2) Death of the imagination. Granted, the texture of your world comes from you DM, not the books he carries around, but the 4e core was actually less exicting to read than my college textbooks.
You must have had pretty interesting college textbooks. Seriously. YMMV of course, but I've enjoyed my reading of the PHB and DMG (all the more DMG2) almost as much as I enjoyed reading through Isaac Asimov and Jules Verne (although to be honest I prefer Terry Pratchet myself ).
Gone were the legendary items that you could spend hours talking with your friends about.
I dunno about that. Personally I don't mind using artifacts (those legendary items you speak of) but I rarely find the need for such McGuffins because the PCs themselves are so awesome.
I mean, look at the Eye of Vecna (from the DMG). It's such a cool and powerful item that could have rich stories behind it, but because there isn't any official module or support or what not that utilizes such things, it fades into the background and thus is often forgotten.
Where's the sense of wonder in finding the Axe of the Dwarf Lords only to discover it's effects are just more numbers?
Care to explain? Because as far as I can tell, while the mechanical effects are "just more numbers", the epic story that the mechanics portray is anything but numbers. Or are you saying that Vancian spells are nowhere near wondrous simply because the effects are boxed into neat spell cards?
I mean, c'mon! We're looking at a weapon that slays large (or larger) opponents -- such as Titans -- and can obliterate rocks within ten feet in sheer power! Then if your character's roleplaying is in tune with the objectives of the axe, you get even MORE benefits, including one that has no immediate mechanical effects (spirits from the axe guiding you and helping you out from time to time). Don't tell me there's no roleplaying potential there...
Nobody complained how lacking in RP potential Vancian spells had, at least not to my knowledge.
Then there's the array of doodads from various sources, especially Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, which played a host to a whole lot of mundane, yet useful, items perfect for adventuring.
Finally, aside from the fact that there are default expenditures for some mundane goods and services, the rest would be completely up to the DM whether or not they actually matter. Or are you really such a stickler for detail that every spoon and fork, every outhouse rental, and every block of stone has to have a price tag on it?
gold became a complete abstract of how many bonus-granting magic items characters could buy.
Only at first level does gold become JUST an abstract, and for good reason: instead of forcing people to limit their budget based on a specific die roll, 100gp would allow enough flexibility to mechanically enforce background benefits and prevent outright gimping just from poor die rolling.
Take away 4e's combat and what's left? Nothing. A bit of discarded tissue, like a snake's shed skin.
LOLWUT? O.o
Honestly, I've been running quite a number of non-combat sessions in 4E. My guess is that you skipped out on * skill challenges * ability/skill checks * roleplaying advice, such as Vignettes (DMG2)
But in any case, somebody really ought to attach the "leave NOTHING to the imagination!" image here...
EDIT: Not to diss you or anything LimitedWish, but if we were to tackle stuff that 4E lacks, I wanted to make sure that it actually lacks what you say it lacks, not what you think it lacks.
You are both rational and emotional. You value creation and discovery, and feel strongly about what you create. At best, you're innovative and intuitive. At worst, you're scattered and unpredictable.
If you're crossing the street and see a city bus barreling straight toward you with 'GIVE ME YOUR WALLET!' painted across its windshield, you probably won't be reaching for your wallet.
This is what I believe is the spirit of D&D 4E, and my deal breaker for D&D Next: equal opportunities, with distinct specializations, in areas where conflict happens the most often, without having to worry about heavy micromanagement or system mastery.
Live near Olympia Washington by chance? I'd love to play 4th ed with people sick of 3rd but annoyed by (what I see as) incorrect perceptions on the whole of 4th edition.
Is that close to Paris, France by any chance?
It really seems that 4th edition has gone a very long way since it came out. The game you guys describe is not the one I preordered from Amazon or the one I was still trying to like a year after it came out.
I was very excited about D&D Essentials.
Only if you have wormhole tech.
I got into 4th around the PHB 2 time. About 5 months earlier than that, actually, when I got the 3 set as a birthday present. Also got the Draconomicon 1 and AV 1 at that time. Since then, from the sheer volume of stuff that came out, I can't see any reason yet to move on from the current stuff.
I just need an income so I can get more of it faster before it disappears. Being unemployed sucks.
I think part of what we describe is influenced by releases, and also by our handle on this specific system.
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." --Bill Cosby (1937- )
Vanador: OK. You ripped a gateway to Hell, killed half the town, and raised the dead as feral zombies. We're going to kill you. But it can go two ways. We want you to run as fast as you possibly can toward the south of the town to draw the Zombies to you, and right before they catch you, I'll put an arrow through your head to end it instantly. If you don't agree to do this, we'll tie you this building and let the Zombies rip you apart slowly. Dimitry: God I love being Neutral. 4th edition is dead, long live 4th edition. Salla: opinionated, but commonly right. fun quotesShow
If you can't understand how someone yelling at another person would make them fight harder and longer, then you need to look at the forums a bit closer.
quote author=56832398 post=519321747]Considering DnD is a game wouldn't all styles be gamist?
I see no reason you can't ask questions, reven if you aren't a "4th ed fan". Hell, the very point of this thread seems to be how to advance the gaame from the good points that 4th ed had, and adress the bad points. Outside opinion properly phrased should be fine.
I don't really trust myself. I know I'm still upset with 4th edition. I haven't played a single RPG since it came out, mostly because 99% of my very vast group of players doesn't want to play it and I don't feel like playing anything else than my cliché fantasy setting and I'm sick and tired of fixing 3rd edition to make it work.
Well, you're always adding to the discussion IMHO. Liking or not liking 4e certainly isn't a requirement to be reasonable. Of course anyone who doesn't like it is a crazy poopy head! hehe.
Anyways, I'm really surprised by how often the feat tax and the slow combat show up.
Yeah, I'm not. I think the 'feat tax' is really not a BIG problem overall for the game, but it does annoy people quite a bit, at least on the forums. I don't actually notice it doing so in play. In fact my players seem to steadfastly remain mostly ignorant of or unconcerned about what feats are 'mandatory'. They do take some of the good ones now and then, but they are also just as happy to ignore them. For instance one of my players loves to play fire mages. She's taken the 'Burn Everything' feat twice now (her first wizard in our current game got killed). Its an almost useless feat with only very niche application. She's not an idiot and is pretty well aware it is a sub-optimal choice. Now, I expect at some point she'll take some sort of implement expertise, but who knows?
I personally draw two conclusions from this. The first one is about feats in general. Are they useful? When people say feat tax, they actually really say that mechanical feats that increase your accuracy, damage or defenses are pretty much mandatory and far superior to the other feats.
I think this is actually an inevitable consequence of the way feats are designed as a universal pool. ANY system with this basic design will inevitably have certain choices that are clearly superior to others. These will be definitionally a feat tax. 3e had it, PF has it, 4e has it, other pool-type systems have it, 5e will have it if it has feats. If it is enough of a problem, then feats should simply be removed from the game or should be fundamentally different (IE they should form trees or be broken down into small mutually exclusive pools). In effect that would make them class/theme/race optional class features you can choose from. IME that is a bit more successful model, though it can still cause issues.
And I'm really starting to wonder if people really like the tactical combat aspect of 4th edition. I'm starting to think that people like non casters that don't have flavorless infinte swings for a change but they don't really like the tactical combat part (except for guys like Abdul or TheMorth).
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned something about classes being monotonous. In the former edition, every other level, casters would get a new spell level. That's dozens of new 'powers' to try! That's a whole lot more than trying one new power every 2-3 levels. It's still better than what melees had before Tome of Battle, but even in Tome of Battle, you had at least one new maneuver per level.
I don't think 4e's tactical combat is perfect. I think it works well when you consider it on its own. I don't think it is necessarily a positive aspect of the game in a larger sense though. Still, I don't think it has to be scrapped in order to deal with that. I don't like the amount of time it takes up, the amount of focus some other things like items have on combat, or the degree to which 4e tactics have evolved into 'power twiddling' vs action focus. IMHO though this is all at the level of 'tuning' of the game, not major issues with the core rules engine.
The interesting thing about classes is that even the most feature-rich AD&D class, the wizard/magic-user, doesn't actually have substantially more options than a 4e PC. In fact if you add up the options, they are pretty close to parity. This may surprise you, not being a frequent 4e player, but it is actually true. It is especially true of a 4e Arcanist, who has ritual casting right off the bat. When you consider all of those choices, the effects of things like spellbook, ways to get added powers and additional pools of powers that exist now like Skill Power and Theme powers, and the way you can create various interactions with other non-power choices and options (remember for instance you have a choice of PP and ED as MAJOR choices). Honestly I think the general opinion is that 4e is TOO option-rich. In some respect 3e has more options in that a player can pick a new class at every level, but that IMHO came with some pretty heavy downsides. It is certainly hard to imagine a level up in 4e being 'monotonous'. There's at a minimum a 100% chance that either a feat or a power will be added to the character. 8 of the 30 levels have ability score boosts. 2 have major PP/ED choices, 15 of them have feat choices, etc.
The interesting thing about classes is that even the most feature-rich AD&D class, the wizard/magic-user, doesn't actually have substantially more options than a 4e PC. In fact if you add up the options, they are pretty close to parity. This may surprise you, not being a frequent 4e player, but it is actually true.
Actually it doesn't surprise me. I see a lot of potential in rituals. Back in the old days, we used to devise these whole out of combat plans that invovled magic, skill and equipement/wealth. *Happy nostalgic face*. The creativity was simply amazing. But whenever it involved spells, the spellcaster almost never had the spell memorized because it rarely had any pratical use in combat so we never got to go immediately, we always had to wait for the spellcasters to change their spells. If you analyze it, there really is no added value to having the spellcasters wait for 24 hours, it would be great if you could just go on with your plan. That's what rituals could have brought to the game, and that's why I'm very excited about rituals making it to 5th edition.
Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. 4th edition has an exponential wealth growth which means that at one point, the cost of a ritual becomes trivial and usuable as often as you like. So a ritual of "Invisibility Sphere" or any of the other cool problem solving spells you had back in the older editions was out of the question because these would make magic too powerful compared to the other classes.
The interesting thing about classes is that even the most feature-rich AD&D class, the wizard/magic-user, doesn't actually have substantially more options than a 4e PC. In fact if you add up the options, they are pretty close to parity. This may surprise you, not being a frequent 4e player, but it is actually true.
Actually it doesn't surprise me. I see a lot of potential in rituals. Back in the old days, we used to devise these whole out of combat plans that invovled magic, skill and equipement/wealth. *Happy nostalgic face*. The creativity was simply amazing. But whenever it involved spells, the spellcaster almost never had the spell memorized because it rarely had any pratical use in combat so we never got to go immediately, we always had to wait for the spellcasters to change their spells. If you analyze it, there really is no added value to having the spellcasters wait for 24 hours, it would be great if you could just go on with your plan. That's what rituals could have brought to the game, and that's why I'm very excited about rituals making it to 5th edition.
Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. 4th edition has an exponential wealth growth which means that at one point, the cost of a ritual becomes trivial and usuable as often as you like. So a ritual of "Invisibility Sphere" or any of the other cool problem solving spells you had back in the older editions was out of the question because these would make magic too powerful compared to the other classes.
Sigh. That's true. Rituals sure are one of the failures of 4E.
I'd have liked more of them to come out, too.
Are you interested in an online 4E game on Sunday? Contact me with a PM!
Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept. Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new. Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept. Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
The interesting thing about classes is that even the most feature-rich AD&D class, the wizard/magic-user, doesn't actually have substantially more options than a 4e PC. In fact if you add up the options, they are pretty close to parity. This may surprise you, not being a frequent 4e player, but it is actually true.
Actually it doesn't surprise me. I see a lot of potential in rituals. Back in the old days, we used to devise these whole out of combat plans that invovled magic, skill and equipement/wealth. *Happy nostalgic face*. The creativity was simply amazing. But whenever it involved spells, the spellcaster almost never had the spell memorized because it rarely had any pratical use in combat so we never got to go immediately, we always had to wait for the spellcasters to change their spells. If you analyze it, there really is no added value to having the spellcasters wait for 24 hours, it would be great if you could just go on with your plan. That's what rituals could have brought to the game, and that's why I'm very excited about rituals making it to 5th edition.
Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. 4th edition has an exponential wealth growth which means that at one point, the cost of a ritual becomes trivial and usuable as often as you like. So a ritual of "Invisibility Sphere" or any of the other cool problem solving spells you had back in the older editions was out of the question because these would make magic too powerful compared to the other classes.
Sigh. That's true. Rituals sure are one of the failures of 4E.
I'd have liked more of them to come out, too.
Yeah, there are some rough spots in the 4e ritual system. This is the kind of thing that I can really get behind fixing in 5e and I look forward to that. I just feel like if the price is gutting most of the other stuff I like about 4e then maybe it isn't worth it... Heck, we can backport interesting ideas to 4e, I'd just rather not have to do that work.
In any case, IMHO the quick and mostly easy fix for 4e rituals would be scaling cost. You can for instance do a Knock that works on low level locks and wizard locks and whatnot cheaply. If you want to have it count for higher level you have to pay more. So there could be a basic scaling cost that associates to all rituals as a baseline, and then maybe some would have other added cost features you could pay for at higher levels maybe. For instance Phantom Steed could be cast trivially by a high level PC to summon a basic steed that is like a horse. Getting the flying mount would be considerably more expensive and require a higher level caster.
This might not work for EVERY ritual though. For ones where that doesn't do the trick you'd have other options like HS cost or whatnot. A few rituals might simply have to be changed or moved to higher level. Overall I think it can be done. The 4e ritual system is 'mark 1' and I think 'mark 2' will kick butt.
I am of the opinion that classes were definitely monotonous in 3e. You had a choice: excel at doing damage with full attack, or cast broken spells. Rinse and repeat. In 4E, classes feel different. They play different from each other.
I have the exact opposite opinion and experience (DMing an ongoing campaign of 7 years that started as 3rd Ed, and switched to 4th Ed, now kind of regret switching, though I do like a lot 4th Ed's innovations - monster design rocks, save the bloated HP, IMO), all pre-E 4th Ed classes being 1st level features, then just picking and replacing powers when levelling just didn't cut it for me (nor how the classes played, rifling through their D&D the Gathering cards looking for, in the end, a pretty unexciting power, in my opinion).
Glad to see this thread stirring up some good discussion. Appreciate everyone keeping it on the up-and-up, despite all the diverging opinions. For what it's worth, I think it's great if folks critical of 4E contribute, so long as they earnestly want to provoke discussion (and not just beat the drum for their "faction").
Anyway, I'd like to throw my lot in with those disappointed by "feat taxes." Frankly, I feel that since the majority of feats were basically built to serve the tactical combat, the min/max approach we take with them is inevitable. Whenever an odd level rolls around for me, it's less a matter of "optimized" versus "flavorful" when it comes to my selection and more simply "good" versus "bad." Yeah, I know I can pick stuff that speaks more to my character concept or whatever, but ultimately, the only way that feats let me express this is in the context of tactical combat. So, while I can take Headsman's Chop and promote my character as a bad-ass executioner guy, I could also take Axe Expertise and still insist I'm a bad-ass executioner guy whilst being better at the tactical combat game to boot.
If the the designers are going to carry on with feats in the coming edition, I hope they'll think beyond how they've been implemented in 3E and beyond--i.e., as mostly abstract rules-tweaking mechanisms. Make feats do stuff. I hear that wizards can take feats that function as at-will powers in 5E. That's cool, and a step in the right direction. In my ideal world, a game wouldn't be built around such a complex system that players start thinking in terms of "builds" and "viability," but I won't belabor the point. Games that cater specifically to me already exist, in forms that are often just a hack or two away from "perfect"
The joy of speccing out an awesome tactical combatant is certainly not lost on me. I've played 4E for a long time, after all. It's just that the simpler, less mechanically-complex games are what have made me feel like I've finally come home again, after being estranged from D&D for such a long time. If a game emerges that scratches that fiddly itch without overwhelming the rest of what I dig about role-playing, I'd be stoked. That's why I'm posting here!
Figure I'm one of the more prominent 4e supporters around these parts, so I'll chip in. I spent some time thinking on it and might ramble, so the below is sblocked for your convenience.
I'm not just talking about feat taxes. Those are really a composite problem, and as I'll be addressing each part in turn, I don't think they need their own section. No, this is feats as a whole. One thing I've noticed over the years is that every new idea in D&D seems to go through a sort of hazing period, where it'll be published one way, then refined a little before too long(if it's kept). Generally, this works out. The idea gets tested in the field, as it were, then gets its act together and starts being a good to decent part of the game.
Feats have been around for a dozen years now, and they have not really improved at all. They're stupidly vaguely defined. What is a feat? I have a full, comprehensive practical understanding of what feats do, when I get them and how much to expect out of them and even on pain of death, I wouldn't be able to give a cleaner definition of feats than "Minor Character Customization". I mean, as of this writing, a feat can get you weapon proficiency, new powers, a multiclass, three languages, angel heritage, guild admittance, tribal affiliation, a dragonmark or math fixes that should have been errata. Point buy systems are hardly this flexible. If feats are going to stay, they need to be split into at least three separate, independent pools, and those pools need to actually have set design space, rather than being the Idea Graveyard.
I really like rituals. Rituals were a nice way to make utility magic ready to go(no resting/re-prepping) and to divorce them from your daily allotment of combat spells. The numbers on component costs and casting times needed some tweaking though, and they never really got it. Support for rituals wasn't exactly lacking, but it always came in the same form: more rituals. More rituals wasn't what was needed, really(after a point, obviously). What would have made rituals so much better would have been to have other elements tie into them, perhaps giving bonuses. Bring on the paragon path that gives free rituals. Show me a magic ritual book that lets you use rituals with key skills you aren't trained in as if you were trained in them. This potential was basically left to wither.
I like power sources, too. At first they were a simple nicety, codifying a concept that most players were already familiar with. But they started to take it further. There were source specific paragon paths and epic destinies. Source specific feats. Then it kinda stopped. They should have taken it further. Source specific utility powers, maybe? Or even just less class specific things and more source specific, to tie the classes within a source together better.
I was also unhappy at first about the "abandoned" power sources, like Shadow, Elemental and Ki. But abandonment isn't the right problem. Arcane continues to be the Beast That Devours All Design Space. Shadow almost got a foot in the door with the Assassin before Arcane mugged it and finished taking its stuff. Shadow was left with two classes to itself, the Assassin and the Vampire, two of the crappiest 4e classes. Elemental didn't even get that far. What were they gonna do for Shadow? A Warlock? Nope, Arcane ate it. For Elemental, maybe some kind of element wielding caster? Nope, Arcane ate it. Ki was devoured by Psionic, and I was irate at Psionics until I realized it needed the sustenance to survive. What are Psionics good for in fiction? Telepathy, Telekinetics and Starting fires with their brains. Arcane ate all that for breakfast. If you could kill Arcane as a power source, we could have Psionics, Ki, Shadow, Elemental and probably two more from raiding its stuff.
Modularity, Everywhere I don't want it and nowhere I doShow
Modularity is the hot buzzword that is usually invoked to ensure the reader that 5e will be all ponies and sunshine(or rather, ponies and sunshine will be available in an optional module for those want them), but actually 4e has a bit of it. It turns up a lot in character creation. Can we use Background Benefits? Can we use Themes? Which ones? Can we use Essentials? Psionics? These are all things clearly intended to be used with a normal game, but easily separated and left out, in a modular style. And honestly, it kinda irks me. I mean, Psionics, sure, you can exclude those for entirely solid campign reasons, but I've only ever seen Themes, Background Benefits or Essentials exluded for one these two reasons. First is "I don't have access to that material." That one's fair enough. The other is that they think it's going to be power creep, not meant for a normal, right thinking man's game(yes, I've even heard this said about using a background benefit for +2 to Insight). I can't muster up the illogic to blame the devs for not having these ideas earlier than they did, but not having them printed in the core really hurt those ideas.
The second bit of this is that the modularity of 4e never seems to be where I want it to be. Because most of the systems in 4e are either independent, or have very simple connections to the rest, it's quite easy to rip things out and plug things in. The Inherent bonus system is a good example. Take magic items out, put Inherent Bonuses in. Modular in action(albeit a small module). They could have had a lot of fun with this, and I really think 4e could have handled and even been better for a good volume of unearthed arcana. Maybe two.
When I start a new 4e campaign, we inevitably discuss what modules are going to be in use. I'd much rather that discussion be about how much we're going to get out of the Seafaring Module, or if we want to use the Kingship Module or the Low-Magic Module rather than whether I can get a +2 to Athletics from my character's military background..
I don't hate errata itself. I'm actually really keen on the idea that at least oe person at WotC has time in their schedule set aside to give us free solutions to issues that might come up. But the implementation of errata in 4e was bad. Whenever an element popped its head up as being abuseable or overpowered, they had a marked tendency to go overkill on it, taking the offending element down so far that most people didn't want it anymore. More care should have been taken to get these elements back down to say, 8-9/10, rather than cutting them from 13/10 to 4/10.
At the same time as they were being reckless with little errata, they were being too cautious with big ones. We'd have been saved all manner of feat tax crap just by the devs taking a deep breath and issuing errata directly to the math rather than offering up feats to fix it. Then they flipflopped again by updating monster damage in MM3, but the Feat Tax had already been born.
This one probably irks me most often. Support in 4e is wildly uneven. You could make an entire class just out of Fighter support that I've forgotten about, while Seeker fans no longer have it in them to even weep softly at night. Maybe it's a natural consequence of being a big commercial game. You make support for the popular classes. But even then, it cycles, because more people will play the more supported classes.
It's been there since day 1, as some have noted. But at least in he early days they'd throw us a bone once in awhile. Then Mearls took over and there was some consternation when he said there might never be a martial controller because they weren't going to be too careful about "filling the holes". I wasn't too concerned about the martial controller, but I was upset later, when I realized this also meant "To hell with trying to address uneven support issues."
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool.
Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
Figure I'm one of the more prominent 4e supporters around these parts, so I'll chip in. I spent some time thinking on it and might ramble, so the below is sblocked for your convenience.
I'm not just talking about feat taxes. Those are really a composite problem, and as I'll be addressing each part in turn, I don't think they need their own section. No, this is feats as a whole. One thing I've noticed over the years is that every new idea in D&D seems to go through a sort of hazing period, where it'll be published one way, then refined a little before too long(if it's kept). Generally, this works out. The idea gets tested in the field, as it were, then gets its act together and starts being a good to decent part of the game.
Feats have been around for a dozen years now, and they have not really improved at all. They're stupidly vaguely defined. What is a feat? I have a full, comprehensive practical understanding of what feats do, when I get them and how much to expect out of them and even on pain of death, I wouldn't be able to give a cleaner definition of feats than "Minor Character Customization". I mean, as of this writing, a feat can get you weapon proficiency, new powers, a multiclass, three languages, angel heritage, guild admittance, tribal affiliation, a dragonmark or math fixes that should have been errata. Point buy systems are hardly this flexible. If feats are going to stay, they need to be split into at least three separate, independent pools, and those pools need to actually have set design space, rather than being the Idea Graveyard.
I really like rituals. Rituals were a nice way to make utility magic ready to go(no resting/re-prepping) and to divorce them from your daily allotment of combat spells. The numbers on component costs and casting times needed some tweaking though, and they never really got it. Support for rituals wasn't exactly lacking, but it always came in the same form: more rituals. More rituals wasn't what was needed, really(after a point, obviously). What would have made rituals so much better would have been to have other elements tie into them, perhaps giving bonuses. Bring on the paragon path that gives free rituals. Show me a magic ritual book that lets you use rituals with key skills you aren't trained in as if you were trained in them. This potential was basically left to wither.
I like power sources, too. At first they were a simple nicety, codifying a concept that most players were already familiar with. But they started to take it further. There were source specific paragon paths and epic destinies. Source specific feats. Then it kinda stopped. They should have taken it further. Source specific utility powers, maybe? Or even just less class specific things and more source specific, to tie the classes within a source together better.
I was also unhappy at first about the "abandoned" power sources, like Shadow, Elemental and Ki. But abandonment isn't the right problem. Arcane continues to be the Beast That Devours All Design Space. Shadow almost got a foot in the door with the Assassin before Arcane mugged it and finished taking its stuff. Shadow was left with two classes to itself, the Assassin and the Vampire, two of the crappiest 4e classes. Elemental didn't even get that far. What were they gonna do for Shadow? A Warlock? Nope, Arcane ate it. For Elemental, maybe some kind of element wielding caster? Nope, Arcane ate it. Ki was devoured by Psionic, and I was irate at Psionics until I realized it needed the sustenance to survive. What are Psionics good for in fiction? Telepathy, Telekinetics and Starting fires with their brains. Arcane ate all that for breakfast. If you could kill Arcane as a power source, we could have Psionics, Ki, Shadow, Elemental and probably two more from raiding its stuff.
Modularity, Everywhere I don't want it and nowhere I doShow
Modularity is the hot buzzword that is usually invoked to ensure the reader that 5e will be all ponies and sunshine(or rather, ponies and sunshine will be available in an optional module for those want them), but actually 4e has a bit of it. It turns up a lot in character creation. Can we use Background Benefits? Can we use Themes? Which ones? Can we use Essentials? Psionics? These are all things clearly intended to be used with a normal game, but easily separated and left out, in a modular style. And honestly, it kinda irks me. I mean, Psionics, sure, you can exclude those for entirely solid campign reasons, but I've only ever seen Themes, Background Benefits or Essentials exluded for one these two reasons. First is "I don't have access to that material." That one's fair enough. The other is that they think it's going to be power creep, not meant for a normal, right thinking man's game(yes, I've even heard this said about using a background benefit for +2 to Insight). I can't muster up the illogic to blame the devs for not having these ideas earlier than they did, but not having them printed in the core really hurt those ideas.
The second bit of this is that the modularity of 4e never seems to be where I want it to be. Because most of the systems in 4e are either independent, or have very simple connections to the rest, it's quite easy to rip things out and plug things in. The Inherent bonus system is a good example. Take magic items out, put Inherent Bonuses in. Modular in action(albeit a small module). They could have had a lot of fun with this, and I really think 4e could have handled and even been better for a good volume of unearthed arcana. Maybe two.
When I start a new 4e campaign, we inevitably discuss what modules are going to be in use. I'd much rather that discussion be about how much we're going to get out of the Seafaring Module, or if we want to use the Kingship Module or the Low-Magic Module rather than whether I can get a +2 to Athletics from my character's military background..
I don't hate errata itself. I'm actually really keen on the idea that at least oe person at WotC has time in their schedule set aside to give us free solutions to issues that might come up. But the implementation of errata in 4e was bad. Whenever an element popped its head up as being abuseable or overpowered, they had a marked tendency to go overkill on it, taking the offending element down so far that most people didn't want it anymore. More care should have been taken to get these elements back down to say, 8-9/10, rather than cutting them from 13/10 to 4/10.
At the same time as they were being reckless with little errata, they were being too cautious with big ones. We'd have been saved all manner of feat tax crap just by the devs taking a deep breath and issuing errata directly to the math rather than offering up feats to fix it. Then they flipflopped again by updating monster damage in MM3, but the Feat Tax had already been born.
This one probably irks me most often. Support in 4e is wildly uneven. You could make an entire class just out of Fighter support that I've forgotten about, while Seeker fans no longer have it in them to even weep softly at night. Maybe it's a natural consequence of being a big commercial game. You make support for the popular classes. But even then, it cycles, because more people will play the more supported classes.
It's been there since day 1, as some have noted. But at least in he early days they'd throw us a bone once in awhile. Then Mearls took over and there was some consternation when he said there might never be a martial controller because they weren't going to be too careful about "filling the holes". I wasn't too concerned about the martial controller, but I was upset later, when I realized this also meant "To hell with trying to address uneven support issues."
Nice post. I particularly agree with your points on Feats, Power Sources, Rituals and Uneven Support.
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept. Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new. Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept. Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept.
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