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1 year ago ::
Jan 17, 2012 - 6:24PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Dec 22, 2009
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Given the announced death of 4th edition, i would like to see your opinions about which where the best features of this edition, so they could take the core concepts into the emerging 5th edition, and wich where failures, so mistakes are never commited again. Heres my list: Things i liked and would like to see in the future:
- a wide variety of eleganltly, well defined and balanced races: this was a highlight for me, to have the chance of playing extremely cool races, that before where available only by level adjustment/Dms permission
- at will powers: this changed the way magic and supernatural powers where handled, and gave a sensation of both power and true magical feel , while being completely balanced.
- unique power selection: to me, it was the greatest selling point: each character class had unique features, both in the mechanical and descriptive way, giving the diferent character classes an appeal for each kind of player.
- simplified battlefield rules: i remember 3.5 with a nice smile, yet it was horrible to even cast a spell, when you had to calculate areas, blasts, squares, movement, etc. making it simple was the best of choices
- elengatly designed classes: most clases, with the exception of "V" classes, where designed with parameters that made them elegan in both functionality and description, due to proficiencies, visual description and so on.
- rituals: even if most where poorly designed, giving "role-play magic" to the game was win. it allows for true role play and new game options while keeping your combat arsenal intact.
Things that "failed"
- the "AEDU" structure for all classes: different character concepts require a different game structure, due to the nature of the power sources, and basci functions of each class. while this could have worked out for mostly arcane classes, giving it to martial classes was a failure that created some "desserters" to 4th edition (i know more than 10 people that didnt change to 4th edition and played Pathfinder instead, and this was one of the main reasons)
- the "robotic" feel of most powers: while there was a good definition most of the time for each given power, most powers didnt separate well from each other in terms of power source, effects and so on.
- lack of "ingame logic": i know its a fantasy game, but even inside fantasy, there should be some limits, or some logical limitations, to give a small bit of realistic flavor to the game. powers that push/prone/slide, some martial abilities that made no sense whatsoever, and "ping-pong" powers, gave the game a low credit in front of the more traditional. a few limitations, if taken into account for game balance, can be accepted, if they are minimal and keep the "logical fun factor"
- game balance: one of the reasons of 4th edition existance was to bring balance, and it failed miserably from day ONE. in PHB1 where published the ranger (most broken class of all, by far, and with all nerfs), the warlord(who has all what a leader can be, with no weak points), and on the other side, we had the warlock (a class that even today struggles to be a "decent", not even good, striker). and all the broken stuff was there from day one, not due to power creep or anything similar.
well, so far, thats my list, what say you????
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1 year ago ::
Jan 17, 2012 - 6:50PM
#2
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I've said my peace in a few threads, but two things I like.
Combat Roles - But not as restricitve as to say a class is only potentially one role and maybe one secondary role. I've seen some ideas about how to do that, which I'm not arguing yet, but simply the need for roles to describe how a character fits into combat situations.
Powers - I like them. I've read some of the old class descriptions. I like powers being powers and not class features. I think presentation is an issue, and I think there needs to be something that shows 'magic users' different as well as those that are dependant on nature, or martial training. Perhaps a different layout for how each class gains powers.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 17, 2012 - 7:15PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jan 24, 2010
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Not really a CO answer or concern, but to me, 4e's greatest strength (or one of, anyway) is monster design and balance. By taking monsters off the PC math and design charts, and normalising out PC power expectations, it's so much easier to read, use and design monsters in this edition than previously. I absolutely love this edition for DMing.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 17, 2012 - 7:57PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Feb 14, 2008
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Not really a CO answer or concern, but to me, 4e's greatest strength (or one of, anyway) is monster design and balance. By taking monsters off the PC math and design charts, and normalising out PC power expectations, it's so much easier to read, use and design monsters in this edition than previously. I absolutely love this edition for DMing.
With you.
I want hybrid race rules, an abundance of races (regardless of feat support), and a return to multiclassing freedom.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 17, 2012 - 8:11PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Oct 13, 2003
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my biggest problem is with feats and utilities. Because the game is so combat oriented you can't really justify taking something cool if it doesn't help in combat.
I wish they'd take the non combat stuff out and let you pick that separately
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1 year ago ::
Jan 18, 2012 - 1:44AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2009
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I absolutely adore the simplified geometry used in 4e. Square fireballs? No extra movement for diagonals. Bursts and blasts rather than cones and radius...es? Radii? Whatever. I love it. It's such a simple thing and I am happy that it will almost certainly be in the next iteration of D&D.
I like aspects of the Essentials design philosophy. Like most of you, I want to see classes balanced but of variable complexity. A player in my group really likes his Slayer because it's simple. Simple isn't wrong, and there's definitely a place for both simple and complicated in the game as a whole. The technical-minded player with the Weaponmaster is playing a different game than the smashy type with the Slayer but both can have fun and enjoy themselves and be optimized. I'd love to see more of that carried over into the next game.
I want treasure divorced from the system math.
I want the system math checked over and over and patched if it turns out wrong. Feat taxes are wrong and unconstitutional.
If they build a game where each ability score is used for attacks and damage then they should include basic attacks for those ability scores. A battlemind not having a melee basic attack is not acceptable, just because he happens to attack with Constitution instead of Strength.
I want to see them be more mindful of how a class is actually played when they are designing content for those classes. The monk's unarmed strike is a particularly frustrating example. Even if you're a stonefist monk with a respectable Strength score, you are still using a weapon attack with an implement-based class. There's no reason for that. They missed it when they designed the class but they just didn't fix it. And when they did eventually produce content for the monk, they missed the mark there, too. Letting you use Dexterity in place of Strength for the attack you weren't going to make anyways? For the price of a feat? Come on. When they design classes for 5e, I'd like to see them be patched if they need to be. You're not going to catch every mistake during playtesting but you can sure as hell fix them afterwards.
Do away with printed books; I'll buy e-books just as easily. Also, if you're going to keep providing us with DDI, please give us some actual content. This ridiculous Cormyr fluff and preview crap that we get week after week is nonsense. Stop hoarding the three bits of crunch until the last week of the month. It's annoying and insulting.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 18, 2012 - 2:50AM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2002
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I had no trouble taking non combat utilities.. just sayin  . it depends on your gm a bunch what sort of encounters he throws at you. I just started playing dark sun and I tell you my eladrin psion adores his autohypnosis feat and arcane mutterings utility power.. out of combat stuff but wow, maxing arcane as a skill sure is sweet. anyhoo, magic items not having pluses as standard, they were going to try this for 4th but chickened out. It's the last piece of the puzzle to make the Dm's Job easy. i.e. just about storytelling and setting up cool action sequences. The monster design has been fabulous in ,4th long may it continue. the racial balance has been exquisite ! any race is great huzzah! at wills and encounters are great, dailies.. well for at least martial classes should be looked at very carefully, not sure if they are warranted I didn't at first but ,gosh darn it, square everything is magnificant Rituals are pretty cool, though they need to be used by people who like to do a lot of homework;P having non combat encounters that everyone can help in if their imagination is good enough. those are some main ones I can think of right now
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1 year ago ::
Jan 18, 2012 - 6:11AM
#8
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Defenders.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 18, 2012 - 5:34PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Dec 22, 2009
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You all have very valid points. i think this is a matter of CharOp, since the optimization of the new edition will be directly proportional to the rules, as always. and good things should be kept, at least the basic concept, if modified and refined. there are other things that i also thought about:
- to make magic items independant from game structure: this would be optimal, and would draw a LOT of "old school" gamers, since it gives magic items the "fantastic, special" feeling again, instead of the "must have/my character need/ im underpowered if i dont have" feeling. actually, a sistem when magic items have no levels, and would actually "attune" to the carrier would be optimal, since it would reduce the "obligatory treasure by level" thing.
- one of my very important desires: REMOVE CRAP MATERIAL: i prefer less, but solid, powers/feats/rituals, so at least 95% of them is actually useful and desirable, than a wide variety of CRAP, that is only filling space and not used by mostly no one, given that players use the optimal 5-10% of published material. published "contamination" has plaged 3rd/3.5/4th editions, and i see no use, neither in game quality, neither in economical rentability to it.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 19, 2012 - 1:47PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2003
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Some things that I'd like to see in the next "iteration":
Ability Score flexibility: Classes that use a variety of ability scores as their primary stat. Better yet, classes that allow the player to choose their primary ability score(s). Wisdom-based fighter using intuition and his own style of combat? Sure! Strength-based rogue who overpowers opponents through his sheer aggressiveness? Go for it.
This would allow for a feat system which could cater toward the individual ability scores. Such feats could be of value to any character who possessed the given primary ability score, regardless of class.
Ability Score balance: Ability scores that are balanced against each other. This balance should take into consideration noncombat uses for said ability scores.
AEDU: Or something similar. I realize that this was a turnoff for some, but in my opinion, it is leaps and bounds better than any other dnd class design to date. Fighters who don't just "swing their swords" and whose role isn't to simply "stay alive long enough for the casters to kill everything" is great. I believe that such class design allowes for all classes to be viable across all levels, and that's a good thing--furthermore, AEDU made such class balance/viability easier to achieve.
Weapons: This may sound funny to some, and I can understand. But I think it would be nice to have a system that allowed for each weapon group (slashing, piercing, hacking, crushing...if you will) to have representation across all stat ranges. What I mean is that if there is a slashing weapon that is +3 1d8 high crit, there should also be piercing, hacking, and crushing weapons that are +3 1d8 high crit. Why? Because players sometimes have a hard time "fluffing it." Personally, it's not a big deal for me to fluff my character's d12 fullblade as a really big hammer, for example. But for others, it's not so easy. Furthermore, I have have played under a DM or more who have been resistant to fluff--such that when I attempted to roleplay my fluff, the DM made sure to correct my roleplay--"my character smashes the goblin with his hammer"..."no, you slash the goblin with your sword"...sorry but that's a real fun-killer.
No proficiency bonuses: If the above suggestion is not adopted, I would at least want to do away with weapon proficiency bonuses. It's a game of fantasy, and in my fantasy I prefer that heroes can be just as accurate swinging a club as they can a longsword.
/shrug
"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord" Romans 6:23
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