I know what you are thinking. It’s another large, green, regenerating creature that needs fire or acid to finish off. However I’ll try and address my points in a reasonably constructive way. Also to cut a long story short I don’t hate 4th ed either. If nothing else even if you don’t agree with me maybe I can entertain you or at least not offend you with my post. A few points about mysef. I’m 30 years old, and have been playing D&D since 1994 or about half my life as I was 15 when I started to play. I started on basic D&D with the rules cyclopedia and upgraded to 2nd ed in 95 and have played 1st ed as well. In general I have always been excited to upgrade to another edition with 4th ed being the exception and I bought the 4th ed core rules on the 1st day they were released here. Basically I’m not opposed to change and enthusiastically embrace a new game if given the chance.
I’ve never really been a grognard with an older edition of anything except for Star Wars D6 as we switched to the original d20 Star Wars book in 2000 and were so horrified we rushed back to D6 and have never left although to be fair Saga edition Star Wars looks quite good. I also played D&D minis and have been playing Magic the Gathering since 1998 so I’m not exactly opposed to WoTC as a gaming company and have generally enjoyed their product.
When 4th ed was announced I was reasonably neutral and avoided most of the spoiler articles on the WoTC website with the exception of the Elf example they posted. It was announced maybe a year or two earlier than I expected as 3.5 was only 5 years old but the writing was probably on the wall as the 3.5 source books had been declining in quality. It would have been nice to see a Feat Compendium or a Players Handbook 3 but the 3.5 gas tank was running on empty towards the end.
First of all snce I’m not in love with 4th ed why don’t I sod off and go to another message board? I’m a member of the Paizo boards and a few other boards. For the most part I enjoy the WoTC boards and I’ve been lurking here for 8 years and have been a member since April 2001. Some of the comments made about 3.5 and 4th ed have been plain old moronic. 4th ed doesn’t encourage role playing or today I found a good anti 3.5 moronic statement. It was along the lines all the 3.5 sourcebooks sucked. For the role playing argument it’s a group thing and isn’t limited by edition or even game system and al editions of D&D have had a heavy focus on combat. 4th ed may be a bit more than 3.5 but you could easily invent “Toast the RPG” and pretended you were heated pieces of bread if you wanted and had an enthusiastic DM or GM. For the 3.5 sourcebooks sucking much like any edition and 4th ed some were great, others were awful. Also a lot of 4th ed owes tribute to a lot of things that appeared in various 3.5 splat books including the Warlord (Marshall in 3.5) and Warlock
Anyway I don’t think 4th ed is all that although there are some sheer brilliance. If it was so awesome or perfect I don’t think you would have the quantity or errata for it already or the quantity of “4th ed sucks” type posts this long after release. The 3rd ed sucks and 3.5 sucks posts didn’t linger this long and calmed down for the most part after a few weeks. I’ll try and identify why “nerdrage” on the boards has lasted so long. A big problem I think is that a large amount of posters have firmly entrenched themselves into the 3.5/4th ed sucks castles and have adopted a siege mentality. How dare people criticize the perfection that is 4th ed or how dare WoTC gut D&D like this.
Going back a few months I was kinda excited about on the Friday at work as I knew my local FLGS had my copy of the core rules behind the counter waiting for me. I was looking forward to going home and reading the players handbook. It wasn’t the easiest read in the world and I struggled with it and had to reread certain sections. While reading the classes for example I had no idea what 2W+ XYZ effect was and I missed the bit at the start of the book where PCs get 100gp starting cash. I house ruled my PCs could start with 100gp each and was pleasantly surprised about the accuracy of my guess once I found the right paragraph a few days later. To this day I only have a vague idea of what some of the higher level powers are for most of the classes. I just can’t focus on them. To be fair I didn’t exactly read the 3.5 spell lists that closely either but they at least had a list of the spells at the start of the magic chapter with a short description of the spell. Also the spells weren’t that different from 2nd ed and I looked up most of the changed ones from 3.0. Spell lists were also more or less optional to read if you weren’t playing a spell caster sand I prefer to read 2-3 pages about a class than 15. Overall I found the PHB harder to read in 4th ed than all previous editions. Not overly impressed right off the bat.
I skimmed through the monster manual and read a few things in the back and I have since read it more or less cover to cover. To me it was just another MM which aren’t the most exciting things in the world to read. It wasn’t any worse or better than the 3.5 monster manual and it was better than some of the other MM I can think of such as the MM2, MM4 and some of the 2nd ed atrocities.
The 4th ed Dungeon Masters guide impressed me a lot and I would go out on a limb and say it’s the best DMG I have ever read. I enjoyed reading it and I payed attention to the rules on treasure parcels and designing encounters. It got me quite enthusiastic about running a 4th ed game. My first 4th ed adventure only took 2 hours to design and that included the 50 odd minutes to draw the map. I found 4th ed a lot quicker to design than 3.5 from the DM’s point of view. Overall for an RPG book I would give the DMG a 4/5 and as a DMG would give it a 5/5.
The 1st session we payed was really good and we all had a lot of fun including the DM. My PCs were joking about the amount of damage they were taking and making comments like “Screw this next time I’m playing a goblin” as they were smacked around by mostly goblins and were getting swarmed by large numbers of them- love those minions rules. The PCs included a Dragonborn and a Wizard so minions go bye bye without to much hassle.
Over the next couple of months we played several more times and the PCs were level 4 and we were starting to get bored. Combat was still fast and everything but it was degenerating into encounter power, encounter power, maybe daily, spam away with at wills until foe is dead. My PCs took on a solo white Dragon which while tough just took to damn long to die. 4-5 rounds of at wills gets boring very fast when you only have 2 of them to start with.
The game also felt very forced and linear. Our characters are a Controller, Defender, Leader, or Striker. With a Fighter you have to use a melee weapon or suck. Also 4th ed’s design goals of balance didn’t seem to stack up as some races just seemed better than others (Dragonborn and Elf come to mind maybe Eladrin). While not only forcing you into the roles I suspect the game also forces you into role and race combination in order to be “optimal”. I suspect you will see a lot of Dragonborn Fighters and Paladins, Elf Clerics, Eladrin Swordmages, and Genasi Swordmages and Warlords in 4th eds games while humans kinda suck except maybe as wizards and warlords as some demihuman race will be plain out better than they are. 3.5 probably had crap elves, while 4th ed seems to continue the Elven fanboy overpowered fetish D&D has been since 1st ed or basic.
4th ed is also broken I feel just like 3.5 just in different ways. So long as you can continue to heal faster than the monsters can damage you things should be alright. I suspect the perfect 5 member party should probably include a melee warlord, ranged cleric and then a controller/defender/striker/. A lot of the powers felt very similar and were virtually identical mechanically except they required a different stat for a different class. An example would be the Clerics healing word ability which is identical on the Warlord and Artificer classes and it just has a different name.
4th ed also felt like it had a lot more emphasis on combat than in previous editions. While it doesn’t discourage rolepaying as such there isn’t that much to do outside combat mechanically. There’s less non combat skills and especially spells or in 4th ed rituals. It also didn’t really feel like previous editions of D&D due to the lack of vancian spellcasting and most of the classes don’t resemble their 3.5 or even 2nd ed counterparts in anything but name. To me 4th ed doesn’t resemble D&D as I’ve known it in any way, shape or form. A few of the names are the same but wizards are now basically magic missile spambots, rogues suck at finding traps being out classed by clerics, rangers are no longer nature based warriors, you don’t really multi class anymore and will probably suck if you do due to lack of hands to hold all the implements or weapons you will need. No more great wheel makes me a sad panda
. Yes I liked Druids in 3.5 but I also liked them in all previous editions of the game an they were my favorite class while my girlfriend liked bards. The Druid was an overpowered pile in 3.5 and I usually ran variants from Unearthed Arcana but I feel the Bard and Druid should have been core at the expense of Warlock which is more of a splatbook class and Eladrin probably should have been in a splat as well and the gnome should have been in the PHB. Tradition is important in D&D. If they want to add more core classes and races go right ahead, just don’t cut any which will upset people. Not missing Barbarian, Monk, Sorcerer as much as they’ve never been in the core rules before 3rd ed except for Monk in 1st ed.
Comparing 3.5 and 4th ed to me in magic terms is like comparing Ravnica and Lorwyn block. For those not knowing much about magic essentially Ravnica gave you lots of options while Lorwyn being a tribal format like Onslaught more or less forces you to play certain tribes or colour combinations or have a suck deck. You have to play Goblins or Faeries or Elves to have a competitive game or an anti Goblin/Elf/Faerie deck. 4th ed seems a lot more linear than 3.5 or even 2nd ed.
There is however a lot to recommend on 4th ed. I really liked the minion rules, combat flows well, if it’s a little repetitive, I liked the ritual rules as well just not as a replacement for proper spells, and I’m sure at wills could have been added to the old Vancian system as Pathfinder has done. I like Dragonborn I like the Warlord (not so much the Warlock), I liked the way defences increase with level, but still prefer the 3.5 saving throw. The Vancian system had a few flaws but it basically defined magic through all D&D editions prior to 4th ed. I would have liked to see it tweaked with the nutty retarded spells removed form game or turned into something playable. Timestop wasn’t broken in 2nd ed, and some of the polymoph spells weren’t broken either such as form of wolf. There was a lot in 3.5 that need taken out and shot. I wanted an evolution in the D&D rules not a revolution as I feel they threw the baby out with the bathwater and went to far. It wasn’t to hard to figure out what was broken in 3.5 and how to fix them.
Save or dies/save or suck (make saving throws better) Feats or Abiliites that reduce the metamagic cost or make it free (Incantrix, Sudden XYZ feats) Unrestricted polymorph. Shapechange granting supernatural abilities Various buff spells Various overpowered/broken spells.
Not claiming 3.5 was perfect, as it had its flaws but so does 4th ed. To be honest I’m not sure what system I will end up playing but I suspect it will be either a hybrid Pathfinder/3.5 mish mash with various house rules or we will switch over to 4th ed once the splat books make it interesting enough to start up another game. I suspect it will also what typoe of game we want to play. If its Darksun or a naval based game it will be 3.5/Pathfinder hybrid with 4th ed and 2nd ed influences.. If it’s a level 11-20+ game or a basic dungeon hack 4th ed may be better.
Essentially I like both editions and probably like 3.5 slightly better warts and all. 4th ed is better balanced at the expense of making it slightly bland and repetitive and I suspect it won’t be much fun to play either at higher level. The best 3.5 splatbooks dump on the 4th ed books so far but the 4th ed books are better than most of the final 3.5 releases. For the moment we have returned back to Pathfinder, but once our missing player returns from his month long holiday in Europe we may be playing 4th ed again.
This is a problem with the direction 4e is going. You need to buy splats to make the game interesting.
To be fair 3.5 had this problem as well, just to a lesser extent IMHO. PHB2 and Complete Warrior helped Fighters alot for example and were some of the better 3.5 splats as well-loved the PHB2.
I agree. I've been playing D&D since 2nd edition and been playing for almost 15 years, that's mostly being a DM. It doesn't feel like D&D and over time, it's static. All editions have flaws, but I feel 4th still has work to be done. For now, I'm doing hybrids of 3.5 and 4th till 4th stabilizes. I love some of the mechanics of 4th, but the game of 3.5 is what I feel D&D is. BTW, the DMG for 4th is the best book, hands down. Worth all $40 I spent on it :D
I agree. I've been playing D&D since 2nd edition and been playing for almost 15 years, that's mostly being a DM. It doesn't feel like D&D and over time, it's static. All editions have flaws, but I feel 4th still has work to be done. For now, I'm doing hybrids of 3.5 and 4th till 4th stabilizes. I love some of the mechanics of 4th, but the game of 3.5 is what I feel D&D is. BTW, the DMG for 4th is the best book, hands down. Worth all $40 I spent on it :D
Yeah ifthe PHb was as good as the 4th ed DMG I think alot of the 4th ed sucks type threads would die.
I think it really depends on the person, like myself the formatting of the PHB I found was easier reading then the DMG (not saying DMG is bad, best yet, just saying) and found it was much easier to understand the rules using the PHB then earlier ones.
While the MM is the easiest to read and use MM yet for me. I get everything I need in nice and tidy little boxes and can easily develop encounters and know how the monsters act basically by their roles, it is quite convinent (also the new way to determine encounter difficulty helps a lot too).
As for needing splats, *shrugs shoulders* again depends on the person. I have got a lot of worth out of my corebooks, especially when it comes to the variety of campaign settings/types of gameplay.
My 4th edition books now lie forlorn on my shelf of games.
When I first heard about 4E through the Gencon videos, my feelings were mixed. I wasn't ready to let go of 3E, but things like the character envisioneer and the promise that electronic versions of the books would be available post haste kept me interested. Still, books like Tome of Battle, the MM4 (and while better, MM5) and the second rounds of Completes had left a bad taste in my mouth and the acknowledgement that this was the way the game was heading made me uncomfortable.
I ended up preordering a copy of 4th, devouring it while in the midst of running Keep on the Shadowfell (which has my vote for worst D&D adventure short of the RPGA Turkey Drive adventure I was roped into back in the early 90's). The writing and layout of the PHB felt horrible - an echo I've heard elsewhere. The DMG felt empty for an old veteran for me; while something like p 42 would have been a nice feature back in earlier versions of the game, the DMG feels somewhat hollow with the absence of magic items. The MM was unusual - the brevity of information on monsters was both good and bad; while the skeletal approach of presenting stats & encounter groups allowed a great variety of monsters to be presented in a small amount of space, the missing ecologies and fanciful filling-out of the monster's place in the world is a bit hard for me to ignore.
I picked up the FRCS campaign book and was somewhat rankled to see a whole adventure filling up the front of the book before the travelogue-like entries of the Realms. While there was some interesting changes, what they've done to the poor Realms, makes me shake my head. It's like 5th age Dragonlance all over again...
Glancing through Adventurer's Vault, a lot of the stuff within its pages seemed like stuff that should have been in the PHB/MM (mounts), though with the already stuffed PHB, it's easy to see why it was put in a separate book. Still, Adventurer's Vault, to me, proves one thing. The D&D power system takes up too much space and are overall, too narrow in scope. I've seen other systems that have a wider breadth of options distilled down to far fewer pages. However, I'm fairly sure that things like powers will be an important part of D&D's future. The compact, almost collectible nature of powers and the resulting power cards will probably become part of the WotC D&D economy in the future; just like minis, I'd expect one day to see pre-printed power/item cards be sold either through WotC or 3rd parties as standard fare. Possibly even see the use of these cards incorporated into minis play.
I don't think its so much that D&D is a bad game, it's just not what I want to play. Its taken off in a direction I'm not eager to follow. And while I'm not interested in playing, it strangely hasn't kept me from designing "fill-back" material for the so-called missing 3E material. Strangely, it's also gotten me considering to get an account for WoW and play that..in that respect I think D&D's attempt to garner the MMO crowd failed for me, as before 4E I, and two others in my group, avoided WoW and the like. Now, those two have been playing it, and I've been considering it.
At first, the tactical game play was intriguing. I hadn't played D&D minis - having avoided it because of my experiences with Chainmail and the first round of the Harbinger rules - until just recently, and while it was a new sensation, the game was interesting. But then the fights started dragging and becoming somewhat monotonous. All of this time taken up moving minis, plotting strategy for what could be quickly resolved with a "I move up and kill it". It came down to the only thing I really liked about 4E was it a designer's heaven for the DM, compared to just the previous incarnations headaches of putting together ad hoc high level encounters.
For me, 4E is comparable to games like Heroquest/Warhammer Quest and Descent, with a "campaign mode". I'm not against change; I've been through BECM D&D, 1E, 2E, 3E, and 3.5E, with little to no complaints. Since 4E's release I've tried a half-dozen systems from Castles & Crusades, Chronicles of Ramlar, Alternity and it's evolved offspring Serenity and my group has seemed to now have settled with Legends of the Five Rings - having started the 1st session with the 1E version of its rules, skipped through the 2E rulebooks I had and settled with using the 3E revised rules all within the space of about a month. My head is swimming with more rule systems than I ever thought possible. L5R is a game where drawing your sword is a method of last resort - one hit quite literally, is lethal. The game play focus, is therefore, very different. The range of opponents are mostly human varied only by clan. True monsters are rare, and the group has encountered only two - zombies and penagglan - so far. And my group has been having far more fun than we were with 4th, so that's were I'm going.
What makes me sad I'm leaving nearly 25 years of D&D gaming in my wake. My gaming group will probably pick up some 3.5 or 3.75 game along the way, but likely 4E will be something I only play with my 7-year-old son, on occasion, where the light mix of rules, tactical combat and balance is something I think he can easily catch on to, and might enjoy. And no, I'm not saying 4E is some nitwit's game for pre-adolescent children, but it is more of a (root) beer & pretzels game than previous editions, with the exception of the BECM rules, which was where I got my main start in D&D.
My 4th edition books now lie forlorn on my shelf of games.
When I first heard about 4E through the Gencon videos, my feelings were mixed. I wasn't ready to let go of 3E, but things like the character envisioneer and the promise that electronic versions of the books would be available post haste kept me interested. Still, books like Tome of Battle, the MM4 (and while better, MM5) and the second rounds of Completes had left a bad taste in my mouth and the acknowledgement that this was the way the game was heading made me uncomfortable.
I ended up preordering a copy of 4th, devouring it while in the midst of running Keep on the Shadowfell (which has my vote for worst D&D adventure short of the RPGA Turkey Drive adventure I was roped into back in the early 90's). The writing and layout of the PHB felt horrible - an echo I've heard elsewhere. The DMG felt empty for an old veteran for me; while something like p 42 would have been a nice feature back in earlier versions of the game, the DMG feels somewhat hollow with the absence of magic items. The MM was unusual - the brevity of information on monsters was both good and bad; while the skeletal approach of presenting stats & encounter groups allowed a great variety of monsters to be presented in a small amount of space, the missing ecologies and fanciful filling-out of the monster's place in the world is a bit hard for me to ignore.
I picked up the FRCS campaign book and was somewhat rankled to see a whole adventure filling up the front of the book before the travelogue-like entries of the Realms. While there was some interesting changes, what they've done to the poor Realms, makes me shake my head. It's like 5th age Dragonlance all over again...
Glancing through Adventurer's Vault, a lot of the stuff within its pages seemed like stuff that should have been in the PHB/MM (mounts), though with the already stuffed PHB, it's easy to see why it was put in a separate book. Still, Adventurer's Vault, to me, proves one thing. The D&D power system takes up too much space and are overall, too narrow in scope. I've seen other systems that have a wider breadth of options distilled down to far fewer pages. However, I'm fairly sure that things like powers will be an important part of D&D's future. The compact, almost collectible nature of powers and the resulting power cards will probably become part of the WotC D&D economy in the future; just like minis, I'd expect one day to see pre-printed power/item cards be sold either through WotC or 3rd parties as standard fare. Possibly even see the use of these cards incorporated into minis play.
I don't think its so much that D&D is a bad game, it's just not what I want to play. Its taken off in a direction I'm not eager to follow. And while I'm not interested in playing, it strangely hasn't kept me from designing "fill-back" material for the so-called missing 3E material. Strangely, it's also gotten me considering to get an account for WoW and play that..in that respect I think D&D's attempt to garner the MMO crowd failed for me, as before 4E I, and two others in my group, avoided WoW and the like. Now, those two have been playing it, and I've been considering it.
At first, the tactical game play was intriguing. I hadn't played D&D minis - having avoided it because of my experiences with Chainmail and the first round of the Harbinger rules - until just recently, and while it was a new sensation, the game was interesting. But then the fights started dragging and becoming somewhat monotonous. All of this time taken up moving minis, plotting strategy for what could be quickly resolved with a "I move up and kill it". It came down to the only thing I really liked about 4E was it a designer's heaven for the DM, compared to just the previous incarnations headaches of putting together ad hoc high level encounters.
For me, 4E is comparable to games like Heroquest/Warhammer Quest and Descent, with a "campaign mode". I'm not against change; I've been through BECM D&D, 1E, 2E, 3E, and 3.5E, with little to no complaints. Since 4E's release I've tried a half-dozen systems from Castles & Crusades, Chronicles of Ramlar, Alternity and it's evolved offspring Serenity and my group has seemed to now have settled with Legends of the Five Rings - having started the 1st session with the 1E version of its rules, skipped through the 2E rulebooks I had and settled with using the 3E revised rules all within the space of about a month. My head is swimming with more rule systems than I ever thought possible. L5R is a game where drawing your sword is a method of last resort - one hit quite literally, is lethal. The game play focus, is therefore, very different. The range of opponents are mostly human varied only by clan. True monsters are rare, and the group has encountered only two - zombies and penagglan - so far. And my group has been having far more fun than we were with 4th, so that's were I'm going.
What makes me sad I'm leaving nearly 25 years of D&D gaming in my wake. My gaming group will probably pick up some 3.5 or 3.75 game along the way, but likely 4E will be something I only play with my 7-year-old son, on occasion, where the light mix of rules, tactical combat and balance is something I think he can easily catch on to, and might enjoy. And no, I'm not saying 4E is some nitwit's game for pre-adolescent children, but it is more of a (root) beer & pretzels game than previous editions, with the exception of the BECM rules, which was where I got my main start in D&D.
Yeah the 4th ed Realms is like the Dragonlance 5th age all over again. I liked the Adventurers vault. Bit hard to read being basically an equipment book full of tables and hasd a bit of powercreep in it.
I updated the Jovar and posted it i hte CO boards to see if it was broken and most people thought it was. Its identical to the Fullblade in the adventurers vault except its 2d6 instead of d12.
The old Star Wars D6 had a powers based system for the force powers and skills and it seemed to work alright. We still play it whnever we do D6. Its not like 4th ed is badly designed just it could have been desigined better. Also suspect its gonna implode like 3.5 with glut of splatbook problems.
My 4th edition books now lie forlorn on my shelf of games.
When I first heard about 4E through the Gencon videos, my feelings were mixed. I wasn't ready to let go of 3E, but things like the character envisioneer and the promise that electronic versions of the books would be available post haste kept me interested. Still, books like Tome of Battle, the MM4 (and while better, MM5) and the second rounds of Completes had left a bad taste in my mouth and the acknowledgement that this was the way the game was heading made me uncomfortable.
I ended up preordering a copy of 4th, devouring it while in the midst of running Keep on the Shadowfell (which has my vote for worst D&D adventure short of the RPGA Turkey Drive adventure I was roped into back in the early 90's). The writing and layout of the PHB felt horrible - an echo I've heard elsewhere. The DMG felt empty for an old veteran for me; while something like p 42 would have been a nice feature back in earlier versions of the game, the DMG feels somewhat hollow with the absence of magic items. The MM was unusual - the brevity of information on monsters was both good and bad; while the skeletal approach of presenting stats & encounter groups allowed a great variety of monsters to be presented in a small amount of space, the missing ecologies and fanciful filling-out of the monster's place in the world is a bit hard for me to ignore.
I picked up the FRCS campaign book and was somewhat rankled to see a whole adventure filling up the front of the book before the travelogue-like entries of the Realms. While there was some interesting changes, what they've done to the poor Realms, makes me shake my head. It's like 5th age Dragonlance all over again...
Glancing through Adventurer's Vault, a lot of the stuff within its pages seemed like stuff that should have been in the PHB/MM (mounts), though with the already stuffed PHB, it's easy to see why it was put in a separate book. Still, Adventurer's Vault, to me, proves one thing. The D&D power system takes up too much space and are overall, too narrow in scope. I've seen other systems that have a wider breadth of options distilled down to far fewer pages. However, I'm fairly sure that things like powers will be an important part of D&D's future. The compact, almost collectible nature of powers and the resulting power cards will probably become part of the WotC D&D economy in the future; just like minis, I'd expect one day to see pre-printed power/item cards be sold either through WotC or 3rd parties as standard fare. Possibly even see the use of these cards incorporated into minis play.
I don't think its so much that D&D is a bad game, it's just not what I want to play. Its taken off in a direction I'm not eager to follow. And while I'm not interested in playing, it strangely hasn't kept me from designing "fill-back" material for the so-called missing 3E material. Strangely, it's also gotten me considering to get an account for WoW and play that..in that respect I think D&D's attempt to garner the MMO crowd failed for me, as before 4E I, and two others in my group, avoided WoW and the like. Now, those two have been playing it, and I've been considering it.
At first, the tactical game play was intriguing. I hadn't played D&D minis - having avoided it because of my experiences with Chainmail and the first round of the Harbinger rules - until just recently, and while it was a new sensation, the game was interesting. But then the fights started dragging and becoming somewhat monotonous. All of this time taken up moving minis, plotting strategy for what could be quickly resolved with a "I move up and kill it". It came down to the only thing I really liked about 4E was it a designer's heaven for the DM, compared to just the previous incarnations headaches of putting together ad hoc high level encounters.
For me, 4E is comparable to games like Heroquest/Warhammer Quest and Descent, with a "campaign mode". I'm not against change; I've been through BECM D&D, 1E, 2E, 3E, and 3.5E, with little to no complaints. Since 4E's release I've tried a half-dozen systems from Castles & Crusades, Chronicles of Ramlar, Alternity and it's evolved offspring Serenity and my group has seemed to now have settled with Legends of the Five Rings - having started the 1st session with the 1E version of its rules, skipped through the 2E rulebooks I had and settled with using the 3E revised rules all within the space of about a month. My head is swimming with more rule systems than I ever thought possible. L5R is a game where drawing your sword is a method of last resort - one hit quite literally, is lethal. The game play focus, is therefore, very different. The range of opponents are mostly human varied only by clan. True monsters are rare, and the group has encountered only two - zombies and penagglan - so far. And my group has been having far more fun than we were with 4th, so that's were I'm going.
What makes me sad I'm leaving nearly 25 years of D&D gaming in my wake. My gaming group will probably pick up some 3.5 or 3.75 game along the way, but likely 4E will be something I only play with my 7-year-old son, on occasion, where the light mix of rules, tactical combat and balance is something I think he can easily catch on to, and might enjoy. And no, I'm not saying 4E is some nitwit's game for pre-adolescent children, but it is more of a (root) beer & pretzels game than previous editions, with the exception of the BECM rules, which was where I got my main start in D&D.
You guys seem to be forgetting some very important facts: -No one has taken your previous edition books away from you, play the edition you like. -3.5 took waaay too long to set up, no DM should ever have to spend more than 2 hours making a campaign. -3.5 had the worst balance issues of any edition ever, how could you ever play a fun game when the game required you to break balance whenever you could? -4e tossed out all the garbage from the previous editions that made the game not fun, like dying suddenly. -Yes, people die suddenly in real life, but D&D is not about real life, so get over it. - -*random commentary*
You guys seem to be forgetting some very important facts: -No one has taken your previous edition books away from you, play the edition you like. -3.5 took waaay too long to set up, no DM should ever have to spend more than 2 hours making a campaign. -3.5 had the worst balance issues of any edition ever, how could you ever play a fun game when the game required you to break balance whenever you could? -4e tossed out all the garbage from the previous editions that made the game not fun, like dying suddenly. -Yes, people die suddenly in real life, but D&D is not about real life, so get over it. - -*random commentary*
We had alot of fun in 3.5. Wasn't to hard to ban the more extreme cheese in various splatbooks.
Balance isn't the be all and end of game design and 4th ed has more than a few issues here as well. I'vespent more than 2 hours making a campaign in both 3.5 and 4th ed. It was quicker to design a new class in 3.5 than 4th ed. A few hours to do my 3.5 Templar for Darksun, a few hours for the 1st 10 levels of Psion for said 4th ed Darksun Game.
4th ed is generally quicker to design several encounters and I actually pointed that out and praised it in my original post. I've also been here longer than you and don't feel like moving:P
Anyway I don’t think 4th ed is all that although there are some sheer brilliance. If it was so awesome or perfect I don’t think you would have the quantity or errata for it already or the quantity of “4th ed sucks” type posts this long after release. The 3rd ed sucks and 3.5 sucks posts didn’t linger this long and calmed down for the most part after a few weeks. I’ll try and identify why “nerdrage” on the boards has lasted so long. A big problem I think is that a large amount of posters have firmly entrenched themselves into the 3.5/4th ed sucks castles and have adopted a siege mentality. How dare people criticize the perfection that is 4th ed or how dare WoTC gut D&D like this.
I remember the time period mentioned very differently. You could say I have gone through this with several games, and inevitably the "Edition Wars" have the following life cycle. 6-12 months prior to release, as we get rumors and previews you see several types of poster. We have the "They are changing this rule, that sucks! This whole game is going to suck! I am going to scream about how it is going to suck until they release it, and then I will scream some more!" We also have the "WOTC sucks, damn corporation just wants to make money. Overcharge me for these books as it is. They should be half the price, and they should kiss my rear end for buying it." We also have the calm rational combination of the two claiming they won't judge it until it comes. I am sure there a plenty of other behaviors I could remember if I tried, but anyway you get the gist. This time period is followed by the storm (edition released). At this point almost all the vocal fence sitters jump on the I HATE THIS bandwagon. Now the initial heat of the edition wars lasts generally for a 3-6 month period. This heated period is when the opposing groups want to impale each other on blunt stakes, raid WOTC and draw and quarter the designers. Usually after the 3-6 month after release period we see a marked drop in the number of threads involving edition discussion, and by the end of the year you hear nothing except very occasionally. The 4E Edition War was past the heated immediate post release stage after 4-8 weeks. The threads in the forum involving this subject have actually decreased markedly, and the ones that are coming up are more discussion than rant. In all actuality this is a hell of lot quicker than the 3.5 switch, and similar to the 3E switch in time frame. This is actually pretty amazing considering the huge jump in internet access over the last 8 years, and the increase in board members. So in essence I would have to disagree with your assessment of the situation.
Going back a few months I was kinda excited about on the Friday at work as I knew my local FLGS had my copy of the core rules behind the counter waiting for me. I was looking forward to going home and reading the players handbook. It wasn’t the easiest read in the world and I struggled with it and had to reread certain sections. While reading the classes for example I had no idea what 2W+ XYZ effect was and I missed the bit at the start of the book where PCs get 100gp starting cash. I house ruled my PCs could start with 100gp each and was pleasantly surprised about the accuracy of my guess once I found the right paragraph a few days later. To this day I only have a vague idea of what some of the higher level powers are for most of the classes. I just can’t focus on them. To be fair I didn’t exactly read the 3.5 spell lists that closely either but they at least had a list of the spells at the start of the magic chapter with a short description of the spell. Also the spells weren’t that different from 2nd ed and I looked up most of the changed ones from 3.0. Spell lists were also more or less optional to read if you weren’t playing a spell caster sand I prefer to read 2-3 pages about a class than 15. Overall I found the PHB harder to read in 4th ed than all previous editions. Not overly impressed right off the bat.
I had the opposite reaction, as I always found the 3.x books harder to read because of the background radiation count. Often the text would blend into a bit of brown or tan in the background, it just was not good for me. I have also found the book much easier to use than 3.x, my book fu has grown quickly as I can now open the PHB to within 5 pages of what I need (I could never get it right with 3.x). Of course all of this is just personal preference.
I The 1st session we payed was really good and we all had a lot of fun including the DM. My PCs were joking about the amount of damage they were taking and making comments like “Screw this next time I’m playing a goblin” as they were smacked around by mostly goblins and were getting swarmed by large numbers of them- love those minions rules. The PCs included a Dragonborn and a Wizard so minions go bye bye without to much hassle.
Over the next couple of months we played several more times and the PCs were level 4 and we were starting to get bored. Combat was still fast and everything but it was degenerating into encounter power, encounter power, maybe daily, spam away with at wills until foe is dead. My PCs took on a solo white Dragon which while tough just took to damn long to die. 4-5 rounds of at wills gets boring very fast when you only have 2 of them to start with.
How is this any different than 3.x? Regardless I think 4e offers a much better platform for describing action even if you are using the same at-wills, the falling into the trap of repetition is indicative of a lack of role play occurring during combat. I am not saying you or your players don't role play I am merely saying that perhaps you were not during the combat. I have noticed this phenomena often, usually it is most prevalent when playing a new game.
The game also felt very forced and linear. Our characters are a Controller, Defender, Leader, or Striker. With a Fighter you have to use a melee weapon or suck. Also 4th ed’s design goals of balance didn’t seem to stack up as some races just seemed better than others (Dragonborn and Elf come to mind maybe Eladrin). While not only forcing you into the roles I suspect the game also forces you into role and race combination in order to be “optimal”. I suspect you will see a lot of Dragonborn Fighters and Paladins, Elf Clerics, Eladrin Swordmages, and Genasi Swordmages and Warlords in 4th eds games while humans kinda suck except maybe as wizards and warlords as some demihuman race will be plain out better than they are. 3.5 probably had crap elves, while 4th ed seems to continue the Elven fanboy overpowered fetish D&D has been since 1st ed or basic.
I really don't understand this statement. Humans are easily on par with the rest of the races. You get to pick your boosted stat, an additional at-will power, an additional feat, an additional skill, and a bonus to Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. All I have to say compared to the past "gimme". They are easily balanced to the other races, so I don't see any Elven fanboy overpowered fetishes coming up in this edition. In fact I would argue humans can be really good at any class where as other races have to be really careful to pick a class that is optimal in relation to their race.
4th ed is also broken I feel just like 3.5 just in different ways. So long as you can continue to heal faster than the monsters can damage you things should be alright. I suspect the perfect 5 member party should probably include a melee warlord, ranged cleric and then a controller/defender/striker/. A lot of the powers felt very similar and were virtually identical mechanically except they required a different stat for a different class. An example would be the Clerics healing word ability which is identical on the Warlord and Artificer classes and it just has a different name.
As long as you can heal faster than the monster has been true since the very beginning, except now you don't have to worry about having a save or die moment. Not to mention if you as a DM are really taking advantage of the new system and mindset, this never needs to be true.
As far as the powers being similar, identical, reflavored, well that is something you are gonna get in any system using a common framework. Without the common framework you would have massive fluctuations in power level. This is undesirable given 4th editions desgin goal of balancing classes. Plenty of other RPG's also use common frameworks to promote balance. If it something you don't like, well once again just personal preference.
4th ed also felt like it had a lot more emphasis on combat than in previous editions. While it doesn’t discourage rolepaying as such there isn’t that much to do outside combat mechanically. There’s less non combat skills and especially spells or in 4th ed rituals. It also didn’t really feel like previous editions of D&D due to the lack of vancian spellcasting and most of the classes don’t resemble their 3.5 or even 2nd ed counterparts in anything but name. To me 4th ed doesn’t resemble D&D as I’ve known it in any way, shape or form.
Lets see 25 pages in 3e for combat, 30 pages in 4e for combat in a larger font and less packed layout. I don't see the real difference. Vancian spellcasting or rather its model is staring you n the face in the form of powers. Well you do realize that neither of those editions resembled their 1e predecessors either. In my opinion this edition is much more like 1e than any of the prior editions in feel, and play style of course apparently your mileage does vary.
A few of the names are the same but wizards are now basically magic missile spambots, rogues suck at finding traps being out classed by clerics, rangers are no longer nature based warriors, you don’t really multi class anymore and will probably suck if you do due to lack of hands to hold all the implements or weapons you will need. No more great wheel makes me a sad panda.
I would rather have a magic missile spam bot than a crossbow spam bot. Your skills are no longer directly tied to your class, you can now have a mage thief, a fighter thief simply by picking up stealth & thievery. You don't need to multiclass anymore to be relevant, now it really is just flavor, and it is no longer the optimal choice it was previously. It is now much more than previously a class system like it originally was. The great wheel was something I was happy to see go, but I feel your pain.
Yes I liked Druids in 3.5 but I also liked them in all previous editions of the game an they were my favorite class while my girlfriend liked bards. The Druid was an overpowered pile in 3.5 and I usually ran variants from Unearthed Arcana but I feel the Bard and Druid should have been core at the expense of Warlock which is more of a splatbook class and Eladrin probably should have been in a splat as well and the gnome should have been in the PHB. Tradition is important in D&D. If they want to add more core classes and races go right ahead, just don’t cut any which will upset people. Not missing Barbarian, Monk, Sorcerer as much as they’ve never been in the core rules before 3rd ed except for Monk in 1st ed.
These are all coming back so not really an issue for me, much like the rest of your reasons. They are all clearly personal preference, and nothing anybody says is gonna change that for you. So I wish you luck in whatever you wind up playing. Try looking at things from a different perspective it might help you get over the differences.
