Why am I the only one?


4th Edition

1 to 50 of 174 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Liberty's Edge

I seem to be the only guy at my lodge to like 4E. I've heard why it's wrong, but can someone please explain it to me?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

because many feel like it was a terrible way to do the next edition, and that it is pretty much an MMO.

My best shot, other's have other reasons. I never really played 4th edition.


6 people marked this as a favorite.

Batten down the hatches. Edition war incoming.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Please, do we have to have another thread where people trash 4E?

I love 4E. Many people do. Many others prefer Pathfinder. Some of us have actually found enjoyment when playing both. Shocking, but true.

People should be passionate about the things they enjoy, and should encourage others who are willing to join them in their preferred activities.

People should not feel it necessary to bash other people's pastimes in order to enjoy their own. It's the worst part of ingroup/outgroup social dynamics.

If you want to enjoy 4E, or Pathfinder, or football, or synchronized swimming, or WWE wrestling, or old episodes of the A-Team... then enjoy it. And if someone tells you that you shouldn't, simply smile and change the subject. Don't validate their bashing of something you enjoy. Just smile and move on.

(Smiling and moving on now...)


2 people marked this as a favorite.
lucky7 wrote:
I seem to be the only guy at my lodge to like 4E. I've heard why it's wrong, but can someone please explain it to me?

It's not wrong if you enjoy playing it.

I really can't stand playing 4e, but that doesn't mean someone else can't enjoy it.

Shadow Lodge

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I know when 4th Ed came out I thought it was a great gaming system but not a system that "felt" like D&D. For my group and I Pathfinder scratched that itch as well as advancing the game in a way we thought was appropriate.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Gee, I wonder if this thread has something to do with this...

Nice try, mate. ;)

Liberty's Edge

I played a lot of 4e. It's fun.

The problem is, ultimately, it doesn't feel like D&D. That's the reason myself and most of the others in my area eventually dropped it.

Liberty's Edge

Odraude wrote:

Gee, I wonder if this thread has something to do with this...

Nice try, mate. ;)

Started that one too. I don't mean I'm wrong. Let's post why we love our favorite RPGS :)

Webstore Gninja Minion

Moved thread, and a warning to not turn this into an edition war thread.

Contributor

A short, hopefully objective, listing of what's "wrong" with 4e:

1. Wizards is moving on to D&D Next/5th edition so it will become unsupported.

Note: This is the same failing as 3.5, 3.0, 2nd Edition, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition, not counting one one before), all of which are playable games which still have fans and players. Being unsupported by the company does not mean the game can't be played.

2. Some of the initial advertising for 4e was miscalculated and started the "edition wars" which almost all agree are very much not a good thing.

Note: This was a problem with a couple ads, not 4e itself.

3. For many various reasons, 4e has a different "feel" than previous editions.

Note: This is like Coke, Pepsi, and New Coke. What you like and what's to your personal taste are subjective things.

That's pretty much it.

Silver Crusade

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

A lot of 4E in both marketing and appearance (Warlocks as core? Disenchanting items?) was aimed at capturing the MMO (read: World of Warcraft) fans, in a (deeply mistaken, IMHO) train of thought that MMOs are the biggest enemy of PnP RPGs and the Illustrious Industry Leader must tackle them head on by attempting to capture the video game crowd.

(Before somebody jumps me - NO, I don't think 4E is a MMO. I think it was made to look and appear as one.)

While at the same time, in order to cast off as many links to neckbearded D&D grognards of yore and make the game appear as new, hip and trendy, dozens of D&D sacred cows were slaughtered as to have everyone start their knowledge of the game off ground zero.

Both tangents misfired miserably - the MMO crowd didn't ditch their level 90 Dranei Paladins for D&D en masse, and the (incredibly conservative, FYI) D&D fanbase revolted at all the above-mentioned changes. And all that would likely end with just a few bruises for WotC, but unfortunately for them, Pathfinder happened.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I still really like that in 4E martial characters get a lot of love, and that with the exploits for fighters and the like you have a lot of interesting tactical decisions to make in combat that I don't really see when running a pathfinder game. For instance, one of my most powergamer players ran a straight fighter for an entire campaign in 4E. He would have been bored out of his mind doing that in 3.5/Pathfinder. I find in Pathfinder you always end up with a party of predominately spell casters in some shape or form by the end of the campaign (at least that's how my campaigns have always worked out).

I think that how magic works in 4E is one of the big issues many people who don't like the system have with it. It doesn't work like magic has in D&D in the past. It lost a lot of its power in flavour, so that it could be more balanced with the non spell casters. This has pros and cons. You can still run a mage in 4E that is fun to play and does interesting things, but you won't be flying and invisible at 6th level nuking your enemies with fire balls (it will take about 16 levels to do that), and you will never have spells like contingency and clone in 4e. In 4e you won't spend 6 rounds buffing up with spells before combat. So yeah, it does have a different feel, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

IMO both systems have some big pros and cons. They do different things well and different things poorly. I like having both available and choosing which one I want to use based on the type of game I want to run.


For what its worth I quite enjoy the 4e board games (Ravenloft, Drizzt etc.) and they draw heavily from the 4e rules. Just not so much for a full-on RPG (though truthfully I'm not a big fan of PF or 3E rulesets either but use them because that's what people know)


I like 4e as well. As a system, it is very solid. D&D has always had very big problems with the underlying math, and 4e was entirely designed as a way to mechanically eliminate these problems. However where it failed is in meeting the expectations of what many people had come to have about D&D. There was a feeling of sameness that many people found in classes, that wasn't entirely deserved, but from their expectations, and at first glance, the fact that each class got "powers" was a big sticking point. It's a bit of a catch-22, though. If it's labeled D&D, it will come saddled with so many core expectations, that changing the core will cause an uproar, even if it is to fix the problems of the underlying math. However, if it is not labeled D&D, it will have a much smaller reach, in terms of potential customers.

Similarly, there's a bit of dissonance between those with different preferences on the GSN triangle. Taking huge generaliations, here, simulationists tended towards 3e, because to them, the fact that non-casters and casters are constructed similarly, rulewise, was a big sticking point. Gamists, however, tended towards 4e, since the math of the system was now balanced getting rid of the linear fighters, quadratic wizards problem. Narrativists (which, if I would have to pick a catagory for myself, I would be one) were somewhat split: Some liked the way 4e did away with what I like to call "Rules governing RP" such as Alignment restrictions, and so forth, which was one of the things I really liked; to me the only real part of D&D which requires rules is combat. Out of combat, skills can serve as a ground-work to more-or-less freeform the rest. However, to other Narrativists, the fact that 4e removed, or made more difficult, a lot of the non-combat stuff, like making non-combat spells into more clunky rituals, was a big sticking point.

I personally never liked the 3.5 D&D ruleset, or any of the preceding rulesets, before 4e and pathfinder. They both fixed, in different ways, my problems with D&D. For Pathfinder, Cantrips and Domain/School/Bloodline powers, as well as a rebalancing of certain spells eliminated my primary problems with casters, while Non-casters were given many ways to make themselves more special, and archetypes did a lot to help create the character I wanted. While archetype restrictions still exist, they seem less built-in, as in 3.5, where rules seemed much more to be tied into the fluff. In addition, the existence of those rules is much more tolerable, given that the setting is much better than anything TSR/WotC came up with, with the possible exception of Eberron.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I'm not sure if 4e really fixed the math problems. It fixed them in many ways relative to 3E, but the ever escalating defence scores, require ever escalating attack bonuses. The hp are really bloated and IMO damage tends to be a bit on the low side. I don't like how DCs also scale up.

I think that D&D next is going to solve some of the math problems better than any edition of the game has. The flattened math for attack bonuses and ACs seems like a really good idea. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Well, a similar topic was brought up some place else and I figured I might as well repost here what I said there,

"To be honest, in my opinion 4E "failed" (if only by the merit that it didn't last longer than the previous edition) because:

The system was just too great to be called Dungeons and Dragons. Based on my readings of people who've hated on 4E since '08 I can only summarize that when people imagine D&D, a LOT of iconic elements come into play that older players expect. It's not just the class, level, and 6 stats that are paramount, but the ton of expectations that have been formed since D&D's earliest existance. Some of these expectations are:

• low-level = gritty and always near death.
• Magic is powerful, supreme, and rare. usable by only the smartest people in the world/game.
• Fighters and other non-magical classes should be simple and easy in their mechanics. They're the beginners class.
• dozes of pages of rules for things outside of combat such as staring and maintaining your own keep or city.
• Restrictive player options that are expressed in the minimal release material available to players so when DM's allow other options, they're considered a "cool" or "edgy" DM.
• Tolkien-esque understandings of races such as Elves and Dwarves are paramount within the history and flavor of D&D races.
• non-standard options are always A) require specific roleplay requirements and B) are much harder on the system to use and thus, discouraging to players.
• Magic items are rare and players should be happy with whever the DM doles out, regardles if it's completely outside anyone's actual specialty or use.
• Mechanics MUST replicate the intended purpose dictated by flavor.
• Character options must have downsides, catches, and/or stipulations. If not, it's broken/not-balanced.
• Death of characters should be whimsical and without warning becuase it's that way in real life.
• An understanding that in the world of D&D, your character is not special, unique, or different and any attempt to become so means that your either A) a powergamer, B) a munchkin, or C) want the game to be about you.

This list scratches the surface on what a LOT of people (many old-school players I talk to, anyways) find appealing about playing D&D (well, pre-3E). Yet most of them, if not all, have been scrapped or molded or broken with 4E's mechanics. It gave players non-standard options that broke Tolkien-esque molds. It gave them fantastic character abilities. It gave them a chance to survive past the first 2 rounds of combat and actually contribute to the encounter. It gave them a window to create new and interesting roleplaying elements without any problems regarding balance. It allowed them to excell in more than just one pillar of the game. It broke alignment molds that have held certain classes hostage to one narrow roleplaying aspect.

To me, these are all great changes that give me, a player of over 15 years, a fresh breath of relief. Yet others believe that the listed things above are what make D&D...well D&D. They're features of the game people like, for reasons I cannot comprehend, and their removal angerd a lot of the fan-base. Espically because it [4E] was called Dungeons and Dragons. I really beleive that had your called 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons another name, say Mythic Heroes and Monsters or Ultimate Fantasy RPG then it would've been received far better by the majority of gamers out there."


Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
Note: This is like Coke, Pepsi, and New Coke. What you like and what's to your personal taste are subjective things.

It's kind of amazing how often New Coke comes up in 4e discussions. If it was as awesome as 4e is, I'm sorry I never got a chance to taste it. :(

lucky7 wrote:
Odraude wrote:

Gee, I wonder if this thread has something to do with this...

Nice try, mate. ;)

Started that one too. I don't mean I'm wrong. Let's post why we love our favorite RPGS :)

Why 4e Fans Love 4e

Done!


Diffan wrote:
I really beleive that had your called 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons another name, say Mythic Heroes and Monsters or Ultimate Fantasy RPG then it would've been received far better by the majority of gamers out there."

Unfortunately, that majority would be a small minority of 4e's current fan base, due to so many of us tending to not see anything without the D&D logo. :/


Tequila Sunrise wrote:
Diffan wrote:
I really beleive that had your called 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons another name, say Mythic Heroes and Monsters or Ultimate Fantasy RPG then it would've been received far better by the majority of gamers out there."
Unfortunately, that majority would be a small minority of 4e's current fan base, due to so many of us tending to not see anything without the D&D logo. :/

True I myself really didn't get involved with other RPG lables outside of D&D namely because they didn't interest me all that much. But we'll never know and hindsight is always 20/20. I know I'll always enjoy 4E and use the mechanics to make my and my groups RPG experience more enjoyable.

Silver Crusade

I had a hard time GMing 4e.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Tequila Sunrise wrote:
Diffan wrote:
I really beleive that had your called 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons another name, say Mythic Heroes and Monsters or Ultimate Fantasy RPG then it would've been received far better by the majority of gamers out there."
Unfortunately, that majority would be a small minority of 4e's current fan base, due to so many of us tending to not see anything without the D&D logo. :/

Yeah, like that Pathfinder thing. :)


lucky7 wrote:
I seem to be the only guy at my lodge to like 4E. I've heard why it's wrong, but can someone please explain it to me?

...nah, our group has played it a few times without complaining too much.

They still prefer Pathfinder and 3.5e, though lean to the former much to my annoyance.

Liberty's Edge

GM Elton wrote:
I had a hard time GMing 4e.

I am curious, what aspects made it hard for you? Was it preparation? Remembering rules? Adjudicating rules?

The Exchange

For what its worth, I loved 4th ed. I have DM'd for our group since the late 80's through many different gaming systems. 4th edition was by far the easiest for me to dm and write encounters for.

Unfortunately, I couldn't keep enough of my friends interested in the system to continue in the campaign. As such, we moved almost exclusively to Pathfinder for our gaming now.

As a side note, I am so burnt out over GMing 3.0 into 3.5 and now into Pathfinder that I've stepped down after over 20 years in the saddle and let someone else take over.

4e had mechanics for me as DM that made it great to write for and run as a DM. It was simple in its mechanics and took enough power out of players hands that I could write scenarios as I wanted them to appear without having to find all the mechanics to justify it to the players.

Those very things that made it great for me, killed it for many of my mates though. They like complexity of Pathfinder, and the ability to mix and match abilites to tackle situations. For them, the mechanics of 4E stifled that complexity for them.

Disapointing really, I think I'd still be DMing if we'd stuck with it.

Oh well.


Gorbacz wrote:
Tequila Sunrise wrote:
Diffan wrote:
I really beleive that had your called 4th Edition Dungons and Dragons another name, say Mythic Heroes and Monsters or Ultimate Fantasy RPG then it would've been received far better by the majority of gamers out there."
Unfortunately, that majority would be a small minority of 4e's current fan base, due to so many of us tending to not see anything without the D&D logo. :/
Yeah, like that Pathfinder thing. :)

Oh come now, we all know that Paizo and PF are somewhat of an anomaly. Paizo had how many years of publishing D&D's two mags under its belt before doing PF? That's quite a bit of D&D cred!

(Still, PF fans never seem to assume that others know what their game even is. The ones that I've met always start with "PF is like D&D 3.75..." before I can tell them that I've heard of it.)

But can you imagine if WotC had published 4e under a different title? My gods, all the moaning that "D&D is dying" that goes on during every edition shift would be nothing compared to the screaming nerd rage that would result from D&D's owner company shelving the logo!

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

They could keep the "old D&D" and make a "turbo D&D" to run side by side ... oh wait, that's one of the things that killed TSR.

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:
They could keep the "old D&D" and make a "turbo D&D" to run side by side ... oh wait, that's one of the things that killed TSR.

This is one of the few areas where we disagree Gorbacz.

The problem with old DnD and turbo DnD running side by side was that they split the market on the core buisness, and then split their resources and put out two piles of mediocre rather than one.

And of course, they sucked at buisness.

Ryan wrote an interesting post-mortem while he was still at WoTC.

I think the rules based approach was a failure in the long run because you need new and exciting rules all the time for it to get people to buy.

I think you can have compatibile variations of the rules to suit playstyle if your core buisness is selling adventures and modules. I think there should be a "core" and an "advanced" that can run the same AP in the same setting, and that will broaden your audience. I'm not saying you split the Devs, I'm saying you reduce the releases and categorize them for the audience.

Because how many more "Ultimate" books are in the tank? Splatbooks sell for the splatbook crowd who want to go all Emeril, but won't chase core players away from unplayable versions of the game they would encounter if the splat rules become core.

Things like PFS stay core, some rules will migrate over once tested in splat editions, and you will have a wide audience buying your APs, modules, and setting books.

The real money makers.

On to the topic of 4e and why it isn't popular. 3.5 is free. Pathfinder is free. I am not going to have to buy tons and tons of splatbooks to keep up with the joneses. The prewritten modules are strong, the setting didn't kick me in the nuts with random changes by arrogant writers drunk on power locked in an ivory tower away from better freelance writers who aren't touching the non-compete stuff with a 10 foot pole.

The buisness model was fail. We'll see how next goes.

Silver Crusade

DigitalMage wrote:
GM Elton wrote:
I had a hard time GMing 4e.

I am curious, what aspects made it hard for you? Was it preparation? Remembering rules? Adjudicating rules?

It was a rules lawyer. He tried to keep me with in the rules the game had set, but I wanted to do things my way. If I wanted big explosions, I wanted big explosions. If I wanted a man like Samson with Cloud Giant Strength, I wanted a man with Cloud Giant Strength.

I had a hard time doing 4e and I'm not going to dm 4e again, because I might attract the same type as a rules lawyer again. It's not that the game is badly written. It's not cool for a DM like me to Dungeon Master. Especially when I'm attracting a rules lawyer like that.

Liberty's Edge

GM Elton wrote:
It was a rules lawyer.

So not necessarily the rules, more a problem player? I would imagine you would have even more problems GMing Pathfinder or 3.5 as they use the same rules to build NPCs as PCs (whereas in 4e a GM has the freedom to make up powers etc).

Silver Crusade

5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Actually, I believe it is:

4E

GM: So the Purple Demon picks a rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Wait wait. Purple Demons don't have the "Throw Rocks" power.
GM: Erm ... dude, he's picking a rock and throwing it at you, where's the problem with that? I'm just making up the powers as I go, that's what a GM does!
ROP: Well guess what, I'm a Wizard and I can't pick a rock and throw it at you, because I have no such power on my charsheet! How is that you get to make up powers for your monsters out of thin air, while we're shackled to the rules? How's that for "fair"?

At this point, the game is over.

Contrast with:

3E/3.5E/PF

GM: So the Purple Demon picks the rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Ah, improvised throwing weapon, -4 to hit, damage for a big rock...hey, if any of you can enlarge me, I can throw it back.

At this point, the game rolls on.

Sovereign Court

Why must we love it or hate it? Can't we just indifferently shrug and move on?

Personally I was very disappointed in it after getting far too excited anticipating it. The living campaign was terrible compared to what Living Greyhawk had been. Goblin Hexers and Crossbow Turrets. Ugh.

Everything about it was just kind of boring. Thousands of really samey powers, an effective removal of proper multi-classing, Paladins that could be whatever alignment. Skill challenges kind of never really worked properly. Even the books were kind of like...just boring to look at.

Played kind of like Final Fantasy Tactics with World of Warcraft classes and races. My dwarf warrior: Move 5 spaces, hit opponent, knock back 2 squares, end turn. Disabling traps became a huge chore, usually faster to smash them then to disable them and safer too.

I'd want to say I could respect them for trying new stuff, but none of it really had a new feeling. The community didn't much help it either.

Sadly the D&D Miniatures game worked really well with those rules and then they ended it. x.x;

(Bored in a lab, you lot get a post. Also you really have to discuss in terms of the rules because that is all the game is. The rest of it is just you hanging out with your friends which one would certainly hope you enjoy doing.)

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
ciretose wrote:


Things like PFS stay core, some rules will migrate over once tested in splat editions, and you will have a wide audience buying your APs, modules, and setting books.

The real money makers.

On to the topic of 4e and why it isn't popular. 3.5 is free. Pathfinder is free. I am not going to have to buy tons and tons of splatbooks to keep up with the joneses. The prewritten modules are strong, the setting didn't kick me in the nuts with random changes by arrogant writers drunk on power locked in an ivory tower away from better freelance writers who aren't touching the non-compete stuff with a 10 foot pole.

The buisness model was fail. We'll see how next goes.

I think we proved that these are the real money makers. The reason why Paizo overtook WotC in sales is because WotC adapted the Magic: The Gathering model to D&D. After all, if something works for one game, why can't it work for another -- you know?

The trouble is, your playing with an entirely different sort of customer when it comes to marketing RPGs. This type of player is highly creative and very intelligent. The majority of them enjoy mythology as a study point. Tales like the Trojan War, Pyramus and Thisbe, and tales of Ancient Gods and Wonders excites the imagination of this sort.

We don't need rules being shoved in our faces every month (Here, buy this! Here buy this!). What we will buy are Adventure Paths, modules, and setting books. Paizo figured this out and believe it or not, it worked!

WotC just kicked copies of rules in our faces. I bought Eberron and FR back in the day. I didn't buy every splat book that came out. When I run a 3.x game, I would only allow certain books in my game. If it was FR, it had to be the SRD. If it's not in the SRD, you can't have it. If it's not open content, you can't play it. If WotC kept up the Open Content release schedule and new rules were added to the SRD, I could have kept up with the Joneses. I couldn't buy every Splotch book out there.

Not only that, but they took books out of print (gasp!), long before I had an interest in acquiring them. I bought a lot of Eberron books, but not all of them. WotC took things out of print to quickly . . . and I WAS GOBSTOPPING FRUSTRATED!

So, I checked the value of copy written material and found a graph that definitely fit how WotC did things. You write a book and publish it under your monopoly, and you do an advertising blitz (BUY R BOOK OF VARIANT RULEZ!). For about 2 to three months, the RULEZbook's sales shoot through the roof.

After that, WotC would take it out of print, and then the value of the RULEZbook would plummet for the company since they took it out of circulation. Because it's copy written and not OGLed, nobody is allowed to formally increase the value of the book by working with the material in a d20 spinoff.

With PAIZO, who works with the OGL and OGL everything (as in every rule) they write, we can add to the value of their books. For example: Magic of Golarion has variant magic rules for Wizards and Sorcerers with which we can add value to by using those rules in a Pathfinder/d20 spin-off. Thallassian Wizards can show up in a 3rd party PF spin-off -- adding value greatly to Magic of Golarion, the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, and the 3.x edition.

Complete Arcane came out with the Warlock class which was a GREAT class for 3.5. But because the class was not added to the OGL, we couldn't add value to Complete Arcane by spinning off the material in a d20 book -- we had to use Blizzard Entertainment's version. So, the value of Complete Arcane plummeted for WotC, but the value of Magic of Glorion and Rise of the Runlords can potentially increase for Paizo!

Since Hasbro/WotC abandoned the OGL, though, 4e lost value for Hasbro/WotC even faster. And while they still followed the M:tG marketing model (after all, why change something that works?); 4e lost more value because WotC's marketing didn't understand the core audience. And now they are paying the price.

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gorbacz wrote:

Actually, I believe it is:

4E

GM: So the Purple Demon picks a rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Wait wait. Purple Demons don't have the "Throw Rocks" power.
GM: Erm ... dude, he's picking a rock and throwing it at you, where's the problem with that? I'm just making up the powers as I go, that's what a GM does!
ROP: Well guess what, I'm a Wizard and I can't pick a rock and throw it at you, because I have no such power on my charsheet! How is that you get to make up powers for your monsters out of thin air, while we're shackled to the rules? How's that for "fair"?

At this point, the game is over.

Contrast with:

3E/3.5E/PF

GM: So the Purple Demon picks the rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Ah, improvised throwing weapon, -4 to hit, damage for a big rock...hey, if any of you can enlarge me, I can throw it back.

At this point, the game rolls on.

Gorbacz pretty much explained what I had in mind.

Liberty's Edge

Also APs and Modules are disposible goods. Once used, they can't really be reused by the same group. Rules are forever.

Silver Crusade

ciretose wrote:
Also APs and Modules are disposible goods. Once used, they can't really be reused by the same group. Rules are forever.

Interesting thought. I think it was a thought like this that meant that WotC can perpetually release rule books. However, Paizo is making money on disposables. :)

Care to finish your thought on how making disposable products is a money maker?


Gorbacz wrote:


Contrast with:

3E/3.5E/PF

GM: So the Purple Demon picks the rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Ah, improvised throwing weapon, -4 to hit, damage for a big rock...hey, if any of you can enlarge me, I can throw it back.

At this point, the game rolls on.

But you didn't elaborate further....

ROP: -4 to hit, distance adds another penalty, and due to his size and slow movement, he probably only has a Dexterity score of 14 or a modifier of +2. With a roll of (looks at the DMs die-roll) 9 it's actually IMPOSSIBLE to hit my AC of 22 unless youer either A) cheating and making it up as you go by throwing out the actual RAW OR B) the CR of the monster is 5 levels higher than what we can actually handle. How's that fair again?

The thing is, if people play that way then they're 99% of the time going to act like that regardless of the mechanics presented to them. Further, ALL of these situations requires the players to know exactly the stats for the foes you throw at them. Something that I highly doubt is common knowledge by all players.

And I really really hope people don't think that situations occur on a regular basis in 4E as Gorbacz describes. If I had a player act like that at my table while DM'ing 4E, I'd squarely punch them in the face. Then kindly ask them to leave.

Liberty's Edge

Gorbacz wrote:

4E

GM: So the Purple Demon picks a rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Wait wait. Purple Demons don't have the "Throw Rocks" power.
[...]
Contrast with:

3E/3.5E/PF

GM: So the Purple Demon picks the rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Ah, improvised throwing weapon, -4 to hit, damage for a big rock...hey, if any of you can enlarge me, I can throw it back.

At this point, the game rolls on.

First of all, Powers are not your only means to do anything in 4e; perhaps that is a misconception that has put someone off 4e.

The situation would actually play out very similar to 3.5/PF as 4e (PHB p219) has stats for improvised weapons (both ranged and melee):

IMPROVISED RANGED WEAPONS
One-Handed
Weapon: Any*
Prof. : n/a
Damage: 1d4
Range : 5/10
Price : -
Weight : 1 lb.
Group : None
Properties: -
* Improvised weapons include anything you happen to pick up, from a rock to a chair.

You could attack with such an improvised weapon using either a Basic Ranged attack (something that everyone has) or even using a Power if it has the Weapon keyword. So actually you can do very cool stuff like have a Ranger with the Split the Tree Daily power pick up two rocks and throw them at once at different targets doing 2d4+Dex modifier damage to each target.

Secondly, even if there aren't explicit rules, there are guidelines (DMG p42) for adjudicating such tactics. The example they give is "swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on [the] way down to the ground, hoping to push [an] ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it". The rules provide guidance on determining both a DC to do such a thing and also the damage that it can cause.

And the key thing to remember is that these rules can be used as much by the NPCs as by the PCs!

Thirdly, if a GM wants to add a power to a monster on the fly, then really the problem the player has is with how the GM prepares for a game, not with the rules system. I imagine the player would have as much of an issue with a GM who decides on the fly that the NPC has a particular feat (maybe because he didn't fully stat out the NPC leaving a feat choice empty) or who has an NPC cleric and decides on the fly what spells he prepared that morning.

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
GM Elton wrote:
ciretose wrote:
Also APs and Modules are disposible goods. Once used, they can't really be reused by the same group. Rules are forever.

Interesting thought. I think it was a thought like this that meant that WotC can perpetually release rule books. However, Paizo is making money on disposables. :)

Care to finish your thought on how making disposable products is a money maker?

I purchase my 3.5 rule book. It goes on my shelf and I use it forever.

Splatbooks come and go, I may or may not buy them, if I do they go on my shelf forever. Eventually, creep sets in and I probably say "That'll do..." and run it with what is on my shelf. I'll stop buying new material, because the new material is just creep or overkill.

I will still need more info about the setting. It is a whole world, after all. That will also go on my shelf, to be pulled down as needed.

But the modules and APs...those I buy, use, and then need more because they are "used". I can't rune RoTRL with the same group again, I need the next AP once we complete it. Same with Modules.

I don't need new rules, I have rules, even if not all of the newest brokenest ones, because there is a cap on how much you can gild a ruleset before it gets cumbersome and clumsy.

I like setting books, as I like any book. They are stories of a universe big enough for decades and decades of stories. And they also change over time...

But modules and APs are more or less single use and store. You need new ones once you use them if you are going to keep playing.

That is why Paizo's model isn't worried about OGL. OGL = more players = more modules and APs "consumed"

Silver Crusade

YAY!

Contributor

2 people marked this as a favorite.

If they were that "disposable," no one would be buying the RotRL anniversary edition.

I'll relate to you something told me some years ago by a man who ran a used paperback bookstore: Fans are different. Romance readers buy a book one week, and when they finish it, they never want to read it again. The churn on Harlequin romances is fast and furious to the point where they're banned from the New York Times Bestseller list. Mystery readers are different--They will hang onto books they like, but part with those they didn't care for as much or just tire of. Fantasy and science fiction readers hold on to their books forever. You will seldom find a used copy of a current novel, and as he said, the main times he got books it would be a large collection when someone died or suddenly had to move.

I think you can figure what model roleplaying games follow. People like reading adventures as well as playing them and it is very possible to rerun a classic adventure with a new group.

Rules are only so useful. Taking a bestiary listing as an example, an overbloated statblock and an underwritten roleplaying and ecology listing will age less well than an overwritten ecology and a skimpy statblock.

Part of the Paizo model is that the longer more elaborate bestiary listings show up in the APs and adventures. This also helps them keep their value long after the AP is played since they're still adventure fodder for the GM.

Silver Crusade

Hmmhmm. :) Kevin's right too.

I still have my 2e books, among other things. :)

Dark Archive

Diffan wrote:
ROP: With a roll of (looks at the DMs die-roll) ...

Which is exactly why I use a DM screen... to shut down arguments with my rules lawyers.

But back to the discussion at hand: I initially tried 4e and it wasn't a horrible game. The rules were actually quick and fun.
My issue was as soon as I went to play in an LFR game (I was a huge Living Greyhawk fan) I suddenly found out there were ALREADY three splatbooks out. I blinked again and there were three more! I seriously felt like there was no way to catch up with the sheer number of optional books being chucked around. Even LFR DMs that I knew admitted they just threw up their hands and said "Whatever" when someone used a splatbook power in their games. There was no possible way they could keep up with them.

Again, kind of a problem specific to their Living campaign where EVERYTHING was open so they could push their book sales. But it hit my group hard because we'd all enjoyed LG alot. Shrug. Just my own personal experience.

Liberty's Edge

Jenner2057 wrote:

Even LFR DMs that I knew admitted they just threw up their hands and said "Whatever" when someone used a splatbook power in their games. There was no possible way they could keep up with them.

Did the players have to bring the source book or a formal DDI character builder printout?

I have the same issue with PFS now, I own the APG but have not read any of the new classes, and the stuff from Ultimate X I don't own at all. As a GM I can luckily look up stuff on the PRD to run Magus NPCs and the like, but when a player turns up with a gunslinger I just have to trust that they are running it correctly.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tequila Sunrise wrote:
It's kind of amazing how often New Coke comes up in 4e discussions. If it was as awesome as 4e is, I'm sorry I never got a chance to taste it. :(

Actually New Coke was more of a lesson in how NOT to market a product. In just about every blind taste test they conducted, people vastly preferred the new coke formula.

The problem was that Coke decided to put that new formula in a new product and new label which meant killing off one of the sacred American icons, the old Coke label and identity.

Perception and marketing are funny things.


DigitalMage wrote:
Jenner2057 wrote:

Even LFR DMs that I knew admitted they just threw up their hands and said "Whatever" when someone used a splatbook power in their games. There was no possible way they could keep up with them.

Did the players have to bring the source book or a formal DDI character builder printout?

I have the same issue with PFS now, I own the APG but have not read any of the new classes, and the stuff from Ultimate X I don't own at all. As a GM I can luckily look up stuff on the PRD to run Magus NPCs and the like, but when a player turns up with a gunslinger I just have to trust that they are running it correctly.

Isn't there a rule in PFS that anything from beyond core requires bringing the book by the player to the table? Or does it work differently than I thought?

Silver Crusade

Drejk wrote:


Isn't there a rule in PFS that anything from beyond core requires bringing the book by the player to the table? Or does it work differently than I thought?

If its not, than it's a house rule you should adopt, Digital Mage.


Jenner2057 wrote:
My issue was as soon as I went to play in an LFR game (I was a huge Living Greyhawk fan) I suddenly found out there were ALREADY three splatbooks out. I blinked again and there were three more! I seriously felt like there was no way to catch up with the sheer number of optional books being chucked around. Even LFR DMs that I knew admitted they just threw up their hands and said "Whatever" when someone used a splatbook power in their games. There was no possible way they could keep up with them.

There are people who buy every splat from any edition?

What it would be like to have that kind of pocket change...

LazarX wrote:
Perception and marketing are funny things.

Hel, people are funny things.

Most of us have no problem with companies killing actual living creatures so we can eat them, but god forbid a company 'kill' or 'ruin' a brand label. Go figure.

Liberty's Edge

GM Elton wrote:

Hmmhmm. :) Kevin's right too.

I still have my 2e books, among other things. :)

He is, they can be collectible. But you aren't running it again, at least not with that group. So that will be the car you keep in the garage to remind you of the good times.

But you'll buy new ones to actually use.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Gorbacz wrote:
Actually, I believe it is:

Yeah, rules-lawyer backseat-DMs can sour a DM on any game; but I hope you don't believe this is how 4e works, or that 4e is some kind of nuisance-player magnet. The situation you describe could happen in just about any game:

3.0/.5/.PF

DM: So the Purple Demon picks a rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Wait wait. Purple Demons don't have the "Rock Throwing" extraordinary ability.
GM: Erm ... dude, he's picking a rock and throwing it at you, where's the problem with that? I'm just making up the abilities as I go, that's what a DM does!
ROP: Well guess what, I'm a Wizard and I can't pick a rock and throw it at you, because I have no such ability on my charsheet! How is that you get to make up abilities for your monsters out of thin air, while we're shackled to the rules? How's that for "fair"?

At this point, the game is over.

Contrast with:

4e

GM: So the Purple Demon picks the rock and throws it you...
Rules-oriented player: Ah, improvised weapon, +0 proficiency bonus, damage for a big rock...hey, I can throw it back.

1 to 50 of 174 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Gaming / D&D / 4th Edition / Why am I the only one? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.