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What do you like about 4E? (not a battle in the Edition Wars :^) )
- Thread starter Vartan
- Start date
Dice4Hire
First Post
Well, there are two things that immediately grab me and keep me interested in 4E.
1: Melee and magic are basically equal.
2: Characters are mostly human in abilities and movement.
1: I really disliked how casters dominated games in 3.x, or swung from useless to gods in only 15 or so levels. Too often melee waited for casters to peruse and discuss spells, or asked them to cast specific spells to help them do their jobs, be they buffs, dispels, or just movement powers to save them time.
2: Teleport, or scry-buff-teleport, flight, invisibility, levitation, etc etc etc made building encounters hard, and even harder as he characters hit about 7th level or so. Sure, the DM could nerf the players, or the players could avoid strategies like these, but why did they exist at all? Maybe 4E went a bit far with knocking these off the table, but I like them in shards on the floor.
---------
Other things I love about the game:
Minions--Pure genius.
BLB--Help high level fighters not be totally blind, and help with scaling.
Skills: Fewer and less difference between those who were good and those who were not. I remember many 20 point differeces in 3.x.
Skills: Everyone is better than the average joe schmo on the street after level 10 or so. When your 15th level fighter had a worse spot than a commoner with a 12 wisdom, something was wrong.
Prep--Man, is it easy. With roles, simple xp amounts and a good selection of levels and roles next to each other in the MMs, it is a breeze.
The Classes: I really love how WOTC has done the classes. Same role, but totally different feel. For example strikers. Avenger rolls two dice, the Barbarian hits hard with a weapon, Sorcerers have crazy base damage so that the die roll is not even needed, the rogue weaves in and out of combat, the Ranger can shoot a bow or attack with double weapons with ease, and so on. All the same role, all effective, all different in how they do the role.
Non-divine Healing: No need for a cleric. Try a bard, a warlord, an artificer. Again, all the same role, but very different in how they pull it off.
--------------
Now let me talk about DDI as it was specifically asked about.
Mainly I put that line in my sig as I was getting annoyed by people constantly suggesting I try DDI, as if I had never heard of it. Well, I ahve heard of it, and it is probably big for many or even most people, but I see no need for it.
Character Builder: How many characters do DDIites make anyway? I am sure it is easier to make one than on scratch paper like I do, but I only make a new character once a month or so. How many games do you people play in anyway?
Monster Builder: In a year and a half, I have used perhaps 30-35 monsters total in 3 PBEM 4E games. I have the first two MM books and have only used two from the MMII. With reskinning and modifying abilities slightly I have thousands of potential monsters just from the two books.
Encounter Builder: No real opinion on this, but I like a white sheet of paper to plan things on.
Three other things and then I will stop this.
1: Everything is Core. Terrible idea, but with DDI it is a lot easier to do so. Yes, it will help well books, but it is BAD for the DM. I do not like kitchen sink campaign worlds. And parties with 4 of 5 unique races/classes/ etc is just unbelievable. All wizards died thousands of years ago except for him, and all elves migrated to the stars except her, and this guy is the first artificer the world has every known. .......
2: 3P, House Rules, and Campaign specific stuff. If you have stuff on paper, this is all easy, if you are married tothe character builder and its cousins, not so easy.
3: And a pet peeve of mine for the Character builder and all its antecedents over the years. Yes, you can make a character with this, but do you know the rules behind all those numbers well enough to play it effectively?
I'm not trying to bash anything here ,and I am glad lots of people like DDI, though mainly for a selfish reason. The revenue stream will keep WOTC around to make the books I want to buy. The nine books I ahve bought for 4E thus far have probably netted WOTC less than 50.00 on their balance sheets. That is not going to do a lot to keep WOTC alfoat. The 10.00ish a month (of which WOTC probably nets 80%+) is better for that.
1: Melee and magic are basically equal.
2: Characters are mostly human in abilities and movement.
1: I really disliked how casters dominated games in 3.x, or swung from useless to gods in only 15 or so levels. Too often melee waited for casters to peruse and discuss spells, or asked them to cast specific spells to help them do their jobs, be they buffs, dispels, or just movement powers to save them time.
2: Teleport, or scry-buff-teleport, flight, invisibility, levitation, etc etc etc made building encounters hard, and even harder as he characters hit about 7th level or so. Sure, the DM could nerf the players, or the players could avoid strategies like these, but why did they exist at all? Maybe 4E went a bit far with knocking these off the table, but I like them in shards on the floor.
---------
Other things I love about the game:
Minions--Pure genius.
BLB--Help high level fighters not be totally blind, and help with scaling.
Skills: Fewer and less difference between those who were good and those who were not. I remember many 20 point differeces in 3.x.
Skills: Everyone is better than the average joe schmo on the street after level 10 or so. When your 15th level fighter had a worse spot than a commoner with a 12 wisdom, something was wrong.
Prep--Man, is it easy. With roles, simple xp amounts and a good selection of levels and roles next to each other in the MMs, it is a breeze.
The Classes: I really love how WOTC has done the classes. Same role, but totally different feel. For example strikers. Avenger rolls two dice, the Barbarian hits hard with a weapon, Sorcerers have crazy base damage so that the die roll is not even needed, the rogue weaves in and out of combat, the Ranger can shoot a bow or attack with double weapons with ease, and so on. All the same role, all effective, all different in how they do the role.
Non-divine Healing: No need for a cleric. Try a bard, a warlord, an artificer. Again, all the same role, but very different in how they pull it off.
--------------
Now let me talk about DDI as it was specifically asked about.
Mainly I put that line in my sig as I was getting annoyed by people constantly suggesting I try DDI, as if I had never heard of it. Well, I ahve heard of it, and it is probably big for many or even most people, but I see no need for it.
Character Builder: How many characters do DDIites make anyway? I am sure it is easier to make one than on scratch paper like I do, but I only make a new character once a month or so. How many games do you people play in anyway?
Monster Builder: In a year and a half, I have used perhaps 30-35 monsters total in 3 PBEM 4E games. I have the first two MM books and have only used two from the MMII. With reskinning and modifying abilities slightly I have thousands of potential monsters just from the two books.
Encounter Builder: No real opinion on this, but I like a white sheet of paper to plan things on.
Three other things and then I will stop this.
1: Everything is Core. Terrible idea, but with DDI it is a lot easier to do so. Yes, it will help well books, but it is BAD for the DM. I do not like kitchen sink campaign worlds. And parties with 4 of 5 unique races/classes/ etc is just unbelievable. All wizards died thousands of years ago except for him, and all elves migrated to the stars except her, and this guy is the first artificer the world has every known. .......
2: 3P, House Rules, and Campaign specific stuff. If you have stuff on paper, this is all easy, if you are married tothe character builder and its cousins, not so easy.
3: And a pet peeve of mine for the Character builder and all its antecedents over the years. Yes, you can make a character with this, but do you know the rules behind all those numbers well enough to play it effectively?
I'm not trying to bash anything here ,and I am glad lots of people like DDI, though mainly for a selfish reason. The revenue stream will keep WOTC around to make the books I want to buy. The nine books I ahve bought for 4E thus far have probably netted WOTC less than 50.00 on their balance sheets. That is not going to do a lot to keep WOTC alfoat. The 10.00ish a month (of which WOTC probably nets 80%+) is better for that.
Haltherrion
First Post
Here are some things that stand out for me as strong positives in the system:
Big thumbs up though on it. I think it was a great change. No longer do I dread playing a first level mage who, after firing off a couple spells, is reduced to using a crossbow or throwing darts.
- I like the race variety and the attempt to make all races interesting. My campaigns have always had a lot of off races and the previous ECL system was awkward to say the least. I like the fact that there are a lot of interesting races, good takes on the old standard races and they are all equivalently balanced (i.e., no more ECL non-sense).
- I like the class variety and the explicit setting of role.
- I really like the fact that low level characters have a lot of options and are far more interesting to play now than they were in previous systems.
- I like the fact that classes have been balanced so that each class pretty much has the same amount of decisions (powers for the most part). As opposed to our last 3.5 high level campaign where my cleric could choose from 400+ spells to prepare each day and had something like 40 spells per day to manage versus the barbarian who mostly just swung his axe around.
- I really like the mobility introduced by 4E. No longer must you stand put (except for that 5' adjust) to do your maximum damage. Plus the various shift powers and other mobility aspects make the battles far more interesting than they used to be.
Big thumbs up though on it. I think it was a great change. No longer do I dread playing a first level mage who, after firing off a couple spells, is reduced to using a crossbow or throwing darts.
Iceman
First Post
These two connect to the thing I like the most:
Tactics are not only meaningful, but fun.
Not sure how to explain that in a few sentences, but the idea is that instead of positioning and conditions and roles and so on being something you Have to track, they are something you can use to your advantage and have a good time playing around with.
Examples include:
1) Moving to not only get flanking (or bypass someone entirely) but to provoke opportunity attacks that will result in penalties and punishments due to a Mark.
2) Using push/pull/slide effects to remove enemies from a fight (pushed off something) or set up the next attack (moved between allies) or prevent an attack (nothing like pushing a dazed opponent with no good ranged options 2 squares from the only people he can reach with a charge - that he now cannot make).
3) Using conditions and marks to break up enemy tactics, instead of just "kill him before he goes again." Dazing, for instance, is a staple against casters that are sustaining something.
4) Taking on your role in a way that enables/assists someone else's role. Frex, I think someone can truly understand and appreciate their role as a defender if they go through a fight in which their Only contribution (due to being a major target, frequently dazed or grabbed, etc) is to help someone else Rock The House (repeatedly providing positioning for the striker, keeping large numbers of enemies away from the controller, and so on). But defenders are not the only one for which this is true -- the striker that can say, "He's mine. Go." to a whole party that wants to focus on X and back it up by soloing against Y, that's pretty awesomesauce too.
There's a lot of other things I like about 4E, but they were all covered above and I don't feel like rehashing.
-VIC
What do I like?
I like the combat engine. It's great at abstracting kinetic, tactically-rich fight scenes, particularly w/r/t positioning/movement.
I like the underemphasis on magic spells and corresponding emphasis on less-magical action. It's the most swords-and-sorcery feeling edition yet (despite making certain traditionally high-level magical effects like teleportation available from the start).
Mainly, I like that it's more complex where I want to be (ie, combat) and less complex where I don't (ie, everywhere else). As for the non-mechanical aspects of the game... all I can say is that I like making my own 'flavor'... great heaping gobs of it, so it's presence or absence in the printed rules is kinda irrelevant -- though I did find some of it inspirational.
I like the combat engine. It's great at abstracting kinetic, tactically-rich fight scenes, particularly w/r/t positioning/movement.
I like the underemphasis on magic spells and corresponding emphasis on less-magical action. It's the most swords-and-sorcery feeling edition yet (despite making certain traditionally high-level magical effects like teleportation available from the start).
Mainly, I like that it's more complex where I want to be (ie, combat) and less complex where I don't (ie, everywhere else). As for the non-mechanical aspects of the game... all I can say is that I like making my own 'flavor'... great heaping gobs of it, so it's presence or absence in the printed rules is kinda irrelevant -- though I did find some of it inspirational.
Stuntman
First Post
So many things to say about what I like.
Balance -- All characters contribute to a fight no matter what race or class across all levels.
Multiclassing -- It works without making your character severely overpowered or underpowered. (Hybrids work to a lesser extent. Just remember to take the Hybrid Talent feat at level 1 and make the right choice with it.)
Level 1 -- You are no longer so fragile at level 1. No need to fudge dice. Low level wizards no longer have to be part-time, crappy archers.
Easy to DM -- Monsters are designed to make it easy for the DM to run a big group of them.
Balance -- All characters contribute to a fight no matter what race or class across all levels.
Multiclassing -- It works without making your character severely overpowered or underpowered. (Hybrids work to a lesser extent. Just remember to take the Hybrid Talent feat at level 1 and make the right choice with it.)
Level 1 -- You are no longer so fragile at level 1. No need to fudge dice. Low level wizards no longer have to be part-time, crappy archers.
Easy to DM -- Monsters are designed to make it easy for the DM to run a big group of them.
As I recently pointed out elsewhere, I like the existence of Rituals.
They're not overpowered. They're not for use in combat. They may not even be the most efficient path to achieving a goal- who said magic had to be efficient?
But most importantly, they fill a gap in the game's fluff/crunch. Almost any major fantasy book or series has some kind of ritual magic in it...and yet, that kind of magic has been almost entirely absent from the game.
They're not overpowered. They're not for use in combat. They may not even be the most efficient path to achieving a goal- who said magic had to be efficient?
But most importantly, they fill a gap in the game's fluff/crunch. Almost any major fantasy book or series has some kind of ritual magic in it...and yet, that kind of magic has been almost entirely absent from the game.
Monsters! While many things about 4E make me shudder (skill challenges!), the monster system actually makes up for that. I like the ability to simplify stat blocks, give monster roles to make it easier to play them and the ability to just add in abilities based on Monster flavor is cool. Each creature seems unique, interesting and plays differently -- the focus is on cool powers to make creatures interesting (not on elements that rarely enter).
This was a really brilliant system and it just gets better as each Monster Manual comes out.
This was a really brilliant system and it just gets better as each Monster Manual comes out.
Haffrung Helleyes
First Post
what I like about 4E
Healing Surges, and the fact that a party can get by w/o a cleric
Magical transport powers (fly, levitate) getting bumped to higher leivels, and not overshadowing the skill system so much
Movement on the battlefield being more dynamic (push, pull, more movement in general)
Ken
Healing Surges, and the fact that a party can get by w/o a cleric
Magical transport powers (fly, levitate) getting bumped to higher leivels, and not overshadowing the skill system so much
Movement on the battlefield being more dynamic (push, pull, more movement in general)
Ken
