Still, I can see why people would be cautious about changing 4E. While it aims to create a lot of the same experiences at the table, the "code" is really different. It's not as easy to feel confident about changing a new system. Playing AD&D for 10 or 20 years gave DMs a lot of confidence in the impact of their rulings, and a year or two of 4E isn't going to instill the same certainty. Also, 4E went ahead and told us that the rules were pretty balanced between players and that following the rules limited the range of outcomes (e.g. fewer TPK or cakewalk encounters). AD&D made no such promises. When you change 4E, you're tampering with something that, theoretically, is pretty deliberate about what it does. When you change AD&D, you're taking a bunch of disparate systems and making them do something a little different, or maybe you're even making them more coherent and predictable. So I get that messing with 4E rules feels wrong somehow, or perhaps it seems like if the rules aren't as "perfect" as they claim to be, they're no good at all. But I don't think that claim of perfection is really part of the system, and a lot of fun can in fact be had making the system your own, just like we always have.
When I fist picked up 4e and tried to DM a game with it I was shocked that some of the players treated the 'code' of the system as some sort of sacred entity. The sligntest suggestion of a house rule was considered blasphemous. 4e is a very difficult system to make house rules with because there is an inherent fear that you might 'break' something. At some point you have to ignore mechanics and the delicate balance inherent in the system and find players who don't worship the rules.
On the other hand with 5e this won't be the case. The playtest rules have made it very clear that the rules are not the most important aspect of the game.
4e also made that very clear. For that matter, past editions made that clear as well. And yet fans of past editions still bow before the sacred cow of vancian magic. You want to talk about players considering a mechanic blasphemous to alter or remove? Vancian magic has that in spades. And if any player thinks that the system as written is the holy word itself, 4e specifically has a page of the DMG dedicated to houserules (pg 189). It explained why it's good, and it gives advice on how to do it. As for the breaking issue, that's only an issue if you feel you absolutely have to get something right the very first time. I've created houserules that I've had to tweak as problems arose. And I've created some that I've had to remove when the complications piled up too much.
so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin." NPC: "Really?" Fighter: "Yes." NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?" Fighter: "I do." NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?" Fighter: "What?" NPC: "I don't know what it means either." Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do." NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics." Fighter: "These what?" NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
For class+spell combos, take, for example, cure light wounds. It is listed as Adept 1, Bard 1, Blackguard 1, Cleric 1, Druid 1, Healer 1, Healing 1, Paladin 1, Ranger 2; that's one spell with 9 class+spell combos. While cross-listing spells is certainly more efficient, it's hard to compare to 4e's "every power is unique (even when it isn't)" scheme without expanding the list.
Why would you do that? Those classes share the same spells. Previously, I made the comment about the the large number of powers in 4e (3000+) and your response was to multiply all the shared spells by each class in 3e and then argue that previous edtions are just as bad? That rebuttal doesn't make any sense to me.
If you want to compare PH1 to PH1, there are about 600 spells in the 3e PH1 (as you estimated) shared amongst 9 spellcasting classes/prestige classes (10 if you include the Adept NPC class), with the bulk in the class lists for wizard/sorcerer (~400 spells), cleric (~200 spells), bard (~150 spells), and druid (~150 spells), with a moderate amount of cross-listing. There are about 700 powers in the 4e PH1, shared equally amongst the 8 classes (~90 each), with no cross-listing.
Sounds like they are about equally easy to digest, (if not more cumbersome for the 3e casters).
Well considering the 4e PHB1 doesn't even have the bard or druid that's quite a bit more powers. On top of that most of the powers in the PHB1 won't ever get used unless you have a character from that class at the table. The end result is that you never atain a decent level of system mastery. You and your DM will allways be looking at your spell cards(books). Btw, previous editions also had spell cards so that's nothing new.
The other flaw with giving each class it's own unique power list is that it makes creating new classes a real pain in the ass. If you want to create a new class you're out of luck unless you have the time to write a complete power list for that class. On top of that you have to play test the class from levels 1 to 30 just to make sure the are blanced. The class are designed so that you have to wait until WoTC releases a new book.
The other issue I had with 4e was that most of the arcane spells are divided up between all the arcane classes. For example, wizards no longer had access to the Spider Climb spell, it was now a warlock power. IMO, the system would have been much better if it had merged all the arcane spells into one big categorized list and allowed every arcane class to access them. It would have also eliminated the need for the large number of arcane classes in the system.
What I'm saying is, if we want to compare class to class, we need to consider the each 3e class spell list on its own, regardless of how many times a spell gets cross-listed. For example, I counted cure light wounds as 9, meaning, "It appears on 9 spell lists. I need to know how to it fits into the scheme of 9 different classes' spellcasting suites."
If we want to compare system to system, then don't worry about expanding the lists or how they divide up per class: 600-odd spells in 3e PH1 compares pretty well to 700-odd powers in 4e PH1.
What we can't do is say, "600+ spells in 3e PH1 versus 3000+ powers in the entirety of every 4e core book, splat book, and Dragon article; ergo 4e is more complicated to master."
If you want to argue that you don't need to "master" the whole system in order to use a class, I agree. 4e shares that workload more or less evenly across its classes; 3e lumps that work on the primary casters to varying degrees.
That's what I was getting at.
So, with respect to D&D Next, I preferred the more evenly distributed workload of mastering a class in 4e, and the cross-listing of spells in 3e instead of creating unique entries for every class. I hope they can achieve this in some fashion.
Are you complaining that there was little to no need to create a class? or that it was not easy? Futhermore since classes are the backbone of a class based system why on earth should it be easy to make one that works?
No, there was a huge need for new classes in 4e. New classes were added throughout the lifecycle of 4e. There was always a need for new class in 4e and the designers were constantly releasing new class concepts. IMO, many class concepts in 4e would have been better served with themes or kits.
With Pre-4e and 5e the class list is small. Kits, Backgrounds, Themes are easy to make since they simply derive from the base class. In addition, you only need a page or so of material to define a new class. You don't need to spend days creating a huge list of powers to go with it. For this reason 5e design is superior to 4e. You'll see a lot more user content and third party themes now. You won't have to wait two years before you can play a Necromancer or hope that one day WoTC will release an Abjurer class.
Thankfully, 5e will make homebrew/third party class creation easy. This is essential for campaign settings that will not be officially supported. For example, I know many dragonlance players who just never used 4e because the system required far too much work.
Also i can see why you and your group were frustrated. it seems that they were attempting to acquire "system mastery" which is a useless unnecessary concept in 4E. You do not need that in 4E at and my thought is pursuing that is what sapped the fun from those games.
It's not that we are pursuing system mastery, it's that it didn't even happen naturally. We were always referring to our source material all the freaking time, be that power cards or source books. No amount of toilet reading helps in this regard either.
When I look at the 5e playtest spells they are very different and they work differently. Many of the pre-4e spells are also like that (2e more than 3e). On the other hand most spells in 4e are based off a template like Ability vs Y; X[W] damage, add movement, effect (save ends). There are hundreds of powers like this . They all have different names, but they are basically the same thing repeated over and over again. I can't think of anything more boring. Most of them could be generated by a computer program that cross joins all the components and assigns random names to the powers. For that reason I prefer spells that are more organic in nature with the only limit being the imagaination of the designer... all the way up to a Wish spell.
What I'm saying is, if we want to compare class to class, we need to consider the each 3e class spell list on its own, regardless of how many times a spell gets cross-listed. For example, I counted cure light wounds as 9, meaning, "It appears on 9 spell lists. I need to know how to it fits into the scheme of 9 different classes' spellcasting suites."
If we want to compare system to system, then don't worry about expanding the lists or how they divide up per class: 600-odd spells in 3e PH1 compares pretty well to 700-odd powers in 4e PH1.
What we can't do is say, "600+ spells in 3e PH1 versus 3000+ powers in the entirety of every 4e core book, splat book, and Dragon article; ergo 4e is more complicated to master."
If you want to argue that you don't need to "master" the whole system in order to use a class, I agree. 4e shares that workload more or less evenly across its classes; 3e lumps that work on the primary casters to varying degrees.
That's what I was getting at.
So, with respect to D&D Next, I preferred the more evenly distributed workload of mastering a class in 4e, and the cross-listing of spells in 3e instead of creating unique entries for every class. I hope they can achieve this in some fashion.
ok I understand what you are saying. I just wasn't trying to compare class to class. I just wanted to comment how a certain level of system mastery is always beneficial. Sure a system shouldn't require it, but it's nice when you don't have to read a power card or make reference to a source book Having a huge list of powers for every class just makes that job more difficult. I mean do you really need 100 different healing powers when a cure light wounds spell produces the same result?
ok I understand what you are saying. I just wasn't trying to compare class to class. I just wanted to comment how a certain level of system mastery is always beneficial. Sure a system shouldn't require it, but it's nice when you don't have to read a power card or make reference to a source book Having a huge list of powers for every class just makes that job more difficult. I mean do you really need 100 different healing powers when a cure light wounds spell produces the same result?
Gotcha.
I think you are confounding the build complexity with the play-time complexity, however. In both cases you have dozens of powers/spells to sift through when building your character, but only a handful to recall when you're actually playing.
I like build complexity; I dislike play-time complexity. It's a tricky thing to get right, and I think 4e's power cards and 3e's spell cards did a great job of it.
I played ad&d and 2e for years. I quit playing because it was boring. I was skeptical about 4e but i am thrilled with the strategy in the game. Of your fights are too easy, your dm screwed up. I wont play the boring game again.
So, what exactly is wrong with borrowing from AD&D?
There is nothing wrong with it. Reviewing all editions of D&D is the first and most important step.
The problem is when people develop a sickness for the present and start to think that what we have now is the most evolved system.
IMO, 3e created a lot of problems that 4e tried to solve. This caused 4e to evolve in a direction that was completely different than what its predecessors supported. The large number of character build options in 3e caused gamers to focus on 'Character Optimization' far too much. Players gamed the system and found ways to break it (CoDZilla, etc),which was something that previous editions explicitly rebuked. The age of the internet, with forums devoted to 'min/maxing' didn't help either. Everyone started to complain that 3e was broken because of this build or that build. They completely lost focus on what D&D was even about in the first place. But rather than rebuke that sort of behavour, the designers of 4e decided to embrace it! The result was an over optimized system that failed to capture the feeling of D&D. IMO 4e was D&D in name only.
It wasnt just chjaracter builds that provided problems for 3e. Removing downsides to several spells and magic items led to their abuse. Healing was ramped up as well making the game less lethal. Those things helped redefine D&D into something it had never before been.
In retrospect it was funny how many gamers screamed how 1e/2e was so broken they needed a more perfect system like 3e and in the end it turned out more subject to abuse than its predicessors.
4e tried to correct a LOT of what went wrong with 3e, but again in a way that lost sight of what made it. I dont blame WoTC for they way they have handled it. They never created D&D to begin with so they had no culture of caring for or cultivating it. D&D was just a brand they bought and they treated it accordingly.
I do agree with going back and having ther game developers seriously play 1e and 2e extensivly before making 5e. However, for me knowing that a new edition is another 3-5 years away kills any enthusiasm for picking up the system.
When I fist picked up 4e and tried to DM a game with it I was shocked that some of the players treated the 'code' of the system as some sort of sacred entity. The sligntest suggestion of a house rule was considered blasphemous. 4e is a very difficult system to make house rules with because there is an inherent fear that you might 'break' something. At some point you have to ignore mechanics and the delicate balance inherent in the system and find players who don't worship the rules.
On the other hand with 5e this won't be the case. The playtest rules have made it very clear that the rules are not the most important aspect of the game.
Yeah, we're kind of saying the same thing. You open up an AD&D book and see a chart you don't agree with, so you change it, ignore it, or make your own. No big deal, right? It's just a random table Gygax felt comfortable with for his campaigns, not something that seems to have been given terribly much thought or that was coordinated to work with other things in the game.
Then you look at, say, the wizard in the 4E books and decide that he's not powerful enough. Whoa there! This wizard was carefully coordinated to play well with the other classes. If you power him up, you may as well not be playing 4E anymore!
But I don't think this is a healthy approach. 4E has a framework that other editions don't have, at least for classes. That doesn't mean you have to agree with any details any more than you did in the past. Maybe it looks more like a "mistake" to change something because it's easier to feel like you're unbalancing the game and favoring this player over that one. So while I see what you're saying, I think the real impediment to house rules is more psychological than anything else. It's definitely easier to feel like you're breaking something if you believe it actually works than if you can't see any rhyme or reason to the rule! That doesn't mean it's actually a bad idea to make any changes - the greater transparency simply makes it more likely that you will see more implications of a change, and you may not want to see them all.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
