4e: A work in progress?

[Rechan]

Certainly true. In fact, Martial Power is a testament to this. New powers just plug-and-play with no problem at all, while also addressing the relatively small number of power and feat options in the PHB. I am a real MP fanboi, but I also think it is the first fruits of the 4e architecture. I'm excited to see Arcane and Divine Power.

I'm more excited about new builds, than I am new powers.

Although I do hope that WotC can avoid such future power creep as the Battlerage Vigor fighter. The consensus over on the Rules forum is that it's be-roken.

 

[Wormwood]

Honestly, I agree with the OP's basic premise; some of 4e's mechanics which were adequate during development and playtesting proved less so when it was 'released into the wild'.

That said, my memories of Sword and Fist remind me that 3e was similarly unfinished upon release.

 

[Holy Smokes]

..these areas would provide ample justification for a 4.5e... A single three-volume update of the core rules would have been vastly preferable, IMO.

Speaking only for myself, I initially thought 3.5 was a really great idea. In practice, however, I became pretty pissed-off about the it, and suffered from point-five burn out bad enough drive me out of D&D for a couple of years.

After an intense Traveller + Shadowrun 4 sabbatical, the Ptolus release finally lured me back into the 3.5 fold again.

The risk with fractional maintenance releases like 3.5 is managing the compatibility dilemma; too many fixes breaks effective compatibility, too few negates the value of repurchasing books you already own. Pathfinder, I'm looking at you!

If skill challenges turn out to be the only major redesign, they can develop a whole theme book with updated mechanics, or at least put them into a future DMG. I know they left a ton of trap and other challenge material on the cutting room floor for DMG 1; "Hello, Book of Challenges!"

 

[The Ghost]

And if they had, they would've offended people due to the lack of Corellan and Moradin.

And they couldn't have used interesting gods like Bahamut, Asmodeus, and Tharizun.

Almost certainly, however, I feel that it would have been better for the games long-term health to have a pantheon unique to 4e core - whatever that ends up being.

Those deities you stated come with a lot of history (baggage?) about who they are and what they meant in their original pantheons. That, however, does not mean that creating an entirely new pantheon would not result in interesting gods. I guess, what it comes down to for me, is that the opportunities to create something new and interesting was lost.

 

[DandD]

So Skill challenges are the only thing that needs to be reworken by the wizards who do stuff at the coast?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think both 3rd Edition and 4th Edition are "a work in progress". 3E did not just have 3.5 and Savage Species (Level Adjustments to play "powerful races"). 3.5 also had stuff like "Tactical Feats" "Reserve Feats", the Warlock and other things that were introduced later and really showed what the system can do. And it also had the eternal Fighter/Mage Spellcaster/Spellcaster multiclass problem, and even the 3.5 patch "Mystic Theurge" and "Eldritch Knight" failed to "fix" it. Or the Polymorph issue...

4E will introduce new mechanical concepts in its system (Summoning, Polymorph, new types of feats - including Bloodline, the Arena Fighting or the Weapon multiclass feats, Backgrounds), and it will have to "fix" existing concepts (Skill Challenges?*)


*) That's also already in the process. The P2-Module has a few skill challenges that work notable different then the "standard" ones, and I really hope they will expand on that and describe these concepts in a DMG 2+ or Dragon - or both.)

 

[wedgeski]

As some movie directors say, a film is never finished, it just escapes. I think the same can be said about RPG's.

I have two, and only two, significant problems in 4E. Skill Challenges are still not working for me, but I think the devs have admitted they were added late and the version in the DMG was not what they ultimately intended. Since release, this framework has been under constant revision and scrutiny, and in the end I think I will just house-rule myself a variant that I'm comfortable and accept the RAW as a good idea that didn't do itself justice. Whatever mathematical problems it might have, I simply don't like the 'X successes before Y failures' principle. But that's okay, no-one says I have to like everything in the rules.

My second problem is stealth, but as far as I'm concerned that was still hopelessly broken after 8 years of 3.5, and it might just be that, like quantum mechanics, it can never be fully understood in my lifetime. I must admit though that the errata'd 4E Stealth rules are... manageable.

Other than that, the game seems complete and stable to me. We rarely encounter a problem that requires us to crack open a book, everyone's character makes a good contribution at the table, and designing encounters that Just Work is a piece of cake. All signs which point to a well-designed system.

For the record, I do not subscribe to the theory that because the gnome, druid, and half-orc were missing from the first PHB, the game is somehow incomplete. I couldn't in good conscience bemoan missing classes when the ones that took their place are so much damn fun.

 

[delericho]

Speaking only for myself, I initially thought 3.5 was a really great idea. In practice, however, I became pretty pissed-off about the it, and suffered from point-five burn out bad enough drive me out of D&D for a couple of years.

Understandable. However, I think the big problems with 3.5 weren't so much the concept, but rather that it was put out too soon, and made a lot of minor changes to things that didn't really need fixed (I recall a number of complaints about it being "Andy Collins' house rules"). It also didn't help that a lot of the fixes either didn't really fix the underlying problem (as with polymorph), or in some cases were actually worse than what they replaced (weapon sizes - good concept, but far too fiddly in implementation).

The risk with fractional maintenance releases like 3.5 is managing the compatibility dilemma; too many fixes breaks effective compatibility, too few negates the value of repurchasing books you already own. Pathfinder, I'm looking at you!

Indeed.

If skill challenges turn out to be the only major redesign...

I really suspect they won't be. However, I also think we probably don't know what areas will need the work done. 4e has only been out for 8 months, after all. According to WotC's own expectations, that should be just enough time for the first campaigns to have run from 1st to 30th level, and I bet very few groups have done anything like that.

Anyway, even now we know of some other areas that may not require redseign, but could certainly use some work:

- Grinding combats (probably the biggest one, actually - the combats do work as written, but they could certainly be a whole lot better)

- Solo monsters (as mentioned by the OP)

- Stealth

(None of this is surprising, btw, and not even something WotC should necessarily be blamed for. The game has undergone a total redesign, and so it was inevitable that there would be problems. It's just that, in light of that, I think a 4.5e would be justified. But then, I'm not entirely convinced they won't do one anyway... they'll just call it 5e.)

 

[Jhaelen]

I think both 3rd Edition and 4th Edition are "a work in progress".

Exactly. Actually, almost all of the RPG systems I know are works in progress (well except maybe that Palladium thingy I've read about...).

3E has evolved A LOT during it's lifetime. There's been countless attempts to introduce new ideas, many of them well-liked and successful and others that were mostly ignored or widely rejected.

I never had the feeling either edition was incomplete in some way. Rather I felt they didn't offer enough variety between the three Core books. I'm quite happy to give a new edition a year or two before I start to dig in.

 

[Umbran]

If any RPG ever really were "complete", you'd not need to buy anything beyond the core rules. So, from a business point of view, desiring a lengthy revenue stream, being a "work in progress" is a good thing.