will 4.0 succeed?

DM Howard · Jan 7, 2014

Dungeoneer said:
Given that 13th Age is releasing books and 4e is not, I think it's going to appeal to a lot of them.

I agree with the other Dungeoneer. While 13th Age doesn't float my boat, I certainly agree that WotC never brought out the full potential of the 4E system, simply releasing book after book with, what seems to be, no thought to the evolving system, but rather short term profits. I hope that 13th Age stays around, as I'm sure I'll eventually want to try it, since 4E support is dead in the water.

Zardnaar · Jan 7, 2014

Dungeoneer said:
Given that 13th Age is releasing books and 4e is not, I think it's going to appeal to a lot of them.

13th Age will also appeal to 4e players who:

- Appreciate the elegance of the 4e ruleset but are getting tired of hauling out the battle mat for every single combat.
- Enjoy tactical combat but are ready for a system where fights are a little quicker.
- Feel that WotC hadn't completely explored the 4e design space before they killed it.

Intentionally or not, the 13th Age rules are going to feel really familiar to 4e players in all the right ways. The game has ongoing support, unlike 4e. It simplifies combat without entirely throwing away the tactical aspect, which should appeal to a lot of 4e veterans. And it's eminently moddable, which should appeal to their DMs.

If you're a 4e player who is disappointed by the direction 5e appears to be taking, 13th Age is looking really good right now.

Will it be around in a few years? It's an indy game, so it's hard to say. But the core book has been so wildly successful (by indy standards) that the publisher is rushing out more books for it (the Bestiary and an 'unearthed arcana'-style expansion called 13 True Ways should appear within the next 3-4 months). If ever an indy game had a shot at long-term success, this is it.

Thats is probably on par with something like Castles and Crusades or DCC to put it in perspective.

Scrivener of Doom · Jan 7, 2014

Zardnaar said:
Thats is probably on par with something like Castles and Crusades or DCC to put it in perspective.

So?

Castles & Crusades has been around for a decade or more. That's no mean feat in the tabletop RPG market. DCC? I don't like the game or the company behind it so any comment I make will only reveal my biases. I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, I hope that 13th Age is at least as successful as Castles & Crusades. It deserves to be.

Jhaelen · Jan 8, 2014

Zardnaar said:
Problem with 13th Age is t is probably oly oing to appeal to a small % of the 4E player base.

Maybe, but for me (being still a happy 4e player) it's certainly more appealing than what the Next playtests promise to deliver. Imho, in their desire to make every D&D player happy, they'll end up making none happy. For the grognards they're straying too far from the original, for the fans of modern mechanics they're not going far enough. 5e has 'compromise' written all over it.

Phototoxin · Mar 6, 2014

My current though is to simply pillage the bits I want from 13th Age - escalation dice and so on. 4 is great, gamey enough but not like in 3E and loose enough but not as loose as AD&D. I just hope that character builder will survive in some format.

My other slight annoyance at 4E was the constant major rules shift - MM1 monsters weren't balanced properly, (play testing anyone?), then the later rare/uncommon magic item rules and changes there. These should have been figured before release!

Dungeoneer · Mar 6, 2014

Phototoxin said:
My current though is to simply pillage the bits I want from 13th Age - escalation dice and so on. 4 is great, gamey enough but not like in 3E and loose enough but not as loose as AD&D. I just hope that character builder will survive in some format.

My other slight annoyance at 4E was the constant major rules shift - MM1 monsters weren't balanced properly, (play testing anyone?), then the later rare/uncommon magic item rules and changes there. These should have been figured before release!

Better late than never!

I think in any reasonably complex game system there are going to be some things the devs just don't get right. I'd rather that they have the option to take a mulligan than be forever locked into a ruleset that has issues. For instance, the second batch of 4e monsters were such a HUGE improvement that I won't even use the old ones.

jodyjohnson · Mar 6, 2014

In my view, the original math worked as intended by the design team. The problem was that the original math was tuned to generate 6-10 rounds long combats.

This was a reaction to 3.5 rocket-tag and the inability of characters to a) figure out when they should run and b) have time to run.

Unfortunately the playerbase wasn't really wanting those many round combats anymore once the three-part-turns and tactics-for-everyone aspects of 4e kicked in.

Reducing defenses, hit points, and tuning up damage was a math tweak to reset the default combat length closer to what many players actually wanted. 4-6 round combats.

That was still too long for some wanting 2-4 round long combats.

But this all went undiscussed in the 'How to Play' articles until years into the edition.

When I play Pathfinder the normal combat runs 1-2 rounds. A double encounter lasts 3-4 and the finale of RotRL with an extra 3 full CR creatures lasted 5. Karzoug and his couple thousand hit points of minions lasted 5 rounds. For some that is normal, for some that is too fast.

keterys · Mar 9, 2014

jodyjohnson said:
The problem was that the original math was tuned to generate 6-10 rounds long combats. ... 4-6 round combats.

The sad part is that they hid how to do damage too well. I've been used to 1-3 round combats since 4e started, at all levels.

For example, last night I ran a combat of a level+1 solo, 3 level standards, and a level hazard that took _exactly_ one round to complete (finishing on the last action of the last combatant).