Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
What's so bad about 4th edition? What's so good about other systems?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="mudlock" data-source="post: 5615516" data-attributes="member: 95211"><p>Which just goes to show... what? That no publisher should ever listen to its fan base? And yet, here you are, talking.</p><p></p><p>The best party is still one that covers all four roles, and I'd point out that your iconic "fighter, thief, cleric, wizard" party does that just fine (hey, almost like they planned it that way!) A party can still do really well without following that mold though, which I think is kind of nice. You can do a world without divine powers easily (instead of kludgefully; hurray for new Dark Sun!) because you don't NEED a cleric just to NOT DIE all the time, but a cleric is really good at making you not die, if you want to be the kind of hero who makes people not die. You don't need to feel useless as a wizard at low level and useless as a fighter at high level. I LIKE that balance. Maybe it's all more-similar than is optimal, but it's certainly, in my mind, closer to optimal than the old way of doing things.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fireball was ALWAYS bland. It just did damage. On the other hand, with no coherent concepts for forced movement, ongoing damage, or status effects, pretty much everything just did damage (or it had 6 column-inches describing what was effectively a whole new subsystem for this spell's special effects.)</p><p></p><p>Sure, that made fireball simple, so everyone knew the rules for it, and effective, so it was worth knowing them; so yeah, it got re-used a lot, and that made it ICONIC. Now, there are still lots of powers that are big area burst fire damage, but with the coherent system for powers in 4e there's no gain in referring the DM to "fireball" when you can just concisely describe a new big area burst fire power. But fireball is still as simple and bland as it always was, it's just that everything else a wizard can do is cooler and JUST AS EASY to use now. (Not to mention that it's no longer a wizard's job to just do damage, so fireball is kinda out of scope now anyway; they should've kept the name "fireball" for sorcerers, but can you IMAGINE the internet-whining if there were no fireball in PHB1?)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mudlock, post: 5615516, member: 95211"] Which just goes to show... what? That no publisher should ever listen to its fan base? And yet, here you are, talking. The best party is still one that covers all four roles, and I'd point out that your iconic "fighter, thief, cleric, wizard" party does that just fine (hey, almost like they planned it that way!) A party can still do really well without following that mold though, which I think is kind of nice. You can do a world without divine powers easily (instead of kludgefully; hurray for new Dark Sun!) because you don't NEED a cleric just to NOT DIE all the time, but a cleric is really good at making you not die, if you want to be the kind of hero who makes people not die. You don't need to feel useless as a wizard at low level and useless as a fighter at high level. I LIKE that balance. Maybe it's all more-similar than is optimal, but it's certainly, in my mind, closer to optimal than the old way of doing things. Fireball was ALWAYS bland. It just did damage. On the other hand, with no coherent concepts for forced movement, ongoing damage, or status effects, pretty much everything just did damage (or it had 6 column-inches describing what was effectively a whole new subsystem for this spell's special effects.) Sure, that made fireball simple, so everyone knew the rules for it, and effective, so it was worth knowing them; so yeah, it got re-used a lot, and that made it ICONIC. Now, there are still lots of powers that are big area burst fire damage, but with the coherent system for powers in 4e there's no gain in referring the DM to "fireball" when you can just concisely describe a new big area burst fire power. But fireball is still as simple and bland as it always was, it's just that everything else a wizard can do is cooler and JUST AS EASY to use now. (Not to mention that it's no longer a wizard's job to just do damage, so fireball is kinda out of scope now anyway; they should've kept the name "fireball" for sorcerers, but can you IMAGINE the internet-whining if there were no fireball in PHB1?) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
What's so bad about 4th edition? What's so good about other systems?
Top