D&D 3E/3.5 3e -> 4e: Have we lost options?

[Tony Vargas]

Add "No alignment restrictions" to "Things Gained".

I think you mean add "Lawful Nuetral" and "Chaotic Nuetral" to 'things lost. Chaotic Evil and Lawful Good are still there, afterall, and 'non-aligned' was always an option, 'balance' was only one, more phislosphical, aproach to nuetrality.

Actualy, NG and NE aren't exactly well-represented. 4e 'Evil' is prettymuch LE, and 4e 'Good' is CG-ish, at least.

 

[Sashi]

Alignment now lies completely outside of game mechanics. No class does (or ever will) require you to be a certain alignment, and nobody will ever again have "smite evil" (i.e. "smite who my DM wants me to smite").

We won't have the weirdness of lawful (and only lawful) monks, nonlawful barbarians, etc.

 

[SSquirrel]

I lost the option to hate my time spent at the game table. YAY!

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK, I was just talking options, but chalk up 'good and evil as a palpable force in the fantasy world' as another thing lost. And the moorcockian Law-Chaos thing, too. As much as many people hated morality having teeth, it's a high fantasy staple that there are aboslute versions of good and evil out there, and magic interacts with them.

 

[jeffh]

What has being abusable to do with it (not that 3E non combat spells were abuseable)?

Yeah, 'cause no-one ever thought of combining Scry and Teleport, or getting spells way above their level via Planar Ally, or making arbitrarily large amounts of money via Wall of Iron...

How many rituals are there? 30? How many spells were lost? Certainly more than that.

How many spells that people actually used were lost? Some, certainly, but nowhere near as many as you're trying to make it sound like.

Rituals are not things which were added in 4E. They are thing which were not removed from 3E.

From the point of view of a fighter or rogue, they sure look like a net gain.

 

[Rechan]

Alignment now lies completely outside of game mechanics. No class does (or ever will) require you to be a certain alignment, and nobody will ever again have "smite evil" (i.e. "smite who my DM wants me to smite").

We won't have the weirdness of lawful (and only lawful) monks, nonlawful barbarians, etc.

That's what I meant, yes.

 

[Rechan]

OK, I was just talking options, but chalk up 'good and evil as a palpable force in the fantasy world' as another thing lost.

That's a campaign matter, not a rules matter.

You don't need "detect alignment" to have a feeling of "We're good, they're evil". You don't need mechanics to say the cultists are going to sacrifice babies to demons, and turn Happytown into an Abyssal playground.

 

[Unkabear]

I'm pretty sure there was/is a Warlock on Complete Arcane, as I'm pretty sure lot's of people are/were familiar and favorable to the Action Points.

This discussion is kinda pointless as they are now completely different games and comparing one to another will achieve you nothing.

I agree, I consider the difference between 4e & 3e much like I consider the differences between 3e & mutants and masterminds. They are different games that allow you to do different things. If I want to play a high fantasy adventure using M&M I certainly could, and just like 3e & M&M, 4e plays differently.

This is not a bad thing at all, it is just different. What did I lose or gain? I did not lose anything because I still have a group that plays 3e, and I have gained a new system that I will play with another group. And do I really need any more splat for 3e? I am not sure how much more they could have given me that I would have swallowed. I stopped purchasing 3e books because I had what I needed long before 4e was announced.

So to answer the original question, I did not lose a thing, but gained much. Now if I had to convert a 3e character over to 4e? That would be different, so I am grateful that my groups have not forced me to attempt such a thing.

 

[AkaKageWarrior]

Thanks guys!

I like the tables (copy and e-mail to friends...).
I would emphasize the gain of options for martial characters through powers.


And actually sorry for another "4e-options"-thread.

AKW

 

[Gladius Legis]

Let's see:

8 races
x 8 classes
x C(4, 2) = 6 combinations of at-will powers per class.

= 384 combinations JUST involving those three factors.

Obviously, add in the number of feats, encounter and daily powers, paragon paths and combinations thereof, the fact humans can select three at-wills, etc. and that number becomes much larger.

Yeah, I'd say 4e is doing okay in the options department.