D&D 4E What's so bad about 4th edition? What's so good about other systems?

[Argyle King]

I'd respectfully disagree that 4E can be gritty. At least not in the way I consider the word. I don't feel (in my experience as a player) 4E can be deadly without the DM stacking the deck very heavily against the players or the players having characters which just work poorly together... sometimes one of those isn't enough; you need both.

Another style I don't think it does well, is a game in which having a life outside of encounters matters a great deal. Sure, I can roleplay till the cows come home; I would never deny that somebody can. But, does the game give me the kind of feedback I want from that? No, not really; I'm the type of person who gets into things like running a fief; gadgeteering a new invention, and many other things I'd like to do. Getting a +2 bonus to a skill or being able to trade out one encounter power for another isn't what I'm looking for when I want to venture into these areas. I'm the type of player who sat and wrote a back story and came up with a personality for my cohort in 3rd Edition.

A third would be when I want to sit and really sink my teeth into worldbuilding, and have a solid 'physics engine' (for a lack of better words) upon which to craft my world. I actually do this quite a lot; it's the type of world I prefer for when I want to do a sandbox game.

A fourth would be when I want my heroes to be leading armies instead of fighting them. To be fair, this is a problem I also had with 3rd Edition; I just did not know enough about the other rpg systems out there (at the time) to be aware of what other options I might have. To clarify more, games in which someone who tries to fight an army probably dies quickly. *For something like this, I tend to prefer a game without levels.

*Oddly, enough, it is 4E which made me realize that I'd want a game without levels for that. I appreciated the lessened power curve between levels. I came to realize that I'd prefer to get rid of the concept of levels (as presented by D&D) completely for that style of game.

How about if I want robust grappling options? For a kung fu or martial arts themed game? Sure, I could easily sit and do the work to come up with powers and classes based around 4E, but why when I could just pick up something else?

Games in which combat isn't expected to be the main method of task resolution. I am aware that 4E has skill challenges. They are a very good idea; sometimes they even work in a way that seems somewhat satisfying. However, in general, if I wanted a long term campaign in which I wanted noncombat to be put on an equal ground and be as equally supported as combat, I think I'd get bored very quickly with doing skill challenges all the time. It's doable in 4E, but it's not satisfying to me, and the depth that I would want to explore isn't there.



I have more, but I'll cut it short for right now. I can't say that any of these are --strictly speaking-- impossible. I would never claim that. Only that, as I've already said, the game wouldn't function in a way that was very satisfying to me if I used 4E for most of these.


edit: I didn't see the last part of your post. Keep in mind, I'm not comparing 4E to 3E when I mention these things. As I alluded to in a previous post, I now currently favor a rpg which is not part of the D&D family.

 

[Halloween Jack]

When people say they want more robust grappling in 4e, what does that mean, exactly?

 

[Argyle King]

When people say they want more robust grappling in 4e, what does that mean, exactly?

Currently, Grab in 4E (in my humble opinion) is not very good. I understand that some people had trouble with 3rd Edition's Grapple. However, the solution seems to have been to just cut the balls from the bull so to speak.

In the beginning, the 4E designers said,"let there be Grab," and there was Grab, but it was futile and weak. The monsters said unto thine PCs,"come, grab me if you will; I will still shoot thine face with mine longbow; your puny Grab shall only immobilize me." The players scoffed and grappled the troll; shouting,"Ha! How will you shoot me now when I have you grappled?" Imagine the puzzled expression when the challenge of the Troll came true; he did indeed shoot them in the face; Grab had no effect beyond immobilize. So it was written; so it came to pass.

Then along came some items, a few feats, and the Brawler Fighter to try to heal the wounds of Grab. There was improvement, and the land rejoiced, but the joy would be short lived. The monsters still taunted the PC who might Grab. "Lo there," they challenged;"Grab all you will and cause paltry damage while I still shoot you the face." For the monsters, while they were now taking some small sum of damage, were spared the full wrath of even some of the lowliest encounter powers which could hurt more than the improved Grab.

Somewhere out there is a build which requires 37 different books, feats from a cornucopia of sources, hybrids, multiclassing, and all manner of other resource. Nobody's ever seen in fully in the daylight. But, some players claim, if you roll your d20 at the stroke of midnight, and the air is quiet enough, you can still hear it calling in the distance: "I will be uuuuseeeefullll!"

 

[catastrophic]

I'd respectfully disagree that 4E can be gritty. At least not in the way I consider the word. I don't feel (in my experience as a player) 4E can be deadly without the DM stacking the deck very heavily against the players or the players having characters which just work poorly together... sometimes one of those isn't enough; you need both.

To be clear, i'm talking about 4e the way all most rpgs are talked about- including minimal, functional house rules.

To make 4e more dangerous there are a few things you can do, and really they all come down to the kind of monsters. For instance, the dark sun monsters are often a lot nastier than the core monsters, but not really imbalanced. Another example, they're just updated the peytron, and i'm pretty sure they can kill pcs awful fast.

To up the risk in 4e, i'd suggest adding a healing surge loss mechanic. Anything you think should be more dangerous and less surviable- like taking a critical hit, suffering a long fall, or being hit with a deathtrap- can cost a healing surge in addition to other effects.

Do this, along with measured by disiplined presentation of long rests, or a 'limited long rest' mechanic (I only let peple recover 1 surge and all hp with a standard long rest, requiring a week-long rest in a safe location for full surge recovery), and you'll find things can get harrowing pretty damn fast.

That might not be what you're after, but my point is, 4e can do a lot, with a few, solid tweaks.

The rest of this is about playing other rpgs, which I can undertand. I get that some people would look for a genuinly different design for any number of reasons. The problem I have is when people look at previous iterations of D&D, and act like an attempt to improve them is some kind of insult or crime, or misses the strange wonder of the 15 minute day.

Honestly, 4e design takes a lot from other rpgs, and that's one of it's strengths. After all, before minions, there were mooks.

 

[delericho]

I don't deny that their modules are popular, and i'm not going to pretend that wotc modules have been up to snuff. They totally win that comparison, although I wonder exactly who is buying modules from each company, and why, and how much of sales they account for.

I don't have any problem with the idea that the pathfinder guys write good modules, but they don't design good classes. And I don't think the people who are happy with pathfinder are doing good class design critique.

There was nothing stopping the pathfinder devs from doing more to fix the fighter, apart from their unwillingness to earn the ire of their fans and, potentially, their own failure as game designers. They could have at least given them better will saves. Something. Anything.

As it is, they gave them less than they initially wanted to in beta, because fans rejected the changes, while praising wizard buffs and more.
And fighters are just one example.

And you can't use the 'just a reprint' defence- It's not as if they didn't tweak many other classes, changing them and giving them extra features- even wizards got some based on school of magic- but they left in core failures of design in core classes, in a way that made no sense.

WOTC seem to be struggling, even now, to put out good modules. But paizo has never done good class or system design.

If you're going to selectively quote me out of context, and then attack a point I didn't make, then we have nothing useful to discuss.

 

[Argyle King]

To be clear, i'm talking about 4e the way all most rpgs are talked about- including minimal, functional house rules.

To make 4e more dangerous there are a few things you can do, and really they all come down to the kind of monsters. For instance, the dark sun monsters are often a lot nastier than the core monsters, but not really imbalanced. Another example, they're just updated the peytron, and i'm pretty sure they can kill pcs awful fast.

To up the risk in 4e, i'd suggest adding a healing surge loss mechanic. Anything you think should be more dangerous and less surviable- like taking a critical hit, suffering a long fall, or being hit with a deathtrap- can cost a healing surge in addition to other effects.

Do this, along with measured by disiplined presentation of long rests, or a 'limited long rest' mechanic (I only let peple recover 1 surge and all hp with a standard long rest, requiring a week-long rest in a safe location for full surge recovery), and you'll find things can get harrowing pretty damn fast.

That might not be what you're after, but my point is, 4e can do a lot, with a few, solid tweaks.

The rest of this is about playing other rpgs, which I can undertand. I get that some people would look for a genuinly different design for any number of reasons. The problem I have is when people look at previous iterations of D&D, and act like an attempt to improve them is some kind of insult or crime, or misses the strange wonder of the 15 minute day.

Honestly, 4e design takes a lot from other rpgs, and that's one of it's strengths. After all, before minions, there were mooks.

I don't think 4th Edition is terrible. I can see the benefit to a lot of choices. However, there are also a lot of things I wish they would have done differently.

As for the grittiness, I'm not looking to murder PCs, but --recently-- there have been times when the current DM thought a fight would be difficult, and it wasn't at all. The group I play with has made some adjustments to get more of an experience that we want, but it's taken a lot of campaigns to start to get things worked out. I suppose this ties into what Abdul was saying earlier. It's easy to play 4th Edition; it's very easy to DM 4th Edition, but some groups might have a hard time getting it to perform the way they want.

I would tend to agree with your mention of Dark Sun though. I don't own the book, but I have access to it via friends who do. I get the impression that (in general) most of Dark Sun is intended to be slightly more powerful than status quo 4th Edition.

Where I'm at right now with 4th Edition, if I take a step back and look, can be described by saying I have something of a love/hate relationship with it. Some of the changes I absolutely love, and they were such an improvement over 3rd, that I would have a hard time going back. However, at the same time, the few things that bother me really really bother me to the extent that it's hard for me to ignore them.

I do still enjoy 4E though. In spite of the things which bother me, the fact is that I was lucky enough to find a regular group which I enjoy playing with -regardless of system. There are still times when I'd prefer to be playing something else, but, overall, I enjoy spending time with the group enough to be able to become at least 'ok' with the parts of 4th which bother me.

 

[Pentius]

Currently, Grab in 4E (in my humble opinion) is not very good. I understand that some people had trouble with 3rd Edition's Grapple. However, the solution seems to have been to just cut the balls from the bull so to speak.

In the beginning, the 4E designers said,"let there be Grab," and there was Grab, but it was futile and weak. The monsters said unto thine PCs,"come, grab me if you will; I will still shoot thine face with mine longbow; your puny Grab shall only immobilize me." The players scoffed and grappled the troll; shouting,"Ha! How will you shoot me now when I have you grappled?" Imagine the puzzled expression when the challenge of the Troll came true; he did indeed shoot them in the face; Grab had no effect beyond immobilize. So it was written; so it came to pass.

Then along came some items, a few feats, and the Brawler Fighter to try to heal the wounds of Grab. There was improvement, and the land rejoiced, but the joy would be short lived. The monsters still taunted the PC who might Grab. "Lo there," they challenged;"Grab all you will and cause paltry damage while I still shoot you the face." For the monsters, while they were now taking some small sum of damage, were spared the full wrath of even some of the lowliest encounter powers which could hurt more than the improved Grab.

Somewhere out there is a build which requires 37 different books, feats from a cornucopia of sources, hybrids, multiclassing, and all manner of other resource. Nobody's ever seen in fully in the daylight. But, some players claim, if you roll your d20 at the stroke of midnight, and the air is quiet enough, you can still hear it calling in the distance: "I will be uuuuseeeefullll!"

And lo, when the grabbed enemy tried to shoot the grabber in the face, though he were Grabbed, verily did the grabber beat his face with great vigour, in the manner of an interruption he gained from seizing this Opportunity. And valiantly though the grabbed one sought to flee, that he might take swords to his face only during his opponents' turns, he found himself Immobilized. Thus did the grabbing character double his potential attacks upon the poor grabbed foe, while verily remaining able to use his sword with said attacks, due to the Laws of Grabbing requiring but one free hand.


In other words, grabbing an opponent isn't very good if they want to be in melee anyway, but ranged foes, which were always the best targets for a grab/grapple, are looking at taking an Opportunity Attack every time they try to use that longbow. The grabber, meanwhile, only needed one hand to grab them anyway, so if he has a weapon in the other, he's still hitting at full strength. And twice as often if the grabbed target is so foolish as to keep using that longbow. The immobilize keeps them from shifting away, and getting that attack off truly scot free.

 

[Argyle King]

And lo, when the grabbed enemy tried to shoot the grabber in the face, though he were Grabbed, verily did the grabber beat his face with great vigour, in the manner of an interruption he gained from seizing this Opportunity. And valiantly though the grabbed one sought to flee, that he might take swords to his face only during his opponents' turns, he found himself Immobilized. Thus did the grabbing character double his potential attacks upon the poor grabbed foe, while verily remaining able to use his sword with said attacks, due to the Laws of Grabbing requiring but one free hand.


In other words, grabbing an opponent isn't very good if they want to be in melee anyway, but ranged foes, which were always the best targets for a grab/grapple, are looking at taking an Opportunity Attack every time they try to use that longbow. The grabber, meanwhile, only needed one hand to grab them anyway, so if he has a weapon in the other, he's still hitting at full strength. And twice as often if the grabbed target is so foolish as to keep using that longbow. The immobilize keeps them from shifting away, and getting that attack off truly scot free.

It's not scot free, but there are still times when it leaves a lot to be desired.

It works the other way too. I've been in encounters where the monster had an attack which grabbed me. It was often better to stay grabbed and continue to beat on the monster than it was to waste the effort on attempting to get out; even against some of the monsters which have attacks which sync well with grab.

 

[FireLance]

I didn't see anything there that hadn't been a long standing joke in D&D since forever.

Unfortunately, humor is one of the most subjective things in the world.

One man's bashing is another man's good-natured ribbing.

Even worse, as you mentioned, for some people, the exact same statement can be either ribbing or bashing, depending on who said it.

I generally don't bother respond to statements of opinion, e.g. "I felt bashed by WotC." I only feel annoyed enough to respond when it seems to me that someone is trying to pass off opinion as fact, e.g. "WotC was bashing us."

 

[Argyle King]

Unfortunately, humor is one of the most subjective things in the world.

One man's bashing is another man's good-natured ribbing.

Even worse, as you mentioned, for some people, the exact same statement can be either ribbing or bashing, depending on who said it.

I generally don't bother respond to statements of opinion, e.g. "I felt bashed by WotC." I only feel annoyed enough to respond when it seems to me that someone is trying to pass off opinion as fact, e.g. "WotC was bashing us."

I don't find those videos to be bashing at all.

Though, I do remember some things I would consider to be. I've been trying to dig through the old article archives in DDi to find one in particular that I'm thinking of. I'm having a hard time remembering if it was a DDi article or something somewhere else on the site though.

The part I remember is the discussion about the new streamlined skill system in 4th Edition. I can't remember word for word exactly what was said because it was a long time ago, but I remember something along the lines of "when in your games do you actually use the ______* skill; if it is something you use regularly, then you're probably not playing D&D the way it is meant to be played."

*I'm pretty sure it was either one of the profession skills or a craft skill.