D&D 4E What's so bad about 4th edition? What's so good about other systems?

[herrozerro]

Uhm, what? A level 30 minion is worth 4750XP. A L4 minion is 75. I have no idea where you figured a L4 minion is worth 4750

Oops! I meant level 30!

 

[SSquirrel]

If WotC Devs came up and said
... right, its new edition time
We arent using D20s now, its a D42
We dont use Elfs, Dwarfs or Halflings any more, its Duplos, Karminors and Hat-Hats
We dont use Rogues, Wizards or Paladins now instead its Scallywags, Pointy-Hat Men and Crusaders
We got rid of all the cool monsters --- now we have similar ones but they all have different spelled names

No, you just described what White Wolf did w/the New World of Darkness

 

[Herschel]

Healing surges, though, are a quite different beast. In 3e, healing is external to the character (excluding natural healing). A character generally couldn't heal himself and, furthermore, there was no limit to the amount of healing he could receive. If he had an endless supply of potions of cure light wounds, he could consume them all day.

By contrast, 4e healing is internal to the character. There's no need for an external agency - the character just takes a short rest and spends some surges. Moreover, the healing is limited - once you've used up your surges for the day, that's it.

That one really is radically different. Don't get me wrong; it's better. (Still not quite right, since the daily limit keeps the 15-minute adventuring day alive, but it is better.) But there's just not the same evolutionary development that you've laid out for AEDU powers.

4E healing is limited the the character, 3E healing is limited to THE character, the Cleric. I HATED the concept of surges at first, I admit, but once I wrapped my head around them I really like them. Plus, I do think it good that you don't need a Cleric to still have rejuvinating powers. I'd also note that generally the the "magical" healing is more effecient than the inspiring kind. I really like the way they set that up and made Warlords a cool leader class while not having them as strong at healing as other "magical" classes.

 

[theNater]

But prior to 4e, most classes didn't have any kind of damaging area attack at all, or had very few.

Many classes that didn't have area attacks got multiple attacks per round, though. Deciding whether to hit three targets for normal damage each or one target for triple damage isn't a new choice for the fighter, although he's now making it at a different time.

It's not that it brings it back. It's that it failed to get rid of it.

As long as the game retains any per day resources (healing surges, daily powers), the problem will remain. Only whereas in 3e it occurred when the Cleric (usually) ran out of spells for the day, it now occurs when the first PC uses his last Daily power of the day.

At slightly higher level, the break point seems to be whenever someone runs out of healing surges. But whichever it is, as soon as that happens, the party stops.

4e has made things marginally better. Especially at 1st level when the Wizard has more than 1-2 spells. But it hasn't solved the problem.

I never thought what they were trying to solve in terms of the 15-minute adventuring day was stopping when the party ran out of some resource. In fact, I seem to recall them being pretty up-front about expecting around four encounters per day.

The problem, as I understood it, was players using four encounter's worth of resources on the day's first encounter, then stopping. This can't be done any more, due to the presence of encounter powers.

 

[delericho]

4E healing is limited the the character, 3E healing is limited to THE character, the Cleric.

Or the Paladin, Bard, Druid, any character with potions, or a wand and Use Magic Item, or...

But, yes, you're right - the over-reliance on that single class for 90% of healing was a major weakness in 3e.

Wasn't the point I was making anyway. I've already noted that the 4e method was better; the point I was making is that the 4e method is vastly different.

The problem, as I understood it, was players using four encounter's worth of resources on the day's first encounter, then stopping. This can't be done any more, due to the presence of encounter powers.

Ah. You've never seen the party blow through all their Dailies in a single encounter, and then take an Extended Rest, then? Because I have; it's just as possible in 4e as in 3e - in fact it's easier in 4e since if you then get caught with your pants down, you at least have something in the tank; in 3e if you literally blow through everything you're pretty much SOL.

 

[Dead Scribe]

I've never seen a group blow all their dailies and then decide to stop. Dailies are nice to have, but unless you are consistently engaged in encounters 4 levels higher than the party level, or suspect that you're about to engage in a very difficult fight, you don't really need them. If a group is doing that they're being extremely conservative. Or the DM is being very cruel. The limiting factor that tells a group when to rest isn't supposed to be daily powers, it's healing surges. When one or more party members are out of surges, it's time to stop.

By design, your party shouldn't be running out of surges after one or two fights. You can't spend that many healing surges in a single encounter unless like, every party member is a leader.

The minion discussion has been more or less left behind, but I did want to point out that there ARE in fact guidelines about how to use them. Minions are intended to be roughly equivalent to a single 'normal' monster of equal level. A 'difficult' encounter is not supposed to be more than 4 levels higher than the party, and monsters should be within 3 levels of the encounter level. So a group should not be encountering an enemy more than 5 levels lower, or 7 levels higher, than their character levels.

The reasoning behind minions is pretty straightforwad and effective. It's a way of increasing the number of enemies in an encounter without drastically changing the difficulty of the encounter. It prevents you from having to load an encounter with weak, boring enemies if you want to up the number of enemies for dramatic purposes.

 

[wlmartin]

The fact is that the biggest change they made in 4e is rebalancing of all of the classes.

I assure you that if you are bored, crack open the Character Builder and build a Fighter and Barbarian. Choose powers that relate to raw attacks rather than ongoing damage or debuffs and level them to 30.

If you take all of the daily and encounter powers and figure out the medium damage value for those attacks (ie 3D12 + 18 would be 21-54, or a medium of 37.5), add them all up and divide by the amount of attacks you will find the number is pretty much the same between the 2.

Is that a coincidence? Not really - the Devs just put a lot of time into determining why a certain power is 2W instead of 1W etc.

Sure, the Highs & Lows of the Powers are going to swing differently, otherwise you have a duplication of the same class but in the grand scheme of things the threat level of each class when you look at the raw ability is the same. It is the choices the PC makes when building his CHAR that create differences (such as focusing on abilities and feats that improve areas other than pure damage) but overall the threat level is balanced.

This never existed before in D&D. There was massive unbalancing to the point where a Wizard was only good for dropping certain enemies, Rogues were only useful when a trap needed opening, Clerics acted as Healbots...

It is this balancing that exists throughout the entire 4e core rules that shows through on every single encounter. It doesnt of course mean that there is no value to playing one class over another, there sure is but at least you don't feel like you are the weak link (or even boast to be the strong link) in the chain, everyone has their role and there is a lot more equality across the board.

 

[theNater]

Ah. You've never seen the party blow through all their Dailies in a single encounter, and then take an Extended Rest, then?

Blowing through all their dailies is not using four encounters' worth of resources, because four encounters' worth includes four copies of each encounter power. The disparity in total power per day between a one-encounter day and a four-encounter day is much greater in 4e than it was in 3e.

Because I have; it's just as possible in 4e as in 3e - in fact it's easier in 4e since if you then get caught with your pants down, you at least have something in the tank; in 3e if you literally blow through everything you're pretty much SOL.

I'd say it's safer rather than easier. Feel free to dismiss that as semantics, if you like.

However, the fact that the party still has something in the tank after blowing their dailies means that the DM can ensure at least two interesting fights per day. A 3e fight with no spells left is extremely boring for spellcasters; a 4e fight with no dailies is much more entertaining.

 

[catastrophic]

I'd also like all of my character's resources to be available at all times. I've seen suggestions elsewhere in which it was said to reward players money and such for something like a business, but to say they could only use the resources gained for non encounter related things.

The problem with that is that those resources then have to be balanced for in combat terms, and you end up making characters that much less important- it leans back towards 3e style items where you can barely see many pc builds under all those decorations.

I would argue for noncombat and combat to be seperated, while noncombat resources would effect the stakes of combat. For instance, where is the pc fight taking place- on the frontier of your foe's empire, or in their throne room? That difference would be made up by your armies, lands, siege engines, grand magics, and so on. That's what would get you to that fight.

But the fight itself can't be decided by how many GP you pile into your consumable buff poitions or w/e, because then combat would be dominated by such effects- and frankly it's not possible to balance say, gold that get's you alchemists fire, against gold that you spend on 100 pikemen.

Keeping them seperate ensures that both systems can be well balanced and as a result, fun and compelling, instead of just being about key mega-builds within an endless field of traps, which is the problem with 3e.

An option i've suggested before is to have coinage as the heroic tier resource, and allow it to be used to purchase mundane equipment and minor magics.

Then in paragon, have Boons and Hoards, in other words land, title, huge piles of gold, retainers, and other things that aren't going to make you better at slaying dragons, but are certainly vital for winning wars, and changing the world.

Then in epic the resource would be POWER, straight up cosmic power in various forms- worshippers, porfolios, mega-artifacts, and so on. In theory, power would help you in combat, in pratice, your ability to make war on other epic tier threats would stil be determined by you combat powers- but your Power would determine again, the stakes, and the outcomes you have the resources to create. Sure, you can beat an angry god in a fight. But to imprison them, or kill them, you'd need the kind of power that epic tier would have as a resource, not a combat option.

 

[Argyle King]

The problem with that is that those resources then have to be balanced for in combat terms, and you end up making characters that much less important- it leans back towards 3e style items where you can barely see many pc builds under all those decorations.

I would argue for noncombat and combat to be seperated, while noncombat resources would effect the stakes of combat. For instance, where is the pc fight taking place- on the frontier of your foe's empire, or in their throne room? That difference would be made up by your armies, lands, siege engines, grand magics, and so on. That's what would get you to that fight.

But the fight itself can't be decided by how many GP you pile into your consumable buff poitions or w/e, because then combat would be dominated by such effects- and frankly it's not possible to balance say, gold that get's you alchemists fire, against gold that you spend on 100 pikemen.

Keeping them seperate ensures that both systems can be well balanced and as a result, fun and compelling, instead of just being about key mega-builds within an endless field of traps, which is the problem with 3e.

An option i've suggested before is to have coinage as the heroic tier resource, and allow it to be used to purchase mundane equipment and minor magics.

Then in paragon, have Boons and Hoards, in other words land, title, huge piles of gold, retainers, and other things that aren't going to make you better at slaying dragons, but are certainly vital for winning wars, and changing the world.

Then in epic the resource would be POWER, straight up cosmic power in various forms- worshippers, porfolios, mega-artifacts, and so on. In theory, power would help you in combat, in pratice, your ability to make war on other epic tier threats would stil be determined by you combat powers- but your Power would determine again, the stakes, and the outcomes you have the resources to create. Sure, you can beat an angry god in a fight. But to imprison them, or kill them, you'd need the kind of power that epic tier would have as a resource, not a combat option.

I think this illustrates why I feel there are some game types and story styles which I feel 4E doesn't do well. I understand the reasoning behind why 4E divides the different parts of the game, and I understand the potential balance issues if that were not the case, but I would still prefer for those divisions to not be there. In the context of 4E, I think they are needed because of the way in which some areas of the system are built. However, I highly enjoy games in which those divisions aren't there; as such, I usually pick up a different system when I want to play in that manner. There are rpg systems which are built in such way that they can incorporate those elements without breaking the other aspects of the game.

I think where D&D 3E failed was in trying to serve two masters as the same time. It held a lot of the same ideas that 4E has - wealth by level, some amount of magic item Christmas tree, levels, etc, etc. Though, at the same time, it seemed to be trying to passingly mimic some of the universal toolkit rpgs. Trying to do both at the same time led to some of the issues you mentioned such as how someone might use out of encounter wealth to break the wealth by level guidelines and unbalance the game. It also lead to a few issues which I previously mentioned such as the fact that having an army of low level followers ends up being useless in actual play because they still get crushed by even just one high level enemy.

One of the successes of 4E (IMO) was to give D&D a more focused direction and a more solid identity by highlighting elements which are part of the style of play the design wanted. I think it's smart to make the game more focused, but that increase focus also meant dropping some elements which weren't part of that focus and moving even further away than 3E was from some of those game types I might like to play.

To bring things full circle in this post, I'll touch the idea that this response contains many reasons why I earlier said I wouldn't feel 4E would give me the Conan experience that I want. Conan isn't always just a simple adventurer. Sometimes he might lead an army, be a captain of a pirate ship, or any manner of other things. I would want more granularity involved in those tasks because I would want them to be balanced against other options (and because I would enjoy the further level of detail.) I would want both sides of the game to be equally supported for that style of campaign; I'd prefer there not be two sides at all, but just one game.

There are many many things 4E can do quite well. However, I believe that style of play does not typically tend to be one of them.