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For those who received the 4E core books early (*cough* BUY.com *cough*), has a readthru of the books affected your decision in continuing to play 3.x or the future Pathfinder RPG?
Nope.
It is a better game than I thought (worst marketing campaign EVER), with simple yet appealing mechanics and interesting ideas.
However, the feeling I had since a handful of months has been confirmed: it's not a game I'm interested in investing time, resources and money in.
For me? Not really.
I thought the real rules for the rituals were interesting as were some of the utility abilities, and I can appreciate the theme of the books (i.e. streamlining rolls and encouraging team work) but there is still something deeply strange about the new rules. Which in my opinion comes down to the following:
1) 4e is no longer about creative concepts and interesting not-in-the-mold characters. It's about stereotypes and controlled builds (e.g. the "war wizard" or the "control wizard"). It's saying "this is what a rogue is, this is what he does, this is the weapon he uses." Granted a player doesn't -have- to use the weapon a rogue gets a bonus with, but in effect what that does is penalize creative concepts. Wizard schools? None that I could see. [Please note: Pathfinder RPG allows a player to -choose- how they do special thing. Wizard Schools, Sorcerer bloodlines, rage points, etc. all great ideas!]
2) 4e is very focused on battle maps. I have -nothing- against battle maps. I use them all the time. But when 80% of the abilities are described in "squares" and "encounters" and over 90% of the abilities are strictly combat related, it places a certain focus on the battle mat, which, IMO, takes away from roleplaying.
3) Skills. Skills in my book is code word for class differentiation. I hate to go to this, but in 4e, it seems to me that there is significantly more overlap of skills than in 3.5e (i.e. wizards can do something a ranger can, and a ranger can do some things a rogue can, and a rogue can do things a fighter can, etc). While this encourage team building and allows for certain groups to compensate for a missing class, IMO, it takes away from the glory of each class and places their differences on combat tactics (see above). [Please note: I actually really like what Pathfinder RPG has done with skills. They have -streamlined- skills, not disappeared them.]
4) The tone of detail. What I mean, is rather than giving the DM a guide on how to make a multi-ward city, with a population and intrigue, it gives a DM a guide to making a "home city". Rather than players wearing magic items and trinkets they are filling "magic slots". Players exploring ruins for items of wonder and power? Eh, more like "treasure tables".
This looks like more of a "what I don't like about 4e", but in truth it's also a "why I really am looking forward to Pathfinder RPG." I think 4e will be fun to play at times, much like I don't mind playing Hero Quest every once in awhile. But when I want to play "D&D", I'm going to play Pathfinder RPG.
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For those who received the 4E core books early (*cough* BUY.com *cough*), has a readthru of the books affected your decision in continuing to play 3.x or the future Pathfinder RPG?
Why would I even want this heathen heresy to touch the beloved screen of my hallowed computer ? DIE HERETIC ! (rolls a 14 on the die)
No, seriously, I did not download them, and
don't intend ever to.
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No, seriously, I did not download them, and
don't intend ever to.Download? The Corebooks are available in dead-tree edition. Are you talking about the illegally scanned copies?
Maybe you're talking about the PRPG? The Alpha Release 3 is available on pdf.
Ah, ah, no I was talking about the 4e internet copies, so that means I misunderstood you. And i did not know about buy.com.
Though no dead-tree edition either. I figure at least one in the gang will want to rub them in front of me at some point, but I am not interested in even touching them right now.
so sorry, it was maybe puerile, but I just wanted a little fun off you.
Now roll for initiative !
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I've played in two 4E playtests, once at 3rd and once at 8th level. Both were long games, 6+ hours. The books are beautiful and the system is smooth, but the magic is gone. Like many efforts to clean-up a creative endeavor, what you have left is more economical but far less inspiring. It takes you out of the head-space necessary for long campaigns and puts you in a more casual 'Heroclix' realm.
It's fun, and I'm sure some people will like it, but something was obviously lost in translation.
It's hard for me to pin down my feelings here, but I feel like a real castle has been demolished to make room for a theme-park castle.
4Eh.
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It is a better game than I thought (worst marketing campaign EVER), with simple yet appealing mechanics and interesting ideas. However, the feeling I had since a handful of months has been confirmed: it's not a game I'm interested in investing time, resources and money in.
Pretty much this, though I might take a serious look at it after cycle 2 of the core books. (Too many missing monsters and classes to bother with it right now.)
Now roll for initiative !
Watch out! You don't want to mess with a Stereofm that has surprise!
For those who received the 4E core books early (*cough* BUY.com *cough*), has a readthru of the books affected your decision in continuing to play 3.x or the future Pathfinder RPG?
No change. I liked what I saw of 4e in the previews and leaks, and - now that I've seen the real deal - I still like it.
Good riddance to 3.5e (for me). Now I just have to decide what to convert to 4e for my first campaign: Shackled City, or Rise of the Runelords?
Either way, it looks like it'll be a lot easier to deal with the higher levels in 4e. I was really dreading DM'ing those 15th level creatures with 2-3 page statblocks.
What I've felt after reading the classes is: I'm a character that does something. It looks different from the other class but at the core is the same thing.
It's hard for me to pin down my feelings here, but I feel like a real castle has been demolished to make room for a theme-park castle.
Wonderfully stated. I feel very much the same way.
KotS has changed my opinion of 4E - somewhat. 4E combat is fun, but the rest of the game is pretty much a tank. I'm getting the 4E rules to see if the whole is better than the adventure they put out, but I'm still likely to get Pathfinder.
At least they have decent adventures.
It's hard for me to pin down my feelings here, but I feel like a real castle has been demolished to make room for a theme-park castle.
Wonderfull analogy. ^^
I didn't cancel my pre-order based on what I've seen and read. I'm looking forward to having the paper copies on the shelf next to the other core books in the line.
Where can I get it?
Buy.com..some stores and many folks have got how should we say "preview copys".
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Before I had an opportunity to glance through the core rulebooks, my feelings about 4e were fairly ambivalent feelings. Although I liked some of the changes that had been announced, others made me shake my head in bewilderment.
Now my attitude has hardened somewhat and I'm in the '4e is irrelevant' camp. I don't despise 4e, but it doesn't really capture my imagination either.
It's certainly a playable game - it's just not one that I'm terribly interested in playing.
4e is like one of those movies that you enjoy well enough while you're watching it, but forget about five minutes after you walk out of the cinema.
4e is not dreadful, but it's not that great either. It's a very mediocre effort.
To be honest, 4e feels a bit insipid in comparison to Pathfinder. It might be slicker and faster, but it has far less substance.
Hmmm...Perhaps D&D editions have an odd/even rule like Star Trek movies?
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I ordered my copy online and received it early.
But then I walked into a major bookstore today and noticed a couple of copies of the 4e PHB out on the shelf. Go figure.
If you want to snag a copy early, I recommend checking out chain stores that carry a small amount of D&D stuff rather than your FLGS*. I suspect that a few of these may have leaked a few copies onto the shelves before the official release date.
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The accidental pre-release hasn't changed my mind. Playtesting 4E changed my mind about it. I was really enthusiastic about it when it got announced, but actually seeing the game in action not only turned me away from it entirely but damn near caused a fistfight in my playtest group (normally one of the mildest and mellowest groups of people you'll ever meet). 4E is poison. Anyone who can tolerate it: more power to you. I'll stick with 3.5 and Pathfinder, thanks.
Jeremy Puckett
Accidental? Hardly. It's that these corporations decided that no one was going to sue them for breaking the agreement.
Yes. I downloaded the books to see whether to keep my Amazon.com pre-order. I was anxious and unhappy about 4E, and was hoping it would be good. Now I am counting the days till I get my hardcopy, and I am loving the layout of the new books. I am absolutely delighted by the thought and thoroughness that went into 4E, and I can see it bringing tens of thousands of new players into the hobby. I applaud the designers and am really glad to have been proven wrong. The ease of use, clarity, simplicity, fun, style and beauty of the books reminds me more of my old beloved red box than 3.0 or 3.5 ever did. The game is very different, but I think it is a masterpiece of game design. The courage it took to make such a radical departure from the legacy issues in the game is something a lot of the posters who cry foul about the new edition just don't get. I am really happy to have a good, fun, simple game again. I am also very happy to have Pathfinder, and support for 3.5, because the games do not compete with each other. they are different games, like Earthdawn and Shadowrun, with some base assumptions the same, and with other things widely divergent.
I am very glad I checked it out, to put my mind at rest.
I am also very glad that Pathfinder is there, and that we have a say in it.
It is a wonderful time to be a geek.
About sacred cows. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get anywhere in Varanasi or Calcutta before the law made moving the sacred cows legal?
The change in editions is greater than that at any other time, and there are new influences on the new edition, that cater to a very different generation. Old school D&D was literary, and pulp, and demanded that the DM's word was law. The new 4E is much less centralised. vive le difference.
Yarrr.
Im still not buying the core books based on what Ive read.
When 4E was announced I was going to pick up the core out of curiousity. The more I heard as time went on, the more it pushed me away.
About sacred cows. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get anywhere in Varanasi or Calcutta before the law made moving the sacred cows legal?
Mooo?
I must admit that I am disappointed with 4E. Mostly because of the total lack of backward compatibility. D&D 4E *IS* a new game, and a good one too IMO. But adapting old material to this new edition will be a pain.
The new magic system is great. No longer do low-level spellcaster cast their few spells and then punch out or force the party to rest. Same with clerics, they are no longer the only source of healing (MEDIC!) The list of available spells dropped dramatically (that's good, because I hate it when I have to open the PHB to find out what EXACTLY that mostly unused spell does), but without schools of magic, converting Pathfinder Sin Magic is harder than ever.
The new races and classes are good. New options for players is always good, but for those who just wanted a transition to 4E, the missing Half-Orc, Monk, Bard, Barbarian, Sorcerer and Druid is difficult to swallow. So it's either wait some months for the official rules or picking some third-party rules meanwhile. I have a lot of multiclassed characters in my current Rise of the Runelords campaign (one of them is a Half-Elf Shoanti Barbarian Bard, we call her the BarDBarian) and the new system is forcing them to rethink their character.
The monster manual is bare. Sure, there's a lot of different templates for classic monsters, but gone is the variety and the scale. I'm the proud owner of a pack of eight D&D Miniatures Harbinger Worgs, but they're now LARGE. What good is a baby worg? And where are the animals? I'll have to downgrade a dire boar for the Foxglove hunt in Tick Wood, and downgrade a wolf to make up the guard dog the druid saved from the fire of Cougar Creek mill.
D&D 4th Edition is a great game for new players, or for those who want a fresh new start. As for me, I'm giving D&D courses to local teenagers, so they'll have a taste of the new rules, and I'm sure it will be much easier to teach and play. But for my regular game at home, it looks like Pathfinder RPG will be the solution. So it looks to me like Paizo did a good move by sticking to 3.5E. At least, for the time being.
- Zorg
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I actually cancelled my pre-order for 4E online this week. Now, part of the reason was financial, but another big part of the reason is I'm not excited about 4E, and I am about Pathfinder. I'll undoubtedly give the books a look, and maybe even buy them someday, but nobody I game with is especially interested in starting a 4E game. We're playtesting Pathfinders, though!
No - it's still a steaming of.... I mean, er no. I was pretty anti before, but actually reading the books really p!ssed me off.
Bad English, terrible in places. The few descriptive bits there are read like a not particularly bright 11 year old wrote them for a school project.
Voice activated weaponry! The PHB seriously suggests that shouting the name of your attack is roleplaying. Heck we do sometimes, but that's not roleplaying and we certanly don't sit around joining every one of our class features with an anime battle cry.
Mutilation of the core setting was something we already knew about from the previews, but somehow, when combined with the atrocious writing and poor art (see below) it just seems doubly offensive. In this comment, I include stuff like missing classes and monsters as well as all the cosmology stuff.
Terrible Art and some of it has been reused from 3rd edition! That was something I really couldn't believe. Also, I don't know if this picture was just a re-use or if it is a terrible joke in bad taste, but check out the picture of the medusa in the MM. That's a 3.5 iconic she's turned to stone! My wife and I both thought that was bad....
Reliance on figures is pretty bad too. It's assumed (bad!) and not very well illustrated - the diagrams on LOS were very confusing to look at as it seems like the corner of the square you measure to changes at random.
DMG advise section that was much praised was largely a waste of space. I couldn't believe some of it, e.g. the advice on Prima Dona players: "Ask them to stop or ask them to leave." Wow. Just wow. And not in a good way.
I suppose, if I was being generous and the books came packaged with a large number of card stand in monsters, tiles and 6 plastic hero figures, I'd call it an okay 'My First D&D' set. As it is, I'll just have to admit that D&D has moved on, is now aimed at a younger, more casual gamer audience and thank all the powers that be for Pathfinder and for keeping the spirit of D&D alive.
I don't intend to cause any offense with my remarks and I'm aware they're uncharacteristically aggressive, but those books provoked a very strong negative response in me. More so than I was expecting.
Peace,
tfad
Would I be up to playing a game? Sure. Will I enjoy it? Probably. As a GM, will I buy the books myself?
No, it doesn't look likely.
I haven't seen the books, so I'm not basing this on rules or system, but content (or rather lack thereof). It seems that WotC has purposely put out incomplete books in order to force additional product on us in the future. This is something I had concerns about when we were told certain iconic classes would be excluded from the initial release, and when certain iconic monsters were slated for future projects, rather than the first set of core books. But now I've heard, from numerous sources, things like 'there are no metallic dragons' and 'I can count the good-aligned monsters on one hand.'
It's almost as if the folks at WotC have gotten to lazy to do the job of designing games. Sure, there will be 4E versions readily available, created by the public. But at the risk of sounding elitist, designing the game is what they are paid to do. A game shouldn't be designed with intentional holes, with the expectation that the buyers will happily fill them in themselves.
4E is an intentionally incomplete product; just as I wouldn't buy a computer that contained known flaws, I'm not going to buy 4E.
Not gonna buy it. I've read plenty of reviews from those that already have it. The "its a fun fantasy game, but it's not D&D" is my sticking point. That and the aweful marketting campaign, but I'm not focusing on that. I've always maintained that I am sure 4E is a very fun game. The mechanics sound tight and the quality. But everything I know about it says it doesn't give me that D&D feeling.
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Saw a copy, went through it, got so BORED.
Clark from Necromancer Games in his review said is was devoid of fluff, but it's more. Out of 320 pages, I swear, about 300 of them are lists of numbers and powers. The single most uninspiring, vanilla PHB ever.
He said this would be a stickler with fans of older editions, but who new to the hobby would get anything inspiring/useful/imagination-jumpstart out of this "manual of stats" I have no idea. It appears to be a different game called D&D.
Answer: It didn't change my mind, just confirmed what I already suspected. PASS.
Long Live Pathfinder, can't wait to see the Beta in August!
-DM Jeff
I actually canceled my pre-order for 4E online this week. Now, part of the reason was financial, but another big part of the reason is I'm not excited about 4E, and I am about Pathfinder. I'll undoubtedly give the books a look, and maybe even buy them someday, but nobody I game with is especially interested in starting a 4E game. We're playtesting Pathfinders, though!
This almost describes me, the difference being that I set aside the money to buy the books on June 6 but never actually placed a pre-order that I have to cancel. I will definitely flip through the books, and may eventually buy them, but I am no longer planning on going out and buying them in one fell swoop at any point in the near future.
The stuff I have seen so far has done far more to diminish my interest in 4e than peak it. As mentioned upthread, most of what I've seen completely lacks flavor, and frankly I've lately been finding the previews on the website too boring to do more than skim.
The stuff I have seen so far has done far more to diminish my interest in 4e than peak it. As mentioned upthread, most of what I've seen completely lacks flavor, and frankly I've lately been finding the previews on the website too boring to do more than skim.
And it seems that's not even a figue of speech. Apparently the Monster Manual contains no fluff at all, no explanation what the creatures are and what they do, just a stats-block.
From what I have seen so far, it is pretty much as I expected. What we have been given is a pretty version of the miniatures game stat cards, and if you really have to role-play you get some hints.
It may be that I have been playing since the late 70's and am too old school...
I have to say that I am very pleased with what I am seeing with Pathfinder RPG, and look forward to seeing the final version.
I miss Gary....
Randy Hancks
D&D 4E is about RULES. Sure there is no fluff, but then again, excellent books like "Classic Monsters Revisited" or "Complete Ecology" are fluff books about the monsters. What I need around my gaming table is stats so I can run combats smoothly. For RP and general atmosphere, I need those extra books. My goblins will use the stats in the MM4E, but they sure will act like those in Classic Monsters Revisited.
- Zorg
Well, I was already ill-disposed towards 4E because of how WotC used it as a convenient excuse to rape the Forgotten Realms. Now that I have taken a look at the books, I can safely say that I will not buy them not just for being angry about a fluff aspect, but because the rules have been nerfed down from "Variety" to "Simplicity".
When 3rd Edition came around, it was a great step forward, because it opened up countless character possibilities, in an understandable and comprehensible system. 3.5 streamlined and balanced the system further.
4th Edition so far seems to tell me "Sorry, so much possibilties are too much for the next generation, we got to make it simpler". I see it as a lean system, which mostly seems to care for tactical combat, but loses greatly in diversity for roleplaying. That can be seen very much if one takes a look at multiclassing, where you can only do it once.
I think they killed so many sacred cows that they ended up extincting them.
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From what I have seen so far, it is pretty much as I expected. What we have been given is a pretty version of the miniatures game stat cards, and if you really have to role-play you get some hints.
It may be that I have been playing since the late 70's and am too old school...
I have to say that I am very pleased with what I am seeing with Pathfinder RPG, and look forward to seeing the final version.
I miss Gary....
Randy Hancks
Not to get too off topic, but if it makes you feel better, I started in 3.0 and I so far haven't liked 4.0 that much either
/threadjack
From what I have seen so far, it is pretty much as I expected. What we have been given is a pretty version of the miniatures game stat cards, and if you really have to role-play you get some hints.
Yes, looks like a tabletop wargame to me, too.
I'm not sure why people feel that 4e is about rules and not fluff.
There are two chapters about roleplaying and character building (including personality, etc.) in the PHB.
There is a page of description for every race. Every class has multiple descriptions, and so does each class paragon and epic path. Every power has a descriptive sentence and that description can be tweaked for individual characters (for example, magic missile can appear as magical skulls coming to zap you if you desire).
A huge portion (I'd say a minimum of 50%) of the DMG is about telling a story, good adventure building, handling difficult players, and all the other challenges of DMing. It includes descriptions of the planes, a fully described village and a short adventure too.
Okay, so the monster manual has less description (but it does exist) and does talk about general issues (like a sidebar about where demons live).
This idea that 4e is all about rules and nothing about fluff is simply not true. Like 4e or not, but this idea that the books exclude fluff is factually not the case.
