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

[Wormwood]

I'm playing Cinematic Unisystem these days.

I love 4e with every part of my body (including my hong), but honestly I'd rather be playing what you're playing.

*goes back to working on his "Drama Points for 4e" text file*

 

[Obryn]

I disagree.

That isn't my point. I certainly think there is some element of truth to that, but there are certainly many other variables when you start talking about all RPGs out there. However, for the very specific case at hand, my analogy stands quite well.

The very specific case being 3e vs. 4e? 3e vs. RC? 3e vs. 1e? I'm stunned that you think comparing 3e vs. 4e follows different rules than comparing 3e vs, for example, WFRP2e.

You're trying to prove your point by way of analogy, with no evidence that the analogy is a valid analogue. Analogies are illustrations, not arguments.

-O

 

[AstroCat]

Some of the challenges of 3.5 is what made it fun. There was real resource managment going on with the spell casters. Some people find that kinda frustrating, but I liked the strategy of picking spells. Do I need waterbreathing or feather fall today? There is little-to-none of that in 4E as far as I can tell. And that kinda turns spell casters into a fancy long range fighter, imo.

You hardly ever got to use those utility style spells in 3.x because you always needed the same old fireball/MM/etc... In 4E you get a chance through Utility and Rituals to actually use those kind of spells. Spellcasters in 3.x are almost always nukers or controllers anyway, the difference is now there is a game design mechanic behind it that moves it forward in gameplay.
As I said before play through level 20 and see what kind of options you get and then think about the same old spells you cast levels 1-10 in 3.5, almost always the same 3 or 4 spells are cast by most players all the way through, and most times you run, out are back to the same old wands, over and over. I think 4E for casters has the potential to let them mix it up more than 3.5E.

 

[Zustiur]

No, it's not doing it for me.
It seems to me from reading this whole thread that a lot of the people posting in favour of 4E are the DMs, while a lot of those posting in favour of 3E are the players. This is no small co-incidence. 4E has a major focus on making things fun for the DM, sometimes at the expense of player fun.

I'm only playing in 4E, but I looked at DMing, and decided 4E wasn't for me there either. I heavily favour the internal consistency that 3E has with monsters being treated as races, and classes being pasted on top of that. As a player I find the 4E classes extremely restrictive. Instead of feeling I have all these wonderful powers, I feel that the powers are all I have. In 3E I haven't ever felt that I'm restricted to my powers or spells alone.

I played 3E yesterday after having played several 4E sessions in a row. Coming back to 3E felt like a kind of bliss. Not only did my character have a wide range of choices, those choices actually had an impact. Too many of the 4E powers feel like a waste of time (especially at-wills, I'd rather just attack normally and forget that the at-wills exist for most classes). Based on the analysis earlier about an extra +1 in your stats being one extra hit per game session, I suspect my at will special features make a difference about once every 2 game sessions. Hardly worth having!

A significant portion of complaints I've seen regarding 3E can be cleared up by not using splat books. I've discovered that that every time I add splat books to my games the game gets worse, so I've stopped buying them altogether. Were I to continue with 4E, I think I'd feel compelled to get PHB2 in order to complete the available classes, but this doesn't gel with my anti-splat-book stance.

I find no problem with the 'Christmas tree effect' in 3E because as a DM, I control what items are available. Okay, call it a house rule if you will, but this is one of those true 'it plays how you make it play' situations. I'm completely at odds with the magic items being in the player's handbook, precisely because I feel that the majority of magical items should be so straight forward that writing 'longsword +1' on your character sheet should contain all the information you need to use that item.

In earlier editions items that did something other than just +X were unusual to say the least. I continued that trend in 3E, but it appears other DMs didn't. 4E seems to be pushing the opposite angle, if it's not '+X and special ability' it doesn't get handed out. Take a look at the 1 level parcels and the likelihood of handing out a sword or armour +1 without abilities attached and you'll see what I mean. In 2E and earlier, items like Flametongue, frostbrand and the girdle of giant strength were seriously rare. Yes, they may have turned up in every campaign, but you only saw one or two throughout that campaingn, you did not get flaming this that and the other every couple of adventures. I believe that if you stick to that mentality the game avoids getting anywhere near as complex.

With regards to monsters, I agree that 3E stat blocks are rediculous. This to me is one of the places were 4E had the right idea, but chose the wrong solution. 3.5E took a couple of steps in the right direction, but didn't go far enough. Monsters do need to be less complex, but removing recognizable class structure wasn't the way I'd have gone. I'd prefer to see simplified NPC classes where the creature only gets a few feats to choose, and the rest result in 'toughness' or 'extra ac' and other simple mechanics. Each core class would be represented, but in a simpler form.

We know our NPC wizards aren't going to last long, so you don't bother choosing 400 spells they know. You choose enough to give them primary abilities and interest, then you fudge the rest. The monster manual should have done the same to the monsters themselves. From 3.0 to 3.5 this was part of the design philosophy, but clearly they didn't take it far enough to relieve overworked DMs.

 

[Fenes]

You hardly ever got to use those utility style spells in 3.x because you always needed the same old fireball/MM/etc... In 4E you get a chance through Utility and Rituals to actually use those kind of spells. Spellcasters in 3.x are almost always nukers or controllers anyway, the difference is now there is a game design mechanic behind it that moves it forward in gameplay.
As I said before play through level 20 and see what kind of options you get and then think about the same old spells you cast levels 1-10 in 3.5, almost always the same 3 or 4 spells are cast by most players all the way through, and most times you run, out are back to the same old wands, over and over. I think 4E for casters has the potential to let them mix it up more than 3.5E.

That sort of counters the "in 3E, casters out-rogue the rogue" complaint.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, it's not.

I'm playing Cinematic Unisystem these days.

Hey, you're still around?! Of course, not playing D&D probably reduces the post quota.

I thought we were all done with wrongbadfun.

1) It is badwrongfun
2) This will never end, until ones person superior play-style and mind has been proven once and for all and be adopted by everyone.

Spoiler

Sorry.

It seems to me from reading this whole thread that a lot of the people posting in favour of 4E are the DMs, while a lot of those posting in favour of 3E are the players. This is no small co-incidence. 4E has a major focus on making things fun for the DM, sometimes at the expense of player fun.

You're correct that most of the advantages that tend to be described are from the DM side. I wouldn't conclude yet that it's less fun from the players side (of course this might be your experience, I would just hesitate to generalize it yet.)

Why I say so - because I also greatly enjoy the game as a player. There are several improvements for my player side:
1) No Combat Matrix. As a player, I often had to write up several variations of my full attack routine (attacks + damage), depending on the buffs that I gained. The math was not "hard" (it's just addition or subtraction), but it still felt very tedious. And how often do we forget one or two modifiers?

2) Less frustrations. The game often included frustrating moments - rolling terribly bad against a save or death/sit (rolling good and still failing happened less, but was still not the best experience), unable to hit a monster, constantly being hit by a monster, unable to damage a monster (rarely due to DR, often due to sneak attack immunity). I can always contribute, and my effectiveness depends only on tactics (and my dice rolls).
Even the few "sit"-effects 4E has get less problematic due to the fact that each round is over faster and I get to roll a save every round. (Rolling is not much contribution, but better then just watching.)

3) A nice balance of complexity. This is not to everyones liking, but I enjoy the fact that every class has the same complexity, and they "only" differ in the strategy each class/role (it is a bit more specific then role - Warlocks and Rogues play differently.) It seems to give me the differentiation between classes I like, without giving me headaches of managing a full spellcaster or the blandness of Fighters. (And I used to play both types of characters.)

4) No ability spamming.
While you use the same powers in each combat, you can't repeat your "signature" moves all the time. Sure, in some way, this is a constraint for the player, but in other ways, it means that using the actual power has more meaning (use it when the time is right), and nobody gets bored (including me) by repeating the same stuff every round, and I don't have to slot Fireball 3 times or Magic Missile 5 times (2 normal, one by way of Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer)
Of course, once encounter powers are gone, this effect is lessened. But I wouldn't want to "spool" off 10 encounter powers each round, either. This is a good compromise. (Of course I wouldn't mind a "recharge" mechanic, either)

5) Think during the game, not at home.
I am not sure if everyone sees this as a benefit, but I find that the decisions I make at home during character creation and advancement are not as critical as the decisions I make at the game table. In a way, that might be a negative - 4E means I can spend less time on my hobby when not playing it with my friends. But on the other hand, it frees me to do other, also interesting stuff. In this case, the fact that I am both a DM and a player might help me - I could always spend my free time creating or fleshing out adventures and NPCs.
The big advantage for me as player though is: I can't make really bad decisions at character creation and advancement. That means that I don't have to sit through an entire game session with a bad choice I made at home. Of course, if I screw up in the game, I am still screwed - but that's something I expect and wouldn't want to make impossible by the system. (I, not the system, should be responsible for not screwing up during play. )

 

[BryonD]

The very specific case being 3e vs. 4e? 3e vs. RC? 3e vs. 1e? I'm stunned that you think comparing 3e vs. 4e follows different rules than comparing 3e vs, for example, WFRP2e.

You're trying to prove your point by way of analogy, with no evidence that the analogy is a valid analogue. Analogies are illustrations, not arguments.

-O

You are completly ignoring the context of the comments.

 

[Mallus]

I don't see anything for us to disagree over. Your game provides for your needs and my game provides for my expectations.

Oh, I wasn't trying to convince you to like or use a specific game. To each his own and all... but --and I admit this could be me misconstruing your point-- you seemed to be saying there was a correlation between the quality of a DM and the complexity of their preferred rule system. Which is hooey. I apologize if I got you wrong.

 

[Obryn]

...you seemed to be saying there was a correlation between the quality of a DM and the complexity of their preferred rule system. Which is hooey. I apologize if I got you wrong.

This is what I got as well, and the tee-ball analogy drove the point further home.

-O

 

[WizarDru]

This is what I got as well, and the tee-ball analogy drove the point further home.

-O

That would make three of us.