4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[AbdulAlhazred]

Except for badly written or edited publications, I've enjoyed 4th Ed. The thing that has bothered me most has been the uneven release of materials. We have Dragonborn and Tiefling splatbooks, but nothing for other races. They kept releasing books with new races and classes, but half the time (esp Heroes of Shadow) failed to ever support them with magic items, feats, or other build options (unless you cough up for the DDI subscription, and then a lot of the material is fan submission rather than WotC). They kept throwing out new power sources, and then pretty much abandoning them for yet newer ones rather than supporting/fixing what was already 1/2 donkey'edly done.

And as far as converting characters from one edition to another, WHY? Why would you even try? This is a new game. Make a new character. Make a new story. 4th Ed was such a drastic change (and improvement) over the previous mechanics for balancing classes and evening them out, that trying to port something else that wasn't even designed to fit is like getting upset when the square peg won't fit into the round hole.

Well, we goth enjoyed it. Honestly I didn't find the 4e materials all that uneven at all. My comparison is mostly 1e and 2e stuff, which could be all over the map quality-wise, and not 3.5, so maybe there was a pinnacle of quality that I missed in there (doubtful but still). The whole idea with 4e WAS to get DDI if you wanted to go deeper. DDI (Dungeon and Dragon articles) actually is QUITE high quality, equal in every way to the books generally. It may be "fan submitted" to some limited extent, but if you submitted article pitches you RAPIDLY discovered they were VERY VERY picky and from people like Claudio Pozas (Klaus) posting here often it is pretty apparent that they demanded high quality output and the material went through the same editorial process as all the printed stuff did.

They didn't keep throwing out new things. In fact the PHB1 lists all the power sources that would ever exist in the game. If anything they CUT BACK by removing the concept of a 'ki' source and relegating the Shadow (and somewhat the Primordial/Elemental) power sources to secondary status. I know a lot of people are all down on Heroes of Shadow, but I thought it was highly flavorful and quite cool. It wasn't "half-donkeyed" at all, except maybe the Binder. Shadow PCs and Elemental PCs have somewhat less support, sure, but they have as much as other classes had a year in. I don't think it is fair to call that material bad because WotC has the (IMHO bad) idea to stop supplying support for 4e entirely. I'd just point out that they also had every plan to make splat books to support the other classes and more race books, etc, but apparently they weren't lucrative enough, so I'd guess people weren't that interested. PERSONALLY I thought the race books were reaching. The other stuff however was all pretty good. Nothing is flawless but I thought overall the quality of material put out for 4e was and is excellent. The production values are certainly uniformly high, etc.

If there's a blot on that it was the HPE series of modules. They suited the nature of the game poorly for the most part. There were some nice ideas in some of them and I know people that built fun adventures out of them, but out of the book they were mostly pretty dismal play experiences that tried to shoehorn a largely dungeon-crawling mode of play into a game that as Pemerton has explained is much better suited to a different style.

 

[B.T.]

Robin Hood is probably a rogue / fighter, not a ranger. Alternatively, he could be a low-level ranger who doesn't yet have access to magic or an animal companion. He has favored enemy (aristocracy).

 

[Balesir]

Robin Hood is probably a rogue / fighter, not a ranger. Alternatively, he could be a low-level ranger who doesn't yet have access to magic or an animal companion. He has favored enemy (aristocracy).

Actually, depending on the version of the tales you listen to, he was an aristocrat (landed knight whose manor was confiscated/tricked out from under him). I could make a good argument that an upbringing as a knightly lord would fit him very well for the role: plenty of training to fight (as a knight), decent social skills (as a knight) and skills in the massively popular pastime of hunting in the greenwood (as a knight)...

Then he might plausibly have risen to popularity/fame because of an imaginative but fundamentally flawed response to the limitations upon Royal administration with medieval technologies - life is so often stranger than fiction!

 

[D'karr]

The other stuff however was all pretty good. Nothing is flawless but I thought overall the quality of material put out for 4e was and is excellent. The production values are certainly uniformly high, etc.

I agree, in past editions I've bought a lot of books that I ended up considering turkeys based solely on their content. Usually I've never had complaints about the quality of the physical books, just the content. With 4e I have a complete collection of books, and from a content basis I'm extremely pleased. The only books I would have complaints with are the "equipment" books, but that is not for quality or content. It's because I had complaints with the way magic items were "designed" for 4e, MME excluded. That became a minor issue in the end as I reworked the way magic works for my campaign.

Books like Underdark, Open Grave, Plane Above, and Plane Below, were so full of "cool" content that I wanted to see more, even if I was not using it all. Heroes of the Feywild was a high water mark, IMO. I loved the ideas in that book, and I would have been very excited to see much more content in books like that. Heroes of Shadow is still good, it just had some weak options, and the flavor was too limited. I would have liked to get much more "shadow flavor", if not mechanics.

If there's a blot on that it was the HPE series of modules. They suited the nature of the game poorly for the most part. There were some nice ideas in some of them and I know people that built fun adventures out of them, but out of the book they were mostly pretty dismal play experiences that tried to shoehorn a largely dungeon-crawling mode of play into a game that as Pemerton has explained is much better suited to a different style.

I think it became clear to me, that the HPE series was built with a dungeon crawling D&D paradigm, and they poorly highlighted 4e for what 4e does very well. One of the biggest problems, IMO, was the use of the Dungeon Delve format for each encounter. This format "ate up" so much real estate on the page that a lot of "other" cool things could not compete for space. A 32 page adventure in that format would have a 2 page spread for each encounter, and a lot of space was used for combat. It made it look like the adventure was only combat. A bad perception, and one that has unfortunately stuck with those that are not familiar with the system now. My campaign has so much more than combat, but looking at a published adventure from that "era" you'd think that the only thing 4e could do was combat.

Interestingly enough the adventures that came out as part of "essentials" were so much better, in comparison. I think by the time essentials came out the designers where comfortable enough with the system, understood all aspects of it, and had gotten out of the dungeon crawling paradigm. Gardmore Abbey, Orcs of Stonefang, and Harkenwold definitely do a lot more than simply dungeon crawling and combat.

 

[Bluenose]

Actually, depending on the version of the tales you listen to, he was an aristocrat (landed knight whose manor was confiscated/tricked out from under him). I could make a good argument that an upbringing as a knightly lord would fit him very well for the role: plenty of training to fight (as a knight), decent social skills (as a knight) and skills in the massively popular pastime of hunting in the greenwood (as a knight)...

Remind me, how many skill points does a 3e Fighter have, and which of the above are class skills for them? I accept that AD&D is a very different matter,

 

[sabrinathecat]

HoS has wonderful fluff, but poor mechanics. It introduced 3 races, but only gave feat support to 1 of them. Plus it tried to be both Essentials and 4e (no, they are not the same thing).
Where is the feat support for the monster races allowed as PCs in the Monster Manual?
Rather than putting out new races in each book (Shardmind? where did that come from?) I would much rather they put more into what they had.
2nd ed had books for each class, and then for the races. And for the most part they sold well. Yeah, the Priests' Handbook was a little lame, unless you were planning on building your own pantheon. The fighter's and rogues' books were great.
I'm old fashioned. I expect my books to be printed, and I expect the content to be right the First Time, and not to need constant errata. Nor should I need to pay for a subscription in order to get the information on updates and the character builder program. Print the book. I'll flip through it at the store and decide whether or not I want to buy it.

Isn't there a theme or background for the disgraced noble or fallen noble that would suit Robin Hood?

 

[D'karr]

Isn't there a theme or background for the disgraced noble or fallen noble that would suit Robin Hood?

There are several themes (noble, disgraced noble, neverwinter noble, and even outlaw) that I could see applying to the "thematic" Robin Hood. There are also several backgrounds that would be very complimentary (disgraced noble, local hero, parentage - noble, noble bred for war, and noble scion). One of the great things about themes and backgrounds is that they added breadth to a PC without severely impacting power level.

 

[Obryn]

Plus it tried to be both Essentials and 4e (no, they are not the same thing)

[citation needed]

-O

 

[S'mon]

Why would you be switching? You're making an archer paladin - no different than any other archer type character. So, just like any other archer type character, you have a bow in hand. And, yup, your OA's suck. Again, just like every other archer based character. Not sure why this doesn't work.

Well using a bow you won't be a very good Defender, will you? You'll be a weak Striker.

 

[Sunseeker]

[citation needed]

-O

I agree that he needs some sort of evidence to claim that 4e and Essentials are not the same thing. The variance between them is minor, Essentials improves a few flaws of 4e, but does not, on the whole, significantly alter the product to make the two incompatible. It presents a slightly different design perspective for some already-presented parts(races and classes) but is more a variance than a completely new thing.

But he's right that HoS tried to be a little bit of both, the structure of the included material, the way classes and races are presented, but it game in a more traditional 4e packaging. I don't think there's anything wrong with that really.