I too was a loyal 4th buyer for 2-3 years. But then I realized pathfinder was doing everything the fans had always asked for but we had been told was not economically practical. Like a third fiends book. And that every 4th ed class and power is pretty much a re-arranging of a few dozen jigsaw puzzle pieces. I miss healing surges and every monster doing something unique, but not enough to go back.
But Pathfinder is not D&D, no matter what it's history. Maybe if WotC continues with it's current product plan (or lack thereof) they'll give up D&D and the license will go up for sale. But at this point, I find it hard to imagine that Paizo would even buy it. I have a feeling that D&D will someday be a historical footnote to the world's most popular roleplaying game: Pathfinder.
Out of all the arguments, the idea that all classes in 4th edition do the exact same thing, just in a different way, confuses me and not because I disagree (I generally do).
... I just don't get how 3rd edition is less of a culprit of this. Heck, usually it's more.
Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger ... basic attack. Be it charging (4th has it), sneak attacks (4th has it), Raging (4th has it) or favored enemy (4th has ... something?) ... they're still just doing basic attacks. Full round, spring attacks ... whatever you want to call it, they're basic attacks.
Wizards and Sorcs had a lot of spell options but they were from the same list. Not saying this was a bad thing ... just saying they're doing the exact same thing, just in a moderately different way.
Heck, to many classes 4th gave it more options to do different things. I understand the initial knee jerk reaction to look at 4th edition and see that "they're all doing the same thing" because I did it. However after taking a moment and looking back and forth between the two editions, I no longer see how this argument holds up and it NOT apply to 3x too. All the melee classes can do basic attacks AND something cool per...
I have not looked at 4E past month six(that is how long I played it)* but if a fighter's at will does 1d6 and is called hurtful attack, and the wizard's at will does 1d6, but is called arcane strike then the only difference is the name. That is what a lot of people mean.
I just made those names up so I doubt they are accurate.All the melee types in pathfinder can swing swords and hurt people, but they can do other things also. Things like TWF are not tied to a class either, so I don't have to multiclass to do things that should not be class dependent IMHO, and that is important.
*Before even if a class took a different path it felt the same. With more options things may have changed, but I am not willing to spend the money to find out. Essentials have changed some things also, but that leads back to me spending money on an experiment.
I don't think that the general tone of the thread really is for the best.
I don't think ranting about their game system of choice was reasonable.
I disagree with the assessments about 4th edition as I have had different experiences.
I do think that someone going into the situation with a Pathfinder player with, "4e is real D&D" is, at best, unintentionally setting themselves up for a fight (exactly like "Pathfinder is real D&D" comments). More likely though they are jerks just picking for a fight. In either case, giving them a fight is not the way to go.
Some 4th edition players will be jerks. Some Pathfinder players will be jerks as well. Fighting them will not make things better.
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I have not looked at 4E past month six(that is how long I played it)* but if a fighter's at will does 1d6 and is called hurtful attack, and the wizard's at will does 1d6, but is called arcane strike then the only difference is the name. That is what a lot of people mean.
I just made those names up so I doubt they are accurate.All the melee types in pathfinder can swing swords and hurt people, but they can do other things also. Things like TWF are not tied to a class either, so I don't have to multiclass to do things that should not be class dependent IMHO, and that is important.
*Before even if a class took a different path it felt the same. With more options things may have changed, but I am not willing to spend the money to find out. Essentials have changed some things also, but that leads back to me spending money on an experiment.
An at will is just another form of basic attack though. The at wills aren't where it's at really but even taking them into account its no different.
Fighter gets at will to do 1W (W = weapon damage for those who don't know) + strength to damage, as well as doing strength to damage against an adjacent foe. A melee attack.
Wizard gets magic missle to do 2d4 + int force damage at ranged.
Lets say the fighter does 10 damage with his attack and so does the wizard. It might look the same but its no different than 3rd where a fighter attacks (melee basic ... simple) and a wizard uses magic missle (classic) and they both end up doing 6 damage.
Your same argument works against you. If a fighter does 5 damage with a basic attack and a wizard does 5 from a spell ... the only thing different is the name (basic attack VS spell).
I have not looked at 4E past month six(that is how long I played it)* but if a fighter's at will does 1d6 and is called hurtful attack, and the wizard's at will does 1d6, but is called arcane strike then the only difference is the name. That is what a lot of people mean.
I just made those names up so I doubt they are accurate.All the melee types in pathfinder can swing swords and hurt people, but they can do other things also. Things like TWF are not tied to a class either, so I don't have to multiclass to do things that should not be class dependent IMHO, and that is important.
*Before even if a class took a different path it felt the same. With more options things may have changed, but I am not willing to spend the money to find out. Essentials have changed some things also, but that leads back to me spending money on an experiment.
An at will is just another form of basic attack though. The at wills aren't where it's at really but even taking them into account its no different.
Fighter gets at will to do 1W (W = weapon damage for those who don't know) + strength to damage, as well as doing strength to damage against an adjacent foe. A melee attack.
Wizard gets magic missle to do 2d4 + int force damage at ranged.
Lets say the fighter does 10 damage with his attack and so does the wizard. It might look the same but its no different than 3rd where a fighter attacks (melee basic ... simple) and a wizard uses magic missle (classic) and they both end up doing 6 damage.
Your same argument works against you. If a fighter does 5 damage with a basic attack and a wizard does 5 from a spell ... the only thing different is the name (basic attack VS spell).
I don't see a spell as a basic attack and perception* is the crux of the issue. I look at everything from the beginning to the end result.
*As an example a player in my group does not like melee types because he feels they are all the same so I said what if you focus on combat maneuvers and battle field control which makes for a different playstyle. All he sees is "swinging the weapon", whether it is doing damage or disarming someone.
Another player that was in the group saw spellcasters as only being able to cast spell despite the fact that spells provide various functions. To him a spell is a spell is a spell.
There are other immersion issues, but I don't want to get into this debate since I have had it with enough people already and it goes the same way every time. We pretty much agree to disagree.
I have not looked at 4E past month six(that is how long I played it)* but if a fighter's at will does 1d6 and is called hurtful attack, and the wizard's at will does 1d6, but is called arcane strike then the only difference is the name. That is what a lot of people mean.
I just made those names up so I doubt they are accurate.
It is very rare that two powers will be identical. The 4e powers system allows for literally thousands of unique abilities spread across the game's various classes.
If someone actually believes that 4e powers tend to be mechanically identical, they are probably not reading the powers closely at all.
There are 17 1st-level Fighter at-will powers.
There are 23 1st-level Wizard at-will powers.
No two of these are mechanically identical.
As for non-mechanical differences in flavor, well, the fact that 23 are spells and 17 are weapon maneuvers ought to clue everyone into the fact that they're not identical flavor-wise either.
I have not looked at 4E past month six(that is how long I played it)* but if a fighter's at will does 1d6 and is called hurtful attack, and the wizard's at will does 1d6, but is called arcane strike then the only difference is the name. That is what a lot of people mean.
I just made those names up so I doubt they are accurate.It is very rare that two powers will be identical. The 4e powers system allows for literally thousands of unique abilities spread across the game's various classes.
If someone actually believes that 4e powers tend to be mechanically identical, they are probably not reading the powers closely at all.
There are 17 1st-level Fighter at-will powers.
There are 23 1st-level Wizard at-will powers.
No two of these are mechanically identical.
As for non-mechanical differences in flavor, well, the fact that 23 are spells and 17 are weapon maneuvers ought to clue everyone into the fact that they're not identical flavor-wise either.
The main problem I had with the 4th ed system was the, forgive the term, straightjacketing. Only certain classes in 4th edition have powers based in 2 weapon fighting, and only certain classes have powers baced on 2-handed fighting. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just not my preference. In a 3rd ed campaign I was in, I played a 2-weapon melee bard. Sure, the character SUCKED HARD in combat, but I still had the option open to me, and I like the idea of not being required (basically) to play optimized characters. I like branching out and having weaknesses.
4th ed is VERY balanced. Even though the powers aren't mechanically identicle, they are similar enough that every class is going to do roughly the same damage and tactical movement in every encounter. There's nothing wrong with that, but in 3rd edition, if you were playing a Paladin, and you were tossed up agaisnt a bunch of neutral creatures (my DM LOVES the Slaadi for this very reason), you were pretty much toast. Certain classes excelled in certain areas. If you were going up against specific creatures, Ranger was a good choise. If you were going up against a wide range of creatures, maybe wanna stay away from Ranger. If you're taking on undead and evil, paladin's the way to go. Mainly neutral creatures? Probably better off with a fighter. It allowed for different characters to shine at different moments, and that's important to some people. 4th edition really is all about the teamwork. Nothing wrong with that. I just like to shine every once in a while.|
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The main problem I had with the 4th ed system was the, forgive the term, straightjacketing. Only certain classes in 4th edition have powers based in 2 weapon fighting, and only certain classes have powers baced on 2-handed fighting. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just not my preference. In a 3rd ed campaign I was in, I played a 2-weapon melee bard. Sure, the character SUCKED HARD in combat, but I still had the option open to me, and I like the idea of not being required (basically) to play optimized characters. I like branching out and having weaknesses.
4th ed is VERY balanced. Even though the powers aren't mechanically identicle, they are similar enough that every class is going to do roughly the same damage and tactical movement in every encounter. There's nothing wrong with that, but in 3rd edition, if you were playing a Paladin, and you were tossed up agaisnt a bunch of neutral creatures (my DM LOVES the Slaadi for this very reason), you were pretty much...
Spoiling for semi boring length.
The two weapon fighting thing I kind of understand more than the other things. You still CAN carry two weapons and pick up feats to increase your damage and AC because you do. In a way its dual wielding but I'm not so dense as to not see how that wouldn't be enough for most people.
However the straightjacketing (works well enough) is how I feel about 3rd edition a lot too. Pathfinder has actually taken this a bit further from what I've seen of late. They like to stick to their system of d10 HP with full BAB and if you get any spells with this, their small and max at level 4. Then d8s get medium BAB and so on down the line.
I've always loved the idea of a lightly armored sword guy flinging spells while fighting with his sword on the front line. I don't see why this place is reserved for people in heavy armor if you can wield them both. The most Pathfinder has recently for this is the Magus which still has some issues because they're trying to fit it into this neat little system Paizo has going on. Why doesn't someone on the front line get more HP or AC or a better chance to hit? Well because they get magic!
However you look at the Swordmage in 4th edition and to me that class really feels like what I've imagined a lightly armored melder of sword and spell should be. The reason 4th edition can do this is because of the fact that every class has at wills and dailies and encounter powers. Be they attack or spell, you can switch things around to fit a concept much easier than what 3rd edition can allow.
Of course it has its own shortcomings in the freedom department (as you've mentioned dual wielding is one of them) but so does 3rd as I've said. The largescale balance of 4th I've come to realize allows more freedom over more restrictions to fit the style of character I want to play ... mostly. I have one character concept/idea that no game has yet to support but you can't win them all.
Long story short I don't disagree with your example (and in fact agree almost completely) but don't find that 3rd edition was any better about this problem
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I believe the exact same claims WERE made about 3.5 actually.
And many of them were true. Although 3.5 was by it's nature still supporting 3.0.
And as someone else pointed out, WoTC originally continued to support 2nd edition, while their approach to 3.5 has seemed to be "Oceania has always been at war with us. 4th has always been the double-plus good edition."
TSR failed at being a buisness.
WoTC fails at being anything but a business.
Paizo seems to walk the middle nicely.
4th edition is a combat simulator with role playing aspects. I would not care if it was released as the new hot thing, if it did not remove support for the old immediately on it's release. If the two had co-existed and one had won in the end (as was the case with 2nd and 3rd when WoTC bought TSR) survival of the fittest.
But that wasn't what happened.
To quote Mearls, who I actually like as he seems to understand 4th was done poorly.
“Look, no one at Wizards ever woke up one day and said ‘Let’s get rid of all of our fans and replace them.’ That was never the intent. "With 4th Edition, there were good intentions.”
and
"If you are a disgruntled D&D fan, there’s nothing I can say to you that undoes whatever happened two years ago or a year ago that made you disgruntled – but what I can do, what’s within my power, is that going forward, I can make products, I can design game material, I can listen to what you’re saying, and I can do what I can do with design to make you happy again; to get back to that core of what makes D&D, D&D; to what made people fall in love with it the first time, whether it was the Red Box in ’83, the original three booklets back in ’74 or ’75 or even 3rd Edition in 2004, whenever that happened, to get back to what drew you into D&D in the first place and give that back to you.”
WoTC left the core of DnD to make simplified game they felt would have an easier entry level and mass appeal.
I don't begrudge them trying to make a more accessible variant.
I do begrudge them saying "This variant is now the game. The old game is invalid and we will no longer support. Suck it and like it."
2 of the guys stayed but the other 3 tossed off.
You just don't know how unintentionally funny that statement is. Unfortunately I got a mental image and am scared for life.
Urban dictionary definition for you *(NSFW) Link*.
Edited: I probably shouldn't call edition warriors wankers.
I too was a loyal 4th buyer for 2-3 years. But then I realized pathfinder was doing everything the fans had always asked for but we had been told was not economically practical. Like a third fiends book. And that every 4th ed class and power is pretty much a re-arranging of a few dozen jigsaw puzzle pieces. I miss healing surges and every monster doing something unique, but not enough to go back.
But Pathfinder is not D&D, no matter what it's history. Maybe if WotC continues with it's current product plan (or lack thereof) they'll give up D&D and the license will go up for sale. But at this point, I find it hard to imagine that Paizo would even buy it. I have a feeling that D&D will someday be a historical footnote to the world's most popular roleplaying game: Pathfinder.
Out of all the arguments, the idea that all classes in 4th edition do the exact same thing, just in a different way, confuses me and not because I disagree (I generally do).
... I just don't get how 3rd edition is less of a culprit of this. Heck, usually it's more.
Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger ... basic attack. Be it charging (4th has it), sneak attacks (4th has it), Raging (4th has it) or favored enemy (4th has ... something?) ... they're still just doing basic attacks. Full round, spring attacks ... whatever you want to call it, they're basic attacks.
Wizards and Sorcs had a lot of spell options but they were from the same list. Not saying this was a bad thing ... just saying they're doing the exact same thing, just in a moderately different way.
Heck, to many classes 4th gave it more options to do different things. I understand the initial knee jerk reaction to look at 4th edition and see that "they're all doing the same thing" because I did it. However after taking a moment and looking back and forth between the two editions, I no longer see how this argument holds up and it NOT apply to 3x too. All the melee classes can do basic attacks AND something cool per...
I suppose I just feel that while they may just be attacking there's a lot more room to tweak the rules, as opposed to just the type of damage being done and the condition inflicted. At first I was really excited that everybody was moving around more and that the conditions had all been streamlined. But that wore off when I realized that there wasn't going to be anything new added to that, ever.
In 3e, and particularly pathfinder, lots of little tweaks can be made to classes. The abilities from choosing a sorcerer path or a oracle destiny, the Barbarian rage or rogue powers, etc - there's a lot of variety going on there. The spells feel like they do something interesting in combat, there are more of them, and there's more leeway with what they can do.
In fact, there's generally more leeway in spells, feats, class powers, etc because the incremental power step is greater in pathfinder than 4e. 4e feats are dull because they aren't allowed to do very much. The gap between power levels is also small, so in order to parcel out the abilities the different abilities had to be broken down into such small components that there wasn't a lot of difference to my mind, and it felt very constrained by the math of what something at a particular power level could do.
All of this, I suppose, could be said of 3x/pathfinder. But to me the qualitative difference is vast. Perhaps it is just a matter of perspective. There are certainly things I like about 4e. I loved some of the background they wrote (although I think the new alignment system is worse than the old) and I love the new Dark Sun. Heck, I import skill challenges into my own games - that was a fantastic idea. But I like having more skills to play it with. I suppose that's a better example than anything I've typed so far. I'll leave it with that.
My roommate and I rolled through the complete series of Freakazoid again last year thanks to netflix. That theme-song is still stuck in my head.
Down there! With the Poo-gas!
One of the best Freakazoid lines ever.
I love those early 90's WB cartoons.
TSR failed at being a business.WoTC fails at being anything but a business.
Paizo seems to walk the middle nicely.
Perhaps the most succinct and accurate analysis of the current gaming market I have seen yet.
From what I can tell, the relative degree of love or hate for 4E within a given subset of gamers will be entirely dependent on what they value most as players. Gamers who are focused on the narrative aspect of play and are more interested in character-driven developments tend to shy away from 4E. (I happen to think any game system gives plenty of opportunity for role playing, but I'll concede that on the surface, 4E is comprised largely of tactical combat rules.)
A more extreme subset of these types of gamers, though, also shun 3.X and its derivatives, Pathfinder among them, because they feel that the games focus on crunch to an unhealthy extreme; these are the gamers who, in my experience, flock to older editions of D&D or games like Stormbringer, CoC, Fudge/Fate or Amber.
My gaming group is just now making its first foray into 4E, largely due to fatigue on the part of the GMs. We are a more combat-oriented group, and the system serves our purposes well, I think, at least as a temporary diversion if not as a complete system change. Probably the least favorite thing about the system to me is skill challenges, which feel poorly structured and ill-explained; the scenarios skill challenges describe are, to me, the most fun sequences to role play, and telling players, "You can use these skills X times, and you need Y successes before Z failures" makes a story element far more mechanical than it should be. (Of course, I'm new to running this system, so maybe I'm just Doing It Wrong.)
Pathfinder's failings as a system are much the same as D&D 3.5's - both games are massive bodies of crunch that can be overwhelming for some groups. And, for people like me who GM players with extensive experience in both systems, the task of coming up with encounters and challenges that are sufficiently difficult, appropriately flavored, and fun can be a chore. I'm firmly convinced that my players don't MEAN to min/max when they make characters - it just comes naturally to them as a result of having played the same damn game for so long. The problem is that as I get older and garner more responsibilities in my personal and professional life, I just don't have the time to do what amounts to a lot of research and mathematical considerations just to make a session of play suitably challenging for players who are as advanced as these.
With 4E, thus far, I haven't had that problem. The character creation is far more difficult to "game"; rules interactions that can be exploited to terrible ends in 3.X and Pathfinder don't exist in 4E, partially due to the straitjacketing so many people complain about when 4E is discussed.
I have a lot of love for both systems, but to me, they both have flaws that show with time.
Pathfinder's flaw is an adherence to backwards compatibility that, while validating to a collector with a deep collection of 3.5 material, leaves us with the same clunky mechanical problems we've been dealing with since the dawn of 3.X. I understand why the game was made that way, but I'm on the cusp of just going back to playing with the beta rules in future campaigns because I'm so tired of hitting the same play walls that 3.X threw up. I hope we see a change in design philosophy by the time the game's 2nd edition is formulated that isn't so hellbent on backwards compatibility.
4E's flaw is that while the system is clean and easy to run, the flavor of every product made for the is either sorely lacking or trying way too hard to be hip, and the window dressing of the world and its monstrous inhabitants are so far off base from the roots of the game that I pretty much have to disregard everything in flavor text and retrofit it to work with my group. Archons = evil elemental spirits? Angels = planar bounty hunters? Gah. At least when you switched from AD&D2E to 3.0, it still felt more or less like the same game world with simple mechanical differences. That's just not the case now.
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Yeah, that used to be me.Heck I remember running into some 3.5 fans who would not touch any other game system that was not D20...anyway.
I remember boycotting 3.5 because it was not 2nd. And then when I did give it a look, I accused it of just being someone's attempt to mash D&D and GURPS together. My experience then taught me to give 4e a chance when it first came out, and surprise I enjoy both Pathfinder and 4e. Oddly, unlike the sentiment a lot of people have expressed I much more enjoy playing 4E and GMing Pathfinder than the other way around. But that is just me.
The next time you run Pathfinder in a store, and some meathead walks up to you and says, "Why don't you play REAL D&D?"
Here is a suggested, new answer to try:
"No thank you, I prefer Pathfinder. If you would like to try Pathfinder, please pick a character sheet and have a seat. If you would like to run Dungeons and Dragons, the table next to me is free. There's room for both of us here."
And if they continue to be disruptive, then they are disrupting the store's business, in which case you ask the manager to take over the situation and stay out of it.
The next time you run Pathfinder in a store, and some meathead walks up to you and says, "Why don't you play REAL D&D?"
Here is a suggested, new answer to try:
"No thank you, I prefer Pathfinder. If you would like to try Pathfinder, please pick a character sheet and have a seat. If you would like to run Dungeons and Dragons, the table next to me is free. There's room for both of us here."
And if they continue to be disruptive, then they are disrupting the store's business, in which case you ask the manager to take over the situation and stay out of it.
Booooooooooooring.
If someone were to ask me "Why don't you play REAL D&D". I would do so. "REAL D&D" being the stuff you play in steam tunnels. With actual swords.
They discarded the previous game mechanics completely.What most people seem to ignore is that 3E did this as well. 0E, B/X, 1E, BECMI, 2E, and RC were all closely related rules-wise. 3E threw all that away.
I don't want to live in a world without Thac0.
Hey, an edition war thread!
Locked.