Very first thoughts after reading 4e PHB

[The Little Raven]

I read through the 4E PHB and DMG.

People reading 3rd Edition complained about the monk being overpowered, but people who played it knew that monks were anything but overpowered.

Reading something and executing it's intended purpose can provide very different results, as the difference between the Attack of the Clones script (nice script) and the movie (let's just say it wasn't the best movie) showed us.

 

[Celestian]

It was a much harder thing to go from 3.0 to 3.5 than it was to go from 2E to 3E.

Wow I don't get that at all.

I thought 3e was a huge change from 2e and 3.5 was barely even worth the upgrade costs on books.

I think 4e is as much of a difference from 3e than 3e was from 2e... which is A LOT.

 

[abyssaldeath]

It was harder because it was so similar. At least with going from 2e to 3e you could throw out everything you knew about 2e. 3e to 3.5 was almost the same game with a lot of minor changes. It was hard to get it clear in your head which rule set you were remembering.

 

[MrGrenadine]

If one character has 40 hp and another has 80, they're not in the same league. If one has +20 THAC0 and another +10, one character will always hit and one will always miss. That's a lesson learned from the Epic 3.0e rules.

Actually, this seems perfectly reasonable to me--if one of those characters is a fighter, and the other is a wizard. Of course the front-line, in-the-trenches guy can hit more often with his weapons, and the book-learned wizard is less hardy, so it behooves him to keep away from hand-to-hand and sling spells from a distance.

In an effort to make every character feel special, WotC created a system where everyone kind of feels the same.


MrG

 

[Regicide]

Then there were some things that looked like they were taken from 4e - combined skills was a big one I noticed, along with the unlimited cantrips per day for casters.

You mean Star Wars. 4E took it's skills from Star Wars. Healing surges are from a Star Wars feat. And of course all the classes in 4E are now warblades from 3.5E Tome of Battle.

 

[Dausuul]

Actually, this seems perfectly reasonable to me--if one of those characters is a fighter, and the other is a wizard. Of course the front-line, in-the-trenches guy can hit more often with his weapons, and the book-learned wizard is less hardy, so it behooves him to keep away from hand-to-hand and sling spells from a distance.

In an effort to make every character feel special, WotC created a system where everyone kind of feels the same.

Again - is this based on play experience or just reading the books? Because I'll tell you, they don't feel the same in play at all.

 

[Alkiera]

Check out Pathfinder. Free download and you can see ideas that should have been 4E.

I've read through several of the pathfinder rule revisions, and wasn't really impressed. Some of it does help; other parts are just odd, and every class is changed in a different way, with a different system. 4e changed every class, but they at least have a consistency to them that means you don't need to learn a different mechanic for every class. A number of the changes just felt arbitrary, and some felt like they were trying to fix the same problem that 4e fixes, but they chose a less elegant solution just to have chosen a different solution than the 4e team. Also, there is a non-trivial power drift, so I think existing material would have to be altered in difficulty to line up, at least as much as it would for 4e. Paizo's own materials will be published with their system as a baseline, but older stuff will still have to be altered.

And despite each class having at-will, encounter, daily, and utility powers, and that most non-utility powers are variants of 'make an attack roll, do damage and maybe a status effect', the combinations of them and who has them result in each class having a different feel in play.

I have nothing against the Paizo people, but having read both systems I'm going to move to 4e, rather than Pathfinder.

EDIT: Regicide, it's not so much that 4e took those things from Star Wars Saga Edition, as that the SWSE was written by many of the same developers that were working on 4e, and they used SWSE as a testbed for their ideas. They come right out and say that in the Races & Classes book.

 

[hamishspence]

warblades

Better fit would be swordsages with no recharge mechanic (except at epic)

And with Dailies its more combining aspects of the sorcerer and martial class.

At wills correspond to some of the last ed feats, often.

 

[MrGrenadine]

I've read through several of the pathfinder rule revisions, and...[edit]...every class is changed in a different way, with a different system.

Again, I have to say that that seems perfectly right to me. I don't mind learning a few different rules when dropping my fighter and creating a wizard--in fact, I guess I prefer it, so that things don't feel too homogenous across the board.

A number of the changes just felt arbitrary, and some felt like they were trying to fix the same problem that 4e fixes, but they chose a less elegant solution just to have chosen a different solution than the 4e team.

I would say all of the changes--from 3.0 to 3.5, from 3.5 to 4e, and from 3.5 to Pathfinder--are arbitrary to some extent. We all just have to decide which arbitrary decisions make the most sense and are the most fun to play, and go with that system.

Or hell, you could cherry pick from all 3 to make the perfect system for you. They all have their positive and negative points.


MrG

 

[VanRichten]

Paizo's own materials will be published with their system as a baseline, but older stuff will still have to be altered.

I think you might have missed the part where they stated in the Pathfinder book that all of the rules in the system are directly based off the 3.5 PHB SRD.

Also yeah some alterations would have to be done. But minor in comparison to 4E. I can imagine that $2000+ worth of books you might have collected over the life of 3E feels a bit much for and "alteration".