What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[renau1g]

If you don't like having to focus fire on one kobold for three rounds to drop it, you know that 4E isn't for you.

I've never had a group take three rounds to drop a bad guy unless they were at least a "lieutenant" level enemy aka Elite in 4e terms. Even then I don't think most of them lasted 3 rounds without a gimmick (invisibility, burrow, regeneration).

I have a second level group that two hit killed regular monsters on a regular basis, not too uncommon from what 3e did.

 

[Remathilis]

TBH, I preferred Thief over Rogue for a class name as it was certainly a far better descriptor for what the class does. It finds and disable traps, pickspockets, stabs in the back, etc.

OTOH, I remember for YEARS problems with the "Oh, your a Thief. Watch out, he's gonna steal something!" stereotype. This became brutally honest when in 3e rogues no longer needed to take the iconic "thief" skills.

But that's the problem with ANY character class name: Look up any class name in the dictionary and its bound to have definitions that don't pertain to it:

D&D's Barbarian has nothing to do with being a non-Greek, non-Roman, or Non-Christian.
D&D's Bard and Druid has nothing to Medieval Celtic Priesthoods.
D&D's Cleric isn't Muslim in faith.
D&D's Monk isn't even Religious!
D&D's Paladin isn't a Knight of Charlemagne, etc.

Similar problems arise with Ranger, Sorcerer, and Warlord: they define a game-role with a term or profession that has connotations beyond D&D.

(Oh, and don't EVEN get me going on how not all fighting-men were MEN)!

 

[renau1g]

I agree with you, so why is Warlord the one exception?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you don't like the way all classes have the same structure, or that everyone has at-wills/encounter/dailies, you know that 4E isn't for you. If you don't like having to focus fire on one kobold for three rounds to drop it, you know that 4E isn't for you. If you don't like some of the excessive gamist/metagamey things in 4E like martial healing, divine challenge, healing surges, hit points aren't physical damage yet you can become "bloodied" and "dying" by losing hit points, you know that 4E isn't for you.

I've never had a group take three rounds to drop a bad guy unless they were at least a "lieutenant" level enemy aka Elite in 4e terms. Even then I don't think most of them lasted 3 rounds without a gimmick (invisibility, burrow, regeneration).

4Ed is a decent FRPG, but its not and never will be D&D for me. I'll play it, but won't EVER run it- for many of the reasons that Shazman cites, and more.

That said, *ahem*

As it so happens, we're currently going through a "shakedown" of 4Ed to see if everyone likes it enough to give the group's most active DM a break.

And kobolds have NOT been going down in 2 hits.

The kobolds we've been fighting have taken 2 hits to get to "bloodied." And while in all fairness, that second hit usually carries them a bit past that point, not a one has gone down in under 3 hits, and 4 is the usual number of successful strikes to take down our foes.

Now, part of that has been due to some wonky rolls on our part- we've seen some legendarily bad rolling the past few weeks- but not all of it. Simply put, whether its because of PC's average damage output, more HP for the base versions of our foes or a combination of the 2, kobolds are clearly a tougher kill than ever before.

Not that this is something I have a serious problem with. Its not intrinsically bad, it just a shock to the system (so to speak) for people who have been playing 25-30 years.

 

[Hussar]

I would point something out:

If you don't like having to focus fire on one kobold for three rounds to drop it, you know that 4E isn't for you.

That's not 3 hits, that three ROUNDS.

DannyA, I'll totally agree that a critter will last three hits. That's fine. One hit kills are for minions. Everything else takes a bit more. But, it's the hyperbole of three rounds, which could be up to FIFTEEN hits which irks me.

 

[Hussar]

I agree with you, so why is Warlord the one exception?

Y'know, I'd generally agree with you. Except that we've had the recent psionics discussions and I am starting to understand why some people have this hang up. For me, psionics are mechanically fine. Heck, don't even mind the flavour - mental power magic. It's simply the term "psionics" that I don't like because, for me, psionics is a specific term from SF that allows authors to port magic into an SF setting.

A fantasy setting doesn't need that. It already has magic, so, dressing up magic as pseudo-science isn't required. If you renamed psionics "Chakra magic" or something like that, I'd be fine. It's solely the word psionics that I don't like.

I think for many people it's the same thing. The concept of a martial leader class isn't a bad one. It certainly fits in lots of genre fiction. You can name half a dozen archetypes that fit the bill, from Sam Vimes in the Discworld stories to Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly. However the term "warlord" conjures up the wrong image for some people and it becomes a serious sticking point.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Now, by that definition Huckleberry Finn would seem to be a rogue, but I don't see him stabbing whatever the antagonist's name is in those books in the back. There's many other examples in popular fiction of someone cut from this cloth who wouldn't meet the D&D version.

Actually, I would probably just call him a commoner.
Not every protagonist in a novel needs a PC class. Given how much time he spends fending for himself ranger might also fit, but I still think commoner.

Huck ain't much of a scamp, though his friend Tom is, and might qualify as a rogue. (Me, I prefer Huckleberry.)

The Auld Grump

 

[pemerton]

In my personal thoughts, mechanics need to arise out of unique flavor.

If honor is important in your setting, you should have a mechanical reason that this is true.

If chivalry is important in your setting, mechanics should reinforce this.

I agree with this, but only to the extent that "mechanics" is given a pretty broad interpretation. For example, if honour is important, then this should reflect itself in the resolution of social conflicts. But (in my view), that doesn't necessarily require something like the 1st ed OA honour system. Especially because I prefer the players to choose to what extent and in what manner they engage these ingame value systems (and hence to choose how the social and religious life of their PCs plays out) whereas a mechanica system like honour or alignment tends to presuppose the way these ingame value systems should be engaged (mostly because they hose PCs whose players deviate from those presuppositions).

 

[NoWayJose]

D&D's Barbarian has nothing to do with being a non-Greek, non-Roman, or Non-Christian.
D&D's Bard and Druid has nothing to Medieval Celtic Priesthoods.
D&D's Cleric isn't Muslim in faith.
D&D's Monk isn't even Religious!
D&D's Paladin isn't a Knight of Charlemagne, etc.
Similar problems arise with Ranger, Sorcerer, and Warlord: they define a game-role with a term or profession that has connotations beyond D&D.

With all due respect...

A cleric, for example, is "a man in a religious order, a man in holy orders". There is no conflict of meaning here.

Yes, the cleric, barbarian, bard, druid, monk, paladin -- these have real-life historical and/or modern context, but they also have a commonly understood generic meaning. Sci-fi and fantasy is replete with these archetypes appropriated into an imaginary setting.

Thanks to Tolkien, rangers are so common in fantasy that everyone "gets" that too. Just as importantly, the fluff for rangers in RPG is more-or-less believable. That's what good fantasy does: translocating real-life concepts into fantasy settings in a believable satisfying way. Furthermore, there are no other types of rangers in D&D (no Texas rangers, no government protected park wardens) so there's no paradox.

"Sorcerer", "wizard", "warlock" in real-life are used so vaguely and interchangeably that there is no authoritative definitions and fantasy writers can feel free to define them as they wish.

I agree with you, so why is Warlord the one exception?

For the same reason that "bloodied" metagame does not mean "bloodied" ingame (see post #977).

A Warlord is not necessarily a warlord, and a warlord is not necessarily a Warlord.

(Also see post #850, 865, 876, 898, 901, 916, etc.)

 

[NoWayJose]

Y'know, I'd generally agree with you. Except that we've had the recent psionics discussions and I am starting to understand why some people have this hang up. For me, psionics are mechanically fine. Heck, don't even mind the flavour - mental power magic. It's simply the term "psionics" that I don't like because, for me, psionics is a specific term from SF that allows authors to port magic into an SF setting.

A fantasy setting doesn't need that. It already has magic, so, dressing up magic as pseudo-science isn't required. If you renamed psionics "Chakra magic" or something like that, I'd be fine. It's solely the word psionics that I don't like.

IIRC, WoTC has recently reskinned psionics as a power source originating from the Far Realm. I'm OK with that. And the Far Realm is sort of like D&D's version of sci-fi/horror, so it's like porting sci-fi into a magic setting. At least WoTC made the effort in this case (their reconciliation of metagame to fluff is sporadic at best). Something like Chakra magic could be equally as good or better, but I suppose WoTC didn't want to limit psionics to a certain cultural feel which may not fit into all campaigns.