Anyway, things I like about 4e (despite not being a fan):
- Explicit class roles. <snip>
- p. 42. <snip>
- The encounter design methods, and the solo/elite/normal/minion split. <snip>
- Differing levels of monsters in the MM <snip>
- Skill Challenges, or at least they would be if they ever fixed the math. <snip>
Unfortunately, these are counterbalanced by a number of things I don't like, and a handful of things I really dislike, but this isn't the thread for those.
Skill challenges seem to get a lot of flak! I think some thread here was talking about a comment made about the DMGII having different rules for skill challenges. Here's to hoping!
I'm also curious about the new classes in PHBII and how they work and what areas they cover differently compared to the classes in PHBI.
No, it's really not the same thing as saying "I love it with every part of my body" or even "it's the best thing, evah", which could be interpreted as "for me, it's the best dnd/rpg yet".
Even if that number wasn't meant literally, it's implying that an overwhelming majority of posters here loves the game and ignoring the many posts critical of 4e. Or, like others said, just flamebait.
Perhaps you're right. Like I said, I just took it differently. Why would someone use 4E+ flamebait in a 4E+ thread though? Isn't that "preaching to the choir"? If I understand you correctly, it would seem that a person who views 4E positively wants to cause flame wars in a 4E positive thread by deliberately giving a percentage that is obviously bogus? I don't fully understand this.
My list is pretty close to yours.
I may not agree on #5, though. I think tiers are an great improvement over prestige classes which were somewhat messy, but i hate how restrictive multiclassing has become.
As for #9, I like that spellcasters are more focused and balanced at low and high levels. I just whish spells hadn't been reduced to damage and movement effects.
I totally agree with you on both these points. Perhaps there will be some future supplement that offers a little more versatility in both of these areas.
So far I'm inclined to change all my games from 3.5 to 4E.
Things I dislike:
- Lack of out of combat magic for Wizards.
- Solid fluff explanation(s) for Healing Surges.
- Cartoon network art, anatomy is gone.
Hm; the 'out of combat magic' thing seems to be something many of us would like more of. You're talking about divination, enchantment stuff?
The art is a mixed blessing...and i'll leave it at that.
Glad to hear you've found a lot to like in 4E!
I am hopeful for Dark Sun. the rules system might work for Dark Sun, and they wouldn't have to shoehorn the rules into the campaign setting like they tried to do with the Forgotten Realms.
I am hopeful for very little with 4th edition. there are plenty of rules systems out there. I am sure True20, or HERO can do modern or Post apocalyptic much better than 4th edition. Wraith Recon already covers the modern from what I hear. just replace guns with crossbows. The anachronistic setting is already published.
I do think 4th edition might be a good set of rules for Dark Sun, perhaps if they release Dark Sun I would be inclined to visit 4th edition again. At the very least, I would look at Dark Sun to convert to another system like HERO if 4th edition gets worse than it is.
I played 4th edition for 3 months. I could find very little other than skill challenges and action points that I liked.
Well, here's hoping Dark Sun knocks your socks off [and mine too].
I had decided before release that if 4E wasn't 4 me, I was going to True20. I've got both 4E and True20 now, and will be keeping both. I like different things about each of them.
HERO just scares me
I had some spelljammer stuff too, but never played it much. I'm torn between wanting WotC to release something, and not wanting to wait until 2010 at the earliest, and likely much longer.
I feel the same way, but if they ramp up releases, i'll have to be more selective than I prefer when it comes to 'what do I do with my disposable income?'. The reason that I only had a smattering of various things from 2E was because tsr's release schedule was not something I could keep up with.
Oddly enough, that is one of the things that I've found a lot of 4Ed non-adopters like myself say is a problem: We'd have tried to do so if the game were more easily convertible.
In point of fact, the ease of conversion from 1Ed to 2Ed, and from 2Ed to 3Ed was one of the reasons I and the players I game with so quickly adopted the newer editions (99% conversions within 3 months for each previous revision).
4Ed, OTOH, was different enough that- not only were there press releases saying we'd be better off not converting but instead starting anew- persons like myself who tried going through at least the mental exercise of attempting to do so were amazed that the press releases were dead on.
Simply put, a lot of us didn't want to start over- that was a burning hoop we weren't going to jump through. It wasn't that we were blissfully enamored of 3Ed's mechanics, per se, but rather that that we didn't want to ditch our campaigns or wait a year or more to get all of the books required to overhaul an old campaign to 4Ed. "Ditch or retcon" just wasn't an option for many of us.
I hope that when 5Ed rolls around that the designers keep this in mind, and make that edition's transition easy from either 4Ed, previous editions, or both. (IOW, either don't change the rules so radically OR come up with some kind of conversion manual.)
I'm gonna vote "give us a conversion manual".
I think you did the right thing by keeping with your current campaign; it's what we did at 4E's release. Various things in real life conspired against us playing however...
I think 3.x and 4E are different games, and prefer it that way. Both have their good points. I would have been more upset if 4E hadn't changed a lot from 3.x.
