1E and 4E are similar? Really? (Forked from: 1E Resurgence?)

[Henry]

1E is looking good to me as it is a dead system. Beyond fan support at sites like Dragonsfoot there are no new books to buy and the ones that were published may be picked up for cheap on ebay.

In the "1E Resurgence" thread, it was mentioned that there does seem to be an increased presence of "retro-games" that either mimic or closely resemble AD&D in style and function, and while I wouldn't call it "rapidly expanding" I wouldn't say "dead" either. AD&D the brand might be unsupported and "dead", but products that can be used with it are increasingly present. Personally, I would hope OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord might become a banner to rally around, but sadly, differences of opinion on them mean that instead of one game is rallied around, it's a group of them that are rallied around, collectively.

To me, that's not a move to being 1e like. It might have matched its intent, but not actual play.

I can see your points, for sure, it's just a difference of opinion how much these make the latter look like the former. But I will say:

And yet, the 1e PHB gives me lovely little oddities like spetums and ranseurs, and bohemian ear-spoons.

Oh, come now! Those were real polearms, used by real combatants! Unlike swords filled with mercury, or 4-foot long swords with balls and chains on their pommels, or a stick with a length of chain on each end, etc. I do like the effect, myself, of levels of proficiency with exotic weapons with increasing numbers of feats spent on them. Kind of like... Weapon Proficiency slots from 1st edition.

A common, run-of-the-mill fight in 1e is where you'll have seven players, their eleven henchmen and six summoned monsters on one side and thirty ogres, a dozen worgs and a shaman on the other, and statistically, the ogres'll flee or surrender after taking 25% losses.

Remember the last time a fight worked out like that in 4e?

No, neither does anyone else.

I have seen a fight HALF like that, with the DM running a butt-load of enemies with minimal trouble. I do think that 4E has a fear of allowing players to have more than one action in a turn, and I can't tell if that's a good or bad thing yet. I must say I never liked it in 1E either when you had more people in a party than you actually had players, for the exact same reason, but I do know that henchman to round out a party and act as "red shirts and canaries" has been a long-standing tradition in D&D. I might start letting my 4E parties get hireling minions to travel with them...

You tell me it is, which is fair enough. I'll resist the urge to ask what a "skill challenge" is because actually, I don't want to know... but it does sound as if the player is deciding whether to test one of their skills to see if the monster flees.

In other words, it's not the DM deciding what the monsters will do. The players are controlling that. Am I right?

Not quite - skill challenge is more like "best 3 out of 5 rolls" towards a multi-step challenge. It does take away the "challenge the player, not the character" aspect of older D&D, though, and this is one way that 4E verges largely in philosophy with 1E -- same way as 3E verges from it, really, it's just a refinement of what was started in 3E, which was another deal-breaker for a lot of 1E fans, and has been discussed ad inifitem in other threads.

To me, it seems that things like Intimidation Skill checks aren't really that different from AD&D's morale checks, it's just more player influenced than D&D's straight up percentile morale checks were. However, when I was growing up I saw very few DMs ever use morale checks of any sort - they just decided if the monsters would fight or flee (in our younger days, it was mostly "fight to the death!!!")

 

[Jhaelen]

That is nothing like a 1e fight. In no one ever used hirelings or henchmen, because everyone ran 4 PCs at once.

No one ever summoned monsters because if a spell doesn't deal direct damage or heal the fighter, it's not worth casting.

And monsters never, ever run away. The DM doesn't care about any of them, so why should he protect them?

What? That's not how you played 1e?

Funny, because we never played 1e the way PapersAndPaychecks described it but we also never played the way you describe it

It doesn't really surprise me, though. Whenever I met another (A)D&D player at my FLGS and we told each other of our experiences there was almost never a point we could agree on. Obviously everyone played their own version of (A)D&D.

What I clearly remember is an incredible amount of house-rules when we finally stopped playing 1e. It was enough to fill a large binder to the point of bursting.

 

[Korgoth]

Probably the main difference for me, setting aside all the other stuff that has been brought up, is the Laser Beams. Spellcasters appear to be dudes that shoot laser beams at monsters.

And not just the wizard, who at 1st level is like the mighty Tim. No, even the cleric shoots laser beams... every round.

Maybe it's just a failure of my imagination. I'll cop to that. I just can't imagine a world where a cleric can repeatedly shoot laser beam after laser beam. That's the one part of 4E that really does, all hyperbole aside, seem like World of Warcraft. It seriously does.

 

[Fifth Element]

Maybe it's just a failure of my imagination. I'll cop to that. I just can't imagine a world where a cleric can repeatedly shoot laser beam after laser beam.

It might be partly that, but I will say that the changes to the cleric are probably my least favourite things about 4E. At least I believe they are, we'll see after I've played it a bit.

I understand the game reasons for the damage-plus-effect nature of cleric powers, but I do think that the dividing line between arcane magic and divine magic, which was already fairly thin, is much less visible now.

 

[garyh]

The implied setting is NOTHING LIKE classic D&D, with it's dragonborn warlords claptrap. That alone means 4E bombs spectacularly in terms of feeling like classic D&D. It's that big a deal IMO, and a problem that no splitting hairs over mechanics trivia can help.

I'm sure by now everyone knows how you feel about dragonborn, tieflings, eladrin, and warlords, rounser.

I'm curious, though - I don't think I've seen you complain about warlocks. Are those actually somehow "D&D" to you?

 

[Mallus]

I just can't imagine a world where a cleric can repeatedly shoot laser beam after laser beam.

Imagine that 4e clerics are engaged in spiritual warfare, going into battle with the aid of invisible angels whose touch weakens their enemies bodies/spirits. Presto, no more godlasers!

(you can further imagine powers like Righteous Brand as aforementioned angels inscribing a reverse Mark of Cain into opponents heads)

 

[Psion]

Oh, come now! Those were real polearms, used by real combatants!

Indeed. Point being that I see the lack of exotic but real weapons just as much of a distinction as lack of a selection of exotic but fake ones.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Hmm. We get this quite a bit. "I've never played 4E, but I have some strong opinions about it."

I've never been to parliament, but I have opinions about politics. I've never been to Iceland or invested in an Icelandic bank, but I have opinions about its economy.

You do realize this is a completely superficial distinction?

Fantasy gaming is superficial. Nothing about any of this is exactly profound!

We're talking about a personal preference here.

By my understanding, no, you're not right. Maybe in the same sense as a 1E character casting charm person or suggestion on an opponent.

Sure. 1e characters can affect what other creatures do; the scare or fear spells are even more directly analagous. But for me, magic has a license to break the suspension of disbelief in a way that skills don't.

1e characters can also affect what other creatures do by means of skills; move silently is analagous. But I can accept that stealth is a learned skill, while I struggle to believe that scaring away enemies on the battlefield is something you can really learn.

I feel as if it's the DM's role to make decisions for non-player characters.

 

[johnmarron]

Before I started playing 4E, the last time I played any D&D was 1E in 1982. I don't have any specific similarities to comment on (hell, it' s been 25 years, I can barely remember the rules from 1E), but for me personally, 4E feels very much like the fulfillment of the potential I saw in 1E. It's the game I wanted AD&D to be back when I was playing it (probably due to 4E's "big Time Hero" PCs and cinematic feel).

John

 

[Fifth Element]

Fantasy gaming is superficial. Nothing about any of this is exactly profound!

We're talking about a personal preference here.

Yes, but in that sense there are degrees of superficiality. For example, the 4E powers system is a relatively unsuperficial difference between 1E and 4E, because it is so crucial to 4E's system.

"Count up" instead of "count down" is extremely superficial.