(Rambling) Why 4e doesn't "feel" 1e...

[Treebore]

I know what you mean about spellcasters in 3.xe games. Why everyone thinks they are so "broken" at higher levels is beyond me. Most CR appropriate monsters have enough resistences to energy types and SR that there's a decent chance the wizard or cleric isn't going to effect them with many spells. Or they have so many HP that a wizard blasting away isn't going to kill them in one round. I know SR has screwed over many a spell in my epic level campaign.

Yep, my opinion on spells in 3E is based on playing at least a half dozen games into the high teens, 3 other games that went into the 20's, another game that went to 48th level, and another that went to 68th level.
Wizards became less and less useful as resistances, immunities, etc... became more and more prolific and higher and higher. Then when you factor in saving throws being so easy to make...

 

[justanobody]

@Remathilis:
Unless I am misreading, that is still focusing on one part of the game, "in combat".

There is much more to the game than the combats. It makes me wonder though on the new design if that is why combat is so much more fucsed in the rules because people related only to the combat when thinking about what a PC could do.

Anything outside of combat was game dependent, and combat is mostly the same between most games. But that does not mean that combat is all there is. To me it just says that combat will be similar in most games, and those differences outside of combat are what makes playing more interesting.

For similar combat, I could simply grab any wargame and play it. It is the rest where the comparisons of classes mean nothing and it is all the players.

If the game is heavily focused on combat, then I guess there would be explanation why it seems like one has an unfair advantage to another at times and then may switch, but it is not all the game is about. The combat did change between the games as well other than just the perceived balance.

 

[RFisher]

I guess my 1e experience must have been less combat focused or something. Sure, we’d talk about balance when someone brought in a non-standard fighter-like class that completely outclassed the fighter. Otherwise, discussion of PCs outshining each other didn’t occur until my GURPS days, and we didn’t have it in the latter-day classic D&D campaign.

 

[Treebore]

I guess my 1e experience must have been less combat focused or something. Sure, we’d talk about balance when someone brought in a non-standard fighter-like class that completely outclassed the fighter. Otherwise, discussion of PCs outshining each other didn’t occur until my GURPS days, and we didn’t have it in the latter-day classic D&D campaign.

It could definitely depend on the campaign. I am running "Queen of the Spiders" right now, just finished the "Giants" portion, 90%+ combat oriented.

 

[justanobody]

I must have been in games Like RFisher. Adventures have a lot of combat to be found, but it is really up to the players to guide even those like larger campaigns into what happens. If you are just looking for the dungeon delving, you will find more combat. If you look for the social interaction to find all the red herrings, you may even out combat and social encounters.

That mega-module has a lot of room for all things. How often do you figure a giant will tlak through things or welcome invaders in their area?

 

[Remathilis]

@Remathilis:
Unless I am misreading, that is still focusing on one part of the game, "in combat".

Well...

a.) Again, I'm purposefully ignoring clever play, playing in character, etc. because I can do that with a potato farmer, a deity, or anything else I want.

b.) Combat is a GREAT example, but not the only one. Lets look at 3.5's skill system, since earlier D&D had a less-defined skill system.

Movement skills (Climb/Jump/Swim) These quickly get replaced by magic (be it Slippers of Spider Climbing or the Fly spell.

Stealth Skills (Hide/Move Silently) are similarly rendered useless by invisibility spells.

Social Skills (Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate) can be at best replicated via charm magic, at worst boosted with magic.

Knowledge Skills can be out shined with Divination.

Similarly, Detection Skills (Search, Spot, Listen) can be rendered inert by magic.

And lets not even get into Knock/Open Lock, Comp Language/Decipher Script, or Find the Path/Survival

Couple this with the fact fighters have little in the way of skills outside of combat (horsemanship, movement skills, and intimidate?) and magic can quickly replace any "MUST MAKE" skill check (not to mention the fact a caster can swap out his artillery magic for divination if the adventure calls for it)

(and that's also not even considering things like Scrolls of Detect Secret Doors, Wands of Knock, or Potions of Invisibility which are dirt-cheap to make)

So if magic can dominate IN combat, and it can dominate OUT OF combat, doesn't that make magic a little too good at making fighters and rogues obsolete in their niche categories?

 

[justanobody]

Well the game has always had magic, and the nature of magic in your game controls how much it affects your game. Most times magic can do anything. That is a part of the sword and sorcery fantasy genre. If people felt that magic was so overpowered, why did they play any class that didn't use magic except for item boosts?

I know a player that loves to play a brute/barbarian/thug/whatever that is just a type of fighter to bash skulls in. As long as this player can bash skulls in during combat he doesn't care what the other players do. His character is always ready to charge in even knowing a lightning bolt could be right behind him to be the first to wreck havoc on the enemy.

His reasoning was simple:

Magic users are boring.
They just sit around casting spells and not get their hands dirty.

For him he had fun with what he had fun with. Never cared what others did so long as he could bash skulls. If a MU caused him to not get to bash skulls his character would likely turn to the MU as his next target. Loads of fun in the game with the tension between the two, and they both played it up for everyone.

Magic can do almost anything, but it cannot think for the players. You sort of need to know what you are getting into before you play anything, and that is where the rules come into play less, and group dynamics come into play more. Including the DM, to know what each player expects from the game, and what limitations may be found on those expectations that must be met in the middle at times.

If the group of players doesn't work together then many problems can occur, not the least of which is letting magic play too big a part.

My wizards rarely did direct damage with spells, but used spells in ways the other players looked forward to. Maybe that is why we saw not these problems often, or we just didn't care. I would wonder if the wizard players were always optimizing spells for combat on purpose to beat the game could be the problem? I know a few that would only take damaging spells to learn or memorize. They were boring character even for them.

So is it really those classes and how they changed that made the game more balance now over the old 1E way, or the expectations of things that some players see more closely in 4E so that it does not feel like what they had in 1E?

You can get a lot of fast action in both systems, but do you expect the same out of 4E that you do when you play 1E?

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

That's one "1eism" I don't miss...

Me too. I really never liked how in 1E magic could eventually do EVERYTHING while fighters and thieves really got nothing more than what they started with. 2E and 3E never really solved this either.

Personally, if I were to run 1E, I would literally rewrite the character classes and spell lists and put the appropriate powers where they belong (Enlarge and Strength goes to Fighters, Invisibility and Knock goes to thieves, etc). It's not a bad idea but unfortunately many old school D&D players think Fighters and Thieves Should Not Have Nice Things.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Me too. I really never liked how in 1E magic could eventually do EVERYTHING while fighters and thieves really got nothing more than what they started with. 2E and 3E never really solved this either.

Personally, if I were to run 1E, I would literally rewrite the character classes and spell lists and put the appropriate powers where they belong (Enlarge and Strength goes to Fighters, Invisibility and Knock goes to thieves, etc). It's not a bad idea but unfortunately many old school D&D players think Fighters and Thieves Should Not Have Nice Things.

Don't be silly. It's not that martial classes shouldn't have "nice things", it's that they shouldn't have magic (outside of Bo9S). Mages have magic. Fighters fight. The source of the problem is that Mages eventually get spells that allow them to make the other classes irrelevant. Take that away and let the Thief have his 100% Open Locks - which is really just as good as Knock. I haven't counted them but there's probably not that many spells on the spell list that are so problematic that removal is the only option.

 

[Fifth Element]

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow.

I see no evidence of that. This is just an unsupportable, sweeping generalization. I don't think it's true at all.