Pros and Cons

[Hussar]

Thank you! XP for you.

Heh, I've already tapped him once in this thread. Methinks someone's going to be raking it in here.

As a side note, I have to admit that when I saw the title of this thread, and saw that Piratecat had made the last post, the last thing I was expecting when I started reading was such a well balanced and incredibly well mannered discussion of the edition.

You guys are all AWESOME.

As to the difference that I see in 4e from 3e, one thing that should be mentioned is transparency. 4e strives, to a degree even greater than 3e that all game elements be as transparent as possible to the DM or the players. You generally know exactly why something does what it does and you can probably compare it to five or six different, but similar things that do pretty much the same thing.

I find that it really puts the DM in a position of being able to act from greater confidence. The DM should know, or at least can make a very educated guess as to whether an idea or an effect should be allowed or not. There's just so many points of comparison to work from.

 

[Intense_Interest]

Well, going off the assumption that you have a group interested in 4E going in from a 3E mindset:

1- Combat is much more interesting and discrete. The Minis-and-Grid based combat with the specific spacing and timing actions is a lot more challenging round-to-round than the "Full Attack, Flank, Fireball, Full Heal" system of 3E.

2- The reduction of point-based system elements such as "level dips" and Prestige Classes means that characters are fairly "set" once you concept and create them. Other than the release of new feats/powers through books and homebrews or selecting off-road traits such as non-classed skills or Multi-class feats, a Fighter plays and works like a Fighter 1-10 or 1-20, and the Wizard plays and works like a Wizard 1-10 or 1-20 as well.

3- If you ever get to epic levels, you'll be reminded that by about level 25 or so you've really gone over the 3.5 "power cap" in a lot of ways. Yet characters remain adventurers instead of Lords and Ladies when they reach those levels.

4- The economy is not really "nonsense" per se, because you're dealing with an entirely arbitrary game-world wherein Dragons don't drop-kick players for their +1 swords they're trying to sell. 20% versus 50% trade-in value works in your favor when trying to encourage players to more "kill things" instead of "take their stuff", especially if you have the Bag-of-Holding-everything-not-nailed-down type of player(s).

5- As a GM, you're allowed to throw together nearly everything that matches your party's expected XP level, but when you start pushing it in odd ways (high level single enemies, some of the lamer solos) or in even odder ways (bunches of minions, weak encounter of under 4 creatures) you'll notice that there is the chance of falling into low-risk slow-result combats (aka Grind) or cakewalks. Small enclosed rooms specifically are fairly odd by-nature and feel more like playing Final Fantasy than a role-playing game; I miss, He misses, Monster hits, Monster misses, I hit etc.

6- You simply cannot jump into Paragon or Epic teir play with a character (much less make one on your own) and expect to understand the game-play and how the class works. Intricate combat scenarios and party-class interplay along with power timing and resource management are necessary skills to pop off some of the more challenging aspects of the game. Playing those Low level adventures really does teach you how to work in all the features of the higher-level ones. For some people that like to hit Vecna on an 8 in their first session, this will be a major hurdle.

7- The Combat-effecting Conditions are legion and there is a definate learning curve: probably half of your first combat is going to be about what "Marking" is and when it comes into effect. The later ones (slowed, stunned, prone, shaken) will come around and throw you through a loop as well. I'm of a mind to say that at least once you learn it and get the language down, your group's combats will run more smoothly than it did in 3E. This isn't Turn Undead / Grapple / Dispel uber-buffed Cleric when it comes to fiddly bits of arbitary numbers- Stunned aproximates "stunned" and Slowed makes you move Slow.

 

[MichaelK]

Does anybody hate it and feels that 3e is better?

I wouldn't say that I hate it or that 3e is necessarily better.

I personally have not changed because I love 3e, I know it well and it has a familiarity to it that I find incredibly comfortable. There are plenty of systems available to me that I'd say are better, but that doesn't matter, I play it because I like it.

If it's starting to feel old and tired to you, then maybe you should try out the new edition. Just remember that the rest of your group may feel differently and there may have to be some compromise for you to all get what you want.

 

[avin]

"easy grapple rules" should sell it to anoybody

 

[Rechan]

I'll take some time to list some cons, too. Especially for a group going from 3e. These aren't necessarily my feelings, so much as what I've seen complained.

• 3e is very, very simulationist; the rules represent the physics of the world, the rules are "realistic". 4e is very gamist - the rules do not represent the world, PCs and NPCs use different rules, and so on. For instance, you can knock oozes and swarms prone. That makes little sense unless you describe it a certain way.
• Classes are very modular and compartmentalized. Fighters can't be archers - they have to use melee weapons to do their thing. If you want a ranger with an animal companion, there's a build in a splatbook that lets you do that; you just can't be any ranger and grab an animal companion.
• Things are SUPER balanced; this means magic can't solve problems like it used to, it means that your wizard players are essentially equivalent to fighters at ranged, that again the ranger can't be an awesome archer and have a beast companion, etc etc.
• Multi-classing is very challenging. You have to use feats, and only get to swap one power of your existing class with one from another (per feat). And you have to line up the Primary Scores for both classes; if you're a ROgue, you use dex to attack. But if you multi into, say, Wizard, you need a high int because all Wizard attacks use Int. This makes it incredibly hard to have good stats spread all around just to make multi-classing optional.
• There are next to no out-of-combat abilities. No Charm Person, etc. If you're outside of combat, the only thing useful to you are skills.
• All classes use the same mechanics in terms of powers. Everyone has At-Will/Encounter/Daily powers. And many powers look similar. So, it can feel as though all the classes look/feel the same.

 

[Aus_Snow]

This is what I have to say about the pros, though that list might have to change a bit, since I've learned more about 4e since then. Oh well.

And, since I'm liking the idea of this strange logic, I'll leave the cons to the 4e players (well, more likely DMs, this being ENWorld).

Hope you and your players end up being happy with whatever you decide to run. Cheers.

 

[Obryn]

I think your reception of 4e will largely depend on how you played 3e. For me and my group, 4e felt like a natural extension of and evolution from the 3.5 ruleset, with supplements. For others, it's a massive departure and doesn't resemble any D&D they've ever played.

If you tend to run a fairly encounter-heavy 3.5 game, and if you use a lot of the later supplements like Bo9S, Complete Mage, Complete Champion, and so on; and if you usually run encounters on a grid ... 4e will feel a lot like a natural evolution of the D&D you're used to.

If you tend to run a very low-combat 3.5 game; or else stick to the core 3 books, and don't care for Bo9S-style classes, reserve feats, etc.... You're more likely to think 4e is an enormous departure. (You still might think it's a fun game in and of itself, but you probably won't be able to shake the feeling that it's not quite D&D.)

These are gross generalizations, mind you. There are always exceptions.

For me and my group, 3.5 was feeling a bit stale. As a DM, I was disenchanted with the prep-work. I was also getting progressively less happy as combats took longer and longer for the same amount of things happening. 4e worked great for my group.

I don't think 4e is a good choice for lots of other groups, though. As an example, another game I'm running is Call of Cthulhu d20. Even though it's still class-level, skills are really the focus of the character system. Simply put, I don't think the 4e system of Trained/Untrained, slowly-increasing skills would be a good fit. So, by extension, if I was running 3.5 the way I run CoC d20, I would not like 4e. On the other hand, I love skill challenges, so I imported those from 4e into CoCd20. (FWIW, I think you can run skill-heavy games in 4e, but I don't think it's a perfect fit.)

Basically, I'll echo what everyone else has said - give it a try with the free KotS download. I'd advise using the free Character Builder rather than the pre-gens, but it will work either way! My only other advice is to try and separate the system from the module, if that makes sense. It's not the greatest adventure ever written, IMO.

EDIT: I should also note that I'm not a guy who finds one good game and sticks to it for everything. I look at RPGs as just a bit more of a commitment than a board game... I don't expect every RPG to provide every kind of experience, or to be the best at everything. I have found 4e works great for the kind of D&D I like running, but then again, it's not the only game I play. As I mentioned, I also run CoC d20, SWSE, WFRP2e, Paranoia, and other games as the mood strikes. 4e is, as of right now, a lot less of a world-building toolkit than 3e is. This isn't to say it's inflexible, or that world-building is impossible (far from it!) but it is focused towards doing a few things very well rather than a lot of things simply well. Again, this fits into what I want from an RPG nowadays. However, if your group is a single-game group, you might find 4e lacking in ways that are important to you.

-O

 

[Nimble Goodbarrel]

Well everyone has given me a lot of information and things to talk about with my players. I have spoken to them and I know that one is on board and one other is thinking that 4e is too "dumbed down". Although his arguements mostly revolve around things that would let him have more fun. ie. rogues having more oppurtunities to use sneak attack, and that everyone can heal.

He is of the opinion that all of the characters are the same so why have different classes in the first place. None the less, 4e books are actually on sale for 50% off so I might just go and grab them while I can. Go from there, see if everyone likes it, and if not then I am only out a little bit of money.

Thank you all for your great replies and please keep them coming if you think of anything else.

Thanks for the support,

Nimble
Toronto, ON

 

[Obryn]

As for characters being the same... All I can say is give it a shot. You might find that's, indeed, how it feels. But, speaking for my group, we've found that there's a lot more differentiation than you'd expect. Fighters play like fighters, rangers play like rangers, and so on.

Pay close attention to class features, in particular. They might be easier to overlook than powers, but they make a huge difference.

All I can say is that IMO this is one of those things where playing gives you a different experience than reading.

-O

 

[Fifth Element]

First, I would ask if you don't know much about 4E, why have you decided that your group should switch? I recommend playing it for a bit before deciding whether a permanent switch should be made.

It shouldn't be difficult to get your group to try 4E. They may be more open to it if it's framed as a try-out rather than an permanent switch.