My novella about my experience with it.
I don't like the fluff, the pantheons, the cosmology and a lot of the playable races that are in core books and monster manuals, chief being Tieflings and Dragonborn. The Points of Light setting I don't like. I've played within it and I don't like it.
Yes,
they changed it now it sucks. And are you
really objecting to the playable races in the 4e monster manuals after 3e? Seriously?
Mechanically, everything is very "balanced." Unfortunately, to get there it seems there is very much a blandness and a sameness in the system. This is particularly galling if you just start core. Everybody is roughly the same power wise, but from powers and utilities and equipment and the like they are basically the same.
Right. So a small fireball that explodes over people is the same as hitting them over the head with an axe just because you roll to hit with both. Shooting someone with a bow is the same as hypnotising them to hit someone else.
Basically the same. Right. Or do you mean that the system no longer gets in the way and you can write the mechanics of a power in a couple of lines rather than half a dozen. And a character sheet contains everything you need for the character.
Durability is up from being to end. That is good and bad. Good in that players last longer, bad in the sense that it can sometimes feel as if both players and opponents are toothless and not really threatening one another. It just seemed very difficult for a DM to do something that would put us in a "Death Is On The Line In 6 Seconds Or Less" situation. About a year's worth of playing and it was way less tense than 3.5
When did you play? They raised monster damage because they were weak. But a deliberate design decision was to change things from "Oh
. Frank just died." To "Oh
. Frank will be dead in ten seconds if we don't pull our fingers out." One of my 4e campaigns had multiple wipes (four I think) and I've killed as many PCs in a 1 year 4e campaign once/fortnight as had died in the whole of 3e for that group playing every week.
Healing surge is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Not for the fact that it exists, but for the fact that is such an all prevalent mechanic and driving focus of the game. Magical healing is much less about magical healing and MUCH MUCH MORE about doing crap with healing surges. Spend 1, spend 1 but make it count as 2, spend 1 and it heals more but it takes longer, have a friend spend one at range and if the friend hits, you can spend one, too! Do this and that and get one back! Everything is about the effing healing surges.
Special pleading. In 3e every aspect of magical healing is about doing crap with hit points. In 4e it's a mix of "first aid" hit point manipulation and "deeper problem" healing surges. Hit points themselves are a joke. You hit but are not hit and the only hit that matters is the final one. But for that to work the healing rates are seriously wonky. Healing surges are a measure of stamina and make the game play out like a holywood action film. The hero gets knocked around cut, bruised, and dazed. And seems out of it. But by the next scene the damage is seldom getting in his way. But that doesn't mean he can't take so much damage he can barely keep going - running out of surges. Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Look how battered Indy gets. Watch Die Hard. It's that aesthetic and it works. If you're going for gritty, hit point rules are a joke anyway.
Between starting Surges, Con modifiers, player abilities and equipment it is pretty easy for just one character to be spending more than a dozen of them a day.
And here you've drifted far further into the realm of special pleading. In 3.X it was pretty easy for a tank to spend more than a hundred hit points in a day - one wand of Cure Light Wounds used to cost 750GP (less if you crafted it) and contain an average of 275hp. And could be cast on the fighter until it ran out.
Another fundamental assumption? Sliding, pushing, pulling and terrain effects galore. It isn't possible to play this without a grid and miniatures and a big time consideration on where you are on a map, why you are there, and what it means. It is really healing surge and terrain driven and that just doesn't jive with me too well.
4e goes for tactical combat and does it well. If you want quick combat, avoiding 4e, 3e, and AD&D is probably wise. Basic isn't that bad. Neither is Tunnels and Trolls.
Finally, the magic sucks. It is pretty much ranged attacking with status conditions thrown on it. I'm not really quite sure what it is, but I don't consider it to be anything that has represented magic in about 30+ years of Dungeons and Dragons and d20 magic.
That hass something to do with Dungeons and Dragons magic not being representative of anything except Dungeons and Dragons magic. For all AD&D magic calls itself "Vancian", 4e magic is closer to the Tales of the Dying Earth. Wizards have only half a dozen spells at once at most. (Most 1st level 3e wizards can manage this). And get by with general competence, strength, stamina, and skill. Famous mages like Merlin and Gandalf were bards in D&D terms (literally in Merlin's case), using skill, lore, and trickery as much or more than raw magical power. And when facing the Balrog Gandalf drew his sword, not blasted it.
Yes, it's a break from classic D&D casting. But it's one that lines up with Jack Vance, lines up with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, lines up with Conan, and lines up with Lord of the Rings. The Wizard class that is all about spellcasting is pretty much a creation of D&D.
Remember, you aren't a spell caster. You are a "controller."
And here you're talking complete nonsense. Not all controllers are spellcasters - a Hunter Ranger is a controller and does it with clever shooting from his bow. And even if that wasn't the case, you are a spellcaster. You cast spells. You might as well say "You aren't driving a Harley. You are a 'motorcyclist'." And imply that the two are mutually exclusive.
Controller indicates what the character is meant to do. But says nothing about how.
This dovetails into the stupid roles stuff which seems taken straight from MMORPGS and is not similar to the old D&D experience for me.
Because the roles of Fighting man/Cleric/Magic User/Thief
started with MMORPGs and aren't at all similar to anything in D&D. And the only role to have significantly changed between the classic Fighting man/Cleric/Magic User/Thief and the 4e categories of Defender/Leader/Controller/Striker is that of the Thief. (2e called the roles Warrior/Wizard/Priest/Rogue on page 25 of the PHB.
No, this grouping that has no direct effect on play is not at all like anything in older editions of D&D, no sir!
The rituals are terrible as well.
Closer to the source fiction. The Grey Mouser is a thief with the Ritual Caster feat. He just works that way in a way he doesn't in older editions. But this is the closest thing you've had to a point I can't rebut trivially.
