Forked Thread: Did 4e go far enough or to far?

[Imaro]

Combat and spell casting occur more frequently (in most games) than farming or glass-blowing. Therefore it is reasonable that the rules prioritizes them.

Also, part of my point is that you don't need rules --not even those that govern whacking and blasting-- in order to create a character to role-play. Because "characters" are personalities, motivations, mannerisms, the qualities we associate with the denizens of fiction.

No, you need rules in order for this fictional persona to interact in a relevant manner with the other elements of the game, as well as the world(situations, challenges, encounters) created through the game's rules. By having combat rules...your characters actions, choices, etc. in this area are made measurable and meaningful, some want their actions outside of combat to be measurable and meaningful as well.

 

[Scribble]

I guess it boils down to, "some people (myself) find the framework really helpful, while others find it a pain in the tuckus." My own opinion is that the easy way to please both camps is to include it, but not make a big deal about it, which is pretty much the approach 3E took.

Which I would counter that in my opion it doesn't please both... Because it didn't ever really please me. I used it because it was workable, but it never felt quite right... Because of the afformentioned way they forced some skills to be yes/no when they shouldn't have been.

No, you need rules in order for this fictional persona to interact in a relevant manner with the other elements of the game, as well as the world(situations, challenges, encounters) created through the game's rules. By having combat rules...your characters actions, choices, etc. in this area are made measurable and meaningful, some want their actions outside of combat to be measurable and meaningful as well.

I say 4e does this already. It just doesn't do so in a yes/no fashion.

I also say it does so in a better way, it just wasn't expanded upon as much as it could have been. (That seems to be changing.)

Now not only can you be an alchemist, but you can customize exactly what types of things your alchemist can make.

And if the DM wants to really kick in something complicated, he can mix the rules for alchemy with a skill challange.

Same types of things can be done with crafting.

You can mix it all togetehr for complex things... Airship would require that you are a builder (tinker feat) plus you have the schematics, or the blueprints for a ship, Plus you (or another player) would need to be able to either cast rituals for a magic powered airship, or use alchemy for abn alchemically powered airship...

Using the feats + skills format makes skills infinitely expandable. A small list of skills, with new uses and ideas added on all the time.

 

[pukunui]

I'm with the people who say that 4e goes too far in some directions but not far enough in others.

For me, the biggest disappointment with 4e is that it does not live up to its potential. The final product is not as good as the one hyped up by WotC during the preview period. It does not go far enough in that it fails to include a number of the new ideas, cool features, and evocative flavor from the preview material.

It also does not go far enough in terms of simplifying and streamlining the game. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the game hasn't been simplified at all but rather the complexity has merely been shuffled around. For example, 4e is a simpler game to run than 3.5 was, but it is even more complicated to play. For one thing, every class is now a spellcaster - with all the added complexity and bookkeeping that that entails (this is the primary reason one of the other guys in my group doesn't like 4e). For another, while we no longer have to do as much on-the-fly math with stat-adjusting buffs and things like level drain and the like, instead we have to deal with a whole slew of new conditions like marking and ongoing damage and we have to remember that some things happen at the beginning of a turn while other things happen at the end and some things even happen at the end of the next turn ...


On the other hand, I think 4e goes too far in the name of balance. I much prefer SWSE's more open-ended, customizable - and ultimately more elegant and streamlined - talent-based class system. 4e's classes seriously feel like straight jackets compared to SWSE's classes. I also think SWSE does a better job dealing with "magic" - by making it a separate system that a) any class can access but b) comes with a cost, they've resolved the "spellcaster class vs nonspellcaster class" balance issues of 3.5. To that end, I think 4e went too far by abandoning a superior class system - which ironically came out of the 4e development process - that is everything that 4e was supposed to be but isn't, at least in terms of elegance and simplicity.

I also think 4e goes too far by removing most of the fluff from the MM, especially the individual monster descriptions, and by incorporating a large number of dissociated and heavily "gamist" mechanics (it turns out I'm more of a simulationist than I previously thought).


Most of the other issues I have with 4e have already been covered.


For the record, there are some areas where I think 4e got it just right. Shifting would be a prime example.

 

[yesnomu]

One area I don't think they went far enough on is Alignment. Sure, it's a better system than 3e's simply for the lack of the idiotic (and idiot-empowering) Chaotic Neutral. But still, way too many people use it as a personality short-circuit.

People are people. Calling them good or evil is short-sighted and simplistic. End alignment.

 

[Najo]

In my case, even 3E went "too far" away from what I like most about D&D, although it took me a while to realize that. (That is, I bought and ran 3E for a while before coming to that decision.) With 4E, there was never any question. I read through the books, and that was enough to make me shrug and say "not for me." (However, I should note that I have a much clearer understanding of what works for me and what I'm looking for in D&D, these days.)

Could you please list the key things your looking for in D&D please.

 

[Imaro]

I say 4e does this already. It just doesn't do so in a yes/no fashion.

I also say it does so in a better way, it just wasn't expanded upon as much as it could have been. (That seems to be changing.)

This is one of my major problems with alot of the arguments for 4e...how much am I going to have to pay and collect in odd little pieces here and there, before my available options are on par with 3.5 core? This isn't a virtue...it's a flaw when I already have 3.5.

Now not only can you be an alchemist, but you can customize exactly what types of things your alchemist can make.

And if the DM wants to really kick in something complicated, he can mix the rules for alchemy with a skill challange.

Yet, I can't have official Profession or Crafting skills until I drop two quarters ( buy another one or two sourcebooks) in the machine. And I still can't be better at picking locks than I am at picking pockets by RAW.

Same types of things can be done with crafting.

You can mix it all togetehr for complex things... Airship would require that you are a builder (tinker feat) plus you have the schematics, or the blueprints for a ship, Plus you (or another player) would need to be able to either cast rituals for a magic powered airship, or use alchemy for abn alchemically powered airship...

Using the feats + skills format makes skills infinitely expandable. A small list of skills, with new uses and ideas added on all the time.

This is not what we have right now, this is you creating a modified skill system and new feats...the same as can be done in any game that you want to make stuff up for. In fact I could do this same thing in 3.5 and I wouldn't have to buy 3 new corebooks and the AV supplement. How is this 4e, this is Scribble's homebrew rules, which are kinda cool...but again I can do this in 3.5, Star Wars saga ed., etc. without having to continually buy more supplements.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is one of my major problems with alot of the arguments for 4e...how much am I going to have to pay and collect in odd little pieces here and there, before my available options are on par with 3.5 core? This isn't a virtue...it's a flaw when I already have 3.5.

Sure, but then you have all the flaws of 3.5. There will always be something missing, and knowing that you _could_ expand your system relatively easily and it might even happen eventually anyway is more attractive to me then the having a system with fundamental flaws.

The question is which flaws you percieve, which of them can be considered fundamental and will most likely not be overcome without rebuilding the system? This isn't always a clear-cut system, otherwise we'd all play one edition.

Yet, I can't have official Profession or Crafting skills until I drop two quarters ( buy another one or two sourcebooks) in the machine. And I still can't be better at picking locks than I am at picking pockets by RAW.

But aren't you just causing the system to break down if you want this? "I have Thievery +9, but I really want to emphasize on lock-picking, so I take this feat that adds me +3 to it for picking locks. But then another one comes and says "but there are different types of locks, and I find it important my character is best at picking Dwarven Treasure Locks,so I pick this feat to get another +3" - at some point you break the "ceiling" of expected bonuses, and this will be a problem. And if it doesn't cause a problem, the fact that you were able to mechanically diversify your character here will probably also not matter for the actual game effects, so you could just cut out the entire game mechanics and just say "I am best at picking Dwarven Treasure Locks!" and still use the same Thievery +9 bonus for it.

This is not what we have right now, this is you creating a modified skill system and new feats...the same as can be done in any game that you want to make stuff up for. In fact I could do this same thing in 3.5 and I wouldn't have to buy 3 new corebooks and the AV supplement. How is this 4e, this is Scribble's homebrew rules, which are kinda cool...but again I can do this in 3.5, Star Wars saga ed., etc. without having to continually buy more supplements.

If you're only interested in one specific subsystem, pick the game that does this one best. But if you notice that you also need others, and the system with the best subsystem offers bad others, you have to make trade-offs.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

For someone who wanted to be better at a specific aspect of Thievery for instance and not another, it is pretty easy to do. If your trained in Thievery (as I assume one would be if this was part of their character concept). Then the +5 for Trained I would simply only count for when that aspect of Thievery is used, for everything else use the Untrained number. Fairly simple.

 

[firesnakearies]

I admit to being puzzled by the 'skills for crafting' thing... I think of my PC's as fictional characters that I'm both writing and performing --at a nerdy dinner theater that bears a curious resemblance to my living room-- and as such, having mechanics that represent their ability to farm or blow glass have nothing to do with the real business of characterization; creating a personality, motivations, mannerisms, etc.


Looking at it that way, you can only prioritize what's included in the system. Seeing as there are so many potential interests and areas of knowledge/expertise for an RPG character, I prefer that the system only concern itself with the most relevant --to the genre(s) at hand-- skills and abilities, leaving any further description of character outside the purview of the rules.


Of course. But a player could just as easily tell the DM/GM that their character is into haiku and would like them to factor into the campaign. In other words, if a given skill is really just a marker of interest, why does it need to be part of the skill/task resolution system?

An example: my 4e paladin is a poet. There is no way (exact) way to represent this in the system. It's no big deal. The DM will use Diplomacy checks and straight WIS/CHR checks when necessary. The DM knows that aspect of the character is important, because I've told him it is, and I play in up during the session. Having rules for poetry writing and performance won't help me further characterize my poet PC (for that I'll have to write some real doggerel, or, more likely, parody some famous poems), and these rules, if they existed, would just clutter up the PHB (or some splatbook).


Why should a player have to choose between being an interesting character and a good (more effective) D&D character? The last thing I want to do as DM is impose a mechanical cost on characterization.

Yes. This is perfectly stated. This is how I feel, as well. There should be detailed mechanical rules for "adventure" tasks, and everything else should fall wholly within the realm of roleplaying and cooperative storytelling between the DM and players.

 

[Betote]

Yes. This is perfectly stated. This is how I feel, as well. There should be detailed mechanical rules for "adventure" tasks, and everything else should fall wholly within the realm of roleplaying and cooperative storytelling between the DM and players.

And exactly which ones are the "adventure" tasks? The problem is that "adventure" has been redefined as "dungeon crawling", and there are many more things that make up for a good story (and a good game, too). Haggling with merchants, running keeps or domains, equipping and managing militia men for an upcoming orc invasion, womanizing between fights, hunting and foraging while traveling... I like to have these things reflected in my games, and I don't see the reason why these should be "just winged up" and combat should be played to the lesser minutiae, blow by blow.

If I want a detailed system, I want the same level of detail for everything. If I'm playing make-believe, I don't want to slow things down with a battlemat and miniatures when combat comes up.