D&D 4E Is 4E doing it for you?

[Aristotle]

I really like it, but I'm not a blind devotee. I see some issues with it, but overall I'm happy and I think as gaps get filled in I'll grow to love it more. I really like where some elements went. I think the wizard will develop to the point where you can do a lot of different builds with it, and I think melee classes are long term fun for the first time (for me)... ever.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

As a whole? NO.

I understand the design philosophy behind 4E, but I really didn't like elements of the implementation. The stuff I did like (Healing Surges, two abilities being raised by +1 every 4 levels,) I stole for my 3.5 / Pathfinder game.

I ran one game of 4E at a Meetup in NYC and I dont think that 4E is a bad game in the least. It just doesn't feel like D&D to me or at least the D&D that I prefer running or playing. It feels like an expanded version of the miniature game. Which is not a BAD thing at all. It's just not MY thing.

I was at least willing to run some more 4E games at the regular NYC meetup to give it more of a chance but the heavily pro 4E / Anti 3.5 people of the meetup have done a pretty good job of polarizing me away from any involvement in 4E.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So far, we've tried a couple of sessions of 4e, just to get the mechanics down. They work well enough, but they don't incite our collective imagination much on their own.

it may be that 4e is good because it gets the mechanics out of everyone's way, but we kind of prefer rules that actually support what we're trying to do a bit more than that.

I'm mostly in the boat with our esteemed moderator, here. 4e just "blahs" the heck out of me.

Now, as far as this as a "trend," I dunno. 4e is definitely a contentious edition in a way that 3e really wasn't. It seems that more folks hate it, but it also seems that a whole busload of folks love it. I do know I was a bit surprised at the number of people still playing 3.5 in the Rouse's "tell me about your group" thread. By the numbers and by the buzz, I would've expected 4e's penetration to be higher.

I'm happy playtesting FFØ at the moment, and I'll check out Pathfinder when it comes out, and there's always T20 when I want something wacky. I'll play 4e ('cuz I'll play dang near anything, FATAL and maybe Rollmaster aside ), but I won't run it and I won't choose it.

4e just isn't successfully competing for my game time. What would show a trend, perhaps, is if sales for the Player's Guide to FR and Adventurer's Vault are drastically fallen off from the Core sales. People bought it, read it, and aren't interested, would be a possible implication. But it would have to be DRASTIC, and you'd have to control for things like FR Haters and Low-Magic games and the like, probably....

But my guess is they're probably chuggin' along just fine, if not reaping big rewards (and they could be reaping big rewards!).

 

[aurance]

Been playing since 1987. I felt every edition for the most part improved upon the last, but always with a few steps backwards. Mostly progress, a little bit regress.

According to my tastes, 2e to 3e had the highest progress to regress ratio. 3e to 4e had the lowest. Still, enough progress that I generally prefer 4e to 3e.

There's a lot I'd like to tinker with in 4e, but as I said in another post my energy for doing so has drastically gone down over the years. So I mostly just enjoy the game as is.

 

[Toben the Many]

I have a similar experience to the OP. I liked 4e. I continue to like it when I play it. However, my players simply have no interest in the system whatsoever. And in the game that I'm playing in, the GM has no interest in running it whatsoever. The reaction seems to range from "meh" to "no way in hell, it's just like an MMO".

I think it's too bad. I'd like to give the game a bigger workout than the pick-up games we've been running.

 

[TheSleepyKing]

I'm with those who just aren't into it. I wanted to like it, because at its core I think it does a good job of simplifying and rationalising many of 3.5e's flawed rules. But the powers system is a complete turn off for me, and the group I play with just isn't finding the game very evocative. As one person on this thread said, it seems more like a board game than a framework for collaborative storytelling.
Of course, the fantastic Pathfinder setting (and the utterly bland 4e Forgotten Realms) is also helping drive us back to 3.5e. Yes, we could combine Golarion with 4e, but I think we're just using it as an convenient excuse to go back.

 

[Fifth Element]

once you took away the flavor text every attack is identical to the next

Strip away the flavour text, and most attack spells in previous editions are pretty much identical. And of course, one fighter attack has always been basically identical to the next fighter attack. Because fighters only had one type of attack.

Also, why would you strip away the flavour text?

 

[Darkthorne]

Remathilis,
Taken in context there is no fallacy (or is it there is no spoon?). The total maximum number of 1st level spells a 4e Wizard will ever know is 7 that can be cast in battle and that is both human and Expanded Spellbook. You have 3 human wizards in the same group there is going to be serious duplication, 5 different at wills with 9 choices to be made. Then when you take Dailies into account 4 different dailies with 6 choices to be made. 3.5 at the start taking Collegiate Training 18 Int is 10 (6+int mod) that's 3 more right there. Also there is nothing stopping a 3.5 wizard from learning more 1st level spells, so as I see it more versatility. There is 14 1st 4e spells, 3.5 not including the pro from spells has 14 that can be used in combat (just from the phb, and I know people could take others and use them in combat as well) listed below. While taking feats in 4E to increase your spellbook, it increases your duplication with another pc, doing the same option in 3.5 increases versatility w/o the immediate duplication issue.

burning hands
cause fear
charm person
chill touch
color spray
grease
hold person
hold portal
hypnotism
magic missile
ray of enfeeblement
shield
shocking grasp
sleep

 

[Felon]

D&D I have been doing for the greater part of my life and I hope it continues but now it seems like it's on a lifeline. Also this is not to bash 4E just wondering what people's honest opinion is.

I sometimes love it, and I sometimes hate it.

There are some great core concepts in D&D, like encounter design, monster design, trap and hazard design, rituals, and treasure allocation. There are also a lot of half-assed "close-enough-for-gov't-work" executions of designs that forfeit elegance for simplicity again and again and again.

Just off the top of my head: IMO it's obvious that targeting Fort, Reflex, Will with a skill check is a bad idea--there's too much bias against a target that's supposed to be evenly-matched. IMO there should obviously be denotations that amorphous, incorporeal, or enormous monsters aren't subject to certain physical attacks (e.g. forced movement, being knocked prone, being immobilized by a grab). IMO it's obvious that ability scores need a valuable application that isn't co-opted by another ability score or class-exclusive in nature (Intelligence, I'm looking at you). IMO it's obvious that there's a big discrepancy between classes that have {W} damage powers (the martial classes) and those that don't (the arcane classes) that allows a W non-striker to match a non-W striker in damage output (hope you could follow that one, but if not I have another thread about it).

Of course, only somebody who sits down and spends too much time thinking about this stuff sees the inelegance, while the rest of the rules-indifferent crowd just doesn't care. And seeing something clearly wrong that nobody else seems to care about can and will drive a person bonkers.

 

[Fifth Element]

That's right. Having the same number of spells does not mean you have the same versatility. If all of your spells are attack spells (if), then you have very little versatility.