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Off the top of my head, probably the complete lack of pretty much anything outside of tactical miniature combat in the core rulebooks. I say this as someone who happily purchased all three of the books, and played with them for a while, before shelving them and returning to 3.x and then Pathfinder, because I wanted to play an RPG.
I'm not claiming that 4E makes people incapable of roleplaying, but I do not think it's a game that really facilitates roleplaying or the kind of interesting adventures, scenarios, and fantasies I want from an roleplaying game. As for a tactical miniatures game, it's a lot of fun. My group and I had a ton of fun stomping through a few dungeons and what not, but quickly became disenchanted with it as it continually fell short of things we wanted; and many of those things were way too basic for a roleplaying game. I mean, having to be a ranger to fight with two weapons? I'll admit that is like WoW, 'cept WoW gives dual wielding to 3 classes instead of 1; but I see the similarity there.
But to address your views on 4e - I strongly disagree. Whilst I myself have been frustrated in some of the powers' focus on use in combat (notably short durations e.g. Sleep spell) there is plenty in the core books to help players and GMs create stories that involve not only combat but exploration, social scheming and investigation.
Indeed I have even quoted the 4e DMG in a discussion about Call of Cthulhu versus Trail of Cthulhu (basically saying that CoC could do with having some of the advice that the 4e DMG had in it).
I would be particularly interested to know what stuff you think PF has that makes it a roleplaying game that you feel 4e lacks - but this is likely not the place for such a debate. If you do want to pursue this please feel free to create a new thread.
I personally enjoyed reading the 4e DMG much more than the 3.5 DMG - I just remember the 3.5 DMG going into escruitating detail about the types of terrain and its mechanical effects, but the thing I remember most about the 4e DMG is the great advice on conveying information to your players and its concise explanation of the different types of campaigns.
Obviously my memories of both books are skewed to what had most impact on me, but hopefully it can show that different people can get different things out of the same books. I feel it does a good basic job as a GM guide, and the DMG2 for 4e contains even more great stuff including collaborative campaign creation (not surprising as one of its authors is Robin D Laws).
As for the door thing though - yep I can 100% agree with you on there now that I have looked it up. Some Resistance rating for certain materials may have been better than a HP multiplier - good point :)
So this thread is in response to DigitalMage asking me to make a thread and discuss it with him, so if you want to start an edition war, get lost. That's not what this is about.
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So Digital, here's a brief list that we can discuss about the reasons I switched back to 3E based systems, after trying to switch to 4E and then feeling like I wasn't playing an RPG (or at least not the RPG).
1) Too much like a tactical miniatures game. There were very specific mechanics that had no justification or explanation, such as rangers being the only people who can dual wield (holding two weapons doesn't count), all harmful effects just inflicting various amounts of HP damage, and stuff like that.
2) It's not internally consistent in the least, which continuously was breaking verisimilitude for my group and I. Stuff like fluctuating DCs/Damage based on level (chandeliers falling on you at 3rd level and chandeliers falling on you at 8th level mean different things, swinging from a rope at 1st level is easier DC-wise than doing so at 5th level, etc).
3) It lacks interesting monsters. Creatures were severely dumbed down. There's not really much difference between a level 1 kobold skirmisher and a level 1 orc skirmisher, for example. In my 3E-based games, dealing with goblins is a vastly different experience than dealing with Orcs, or wild dogs for example, even though they're all the same level of encounter.
4) WotC said most monsters only matter as far as they are in combat, and they're only in combat a few rounds, so they need few abilities. Monsters now have fewer abilities but combats are longer thanks to inflated Hp. This led to a lot of repeated actions over and over again.
5) Can't replicate the kind of fantasy I want from my D&D games. I want enchanters, necromancers, evocation (as in the binding of outsiders, not blasty D&D evocation), powerful curses, evil creatures lurking in the shadows who can drain your life away. Not "it deals 3 damage and grants combat advantage to its allies".
There are pretty much no enchantment effects in 4E, nor necromancy, nor illusions; at least not in the core rulebooks. When WotC released illusion magic on a web enhancement, it turned out to just be a different kind of attack spell.
There are just too many fantasy staples that are either completely missing, or are not allowed to the PCs. Undead are abound through the monster manual, and there's plenty of times where they say they're created with "dark magic rituals", but these rituals do not exist. A player cannot slay the wizard that controls the undead ('cause I say they control 'em, as the GM) and grab his spells and learn his secrets (no secrets to learn).
I could try and add all this stuff back in, but I don't wanna patch it just so it's playable.
6) Not enough character options. No, I'm not talking about the 3E-legacy of splatbooks (hell, I don't even like most of the 3.5 splatbooks that flooded the market; half the completes are filled with unbalanced, fairly useless, uninspired, or pointless junk, for example; the races books are pretty useless if you don't want goliaths in your world, etc). I'm talking about the core options.
In 3E based systems, I can make a lot of different characters, and I can make them viable. Even if that's a front-liner rogue who wears mithril chainmail and fights with a longspear, or a dual-wielding paladin of *insert your favorite deity here*. Pathfinder is pretty much perfect for me in this regard, as it has no multiclass restrictions and offers a great cross-classing option for skills; so if I want a Paladin/Ranger who is an expert tracker, alchemist, and criminal investigator, well I can so totally do that.
4E has no multiclassing. Sorry, but I don't consider spending a feat to get an at-will ability of another class 1/day a multiclassing system. Just doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. Dual-classing in 1-2E was better and I hated dual classing.
To make matters worse, there's pretty much only 2 ways to build a character in core 4E. Take Paladins for example. There are really only two kinds of Paladins. Strength paladins and Charisma paladins. It took pretty much no time at all for my group to grow bored with the cookie-cutter options that the core book provides.
7) Lack of skills and/or out of combat abilities. Maybe my group is just the minority, but y'know, my group is all over skills (even crafting stuff; though we did house rule crafting to be x10 faster), but 4E really has nothing outside of purely adventuring skills; which made it feel very empty, and in play we found ourselves missing a lot of things; including preform and the like.
Rituals take way too long and cost too much. Skill challenges don't work as written. Most class features are measured in rounds or only have combat utility. Combined with the lack of skills, it makes for a lot missing outside of combat. It all falls down to improvisation at this point ("Hey, I found out our enemy Korlen will be at the Duke's ball this weekend. I say we sneak in as entertainers and spy on him." - "But can we pull it off?" - "I dunno...GM, can I play the Lute?" - "Err, sure that's fine." - "Can I play it really well?" - "Hmmm, I dunno, how well are we talking?" - "Like, I want to play so well that Korlen wants to hire me as his personal musician, then I can spy on his activities from the inside!" - "Err, I'm not sure you're that good." - "Can I try?" - "Yeah...but we don't have anything to go off of. Anyone got any ideas?" - "Err, how about a charisma attack vs his will defense?" - "Ok, that...is just dumb. Maybe a charisma check?" - "But why is it that everyone with a good charisma is also a great musician?" - "I dunno. Ok, yeah, that's a bad idea. Anyone got anything?" - "Not really...").
8) As I noted to DigitalMage a while earlier in another thread, in 3E based systems, you can practically tell a story through the mechanics (most things are internally consistent, you can see how hot someting is, how hard something is, you can see how something relates to realistic levels vs high levels, etc). If I have a question, or I'm uncertain, I can probably examine the system and see what fits best.
3E/PF can emulate real life scenarios as easily as it can fantasy ones. This Essay pretty much sums up a bit of the internal consistency I mean. Lava is Lava, no matter what level you're playing at. A chandalier crashing down on you at 1st level isn't less damaging than a chandalier crashing down on you at 6th level (if you're curious as to what I mean, see pg.42 of the 4E DMG).
4E doesn't even have any sort of system similar to object hardness. In the time it takes you to cast a knock ritual, you could have just punched the damn door down with your hand, since 100 rounds later, you're dealing like 250 average damage for it (with a d4), and it didn't cost you a copper piece; so it's obvious they really didn't put much thought into environments, exploration, or anything like that.
Summary
It felt like my group and I were just improvising on a game of chess. I tried using the mechanics in similar ways that I would with other RPGs I've ran/played (D&D, shadowrun, deadlands, L5R, etc), but it felt more like D&D Chainmail (what the D&D minis game used to be called) with us trying to roleplay between one encounter to the next.
Too much was missing. The stuff that was there either directly contradicted the roleplaying factor, or didn't support it at all. Characters were mechanically shallow but with too much work (I've got no skills but a plethora of random abilities to keep track of, many of which are only modestly different from one another, and Jamie can't keep his dailies and encounters strait; dear god why can't I just have +3d6 sneak attack, a longspear, and call it a day?). Magic items are all about combat. You're only allowed to use magic items x/day, even if it's a different magic item.
In short, it didn't/doesn't feel like an RPG to me. Felt like a tabletop miniatures game, as I said. Felt more like playing something like Warhammer with plot in between. Warhammer doesn't have stuff for out-of-combat stuff, and but we could totally roleplay that (and have before), but I wouldn't call Warhammer an RPG (though there is a warhammer RPG).
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Ok, that's pretty much all I feel like for right now. It's very late (or early), so I'm going to take a break. I hope this is enough to begin discussion, DigitalMage. I'll see you later to talk more.
Take care.
I'm always wary about joining in these topics, since it seems like everything has been said before at some point. And yet, here I wade in again. :)
For myself, I can certainly understand that 4E does not present what everyone wants in a game. Some of the criticisms above are legitimate ones; others are rooted in changes 4E made that some will like, and others won't. A few of them seemed grounded in misunderstandings of the rules, but... well, a game only gets to make a first impression once, and if it doesn't do a good job, no one is required to go back and keep trying it until they get it right.
That said, anyone who says that 4E is just a tactical miniatures game is wrong. Unequivocally wrong. That doesn't mean someone's experience with the game can't resemble that, and if that is someone's experience, my sympathies. But 4E absolutely supports roleplaying.
I don't mean that in the sense of "you can add roleplaying to any game". I mean it in the sense of, "Like all editions of D&D, 4E provides numerous tools to enhance, encourage, and support roleplaying."
Now, the truth is, many of those tools are different than in past editions. Some of them are a return to the approaches of earlier editions that were lost in 3rd Edition, others are entirely new innovations.
And, for many, they will prefer the tools of 2nd Ed the best, or 3rd Edition, or some homebrewed setup of their own creation. And that is perfectly fair.
But claiming the tools aren't there, that the support doesn't exist - that's just not true.
For myself, I find that 4E overall helps provide better support for roleplaying. That isn't to say it is a perfect game, even for me - I constantly find myself tweaking with it and borrowing elements from elsewhere. But it provides the best groundwork, at least for my purposes.
As a player, less need to optimize characters gives me more freedom and options in character creation. As a DM, I find my hands less bound by formula and detail, and thus more room to both create...
EDIT: Ack, forums ate my post.
Much respect to your words. ^-^
Could you elaborate on the things that 4E does to encourage/facilitate roleplay? I've heard some people say that because 4E has nothing outside of combat, that it gives more room for improvisation "roleplaying", with the GM making stuff up as he goes. Is this what you mean, or something else?
Also, I felt like you needed to optimize even more in 4E. In Pathfinder, I felt like I absolutely needed the best gear upgrades to remain viable to the group, since everything progresses at a set pace (enemy Attacks / AC are set based on level), then you need to stay on the cutting edge. Same with skill checks, since the DMG suggest setting DCs on actions and stunts based on the PC level; much like the diminishing returns in World of Warcraft (I like WoW, I play it often, but it does encourage you to have the absolute best gear/stats for your level).
In Pathfinder (or any 3E based system, but PF especially), you can generally see what the DCs are to do something. The DC usually stays about the same. I can spend some skill points here and there as I level and get a pretty wide variety of options for my characters; even if they're not the absolute best they could be for my level (for example, my 7 Charisma Fighter can have a Diplomacy modifier equal to his level -2, which means that he gets pretty lovable at 3rd level and onward, even though it's merely a piece of his greater whole).
Looking forward to your reply. ^-^
5) Can't replicate the kind of fantasy I want from my D&D games. I want enchanters, necromancers, evocation (as in the binding of outsiders, not blasty D&D evocation), powerful curses, evil creatures lurking in the shadows who can drain your life away. Not "it deals 3 damage and grants combat advantage to its allies".For at least some of that, what you're looking for can be found in Rituals. Which is pretty much where all magic/powers not used in immediate combat, live.
Ehhh...let's say rituals were not popular with my group. Most were either too expensive, or too useless for anyone to care. The durations on some of them were just terrible, and we wondered if they were written this way to discourage magic; since casters were so widely considered super-dudes in 3.x.
My two pence on the matter:
Every game system offers opportunities for role playing, even one as streamlined as 4E. I've only played in about a dozen 4E games (Encounters sessions), but those sessions were run by two very different GMs. One GM was very heavy on adding in role playing encounters and keeping flavor consistent, and I enjoyed these sessions more than the ones run by the other GM, who was very mechanical and combat focused and just not good at making us feel the flavor of the setting at all.
I do think one major drawback to 4E is that, at a minimum, you need a dry-erase grid to run combat (or graph paper, a good eraser, and lots of patience). The more I GM, the less I like using miniatures for every little fight - I'd rather wing it and let people imagine the action and take actions that are within reason rather than be bound by the literalism of a battle grid.
Internal consistency, or lack thereof, doesn't bother me so much. I tend to like the ideas that certain things scale with character advancement. And really, what's the difference between a falling chandelier doing more damage as a higher CR challenge and choosing a higher CR pit trap?
The vagueness of things like object hardness and undefined rituals for raising undead minions, to my mind, is meant to encourage GM fiat. As a GM, I hate coming up with an awesome encounter and having a player nitpick it to death mechanically and say, "Well, that caster couldn't have actually summoned that demon because he would've needed Spell X and clearly he isn't high enough level to cast that since the most powerful thing he used on us was Spell Y." If it was a fun and well-balanced encounter, then why argue about the mechanics of it? And leaving those things muddy means that you have the freedom to decide yourself how (and even whether) you want players to utilize the knowledge stolen from the enemy necromancer to make their own army of skeletal warriors.
The lack of true multi-classing is a bit of a shock for players and GMs accustomed to systems that have this hard-wired in, and I'll admit I have my misgivings about it. But one goal of the game is to keep things simple, and directing players toward staying single-classed facilitates that goal.
I have yet to run a full game of 4E; I've only done a handful of off-the-cuff encounters at the game shop for interested players. But I'm still very much interested in trying it out for my home game, if only because it IS so radically different from what we do in Pathfinder. The system also strikes me as very difficult to min/max, which some of my players are woefully guilty of doing at every opportunity, and I'd like to see us move away from that, even if it means adopting a different system for a campaign to do so.
I also have some newbies who are very combat-oriented players and very much enjoyed playing 4E Encounters at our FLGS, and while they're adapting well to Pathfinder, 4E might be a good brain break for us to experiment with in the future.
Ultimately, while the two systems are very, very different, I think there's more than enough opportunity to introduce role playing into 4E that's as good as what we do in Pathfinder with some imagination and a flexible attitude toward the rules.
Internal consistency, or lack thereof, doesn't bother me so much. I tend to like the ideas that certain things scale with character advancement. And really, what's the difference between a falling chandelier doing more damage as a higher CR challenge and choosing a higher CR pit trap?
Thanks for your post. This portion is the only thing I felt really needed to be commented it. The difference is that a higher CR pit trap is not a higher CR arbitrarily, it means it's a more dangerous trap. It might be filled with spikes, or spikes coated with poison, or the floor might close back up, trapping you inside, or it might be filled with acid, or some other such thing. It's not that the same 20ft pit trap at 1st level is mysteriously dealing more damage and being a higher level encounter at 6th level. No, the 20ft pit trap is something you can handle better. The 20ft pit trap filled with vipers, on the other hand, might be more difficult and (appropriately) a higher level feature.
I think either method is a fine approach. I like 4E because I can do both - but, honestly, it wouldn't be hard to port a "scaling by DC" chart into Pathfinder and use it there.
Either way, though, I don't think that the system having the option for this shortcut is a bad thing, or weakens the internal consistency in any way.
Thanks for saying what I was thinking with better words. (Being a professional copywriter, I may have already expended my quota for today!)
BTW, Matthew, you might be interested in this fan-created chart. I've started using this a lot in my Pathfinder games to streamline off-the-cuff obstacles.
That's probably one of my favorite alterations that was made from 3.x to Pathfinder; the simplified yet robust skill system allows a wide variety of archtypes far more easily than 3.x-Basic. I'm actually more happy in general with Pathfinder because instead of removing the strengths of 3E (skills and cross-classing), it instead improved upon it, making skills more easily obtainable, and removing the penalties for cross-classing.
Couple this with the fact favored classes now grant either +1 HP per level, or +1 skill point per level, and I can have a Human Fighter with an Int of 7 with 3 skill point per level (no joke).
Out of these three skill points, I can drop a single point into any number of class skills I have to get a +4 bump in that skill, allowing me to give my Fighter a variety of useful skills at fair chances. This is, of course, with a 7 Int Fighter; and I generally prefer 12-14.
Since there are no "cross-class" skills, in the same way they existed in 3.x-Basic, I could put 20 ranks into say "Stealth" or "Sense Motive", and only be a +3 behind someone who had it as a class skill; which honestly, at 20th level, 3 points doesn't make much difference.
If I'm playing a class that has any Knowledge skills, I'll always drop a point into them as I'm going. I love buying ranks in Linguistics to learn new languages. I might drop a single point into some skills that require training to attempt; effectively allowing my character to wing-it.
In Pathfinder, I pretty much never find myself hurting for skill points, even with 2+Int modifier classes (the majority are 4 + Int or better; as only Fighter, Cleric, Sorcerer, and Wizard get 2 + Int, where Barbarian, and Paladin get 4 + Int modifier, Ranger and Bard get 6 + Int modifier, and Rogues get 8 + Int modifier).
You have to throw out your bias with previous systems to give 4E a fair review. Stating it can't do things that 3.5 can do is obvious and easy to demonstrate, but it doesn't mean it is not an RPG. I do agree on a couple points below:
1. Monsters are too boring or basic - I agree and a simple fix it to add complexity to the monsters using the same choices to create characters (feats, powers, etc.) I have done this since day one of playing 4E and has really spiced up the game.
2. There is a lack of consistency for classes - I agree when it comes to what a character can or can not do. This biggest problem is class powers that are restricted to range, or melee, to the exclusion of the other. Like the ranger, tempest fighter, and the barbarian are the only classes to dual wield.
The rest is just a preference on what system mechanics you like, including the fact of keep things consistent as a DM, as to whether a falling object like a chandalier scales in damage as you level. Most DMs wouldn't fall into that trap, and would rather keep things consistent.
The sad part is that 4E has so much potential with a little tweaking, yet I doubt there is any interest from Hasbro (WOTC), or maybe more importantly a little understanding from the player community, to make these changes; without a lash back that was evident when it was released.
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Off the top of my head, probably the complete lack of pretty much anything outside of tactical miniature combat in the core rulebooks. I say this as someone who happily purchased all three of the books, and played with them for a while, before shelving them and returning to 3.x and then Pathfinder, because I wanted to play an RPG.
I'm not claiming that 4E makes people incapable of roleplaying, but I do not think it's a game that really facilitates roleplaying or the kind of interesting adventures, scenarios, and fantasies I want from an roleplaying game. As for a tactical miniatures game, it's a lot of fun. My group and I had a ton of fun stomping through a few dungeons and what not, but quickly became disenchanted with it as it continually fell short of things we wanted; and many of those things were way too basic for a roleplaying game. I mean, having to be a ranger to fight with two weapons? I'll admit that is like WoW, 'cept WoW gives dual wielding to 3 classes instead of 1; but I see the similarity there.
...But to address your views on 4e - I strongly disagree. Whilst I myself have been frustrated in some of the powers' focus on use in combat (notably short durations e.g. Sleep spell) there is plenty in the core books to help players and GMs create stories that involve not only combat but exploration, social scheming and investigation.
Indeed I have even quoted the 4e DMG in a discussion about Call of Cthulhu versus Trail of Cthulhu (basically saying that CoC could do with having some of the advice that the 4e DMG had in it).
I would be particularly interested to know what stuff you think PF has that makes it a roleplaying game that you feel 4e lacks - but this is likely not the place for such a debate. If you do want to pursue this please feel free to create a new thread.
I personally enjoyed reading the 4e DMG much more than the 3.5 DMG - I just remember the 3.5 DMG going into escruitating detail about the types of terrain and its mechanical
I think what you are actually saying is the 4e isn't 3e (aside some actual errors or misunderstandings about the rules). Which it isn't. But many other RPGs handle things differently to the way 3e handles things. You cite your love of skills - they were absent in previous editions of D&D, or at best very much an afterthought. Muklticlassing in the way that 3e allows is, likewise, unique to 3e and not anything like as flexible as in previous editions. Yet no one was saying "D&D - it's just a skirmish game" even if its roots went back to that. 3e isn't as flexible as RuneQuest, for example, when it comes to a lot of things.
You don't have to like 4e, but you are pretty much over-stating your case. 4e is different, no doubt, but it sounds like you didn't really give it a chance and get to grips with it before giving up. It puts different emphasis on certain aspects, and deals with other things differently. It may not be your cup of tea but it still works fine as an RPG.
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The sad part is that 4E has so much potential with a little tweaking, yet I doubt there is any interest from Hasbro (WOTC), or maybe more importantly a little understanding from the player community, to make these changes; without a lash back that was evident when it was released.
Actually they have rejigged quite a lot over the years, via CharGen and so on (monster in MM3, for example, do more damage, have more powers but fwer hit points). It just isn't obvious.
Actually they have rejigged quite a lot over the years, via CharGen and so on (monster in MM3, for example, do more damage, have more powers but fwer hit points). It just isn't obvious.
This is why I actually watched essentials with interest. Whether or not it constitutes 4.5, it definitely constitutes the first consolidation of the various updates and changes made over the years that is accessible to current nonplayers. Based on what I've seen, they have managed to clean up a lot of the problems they had when it first released, which is good to know. However, for me, and a lot of people, it also confirmed that, while a good game in its own right, it was not a game that everybody is going to like, and it is definitely not a replacement for 3.x; it's focus is simply too different. Threads like this where the mechanics can be compared are interesting; while subtle in many cases, such as how the process of setting DCs is described, the differences are still enough to make the systems feel very different.
The sad part is that 4E has so much potential with a little tweaking, yet I doubt there is any interest from Hasbro (WOTC), or maybe more importantly a little understanding from the player community, to make these changes; without a lash back that was evident when it was released.Actually they have rejigged quite a lot over the years, via CharGen and so on (monster in MM3, for example, do more damage, have more powers but fwer hit points). It just isn't obvious.
I did notice the improvements with the recent monster releases, but in my opinion, they may as well make character and monster generation based on the same rules, i.e. same number of at-wills, encounters, etc, or a close proximity. I have not looked at the new monster vault since I stopped purchasing with the release of essentials. Perhaps that included more changes.
Monster Vault - is this some new application to go with the new CharGen? I really ought to check the WotC website more often.
Monster Vault is the monster book of the Essentials line. Revisits the iconic D&D monsters, presents variants, and I would say updates them to the new standards for AC, attacks, damage, and other components of design.
While I openly admit that 3E based systems (Pathfinder primarily) are my favorite RPG systems, I also note that I've played a lot of other ones too; or at least a lot from where I'm from. We're talking things like Shadowrun, Original Deadlands, Legend of the Five Rings, and even Toon.
I compare it to RPGs in general, but since it is supposed to be D&D, 3E D&D is the edition I compare it to the most, because 3E D&D is the edition where we've seen the most forward movement in ability. 1E and 2E were also primarily about combat from the mechanics standpoint (lack of a skill system, for example), and I don't really like playing those either, for many of the same reasons (rigid class options, the system fights you if you try to make a character that isn't *just this class right here*, etc).
I would like to ask, however, why is it that it is assumed that I didn't give 4E a fair shake? I purchased all the books. Ran a campaign with it. Tried playing it from the PC side. Nobody in my group liked it, because it "didn't feel like an RPG" compared to that list of RPGs I mentioned before. Either the mechanics actively hampered making deep or interesting characters by locking you into a single archtype out of 2 archtypes per class, or it had too much missing. Exactly why does this mean that I didn't give it a fair shake?
I'm beginning to feel a little like I was baited into a trap. DigitalMage asked that we continue our conversation in a new thread, so I made a new thread, and I've yet to see or hear from DigitalMage at all. All I've heard, for the most part, is telling me that you can't use the rules as they're written for DCs and such, telling me to ignore what the book said and use them in a different way; etc.
Little else has been offered to address the plethora of other problems I found with the system, including the lack of fantasy staples like enchantment, illusion, conjuration, and necromancy. No druids or bards. Magic item rules that are kind of dumb "Hey, my fire sword is out of juice because I used my lightning sword today, so here you take the sword 'cause you have used your *insert other item here* today", or the fact that it just felt like about 60-70% of the RPG was missing.
Exactly what would be constituted as a "fair shake" or "given a chance"? Keep in mind, I was not one of those guys who was going "Oh noes, 4E will ruin everything 4ever!". No, I was the guy saying "Hey, the pregens on the web enhancement look pretty cool, the epic destinies could be cool, this will be awesome and great, and I'm going to totally buy these books and run the latest and greatest version of...6 months later...yeah, I'll run a D&D game for you guys, I was missing it too."
So is it worth getting if you have the MM? I've not paid attention to Essentials so I'm really ignorant about it.
I'm not actually sure yet. I got the two Essentials books that revisit a lot of the classes and races, I have really enjoyed them and prefer those builds to the versions in the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2. I would have still gotten them even if my PHB didn't get ruined by rain. In that case, I probably will enjoy Monster Vault as well even though I already have the Monster Manual. I think that I will like a new look at the core monsters from designers who have had a few more years of experience with the system.
That said, I will be ordering it today and I should get it in a week or so hopefully. When I do, I'll look through it and throw a review of it on the site.
This is just me being a wise old man, but maybe it's best we each say to ourselves, this is the game I like best. So I will play this game. And then play it.
The real issue at play here is that everybody is going to come to the table with a different idea of what makes a real, or the best, or better, RPG. Nobody is going to find a way to factually prove it to anybody else, because there are no facts that anybody will take as objective. Only observations always biased by personal style and preference.
We can all give a new game a fair shot. It does not guarantee that we will like it, or like it in the same way somebody else does. The fun thing may be to continue to turn red in the face from trying to force the issue. But the mature thing would be to let it go.
I say this because I worry when somebody states that they feel as though they were somehow "trapped" into beginning their own thread. A much more reasonable suggestion as to why we haven't heard from another player in the discussion is that he/she is at work or school and can't attend to this right now. Or even, that the constantly protean shifting of the list of recent posts on Paizo's message board has made noticing the topic difficult as of yet.
The former notion might suggest we are taking this all too seriously. Just a suggestion.
Little else has been offered to address the plethora of other problems I found with the system, including the lack of fantasy staples like enchantment, illusion, conjuration, and necromancy. No druids or bards. Magic item rules that are kind of dumb "Hey, my fire sword is out of juice because I used my lightning sword today, so here you take the sword 'cause you have used your *insert other item here* today", or the fact that it just felt like about 60-70% of the RPG was missing.
I don't want to pile on you, I just wanted to say that I missed those elements in early 4th edition and was glad when later books introduced them back into the game. But that does bump up the cost of getting the fantasy staples.
I think that the Essentials books (Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms) cover the fantasy staples better.
Those books also introduced some more changes to the rules, including removing the parts about the magic item rules that you are complaining about here. You can use as many magic item daily powers as you want.
It really comes down to some people like apples, and some like oranges, but most people enjoy eating fruit. I would never agree that any given game on the market defines what a RPG should be, because everyone has different tastes. I also find it exhausting to justify the game I play, in reference to other games, as that only leads to prolonged arguments on which one is better. I did argue in the past false assumptions about the game I play (currently 4E), but this board has a preference for Pathfinder, so that becomes equally exhausting.
Therefore, I only commented further on items I would agree on, as no system is perfect.
I have played every version of D&D.
This has actually been a pretty civil thread. There has been confusion over who is trying to say what, but no real animosity or attacking going on.
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While I openly admit that 3E based systems (Pathfinder primarily) are my favorite RPG systems, I also note that I've played a lot of other ones too; or at least a lot from where I'm from. We're talking things like Shadowrun, Original Deadlands, Legend of the Five Rings, and even Toon.
I compare it to RPGs in general, but since it is supposed to be D&D, 3E D&D is the edition I compare it to the most, because 3E D&D is the edition where we've seen the most forward movement in ability. 1E and 2E were also primarily about combat from the mechanics standpoint (lack of a skill system, for example), and I don't really like playing those either, for many of the same reasons (rigid class options, the system fights you if you try to make a character that isn't *just this class right here*, etc).
I would like to ask, however, why is it that it is assumed that I didn't give 4E a fair shake? I purchased all the books. Ran a campaign with it. Tried playing it from the PC side. Nobody in my group liked it, because it "didn't feel like an RPG" compared to that list of RPGs I mentioned before. Either the mechanics actively hampered making deep or interesting characters by locking you into a single archtype out of 2 archtypes per class, or it had too much missing. Exactly why does this mean that I didn't give it a fair shake?
Well, some of the stuff you wrote above contains errors of understanding as well as judgements about the game. Plus the views expressed suggest you haven't looked at the other books that emerged subsequently (which is understandable is you didn't actually like the game much, but which make some of your comments obsolete in terms of where the game is now, and indeed moved to a while ago). So it gives that impression, and I think that impression is correct in substance. Stopping playing 3e and going into 4e is an initially frustrating experience given the way the two editions are similar, yet different. It sounds like you didn't get much past that stage before you gave up.
I'm beginning to feel a little like I was baited into a trap. DigitalMage asked that we continue our conversation in a new thread, so I made a new thread, and I've yet to see or hear from DigitalMage at all.
Well, you are the OP - no one forced you. And frankly, I don't think anyone cares enough about you or this to trap you into anything.
All I've heard, for the most part, is telling me that you can't use the rules as they're written for DCs and such, telling me to ignore what the book said and use them in a different way; etc.
Little else has been offered to address the plethora of other problems I found with the system, including the lack of fantasy staples like enchantment, illusion, conjuration, and necromancy. No druids or bards. Magic item rules that are kind of dumb "Hey, my fire sword is out of juice because I used my lightning sword today, so here you take the sword 'cause you have used your *insert other item here* today", or the fact that it just felt like about 60-70% of the RPG was missing.
Exactly what would be constituted as a "fair shake" or "given a chance"? Keep in mind, I was not one of those guys who was going "Oh noes, 4E will ruin everything 4ever!". No, I was the guy saying "Hey, the pregens on the web enhancement look pretty cool, the epic destinies could be cool, this will be awesome and great, and I'm going to totally buy these books and run the latest and greatest version of...6 months later...yeah, I'll run a D&D game for you guys, I was missing it too."
You have a point in that, mechanics-wise, characters are mainly combat oriented, although that is basically true of 3e too. 4e retains most social skills, with the only ones not available being Perform (which most people don't take unless they are bards anyway) and the Craft and Profession skills (which do come in handy, I will admit, for certain things - I recently did a shipboard section in my 4e campaign and Profession (Sailor) would have been useful; though, that sais, I managed to use all the other skills instead and it worked out OK) which I suspect many (most) people don't take either. But, really, that's about it, mechanically.
And, really, since when did mechanics genuinely dictate whether you could create a well-rounded character? Their beliefs, their background, their ambitions, desires, fears? So you can't actually mechanically represent playing the lute in 4e (and you probably can if you try, especially with a small skill challenge)?
You talk about fantasy "staples" of conjuration, necromancy, and so on - these are all actually tropes straight out of the D&D rulebook and not really "must-haves" from an imaginative perspective. There are other ways to handle a magic system. In any case, conjuration, enchantment and illusion are now available anyway in the expansions, as are druids and bards (and monks) and many 3e spells are now converted to rituals. You say your players didn't like rituals; well, that's their look-out rather than a problem with the rules as such if they choose to ignore a large portion of their possible armoury.
As for internal consistency, 4e feels to me much more consistent than 3e: any spell in 3e (or earlier editions) runs roughshod straight through most other rules, can be complex to adjudicate, and really screw up an encounter if not properly handled. They make certain styles of play impossible once they become available at particular levels. And sometime they just aren't fun (save or die?). 4e has removed most of these aspects, and I say good-riddance.
Not to say, of course that what you want in a game is what I want. But I think you have missed a lot of the subtleties because you wanted the game to be like 3e, and it isn't, and you only saw what wasn't there and not what actually was.
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So is it worth getting if you have the MM? I've not paid attention to Essentials so I'm really ignorant about it.From what I've seen, it is a pretty good book. Monsters tend to get more description and more flavor, which I know was something many people were asking for. We do see many of the same monsters from the MM, but updated with the new math (and generally better design overall).
I wouldn't call it a necessity, but I do consider it the highlight of the Essentials line in terms of overall quality. It is simply a well made book. Or, rather, boxed set - the package includes the book itself, lots of tokens, and I think one or two adventures. Not sure whether those would interest you or not.
I picked up MV just before I stopped playing 4e...too bad. I suggest that if you are just starting 4e then get MV and leave the other MM books behind. It is a nice resource.
Well, I have to say a few things in Ashiel's defense.
She said that 4E was dropped after some experience with 4E when it started and when you look upon the core books (PHB, DMG, MM alone), then you may see that the system has the mechanic framework, but is really a poor relative to 3E in many respects. DMG is probably the best part with a lot of good advice, but it's mostly focused on encounter an game running, only briefly touching anything else. 3E covered a fair bit more although the gaming tips were much less prominent.
The PHB contains an immense amount of crunch and powers and doesn't really give much flavour. Feels definitely blander compared to what you can create with 3E PHB. True diversity is present in 4E, but only after you buy a ton of splat (two more PHBs and various Power books and item vaults probably as well).
The monsters in MM were usually a power or two (sometimes three if one of them said that you can use power 1 twise in your round, recharg on 5-6) and looked quite alike. WotC encounters were sometimes truly horrendous (I still remember the gameday where there were a carrion crawler, an otyugh and a slime (or what was that thing) in the same empty room with no apparent reason other than they filled XP budget). I'd also like to point out is that the monsters are detached from PC rules in 4E and thus need these "special goblin power to shift 1 square" and then you have things like goblin hexer, goblin skirmisher, goblin spit thrower, goblin spike grower and so on. While 3E provides a goblin and you build whatever you want from it via character building rules (thus having a great variety of monsters from one base, just look in the Burnt Offerings and you'll find goblins as flavorful and different as in 4E built this way).
Needless to say that just as there is that p. 42 table to help to judge actions, the 4E DMG and MM have tables that allow you to cobble up a custom monster and throw templates at it or other existing monsters (about as simple as PF simple templates really, but they work fine). Again, the layout of the books somehow makes this easy to miss, which was probably what happened here (there is a slight problem with monster creation in 4E though, you don't have any list of sample powers and their scaling / influence on the level of challenge provided by the monster aside from damage. Unless I failed to find it, there is no telling how to measure ability to slide target X squares, make him sickened, teleport or other such things, which I find strange if you take into account hów much care was taken to provide a table on everthing).
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Well, I have to say a few things in Ashiel's defense.
She said that 4E was dropped after some experience with 4E when it started and when you look upon the core books (PHB, DMG, MM alone), then you may see that the system has the mechanic framework, but is really a poor relative to 3E in many respects. DMG is probably the best part with a lot of good advice, but it's mostly focused on encounter an game running, only briefly touching anything else. 3E covered a fair bit more although the gaming tips were much less prominent.
The PHB contains an immense amount of crunch and powers and doesn't really give much flavour. Feels definitely blander compared to what you can create with 3E PHB. True diversity is present in 4E, but only after you buy a ton of splat (two more PHBs and various Power books and item vaults probably as well).
The monsters in MM were usually a power or two (sometimes three if one of them said that you can use power 1 twise in your round, recharg on 5-6) and looked quite alike. WotC encounters were sometimes truly horrendous (I still remember the gameday where there were a carrion crawler, an otyugh and a slime (or what was that thing) in the same empty room with no apparent reason other than they filled XP budget). I'd also like to point out is that the monsters are detached from PC rules in 4E and thus need these "special goblin power to shift 1 square" and then you have things like goblin hexer, goblin skirmisher, goblin spit thrower, goblin spike grower and so on. While 3E provides a goblin and you build whatever you want from it via character building rules (thus having a great variety of monsters from one base, just look in the Burnt Offerings and you'll find goblins as flavorful and different as in 4E built this way).
Needless to say that just as there is that p. 42 table to help to judge actions, the 4E DMG and MM have tables that allow you to cobble up a custom monster and throw templates at it or other existing monsters (about as simple as PF simple templates really, but they...
I think that's fair - the game increased in scope over the first year or so (PHB2 and, to a lesser extent, DMG 2, Martial Power and Arcane Power) and the PHB in particular is not fluffy. 4e actually makes you work harder to imagine stuff, but I found (once I got used to it) it actually frees you to do stuff which is constrained by rules in 3e (or worse, given that 3e is mostly rules and little framework, if there weren't any rules it was much harder to work out if something was reasonable and balanced). That's why I suggest that Ashiel didn't give 4e a proper shake, because my experience is that my imagination was able to take flight more with 4e than necessarily with 3e (though we are all inspired by different things, I accept, and the Byzantine rules of 3e and its derivatives may get other people's juices flowing more - I don't know).
Not to say I don't play 3e - I do (in it's PF version). And it has a different approach. But PF didn't do away with what I considered the main problem with 3e and its variants - the sheer effort you have to put in to do anything vaguely bespoke, like adding character levels to existing creatures, or templates, when designing encounters. I used to spend the entire weekend before the game preparing stats, making sure they all tied up, all bonuses and penalities accounted for (including those that didn't necessarily stack) and so on. I basically didn't have time to do anything else. Now I can do it in an hour (though CharGen and AdGen help) - I won't say it saved my marriage, but it made my weekends a lot freer.
I had the same problem with GURPS 3rd and 4th edition, which I prefer over D&D in general, in regards to the time that was needed to prepare a game. It is much easier to support a system as a player, versus being a DM.
I'll start with saying that 4e brought me back to TTRPGs after a long haitus, that had more to do with life than anything else. Last edition I DMed was early 3.5. d20 was just taking off, and there weren't many splat books yet. About a year ago I moved back home and hooked up with my old crew, none of which we're playing any kind of DnD, mostly because I was the guy who organized the game. 4e we're great books. I bought most of them (cheap on ebay). Started buying minis. Bought essentials. There are plenty of aspects of the game that make it a great game. What I noticed about it though, that was different than how I remembered RPGs (from 5-6 years ago) was combat takes a long time. Even after 30 sessions, we we're never able to speed it up enough for my taste. I was fanatical about speed. So much so, I think the players were annoyed, when I demanded they respect every one else's time and no exactly what they were going to do on their turn.
This is one of my main problems with 4e. Combat is usually fun enough, that it doesn't make the game unenjoyable. It just eats up a lot of table time. This is why I think alot of people talk about 4e being less RP friendly. Unless I spend alot of time optimizing your encounters, its hard for me to challenge players with out at least two combats, without risk of TPK. You need one combat to eat up healing surges and dailies, then another to challenge them with their limited resources. The mechanics of dailies is fine, but getting all the players in your group, instead of just casters to spend dailies is hard.
A few weeks ago I found an article on E6. This made me want to break out my old 3.5 books. My main problem with 3.5 was balance issues, but these don't really become apparent until level 7-8 in 3.5. E6 didn't really work for 4e, because I realized 4e character are pretty much super heroes at 1st level.
Then began to see another problem with 4e. The mechanics don't correspond well with my version of heroic fantasy, which comes from non-DND fantasy literature. And the mechanics are disconnected form the game world.
Don't get me wrong, I love 4e. But I love the technical aspects of the board game more than I like the rules that 4e uses to try and encourage roleplaying. 3.5 combat can be more abstract, but since we no longer want combat to be what we spend 3/4 of our table time doing...it suits us fine. But if all we want to do is crack heads, 4e as a tactical minis game, is really, really fun, and I would argue, from a DM perspective, superior to 3.5.
Same DM, same style of adventures, tonight we did 6 combats (one PC almost died in 2 of them) and did roleplaying for atleast 5/8th of the time we played (4 hours). In 4e we're lucky to get 3 combats in and we easily spend 4/5 of the game time in combat, 1/5 roleplaying.
Especially at low levels (we love E6), combats are short, brutal, and dangerous (and better to avoid them). Just like we imagine it to be realistically.
That has been mentioned before in regards to the overdundance of hit points, in relation to damage. It is better now with the more recent releases of MM2 and MM3, but the other thing they never needed to introduce was short term conditions. This has been the biggest complaint in regards to tactical play, and breaking up the roleplay experience. On paper it looks good, because most effects only last until the next round, but it does create an extra burden for the DM, because it is very dynamic. On a side note, I have seen numerous comments on those that played 4E, who went back to 3.5 and saw improvements in their game play, because of the efficiency needed for 4E.
E6 is probably the best compromise, to get rid of the headaches of high level play in 3.5, as it tends to break down in regards to management at that point.
But even E6, requires more work as a DM, because it is much easier for the battles to go boom or bust. But I can appreciate the role this serves in making the world appear more real.
I think the powers are actually one of the worse things about 4E. I like the approach the Essentials took, but the thing is that it could have been much more easily fudgeable with the table of attacks. Allowing fighter a level appropriate attack with adde extra shtick according to his choice from the list of known maneuvers is exactly how I like it and the idea with Poweful strike replacing some of the encounter powers (which did 2[W] and something like At-will anyway) is also a very good idea.
I wouldn't mind if this was the general approach, not pecific.
The issue I found with stances is that there is one that adds +1 to hit...and the times that this is just not the best option are few and far between. Increased accuracy almost always trumps everything else. In effect every other stance tends to feel very corner case. Occasionally comes up but really all you do is whack enemies every turn - though your good at this.
I don't really have a problem with a class that does this in the game and some players would rather play this way but if all the classes where like this I would not be impressed...It'd start to feel like Gauntlet or something if the wizard blasted every round and the cleric attacked and occasionally did healing.
Personally I go out of my way to get powers for my cleric and have quite the portfolio.
I agree that 4Es combats can take a fair bit of length in actual play - longer then low level 3.5 anyway and there are often many status effects mucking up the map but this is generally the price for diversity in the combats. Actual rounds are reasonably fast paced (so your turn comes up again fairly quickly) and this dealt with my major complaint from 3.5 - which was not so much that combat took a long time but that it could be 50 minutes before your turn came again.
I generally don't mind this effect if the combat itself is well done and interesting. In the end RPGs are about the journey, not the destination, and I'm willing to allow the different parts of the journey take longer if it means they are more interesting. One important point is the DM does needs to be willing to slow down and smell the roses when considering the adventure as a whole. DMs sometimes start racing to finish an adventure in X number of sessions and that should be avoided, especially the DM should not be shortening or cutting role playing events because combat has taken longer then expected - in fact I'd say that is the worst option, if necessary then cut out the least interesting combat.
For things like swinging a sword the ability to repeat the stunt is a good thing IMO, spells are fine as things that work less often.
I am eith Ashiel in having given 4th ed a fair shake and was not really impressed by it( though I did not come back to 3.5 Pathfinder as I really never stopped playing those games). And I keep up with the developmernt of 4th ed as I am interested in general about RPG design. So you won't catch me saying there is no druid or bard or the lack of illusions and charm effects...while I may not like how these things were implemented I recognize there was a attmpt.
But here are things I do not like about 4th edition.
1) Combat: It just gets to be long and tedious. Also it is board gamey in some ways with all the pulls and pushes without flavor. That is what I usualy mean by that complaint. I mean there is a power call Come and Get it(I think...it is a fighter power) in which the fighter say something to get all enemies to come towards him to attack him...allowing him to attack them in return. The fact that this will always work and not siturational bothers me. I mean what happens if the enemy is tacticaly sound...and are not complete morons? What you raise there Will defense just vs this powers? I can get a similiar result in 3.5 that actualy makes sense to me and not have to be a Power.
But I remeber combats taking forever...which after the 2nd round all you were doing is spanning your at wills which just felt like hitting the 'A' on a game controler repeatly till the combat is over...with sometime hitting 'B' or 'C' at the right time.
Though a friend of mine plays in a game where the DM keeps combat shorter by reducing monsters HPs and increasing damage.
2)Leveling: I actualy quit the game I was in when I was leveling my character up from 7th level to 8th level...it was just tedious and boring and time consuming(though I do my character tracking on a character sheet and pencil...so using the char gen online probably makes it less time consuming...but the fact you need a computer to do so...is that really a improvement?) I just could not do it. To me the powers...feats....and skills(which I'll get to in a second) were just rather blah.
3) Skills: I will just say I loved the 3.5 skill system. It allowed for soo much character diversification I really don't why people hated it with so much passion. I get it was complicated and such...and I can live with the Pathfinder simplfication of it..it is a good compromise.
I also hate the Instant Skill Mastery aspect of 4th ed.
4) Warlord class: I have mentioned this a number of time on the WotC boards...but I just dislike this class due to what I view atleast the RP cost of such a class. A band of adventures is not a military unit. There is no rank and such...so how is it that you just meet a warlord who in combat starts shouting orders and you suddenly fight better. I mean lets say I am a Elf ranger with the archer focus....why am I listening to some dwarf warlord telling me how to shoot a bow better? Atleast the bardic music is a magic effect...and even than I have character who refuse the bonus for a number of reasons. It just cause problems....
Though admittly a warlord well played can be great...I just don't see it happening alot.
This is by no means a comprehensicve list of the problems with 4th ed...but alot of the others things has to do with the flavor of it all and not the mechanics. Flavor does not make it unplayable as you can change it...but does make the books unreadable for me.
Anyway all the above is not meant to be saying 4th ed sucks....but to illustrated why it does not work well for me. Though I'll be first to admitt any and all of the above can be ignored or fixed if the group you play with is great.
Also a note on the Essentials...I think if that what D&D 4th ed was from the start I personaly would have been willing to give it a longer shot...as it was better done...but right now it was too little too late...and they have seemingly abandon it. Maybe 5th ed will be better.
The issue I found with stances is that there is one that adds +1 to hit...and the times that this is just not the best option are few and far between. Increased accuracy almost always trumps everything else. In effect every other stance tends to feel very corner case. Occasionally comes up but really all you do is whack enemies every turn - though your good at this.
I had the opposite experience. While the +1 to hit is always a solid choice in my mind, I prefered the more interesting effects that the other stances offered. The push and follow (which I assumed worked with Bludgeon Expertise) stance along with the slowing stance left me feeling that I was forcing and hampering the enemies' abilities to get to and attack my party. At least, more than the bonus to attack or damage stances. I'm pretty certain I missed some attacks being without the +1 attack, but I really enjoyed pushing enemies across the battlefield. Especially after I had expended my attack boosting encounter powers.
I do agree that I wouldn't want every class to work like this though. If it were otherwise, I can definitely picture it playing like Gauntlet Legends.
On a personal note, having played fourth a decent amount (my friend likes 4e... not so much here i'll admit). I digress... I feel 4th edition tends to eliminate the creativity of players, for example: My party and i were roaming through the mornlands (Ebberon) when we were attacked by a some strange undead that revive if their not killed by fire (the killing blow [the blow that drops the mob to zero) has to be fire or divine based) Which elminates the ability to burn the bodies per raw and if your party doesn't have a fire or divine attack ready right then your boned.
Little nitpick, but i've experienced several instances like this.
The issue I found with stances is that there is one that adds +1 to hit...and the times that this is just not the best option are few and far between. Increased accuracy almost always trumps everything else. In effect every other stance tends to feel very corner case. Occasionally comes up but really all you do is whack enemies every turn - though your good at this.I had the opposite experience. While the +1 to hit is always a solid choice in my mind, I prefered the more interesting effects that the other stances offered. The push and follow (which I assumed worked with Bludgeon Expertise) stance along with the slowing stance left me feeling that I was forcing and hampering the enemies' abilities to get to and attack my party. At least, more than the bonus to attack or damage stances. I'm pretty certain I missed some attacks being without the +1 attack, but I really enjoyed pushing enemies across the battlefield. Especially after I had expended my attack boosting encounter powers.
I do agree that I wouldn't want every class to work like this though. If it were otherwise, I can definitely picture it playing like Gauntlet Legends.
I meant that the at-will + stance/trick/something would work for melee combat. The spellcasters could do it too, but in weaker form and make up for the difference with spells, that are dailies, Just like fighter does with permanent bonuses and additional options.
On a personal note, having played fourth a decent amount (my friend likes 4e... not so much here i'll admit). I digress... I feel 4th edition tends to eliminate the creativity of players, for example: My party and i were roaming through the mornlands (Ebberon) when we were attacked by a some strange undead that revive if their not killed by fire (the killing blow [the blow that drops the mob to zero) has to be fire or divine based) Which elminates the ability to burn the bodies per raw and if your party doesn't have a fire or divine attack ready right then your boned.
Little nitpick, but i've experienced several instances like this.
I have a similar experience and I really think that the worst problems is the system of powers itself. Originally we got them to prevent swamping the players with options (spells), but the result is that players are often trying to devise the most efficient use of powers they have listed instead of what would be more appropriate. Pushing the orc toward a pit square by square with at-wills where simple bull rush would do and so on.
One thing toward warlords. These people have a greater skills at situation analysis that anyone else. Their commands can really be jus timely shout that will point you toward enemy hole in defense or even an action that will create it (Commander's strike for example has melee range which could mean that he uses his weapon jsut to threaten the enemy, who instinctively reacts and that is all the other PC needs to strike at him). They are not shabby combatants either, nut they fight in a way that opens opportunities for thee others rather than just whacking the enemy.
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It's funny this thing about combat taking longer in 4e, because it isn't my experience - I'd say we cleared two fights per session in 3e, and more like three in 4e. I understand the hit point issue, but a typical party including two strikers has wreaked havoc in my experience - and their gear is level appropriate. Iterative attacks used to take ages, and don't get me going about having to read spell descriptions in 3e....
It's funny this thing about combat taking longer in 4e, because it isn't my experience - I'd say we cleared two fights per session in 3e, and more like three in 4e. I understand the hit point issue, but a typical party including two strikers has wreaked havoc in my experience - and their gear is level appropriate. Iterative attacks used to take ages, and don't get me going about having to read spell descriptions in 3e....
My 4E combats took longer at higher levels than 3.x. As for spell descriptions some people are better at memorizing them than others so how well they work, as far as not being problematic, will vary based on various factors.
For 4e as well my PC use power cards and the CharGen character sheets, which provide all the details without recource (generally) to the books.
I have to admit I do think the power cards are a good idea.
In regards to combat length.
At very low levels 3.5 is probably slightly faster but 4E is still pretty basic. 4E gets more complex faster for a period. All characters are fundamentally sorcerers and the number of new powers complicate things somewhat. There are also more very low level interrupts. Somewhere around 5th-7th level that reverses. 4Es complexity continues to rise but 3.5 starts to rise faster. Spell casters are becoming much more complex - they know start to really have access to a lot more spells then a 4E character has powers. The non spell casters begin to come into their own as well with feat chains now beginning to turn into abilities that or more complicated and more potent. Somewhere around here party buffs really start to become a very big part of entering combat and it becomes increasingly important to try and get the drop on the enemy or at least not to have them get the drop on you so scouting, especially magical scouting, becomes significant because, if you know that a combat is coming up you can layer on the buffs.
This process continues [in 3.5] along until around 10th level when the style of the game takes a pretty dramatic shift. Spells go from being potent to being truly awesome around this point and the monsters shift from being mostly bags of hps to being creatures layered with defenses and using potent abilities of their own. Characters, by this point are not usually in as much danger from hp loss (though damage can be very impressive) and instead are now usually in more danger from detrimental spell like effects and debuffs.
The game eases into more and more a match of trying to locate the enemies weak point and then exploit that and the warrior types become decked out with things that help them exploit enemy weak points and also counter dangerous enemy spell like effects.
By 15th its magical thermal nuclear war and it just ramps up from there until, by 18th level, each side is throwing wishes at the other. This phase of the game is dominated by complex spell interactions as each side uses magic to side step the enemies devastating effects.
Hence, I'd argue, that 4E combats start off by taking longer then 3.5 (its mainly a hp thing at very low levels, they take even longer up until 5th-7th and then the trend reverses with both sides taking about the same length by around 10th. After that 3.5 combats are taking longer then 4th by an ever increasing amount as the complexity ramps up higher and higher in regards to complex spell interactions.
But here are things I do not like about 4th edition.1) Combat: It just gets to be long and tedious. Also it is board gamey in some ways with all the pulls and pushes without flavor. That is what I usualy mean by that complaint. I mean there is a power call Come and Get it(I think...it is a fighter power) in which the fighter say something to get all enemies to come towards him to attack him...allowing him to attack them in return. The fact that this will always work and not siturational bothers me. I mean what happens if the enemy is tacticaly sound...and are not complete morons? What you raise there Will defense just vs this powers? I can get a similiar result in 3.5 that actualy makes sense to me and not have to be a Power.
Come and Get it is a very specific power that is pretty much in its own category. There is a thread on the forums here that deals almost exclusively with that power and the break down of 4E players went something along the lines of 20% (including myself) simply don't allow the power, 20% house rule the power to make it work better and about 60% us it as is while mostly recognizing that it has an issue but being willing to gloss over that. The reason for the contention is, as you say, it can be a hard power to rationalize but its also pretty much the perfect fighter power mechanically - doing exactly what the fighter player (and his party) wants done.
All that said we are talking about a single power. There are maybe two others that get cited repeatedly for 'realism' issues and all of them come from the original Players Handbook as the designers have gotten good at avoiding this type of issue.
Otherwise I find that the powers do take a certain kind of playing and DMing style to handle well but its anything but flavourless. 90% of these powers are stolen from some action flick like Mask of Zorro or some such and are meant to convey a scenes out of such movies - which I generally find they do very well. Wacking some baddy and pushing him three spaces and having that knock prone everyone he ends up adjacent too is cinematic gold in my books - your clearly bowling with baddies...fun stuff.
But I remeber combats taking forever...which after the 2nd round all you were doing is spanning your at wills which just felt like hitting the 'A' on a game controler repeatly till the combat is over...with sometime hitting 'B' or 'C' at the right time.
Spamming at wills is only really a feature of quite low levels. By 7th, at the latest, you have so many encounter powers that you essentially cycle through them (there are exceptions for certain Essentials Classes). Only in the biggest end boss type fights are you going to be completely out (and here you blew all your dailies as well) and using at wills constantly - and when that happens the players will be freaking out because they are just about out of juice and they know it...if the Dragon's still standing your players will be practically peeing themselves.
Though a friend of mine plays in a game where the DM keeps combat shorter by reducing monsters HPs and increasing damage.
I encountered this and a related concept called grind a lot in the first few years but better monster design beginning in MM2 and really reaching its apex in MM3 has resolved this issue.
2)Leveling: I actualy quit the game I was in when I was leveling my character up from 7th level to 8th level...it was just tedious and boring and time consuming(though I do my character tracking on a character sheet and pencil...so using the char gen online probably makes it less time consuming...but the fact you need a computer to do so...is that really a improvement?) I just could not do it. To me the powers...feats....and skills(which I'll get to in a second) were just rather blah.
These characters are complex - I'll give you that. I practicably consider the Character Builder a requirement. However with it this is super fast - like 5 or 10 minutes fast. Its so quick and easy that I'll boot up the character builder and build a 10th level character (takes 5-10 minutes) just so I can support some point I'm arguing on the message board. I do this all the time and I sure never did this when arguing in 3.5.
3) Skills: I will just say I loved the 3.5 skill system. It allowed for soo much character diversification I really don't why people hated it with so much passion. I get it was complicated and such...and I can live with the Pathfinder simplfication of it..it is a good compromise.I also hate the Instant Skill Mastery aspect of 4th ed.
My issue with the 3.5 skill system, and why I like 4Es version comes down to use. In 3.5 the skill system was used heavily at low level but it very quickly becomes polarized (game issues between characters that are super good at X and those that can't do X at all). 4Es system is meant to insure that the difference between the most skilled character and the least skilled character are comparable. This allows one to have something that involves skills in the scene and for there to be a diversity of who interacts with it because everyone has a chance of being succsessful though some have a good chance while others have a much lesser chance.
The result, in my experience, is that the skill system in 4E remains a large part of the game through out the levels. In 3.5 the skill system stopped being part of the adventure as one left low levels. One noticed this quite clearly with Dungeon Magazine where the skill system featured heavily in their low level adventures but where nearly absent from high level ones.
In 4E on the other hand you might have players with a task of opening a dam while being chased - there will actually be a debate among the party regarding who's got what tasks because the players will be evaluating things like how fast characters can get to the object in question versus who is best for rear guard versus how good various people are at the skills that are expected to be relevant. Surprisingly often the absolute expert is not the guy that the players choose to deal with the issue - she's better doing some other role or its deemed that a faster character who is still competent is a better option. Part of what is going on here is that a skill challenge embedded in a combat are fairly common.
In fact a close look at the 4E skill system should allow one to note that it actually mimics low level 3.5 in terms of skill spreads fairly effectively at least below epic level. I strongly suspect that this was intentional in the original design. Everyone liked how 3.5s skilled interacted with the adventure up until 5th so they made a system that remained within that range for as long as possible.
Though admittly a warlord well played can be great...I just don't see it happening alot.
There tends to be a lot of hand waving in terms of players bringing in new characters to the group in almost all RPGs. The warlord issue is little more then an extension of that (why do we trust this guy anyway - oh yeah because he's Bobs character). I mean the new wizard or cleric joins and all of a sudden every character is lining up and saying 'please sir can you put a spell on me'?
I don't see the Warlord as any more problematic then the standard issues here and they can be a lot of fun.
On a personal note, having played fourth a decent amount (my friend likes 4e... not so much here i'll admit). I digress... I feel 4th edition tends to eliminate the creativity of players, for example: My party and i were roaming through the mornlands (Ebberon) when we were attacked by a some strange undead that revive if their not killed by fire (the killing blow [the blow that drops the mob to zero) has to be fire or divine based) Which elminates the ability to burn the bodies per raw and if your party doesn't have a fire or divine attack ready right then your boned.
Little nitpick, but i've experienced several instances like this.
That just seems specific to this particular monster. We've fought a lot of Trolls recently in the game I'm in and you have to burn the bodies quickly after knocking them down or they regenerate - but you don't have to make the last hit flame or acid.
Seems to me you just encountered a monster with an unusual strength - it only really dies if the killing blow was fire.
If you had a party without fire you could, probably, still take these guys down though it'd be harder. If you have the standard adventurers kit I believe that comes with torches, take 'em out and use them as improvised weapons with the basic attack. That said your going to miss those proficiency bonus' and the damage is certianly nothing to write home about, but desperate times and all that...
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For 4e as well my PC use power cards and the CharGen character sheets, which provide all the details without recource (generally) to the books.I have to admit I do think the power cards are a good idea.
Which is easily replicated with Spell Cards...take an empty power card template and write in the needed info...or hand write on a index card...etc...