Disappointed in 4e

[Thasmodious]

I kind of agree on this point. Fighters cant take every feat or specialize in every weapon yet a wizard that can master every type of magic as a "general practioner" is ok. I think specialized wizards as a default is a good idea. It would also solve the "I can do everything " problem and make having multiple arcane casters in a party a much bigger benefit.

I, too, agree with said point. In 3e, to answer the sorcerer problem, I did away with sorcerer (this was after Complete Arcane came out and gave me the idea) and specialization for wizards. The Wizard class became always a general practitioner and I divided the sorcerer into specializations like the Warmage, creating houseruled enchanters, necromancers, conjurers, illusionists, etc., all built on the same spontaneous caster frame. I added class abilities, like the warmage did, and some spell-likes that fit the suite and boosted their power a bit in relation to wizards.

Then, of course, later supplements took the spontaneous caster in that direction anyway, with the beguiler and his ilk.

This seems clearly to be the intent in 4e as well. Wizard has a particular role, and other casters will be more specialized and often in different roles. Enchanters would be controllers, surely. Conjurers and necromancers could both be defenders, filling the role with summoned/raised creatures instead of their own bodies. Abjurers/transmuters could be arcane leaders...

I guess this direction will depend on what they do with the sorcerer, but I envision a much more elemental but similar evoker quality to the class, maybe with a different role. If this doesn't get realized in the rules, it wouldn't be hard to create these specializations again for a new edition. It won't require pouring through hundreds of spells to build lists, either. Just designing a suite of powers, which wouldn't be too bad.

Just rambling here, don't mind me.

 

[Ahwe Yahzhe]

(sigh) Twin strike, hunter's quarry, lethal hunter... (yawn)

IOW, his complaint is that Core 4Ed truncates choice in comparison to Core 3Ed...which is something that definitely turns me off about that game.

I also think I get what the OP was trying to explain- that characters are pretty much written by the rulebooks once you've chosen your race, class and build. Once you've done that, your powers, defenses, hit points, and skills are all pretty much pre-determined. Very easy to churn out a character in 5 minutes, but no choice of options if you actually want to create a character "out of build."

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of powers is a great balancing mechanism and all that, it's just that they get predictable very fast. Before, it was just the fighter saying, "Full attack. Again."

Now, ALL the players are doing that with characters, just using the terminology appropriate to their chosen class. It became a running joke with our stabby-build ranger (as opposed to the shooty-build ranger.) So much so that when another player filled in for him and ran the ranger that night, he quoted the original player verbatim:
"(Sigh) Twin strike, hunter's quarry, lethal hunter... (yawn.)"

A little bit of custoimzation or choice in character creation beyond race, class, and one of two builds selected would be nice. Something that probably could have filled all that white space in the PHB.

My solution so far has been trying to get all flavory and sh*t when describing the same attack for the fiftieth time, and a few selective house rules to deal with regenerative healing gone haywire. Battles run 5-8 rounds at my table, but usually by the end of round 3 the players have figured out that victory is inevitable and just a matter of attrition. I keep combat encounters under a hour (except really big ones) by using magnetic markers and an initiative Combat Pad and abusing players who haven't written down complete attack and damage bonuses for their powers on their character sheets. (Badly-designed character sheets are no excuse.) After a couple of hundred hours DMing 4e, and about half that playing 4e, I'm coming to the conclusion that the OP and the "half-dozen" before him have: the game has sacrificed flexibility in character creation for the balanced mechanics.

-AY

 

[billd91]

It wasn't JUST move and cast.

It was the fact that round by round initative heavily favoured melee.

It was the fact that spellcasters couldn't get around their spell slot limitation.

It was the fact that magic actually became easier to resist as you levelled.

It was the fact that a wizard didn't get his spell automatically.

I think the only factor here of any significance is the second one - getting around slot limitations with easy-to-choose magic items.
Round by round initiative doesn't really favor melee since most spells weren't that hard to get off, particularly the lower level ones with 1-3 segment casting times.
And magic got easier to resist in ALL editions prior to 4e as a character leveled.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

2) Separation of rituals and "quick" spells. I always hated having to trade off combat time for general utility. Plus, it never made sense to me that you couldn't just take all the set-up time you needed for some things like knock to cast it un-hung. Plus, I see rituals as being the more likely way non-wizards would dip into the arcane arts, anyway. About the only thing that I'd add would be the option to hang a ritual or two if you thought you'd be needing it quickly.

That sounds like a really good idea. I like the notion of swapping out a daily for a spell completion of a ritual. It would really work with teleports. You could have an escape teleport available for that quich get away when it all goes wrong.
I reckon as a DM I would allow that one as is but only the teleports to a predefined location.

 

[billd91]

And what really confuses me is that the same people who complain that 4e is just a money-churn where WotC is employing shady marketing to get people to buy an endless stream of books for the current edition... also complain that 3e is now unsupported and they no longer have the option of buying... an endless stream of books for their favorite edition.

If having the option of buying new books for the RPG you play is such an evil scheme, everyone who's sticking with 3e or an earlier edition should be rejoicing. They're now immune to the evil, corporate machinations of WotC.

There are two fundamentally different things going on.
In one case, people are criticizing a business model that relies on intentionally producing an incomplete product, one that will leave consumers feeling they need more to function with it.

In the second case, there's the recognition that lack of ongoing support means the decline of the game. I know people are still playing older editions, but go ahead and try to find players for those on a routine basis if your current gaming group breaks up or you move to a new town. That's not so easy. Depending on where you live, finding people for the current edition may not be that easy either. Whichever version of the game that is current is the one that gets the advertising, the shelf-space, the newly printed (or at least distributed) copies of the rulebooks. The older version is the one that sees copies destroyed via any number of mishaps without the means to replace them.

 

[Allister]

I think the only factor here of any significance is the second one - getting around slot limitations with easy-to-choose magic items.
Round by round initiative doesn't really favor melee since most spells weren't that hard to get off, particularly the lower level ones with 1-3 segment casting times.
And magic got easier to resist in ALL editions prior to 4e as a character leveled.

Looks at his 3E fighter and his will save and contrasts it with earlier editions?

*Watcha you talking about willis?*

And yes, round by round initiative heavily favours melee especially in 2e.

In 2e for example, a cleric's spell had a CT of 3+spell level and the fact that a spellcaster was encouraged to use the lower level slots and NOT the higher spells AND the fact that you couldn't really count on your place in the initiative order played havoc with spellcasters.

Again, simply saying that it was "ok for the generalist to have access to all spells" _IS_ what caused the problem in the 1st place.

Look at the Dread Necromancer and Beguiler and Warmage. WTC themselves realized that true power is not spontaneous spellcasting but having wide access to all spells.

 

[dm4hire]

What non-game-based fiction has a wizard who both controls people's minds and throws fireballs? I'd venture to say that the wizard who can do every sort of magic is an artifact of D&D and related gaming systems, and not anything that authors naturally gravitate towards writing. The reason for this is simple- if you've got a character who can do anything with magic, then why are they not doing everything with magic? Good authors are smart enough to avoid magical omnicompetence, which is something that not all editions of D&D have been equally adept at avoiding.

Where in my statement do I imply that a wizard does both? I simply state that I have read books and seen movies where wizards/magic users use mind magic in addition to casting other magic. Fireball has been one of the rarest spells I have ever came across in other fantasy books and even though Gandalf casts one in the books it was left out of the Lord of the Rings movies.

As for why you never see them combined in literary works I'd say it has more to do with the nature of the magic compared to personality than the lack of ability to do both or avoiding "magical omnicompetence" as you put it. Someone who casts fireball tends to be a little more destructive in nature and to the point, preferring quick action despite any reservations, than someone who would use magic to enslave a mind; the latter requiring someone willing to let things take their course and be manipulative behind the scenes once they have the control. Then again some wizards might consider mind control an obscenity because of where they lived or how they were taught. And lastly there may have never been a presentation within the story to call for mind control powers or fireball to come into play for the wizard.

Which this debate points out the lack of choice within the 4e material or it wouldn't be brought up.

 

[billd91]

Looks at his 3E fighter and his will save and contrasts it with earlier editions?

*Watcha you talking about willis?*

And yes, round by round initiative heavily favours melee especially in 2e.

In 2e for example, a cleric's spell had a CT of 3+spell level and the fact that a spellcaster was encouraged to use the lower level slots and NOT the higher spells AND the fact that you couldn't really count on your place in the initiative order played havoc with spellcasters.

Again, simply saying that it was "ok for the generalist to have access to all spells" _IS_ what caused the problem in the 1st place.

Look at the Dread Necromancer and Beguiler and Warmage. WTC themselves realized that true power is not spontaneous spellcasting but having wide access to all spells.

I think you might be misreading the lesson of the dread necromancer, beguiler, and warmage. I don't assume that WotC felt that access to too many spells was too powerful. Rather, my assumption is that they found that players liked having spontaneous casters. They are quite a bit easier to run.

As far as the saving throws, the big advancement of 3e (yes, I consider it an advancement) is that you no longer end up with a class that dominates the others with respect to saves without really paying for it. Fighter saves in 1e/2e got ridiculously good, no sign of a weakness. Everyone has at least one strong save, and nearly all character classes have at least one weak one.

 

[LostSoul]

I'd like to emphasize that the problem is not that the game is too abstract; it's that the game is is concretely "wrong" in so many ways. The various board-game abilities don't make sense outside of a board game.

Care to support that assertion?

 

[Rel]

This totally perplexes me. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time I read something in a RPG, thought it was terrible, then ended up liking it... well, I'd still be penniless.

For me, play can bring out problems with a text that aren't visible on a casual read, and acts as a much quicker way to gather basic data about a system than theory, but in my experience "reads bad plays good" doesn't exist unless you're bad at reading. The canonical example (in fact, I believe the introduction of that term to the D&D canon) of Mystic Theurge and the common example of Warlock fully bear this out. It's just that saying Warlock "reads bad" doesn't involve accepting blame, while blaming yourself for reading it and crying "14400 USES PER DAY!!!" does.

"Reads good plays bad" sure exists, though, and is the main thing I'd be looking for in playtesting.

EDIT: Whoops. It occurred to me after I posted that "reads bad plays good" certainly exists, when the way something is presented is crappy such that it obfuscates the good design underneath. That's not 4e, though, that's mostly old and crappily-written books.

I'll have to disagree with you here. When I first got my 4e PHB I was utterly uninspired. I'd been, to that point, up and down about the idea of 4e but was trending toward "nah". My first read through (browse through really - that book simply doesn't lend itself to a "read") and I was about ready to put it on the shelf and not bother with it again.

However, I have a wide streak of efficiency running through me. I couldn't stand the idea of giving up on a game I hadn't actually played. My wife and daughter made characters and I ran them through a couple short adventures. To my surprise I found that the game seemed very similar to 3.x in a large number of ways. And the ways it didn't felt mostly like improvements.

I'll admit that there are some parts of the game that I'm still not fond of and I'm devising patches for them. But my opinion of 4e has become much better from playing it than from reading it.