Forked Thread: Rate WotC as a company: 4e Complete?

[Rechan]

My opinion is simple. If you were running a 3rd edition game with just the core books and then decided to switch to 4th edition, the new game isn't complete if you can't accommodate all of the characters in the campaign. If you happened to be running a half orc barbarian or a gnome bard, I guess you're out of luck.

You mean like if you were playing 1e, and you switched to 2e, your half-orc assassin or a monk were out of luck?

I guess 2e wasn't complete either.

 

[Darrin Drader]

You mean like if you were playing 1e, and you switched to 2e, your half-orc assassin or a monk were out of luck?

I guess 2e wasn't complete either.

no, it wasn't.

But as long as we're ripping on 2E, what happened to the arch-devils? Why did they give goofy names to devils, demons, and daemons? 2E has plenty of areas in which it was deficient.

 

[Fenes]

And that pretty much makes having them pointless to many players. "They face their minions"? So that completely invalidates being able to roll their attacks and direct their movements.

I've never seen a game where the DM directs the character's animal companion. Never. Hell, the last game I saw a druid in, the animal companion was his mount, and integral to his tactics in combat.

That's not even counting summoning. The last game I was in with a summoner, he was summoning 3 celestial badgers per fight (at 3rd level). Each badger gets three attacks on a full round action. So that's 9 attacks in addition to the mage's. And they weren't "engaging minions", he'd intentionally summon them to flank a target. Not to mention the obvious benefit of summoning creatures to make use of their spell-like abilities.

I guess I just see those creatures not as character powers, but as NPCs first and foremost. And as that, they are controlled by the DM. I mean, where's the fun if the familiar/mount/henchman/summoned creature is controlled by the player? Does he roleplay with himself when his character interacts with the creature? My game would lose some fun if the quips and exchanges between such couples would vanish.

So, I have never seen a game where the player controls anything but their character. The Player can order them around, but that's it. In the case of the paladin and her mount, the player could roll the attack, but if the mount was not being ridden, I controlled the actions.

I guess for me, as a player, it would be pointless to have a creature bound or summoned if I could not interact with it.

 

[Rechan]

I guess I just see those creatures not as character powers, but as NPCs first and foremost.

And IMHO, you are in the minority in that regard. For instance, every person I have ever met who played or talked about having a mage with a familiar, it was always them describing what the familiar did, how the familiar interacted wtih themselves and everyone else.

And in most cases, the familiar was forgotten by the player and only rarely brought out unless they were bored or needed something for it to do.

Order of the Stick makes this very joke, and that joke was made because it's a common experience for gamers.

Also, considering how summoned monsters lasted 1 round/level, there was very little "Interaction" going on. It was Speak Command and Monster Does Job. No conversation, no funny accent. It is a bag of hit points with a to-hit. A resource, like any other.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Is it complete in that you can pick up the core books and play the game and start a new campaign?
Yes, absolutely.

Is it complete in that you can pick up the core books and can start your first 4E game in the middle of a 3E (core rules only) campaign? Definitely not.

The former is far more important to me then the latter. I didn't get into 4E expecting I could just continue a previous campaign (though we did - with a lot of hand-waving, of course). But I got into it expecting to be able to run a new campaign, and that I can (and do.)


As a corollary:
If I played a 4E game, and for some reason wanted to convert to 3E, could I play it just using the core rules? Definitely not. (Where's my Dragonborn/Tiefling? What's with the Warlord?)

Could I pick up the 3E core rules and play the game? Yes.

 

[Rechan]

no, it wasn't.

But as long as we're ripping on 2E, what happened to the arch-devils? Why did they give goofy names to devils, demons, and daemons? 2E has plenty of areas in which it was deficient.

By "goofy names", do you mean "Baazetu and Tan'nari"?

Because of the "D&D is Devil Worship" scare in the 80s. Whether it seems silly or not, there was a serious witch hunt against D&D, and TSR did it as a PR move to shut up parents.

 

[Fenes]

And IMHO, you are in the minority in that regard. For instance, every person I have ever met who played or talked about having a mage with a familiar, it was always them describing what the familiar did, how the familiar interacted wtih themselves and everyone else.

And in most cases, the familiar was forgotten by the player and only rarely brought out unless they were bored or needed something for it to do.

Order of the Stick makes this very joke, and that joke was made because it's a common experience for gamers.

Also, considering how summoned monsters lasted 1 round/level, there was very little "Interaction" going on. It was Speak Command and Monster Does Job. No conversation, no funny accent. It is a bag of hit points with a to-hit. A resource, like any other.

That's kind of sad though. People miss out on a lot of fun that way.

 

[The Little Raven]

Why did they give goofy names to devils, demons, and daemons?

Because D&D has a long and distinguished history of goofy names, and they didn't want the fiends to feel left out.

 

[The Little Raven]

That's kind of sad though. People miss out on a lot of fun that way.

I don't find it fun to pick a particular character shtick I want to play, then completely lose control of it to the whims of someone who already has their hands full running the game.

And as a DM, I don't want to handle someone else's minion. I've got my hands full as it is.

 

[Fenes]

I don't find it fun to pick a particular character shtick I want to play, then completely lose control of it to the whims of someone who already has their hands full running the game.

And as a DM, I don't want to handle someone else's minion. I've got my hands full as it is.

My way avoids a lot of the "action economy" problem WotC mentioned, and it does it by adhering to the concept of "One character per player". As far as I am concerned, if someone wants to play more than one character, he can DM. My game is about the PCs, not the NPCs.