4E, as an anti-4E guy ...

[Mallus]

:4e breaks D&D players of the idea that role play outside of combat can be done with your character abilities.

You have a robust skills system and rituals. What else do you need?

You're also free to ask the DM if you can use ability X to perform action Y, which is the soul of role playing gaming as far as I'm concerned. Does every character ability need to be explicitly defined?

I'm glad you houseruled it otherwise, but houseruling is still fixes, and fixes implies something that needs to be mended.

Houseruled?

I don't consider making on-the-spot rulings (for instance, regarding a nonstandard use of a power) houseruling. It's just gaming. It's suggests nothing more than you are playing a pen-and-paper role playing game (and not a CRPG).

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you're not tactically-inclined, you probably should play something other than a combat focused tactical miniatures based RPG, like for example any edition of D&D.

Older editions were vague enough to ignore combat, and 3.5E had all sorts of tools to pretend it was something it wasn't, but at the core D&D has always been the tactical combat RPG.

Kill monsters, get xp, get treasure, repeat step 1.

Just as an aside, this is a mischaracterization of OD&D, where the goal was to get stuff, and killing monsters was very much optional (and often not as good an idea as avoiding monsters). Nor has any edition of D&D prior to 3.0 assumed the use of minis.


RC

 

[Rechan]

Recall for a moment all the threads in which 4e was labeled 'bad for role playing'. Why were people making this claim?

The reason given usually boiled down to "no/few spells usable out-of-combat, except for rituals, which are slow and cost money so they don't count". As if the vast array of out-of-combat actions a character could take to solve in-game obstacles depended on the ability to use the traditional D&D spell list. Which made sense, given that spells were usually the most decisive tool at a party's disposal.

Know what I find the most funny about this argument?

That if it's true, the only classes that can roleplay are spellcasters. If you have a party of rogues, rangers, fighters, barbarians and paladins, 3e suddenly sucks for roleplaying.

But then I've found that's pretty true of 3e; you take spells out of the equation after say, level 4, and soon it's like you're going down a mountain road on a skateboard.

 

[MadMaligor]

Just as an aside, this is a mischaracterization of OD&D, where the goal was to get stuff, and killing monsters was very much optional (and often not as good an idea as avoiding monsters). Nor has any edition of D&D prior to 3.0 assumed the use of minis.


RC

Respectfully I will disagree. Minis have always been a part of the D&D experience, from day one. In many cases it is assumed they are used, they are often mentioned in every edition, and narrative combat using miniatures as a visual has been encouraged since they sold woodies out of the backs of their cars.

I have been our groups DM since, well lets just say I have more grey hair than brown. I used minis when I had them, and when I didn't graph paper and a pencil sufficed. But combat was always tactical.

This edition emphasizes combat tactics on the grid, and surely encourages people to buy the products and minis that make things visually appealing, but nothing that is out of character for D&D.

Btw, you dont need minis in 4E. Graph paper and a pencil does just fine. It always has.

Mal

 

[Doug McCrae]

I felt out-of-combat problem solving in earlier editions was made rather less interesting by magic. It was too good, there were too many spells. Every situation that might come up, there was a spell for it. Spells were a very simple solution that stopped the PCs really having to get to grips with a problem and come up with a more complex, interesting solution.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Just as an aside, this is a mischaracterization of OD&D, where the goal was to get stuff, and killing monsters was very much optional (and often not as good an idea as avoiding monsters).

I think most people got the stuff by killing the monsters.

 

[whorobbedme]

i personaly have a problim with the way the book is writin, its so badly laid out. it took my group the first time we play'd it almost 30min to find out how to heal wounds

and then they gave out to me about the amount of hit points a kobalt has
which is a bit mad for there hit dice!

they love'd the new powers.
but still we'v gone back to 3.5 and 2nd edition

 

[Aus_Snow]

i personaly have a problim with the way the book is writin

Ouch.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

On the "tactics" aspect:

I wonder, do you not like the "tactical combat" because it involves murder and mayhem and thinking about it more than you like, or do you not like the rules aspect of this?

In the end, while D&D has tactics, they are not necessarily "realistic". No person in the real world can cast a Thunderwave or Tide of Iron at will. While some aspects are informed on real-world tactics (like the concept of flanking might be, or trying to get cover when using ranged weapons, knocking people prone and so on), a lot is based on entire game aspects. Like the idea of using a Thunderwave to move enemies to a particular spot, then playing an action point to cast a Fireball on the batch of enemies - you would probably be hard-pressed to find an equivalent in the real world tactical combat. (That might find some equivalent in strategic combat - like forcing or encouraging the enemy to move his troops to a particular spot and than carpet-bomb them or whatever...)

If you really just don't like the murdering creatures aspect (and having to think about it), a more abstract combat game (like the ones mentioned before) should be great. You would be mostly thinking in game terms.

If you don't like the "thinking lone about game terms", these games might be less great, depending on how complex they handle such issues. There can still be a strategy or tactics to something like a skill challenge. In fact I'd argue that without such tactical or strategical aspects, games are leaving a lot to be desired. At least for my taste.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Respectfully I will disagree. Minis have always been a part of the D&D experience, from day one. In many cases it is assumed they are used, they are often mentioned in every edition, and narrative combat using miniatures as a visual has been encouraged since they sold woodies out of the backs of their cars.

In no edition prior to 3.0 are minis assumed, or even strongly encouraged. I challenge you to back up that claim. Indeed, prior to 3e, you'd be hard pressed to find a play example that uses minis outside of Battlesystem. The closest you might come is a mention of devising marching orders, possibly by using minis. Nowhere is there anything close to an assumption of their use.

Indeed, it is noteworthy that Mr. Gygax didn't use them in his games.

Btw, you dont need minis in 4E. Graph paper and a pencil does just fine. It always has.

"I think it is pretty safe to say the 4e rules were designed with minis use in mind. With effort you can play with out but them but it does require a fair amount of DM hand waiving and/or behind the screen position tracking to make area effects work. This was a rules decision influenced by both a style of play that had come out of 3e and the business model that style of play created. WoTC didn't invent playing D&D with maps and minis but we certainly folded it more into the core that TSR had done."

And that's not me saying it, that's The Rouse (http://www.enworld.org/forum/4828135-post35.html).

BTW, loving 4e for what it is doesn't require believing that all editions of D&D were always what the current one is.


RC