New player asking for some advice/help, please. 3e vs 4e. Which one is for me?

[Piratecat]

Stop with the Troll comments. If you see a problem, report it and avoid the thread. Making snide shots at what may be a legitimate thread helps no one.

I think both 3.5, Pathfinder and 4e are great fun. I recommend either 4e or Pathfinder; they'll be the easiest to find support for in the future, and you'll have an easier time finding new players.

 

[scruffygrognard]

I'm going out on a limb and giving you an answer of "neither".

I'd say you should go with Castles & Crusades. It is simple, flexible and made to be houseruled. If you want to invest your time into "making the game your own" then there is no better game than C&C.

 

[vagabundo]

There are a few considerations when making this choice:

DM: I've DMed both and 3e was a headache for me. I've found DMing 4e liberating.

Players: If your players are more casually inclined they would be better served with 4e or the 3e fighter. It is easy in 3e to make a totally crappy character and casuals can get overwhelmed.

High level play - Low level play: 3e has a sweet spot of around levels 3-8 where it shines. Depending on who you talk too, outside of these regions can be a drag and 13 level+ your going into OH-Dear-God-No territory. 4e - so far - seems to work well in its' different tiers.

Player Options: There is literally metric TONNES of material for 3e and a lot of it is good quality stuff. Obviously not as much for 4e, but it has a solid amount of stuff out right now and it is very easy to create stuff for 4e and fun too.

I'm a 4e-aholic right now, to me, it is the best system since the early days. I'd second you going to look at Pathfinder and don't be afraid to mix and match to suit yourselves remember: it is about having fun and there is nothing a campaign reboot cant solve.

Tiz nice to see new people in the hobby.

Oh there are some podcasts (PVP) on the Wizards website that should give you ideas on how to DM a game of DND, they are 4e specific but should help with DMing any version of DND.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Third Edition tries to be a fantasy world simulator. As such, DMing can be very time consuming, especially when it comes to creating NPCs. The mechanics are geared towards simulation, which can sometimes hinder gameplay. The players will also have to pay attention to resource management for healing and buffing.

Fourth Edition eschews verisimilitude for gameplay. Many mechanics that were clunky yet realistic in 3E are simple yet unrealistic in 4E. Another big difference from 3E is that many abilities allow players to act outside of their turn. For example, the same person who suggests what moves other players should make on their next turn in 3E can play a Warlord in 4E and allow those moves to be made immediately. DMing is far easier, especially NPC and monster creation. I only made two new monsters in 3E and never made anymore because it was far more trouble than it was worth; I've made dozens in 4E.

Neither edition hinders or helps roleplaying, but 4E does have more instances of game mechanics that are just handwaved away. 4E also lacks skills such as Perform or Craft, but players are encouraged to roleplay those skills rather than roll dice for them. For example, a blacksmith who had to invest skill ranks and roll dice in 3E can just spend the amount of gold for an item in 4E and say he made it himself. There's no mechanical difference, but there doesn't have to be one.

Basically, if you're more worried about everything making internal sense at the expense of ease of play and don't mind combat sometimes amounting to Rock Em' Sock Em' Robots then 3E is probably the game for you. If you want an easy to run game with interesting (yet occasionally difficult to explain) combat, then 4E is a better choice.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There's one major drawback with Pathfinder - it doesn't exist. Or rather, it hasn't been published yet, it's currently only available as a pdf.

 

[Kask]

Well, there a lot more options for players and DMs with 3rd Ed. It is also much harder for the DM to prepare NPCs and monsters than 4.0. It will come down to what "feels" better for you and your players. Something that is simpler than both and has more the flavor of the 1st Edition is Castles & Crusaders. You can buy the PDFs online and get you and your players up and running more quickly.

 

[Gargoyle]

Hey, I'm just getting into table top RPGs. Wanted to for a long time, but I'm now finally getting it together. I always wanted to GM and I have at least 3 players waiting for me to get this started.

Whatever system you go with, I'm sure you'll have fun. Every version of D&D is a blast, especially when played with good friends.

My only problem though is which edition should I choose.

I tried to do my own research into things (enough to know I might be hitting upon a touchy subject), but some help from some more experianced players would be appreciated.

Now I'm not trying to turn this into some kind of one version sucks and the other rules kinda things. I'm assuming that both have their pros and cons depending on the people playing.

From what I've gathered 3e has much more flexibility with PCs and adds more depth to non combat adventures. And that I could, with enough understanding of the rules, pretty much create anything I wanted. While the downsides of 3e are some somewhat unbalanced character classes and a system which some find tedious.

This is a fairly good assessment, but I'll caution that the only reason 3e has more flexibility with PCs is its age. 4e will have hybrid classes next year, and already has 16 core classes available in the two player's handbooks. 4e is catching up in this dept.

I've also gathered that 4e is simpler, more streamlined, and easier to understand. And evens out the classes in combat. But it sacrifices flexibility for a more rigid structure, and less depth in non-combat adventures.

4e is simpler to DM. Setup time is much less. It actually has more rules for non-combat encounters like the rules for traps, diseases, rituals, and skill challenges. Skills are better implemented, and since you don't need rules to role play, I'm not sure why people think 4e is worse in these areas.

As far as playing, there are no simple classes, so in this respect, 4e is more complex. The fighter has powers just like a wizard, and while his powers aren't magical, it means that if a player wants a simpler class in 4e, I'm not sure which I'd recommend.

The Character Builder software helps with that, however. It makes creating and managing player characters easy, so even my 8 year old plays. Without it, there's no way he could, and my 11 year old could barely cope with leveling up.

At least this is how it seems to me (I've studied through 3.5 PHB so far, and am looking into the 4e one now), but I'm a newbie so if I'm way off please let me know.

So far I'm actaully leaning toward 3e, because I'm looking for a game where I can have a PC werewolf/Bard fighting against a Necormancer and his legion of dead and the only thing stopping me is how much time I feel like figuring it all out. And even though I'm a 'newb' the game being simpler in 4th doesn't really entice me becasue if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna go all in anyway, I just want to come out with no limits but my imagination.

The odd thing here is that it's easier to build a PC werewolf/bard in 3e, but easier to do the necromancer with his legions of dead in 4e. For the werewolf/bard in 4e, I'd consider a shifter bard instead, because I'm lazy, and let him take shifter feats to enhance his werewolf-ness. I don't think it'd be too hard to make a real werewolf PC though, it's just that it might take a little work, while in 3e the monsters are pretty much the same as player characters already and there are rules exactly for that. For the necromancer with legions of dead (or undead) I know I could create that much faster in 4e and that it would be more fun to play.

But of course maybe I'm missing something. Is 3rd the game I'm looking for? And if it is are there any ways you guys suggest at hiding it's flaws (balance issues, ect.)? Or am I underrating some of 4e's attributes?

4e combat is very fun. The player character classes complement each other quite well, and I like how rituals are out of combat. I think if you spend a significant time in combat, you'll have more fun with 4e.

The only problem I have with 4e is that it has not matured yet. It's better now that the PHB2 is out...before I really missed the bard, barbarian, and druid. And I like the splatbooks...they aren't too powerful and they add cool options like the beastmaster ranger. But I still think it has some balance issues at high levels and there is more errata than I'd like.

Pathfinder has the benefit of longevity. There are tons of material supporting it, and almost every problem with the system has been fixed. It's a solid system, and fun.

Not that I'd feel commited. I'd like to try both at some point. But at the moment, am I right in thinking 3e is the game I want to play?

My advice (and this might surprise some) is to go Pathfinder. I prefer 4e, but that's because I have the perspective of playing all the previous incarnations (except the very first) of D&D. I think since you have a very specific idea of what you want (werewolf bard), you should go with the system that best supports that.

Also it seems you are leaning in the 3e direction, so it seems to me that if you don't try it, you will always wonder what you missed.

Plus, going with Pathfinder will probably be cheaper, since you are planning to go "all in".

After 4e matures a bit you won't have a problem converting your campaign to it when and if you decide you want to. Waiting for 4e to mature a little might also let you buy books that are revised, and you won't have to worry about printing out errata.

On the other hand, if you think you might want to convert to 4e in the next year or so, I'd just go 4e now. Learning new systems is not always fun, and at best slows down gameplay.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

4E out-of-combat put control back in the DM's hands and is far more flexible than 3E. If you like to adjudicate more of the role playing, it's the system to use of the two. If you want rules for everything under the sun so you don't have to worry about making decisions on yay or nay, then 3E is the way to go.

4E should put far more emphasis on the players, if used correctly. I suspect that the DMG II will help people adapt to this. The DM should be willing to let the players add to the story based on what they want to be able to do with their skills. This doesn't mean they should always succeed, but as one can see with skill challenges, 4E opens up a lot of opportunities for players to add to a scene ways to interact.

 

[deadsmurf]

4E really has little to no restrictions on what can be done from the DMing perspective - if you want to come up with a new monster with strange abilities, you can make them in a couple minutes, no muss no fuss. Plus just with the monster manual you can quickly reflavour monsters so they are something completely different. Traps/Obstacles are equally quick and painless, and you can create some very interesting encounters for the party with little effort. Monsters are easy as all their details are included in the stat block, and there are no rules embedded in creature types for example. The math of the game allows an appropriately leveled monster to always be possible to hit and makes characters no feel useless.

4E is great for brand new DMs as it can be played 'from the box' very easily, and there aren't a lot of rules to look up all the time (especially if you have a DM screen which has most of the information you'd look up when you do need to do so) A lot of the rules are very streamlined and make for fast play.

4E is a little lacking on rules aided/defined roleplaying aspects. The Powers/Rituals are pretty narrowly defined to make them easy to adjudicate, but that leaves some of the 'neat ideas' you can get while using them out in the cold. I would recommend allowing more 'flavourful' usage of powers outside of combat (and limitedly inside too) - for example letting Illusion spells which do damage, to just have an effect on a hit.

4E's rule structure is very rigid, and playing with the rules of the game can be very very unbalancing, however because of the power system, specfic rules elements (such as races and class features and powers) can be changed quickly and easily without hurting the balance between classes. New classes are easy to balance, but are hard to make and take a long time (if you make 30 levels of powers etc)


3e on the other hand is a very open ended system. It too has many pros and cons, and I'll try looking at them in the same order as 4Es.

3E's monster system is complicated. Creature types have built in rules, each 'hit die' are tied to skill points and feats like the PCs, and have only cursory relations to the Challange Rating (level) of the monster. AC/Saves/Damage etc can vary wildly, making some characters useless and others awesome against specific monsters. Monster stat blocks are often missing information and require you to look stuff up (for example spell like abilities) and that slows down the game, or the preparation.

3E has rules for just about anything - this is great if you don't like to just wing it and figure things out for yourself. The problem is this can slow the game to a crawl while you look up the specific DC for skill X in situation X.

3E has a very loose structure, and a lot of subsystems specific to ranges of classes. This makes it very easy to rebuild rules - and this is practically required. I have very seldom seen a 3E game with out some sort of major house rule (even if it's something from the books themselves like using point buy and average hitpoints each level) Want to change the hit point system? Sure Easy! Etc etc - Game balance can be an issue, but it already is in the baseline 3E model. Also Classes are really easy to make, but hard to balance.

3E has a lot of 'rule supported roleplaying' - spells are often left quite open ended and open to interpretation and alternate usages. There are skills for just about anything. Some (prestige) classes force you into specific character ideas and sometimes have roleplaying only rewards or penalties.


Also think about what you are trying to accomplish with your game - are you trying to tell a story, or are you trying to build a world?
3E is better at rules to run a fantasy world (not great at it, but it is easier than in 4E) Hit Points are less abstract, NPCs have classes and work the same way as PCs. It would totally be possible to have the PCs play commoners (as in the class) then work their way into being heros. The players are elements of the world, not (nessesarily) its focus.
4E is a more naratavist style, and is good for telling a story. The players start as heroes, they're ready to go from the begining, and doesn't really support the farmboy to hero plot (unless you skip over the farmboy part, and join the narrative after he's learned his basic skills) And the world exists for the players benefit. Nothing really makes sense in the world except what the players are interacting with. How can Ogres be both level 6 brutes with a ton of hitpoints and difficult to take down, and also level 14 minions that can be taken down in one hit? Because they were threats to the players at level 6, but at level 14 they are mooks, not something that needs to take a lot of attention.


I tried to stay as objective as possible, but really 4E is my game of choice now - I really love it, I think its perfect for most people who are new to the game. It is easy to teach, and a lot of fun from level 1.
3E is a good game though, so if you're into it go for it! being a DM is really rewarding - you feel a sense of glee when you pull out a mini and the players start calling you an illegitimate child for springing this on them, and then they beat the hell out of it.

Good luck on your D&D whatever edition you choose.

 

[Festivus]

I find the following with regard to editions from my personal DMing point of view, having DMed both.

1. 4E is easier to run as a DM at higher levels than 3.5 is going to be for someone new to the game. If you choose to make it so, 3.5 can get very complex. What I do is toss out a lot of the finer points to make the 3.5 game run faster at higher levels, but I attribute that to experience with the system. A newcomer may not know to do this.

2. 4E takes longer to resolve conflicts. Not that this is a bad thing, but it does take more rounds than 3.5 did. To me that is part of the fun. It's not fun to take out the dragon lich in two rounds of combat (that would be 12 seconds of time). It should take some time to resolve. Downside, that pack of orcs also takes 8-10 rounds to clear out.

3. 4E allows me to travel to gamedays with exactly one book, the Players Handbook contains everything I need to run a game. The monster manual isn't needed because everything I have run has the full stat blocks of the monsters in the adventure. The DMG isn't really needed at all unless you are designing adventures. 3.5 requires me to travel with the following books at a minimum (bear in mind we have a lot of options in play): Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual(s), Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, Rules Compendium. For a basic 3.5 game you really only need the first three books to play.

4. 4E is more restrictive on player options (for now). 3.5 has dozens of splatbooks available to make characters "interesting". I suspect that as time progresses, there will be just as many options for 4E.

The above are all my opinions, as I currently run a 3.5 level 20 game and several 4E games of a variety of levels (highest being 16th).

My suggestion is as the others have said. Download the Pathfinder beta and the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, and run some adventures as a tryout and get everyone's opinions as to which they liked better.