D&D 4E Some Thoughts on 4e

[WalterKovacs]

In 3E, they didn't have to. Players could do summons and illusions and create undead and all kinds of options without waiting for splat books.

Except of course it meant that wizards/clerics did everything.

Every school of magic was something the wizard could access, and future classes couldn't really do anything a wizard couldn't already do. So psionic creatures, masters of the mind, were basically using variations of enchantment and illussion.

They put an entire set of illussion based powers up immediately.

Summoning and creation of undead [and leadership, and all similar powers] were all somthing that was quite unbalanced. Spend a turn casting a spell, get another person added to the party ... the long term undead creation powers and leadership being even crazier.

They took a small period of time, but they've already reintroduced short term summoning in the game [through items instead of spells, although spells have their own conjuration effects].

 

[James McMurray]

Nor did any one PC class do it all.

I take it you never played a high level wizard, cleric, or druid? I say that because your idea of what they did and didn't do seems seems not to be based in reality.

And I'll ask again: what is your goal in coming to a board about a game you don't like and badmouthing that game? I get the impression you want to feel good about yourself by dragging others' down, but I'm a pretty negative person so I'm probably wrong. Please clue me in so I can better understand why I should bother trying to talk to you about the differences between the editions.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

I take it you never played a high level wizard, cleric, or druid? I say that because your idea of what they did and didn't do seems seems not to be based in reality.

Seriously. A druid was an entire party by itself by what, 9th?

 

[Nail]

It says nothing about who is or isn't holding the object. Per the RAW it works.

That......

That is a good idea you had there, James McMurray!

Yoink!! <Runs off to party wizard: "Here's a great trick...">

 

[Nail]

Seriously. A druid was an entire party by itself by what, 9th?

Cleric too, so long as splat books were used.

 

[Gort]

Cleric too, so long as splat books were used.

What on earth was going on with clerics anyway? It felt like the class completely changed focus once you hit 9th level and spells like Flame Strike and Blade Barrier which rivalled and were arguably better "blasty" spells than what the wizard got started to appear. Before that you had rubbish like "you make a rock +1 and throw it for D2+1 damage!" for your attack spells.

 

[Ibixat]

Bah.. I had a long post, but I think I went off topic.

Here is why 3.5 is broken and wizards are stupid powerful.

Polymorph. Game breaking polymorph.

Casters were too powerful at higher levels, wizards were the swiss army knife of characters, what was the point in playing almost anything else when you had one around, they could do anything you could do probably better =P

I like 4's direction to regulate combat through rules, give ways to make skills mean something and leave the actual roleplaying to the DM and players to adjudicate.

 

[James McMurray]

That......

That is a good idea you had there, James McMurray!

Yoink!! <Runs off to party wizard: "Here's a great trick...">

Don't thank me. Thank the player of the wizard in our Scales of War campaign. I did a double take when he did it too.

 

[Nail]

Cleric too, so long as splat books were used.

What on earth was going on with clerics anyway? It felt like the class completely changed focus once you hit 9th level and spells like Flame Strike and Blade Barrier which rivalled and were arguably better "blasty" spells than what the wizard got started to appear. Before that you had rubbish like "you make a rock +1 and throw it for D2+1 damage!" for your attack spells.

There were all sort of things to do with a cleric once the splat books came out. Heck, even before the splatbooks there was Divine Favor and Divine Might.

I played a "buffing" cleric that specialized in summoning. By the time our party was ~12th level, most encounters ceased to be a threat, as my buffing spells countered & defended, while my summoned monsters flanked, tanked, and ganked the opposition.

...and of course there was that time I used Elemental Monolith and Blade Barrier......

 

[Stalker0]

Second, the real problem isn't that more than two classes can be 'deep and involved' it's that in 4th edition none of the classes are deep and involved. None of them have any depth out of combat, at all.

I would argue that all the martial classes were this way in 3.5.

Take the rogue, what abilities does he have that aren't combative. He has sneak attack, uncanny dodge, and trap sense. At higher levels, he could acquire the take 10 skill ability, but that's it. Nearly everything he did as a class was combat based.

Ranger...favored enemy, weapon style, and a few spells (most of which were combative).

Now your casters did have the divinations and the like that added the "depth" you are refering to, but the bottom line is for most classes, the players had to create the out of combat depth with their imagination, not with the mechanics of the class.


When I hear about depth, I think the biggest thing that is ignored are skills. Because there aren't a lot of mechanics to skills, people forget that they exist, yet they are the cornerstone of out of combat play. And no matter what class you are playing, with one feat you can be good in that skill. My fighter for example picked up diplomacy so I could have fun with the social aspect of the game, and its working great.