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Oct 27, 2012 -- 8:22AM, robertneaves wrote:

This is why I'm generally against house rules. You get the game, play it once, dislike something because you aren't used to it yet, house rule it all to hell, break the game, then complain the game is broken. I trust that the game maker played way more than I'll ever get to and it's probably fine as it is. After a hundred sessions, if there's still something that bugs me, then, maybe, I'll tweak it a bit to suit my style.

Yeah, I'm pretty much the same way. House rules in general are just too tedious. You have to keep track of them and explain them to people, and 90% of the time they genuinely don't even make the game any better. Instead they just serve to gratify someone's ego. I mean each to his own, but frankly I've long since found that when I come into a game and the GM is all up about their mass of house rules and how it "makes the game better" chances are pretty good I just want to be out of there. The fun is PLAYING THE GAME, not obsessing about rules. Let game designers do that.

Oct 28, 2012 -- 1:51PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 Basically they did not care about their characters.

How, exactly, is this a problem with the system? Sounds more like a problem with the group.

A huge amount of game time was actually spent on combat

Yeah, kinda like that. 

Oct 27, 2012 -- 9:17AM, Zardnaar wrote:

Oct 27, 2012 -- 8:03AM, crzyhawk wrote:

Oct 26, 2012 -- 8:28PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 THats the fundmental disconnect right there. Even with its problems it had in 4th ed people don't like being railroaded with the fighter (at least the 3.5 players anyway).

 I think alot of people also houseruled fighters and nerfed spellcasters in some way even if it was banning the problem spells.

I fail to see how fighters are railroaded in 4e.  I just see a bunch of haters making excuses to hate.

 Some of the issues were address in expansion for 4th ed. Imagine if you went form 3.5 in 2008 to 4th ed and for example wanted t o convert your character. Or wanted to play a fighter with a bow and not suck with it or play a ranger.

But this LITERALLY MAKES NO SENSE because you actually ARE playing something that is best described as a ranger (martial bow armed warrior). It makes no sense to be a defender with a bow, just none at all. Logically you use a bow to KILL THINGS, not act as a front line defensive bulwark. The concept is just not coherent and 4e is right not to support it within the fighter class. You simply call your character a ranger and give him whatever background and etc you care to, it works PERFECTLY WELL. You're arguing something that is pointless just to create something to pick on.

 Two weapon fighting in 3.5 was a feat chain. Any support of dual wielding was new feats. 4th ed required extensive support in Martial Power IIRC to make the dual wielder fighter work.

No, actually you could play a fighter (or any class actually) using 2 weapons from day one. You wanted to have a couple of feats to make it advantageous, and there are a couple more that you can use to add some additional utility (though not strictly necessary or restricted to that fighting style). In fact if you look into it the two weapon feats in PHB1 were pretty decent options at the time (and were improved by the addition of some added weapons in AV1 like the parrying dagger and the spiked shield). In any case you had to wait AN ENTIRE MONTH for MP1 to come out, it was a terrible imposition!

4th ed also errated alot of stuff and last I played (end of 2011) you may as well maximise DPR so a party full of strikers or striker like builds basically became the norm. It wasn't as bad as 3.5 in terms of optimised vs not optimised but it was there in spades. I think that somone here calculated that since 4th ed started going bi monthlythey had spammed out roughly 80% of 3.5 material in just over two years as oppposed to 8.

I have no idea what you're going on about. There has been rather little 4e errata in the last year of any substance. The class compendium erratas in 2011 were the last major ones. Most of those were actually nerfbacks. The only players who would consider making "a party full of strikers" are die hard min/maxers and what they could do with 3.5 makes anything they could do with 4e pale in comparison. Nor has 4e really gotten more gameable over its run. I agree, 4e concentrated a lot of material in a short time frame. However considering how much you have bitched about how it lacked this and that to start with I find it hard to see how you can then complain about material being released too fast in the next breath!

 See previous statements about 4th ed also excluding 3.5 core races and classes by default. I do not call 15 pages of powers a good design for a class. 2010 was the highlight of 4th ed for our group and then we switched. 4th ed was a decent game but a poor version of D&D at least for our group although we miss elements of it. Hell because I did not love 4th ed and worship it I went into lurk mode here for over a year. Others just bailed on 4th ed alot earlier than I did.

 A few of the less extreme predictions about 4th ed cme true though although you were more or less shouted at here for expressing them. Maybe its self fulfiling prophecy but 4th ed was gonna bloat and collapse it just happened quicker than I thought. To me 4th ed died when they went bi monthly as it was about the same time quality went out the window. Technically it will last 5 years, to me it was really dead in about 2 years. 4th ed is basically dead and buried and people still don't seem to get it why it was rejected by alot of D&D players (majority IDK but even a loss of 20% of the players could mean a loss of most of the profit).

No, 4th DIDN'T COLLAPSE, that's the difference between 3.x, which fell apart so bad it isn't even funny (and PF which just picked up where 3.5 left off) and 4e which is still a perfectly good solid game system, if a bit cluttered. You may not like it but you seriously need to get real about it. I've run a BUNCH of 4e campaigns, and it works. I allow ANY official 4e material, and it works. It works PERFECTLY WELL. There are no classes that are 30x better than others or 1000's of builds, of which 99% are crap you have to wade through, etc. Even if you were bound and determined to build the most awkwardly underpowered set of build options you can find all you'd end up with is something like a Binder, which still works perfectly well in play, even if it is slightly lackluster.

It most certainly is far from a perfect system, but it is a damn good close approximation of one. I have absolute confidence that it can and should continue to be perfected through another revision or two.

Oct 28, 2012 -- 1:51PM, Zardnaar wrote:

The classes were different but i just asked my players what they did not like about 4th ed. I never played it only DMed it.
 Basically they did not care about their characters. In 4th ed you basically picked a role or a class. Each class really had an obvious path to go down and I know a Cleric is a better healer than a warlord but as long as you had a leader for the most part it did not matter what type of leader that was. Or what type of striker you had.

 It was also rapidly obvious which powers, feats and items were better than others. You really had to just pick the best ones in your defined role going down a predetermined path of powers. YOu did get the choice where you wanted to go but for the most part it did not matter what class or role you took as long as you did not neglect DPS.

 The original classes in the PHB go the most support so generally they were the best classes to pick as well. As long as you didn't do anyhting to stupid like focus on defending or healing over damage you were good to go. To my players they said they didn't really  care about their characters because they were ultimatly disposable or replaceable. This combined with the length of combat in order to be challenged the DM had to either go over the top for encounters or try and grind the characters hit points down over 3 or 4 encounters and some of those encounters could go for 30 minutes to an hour. A huge amount of game time was actually spent on combat using PCs that were really components of a pre determined path and it didn't really matter what path you chose. Alot of the status effects were cute but slowed the game down and the best status effect was death so you were really better off on focusing on damage so multiple strikers or striker like characters was usually a good idea. I a nutshell my PCs were bored. I liked DMing 4th ed it was one of the better editions in that regard, but I struggled to find players as well as the local mobs seem to prefer 3.5 or Pathfinder. Only knew of one other 4th ed group as opposed to 3 3rd ed groups. I liked 4th ed with 5 players most of the time I had 3 or 4.

 Doesn't matter if 4th ed was the greatest thing since sliced bread. It was like a flash car with no fuel, the fuel being palyers and good adventures. Despite its flaws Pathfinder and 3.5 had better advantures due to Paizo basically and their adventure paths in Dungeon and Pathfinder Chronicles.

I agree with you that 4e has crap for 1st party adventures. WotC did a terrible job in that department, though they have eventually come around. The adventures they published in the last 2.5 years have steadily improved, and things like Madness at Gardmore Abby are real classics.

As for the rest, I don't know what to say. It is just ludicrous to say that 4e classes lack options. There are no 'predetermined paths' to any greater degree than in any other game. Obviously if you pick 'fighter' for your class you're establishing some limits on what your character will do. Beyond that even the basic PHB1 options allow for a WIDE range of different fighters. You could VERY straightforwardly play a hammer based CON fighter, either one-handed or two-handed, a STR based axe fighter (probably 2-handed), a WIS based fighter of either type focused on making punishing OAs, or a DEX based sword armed fighter (again your pick of shield or 2 handed) focusing on damage and control. Even within these options you have a number of choices of powers which can establish different tactical choices and a few different possibilities with feats. Even slightly less than optimal choices like 2-weapon fighter were quite playable with just PHB1. The options have clearly improved vastly since then.

I'm having difficulty really knowing why tons of the more obscure and later classes NEED deep support either (some could use it, but the game can live without it). The PHB2 classes cover every major class that you would ever need. These are vastly well supported in all cases. Even many later classes and non-core classes like the Swordmage are quite well supported in any case. Honestly it is hard to argue at this point that just because a few recent classes aren't means much. Does anyone really care if the Binder or the Skald have little support?

The point is every 4e class of any consequence at all has a HUGE number of options and to say that are confined to "set paths" or that you would "only ever pick the best powers" is ridiculous. This kind of thing just comes about when you have people that don't have any interest in learning or appreciating a game, that's all. They're welcome to their tastes, but if you expect us to be convinced or impressed in any way by that, forget it. I can build parties full of interesting 4e characters until the end of time. If I keep playing for another 40 years I doubt I'd run out of fun to have with this edition.

The main point persoanlly I liked the 3.5 options better than the 4th ed options when it came to building a concept- whatever that concept was. Out of the box 4th ed did not include all of the 3.5 classes which made conversion possible. its right there in the 4th ed PHB. You pick a fighter and you have 2 choices- two handed or weapon and shield. 3.5 fighter you could build it into multiple sub types just using the 3.5 players hand book. The downside of course was the 3.5 fighter was goign to be outclassed at higher levels by spellcasters which was usually semi fixed in various ways such as houserules or level 10 or so being the end of the game for 3.5. Roles were more important than classes in 4th ed, my players preferred it the other way round with classes being built into the desired role- of course not all classes could fill all roles but say a fighter type leader if someone decided to do one would be a fighter varient with feat support. 4th ed optiopns got alot better as time went on but in 2008 the roles were very clear and it did not really matter what class you picked as long as you did not neglect the obvious (damage).

 If you did not like overpowered spellcasters in 3.5 there were various ways to deal with it. If you did not like the role structure or AEDU power structure of 4th ed there was really only one option which was vote with your feet. Enough gamers chose this option and either stuck with 3.5, switched to Pathfinder or stopped playing. End result that 4th ed was really dead 2-3 years in and now 5th ed is in the works. Technically 4th ed will last 5 years but it has been limping along since 2010. I can comprehend why people here do not like 3.5 due to bloat, overpowered spellcasters, or system mastery or whatever. Some people here still cannot work out why 4th ed failed or why it was rejected by a large chunk of the 3.5 player base. Theres multiple reaosns for it I suppose but a large chunk is that the changes from 3.5 to 4th were very drastic and alienated the player base.

 Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB, DMG and the 1st MM. If you don't like it that much even as a 4th ed player thats what 4th ed had back in 2008.

The big problem for me is the irregular, uneven support.

Heroes of Shadow: absolutely no support that I'm aware of for any of the races or classes introduced in the book. The whole "Shadow" power source was created, but there is no magic item support for any of it in the book, nor ever after (that I'm aware of). 4 races introduced, but only one got racial feats. Classes and subclasses created, but then never got anything afterward--no feats, no alternate builds, no magic items, notihng.

We have a Tiefling book and a Dragonborn book. Where's the book for Elves, Dwarves, Eladrin, Pixies, Halflings, Humans, Devas, Shardminds, or any of the other races? If WotC didn't want to do it themselves, they could at least have outsourced it. Or made the dragon magazine articles published accordingly.

Implements: Tomes and Totems are restricted to the point of being almost useless. Bonus from the tomes: wizard powers ONLY. Totems: well, almost only useful to Druids and Shawmen. Superior Implements: rediculously limited, and no follow-up support. How about instead have these classes use the same implements as everyone else (rod, staff, wand, orb, holy symbol, weapliment), and make those more useful on a broader basis.

Skill challenges: great idea, but almost every single one I've been in sucked. For example, tonight we were in a scales of war mod. Skill challenge: Arcana (max 3 successes), Athletics (max 1), Thievery (max 3). But we need 12 to complete the challenge. But according to the way it was written, only 7 were possible. So, the party automatically fails, or the DM has to rewrite the challenge.

More shoddy editing: my personal favorite. Power was described as "Close Blurst 3"  WTF is a "blurst"?
Since this is all available on-line, it would take little-to-no effort to correct these egregious failures. But that might actually require hiring an editing staff to review and correct.

And some of the feat-bloat from constant publishing without bothering to review...
Then the Essentials reverse engineering...

Honestly, they took something great, and made a mess.

I built a lvl 18 archer in 3.5, as both a ranger and a fighter. The fighter, with the constant feats, ended up being way better.

After 4E is done, I'm tempted to build the books that are missing, and just give a copy to the group as a set of house rules. On the other hand, that is a huge amount of work, and I have Maya creations to build and animate.

 Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB, DMG and the 1st MM. If you don't like it that much even as a 4th ed player thats what 4th ed had back in 2008.

Exactly and ultimatly these three core books is what D&D 4th edition was judged on.  By the time additional books came out anyone worthy of note didn't even bother reviewing them, the system had already been written off by the community at large.  The fact that these books had good initial sales was solely because of brand name, I mean you don't have to look past this forum to get a feel for the average players outlook.

 

If it doesn't say D&D on the box, it's NOT D&D.

With consumers like that around you don't have to worry about quality, their waiting in line with cash in hand ready to buy anything with the logo on it.

Suffice to say it didn't take long for D&D players to discover 4th edition wasn't what they expected it to be, but by than the core books for 4th edition had sold out twice over, but as I recall following months after the intial rush their where literly thousands of used 4th edition books on sale, I recall I picked up my 3 copies for about 8 dollars a pop which I felt was a bit pricey.

In any case the debate of its success is pretty much over now and while you can debate the merits of 4th edition to the cows come home, you can't debate the fact that 4th edition didn't meet any of the expectations Wizard had for it and while they tried to save it with essentials, which wasn't a terrible attempt, by the than it was too late.    

    

Oct 24, 2012 -- 8:19PM, crzyhawk wrote:

As someone who's been playing D&D since the 80s, I can say that even though Next hasnt been released yet, it already feels dated.  Can't see myself going back to that crappy playstyle.

If I want a homebrewed return to earlier D&D I will grab Swords & Wizardry and house rule it.

I don't want Mike "Iron Heroes was incomplete and 5E will be too!" Mearls selling me his homebrewed version of every version prior to 4E with the D&D brand on it.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 3:48AM, Xguild wrote:

 Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB, DMG and the 1st MM. If you don't like it that much even as a 4th ed player thats what 4th ed had back in 2008.

Exactly and ultimatly these three core books is what D&D 4th edition was judged on.  By the time additional books came out anyone worthy of note didn't even bother reviewing them, the system had already been written off by the community at large.  The fact that these books had good initial sales was solely because of brand name, I mean you don't have to look past this forum to get a feel for the average players outlook.

 

If it doesn't say D&D on the box, it's NOT D&D.

With consumers like that around you don't have to worry about quality, their waiting in line with cash in hand ready to buy anything with the logo on it.

Suffice to say it didn't take long for D&D players to discover 4th edition wasn't what they expected it to be, but by than the core books for 4th edition had sold out twice over, but as I recall following months after the intial rush their where literly thousands of used 4th edition books on sale, I recall I picked up my 3 copies for about 8 dollars a pop which I felt was a bit pricey.

In any case the debate of its success is pretty much over now and while you can debate the merits of 4th edition to the cows come home, you can't debate the fact that 4th edition didn't meet any of the expectations Wizard had for it and while they tried to save it with essentials, which wasn't a terrible attempt, by the than it was too late.    

    

Yes yes, we know all about your personal version of reality and how you're going to keep hammering it out there in every thread till the end of time, thx!

Oct 29, 2012 -- 9:12AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Exactly and ultimatly these three core books is what D&D 4th edition was judged on.  By the time additional books came out anyone worthy of note didn't even bother reviewing them, the system had already been written off by the community at large.  The fact that these books had good initial sales was solely because of brand name, I mean you don't have to look past this forum to get a feel for the average players outlook.

Of which community are you speaking? I know a number of communities that consider the beginning of 4th ed to be extremely good/better than _____, and were looking forward to the next books with baited breath.

There were some who felt that way for sure but a large amount who judged the 4th ed rules with the 3 core books and then went pass. I don't know if it was a majority of players but it was enough I suspect. If you like 4th ed but would not play it with just the initial 3 books you might come close to understanding why it was rejected by a few players. 3.5 was more complete or playable with just the core rules IMHO- at least to you got to the higher levels.

 Pathfinder was more successful than I thought. I thought it would be a competitor to 4th ed I did not really expcet it to ultimately win and do things like support minis and novel lines. I expected 4th ed to be a short edition and it really crashed in burned in 2010. IMHO they should have dropped the epic part of 4th ed and focused more on the earlier levels espicially levels 1-10. THey had missing powers for various classes in some of the options, only 4 at wills for each class which was really 2 options for each path you could take which made the human 3rd at will useless. It felt very incomplete. A few splat books tend to make any edition of D&D better, 4th ed kinda required them.

 The Zard challenge. Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB,DMG,MM. 3.0 had a smoother launch and IIRC only cost $20 per book which was a special price to lure over the 2nd ed players.

Oct 28, 2012 -- 7:20PM, Zardnaar wrote:

3.5 fighter you could build it into multiple sub types just using the 3.5 players hand book. The downside of course was the 3.5 fighter was goign to be outclassed at higher levels by spellcasters which was usually semi fixed in various ways such as houserules or level 10 or so being the end of the game for 3.5.

Wait, how exactly is that a valid point of 3.5? "Sure, you can make all sorts of Fighter-types! Its just your character won't matter unless you houserule the system into submission."

Oct 29, 2012 -- 9:28AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Oct 29, 2012 -- 9:12AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Exactly and ultimatly these three core books is what D&D 4th edition was judged on.  By the time additional books came out anyone worthy of note didn't even bother reviewing them, the system had already been written off by the community at large.  The fact that these books had good initial sales was solely because of brand name, I mean you don't have to look past this forum to get a feel for the average players outlook.

Of which community are you speaking? I know a number of communities that consider the beginning of 4th ed to be extremely good/better than _____, and were looking forward to the next books with baited breath.

I think there's some quoting that got out of whack here (yes, this forum has StupidQuote Technology(TM)).

Oct 29, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Ogiwan wrote:

Oct 28, 2012 -- 7:20PM, Zardnaar wrote:

3.5 fighter you could build it into multiple sub types just using the 3.5 players hand book. The downside of course was the 3.5 fighter was goign to be outclassed at higher levels by spellcasters which was usually semi fixed in various ways such as houserules or level 10 or so being the end of the game for 3.5.

Wait, how exactly is that a valid point of 3.5? "Sure, you can make all sorts of Fighter-types! Its just your character won't matter unless you houserule the system into submission."

Are we seriously still picking on the fighter? I thought we came to the conclusion that we all had different ideas. Now if you'll excuse me I've got a Goliath Monk to make.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 11:45AM, Zardnaar wrote:

em.

 The Zard challenge. Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB,DMG,MM. 3.0 had a smoother launch and IIRC only cost $20 per book which was a special price to lure over the 2nd ed players.

No way I could do that... It's playable, but is very limited in character options. The only 4e corebook I thought was really good was the DMG. I would say it is on par with the 1e DMG.

Did that, had lots of fun with it.

4e had more options at release than 3e, at least in terms of actual useful options.  The 3e PHB had three classes in it; cleric, druid, and wizard.  Everything else was an underpowered waste of space.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 11:45AM, Zardnaar wrote:

There were some who felt that way for sure but a large amount who judged the 4th ed rules with the 3 core books and then went pass. I don't know if it was a majority of players but it was enough I suspect. If you like 4th ed but would not play it with just the initial 3 books you might come close to understanding why it was rejected by a few players. 3.5 was more complete or playable with just the core rules IMHO- at least to you got to the higher levels.

 Pathfinder was more successful than I thought. I thought it would be a competitor to 4th ed I did not really expcet it to ultimately win and do things like support minis and novel lines. I expected 4th ed to be a short edition and it really crashed in burned in 2010. IMHO they should have dropped the epic part of 4th ed and focused more on the earlier levels espicially levels 1-10. THey had missing powers for various classes in some of the options, only 4 at wills for each class which was really 2 options for each path you could take which made the human 3rd at will useless. It felt very incomplete. A few splat books tend to make any edition of D&D better, 4th ed kinda required them.

 The Zard challenge. Go and play 4th ed with just the PHB,DMG,MM. 3.0 had a smoother launch and IIRC only cost $20 per book which was a special price to lure over the 2nd ed players.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Ogiwan wrote:

Oct 28, 2012 -- 7:20PM, Zardnaar wrote:

3.5 fighter you could build it into multiple sub types just using the 3.5 players hand book. The downside of course was the 3.5 fighter was goign to be outclassed at higher levels by spellcasters which was usually semi fixed in various ways such as houserules or level 10 or so being the end of the game for 3.5.

Wait, how exactly is that a valid point of 3.5? "Sure, you can make all sorts of Fighter-types! Its just your character won't matter unless you houserule the system into submission."

I was just going to not comment on that and let it stand on its own. In any case I don't think Zard is ALL THAT partisan. He seems to like PF and 3.5 rather more than some of us, and I'm not sure I agree with all his opinions on 4e, but he's FAR from the realms of lunacy that some of the posters on the DDN thread were at a few months ago...

Honestly, I think there are really several different groups of people. Those that are fairly hard-core 3.5 and/or PF fans, those that are fairly hard-core 4e fans, and a LOT of people that either are agnostic, OK with both games, or really don't have enough experience with the game to make a choice between them. Most groups play what is acceptable to all its members. Its easy to see what has happened here. You have a certain few (say 10%) of the community that was bound and determined to hate 4e either because they were so invested in some aspect of 3.5 or were put off by WotC's PR (which was rather inept), etc. Lots of groups don't really ever switch right away anyhow (and some just never bother). With PF arriving all these hardcore people had a viable way to armtwist all the people that didn't care much. Meanwhile 4e is a new system, it has few real diehards going in, and a lot of players just never got a chance to try it. You can see that in the assymetry of experience. Virtually all 4e players have played 3.x or PF, but very few go the other way. What you get from the opinionated PF fans for instance is mostly uninformed anti-4e screed picked up on some board. Even if 90% of the players out there could care less most groups have one of these people to contend with. It is just easier to throw up your hands and play what they want to play. I know if I hadn't happened to not own 3.x and had bought 4e before hearing the whole BS routine I'd probably not have bothered either.

WotC is just stupid about messaging. In essence they have no marketing talent with D&D because they never HAD to market it before. They were the sole purveyors of a product that sold itself. When they did a version roll to 3e the game was basically dead and out of print. Nobody was going to really argue that much. 4e could have been perfectly successful if they'd understood they had to actually sell it and HOW to do that.

As for Zard's "Play with the Core Books Only!" thing... Dude, we started in June of 2008 with our first campaign. Of course we played with the 3 core books... It was fine. By the time we barely got rolling MP1 was out anyway, which definitely added a bunch of cool options. Honestly, our 2e characters converted over pretty well. There were a few that we had to wait till March of '09 and the PHB2 for, the Druid mostly. Still, it just wasn't a big deal. I guess I can imagine if you were trying to convert over from a 3.5 game where you played a whole lot of the less usual classes then you might have a rough time, but I don't think that by itself is a huge strike against a system. If it is then DDN is doomed already because it is sure as heck not going to be possible to convert 4e characters into DDN.

Sure, 3.0 had a much smoother launch because it wasn't replacing anything. 2e was LITERALLY dead, out of print, dated, and rapidly headed for oblivion, when 3e came along. Of course it was a 'smooth transition', there simply wasn't any question that you HAD to buy 3e if you wanted to buy any D&D product.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Salla wrote:

Did that, had lots of fun with it.

4e had more options at release than 3e, at least in terms of actual useful options.  The 3e PHB had three classes in it; cleric, druid, and wizard.  Everything else was an underpowered waste of space.

lol, harsh, but sadly not far from the truth. I think you can give Fighters and Rogues some credit though, below 6th level they were pretty viable. Rogues could come in handy for trap figiting even after that.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Salla wrote:

Did that, had lots of fun with it.

4e had more options at release than 3e, at least in terms of actual useful options.  The 3e PHB had three classes in it; cleric, druid, and wizard.  Everything else was an underpowered waste of space.

I still fail to see how powerful wizards are such a big deal. You can take that power away just as easy, with level drain, or even a cheaper move like your spellbook burns.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 3:06PM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 29, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Salla wrote:

Did that, had lots of fun with it.

4e had more options at release than 3e, at least in terms of actual useful options.  The 3e PHB had three classes in it; cleric, druid, and wizard.  Everything else was an underpowered waste of space.

I still fail to see how powerful wizards are such a big deal. You can take that power away just as easy, with level drain, or even a cheaper move like your spellbook burns.

Exactly my point.  You shouldn't have to resort to 'cheap moves'.  It should be balanced innately, not through hoser mechanics, which are another way of saying 'You don't get to play'.

To put it another way, I think a class should be at 50 all the time, instead of going from 100 to zero due to arbitrary DM actions.

Oct 29, 2012 -- 3:29PM, Salla wrote:

Oct 29, 2012 -- 3:06PM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 29, 2012 -- 2:09PM, Salla wrote:

Did that, had lots of fun with it.

4e had more options at release than 3e, at least in terms of actual useful options.  The 3e PHB had three classes in it; cleric, druid, and wizard.  Everything else was an underpowered waste of space.

I still fail to see how powerful wizards are such a big deal. You can take that power away just as easy, with level drain, or even a cheaper move like your spellbook burns.

Exactly my point.  You shouldn't have to resort to 'cheap moves'.  It should be balanced innately, not through hoser mechanics, which are another way of saying 'You don't get to play'.

To put it another way, I think a class should be at 50 all the time, instead of going from 100 to zero due to arbitrary DM actions.

We have completely different thoughts on almost everything. If you think 4e was balanced you are right. But was it balanced correctly?

Pretty close to it, yes, in my not particularly humble opinion.

I'm not that super partisan. I only play PF because its better than 3.5 and its not 4th ed. I had DDI for 3 years and didn't mind runing 4th ed at all. Basically prefered to DM 4th, but I would rather play PF. Paizo runs rings around WoTC in terms of adventure design and quality of sourcebooks. I like Paizo as a company, Pathfinder not so much which I like but I'm not rabidly devoted to it.

 One thing I don't like from some of the rapid (read stupid) fans on either side of the fence is all things 3.5/4th ed needs to die in a fire mentality. They just added recharge mechanics to D&DN and they seem to be engaging in a real playtest- this is broken, this doesn't work etc. Recharge was a great 4th ed mechanic. I liked the flexability of 3.5/PF/SWSE d20 systems, did not like the 4th ed role structure and AEDU power stucture for every class although I did like the 4th ed wizard for example. I really did hate the role structure of 4th ed which would be my biggest beef with the system. You don't like that and you can't really houserule it away without a massive rewrite as opposed to maybe a page of houserules for 3.5. I have been using 3rd ed for 12 years now, just saying no helps alot (natural spell, divine metamaigc, timestop etc). I was ready to move on from 3.5 in 2008, 4th ed wasn't what I wanted though, D&DN liking so far but I'll wait and see before I make a final choice on it as its fun to play anyway (and has a huge 4th ed influence btw).

Yeah, the PH was really limiting on character options. You only had 8 races and 8 classes. That's only, like 64 posibilities. And the classes only had 2-3 different builds... so that would be 128 characters... And then there were the different feats you could take... and the different power options for encounter, daily, and utilities... and then there was to variations on which stat array you used... Yeah, that was a serious limitation there. only 512 options (race, class, build, encounter power, daily power) before working out which feat(s) and stat array you wanted to use. And that isn't even touching which weapon the melee and martial characters chose. Sure, some of the choices are sub-optimal, but they can still fun.
Hate to break it to you, but I played a PH1 fighter up to lvl10 and loved it. and a PH1 cleric to lvl8. Then the other books came out... And they provided some interesting options...
The only character that got really worked over was my Fey-pact warlock: it took until arcane Power and the DDI articles with new Warlock powers and feats to make it anywhere comparable to the other striker classes that came out in the PH1 (and no, I don't want to start that argument again).

The books were too expensive? Yes. Certainly.
Is the system too limited? Only as limited as your imagination and willingness to refluff.
Most major liabilities: uneven release of material, failure to provide source material, utter failure to market/PR, shoddy editing.
Other liabilities: way too much time/effort to create a minis game (which failed), mid-edition release of Essentials as another failure/distraction

Oct 30, 2012 -- 2:44AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Yeah, the PH was really limiting on character options. You only had 8 races and 8 classes. That's only, like 64 posibilities. And the classes only had 2-3 different builds... so that would be 128 characters... And then there were the different feats you could take... and the different power options for encounter, daily, and utilities... and then there was to variations on which stat array you used... Yeah, that was a serious limitation there. only 512 options (race, class, build, encounter power, daily power) before working out which feat(s) and stat array you wanted to use. And that isn't even touching which weapon the melee and martial characters chose. Sure, some of the choices are sub-optimal, but they can still fun.
Hate to break it to you, but I played a PH1 fighter up to lvl10 and loved it. and a PH1 cleric to lvl8. Then the other books came out... And they provided some interesting options...
The only character that got really worked over was my Fey-pact warlock: it took until arcane Power and the DDI articles with new Warlock powers and feats to make it anywhere comparable to the other striker classes that came out in the PH1 (and no, I don't want to start that argument again).

The books were too expensive? Yes. Certainly.
Is the system too limited? Only as limited as your imagination and willingness to refluff.
Most major liabilities: uneven release of material, failure to provide source material, utter failure to market/PR, shoddy editing.
Other liabilities: way too much time/effort to create a minis game (which failed), mid-edition release of Essentials as another failure/distraction

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

Oct 30, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Felorn wrote:

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

But only 3 classes worth taking.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 12:00PM, Salla wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Felorn wrote:

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

But only 3 classes worth taking.

According to what exactly?  How powerful you where?  Is that what passes for role-playing these days? 

Oct 30, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 2:44AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Yeah, the PH was really limiting on character options. You only had 8 races and 8 classes. That's only, like 64 posibilities. And the classes only had 2-3 different builds... so that would be 128 characters... And then there were the different feats you could take... and the different power options for encounter, daily, and utilities... and then there was to variations on which stat array you used... Yeah, that was a serious limitation there. only 512 options (race, class, build, encounter power, daily power) before working out which feat(s) and stat array you wanted to use. And that isn't even touching which weapon the melee and martial characters chose. Sure, some of the choices are sub-optimal, but they can still fun.
Hate to break it to you, but I played a PH1 fighter up to lvl10 and loved it. and a PH1 cleric to lvl8. Then the other books came out... And they provided some interesting options...
The only character that got really worked over was my Fey-pact warlock: it took until arcane Power and the DDI articles with new Warlock powers and feats to make it anywhere comparable to the other striker classes that came out in the PH1 (and no, I don't want to start that argument again).

The books were too expensive? Yes. Certainly.
Is the system too limited? Only as limited as your imagination and willingness to refluff.
Most major liabilities: uneven release of material, failure to provide source material, utter failure to market/PR, shoddy editing.
Other liabilities: way too much time/effort to create a minis game (which failed), mid-edition release of Essentials as another failure/distraction

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

Sure, after how many books? And as Salla says, many of those options were EXCEEDINGLY weaker than the others, not like a LITTLE BIT, but like "you might as well just sit back and watch the fight" weaker.

And no, how powerful a specific given character is isn't the point. You don't have to be the most powerful, it is still fun, but when a system says "You CANNOT EVER make a guy that swings a sword that holds a candle to ANY guy that uses magic PERIOD" then that's a rule system that has serious issues. It may be fine for some people but just because you don't 'get' what the problem is doesn't fix it either. 4e fixed it. It just plain frigging fixed it open and shut case fixed.

Frankly it is a kick-ass system and I have no real interest in switching. In fact I just fired up a 2nd weekly 4e game to run again whole new campaign, starting at 1st it looks like (Some of these players have mid-paragon PCs we used in an earlier campaign too, which might be fun to work in, we'll see). DDN? I don't even want to hear about that stuff. Have fun with it. I can find plenty of players for 4e games. I've got 30 books worth of 4e stuff, and DDI is working fine. Time to just have fun. If you all are too hung up to get in on the fun, too bad for you! (Honestly, play what is fun for you, its all OK, but I'm done even hearing any more 4e crapping upon).

Another poster summed it up better than I could.

Xguild in another thread.

 "Most importantly you could remove and replace mechanics you didn't like without the system breaking down in Pathfinder.  Again in 4th edition most mechanics where part of the foundation built into the core of the system.  You couldn't for example add vanican magic into the game, or remove healing surges. You couldn't switch to a mana based  magic system or re-define how divine magic worked.  You where always tied to the demands of the system."

THats what I mean when I say 4th ed restricted options. Its really a sandbox vs linear approach to D&D. You probably could make a 4th ed/d20 based game with some of the changes he listed there but it would require a dramatic rework of the rules/system to make it work. If you had a major probelm with the Druid class for example one could just say "Druids are now banned". A heavy handed approach sure but it works. If you don't like healing surges you are going to have to rewrite a new mechanic to replace them as a simple house rule "no more healing surges guys" is going to have a dramatic effect on your game system.

 Star Wars Saga for example was set in  different game world but it was mostly 3.5 based with the magic system stripped out and elements of 4th ed added. You keep the options part of 3.5 and remove a big problem 3.5 had (spellcasters). 4th ed took a heavy handed approach to the spellcaster problem in 3rd ed which was really gut the system and make everyone a spellcaster of sorts although you can quibble over things like power sources. Everyone used the AEDU structure. What happens if you don't like AEDU?

Oct 30, 2012 -- 3:17PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 2:44AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Yeah, the PH was really limiting on character options. You only had 8 races and 8 classes. That's only, like 64 posibilities. And the classes only had 2-3 different builds... so that would be 128 characters... And then there were the different feats you could take... and the different power options for encounter, daily, and utilities... and then there was to variations on which stat array you used... Yeah, that was a serious limitation there. only 512 options (race, class, build, encounter power, daily power) before working out which feat(s) and stat array you wanted to use. And that isn't even touching which weapon the melee and martial characters chose. Sure, some of the choices are sub-optimal, but they can still fun.
Hate to break it to you, but I played a PH1 fighter up to lvl10 and loved it. and a PH1 cleric to lvl8. Then the other books came out... And they provided some interesting options...
The only character that got really worked over was my Fey-pact warlock: it took until arcane Power and the DDI articles with new Warlock powers and feats to make it anywhere comparable to the other striker classes that came out in the PH1 (and no, I don't want to start that argument again).

The books were too expensive? Yes. Certainly.
Is the system too limited? Only as limited as your imagination and willingness to refluff.
Most major liabilities: uneven release of material, failure to provide source material, utter failure to market/PR, shoddy editing.
Other liabilities: way too much time/effort to create a minis game (which failed), mid-edition release of Essentials as another failure/distraction

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

Sure, after how many books? And as Salla says, many of those options were EXCEEDINGLY weaker than the others, not like a LITTLE BIT, but like "you might as well just sit back and watch the fight" weaker.

And no, how powerful a specific given character is isn't the point. You don't have to be the most powerful, it is still fun, but when a system says "You CANNOT EVER make a guy that swings a sword that holds a candle to ANY guy that uses magic PERIOD" then that's a rule system that has serious issues. It may be fine for some people but just because you don't 'get' what the problem is doesn't fix it either. 4e fixed it. It just plain frigging fixed it open and shut case fixed.

Frankly it is a kick-ass system and I have no real interest in switching. In fact I just fired up a 2nd weekly 4e game to run again whole new campaign, starting at 1st it looks like (Some of these players have mid-paragon PCs we used in an earlier campaign too, which might be fun to work in, we'll see). DDN? I don't even want to hear about that stuff. Have fun with it. I can find plenty of players for 4e games. I've got 30 books worth of 4e stuff, and DDI is working fine. Time to just have fun. If you all are too hung up to get in on the fun, too bad for you! (Honestly, play what is fun for you, its all OK, but I'm done even hearing any more 4e crapping upon).

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that. :D 

I also never crapped on 4e. No reason too its a fine system. I was just saying. And just because Salla played a fighter in a 3.5 game where there was a power gaming  show hogging wizard doesn't mean other classes are useless.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:22PM, Felorn wrote:

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that. :D 

Forgot to mention thats not even with Prestige Classes

Hmmm.
Everyone can do something decent at any time.
Everyone can do some impressive stuff once per encounter.
Everyone can do something awesome once per day.
What's not to like?

I have no idea why everyone is saying that the spell casters were out-classing the non-spell casters. I played in a group where the mounted paladin ruled the battlefield, and the casters were lucky to get more that 2 or 3 creatures in their area effects. On the other hand, the cleric dropping the celestial Orca into the underground lake to fight the aquadic monster there was pretty fun. Sure, there were some great spells, but it sounds to me like people are fussing about limitations that do not necessarily apply. Sure, the Wizard could cast a 20D6 fireball. My archer could hit a target 300 yards away, 2-4 times per round (depending on level). Sounds to me like people bitching about a class they never learned to play, or restricting themselves to using calculators as RPG methods.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:32PM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Hmmm.
Everyone can do something decent at any time.
Everyone can do some impressive stuff once per encounter.
Everyone can do something awesome once per day.
What's not to like?

I have no idea why everyone is saying that the spell casters were out-classing the non-spell casters. I played in a group where the mounted paladin ruled the battlefield, and the casters were lucky to get more that 2 or 3 creatures in their area effects. On the other hand, the cleric dropping the celestial Orca into the underground lake to fight the aquadic monster there was pretty fun. Sure, there were some great spells, but it sounds to me like people are fussing about limitations that do not necessarily apply. Sure, the Wizard could cast a 20D6 fireball. My archer could hit a target 300 yards away, 2-4 times per round (depending on level). Sounds to me like people bitching about a class they never learned to play, or restricting themselves to using calculators as RPG methods.

Exactly.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:32PM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Hmmm.
Everyone can do something decent at any time.
Everyone can do some impressive stuff once per encounter.
Everyone can do something awesome once per day.
What's not to like?

I have no idea why everyone is saying that the spell casters were out-classing the non-spell casters. I played in a group where the mounted paladin ruled the battlefield, and the casters were lucky to get more that 2 or 3 creatures in their area effects. On the other hand, the cleric dropping the celestial Orca into the underground lake to fight the aquadic monster there was pretty fun. Sure, there were some great spells, but it sounds to me like people are fussing about limitations that do not necessarily apply. Sure, the Wizard could cast a 20D6 fireball. My archer could hit a target 300 yards away, 2-4 times per round (depending on level). Sounds to me like people bitching about a class they never learned to play, or restricting themselves to using calculators as RPG methods.

 Damage dealing spells weren't that broken in 3.5. At a casual level 3.5 worked fine it took a little bit of system mastery to really break it. The big offenders were.

1. Polymorph. Druid polymorphs into whatever, spell buffs himself and can bea a fighter in melee. Even flying around a s a hawk dropping spells was a big advanatage. A wizard could shapechange into a balor and create a vorpal sword, then another one, then another one etc. Wizard shapechanges into a Dragon, casts mage armor and shield.

2. Stacking buff spells. Usually Clerics and Druids. Fighter takes a feat giving +1 or +2 to hit or damage damage. Cleric uses persistent metamagic to gain a +10-25 bonus to hit and damage. And then power attacks. Ring of counterspells were used to counter dispel magic.

3. Action economy spells. Timestop, 3.0 haste.

4. Summoning spells. All sorts of abuse here. Some feats let you apply templates to summoned creatures, others let you conjure up creatures that could grant wish spells.

5. Spell DCs scaling faster than defenses. Fighters got dominated very easily, Mordenkainens disjunctions was a big F you to a fighter with hundreds of thousands of gp invested in his gear.

 At least it was better than 3.0 where spellcasters could get infinate ability scores, cast 17 spells a round (no I'm not joking timestop+haste), clerics could double stack certain spells (+25 hit/damage), and spell DCs could get into the 30s by level 10 or so.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:22PM, Felorn wrote:

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that.

How are you coming up with that answer? I see seven races and 11 classes, with the ranger being quite different with the choice of combat style at level 2, so we'll go with 12 "classes". That only comes out to 84 class / race combos. Now, I certainly don't think all choice of class features for 4e classes created drastically different results, for example, the different wizard options played similar enough that I would count them as just one class, but others do play quite differently (like Str vs. Wis Clerics or the different Warlock pact options) that they would count in the same world where the two Rangers options counted separately.

As for multi-classing, as you throw in more levels, you will obviously get options and more possible combinations with 3e because of the loose way it handled that.

And 3e prestige classes aren't going to help you too much considering that just in the PH1 of 4e, each of the 8 classes had 2 (maybe 3?) paragon paths for each of the 8 classes and the two are pretty close in functionality.

Oct 31, 2012 -- 3:53AM, cheethorne wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:22PM, Felorn wrote:

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that.

How are you coming up with that answer? I see seven races and 11 classes, with the ranger being quite different with the choice of combat style at level 2, so we'll go with 12 "classes". That only comes out to 84 class / race combos. Now, I certainly don't think all choice of class features for 4e classes created drastically different results, for example, the different wizard options played similar enough that I would count them as just one class, but others do play quite differently (like Str vs. Wis Clerics or the different Warlock pact options) that they would count in the same world where the two Rangers options counted separately.

As for multi-classing, as you throw in more levels, you will obviously get options and more possible combinations with 3e because of the loose way it handled that.

And 3e prestige classes aren't going to help you too much considering that just in the PH1 of 4e, each of the 8 classes had 2 (maybe 3?) paragon paths for each of the 8 classes and the two are pretty close in functionality.

Sorry that was just classes and I was off by 5, there are a total of 105 Class combos (@ lvl 2) this is with prereqs worked in. And this: 735 is the total number of variations for race and class combos at level 2.

My bad. 

And again, how many of those combinations are actually playable?

You're also not considering that you can't do things like bard/monk in 3e because of the stupidity of alignment restrictions.

Its not like you were blatantly lying about what classses were playable in 3.5 Even a fighter is playable at level 15 vs the MM type foes. He may be a bit dependent on gear but he can beat things down. He may not be able to warp reality or end the combat in a round or two but we had them kill high CR foes without much hassle. A large chunk of D&D players don't even post on msg boards and for casual players 3.5 worked fine because they did not have the system mastery to break it. For those players 3.5 probably worked fine.

What edition you like is subjective. 4th ed flopping is not

Oct 31, 2012 -- 1:27PM, Salla wrote:

And again, how many of those combinations are actually playable?

You're also not considering that you can't do things like bard/monk in 3e because of the stupidity of alignment restrictions.

I know you can't do bard monks... I worked that in. Plus, what did you even play in 3.5? And with what kind of group. If 3.5 was broken as you say it is then why do so many people stay loyal to it?

Oct 30, 2012 -- 3:30PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Another poster summed it up better than I could.

Xguild in another thread.

 "Most importantly you could remove and replace mechanics you didn't like without the system breaking down in Pathfinder.  Again in 4th edition most mechanics where part of the foundation built into the core of the system.  You couldn't for example add vanican magic into the game, or remove healing surges. You couldn't switch to a mana based  magic system or re-define how divine magic worked.  You where always tied to the demands of the system."

This is uttermost bovine soil improvement byproduct. I know a guy that likes Incarnum and likes 4e. You know what he does. HE JUST RUNS THE INCARNUM RULES WITH 4E, lock stock and barrel right the heck out of the book. I know another guy that has 3e Sorcerers in his 4e game, and another one that has 2e priest kits in his. Sorry, this is just nonsensical. 4e is no less hackable than any previous edition. You MAY not achieve the superior level of rules function with that level of homebrew vs official 4e stuff, but if your fun is built on using that material and the alternative is to go to an ENTIRE GAME SYSTEM which is vastly less polished to get it then clearly using it with 4e could be the superior option and is FULLY workable by comparison. If you are claiming it isn't then you're using a double standard.

THats what I mean when I say 4th ed restricted options. Its really a sandbox vs linear approach to D&D. You probably could make a 4th ed/d20 based game with some of the changes he listed there but it would require a dramatic rework of the rules/system to make it work. If you had a major probelm with the Druid class for example one could just say "Druids are now banned". A heavy handed approach sure but it works. If you don't like healing surges you are going to have to rewrite a new mechanic to replace them as a simple house rule "no more healing surges guys" is going to have a dramatic effect on your game system.

Again, the bull fertilizer is thick here. It is no more or less hard to remove healing surges from 4e than it would be to remove magical healing from 3e (exactly how WOULD your 20th level PCs manage to heal without spells and potions and wands...). The changes to the rules are no more or less profound in either case.

 Star Wars Saga for example was set in  different game world but it was mostly 3.5 based with the magic system stripped out and elements of 4th ed added. You keep the options part of 3.5 and remove a big problem 3.5 had (spellcasters). 4th ed took a heavy handed approach to the spellcaster problem in 3rd ed which was really gut the system and make everyone a spellcaster of sorts although you can quibble over things like power sources. Everyone used the AEDU structure. What happens if you don't like AEDU?

First of all are you saying that 4e can't do say Star Wars as well as 3e? I hate to break this to you, but you're sadly unimaginative if you believe that: starwars.gameslayer.org/ how about this, a simple Star Wars 4e supplement, or how about THIS dungeonsmaster.com/2012/07/star-wars-pre... awesome set of character sheets (entire set of encounters-legal PCs refluffed to Star Wars characters using pure 4e mechanics). Sorry, you're going to have to try harder.

What happens in 3e if you don't like "stand in one place and power attack" fighter? Or Vancian Wizard? Get serious. You can make up different classes that are different than that if you want, JUST LIKE YOU ALWAYS COULD. Did 4e stick a straw up your nose and suck out the brains? Of course there are a whole slew of non-AEDU classes in 4e supplied by WotC as well, which if nothing else did would certainly crush this sort of argument.

Truthfully I'm an advocate of consistent AEDU class design, but the TOTAL possible space for classes to exist in within 4e is just as large as that of any previous edition. It mystifies me how anyone can think otherwise.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:22PM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 3:17PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 10:17AM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 2:44AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Yeah, the PH was really limiting on character options. You only had 8 races and 8 classes. That's only, like 64 posibilities. And the classes only had 2-3 different builds... so that would be 128 characters... And then there were the different feats you could take... and the different power options for encounter, daily, and utilities... and then there was to variations on which stat array you used... Yeah, that was a serious limitation there. only 512 options (race, class, build, encounter power, daily power) before working out which feat(s) and stat array you wanted to use. And that isn't even touching which weapon the melee and martial characters chose. Sure, some of the choices are sub-optimal, but they can still fun.
Hate to break it to you, but I played a PH1 fighter up to lvl10 and loved it. and a PH1 cleric to lvl8. Then the other books came out... And they provided some interesting options...
The only character that got really worked over was my Fey-pact warlock: it took until arcane Power and the DDI articles with new Warlock powers and feats to make it anywhere comparable to the other striker classes that came out in the PH1 (and no, I don't want to start that argument again).

The books were too expensive? Yes. Certainly.
Is the system too limited? Only as limited as your imagination and willingness to refluff.
Most major liabilities: uneven release of material, failure to provide source material, utter failure to market/PR, shoddy editing.
Other liabilities: way too much time/effort to create a minis game (which failed), mid-edition release of Essentials as another failure/distraction

3.5 had more class combos than the total number of things you just gave. 

Sure, after how many books? And as Salla says, many of those options were EXCEEDINGLY weaker than the others, not like a LITTLE BIT, but like "you might as well just sit back and watch the fight" weaker.

And no, how powerful a specific given character is isn't the point. You don't have to be the most powerful, it is still fun, but when a system says "You CANNOT EVER make a guy that swings a sword that holds a candle to ANY guy that uses magic PERIOD" then that's a rule system that has serious issues. It may be fine for some people but just because you don't 'get' what the problem is doesn't fix it either. 4e fixed it. It just plain frigging fixed it open and shut case fixed.

Frankly it is a kick-ass system and I have no real interest in switching. In fact I just fired up a 2nd weekly 4e game to run again whole new campaign, starting at 1st it looks like (Some of these players have mid-paragon PCs we used in an earlier campaign too, which might be fun to work in, we'll see). DDN? I don't even want to hear about that stuff. Have fun with it. I can find plenty of players for 4e games. I've got 30 books worth of 4e stuff, and DDI is working fine. Time to just have fun. If you all are too hung up to get in on the fun, too bad for you! (Honestly, play what is fun for you, its all OK, but I'm done even hearing any more 4e crapping upon).

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that. :D 

I also never crapped on 4e. No reason too its a fine system. I was just saying. And just because Salla played a fighter in a 3.5 game where there was a power gaming  show hogging wizard doesn't mean other classes are useless.

Yeah, I agree, but you do have to admit that old-fashioned D&D REALLY limited the set of assumptions you could build around. You simply could not build a game where plausibly in view of the way the rules (and I mean for ANY previous edition) you would have non-casters that weren't totally at the mercy of any even moderately clever caster. Certainly in terms of PCs it would be laughable to run around as a high level fighter claiming you could do squat against a high level cleric or wizard, or take care of a liche or probably even one of your more capable dragons.

I got tired of it being so limited long before 3e even showed up, long before WotC was even on the radar. It is just as fine to want to play bad assed world dominating wizards that rule everything and fighters are peons, but I WANT to be that fighter that murderizes spell casters and leads his army right up to the evil high priest's castle and slags the guy in single combat, which is laughably impossible in any edition of D&D before 4th.

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:29PM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 30, 2012 -- 5:22PM, Felorn wrote:

Just with the Core book at just level 2 there are nearly 110 options, for class/race combos. Then you can multiclass even further after that. :D 

Forgot to mention thats not even with Prestige Classes

4e PHB1 has 8 races and 8 classes, which is a base of 64 combinations. Then you also have MCing. However this is not a straightforward comparison. Every 4e class has for instance 4 at-will powers, of which you get 2, which means 12 distinct combinations (except warlock, but then humans also have extra choices). Each of these 12 produces a different set of tactical options, which can be further widened by choices of class feature for most classes and selection of encounter and daily powers for all classes. Furthermore there is a wider choice of viable skills such that in 4e it is perfectly feasible to make a fighter that has Stealth and Thievery for instance (though using PHB1 you probably can't start with both of those skills at level 1 as a fighter, still the option is open and viable and you can do it with at least some races right off, and all of them by level 2).

No doubt there are a few things you can't do right off in 4e that you can do right off in 3e, but the opposite is also true, you can do some concepts better in 4e even with the basic 3 books. I really don't think that there is a vast difference personally.

Oct 31, 2012 -- 6:53PM, Felorn wrote:

Oct 31, 2012 -- 1:27PM, Salla wrote:

And again, how many of those combinations are actually playable?

You're also not considering that you can't do things like bard/monk in 3e because of the stupidity of alignment restrictions.

I know you can't do bard monks... I worked that in. Plus, what did you even play in 3.5? And with what kind of group. If 3.5 was broken as you say it is then why do so many people stay loyal to it?

Yes, I played 3.5.  I houseruled the living **** out of it, including banning the cleric, druid, and wizard, to try to make it more playable.

As for why people stay loyal to it, I have been wondering that myself for quite some time ... even before 4e came out.

Meh 4th ed is dead and so is 3.5. Long live D&D. 4th ed is really the first edition of D&D to fail withen a few years of launching. The main reason probably being it alienated a good chunk of the 3.5 players.

 4th ed is very different and it was not everyones cup of tea. You can pound a peg into a round hole if you try hard enough but 4th ed was more restrictive than 3.5 for the most part. At first it went out of its way to tell that you can't be XYZ that 3.5 allowed and I'm not talking about random crap like some weird multiclass/PrC abomination that someone cooked up. No Bard, Monk, Barbarian, Sorcerer in the core books, missing 3.5 races but with 3 different flavours of elf to chose from in the 4th ed PHB. They would probably need around an extra 50-60 pages to squeexe in those classes. If you want to be a archer you had to be a ranger or multiclass ranger, want to be a duelist you have to be a rogue. Or at least to not suck anyway.

 I'm not disputing that the 3.5 fighter had issues but I could build my PC how I wanted. If I sucked and fell flat on my face so be it. 4th ed fighter on release sword and board, two handed weapon or suck were you only options. If you can't even comprehend why someone may not like 4th ed based on a basic archtype being unplayable in 4th ed that a 3.5 core class or prestige class allowed I can't make it any simpler for you. Some people did not like 4th ed due to its art being a bit cartoony.

 As I said I can at least understand why people had issues with 3.5 and I would probably agree with a few of them (overpowered spellcasters being one). Personally I did not like the AEDU class structure or the 4th ed roles which I can't really houserule away without alot of work. 4th ed DMG, great book, 4th ed monster manual /encounter building borderline brilliant, 4th ed PHB/class design system= muck around for a few years, jump to Pathfinder. I would even go as far to say 4th ed is mechanically better than 3.5 and PF but it feels like a tactical minis game to me with RPG elements and not an RPG game. I even enjoyed playing 4th ed at times, one big problem with 4th ed I will concede is that I never got to play it only DM it. If I did I would roll up a Rogue or Wizard as I liked those classes the best. I could not find another person willing to  DM 4th ed and struggled to find 4th ed players. Doesn't matter how good 4th ed is without a group and good adventures help. 1/4 players liked 4th ed, 2 others prefer 3rd ed/PF or D&D next, 1 other player doesn't really care and it apathetic towards 4th ed.

 I have low expectations for D&DN. If it doesn't have stupidly overpowered spellcasters, 4th ed role/AEDU power structure as core rules (ok with a few classes being AEDU), and its fun to play and quick to run I'll be keen. Hopefully the good parts of 4th ed will live on in Next though- prep time, monster concepts, at wills being a few of the good ideas. My dislike of 4th ed does not go far enough to write of the system. If 4th ed was popular locally and I could not play 3.5/PF I would happily play it even if its not ideal- as long as I could have a charisma rogue or some sort of wizard.

 Also liked the bard. My 3 favourite 4th ed classes I suppose, Bard, Rogue, Wizard. At least as far as the AEDU power stucture went. Wouldn't bother me that much if these classes were AEDU in D&DNext, I just don't want every class to be AEDU and then some waste of space class made up to fix a power source hole in the role structure.

4th ain't dead yet by a long shot, it is the current edition of D&D and will be for, according to Mike Mearls, about 2 more years. All I know or care about is that it is THE MOST FUN and easiest to play version of D&D. I have UTTERLY no problem finding players. I could run 10 games a week if I had time and energy. I know I'm CERTAINLY going to be running 4e campaigns for at least that long. Further I simply have no clue what the goings on are about "less flexible" or this or that or the other endless gripping. It sounds like sour grapes to me frankly. Earlier editions of D&D have had plenty of good stuff in them, and there are strengths and weaknesses of various editions, but I've easily proven to myself without any doubt that I can take anything from say 2e (which is one of my favorites) and reuse it easily in some form in 4e (heck, most of it is already pretty much there in most cases in some form).

Oct 31, 2012 -- 1:53PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Its not like you were blatantly lying about what classses were playable in 3.5 Even a fighter is playable at level 15 vs the MM type foes. He may be a bit dependent on gear but he can beat things down. He may not be able to warp reality or end the combat in a round or two but we had them kill high CR foes without much hassle. A large chunk of D&D players don't even post on msg boards and for casual players 3.5 worked fine because they did not have the system mastery to break it. For those players 3.5 probably worked fine.

What edition you like is subjective. 4th ed flopping is not

4E would have been the most successful system that any other company had ever released.

So saying it flopped is, well, subjective.  Shadowrun and GURPS would KILL for those sorts of sales numbers. 

What you're complaining about is that the very first book for 4e didn't have the same stuff that 3.5 had an entire edition to come up with? They started out small and worked their way out from there. And for the races and classes that weren't in the PHB for 4e? WotC came out and said they were either the unpopular races/classes or ones they weren't sure how to implement at first.

I compared PHB to PHB. I di not expect 4th ed to cover every 3.5 class on release but the system did cop alot of flack back in the day for not having them. 1/3rd of the 3.5 classes were excluded. Yes its hard to design a 15 page class in 4th ed but if they had come up with somehitng different in the 1st place they could have had them and had space left over. Satr Wars Saga managed a more balanced and fun system than 3.5 and only had around 4 pages per class with good options. I checked my rules cyclopedia from the other day and each class was 2 pages with around 20 pages total for spells. They basically had to design a new power path to support a dual wielding fighter which 3.5 required a few feats to do. All they really had to do with 3.5 was kick the spell casters in the nuts, rip out the CR system, give the non casters some out of comabt class abilities and overhaul the skill system.

 4th ed done that with a sledgehammer instead of a scapel. They had a really good frame work to build on with Star Wars Saga. THey could have gone a bit further with that system or revamped 3.5 but further than pathfinder took it. 5 page character sheets I don't think are exactly ideal. I think thats what the player base was expecting, we got 4th ed and gamers voted with their feet and wallets once Pathfinder rolled around.

Oct 31, 2012 -- 6:53PM, Felorn wrote:

I know you can't do bard monks... I worked that in. Plus, what did you even play in 3.5? And with what kind of group. If 3.5 was broken as you say it is then why do so many people stay loyal to it?

Because most groups consists of people liking the same things, having the same skill level (or at least making sure those weaker in character building get help), sticking to unspoken table rules and a DM doing massive amounts of behind-the-screen work to make every PC at the table shine. You only had to take a look at a convention game like LG (especially at the bigger conventions) to realize how badly broken some combinations could be and how all martial characters at higher levels looked the same (and non were pure classed). In the end the biggest factor in fun at the table are the people and, baring extremes, not the game.

Oct 31, 2012 -- 8:27PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

4th ain't dead yet by a long shot, it is the current edition of D&D and will be for, according to Mike Mearls, about 2 more years. All I know or care about is that it is THE MOST FUN and easiest to play version of D&D. I have UTTERLY no problem finding players. I could run 10 games a week if I had time and energy. I know I'm CERTAINLY going to be running 4e campaigns for at least that long.

This.

And most of the stuff Salla said.

After 30 years of DM'ing, 4e is BY FAR the best version of the game I've played yet.   I doubt that any future versions will surpass that.  

Nov 1, 2012 -- 8:12AM, SwampDog wrote:

Oct 31, 2012 -- 8:27PM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

4th ain't dead yet by a long shot, it is the current edition of D&D and will be for, according to Mike Mearls, about 2 more years. All I know or care about is that it is THE MOST FUN and easiest to play version of D&D. I have UTTERLY no problem finding players. I could run 10 games a week if I had time and energy. I know I'm CERTAINLY going to be running 4e campaigns for at least that long.

This.

And most of the stuff Salla said.

After 30 years of DM'ing, 4e is BY FAR the best version of the game I've played yet.   I doubt that any future versions will surpass that.  

 I have to say 4e is probably the best game to DM, but I find it not as fun to play. 

Nov 1, 2012 -- 2:57AM, Madfox11 wrote:

Oct 31, 2012 -- 6:53PM, Felorn wrote:

I know you can't do bard monks... I worked that in. Plus, what did you even play in 3.5? And with what kind of group. If 3.5 was broken as you say it is then why do so many people stay loyal to it?

Because most groups consists of people liking the same things, having the same skill level (or at least making sure those weaker in character building get help), sticking to unspoken table rules and a DM doing massive amounts of behind-the-screen work to make every PC at the table shine. You only had to take a look at a convention game like LG (especially at the bigger conventions) to realize how badly broken some combinations could be and how all martial characters at higher levels looked the same (and non were pure classed). In the end the biggest factor in fun at the table are the people and, baring extremes, not the game.

I don't believe that every character has to shine in every session. They should have a time to shine. But not the way 4e wants to put it. And I've never had any problems letting people shine or shining myself in 3.5 and Pathfinder.

Nov 1, 2012 -- 10:11AM, Felorn wrote:

I don't believe that every character has to shine in every session. They should have a time to shine. But not the way 4e wants to put it. And I've never had any problems letting people shine or shining myself in 3.5 and Pathfinder.

A good DM, or a fantastic roleplayer, can make any character shine on demand. The problem is that we can't all be good DM's or fantastic roleplayers. For those of us not so blessed, it is nice when the system helps us shine.

A flaw in the desgin of previous editions is that certain classes were designed to shine early in the game, and others were designed to shine at later levels. A Wizard "paid their dues" by being weaker than wet tissue paper until levels 5 or 8. After level 10, the martial types fall off into inconsequentiality. The reason this design is flawed is that "star time" wound up being very unevenly distributed. Everyone sucked from levels 1-3, the martial types just sucked less. This left levels 4 and 5 for the martial types to shine before the casters get equal star time. Even if the campaign falls of at level 13, long before the level cap, the time spent at levels 4-5 is much, much shorter than the time spent in levels 11-13, thanks to the way XP scaled as you leveled. You might spend four weeks going from level 4 to 6, where you can spend four months going from 11-13.

4E replaced levels of suck with class balance across the board. Thankfully, it sounds like one of the design goals is to keep this general idea. They want everyone to be relevant at all levels. Whether they can pull it off and still appease all the lapsed players who are their primary target audience will be the trick.

Oct 28, 2012 -- 1:51PM, Zardnaar wrote:

The classes were different but i just asked my players what they did not like about 4th ed. I never played it only DMed it.
 Basically they did not care about their characters. In 4th ed you basically picked a role or a class.

I'll admit that about the first 10% of developing my first 4E character was based on the class... and then the reason for picking that class got nerfed before I played the character, so I had to do something somewhat different (but by then I had a character concept, in addition to a mechanical concept. And I do have another character where the concept was originally purely mechanical (and required a specific class) and I selected feats and powers through several levels and then built a person to justify the results. That person now has a lot of complexity and I could build the character concept in at least one other class.

But the large majority of my characters have stories first and then I look for the classes, feats, and other options that allowed me to realize that character.

 Each class really had an obvious path to go down

I've never noticed that.

and I know a Cleric is a better healer than a warlord but as long as you had a leader for the most part it did not matter what type of leader that was. Or what type of striker you had.

You are correct, (nearly) all the leader classes can do the leader's job and (nearly) all the striker classes can do the striker's job. And that's beautiful. 

It was also rapidly obvious which powers, feats and items were better than others. You really had to just pick the best ones in your defined role going down a predetermined path of powers.

It is not the edition's fault that your group consists of powergamers.

And in what edition was this NOT true of powergamers?

YOu did get the choice where you wanted to go but for the most part it did not matter what class or role you took as long as you did not neglect DPS.

Actually, I neglect DPS quite often. Like when I'm doing anything involving D&D. Since we don't time  our games in seconds.

I also often neglect DPR. In fact, the character that was built mechanically through several levels and then as a character has the most attention to damage-dealing of any character I've ever built in any edition... I kept damage as low as possible within the class.

DPR is of primary importance only for a striker. For anyone else it's secondary at most.

The original classes in the PHB go the most support so generally they were the best classes to pick as well. As long as you didn't do anything too stupid like focus on defending or healing over damage you were good to go.

You know, there ARE roles other than striker and striker-with-a-side-of-healing. The other roles are effective and useful - and fun. Perhaps the most fun I've had relative to the amount of time I've played the character was with my Bard.

To my players they said they didn't really  care about their characters because they were ultimatly disposable or replaceable.

Definitely less true in 4E than in prior editions. Because you can start at level 1 and, by default, actually expect that your character will probably survive. In 1E it's more like "don't bother naming your character before level 4". 3E isn't quite that bad, but a first-level character is definitely wearing a red shirt.

But further: in 1E you could replace a fighter of any level with another fighter of the same level - and very little else, because in the levels where a fighter had something to do nobody else could do it decently, while in high levels nobody else was quite as useless. At least in 4E if you want to replace a character, you can replace it with a character of another class that does the same job comparably well but in a different fashion.

Sounds like someone needed to take your players' character sheets away and ask them who their characters are. Where they grew up, who they grew up with. What inspires them, what angers them. What they dream about at night.

Because the character sheet is not the character. The character sheet is (mostly) combat stats about the character. Which leaves everything else unaddressed. Why is Zelle (bard) adventuring, why does she avoid Korranberg, who are her parents and why isn't she interested in finding out - and what's with all that hair? Where is Berrian (ranger|fighter) from and why won't he name it, why is he so angry toward his likewise-unnamed father, and what debt causes him to take a tenth of his share of treasure to a church? Why does Paz (wizard) never use spells that immediately damage anyone? These are all critical information about the character as a person, but there is very little room for that sort of thing on the character sheet because they don't affect combat.

Nov 1, 2012 -- 12:07AM, Zardnaar wrote:

I compared PHB to PHB. I di not expect 4th ed to cover every 3.5 class on release but the system did cop alot of flack back in the day for not having them. 1/3rd of the 3.5 classes were excluded. Yes its hard to design a 15 page class in 4th ed but if they had come up with somehitng different in the 1st place they could have had them and had space left over. Satr Wars Saga managed a more balanced and fun system than 3.5 and only had around 4 pages per class with good options. I checked my rules cyclopedia from the other day and each class was 2 pages with around 20 pages total for spells. They basically had to design a new power path to support a dual wielding fighter which 3.5 required a few feats to do. All they really had to do with 3.5 was kick the spell casters in the nuts, rip out the CR system, give the non casters some out of comabt class abilities and overhaul the skill system.

 4th ed done that with a sledgehammer instead of a scapel. They had a really good frame work to build on with Star Wars Saga. THey could have gone a bit further with that system or revamped 3.5 but further than pathfinder took it. 5 page character sheets I don't think are exactly ideal. I think thats what the player base was expecting, we got 4th ed and gamers voted with their feet and wallets once Pathfinder rolled around.

hah! it is a fine and elegant design. I think you'd be better to look at the formatting of the actual books, use of fonts and other use of internal space. 4e books waste a lot of space. They could easily have crammed half of PHB2 into PHB1 if they'd wanted to without trying too hard. They CERTAINLY could have included another couple of classes and 2 more races. Honestly, the only classes they might have really profitably included were Druid and Bard. Barbarian would maybe have been nice, but hardly required.

Again, I disagree on your assessment of 4e options. Name a reasonable character concept that doesn't amount to "duplicate these 3e mechanics exactly" and you can do it in 4e and you can usually do it in the PHB1.

You're reaching.

Most of the advanatges of 4th ed acan also be duplicated in Star Wars Saga and each class there is very simple. Its hard to say what people anted 4 years after the fact but I think 3.5 gamers wanted an evolution of 3.5. 4th ed was a revolution. I wanted spellcassters fixed probably with large nerfhammers, the skill system overhauled, the classes redesigned and various bugs smoothed out.

 Gonna stop arguing over the finer points as most people can probably find various things about either system they like, dislike or whatever and most of it is going to be subjective. Mechanically I thought Star Wars Saga was the best d20 game from 2007-2008 time period as it probably should have been the basis for 4th ed.

 4th ed split the player base like no other edition of D&D and alot of that had to do with its design. If you like the design of 4th ed thats fine as its a purely subjective opinion and pats of 4th ed were brilliant and I am hard pressed to play 3.5 now because of some of those ideas like the DMG, and the way 4th ed handled monsters. If we ever played 4th ed again we would probably freeze it in time and that would be the last update of the 4th ed offline CB. TO me that was probably the highpoint of 4th ed (late 2010?). We actually had DDI for 3 years but canceled it when the online CB came along and Dragon/Dungeon were turned into a series of articles.

Nov 2, 2012 -- 2:00PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Most of the advanatges of 4th ed acan also be duplicated in Star Wars Saga and each class there is very simple. Its hard to say what people anted 4 years after the fact but I think 3.5 gamers wanted an evolution of 3.5. 4th ed was a revolution. I wanted spellcassters fixed probably with large nerfhammers, the skill system overhauled, the classes redesigned and various bugs smoothed out.

 Gonna stop arguing over the finer points as most people can probably find various things about either system they like, dislike or whatever and most of it is going to be subjective. Mechanically I thought Star Wars Saga was the best d20 game from 2007-2008 time period as it probably should have been the basis for 4th ed.

 4th ed split the player base like no other edition of D&D and alot of that had to do with its design. If you like the design of 4th ed thats fine as its a purely subjective opinion and pats of 4th ed were brilliant and I am hard pressed to play 3.5 now because of some of those ideas like the DMG, and the way 4th ed handled monsters. If we ever played 4th ed again we would probably freeze it in time and that would be the last update of the 4th ed offline CB. TO me that was probably the highpoint of 4th ed (late 2010?). We actually had DDI for 3 years but canceled it when the online CB came along and Dragon/Dungeon were turned into a series of articles.

IMHO the problem is that NO evolution of 3.5 was ever going to deliver the things that 4e delivered. To the extent that 4e is different from 3.5 (and a lot of it really isn't THAT different) the differences seem to have been necessary. 3e style ala-carte MCing for instance IMHO was a huge mistake. It practically guarantees that the game will require a LOT of system mastery, present many trap options, and force the design of classes into a narrower range in order to work at all. While 4e shows that something pretty close to Vancian casting can work the whole basic design of spell casters in pre-4e D&D was simply never going to deliver anything close to a play experience free of total caster domination at higher levels (which happened in AD&D as well).

Whether or not some OTHER design besides the one 4e chose would be as good or better will never be known. What is clear is that continuing to just twiddle the dials on traditional D&D was never going to lead anywhere except to produce an endless stream of essentially similar games that would eventually become irrelevant.

Clearly there are any number of things about 4e itself that could be improved, MANY MANY things about WotC's business execution around 4e, etc. I think the game could be perfectly acceptible to the vast majority of players if it is handled correctly. At this point however it is all pointless to argue about. WotC in its blundering way has killed its main product. While I have little taste for PF at least Paizo seems to be a smarter company. I can always hope that in a few years they'll come out with a good RPG. OTOH WotC can take a hike at this point. I don't even trust them to stand behind their product anymore.

Yeah, it was really horrible of WotC to take away 3 classes, and then give you only 2 new ones. That was awful of them. Who would ever want to play a Warlord? and the Warlock... A charisma-based spell caster? wait... isn't that what a Sorceror is? (End sarchasm)

Gee, having to pick which power is better is hard, isn't it? Um... no, not really.
Even when my friend and I are playing the same build of the same class, we take different powers. He likes his warlock to become a melee arcane striker. I prefer to stay a ranged striker.

All you want to play is strikers? Try the Devoted Cleric. Before Solar Wrath was nerfed, it was a battle-breaker. And a lot of fun. Serious fun. I could do things with that...  But even nerfed, it was still dangerous. The only downside was that for the first 8 levels or so, I was stuck with one of the melee-powers (human 3rd at-will). Then Divine Power came out and I took Astral Seal.

No, as it happens, I am running a game where all the players are strikers (by design). Rule is that the first character to die has to be replaced by a leader. Next one by a defender. LVL 13, and no one is gone. Another party has 4 strikers and a controller, and they're doing very well. But throw enough minions at them and the game changes.

So you had to wait for a while before you got your pet class. Would you rather they'd rushed it (even more) and produced a lesser product? As it was, the editting and play-testing for some of the classes is suspect.
There's too much wasted space? The font is too big? Yeah, it is truly horrible that they designed the books to be readable at a glance so that you could quickly and easily find where you were, and us oldsters didn't need to put on reading glasses or squint.

As for the WotC StarWars game: I'm guilty of the same knee-jerk hate that people seem to have for 4th edition. I looked at it and knew none of my group would want to play it. Was especially disgusted that Wookies were essentially 1/2 orcs. I did try one online PbP, but the other players dropped out. So I'll stick with my 1st/2nd ed WEG hybrid game.

 I wouldn't be throwing around insults about MC due to the way 4th ed made it lol. Spend a feat, gain a minor power poach a paragon path seemed to be 4th ed MC. Saga had had 3.5 style multiclassing and worked great although it needed a tweak as it rewarded skills to much with a single dip into another class. Saga ripped out the 3.5 spellcaster mechanic and added 4th ed style encounter powers but they were basically optional. You could build a soldier for example who hit things hard or added powers via feats, class abilities or force powers. It was kinda hard to screw up your character in Saga as long as you were good at something and out of combat it was better than 3.5 and 4th.

 Vancian casting itself isn't a major problem. 3rd ed removed alot of the lmits on it from pre 3rd ed and gave Druids and Clerics level 8 and 9 spells. Saga has vancian casting but has a 4th ed influence in powers and fighters get options and they have fixed the Cleric stacking buff spells penalty. I don't think balance will be perfect at lelvel 19 with spelcasters but at levle 10 it looks quite good as the vancian spells are not as nasty as the 3.5 varients in most cases.

 In a way 4th ed turned everyone into vancian casters anyway with dailies. It also more or less let everyone start at level 3, stretched out 10 levels of previous edions through to level 20 or so and scaled the monsters although they messed up the math there a bit.

Nov 3, 2012 -- 12:04PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 I wouldn't be throwing around insults about MC due to the way 4th ed made it lol. Spend a feat, gain a minor power poach a paragon path seemed to be 4th ed MC. Saga had had 3.5 style multiclassing and worked great although it needed a tweak as it rewarded skills to much with a single dip into another class. Saga ripped out the 3.5 spellcaster mechanic and added 4th ed style encounter powers but they were basically optional. You could build a soldier for example who hit things hard or added powers via feats, class abilities or force powers. It was kinda hard to screw up your character in Saga as long as you were good at something and out of combat it was better than 3.5 and 4th.

 Vancian casting itself isn't a major problem. 3rd ed removed alot of the lmits on it from pre 3rd ed and gave Druids and Clerics level 8 and 9 spells. Saga has vancian casting but has a 4th ed influence in powers and fighters get options and they have fixed the Cleric stacking buff spells penalty. I don't think balance will be perfect at lelvel 19 with spelcasters but at levle 10 it looks quite good as the vancian spells are not as nasty as the 3.5 varients in most cases.

 In a way 4th ed turned everyone into vancian casters anyway with dailies. It also more or less let everyone start at level 3, stretched out 10 levels of previous edions through to level 20 or so and scaled the monsters although they messed up the math there a bit.

4e MCing achieved everything it intended to. You can mix in some of another class. If you go PMC you can mix in a LOT of another class. PERSONALLY I'd vote for lowering the overall feat cost a bit, but since you're defending 3.5 with "so what if some options are more powerful than others, it was never a problem" then you cannot suddenly adopt a double standard and say 4e MCing is bad because it is a bit underpowered (and not always at that).

Vancian casting though IS the problem. The fundamental root of the problem is the very nature of the resource control mechanism that is Vancian casting. Anyone who doesn't see that is IMHO highly suspect in terms of having an eye for game design.  I hear that it isn't the problem and what other judgment calls have you missed? I think you can design things in better or worse ways, but ANY form of strict Vancian casting will hobble the design and eventually come back to bite you one way or another. 4e is about as close as you can get and have things work out reasonably well.

All but a few 4e monsters are fine as long as you give them decent damage output. In that sense I guess some things are 'off'. Frankly I think a lot of the designers were unable to disengage their minds from 3e numbers where 3d6 is a LOT of damage for a routine at-will type attack. Beyond that monsters are subtle. While they are easy to spec out they are actually pretty hard to make really good. Like ALL of 4e I see its monsters as a work in progress. The whole system DOES need to be tweaked, but not much a lot.

This "Vancian is bad" argument... Where to begin.
Well, Let's make it simple. I disagree. I think it is a great mechanic, and everyone in the group I play with enjoys it immensely. In fact, aside from this thread, only 1 person I know has disliked it.

The system I do not like is the Essentials mechanic of allowing the player to roll the dice, find out whether or not s/he hits, and then add on all the modifiers and extra powers. "I missed? Oh well, it was only a basic attack." "I Hit? well, that was my take-down strike, my eldrich wizzbang, and my dread smite, and _____ and ____ and ___." Granted, the original curse/sneak attack/quarry system did allow you to choose whether or not to appy the damage, but c'mon. Why wouldn't you if you could? PH1 rules only allowed the damage 1/round, unless you took a feat. It was the essentials retcon that turned it into 1/turn. The stacking powers after the result of Essentials seemed to be keyed to less mature players who would get upset if they missed with their daily or encounter power. Just as the PH2 strikers, instead of a d6 (or d8 with the feat), add their static secondary stat bonus because people don't like rolling 1s with their bonus damage.

Theres no real incentive to tweak 4th ed that much though. No money in it for WoTC.

 Vancian may not be your cup of tea but D&D is now 38 years old and it has had Vancian casting for 34 of them. 4th ed killed some sacred cows, 4th ed tanked and its probably a large reason why. Its coming back in Next but no one seems to upset that they have added at wills and the spells are less powerful than 3.5 varients. Fireball is capped at 5d6 damage now. 4th ed was in troule in late 2010 or early 2011 depending on who you want to ask, but probably when they started canceling books and the release schdule was revised to a book every 2 months barely 2 years after 4th eds launch.

 The rapid bloat of 4th ed was pointed out on these forums very early on yet the posters who doing so were "haters" or whatever. Some of the hard core fanboys thought 4th ed would maintain a PHB 1,2,3,4 etc and DMG 1,2,3,4 and a yearly camapign world for around 10 years before 5th came out. 2 years in I think they had aound 80% of 3rd eds bloat in 2 years compared to 8 years for 3rd ed (feats= feats, powers and paragon/epic paths= PRCs and Spells). Every edition bloats, 4th ed was out of control. Hence why I pointed out earlier the bad design of the 4th ed fighter which required pages of powers that a 3.5 fighter required a handful of feats to do. They could have done a 4th ed different than what they did, evolved 3.5 along the lines of Sga or a bit further, added at wills and options for non spellcasters in compact books. A pre 4th ed varient wizard requires a page or two of material (illusionist etc) 4th ed has to once again release pages of powers over a very simple concept. I actually wish more people had played Star Wars Saga as it was 3.5 inspired but had a very simple class structure.

feat
talent
feat
talent

etc
  At least people would know what I'm talking about anyway. You could take a feat and gain a handful of encounter powers if you wanted them. Other feats and talents were 4th ed daily powers and encounter powers. A new option required around 1 pafge for a new talent tree or two. Had wizards gone down that path a hypothetical 4th ed could have had an old school type fighter had someone wnated one and you could have built something very similar to a 4th ed style character if you wanted. And it required less design space. 4th ed style monsters could more or less be copied and pasted from 4th ed as written. 4th ed was not really well designed or at least not elegantly designed by comparision. SWSE was probably the cleanest d20 product WoTC made, mechanically anyway but it had some issues as well- no RPG product is perfect.

 I don't think to many holdouts will be playing 4th ed in 8-10 years time. I did not jump on board the 4th ed bandwagon but I did not abandon it either (DDI for 3 years). Gave up with the silverlight online CB. Had players turn up to play 4th ed, couldn't print out their PCs off the CB ended up playing Star Wars Saga that day. DDI ran out late 2011, bought pathfinder early 2012.

 If you are not really happy about 4th eds demise (yes its technically still alive), that was the 3.5 fanbase back in 2008. 4th ed was very different than 3.5 and in hindsight it was probably a bridge to far. Grognards don't mind change contrary to popular belief (apart from a very small and loyal 1st ed fanbase IDK??) but each previous editon change evolved on what came before (BECM,AD&D, AD&D 2nd ed). 3.0 was a large departure I suppose but alot of the changes were things people had houseruled years ago (no more racial level limts, any race can be any class etc). The big change was d20 mechanics. You are never gonna please everyone in edition changes but you upset the applecart and you don't have as many customers. IDK if a majority of D&D p[layers rejected 4th ed but it is certainly a large chunk, probably more than 25% and over 50% would be believeable. 4th ed wasn't bad as such and was very good at what it was designed to do. No point trying to sell a chocolate gateau when the market wants a boysenberry ripple cheesecake though.

Nov 4, 2012 -- 10:51AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

The system I do not like is the Essentials mechanic of allowing the player to roll the dice, find out whether or not s/he hits, and then add on all the modifiers and extra powers. "I missed? Oh well, it was only a basic attack." "I Hit? well, that was my take-down strike, my eldrich wizzbang, and my dread smite, and _____ and ____ and ___."

If you allowed this, it is all on you.

Dread Smite, Holy Smite and Backstab are all applied BEFORE the die roll. If this was a problem in your games, it was because you allowed your players to trick you about powers you could not be bothered to read for yourself. You obviously felt that it was abuse, why did you not educate yourself?

Granted, the original curse/sneak attack/quarry system did allow you to choose whether or not to appy the damage, but c'mon. Why wouldn't you if you could? PH1 rules only allowed the damage 1/round, unless you took a feat. It was the essentials retcon that turned it into 1/turn. The stacking powers after the result of Essentials seemed to be keyed to less mature players who would get upset if they missed with their daily or encounter power. Just as the PH2 strikers, instead of a d6 (or d8 with the feat), add their static secondary stat bonus because people don't like rolling 1s with their bonus damage.

Your gripe here isn't really making any sense either. Sorcerer damage was all front loaded, but it is the equivalent of an average bonus die roll, and was harder to maximize. The Avenger didn't have bonus damage at all. Their "bonus damage" is all about hitting more often. Monk Flurry damage is static, but could also be spread around. Babarian base damage was high, but bonus damage required them to use a Daily power.

The Essentials Power Strike was intended to replace Encounter power damage and special effects. In exhange for greater damage potential, it provided reliability. Why is this bad?

Nov 4, 2012 -- 10:51AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

This "Vancian is bad" argument... Where to begin.
Well, Let's make it simple. I disagree. I think it is a great mechanic, and everyone in the group I play with enjoys it immensely. In fact, aside from this thread, only 1 person I know has disliked it.

The system I do not like is the Essentials mechanic of allowing the player to roll the dice, find out whether or not s/he hits, and then add on all the modifiers and extra powers. "I missed? Oh well, it was only a basic attack." "I Hit? well, that was my take-down strike, my eldrich wizzbang, and my dread smite, and _____ and ____ and ___." Granted, the original curse/sneak attack/quarry system did allow you to choose whether or not to appy the damage, but c'mon. Why wouldn't you if you could? PH1 rules only allowed the damage 1/round, unless you took a feat. It was the essentials retcon that turned it into 1/turn. The stacking powers after the result of Essentials seemed to be keyed to less mature players who would get upset if they missed with their daily or encounter power. Just as the PH2 strikers, instead of a d6 (or d8 with the feat), add their static secondary stat bonus because people don't like rolling 1s with their bonus damage.

PHB1 fighters and to a lesser extent rogues and rangers have powers with the RELIABLE keyword. This is not substantially different from a triggered damage rider like the Slayer etc use. It is true that AFAIK there aren't reliable non-daily PHB1 powers, but remember, Slayers etc don't HAVE daily powers. It is more of a difference in overall implementation than anything else.

As for 'true' Vancian (IE AD&D-like casting), it IS problematic because all the spells are daily use. The problem is that this requires a large number of spell slots at higher levels, which encourages an overly broad power selection and also overly potent individual powers. It also encourages the designers to build in ways to get around things like interruption and weak defenses so that these one-shot powers can be delivered. Overall it is dubious mechanic that encourages overall bad design. At best it is less flexible than the AEDU style design used by 4e in terms of the range of spell power and the ability to have both a slightly narrower set of overall capabilities plus plenty of spell 'slots'. 4e, because of this, allowed for a slightly narrower focus in your caster and a bit less easily unbalanced caster. It also deals with the issue of casters vastly greater alpha strike capability, which allowed them to dominate virtually every plot significant part of the game, except at the lowest levels.

Now, I don't think there aren't potentially other spell system mechanics that could deliver similar improvements. OTOH how many of them also make good unified mechanics for other classes? Some of them might, but I suspect they will tend to be the less 'Vancian' options.

Nov 4, 2012 -- 10:56AM, Zardnaar wrote:

Theres no real incentive to tweak 4th ed that much though. No money in it for WoTC.

 Vancian may not be your cup of tea but D&D is now 38 years old and it has had Vancian casting for 34 of them. 4th ed killed some sacred cows, 4th ed tanked and its probably a large reason why. Its coming back in Next but no one seems to upset that they have added at wills and the spells are less powerful than 3.5 varients. Fireball is capped at 5d6 damage now. 4th ed was in troule in late 2010 or early 2011 depending on who you want to ask, but probably when they started canceling books and the release schdule was revised to a book every 2 months barely 2 years after 4th eds launch.

 The rapid bloat of 4th ed was pointed out on these forums very early on yet the posters who doing so were "haters" or whatever. Some of the hard core fanboys thought 4th ed would maintain a PHB 1,2,3,4 etc and DMG 1,2,3,4 and a yearly camapign world for around 10 years before 5th came out. 2 years in I think they had aound 80% of 3rd eds bloat in 2 years compared to 8 years for 3rd ed (feats= feats, powers and paragon/epic paths= PRCs and Spells). Every edition bloats, 4th ed was out of control. Hence why I pointed out earlier the bad design of the 4th ed fighter which required pages of powers that a 3.5 fighter required a handful of feats to do. They could have done a 4th ed different than what they did, evolved 3.5 along the lines of Sga or a bit further, added at wills and options for non spellcasters in compact books. A pre 4th ed varient wizard requires a page or two of material (illusionist etc) 4th ed has to once again release pages of powers over a very simple concept. I actually wish more people had played Star Wars Saga as it was 3.5 inspired but had a very simple class structure.

feat
talent
feat
talent

etc
  At least people would know what I'm talking about anyway. You could take a feat and gain a handful of encounter powers if you wanted them. Other feats and talents were 4th ed daily powers and encounter powers. A new option required around 1 pafge for a new talent tree or two. Had wizards gone down that path a hypothetical 4th ed could have had an old school type fighter had someone wnated one and you could have built something very similar to a 4th ed style character if you wanted. And it required less design space. 4th ed style monsters could more or less be copied and pasted from 4th ed as written. 4th ed was not really well designed or at least not elegantly designed by comparision. SWSE was probably the cleanest d20 product WoTC made, mechanically anyway but it had some issues as well- no RPG product is perfect.

 I don't think to many holdouts will be playing 4th ed in 8-10 years time. I did not jump on board the 4th ed bandwagon but I did not abandon it either (DDI for 3 years). Gave up with the silverlight online CB. Had players turn up to play 4th ed, couldn't print out their PCs off the CB ended up playing Star Wars Saga that day. DDI ran out late 2011, bought pathfinder early 2012.

 If you are not really happy about 4th eds demise (yes its technically still alive), that was the 3.5 fanbase back in 2008. 4th ed was very different than 3.5 and in hindsight it was probably a bridge to far. Grognards don't mind change contrary to popular belief (apart from a very small and loyal 1st ed fanbase IDK??) but each previous editon change evolved on what came before (BECM,AD&D, AD&D 2nd ed). 3.0 was a large departure I suppose but alot of the changes were things people had houseruled years ago (no more racial level limts, any race can be any class etc). The big change was d20 mechanics. You are never gonna please everyone in edition changes but you upset the applecart and you don't have as many customers. IDK if a majority of D&D p[layers rejected 4th ed but it is certainly a large chunk, probably more than 25% and over 50% would be believeable. 4th ed wasn't bad as such and was very good at what it was designed to do. No point trying to sell a chocolate gateau when the market wants a boysenberry ripple cheesecake though.

Meh, warmed over 3.5 design.

The question you should be asking is whether or not there's jack all money in warmed over AD&D for WotC. I can tell you this, I don't know a single person that I play with, and that's a pretty decent sized crowd these days that cares at all about DDN. Of those people I know a total of 3 D&D games going on, and 2 of them are 4e (the other is a heavily houseruled 3.5 game). I'd be worried if I were WotC.

Beta tests in games are always smalle rthan the final product. THe warmed over D&D you seem to enjoy denigrating defeated 4th ed in terms of support and being a viable RPG system. I wanted somehting resembling 3.5 and got 4th ed instead. Paizo done something right, WoTC done somehting wrong. Eithe way I am very sick of very short D&D ediitons (3.0 3 years, 3.5 5 years, 4th ed 3-5 years depending on PoV).

 Back in the 90's one of the fears about WoTC was that D&D would be like Magic the Gathering. In hindsight maybe they were right. After dropping to much money on 3.0/ 3.5 neither WoTC or Paizo have gotten that much money from me. I'll pay money t play their games, not gonna drop alot on it though due to fears of another edition being released or one or both editons failing. Its not an ego thing its just getting hard here to find players for anything 3.5, 4th ed or PF related.

I notice that some of us seem to be arguing about agreeing.
Strange.

Oct 28, 2012 -- 3:06AM, Zardnaar wrote:

They all dealt XYZ damage+ some status effect.

Name one ability in any other edition that doesn't do any of the following.

1.Damage
2.Effect
3.Damage+Effect

Nov 4, 2012 -- 8:38PM, Zardnaar wrote:

I wanted somehting resembling 3.5 and got 4th ed instead. Paizo done something right, WoTC done somehting wrong.

I wanted 4.5 (4e without so much tracking!) and instead got 5e.  

Any tabletop RP system that doesn't say WOTC on the box will never get my money.   Further, other than content I can use for 4e, 5e will never get my money.  

I turn 50 in a few weeks and it's a lock that 4e is the only version of D&D I will ever play.

we did get 4.5. It was called "essentials", and was a major step backward. Or maybe sideways. What it really did was make a mess of 4e with retconned rules more than anything else.

Like I said before: Soon it´s Christmas time and WotC will hopefully let Mearls go
I´ll be playing 4e parallel with 13th Age until I hit the ground   I promise ! 

Nov 5, 2012 -- 4:27AM, EnglishLanguage wrote:

Oct 28, 2012 -- 3:06AM, Zardnaar wrote:

They all dealt XYZ damage+ some status effect.

Name one ability in any other edition that doesn't do any of the following.

1.Damage
2.Effect
3.Damage+Effect

 It was the same thing for every class though. The only thing you had to look forward to was a better damage+ effect ability. There was no interesting ability as such.

 COmpare 3.5 Rnager to the 4th ed ranger. 4th ed ranger is just damage. Of course 3.5 had its bad classes and overpowered classes but it felt more organic bad word maybe) that 4th ed. This was probably due to 3.5 multiclass rules and the way you built your character was a large part of the fun in 3.5.

 4th ed was alot more linear if that makes any sense. It was at least good at doing what it was designed to do. The kicker being what if you did not like the linear progression or tactical combat aspects of D&D. 4th ed got better in that regard as the game expanded via splats and the like but it felt clunky. Star Wars Saga would release a new talent tree of maybe half a page, 3.5 would release a feat chain, 4th ed would release a new character option like the tempest fighter or a new class.

 Didn't help the 4th ed bloat situation.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 11:09AM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

we did get 4.5. It was called "essentials", and was a major step backward. Or maybe sideways. What it really did was make a mess of 4e with retconned rules more than anything else.

Incorrect.  Essentials did not invalidate any previous material.  You couldn't have a 3e Ranger and a 3.5e ranger in the same group, however, you could have a PHB Fighter and an Essentials Fighter in the same group with no problems.

Essentials was PURELY an add-on, and in no way an edition change or 'half-edition'.

4E Ranger (and other classes) have different builds instead of feat-trees. That's all.

Multiclassing works slightly differently.

4E bloated in the wrong direction. Some aspects it would start, then leave unfinished. Others it would keep inflating to the point of insanity.

Salla, we'll have to agree to disagree about Essentials. I have a lot of problems with what Essentials did, the way it was done, and how it made a mess of the existing game.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 4:25PM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

4E Ranger (and other classes) have different builds instead of feat-trees. That's all.

Multiclassing works slightly differently.

4E bloated in the wrong direction. Some aspects it would start, then leave unfinished. Others it would keep inflating to the point of insanity.

Salla, we'll have to agree to disagree about Essentials. I have a lot of problems with what Essentials did, the way it was done, and how it made a mess of the existing game.

I have a lot of problems with it, too.  But mis-labelling it as a half-edition is disingenuous and dishonest at best.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 4:25PM, WhisperMagellan wrote:

Salla, we'll have to agree to disagree about Essentials. I have a lot of problems with what Essentials did, the way it was done, and how it made a mess of the existing game.

Except that doesn't disagree with what Salla said. She just said Essentials didn't invalidate previous material like 3.5 did to 3e.

THat is where I disagree. In my view, the retroactive changes to existing characters DID result in majorly changing the game. In my view, it is a 1/2 edition / mid-edition change of game. Yes, the general rules and framework allow both to work in the same game. But the changes it spawned made a mess of a perfectly functional system. Very messy.
Much better to have other sections of the game expanded/clarified than create a "simplified" version that alters the existing game in ways I'm pretty sure the designers never really considered until the char-oppers got hold of the rules. (worse would be if they did consider the changes, but released it anyway because they didn't care.)

Well, as of today, our D&D group has reached the unanimous agreement that our efforts to playtest DDN are over (there's nothing we want from it) and we're sticking with 4E for the long haul. To that end we're looking at house rules to bring back some of that early excitement.

The biggies right now are undoing some of the Essentials errata (most notably for our current campaign is restoring the original 4E Magic Missile and the Melee Training feats) and some experiments in alternate power expenditure/recovery (we're currently trying a variation on spell points with partial recovery during a short rest... which cannot be taken back to back... i.e. if you rest for 10 minutes or half an hour its still just one short rest).

My guess at this point is that we're going to be playing 4E right into the old folks' homes.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Nov 5, 2012 -- 4:27AM, EnglishLanguage wrote:

Oct 28, 2012 -- 3:06AM, Zardnaar wrote:

They all dealt XYZ damage+ some status effect.

Name one ability in any other edition that doesn't do any of the following.

1.Damage
2.Effect
3.Damage+Effect

 It was the same thing for every class though. The only thing you had to look forward to was a better damage+ effect ability. There was no interesting ability as such.

 COmpare 3.5 Rnager to the 4th ed ranger. 4th ed ranger is just damage. Of course 3.5 had its bad classes and overpowered classes but it felt more organic bad word maybe) that 4th ed. This was probably due to 3.5 multiclass rules and the way you built your character was a large part of the fun in 3.5.

 4th ed was alot more linear if that makes any sense. It was at least good at doing what it was designed to do. The kicker being what if you did not like the linear progression or tactical combat aspects of D&D. 4th ed got better in that regard as the game expanded via splats and the like but it felt clunky. Star Wars Saga would release a new talent tree of maybe half a page, 3.5 would release a feat chain, 4th ed would release a new character option like the tempest fighter or a new class.

 Didn't help the 4th ed bloat situation.

I have compared the 4e ranger to the 3.5 ranger. I find the 3.5 ranger far more 'canned' and rigid than the 4e version. 3.5 ranger is on rails. At level 1 EVERY 3.5 ranger MUST pick a favored enemy. At level 4 they MUST all pick an animal companion. ALL 3.5 rangers gain terrain benefits in woodlands starting at level 7, and they ALL gain spell casting of a specific type.

Now, 4e rangers have pretty much all the same options. They can pick from the same fighting styles, they have the option of a beast companion, and you could easily gain various sorts of casting. You can gain all the things that the 3.5 ranger does or can get via feats or in many cases by just selecting the right power or building up a skill to a certain degree (which could happen in a variety of ways). Very few of these things are MANDATORY however. 4e classes don't get fixed additional class features, instead they have choices to add elements to the character or do swaps (via things like theme) to select from various choices.

Thus we can easily see that I can make a wider variety of characters using the 4e ranger than the 3.5 ranger. Consider a 10th level PC made with 3.5 rules and a 15th level 4e PC (since there are 50% more levels in 4e). The 3.5 character WILL ALWAYS have woodland skills, an animal companion, spell casting, and certain tracking abilities plus IIRC exactly 3 sworn enemies. He'll also have some number of feat choices (not honestly sure how that is determined in 3.5, the SRD doesn't seem to cover character creation).

The 4e ranger will have 9 feats (probably 10, maybe 11 actually) of which at most 1 is mandatory. He'll have a set of skills, mostly based around the ranger list but with background he could change that some. He will have no specific tracking or terrain advantages, but could easily have those from a mix of skills, powers, and feats. He might be a wilderness guy with an animal companion, or he might be a knight skilled in archery with almost no wilderness skills at all. He could be a sniper, a battlefield archer, a giant killer, etc etc etc.

Of course your 3.5 ranger could be some weird amalgam of different classes, but once we start talking about 3.5 MCing we have to admit we're going to talk about hybrids and etc as well...

Nov 7, 2012 -- 7:48AM, Chris24601 wrote:

Well, as of today, our D&D group has reached the unanimous agreement that our efforts to playtest DDN are over (there's nothing we want from it) and we're sticking with 4E for the long haul. To that end we're looking at house rules to bring back some of that early excitement.

The biggies right now are undoing some of the Essentials errata (most notably for our current campaign is restoring the original 4E Magic Missile and the Melee Training feats) and some experiments in alternate power expenditure/recovery (we're currently trying a variation on spell points with partial recovery during a short rest... which cannot be taken back to back... i.e. if you rest for 10 minutes or half an hour its still just one short rest).

My guess at this point is that we're going to be playing 4E right into the old folks' homes.

I know I've just started another 4e campaign, and I have one that has been going for a year and is rolling along reasonably well right now.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 9:12AM, AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Nov 6, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Nov 5, 2012 -- 4:27AM, EnglishLanguage wrote:

Oct 28, 2012 -- 3:06AM, Zardnaar wrote:

They all dealt XYZ damage+ some status effect.

Name one ability in any other edition that doesn't do any of the following.

1.Damage
2.Effect
3.Damage+Effect

 It was the same thing for every class though. The only thing you had to look forward to was a better damage+ effect ability. There was no interesting ability as such.

 COmpare 3.5 Rnager to the 4th ed ranger. 4th ed ranger is just damage. Of course 3.5 had its bad classes and overpowered classes but it felt more organic bad word maybe) that 4th ed. This was probably due to 3.5 multiclass rules and the way you built your character was a large part of the fun in 3.5.

 4th ed was alot more linear if that makes any sense. It was at least good at doing what it was designed to do. The kicker being what if you did not like the linear progression or tactical combat aspects of D&D. 4th ed got better in that regard as the game expanded via splats and the like but it felt clunky. Star Wars Saga would release a new talent tree of maybe half a page, 3.5 would release a feat chain, 4th ed would release a new character option like the tempest fighter or a new class.

 Didn't help the 4th ed bloat situation.

I have compared the 4e ranger to the 3.5 ranger. I find the 3.5 ranger far more 'canned' and rigid than the 4e version. 3.5 ranger is on rails. At level 1 EVERY 3.5 ranger MUST pick a favored enemy. At level 4 they MUST all pick an animal companion. ALL 3.5 rangers gain terrain benefits in woodlands starting at level 7, and they ALL gain spell casting of a specific type.

Now, 4e rangers have pretty much all the same options. They can pick from the same fighting styles, they have the option of a beast companion, and you could easily gain various sorts of casting. You can gain all the things that the 3.5 ranger does or can get via feats or in many cases by just selecting the right power or building up a skill to a certain degree (which could happen in a variety of ways). Very few of these things are MANDATORY however. 4e classes don't get fixed additional class features, instead they have choices to add elements to the character or do swaps (via things like theme) to select from various choices.

Thus we can easily see that I can make a wider variety of characters using the 4e ranger than the 3.5 ranger. Consider a 10th level PC made with 3.5 rules and a 15th level 4e PC (since there are 50% more levels in 4e). The 3.5 character WILL ALWAYS have woodland skills, an animal companion, spell casting, and certain tracking abilities plus IIRC exactly 3 sworn enemies. He'll also have some number of feat choices (not honestly sure how that is determined in 3.5, the SRD doesn't seem to cover character creation).

The 4e ranger will have 9 feats (probably 10, maybe 11 actually) of which at most 1 is mandatory. He'll have a set of skills, mostly based around the ranger list but with background he could change that some. He will have no specific tracking or terrain advantages, but could easily have those from a mix of skills, powers, and feats. He might be a wilderness guy with an animal companion, or he might be a knight skilled in archery with almost no wilderness skills at all. He could be a sniper, a battlefield archer, a giant killer, etc etc etc.

Of course your 3.5 ranger could be some weird amalgam of different classes, but once we start talking about 3.5 MCing we have to admit we're going to talk about hybrids and etc as well...

 THere are plenty of ranger varients in the 3.5 and PF splat books like different powers in various 4th ed books. The ranger in 4th ed is one of the more boring powers because most of its powers are just really increasing amounts of damage and some skills. A 3.5 ranger gets more damge via favoured enemy, extra attacks and bonus feats based on fighitng styles but it also has spells and alot of interesting abilites.

 Thats comparing one of the more interesting (IMHO) classes in 3.5 with one of the least interesting 4th ed ones though. THe 4th ed ranger is one of the better classes in 4th ed like the 3.5 Cleric which while powerful was also boring IMHO. One of my players a couple of months ago had a high stength pathfdiner melee cleric and he had not played one before and was kinda of excited. As a DM I try tobe somewhat interested in my players PCs as they build them etc but I had been seeing clerics like that one since 3.0 back in 2001.

 In the 4th ed PHB I find the Rogue and Wizard to be the most interesting 4th ed classes and the ranger to be the least interesting. In 3.5/PF I find the Bard and Ranger near the top, and the Cleric, Wizard and Barbarian near the bottom.

 I liked the 4th ed DMG but never got the same feeling from the 4th ed classes I got from 3.0. Part of that was due to the AEDU power structure and role and part of that would have been in 2008 4th ed was still d20 which I had been playing since 2000. 3.0 at first was very interesting as it was totally new. 4th ed just had a big pile of powers to read from. It would be like getting a PHB in third ed and just having the wizard, cleric and druid n them and someone hands you the 3.5 spell compendium to read. I know the classes played very differently but reading them was tedious.

 For us that was a large factor in the lack of 4th eds wow factor and we played a mixture of 3.5, 4th and SWSE through 2008/2009. We switched to 4th ed in 2010 once a few more splats came out and then then silverlight came along. I'm getting bored running Pathfinder its main appeal being its world and adventure paths. Running 4th ed is not an option even as a DM I like it. Half of my players don't like it and I spent 3 years trying to get people to play 4th ed. I prefer DMIng 4th ed but I like houseruled 3.XYZ better and its easier to find players for it.

 4th ed was also the 1st version of D&D I never actually got to play. No one else locally will DM it and the only other 4th ed DM I  knew of left town but dumped it before he left and he was one of the 4vengers here back in 2009.

 When you can't find players or a DM it doesn't mattr how good or bad 4th ed is- you won't be playing it.

There at one time was an attempted revival of the 4vengers. But I agree a lot with Zard, and with Abdul in some cases. Overall I prefer playing PF. I agree with the 4e DMG possibly being the best DMG released, but I can also see how 4e gets boring with such similar class design and linearity that the rules want you to pursue. And DMing 4e is super easy and fun. I think Abdul is right where in 3.5 classes tend to get things at the same levels, but I never really seen that as a problem, sure it seems railroaded but I feel that it isn't.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 12:24PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 THere are plenty of ranger varients in the 3.5 and PF splat books like different powers in various 4th ed books. The ranger in 4th ed is one of the more boring powers because most of its powers are just really increasing amounts of damage and some skills. A 3.5 ranger gets more damge via favoured enemy, extra attacks and bonus feats based on fighitng styles but it also has spells and alot of interesting abilites.

I don't think there's anything WRONG with the 3.5 ranger. It is just a bit 'on rails' compared to the 4e one right out of the book. I'm sure there are plenty variations in splatbooks, and prestige classes and whatnot to create other variations. Spells are OK, but honestly I found that an odd choice. It isn't an option you can easily ignore yet it is almost trivial to get spell casting as a 3.5 character by MCing. I never understood why it was included in the base class. Again, I'm sure there are variants that let you do other things besides cast, but still. Overally though I think the 3.x martial classes are all fairly dull compared to casters.

 Thats comparing one of the more interesting (IMHO) classes in 3.5 with one of the least interesting 4th ed ones though. THe 4th ed ranger is one of the better classes in 4th ed like the 3.5 Cleric which while powerful was also boring IMHO. One of my players a couple of months ago had a high stength pathfdiner melee cleric and he had not played one before and was kinda of excited. As a DM I try tobe somewhat interested in my players PCs as they build them etc but I had been seeing clerics like that one since 3.0 back in 2001.

I'll agree, the 4e ranger is one of the most single-task and in some sense boring classes out there. STILL you can make a wide range of variations on the concept in 4e even out of the box with just PHB1 you have several choices.

 In the 4th ed PHB I find the Rogue and Wizard to be the most interesting 4th ed classes and the ranger to be the least interesting. In 3.5/PF I find the Bard and Ranger near the top, and the Cleric, Wizard and Barbarian near the bottom.

I like most of the PHB1/2 classes. The ranger is probably the most straightforward of all, but even it is reasonably interesting and you can vary it a fair amount (so a nice elvish bow ranger and an eladrin spear and spiked buckler ranger and a human spiked chain ranger will all be reasonably distinct for instance). I thought the sorcerer was probably the next flattest class, though the barbarian might qualify as well. In any case they are both pretty interesting. Honestly its hard to think of a 4e class I wouldn't play a few times. The 3.5 cleric is FINE, but too tempting to min/max and stuck in a healing role it hardly matters WHAT options your cleric may have in theory, in practice he's casting CLW with every slot all day. Other 3.5 classes are much like the ranger in many cases, they are a bit stuck on rails OOTB. You have some options but major features of your character are usually hard-coded.

 I liked the 4th ed DMG but never got the same feeling from the 4th ed classes I got from 3.0. Part of that was due to the AEDU power structure and role and part of that would have been in 2008 4th ed was still d20 which I had been playing since 2000. 3.0 at first was very interesting as it was totally new. 4th ed just had a big pile of powers to read from. It would be like getting a PHB in third ed and just having the wizard, cleric and druid n them and someone hands you the 3.5 spell compendium to read. I know the classes played very differently but reading them was tedious.

 For us that was a large factor in the lack of 4th eds wow factor and we played a mixture of 3.5, 4th and SWSE through 2008/2009. We switched to 4th ed in 2010 once a few more splats came out and then then silverlight came along. I'm getting bored running Pathfinder its main appeal being its world and adventure paths. Running 4th ed is not an option even as a DM I like it. Half of my players don't like it and I spent 3 years trying to get people to play 4th ed. I prefer DMIng 4th ed but I like houseruled 3.XYZ better and its easier to find players for it.

 4th ed was also the 1st version of D&D I never actually got to play. No one else locally will DM it and the only other 4th ed DM I  knew of left town but dumped it before he left and he was one of the 4vengers here back in 2009.

 When you can't find players or a DM it doesn't mattr how good or bad 4th ed is- you won't be playing it.

Well, it would be true for any game that finding players is necessary. I can't say how that goes for others. Nobody really even blinks an eye when I say '4e', they just go roll up characters .

Last night was funny as heck. The halfling rogue got right between 2 Blazeworms that came out of a portal and hit them with One Two Punch, that was some funny stuff. I think once a player gets off the idea that "all powers are just the same" and puts a bit of imagination into picking and using them stuff really jumps in 4e. That same player has done lots of amazing power uses, like using Bowl Over for some really funny stuff. I think he really is the type that gets into finding all these little gems though. The rest of the players were just suitably appalled when the Xorn came out of the wall and ate the ranger, lol.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 12:38PM, Felorn wrote:

There at one time was an attempted revival of the 4vengers. But I agree a lot with Zard, and with Abdul in some cases. Overall I prefer playing PF. I agree with the 4e DMG possibly being the best DMG released, but I can also see how 4e gets boring with such similar class design and linearity that the rules want you to pursue. And DMing 4e is super easy and fun. I think Abdul is right where in 3.5 classes tend to get things at the same levels, but I never really seen that as a problem, sure it seems railroaded but I feel that it isn't.

Yeah, it is an interesting thing. I think the way 4e was written and organized has a lot more to do with it than the way the rules work, TBH. Of course there's no way to prove that, but I think WotC is doing a stupid thing by not looking at that angle and just tossing a whole system. I know it means I'm done with them, and a lot of other people are too. They're going to regret that mistake I think.

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

Nov 7, 2012 -- 3:12PM, mexrage wrote:

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

It's only useless statistically. And if that is the only way you think to play the game then I would hate to play with you.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 5:03PM, Felorn wrote:

Nov 7, 2012 -- 3:12PM, mexrage wrote:

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

It's only useless statistically. And if that is the only way you think to play the game then I would hate to play with you.

I said nobody play those, not that i would never play a beastmaster ranger...i can stick with wolf until paragon when i can get a gryphon and basically play a Valkyrie (in a Nordic Badass way),  i am the kind of person that say screw light blade and frost cheese, i want to play monk unarmed strike rogue or heavy blade rogue halfling.

Beastmaster ranger is probably the only AEDU ranger i could play without getting myself bored (i have actually done some neat stuff with hunter, but it kinda require me to spend money on special ammo and depending on DM...that is avaible or not).

Nov 7, 2012 -- 5:03PM, Felorn wrote:

Nov 7, 2012 -- 3:12PM, mexrage wrote:

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

It's only useless statistically. And if that is the only way you think to play the game then I would hate to play with you.

Stormwind Fallacy!

Nov 7, 2012 -- 7:36PM, mexrage wrote:

I said nobody play those, not that i would never play a beastmaster ranger...i can stick with wolf until paragon when i can get a gryphon and basically play a Valkyrie (in a Nordic Badass way),  i am the kind of person that say screw light blade and frost cheese, i want to play monk unarmed strike rogue or heavy blade rogue halfling.

Beastmaster ranger is probably the only AEDU ranger i could play without getting myself bored (i have actually done some neat stuff with hunter, but it kinda require me to spend money on special ammo and depending on DM...that is avaible or not).

Still the whole thought of one to think of only statistics when picking a pet irritates me greatly. I feel that if a ranger Beastmaster just throws his pet away at paragon level then he shouldn't even be a beastmaster. You should roleplay you pet, and ranger to show a connection between them (bad and good).   

Nov 7, 2012 -- 10:49PM, Salla wrote:

Stormwind Fallacy!

 Not quite Salla. 

Nov 8, 2012 -- 12:06AM, Felorn wrote:

Still the whole thought of one to think of only statistics when picking a pet irritates me greatly. I feel that if a ranger Beastmaster just throws his pet away at paragon level then he shouldn't even be a beastmaster. You should roleplay you pet, and ranger to show a connection between them (bad and good).   

The thing is...some of those pets end up being weaker than me attacking with my bare fist with the ranger than using them, it's not about min/max or charop thing, it's freaking ridiculous how terrible they are, fey beast tamer theme companions are better than most of them with the exception of the griphon...and that's a theme.  There is a diference between not optimizing...and sabotaging yourself taking trap options with you knowing it's trap options, it would be disrespectful to the other players to do so...in this case, i blame the one that designed the beastmaster options, and wotc R&D not to errata fix it/buff it to atleast make the option being competent, and i don't mean competent agains the other ranger option, but against the other classes in general (and i don't mean damage output).

Outside of the gryphon...you end up better going into another class and taking fey beast tamer, reskin the theme and the beast companion and you still fit the same character concept.

"Well, ol' boy, it's been a fun ride, but you keep getting nearly killed by the monsters we run into, and I don't want that on my conscience.  Go on, live your life, find a mate and settle down with (appropriate young animal name)."

There.  Love for your animal companion RP'd.

Nov 6, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 COmpare 3.5 Rnager to the 4th ed ranger. 4th ed ranger is just damage. Of course 3.5 had its bad classes and overpowered classes but it felt more organic bad word maybe) that 4th ed. This was probably due to 3.5 multiclass rules and the way you built your character was a large part of the fun in 3.5.

 4th ed was alot more linear if that makes any sense. It was at least good at doing what it was designed to do. The kicker being what if you did not like the linear progression or tactical combat aspects of D&D. 4th ed got better in that regard as the game expanded via splats and the like but it felt clunky. Star Wars Saga would release a new talent tree of maybe half a page, 3.5 would release a feat chain, 4th ed would release a new character option like the tempest fighter or a new class.

 Didn't help the 4th ed bloat situation.

Okay, lets examine the special ranger features

Favored Enemy:  Pretty much just damage, although bloats a few skill rolls
Wild Empathy:  All rangers are great at communicating with animals!
Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker, Camouflage, Hide in Plain Sight - Rolled into the Stealth/Survival skills

So pretty much if you want to play any other type of ranger than a wilderness exploring "in tune with animals" characture you're doomed.  Why is Drizzt a Ranger?  No idea.  He was raised in Drow society, I have no idea how he learned how to track, or be in touch with nature, or hide in the woods - he was born and raised underground!  

4E rolled it all into more abstracted skills.  Did it lose some flavor?  Perhaps.  But it allowed a LOT more self-generated flavor rather than book-generated flavor.  

A 4E ranger can be good at whatever the player wants him to be, rather than being "wilderness guy."  With a favored enemy for whatever reason.

Nov 7, 2012 -- 3:12PM, mexrage wrote:

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

I found the Cat familiar to be quite entertaining. The RP dimensions of it were certainly a lot of fun. I think they could have added a couple more interesting PPs though. Vidalis Griffonmaster is a good fun PP, but it is pretty niche. I'd love to have seen a more generic "Lord of the Beasts" sort of PP (imagine basically Tarzan as a PP).

Nov 7, 2012 -- 5:03PM, Felorn wrote:

Nov 7, 2012 -- 3:12PM, mexrage wrote:

I actually found beastmaster ranger to be more fun to play than Archer ot Two Weapons Ranger...but nobody play those (thought the only great beast companion is from certain paragon path...so you are stuck with a terrible pet during the first 10 levels...)

It's only useless statistically. And if that is the only way you think to play the game then I would hate to play with you.

It got some sort of bad rap. If you actually add up the numbers the BM ranger is so trivially close to the other two options that it isn't even worth worrying about (seriously, you might be doing say 130 damage at level 20 vs 150, big wow). Plus you get an animal, which is pretty cool.

This option and its dissing by charops shows the worst of the sometimes herd mentality that can happen there. Someone right at the start peed on beast master and nobody over there ever seems to have actually gone back and realized the original analysis was flawed. It was just accepted as gospel.

Nov 8, 2012 -- 12:28AM, mexrage wrote:

Nov 8, 2012 -- 12:06AM, Felorn wrote:

Still the whole thought of one to think of only statistics when picking a pet irritates me greatly. I feel that if a ranger Beastmaster just throws his pet away at paragon level then he shouldn't even be a beastmaster. You should roleplay you pet, and ranger to show a connection between them (bad and good).   

The thing is...some of those pets end up being weaker than me attacking with my bare fist with the ranger than using them, it's not about min/max or charop thing, it's freaking ridiculous how terrible they are, fey beast tamer theme companions are better than most of them with the exception of the griphon...and that's a theme.  There is a diference between not optimizing...and sabotaging yourself taking trap options with you knowing it's trap options, it would be disrespectful to the other players to do so...in this case, i blame the one that designed the beastmaster options, and wotc R&D not to errata fix it/buff it to atleast make the option being competent, and i don't mean competent agains the other ranger option, but against the other classes in general (and i don't mean damage output).

Outside of the gryphon...you end up better going into another class and taking fey beast tamer, reskin the theme and the beast companion and you still fit the same character concept.

Again, this is just nonsense. The BMR is NOT MECHANICALLY INFERIOR to any of the other ranger options. Just considering the archer and TBF from PHB1:

Archer vs BMR - Archer gets a free feat which is useful, but not extraordinary and rarely kicks in. His other advantage is prime shot, which is not BAD, but you usually avoid actually needing it if possible. Its prime use is a feat pre-req. The Prime * feats are VERY nice, but there are so many feats out there now that you can do 90% as well without access to those specific couple of feats. Access to Battlefield Archer is usually also sited as an advantage but the Sniper PP is at least as good as BA and available to any ranger. Pick a flying BC and you gain flexible HQ placement plus you have a nice scout that can block and do OAs in a tight spot. This easily makes up for the lost archer options.

TBF vs BMR - BMR can still fight effectively with 2 weapons, he's just got to take an off-hand weapon for his second weapon. This means a 1d6 weapon vs a 1d10 weapon (assuming feat used to get bastard sword), so you lost avg 2 points of damage when you have to use the off-hand weapon. You also lose Toughness, which is a nice feat but again not a tragic loss. In return for your loss of avg about .25 DPR and a moderately nice feat you gain a blocker that if it absorbs ONE hit for the party per day makes up for the toughness and then some, can do OAs, scout, generally be a blocker, and even allow for a beast power or two which CAN be useful to add a bit of control/defense to your ranger. Combined with things like Spiked Chain path and Beast Protector, etc. You also have fun things like Beast Rider which can be quite cool.

You're right that beasts ATTACKS are not anything special and should generally be ignored, but that's only a small part of the story for beasts. There's a reason they have weak attacks. It is because of how awesome having a beast is in EVERY other way.

Of course the "Fey Beast Tamer" argument is a decent one. The fey beast is a pretty good deal and a ranger could pick that theme AND TBF/Archer/Hunter and probably be better off. Oh well. Heck, you can have TWO beasts if you want to take both options...

Nov 9, 2012 -- 7:55AM, GreyICE wrote:

Nov 6, 2012 -- 1:22PM, Zardnaar wrote:

 COmpare 3.5 Rnager to the 4th ed ranger. 4th ed ranger is just damage. Of course 3.5 had its bad classes and overpowered classes but it felt more organic bad word maybe) that 4th ed. This was probably due to 3.5 multiclass rules and the way you built your character was a large part of the fun in 3.5.

 4th ed was alot more linear if that makes any sense. It was at least good at doing what it was designed to do. The kicker being what if you did not like the linear progression or tactical combat aspects of D&D. 4th ed got better in that regard as the game expanded via splats and the like but it felt clunky. Star Wars Saga would release a new talent tree of maybe half a page, 3.5 would release a feat chain, 4th ed would release a new character option like the tempest fighter or a new class.

 Didn't help the 4th ed bloat situation.

Okay, lets examine the special ranger features

Favored Enemy:  Pretty much just damage, although bloats a few skill rolls
Wild Empathy:  All rangers are great at communicating with animals!
Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker, Camouflage, Hide in Plain Sight - Rolled into the Stealth/Survival skills

So pretty much if you want to play any other type of ranger than a wilderness exploring "in tune with animals" characture you're doomed.  Why is Drizzt a Ranger?  No idea.  He was raised in Drow society, I have no idea how he learned how to track, or be in touch with nature, or hide in the woods - he was born and raised underground!  

4E rolled it all into more abstracted skills.  Did it lose some flavor?  Perhaps.  But it allowed a LOT more self-generated flavor rather than book-generated flavor.  

A 4E ranger can be good at whatever the player wants him to be, rather than being "wilderness guy."  With a favored enemy for whatever reason.

 One of the 1st Humans Drizzt met on the surface was a Ranger and trained Drizzt. In 2nd ed he basically retrained his fighter levels out and took Ranger ones although he kept weapon specialisation. In 3.5 He was something like a level 11 Fighter/Barbarian1/Ranger 5 and in 4th ed he was something like a level 21 Solo IIRC. 3.5 handled his build the best in terms of his back ground but it was terrible from an optimisation standpoint.

to be fair, two-blade ranger in fourth edition fits him to a T - so while he officially might be a monster or whatever, he would likely be best designed in 4th (although i might be wrong here, but i think the two blade ranegr was heavily inspired by him in the first place)

Nov 9, 2012 -- 3:27PM, The-Magic-Sword wrote:

to be fair, two-blade ranger in fourth edition fits him to a T - so while he officially might be a monster or whatever, he would likely be best designed in 4th (although i might be wrong here, but i think the two blade ranegr was heavily inspired by him in the first place)

Yeah, I'd imagine a Drow TBF ranger would pretty much exactly cover it. You might perhaps need a theme somewhere in there or a PP/ED of whatever sorts to add in something or other but honestly I don't think I've ever read the novels... lol.

I have to say though, 4e's monster stat blocks definitely let you cover a lot of stuff quite well if it isn't a PC. PERSONALLY I do all NPCs that way.

Nov 9, 2012 -- 3:27PM, The-Magic-Sword wrote:

to be fair, two-blade ranger in fourth edition fits him to a T - so while he officially might be a monster or whatever, he would likely be best designed in 4th (although i might be wrong here, but i think the two blade ranegr was heavily inspired by him in the first place)

 Other way around. IIRC rangers wer ethe onl class in 1st ed who could dual wield as a core mechanic. 2nd ed at least had it as an exlcusive rnager ability. 3.0 was the first edition where other classes apart form the ranger could dual wield in thecore rules. 2nd ed splats let fighters and other classes dual wield generally at the cost of weapon proficency slots.

3.0 gave us the best Drizzt in relation to his back ground, 4th ed gave us the best mechanical implementation of Drizzt. If Drizzt was constructed as a PC in 4th ed rules he would have been a tempest fighter multiclassed into ranger with some multiclass feats and skill training feats. It wouldn't have been a perfect adaption but it would have been the best Drizzt adaption mechanically, back ground not so much. Drizzt has cast the odd ranger spell in the books. Drizzt would also need some way to use his dex to hit as with 14 strength he would suck as a tempest fighter (he sucked mechanically in 3rd ed form a min/max POV).

Nov 9, 2012 -- 8:15PM, Zardnaar wrote:

Nov 9, 2012 -- 3:27PM, The-Magic-Sword wrote:

to be fair, two-blade ranger in fourth edition fits him to a T - so while he officially might be a monster or whatever, he would likely be best designed in 4th (although i might be wrong here, but i think the two blade ranegr was heavily inspired by him in the first place)

 Other way around. IIRC rangers wer ethe onl class in 1st ed who could dual wield as a core mechanic. 2nd ed at least had it as an exlcusive rnager ability. 3.0 was the first edition where other classes apart form the ranger could dual wield in thecore rules. 2nd ed splats let fighters and other classes dual wield generally at the cost of weapon proficency slots.

3.0 gave us the best Drizzt in relation to his back ground, 4th ed gave us the best mechanical implementation of Drizzt. If Drizzt was constructed as a PC in 4th ed rules he would have been a tempest fighter multiclassed into ranger with some multiclass feats and skill training feats. It wouldn't have been a perfect adaption but it would have been the best Drizzt adaption mechanically, back ground not so much. Drizzt has cast the odd ranger spell in the books. Drizzt would also need some way to use his dex to hit as with 14 strength he would suck as a tempest fighter (he sucked mechanically in 3rd ed form a min/max POV).

There are no rules in 1e WRT rangers and dual wielding. In 1e any PC can dual wield but only a dagger or a hand axe can be used as the secondary weapon.

UA introduced weapon specialization rules and IIRC some form of more advanced dual wielding rules. It wasn't until 2e that special rules were applied to rangers (they can use most one-handed weapons together and can even use 2 equal sized weapons). The general rules for specialization then really leverage this to make it a nice option. I'd note though that fighters and even paladins can do it quite effectively, just not quite as well as a ranger.

In any case, 4e certainly carries it to an extreme where you practically cannot play a non-dual-wielding ranger effectively.

I have to say, I do like the idea of how HP in DDN works. I want Arcane Power 2, Divine Power 2, and Primal Power 2 though for 4e....