Farewell to thee D&D

[BryonD]

It's inferior for me. The people aren't with me; I can't share my pizza with them. Bummer, man.

I enjoy VTT games.
I would rather play FTF any day of the week.
VTT has enabled me to game with different people and that is very cool.
FTF gaming with them would be even better. By a lot.
So I strongly agree that it is inferior, with a caveat that there is a lot of space in "inferior" for "still quite fun".

 

[BronzeDragon]

Not necessarily - it all depends on how you see the player characters. If you embrace the notion that they are special and that the game rules apply differently to them than to NPCs, then D&D4E works just fine. After all, they are the only characters for which complex game rules are truly needed, since most people at the game table have only to bother with controlling a single PC and thus can deal with a greater complexity.

NPCs, on the other hand, need to be created and used in large numbers by the DM, and thus use simplified rules. Which is also arguably appropriate, since the DM just doesn't have the same amount of time to spend creating individual NPCs as the players can spend on their PCs.

Incidentally, this was my single biggest problem with D&D 3.X - the huge amount of time it took to create NPCs, especially high-level ones - and this is almost sufficient reason to switch to 4E alone, even if a lot of other problems hadn't been addressed. Building a 20th level NPC spellcaster now takes little more time than a 1st level spellcaster - and in which previous edition of D&D could one honestly claim that?

I do have a problem with the creation of NPCs, mainly because I DM all the time, but I still think the rules should be consistent.

To me the players are special not because they are different from the rest of the world, but because they are the focus of the game. A 20th level Paladin protecting X-town from an invasion by an Orc horde is as important as the player's 20th level Paladin doing the same thing. He won't get the same attention because he's not the focus (after all it is I who play him, not one of the players and I have to play loads of characters).

And yes, spellcasters usually are the issue, and that's why I mentioned that I moved to a very low-magic system. I don't even allow players to take a look at the Scholar class, much less play one. And it really helps a lot.

If you worry about that, I recommend playing GURPS, as I've argued in my previous blog post. GURPS is perfect for this style of play.

D&D 4E requires some more suspension of disbelief, sure - but in my opinion and experience, not more than the typical action movie.

I have played GURPS and DM'ed it. I found GURPS fantasy to be absolutely clumsy and immersion-killing, but I grant that GURPS is a marvelous system for modern games. My players greatly enjoyed my GURPS World War 2 campaign.

And I don't really worry about these things. I just assume that if a dragon breathes on a group of villagers, it does the same average damage it would do to a group of PCs. I see no reason to make up excuses to justify a greater (or lesser) effect of a creature's abilities on a PC.

 

[BronzeDragon]

Well, for me the problem is made worse because I do not have lots of combat anyway, not being into Dungeon Crawling. One, maybe two combats per day or session. More often none. So, I do not really have any need to battle the 15 minute adventuring day - my adventures usually only have one big, important battle, the rest is small fry that doesn't do much, and may even be handwaved.

This is mostly what happens at my table too.

Playing Conan actually boosted the number of combats in my game since they tend to be more dramatic than mowing down orcs endlessly, but I'm still at 2-3 fights per game session at most.

 

[Hussar]

It's inferior for me. The people aren't with me; I can't share my pizza with them. Bummer, man.

Well, YMMV and all that.

Yes, you lose out on the extra social stuff, like sharing pizza. That's 100% true.

OTOH, I find that people are much more willing to maintain immersion in VTT games. Calling each other by their character names, staying in character, WAY less table talk and what table talk there is is usually limited to whispers where it doesn't disturb other players.

In the end, I think the experience is different. I do not, however, think that it's inferior.

 

[Celtavian]

I am not touching the rest of this thread but I dont get this at all.

Unless you are reading bad D&D fiction very few wizards in literature do anything that comes even close to what magic does in D&D. Hell, its not even that close to magic in Jack Vances stuff.

Did you read the rest of the quote you snipped a piece from and misinterpreted? Go back and read the rest because your criticism is built upon a false supposition on your part.

I acknowledge that most fantasy wizards are not like D&D wizards. Most fantasy wizards are not like each other at all. A wizard from a Conan book is nothing like Gandalf who is nothing like Allanon.

But one thing they do all have in common: They are the most powerful people in their world. They are not unbeatable, but they deal in arcane forces that other people cannot emulate or equal in power. They are mysterious and considered dangerous to toy with due to that arcane power. They have a particularly feel that 4E does not capture.

The 4E wizard would be laughed at if it tried to rule a kingdom with his weak hit points and limited arcane magic. He is nothing like the wizards I listed.

D&D wizards used to have that kind of feel. A D&D wizard was clearly a very powerful and mysterious figure in D&D. You were never sure what they could do. You knew that fighting one as a fighter was going to be extremely difficult and you had better come prepared with your own group of friends and/or items.

So it is not the exact literary wizard was I looking for. I was looking for the literary feel of wizards. I have not read many books where wizards are not accounted the most powerful force in a given world where wizards are even included whether it be Lord of the Rings having Gandalf and The Witchking of Angmar, Allanon in The Shannara Series, the wizards in the Harry Dresden series, or the wizards in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana.

The 4E wizard is nothing close to those wizards. He would rarely be feared for his power, much less the fact that any Tom, Dick, and Harry in the campaign world has access to Ritual Casting.

So please go reread the entire quote you just tried misrepresent. 4E wizards may represent a different type of wizard, but tey represent no wizard I have ever read about in literature. For those of us who like being like Rand, Gandalf, Allanon as far as characrers go as well as having wizards be main villains in a story that are powerful enough to level armies and challenge parties without needing a ton of hit points, the 4E wizard is not our cup of tea.

 

[Celtavian]

What? What makes the experience different? You all get together, talk to each other, and have adventures.

The only difference between an online game and an offline game is that when I play an offline game i wish i had a VTT to automize functions that eat up time unnecessarily.

I ran a game last night. My players got through three combat encounter and three skill challenges in 3 hours. It was probably half and half combat/roleplay. And its all due to things that speed up the game.

Frankly that even if i do end up in a game with a guy with a cheeto orange neckbeard, i won't ever have to see the guy and if people don't show, i can simply go and get more instead of having a game fall apart because one guy wants to take his stuff and go home, is a big plus.



No, its a fair characterization. Such "power distributions" do not exist. There is only "Wizards" and "everyone else aspiring to be a wizard" and it occurs slightly after the game starts. And every single time someone comes in complaining how the game now sucks, they end up saying "yea, i'm playing a wizard". There is a reason for this. And its because wizards were terribly overpowered and now, when players are being told that they can't be better than everyone else at the table.

Is it any wonder people don't come in and say "I like playing a fighter, and 4e is terrible. I loved taking a back seat to my friends and standing in front of them while they killed the monsters and won the day, now i am actually useful and it sucks!"?

In 4e characters are valuable in different situations doing different things. Roles explain where this is. It offers you more flexibility in your character fluff and direction, it offers all players to be valuable in different ways in different instances.

All of the objections end up boiling down to "I like playing a wizard and am disappointed that i cannot fill all roles in a party now" and the answer needs to be the same every time. "I am sorry, but other people are important too."

This of course isn't even getting into the point that Jensun bring up. That wizards in literature generally play like NPCs.

Didn't work that way in my group. Your assumption that it did just shows a bias on your part which makes your point hard to take seriously.

Wizards do not do adventures alone. I have never seen that happen unless it was an adventure designed for a solo character.

I have yet to see a wizard able to do everything by himself. Too many creatures that can see through invisibility, fly, and do any number of attacks that can annhiliate a wizard once they get ahold of him.

Folks like you that make ludicrous and false claims about the wizard class either don't have much experience playing a wizard or with one. Because I know that wizards can't do everything alone. I have yet to play in a party where the wizard did not need and appreciate a good rogue and warrior.

 

[FireLance]

Did you read the rest of the quote you snipped a piece from and misinterpreted? Go back and read the rest because your criticism is built upon a false supposition on your part.

I acknowledge that most fantasy wizards are not like D&D wizards. Most fantasy wizards are not like each other at all. A wizard from a Conan book is nothing like Gandalf who is nothing like Allanon.

But one thing they do all have in common: They are the most powerful people in their world. They are not unbeatable, but they deal in arcane forces that other people cannot emulate or equal in power. They are mysterious and considered dangerous to toy with due to that arcane power. They have a particularly feel that 4E does not capture.

The 4E wizard would be laughed at if it tried to rule a kingdom with his weak hit points and limited arcane magic. He is nothing like the wizards I listed.

D&D wizards used to have that kind of feel. A D&D wizard was clearly a very powerful and mysterious figure in D&D. You were never sure what they could do. You knew that fighting one as a fighter was going to be extremely difficult and you had better come prepared with your own group of friends and/or items.

So it is not the exact literary wizard was I looking for. I was looking for the literary feel of wizards. I have not read many books where wizards are not accounted the most powerful force in a given world where wizards are even included whether it be Lord of the Rings having Gandalf and The Witchking of Angmar, Allanon in The Shannara Series, the wizards in the Harry Dresden series, or the wizards in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana.

The 4E wizard is nothing close to those wizards. He would rarely be feared for his power, much less the fact that any Tom, Dick, and Harry in the campaign world has access to Ritual Casting.

So please go reread the entire quote you just tried misrepresent. 4E wizards may represent a different type of wizard, but tey represent no wizard I have ever read about in literature. For those of us who like being like Rand, Gandalf, Allanon as far as characrers go as well as having wizards be main villains in a story that are powerful enough to level armies and challenge parties without needing a ton of hit points, the 4E wizard is not our cup of tea.

While I'm not familiar with Harry Dresden and Tigana, I believe that most literary wizards tended to be mentors or antagonists. Hence, in order to credibly advise the protagonist(s), or to pose a credible threat, they had to be presented as more capable, at least initially. To me, it has nothing to do with class and everything to do with level.

If the idea that a high-level fighter can rule a kingdom is not laughable, then neither should be the idea that a high-level wizard can do the same. Essentially, you don't fear a wizard simply because he is a wizard. You fear a wizard because his level is much higher than yours and he is thus much more powerful than you are. Yes, that mean that a high-level wizard doesn't command any more respect than a high-level fighter, but it also means that he doesn't command any less respect, too.

 

[Hussar]

So please go reread the entire quote you just tried misrepresent. 4E wizards may represent a different type of wizard, but tey represent no wizard I have ever read about in literature. For those of us who like being like Rand, Gandalf, Allanon as far as characrers go as well as having wizards be main villains in a story that are powerful enough to level armies and challenge parties without needing a ton of hit points, the 4E wizard is not our cup of tea.

So, you wanted to play wizards so you could be the most powerful person in the world? And you don't understand why other players might have a problem with this?

I remember a half jokey thread a while back where it was posited that an 18th level lich could take out a million 5th level NPC's. The worst part was, there were ways that it could actually happen. It was actually possible for the lich to win on his own.

Meanwhile, the poor non-caster classed got toasted in a hail of arrows.

As far as emulating literary wizards - I would point to books like Harry Potter where wizards are not world besting individuals. Wizards in Conan were not terribly powerful either - it took hours to cast spells. The God Wizard, a la David Eddings, is only one archetype, hardly the only one.

 

[Celtavian]

The thing I seem to see is that you can't have a subjective opinion that is your own and not meant to be looked at as an opinion that everyone should share without being attacked for it. When I wrote the original post, it was all my own opinion. It was my scream at what I thought was wrong with 4E for myself.

There are probably people who have entirely different things about 4E they don't like and ton of people who dislike plenty about 3E that they have stated over the years. But for some reason some 4E supporters chose to jump on my argument as though I were saying "This is what is bad about 4E".

It didn't seem to matter that I clearly stated "This is my subjective opinion. There is no way to change it. This is my feeling after playing the game. I do not need you to share that opinion for me to know that all that I have written I feel to be true for my own tastes."

Some people like 4E. Who am I to tell them why they shouldn't like 4E? Just like who are they to tell me that the reasons I don't like it are invalid? I feel they are valid and they don't mesh right in my head. Just because they mesh right in other people's head, doesn't mean that suits us all.

For example, I see a ton of people complain about the 3E wizard being the "I win" guy. I never experienced that.

In my experience, the 3E wizard was the guy who enabled the entire party to win. When I talk about the wizard stepping up when the light is darkest, I don't mean stepping up and winning alone. I mean he was the guy who cast Haste making the party stronger. He was the guy who cast fly on the fighter so he could actually fight the dragon or flying demon. He was the guy who cast resist energy on the party so they could withstand the hail of energy blasts being rained down on them. He was the guy who stepped into to render the enemy wizard inert so the rest of the party could wade through the minions to kill that big bad guy.

We played with a wizard player who tried to do things alone in terms of landing big, tough killing blows. All he ended up doing was getting the party massacred. In the high level game the bad guys such as dragons and major demons were strong enough to withstand a wizard's attacks and kill a wizard quick. So either a wizard learned how and where to apply his attacks or he got ripped apart. So I've never played in a game where the wizard was supreme.

The wizard just never had enough spells at his disposal. And we never played the game with the 15 minute adventuring day I hear people speak of. Just like we don't let people play 4E with the 15 minute adventuring day so they don't always have access to their dailies.

We play 4E the way it was intended to be played waiting for healing surges to dry up before we rest. We play 3E the same way by responsibly using power to get the most done in one day rather than letting everyone blow off their daily abilities each fight and expect to rest.

It all comes down to how you play. Some DMs couldn't handle the wizard and some players didn't like playing with a guy allowed to use every spell and ability in the game. Since that didn't happen in our group because we use oversight to catch overpowered powers and didn't the wizard rest after he launched his spell repertorie, we didn't have the same troubles.

You know what? I do the same thing in 4E. If I see an overpowered combo, that is hammered as early as it is caught. Blade Cascade wasn't going to see the light of day in our campaign as it was written. Seal of Binding combined with Demigod regeneration isn't going to see the light of day. Just like Avasculate isn't allowed in our 3E campaigns.

Everything in a game can be handled if you take the time to evaluate how a power or spell works. But a game that is mechanically very different cannot be changed dramatically without breaking it. When it comes down to it the mechanics of 4E will suit some people and they will not suit others. I prefer the mechancs of 3E. I find they suit my fantasy tastes better than 4E for a variety of reasons that mostly have to do with uniqueness and flavor.

Just like some people like that 4E is more egalitarian and balanced, I prefer 3E because it is more differentiated and imbalanced. It is even that way when it comes to monster races. I love what they did in 3E with monster templates. Those 3E monster design tools gave you a real understanding of what an undead was, a planar creature, or an elemental. You felt like you were reading about different creatures in the same way you feel like you are reading about different species in an encyclopedia. I like that feel.

Some of 4E I like what they did with monster powers. I don't like the base design templates, but I might steel some of the monster powers to use with my 3E monsters like Hobgoblin Phalanx. After reading the DMs guide and monster manual, 4E monsters felt hollow and artificial. Alot of hand waving and monster design based on game balance versus pseudorealistic racial or species representation. I prefer the latter to the former. I like feeling like my monster races are based on concrete ideas of what a creature of that type would be like.

4E had some good ideas that I like. I just think it would be easier for me to take some of the good ideas from 4E and modify 3E to get the overall feel I like in a fantasy game than try to export 3E things I like into 4E. I like the 3E base mechanics better and some of the 4E designs for certain monsters abilities and a few 4E mechanics like healing and disease. I might incorporate 4E healing and disease mechanics into my 3E game as well, but I'm going to have work on that.

I know I'm definitely going to import the idea that 3E characters heal up to full after one day. I like that they are good to go after a day rather than expending a wand of healing to top them all off. Just some good old fashion rest. But I like healing surges. I think healing surges could work in 3E just fine and allow me to limit the number of healing items needed to survive adventures. Which was one of my major problems with 3E suspension of disbelief.

It will be interesting to try to combine the games. I definitely want the 3E feel for casters. I like my casters powerful. I want them to feel like they wield arcane and divine powers that awe people and can level armies.

And yeah, I don't need someone to tell me I can get that same effect with a bunch of Ogre or humanoid minions while the wizard uses Scorching Blast. I want my wizards to be able to level armies of real ogres, giants, or demons that Mr. Farmer with a pitchfork couldn't kill with one lucky blow. So let's not have that discussion again. No one will ever convince me the minion mechanic is cool. I'm not saying it doesn't work as far as appearances go, but I am saying it will never be as satisfying as killing a group of creatures that you know are strong enough not to die to one measly hit of any kind by anyone.

To sum it up, 3E is a game more suited to my tastes. I plan to take from 4Eisms into 3E and see how they work. The healing and disease systems being the most prominent 4Eisms I want to rob as well as some of the fighting styles of humanoid monsters. I may even incorporate some of the melee powers as dailies for melee types. I like that melee types can do more in the game. I didn't mind that in the slightest. I just didn't why they had to neuter wizards and priests to make melee types better. It will be interesting mixing and matching.

 

[Celtavian]

A side note-

Here's why the wizard changed:

Damage per attack equals damage per target hit times number of targets hit.

Most characters hit one target at a time. But a wizard often hits multiple targets.

3e balanced the game on the assumption that a wizard would "spike" at times, and deal very high damage, while dealing lower damage at other times. This meant that the wizard was sort of an "ace in the hole" for the party- he was sub par at combat most fights, but could rock one or two per day. So that equation wasn't very important in 3e- if a wizard blasted ten foes with an attack even more powerful than the one launched by a fighter against a single foe, that was ok because the wizard couldn't do it very often, and the fighter could attack all the time.

That approach had positives and negatives. Positives were that it was fun to be the ace in the hole guy when it was time to blow stuff up. Negatives were that this sort of power balance was fragile and vulnerable to a lot of manipulation.

4e doesn't balance on a "balance across the course of a day" regime. Its balance is more round by round.

This means that a wizard who blasts multiple foes has to do lower damage per target than a fighter, or else he exponentially surpasses the fighter's damage as the number of targets increases.

The wizard's damage is still high, overall. Just recently our party wizard launched her first fireball- it did 17 damage per hit (3d6+7, rolled a 10, as close to average as you can roll without rolling a 3.5). But it hit three enemies and missed a fourth, for a net total of 59 damage. This was the most damaging single attack launched by any character in our entire campaign, and it didn't involve critical hits or high rolls.

If you're desire is for wizards who use mighty spells to devastate armies, well, you probably want 3.5s power distribution. On an aesthetic level, this one is very different. But if your overall concern is for whether wizards are powerful and can do lots of damage, believe me, they can. The math is on their side.

That's a good understanding of the game. Yep, it is the aesthetic that I want. If an RPG does not give you the aesthetic you are looking for, then it becomes a game of numbers.

I play for the aesthetic. Which basically amounts to the feeling I get when I imagine the battle on the battlefield or the adventure as it progresses. I want things to look and act a certain way that jives with what I have read in fantasy books. I don't pretend that 3E is perfect, just that it is closer to what I am looking for.

Yep, the 4E wizard deals alot of aggregate damage. But the thing is that 17 points per target used to kill a group of lvl 3 hobgoblins. Now 17 points per target ends up taking about a third of their hit points and not 20% of a lvl 6 skirmishers hit points. So though it may in the aggregate do alot of damage, it sure doesn't feel very powerful when the party still has to spend numerous rounds finishing the kill.

A fireball is a daily. I'd rather have a daily that finished the job than a daily that did good aggregate damage. I want my fireball to leave people dead even if they start at full hit points. That is the aesthetic I am looking for.

Just like I want a crit from my warrior to level someone. Not just be a maximum damage hit that I could roll regardless of whether I crit or not. So it is not just the aesthetic for casters I am looking to get back. I want that powerful hit aesthetic back for my melees as well. For my own tastes, a crit should be a tremendous hit that levels an opponent of roughly the same level as you.