Asmor's dealbreaker list

[hong]

Of course, I don't labor under any obsessive need to get things "right" for my home game. Just "fun." I also use a lot of published products -- Elder Evils and Exemplars of Evil were GREAT additions to my game, and I've been clamoring for a "monster manual of NPC's" for a while. I can be laborious to design, but I don't care about design when I'm bopping around my own table.

See, this is that "paying for stuff you don't use" thing again.

 

[AverageCitizen]

The biggest annoyance in 4e for me so far are overzealous trufans who act like 3e killed puppies and that 4e will give them all free ice cream.

Wait, there won't be ice cream? What?

As for 3e, I'm never playing with that puppy killer again. When I found out about that, I burned all my books.

 

[I'm A Banana]

See, this is that "paying for stuff you don't use" thing again.

Not sure I follow you. I paid for 'em. I use 'em. I have paid for a few things I don't use, but, as a DM who doesn't pre-prep much, I use a LOT of material (every PrC with a pre-statted NPC gives me another villan! Every monster manual gives me 100+ beasties!).

 

[Propheous_D]

The biggest annoyance in 4e for me so far are overzealous trufans who act like 3e killed puppies and that 4e will give them all free ice cream.

Disclaimer I am not trying to be harsh here

The bulk of your posts is a rebuttal about the OP's feelings to 3.X RAW, but all your points are based on your own homebrew way of getting around the problems with 3.X RAW. I am really confused with your post and I have to say in response your last comment (quoted above) I really get irked with people trying to argue against something in a hypocritical fashion. 3.X in RAW doesn't suit your play style (not saying 4E will) for about all the same points mentioned by the OP, and you brought forth what presented itself to me as an arguement against the OP.

Please clarify your position to using 3.X as RAW, cause no one here cares about how you homebrew 3.X. The point the OP and many others make is that with out extensive HomeBrew the problems mentioned in the OP are very prevailaint.

I loved 3.0 and 3.5, but I think I am ready to move beyond a heavy rules setting, and into something that allows a bit more freedom, and still makes the rules work. I would go back to 2E and thought about it, but I remember how much I didn't like those rules in comparison to 3E. Its a hope and nothing more that 4E will deliver on what it has presented to me so far, and I don't think I will dissapointed. It won't be perfect but I look forward to trying it out.

 

[BryonD]

So these are the reasons that I will not run a 3.5 game ever again, and why it would take a lot of convincing to get me to play one. Viva la 4e!

The problem here is you are rejecting a game that is in the past. And in the past it was a huge success. That is in the bank.
Not liking the old game is not equal and opposite to having been spending a steady flow of money on the old game and now stopping that spending once the new one comes along.

If you really want "Viva la 4E!" then getting as many people to support it should be an objective. Simply poo-pooing on the concerns of people who don't like what they see in 4E is only increasing the gap and making it that tiny little bit harder for 4e to be a success.

Enjoy it while it lasts because "divided we fall" only applies to 4E. 3E is immune. You may as well try to impeach George Washington.

 

[Wormwood]

The biggest annoyance in 4e for me so far are overzealous trufans who act like 3e killed puppies and that 4e will give them all free ice cream.

Yeah, those guys suck.

Luckily, I never witnessed 3e killing puppies. Killed the hell out of my desire to DM, however.

 

[Psion]

The bulk of your posts is a rebuttal about the OP's feelings to 3.X RAW, but all your points are based on your own homebrew way of getting around the problems with 3.X RAW.

Were it me, I'd be making more house rules to run 4e. 1-1 diagonals would be the first to go.

 

[Vempyre]

might as well answer this thread too :

*sigh*

 

[JRRNeiklot]

*Too long to prepare. Unless you fudge things, which I usually did, altering monsters in most meaningful ways, or creating high-level humanoid NPCs, was incredibly boring and tedious.

Yep.

*Combat didn't feel dynamic. Usually your best choice was pretty obvious, and most of the time it was "Stand there and full attack." Your most meaningful choice each turn shouldn't be how many points to sink into power attack.

This is a feature, not a bug. D&D was never meant to be overly tactical. Strategic, yes, tactical no.

*Low-level casters (Wizards especially) suck. They suck to play as and they suck to play against.

Shrug, I dunno what you mean by that. I find them incredibly fun to play.

*High-level casters. I once spent all night picking out spells for a level 18 sorceress I was making for a soon-to-be epic game. Talk about a resource-management nightmare! I actually wanted the character to be a wizard, but that would have meant spending even more time figuring out what I wanted to memorize.

Agreed. This is because of the power leap (as opposed to creep) When stats reach the 60s something is wrong.


*

Multiclassing, as far as casters are concerned, is broken and completely useless, barring certain prestige classes (Mystic Theurge, for example). Even then, until you've taken a few levels of the prestige class, you're still way behind the power curve.

Agreed.

*Narrow fun range. Low-level characters go down too fast and don't have enough interesting options.

Low level play should be about struggling to survive. Combat options across the board should be few. Hack something and get back to exploring and role playing. I like combat, but it should be fast and furious, not overly tactical.

High-level combat is too swingy and is almost invariably a slaughter; the only question is whether the monsters or the PCs are doing the slaughtering. High-level combats take too long to run, high-level characters have too many resources at their disposal, and the huge number of options often leads to analysis paralysis. It was a relief to me when we stepped outside of reality and got TPKed by Erythnul when the previously-mentioned game got into the epic tiers, because it meant we could start anew at a more sane power level.

Agreed. Again, the soulution here is to bring the power level Waaaay down across the board. Cut damage and hit points in half for pcs and npcs as well would be a good start.

*Almost everything I've seen about 4th edition, I really, really like. Not really a dealbreaker for 3.5, but provides yet another strong impetus to switch. The only thing about 4th edition I've disliked was the thing about counting diagonals, and I've warmed to that.

So these are the reasons that I will not run a 3.5 game ever again, and why it would take a lot of convincing to get me to play one. Viva la 4e!

Enjoy it, but imo they threw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[unan oranis]

I ran a 3.5 game last night. My players delved into a forgotten crypt of a demigod. After choosing their weapons and tactics, they attacked a stone golem and prevailed. Upon opening the sacrophagi, they took the legendary spear of Zigun, awakening his bride, a mummified high priestess. Dessicated bodies in the crypt reanimated as mummies, blocking the PCs inside a long, low room. There were three full attacks in the entire battle. There were, however, several charges, a fireburst spell, a firebreathing mummy, kneeling, blinding spells, the spear's unusual power to absorb spells, readied counterspells, flanking, and grabbing of various items. I ran the game by the book, using no houseruled creatures or items of any kind, apart from the spear itself (an artifact of my own creation). It was fun, very fun.

Sounds like a good battle. But you make a special note that there were *only* 3 full round attacks, so you seem to be agreeing with the OP that a toe to toe clobberfest can get stale, and the solution is dynamic enviroments/scenerios/maneuvers with increased emphasis on mobility and tactics.

3e makes that job easier than 2e for reasons that are self evident. You have in no way refuted the OP's claim that 4e will be even more condusive to that kind of combat. If it is, deal breaker.

Mostly, I find prep time for 3.5 to be minimal. Certainly, creating NPCs or tweaking monsters is easier than creating new monsters from whole cloth. In my experience, spending a lot of time on NPCs and monsters is more a sign of indecision than mechanical complexity. The math is very simple.

At epic level play your need to wing it increases ten-fold, and at the same time when the party gets hit with a 1000 damage point lightning bolt the players are going to want to make sure their enemies are playing by the same rules they are.

Even with software to do all the simple math at the speed of light, and clicking through rapidly, it takes way too long to generate an epic level multiclass templated uber whomever, fully statted and equiped. Never mind 7 of them, on the fly, and they had 2 rounds to prepare for the battle.

Even tweaking a given stat block, you come across the unavoidable drag of unique spell lists, unique tactics, unique magic items, assorted variations of buffs and at least swapping around a few different combat feat trees for the npc warriors.

For many dm's without the time there is no option but to fudge it, commit to the numbers and then play it out.

I've made a spell list generator, buff templates, a magic item combo generator, a tactics scrambler and so on, but it still takes a minute to throw it all together.

4e claims to have factored these issues into the design. For people who dont quit at epic levels (that trend speaks volumes) this issue is a big selling point for 4e.

Again, if this is true, deal breaker.

I had a good time with basic, 1e and 2e, but I'd never play them again vs 3e. I'm pretty sure I'll never go back to 3e once 4e is in play. After seeing the orc pdf, I went out and placed my pre-order.

If you really are sticking with 3e I've got a lot of books for sale.

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unan