D&D 4E 4E Liker - anything you worry about?

[Grossout]

The need for the battlegrid. My group plays 3e without a battle map. We mostly get by fine, letting the DM adjudicate flanking, AoOs and so forth. It speeds things up quite a bit. I'm concerned that so many powers and abilities in 4e make reference to the grid that it will become almost impossible to get by with only a 'mental map'.

QFT
The battlegrid is easily what worries me most about 4E. A lot of why I skipped 3E was because I thought it was a little too mini-centered. Now 4E seems to be taking it a step further, which is a shame, because I like a lot of what it seems to offer.

Even Massawyrm's 4E review on aintitcool mentions this problem - and it's practically the only negative he says in the whole 3 part review:
"Which leads to the one glaring problem some folks will have with 4E. It is very dependant upon maps, terrain and miniatures. That’s great for guys like me with a closet full of toys. But for others, especially those who like to play much more esoteric games all through discussion rather than using maps and positioning – they’re going to find it a lot harder to covert over to that style of play than 3.5. Most abilities and classes are built around their existence on a map grid. And a lot of the abilities just don’t translate to the abstract. I’m not certain why percentage of players out there still play this way – but they’re going to have the strongest argument against converting to 4E."

Ugh! I would have rather seen ANY other flaw represented. Oh well, still looks like a good game. I'll see if I can handle the grid focus come June.

 

[FireLance]

My main worry for now is how flexible multiclassing will be.

Minor annoyances like the 1-1-1-1 diagonal system should be trivially easy to house-rule.

I also wonder whether there will be scope to gain additional or alternate class features beyond 1st level, perhaps by selecting powers that are "always on". Again, if there are no such powers, it may be possible to create them. For example, perhaps Divine Grace could be a 2nd-level paladin power that provided a constant +1 power bonus to saving throws.

 

[mhensley]

Minor Fear: Lack of the mundane. The fantastic is only fun if there is something to balance it out. Fighters et al resorted to swing a sword most rounds, but it made their extraordinary powers seem real, and of course set magic spectacularly apart. If every attack is 'special' none of them truly are.

This.

When first level characters can teleport at will, I get afraid. Very afraid.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Here's where I share and don't share your concerns:

One thing that has been bugging me lately is the utter lack of fluff text for monsters. There is no ecology information at all, no text on the habits and tactics of the creatures, their outlooks, histories, or organizations. Just "Chuuls live in grottoes! **crunch crunch crunch crunch**"

I appreciate the idea that you can fill in your own fluff, but where are the adventure hooks? Where is the fluff I don't have to write because someone already did? I kept hearing in the previews that they were writing fluff for these monsters, but it looks like only some of them, like the fire archons, will actually get a write-up, while others will languish in stat block limbo.

I hope that's an artifact of us only getting to see stat blocks, not the real Monster Manual entries.

 

[DandD]

Multi-classing and a possible special ability-overkill, where some simply become totally obsolete, are my fears.

 

[SaffroN]

QFT
The battlegrid is easily what worries me most about 4E. A lot of why I skipped 3E was because I thought it was a little too mini-centered. Now 4E seems to be taking it a step further, which is a shame, because I like a lot of what it seems to offer...

Yes. Its true that its a more mini-centered game. Don't assume you have to use mini's though. I'll be using graph paper to mark down my players movements in game.

I'd much sooner use graph paper or a battlegrid then change the 4e rules though. I absolutely love that combat is more animated and dynamic.

 

[Fifth Element]

I fear that healing surges may be too common, or that PCs will have too many in a day, so that fights are quite easy until the last one when they're out of healing surges and they all go down. (Oh, and the term 'healing surge' sucks).

I fear that some divine powers will be too gamey - some random effect tacked on to an attack roll. I started a thread about this one.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Are fence-sitters allowed to post in this thread?

Fear: Too much emphasis on combat/tactical boardgame/miniature play. Loss of verismilitude as a result. Mechanics feeling to "video-gamey."

Fear: Too few powers at higher levels, especially for spell-casters, and characters feeling boring and repetitive as a result. This may be taken care of by rituals, it's just something I'm kinda worried about.

Fear: Too many tiny and very situational bonuses, marks, durations, recharges, 1 round cleric buffs, etc to keep track of in combat. At the same time, many special monster powers, like ability damage, removed because "they're annoying to keep track of." I'd rather keep track of a long term buff/debuff than these piddly 1 round buffs and racial auras I've been seeing. Maybe that's just me.

Fear: Magic items are over-nerfed. I want to see the christmas tree burned down as much as anyone, but I'd also like to be able to get magic items that I think "wow thats awesome" instead of "that's lame, I'm just going to sell that to the vendor for X,000 gp."

Fear: That saving throws are as bad throughout the game as they are at level 1, making long term effects unpredictable, annoying to keep track of round-by round (id rather mark off a round on paper than have to roll every round), and no effect lasting more than 2-3 rounds unless you're really lucky.

Fear: That they lied. Level drain really isn't gone.

And my ultimate fear: That I really won't end up liking 4e, or worse, that I'll like it but the rest of my group won't.

 

[Benimoto]

Fear: Power creep will set in with the release of the first splatbooks, and most of the MM1 monsters will begin to look laughably underpowered.

Fear: That wizards won't be as fun to play now that they don't apparently get 20 new spells every spell level.

Those are my main ones at the moment.

 

[hong]

Fear: Magic items are over-nerfed. I want to see the christmas tree burned down as much as anyone, but I'd also like to be able to get magic items that I think "wow thats awesome" instead of "that's lame, I'm just going to sell that to the vendor for X,000 gp."

Unless you only run 3-month campaigns that never gain in levels, you are always going to get magic items that you eventually want to sell for X,000 gp.

Well, I guess you could implement some sort of auto-levelling mechanism for items (in which case, have I got a deal for you), but those have their own issues.