I would have preferred a Time of Troubles type event instead of the spellfire (is that right?) one they went with.Spellplague. Spellfire was the raw magic ability only a few souls had at a time: Forget spells and all that messing with the weave, you just use raw magic Ignore all defenses and blast away. Spell Resistence helps you not a bit against it.
The few spellfire wielders that existed were pitiable - they were ten times as powerful as your average spellcaster (or so), but that doesn't help against the hundred or so who were chasing them any given time: Get that guy/girl and then dissect them to find out how they do it. Or otherwise get them to do your bidding. Perfect weapon and all since nothing really helps.
There's a weakened vesion (silverfire) that Mystra used to grant her Chosen.
In my game, I've just merged the 2 types together. It never really made sense to me that Silverfire and spellfire were different things.
I would have preferred a Time of Troubles type event instead of the spellfire (is that right?) one they went with.Spellplague. Spellfire was the raw magic ability only a few souls had at a time: Forget spells and all that messing with the weave, you just use raw magic Ignore all defenses and blast away. Spell Resistence helps you not a bit against it.
The few spellfire wielders that existed were pitiable - they were ten times as powerful as your average spellcaster (or so), but that doesn't help against the hundred or so who were chasing them any given time: Get that guy/girl and then dissect them to find out how they do it. Or otherwise get them to do your bidding. Perfect weapon and all since nothing really helps.
There's a weakened vesion (silverfire) that Mystra used to grant her Chosen.
Thanks. The different Spellwhatsits always confused me. After the whole Sembia debacle back in the day, I just ran adventures in the Realms over in Thesk and ignored most of the rest of the place. :)
Like Grimcleaver, I'm avoiding reading the previous lists until I write my own.
Things I dislike about the new edition:
1. The buffet table of repurposed deities. Golarion's new pantheon demonstrates a lot more creativity. So does Eberron's, for that matter.
2. The loss of Dungeon by Paizo. As a DM, I've been running Paizo's adventure paths for the last three years. The online Dungeon is a pale shadow.
3. The delve format. 4e doesn't require the delve format, but its use in all the recent online Dungeon adventures suggests that WotC are likely to stick with it.
4. Gaming fatigue. My weekly campaign fizzled and died in December. Starting another campaign before June seems counterproductive, as it will be hard to convert characters.
5. Messageboard madness. Most RPG messageboards have degenerated since the announcement. I miss the time when posters were helping each other with ideas rather than tearing each other down.
6. Gleemax. I really enjoyed the designer and developer staff blogs shortly after the announcement. Then they moved to the horror that is Gleemax. Now I rely on ENWorld for news.
7. Paying for digital miniatures. I'm willing to pay for the monthly DI subscription for the rules database and previews. Charging extra for 3D virtual minis feels cheap and mean.
8. Having to wait for the bard, druid, monk, barbarian, psychic warrior, artificer, kalashtar, etc. I know WotC had to draw the line somewhere, but bards better rock when they do come out.
9. Powers that still have unusual uses per day or durations. Why is Lay on Hands 3 times per day rather than 1 per encounter? Why is the duration of mirror image still hours instead of until the end of the encounter? So many things are moving towards elegant simplicity, but there are still nails sticking out here and there.
10. The Wizards Presents books. Charging $20 for 100-page advertisements did not seem right, particularly when chunks of it were copied from the staff blogs or available for free online. I liked the content of Worlds & Monsters, but not enough to buy.
I'll have to do the positives tomorrow. This was fun!
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Since I said my piece on the Yang thread...
1. Level restrictions on rings. There is no roleplaying reason for why Galadriel can use a ring and Frodo can't. If rings are too powerful and should be restricted to higher level play, make a few weaker rings imo. I sincerely hope there are not more level-dependent rules that have no discernable reason for being from the PC's point of view.
2. Forgotten Realms, and the seemingly arbitrary restructuring. Yes, that swampy area of Chult is now mountains. No, Waterdeep is pretty much untouched. Most main characters are dead, ostensibly to make room for PCs as the stars of the setting. Except for the characters that sell the most books, Elminster and Drizzt.
3. Too much magic: This started as several points I decided to roll into one. Core fighters should not have to depend on magical ability. The base classes in 4E require a high-magic setting, making the system itself incompatible with many more worlds than before.
4. Eladrins are the elfier elf. Tieflings and Dragonborn are more commonplace. These 'pet project' races, as I call them, do not belong in a generic setting. Their very presence requires a particular setting, which makes third party contributors cringe.
5. Movement based on squares. I can imagine 30' while roleplaying. I cannot imagine 6 squares of movement and remain in character. This seems like the need for fans to buy playmats won over good game design, or the game's new target audience is significantly poorer at math. There is a lot of gray area when 'simplifying' the rules, but I think this went too far. (Mental note: If I want to reach a point 45ft away, I need to turn the playmat so it's only 6 squares of movement. Or maybe my character can run faster if he's headed northeast instead of east.)
6. Bad, bad marketing. Instead of selling 4E, most of the reviews compare it to 3.5. Then they deride 3.5 AND its players. This reflects poorly on the previous designers as well, and many of them are building 4E.
7. The rules for magic do not support roleplaying. I'm not talking about combat rules, because that's what most of the rules should be and are designed for. I'm talking about the wizard PC who wants to cast Guards and Wards, the long-lasting walls of ice or fire, or any spell with a duration longer than an 'encounter'. Innovative uses of magic, it seems, will be more difficult in 4E and require multiple castings.
8. Poor names. Healing surge should be called a second wind. Astral diamonds as currency for epic characters is unnecessary, and again it turns a generic setting into a specific one. High level characters should have piles of gold, property, and titles. Godplate; I can only envision this armor with an oversized and very shiny codpiece, which makes me shake my head with incredulity.
I know these points were made by other posters in one form or another, but these are the important things to me. I hope enough voices get these topics some notice.
In no particular order:
1. The horrendous marketing.
2. Wizards with never-ending magic missiles that now require a hit roll. How is this any different from a wizard having to pick up a crossbow?
3. No gnomes, bards, and druids in the first PHB.
4. Healing surges and being fully healed after six hours. No matter how you justify it, I just don't like the fact that everyone is capable of self-healing.
5. Squares with diagonals the same lengths as their sides. Imagine a 20 ft by 20 ft room. Now say there's a magical circle inscribed on the floor inside the room. The circle has a radius of ten feet, centred at the centre of the room. The four corners of the room should now be the only places not in the circle. However, with this rule, the distance to the corner from the centre is exactly the same distance as to the edge of the circle. Sure, you can fudge the rule in a case like this, but why not just have a rule that makes sense to begin with?
6. PCs and monsters following different rules. One of the best parts of 3rd edition was how it unified monster and pc rules. I understand the desire to make monster creation faster and simpler, but this could be done with a simplified version of the same rules and doesn't need completely different ones.
7. Dragonborn and tieflings.
8. PCs are heroes right from first level. I like developing characters up to that point and then beyond, but 4E leaves no option for that.
9. Even though I've never been a fan of Forgotten Realms and I've never used the setting for my own games, I'm still aghast at the changes they're making.
10. I hate to say it, but the videogamey feel I get from everything I've heard so far.
Just bumping this back into the eyes.
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These are more concerns than dislikes; with a dash of melancholy for the loss of the Flanaess...
1. No more Forgotten Realms Regional Sourcebooks--I was really looking forward to a treatment of the Icewind Dale region, Impilitur, and surrounds.
2. Based on what I've read so far, I've got a bad feeling the 'tone' is going to be pretty far from the D&D I grew up with...
3. The loss of Vancian Magic--the new model may be better, overall, but I've grown up with the Vancian concept; anything else seems like a whole other game.
4. Greyhawk is gone. To people like us (D&D gamers), Greyhawk is D&D.
5. Loss of the print magazines--my opinion, but 4e is the reason the print magazines were digitized; I'll read and use a PDF, but I can't easily take it to the bathroom (crude, I know), or the grocery store parking lot.
My second half focuses more on ancillary effects and broad observations.
6. Divisive interim results (small population, or big, I'm not really sure) of the entire operation--amongst the population of serious gamers, the exclusive nature of the new system, coupled with the chosen 4e marketing process, has set the community against itself.
7. Upcoming predicted difficulty in finding people interested in gaming 'old school'--my immense collection of 3.5 material is to be so much firewood.
8. Reworking of iconic elements (monsters and elves, as a broad example) in a way extremely departed from the traditional game I grew up with.
9. At the end of the day, I'm really not too keen on the integration of the game with the online community (DI).
10. As I understand it, even more combat-focused; less traditional roleplaying involvement
1. Cost of buying new books.
2. Gnomes no longer core.
3. 1/2 orcs no longer core.
4. Bard no longer core.
5. Monk no longer core.
6. Barbarian no longer core.
7. Druid no longer core.
8. Sorceror no longer core.
9. Forgotten Realms - not liking the Spellplague at all.
10. Not really into "Epic" game play.
11. Not liking the sound of level-based magic items.
These are more concerns than dislikes; with a dash of melancholy for the loss of the Flanaess...
1. No more Forgotten Realms Regional Sourcebooks--I was really looking forward to a treatment of the Icewind Dale region, Impilitur, and surrounds. (...)
Forgotten Realms hasn't honestly had a new sourcebook since 2nd edition. All of the FR hardbacks for 3.5 were re-tooled material from earlier sources that were "updated" to include new prestige classes, new stat blocks, etc.
They pulled from the old Volo guides, from older sourcebooks, old 2E modules, and bits and pieces that Greenwood wrote ages ago. Adding in a smattering of info from recent FR novels, they could then put together a new hardback and sell essentially the same material.
Also, if you look closely, the "author" credits on all the 3.5 hardbacks say "designer" or "design team". Then they have a long list of original material authors inside the cover.
Honestly, I liked seeing updated material and the hardbacks were nicely done, but it always seemed a little dishonest to me that they did this.
Bump, because I am curious if people have anything to add now that Pathfinder has taken the edge off the debate.
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Bump, because I am curious if people have anything to add now that Pathfinder has taken the edge off the debate.
Start with the 10:
1. -bloodied score is dead now2. Losing your 9 alignments
3. Monsters are inferior to PC's...wonder is NPC villians are treated the same?
4. In ones mind, many will imagine a particular MMORPG when battles occur. "I place hunters quarry...I know all will imagine that annoying red arrow bouncing up and down
5. Verbage will go from mid-evil terms to MMO terms, "I'll tank, Paladin you pull aggro, Cleric you buff, and wizard you do ranged DPS. (gag)
6. Teleporting pc's at will
7. 3 failed rolls and your dead even if at -1 hp
8. after the magical day goes by, ever one resets?
9. The fact that so many argue over it and it is even not out yet
10. The two sides...rule lawyers vs gamers. I choose gamers side because I am one.
I actually like pathfinder rpg as well. I will prbably treat them like two separate games. If I have to choose one because I can only run a gme once a week and not twice, then I choose 4th edition. Ill still keep the books, and who knows? If 4th edition sucks, then Ill put the stuff away among the other rpg games that sucked...Call of Cthulu (old edition) Champions...etc. Something tells me though what I have seen so far (roughly 10% of the book) it looks good, smells good, and is worth the $60 to try it out.
1.The fact that Yugoloths, who created Obyriths and ancient Baatorians, are now Tanar'ri. This is going to mess a whole lot of things up.
2.They murdered the great wheel, They absolutely murdered it, and they tried to make it up by making the far realm part of the cosmology, the far realm was never difficult to add. And adding one plane does not freaking make up for the destruction of dozens!!!!!
3.They lumped all the elemental planes into one big blob, not cool.
4. Now the nine hells and the seven heavens are the only outer planes so far? So now what happens to order and chaos?
5.The destruction of the alignment system. damnit
6.No more Forgotten realms or greyhawk.
7.No gnomes?? who do they think they are?
8.Devils, Formians, Archons, *eladrins no longer exist*, and Angels, and Slaadi are probably going to be sidelined in favor of demons all over again.
9. Mind flayers are no longer from the future *That was actually somewhat original!!!!!*
10. Aboleths no longer the first creatures to exist *bad move WOTC, bad move*
11. No permanent paralysis for lich's.
12. Lich's have a freaking damage aura!!! A negative energy one!!! How the nine hells am I supposed to put living minions with my Lich characters!?!?!!?
13. The ruination of true dragons
14. Destruction of Dungeons magazine and Dragons magazine.
15. WHERE THE HECK IS KYUSS!!!
16. Drow are probably going to be said to be the most evil creatures of the underdark and blah blah blah.
17. Gods are nerfed, again.
18.Said nerfing of gods means asmodeus' promotion to god hood doesn't mean squat.
19. Ethereal plane seems to have been removed.
20. Dragons are probably going to be nothing more than animals, rather than the all powerful PC shredders they once were.
Yes I exceeded the limit. I have that many complaints.
Oh and, I WANT THE CR SYSTEM AND OLD MEASUREMENT SYSTEM BACK YOU JERKS!!!!!
1) I won't be spending any more money on Paizo.
2) I'll be running low on money because of how much I'll be spending it on WoTC
3) Since 4th edition rekindled my desire to play, I'll have less free time.
4) Still 30-some odd days to wait until it's release!
5) ...
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10)...
Ten things that I dislike about Fourth Edition D&D:
1) I'm the freak who liked critical hit confirmation rolls. I don't expect to be able to continue to use my Critical Hit Deck with the new system.
2) Having to wait a year or so to get Barbarian, Druid, Monk. (sorry you didn't make my list, Bard!)
3) From a story perspective, I'm not crazy, about daily martial abilities.
4) From a gameplay perspective, I'm not fond of daily abilities, period.
5) In time, I am sure I will learn to stop worrying and love the short diagonal.
6) While I think Wayne Reynolds does fantastic work, the 4th Edition PHB cover has struck me as pretty mediocre in both its previewed incarnations.
7) The rumored "Doppelgangers and Changelings are merged into a single race" change would create some difficulties in my Eberron game, where doppelgangers create something of a PR problem for changelings.
8) Schroedinger's hit points. It's going to take some re-learning to describe injuries in a way that martial / morale-based healing powers won't seem completely unlikely.
9) Some elements of DDI are Windows-only, which means I won't be subscribing.
10) Fourth Edition makes mommy and daddy fight all the time.
Actually, I'm going to give a bonus entry, which is not directly about 4th Edition itself:
10.5) Schroedinger's GSL. If it does indeed have a per-company poison pill against OGL based publications, I shall be quite put out. [/Humperdinck] I'm disappointed that I'll have to translate any further Pathfinder I run to 4th Edition myself; if the GSL comes out in a form that prevents Paizo from creating any 4e adventures while they publish Pathfinder RPG products, or prevents Sinister Adventures from publishing material for fourth edition, then 4e may find it has a limited lifespan with me. I really want to see this license come out of limbo.
01: No rings at 1st to 10th levels. Why can't they keep the low powered, defensive, and passive functioning rings?
02: No Orbitals till Epic. First, they are all are too lame to be epic. Second, making a powerless stone that orbits 1st level character's heads and makes NPCs think the person is Epic is a major rules vunerability.
03: New cosmos is presented as core. Ebberon and Arcanus have their own cosmos and Forgotten Realms has many adventures that hinge on the Great Wheel.
04: Gnomes as monsters are presented as core. This will not work for Ebberon or Dragonlance. They have their own races of Gnomes deeply rooted in the campaign.
05: Bloodied. They try to sell their game on the basis of simplicity and then they add worthless complications like this.
06: Getting rid of combined alignments. How can they get rid Lawful Good, Caotic Good, Lawful Evil, and Caotic Evil. It makes Paladins impossible, and removing Paladins is also impossible.
07: No alignment based detection or protection spells deserves a seperate jeer all it's own.
08: No Barbarians or rage. For an ad campaign that stresses fun, this is a lame thing to do. Note that when they reintroduce these things, this gripe becomes null and void.
09: They were saying that characters cannot be converted to the new system. I can say this is arrogant because I am offended by this.
10: First they say they are only going to do some things online, then they don't let us poor gamers get the core books in PDF format to save the hardbound cost.
It may be a while till I can post in the other topic as I am not currently planning to use WOTC4.0.
I don't think we will see the bard or monk class coming back, maybe as a prestige class or a class that's put off for eternity. But that's about it. Sigh. I am going to have to tell my pc's that if they want to convert, the monk and bard will have to go. And no one wants that.
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Ten things I dislike about the new edition (based on what I have seen):
1. Angels are tools for any alignment.
2. Classes have powers balanced (read: homogenized).
3. Keeping iconic classes out of first PHB.
4. Powers dictating what other party members do (Warlord).
5. Emphasis on miniatures and CCG mechanics.
6. No more spell durations.
7. Healing surges.
8. Roles defined for PCs and monsters.
9. Class abilities limiting choices (Rogue).
10. Sacred cows are sacred. If I want hamburger I can play GURPS, etc.
And now for the positive...