Do you consider 4e D&D "newbie teeball"?

[Thasmodious]

How long will you need to endure it? Probably about as long as people will make criticisms of it, talk about it dismissively, because they honestly don't like it and have everything they say interpreted as "edition warring".

The fact is both 4e and 3e are not immune to criticism or dislike from people. And people should be free to express that, even comparing the two editions, without being jumped on for edition warring.

Honestly, for every post that seems to be edition-trolling, there seems to be tons of posts complaining about edition warring where it isn't necessary. The t-ball comparision came up in another thread, generated an eruption in this thread, and pretty much been completely moved past in the original thread.

How else would you interpret BryonDs comment? It is indefensible as innocent, honest criticism. And that's before you consider that every post of his is an attack against 4e players with his signature or his own posting history.

"I don't like the power structure of 4e, feels too gamey to me" is a criticism. "3e's character design was too far removed from the classic class-centric design of other editions" is a criticism.

-4e is like t-ball, a game developed for 5 year olds who don't have the strength to pitch, or the coordination to hit a pitch- is not criticism, it is edition warring, an obvious and overt insult to 4e gamers. Why it wasn't modded away in the first place, I don't get.

 

[SSquirrel]

Teeball is primarily intended for very young kinds to get used to swinging the ball and hitting without a pitcher.

I have often claimed that 4e D&D made entry for DMs easier. It has tools to help even the most experienced DM prepare. But, 4e doesn't require a graduate game to take it into complexity. It does it just fine by itself.

You know I would find the whole teeball thing much more workable if the original statement had said something like

"The new version of D&D comes equipped with an optional tee for your baseball".

I wouldn't dispute that in the least. There are many simplifications, especially compared to other editions, but some areas are more complex. If you are new and just starting into RPGs, feel free to use all the great tools, explanations and advice provided. If you are an old hand at this sort of things, that isn't needed, you can just dive right in and run things as complex as you like. It's all right there in the books.

The new edition's goals were (in part) to improve the game, reduce prep time and make things less daunting for people to start playing/running. IMO they achieved those goals.

This whole arguement feels like something I see often in WoW. Blizzard makes the later instances all drop a higher level of emblem for buying gear, so you can get better gear from running the same content than you used to. Typically it's the hardcore raiders complaining, saying Blizzard is making the game too easy and it's a slap in their face that they ran these instances after those for gear and now people can get the same gear for easier stuff blah blah.

Leveling things out a bit in no way reduces your own achievements and benefits you if you have a less geared 2nd character, b/c now you can run something less hard and get equivalent gear, so you can see all teh new stuff Blizzard just put in the game. They want people to see it all, not have only 3% of the game see something. WotC wants more people to feel they can step up and run a game. More DMs means more gaming groups. More gaming groups means more people playing D&D, which also means more people buying books. Bigger hobby, more money for WotC, etc. Wins all around.

 

[nightwyrm]

Monster creation in 3e is process oriented (much like building a PC). You start at your starting point and follow a set of directions (you derive your monster stats by adding hit dice, classes, feats etc.). You may arrive at your intended destination (your intended monster difficulty) or you may arrive someplace else. Monster creation in 4e is goal oriented. You skip immediately to your destination (monster stats) without caring about how you got there.

 

[Raven Crowking]

First off, thank you for the clarifications, everyone.

I would agree that, if you expected baseball, but ended up playing T-Ball, that there would be something missing, but I am not sure that makes baseball a better game. And I do think that it is a fair criticism to say (of any edition or game) that your expectations include things that are (or seem to be) missing. Likewise, if you are expecting T-Ball, having to hit a moving target might seem needlessly complex!

On that scale of things, I prefer core rules T-Ball with Baseball options!



RC

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Now absolutely you can take the latter approach for 3e; just pick an appropriate AC, and not worry about if the NPC or monster's stats and equipment don't add up perfectly to that AC. The main difference is, though, that 4e assumes this technique by default.

Hmm.

Monster creation in 3e is process oriented (much like building a PC). You start at your starting point and follow a set of directions (you derive your monster stats by adding hit dice, classes, feats etc.). You may arrive at your intended destination (your intended monster difficulty) or you may arrive someplace else. Monster creation in 4e is goal oriented. You skip immediately to your destination (monster stats) without caring about how you got there.

Indeed. The proudest moment of my life was when I finally got back my official 4e permission slip so that I could change my assumptions and start creating monsters according to my needs and goals, rather than slavishly following the process and being forced to care how I got there. 4e changed everything.

It was dark days before that. That was no kind of way for a DM to live, especially someone like me who can't perform computational neuronal network modeling.

 

[Oryan77]

Thanks for the explanations comparing 3e and 4e. I think I would have to just make a 4e NPC myself to really see the difference. Because it sounds exactly the same to me as far as the time spent customizing an NPC in both editions. The difference is the time you want to spend in 3e to customize an NPC in a very specific way...and that to me seems like a choice, not a requirement. What I get from these explanations is that a 3e player has more tools to use if he wants to use them. A 4e player doesn't have as many tools to use, so it keeps things simple. So then you pick which system that best fits your tolerance...do you want to spend time with options to make something very specific, or do you want to settle on a concept that will be a bit general, but time saving. Is that pretty much what people are doing when choosing one over the other? I can see the appeal for either preference.

I think it's funny though. The options and customization is what people loved when 3e came out. Everyone talked about how great it was to play something specific and how they couldn't do that in older editions. Now people are saying the exact opposite and using that as a reason for going to 4e. I guess they found out that having more isn't always better

 

[Barastrondo]

Indeed. The proudest moment of my life was when I finally got back my official 4e permission slip so that I could change my assumptions and start creating monsters according to my needs and goals, rather than slavishly following the process and being forced to care how I got there. 4e changed everything.

It was dark days before that. That was no kind of way for a DM to live, especially someone like me who can't perform computational neuronal network modeling.

Uh, I don't think that anybody was implying that nobody chose to take a goal-based approach to designing monsters before the creation of 4e. It's just that said approach wasn't the as-described-in-the-books default process, and in 4e it is.

That's all. No chest-pounding insistence that people were shackled to an inferior system, no evangelizing about a sea change in player ideals that didn't happen. Just noting that the two systems describe different base assumptions in their core rulesets, because someone asked.

 

[Henry]

Indeed. The proudest moment of my life was when I finally got back my official 4e permission slip so that I could change my assumptions and start creating monsters according to my needs and goals, rather than slavishly following the process and being forced to care how I got there. 4e changed everything.

Yeah, I know - I feel the same way.

Of course, I was already doing what 4E was giving me license to, almost as if they saw what I was doing and responded to my play style of the time. Kinda like what they did with 3E way back when...

 

[Voadam]

I don't really understand this. Can you elaborate this and show me what the differences are? I'm familiar with what "roles" are in 4e (if you're referring to the same thing that 4e PCs have). I'm just curious how the roles help a DM prep faster.

Monster roles are different from player roles.

Players are defenders, strikers, controllers, and leaders. They are based around their combat role as part of the PC party team.

Monster roles are based on what type of challenge they present.

A brute is a high damage low accuracy, low AC high hp, low mobility foe. Easy to wail on but dangerous when he connects.

A soldier is a medium or low damage, decent accuracy, high AC, decent hp, low mobility foe. He stands there and takes punishment but does not immediately wipe you out with attacks.

A skirmisher is a medium damage, decent accuracy, low ac, low hp, high mobility foe. He runs around doing stuff but can be crumpled.

A lurker is a high damage, decent accuracy, low AC, low hp, high mobility, high stealth foe. He is a dangerous ambusher who can easily crumple if you can catch him.

etc.

This way when you look at an ogre in the MM and see he is a brute you know right away what style of encounter the stat numbers will make him appropriate for and how pc roles will generally react to him. A party of all rogues will rip into him with their high damage output and low likelihood of missing. The paladin who always hits but doesn't do much damage won't be as spectacular. An archer ranger who uses his mobility to stay out of clubbing range will do well. If the ogre traps the high mobility striker archer the PC is at serious risk of being crumped.

The roles tell you quicker how the combat will feel in execution and how your specific players will do.

In 3e you could apply the role labels to monsters and gain the same benefits, but 4e ones have an advantage of being designed to fill these combat roles and the combat stats are predone to fit these combat niches. In 3e you have to eyeball a monster to see how it will go and they are not designed with these monster combat role distinctions consciously in mind.

Also 4e monsters are designed to have just a handful of thematic powers that fit in a sentence or so each and no more. No feats, no list of spells or spell like abilities. Everything on the same page, easy to track, easy to keep in mind. Even for monster casters. 3e monsters done in the same style would be just as easy to prep and use.

Another thing 4e did was to simplify the monster advancement rules to provide a basic up or down easy math adjustment to increase a monsters level (CR) up or down by 5 levels and still fit within the number ranges for their role. This is much simpler and fewer calcualtions with secondary considerations than advancing by Hit Dice in 3e. This makes adjusting adventures quicker to do in prep time in 4e than in 3e.

 

[SSquirrel]

I thought of more analogies:

3.x is Windows 95, 4e is Windows XP (2e is Windows for Workgroups, everything earlier is DOS)
3.x is vi, 4e is Emacs
3.x is Perl, 4e is Python

3.x is "less filling". 4E is "tastes great"
(debate among yourselves if it should be reversed)

3.x is key lime pie. 4E is pumpkin pie
I like pumpkin, don't like key lime. It analogizes me and my situation at least