But my first impression so far is that the big picture got lost along the way. This isn't a role playing game - it's a miniatures combat board game.
That's an easy mistake to make, but it is a mistake. 4e presents it's rules in a more coherent manner, with fluff and mechanics neatly separated. That makes it a less inspiring read, perhaps, but it doesn't make it any less an RPG - in fact, it helps make it a /better/ RPG, since you have less wrangling over what rules mean.
The rules seem to be ENTIRELY focused on combat. ie The hypnosis spell does damage. Clerics get a spell to create water, but nothing to create food. The wizard's flying spell only lasts for one combat turn - good enough for an attack, but not to actually go anywhere. The range on the teleportation spell is measured in squares, rather than miles - again, useful in combat, but not for actual transportation.
4e separated non-attack spells into combat-useful/useable 'utilities' and strictly-non-combat 'rituals.' If you've only checked out the Essentials products, you've missed the rituals entirely. Things like long-distance teleportation, overland flight, divination, and a few of the old 'useful' spells, like Tenser's Floating Disk or Unseen Servant, are handled as Rituals. They're in the PH1 and a number of other books. You can also look them up in the CB or Compendium.
At one point in the 3rd encounter, I was debating if I should use my daily power or save it for later, and I was told by one of the other players that sessions are always exactly 3 encounters long, so there's no point saving the daily stuff once you reach the 3rd. Huh???
That's a stylistic thing. I was (briefly) in a 3.5 game that was paced that way, too. Three encounters every session, every session was a 'day,' last encounter was always the toughest. Not the stuff of legends.
I recall seeing a "review" by some blogger who's supposed to be all good and whatnot. Jerkhole had this really annoying "sonic screwdriver" wannabe, but the crux of his hate on 4e was that...when he sat down and read the book in his FLGS (really carefully, he said!) he was like, "Huh?"
So, yeah, he was hating on it, and he didn't even play it. Just read the PHB, and as we all know, reading 4e when you're not used to it isn't exactly riviting.
I guess my two bugbears were the crusade for balance that made minion necromancers not exist and the issue of the war on fluff.
The necromancer thing has been long discussed, so i wont go into that, but i will go into the fluff one here as i think it has more widespread support and a more profound impact on the game as a whole.
I`ll start with - Where is Ravenloft?
Follow up with - What the heck is "points of light"?
and end with - Why was the realms mangled for the sake of crunch?
The only good thing to come out of all this was that Eberron managed to get out largely unscathed. A lot of players would have been a great deal more accepting of 4th edition if it wasnt so bland and empty. It became so divorced from fluff that it was like playing monopoly and saying "you can roleplay it, whats the problem?".
I think that 4th edition works well as a cinematic combat system with roleplay elements, but without decent fluff backup, the spark is gone. Pathfinder didnt just sell itself on rules, it had some amazing, gritty settings that really got the imagination going and imagination is what this is all about.
I really really tried to switch to 4e. I ran release day adventures, and converted huge ammounts of people. (3 or 4 game groups, and brought new people to the hobby) Sometime between phb2 and 3 I started fading, and growing dissatisfied. PHB 3 was the last ditch effort to try to enjoy the game, and when that got stale after 2 or three months I moved on. (PHB 3 had a lot of promise). I still do the occasional pick up game, low level one shots and stuff, but if I get a say in the system I have other fantasy ones I push for now.
5e comments and thoughts all in one place. Check it out to provide feedback, mock, or steal ideas. http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/28835423/Krusks_5e_Design_Goals?sdb=1
I recall seeing a "review" by some blogger who's supposed to be all good and whatnot. Jerkhole had this really annoying "sonic screwdriver" wannabe, but the crux of his hate on 4e was that...when he sat down and read the book in his FLGS (really carefully, he said!) he was like, "Huh?"
So, yeah, he was hating on it, and he didn't even play it. Just read the PHB, and as we all know, reading 4e when you're not used to it isn't exactly riviting.
Bleh. Why, Herro, would you want to inflict that on other people? I mean, I guess its edifying that they can see his eruption of ignorence, but still....
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade." "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all." -Kipling
Defenders: We ARE the wall!
I've replaced the previous Edition Warring line in my sig with this one, because honestly, everybody needs to work together to make the D&D they like without trampling on somebody else's D&D.
Miss d20 Modern? Take a look at Dias Ex Machina Game's UltraModern 4e!
I recall seeing a "review" by some blogger who's supposed to be all good and whatnot. Jerkhole had this really annoying "sonic screwdriver" wannabe, but the crux of his hate on 4e was that...when he sat down and read the book in his FLGS (really carefully, he said!) he was like, "Huh?"
So, yeah, he was hating on it, and he didn't even play it. Just read the PHB, and as we all know, reading 4e when you're not used to it isn't exactly riviting.
Bleh. Why, Herro, would you want to inflict that on other people? I mean, I guess its edifying that they can see his eruption of ignorence, but still....
I just love how one of his big points is "What??! Wizards is trying to sell you more books to make money?... Well other people do it too..."
Its like he doenst understand that while this hobby has it's noble people doing it just for the love of the game... that money does drive it.
Never Point a loaded party at a plot you are not willing to shoot.
I may be somewhat intoxicated, but the idea that 3e fights would be any quicker/more exciting than 4e fights makes me laugh.
....Well, I guess that the Wizard/Cleric/Druid/Spellcaster could press the, "I Win" button......
My experience is in fact that it is quicker at low levels. Its the higher levels where things get really long in 3.5 and that is mainly because it becomes critical to create a 'buff list' with 9 spells that are cast on averyone (modify your characters as appropreate) and then a lot of looking through rule books scrutinizing sentences to try and figure out exactly how it is that spell X interacts with magic item Y when spell Z is already in play. Its damn robust so if you do scrutinize the exact wording carefully enough and look up the appropreate keywords it all resolves out but it can eat up game time.
My experiene with 4E ha been sorta kinda the opposite. It starts off pretty slow and it would speed up due simply to practice but at about the same speed your getting faster at playing the game is getting at least a bit more complex. In particular your doing more with your actions. Instread of just making a move you know use your move action to use a movement based power. Instead of just sitting waiting for you next turn you have this interupt which lets you stop play and get another action - that sort of thing.
Now I have no complaints about this since I like the complex combats but it has meant that our average combat has held steady at about an hour and 10 minutes.
Also note that I was comparing combat speed of 4e vs 1e, and I've only played 4e at first level so far.
Back in 1e, most weapons had similar base damage to what they have today, but only one or two members of the group had double digit hit points. That goes for the monsters, too. We'd face 8 orcs with 5 hp each, and without miniatures and all the extra combat powers that you have today, it would be the couple of fighter types up front hitting with melee weapons for d8 or d10 damage, while the rest of the group stood in back throwing ranged weapons (including magic-users throwing daggers), and the whole thing would resolve in two rounds of combat - maybe 5-10 minutes. When you got to the "boss" monster, that's when your spell casters would use their daily spells, and you might have to pay closer attention to everyone's positioning in the room, so those fights might take 20 minutes. We'd frequently go through a whole published module, playing out 15-20 encounters, in a single session of 5-6 hours.
At higher levels, things could take longer, just because the players had more powers to figure out, and the monsters had more hit points, though your magic-users were usually throwing lightning or fireballs by then.
Eh, I think some of this can be accounted for by our tendency to remember things differently than they happened. Consider 5 orcs and a level 1 party. Your 1e orc has an AC of 6 and a level 1 fighter hits on a 14 vs AC 6. So basically you will hit 2/3 of the time, and on average lets say 2/3 of hits kill, so 2 1e fighters (the numbers are pretty much the same for 2e) will kill on average 1 orc per round. Assuming the orcs don't knock anyone out and the MU doesn't loose a spell then maybe the rogue, the cleric, and the magic user between them might off another orc per round, so 3-4 rounds at least, maybe more if there are complications, probably call it 5 rounds average to finish the combat, and chances are someone or other will go down, making it a bit longer. A 4e fight with 5 level 1 monsters (goblins or kobolds in 4e) is likely to last 5 rounds as well. The 1e combat IME will take 30 minutes or so, though it could be less if the magic user blows his sleep spell. The 4e combat SHOULD take around 45 minutes to an hour, though I've certainly seen people do these kinds of fights in 30 minutes. OTOH in the 4e fight you'll do a lot more. PCs can use skills and perform stunts, use their encounter powers, and even unleash a daily, use action points, etc. The Wizard character won't be chucking daggers ineffectually or else blowing out his one spell of the day either, he can fire away with Magic Missle or Hypnotic Strands etc, and likewise the cleric will be making attacks and using Healing Word, etc. I'd also say that in an abstract sense this isn't a really super interesting 4e fight. In reality a decently designed encounter will probably have some fun things, maybe a pit, some kind of hazard/trap, maybe some kind of terrain that the PCs can use to their advantage (pillars to hide behind, rocks to push on the enemy, some furniture to jump on or toss around, etc).
1e certainly could have those things as well, but there's a difference in philosophy here. 5 orcs in a room in 1e is a throw-away type encounter meant to suck up a few resources and not much else. 1e throws 2-3 cheap encounters at you, 4e throws 1 more intense encounter at you in the same timeframe. So 4e tends to be more episodic with each encounter wanting to be 'high value'. It is just a different theory on how to pace things. Note that you can modulate things a lot in 4e as well. You can always throw a few minions at the party for instance for a fast 1 or 2 round 'atmosphere' kind of fight, or have an encounter that starts out as an easy thing with a few minions or a couple weak standard monsters, and then have some more show up in say round 3-4, so you get the sort of quick blow them away in 10 minutes kind of thing at the beginning and then open up another tactical situation without having a rest, etc.
Anyway, again IME, once you start hitting mid-level 1e fights weren't really particularly faster than 4e fights are. As others have said, 4e fights really should stick to around 1 hour apiece pretty well up into high levels, with maybe a really extraordinary fight taking a couple hours. 1e or 2e fights are pretty similar by then. The characters have a few capabilities (at least some potions, probably a few items, and 4-5 spells per caster). Again, you do get quicker resolution of the 'foregone conclusion' type fights, but again you really shouldn't HAVE those in 4e, they're kind of a waste. At least they should present real fun tactical situations that deserve the hour they get. Serious AD&D fights, they'll still take an hour. There will be spell casting to be decided on and resolved, monsters that can take 3-4 hits to kill on average, etc.
As for RPing, every edition of D&D is an RPG. Definitely if it is missing in a 4e game the issue is really about the same as in an AD&D game. 4e certainly gives you more explicit rules and resources to use in non-combat play than AD&D did. Honest, aside from spells, there was VERY little for most PCs in AD&D, especially 1e. Thieves had some thief abilities, rangers could track and cast a few spells, paladins could detect evil and cast a few spells, fighters got nothing at all until 9th level (followers). 2e let you pick NWPs if you used that rule, but there still wasn't a lot of mechanical support for non-combat stuff. I think people just get fixated on combat because it is easy for the DM to set it up, and it works reliably, so it is a simple fallback for the DM to drop in another fight. Fights in 1e especially were pretty dicey affairs with a lot of random PC death, so they were either trivially easy soaker fights, or the big deal. It was easier in 1e to drop in some trap or trick or something instead. I think what it boils down to is it really helps a lot in 4e to have a DM that has a decent sense of what will really make the adventure fun and well-paced.
I know for instance I've run 4e adventures that ranged from almost pure combat and puzzle/trap solving to ones that were almost entirely sneaking, negotiating, a smattering of thematic fights, and LOTS of intensive RP/social situations. Both types seemed to work equally well. I expect you'll find 4e and PF aren't THAT much different overall. PF is more like older D&D mechanically, 4e goes a lot further towards making PCs equally capable. Both games have actually done a number of similar things relative to 3.5. They both simplify the skill system, give melee characters more options, cut back some on certain problematic types of effects, and generally streamline rules where possible. I would say 4e did a better job at those things, but then again I'm biased...
I've played 4E since it's been out and agree with BlueGhost. I think 4E is a really good tabletop wargame. I would have absolutely no reservations about filling the table up with a Dwarven Forge maze, sticking a handful of pre-gen PC's at the entrance and playing a six hour afternoon game of 'recover the sparkling whatsit hidden in this tomb' - kind of along the lines of Space Hulk or the old Dungeon game.
As far as a vehicle for a sustained story or exploring a fantasy world, no thanks. I am currently reading through the various Old-School clones on the market to find something more to my liking.
In all its old edition materials that can still be used with little effort. Really if they thought it would sell enough to warrent the dev and printing costs it would have been out a while ago.
As far as a vehicle for a sustained story or exploring a fantasy world, no thanks.
Why?
Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade." "Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall, "But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all." -Kipling
Defenders: We ARE the wall!
I've replaced the previous Edition Warring line in my sig with this one, because honestly, everybody needs to work together to make the D&D they like without trampling on somebody else's D&D.
Miss d20 Modern? Take a look at Dias Ex Machina Game's UltraModern 4e!
