D&D 4E Should I play 4e?

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

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Fanaelialae · Jun 11, 2019

lowkey13 said:
Oh.

No.

Counterpoint- defining what D&D has always been is difficult, of course. I mean, there are certain indications, such as the "Core Four" classes, and fireballs, that are necessary but not sufficient.

But there is a distinct difference between OD&D / B/X / AD&D (on the one hand) and editions like 3e and 4e.

That's not to say that you couldn't, or didn't, play pre-WoTC editions in a Monty Haul manner,* or that you couldn't get very powerful. Just that the feel was often decidedly different.

While they could function as superhero type games, they usually weren't. At most, it was a zero to hero game. IMO.

*For every person who will tell you about how dark and gritty the old days were, you will get someone to say, "Yeah, but my middle school friends and I loved it when my 27th level Paladin totally killed Orcus. Thank goodness they stated out Deities and Demigods to give us something to do." So, yeah, there was some variability.

That's a perfectly valid way of looking at it.

IMO, a game didn't have to be Monty Haul to be Supers. I forget which edition it was. OD&D? 1e? 1e + Unearthed Arcana, maybe? In any case, IIRC fighters (typically the least "super" of the classes) in that edition could kill their level in creatures with less than one HD in addition to their normal attacks every round. Now, granted, a round of combat back then was a minute of time, but a 12th level fighter taking out a dozen or more armed foes a minute is beyond the scope of fantasy (or at least my definition thereof).

Now certainly, many campaigns didn't get that high in level back then. However, I'm fairly certain that Gygax had players with characters of that level, and he was fairly vocal about being against the Monty Haul style of play. You didn't even have to be that high level. I had a fair number of characters hit name level in 2e and they were quite superhuman long before that point IMO.

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

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Garthanos · Jun 11, 2019

lowkey13 said:
So, in 1e, it was decidedly harder to be superheroic.

Unless you were a spell caster...

The fighting mans hit points were actually pretty darn super heroic.

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

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Garthanos · Jun 11, 2019

lowkey13 said:
Now, if you're saying, "Oh, that seems a lot compared to weapon damage" Okay.

How else CAN you compare it?
ALSO lets compare advancement... The AD&D fighter you mention is 11 or more times as hard to kill as he was when he started at level 1.
You never reach 11 times as hardy in 4e.... and only ever reaching twice after a significant number of levels.

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

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Garthanos · Jun 11, 2019

lowkey13 said:
Um ... yeah, I have no idea what you're talking about, but good luck with whatever!

Um ... are you kidding?

In 1e - if you have starting hit points at 5 which is normal for a guardsman then at 12th level and that becomes 58 you are approx 11 times as robust as you began.

IN 4e - if you have starting hit points of 22 and this is normal for a standard guardsman but the at 12th level that becomes 82 you are only approx 4 times as robust as you began.

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

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Garthanos · Jun 11, 2019

I was being a bit facetious about other damage sources but basically using them as a measure is highly erratic and if you compare a superhero to a super villain attacks of course you do not see any advancement and the superhero is just the same as the joe blow? right? He must not really be a superhero. Hence it does not make sense to measure the advancement in terms of those.

lowkey13 said:
This is before getting into all the special ways you could die beyond the hit points (saves, etc.). Thing is ... it was a lot more swingy. You could go back and look at the attack tables if you want, but there was little to no sense of superheroism because even when you got very powerful, you could still easily died. You were fragile, and subject to level drains, death by bad rolls, or just a bad few rounds of combat due to low hit points.

Hard to quantify the latter stuff but they do undermine even the value of hit points indeed they gut the predictability... however at least up to a point the fighter actually had nice saves better than some other (not good enough to make up for other things that lagged)