Just a few comments
I'll list some things I like about 4E just to show that I don't hate it all. I do still play the game since I compromised with my friends:
1. Easier Prep Time: DnD 4E is easy to run and prep for. So much is streamlined and handwaved that it makes it an easy game to run. It is also easier to make characters and get the game underway. It is easy to make decisions on characters, though I miss the customization of 3E.
2. More options for melee: It is nice that the melee classes have more options. They don't do as much damage as 3.5 melees, which can suck sometimes when feeling heroic such as not being able to one shot a lvl 3 hobgoblin soldier even at lvl 20 or 30. Kind of an odd feeling not to be able to one shot something that much weaker than you. But they do have more options and can add a neat little effect here and there which I imagine makes them as happy as coming up with unique spell uses made me in 3.5.
If your running level 3 hobgoblins versus level 20 characters somethings gone wrong i'd either hand wave it or say 1 hit kills the hob gobs, try convert the hobs level 3 150xp into level 11 minion ogre thugs 150xp change a few moves and your golden, someone else on the boards suggested this and I think its a great idea, it can also show what happens when a high level minion meets a low level party find an equivelent xp value solo/elite/monster and you're sorted.
5. Rituals: I like the idea of rituals. I don't like how many spells they made into rituals, but some are appropriate such as for raise dead and scrying. I very much miss the interplay of defensive spells versus offensive spells. It is very hard to conduct a wizard duel when neither side has much power for the day and they will eventually be reduced to slogging at wills at each other. And the lack of ability to prepare for a battle for a caster is a massive boor. It used to be such fun to come up with a plan with your spell list to help the party win, now it isn't even possible.
I'm going to have to disagree that it was fun watching the caster come with ideas to use their spells, now the fun comes from mixing your abilities with the rest of your party's.
6. Skill Challenges: I like skill challenges for overland travel, tracking, and certain other non-social encounters that are better solved with a simple series of rolls that gives the player a chance to use their skills. I don't much like them for social encounters, but I allow them and work in the roleplaying as I go along. But I won't let my characters accomplish a social skill challenge without giving me some appropriate roleplaying same as I won't let them administer first aid without putting down their weapon and shield. That just isn't happening.
Good good thats how I do it as well, just as in 3.5 a diplomacy check didn't make a talky encounter just go.
I'd like to add a few additional things I don't like that I didn't list in the previous thread.
1. Nothing is permanent: I didn't notice this at first. But no damage is permanent except petrification and possibly disease.
For the most part no effect is permanent. Rest a day and you are all healed up for everything.
Ability damage gone. Negative level gone. Curses that lasted until removed are gone. Being turned into a small animal or ice cube is gone. All permanent effects that were a cool party of fantasy or that made certain creatures such as undead fearsome are gone.
I seriously miss when my players were frightened by a group of wraiths, spectres, or vampires because negative levels were more dangerous than hit point damage and often harder to recover from at low levels. Now spectres are weak and easily dispatched and about as frightening as a goblin, less so than some goblins.
Not too hard to invent/implement a permenent wound system that does wounds that can't be healed with healing surges or combat magic and would need a ritual to cure, you could use this for level drain, curses and the rest though I'd be tempted to keep these semi permenent penalties to hp, certain skills physical or social for example, and damage, bonuses like to-hit and AC are pretty fine tuned nowadays and fiddling with these will have a greater effect.
Me and the people I played with never feared wraiths or spectres it was just a case of drat now how are we going to get all this damage repaired? erm how much of a penalty do I take?
I miss paralysis and hold person that used to last. If you were held or paralyzed, that made you sweat. I remember many times my players looking at the priest player and hoping that priest had a Remove Paralysis ready. That made certain creatures more frightening and allowed them to use some crowd control that worked and put the party on their toes. Not to mention the mage had fun working such spells on our enemies.
All the non-permanent, make a save every round effects make the game alot less lethal. I've yet to see a spell last more than four rounds. And most spells on average last two rounds and often just one round or don't take effect at all. the lack of dangerous, lasting effects has really lowered the lethality of the game and the terror that creatures inspire. Even grappling is incredibly weak now and easily escaped.
Yet again you say Terror I say boredom and unfairness, the only terror was that your precious free time was about to be changed from playing an RPG into sitting in a room full of people playing an RPG
I'm not sure why they did this. I for one liked the lethality and game dynamic that such effects added to the overall roleplaying experience. It made a good priest worth their weight in gold.
The game doesn't lack lethality from my 11 sessions of playtime we've had 5 players unconcious and dying, in the last 48 sessions of 3.5 we've had no one die and no one drop unconcious, of my years before that in different groups I can think of 3 deaths all for roleplaying reasons, 1st character killed a character, another a paladin stayed behind to allow us time to escape a, 3rd 3 characters went into a temple after having their resources depleted, that was supposed to be for the whole party of 5 and we got massacred.
2. Lack of Level based class features other than powers: I miss things like Immunity to Fear for the paladin. The ranger camouflage. Rogue evasion and Uncanny Dodge. All the nifty monk and bard abilities. Things that were permanent that made you feel like you were improving.
They could have added these in but it doesn't bug me that much really most of the 3rd edition things were combat applications, now players get these at 1st (class features) and 11th (paragon path features) and every gets them
3. Lethality: 4E is a less lethal, less challenging game. This is mainly a matter of personal taste. I truly liked the lethality of the previous editions.
thats quite an insulting (as well as false) statement saying you like less challenging games is like sullying someones intellect.
3E was so lethal we had to think up a new rule subset just to survive it called hero points. We would have died many times without those points. But 4E is so dang cake easy that we're lucky to feel our lives threatened ever. We've had one death and that was because a player made a stupid error in judgment followed by a series of unlucky rolls. Otherwise, it has been a cakewalk even with me doubling and sometimes tripling encounters to get some of that old lethal, "you may die" fear back for my players.
I think the DM needs a bit of a hand if you're not fearing death, my suggestion is if you want to challenge a party and have death on the line use a level appropriate encounter of level + 3-4
4E is so much different than previous editions. Some of the changes were much needed. But some are head scratchers. As with every edition, it's a small group of people's view of D&D. I wish they hadn't thrown so much out that made playing a caster fun. That would have gone a long way to making the other changes more bearable. It wasn't just the power of the caster either, it was the versatility and the spell interplay that I miss as much as anything. And not just with the wizard, but with the priest as well.
Which is why they did it instead of having an imbalance, they leveled the playing field so just because someone has a character concept for a non spellcaster it doesn't mean they're resigned to 5ft step full attack or tumble sneak attack.
How I used to love playing the priest that was an expert at keeping the party alive. And not just with healing but having Rapid Spell with Restorations ready when that horde of spectres rushed us or death ward or any of the multitude of life saving spells that made the party love you as a cleric.
Now to turn the words of Henry Hill into my own feeling of remorse at being a 4E cleric, "Now I'm just like everyone else. A poor schlub that is more focused on attacking than healing. There are no more negative levels to remove, no more afflictions to heal, no more paralysis to remove. I fought a group of spectres the other day, and they struck softer than a kobold with a wooden club. I miss the days when being a cleric meant something. Now, my party could just as easily go with a warlord. Now I'm nothing."
"Now we aren't nothing without a Cleric"
