Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I take my hat off to you Sebastian.
Many thanks,
Stefan.
Hi Stefan,
No problem! Welcome to Paizo, glad to have you on the boards. Just a quick word to the wise - other than the politics threads, the 4e forums are probably the worst place in this otherwise wonderful community. If you haven't already, you might want to hit up some of the other messageboards and strike up a conversation with the contingent of our population who don't come here to grind a particular axe. I'd hate for you to think that this thread is representative of this community.
Best,
Sebastian
Edit: Though, then again, there are some good insightful posts in this thread, you just have to be wary of getting caught up in an argument with the edition warriors. You'll learn to recognize them soon enough, thankfully their numbers have dwindled greatly, but in any event, they're best ignored.
I take my hat off to you Sebastian.
Many thanks,
Stefan.Hi Stefan,
No problem! Welcome to Paizo, glad to have you on the boards. Just a quick word to the wise - other than the politics threads, the 4e forums are probably the worst place in this otherwise wonderful community. If you haven't already, you might want to hit up some of the other messageboards and strike up a conversation with the contingent of our population who don't come here to grind a particular axe. I'd hate for you to think that this thread is representative of this community.
Best,
SebastianEdit: Though, then again, there are some good insightful posts in this thread, you just have to be wary of getting caught up in an argument with the edition warriors. You'll learn to recognize them soon enough, thankfully their numbers have dwindled greatly, but in any event, they're best ignored.
It's best to listen to Sebastian.. He knows what he's talking about..
Trust me.. I know...
Edit, Sebastian:
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That is funny. The one that always sticks out in my mind as having flavor issues is the rogue ability that does a lot of damage and blinds the opponent (and can be used at range). I can't recall what the flavor text is off the top of my head, but it seems like it's supposed to cut the person, causing blood/ichor to flow into their eyes and blind them. It seems a bit wonky to me.The only thing on that I would say was that some of the powers have odd names for what they are and some of the descriptions of the ability doesn't make sense but after all it's your character, you make up the final description.
The ranged rogue one(although I don't know which one that is) I would give it a write-up like:-
'with a flick of the wrist you throw a dagger, catching your enemy above the eye that causes incredible pain and blood flows into its face'. I'd also make my character lose a dagger(well its in the bad guy'.
I think that's the main thing with 4E, imagining the exploits and describing the result.
I don't think he has a problem with the description in that ones case, the description is just fine. The problem I think he has with that one is why can't the rogue do it again in the encounter, even if its to the next guy he hasn't done it to, or what if he uses a crossbow? I agree with him that it's harder in 4th ed to justify some of the mechanics realisticly.
Anywho my likes:
Death and dying rules, in general I like the 3ed ruleset better, but the death and dying rules of 4th ed are a big improvement and with my alterations have replaced the 3ed death and dying rules and I like them much better.
Fighters weapon choice being more significant than just damage amount.
The idea that DMs don't have to play by the same rules as the players, once I figured this out and incorporated it into my own games I stopped having DM burnout or having issues DMing on the fly, in fact I have actually become rather good at it because I just set certain stats and let fly rather than going through the rigamarole of statting everything out. Why a whole new edition had to come out to help me figure this out, I don't know, but thank goodness it did, I wish it had happened before I ended my level 1-12 game due to DM burnout.
Every monster has unique and interesting powers
Dislikes:
monster powers that should be usable by players but yet aren't (like the skeletons in D&D game day that when they hit pushed the enemy 5ft in a direction, why can't anyone do this?)
the skill system
the multiclassing rules (I agree with those who said 3ed needed work, but I found that a 2/1 limit and no dipping rule was all that was needed not the 4ed method which is like others have said too weak. Oh and by 2/1 I mean two base classes and one multiclass, or if willing a character can have 3 base no PrCs. No dipping was enabled by saying you could never have more than twice as many levels in one base class as another, Your PrC could be a dip since you could only have one.)
Sebastian wrote:
And it'd be a shame to see it happen, particularly when the poster in question spent a lot of words showing that he isn't a partisan hater.
Scott Betts wrote:
Neither am I, if you know anything about my participation here. I want both systems to be successful. But as I've just explained, it's difficult for me to even begin to see the ways in which 4th Edition has "stripped flavor" from the game, save perhaps setting-specific fluff (like monster ecology, geography, etc.) that is by design left ambiguous to make homebrew settings easier to create.
Sebastian wrote:
See above. You do damage to your cause with your posts, particularly by trying to tear apart someone's drive by post commenting about 4e in a polite and non-abrasive way and by even bothering to respond to the anti-4e trolls (WotC's Nightmare) that aren't interested in a debate.
Anyway, good luck restarting the edition wars. I hope you don't manage to drive off yet another member of the rapidly dwindling 4e Pathfinder community in the process of stirring up the bees nest just to prove you're right.
Eileen wrote:
Spot on Sebastion.
Individuals arguing nearly any 4th edition post that doesn't reflect it in something other than a glowing light are highly responsble for turning others off from all editions of D&D, not just 4th.
I suspect I will get some kind of "Betts" response about how wrong I am in regards to his posting methods and reasons but it doesn't take a genius to see through thiny veiled lips. Blinding post approaches filled with conceit and arrogance do little for attracting people to the game one prefers. I read many of the posts in this forum depsite not posting with any kind of frequency. Perhaps if certain individauls were actually "nice" and not conceited/arrogant in every post they make that would change, not only for myself but others.
See above. You do damage to your cause with your posts, particularly by trying to tear apart someone's drive by post commenting about 4e in a polite and non-abrasive way
By all means, Sebastian, show me the post where I tore apart Stefan's "drive by post". I responded to him, twice with nothing more than a single honest question each, in an effort to understand where he was coming from.
Check yourself. If one honest question to someone who specifically invited comment is the same in your mind as tearing a post apart, you probably need to re-examine how you view the internet.
and by even bothering to respond to the anti-4e trolls (WotC's Nightmare) that aren't interested in a debate.
I wasn't trying to debate WotC's Nightmare. I know that's pointless. But one of the biggest tragedies here is the ridiculous misrepresentation that 4th Edition receives from people like him. If you've been playing 3rd Edition and frequent the Paizo boards but haven't yet tried 4th Edition, and you come here and read the thread and then get to Wotc's Nightmare's "assessment" of 4th Edition, you could easily get the wrong idea about the nature of the game. If you see someone lying about something, even if they're a troll you have an obligation to set that straight for other people who may not realize that people like WotC's Nightmare are not a reliable source for such information.
So cool it, Sebastian. I was asking Stefan Hill a question before you decided to make this about edition wars.
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Attacks against posters aside. The thread asked the simple question about what as DM's we thought of 4th ed. Discussing which is better and why seems a little out of the scope, and is a tad amount to asking why someone likes blue rather than red (assuming no colour blindness). After a nights rest I came up with the following;
v3.5 (now Pathfinder) and 4th ed. have begun parallel evolution. v3.5 still has the "core" ideas of 1st/2nd edition with different mechanics and 4th ed. is unique on both counts. I remember when 3rd edition came out, the same "the sky is falling" arguments (minus the internet) were tossed around. But in the end we were stuck with 3rd edition if we wanted new products. We should be pleased now that we have choice of our D&D - the more traditional Gygaxian 3rd edition (loosely speaking) or the next evolution in game idea/mechanics (4th edition).
For me (not the rest of the gaming community, just little old me);
4th Ed.
DO LIKE
* The books are a work of art - I'll never regret buying them. WotC has raised the bar in production values.
* Attacks against things other than AC, just makes sense.
* Magic items
* Passive Insight/Perception
DO NOT LIKE
* Collapsing of skill trees & Trained vs Untrained bonus (bland).
* Generic +1/2 level bonus.
* Provided character sheet (specifically the attack/damage workspace - too small given the number of "attack" types people have).
* Not "canon", read as too bigger change from Dave and Gary's original vision of the D&D world (i.e. spell lists, spells per day etc) for our aging minds to handle.
* Healing surges.
* Movement in squares (when someone asks how far to the shop have to ever responded with 1,346 squares or rather do you say just over a mile...).
* Combat system and abilities make it very difficult to play without a battle map.
* Round to round "book keeping" of effects and bonuses/penalties a little painful. Not just a DM thing but the players found themselves asking nearly every round who was giving them what bonus and to what.
I think it becomes obvious that 4th Ed. isn't the version of D&D for me or my group. 4th Ed. is great is its attempts to balance out classes and make everyone always doing something. None of my players ever compare damage output (is that the roleplaying equivalent of comparing, er, never mind?!), they play a character because they like the concept and want to be part of a "living story", 3rd edition serves us better at the moment in this task. I keep in mind that v4.5 (it will come I'm sure) may change all I have said completely and I look forward to its release.
So the now I will once and for all answer the question which is better 3rd or 4th edition?
The answer is....
Blue.
Regards,
S.
Anywho,
My likes: On it's own, it's a fairly solid system.
Dislikes: 4e in general. Just not the style of RPG I like.
It's as simple as that. It has become apparent to me that at this point any reason I give for my disliking of the edition is going to get me chewed up and spit out by the Guardian of All Things 4e, so I'll leave my reasons as my own. 3e has many, many flaws, but I can work with it. 4e on its own is a fine system, but is not my style of game.
I have the books. I've read them. I tried, I really did. I just don't like it.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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By all means, Sebastian, show me the post where I tore apart Stefan's "drive by post". I responded to him, twice with nothing more than a single honest question each, in an effort to understand where he was coming from.Check yourself. If one honest question to someone who specifically invited comment is the same in your mind as tearing a post apart, you probably need to re-examine how you view the internet.
Is it possible to respond with a single, honest question that invites a flaming response and is not intended to be the start of an honest dialogue?
Is it possible to respond with a single, honest question that invites a flaming response and is not intended to be the start of an honest dialogue?
By all means, Sebastian, show me the post where I tore apart Stefan's "drive by post". I responded to him, twice with nothing more than a single honest question each, in an effort to understand where he was coming from.Check yourself. If one honest question to someone who specifically invited comment is the same in your mind as tearing a post apart, you probably need to re-examine how you view the internet.
Wow, Sebastian. Neither of my questions invited a flaming response. One asked about which elements in particular Stefan Hill thought were different between 3rd and 4th Editions. The thread asked for a like/dislike, but Stefan in his original post didn't provide much in the way of "likes" for us to draw comparisons with. No where did I say he was wrong, and I don't think that he IS wrong. If you have given a game a solid, honest playthrough and don't think it's right for you, it isn't and no one can tell you otherwise with any sort of authority.
But I really am interested in ways that our hobby can be improved, and I'm really not interested in edition wars. That said, this is a discussion about the good and bad of 4th Edition, which really can't be discussed without comparing it to the good and bad of 3rd Edition, since that's where it came from and where many of its departures are most notable. When I criticize 3rd Edition, it's not because I think it's bad. It's not. It's awesome, and I loved it for years. Nor do I think 4th Edition is immune from criticism - as a few examples, I agree that in many places (like races) characters' abilities have shifted towards relevance in challenge encounters (and subsequently away from other "quirk" abilities like the dwarf's ability to sense depth), and that PC freedom has been mechanically curtailed in favor of giving the DM more control over the game. Neither of these are inherently bad, but they are valid criticisms to express and discuss.
Lists of likes and dislikes are good. They help. But they don't help much. What's really going to improve our hobby and foster productive dialogue is discussing why we like or dislike these aspects. We need to get to the root of why certain things bother people. This is one of the reasons the "4th Edition doesn't feel like D&D," line is frustrating to those who enjoy the new edition - it doesn't do a lot to help us understand what you're missing.
So when someone asks you to clarify why it is that you dislike something, or what it is about that aspect of the game you dislike, the correct thing to do is not to snap at them, accuse them of starting edition wars all over again, call them arrogant, liars or conceited, but rather to answer them. This thread is here to be useful, and some of us want it to be.
Anywho,
My likes: On it's own, it's a fairly solid system.
Dislikes: 4e in general. Just not the style of RPG I like.
It's as simple as that. It has become apparent to me that at this point any reason I give for my disliking of the edition is going to get me chewed up and spit out by the Guardian of All Things 4e, so I'll leave my reasons as my own. 3e has many, many flaws, but I can work with it. 4e on its own is a fine system, but is not my style of game.
I have the books. I've read them. I tried, I really did. I just don't like it.
No offense intended to Jandrem, but to illustrate the point I'm making, the above post does very little to contribute to the thread. It provides nothing for anyone to go on, no reasons as to why you like or dislike what parts of the game, and manages to make a snide comment about people who defend 4th Edition all at once.
Back on the topic of the thread, Stefan, you're the first person I've seen to point to the half-level bonuses as something they dislike about 4th Edition. Could you explain what it is about it that doesn't sit well with you? Is it because it seems like all characters (classes) improve at an equal rate in all things?
Is it possible to respond with a single, honest question that invites a flaming response and is not intended to be the start of an honest dialogue?
By all means, Sebastian, show me the post where I tore apart Stefan's "drive by post". I responded to him, twice with nothing more than a single honest question each, in an effort to understand where he was coming from.Check yourself. If one honest question to someone who specifically invited comment is the same in your mind as tearing a post apart, you probably need to re-examine how you view the internet.
Yes. For example, "How can you be so CLUELESS??!?!?!"
You may resume your sparring now, don't mind me. :)
Oh lets see...
Likes:
1. I love that the monsters are built so that the mechanical side of their attacks is fueled by the flavor of the creature. Little skittery things fight like little skittery things. Big guys pick you up and start yonking off limbs. It's nice to have the rules and flavor not fight so much--well okay they do fight, but not here.
2. I LOVE the new 4E setting. The idea of a big open world with no megamap, where townsfolk don't know what's more than what lanternlight can tell from the edge of town. Traders know a bit more, but it's all anecdotal. All the good stuff from the Quasi-Greyhawk books in 3.5 now have a nice solid place to live. As do the metasettings like Ravenloft and Planescape.
3. I love the new unfolding metaplot that's coming out in each new product. Where earlier editions would posit creatures coming from "insane wizards experiments, or not or whatever you want" there's a lot of interesting flavor and reinvisioning of things that I really am enjoying.
Dislikes:
1. The level system for monsters. Seriously. Don't get me started. It's made it so that level, which was a nebulous concept to begin with, has become meaningless. Kuo-toas (crazy frog people) have the same "level" as adult dragons. Ropers are a paragon level threat beyond the ken of any normal adventurer. Creatures that are supposed to be allies and work together all the time have such a spread of levels between things that you CAN'T USE THEM TOGETHER.
The silver lining here is that it's caused me to just chuck the idea of power scale alltogether. Now PCs can run into anything in the book and I just dice their powers according to what they "should" be according to the DMG table that says what damage monsters should do by level. Really powerful creatures always get their "level" boosted a number of levels higher than whatever the party level is. Weak creatures are always a level lower.
2. TOO many hitpoints. D&D has always languished under HP bloat, but now it's just getting sick. Part of this comes from a (sort of) virtue of the system. They've gone full on with the idea that hitpoints represent "resolve to fight" on--which is great because now you can gauge everthing on the same scale. You intimidate someone, or use a fear effect on them, or they get really tired, that all equates to HP loss. Likewise encouraging and bolstering them results in HP gain the same as medical triage. Trouble is, that without the simple litmus test of "how much damage should this thing be able to take"--"or how much damage should this attack do" everything just falls apart. There's now no way to step back and see whether something makes sense or not other than pure stupid game balance. Any other measure falls apart because nothing is really scaled to anything else.
3. Powers don't do what they're supposed to. They're supposed to add excitement and variety to fighting--but for the most part they're badly designed, impossible to envision, and at least in theory are supposed to be so much more effective than any swashbuckling daring-do you could think of spur of the moment, that effectively in encourages you NOT to do fun cool things, but to do carefully coodinated tactical things...that often don't make sense.
Blinding Barrage is the worst EVER; you make a blast radius attack with a ranged weapon (now picture this with a crossbow) where you fire an autofire blast that BLINDS opponents because they get blood in their eyes?? Be a DM and narrate that one sometime. He stuffs a big fistfull of crossbow bolts onto his crossbow and fires them all at once, hitting the badguys all in the face--but they're not dead, just blinded from all the blood. Huh?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Is it possible to respond with a single, honest question that invites a flaming response and is not intended to be the start of an honest dialogue?
By all means, Sebastian, show me the post where I tore apart Stefan's "drive by post". I responded to him, twice with nothing more than a single honest question each, in an effort to understand where he was coming from.Check yourself. If one honest question to someone who specifically invited comment is the same in your mind as tearing a post apart, you probably need to re-examine how you view the internet.
Yes. For example, "How can you be so CLUELESS??!?!?!"
You may resume your sparring now, don't mind me. :)
Mommy drinks because you are bad. ;-)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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3. I love the new unfolding metaplot that's coming out in each new product. Where earlier editions would posit creatures coming from "insane wizards experiments, or not or whatever you want" there's a lot of interesting flavor and reinvisioning of things that I really am enjoying.
I've completely missed this, what sort of metaplot has been going on?
There's a spread of levels between things that are supposed to be allies and always work together so you CAN'T USE THEM TOGETHER. The silver lining here is that it's caused me to just chuck the idea of power scale alltogether. Now PCs can run into anything in the book and I just dice their powers according to what they "should" be according to the DMG table that says what damage monsters should do by level.
Hey Grim, do you have an example of this? I thought they did a really good job of making it so that the monsters were grouped around a similar level. One thing that I really like about 4e is that the band of monsters you can use is substantially larger than in 3e. So, you can get away with using one Level 10 monster against a Level 4 party even though you could never get away with using one CR 10 monster against a Level 4 party. Anyway, just curious as to which monsters were like this (other than devils and demons, which have always had a very broad challenge range).
Blinding Barrage is the worst EVER; you make a blast radius attack with a ranged weapon (now picture this with a crossbow) where you fire an autofire blast that BLINDS opponents because they get blood in their eyes?? Be a DM and narrate that one sometime. He stuffs a big fistfull of crossbow bolts onto his crossbow and fires them all at once, hitting the badguys all in the face--but they're not dead, just blinded from all the blood. Huh?
Good god I hate that power for exactly that reason!!! I have been dying for some way to describe how exactly it works. The best I can come up with is that the pain from the blow causes the target to literally see red and become blind. I have a very hard time imagining the rogue aiming for the head and only causing blindness instead of killing.
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The +1/2 level thing just removes choice (thinking skills here). All I can do is choose to be trained and then level, other than stat differences my character will have little difference to any other character of similar level with the same trained skill (ok perhaps a slight racial bonus).
I liked that freedom to choose skills based on points, as an aside I still think the 2nd edition point system for thieves/bard was the best system for far for their abilities - again flexibility.
Thinking only of thieves we went from multiple separate abilities in 2nd to 3 in 3rd edition to 2 in 4th edition. But 3rd still retained the ability to customise slightly.
I guess we come back to your comment about "what if the party doesn't have the skill" - and with more skills to choose from the more chance of this I agree. But again if you are the DM change the encounter to match and challenge 'your' players.
Neither here nor there on the +1/2 level bonus for attacking, but I had no issues with the +attack progression differences for classes in previous editions.
So you were right, I dislike it because it removes another area of differentiation of characters.
Do you believe the +1/2 is a good thing when it comes to skills?
S.
Do you believe the +1/2 is a good thing when it comes to skills?
I'm of two minds, really. On one hand I like the idea that characters become generally more experienced and knowlegable as they adventure, that a 6th level character will just generally know more about the world and be more competant than a 1st level one. Likewise I always thought that it was tacky being able to boost skills by huge amounts from level to level. The +1/two levels feels much more reasonable.
On the other hand, it feels like the skills you use more should get better faster. I'm a fan of giving the PCs two +1s to skills to toss around when they level up. That way the skill growth feels directed, but still doesn't spiral out of control or happen too fast.
I've completely missed this, what sort of metaplot has been going on?
Mostly it's been in terms of advancements to the setting, making interesting connections between 3rd and 4th editions and clue dropping about some really exciting things. They've tied in the events of the Red Hand of Doom into the new setting and made the areas from there the backdrop for the new Adventure Path.
They've dropped a story about how the Raven Queen apparently stole the portfolio of death from a previous god--the undead Nerull. The impression I get is that she was originally a mortal Persephone figure who was taken to the underworld and subsequently took over. If Nerull is still an undead god (which presumably he is) that draws an interesting connection between him and Vecna--whose past is apparently so sacrisanct his followers kill anyone who have clues to it. Possible connection there. There's a bit more said about the origin of undeath as possibly a cause for the whole divine-primordial war. Apparently the primordials created a dam to prevent the flow of human souls into the realms beyond in order to dine on them. This act corrupted and maddened the primordials and lead to the war against the gods.
Likewise there's been information on the Blood War that's really interesting. Apparently the ruby tipped staff of Asmodeus was what gave him power to defeat the gods of his domain, now Baator. The ruby tip of this weapon came from a tiny sliver of the shard of raw evilstuff that Tharizdun plunged into the Elemental Chaos to create the Abyss. The Blood War centers around demonic fury to reclaim part of the stolen spark of their being versus the plans of the devils to obtain enough of the stuff to escape their prison and fight the gods.
Stuff like that. There's gobs more, but that's some of it.
Wow Grim Cleaver, where are you getting all this? I want to read more about this metaplot your describing.
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Anywho,
My likes: On it's own, it's a fairly solid system.
Dislikes: 4e in general. Just not the style of RPG I like.
It's as simple as that. It has become apparent to me that at this point any reason I give for my disliking of the edition is going to get me chewed up and spit out by the Guardian of All Things 4e, so I'll leave my reasons as my own. 3e has many, many flaws, but I can work with it. 4e on its own is a fine system, but is not my style of game.
I have the books. I've read them. I tried, I really did. I just don't like it.
No offense intended to Jandrem, but to illustrate the point I'm making, the above post does very little to contribute to the thread. It provides nothing for anyone to go on, no reasons as to why you like or dislike what parts of the game, and manages to make a snide comment about people who defend 4th Edition all at once.
Back on the topic of the thread, Stefan, you're the first person I've seen to point to the half-level bonuses as something they dislike about 4th Edition. Could you explain what it is about it that doesn't sit well with you? Is it because it seems like all characters (classes) improve at an equal rate in all things?
Well, if he did give his reasons, I'm sure you would pick apart every one, telling him how wrong each one is. Now, if he said "I love 4th edition. It's the only RPG I'll ever play. I won't go into the specific reasons, but I love it." would you still say he didn't contribute to the thread? I seriously doubt it. Did he not contribute becasue he wasn't specifc or because he didn't say 4E is the best thing ever? You may call me an irrational 4E hater and a troll, but aren't you just as hostile in your defense of 4E? I have played 4E. Me and my group tried really hard to like it. In the end, it was more effort than it was worth. There are a few minor things I like about 4E such as the way they do the recharge of monster abilities and durations of effects (saving throws). They can keep everything else.
The +1/2 level thing just removes choice (thinking skills here). All I can do is choose to be trained and then level, other than stat differences my character will have little difference to any other character of similar level with the same trained skill (ok perhaps a slight racial bonus).
I liked that freedom to choose skills based on points, as an aside I still think the 2nd edition point system for thieves/bard was the best system for far for their abilities - again flexibility.
Thinking only of thieves we went from multiple separate abilities in 2nd to 3 in 3rd edition to 2 in 4th edition. But 3rd still retained the ability to customise slightly.
I guess we come back to your comment about "what if the party doesn't have the skill" - and with more skills to choose from the more chance of this I agree. But again if you are the DM change the encounter to match and challenge 'your' players.
Neither here nor there on the +1/2 level bonus for attacking, but I had no issues with the +attack progression differences for classes in previous editions.
So you were right, I dislike it because it removes another area of differentiation of characters.
Do you believe the +1/2 is a good thing when it comes to skills?
S.
I see what you mean. I know why the developers decided to use +1 per two levels modifier, but the removal of skill ranks does cut down slightly on customization. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons they are adding the idea of backgrounds that give small bonuses to things like certain skill checks, to help push that customization back to where it was.
I think the bonus to attack and defenses is really a great baseline, though, skill checks aside. These bonuses existed in 3.5 in a similar fashion, but were built into things like stat-boosting items and the like. It makes it feel like my character is actually getting more powerful as he adventures, rather than simply accumulating increasingly shiny magic items that would leave him a weakling without them.
I'm curious, do you use pre-made published adventures often? It sounds like you are a big fan of at least customizing adventures themselves.
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The other thing that we found to be disruptive in a combat round (i.e. grounding the players in the real world) was that quite a few of the powers read "do X, and then give ally Y +Z". This in our opinion broke up the flow of combat. Again 4th ed. feels more a "tactical" game than 3rd ed. did, which in turn was much more tactic than 2nd Edition AD&D (not including Player Option books). I don't think that point can be argued, it is a fact. I would recommend 4th ed. to any new players or new GM's, it explains (in most cases) things clearly and doesn't put too much pressure on the GM to think fast. In this I think 4th Ed. is a brilliant edition. Or if I think of 4th Ed. D&D like a very detailed Warhammer Quest / Heroquest etc then again marvelous publication.
I would be interested to know the age bracket of those who like/dislike 4th Ed. I am wondering if us older GM's (GMing for some 24 years now) feel 4th ed. is a board-game/RPG hybrid and newer GM's feel that 4th ed. helps control their game by having the clear cut "game board" combat system?
Looking forward to constructive comments,
Stefan.
PS: This is on the whole a very interesting thread - thanks to the person who started it.
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Hey Scott,
I haven't used a lot of published adventures for campaigns, having said that we played the Age of Worms campaign and will shortly start Savage Tide (they are just so well put together). I don't think of any modifications I make on the fly as customisation, but I guess you are right in a literal sense. Just a "tweak" to encounters to make sure everyone is having fun is required sometimes. We have all fudged the odd dice roll to save a player from death right!
If any of my players were on this message board they would be jumping up and down saying what a tight fisted GM I am with magic items. This is true, they would say "painfully true". I don't see that a character is redundant or useless if it doesn't have a +5 Vorpal sword hanging from its belt. The experience table of any edition D&D shows that as you level things improve - this is not related to magic item ownership in anyway.
May I quote you;
"shiny magic items that would leave him a weakling without them"
Weak against what? You as GM decide what is going to be thrown against your players and when. I've added or subtracted hp's to creatures "at will"* during a fight to keep things exciting but not too deadly. I would hope that published haven't become so restrictive that they say things like "4-6 players, levels 2-4, must have Eye of Vecna or they are screwed" written on the back! (just joking). I guess you get my point.
S.
*GM "at will" ability to do anything to keep the game fun is gained at first level GM.
Hey Scott,
I haven't used a lot of published adventures for campaigns, having said that we played the Age of Worms campaign and will shortly start Savage Tide (they are just so well put together). I don't think of any modifications I make on the fly as customisation, but I guess you are right in a literal sense. Just a "tweak" to encounters to make sure everyone is having fun is required sometimes. We have all fudged the odd dice roll to save a player from death right!
If any of my players were on this message board they would be jumping up and down saying what a tight fisted GM I am with magic items. This is true, they would say "painfully true". I don't see that a character is redundant or useless if it doesn't have a +5 Vorpal sword hanging from its belt. The experience table of any edition D&D shows that as you level things improve - this is not related to magic item ownership in anyway.
While true, it's less true in 3rd Edition than it is in 4th Edition. One of the stated design goals of 4th Edition was to lessen the necessity of certain magic items (stat boosters being the biggest example). I'll admit, one of my favorite parts of 3rd Edition was cracking the books open and trying to find just the right set of magic items for my character. But I think on the whole it could be intimidating, especially to new players. In that sense I'm glad it was changed.
May I quote you;
"shiny magic items that would leave him a weakling without them"Weak against what? You as GM decide what is going to be thrown against your players and when.
That's definitely true, and if you want to spend a little extra time each week making sure that the next few encounters the party faces will not be too overwhelming for them without the assumed amount of magical gear, that's perfectly fine. The system (both 3rd and 4th Editions) does assume a certain level of equipment from the group, and the suggested encounter levels (or CRs) are balanced partly against that. There are a lot of DMs whose proficiency with D&D isn't quite at the level where they can feel comfortable altering an encounter and know how that will probably change the outcome.
Saying that the DM should be adjusting things to his party is nice and all, but a lot of DMs don't want to bother with that kind of detail and just be able to rely on the system as presented - and that's something that they should be able to do.
I asked about published adventures because I think there were a couple styles of game that 4th Edition sought to make particularly painless on the part of the DM: running published adventures in established settings and running published adventures in homebrew settings. While it's certainly easier to design monsters and build interesting encounters than it's ever been (and I think this is something that even those who prefer 3rd Edition often agree on), 4th Edition has a tight enough level of design that a DM can literally pick up an adventure the day he runs it, maybe give it a quick once-over that afternoon, and be relatively assured of a low-stress, fun night of adventuring for his gaming group. Wizards was moving towards that level of ease towards the end of 3rd Edition (with the delve format), and those were some of the most enjoyable adventures I've ever played in or run.
Anywho,
My likes: On it's own, it's a fairly solid system.
Dislikes: 4e in general. Just not the style of RPG I like.
It's as simple as that. It has become apparent to me that at this point any reason I give for my disliking of the edition is going to get me chewed up and spit out by the Guardian of All Things 4e, so I'll leave my reasons as my own. 3e has many, many flaws, but I can work with it. 4e on its own is a fine system, but is not my style of game.
I have the books. I've read them. I tried, I really did. I just don't like it.
No offense intended to Jandrem, but to illustrate the point I'm making, the above post does very little to contribute to the thread. It provides nothing for anyone to go on, no reasons as to why you like or dislike what parts of the game, and manages to make a snide comment about people who defend 4th Edition all at once.
Hmm, I didn't contribute anything... At least it didn't take me ten posts to answer the OP's original question.
I stand by what I said, I think by itself 4e is a well rounded solid game, but not the sort of gaming experience I like. I prefer more simulationist games, where not necessarily everything is balanced 100% of the time. Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you have to rely on your wits, not necessarily attack/damage bonuses to survive.
Seriously, I'm a 3e gamer who had something nice to say about 4e. And I still get crap for it. I'll shush now.
So..ignoring all the fish slapping thats going on in this thread ill give you my thoughts.
I've been playing 4e for about 4 months weekly nows and DMing for a little bit longer on a weekly ish basis.
LIKES
- Player options - I recently put together a new character for a new player for the game I play in. He wanted a Fighter, and we already have a Paladin in the group so I thought about what would fit best. I went through an absolute ton of builds, which where all equally viable, and all quite different until I came upon the final choice. Was a bit of an eye-opener as to how different you can make two 2nd level characters of the same class.
- Encounter building - Easy. As. Pie. I never really had many issues with teh CR system, but 4e's method is even easier.
- MINIONS!!! - single most awesome rule in the game.
- Healing as a minor action - Having played a the only cleric in our last group, and now playing the groups warlord, I love the fact I can now heal people and still apply a greatsword to someones face.
DISLIKES
- Skill challenges - I kinda get what they where trying to do, I just think they porked it a bit.
- Getting my arse kicked royally by a bunch of stupid kobolds!
The +1/2 level thing just removes choice (thinking skills here). All I can do is choose to be trained and then level, other than stat differences my character will have little difference to any other character of similar level with the same trained skill (ok perhaps a slight racial bonus).
I liked that freedom to choose skills based on points, as an aside I still think the 2nd edition point system for thieves/bard was the best system for far for their abilities - again flexibility.
Thinking only of thieves we went from multiple separate abilities in 2nd to 3 in 3rd edition to 2 in 4th edition. But 3rd still retained the ability to customise slightly.
I guess we come back to your comment about "what if the party doesn't have the skill" - and with more skills to choose from the more chance of this I agree. But again if you are the DM change the encounter to match and challenge 'your' players.
Neither here nor there on the +1/2 level bonus for attacking, but I had no issues with the +attack progression differences for classes in previous editions.
So you were right, I dislike it because it removes another area of differentiation of characters.
Do you believe the +1/2 is a good thing when it comes to skills?
S.
I generally like it. For one thing it is possible to get very good at skills that interest you. You can take training in a skill and you can use a skill focus feat in a skill. Between the two its possible to be really excellent in a skill if you want to be. I feel that beyond this point if I was also allowed (I'm a player not a DM in 4E) to choose not to take some skills in order to be even better at others that might be to much. Especially considering how often we seem to be using skills in things like Skill Challenges. In fact I felt this was such a big deal that I've spent some of my Clerics feats just to snag some of these nice bonuses for skills, not something I'd have done in 3.5.
I like the fact that the system tends to work from a baseline were we always have at least some chance of pulling off a skill check - if not much of one sometimes. In essence I like te fact that we might be forced to flee from an avalanche or any other type of skill challange and there is usually less of a feeling that either you have the perfect guy for this problem and rolling is just a formality or, alternatively, no one has put any points into this and there is no chance at all of pulling it off. I feel that its added a lot of excitement and tension to the skill based encounters since things are rarely just black and white in terms of the players talents. While they vary its not all or nothing.
Now some of our differences may in part be due to how I like my adventures to play out. I much prefer a game where the DM is not adapting to me to much. It was kind of fun to realize just how important the skills were and then choose to adapt my cleric to the adventures by putting some feats into the characters skills. It felt like organic growth in some ways. I realized that my character and my party were weak in this department ('cause we were too used to ignoring skill enhancing feats) and I did something that makes my character particualrly stand out when we need a specific skill. I personally very much enjoy a style of game where I don't know what my character is going to be 5 levels down the road because I'll let the experiences of the adventure (mostly our failures) help dictate what I am going to do with the character as time goes on. I want to adapt to the world not have the world adapt to me.
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I agree completely with your comments - min/maxer's (i.e. roll-players) are the bane of a DM and sadly very common. No system will be immune to the effects these people have on the "role players". The usual effect being the frustration of the points you made.
I just not sure the approach taken (clustering as you call it) was the solution that I would have come up with. I don't have any problems with certain people being exceptional at a skill and some being rubbish.
Thinking real world, I'm sure a plumber could have a good go at preforming a heart bypass - but I would rather let a heart surgeon handle it.
Once again comes back to the DM making sure that players have the opportunity to use whatever abilities/skills etc they have - or as an old issue of Dragon once said, "let them roll dice at least every 20 minutes".
I really think the differences people have is in part to the DMing style we like. Some people like to run things "canned", read all the boxes marked "read aloud" and that is fine and wonderful if everyone is having fun. Others (myself included) use published adventures as mere frameworks and the details don't matter so much, also fine.
On another topic completely - how do/did people find the combat system in 4E with so many powers have an effect that you apply to another player? As I mentioned in a previous post, we found it a pain in the backside and very distracting from the game. However the one roll-player in our group loved it!
Cheers,
S.
I agree completely with your comments - min/maxer's (i.e. roll-players) are the bane of a DM and sadly very common. No system will be immune to the effects these people have on the "role players". The usual effect being the frustration of the points you made.
I just not sure the approach taken (clustering as you call it) was the solution that I would have come up with. I don't have any problems with certain people being exceptional at a skill and some being rubbish.
Thinking real world, I'm sure a plumber could have a good go at preforming a heart bypass - but I would rather let a heart surgeon handle it.
Once again comes back to the DM making sure that players have the opportunity to use whatever abilities/skills etc they have - or as an old issue of Dragon once said, "let them roll dice at least every 20 minutes".
I really think the differences people have is in part to the DMing style we like. Some people like to run things "canned", read all the boxes marked "read aloud" and that is fine and wonderful if everyone is having fun. Others (myself included) use published adventures as mere frameworks and the details don't matter so much, also fine.
On another topic completely - how do/did people find the combat system in 4E with so many powers have an effect that you apply to another player? As I mentioned in a previous post, we found it a pain in the backside and very distracting from the game. However the one roll-player in our group loved it!
Cheers,
S.
I dislike the use of "role-player" and "roll-player" as identifying labels because they imply that a person either enjoys the tactical combat or enjoys character development, and that the two are mutually exclusive. Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't, but far more harmful I think is the attitude of many who would put themselves in the "role-player" crowd (not that anyone here has done this, I'm simply speaking from personal past experience) that they are somehow above "roll-players", that what they do is more refined or requires a higher level of thought.
I've never really had a problem with powers that give bonuses to other players. It's a pretty tiny amount of information to remember. If I'm a Cleric and hit with Righteous Brand on a target, and give the two-weapon Ranger a +4 bonus to attack that target, once my turn is over I have one thing that I need to pay attention to: making sure that when the Ranger attacks, he remembers that +4. Are your players paying attention to the game when it isn't their turn? They should be. Even if they don't have something specific to remember to bring up on someone else's turn, they ought to be planning their own turn in advance so that they don't waste the group's time hemming and hawing when the initiative order gets back around to them.
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Again sorry for not being more specific.
By "roll-players" I mean the min/maxers who bugger up your game by having no other reason to play other than "plus" advantage. And by "role-players" I actually mean the moderates not the zealots who turn up in full costume and insist on only speaking in Elvish from the back on Lord of the Rings and also wish their d8 to only be known has the magic long sword "hyt thyngs"...
I understand about it not being a great deal to remember a single number, but its just another distraction during a combat round. It would be fine if perhaps there was only one possible "bonus" per round but it can come from multiple sources and some racial abilities. Just more round to round book keeping in my mind. May be if you play 4th ed. long enough these bonuses can go unspoken (as numbers I mean) but for us now its all plus this and plus that etc during a round. Again I will repeat we have a player who just loves this style of combat play. We tried to do combats without a "battle map", it sort of works but you loose (because you can't be bothered mainly) quite a few of the shift/slide bits from the combat.
So does anyone play 4E without a battle map for combats? If so how are you dealing with the creatures/players that have abilities to move things around (i.e. shift a square etc)?
Cheers,
S.
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I agree completely with your comments - min/maxer's (i.e. roll-players) are the bane of a DM and sadly very common. No system will be immune to the effects these people have on the "role players". The usual effect being the frustration of the points you made.
This is a huge pet peeve of mine... and I hate when people say thing like this.
Just because I like playing with my number on my character sheet has nothing to do with my role-playing capability.
a min/maxer in my experience has nothing to do with his/her role-playing capabilities. Some of the best role-players i have ever met *including myself* love min/maxing their characters.
and looks like Scott agrees....
That said..
In my minimal experience with 4e
I like:
I like all the character options that are available now, every class has something to do
I dislike:
Monster descriptions in MM - I preferred the larger and more detailed description in 3.0/3.5 - I know Scott that is by design... Does not mean I can't like that design.
I hate that they have to feel they have to put 'points of light' in some way in their campaign settings, it seems limiting to me to follow one philosophy.
Though the new spell system runs more smoothly, I miss the old one.. well to be more precise I miss a lot of the spells that were not in the 4e PhB
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I much prefer a game where the DM is not adapting to me to much. It was kind of fun to realize just how important the skills were and then choose to adapt my cleric to the adventures by putting some feats into the characters skills. It felt like organic growth in some ways. I realized that my character and my party were weak in this department ('cause we were too used to ignoring skill enhancing feats) and I did something that makes my character particualrly stand out when we need a specific skill. I personally very much enjoy a style of game where I don't know what my character is going to be 5 levels down the road because I'll let the experiences of the adventure (mostly our failures) help dictate what I am going to do with the character as time goes on. I want to adapt to the world not have the world adapt to me.
I'm the same way, but that's honestly why I like the 3ed skill system better, because I know that your experience dictates your learning, so a person who's never had to forge something shouldn't be gaining half their level to forgery checks. and if you've been in a situation where it has come up then my characters would wind up with skill points in it. I always had the spattering of class and cross class skills, which was part of the love of the new pathfinder version of SP because of the 1-1 point buy on cross class.
Anywho the real reason I responded to this was just to say I wish I could get a group of guys like us together to game with. You sound like someone I'd have a blast in a campaign with.
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Just a quick comment on Min/Max'ing as not to cause offense with my earlier comment.
Min/Max'ing is fine as long as everyone is doing it, as DM's we all know the difficulty (system independent) of giving challenges to all the players. Min/Maxer's (the hard core ones) create a gap between abilities that cause headaches. That was my only point, and I apologise for using terms that could be taken in another way from my actual meaning.
So I define the following;
Roll-player: Someone who will ALWAYS make the same class the same way EVERY time, because its the optimum "build" (hate that term btw).
Role-player: Someone who's character is primarily based on a concept/background, and while "built" to have the best advantages based on this, MAY NOT have the optimum "build" for that class.
Again ANYWAY you and your group have fun is the right way to play RPG's,
S.
...that they are somehow above "roll-players"...
…but I am above them.
That said, rangers do seem to get the short end of the stick with many of their attacks - they are damage fiends, but are often stuck with attacks that target AC and little else. The price you pay for being a ranged murder machine.
I should mention a couple of things. First, I play in a couple of regular 4e games, so while I definitely find it is far from a prefect system, I'm not a hater or anything. Second, my data is based upon the play of an actual 16th level melee focused ranger - i.e.: not a "ranged murder machine".
I might be dragging things a bit off topic here, but my reply was specifically aimed at your comment that "if you are, you're doing it so wrong". My point is that it's perfectly possible/viable to make a character that *does* use twin strike most of the time (of course it's debatable whether it's due to poor design in 4e - I personally think it is). This particular PC has a few "non-combat" focussed utilities and some encounter powers that are very situational (burst/reaction type powers). The upshot is that for each combat, he'll have maybe a couple of daily powers (of which he'll likely only use one) and a couple of encounter powers that are useful in that particular combat (one of which is usually disruptive strike, which doesn't count as his regular round action), and then spend the rest of the fight (around 80% of his actions) using twin strike.
Debate it if you like, but the above is factual data, based on actual play, and I disagree with your assertion that the character or the way it's being played is somehow "wrong". It's being played well within the framework that the rules support/encourage.
that's because you're wearing high-heel shoesOh. I had not considered that.
On another topic completely - how do/did people find the combat system in 4E with so many powers have an effect that you apply to another player? As I mentioned in a previous post, we found it a pain in the backside and very distracting from the game. However the one roll-player in our group loved it!Cheers,
S.
As the cleric, and therefore one of the characters that has such abilities, I have to say that I really enjoy it. I like it for its tactical ramifications and because it makes my choice of powers engaging and interesting since I have a lot of powers that will do different things to help the party and a few that won't help them at all but really deliver mojo damage. Its a lot of fun to consider all the options and my cleric really goes through a wide spread of powers in combat so that I rarely use the same one more then twice in a row.
I'd go so far as to say that I think some of the other classes need more of this kind of thing, that is more powers that allow X+Y of some kind becuase I sometimes feel that I'm the one having the most fun in combat because of all the interesting and meaningful choices at my fingertips. Juxtapose this with the best combatant in the game - our parties ranger (now retired) who had put everything into basically using the same combat manuever every round in every combat. No one put out damage like this guy - and no one was a bored as him either. He eventually retired the character in order to play something that would be more diverse and just do more interesting things in combat.
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I do like 4E's magic item "buying" system. We always had to invent a system under 3rd ed. to limit purchases from the DMG while still allowing people to "trade in" items not useful for ones they can use. I hate to discourage players from taking the less used weapons etc just because they felt the odds were stacked against them ever finding a magic version. Also it seems easier to create items, which I think is fantastic and allows side adventures to get ingredients or whatever. "Griffon feather you say? Sorry none in stock, but I know where you can find a whole Griffon..." :)
Having started reading Pathfinder RPG it seems more the route I would have liked to see WotC head down for D&D rather than this extreme make-over. d20 system was pretty darn solid (not without a few rust spots) and I (in my opinion) think it may have been dropped for reasons of WotC backing away from the OGL to have sole control over the D&D product line. Fair enough I say, they are a company and their job is to make money! I just feel it is a little bit of the shame as a Paizo/WotC design team combo given the great ideas in both Pathfinder and 4E would have been nice to see. To be completely fair 4E is really the 1st edition of this new system (does it have a name?) and perhaps by 4.5E or 5E the bits that don't work so well will have been dealt with. 3rd has already gone 3 --> 3.5 --> Pathfinder.
S.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Good god I hate that power for exactly that reason!!! I have been dying for some way to describe how exactly it works.Blinding Barrage is the worst EVER;
This Blinding Barrage thing got me all fired up last week and we rewrote the fluff a bit. Now the rogue keeps flinging stuff wildly at the faces of the enemies. HP loss as morale damage in 4e means the enemies were totally frightened and freaked out by pointy stuff whizzing at their eyes if they didn't keep them covered or duck or look away. That covered the blindness effect too - anyone who dared to peek or expose their eyes was reminded not to by the rogue.
PS: I know it's othing to do with the OP, I'll post my answers in a bit. Got all excited 'cos we had this problem recently!
I find it interesting that people can not wrap their heads around the concept of abstracting 4e powers but have no problem explaining away why armor makes you more difficult to hit instead of absorbing damage.
I find it interesting that people can not wrap their heads around the concept of abstracting 4e powers but have no problem explaining away why armor makes you more difficult to hit instead of absorbing damage.
Agreed.
As a matter of fact, there are rules for armor damage reduction, in Unearthed Arcana, but they are just burried there, as optional rules only.
I find it interesting that people can not wrap their heads around the concept of abstracting 4e powers but have no problem explaining away why armor makes you more difficult to hit instead of absorbing damage.Agreed.
As a matter of fact, there are rules for armor damage reduction, in Unearthed Arcana, but they are just burried there, as optional rules only.
They also don't really work. Decent enough at low levels but near useless at higher levels were you end up having no chance to avoid the monsters blow (because the rules mean your AC is not as low as it would have been) and the DR blocks only a trivial amount of the damage (since the DR is static but the amount of damage high level monsters put out is dramatically larger then what low level monster do).
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Good god I hate that power for exactly that reason!!! I have been dying for some way to describe how exactly it works. The best I can come up with is that...
Being a scrapper IRL, I can tell you first hand that I have been punched IN THE NOSE a few times that made me see stars for a second. Maybe "re-skin" the power to
Blunt Barrage: A rapid barrage of blunt projectiles that leaves your enemies "seeing stars".
I'd go with that and move on. I know, I know, "But that means you have to have different types of bolts for your crossbow!" True, but at least I didn't recommend one with a boxer's glove tied to it a la Green Arrow.
As to what I like:
The structure behind levels, experience, monsters, treasure ... In the past I'd design games (I'm a home brew guy) with a story plot, but no real idea behind what level players should be, how much treasure, etc. I feel that the DMG does such a great job laying this out in a logical, functional manner that it really helps me with pacing and story development.
Things that I don't like:
I don't like how the PHB steers players concerning builds. While this does make them "optimized" at the beginning (which is how the game is supposed to start now - you're not Farmer Bob swinging his pitchfork for the first time any more but an already-accomplished adventurer). That however, may just be a "D&D addict" conceptualization of "chasing that first high" back when we couldn't even spell 'polyhedral dice' and the entire concept of role play was new, controversial and even somewhat notorious.
Ahh! It's good to be a grognard some times :D.
A whole lot of good stuff...
Great post and I agree with your frustrations. In far to many cases it seems like they put down some kind of baseline in the rules. Made a change and justified it due to extremely sound meta game reasoning...and then promptly ignored their own design and development philosophy in the next supplement. Its enough to make one want to pull out their hair.
As you say, power creep because more options are on the table is not a problem, in fact the game seems hard enough on average that a little power creep would probably be a good thing. However anytime power creep comes in the form of character class X is just better then everything that has come before or feat Y is simply the best feat for this style of character hands down then we can pretty much state that Design and Development has screwed the pooch (or maybe poodle) and made a bad choice.
Personally I think they made their biggest mistake in what amounts to their schedule. Its far to ambitious and its hurting the game - for Magic sets they are actually playing with the cards a full two sets ahead of the cards release )or so they claim anyway) and I think they should be doing something more like this with Dungeons and Dragons, things should be put out in DDI much further in advance of the actual rule books - let the character optimization guys break things some more and then give the rest of us better balanced rule books.
I understand that Wizards needs to generate some positive cash flow but I think that the loss of immediate revenue here would be offset in part by making the DDI subscription more meaningful (you get new toys 6 months or a year in advance of the actual rule book and feed back on these toys actually gets into the rules).
Like you nothing frustrates me more then a bad design choice that could have and should have been noted by design and development. Anytime I'm asking myself "do these guys even know the rules for their own game?", well thats bad.
They need an internal manual that outlines the philosophical and meta game underpinnings of 4E. I mean they actually might have such a thing but a lot of the time it sure does not seem that way.
I don't like how the PHB steers players concerning builds. While this does make them "optimized" at the beginning (which is how the game is supposed to start now - you're not Farmer Bob swinging his pitchfork for the first time any more but an already-accomplished adventurer).
I know what you mean - what I find even more odd is I don't feel that it really worked. To much depends on what kind of a game your in. Lots of skill challenges compared to straight up combats makes the choices they offer actually sub par for example.
We've played 4E a couple of times, not enough for a true game experience, but enough to get the gist of the game.
Likes:
- Encounter Preparation, I'm a huge fan of the XP budget.
- Minimal Fluff in the core books. I'm not a fan of the "Points of Light" concept presented in the books and am grateful that there is not too much fluff tied to the rules that I have to change.
- Simplified Game Play. Less modifiers, simple action sequence.
- The concept of skill challenges (the execution leaves much to be desired IMO, but the idea is great).
Dislikes:
- Everytime we've played, the characters all "feel" the same. I suspect that this is due to the fact that the powers are all balanced against each other, so there are a lot of similarities between character potential.
- Lack of abilities and powers that are useful outside of combat.
- It feels unfinished. Actually not so much unfinished as very, very bare bones. The impression that I get is that there was much more material that was trimmed out to add to expansion books.
- My entire group hates it, the oft made comparison is that it's too much like Descent, but less fun.
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Dislikes:
- Everytime we've played, the characters all "feel" the same. I suspect that this is due to the fact that the powers are all balanced against each other, so there are a lot of similarities between character potential.
I don't speak for you at all. I will say however for us, I think we just haven't gotten into the game enough yet to really understand how things work together/complement each other. For example, the defender didn't start using his shift-teammates powers until the fourth encounter. At that point a sort of group gesalt went "ding" and folks started to look at things in a new way.
I would also say that the concept of powers and power cards tends to meld the FLAVOR of the action into a bland commonality. "I do Twin Stike!" "I do Eldrich Blast!" Which one is a melee attack? Which one is a spell? My hope is to start getting the characters to become more colorful in their descriptions ... "I ready both my weapons and go in for a viscious slash of blows!" or "I summon power from my ties to things infernal, and summon a blast of eldrich might!".
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I was wondering for those of you who tried and don't like 4E enough to swap from v3.5/Pathfinder, and assuming the basic mechanics of 4E are kept, what would improve the game such that you would change to 4E?
For me it would be to change the classes such that they didn't feel so the same (at a core) and remove such a strong need for a battle map to actually have a combat.
S.
I was wondering for those of you who tried and don't like 4E enough to swap from v3.5/Pathfinder, and assuming the basic mechanics of 4E are kept, what would improve the game such that you would change to 4E?
For me it would be to change the classes such that they didn't feel so the same (at a core) and remove such a strong need for a battle map to actually have a combat.
S.
Doesn't 3.5/Pathfinder require a battle mat? I can't imagine trying to run a combat in either system without them. It would be an enormous headache to accurately adjudicate flanking, opportunity attacks and area effects in either system without the use of a grid keeping track of positions.