Community

Aug 28, 2009 -- 8:36PM, ChrisAsmadi wrote:

2) The classes with arbitary restrictions, coupled with the poor multiclassing system, meant that fewer concepts were playable in 4e compared to 3.5e. It was not possible to have, say, a rogue who used two cutlasses competantly, or a greataxe, or what have you, nor was it possible to make a true Gish. Did they add any feats to allow you to use whatever implements you wish and such to remedy this yet?

Some of the weapons restriction are designed for balance.  You seem to want to be able to use one of the best damaging abilities (Sneak Attack) with a high damaging weapon.  The rogue class allows you to use a low damaging weapon (dagger or short sword) with a high damaging ability.  If you want to use a higher damaging weapon, you'll have to settle for a lower damaging ability like Hunter's Quarry of the ranger.  The 3.5 days of monkey gripping twin great swords doing 7 attacks per round and adding 10d6 points of damage per attack are over.

I'm not sure what you mean by true gish.  There is a feat that allow you to use any arcane implement you want.

4) Another issue I had was that the Wizard especially was not very representative of a proper wizard, because it lacked proper representation of some of the major schools of magic (such as Illusions or Necromancy). Have these been added in, and if so, can you customise Illusions as you wish (so as to say, trick a foe with a fake wall or what have you)? In addition, I am especially curious as to whether or not summoners are in it yet, as my current character is one (Cloistered Cleric of Boccob/Malconvoker), and it's pretty fun.

There are more spells in arcane power that deal with illusions and summoning.

5) Alot of the classes, especially the Psionic ones, were missing. Did they add these yet?

I meant missing as in missing at the start of the edition.

You're being unfair with this comment about 4E considering Psionic classes were also missing at the start of 3E as well.  You should expect that over time, more and more classes will be available exactly as the did in 3E and 3.5.  Psionic classes will be available when PH3 comes out.  If you have DDI, you already have one build of the psion class.

I felt the multiclassing system was worse, because instead of being, say, an arcane trickster who blends thievery and magic properly, you're either a rogue with a few wizard tricks or a wizard with a few rogue tricks.

3E multiclassing is just as bad.  It is masked by the presence of prestige classes.  You pretty much had to have a prestige class for every single class combination.  If you try to multiclass a wizard/rogue without using prestige classes in 3E, it becomes much worse than 4E multiclassing.  Try playing a cleric/wizard in 3E (not 3.5 where they had the mystic theurge) and you will understand.

4E multiclassing allows you to add a second class's abilities without nerfing your character.  A 3E/3.5 wizard/rogue is a nerfed wizard and/or a nerfed rogue or both.  A 4E multiclassed wizard/rogue gives you thieving ability which you can do using the Mage Hand cantrip at-will.  A multiclassed rogue/wizard gives you access to wizard powers.  There are some very useful wizard utility spells for a rogue that you can get access to via multiclassing a the power swap feat.

There is no Arcane Trickster prestige class in 4E because it is not needed to make a multiclassed rogue/wizard or wizard/rogue be viable.  If you do not like the multiclassed combinations, there is the hybrid character rules that allows you to combine two classes differently.  Hybrid characters will be available in PH3.

Personally, I prefer morally grey characters, which is why most of them are Neutral, but limiting it to goody-goody characters is bad because it reduces options, and less options is bad.

There is nothing in 4E that prevents you from playing morally grey or evil characters.

How freeform are summons? Is it like 3.5e where you pick from a list, or does each spell summon the same creature each time.

Summon spells are specific to the spell.  The reason for this is you don't want the summoner player to have to do an afternoon of research to pick the perfect creature to deal with the encounter at hand.  Summons usually have the information of what the summoned creature does.  If you want the summonned creature to look different, there's no reason why you cannot reflavour a summonned wolf to a summonned panther.  All of the stats will just be the same.

Cutlasses were just slashing short swords anyway. Also, a ranger who takes thievery and other urban skills is an Urban Ranger, not a Rogue. He lacks what I feel is one of the main aspects of a rogue, Sneak Attack (aka stabbing people in the back while they're not looking). Also, hunter's quarry, while it would make sense for an assasin type rogue focused on killing one foe, doesn't particularly work well for an opportunist type rogue who stabs whoever he can, whenever he can.

If cutlasses are just slashing short swords, just use short swords and call them cutlasses.  That way you can sneak attack.  Take the two-weapon fighting feat to add extra damage.  If you want Twin Strike, you will have to paragon multiclass to a ranger.  Alternatively, you can be a ranger and multiclass to a rogue to get Sneak Attack.  You'll only get Sneak Attack once per encounter.

Note that multiple attack abilities are very, very powerful.  Sneak Attack is the the most damaging class feature.  If you want an at-will multiple attack power like Twin Strike and the ability to use Sneak Attack with that power at-will, you will need to paragon multiclass.

It's not. I'm talking about a specific 3.5e character here, and his skills could not be covered by a ranger, so, while his specific style of fighting (that of a pirate who stabbed people in the back with two cutlasses) might be covered under a ranger, his skills would not, as I would have to, presumably, take multiple feats to get (three infact, in order to get Thievery, Bluff and Intimidate) the relevant skills.

Keep in mind that there is no perfect conversion from 3.5 characters to 4E.  If your expectation is to be able to create a character in 4E exactly like your 3.5 character, you will be disappointed.  There are a variety of reasons for this.  4E is very different than 3.5.

Still you should be able to create a similar character with proper class/multiclass combinations and the use of a few feats and certain backgrounds for your character.  Isn't making a character that fits your character concept worth spending a few feats?

Using backgrounds sounds kinda dodgy, though. How widely used are they in games (or are they just variant stuff the odd person uses, like they were in 3.5e)?

We use them in our games.  It gives you either a skill bonus or allows you to choose trained skills not normally associated with your class.  I think it is very good at adding some depth to your character and gives players some additional flexibility in building their characters.  By no means are they overpowered.

As far as cosmology, they did publish a Manual of the Planes that you might want to check out.  Also, you may want to go back to the preview book Worlds and Monsters. IIRC, that had some info on the planes.  Neither of these will add new planes, but they do flesh out the ones there are more.

Don't expect too much detailed information though. The default D&D world in 4e is supposed to be basically a skeleton with few set features and not even really a name (commonly referred to as points of light, but that's more a concept than an actual name for the world). 

Also, I don't have them, but the various setting books may have more info on the planes in their respective campaign settings.

Aug 30, 2009 -- 3:30AM, ChrisAsmadi wrote:

It took less than a year for 3.5e Psionics to be released.

My main issue with the lack of classes is that, as well as the PHB having less classes, the sourcebooks themeselves have no classes at all.

Take, for example, Arcane Power (which I have seen a friend's copy of) -

Overall, it appeared to have a few variant class features, some prestige paths for each class and  some epic destinies, some new feats and a big new list of spells and a few new items and backgrounds.

Now, compare this to Complete Arcane, which had three new classes,  ninteen prestige classes, and then a list of feats, spells, items and background stuff.

This seems like overall less value to me, but there you go.

If the intention is to keep new classes entirely within setting books and Player's Handbooks, then they should really have released a Psionic Player's Handbook or something already.

3.5 and 4e are different systems. Either you can accept that, and play 4e, accept that and play 3.5, not accept that and waste your time posting on the 4e boards, or not accept that and post on the 3.5 boards. Simple as that.

Aug 30, 2009 -- 4:04AM, Leichenreiter wrote:

As others have mentioned, it is currently being cooked up for early next year, PHB3. Maybe you want to make a fair comparison and compare it with the original Psionic Handbook for 3rd Edition, not the remake that already had most of the groundwork done.

A quick bit of Googling gives a time between the 3.0 PHB and the 3.0 Psionics Handbook at about eight months (Aug 00 to March 01).

Hey, if you want to see what is going on with psionics, just get a DDI subscription, they have already shown it to those people. It's pretty interesting.