Welcome to the boards, and as you can see there are strong supporters for each version, so don't be taken back, when even mentioning pathfinder and 4E in the same thread is like striking a match next to a fireworks factory. Either version can be argued as the worse or best in regards to your preference in mechanics, roleplaying, etc. But I do believe pathfinder has an edge in regards to adventure paths, and 4E has the advantage for electronic tools for creating characters, and monsters.
I just recently switched to Pathfinder myself. I was the biggest 4e fan. Even before they released it. After 4e was released I still remember telling people how Paizo was going to fail because it didn't switch. Now I did enjoy 4e. But the thousands of new powers released with each new book or virtual magazine left me ever more confused. Eventually I gave up GMing because I couldn't keep up with the shear volume of new powers. And lately I found myself wondering what happened to my old D&D? That's when I rediscovered Pathfinder. I set aside 4e... maybe I will return to it someday. But 4e... it isn't D&D. It's a whole new game. I missed D&D so I came to Pathfinder. And I intend to stay awhile.
PS: Forgive me Paizo for doubting you. It's nice that someone kept D&D alive.
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But 4e... it isn't D&D. It's a whole new game.
Quite a few people feel this way, but to me 4e is as much D&D as 3.5 was. Equally there are people who think 3.0 / 3.5 & PF aren't D&D compared to earlier editions. It depends on the person and what edition they started with.
As the OP has no previous experience of D&D he will luckily not suffer from any pre-conceptions and "D&D" will be whatever he makes of it.
I do agree that 4e is significantly different from 3.5 (IMHO at least) but for me that is a plus - it is different enough that I am encouraged to play both 3.5 and 4e, whilst I have nothing to encourage me to play PF alongside 3.5.
I just recently switched to Pathfinder myself. I was the biggest 4e fan. Even before they released it. After 4e was released I still remember telling people how Paizo was going to fail because it didn't switch. Now I did enjoy 4e. But the thousands of new powers released with each new book or virtual magazine left me ever more confused. Eventually I gave up GMing because I couldn't keep up with the shear volume of new powers. And lately I found myself wondering what happened to my old D&D? That's when I rediscovered Pathfinder. I set aside 4e... maybe I will return to it someday. But 4e... it isn't D&D. It's a whole new game. I missed D&D so I came to Pathfinder. And I intend to stay awhile.
PS: Forgive me Paizo for doubting you. It's nice that someone kept D&D alive.
Tehee... 4E is just like the 3.5... splat books, splat books and splat books! :D
But 4e... it isn't D&D. It's a whole new game.Quite a few people feel this way, but to me 4e is as much D&D as 3.5 was. Equally there are people who think 3.0 / 3.5 & PF aren't D&D compared to earlier editions. It depends on the person and what edition they started with.
As the OP has no previous experience of D&D he will luckily not suffer from any pre-conceptions and "D&D" will be whatever he makes of it.
I do agree that 4e is significantly different from 3.5 (IMHO at least) but for me that is a plus - it is different enough that I am encouraged to play both 3.5 and 4e, whilst I have nothing to encourage me to play PF alongside 3.5.
I think there is one difference between the shift from Ad&D to 2nd ED and from 2nd to 3.x and that is design goal. In my mind, D&D's rules have always been there to create a cohesive world. When you are a wizard you 'feel' like you are a wizard. If you are facing down a dragon, it does what you think a dragon ought to do, and it feel like you are fighting that dragon. The game is designed first and formost to give that feeling. 4E is a game first and foremost. It is designed with the first intention of making a game that works well, is simple and easy to implement, and provides fair and balanced play. It accomplishes this excellently, but at the expense of that feeling of a cohesive game world. It really struck home for me when I realized that a succubus could not actually enthral anyone for any length of time, even a lowly commoner because of the way the mechanics are layed out. Which makes sense, dominate person is a powerful and very swingy ability in 3.x but it just doesnt feel right to me. 3.x and pathfinder on the other hand sacrifice balance and ease of play for that cohesiveness and believability.
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Tehee... 4E is just like the 3.5... splat books, splat books and splatbooks! :D
Just like in 3.5, you don't have to use them! :)
And for me as a GM I prefer the crunch supplement treadmill to the setting supplement treadmill - I can easily limit crunch to just what I own, but if I run an adventure in a setting and a player makes an assumption based upon a setting supplement I don't own, then it can cause problems (or worse a player complains my take on some part of the session is not "canon").
4e is great in that its settings are dealt with in just a players guide, GM guide and an adventure.
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[4e] is designed with the first intention of making a game that works well, is simple and easy to implement, and provides fair and balanced play. It accomplishes this excellently, but at the expense of that feeling of a cohesive game world.
[...]
3.x and pathfinder on the other hand sacrifice balance and ease of play for that cohesiveness and believability.
This I can agree with, and one of the reasons why I still want to play and run 3.5.
Mind you an important thing to realise about 4e is that the monster write ups pretty much only stat stuff likely to be used in an encounter - a GM is encouraged to add anything else (such as rituals) to allow an NPC to do stuff that forwards the plot. So in 4e a succubus could enthrall a peasant villager into being its pawn long time, if that serves the plot, but when it comes time to face the PCs, it won't be able to do that to them.
2.) I'm not worried about 4e's impact on roleplaying in non-initiative time. I'm worried about it's impact on roleplay in initiative time. Do I do action "x", action "y", or action "z"? Well, I already spent my z-power, action-y won't give me the mechanical bonus I want, so I'll use my x-power. That's not roleplaying. Contrast with, "my character is flashy and daring, he'll do 'a'".
But how often in every edition of the game (PFRPG included) does initiative time turn into "I move and attack" or "I full attack"? How many wizards out there try to be blaster mages that just do damage? How many clerics act like walking healing wands? Over the last 20 years of roleplaying I've gamed with a lot more "I attack"s than "I'll try"s.
4e has actually helped some of the players I know in that regard. They can pick the powers based on how they want to play the character. Some still just choose "the best" powers, but those folks would be playing like that in 3.x.
I am sure I was "really" roleplaying when I was playing 4e last :). But anyway I am curious - what particular aspects of the PF system do you feel actually "forces" roleplaying much more?I have always felt a system couldn't "force" roleplaying, though it might "promote" or "encourage" it, but then I am not sure PF has anything over 4e even in that regard; so I am curious whether I have missed something in PF (and even 3.5).
From my experience role playing in 4E kind of gets lost in the combats due how long combat takes. Even the most basic encounter takes about an hour to play. You can role play in combat but we found you'd start that way but about half way through combat you just focused in tactics more and more to beat the encounter. So I'd say 4E encourages tactical combat over role playing, not bad thing mind just different.
I'm going camping soon... roughing it out in the very cold woods. I can use the 4e books to keep warm. :)
I think roleplaying is more of a life style choice, versus the game not supporting it. Most often, people don't roleplay as much in combat, and if you are still learning the system, even less. I do agree people prefer certain game mechanics, and like to use those for combat and roleplaying, since 4E introduced a new set of rules, that all has to be re-learned and applied. I enjoy other games such as GURPS, and expectations from other game systems carry over, but it doesn't prevent me from roleplaying or enjoying the game.
I have never got to the point of throwing out books, or even trading them in. I never know who I may play with next.
I apologize about this seeming off topic, but all the talk about 3.E vs 4E and how one encourages rping better than the other got me wondering...
I sometimes wonder what "role playing" looks like (at least in a game that supposably features heavy role playing). I'm almost always a dm and haven't had a chance to play in many different game groups under different dms, so most of my rpg experience come from the games I've run. In my game there is a definite ongoing story, and I try to ensure that the characters have lots of interesting choice to make in terms of how they approach and solve problems. They do engage in role playing, but in a 4 hour session I'd say that about 1- 1.5 hours would be exploration and role playing and the other 2.5-3 hours is spent in tactical combat situations (we currently play 4E, but they spent an equal amount of time in tactical combat when we played 3E, so that hasn't changed despite the system). My players seem to enjoy this ratio and have never complained about too much combat, so I'm not really thinking of switching my style much, but I get curious about the sorts of games other dms run (since I never get to see them). Sometimes I see a post from a player that mentions they mostly like a game that focuses on rp, but I'd really like to see what that looks like. I mean, I guess I've run games that were more mystery oriented and the players had to spend a lot of time talking to different NPCs and the like to gather clues- is that the kind of game such people play in? One of my current players told me that he was in a game that supposably featured heavy "role play", but he thought it was boring as hell because the players would spend half an hour of real time rping what their characters were ordering for breakfast at the inn. Is that what some people consider rping?
I guess my question for the heavy "role players" out there is- what do you actually do during a 4 hour game session?
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If I had my way my group would be playing Rifts, Rolemaster or GURPS Horseclans as well as PFRPG.
If you had your way, Mr. Dwarf, we'd all be 4 feet 5 inches tall and bearded berserkers running around chasing equally bearded women!
Now, a respectable rat like myself, would stick with Pathfinder!
By the way, I was stealing cheese from your fridge again last night. Can you please ensure you have some crackers on paw to go with the vintage cheddar.
This thread has gotten fun~
I apologize about this seeming off topic, but all the talk about 3.E vs 4E and how one encourages rping better than the other got me wondering...
I sometimes wonder what "role playing" looks like (at least in a game that supposably features heavy role playing). I'm almost always a dm and haven't had a chance to play in many different game groups under different dms, so most of my rpg experience come from the games I've run. In my game there is a definite ongoing story, and I try to ensure that the characters have lots of interesting choice to make in terms of how they approach and solve problems. They do engage in role playing, but in a 4 hour session I'd say that about 1- 1.5 hours would be exploration and role playing and the other 2.5-3 hours is spent in tactical combat situations (we currently play 4E, but they spent an equal amount of time in tactical combat when we played 3E, so that hasn't changed despite the system). My players seem to enjoy this ratio and have never complained about too much combat, so I'm not really thinking of switching my style much, but I get curious about the sorts of games other dms run (since I never get to see them). Sometimes I see a post from a player that mentions they mostly like a game that focuses on rp, but I'd really like to see what that looks like. I mean, I guess I've run games that were more mystery oriented and the players had to spend a lot of time talking to different NPCs and the like to gather clues- is that the kind of game such people play in? One of my current players told me that he was in a game that supposably featured heavy "role play", but he thought it was boring as hell because the players would spend half an hour of real time rping what their characters were ordering for breakfast at the inn. Is that what some people consider rping?
I guess my question for the heavy "role players" out there is- what do you actually do during a 4 hour game session?
IMHO role playing is whatever embellishments the DM and/or the players use to bring the story to life. We have all probably played games where the rules or the speed at which it plays degenerate us into speaking only in statistics (but even then in our heads the scene is still being laid out, and when someone rolls a crit, there's mighty cheer). But the RP is the stuff people say either off the cuff or for the fun of it that adds to those statistics.
Sometimes the game goals are all in RP and you have to portray your character to settle a dispute between rival houses, or sell a cow to a king. You might still have to roll, but your "performance" might garner you a modest bonus to the roll. But really, telling of the tale, that is the RP.
I had great fun playing a dwarven alchemist brewmeister who kept the dwarf barbarian in the party plastered the entire time, passing him special brews that he had concocted the night before. We had an uproariously good time with loads of awesome RP :D
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From my experience role playing in 4E kind of gets lost in the combats due how long combat takes. Even the most basic encounter takes about an hour to play. [...] So I'd say 4E encourages tactical combat over role playing, not bad thing mind just different.
I haven't played enough 4e to really get an idea of how long combats take compared to 3.5 or PF, combats can take an hour I believe, but TBH some of the combats in 3.5 seemed to take that long as well.
But then combat encounters in 4e seem quite different in terms of the number of foes you face and the terrain you face them on (movement seems more common in 4e) - so whilst they could be longer in 4e, the fights may seem more significant - the adidtion of Minions is great as you can get that feeling of battling hordes of monsters whilst not taking that much extra time in combat.
I would also agree that what little I have seen of the WotC 4e adventures, encounters seem heavily combat orientated, and so I could possibly agree that the adventures "encourage tactical combat over role playing", but not the system.
However, even if combats take a bit longer, you can still take the same amount of time on roleplaying as you did in PF, it would just be that overall the time to play through an adventure would be longer, and as such the combat to roleplaying ration is greater.
Extreme example to illustrate what I mean
Pathfinder
Combat 1 - 30min
Investigation Scene 1 - 60min
Combat 2 - 30 min
Social Scene 1 - 30min
Combat 3 - 45min
Epilogue - 15min
Total time: 3hours 30min
Combat to "RP" Ratio: 105:105 or 1:1
D&D4e
Combat 1 - 60min
Investigation Scene 1 - 60min
Combat 2 - 60min
Social Scene 1 - 30min
Combat 3 - 90min
Epilogue - 15min
Total time: 5hours 15min
Combat to "RP" Ratio: 210:105 or 2:1
So in both cases you do exactly the same amount of roleplaying but the proportion of time spent roleplaying is less. However, as stated this is an extreme example and if you have an RP heavy / combat light scenario (e.g. a very short skirmish and then a regular combat) then the proportions would coem more into line.
But as stated I haven't really got enough experience to determine whether 4e combats do take longer than PF ones, and if so by how much (I doubt they would take twice as long as I used in the example above).
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I sometimes wonder what "role playing" looks like
I think one of the problems we have in debates like this is that there is no strict definition of what roleplaying entails. For some RPing means speaking in character, for others it is acting in accordance with the characters' motivations, for others it is making decisions based upon the character's role in the party and in the setting (so a noble would choose not to associate with riff-raff in a local tavern, whilst a fighter would choose to defend the wizard in a combat). For most RPing is a mix of all of those and more.
Another thing to note is that not all roleplaying is actually desired by some players. Some people can be enthralled by roleplaying out a shopping trip, negotiating prices with NPCs, describing how they parley with other customers and try to bluff that the sword they are selling was once owned by Kind Harad the Elder. If everyone enjoys that, then great go for it, there is no BADWRONGFUN.
However, for some people roleplaying through every little detail is tiresome if it isn't actively progressing the plot of the adventure. For these people cut scenes can be used and shopping trips and the like done "off-screen". Overall the amount of roleplay may be less for the adventure, but this may actually be preferred.
Also, roleplaying your character at the expense of other players' fun is also usually a no-no. Anyone who tries to excuse acting like a dick by saying "but its what my character would do" is still acting like a dick :)
So in an RP heavy adventure I would expect less action scenes (where mechanics often get used more often, e.g. combat, chases etc) and more scenes involving investigation (which would involve decision making and some skill checks), social interaction (negotiating truces, interrogating suspects etc, again using skill checks every so often) and exploration (travel into wilderness areas, tracking bandits to their lair etc).
Gaming sessions where you barely roll dice are often a good indication that it might have been RP heavy (I have played convention scenarios where a die was rolled once - it was theoretically using MOngoose RuneQuest, but to be honest the system could have been D&D for all it was used).
In terms of systems that actually encourage roleplaying I tend to think of games like FATE where characters have Aspects that can be both benefits and hinderances - and players are actively rewarded (By Fate Points) to play up to those Aspects.
For example if you have "Cowardly thief" as an aspect the GM may award you a Fate point for backing down from a fight that you may have actually had a good chance of winning, or that would have really helped your efforts in the scenario if you hadn't backed down.
The good thing is Aspects can be layered onto practically any RPG system, from Pathfinder to D&D4e with little or no hassle.
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Someone here posted about the difference in quality of the adventurers, 4.0 vs. PF.
Yeah, I have heard a few people complain about the scenarios fo 4e, but that isn't an issue for me as I prefer to write my own scenarios around the characters.
I have Dungeon Delves and am using them as casual play sessions for me to learn to run 4e ruleswise and for players to test out races and classes. As pure combat they are fairly interesting so far.
I also have Seekers of the Ashen Crown the Eberron scenario, but I haven't read it yet (and likely won't run it as is). I got it to complete the Eberron stuff I have.
But yeah, Paizo seem to be the kings of Adventure Paths, and indeed this seemed to be the core of their business, but now it seems the PF RPG and rules supplement is adding to that, changing their business model. Unfortunately, as adventures don't interest me as a GM Paizo's greatest offering isn't aimed at me (I still visit here to keep abreast of PF developments, for purely interest reasons, and to see what other goodies are available, i.e. accessories).
I like 4e and all, but the adventures for it are atrociously bad. ATROCIOUSLY bad. Utter, utter garbage.
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I like 4e and all, but the adventures for it are atrociously bad. ATROCIOUSLY bad. Utter, utter garbage.
I will make sure to avoid them :)
I do have a few other adventures actually (again not read) - the free PDF of Keep on the Shadowfell (apparently updated from the print copy), PDFs of the two Free RPG day adventures (Treasure of Talon Pass and Khybers Harvest) and the Village of Hommlett (again free as a GM reward).
So even of those are crap, at least they are free :)
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From my experience role playing in 4E kind of gets lost in the combats due how long combat takes...I haven't played enough 4e to really get an idea of how long combats take compared to 3.5 or PF, combats can take an hour I believe, but TBH some of the combats in 3.5 seemed to take that long as well.
Extreme example to illustrate what I mean
Pathfinder
Combat 1 - 30min
Investigation Scene 1 - 60min...
Combat to "RP" Ratio: 105:105 or 1:1D&D4e
Combat 1 - 60min
Investigation Scene 1 - 60min...
Combat to "RP" Ratio: 210:105 or 2:1So in both cases you do exactly the same amount of roleplaying but the proportion of time spent roleplaying is less...
I am playing in both a longstanding Pathfinder game and a long standing 4E game.
In 4E we've been playing about 18 months, once a week for about 6-8 hours per session. We're level 16.
In Pathfinder we've been playing about a year, 2-3 sessions / month for 4-5 hours per session. We're level 10/11.
I have had fights in 4E take an entire session. Twice, it took 1.5 session. As we've gotten higher in level, the fights get longer. We recently had one fight where the Solo monster had over 1000 hp. And he could heal himself a couple different ways - each healing surge = 250 HP. We quickly ran out of powers except our at wills. Guess how long it takes to wittle down 800 HP with powers that do an average of less than 20 damage for non strikers, about 35 damage for strikers? ONce we hit paragon, it seems the average battle takes about 3 hours.
Maybe we play slowly - I do know that when the fight gets really long, I stop caring. We're almost never in serious danger - it's just boring. We start joking, start random conversations, wander around my apartment in search of amusement and/or snacks, the laptops start playing games instead of looking up power information...
We could probably get those 3 hour fights down to 2 hours if we didn't get distracted. But still. Ugh. And I"m the tactical player / rules lawyer of the group.
The solo fight that took about 6 hours? Yeah, 5 of those hours were fighting with at will powers to get those last 800 HP down.
Pathfinder as a system has it's own problems. Don't I know it. Many were inherited from 3.5 - and given the design goal of backwards compatibility, were unavoidable. Some were introduced. I've had frustrations and annoyances with Pathfinder games and fights as well, but I can't recall ever being bored. That's huge in my book.
Only problem now is that i have a whole bunch of D&D 4E books to deal with.
Both e-bay and Amazon can sell your 4e books for you.
4e and Pathfinder are very different games, even though both of them are forms of "D&D". 4e is a gamists' game; and it's mechanics are more interested in combat than non-combat; it's made for you to pick up and run quickly and easily. Pathfinder is based on the 3.5 engine, and is less well balanced in terms of power, but has much more in the way of non-combat mechanics; it's somewhat more clumsy but also grainier.
Pathfinder is my game of choice. The mechanics are more versatile, and the game feels more like it's designed for role-playing than as a tactical table-top combat game. The latter is what D&D evolved from, it's true, but there's a reason I haven't played 1st edition AD&D since 1986.
I sometimes wonder what "role playing" looks like
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(we currently play 4E,
Well, no wonder you don't know what role-playing looks like!
Ba-dum *ding*
"I'll be here all week! Try the veal!"
I have had fights in 4E take an entire session. Twice, it took 1.5 session. As we've gotten higher in level, the fights get longer. We recently had one fight where the Solo monster had over 1000 hp. And he could heal himself a couple different ways - each healing surge = 250 HP. We quickly ran out of powers except our at wills. Guess how long it takes to wittle down 800 HP with powers that do an average of less than 20 damage for non strikers, about 35 damage for strikers? ONce we hit paragon, it seems the average battle takes about 3 hours.Maybe we play slowly - I do know that when the fight gets really long, I stop caring. We're almost never in serious danger - it's just boring. We start joking, start random conversations, wander around my apartment in search of amusement and/or snacks, the laptops start playing games instead of looking up power information...
We could probably get those 3 hour fights down to 2 hours if we didn't get distracted. But...
I believe you, I have only played relatively low level 4E games (never entering paragon level) but given the simple fact that HP scales steadily like it does in previous dnd editions (and more so for monsters) and damage does not (there are relatively flat damage amounts for powers and this does not increase a whole lot) it is has to take longer, its a simple matter of math. But I think that was actually a design goal. One of the problems with 3.5 is if you arent careful or have the 'right' party, even big bad boss monsters and npc villains can be taken down really quickly. This isnt possible in 4E. 4E also made party wipes the domain of really really careless DM's or blatent attempts to kill the party by making combat less about the threat of death and more about managing resources. Both Anticlimactic 1 round battles and accidental TPK's are problems in 3.x that make dming harder. Long drawn out combats are more or less a concequence of designing a system to prevent those 2 problems.
.... Keep on the Shadowfell ....
Sigh... It was SO bad! (and not in a good way)
Way to start off a product line.
I apologize about this seeming off topic, but all the talk about 3.E vs 4E and how one encourages rping better than the other got me wondering...
I sometimes wonder what "role playing" looks like (at least in a game that supposably features heavy role playing). I'm almost always a dm and haven't had a chance to play in many different game groups under different dms, so most of my rpg experience come from the games I've run. In my game there is a definite ongoing story, and I try to ensure that the characters have lots of interesting choice to make in terms of how they approach and solve problems. They do engage in role playing, but in a 4 hour session I'd say that about 1- 1.5 hours would be exploration and role playing and the other 2.5-3 hours is spent in tactical combat situations (we currently play 4E, but they spent an equal amount of time in tactical combat when we played 3E, so that hasn't changed despite the system). My players seem to enjoy this ratio and have never complained about too much combat, so I'm not really thinking of switching my style much, but I get curious about the sorts of games other dms run (since I never get to see them). Sometimes I see a post from a player that mentions they mostly like a game that focuses on rp, but I'd really like to see what that looks like. I mean, I guess I've run games that were more mystery oriented and the players had to spend a lot of time talking to different NPCs and the like to gather clues- is that the kind of game such people play in? One of my current players told me that he was in a game that supposably featured heavy "role play", but he thought it was boring as hell because the players would spend half an hour of real time rping what their characters were ordering for breakfast at the inn. Is that what some people consider rping?
I guess my question for the heavy "role players" out there is- what do you actually do during a 4 hour game session?
I love pure role play. It is the reason I play RPGs in the first place.
Role play is when you lose sight of the here and now. It is that magic moment when you are your character. When we are role playing it is perfectly natural to talk like your character would and interact freely with each other and NPCs in character as naturally as if you were really there. I remember my first Rifts game as clearly now as if I played yesterday. The roleplay for me was truly intense. Maybe more so for me because I was seeing Rifts as a new experience. I think it clicked for all of us around the table, when we spent 4 hours of real time simply role playing out our actions and conversations with each other. It was centered around a visit we made to a trading village to get supplies and find employment shortly after our group formed. And it ended with a night spent camping just before we attacked Archies evil robots. I am sure I could recount the entire night if you guys wanted to hear it. But since this is off topic I will keep it to this short piece unless enough of you want to hear it.
I have had fights in 4E take an entire session. Twice, it took 1.5 session. As we've gotten higher in level, the fights get longer. We recently had one fight where the Solo monster had over 1000 hp. And he could heal himself a couple different ways - each healing surge = 250 HP. We quickly ran out of powers except our at wills. Guess how long it takes to wittle down 800 HP with powers that do an average of less than 20 damage for non strikers, about 35 damage for strikers? ONce we hit paragon, it seems the average battle takes about 3 hours.Maybe we play slowly - I do know that when the fight gets really long, I stop caring. We're almost never in serious danger - it's just boring. We start joking, start random conversations, wander around my apartment in search of amusement and/or snacks, the laptops start playing games instead of looking up power information...
We could probably get those 3 hour fights down to 2 hours if we didn't get distracted. But...
And probably will in the future. 4e designers have recognized the very problem you state. I believe (I've never DM'ed 4e, so this is vague recollection) in the original release, Solo monsters (i.e., bosses) had 5x normal hit points. Which at the middle to high levels ended up exactly as you describe. When the monster is only halfway down in HP, the PCs have none of their encounter or daily powers left, and are just taking turns using their at-wills.
They recently revised the monsters so that Solo monsters only have 4x normal hit points, which has the effect of making combat shorter, and also has the creature become bloodied faster, which can make combat less boring.
It would be a good idea for your DM to cut the HP of existing solo monsters by 20%, if he's using monsters from the first MM and early dungeons.
But I'm no expert in 4e, I've only played it a couple times. I just keep up with the podcasts just in case someone offers to run a game.
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Yeah, those are problems of 3.5/Pathfinder high level play that haven't been solved. And tracking buffs both for time and what stacks / doesn't stack gets crazy too. There's definitely issues on both sides.
I have a friend that loves the 4E ruleset - she especially loved it at first when there were few books and it was eaiser for her tobuild a character that 3.5. Now, with all the splat books, she's as unhappy about the options in 4E as she was with her options in 3.5. She had a hard time with 3.5, and everyone, rather than helping her learn the system, "did it for her" - which while well meaning essentially prevented her from learning for herself (I see this happen especially often with women that join the hobby - being a woman myself, I'm comfortable assisting without handholding. If you have a basic knowledge of the system, you'll have more fun! And if I'm DM, I allow new players a certain number of character "fixes" as they master the system - along with offering advice if I see a that they're being suckered in by a "trap" mechanic somewhere. </digression>).
I've got her excited about joining a Kingmaker game I'll be running later this summer (8 players so far! gulp!), and I'll see if I can't get her comfortable enough with pathfinder rules to enjoy herself.
Some stuff I like about 4E. I like that you add half your level to skills you haven't invested resources in. A level 10 character is better than Bob the raw recruit at keeping watch if neither is invested in perception, and if Bob is specialized and the crack level 10 adventurer is not, they're still probably on an even level - or at least reasonably close.
I like the idea of some magic being nearly impossible to use in combat. Rituals as an idea for limiting the crazy in combat uses of some spells sounds like a workable plan to me - it's almost like going back to the significant casting times required for powerful spells in old versions - where everyone had to concentrate on protecting the wizard from distraction while he got his earth shattering spell of awesomeness off - 3E+ made those spells too easy to cast in combat, I think, exacerbating class power disparities. I don't like how 4E does combat magic at all, however.
For me the biggest issues in 3.X high level play are:
1. Auto-fail/Auto-succeed - the disparity between specialists and non-specialists widens over level progression to the point where at high levels challenges for a specialist are auto failures for non-specialists, and challenges for non-specialists can be safely ignored with a whistle and mocking laugh by specialists.
2. Spellcaster Dominate, Even over Physical Law - Spells break physical law - which is cool - but then we force non spell stuff to be bound by the mundane world and its limitations.
My dream for solving problem 1 would be to limit the flat bonuses a character can recieve to his d20 rolls. After a certain point (preferably about 5 or so) those bonuses stop accruing and you get d20 rerolls instead. You don't get infinitely better at a task - you just do it perfectly more often (higher proportion of 20s).
Problem 2 could be solved in tons of ways. Maybe getting spells off is more difficult. Maybe some of the earth shattering combat spells are made extremely difficult to cast, so the entire party is needed to shield the wizard from all harm as he struggles to get off the Spell of Ultimate Doom. Maybe non-spellcasters gain enhanced abilities to resist or defeat spells, or they gain supernatural powers of their own. Which solution you choose depends heavily on the type of world you wish to create.
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What I love about my group while playing in 3.X, we spent an entire session (4 hours), spent on scrying throughout the realms, discussing what we saw, scrying more, sending message spells, scry more, etc... A lot spent on rp'ing it out, talking to the town leaders, making plans, etc... which translated to almost a week's time in game. The DM was a bit surprised, but us players really enjoyed it, and this group while enjoying combat, we loved this session and still talk about it with fond memories. By then we were high level and worried about the invading drows to dalelands, the zhentil forces to the north, a pissed off mama green dragon, a vampire lord to the west, the returning shade empire even further west, and oh, the bastard npc lordling who was once part of the group and he went south to stir an insurrection in cormyr. Fun times.
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They recently revised the monsters so that Solo monsters only have 4x normal hit points, which has the effect of making combat shorter, and also has the creature become bloodied faster, which can make combat less boring.
I know the DM uses DDI to design his monsters. Maybe he mostly uses the book and only uses DDI for powers - then his monsters may not quite be up to date.
Lowering the HP would take that 1000 HP creature with 500 HP healing down to an 800 HP creature with 400 HP healing. I'll assume we did 2.5 times as much damage the first hour due to using our encounter and daily powers - That's the equivalent of 7.5 hours of at will fighting the original monster at 1500 total hp for 200 HP/hour, with 500 HP going the first hour. This equals 1 hour of power fighting removing 500 HP from the lower HP monster, with the last 700 being removed by 3.5 hours of at will fighting. That would reduce the fight from a 6 hour fight to a 4.5 hour fight. It helps. It's still over four hours.
Well, there's a reason most monsters don't have healing lately. The designers remembered adding healing to monsters just made the fight longer without adding any more risk. Let's face it, that was just a horribly-designed monster.
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Well, there's a reason most monsters don't have healing lately. The designers remembered adding healing to monsters just made the fight longer without adding any more risk. Let's face it, that was just a horribly-designed monster.
It could be. It could be we're not running well designed characters. Or we're playing poorly. I will say that fighting brutes sucks. We've fought a lot of brute types, lately, and it's invariably long, drawn out, and boring. Our melee rogue gets beat up because I, as a swordmage tank, am not as sticky as other tanks. Our assassin does insteresting stuff, but his damage is quite a bit lower than our rogue's. We have two leaders which keep us safe, but dont' really help us take things down more quickly, and then a new player that does some striker stuff and some controller stuff (I forget her class...). Brute fights offer nothing but "I hit. he hits. I hit. He hits...."
I have players become bored in any game system I play, and it can be as simple as they no longer have interest in the plot, know what to expect next, etc. A good DM will note it, and change the environment. As a general rule we have no TV, radio, cell phone, etc. available when playing, just to avoid temptation. We have an equal split on non-combat, versus combat, and have had nights where one or the other is predominant.
Therefore, I am not entirely concvinced a big downfall for 4E is combat length, or non-combat lack of options for that matter. But I do have an advantage of being an experienced DM, so newer ones may not have the ad-hoc skills to adjust. And bottom line is, some people are not meant to be a DM, or lack the drive to go the extra mile.
Definitely 3E favors the player in the amount of options available, but it is the bane of a DM, in my opinion.
I've run tons of loads of combat encounters at most level of play (not epic in 4E) in both 3E and 4E and haven't noticed a significant difference in the time a fight takes (lower level 4E combat is probably a bit slower than lower level 3E combat, but they even out pretty quite in my experience). I can easily get through a standard 4E (ie. one equal to the party level) in 45 min - 1 hour. However, I tend to avoid running a bunch of quick fights, and have bigger nastier fights that occur left often. My players complete less encounters than a "typical" party might, but the fights they do get into are usually quite challenging and tend to take a little longer as a result. I did this with both 3E and 4E. I've found this works fairly well; the players stay pretty focused because if they aren't they can end up in some pretty dire straights. Most of the fights I run are 1-4 levels above the party level. I consider an encounter equal to party level a fairly easy encounter.
There's one thing I like about the 4th edition. That's the epic destinies. Some of them could really be great when converted to Pathfinder.
Try this article at the WotC site. It is Epic Destinies in D&D 3.5.
This thread has gotten fun~
It is a Edition Skirmish, lol. No arguments, just discussion about different experiences.
My experience is that I was excited about 4e when it was announced. Then I got my hands on some books, thank GOD I didn't buy my own, lol. I was happy at first, but the more I messed with the system, the less I liked. It felt like a throw back to 1e to me in many ways. Customizing monsters wasn't as simple as adding class levels anymore. The game was WoW on tabletop. Every class felt the same. I am not bad mouthing the system. I did think it was as good as other systems I have read before. The problem was it wasn't D&D to me. I imagine when they make a PC game for it that it will be fun to play & easy to program, relatively speaking. It just isn't the game I want to play.
Since I am primarily our GM, I won't ever run 4e. I wouldn't turn down a chance to play if somebody else ran the game.That said, I won't go looking for a game, :P.
Another GREAT thing about 4e. If you have a favorite 3.x published setting, you are in luck. It ain't going to change anymore!! You can buy the books you like off Ebay or Amazon & not worry that another one is going to add something new to it that you HAVE to get. The world is now truly yours to finish filling out without pesky publishers changing something.
Yes, I was excited about it too. Then I started finding out about what they had changed.
I loved 3.5's multi-classing system ... 4e changed it.
I loved 3.5's system of different mechanics for different classes ... 4e made them the same mechanic for every class.
I loved the different thematic differences between classes ... 4e got rid of them and added powers on a 'just because' basis.
4e was balanced, but at the cost of everything that I liked about 3.5. As the balance issues of 3.5 never bothered me, I stayed with the old version. Then Pathfinder came out and it was, to me, what 4e could have and should have been.
Since someone's going to say it again anyway, 4e is a good game on it's own merits. If you read it expecting D&D 3.75, you're just going to be disappointed.
I t certainly is - but it's not a game I want to play.
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Welcome to the boards!
Both 4e and PF are excellent games - full stop. Different to be sure but equally good roleplaying games (unless you have a carrot up your butt and wear blinders). Personal choice rules. If you like PF then you will find lots of friends here, if you had liked 4e, you would have found lots of friends here. In short the Paizo community (minus a few zealots who will flagellate you with wet noodles for liking the "incorrect game") are a friendly bunch of people.
For me, and this is a similar reason why The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy sells better than the Encyclopedia Galactica, PF has a slight edge... PF fits on my iPhone*, as a pdf of course - the physical core book can be used to subdue a charging rhino if you time your swing correctly!
Welcome again,
S.
PS: Goodreader on the iPhone handles ANY size pdf very well. Once you know the rules I find the pdf version on my iPhone is all I need besides a pad, a pen and some dice to run a game. So I've basically foiled Paizo's plan to give us all compressed spines with their huge books.
It's a little difficult to have a discussion about 3E and 4E on these boards because so many people here have only had cursory look at 4E and don't really have a lot of play experience with the game. However from personal experience, having extensively dmed both 3E and 4E, I find that customizing monsters in 4E is actually much, much easier (especially with access to their online tools). Customizing monsters in 3E (particularly in a way that effectively builds a BBEG is a pain in the butt in 3E compared to 4E if you do it by the books). I also have to disagree about the comment on the classes. I find there is a lot of variation between the classes in 4E. It might not be totally obvious, based on a quick read of the rules, but once you play the game you start to see them very quickly.
One of the biggest differences between the systems that I notice as a dm is that a lot of the players' encounter breaking tricks have been taken away. For me as a dm this makes the game more interesting and fun (players tend to whine a little more about this), and trust me it is very important that the dm is having fun. A big example of this is that it is much harder to get up in the air. You have to be down on the ground with the monsters and put yourself at risk. You don't have spells like dimension door that let the whole party just teleport across a chasm to avoid using the rope bridge- now you actually need your skills and have to take some risks to deal with such obstacles. Likewise, you can't just teleport the whole party out of a fight if things are going bad. You can't simply scry on your enemies and then just teleport right into the middle of their base all buffed up with spells to slaughter them. As a dm, getting rid of a lot this type of "nonsense" makes the game easier for me to run and more challenging for the players. A lot of what I'm talking about you won't notice too much in low level 3E play because these characters don't have access to as many tricks, but once the characters get past about level 9 and gain access to some of the more potent spells in the game, 3E dnd becomes way more challenging to run (especially if players have access to splat books like the spell compendium)- take a look at pathfinder, the basic level system goes up to 20, but paizo won't really even touch the top quarter of that range with their adventures (which to me is testament of how unwieldly the game gets at the higher range).
This thread has gotten fun~It is a Edition Skirmish, lol. No arguments, just discussion about different experiences.
My experience is that I was excited about 4e when it was announced. Then I got my hands on some books, thank GOD I didn't buy my own, lol. I was happy at first, but the more I messed with the system, the less I liked. It felt like a throw back to 1e to me in many ways. Customizing monsters wasn't as simple as adding class levels anymore. The game was WoW on tabletop. Every class felt the same. I am not bad mouthing the system. I did think it was as good as other systems I have read before. The problem was it wasn't D&D to me. I imagine when they make a PC game for it that it will be fun to play & easy to program, relatively speaking. It just isn't the game I want to play.
Since I am primarily our GM, I won't ever run 4e. I wouldn't turn down a chance to play if somebody else ran the game.That said, I won't go looking for a game, :P.
Another GREAT thing about 4e. If you have a favorite 3.x published setting, you are in luck. It ain't going to change anymore!! You can buy the books you like off Ebay or Amazon & not worry that another one is going to add something new to it that you HAVE to get. The world is now truly yours to finish filling out without pesky publishers changing something.
4e is definitely balanced better, but I agree with what has been said before. It was balanced at the cost of the classes having individual flavor. All of the classes sound different when described, but feel the same when played. I said it was a good system on its own. It just isn't the system I want to run. I can handle all of the quirks of high level play in 3.5e & Pathfinder. Pathfinder is better at those levels than 3.5e.
My luck is I don't have a bunch of min/maxers. They just want to play. As long as it is fun, they don't care if I wing something because they decided to pull a fast one on me that isn't quite covered under the rules. As long as they have fun, they don't care. I had a guy get killed by a wight. He came back as a wight. There were some rules in Dragon or some such talking about undead released from their controllers being able to choose alignment. He chose to be a good wight. It didn't raise any problems, because the next encounter 'killed' him again, lol. He thought it was fun & hilarious. Decided he needed to go back to playing a barbarian the next PC.
The system is actually a guideline. Choose the system that lets you have the fun you want. If you are in a group that is all about some hack & slash, the 4e could be your thing. It is geared like that. If you want rules light, then there are systems for that. Try Savage Worlds or Cortex. If you want d20ish, but not True20, try the Omni System. If you think d20 and family are complicated, try d20 Modern. THAT is complicated, lol.
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There's one thing I like about the 4th edition. That's the epic destinies. Some of them could really be great when converted to Pathfinder.Try this article at the WotC site. It is Epic Destinies in D&D 3.5.
Thanks for the link! :) Do they have any other stuff for 3.5 like that?
I am playing in both a longstanding Pathfinder game and a long standing 4E game.
In 4E we've been playing about 18 months, once a week for about 6-8 hours per session. We're level 16.
In Pathfinder we've been playing about a year, 2-3 sessions / month for 4-5 hours per session. We're level 10/11.
I have had fights in 4E take an entire session. Twice, it took 1.5 session.
I'm having trouble processing this - am I correct that you're saying you've had two separate encounters that took 10 hours each? This is roughly ten times as long as your average 4e encounter should take, even at paragon tier and possibly even epic. I've heard of some long encounter times, but this is many times over longer.
Your DM and the rest of your table should take steps to speed up your play - use power cards, plan your turns in advance, consider using a timer at the table for a little while to limit the lengths of players' turns. If any of your encounters are taking 10 hours, you have gone far beyond the point where you can blame the system.
4e combats are not quick, but when played properly they're supposed to be a lot of fun, and not at all boring. Still, they're not some peoples' thing.