

I think the 4e rules are designed with the idea that most people want new splats/options added in the future, but they also don't want it to damage the core game.


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## Pbartender (Jan 8, 2009)

Amphimir Míriel said:


> Apparently Jan van Leyden and me have independently arrived to the same solution to the "grind problem", which is to to identify the precise moment when an encounter is "over" and just end it.
> 
> When all the minions are gone, the artillery is dead and the remaining monsters no longer pose a threat to the party, but still have lots of hp left, it is time to have some of them retreat and to "minionize" the rest.




Also remind your players that a successful Intimidate check can cause bloodied foes to surrender...  My players have often ended a combat (or thinned out the ranks of the remaining enemies) using that tactic.

Also, also...  I've always found it reasonable to assume that most enemies (except the most fanatical) will not willingly fight to the death.  To that end, I use the bloodied value as a good indicator.  Once a non-minion reaches bloodied, they start looking for a way out of the fight and will try to disengage and escape.  Likewise, minions will usually start to retreat once all of their non-minion allies are out of commission.  It links up well with the "half hit points for monsters" house rule many people adopt, without actually having to change anything.


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## Scribble (Jan 8, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> Also remind your players that a successful Intimidate check can cause bloodied foes to surrender...  My players have often ended a combat (or thinned out the ranks of the remaining enemies) using that tactic.
> 
> Also, also...  I've always found it reasonable to assume that most enemies (except the most fanatical) will not willingly fight to the death.  To that end, I use the bloodied value as a good indicator.  Once a non-minion reaches bloodied, they start looking for a way out of the fight and will try to disengage and escape.  Likewise, minions will usually start to retreat once all of their non-minion allies are out of commission.  It links up well with the "half hit points for monsters" house rule many people adopt, without actually having to change anything.




This is how I handle things. Especially with intelligent enemies. If it's evident they can't win a fight, they'll try some other tactic. Run away, negotiate, or turn the odds in their favor somehow if they can.


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## Felon (Jan 8, 2009)

Amphimir Míriel said:


> Apparently Jan van Leyden and me have independently arrived to the same solution to the "grind problem", which is to to identify the precise moment when an encounter is "over" and just end it.
> 
> When all the minions are gone, the artillery is dead and the remaining monsters no longer pose a threat to the party, but still have lots of hp left, it is time to have some of them retreat and to "minionize" the rest.
> 
> When done right, the players won't even notice!



My players would notice. If I made a habit of it, they'd know what to expect. They'll nova their encounter attacks, the enemies will use up their encounter powers, and then like clockwork the fight will summarily end a couple of rounds later because everyone's run out of cool stuff to do.


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## WizarDru (Jan 8, 2009)

Ydars said:


> From WoTCs point of view, there was obviously a financial incentive to create a new edition because, presumably, of falling sales. I don't accept that the imperative for 4E came from cruising messageboards and finding many complaints about 3.5Es mechanical problems. I think it came from falling sales of splat-books as the market became saturated.




One thing you haven't factored in to the new edition is the changes in WotC staff in the past several years.  3.5 itself reflected the design goals of a different team and of a team that had considerably more time to asses the workings of the system.  4e's approach certainly reflects a different approach to the rules.  It would be naive to think that there wasn't a financial component to WotC's decision to release a new system, but that doesn't have to mean that it still couldn't be driven by a desire for some of the team to want to fix what they percieved as system problems within D&D.

I'll take your word for it that they claimed that 4e would be mathematically more sound...I wasn't aware of that as a goal.   



			
				Ydars said:
			
		

> But it is FAR worse for a newbie player playing any 4E first level character than for a newbie player playing a 3.5E first level fighter. There is alot more to contend with with the powers and with complicated synergies resulting from movement and PC co-operation.




I would argue the exact opposite.  A first-level 4e character has abilities that are all boiled down to single powers and easily segmented and analyzed.  A 1st level fighter in 3.5e has a couple of dozen combat options open to him that a new player will be boggled by; shield bash, bull rush, disarm, trip, coup de grace, etc.


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## El Mahdi (Jan 8, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> I'll take your word for it that they claimed that 4e would be mathematically more sound...I wasn't aware of that as a goal.




This part is true.  One of the goals of 4E was to eliminate the 3.5E _"sweet spot"_ (approximately 3.5E levels 5 through 10) that many felt existed.  This was the idea that the game played or felt best between these levels (or 3rd through 10th, or 3rd through 8th, etc. - agreement on where the sweet spot fell depended on the individual person).  The general agreement was that this was because of the math, i.e.; at low levels characters couldn't hit anything; in the sweet spot levels there was a feeling of balance between success and failure; at higher levels characters couldn't miss.  One of the design goals of 4E was to design the underlying math so that all levels of play (1st through 30th) would feel like the sweet spot of 3.5E.  I don't know how well, or if, 4E achieves this, since I don't play it, but it was one of the design goals.


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## Lacyon (Jan 8, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> I would argue the exact opposite. A first-level 4e character has abilities that are all boiled down to single powers and easily segmented and analyzed. A 1st level fighter in 3.5e has a couple of dozen combat options open to him that a new player will be boggled by; shield bash, bull rush, disarm, trip, coup de grace, etc.




It is generally true, though, that newer players don't have those abilities on their character sheets in 3.x, so the options can be ignored until they come up in play ("I wanna push this guy off the cliff!") at which point the DM or a more experienced player explains how the rules work (or, lacking an experienced player, you either look it up or make it up).


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## WizarDru (Jan 8, 2009)

Lacyon said:


> It is generally true, though, that newer players don't have those abilities on their character sheets in 3.x, so the options can be ignored until they come up in play ("I wanna push this guy off the cliff!") at which point the DM or a more experienced player explains how the rules work (or, lacking an experienced player, you either look it up or make it up).




4e, at least on the surface, appears to do that better than 3e/3.5e, IMHO.  If you ignore the powers, then the situation is, at worst, the same.  The powers themselves, however, are far less esoteric.  In our last game, even after NINE YEARS OF NEARLY WEEKLY GAMES, we still had to look up some rules cites.  Things like grapple, turning checks and dispels are the kind of subsystems that 3e features that 4e doesn't that make it more appealing to me.

It's a lot easier to explain how power attack works in 4e than 3e, and Sure Strike is much easier to explain and use than Combat Expertise.  Grab versus grapple are light years apart.  You could argue, rightfully IMHO, that in many cases 4e has traded flexibility for simplicity...but that translates into an easier system for a new player.


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## Greg K (Jan 8, 2009)

Justin D. Jacobson said:


> In the OBE pipeline, Fred and Jonathan Walton have a neat product coming out next week called Cultures. It's sort of a PC race "tweaker" founded on interesting ways to look at racial norms.




Justin,
This is exactly the type of product that I have wanted to see since 1e and would have been willing to buy for 3e. If you guys ever do a product like this for 3e, I would definitely be interested.


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## DandD (Jan 8, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> One of the goals of 4E was to eliminate the 3.5E _"sweet spot"_ (approximately 3.5E levels 5 through 10) that many felt existed.



I think you rather mean extend, not eliminate.


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## Oldtimer (Jan 10, 2009)

Amphimir Míriel said:


> > 2) Yes, cards are nice. I've also found that a well-constructed program that generates PDFs à la the character sheets of KotS (where every power has its values precalculated) works fine. And it saves me the time to cut out all those cards.
> 
> 
> 
> Where can one find such a program?



Well, my answer to that would have to be; you write it yourself. I realise that it might not be the answer you hoped for, but it's the only one I have, since that is how I obtained it.

Considering that it's in swedish, it might not have been too useful for you anyway.


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## Amphimir Míriel (Jan 10, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Well, my answer to that would have to be; you write it yourself. I realise that it might not be the answer you hoped for, but it's the only one I have, since that is how I obtained it.
> 
> Considering that it's in swedish, it might not have been too useful for you anyway.




Oh, well... time to pull out the books and see if I can program something

Thanks anyway Oldtimer!


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## JoeGKushner (Jan 10, 2009)

Justin D. Jacobson said:


> WRT the too-many-hps issue, one of the WotC designers at one of the Gen Con panels (I forget which one), said you could easily just halve all of the monsters hps and not have a problem. In fact, I got the feeling he was encouraging it.
> 
> For my part, I'm liking 4e more and more the more I play it. And, on a somewhat related note, 4e is an absolute dream to design/write for. It's really re-ignited my design fire.




Poisoncraft 4e? Come on man, the rules practially bag for it now that poisons and diseases are much more... interesting.

D'oh! Teach me to post before reading the whole thread.



> And the one I'm most excited about: The first installment of Poisoncraft for 4e, which will be a feature on the syrallax, including a couple of versions of the monster, a new poison, and a full encounter. We've also got some exciting news related to the product that I can't announce yet.


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## Tetsubo (Jan 10, 2009)

Six months out I still don't consider 4E to be D&D.

Ask again at any future date and I'm still not going to think it's D&D.


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## frankthedm (Jan 10, 2009)

Some awesome ideas, some very well done math, but a very ridged and slightly flawed start. The officially endorsed power creep is a real shame. Fireseed, a _first level, ranged burst 1, at will_ that automatically kills minions is a fine example of making things too good already.


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## Oldtimer (Jan 10, 2009)

Tetsubo said:


> Six months out I still don't consider 4E to be D&D.



Seven months... seven months... why won't anyone listen to me...


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## nightwyrm (Jan 10, 2009)

Oldtimer said:


> Seven months... seven months... why won't anyone listen to me...




Some people are so traumatized by 4e that they lost a month from their minds.


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## Tetsubo (Jan 11, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> Some people are so traumatized by 4e that they lost a month from their minds.




See, 4E is harming the gaming community...


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## FireLance (Jan 11, 2009)

Tetsubo said:


> See, 4E is harming the gaming community...



Impossible. _Harm_ doesn't even exist in 4e.


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## ExploderWizard (Jan 11, 2009)

As we continue to experiment with 4E my overall impression is that its got the same overall problems as 3E, being more fiddly and involved rules-wise than D&D really needs to be while at the same shifting the style of play from swords and sorcery toward superheroes in a dungeon.


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## Lizard (Jan 11, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> As we continue to experiment with 4E my overall impression is that its got the same overall problems as 3E, being more fiddly and involved rules-wise than D&D really needs to be while at the same shifting the style of play from swords and sorcery toward superheroes in a dungeon.




D&D has never NOT been filled with fiddly rules; it just keeps changing where the fiddling is. (And it's relative -- "Brown Box" D&D might seem simple now, but it was amazingly complex for its time.)

People who are attracted to D&D tend to like fiddly rules as ends in themselves. Those who want hippie commie pinko rules-lite 'storytelling' whatever can just go download the latest self-important blather from Forge where you play sentient sponges on a coral reef, and the entire game is you trying to hold on against the current and ultimately failing, or something.

(I kid... mostly....)


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## ExploderWizard (Jan 11, 2009)

Lizard said:


> D&D has never NOT been filled with fiddly rules; it just keeps changing where the fiddling is. (And it's relative -- "Brown Box" D&D might seem simple now, but it was amazingly complex for its time.)




I will agree with the complexity for its time part, but systems have generally become more complex as new ideas are explored.



Lizard said:


> People who are attracted to D&D tend to like fiddly rules as ends in themselves.




As topics of discussion and reasons to debate yes indeed. Use in actual play is a different matter, and I think tastes differ greatly across the gamer population. 



Lizard said:


> Those who want hippie commie pinko rules-lite 'storytelling' whatever can just go download the latest self-important blather from Forge where you play sentient sponges on a coral reef, and the entire game is you trying to hold on against the current and ultimately failing, or something.
> 
> (I kid... mostly....)




 Very funny stuff. Rules complexity and hippie storytelling are not really connected but man that was funny.


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## Lizard (Jan 11, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> I
> 
> As topics of discussion and reasons to debate yes indeed. Use in actual play is a different matter, and I think tastes differ greatly across the gamer population.




Across the GAMER population. While there's plenty of variety, D&D has always appealed more to the rules-heavy crowd. 4e may be less "simulationist" than 3e, but it is really not much less complex.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jan 11, 2009)

Cam Banks said:


> Ferratus crossposted this over at the Dragonlance Nexus forums, so I figured I'd just copy my own reply there, here.
> 
> My current observation of the game is that D&D finally understands what it is and what it is supposed to be doing, which means that a lot of features that seem like tactical wargame elements are perfectly fine being there. D&D is an action-adventure game featuring brave heroes who fight monsters and overcome challenges in dynamic environments, gaining power over time so that they will be able to fight even more powerful monsters later and overcome even more powerful challenges.
> 
> It has fully embraced this concept and purpose. I don't think a lot of people are going to be terribly happy with that, but I also think that it's the first time since Gygax and Arneson started doing this thing back in the 70's that it has.




That has been my experience as well. D&D 3E was trying too hard to be a "generic fantasy" RPG, which the level-and-class structure of D&D doesn't really support well. 4E is a much more focused, tighter game which doesn't attempt to do as many things at once as the previous edition - but which succeeds much better at what it sets out to do. For my part, I quite enjoy the changes. After all, if I want to play a generic fantasy game I can always play GURPS.


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## Imaro (Jan 11, 2009)

Jürgen Hubert said:


> That has been my experience as well. D&D 3E was trying too hard to be a "generic fantasy" RPG, which the level-and-class structure of D&D doesn't really support well. 4E is a much more focused, tighter game which doesn't attempt to do as many things at once as the previous edition - but which succeeds much better at what it sets out to do. For my part, I quite enjoy the changes. After all, if I want to play a generic fantasy game I can always play GURPS.




I think D&D 3e had it right actually, and that is exactly why it had such a large following (and 4e seems to have split the fanbase so much).  3e gave us a game that may not have appealed as much to those who really wanted it's focus to be sharper and more narrow... but it more than made up for this in being much more capable in accommodating other play styles, add in the fact that it's the most common and well known of rpg's and you have a winner.  Thus yes everyone had to tweak it to get exactly what they wanted... but everyone could find something within it that appealed to them and that they enjoyed and it was worth it because hey, everyone plays D&D. 4e has changed so that it no longer appeals to a certain portion of it's fanbase, it just isn't fun for them and it's so far away from what they want that many feel by the time they get it to that point it won't be worth it.  I also feel like this is why many don't see 4e as any type of evolutionary step.

Oh yeah, and D&D is still a generic fantasy roleplaying game... in fact with it's nebulous setting and breaking of most of D&D's tropes...I'd say it's more "generic" than it's been in awhile.  The problem is that it's changed the playstyles that it supports well, not that it has or hasn't become generic.


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## Jasperak (Jan 11, 2009)

Imaro said:


> I think D&D 3e had it right actually...
> /snip




I think the pre-4e editions got it right. 4e is a fine game though too far removed from my 20+ years of play. 

It did prompt me to look at other systems to try and return to my preferred style of gaming. I ordered Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and it should arrive any day now.


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## Vegepygmy (Jan 11, 2009)

Imaro said:


> I think D&D 3e had it right actually, and that is exactly why it had such a large following (and 4e seems to have split the fanbase so much). 3e gave us a game that may not have appealed as much to those who really wanted it's focus to be sharper and more narrow... but it more than made up for this in being much more capable in accommodating other play styles...



Very well said.


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## Gothmog (Jan 11, 2009)

Imaro said:


> I think D&D 3e had it right actually, and that is exactly why it had such a large following (and 4e seems to have split the fanbase so much).  3e gave us a game that may not have appealed as much to those who really wanted it's focus to be sharper and more narrow... but it more than made up for this in being much more capable in accommodating other play styles, add in the fact that it's the most common and well known of rpg's and you have a winner.  Thus yes everyone had to tweak it to get exactly what they wanted... but everyone could find something within it that appealed to them and that they enjoyed and it was worth it because hey, everyone plays D&D. 4e has changed so that it no longer appeals to a certain portion of it's fanbase, it just isn't fun for them and it's so far away from what they want that many feel by the time they get it to that point it won't be worth it.  I also feel like this is why many don't see 4e as any type of evolutionary step.




See, this is where I have to disagree.  For me and my group, 3e was such a radical departure from what D&D was for us, our playstyle, and was so specific in its rules assumptions and implied setting, that it was unplayable except for a certain kind of game.  We tried tweaking 3e for a number of years to play different kinds of games (Middle Earth d20, gritty low fantasy, and post-apocalyptic fantasy), and it just didn't work with the ruleset- it felt like we were fighting the system for a game that ended up being unsatifsying in play.  I agree that mechanically, 4e is a different game- to me thats a good thing, but I can see how its not appealing to others.  But 3e was thematically and in play a very different game than its predecessors or 4e.

IME, here is a quick list of thematic comparsons of 3e vs 4e (and previous editions):

3e:
* Good for hack n' slash dungeon crawl D&D, bad for narrative or plot-focused games.  3e did do high magic games well (which are not my favorite), but for swords & sorcery or low magic, forget it.
* Magic is king (casters were clearly the "best" characters, others were second-class).  Magic also allowed a number of "I win" scenarios.
* The magic item Xmas tree was assumed in the core rules, but if you wanted to run a magic light game, it was difficult to do
* The focus on the game was rules mastery and builds, not on gameplay
* I'll get some disagreement on this last one probably, but 3e felt from level 7 or so on like a superheroes game.  PCs started in 1e, 2e, and 3e very fragile and mundane (which can be fun), but by level 3 they were heroes.  In fact, many 3e groups I played with STARTED PCs at level 3 to avoid the "boring levels" (and this practice was also common among many posters on these boards).  After level 7 or so, PCs became ridiculously powerful in comparison to other characters and monsters in the game world, much moreso than in previous editions.  This was largely due to rate of gain of power and the underlying mathematical assumptions of the system- things that were hard to modify or fix.  That works fine for some types of games, but not for what we wanted to play.  While 1e and 2e suffered from this to a degree, the capped hit dice, slower gain of power, and restricted spell slot advancement (no bonus spells for wizards due to high Int) diminished this considerably.

4e and previous editions:
* Good for hack n' slash dungeon crawl D&D, AND good for narrative or plot-focused games
* While powerful, magic isn't king. Other classes have their place and strengths that aren't circumvented by magic casting classes.  Much reduced "I win" problems (even in 1e and 2e).
* Magic items are great and fun to have, but aren't given the weight of defining a character or his abilities.  Previous editions weren't as good at this, but 4e has swung the balance towards a characters abilities, class, and powers defining their role and place in the world, rather than their items.
* Focus on game play, working with a group, and using abilities and powers effectively in game, not on building a character by picking through hundreds of options (some of which were intentionally designed to be subpar and "traps") in order to be effective.  This was a major problem for four groups I played in over the 3e era.  Some players were REALLY into rules, and could build insanely powerful characters, while those who didn't engage in the system mastery aspect of 3e were complete chumps compared to them.
* 4e starts heroic, and stays heroic throughout, but doesn't stray into the superheroes area from what I've seen.  Starting 4e PCs are tougher and assumed to be special, but then again, monsters and NPCs are tougher as well.  Rate of gain of PC power is more linear rather than exponential, and the underlying math of the system is superior and MUCH more stable throughout all levels.  We've played 4e from 1st to 8th level now, as well as two short-term high level adventures (15-18th levels and 25-27th levels), and the game holds together very well and keeps a heroic tone the whole time (meaning the PCs are tough, but vulnerable with mistakes or bad tactics) without becoming bogged down and unplayable like 3e was for high-level play.  The magic "I win" buttons are gone, meaning one or two round combats that were so unsatisfying in previous editions are thankfully a thing of the past.  Battles and challenges now require careful thinking, skill use, teamwork, and are tense situations.  I'm not saying these things were impossible with previous editions, but it was harder to maintain that kind of tone during play due to the "I win" buttons and magic items.

The whole simlationist vs. narrativist thing isn't a 3e or 4e thing- its a DM style and group playstyle thing.  D&D, in whatever edition, has NEVER been strongly simuationist.  If you want a strongly simlationist game, play HARN or GURPS (which are both fine games as well).  D&D has always had a huge number of abstractions (hit points, AC, saves, falling damage, lack of long-term injuries, etc) meant to keep the game flowing quickly and represent a heroic sort of game, not to reflect reality in the game world.  How the DM presents the world and interactions with NPCs is the main determinant of simulationism.  For the record, I tend to be simulationist AND narrativist in my games, and me and my groups have not had any disconnect between 4e's rules and the outcome during gameplay.

Anyway, I realize some people will disgree with me on these points, but for a lot of us who do enjoy 4e, the things I listed are important.  One system is not objectively superior to the other (and both have their flaws), but one system can be superior to the other given a group's preferences and playstyle.  For us, 4e is superior and is a huge step forward over the previous edition.


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## Greg K (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> IME, here is a quick list of thematic comparsons of 3e vs 4e (and previous editions):
> 
> 3e:
> * Good for hack n' slash dungeon crawl D&D, bad for narrative or plot-focused games. [
> ...



The above has not been my experience at all (except for the x-mas tree assumption. However, working around the x-mas tree, however, has been no more difficult than previous editions.  Just shows different experiences.



> * I'll get some disagreement on this last one probably, but 3e felt from level 7 or so on like a superheroes game.



I just disagree on the level. For me it starts around  11-13,. However, I felt that was  the case with 1e and 2e as well. I have never liked DND above 10th level.  Unfortunately, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, etc. disinterest me in playing those tiers so it is a wash.



> 4e and previous editions:
> * Good for hack n' slash dungeon crawl D&D, AND good for narrative or plot-focused games



To my friends, 4e only feels good for hack n' slash dungeon crawls/ tactical minis and not good for a long term campaign. 3e, on the other hand, we find more appropriate for campaigns in a simulated setting (not that it is perfect). Different strokes and all of that.


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## BryonD (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog,

Your post adds just another drop of reinforcement to my opinion that 4e appeals to people who were not able to get everything out of 3E that was there to be had.


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## Mallus (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Your post adds just another drop of reinforcement to my opinion that 4e appeals to people who were not able to get everything out of 3E that was there to be had.



It's better to say that 4e appeals to people who used 3e and found that it wasn't the right tool for their job.


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## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

Greg K said:


> I just disagree on the level. For me it starts around  11-13,. However, I felt that was  the case with 1e and 2e as well. I have never liked DND above 10th level.  Unfortunately, Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies, etc. disinterest me in playing those tiers so it is a wash.




I agree, I never have been a fan of D&D above 10th level either, for the reasons we've both described.  However, I've been pleasantly surprised by 4e's high level play so far.  Granted, we did one-shots, but I'm looking forward to working characters up to that level to see if its still as fun as the one-shots were.



Greg K said:


> To my friends, 4e only feels good for hack n' slash dungeon crawls/ tactical minis and not good for a long term campaign. 3e, on the other hand, we find more appropriate for campaigns in a simulated setting (not that it is perfect). Different strokes and all of that.




I think this has more to do with previous gaming experience than the system as a whole.  3e had everything so codified and spelled-out, that it felt like it was more a computer game than a RPG.  I guess I'm more of a "wing-it" DM who doesn't want to fiddle with stats or justifying things based on rules, so 4e's approach appeals to me more in that way.  

When I started playing AD&D 1e, we used minis and I've been a big fan of them ever since.  4e's inclusion of minis doesn't bother me because we're already so used to gaming that way that we lose nothing, AND still have all the roleplaying we've always had.  Thats the other thing- to me roleplaying has always been about character background and crafting a personality for a character in the context of the game world.  Some folks really liked 3e's more mechanical approach to roleplaying (Diplomacy, Bluff, etc), but to me it was irrelevant and felt tacked on.  When we played 3e (and even 4e now), we rarely, if ever, use those skills.  When I do use them, I have the player say and act as his character would, and if a check is called for, we roll it, but it only modifies the reaction of the NPC to the roleplaying- it is not a determinant for how well the character does.


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## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Gothmog,
> 
> Your post adds just another drop of reinforcement to my opinion that 4e appeals to people who were not able to get everything out of 3E that was there to be had.




Possibly- although I tried and tried for about five years to get 3e to fit my playstyle.  We tried various 3PP books, Unearthead Arcana variants, and house rules, and never could get 3e to do what we wanted to.  I even asked for help on these boards at various points with certain issues I had, and while the advice was appreciated, it never solved my problems with 3e.  Part of it was mechanical and numerical in nature, and how power scaling worked in the game.  Reworking that would have been a huge undertaking, and would have essentially involved me writing a new edition of the game.  Rather than spend so much time monkeying with fixing rules that didn't suit my tastes or playstyle, I moved on to other games that did scratch the itch I had.

I really like 4e because it does scratch my gaming itch almost perfectly (barring some weirdness with healing surges, long-term injuries, and use of Powers).  We've made a few tweaks to the 4e system regarding those three issues, and its working like a dream for us now.  I know 4e isn't for everybody and isn't perfect, just like 3e isn't for everybody, and is far from perfect.  

Did I get everything out of 3e that was possible?  I think my groups and I made a huge effort and took a lot of advice and did a lot of research, but in the end, 3e came up lacking for us.  3e just doesn't do certain types of games well, and while there was a lot of high-quality 3e stuff and variants we tried (Midnight, Arcanis, Grim Tales, Conan, etc), none of it really addressed many of the core issues we had.  For me and my groups, 4e was the evolution of the game we needed to start having fun with D&D again, because it did address nearly every problem we had.


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## renevq (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> stuff




I was going to write a very long post detailing my thoughts on 4e, but then I read this really good post which mostly reflected my own experiences. Kudos. 

I'll just add a few observations:
* I love the way classes are balanced against one another. In my experience, in 3e fighters were good until about 5th level; casters were good from about that level on, well played caster at all levels. Also, in my view, non-casters followed a linear power curve, casters an exponential one. Put these two things together and you had a titanic power difference between classes which forced DMs to use wonky solutions to make players feel useful (i.e. anti-magic zones, et al) which made encounters unfun for some players. A solution appeared in the form of Bo9S (which I absolutely loved), but that just drew cries of power creep. Thankfully this is fixed.
* 3e can be used to make very cool plot-centric campaigns (I've played in more than a few), but you have to take into account that characters are going to go up in power very quickly. I tried to run a campaign where the characters stayed at the same power level vis a vis the campaign world (the world levels up with them) and it epically failed. I've found that the tier system coupled with the flattening of the power curve allows me as a DM to make a campaign the way I like it (If I want a heroic campaign, I make a heroic tier only game).
*The de-emphasis on system mastery. One thing I found in my group is that depending on the DM, the game was going to favor either optimizers or people who thought character weaknesses made for flavorful characters. If it favored optimizers, non-optimizers felt useless, and if it went the other way around, optimizers felt restrained (guilty). Now nobody in the group feels useless, and optimizers can concentrate on tactics and party optimization, which benefits everybody.
*Combat Powers let me add a mechanical effect to what I am imagining my character is doing, which encourages my combat narration.
* Dynamic terrain is a must. It adds to the gaming experience and lets some powers really shine in some situations and other powers in other situations. Not to say the same wasn't true in 3e, but it is moreso in 4e. Flat terrain is boring in both games.
*One of the greatest additions i've seen to combat enjoyment is minions. It adds a very cinematic element that has really shined in the games i've seen it in.
*I've had no problem as far as non-combat abilities are concerned, because it's always been my opinion that most of them should be relegated to roleplay and character background. If your background says you were a good baker before you started adventuring, you should be able to make good rolls without having to sacrifice skill points that should have gone to adventuring skills.
*I love the way skills have been streamlined, especially the 1/2 level to every skill. 12th level paladins (2+int skill points, Knowledge: The Planes not a class skill) who've been battling demons their entire careers should be able to know more about them than peasants who've never left the dirt farm without again sacrificing precious skill points to be able to do so.

Again, these are my observations so YMMV.


Mallus said:


> It's better to say that 4e appeals to people who used 3e and found that it wasn't the right tool for their job.




QFT.


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## Giltonio_Santos (Jan 12, 2009)

I’d like to address this point:



Gothmog said:


> I'll get some disagreement on this last one probably, but 3e felt from level 7 or so on like a superheroes game. PCs started in 1e, 2e, and 3e very fragile and mundane (which can be fun), but by level 3 they were heroes. In fact, many 3e groups I played with STARTED PCs at level 3 to avoid the "boring levels" (and this practice was also common among many posters on these boards). After level 7 or so, PCs became ridiculously powerful in comparison to other characters and monsters in the game world, much moreso than in previous editions.




Together with this:



Gothmog said:


> 4e starts heroic, and stays heroic throughout, but doesn't stray into the superheroes area from what I've seen. Starting 4e PCs are tougher and assumed to be special, but then again, monsters and NPCs are tougher as well. Rate of gain of PC power is more linear rather than exponential, and the underlying math of the system is superior and MUCH more stable throughout all levels. We've played 4e from 1st to 8th level now, as well as two short-term high level adventures (15-18th levels and 25-27th levels), and the game holds together very well and keeps a heroic tone the whole time (meaning the PCs are tough, but vulnerable with mistakes or bad tactics) without becoming bogged down and unplayable like 3e was for high-level play.




For starts, I believe that the playability (or lack of) of 3E at high levels is a problem with the players, not with the system. While I’m a good example of a DM who feels very uncomfortable running games for high-level characters, and have therefore chosen to end the majority of my games at about 10th level, I’ve seen various groups playing through the end levels of 3E (or even into epic level) without problem.

Some people are just fine with scry/buff/teleport, CoDzilla, or psions that are hell on wheels. I’m not comfortable with easy resurrection, for example, and 4E have made nothing to make it easier to me (in fact, it now seems even more absurd with the tier-based cost). I was comfortable, though, with rings of invisibility that allowed people to become invisible for longer than a round.

I’ve pointed that to explain what I believe is a strong advantage of 3E in face of the newer D&D: it’s able to accommodate more than one playing style in regards not only to the described GNS models, but also in regards to power level. If high levels were not playable to you, you didn’t have to play them. E6 is an example of an alternative I’ve learned from on enworld, but starting a fresh game is good as well.

On the other hand, 4E transformed all of the 30 levels of play in a giant walk from the 3rd level to the 9th. No options for those who like to play it deadly, 1st level-style; no options for those who love when the mighty wizard saves the day for the 3495th time.

As with anything about RPGs, what some people see as bugs, others see as features. For me, though, we’re always losing something when the system in unable to accommodate more than a single playing style, no matter how prevalent that style becomes over the others.

Cheers,


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## Yair (Jan 12, 2009)

Well, my group has just decided, after trying 4e for months, to abandon it. So obviously we aren't pleased with it.

We like a lot of things about 4e. I think that, as someone else said above, 4e is D&D that finally got what it's all about and did it right. Hoiwever, we found the grind of combats boring, and the tactical-wargame aspect overwhelmed our game. We found that a lot of powers didn't make sense, and worse that the specific rules that must constantly be adhered to sucked the descriptions out of our play. We found that the roleplaying was in practice overshadowed and overwhelmed by long, ardous battles that took up hours. We found, having played from 1st to 9th level and with a brief foray to level 22, that increasing level was pointless, not really changing the game and increasing its difficulty. We found that knowing the powers and how to use them, especially at high levels, was difficult. As a DM, I found that the brief monster descriptions were too often confusing and unclear, and that I often forgot to apply this or that power. We found the rules too complex, getting in the way of play - you always look up the rule (power card description), or just wing the rules knowing that you're perhaps violating them (what's the DC for breaking down that door? Can you run when flying? ...)

4e was great in allowing dynamic, high-action combat, in exotic locales - but the combats were too slow, which neutered any excitement at them. The actions described were great, but in time become repetitive and the effects in-game didn't really match the pompous descriptions. It had good improvisation rules, too, but the players still felt confined to the hard framework provided by their powers and the combat grid. It was extremely balanced, but at the cost of versimilitude (you use your three daily item powers, and then when pull out another one... it doesn't work).

So my impression with 4e was ultimately a disappointment. Because I think this is in many ways the best edition of D&D, we have decided to move on to another game, one with less emphasis on tactical wargaming and more support for roleplaying.

And yes, I'm well aware all of my complaints can be handled with a few house rules and a change of style in DMing. I don't want to make the effort, I want to move on to greener pastures. I think we need a change of pace, more than anything else.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 12, 2009)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> I’d like to address this point:
> 
> 
> Together with this:
> ...





I can change the system. I can't change the player. 

Playability is what Usability is in the world of software and the web. 
If a website lacks Usability for sight-impaired users, it is the website that lacks usability, and it as the website that requires an improvement for this users. (This is of course not always possible. A website for creating photo books will never be a good idea for blind people.  ) If the web site is not changed, the sight-impaired user will look for a different web site. 

If a game system lacks playability for some players, the playability of the system has to be improved for these users. Or you have to switch to a system that works better for you. But you can't expect the players to change themselves!

This both applies to 3E and 4E or any other game system.

But don't assume that because I compare to vision-impaired this means that some players are "incapable". Another example could be a software that has a complex menu structure but lacks shortcuts. Some users might never miss the shortcuts, but others will get annoyed and look for alternatives.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jan 12, 2009)

Imaro said:


> I think D&D 3e had it right actually, and that is exactly why it had such a large following (and 4e seems to have split the fanbase so much).  3e gave us a game that may not have appealed as much to those who really wanted it's focus to be sharper and more narrow... but it more than made up for this in being much more capable in accommodating other play styles, add in the fact that it's the most common and well known of rpg's and you have a winner.




I'm not so sure that it really was a winner - sure, you could accommodate other play styles, but the further it diverged from its origins the messier it tended to become. In many cases, it would have been more effective to use another system in the first place.

A good example is playing races significantly different from and more powerful than the human norm. Sure, it was _possible_ - but it didn't work well and tended to seriously nerf some character concepts (such as spellcasters). There are other games which are much more suited to this (like most points-based games).



> Thus yes everyone had to tweak it to get exactly what they wanted... but everyone could find something within it that appealed to them and that they enjoyed and it was worth it because hey, everyone plays D&D.




Not always - there have been quite a lot of people who have gradually become frustrated with trying to tweak D&D to exactly the kind of play experience they want, and finally realized that D&D 3.X just _didn't_ work well as a generic fantasy system.

D&D 4E doesn't pretend to be generic, and is quite up-front and honest about it, which I find refreshing.



> 4e has changed so that it no longer appeals to a certain portion of it's fanbase, it just isn't fun for them and it's so far away from what they want that many feel by the time they get it to that point it won't be worth it.  I also feel like this is why many don't see 4e as any type of evolutionary step.




Others, on the other hand, seem to enjoy the "D&D experience", but became frustrated with the 3E rules and switched to other games. Many seem to be willing to give 4E another try.



> Oh yeah, and D&D is still a generic fantasy roleplaying game... in fact with it's nebulous setting and breaking of most of D&D's tropes...I'd say it's more "generic" than it's been in awhile.  The problem is that it's changed the playstyles that it supports well, not that it has or hasn't become generic.




D&D always was about a bunch of humanoid near-nobodies gradually becoming more experienced and more powerful as they slay monsters and treasures until they could kick the butts of demigods. Take away the geometric increase in power and the loot, and it doesn't really feel like D&D any more. Sure, the setting details may vary, but the playstyle is something fairly closely entwined with D&D.


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## dm4hire (Jan 12, 2009)

When 2e was being brought out I really just wanted them to take everything in 1e and streamline it and put it into fewer books or remove all the conflicting content between the different volumes.  I wanted the same with 3e as there were still no real major differences in how combat worked.  Once I saw 3e I liked what was changed, but my normal group continued playing 2e.  Once 4e was announced I figured there was going to be major changes to it so took the approach that I would at least buy the core and see how it went from there.  Actually I had contemplated just doing that and calling it good, leaving off buying everything.  I liked 4e once I got a hold of it, but like I've said the longer you go with it the less user friendly it feels and I believe that's due to the lack of fluff.  There's no incentive for reading the books for the sake of reading it.  Perhaps part of this problem is that the first setting chosen to convert was FR which has always been heavy on fluff.  I'm not sure it would have worked for Eberron starting off either as that setting was just starting to reallly get fleshed out before the change over.  Maybe they should have just created a new campaign first to get a feel for publics reactions before launching into their more popular settings.  I'm waiting to see if Eberron will have more fluff in it ( I know I said I wasn't buying it, but I'll still look at it on the shelf).


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## BryonD (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> It's better to say that 4e appeals to people who used 3e and found that it wasn't the right tool for their job.



No, that is absolutely not a better way of putting it.


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## Lacyon (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Gothmog,
> 
> Your post adds just another drop of reinforcement to my opinion that 4e appeals to people who were not able to get everything out of 3E that was there to be had.




If we were able to get those things out of 3E, but find it easier to do so in 4E, how does that factor into your opinion?

I can drive nails through a plank of wood with the backside of a screwdriver, but it's nice to have a hammer.


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## Giltonio_Santos (Jan 12, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I can change the system. I can't change the player...




I undestand your point, but what I was trying to say is that the playability that people want is there, but not at all levels, and that is fine.

Think of it as those websites with various features, and one of those is creating photo books.In my opinion, this feature is a plus, regardless of the ability of sight-impaired people to use it; they'll be able to use other features.

In that sense, 4E took the photo book out instead of improving other features available to sight-impaired people, and now they have a website that is not worth the effort for those who want photos. Like I said before, some will say this is a feature, but I see it as a bug.

Cheers,


----------



## Fifth Element (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Your post adds just another drop of reinforcement to my opinion that 4e appeals to people who were not able to get everything out of 3E that was there to be had.



Wow, that's pretty presumptuous. The "not able" part makes this post seem especially elitist. It seems to read "if you don't like 3E, you're just not doing it right."


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## Mallus (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> No, that is absolutely not a better way of putting it.



Why not? Is the way I put it not insulting enough?

I think you should accept that 4e appeals to some people who _are_ 3e "system masters", with considerable experience using 3e to produce a range of different campaigns/play experiences.

ie me and my group.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Why not? Is the way I put it not insulting enough?




If we want to put it that way... 

People not enjoying 4E are not able to get everything out of 4E that is there to be had. 



> I think you should accept that 4e appeals to some people who _are_ 3e "system masters", with considerable experience using 3e to produce a range of different campaigns/play experiences.
> 
> ie me and my group.




I would also count my group among "system masters". We were pretty good at min-maxing, had several campaigns going on and our DMs did venture into the higher level regions. But usually that was also the point where we had the biggest headaches... Well, actually mostly DMs.
Reminds me kinda of my Shadowrun 3e experience as a DM for 8 players or so. Wow, that was a headache, and it was maybe my second session as DM or so...


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## jensun (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Why not? Is the way I put it not insulting enough?
> 
> I think you should accept that 4e appeals to some people who _are_ 3e "system masters", with considerable experience using 3e to produce a range of different campaigns/play experiences.
> 
> ie me and my group.



Somehow I doubt that is likely to happen.


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jan 12, 2009)

jensun said:


> Somehow I doubt that is likely to happen.




Why not?

I mean, the ease of running high-level campaigns and statting high-level foes alone ought to attract a large number of people with lots of 3E experience...


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## WizarDru (Jan 12, 2009)

Jürgen Hubert said:


> Why not?
> 
> I mean, the ease of running high-level campaigns and statting high-level foes alone ought to attract a large number of people with lots of 3E experience...




Maybe he means that it's not likely the BryonD is going to accept Mallus' suggestion.


----------



## Jack99 (Jan 12, 2009)

Fifth Element said:


> Wow, that's pretty presumptuous. The "not able" part makes this post seem especially elitist. It seems to read "if you don't like 3E, you're just not doing it right."



And I thought he just said 4e players were stupid, silly me.


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## Harlekin (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Why not? Is the way I put it not insulting enough?
> 
> I think you should accept that 4e appeals to some people who _are_ 3e "system masters", with considerable experience using 3e to produce a range of different campaigns/play experiences.
> 
> ie me and my group.




I think this post highlights the key difference between the two sides in this discussion. 
4th edition supporters know 3.x and usually have years of experience playing the game. When making a statement about 3.x, they speak from experience.

4th edition detractors have usually played 0-3 session and read the rule book. When making a  statement about 4th edition, they are making assertions (educated guesses).


----------



## renevq (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> No, that is absolutely not a better way of putting it.




Pretentious much? That is extremely condescending, assuming that people that enjoy 4e didn't "get" 3.x. I "got" it, got as much as I could out of the gaming system and had a ton of fun playing it. I just happen to enjoy 4e more. It's a better tool for my job just as 3.x is a better tool for your job.


----------



## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> No, that is absolutely not a better way of putting it.




Yes, it absolutely is a better way of putting it.  

I'm what you call a system monkey- I look at a system, dissect it, tear it apart, and try to understand the inner workings of it.  Maybe its the scientist in me (I'm a professor of neuroscience), but I like to take things down to their component level, and understand the fundamentals and theory, then put it back together again.  That gives me a solid foundation to understand a system, its strengths, and its limitations.  I did this for FIVE YEARS with 3.x, and I have a very good grasp on the system, what it is good at, and what its limitations are.  While all humans have emotional attachments to certain ideas or theories, I based most of my analysis of 3.x on actual play, and on an analytical level because that is the way my mind works, and what I've been trained to do in my job.  So when I say 3.x didn't get the job done for us, its been after careful analysis and trial- not some half-assed attempt at trying the system or trying to bait trolls.  From what I've seen here, many of the other folks who enjoy 4e had a similar experience to my own, and fully udnerstand what 3.x is and how it plays, but we find 4e to be a superior game for our groups and playstyles.  3.x might be a better system for your games, and thats cool- I won't insult you or try to keep you from playing it.

In the past, I've seen you comment that 4e is like D&D "tee ball", and generally be condescending and rude to 4e fans.  Is there really a need to be so condescending towards people who don't share your opinions?  Its just a game after all- play whatever you like.


----------



## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

Harlekin said:


> I think this post highlights the key difference between the two sides in this discussion.
> 4th edition supporters know 3.x and usually have years of experience playing the game. When making a statement about 3.x, they speak from experience.
> 
> 4th edition detractors have usually played 0-3 session and read the rule book. When making a  statement about 4th edition, they are making assertions (educated guesses).




I don't know if I'd go quite that far.  There have been some folks who did give 4e a legitimate try (Quaesetron for example), and found it wasn't to their playstyles after months of play.  I can respect that- not every system is perfect for everybody.  I wouldn't go so far to paint all 4e detractors as uninformed or having never tried the system- thats clearly not true.  However, I do think there is a large number of detractors who are like what you're describing (just read the books, or played 0-3 sessions), which isn't really enough experience with the system to understand its complexities and nuances.


----------



## Mallus (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> I don't know if I'd go quite that far.



I wouldn't. It's going to be the wrong tool for some people, and I believe them when they say they've tried it and don't like it.

(though anyone making blanket statements like '4e doesn't support detailed homebrew settings' or '4e doesn't support immersive character role-playing' is, well, _playing it wrong_)


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## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> I wouldn't. It's going to be the wrong tool for some people, and I believe them when they say they've tried it and don't like it.
> 
> (though anyone making blanket statements like '4e doesn't support detailed homebrew settings' or '4e doesn't support immersive character role-playing' is, well, _playing it wrong_)




Agreed.  Blanket statements like that just show someone with an axe to grind, and who can't grasp the complexities of 4e. 

But hey, we all win, since we all have a system we enjoy playing.


----------



## Harlekin (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> I don't know if I'd go quite that far.  There have been some folks who did give 4e a legitimate try (Quaesetron for example), and found it wasn't to their playstyles after months of play.  I can respect that- not every system is perfect for everybody.  I wouldn't go so far to paint all 4e detractors as uninformed or having never tried the system- thats clearly not true.  However, I do think there is a large number of detractors who are like what you're describing (just read the books, or played 0-3 sessions), which isn't really enough experience with the system to understand its complexities and nuances.




Hence my careful use of handwavey terms such as "usually". The point remains that practically (an other handwavey term) all of us know 3.x very well, and thus can speak with some authority about the system.


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## Shazman (Jan 12, 2009)

The best way to sum up my impressions of 4E is that it is WotC's Vista.


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## Mallus (Jan 12, 2009)

Shazman said:


> The best way to sum up my impressions of 4E is that it is WotC's Vista.



But 4e uses way less of the DM's system resources than 3e!


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## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

Shazman said:


> The best way to sum up my impressions of 4E is that it is WotC's Vista.




I agree.  Much like 4e, Vista is easier to use, prettier, more stable, and more user friendly.  Thanks WotC!


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## ExploderWizard (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> But 4e uses way less of the DM's system resources than 3e!




That may be true but with 4E you get way more pop-ups:

"This rule/power is ridiculous. Allow? Deny?"


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## Phaezen (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Why not? Is the way I put it not insulting enough?
> 
> I think you should accept that 4e appeals to some people who _are_ 3e "system masters", with considerable experience using 3e to produce a range of different campaigns/play experiences.
> 
> ie me and my group.




And me and my groups, both of which have players with 20+ years of D&D experience and have players who can whip up characters that make hardened DMs cry into thier beverage of choice (one player is credited with breaking Unknown Armies).  One group has gone with 4th ed, the other is heading towards C&C.  This does not belittle anyones choice to stay with 3.x and or pathfinder or any other D20 system.

There is no perfect system for everyone, 4e will appeal to some, 3.x to others and osric/C&C to others none of them are doing it wrong.  There are players who refuse to touch any form of D&D and prefer to play other systems and genres, none of them are doing it wrong either.  Not even Larpers or SCA gamers are doing it wrong.  Wargamers are not doing it wrong either.  Whether MMO players are doing it wrong is debateable , but chances are they are also not doing it wrong.

Different is not wrong.  Different is different.  Different is AWESOME!

That is all

Phaezen


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## Kespar (Jan 12, 2009)

Shazman said:


> The best way to sum up my impressions of 4E is that it is WotC's Vista.




Funny you mention that because in our gaming group we compared 3E vs 4E as Windows vs Mac, 4E is more streamlined and easier for new players(at least we think) some people hate it while others love it. And for many in my gaming group this is the closest comparison we can come up with


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## ExploderWizard (Jan 12, 2009)

Kespar said:


> Funny you mention that because in our gaming group we compared 3E vs 4E as Windows vs Mac, 4E is more streamlined and easier for new players(at least we think) some people hate it while others love it. And for many in my gaming group this is the closest comparison we can come up with





 Corrected:
4E= Vista PC
Moldvay Basic= Mac  Streamlined and easier for new players.


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## Mallus (Jan 12, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> That may be true but with 4E you get way more pop-ups:
> 
> "This rule/power is ridiculous. Allow? Deny?"



I turn all those notifications off. The user experience is better that way.

(besides, I haven't found a rule yet in 4e that can't be narrated in such as way as to be completely congruent w/the source material; ie action fantasy fiction/film)


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## ExploderWizard (Jan 12, 2009)

Mallus said:


> I turn all those notifications off. The user experience is better that way.
> 
> (besides, I haven't found a rule yet in 4e that can't be narrated in such as way as to be completely congruent w/the source material; ie action fantasy fiction/film)




Oh yes of course. Don't think to hard about the OS.

The computer is your friend.

Trust the computer.........


Hey, wait a sec!!


----------



## jbear (Jan 12, 2009)

This thread was interesting at the beginning (for 4 pages or so)...

I don't know why people insist in twisting the theme of a thread into "Which is better 3.5 or 4e". If you need to write on that topic than go to the pertinent thread and post there. 

The question was what are your impressions ofter 6 (7 ) months of 4e play. If your not going to answer the quesstion, elaborate it, add to it and offer something constructive, be it negative or positive, then keep it to yourself.

The most annoying thing is as time goes on the same familiar names are always the same ones that twist a thread around to another incredibly boring episode of which is a better game system.

I was going to give my own personal impression but I'm so annoyed right now I can't be bothered quite frankly.

This said, I really enjoyed all the post in the first part of the thread. Lots of good stuff both the criticism and the praise. Pity that some enjoy writing the sound of their own voice, whether what they want to write was what was being discussed or not.


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## Sammael (Jan 12, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> I agree.  Much like 4e, Vista is easier to use, prettier, more stable, and more user friendly.  Thanks WotC!



You do realize that Vista is actually so poor that Microsoft advised partners not to advertise it anymore (I was present at one such meeting) and, in an unprecedented move, bundled Vista FPP with XP downgrade rights? 

Vista is crap. If people who work for Microsoft say it's crap, and Microsoft's partners say it's crap, then there is really no argument otherwise. One of the reasons Win 7 is being promoted so aggressively is to make people forget about the Vista fiasco. And no wonder, since 7 is faster, more stable, and less annoying than Vista - and it's a freaking _beta_.


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## Gothmog (Jan 12, 2009)

Sammael said:


> You do realize that Vista is actually so poor that Microsoft advised partners not to advertise it anymore (I was present at one such meeting) and, in an unprecedented move, bundled Vista FPP with XP downgrade rights?
> 
> Vista is crap. If people who work for Microsoft say it's crap, and Microsoft's partners say it's crap, then there is really no argument otherwise. One of the reasons Win 7 is being promoted so aggressively is to make people forget about the Vista fiasco. And no wonder, since 7 is faster, more stable, and less annoying than Vista - and it's a freaking _beta_.




I've heard some horror stories about people using Vista, but I've been using it for two years, and NEVER had a problem.  No crashes, no glitches, no loss of speed, nothing at all.  I've been using my computer for tons of stuff- photo editing for publication in journals, data crunching, computer gaming, powerpoint composition, tons of word processing.  I'm not a programmer, so I haven't played with the code, but from my user standpoint, its been a MUCH better OS than Windows XP, which routinely crashed on me doing the same things. 

(And I won't even get into the horror stories of fighting Macs all the way through grad school and having them routinely crash and lose data.  I lost big chunks of my dissertation on Macs TWICE, and hundreds of hours worth of photo editing and spreadsheet data.  Every Mac I've every used has been consistently buggy and unstable.  I HATE Macs).


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## Phaezen (Jan 12, 2009)

jbear said:


> This thread was interesting at the beginning (for 4 pages or so)...
> 
> The question was what are your impressions ofter 6 (7 ) months of 4e play. If your not going to answer the quesstion, elaborate it, add to it and offer something constructive, be it negative or positive, then keep it to yourself.
> 
> This said, I really enjoyed all the post in the first part of the thread. Lots of good stuff both the criticism and the praise. Pity that some enjoy writing the sound of their own voice, whether what they want to write was what was being discussed or not.




And with that non so gentle prod to get things back on topic.

6/7 months in and the interesting parts of the system are starting to come out.  We are starting to see more creative use of the rules structure by WOTC (at least in the Dragon and Dungeon magazines), which is hopefully an indication of where the rulebooks are going, especialy with the creative use of feats.  

Some examples of what I am talking about:

The Gladiator article (368)- using multiclass feats for weapon specialisation as well as feats to alter at wills.
The Damphyr article (371) - more creative use of feats as a race template.

Various other highlights,
Adventurers of the realms (370) - multiclass specific paragon paths
Campaign Items & Artifacts articles (368) - chock full of ideas of using artifacts and things like airships as treasure in you campaign.
Class Acts Warlord (369) - Once again multiclass (Warlord/Infernal pact Warlock) specific goodies.
And from Dungeon the various Far Realms adventures (Sleeper in the Tomb of Dreams, Last Breath of Ashenport, The Tear of Ioun series: Touch of Madness, Brink of Madness)

Phaezen


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 12, 2009)

> 6/7 months in and the interesting parts of the system are starting to come out. We are starting to see more creative use of the rules structure by WOTC (at least in the Dragon and Dungeon magazines), which is hopefully an indication of where the rulebooks are going, especialy with the creative use of feats.




Slowly, we are starting to see the full potential of the system and what you can all try with that.


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## jensun (Jan 12, 2009)

WizarDru said:


> Maybe he means that it's not likely the BryonD is going to accept Mallus' suggestion.



This would be true.


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## jensun (Jan 12, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> That may be true but with 4E you get way more pop-ups:
> 
> "This rule/power is ridiculous. Allow? Deny?"



Maybe but these are very easy to turn off with the application of some imagination and basic thought.


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## Lizard (Jan 12, 2009)

jensun said:


> Maybe but these are very easy to turn off with the application of some imagination and basic thought.




We've given up trying. Narrating combat in 4e is just too much of a chore, because no matter what description you pick for Power Effect A, Power Effect B comes along and doesn't make any sense when it interacts with your flavor text for Power Effect A -- but the rules say it works, so, it does. 

So we just play out 4e combat more-or-less like chess. You don't ask, in chess, how a knight can jump over a castle -- or how a castle can move, for that matter. You just move the pieces. Same with 4e.


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## Eric Tolle (Jan 12, 2009)

After playing 4E for a couple months, I and the rest of the group have been enjoying it quite a bit.  The role-playing is good and largely tangental to the system, the only dungeon we've seen was the one we bribed a prisoner out of, and the combat has been fairly minimal.  My wife, who absolutely hates wading through the mechanical aspects of character building actually enjoyed making her character, and we’re both looking forward to starting our next 4E game.  Nobody in our group has had any problems with the system, though some would like 

So, as far as I'm concerned, 4E corrects some of the hideously awful imbalances present in 3.X, and is probably the least munchkin oriented version of D&D I've seen in a decade or two.  Things I've liked like:


correcting the notion that some classes should be obviously stronger and better than all the others, or that other classes becomiw more or less redundant after a certain point.  There's none of the "There's druids, clerics, wizards, and their sidekicks" aspect in 4E.  

Massively reducing the complexity of creating a character, especially an experienced one.  The designers realized that figuring out the feat chains, skill synergies, and the like in 3.X was a chore that added complexity without making characters more individual, and was done better by games like GURPS and HERO .  

There was a point years and years agoo where I had the patience to spend hours working out the fiddly details involved in optimizing a 3.X character.  But I had enough of all that in my Champions years.  4E’s a fine game, probably not my favorite game out there, but I and the rest of my group are enjoying ourselves just the same.


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## SteveC (Jan 12, 2009)

I just wanted to take a moment to implore people not to go down the road we seem to be starting with this thread. It's kind of funny, until 4E released, ENWorlders tended to be pretty civil group among ourselves, since we all came here to talk about a game we loved: D&D.

Since 4E launched, it seems that we just can't get away from arguing about it. I am not immune from this, but I would like to offer a suggestion: your experiences with an edition absolutely do not preclude anyone else from having the exact opposite experience with another edition of the rules. In fact, they're entirely independent from those of any other ENWorlder.

For me, seven months later I find that 4E continues to be my game of choice, largely because it plays much like I hoped it would, and addresses the vast majority of prep and play issue I had with 3X. That doesn't mean that anyone who's still playing 3X or an earlier edition of the game is invalid in their experiences at all.

My advice is this: there are a couple of games that are the darlings of ENWorld that I really don't enjoy. When discussion of them first started to become hot, I got involved with several threads, and that was pretty much to my detriment. Eventually I learned just not to get involved with those threads, or in a neutral thread to not toss out flames, but rather to simply discuss things.

So if 4E still isn't for you, this is the thread to say "six (seven) months later, still no 4E for me...perfectly happy with X." I'm not trying to mod anyone's posts, but I'm speaking from experience when I say you're likely to be a lot happier if you give it a try.

--Steve


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## Pbartender (Jan 12, 2009)

To put it succinctly, it's not as good as I'd hoped, but it's better than I expected.  Over all, it's been fun to play, and the style of the rules is a good fit the way my group likes to play.  As a DM, it saves me a lot of time prepping for encounters, which gives me more time to focus on the plot and characters involved in the adventure.


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## Storminator (Jan 13, 2009)

Something I've noticed: We don't use the books at the table. We've gone whole sessions without using the books. I find it much easier on the immersion.

In my next campaign, it will be a house rule: No book reference at the table. If you need to look it up, you can't do it. If I don't know, I'll make it up immediately, and we'll look it up later.

PS


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## Lizard (Jan 13, 2009)

Storminator said:


> Something I've noticed: We don't use the books at the table. We've gone whole sessions without using the books. I find it much easier on the immersion.
> 
> In my next campaign, it will be a house rule: No book reference at the table. If you need to look it up, you can't do it. If I don't know, I'll make it up immediately, and we'll look it up later.
> 
> PS




See, our DM has a rule that only the player involved gets to look up a rules issue, because we ALL have the books and we ALL constantly reference them, and he's gotten tired of being at the center of a debating team.

"On page 172, Paragraph 3, it says..."
"Ah, but on page 186, Paragrah 2, it says..."
"It depends on what the meaning of 'attack' is..."

I don't see 4e as being any less rule-heavy than 3e; if anything, the fact that Every Word Is Capitalized And Meaningful leads to lots of debates which strongly resemble discussions of object oriented programming -- X is an instance of Y, but overrides Z. (And it's a really nasty OOPL, too, like C++, with multiple inheritance, 'friend' classes, and all the rest.) As I noted earlier, the fact that Rules>Common Sense, by design, means you CAN'T just wing it -- you have to parse the rules code and forget about "what would really happen" or "what seems logical".

Fortunately, the 4e books ARE well written in terms of being able to quickly locate the relevant rules. We no longer have to let the one rules lawyer in the group look everything up for us; we can ALL be rules lawyers now! Viva Equality!


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## BryonD (Jan 13, 2009)

Lacyon said:


> If we were able to get those things out of 3E, but find it easier to do so in 4E, how does that factor into your opinion?
> 
> I can drive nails through a plank of wood with the backside of a screwdriver, but it's nice to have a hammer.



In factors in nicely when you consider that I don't accept that it is an apples to apples comparison.

He may be able to get what 4E offers easier than he was able to get what 3E offers, that in no way implies that the full value each offers is equivalent.  To the contrary, his own post rather implies the opposite to be true.


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## Lacyon (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> In factors in nicely when you consider that I don't accept that it is an apples to apples comparison.
> 
> He may be able to get what 4E offers easier than he was able to get what 3E offers, that in no way implies that the full value each offers is equivalent. To the contrary, his own post rather implies the opposite to be true.




That's quite a _different _opinion than the one you expressed earlier.

EDIT: That's not quite right. It's just a non-answer to my question.


----------



## ProfessorCirno (Jan 13, 2009)

The best way to broadly paint rabid 4e supporters is to say they're like rabid 4e haters - both make snide commentary about the other side and enjoy painting them with the broad brush while trying to shy away from it themselves.  Oh, and they're both wrong.

3.5 is like a couch.  4e is like a sofa too, but I'm not as comfortable on it as I am with my 3.5 sofa.  That isn't to say it's a bad game, it's just not one meant for me.  I totally made this metaphor before, but I'm going to do it again.  I'm going to use couch and sofa to designate between the two.

Some people who sat on the couch previously still like sitting there. Others liked sitting there at the time, but have since then found more comfortable seating arrangements for themselves, such as another sofa. Some never sat in my couch or ANY couch to begin with, and hate me and everyone who sits on couches because they're _so mainstream_. There's even a group that sat on the couch, have a different sofa, and constantly tell me how much they hate my couch now, and how much better their sofa is.  On the other hand, some people on my couch have only glanced at other sofas and can't stop sticking their noses into the air to talk about how much better their couch is, despite not really knowing it as a fact.  There's even a group of people who don't like couches OR sofas, but enjoy sitting on the pre-couch technology bedrock. Every now and then, a few buggers go to my couch and steal some cushions for themselves.  I don't mind, because my couch and their sofa enjoy raiding each other for cushions ourselves.


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## BryonD (Jan 13, 2009)

Lacyon said:


> That's quite a _different _opinion than the one you expressed earlier.
> 
> EDIT: That's not quite right. It's just a non-answer to my question.




Shrug

Your question implicitly presumes one system to be a hammer and the other to be the back of a screwdriver, both for the application of driving nails into wood.  That analogy is so asinine as to make a detailed answer pointless.

Please find me a construction related website where more people decided after using a hammer that the back of a screwdriver was actually preferable, abandoned their hammer and reverted to the screwdriver.  If your comparison was at any level valid then there would be some degree of equity between people reverting to 3E and people reverting to the backs of screwdrivers.

Gothmog, and by implication of your analogy, you as well, are claiming that 3E doesn't provide the right tool for the job.  But unlike the back of a screwdriver for nails, vast numbers of people find 3E to be greatly superior to 4E for story.  So, I'm forced to conclude that rather than an issue with the tool, the problem is more a matter of user error.

And if someone doesn't know how to use one tool and settles for the result an easier tool provides, then they have no basis for offering a judgment on which of the two tools offers the best overall final result when used correctly.


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## Ahglock (Jan 13, 2009)

Kespar said:


> Funny you mention that because in our gaming group we compared 3E vs 4E as Windows vs Mac, 4E is more streamlined and easier for new players(at least we think) some people hate it while others love it. And for many in my gaming group this is the closest comparison we can come up with




4e is like a Mac so 4e is streamlined, easier to use, but not compatible with most games.


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## Ahglock (Jan 13, 2009)

renevq said:


> I was going to write a very long post detailing my thoughts on 4e, but then I read this really good post which mostly reflected my own experiences. Kudos.
> 
> I'll just add a few observations:
> * I love the way classes are balanced against one another. In my experience, in 3e fighters were good until about 5th level; casters were good from about that level on, well played caster at all levels. Also, in my view, non-casters followed a linear power curve, casters an exponential one. Put these two things together and you had a titanic power difference between classes which forced DMs to use wonky solutions to make players feel useful (i.e. anti-magic zones, et al) which made encounters unfun for some players. A solution appeared in the form of Bo9S (which I absolutely loved), but that just drew cries of power creep. Thankfully this is fixed.
> .




I am not happy with how classes were balanced in 4e.  In 4e IMO classes were balanced by making them all suck equally.  While harder to do I'd of preferred they be balanced by making them all awesome equally.  

   While I think the balance issues in 3e were exaggerated a bit the balance issues were there.  Assuming a non abusive player classes were mostly balanced at most levels outside a few stand out, what were you thinking spells.  By taking out the charged item creation feats,(scrolls, wands, and staves) balance was fairly close to there, though yes spell casters were flat out better at high levels.  I think 2e was more balanced than 3e, and about as well balanced as 4e.  

Currently we are having fun playing 4e, but I am worried that as we level the sameness of powers will just end up boring us out of the game.  We like tactical minis games so combat has been fun, just not very immersive or engaging.


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## Obryn (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Shrug
> 
> Your question implicitly presumes one system to be a hammer and the other to be the back of a screwdriver, both for the application of driving nails into wood.  That analogy is so asinine as to make a detailed answer pointless.
> 
> ...



I nominate this: *Most poorly veiled edition war EVAR.*

-O


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## Herremann the Wise (Jan 13, 2009)

On the whole I'm slightly unhappy with 4E - although I and my group are enjoying our 4E game.

We have found it easy to adjust to mechanically; it uses the bulk of concepts we were already familiar with from 3.x. In terms of the play experience, our group plays how our group plays and so I don't think the 4E ruleset has specifically added to or detracted from our experience - which is unfortunate, it should be adding and an improvement. We use minis extensively (as well as the Dungeon tiles) and so that does not cause any issues. In the end, there is nothing in the ruleset that has made me go wow, whilst several "things" have been underwhelming. Still, as I said before, we are enjoying the overall play experience so far.

If there was something our group has come to the conclusion of, it is that the character class you play does not mean as much as what it feels like it should. Characters seem to be adventurers first, defenders/strikers/leaders/controllers second, and only then what ever class you happen to be playing third.

Personally, I think the demotion of the wizard while needed was designed in a way I really don't like. The 4E wizard simply does not feel very wizardly. The expansion of available rituals will help this somewhat but to me, I just don't like this very important aspect of the game. The wizard needed to be limited but not in this way.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## FireLance (Jan 13, 2009)

Ahglock said:


> I am not happy with how classes were balanced in 4e.  In 4e IMO classes were balanced by making them all suck equally.  While harder to do I'd of preferred they be balanced by making them all awesome equally.



So, what do you feel is missing? How would you add the awesome? I'm assuming by your comment that you think the PC vs PC balance is correct, but the PC vs challenge balance is somewhat off?


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## Mallus (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Gothmog, and by implication of your analogy, you as well, are claiming that 3E doesn't provide the right tool for the job.



Hint: they're claiming 3e doesn't provide the right tool for _some_ jobs ie, it's not a universally bad rule system --far from it-- but it isn't right for certain people with certain goals. People want different things out of the game, does it really come as a surprise that different people prefer different rule sets in order to achieve those things? 



> But unlike the back of a screwdriver for nails, vast numbers of people find 3E to be greatly superior to 4E for story.



Find me a single part of 3e that makes it more conducive to storytelling than any other iteration of D&D. I've run a character/story-heavy 3e campaign for years and I know _exactly_ how much support 3e has for that style of play; ie little to no direct support. 

And if you should like to read about said campaign... 1st link, .sig. It's pretty amusing. 



> And if someone doesn't know how to use one tool and settles for the result an easier tool provides, then they have no basis for offering a judgment on which of the two tools offers the best overall final result when used correctly.



And if two master artisans should disagree on tools, what then?


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## Herremann the Wise (Jan 13, 2009)

FireLance said:


> So, what do you feel is missing? How would you add the awesome? I'm assuming by your comment that you think the PC vs PC balance is correct, but the PC vs challenge balance is somewhat off?



Actually, I kind of feel the same as Ahglock on this one. All characters are adventurers in that they use the powers system. The balance is hard-wired in. However, imagine that wizards used the "arcane" system, priests used the "divine" system and fighter-style characters used the "martial" system, and spiritual characters used the "primal" system where each of these systems was different to each other, but still balanced. Your character could do things other characters couldn't rather than the majority of effects being ones that only affect hit points. I think that is what Ahglock may have been thinking of - it is certainly how I feel.

However, maybe WotC found that doing that was too difficult or impossible. Perhaps it is easier and more important to achieving what they want over the 8 year or so lifespan of 4E to have the consistent base of a universal system?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise


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## Hussar (Jan 13, 2009)

Ahglock said:


> 4e is like a Mac so 4e is streamlined, easier to use, but not compatible with most games.




Y'know, I know you meant this tongue in cheek, but, I really think you do have a pretty good point here.  4e isn't compatible with some game styles.  I wouldn't say most, but certainly some.  And that's a pretty fair assessment IMO.  Yes, if you want to do heavily sim games, 4e is not going to work terribly well.  Likewise, if exploration games where resource tracking is a major issue are your thing, 4e probably is not the go to game either.  I'm sure there are more.

I suppose it really comes to the front if you expect your game world to inform your rules.  The whole rules=physics thing that's been beaten to death, then 4e is not likely to float your boat.

So, yeah, I think the Mac comparison isn't terribly far off.  For what it does, it does amazingly well.  When you get outside of what it does though, it does poorly.  I think it's fair to say that 3e did reasonably well at everything.  If you're in a position where 3e did what you liked pretty well and 4e doesn't, then sure, you're not likely going to like 4e.  However, if your 3e game looked a lot like 4e, then you're likely going to really like 4e.


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## Ahglock (Jan 13, 2009)

FireLance said:


> So, what do you feel is missing? How would you add the awesome? I'm assuming by your comment that you think the PC vs PC balance is correct, but the PC vs challenge balance is somewhat off?




I think everything is too constrained.  Its HP damage and some small effect.  And the HP damage does not scale up very impressively.  

If you want to follow the HP damage and some effect model it should be.
Heroic tier HP damage and a small effect is fine.
Paragon tier it should be HP damage and a big effect
Epic it should be HP damage and a holy crap effect.

There are no big effects, there isn't anything close to a holy crap effect. 

Your list a moves is small, powers don't really improve on there own(small improvement for at wills) you have to retrain out to get a somewhat level appropriate one.  People were making WOW comparisons when it was coming out and in some respects they were being generous, I have more moves with any class in WOW than I do in 4e.  

Rituals, well I love the concept of rituals, it is one of the few wow cool ideas of 4e.  But then they went and made them so expensive, you are basically shooting yourself in the foot for casting any level appropriate ritual.  Now can they still see use, sure.  Low level rituals when you are a higher level are stupid cheap due to the wealth scaling in the game.  But high level rituals are almost always more expensive then they are worth.  They frequently cost 1-2% of a levels expected wealth.  That is a whole freakin giant wholloping sum of money for what works out to be one nerfed 1-3e spell. 

 Want to make skills more useful hey that is great, but if rituals become so expensive people go absurdley out of there way to avoid casting them taking up large amounts of game time on a small task, its not so great.


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## Ycore Rixle (Jan 13, 2009)

7 months out, my impressions are somewhat worse than they were when Chris and Bill made the 4e announcement at Gen Con 07. At that point, I turned to my friends and said, "I bet it will be some steps forward, some steps backward, but on the whole a slight but significant improvement."

Now, I would amend that to read, "It's some steps forward, some steps backward, and on the whole no better or worse for most people, just different." For me, personally, it's a step backwards. But I recognize that my judgment is colored by personal preferences. For example, I teach physics, and the fact that the world described by the 4e rules makes no physical sense does not sit well with me.

Another problem for me is that I just don't respect the lack of rigor in the writing. Again and again, the writers use words without regard to meaning. The Pathfinder has no powers that help him find paths. Demons aren't afraid of death but they obey balors out of fear of being killed. Oozes can be tripped. This Orwellian obfuscation of the language is maddening. It makes me wonder that they haven't changed the alignment system to Lawful Good, Good, Double Plus Super Null, Mini-good, and Giant Extra Mega Ungood. But, alas, that is only me, and many people don't care about that stuff.

Overall, I can still have fun playing 4e. It just takes a little work and a lot of teeth gritting.


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## Ahglock (Jan 13, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Y'know, I know you meant this tongue in cheek, but, I really think you do have a pretty good point here.  4e isn't compatible with some game styles.  I wouldn't say most, but certainly some.  And that's a pretty fair assessment IMO.  Yes, if you want to do heavily sim games, 4e is not going to work terribly well.  Likewise, if exploration games where resource tracking is a major issue are your thing, 4e probably is not the go to game either.  I'm sure there are more.
> 
> I suppose it really comes to the front if you expect your game world to inform your rules.  The whole rules=physics thing that's been beaten to death, then 4e is not likely to float your boat.
> 
> So, yeah, I think the Mac comparison isn't terribly far off.  For what it does, it does amazingly well.  When you get outside of what it does though, it does poorly.  I think it's fair to say that 3e did reasonably well at everything.  If you're in a position where 3e did what you liked pretty well and 4e doesn't, then sure, you're not likely going to like 4e.  However, if your 3e game looked a lot like 4e, then you're likely going to really like 4e.




Yeah I was mainly making a funny on macs, but I see your point.  4e suits us fairly well so far so its working out.


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## Gothmog (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> In factors in nicely when you consider that I don't accept that it is an apples to apples comparison.
> 
> He may be able to get what 4E offers easier than he was able to get what 3E offers, that in no way implies that the full value each offers is equivalent.  To the contrary, his own post rather implies the opposite to be true.




You might not consider it to be an apples to apples comparison, but thats your opinion, and I'll respect that.  However, you also need to respect the opinions of others, and accept that for many folks, 4e DOES have equal or greater value to 3e.  Thats the funny thing about opinions and beliefs- they're subjective, NOT objective reality.



BryonD said:


> Gothmog, and by implication of your analogy, you as well, are claiming that 3E doesn't provide the right tool for the job. But unlike the back of a screwdriver for nails, vast numbers of people find 3E to be greatly superior to 4E for story. So, I'm forced to conclude that rather than an issue with the tool, the problem is more a matter of user error.
> 
> And if someone doesn't know how to use one tool and settles for the result an easier tool provides, then they have no basis for offering a judgment on which of the two tools offers the best overall final result when used correctly.




I didn't say 3e doesn't provide the right tools for the job, I said it doesn't supply the right tools for the job I want to do.  That's a big distinction.  3e is a good rules system, and a lot of people like it because it fits their playstyle and preferences- more power to them.  4e is also a good system, and a lot of people like it because it fits their playstyle and preferences- and thats cool too.  Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses- no system is perfect or is objectively superior to the other.  I tried making 3e fit my style, and it just didn't work- and I tried for FIVE YEARS and have a very good understanding of the rules, mathematics, and underlying assumptions of the system.  This isn't "user error", its a preference for certain things- you have them, as do I.  So the BS about me (or others) not being fit to compare or criticize systems based on our system of preferece is completely bogus and highly insulting.

I find 4e unfetters my creativity and fuels my imagination that was stifled during the 3e era by rules mastery and system complexity- I can only split my attentional resources so many ways, and I'd prefer to work on plots, encounters, and interesting characters over system mastery.  3e tries to define a rule for every situation, wheras I prefer DM judgement- again, neither way is "the one true way", its just a personal preference.  Obviously, my preferences are different than yours, and thats fine- we're both right.  What I don't understand is the vitriol and condescending comments you make at 4e supporters.  Someone saying they prefer 4e over 3e isn't a personal attack on you, so I'm confused.


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## Gothmog (Jan 13, 2009)

Ycore Rixle said:


> Now, I would amend that to read, "It's some steps forward, some steps backward, and on the whole no better or worse for most people, just different." For me, personally, it's a step backwards. But I recognize that my judgment is colored by personal preferences. For example, I teach physics, and the fact that the world described by the 4e rules makes no physical sense does not sit well with me.




You know, I'm with you there to some degree.  I'm a neuroscientist by training (with a lot of MD training as well), and 4e definitely does have some gaps between its reality and real-world physics, biology, and chemistry.  For example, I understand the reasoning behind healing surges, and appreciate it makes gameplay faster (and probably more fun for many), but the yo-yo hit points and lack of long-term injury bugged me- so my group and I added houserules for slower healing and injuries.  Problem solved!

However, this isn't new to 4th edition.  D&D has never done a good job modeling real-world science, and many would argue it shouldn't.  The multiclassing system in 3rd edition is a good example of something that is completely ridiculous considering the way the human brain and psychology works- most people cannot/don't dramatically switch careers several times in their lives.  (And by dramatically, I mean someone who used to be a physics professor suddenly also becoming a navy SEAL, then becoming an MD- our brains and neuronal pathways just aren't structured that way).  Falling damage in every edition is wonky, as are the concept of hit points and their ablation leading to death.  Armor class takes into account many variables that simply cannot be lumped into one catch-all factor in reality.  Likewise, humanoid creatures the size of giants couldn't exist- they would pulverize their own bones by bipedal locomotion and be unable to sustain upright posture, not to mention the physics involved with getting something the size of a dragon flying with any sort of wing.  I guess the take-home message here is if you want to play D&D, you have to already be willing to make some leaps in logic, but its still fun.


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## nightwyrm (Jan 13, 2009)

Wow, so many science professionals here.  I study evolutionary ecology and when I read through the monster manual and see some of the monsters or the ecological fluff that the writers come up with, I often feel an urge to scream "biology doesn't work that way!"

I find it best to just leave my scientist hat at the door when I play D&D.  It makes for a much more enjoyable experience.


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## FireLance (Jan 13, 2009)

Herremann the Wise said:


> Actually, I kind of feel the same as Ahglock on this one. All characters are adventurers in that they use the powers system. The balance is hard-wired in. However, imagine that wizards used the "arcane" system, priests used the "divine" system and fighter-style characters used the "martial" system, and spiritual characters used the "primal" system where each of these systems was different to each other, but still balanced. Your character could do things other characters couldn't rather than the majority of effects being ones that only affect hit points. I think that is what Ahglock may have been thinking of - it is certainly how I feel.



Actually, I think the powers system makes for a pretty good starting baseline, which allows for some tinkering and experimentation with sub-systems while maintaining a reasonable level of balance overall. Let's say I wanted each power source to have a stronger identity. Perhaps I want the Arcane power source to be about infrequent spectacular effects. I could just give Arcane characters the ability to use an extra daily attack or utility power. Perhaps I want the Martial power source to be about constant minor benefits. I could then give Martial characters an extra feat and an extra at-will attack. If I want to have a power point system for Psionic characters, I can tack a PP subsystem on to the basic powers system, too. In all these cases, the balance problems would be less than if Arcane characters had only daily powers, Martial characters had only at-will powers, and only Psionic characters used a power point system.


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## Dragon Snack (Jan 13, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> ...I often feel an urge to scream "biology doesn't work that way!"



Don't ever read the ecology of the Beholder then.  I bet your head would explode, I laughed my tokus off when I read that section of Lords Of Madness.

I know I'll never look at a drooling Beholder the same way again...


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## nightwyrm (Jan 13, 2009)

Dragon Snack said:


> Don't ever read the ecology of the Beholder then. I bet your head would explode, I laughed my tokus off when I read that section of Lords Of Madness.
> 
> I know I'll never look at a drooling Beholder the same way again...




Too late. I had that book for years. I just try not to think about the stupid stuff too much.

I actually like the fact that the 4e MM has very little ecological fluff in it since none of the stuff they usually write makes any sense anyways and I just ignore the stuff they come up with when I DM.


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## FireLance (Jan 13, 2009)

Ahglock said:


> I think everything is too constrained.  Its HP damage and some small effect.  And the HP damage does not scale up very impressively.
> 
> If you want to follow the HP damage and some effect model it should be.
> Heroic tier HP damage and a small effect is fine.
> ...



I hear you. I can only hope that there will be coolness creep (without too much power creep) in future supplements. Perhaps powers that have additional effects on a target already affected by one or more conditions, so getting there is difficult and may require some co-ordination on the part of the PCs, but the results, if they manage to pull it off, are spectacular.


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## Phaezen (Jan 13, 2009)

FireLance said:


> I hear you. I can only hope that there will be coolness creep (without too much power creep) in future supplements. Perhaps powers that have additional effects on a target already affected by one or more conditions, so getting there is difficult and may require some co-ordination on the part of the PCs, but the results, if they manage to pull it off, are spectacular.




The primal power source seems to be a lot "cooler" than the phb1 power sources.  Looking forward to seeing the full Druid and Warden classes.

Phaezen


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## Jürgen Hubert (Jan 13, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> Wow, so many science professionals here.  I study evolutionary ecology and when I read through the monster manual and see some of the monsters or the ecological fluff that the writers come up with, I often feel an urge to scream "biology doesn't work that way!"
> 
> I find it best to just leave my scientist hat at the door when I play D&D.  It makes for a much more enjoyable experience.




Heh. While I'm a scientist, ecology is not my field (I'm a physicist) - though I do have a passing interest in the field since my father is very passionate about it. For Urbis, I generally assume that all the creatures which look as if they couldn't have possibly evolved in a terrestrial environment... didn't. They originally came from other planets in the same solar system...

Out of curiosity, which entries were the most grating to you? I'm attempting to make the descriptions of how the monsters fit into the setting at least _somewhat_ plausible (here, for example, is my explanation why wraiths haven't killed off all life in the world...).


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## Hussar (Jan 13, 2009)

Phaezen said:


> The primal power source seems to be a lot "cooler" than the phb1 power sources.  Looking forward to seeing the full Druid and Warden classes.
> 
> Phaezen




I've seen this a few times and I wonder if the dev's for 4e were too timid when they made 4e.  They knew, or at least had to have a pretty good idea, that when 4e hit it would make loads of waves.  I almost have an impression that they were constrained because they were producing the very basic structure for the rest of the game.   They couldn't go too far into "cool" because it would screw up too many things later down the line.  Later supplements seem to be building off of that baseline, allowing the dev's to branch out much further than in the initial books.

Just a thought.


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## crturley (Jan 13, 2009)

My impressions of 4e are that some of it is good and some not so good.
In our group we have on any given night from 6 to 20 players ranging from 12 years old to 46 years old. We have 4 females and the rest are males. 
The players under 18 years old find it easier to play 4e then 3e, the rest of us find that it is easier to GM in 4e that in 3e.
We like that the game is more balanced, but now some of the flavor of the different classes are lost. I feel that the cleric has lost most of their healing power and that if you want to heal be a paladin. There should be more at-wills to chose between to make one cleric different from another.
I also wonder about PC vs challenges. In our last game a halfling paladin wandered off from the group and ran in to a group of four skeleton minions he was done to 1/4 hit points and had used his second wind but had not hit any of them when one of the other players arrived and saved him. 
On the good side I have not like a version as well since 1e. I like this edition so much that I am taking my 1e modules and translation them in to 4e.
I want to see my players faces when we do S3 Expedition To The Barrier Peaks.
This should be fun.


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## Lacyon (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Shrug
> 
> Your question implicitly presumes one system to be a hammer and the other to be the back of a screwdriver, both for the application of driving nails into wood. That analogy is so asinine as to make a detailed answer pointless.




No. My original comparison (wherein I used "rock" instead of "backend of a screwdriver") was asinine. Which I recognized. So I changed it. Because it was asinine.

Clarification: One system is a screwdriver. The other is a hammer. The fact that you can turn the screwdriver around and drive nails into a plank does not make it a hammer.

Of course, the hammer also isn't a screwdriver.

Tools. Jobs. Something about using the right one for the other.


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## Imaro (Jan 13, 2009)

Well my group and I have just ended our second foray into 4e this past Sunday with a unanimous vote not to go with 4e, that said I don't think 4e is the worst game evah, but it has some problems that don't mesh well with my particular group and our play style. 

 For me at least, it seems that everything I enjoy comes with a caveat that knocks it back into the con instead of pro realm for me.  As an example I like that the stat blocks have been condensed, but do I feel like it makes the game easier to run... sure for people who think a certain way... people who are better at handling a lot of numerous but small scale details will thrive in running combats under 4e... those who are better at focusing on larger but less numerous tasks will probably have a better time running 3e... I'm of the latter part, as are my other players who run.

I mean one of them tried to run KotS (first, and probably last, time DM'ing) for us and told me later he just felt a little overwhelmed by how many things he had to keep track of and account for in running numerous monsters.  So it wasn't the fact that the stat blocks were confusing, but that he would have had an easier time running with less opponents.  The problem with 4e is that solos... and even some elites are the most boring combats in the new system (it ain't edition war, it's ATTRITION WAR!), thus there is little to no support for a DM who is better at handling information in one way as opposed to another.  Another final point about monsters is that in the new format it's hard for players to learn how best to combat a type of monster, since any experience they have is with one particular subset of that monster may or may not be applicable to the next subset... I guess for some monsters this makes sense, but for others I would rather the players learn from their encounters, I think this is a good type of system mastery.

I don't particularly care for the roles/power structure of classes... and for those who claim it's easier to design classes for I wonder... have you figured out whatever formula they used to determine the particular limits by role for such things as damage, movement powers, conditions, at-will vs. encounter vs. daily, etc.?  Because I haven't.  Also from play I don't know that classes are as balanced as they seem at first glance.  In our party the defender routinely stepped all over the rogue and ranger's most damage shtick, by outputting more consistent damage than either of them... while still doing his defender thing.  And, IMO, Wizards almost seem to suffer from the "rogue vs. undead" in 3e problem when faced with anything but minions, yeah they can help a little bit but really aren't equal to the other classes vs. everything else.  Finally  Warlords are the "depend on everyone else for my fun and effectiveness" class, even moreso than clerics in this edition... I just think any class that depends on others to be viable is bad game design, yeah it works in a really good gaming group, but not in one that isn't tactically coordinated.

This leads me to one of my biggest problems with 4e... the cranked up tactical combat feels like playing a separate wargame or a computer tactics game in the middle of our role-playing game and it breaks our immersion blatantly in the way it accomplishes this. I and my players feel immersion in our characters and their actions (whether simulationist or narrativist we don't care as long as it is stated) should have never been sacrificed for what basically amounts to a mini-game of chess every time a fight breaks out.  We didn't get into D&D because we wanted to play wargames, we got into it because of the aspects that dealt with imagination and feel that part is being slowly subsumed under sound tactics, best movement positioning and optimal teamwork bonuses... I mean did Elric, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fight with the best tactics... no they did what was cool, fun and exciting to tell a story with and 4e (moreso than previous editions) seems to be sacrificing this.    

There are more reasons, (the restrictiveness of character options, the value IMO that is not delivered in cost vs. material for the books, the wonky skill challenge rules having clarification articles only available to DDI subscribers, etc.) ...though  but I feel this post has gone on long enough. In the end we have decided to stop D&D for awhile and play something else.  Not sure what we'll be playing but when we do come back to D&D it will probably be 3.5.


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## Umbran (Jan 13, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Shrug
> 
> Your question implicitly presumes one system to be a hammer and the other to be the back of a screwdriver, both for the application of driving nails into wood.  That analogy is so asinine as to make a detailed answer pointless.





Those who wish this to start engaging the egos of others, such that this devolved into argument and warring, please continue using terms like "asinine" to describe other people's positions.  The moderating staff will be more than happy to oblige with actions suitable to the tone of the rhetoric seen in the thread.

Those of you who want to avoid that road, I suggest you treat the opinions of others with respect.  You don't have to agree, but you can darn well avoid being insulting as you discuss.


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## nightwyrm (Jan 13, 2009)

Jürgen Hubert said:


> Heh. While I'm a scientist, ecology is not my field (I'm a physicist) - though I do have a passing interest in the field since my father is very passionate about it. For Urbis, I generally assume that all the creatures which look as if they couldn't have possibly evolved in a terrestrial environment... didn't. They originally came from other planets in the same solar system...
> 
> Out of curiosity, which entries were the most grating to you? I'm attempting to make the descriptions of how the monsters fit into the setting at least _somewhat_ plausible (here, for example, is my explanation why wraiths haven't killed off all life in the world...).




Well, just off the top of my head, there's the mish-mash creatures (ie. chimera, pegesus, griffin etc.). Horses doesn't just start flying if you stick a pair of wings on them. Related to that are things that are just too big to fly. Giant creatures that look like scaled versions of earth creatures, the most offensive of which are giant insectoids. All in all, the most offensive creature biologically is probably the iconic dragon who violates a ton of biological principles.

On a more ecological note, there are way too many predators in the MM which creates a tendency for DMs to populate their world with too many predators. Real world predators tends to need about 10 times their number in prey items in order to survive. And you can't have just one individual, the minimum number of individuals in a sustainable, diverse population requires at least 50-200 individuals. Which of course requires a prey population at least ten times that, and so on. 

I don't blame the game for not getting it right. Even professional biologists are still in the process of trying to understand some basic ecological principles in the real world. Trying to make stuff up out of whole cloth is probably too difficult for anyone. But I do get annoyed at times when people arguing too much about minor stuff like how unrealistic falling damage is when you can get eaten by creatures that can't possibly exist. Impossible biology gets handwaved by "magic" while people argue about the simulationism of hitting someone with a sword ad nauseum. This is why I leave my biologist hat at the door and my philosophy towards RPG in general has a rather large gamist bent. Nothing in an imaginary D&D world makes sense if you think about it long enough, I just want to play a game and have fun.


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## Fifth Element (Jan 13, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> Nothing in an imaginary D&D world makes sense if you think about it long enough, I just want to play a game and have fun.



Beautifully put. Succinct. XP for you.


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## helium3 (Jan 13, 2009)

Things I've noticed in the eight months I've been running a 4E game:

(1) Below level encounters are very grindy unless the party's average d20 roll is above ten. At level encounters are very grindy if the party's average d20 roll is below ten. Below level encounters are rarely grindy.

Because the "grindyness" of an encounter depends on the average d20 roll over the encounter, it makes design more difficult. I never know if an encounter is going to suck or not.

The biggest problem with the grind is that it seriously cuts down on how many encounters you have in a game session, which cuts into both narrative development AND level progression. I've started giving MUCH more XP for skill challenges and quests to compensate.

(2) I may not know how long an encounter is going to take to complete, but I usually have a good sense of how it's tactically going to play out. This allows me to safely manipulate the direction of the adventure if necessary without needing to break in and use DM fiat.

(3) Skill challenges need a lot of work, but they're worth the time. The two biggest issues are figuring out how to do the math correctly and how to actually do the challenge at the table in a way that makes it clear it's a challenge without completely turning into some silly game-show within D&D thing.

(4) Running the game is a BLAST. I never had this much fun in 3E.

(5) Designing monsters is very easy and a lot of fun. That being said, I don't think the table of acceptable damage values in the DM's Toolkit chapter is right. When I create monsters with that table, they always end up doing far too much damage, even compared to similar monsters from the MM.

(6) The game runs better if you don't plan too much before the game. I don't know if this is just a personal thing or the system, but games seem way more exciting for everyone involved.

(7) I don't need to fudge dice rolls.

(8) The lack of rules in the DMG for designing traps and rituals is seriously sucky. I hope they fix this in future DMG's.


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## LostSoul (Jan 13, 2009)

helium3 said:


> (8) The lack of rules in the DMG for designing traps and rituals is seriously sucky. I hope they fix this in future DMG's.




One of the free dragon issues (pre-DDI) had some rules for traps.  Basically, they use the same stats as monsters of their level (attack, damage).  Single-shot traps use limited damage expressions; ongoing ones use normal damage expressions.


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## helium3 (Jan 13, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> One of the free dragon issues (pre-DDI) had some rules for traps.  Basically, they use the same stats as monsters of their level (attack, damage).  Single-shot traps use limited damage expressions; ongoing ones use normal damage expressions.




Yeah, you can pretty much piece together the attack mods by looking at the ones provided. I'm having the same problem with the damage traps should do as I'm having with monsters. The damage expression table doesn't really seem to match up that well with the actual damage that monsters do in the monster manual. There seems to be a fiddly bit of something or other that informs the designer that the damage given by the expression table is too much for certain powers, but that fiddly bit isn't included in the DMG. Hardly surprising, that.


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## Ycore Rixle (Jan 13, 2009)

Gothmog said:


> However, this isn't new to 4th edition.  D&D has never done a good job modeling real-world science, and many would argue it shouldn't.




Yeah, I agree. It has often done a poor job of being self-consistent, too. That was one of the reasons I liked Eberron. At least it tried to be a world that was somewhat consistent with the rules. It's just that, for me, the particular transgressions against self-consistency and reality became so egregious that, overall, they irk me a lot more than 1e and 3e's similar transgressions. A lot, lot, really lot more. But I recognize that they just hit some of my particular hang-ups, and not everyone feels the same way. Even at that, I can still have fun with the game.




Gothmog said:


> I guess the take-home message here is if you want to play D&D, you have to already be willing to make some leaps in logic, but its still fun.




True, although there is a difference between physics and logic, and I think that physics + magic can account for a lot, thus leaving room for logic to remain relatively uncompromised in some fantasy systems. I guess the bottom line for me is that, 7 months out, I think it's a matter of degree. The degree to which 4e sacrificed logic, rigor, and consistency in an attempt to promote gameplay turned out to harm the gameplay, not help it, in my case. But for others, it didn't go too far this way, and for still others, I'm sure it didn't go far enough.


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## Pbartender (Jan 13, 2009)

helium3 said:


> (3) Skill challenges need a lot of work, but they're worth the time. The two biggest issues are figuring out how to do the math correctly and how to actually do the challenge at the table in a way that makes it clear it's a challenge without completely turning into some silly game-show within D&D thing.




Something that I've found very useful for skill challenges is to make them "opposed" skill challenges whenever possible.  That is to say, instead of a set DC for the PCs to beat with their skills, I'll aim to have an "opponent" rolling opposing skill challenge checks in the same manner.

For example, recently a pack of gnoll hunters and their trained hyenas were chasing my PCs out of their territory.  Can the PCs manage to escape?  We ran it as a skill challenge, with the PCs making Stealth, Endurance and Nature checks to evade the hunters, and the gnolls and hyenas making Perception and Nature and Intimidate (with their hyena howling and cackling in the distance) checks to oppose.

The players would describe what their next tactic to evade capture would be and then roll their skill check.  Then, I'd do a "cut scene" to the hunters, describing how they were trying to catch the PCs, with the details based their relative success or failure on the opposed roll.


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## Montague68 (Jan 13, 2009)

My thoughts after 6-7 months of gaming:

Combat RAW could use some more randomness. I use old 3rd edition Paizo critical miss cards to add some spice to encounters and it works well (with some alterations - no more 1d6 Wis bleeds). 

New content please. My players are running out of feats and I'd like some new monsters. Designing my own has been rather hit or miss.

Running the game is sooo much more fun. D&D minis and tiles make it DMing bliss IMO.

The magic item system seems too "ladderish" for lack of a better term. It seems players are strictly meant to go from "+1 to +2 to +3..." whereas in previous editions I could hand out the odd +4 weapon at 5th level and not feel like I'm breaking the game. In 4th I'm much more skittish about handing out the odd artifact or higher level item too early, and the loot seems to have gotten a tad boring for the players as a result.


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## malraux (Jan 13, 2009)

Gearjammer said:


> The magic item system seems too "ladderish" for lack of a better term. It seems players are strictly meant to go from "+1 to +2 to +3..." whereas in previous editions I could hand out the odd +4 weapon at 5th level and not feel like I'm breaking the game. In 4th I'm much more skittish about handing out the odd artifact or higher level item too early, and the loot seems to have gotten a tad boring for the players as a result.




But artifacts are now available at low levels.  Not many, granted, but a fair bit more than before.


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## Shazman (Jan 13, 2009)

Sammael said:


> You do realize that Vista is actually so poor that Microsoft advised partners not to advertise it anymore (I was present at one such meeting) and, in an unprecedented move, bundled Vista FPP with XP downgrade rights?
> 
> Vista is crap. If people who work for Microsoft say it's crap, and Microsoft's partners say it's crap, then there is really no argument otherwise. One of the reasons Win 7 is being promoted so aggressively is to make people forget about the Vista fiasco. And no wonder, since 7 is faster, more stable, and less annoying than Vista - and it's a freaking _beta_.





I think you got my point.  The only diference is that microsoft actually admits the failures of it's product.


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## Eric Tolle (Jan 14, 2009)

nightwyrm said:


> Well, just off the top of my head, there's the mish-mash creatures (ie. chimera, pegesus, griffin etc.). Horses doesn't just start flying if you stick a pair of wings on them. Related to that are things that are just too big to fly. Giant creatures that look like scaled versions of earth creatures, the most offensive of which are giant insectoids. All in all, the most offensive creature biologically is probably the iconic dragon who violates a ton of biological principles.



It's a bit of an annoyance to have to rely on "its magic" to explain critters- unfortunately in D&D that's pretty much required for most monsters.

In the "hard fantasy" world I'm currently working on, I obey physics as much as possible, and even then I'm having to play fast and loose with the cube-square law in a few cases.

On the plus side, the sheer size of some of the pteroodons we've been finding recently makes it look like an intelligent flier is doable.  Though not like a classic "wings attached to shoulder blades" winged humanoid.



> On a more ecological note, there are way too many predators in the MM which creates a tendency for DMs to populate their world with too many predators. Real world predators tends to need about 10 times their number in prey items in order to survive. And you can't have just one individual, the minimum number of individuals in a sustainable, diverse population requires at least 50-200 individuals. Which of course requires a prey population at least ten times that, and so on.




I like the old days where we just assumed that the other monsters ate kobolds, who grazed on green slime, which thrived on odd underground "ultraviolet" radiation.


Note that for some critters, the ecological calculations may be totally screwed up, because for a start, the creaturesaresingular creations, not a reproductively viable group.  For a second, with some creatures the sheer magical nature of the beast may well reduce their dietary needs.  Dragons for instance, probably subsist mostly on magic.  thhey likely put theri caves on ley lines, and treasure piles obviously act as a reflector, so they soak in more magic.

I have no idea how Drow manage to survive though.  They probably ranch kobolds.


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## MerricB (Jan 14, 2009)

Hussar said:


> I've seen this a few times and I wonder if the dev's for 4e were too timid when they made 4e.  They knew, or at least had to have a pretty good idea, that when 4e hit it would make loads of waves.  I almost have an impression that they were constrained because they were producing the very basic structure for the rest of the game.   They couldn't go too far into "cool" because it would screw up too many things later down the line.  Later supplements seem to be building off of that baseline, allowing the dev's to branch out much further than in the initial books.
> 
> Just a thought.




You might want to visit this link, Hussar: mearls: Player's Handbook 2

Me, I'm happy with what I have so far, and I'm looking forward to the 2009 products - they look fun. 

Cheers!


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## Ahglock (Jan 14, 2009)

FireLance said:


> I hear you. I can only hope that there will be coolness creep (without too much power creep) in future supplements. Perhaps powers that have additional effects on a target already affected by one or more conditions, so getting there is difficult and may require some co-ordination on the part of the PCs, but the results, if they manage to pull it off, are spectacular.




I would not mind power creep if it had patches for older material so it creeped up along with it.    

  Basic example for me is skills.  While I never played epic games in 3e, I liked the idea of skills going so far that you could run on water or on a cloud with a high enough balance check.  Let people in the paragon tiers run across water by just being super high level skill users, and let them run on clouds at epic tiers.  This should be built into the skills themselves, I should not need X class with Y power in future supplement Z.


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## kibbitz (Jan 14, 2009)

Eric Tolle said:


> It's a bit of an annoyance to have to rely on "its magic" to explain critters- unfortunately in D&D that's pretty much required for most monsters.
> 
> ---snip---
> 
> I have no idea how Drow manage to survive though.  They probably ranch kobolds.




Not sure if this is acceptable to you, but in 2E era novels, they grow fungus and farm rothe, I believe.


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## Drkfathr1 (Jan 14, 2009)

kibbitz said:


> Not sure if this is acceptable to you, but in 2E era novels, they grow fungus and farm rothe, I believe.




Cannibalism is always a nice dietary supplement too.


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## Stormtower (Jan 14, 2009)

Ahglock said:


> I would not mind power creep if it had patches for older material so it creeped up along with it.




I'm seeing the power creep already after 6-7 months of 4E, but I think there's opportunity to refine and polish the game's mechanics.  I think Ahglock's statement, if properly followed up on by the 4E development team, could really highlight the benefits of integrating technology (DDI) into the game.  Take, for example, Mearls' recent admission that the PHB1 Wizard at-wills were designed too weakly in comparison to the upcoming Invoker at-wills.  WotC could "re-publish" the Wizard at-wills in Arcane Power or as an appendix/printed errata in PHB2, and then update the Compendium with the new (balanced-per-Invoker) at-wills and voila, the Wizard is "fixed" and its power creep merely keeps up with the new Joneses of the PHB2.

I am not offended or taken aback by the relatively small rise in power as the new supplements have been released, with rare exception (Battlerager temp HP gain seems slightly out of whack).  But I definitely agree with the "coolness creep" and power creep, such as it is in 4E's inherently more balanced system, being equally applied to old classes and new alike.


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## Alan Shutko (Jan 14, 2009)

Stormtower said:


> I'm seeing the power creep already after 6-7 months of 4E, but I think there's opportunity to refine and polish the game's mechanics.




Our DM has already declared all new books off limits, and will be limiting new use of things in the Adventurer's Vault.  If WotC improves things in later books, we won't see the benefits.

FWIW, the 4e game is going, but we're giving up on the parts that are causing us problems.  Nobody is running a wizard, ritual casting is a no-show because of the cost (we're only 4th level, and we can't even seem to get ritual ingredients for list price), and we've abandoned published adventures.  We've also begun discussions on whether we want to punt 4e completely and run something else entirely.


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## D'karr (Jan 14, 2009)

Alan Shutko said:


> we're only 4th level, and we can't even seem to get ritual ingredients for list price




This seems more like a problem with the DM than with 4e.

If a DM makes it next to impossible to use the things that the players have available to them (rituals) then what incentive is there to play with those options?


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## Pbartender (Jan 14, 2009)

Alan Shutko said:


> Nobody is running a wizard, ritual casting is a no-show because of the cost (we're only 4th level, and we can't even seem to get ritual ingredients for list price)...






D'karr said:


> This seems more like a problem with the DM than with 4e.




I agree.  Low level rituals are not all that expensive and anybody who takes the Ritual Caster feat (even non-spellcasters) can use them.  As a DM, while my players don't often have access to places where they can purchase ritual components, they will sometimes find valuable ritual components as loot from enemies or be able to "harvest" such components from magical monsters they kill.


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## Alan Shutko (Jan 14, 2009)

Pbartender said:


> As a DM, while my players don't often have access to places where they can purchase ritual components, they will sometimes find valuable ritual components as loot from enemies or be able to "harvest" such components from magical monsters they kill.




Hmmm... right now, we've only once found ritual components as loot, and the only places to buy components have been at a 50% markup (blame an interpretation of Points of Light, in that nothing is ever the cost as listed) and limited in quantity to about one ritual.

Could be that much of my dissatisfaction with 4e is a DM problem, but that's hard to say.


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## Shazman (Jan 14, 2009)

Shazman said:


> I think you got my point.  The only diference is that microsoft actually admits the failures of it's product.




I guess that makes Pathfinder Win 7.


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## Obryn (Jan 14, 2009)

Alan Shutko said:


> Could be that much of my dissatisfaction with 4e is a DM problem, but that's hard to say.



I know your gaming style well enough to know that 4e will never be your favorite RPG of all time, regardless of who DMs it. 

Objectively, though, I've heard things from both you and others in the game that make me scratch my head and wonder if your DM is a contributory factor.  He likes to beat you guys over the head with a nerf stick, and discourage you from doing cool stuff, from what I can tell.

Also, IMHO, there are only a very small number of possibly-broken things in the supplements so far...  There's a ton of option creep (which leads to slight power creep by letting you fine-tune your character better) but not a ton of power creep, IMHO.  I can only name 3-4 out of thousands of items in AV that I'd have an issue with, for example.  As a DM, it's easy to look at new stuff and assume it will be broken... but really, my own tendency is to allow it until I can see that it's broken.

-O


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 14, 2009)

Shazman said:
			
		

> I guess that makes Pathfinder Win 7.



Pathfinder = Windows XP Service Pack 3.
Something you might want for your older system if you see no need to make a big switch.



Obryn said:


> > Hmmm... right now, we've only once found ritual components as loot, and the only places to buy components have been at a 50% markup (blame an interpretation of Points of Light, in that nothing is ever the cost as listed) and limited in quantity to about one ritual.
> >
> > Could be that much of my dissatisfaction with 4e is a DM problem, but that's hard to say.
> 
> ...




Well, the DM is always right. Except when you're not playing. 

In our group every player is also DM, and he will get some critique afterward if we found something bad or at least strange. (And yes, we would audit monsters! Though usually it were monsters from modules, nothing homebrewed, so it's not "personal")

Maybe with that in mind:
- The DMG contains advice on how much treasure to give out. It's a guideline, not necessarily a "rule". But: The treasure handed out would not make sense if the market price of items would be all over the place (and typically higher then described in the books.) The Points of Light concept was established when the rules for item prices and the treasure parcels where created. 
- Ritual Components are "generic" by skill for the ritual - you don't necessarily need a specific component for a ritual (except those components and focuses explicitly mentioned in the ritual description.)
- The DMG contains the advice to say _Yes_ (within reason.)
- A DM is free to ignore anything or everything in the DMG. But that doesn't have to mean it will make the game more fun, balanced, interesting or anything other positive. It also is no guarantee that it would be that. 
- I personally do not think that much of the supplemental rules are overpowered or broken. Except the Battlerager, that one can be easily broken. with the right feats and race (Dwarf).
- A game can be bad or unsuitable regardless of the DM. 
- A game could become good if it just had the right DM, or the DM just figures out how to run it.


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## Retreater (Jan 15, 2009)

I'm amazed that today - 7 months down the road - that I have not spent more money on D&D. I purchased the core rules gift set and Keep on the Shadowfell, and then my group discovered that 4e would not work for us.

So I have saved $250+ by not purchasing books like Adventurer's Vault, Martial Power, and the adventure modules. If I had liked 4e, I probably would have purchased every release (aside from the Forgotten Realms guides). Since I did not, I have not dropped a dollar on 4e products since.

I dropped massive amounts of cash on 3.5, purchasing splatbooks and mega modules from WotC (not to mention 3pp). So it's a vast difference for me to be not spending as much money on gaming. Also I'm not visiting forums as much since a lot of the posts focus on a game I do not play, so I have more free time now. 

In a way, it's liberating to remove myself from the standards of people on the Internet and instead focusing my energies on running the game that my players and I enjoy.  

So today - 7 months down the road - I find myself with more money, more time, and more freedom to enjoy the game in my small circle. 

Retreater


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