4E - 18 Months Later: Love it or hate it?

[ProfessorCirno]

Mixed bag.

Also, christ, are we still at a point where we have to defend the game because someone doesn't like it? Accept or ignore his criticisms and move on. You don't have to attack the poor guy because his interests differ from yours.

 

[Rel]

Guys, I knew when I saw the title that this was going to be an edition-war thread. Let's keep it more of a cold-war style war, ok?

 

[Kafen]

Nooooooooo. . . I mean skills like Arcana, Bluff, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Insight, Intimidate, Nature, Perception, Religion, Stealth, Streetwise, and Thievery. All of these are entirely unrelated to combat. So, to recap, the D&D 4e core rules have an entire skill system with rules for resolving numerous non-combat actions and encounters, while the AD&D 1e have nothing of the sort outside of skills for Thieves. It's fine to say that you don't like D&D 4e but, really — when you start ignoring very easily established facts about how the system actually works in an attempt to justify that dislike to others, you should be ready for people to call you on it.

I will point you to the 3.5 rules for the same things in order to rebute your point which states that the old systems do not have those things. I mentioned 1e as one example. Heck, even 2e has more rules for such things. *shrug*

The real difference - and my main point - is that 4e forces you into encounters which is its primary combat system just to do simple things like jumping, healing, and whatnot. That is where it makes the old adventure modules virtually impossible to play as even something as simple jumping over a mud puddle becomes a combat event. And, I did not start DND to play a turn based game. In 3.5, you can ignore the rules for skills that define themselves by combat actions because the system is not based on encounter powers. In 4e, you can NOT ignore the action system because the encounter system ( combat system) demands that you account for combat powers during encounters. 1e is my fave where you dump the skill system altogether, but that's on the far end of the scale.

 

[jdrakeh]

Mixed bag.

Also, christ, are we still at a point where we have to defend the game because someone doesn't like it? Accept or ignore his criticisms and move on. You don't have to attack the poor guy because his interests differ from yours.

Well, for the record, I haven't attacked the poster. I have attacked the argument that D&D 4e has no rules for resolving non-combat actions. This argument is not based in the realm of fact. The game clearly does contain rules for resolving non-combat actions. In point of fact, there's a whole chapter dedicated to those rules. I don't think that pointing this out when somebody claims otherwise is too over the top.

 

[Dannager]

I will point you to the 3.5 rules for the same things in order to rebute your point which states that the old systems do not have those things. I mentioned 1e as one example. Heck, even 2e has more rules for such things. *shrug*

The real difference - and my main point - is that 4e forces you into encounters which is its primary combat system just to do simple things like jumping, healing, and whatnot. That is where it makes the old adventure modules virtually impossible to play as even something as simple jumping over a mud puddle becomes a combat event. And, I did not start DND to play a turn based game. In 3.5, you can ignore the rules for skills that define themselves by combat actions because the system is not based on encounter powers. In 4e, you can NOT ignore the action system because the encounter system ( combat system) demands that you account for combat powers during encounters. 1e is my fave where you dump the skill system altogether, but that's on the far end of the scale.

I think you have some very important, very basic misconceptions about how 4e works. Pretty much your entire second paragraph here is false wherever it tries to describe 4e.

 

[El_Gringo]

I went with mixed bag. I like the uniformity of rules and ease of play. I also like the Points of Light setting and would definitely pick it up if released as a campaign setting. That said, I dislike the creativity rut of the powers. It's easier to pick a power to use rather than improvise. I think pg. 42 from the DMG should have been implanted into the PHB somewhere to remind players that their characters are capable of more things than just their skills, feats, and powers. Then again, I play with a group that tends to favor systems like FATE so that isn't too much of an issue.

 

[rjdafoe]

Or maybe, just maybe, some of us who don't like it have actually played it
a lot and have what we consider quite good reasons for disliking it.

It would start an edition war if I were to enumerate the reasons that I dislike the game (dislike, not hate, btw). But there are many reasons and they come from actual experience.

"Most people that vote I hate it, probably have not played it since trying it 18 months or so ago..."

I think you should re-read the part where I said people have tried it and did not like it and never revisted it. There are also people that read it and never played the game. Neither one is insulting at all.

 

[Dannager]

Mixed bag.

Also, christ, are we still at a point where we have to defend the game because someone doesn't like it? Accept or ignore his criticisms and move on. You don't have to attack the poor guy because his interests differ from yours.

Look, this is a thread on a popular internet messageboard. It is not at all improbable that someone who doesn't have much experience with the game will come by and read this thread to see what people think of it a year-and-a-half later. If that person comes by and reads a thread full of "4e will eat your future children!" presented as fact (obviously hyperbole here), they will come away from this thread with a very negative impression of how the game has evolved. Setting the record straight by saying "No, 4e won't eat your future children, that's ridiculous," allows this hypothetical individual to get a more accurate sense of what the game is now like.

Calling a falsehood a falsehood is a good thing.

 

[Kafen]

I think you have some very important, very basic misconceptions about how 4e works. Pretty much your entire second paragraph here is false wherever it tries to describe 4e.

I would ask you to look up Heal as a skill - what type of action is it? If you meet a GM willing to let you use that kind of rule out of an encounter cycle, I will show you a doomed campaign in the making once those players are able to use the high level powers and actions "out of combat".

EDIT: It is one of the basic weakness in most "recharge" style magic/event systems. Once you let players leave the mechanical cycle in the name of "being creative", the system breaks down in the balance of power. So yeah, the only falsehood here is that the 4e system retains its integrity outside of the encounter cycle.

 

[jdrakeh]

I will point you to the 3.5 rules for the same things in order to rebute your point which states that the old systems do not have those things.

You're refuting a point that I never made. I did not state that 3.5 (or 3.0) lacked rules for non-combat action resolution. I specifically referred to OD&D/AD&D 1e, since you explicitly held those editions up as supporting non-combat action resolution better than 4e, despite the fact that 4e has rules for non-combat action resolution and those systems don't (aside from Thief skills).

Heck, even 2e has more rules for such things. *shrug*

2e has exactly five pages of rules governing proficiencies in the PHB. Two of those pages deal entirely with weapon (i.e., combat) proficiencies. Compare this to the 11 pages of non-combat skills present in D&D 4e's PHB. D&D 4e edges out the 2e rules for such things by six whole pages.

The real difference - and my main point - is that 4e forces you into encounters which is its primary combat system just to do simple things like jumping, healing, and whatnot. That is where it makes the old adventure modules virtually impossible to play as even something as simple jumping over a mud puddle becomes a combat event.

All of that is simply not true. At this point, I'm inclined to believe that you haven't actually read the 4e PHB, as that isn't at all what the rules actually say.