1) D&D meets WoW This is probably my biggest complaint about 4E. It feels like a tabletop video game. I have a character that has powers that can be used once per turn, once per encounter, and once per day. Not unlike having powers in a videogame that have to have time to regenerate. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy video games, but I don't like the feel that the current edition has that feels more like a videogame than an RPG.
note that "daily recharge" powers have been with D&D from day one via vancian casting. heck, simply rereading the druid entry of my 1st Edition AD&D book gives me this line
"At 7th level (initiate of the 5th Circle) the following additional powers are gained: 1... 2.Ability to change form up to three times per day, actually becoming, in all respects save teh mind, a reptile, bird or mammal."
so even in 1st edition you had powers with daily uses... now, i don't know about old World of Darkness, but i know the new one has abilities that last an entire scene (ie: an encounter). the main reason for the change between "adventuring day" to "encounter-based" is kinda obvious when you think about it: encounter-based recharges gives players abilities they want to use, rather then simply hoard them until the time is right.
so how is 1st edition with it's daily recharge powers so radically different then 4th ed with it's encounter recharge powers that only the latter is "video game-y"?
2) Magic Items My second biggest gripe. I'm an old-school gamer. I recall the days when your characters found a magical sword and everyone spent the entire evening wondering what properties it might have. In 4E, anyone with the Arcana skill can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the weapon in ten minutes. To me, that sucks some of the fun out of the game. It also precludes the possibilities of things like cursed weapons (remember those?).
i don't know if you can call me old-school (i've cut my teeth on 2nd ED AD&D at age 12ish about 14 years ago) but i don't remember those magic items being things of wonder. i remember them being "who uses daggers" then an annoying trial & error period until someone yelled for the DMs mom so she would tell him to give us the actual properties of it.
yes i do remember cursed items. i also remember how everyone minus the [entirely not polite expellitive] DM who used them hated them. good riddance for bad rubbish. if you really want to make a cursed item, do it proper like in actual mythology:
-read up on the artifact rules in the DMG. you'll notice that some of the artifacts, like the eye and hand of vecna have an end result of "you die". -think up your curse, it's history and the lore on how to remove it. -apply it onto an existing item -at this point use concordance: if it reaches "pleased" the curse is lifted and the character has his neat weapon, if "angered" then the full extent of the curse bears down on the character
there, i used existing rules to make cursed item generation in a method that isn't "be a dick"
On a similar note, I also dislike the idea that the players can build a "shopping list" which they give to the GM to be sown into the adventures. It reduces finding magical goodies to a case of, "Oh, boots of the eladrin. Didn't the rogue want those?" Remember when there was dicing to see who would ge the magical cloak and you didn't even know what it did yet?
yes and like the old cursed items, good riddance to bad rubbish. in a recent adventure a buddy of mine ran (3rd ed) d'you know how many items we actually kept for ourselves? the +2 ring of protection. the gist was nothing more then a bunch of masterwork leathers and rapiers, and the only person who cared for the rapiers had a magic one. the rest was forgettable. someone joked that we could have built that sword throne from a Game of Thrones but with rapiers instead.
that was a silly thing to say but it's something i've run across often: treasure that simply acts an easier to carry version of gold... no one wants or cares for it. so it gets sold for items we actually do care about.
there is nothing interesting about finding the 12th pair of "bracers of armor +1".
as for the "shopping list" it exists entierly to give the GM an idea of what kind of items the players would be excited to find. it doesn't need to be exact, but give the barbarian a break... is there absolutely no way you can include an N+1 Greataxe for him?
Then there's the fact that it is expected that the characters will have a certain amount of treasure by a certain level, and if they don't then they are underpowered. This makes it difficult to hide treasures and magical items, because if they are overlooked, then the characters miss out on something they should have received to keep the game balanced. If, for example, the orcs are using the staff of fire as a spit for roasting their suckling pig, it could easily be overlooked when searching the lair.
i never saw the point of introducing elements into the story you don't expect people to interact with. i cannot understand how one could consider elements like that good design. you're rewarding players not for actually playing the game put infront of them (especially if you expect them to act in-character) but to play the game of "guess what the DM is thinking".
And whose idea was it to give magic items daily uses? Did the One Ring only allow Frodo to be invisible for ten minutes between each extended rest? (Okay, it was an artifact, and the rules are different for them.) But really, it just adds to the videogame feeling that I mentioned earlier.
as you said, the one ring was an artifact. now, i know many 3rd ed items had daily uses and i know 2nd ed had the odd item, like the spider cloak (i think that's what it was called) that let the wearer use Web once a day. daily uses of items is nothing new.
Lastly (on this subject), magical items in my campaigns have always been rare and wondrous things. If a character got a +1 sword, it meant something! That sword was manufactured by someone for someone or some specific purpose. It had a history and a reason for existing. In 4E, there are magical sweatshops full of wizards cranking out hundreds of magical goodies each day. Magic has become disposable. Doubtless somewhere in the Realms, there is a huge landfill brimming with old +1 weapons.
welcome to 3rd edition. now, remember that for all the posturing that "+1 swords are special", they're still required in 1st ed, especially against monsters who had the delightful "SPECIAL ABILITY: requires a +X weapon or greater to hit" line and all that history only means something if the player or character actually cares about it.
there is NOTHING stopping you from placing items with histories in the game. thinking otherwise is entirely an issue with you and not the game.
yes the game expects you to have +X items at certain points throughout the game. there are ways around that limitation. the easiest, is to use the Inherent bonuses found in both the DMG2 and Dark Sun sourcebook. this removes the + magic from weapons and makes it an inherent bonus to be based off character level. this gives the GM an easier time by using the effects of the magic weapon as a descriptor.
to give an example, let's make "Flametongue" a weapon used by an elvish prince to slay a red dragon who was terrorizing his village, coming down every decade or so to raze the forest and cull the herd. when he stabbed the beast in the heart, his blade became inbued with burning hatred of the beast and only a true hero (IE:a PC) can bring out it's full potential.
mechanically, however, it's a Flaming Sword who's properties are based off the character's inherent bonuses.
the tools are there, all you have to do is ask.
3) Encounter-driven Expeditions Again, I'm an old school gamer. I remember extended underground expeditions where characters would be so long out of the sunlight that it hurt when they came back to the surface. While such is certainly possible in 4E, the game isn't designed for it. On average, characters should go up a level every 8-12 encounters. Can you imagine trying to play through the Caves of Chaos? They would overshoot the upper limit of the adventure in the first three caverns! Oh, but it can be done. After all, Wizards did it with the Encounters program. True, but how much did they have to write out of that in order to make it fit within the format? Why are rations and water even a concern in the new rules? In a typical adventure, characters will be home in time for dinner at the local tavern.
i mentionned it before, but daily-based adventuring is harder to work with then encounter-based as a GM, especially with pacing and resource management. i don't remember the caves themselves being a pinnacle of good adventure design. mostly just a boring dungeoncrawl.
also note that when converting a module from one edition to another, yes you will make a few conceits. then again, i would never run a dungeoncrawl since those tend to bore me. room > orcs > fight > repeat... and you say 4th ed is like a videogame? :P
4) Roleplaying Diminished This is going to start an argument, I know it, but I'm putting it in here anyway. When cries of, "The fighter rushes the group of orcs shouting, 'Die, pig-faces!'" are replaced with cries of "Move me up 3 squares. I charge and make a basic melee attack against the lead orc while spending a minor action to blast the second rank with dragon's breath," something is wrong. The game has become more like a board game than a role-playing game, with the use of miniatures almost mandatory. What happened to using your imagination? It's just that the game seems more... mechanical... to me now.
i'm sorry 4th ed made combat mechanically engaging rather then a chore, thus breaking your imagination. you have my condolences. in a less condencending tone, i don't remember every fight in 2nd edition being amateur theater night. most of the time it simply was "Fighter goes up to orc, swings... i hit ThAC0 of 3, does that connect? 1d10+4 damage"
i also remember using minis in 2nd edition because they simply told everyone, without a shadow of a doubt, where everyone is. i think what happened is that the game finally embraced using visual aids, like minis and maps, to make it so everyone is imagining the same thing rather then have the GM adjudicate everyone else's imagination to stop the bickering of "what do you mean i'm inside Thadderick's fireball radius?"
5) Power Struggles To me, there seems to be some disparity between the classes. I run two different groups. One of them has a psion that is a continual thorn in my side. He only has one offensive power, but he can augment it to the point of ridiculousness. Worse still, he has a feat or something that allows him to slide creatures as a free action, at will! He continually throws my monsters up against walls and one another and wants them to take damage from the impact (which is not covered in the rules).
no game can have everything covered by the rules, though if you want to use impact here are a few options: 1) use the falling rules 2) page 42 for ad-hoc'ing actions 3) "no you git, stop trying to do that. a slight shove does not deal damage."
as for disparity, previous editions had it MUCH worse... the options available to casters far outranked anything available to non-casters
6) Powers That Don't Add Up Here's another one from a real-life example: Both groups have a bard in them. The bards makes good use of Viscious Mockery. But how does this power work against mindless undead? Or unintelligent creatures? Or beings that can't understand the language of the bard? And there are other powers that don't make sense when applied to certain circumstances, either. Timely Distraction comes to mind. If a zombie likely to turn and look because you pretend to spot an owlbear? It seems unlikely to me.
everything has some level intelligence in 4th ed so there is no "mindless" anything. how it works is entirely up to the GM and player to decide via roleplay rather then simply making blanket "no you can't" statements. 4th ed is a game that enables you. it's prone to saying "yes, and..." rather then a curt "no". your descriptions could be serious "my bard's vicious mockey echoes to the former life of the zombie, causing him to gain a moment of insanity as he realizes what he is" or silly "Wearing (dirtied) white after labor day? fashion faux-pas!".
talk it over with your player and let your imagination take over, rather then have the game imagine it for you.
"All right, I've been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back. GET MAD! I DON'T WANT YOUR **** LEMONS! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?! DEMAND TO SEE LIFE'S MANAGER! Make life RUE the day it thought it could give CAVE JOHNSON LEMONS! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I'M THE MAN WHO'S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that's gonna BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!" -Cave Johnson, Portal 2
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
That is of course just my personal data point.
Ever try having less combats? I agree that combats take longer (compared to 2e and lower, on average) so why not have more roleplaying opportunity, and more way to avoid combats? Last night, it took my party about 45min to finish an encounter (level+1 at 4th level) but a scene that COULD have turned into a fight (A Templar looking for hidden goods) turned into a complete roleplaying encounter that took a little more than the combat did. Overall, it was really enjoyable both ways. It just about letting the players find combat themselves, not always having combat find them.
1) D&D meets WoW This is probably my biggest complaint about 4E. It feels like a tabletop video game. I have a character that has powers that can be used once per turn, once per encounter, and once per day. Not unlike having powers in a videogame that have to have time to regenerate. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy video games, but I don't like the feel that the current edition has that feels more like a videogame than an RPG.
Other than the fact that all characters get the three types of powers (except for newer builds), how is this different than older versions of D&D? The Fighter had at-will attacks, the Cleric and Wizard had daily powers. D&D has always felt like a video game, because RPG video games have always been based off of D&D. Over time, D&D also began to take good ideas from video games. The distinction is the same as it has always been: when you play an in person RPG, there is a lot more freedom. You get to interact with the environment in whatever way you can imagine. (Plus you get to sit around with your friends and make jokes while eating good snacks). That said, if giving everyone the same assortment of powers isn't your cup of tea, check out the newer builds. Martial classes once more have no daily powers (and the encounter powers are very limited in scope), while the Wizards have a full assortment of cool powers.
2) Magic Items My second biggest gripe. I'm an old-school gamer. I recall the days when your characters found a magical sword and everyone spent the entire evening wondering what properties it might have. In 4E, anyone with the Arcana skill can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the weapon in ten minutes. To me, that sucks some of the fun out of the game. It also precludes the possibilities of things like cursed weapons (remember those?).
You can still do this: just houserule that you can't identify magic items with the Arcana skill, and add in an Identify ritual. Also, cursed items are back; check out the new book of magic items.
On a similar note, I also dislike the idea that the players can build a "shopping list" which they give to the GM to be sown into the adventures. It reduces finding magical goodies to a case of, "Oh, boots of the eladrin. Didn't the rogue want those?" Remember when there was dicing to see who would ge the magical cloak and you didn't even know what it did yet?
So don't use wishlists. There isn't a rule that says you have to; it is simply a suggestion to help new DMs give out usable and desired items. I don't use wishlists at all. But even if you do use them, you still have control over how you roleplay it. Rather than saying, "Oh, [magic item A], didn't [character x] want these?", you can say, "Wow, [magic item A]! Who wants this one?" In other words, don't break the 4th wall. The players know about the wish list, but the characters don't.
Then there's the fact that it is expected that the characters will have a certain amount of treasure by a certain level, and if they don't then they are underpowered. This makes it difficult to hide treasures and magical items, because if they are overlooked, then the characters miss out on something they should have received to keep the game balanced. If, for example, the orcs are using the staff of fire as a spit for roasting their suckling pig, it could easily be overlooked when searching the lair.
This is a tricky one, but I think it comes down to this: there is no point to having hidden stuff unless the characters find it. I know as a DM I get very sad when I build in something hidden and give what I think are plenty of clues, only to have my players completely fail to find it. The point of the game is to have the characters find treasure, not to say, "Ha ha, get a load of all the stuff you missed!" at the end of the session. But (as always), it is easy to work around this if you like hidden treasures that reward players for taking a closer look at the environment. As the DM, simply have several options for the location of treasure parcels. So, to take your example, the characters' first chance at getting the staff is when the encounter the orcs. If they don't find it there, they could find it among some brooms in the Wizard's entry chamber. If they don't find it there, the Wizard will be wielding it when they face him at the end.
And whose idea was it to give magic items daily uses? Did the One Ring only allow Frodo to be invisible for ten minutes between each extended rest? (Okay, it was an artifact, and the rules are different for them.) But really, it just adds to the videogame feeling that I mentioned earlier.
You answered your own question here. Magic items that have constant and powerful effects would actually be artifacts. They are potentially game breaking items that should be used with care. But a lesser ring, that can turn you invisible once per day, is still a special thing. It is something your character could never do without the ring. I don't understand how this relates at all to video games. And again, you can fix this if you want. Make magic items useable as much as you want (would once per encounter work?).
Lastly (on this subject), magical items in my campaigns have always been rare and wondrous things. If a character got a +1 sword, it meant something! That sword was manufactured by someone for someone or some specific purpose. It had a history and a reason for existing. In 4E, there are magical sweatshops full of wizards cranking out hundreds of magical goodies each day. Magic has become disposable. Doubtless somewhere in the Realms, there is a huge landfill brimming with old +1 weapons.
I wasn't aware of these "magical sweatshops". In fact, magic items are (as they have been throughout the history of D&D) available according to what the DM says. If I tell my players that Tiny Town A has no magic items for sale, and not enough money to buy their old gear, there is nothing they can do about it. There is no page in the rules that says you can buy and sell gear anywhere. If you want to make magic items rare, you can do so (check out the optional rules for inherant bonuses).
3) Encounter-driven Expeditions Again, I'm an old school gamer. I remember extended underground expeditions where characters would be so long out of the sunlight that it hurt when they came back to the surface. While such is certainly possible in 4E, the game isn't designed for it. On average, characters should go up a level every 8-12 encounters. Can you imagine trying to play through the Caves of Chaos? They would overshoot the upper limit of the adventure in the first three caverns! Oh, but it can be done. After all, Wizards did it with the Encounters program. True, but how much did they have to write out of that in order to make it fit within the format? Why are rations and water even a concern in the new rules? In a typical adventure, characters will be home in time for dinner at the local tavern.
As you say, nothing is stopping you. As long as you build in places for safe extended rests, you can have the characters in a dungeon as big as you can imagine. Having characters gain a level after a certain number of defeated monsters is not new to 4E. I know this was true in 2nd and 3rd edition, and I assume it was true also for earlier editions.
4) Roleplaying Diminished This is going to start an argument, I know it, but I'm putting it in here anyway. When cries of, "The fighter rushes the group of orcs shouting, 'Die, pig-faces!'" are replaced with cries of "Move me up 3 squares. I charge and make a basic melee attack against the lead orc while spending a minor action to blast the second rank with dragon's breath," something is wrong. The game has become more like a board game than a role-playing game, with the use of miniatures almost mandatory. What happened to using your imagination? It's just that the game seems more... mechanical... to me now.
This is true (that fights are more mechanical). This means that everyone (players and DM) know exactly what happens when Bob describes his Fighter's actions. I remember saying, "My fighter charges in..." followed by many minutes of arguing with the DM about where exactly each orc was, where I could charge to, etc. There is nothing stopping you from describing your actions during combat in creative ways; the grid simply allows you to do that while also making everything clear. It isn't a black and white issue; roleplaying vs. mechanical. My players all describe their actions and rarely even use the name of the power past the first couple of uses (so that everyone gets used to the description). For example, you could say, "I charge the lead orc while yelling, 'Die, pig-faces!' Have me move up 3 squares and then charge the lead orc." Note that this works the same way as how the DMG suggests DMs give out information regarding monster powers: first colorful description to set the mood, then the mechanics to make everything clear. To sum up: the roleplaying is what YOU bring to the game, not something found between the covers of a book. Think back to what YOU did back in the olden days that made the roleplaying so much fun, and then do it again.
5) Power Struggles To me, there seems to be some disparity between the classes. I run two different groups. One of them has a psion that is a continual thorn in my side. He only has one offensive power, but he can augment it to the point of ridiculousness. Worse still, he has a feat or something that allows him to slide creatures as a free action, at will! He continually throws my monsters up against walls and one another and wants them to take damage from the impact (which is not covered in the rules).
This isn't anything new to 4E. "Stuff the Rules Don't Cover" has been a fun part of the game ever since it first came out (I assume). For this case, you have three options: 1) Don't allow it to deal damage, which is Rules as Written. 2) Have it deal a small amount of damage (say, 1d6), but only for hitting them against blocking terrain. If the forced movement was enough to deal damage, the power would have it built in (some do). 3) Have it deal a lot of damage (say, 1d6 per square moved). This will lead to your players optimizing for forced movement. In all cases, it should work the same for PCs and monsters.
6) Powers That Don't Add Up Here's another one from a real-life example: Both groups have a bard in them. The bards makes good use of Viscious Mockery. But how does this power work against mindless undead? Or unintelligent creatures? Or beings that can't understand the language of the bard? And there are other powers that don't make sense when applied to certain circumstances, either. Timely Distraction comes to mind. If a zombie likely to turn and look because you pretend to spot an owlbear? It seems unlikely to me.
You have to separate the name of the power (and the printed fluff) from the mechanics. The bard doesn't have to actually mock the target. In fact, the bard doesn't even have to vocalize anything. All that has to happen (if the bard hits) is that the target takes psychic damage and a -2 penalty. This means that it will be effective against anything without resistance or immunity to psychic damage. Note that undead are no longer mindless, and so you can blast them all you want with psychic damage. If you don't like this (you should be getting tired of hearing me say this by now): CHANGE IT. Don't complain that the system is ruining your game, just change the system to fit your style. That is what we have always done with D&D.
Don't misunderstand me. While I feel that there are several problems with 4E, there are also things I like, such as skill challenges, the loss of the Vancian magic system, and the broadened possibilities of race and class combinations. But there has to be a happy medium somewhere. I just can't seem to find it.
My players are similarly divided. Some find 4E enjoyable, but not D&D. Some want to switch to Pathfinder. One wants to go back to 2E! One (a rules lawyer by nature) is a die-hard fantical fan of 4E. I just want something that has the old-school feel with rules that work and don't feel like a mathematics exam.
Well, in my experience 4E has rules that work the best out of any edition of D&D that I have played. As the DM, it is up to you to install the old-school feel. Just make a list of things that, for you, constitute "old-school feel", and then figure out how to add them into the game. We on the forums can help with this!
2) Magic Items My second biggest gripe. I'm an old-school gamer. I recall the days when your characters found a magical sword and everyone spent the entire evening wondering what properties it might have. In 4E, anyone with the Arcana skill can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the weapon in ten minutes. To me, that sucks some of the fun out of the game. It also precludes the possibilities of things like cursed weapons (remember those?).
On a similar note, I also dislike the idea that the players can build a "shopping list" which they give to the GM to be sown into the adventures. It reduces finding magical goodies to a case of, "Oh, boots of the eladrin. Didn't the rogue want those?" Remember when there was dicing to see who would ge the magical cloak and you didn't even know what it did yet?
Then there's the fact that it is expected that the characters will have a certain amount of treasure by a certain level, and if they don't then they are underpowered. This makes it difficult to hide treasures and magical items, because if they are overlooked, then the characters miss out on something they should have received to keep the game balanced. If, for example, the orcs are using the staff of fire as a spit for roasting their suckling pig, it could easily be overlooked when searching the lair.
And whose idea was it to give magic items daily uses? Did the One Ring only allow Frodo to be invisible for ten minutes between each extended rest? (Okay, it was an artifact, and the rules are different for them.) But really, it just adds to the videogame feeling that I mentioned earlier.
Lastly (on this subject), magical items in my campaigns have always been rare and wondrous things. If a character got a +1 sword, it meant something! That sword was manufactured by someone for someone or some specific purpose. It had a history and a reason for existing. In 4E, there are magical sweatshops full of wizards cranking out hundreds of magical goodies each day. Magic has become disposable. Doubtless somewhere in the Realms, there is a huge landfill brimming with old +1 weapons.
A few comments on this one.
Magical Items in this edition are used at additional powers for the characters. There are a few that have At Will powers and a few with Encounter (or Errated Encounter) and a lot of Dailies. The reason for the change from the previous edition is the differences in resources that the character has, what you figure is WoW like. (I alway think of Wand of Wonder instead of World of Warcraft... forgive)
The new Errata also clarafies the use of powers, though having a character with multiple items and switching them to use the same power again is still vague. (I say you can't use it, no matter if it is a different item or not)
In the beginning, there was way to many items with Dailies. Some should have been Encounter powers instead.
The lousy Parcel System aside (I also hate wish lists) there is an expatation of characters having magical items as they advance into their adventuring carreers. This is in any edition, not just 4th. With the overall balance in the game having more importance, the magical items were changed to reflect this. It made them mostly boring, but still servicable. I still think the Portable Hole being removed from a storage device should have lowered it's price (level?) and other items are somewhat muted, but it works with this edition.
So, my main problem is the fact that all items cost the same at each level no matter it's use, be it weapon, protection or some wonderious application. I hope this will change for 5th edition.
Kit Build - A class build that is self sustaining and has mechanical differences than the normal scale. Started in Essentials. Most are call their own terms, though the Base Class should be said in front of their own terms (Like Assassin/Executioner)
Power Points - A mechanic that was wedged into the PHB3 classes (with the exception of the Monk) from the previous editions. This time, they are used to augment At Wills to be Encounters, thus eliminating the need to choose powers past 4th level.
Mage Builds - Kit builds that are schools of magic for the Wizard. A call back to the previous editions powering up of the wizard. (Wizard/Necromancer, for example) Unlike the previous kit builds, Wizards simply lose their Scribe Rituals feature and most likely still can choose powers from any build, unlike the Kit Builds.
Parcel System - A treasure distribution method that keeps adventurers poor while forcing/advising the DM to get wish lists from players. The version 2.0 rolls for treasure instead of making a list, and is incomplete because of the lack of clarity about magic item rarity.
They will Essentialize the Essentials classes, otherwise known as Essentials2.
The new sub-sub-classes will be:
* Magician. A subsubclass of Mage, the magician has two implements, wand and hat, one familiar (rabbit) and series of basic tricks. * Crook. A subsubclass of Thief, the Crook can only use a shiv, which allows him to use his only power... Shank. * Angry Vicar, a subsubclass of warpriest, the angry vicar has two attacks -- Shame and Lecture. * Hitter. A subsubclass of Slayer, the Hitter hits things. * Gatherer. A subsubclass of Hunter, it doesn't actually do anything, but pick up the stuff other players might leave behind.
Future Essentials2 classes include the Security Guard (Sentinel2), the Hexknife (Hexblade2), the Webelos (Scout2), the Gallant (Cavalier2) and the Goofus (Knight2).
These will all be detailed in the box set called Heroes of the Futile Marketing.
(Though what they should really release tomorrow is the Essentialized version of the Witchalok!)
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
That is of course just my personal data point.
Ever try having less combats? I agree that combats take longer (compared to 2e and lower, on average) so why not have more roleplaying opportunity, and more way to avoid combats? Last night, it took my party about 45min to finish an encounter (level+1 at 4th level) but a scene that COULD have turned into a fight (A Templar looking for hidden goods) turned into a complete roleplaying encounter that took a little more than the combat did. Overall, it was really enjoyable both ways. It just about letting the players find combat themselves, not always having combat find them.
Yes you are right, if we have less combat then we can have more roleplay. But if you spend more time in combat then naturally your roleplaying time will suffer and 4e does specialise in tactical combat. In my opinion it could be the reason why there are so many people who think there is less roleplaying in 4e.
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DnD Next: Now with more then 4 minutes of Roleplay per gaming hour
"If you can't make an interesting human fighter, then you aren't ready to play anything else yet" Edymnion
"The idea of resting up between encounters to fill-up on hit points and spells struck my meta-gaming nine-year-old as a distinct possibility. "Are you mad?" says my seven-year-old "This place is full of monsters!" "jamesgrahamuk
Sometimes that story is short and sometimes it is long. They can be tragic, comic or absurd. Some teach. Some are just to fill the empty spaces in our lives. Rarely it is a transcendent fugue only half remembered but wondered at. And frequently: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
+1
YMMV on that.
My campaign runs for 4 hours every week. Four players.
My first session, we had four combat encounters, as well as exploring a trapped dungeon.
All four combat encounters took less than one hour twenty minutes, including the final fight that was level +3 for the PCs.
As disclosure, I run 4e with all monsters using post MM3 stats.
Salla, on minions: I typically use them as encounter filler. 'I didn't quite fill out the XP budget, not enough room left for a decent near-level monster ... sprinkle in a few minions'. Kind of like monster styrofoam packing peanuts.
For me it is not so much that the quality of Roleplaying that has diminished, rather it is the available quantity of Roleplay time out of combat which has diminshed.
Combat just takes so damn long that a fight that previously would take 30 minutes now takes 60 minutes plus (oh sometimes a lot plus).
So for me a typical 3 hour session with two fights has gone from 120 minutes Roleplaying and 60 minutes Combat to 60 minutes Roleplay and 120 minutes Combat which is a 50% reduction in Roleplaying quantity.
+1
YMMV on that.
My campaign runs for 4 hours every week. Four players.
My first session, we had four combat encounters, as well as exploring a trapped dungeon.
All four combat encounters took less than one hour twenty minutes, including the final fight that was level +3 for the PCs.
As disclosure, I run 4e with all monsters using post MM3 stats.
Combats generally run like 30-40 minutes for an easy encounter, 45 minutes to an hour for a normal, and an anywhere from 40-1 hour + for hard encounters (generally because of "Hey that guy looks dangerous *unloads dailies" My group if we actually stay focused and don't rp/goof off/etc. between combats can get 4-5 encounters down in a 3-4 hour session. We generally only get 2 though because we spend a good amount of time roleplaying and the goofing off and the what have you.
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