• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

3E & 4E Love and Hate Polls - What does it mean?


log in or register to remove this ad




Either way, you may call it a crutch and hide behind the "good DM doesn't need it"-argument (which sounds to me as yet another poorly disguised attack on those who like 4e), but the fact is that the racial powers and abilities given to the monstrous humanoid races in 4e make them very different in combat. Orcs are truly harder to kill, kobolds shifts around, never staying in one place, goblins are cowardly, moving away from you whenever possible, gnolls gang up on you to rip you apart, hobgoblins work in concert, protecting each other. They play differently for the first time since '74. When it comes to fluff, well, the fluff that has been made over the years still exists, so your 4e campaign needs not to be lacking any.

I have to strongly agree with this. All of the humanoids in 3x were skinned as members of the Warrior class with an attribute bonus and a different feat here or there...which usually amounted to "do I choose toughness or alertness."

Have just done some encounters with orcs, gnolls and duergar, I can tell you that they really feel like different creatures in 4E. After a few encounters my group started to approach the different creatures using different tactics as were appropriate.

I have to seriously scratch my head that monster design was such a strong part of 3X, because it was so easy to get totally wrong. Big monster? Well it needs to have a lot of hit dice, which will also give it a lot of skill points and feats...even where that's completely inappropriate. Lots of feats? Well, why not just stock up on toughness...that will certainly make for an interesting battle!

Consider me boggled at the whole thing...

--Steve
 

I have to strongly agree with this. All of the humanoids in 3x were skinned as members of the Warrior class with an attribute bonus and a different feat here or there...which usually amounted to "do I choose toughness or alertness."

Have just done some encounters with orcs, gnolls and duergar, I can tell you that they really feel like different creatures in 4E. After a few encounters my group started to approach the different creatures using different tactics as were appropriate.

I have to seriously scratch my head that monster design was such a strong part of 3X, because it was so easy to get totally wrong. Big monster? Well it needs to have a lot of hit dice, which will also give it a lot of skill points and feats...even where that's completely inappropriate. Lots of feats? Well, why not just stock up on toughness...that will certainly make for an interesting battle!

Consider me boggled at the whole thing...

Your comment about feeling like you are fighting reskinned fighters really sums up the way I felt about various monstrous humanoids. It's true that that the 4E entry skimps in some details such as that Orcs use the ownership of females to display their status and what the percentage of roles are part of a general group of Orcs, but are those deal-breakers?

4E certainly makes the fights feel different (more so than ever I'd say) and the fluff still shows their organization (or lack thereof), religion, "tactics", values, associations, habitats, technological level, government, a few other random cultural traits, and 7 varieties of Orcs in the MM 1 to give examples of them in various roles.
 





Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top