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My only issue with 4e is that it's hardly supported anymore, there's TONS of stuff you need to run an effective game and that just won't do lol
I am not quite sure what you mean by this, but for a brand new player to 4e getting a subscription to DDI will get you a massive back catalogue of Dungeon and Dragon magazines (although no more going forward next year I believe) and access to the online tools that collate rules materials from loads of 4e source books.
So plenty of support for 4e :)
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In terms of pointing out some of the good points of 4e I direct you to a former post of mine:
What I consider is the "good stuff" of 4e
There is also this blog article (not mine):
Why 4e fans love 4e
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I don't get when people in the hobby say that if they called 4E anything but D&D 4E it would have done well. Whether they left the D&D logo or removed it. Released 4E as is or a rehashed 3.5. it may not have done well anyway. Just like chances are Pathfinder may have not done well. I knew players in the hobby so tired of 2E they would rather not play any D&D at all then play 2E when it was the current edition. I can understand not liking the rules of 4E. But pointing to 4E and saying "4E would do well if they did not call it D&D" is something I will probably never understand.
So, for the curious, I'd come across this before:
A history of the development of 4e.
It's taken from Here, from what I can tell.
Here's a more-or-less repost:
In the - now very long - discussion of Ryan Dancey's latest EN World column which expands on his opinions in the recent Escapist articles about the past, present, and future of D&D, Ryan makes a few detailed replies throughout the thread. Since it's such a long thread, I've pulled this particularly interesting one out (see below). There are a couple of others, found here and here.
Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315975-WotC-DDI-4E-and-Hasbro-S ome-History#ixzz2jDT3BPr8After Vince Calouri was pushed out of Wizards of the Coast he was replaced by Chuck Heubner. Chuck basically had to manage Wizards on the downslope from the Pokemon salad days. Hasbro has been through many boom & bust cycles in the toy business and they have a standard response when it happens: cut headcount and reduce overhead. Since Wizards was de facto the only part of the business that had not been rolled up into Hasbro proper it was not insulated by the successes of other things at Hasbro like GI Joe or Transformers.
While this was happening there was a big internal fight for control over the CCG business within Hasbro. Brian Goldner who was at the time the head of the Boys Toys (i.e. half the company) division of Hasbro thought that the company was missing a huge window of opportunity to follow up Pokemon with a series of mass-market CCGs linked to Hasbro's core brands GI Joe and Transformers. These battles resulted in things being escalated all the way to the C-Suite and the Hasbro Board, where Brian lost the fight and Wizards retained the exclusive ability within Hasbro to make CCGs. The downside for Wizards is that they were forced to do things with the Duelmaster brand that they did not want to do, and it never got the traction in the US that Wizards thought it could achieve. (In Japan, by contrast, it became a huge best-seller).
Chuck left after two years and Loren Greenwood, who had been the long time VP of Sales, replaced him in 2004. He was also a visible proponent of the idea that Wizards, and not Boys Toys, should set Hasbro's CCG strategy. Thus when Brian was named COO of the whole company in 2006 and CEO in 2008, Loren had a big problem on his hands. Loren guided the company through the post 3.5e crash of the TRPG market, the loss of the Pokemon franchise, and the unwinding of the Wizards retail strategy. All of this was pretty bitter fruit for hm since he'd been instrumental in building up much of what had to then be torn down. The combination of all these things led to Loren's exit and his replacement by Greg Leeds, who is the current CEO of Wizards.
Sometime around 2005ish, Hasbro made an internal decision to divide its businesses into two categories. Core brands, which had more than $50 million in annual sales, and had a growth path towards $100 million annual sales, and Non-Core brands, which didn't.
Under Goldner, the Core Brands would be the tentpoles of the company. They would be exploited across a range of media with an eye towards major motion pictures, following the path Transformers had blazed. Goldner saw what happened to Marvel when they re-oriented their company from a publisher of comic books to a brand building factory (their market capitalization increased by something like 2 billion dollars). He wanted to replicate that at Hasbro.
Core Brands would get the financing they requested for development of their businesses (within reason). Non-Core brands would not. They would be allowed to rise & fall with the overall toy market on their own merits without a lot of marketing or development support. In fact, many Non-Core brands would simply be mothballed - allowed to go dormant for some number of years until the company was ready to take them down off the shelf and try to revive them for a new generation of kids.
At the point of the original Hasbro/Wizards merger a fateful decision was made that laid the groundwork for what happened once Greg took over. Instead of focusing Hasbro on the idea that Wizards of the Coast was a single brand, each of the lines of business in Wizards got broken out and reported to Hasbro as a separate entity. This was driven in large part by the fact that the acquisition agreement specified a substantial post-acquisition purchase price adjustment for Wizards' shareholders on the basis of the sales of non-Magic CCGs (i.e. Pokemon).
This came back to haunt Wizards when Hasbro's new Core/Non-Core strategy came into focus. Instead of being able to say "We're a $100+ million brand, keep funding us as we desire", each of the business units inside Wizards had to make that case separately. So the first thing that happened was the contraction you saw when Wizards dropped new game development and became the "D&D and Magic" company. Magic has no problem hitting the "Core" brand bar, but D&D does. It's really a $25-30 million business, especially since Wizards isn't given credit for the licensing revenue of the D&D computer games.
It would have been very easy for Goldner et al to tell Wizards "you're done with D&D, put it on a shelf and we'll bring it back 10 years from now as a multi-media property managed from Rhode Island". There's no way that the D&D business circa 2006 could have supported the kind of staff and overhead that it was used to. Best case would have been a very small staff dedicated to just managing the brand and maybe handling some freelance pool doing minimal adventure content. So this was an existential issue (like "do we exist or not") for the part of Wizards that was connected to D&D. That's something between 50 and 75 people.
Sometime around 2006, the D&D team made a big presentation to the Hasbro senior management on how they could take D&D up to the $50 million level and potentially keep growing it. The core of that plan was a synergistic relationship between the tabletop game and what came to be known as <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym>. At the time Hasbro didn't have the rights to do an MMO for D&D, so <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> was the next best thing. The Wizards team produced figures showing that there were millions of people playing D&D and that if they could move a moderate fraction of those people to <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym>, they would achieve their revenue goals. Then <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> could be expanded over time and if/when Hasbro recovered the video gaming rights, it could be used as a platform to launch a true D&D MMO, which could take them over $100 million/year.
The <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> pitch was that the 4th Edition would be designed so that it would work best when played with <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym>. <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> had a big VTT component of its design that would be the driver of this move to get folks to hybridize their tabletop game with digital tools. Unfortunately, a tragedy struck the <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> team and it never really recovered. The VTT wasn't ready when <acronym title="D&D 4th Edition">4e</acronym> launched, and the explicit link between <acronym title="D&D 4th Edition">4e</acronym> and <acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> that had been proposed to Hasbro's execs never materialized. The team did a yoeman's effort to make <acronym title="D&D 4th Edition">4e</acronym> work anyway while the VTT evolved, but they simply couldn't hit the numbers they'd promised selling books alone. The marketplace backlash to <acronym title="D&D 4th Edition">4e</acronym> didn't help either.
Greg wasn't in the hot seat long enough to really take the blame for the <acronym title="D&D 4th Edition">4e</acronym>/<acronym title="Dungeons & Dragons Insider">DDI</acronym> plan, and Wizards just hired a new exec to be in charge of Sales & Marketing, and Bill Slavicsek who headed RPG R&D left last summer, so the team that committed those numbers to Hasbro are gone. The team that's there now probably doesn't have a blank sheet of paper and an open checkbook, but they also don't have to answer to Hasbro for the promises of the prior regime.
As to their next move? Only time will tell.
I don't get when people in the hobby say that if they called 4E anything but D&D 4E it would have done well. Whether they left the D&D logo or removed it. Released 4E as is or a rehashed 3.5. it may not have done well anyway. Just like chances are Pathfinder may have not done well. I knew players in the hobby so tired of 2E they would rather not play any D&D at all then play 2E when it was the current edition. I can understand not liking the rules of 4E. But pointing to 4E and saying "4E would do well if they did not call it D&D" is something I will probably never understand.
4E had a pretty big marketing budget. If they'd put it out as a new system, and put WoTC : Designers of D&D 3.5! on it, it could have done pretty well.
The problem is, it was marketed to 3.5 players, and the gaming community backlash had a lot to do with the perceived 'MMO' flavor of the game. Which, from the quote above which I'd not read before, seems to have been an intentional thing built into 4E, for future MMO functionality.
If they'd just named it "D&D Electronic" or something and actually had the DDI link, they might have been better off. I dunno, I just know that calling it 4th edition with such a radical change in rule structure struck a lot of the core audience in a bad way.
Anecdotally, when I lived in St. Louis, the product sold more in the first 6 months than it did in the next year and a half (told to me by someone working at the gaming store), whereas PF took off and never looked back. I do know that 3.5 stuff was really easy to pick up in used gaming auctions right after 4E came out, and the opposite was true after that, 3.5 books started going for near original retail 2 years in, whereas 4E stuff was selling for about $5 a book in the used game auctions.
Now that I'm down in Austin TX, I have seen one advertisement for a 4E game, and dozens for PF. I've heard that other parts of the country are reversed, but were at least (been a year or two since I did any checking on other areas).
4E had a pretty big marketing budget. If they'd put it out as a new system, and put WoTC : Designers of D&D 3.5! on it, it could have done pretty well.
On that, I think we agree.
The problem is, it was marketed to 3.5 players, and the gaming community backlash had a lot to do with the perceived 'MMO' flavor of the game. Which, from the quote above which I'd not read before, seems to have been an intentional thing built into 4E, for future MMO functionality.
If they'd just named it "D&D Electronic" or something and actually had the DDI link, they might have been better off. I dunno, I just know that calling it 4th edition with such a radical change in rule structure struck a lot of the core audience in a bad way.
I don't think naming it D&D Electronic would have been a good idea, nor tying it more closely to MMOs. Rather, I think they should have done something to move in on Feng Shui's turf by calling it Action D&D or billed it as a more recent model of the Player's Option: Combat and Tactics that was reasonably well-regarded in 2e's days. Then an alternative 4th edition could have taken feedback from that and incorporated it into a new edition like PO: C&T informed 3e.
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TacticsLion, that's an excellent post describing the inner strategy that was behind some of the 4e business decisions. That all makes sense to me. Wizards was pushing DDI like crazy back then, and as soon as they had a web based character generator for 4e, they immediately and unceremoniously abandoned the previous stand-alone version (which I preferred, since I could work on it while not on the internet).
They also were sending out regular updates on the virtual table top, but most of those updates were "we're getting there! It's gonna be awesome!" with some video or screenshots. I tried to get into the beta for the VTT but was not invited.
I actually think the fusion of the VTT, DDI and the core rules is a workable market strategy, but maybe not for an ingrained Pen and Paper game like D&D. I liked the concept and was actually excited about the prospects. I think it may be possible that a great opportunity was missed.
I've felt for a long time that a true VTT system integrated with a rules-based engine that builds characters, provides encounter NPCs and monsters and provides a virtual map for the party to adventure on is the future of RPGs. I still think it is. There will always be some who play on paper, but the future is going to be digital I think, and the company that provides the best solution to that will be the one that leads the next transformation of the industry.
Anecdote:
When 4E was being released, a local game store ran an all night 4E game during it's launch.
I did not participate, but my best friend went, as he was excited about it, and tired of 3.5. He came home and could not stop talking about how much fun he had. He explained how he played a fighter, and was able in a single orund to do some really cool pseudo-cinematic stuff.
So, I bought the both of us the 3 book deal each, and began to pour through the material.
I started reading the PHB, and loved it, until I got to the casters, and started looking at spells vs. rituals, etc.
I put the books down after realizing how each class was similar in structure (not necessarily ability) and how dissapointing the magic system seemed. My friend had a similar reaction, and neither of us ever bothered to play the game again.
Shortly thereafter, I heard about Pathfinder, and we played that.
I've heard other friends say that 4E actually had more ways to tailor a character than PF does, and they were happier with it.
I don't think either game is better than the other in general, it's just that PF is better for me.
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TacticsLion, that's an excellent post describing the inner strategy that was behind some of the 4e business decisions. That all makes sense to me. Wizards was pushing DDI like crazy back then, and as soon as they had a web based character generator for 4e, they immediately and unceremoniously abandoned the previous stand-alone version (which I preferred, since I could work on it while not on the internet).
They also were sending out regular updates on the virtual table top, but most of those updates were "we're getting there! It's gonna be awesome!" with some video or screenshots. I tried to get into the beta for the VTT but was not invited.
I actually think the fusion of the VTT, DDI and the core rules is a workable market strategy, but maybe not for an ingrained Pen and Paper game like D&D. I liked the concept and was actually excited about the prospects. I think it may be possible that a great opportunity was missed.
I've felt for a long time that a true VTT system integrated with a rules-based engine that builds characters, provides encounter NPCs and monsters and provides a virtual map for the party to adventure on is the future of RPGs. I still think it is. There will always be some who play on paper, but the future is going to be digital I think, and the company that provides the best solution to that will be the one that leads the next transformation of the industry.
Thanks. It's not really mine, I just re-posted it from ENWorld.
Also, for the curious (since my post doesn't link the way the other one did), it seems that the "tragedy" referred to in the article was a murder-suicide, in which the guy who was developing the VTT became very disturbed and, well... ended everything in the worst way possible. Which is a real shame and an awful tragedy.
(It's funny, words like that just don't seem to sum up the emotions, but I don't really have others.)
On the other hand, one of the things that originally drove me away from WotC was their treatment of me as a customer at the time of the change-over. Even when I went through what I believed to be the correct channels, following procedure, to ask questions, get involved, and attempt to understand the new rules of the new game (which was a radical departure from before), I was told, in effect, that questions about how the new system worked were unwelcome, and was left unanswered, even though I'd followed their procedures.
I was treated poorly. Apparently, I was not alone.
There were advertisements that burned many, from my understanding (apparently, there was an "infamous video", though I don't think I've seen it).
Add that to the heavily divergent nature of the new system from the old, the destruction or outright invalidation of old lore for established settings, and a "#dealwithit" attitude about the whole thing (long before that became a thing), it was very harmful for 4E's early success.
It also floundered in its ability to create a cohesive world. While older editions didn't care, when 3.X came out, it revolutionized my way of looking at things, because everything worked the same way. Monsters, NPCs, and PCs all ran under the same basic rules (3.5 made this even more true). This created a cohesive mostly-functioning world that could work under its own rules. You could utilize the rules to create and develop new things that followed the same principles.
4E was a major step backwards in that regard. NPCs simply existed with no guideline for what they could do or be. Monsters followed one track while PCs followed another. Minions have one hit point only (which can create a really weird situation). You could no longer build a world with rules. You could easily develop new rules for the game, but they would not in any way interact with the rules of the game. (One of the greatest innovations to the 4E game, for my money, was the Monster Manual on a Business card... applied to the whole world. It makes things really amazing, to me.)
4E creates an amazingly balanced system for the most part. As it's gone on, and become more diverse and involved, I've come to enjoy it quite a lot. But it took way too long for me to get there, and that's because of the way I was treated and the initial underwhelming (to me) launch of the game.
It gained its own fans, and for good reason. I'm really sorry for their sake that it's dying. But from my perspective, it started off poorly, and continued forward poorly for too long to get it to survive. Which is a shame.
Guys, let us try to keep this Positive, about the Good things each system has.
Edition wars are prohibited on this MB, and hashing over old grievances won't help the Op decide what system to play.
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Guys, let us try to keep this Positive, about the Good things each system has.
Edition wars are prohibited on this MB, and hashing over old grievances won't help the Op decide what system to play.
My apologies. It certainly may seem like bashing. I was addressing the reasons that it is ending so quickly, not whether or not it is (currently) a good game (which it is).
My experience with 4e & PF is by no means unique, but here it is.
I was out of gaming for a long time, 10+ years. When I came back I saw that 4e was out. So I bought the books. It seemed very easy to learn. Discussed with and showed the books to some friends of mine. From that very limited group 4e seemed quite easy to learn especially for someone who had spent much time playing the online MMORPG's.
Comparing that to what I can historically remember of my time with DnD, it's a good thing. After the red and blue box, it became pretty difficult to teach a new player the game in the 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 editions of DnD. PF is better than the old systems, but I don't think as easy as 4e.
For ease of learning the game for a new player, I would rate it...
Red and Blue Box > PF Beginner Box > DnD 4e > PF > other editions of DnD
So then I went looking for a group. I couldn't find one at all. Don't get me wrong. There were some groups playing the game, but none that had any openings. I spent some months looking since I had shelled out the cash for the 3 books, but no luck.
After a while I joined a group still playing 3.x (since I still had the old books). After about a year with them, we all decided to move try the PF system.
There is still an active and growing community playing PF. So even if my group falls apart or I have to move, I'm sure I can find a new PF group.
So I really never got the chance to play 4e. A complaint I heard often from the people that did, was that many of the 4e options really weren't different. They said it felt like every class had the same powers just with a different name. Roll an attack using this stat, for this damage, and this effect.
I have not decided if I will try 5e when it comes out.
This "classes don't feel different" thing can be summed up like this.
In 4e, you all do different things but using the same tools (mostly). Like, take two fighters: Fighter A has a power that lets him move enemies back. Fighter B has a power that lets him stop enemies when they try to move around inside his reach. They are both supposed to stop enemies from getting to whatever needs to be protected, they just do it differently, but with the same format.
In PF, you can have a Fighter, a Barbarian, a Ranger, a Paladin nd a Monk. Some going with two weapons, others going with two hander, the monk going unarmed. All are going to try to go in and full attack. One will rage, the other has bonuses from weapon specialization and weapon focus, there's smite, etc. All is really just a way to get bonus to hit/damage.
There's minor variation in AC and utility skills (ranger will have more skills, pally can heal, etc) but their tools while different, all try to achieve the same thing.
Among the people I play with Subsystems are attractive. Each class has something new to learn, with Fighters being the default of Learn how to use Feats better.
4E didn't really have that. All classes used essentially the same system with tiny almost insignificant tweaks based on the Role that class was supposed to fill.
To my group that made everything feel the same. They weren't, each 4E class could be very different depending on what you picked and how you combined them
but there wasn't anything new to learn from each class, which gave people the mistaken impression that all classes were the same.
It makes 4E a great game for people who don't want to study a dozen different things. There were no new rules to learn just because you were playing a different class. You could just jump in and go, which was part of the design goal.
But for people who liked immersing themselves in different sub-systems and learning something new with each character they make, like my group, it was a real turn off.
From what I gather, both games have their ups and downs. Obviously this being a PF forum, people are going to prefer PF to 4e. That being said, it seems people that like D&D like PF as well. There may be imbalance but not too much to completely break the game and make it unplayable. I imagine if it was unplayable, it wouldn't be growing as well as it is lol.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of posters exaggerate the hell out of things on the internet. I'm not sure exactly why that is other than maybe the drive to entrench in your position. But I'd say a lot of the complaints leveled at PF (and D&D 3e and earlier editions) are exaggerated. The games aren't unplayable at all even if they don't care nearly as much about inter-character balance as 4e does. The game's a bit like the Millennium Falcon under Han Solo's ownership. It's a powerful bit of game but at the upper stretches of power and capability, it requires some maintenance on the part of the GM to keep the wahoo-ness of some PCs from overshadowing the rest of the game. For some people, it's worth the effort. For others it's not.
For my money, the freedom to do just about anything under the sun and figuring out how to operationalize in the rules is an indispensable part of role playing games. Too much restrictiveness or control over it just undermines the reason to play and so PF resonates with my gaming desires far more than 4e ever did.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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One way I would boil down the differences is with the following example:
The PCs encounter a wall, and one character decides to try and climb it. What's the DC?
Pathfinder: It depends on what the wall is made of and how many handholds it has. Here's a small chart with a few examples of various types of walls and the DC to climb each. Figure out which wall matches your wall, and use the corresponding DC. If the wall is wet, don't forget to use that as a modifier to the DC.
4e: What level are the players and how challenging does the DM want the wall to be? Here's a range of DCs based on character level for making the challenge, easy, standard, or hard. Use the level of the PC and the diffculty of the challenge to determine the DC.
The Pathfinder method means that the wall may not be a challenge for some parties and is insurmountable for other parties. The 4e method keeps the challenge consistent no matter what level the party is.
Shame you're in Tampa. I'm on the other side of the state in Melbourne.
One way I would boil down the differences is with the following example:
The PCs encounter a wall, and one character decides to try and climb it. What's the DC?
Pathfinder: It depends on what the wall is made of and how many handholds it has. Here's a small chart with a few examples of various types of walls and the DC to climb each. Figure out which wall matches your wall, and use the corresponding DC. If the wall is wet, don't forget to use that as a modifier to the DC.
4e: What level are the players and how challenging does the DM want the wall to be? Here's a range of DCs based on character level for making the challenge, easy, standard, or hard. Use the level of the PC and the diffculty of the challenge to determine the DC.
The Pathfinder method means that the wall may not be a challenge for some parties and is insurmountable for other parties. The 4e method keeps the challenge consistent no matter what level the party is.
Yes, but it’s the same wall. At a certain point, scaling a given wall should be trivial. Given this system the walls get harder to climb as the Pc’s advance in level.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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The wall is just an example - you can take any number of obstacles where Pathfinder sets the DC based on the environmental factors and 4e sets the DC based on character level and challenge. Neither approach is bad, just different. It's also not black or white - you'll often see high level Pathfinder modules scrambling to justify a high DC on a particular check that should be easy in order to have a meaningful challenge for high level players. Similarly, 4e had some modifiers based on the terrain/etc. But, for the most part, Pathfinder tries more to model the reality whereas 4e tries more to base things on making appropriate challenges for the PCs.
<--Insert extended arguments regarding gamist v. simulationist stuff here.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Which brings me to the other point: DM-ing 4e is a breeze, monsters are much more designed for the encounters, which makes setting up a combat easy as hell. It also means that out of combat you'll have to handwave a lot of stuff about what abilities a monster can possess, but I personally don't see that as a problem.
I completely agree with this. One of my favorite things about DMing 4e is that I didn't have to go through the trouble of creating a 10th level wizard if I wanted one in my campaign. Instead, you grab a monster that's pretty close, make some tweaks, and you're done. The dramatic reduction of save or die/save or not participate effects also helped greatly, as the loss of a single party member in Pathfinder can cascade into a TPK pretty quickly.
Another potentially relevant comparison between PF and 4e for the original poster here is that, in general, 4e is less lethal than Pathfinder when run strictly by the book (meaning the GM doesn't "fudge" to reduce the lethality of the game).
True, it's like all the characters are 1st tier Mythic in that area.
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I started to play back in the 3.0 days (near to 2001); when 3.5 came out we switched to it without any problem except for the money "lost" in our 3.0 core books. I ceased to play in 2006 because most of the crew moved away from town.
I found a D&D 4E group in 2008 but I had the misfortune to play with a bad GM (IMHO), I played with him about six months and after that I was so tired that decide not to play more; my experiences with D&D 4E were not good and I started to accept things like "all classes feel the same" as arguments against D&D 4E. I've been playing pathfinder since 2010 and I have to say I really enjoy the game.
Since last year I started to play as well Mutants & Masterminds 3E (not sword & sorcery at all) and I can tell that all characters are almost the same if you remove the fluff (no classes here, just "concepts"), and the balance is as good as D&D 4E (if not even better) with the power level limits. The funny thing here is that things I believed were bad about D&D 4E are present in M&M and I don't feel them bad anymore, I really enjoy that game too. Now I would be glad to give D&D 4E another chance but right now I don't know about available groups to play in town.
So PF and D&D 4E are different games in many concepts, similar in others, but really none of them is better than the other, your perception just depend on things you like and people you play with.
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I completely agree with this. One of my favorite things about DMing 4e is that I didn't have to go through the trouble of creating a 10th level wizard if I wanted one in my campaign. Instead, you grab a monster that's pretty close, make some tweaks, and you're done. The dramatic reduction of save or die/save or not participate effects also helped greatly, as the loss of a single party member in Pathfinder can cascade into a TPK pretty quickly.
Which brings me to the other point: DM-ing 4e is a breeze, monsters are much more designed for the encounters, which makes setting up a combat easy as hell. It also means that out of combat you'll have to handwave a lot of stuff about what abilities a monster can possess, but I personally don't see that as a problem.
But like everything else there are some who like this approach and some who don't. While I admit I never got a chance to DM 4e, I have other systems (1e & 2e) where monster making was easy, and well I hated that. I wanted to build a monster like a PC, I wanted all of the options. If I was going to make a 10th level wizard I wanted to really plan it out, right down to the specific spells/skills/feats he had, even if his only reason for existing was to die at the hands of the PCs. It's not that I hated 4e, I just got something I didn't want.
Another potentially relevant comparison between PF and 4e for the original poster here is that, in general, 4e is less lethal than Pathfinder when run strictly by the book (meaning the GM doesn't "fudge" to reduce the lethality of the game).
You know, I know this is true on an intellectual level. I can point at the math, read it, and agree. I have never run a 4E boss combat without killing (or nearly killing) one of my player's characters.
In PF (and 3.5), on the other hand, it's comparatively rare for one of my players to experience a true life-threatening situation, no matter how hard the game is supposed to be.
I have no explanation for this. I'm an outlier. *shrug*
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But like everything else there are some who like this approach and some who don't. While I admit I never got a chance to DM 4e, I have other systems (1e & 2e) where monster making was easy, and well I hated that. I wanted to build a monster like a PC, I wanted all of the options. If I was going to make a 10th level wizard I wanted to really plan it out, right down to the specific spells/skills/feats he had, even if his only reason for existing was to die at the hands of the PCs. It's not that I hated 4e, I just got something I didn't want.I completely agree with this. One of my favorite things about DMing 4e is that I didn't have to go through the trouble of creating a 10th level wizard if I wanted one in my campaign. Instead, you grab a monster that's pretty close, make some tweaks, and you're done. The dramatic reduction of save or die/save or not participate effects also helped greatly, as the loss of a single party member in Pathfinder can cascade into a TPK pretty quickly.
Which brings me to the other point: DM-ing 4e is a breeze, monsters are much more designed for the encounters, which makes setting up a combat easy as hell. It also means that out of combat you'll have to handwave a lot of stuff about what abilities a monster can possess, but I personally don't see that as a problem.
I'm in this camp
There are a lot of good things about how easy 4e is to get into and run. You don't need a lot of set up or prep time for 4E and that's great
but when I came to the monster creation rules, it felt like half my toys had been taken away.
Which was weird cause the rules as written were "make up any kind of attack you want for your big bad, here are some guide lines for what kind of damage it dishes out and how much he can use it"
I could make an attack that turns one of the PC's limbs inside out or makes him vomit spiders or any other vile attack I could imagine
but it strangely felt like a let down because I only had 4 pages of stuff to make my Big Bad with and the Players had something like 50 pages each.
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In PF (and 3.5), on the other hand, it's comparatively rare for one of my players to experience a true life-threatening situation, no matter how hard the game is supposed to be.
While the humble 1st level, 5 hp wizard (3.5/PF) can be one-shotted into oblivion by a MM standard orc on a lucky hit any day of the week, I can't think of a scenario where the 20+ hp 1st level wizard (4e) can experience the same. Its not the example you were addressing, but 1st level is the commonly played character level so I thinks its relevant.
While the humble 1st level, 5 hp wizard (3.5/PF) can be one-shotted into oblivion by a MM standard orc on a lucky hit any day of the week, I can't think of a scenario where the 20+ hp 1st level wizard (4e) can experience the same. Its not the example you were addressing, but 1st level is the commonly played character level so I thinks its relevant.
That's one of the reasons I'm considering adding a flat 10-or-so HP to every single character and creature in PF games. I'm still working on all the knock-on problems that creates, though (such as whether it's then necessary to increase all damage done by an extra point to prevent combat from drawing out too long).
That's one of the reasons I'm considering adding a flat 10-or-so HP to every single character and creature in PF games. I'm still working on all the knock-on problems that creates, though (such as whether it's then necessary to increase all damage done by an extra point to prevent combat from drawing out too long).While the humble 1st level, 5 hp wizard (3.5/PF) can be one-shotted into oblivion by a MM standard orc on a lucky hit any day of the week, I can't think of a scenario where the 20+ hp 1st level wizard (4e) can experience the same. Its not the example you were addressing, but 1st level is the commonly played character level so I thinks its relevant.
Vigor Wounds optional rule from the Ultimate Combat book
Standard CR: 1/3 Goblin ends up able to take 30 some points of damage (11 Vigor, 12 Wounds before bleeding 12 more before dead)
1st level Fighter with say 15 Con can take 42 before dead.
I'm actually planning on uses those rules for my next campaign.
Vigor Wounds optional rule from the Ultimate Combat bookStandard CR: 1/3 Goblin ends up able to take 30 some points of damage (11 Vigor, 12 Wounds before bleeding 12 more before dead)
1st level Fighter with say 15 Con can take 42 before dead.
I'm actually planning on uses those rules for my next campaign.
I use (and prefer) those rules a lot too :)
Am just trying to find a solution that's a bit less radical and still works with existing HPs and electronic trackers.
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This is slightly off-topic, but anyone interested in the history of RPGs (and what happened with TSR, WotC, and Paizo) should try to find a copy of Designers and Dragons by Shannon Appelcline.
I'm not sure how easy it is to find a copy currently, but it's a massive book (about the size of the PF CRB) which is a history book detailing the RPG industry company by company.
Highly Recommended.
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if you find yourself wondering what to do in 4E during a fight and you don't want to burn one of your Encounter of Daily powers
Improvise.
Kick over a table and charge people with it. Spit a flask of Wine and light it on fire with your torch.
4E encourages that a lot more than PF does. I find 3E/PF groups can get some caught up in their Feat and ability choices they sometimes forget to wing it and just try something crazy.
if you find yourself wondering what to do in 4E during a fight and you don't want to burn one of your Encounter of Daily powers
Improvise.
Kick over a table and charge people with it. Spit a flask of Wine and light it on fire with your torch.
4E encourages that a lot more than PF does. I find 3E/PF groups can get some caught up in their Feat and ability choices they sometimes forget to wing it and just try something crazy.
Does it? I found in the 4E games that happened alot less because there isnt a space for it in the rules, or at least not one that I am aware of it. Kick over table isnt a power, but maybe I missed something?
From the current vantage point of nearly 40 years into this wonderful fun of D&D (and I consider PF and OSR D&D), each edition/game variant is a subset of what individuals and groups want the feel or style of their D&D to be.
Personally, I'd been looking for a lot of the stuff 4e enables since 1982. So I'm glad it was made.
Many others, and I suspect the largest subgroup, was looking more for what 3.x (3.0,3.5,PF) brought to the gamespace of D&D.
For some, B/X or 1e, even 2e or BECMI had already mostly hit what they really wanted from the game 20+ years ago.
It looks like 5e will provide yet another default style somewhere between all of them.
I think the hardest part about finding the right game for you and your group is agreeing on what you want from the game. For starters I'd go with the PF Beginner Box or maybe get PDFs of the B/X rules (Basic by Moldvay and Expert by Cook from RPGNow).