I got nothin’ but snark.
A whole host of reasons. It'd be a shorter list to provide why I don't like 4E. :)
Why don't you get the ball rolling cat and give some reasons you're jazzed?
Hmm. I like that martial characters have so much more to do.
I like that arcane characters have a more manageable amount of things to do (as a DM).
I love the new monster creation rules.
I love how the rules are each simple, but combined together form a complex game.
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Hmmm... good question. Haven't really thought about it enough to put it into letters that form words and, with luck, sentences. But I'll give it a shot.
First thing that comes to mind: my 4th Edition CoCT game has three players that probably qualify as "casual" gamers. They don't buy D&D books, or even borrow them to sit down and read through. They come over, and they play (or in the case of my girlfriend, she's already here and she plays). When I was playing 3.5 more regularly, getting these people set up with characters took a while. You really couldn't sit them down with a 3.5 PHB and a character sheet, say "have fun!" and walk to the gas station to get snacks. With 4th, I was able to get them started on character creation with almost no hassle whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to have a blast doing it.
Side note--I know a lot of people aren't too satisfied with the number of powers available at release. I, for one, am totally fine with it for the moment. If these folks had to wade through 8 possible at-wills and 6-8 encounters and dailys, they'd probably explode. And I didn't sign up to play D20 Scanners.
Aside from that, I do like the cinematic feel of combat, and as someone who has been getting way too much into acting out PC and NPC combat moves, it's nice to have that extra bit of flavor (throw in the descriptions from the critical hit and critical miss deck, and it just gets crazy). Everything else is fluff, and I've got a growing pile of Pathfinder products to do my dirty work for me.
Well, except all the converting. Which I really should get back to. End rant.
you get more feats 1 every 2lvs 2,4,6...
Indeed, I was happy to see the +1 to two stat system brought over from Saga as well. Also, Saga's skill system, which is great. :)
and after you hit your paragon and epic path (LV.11,AND 21) you get a + 1 to all ability scores
Yeah, thought that was a nice touch as well. The split into seperate tiers of play is an interesting element.
I like the idea of some monsters meant to challenge an entire party, others meant to be used one on one. Giant group battles have always been one of my favorites and 4E makes them the norm! Great!
It reinforces my way of DMastering.
It empowers my players, and with actual rules mechanics enforces and rewards them for taking a narrative aproach.
It makes creating adventures and Npcs easier,so I can finally tackle an epic adventure without dreading the prep time.
It tastes like strawberry and cream.
Less rule bog means more RPGing.
Provides a semblance of class balance.
It makes munchkin/rules-lawyers cry.
It empowers my players, and with actual rules mechanics enforces and rewards them for taking a narrative aproach.
Can you please elaborate? I have not seen that but would be very interested.
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then you must love minions no matter what Lv. they only have 1hp example....
Lich Vestige Level 26 Minion
Medium natural humanoid (undead) XP 2,250
Initiative +14 Senses Perception +19; darkvision
Necrotic Aura (Necrotic) aura 2; any living creature that enters or
starts its turn in the aura takes 5 necrotic damage.
HP 1; a missed attack never damages a minion.
AC 40; Fortitude 36, Refl ex 40, Will 38
Immune disease, poison; Resist 20 necrotic
Speed 6
m Death’s Touch (standard; at-will) ✦ Necrotic
+30 vs. AC; 10 necrotic damage, and the target is weakened
(save ends).
rShadow Ray (standard; at-will) ✦ Necrotic
Ranged 20; +30 vs. Refl ex; 10 necrotic damage, or 15 necrotic
damage if the target is an arcane power user (such as a wizard).
A Orb of Obliteration (standard; encounter) ✦ Fire, NecroticTwo, three, or four lich vestiges acting on the same initiative
count can use their standard actions to hurl a single orb of black
fi re that detonates on impact. Make one attack roll: Area burst
5 within 10 of one of the lich vestiges; +30 vs. Refl ex; 5 fire and
necrotic damage per lich vestige making the attack, and ongoing
fi re and necrotic damage equal to 5 per lich vestige making the
attack (save ends).
Alignment Evil Languages Abyssal, Common
Skills Arcana +24
Str 11 (+13) Dex 12 (+14) Wis 13 (+14)
Con 14 (+15) Int 22 (+19) Cha 18 (+17)
Can you please elaborate? I have not seen that but would be very interested.
Hualt can speak for himself, but I really like the way Skill Challenges allows me to present a roleplaying encounter with my group that has a rule-based mechanical backdrop allowing me to give an appropriate XP/treasure reward to my players for overcoming it.
Supposedly the math is slightly borked currently, but the idea itself is definitely very awesome.
then you must love minions no matter what Lv. they only have 1hp example....
*snip statblock*
Minions are great. It's cool to watch your character part an ocean of bad guys like Moses and the Red Sea, but in earlier editions, to have enough foes to qualify as an ocean, you'd end up getting bogged down and overpowered. Minions let you defend Helm's Deep in style. ;)
It empowers my players, and with actual rules mechanics enforces and rewards them for taking a narrative aproach.Can you please elaborate? I have not seen that but would be very interested.
David marks have already mentioned SKill Challenges.
The use of dailies and encounter powers give some sort of control of the dinamic of combat. Instead of hoping for a natural 20, the Player can choose when his character does the 3[W] damage for example.
As for the narrative aproach, take the rogue power that 'trips' and opponent. As per the fluff you could not sweep an oozes legs cause he has none. Is the Ooze inmune to 'trip'? nope, the player just changes the fluff to a description that fits the 'tripping' of the ooze and it is affect by the 'prone' condition.
Same could be said of a power that gives a 'bleeding' ongoing damage to golems.
As for rewards, take the skill challenge. No longer will you use the diplomacy to resolve any situation, but under a skill challenge every players can try to come up with an alternate way to use a skill and achive a desired outcome.
Heck I have already done 2 skill challenges, without having any idea what the solution was. Just listening to my players and awarding succes or failures according to how well they improvised the skill use or how much it applied to the problem at hand.
Could all this have been done in earlier editions?, yes it could have. But to me, this is the first time it is actually encouraged and considered when reading the rules.
Minions are great. It's cool to watch your character part an ocean of bad guys like Moses and the Red Sea, but in earlier editions, to have enough foes to qualify as an ocean, you'd end up getting bogged down and overpowered. Minions let you defend Helm's Deep in style. ;)then you must love minions no matter what Lv. they only have 1hp example....
*snip statblock*
I used to dread having a high level encounter with many enemies, now actually seeing the mat filled with minis brings a smile to my face.
It empowers my players, and with actual rules mechanics enforces and rewards them for taking a narrative aproach.Can you please elaborate? I have not seen that but would be very interested.
The skill check system comes with an XP mechanic. Essentially they codified non-combat encounters that have some chance of failing as being worth XP.
There are also quest rewards. Depending on the story line you could get a quest reward by doing combat but its possible to get one for completing quests that don't involve combat.
To elaborate - if you talk with the old salt at the bar and ask him for directions to the local fish market then thats a role playing encounter but you can't really fail. No XP (Unless finding the fish market was the goal of a quest).
But if you want to convince the Duke to send reinforcements to guard the pass, well that might work and it might not. The DM sets up something called a skill challenge. He essentially crafts a role playing encounter out of skills. Lots of skill checks will be needed to pass this check and the game is designed so that all the classes tend to be good at different areas. This Duke might be a wimp - if so the fighter will shine when he uses intimidate - but if the DM decided that the duke will take no guff from the adventurers then using Intimidate is a very bad idea - potentially causing an automatic failure. Obviously a DM that is going to have a wimpy Duke or a Duke that takes no Guff should make sure that this comes out in his role playing of the Duke. Its only fair to the players that they are given this kind of information so that they have a reasonable chance to infer that they should or should not use intimidate on this guy.
Any way, depending on how hard the Skill Challenge is the players get a reward in XP since it involves the risk of failure.
As for the narrative aproach, take the rogue power that 'trips' and opponent. As per the fluff you could not sweep an oozes legs cause he has none. Is the Ooze inmune to 'trip'? nope, the player just changes the fluff to a description that fits the 'tripping' of the ooze and it is affect by the 'prone' condition.
Very interesting when you put it like that. Almost Hero System-like.