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

[Carnivorous_Bean]

That there will be Wayne Reynolds illustrations throughout the books, and not just on the cover.

That some of the high level fighter, ranger, and rogue maneuvers will be inexplicable except in terms of magic, meaning that I'll have to come up with new maneuvers to replace them that will be just as powerful, but have a non-magical explanation.

That the virtual tabletop will reduce the number of people willing to play in a pen-and-paper game.


That's about all I'm actually worried about. I don't like certain other aspects of the game, but they don't worry me at all, because I changed them in 1st edition, I changed them in 2nd, I changed them in 3rd edition, and by now, I just view changing them as part of the game prep. *Shrug*

 

[Styracosaurus]

I scared:

Every fighter will still feel like every other fighter. Every wizard makes the same choices or else is obviously subpar.

Having bad guys that are character classes (i.e. bad guy wizards, etc...) will prove too difficult to manage once you are marking everyone on each side of the board and my head explodes keeping track of all the conditions....I will be stuck with keeping it to "monsters" only.

I very scared:

When barbarian and druid are released, they will be much more powerful than the PHB classes.


I not scared:

Mini's and grids have eliminated almost all of the arguments in my sessions. We are all on the same page when combat occurs.

jdr

 

[Zinovia]

Fears:
• It's hip to be square...
With so many effects being designed around squares (firecubes, dragon breath cubes) I'm concerned it will be hard to convert over to hex grid usage.

• So Mr. Redbow, what did you do before you became a ranger?
I'm afraid that background skills, professions, crafting skills, and other flavorful fun parts of the skill system might not exist anymore. It's all about the kewl powerz, not about the fact that you were training to be a jeweler when the goblins invaded your town, forcing you to pick up your bow and become an adventurer. Yes, it can be added back in, but I'd prefer it to be in there already.

• Super Saiyan 4 activate!
Are higher level abilities of the non-magical classes going to feel too super-human? Too magical? I want the fighter to have interesting combat maneuvers that don't feel totally beyond the pale. Heroic and beyond what normal folks can do, but not *magic*.

• Those three are slowed, and that one is bloodied, and that one is poisoned, and now those two are in a square that causes damage every round...
There seem to be a lot of ongoing effects in combat. Tracking those looks like it may be challenging. I'm concerned that it may get pretty complex.

• "I hate all combat, and always have."
Our bard's player told us that last session when we were voting on how quickly to wrap up the existing campaign. I pointed out that the bard is widely acknowledged to be the most boring character to play in combat, and she claimed that's why she took it. She hates combat and doesn't want to have to participate in it beyond a minimum level. I've been gaming with her for years in this campaign and while I knew she preferred roleplaying to combat, I hadn't realized she felt that strongly. Personally I think she hates combat *now* at 15th level because it takes forever and is complicated. If she were being honest in her recollections, I think she used to enjoy it when we were still in 3.5's sweet spot. I *hope* that 4E will make it more fun for her, and my major fear is that it won't.

• D&D 4E: The Return of the Splatbooks
I'm worried that in order to get access to rules I want, we'll have to buy tons of new splatbooks. Martial powers, PHB2, campaign setting books I have no interest in but contain class rules that I *do* want. Draconomicon part 1 (part 2 coming later). Maybe some stuff will be available in other ways, but I swear I will not buy Forgotten Realms just to get the sword mage, although my son really really wants to play one. There are way too many books now for 3.5, and I'm afraid that there will be even more for 4E. I'm irritated that major iconic classes were held back from the PHB so that they have more crunch to put in future books.

 

[Trainz]

Really, I'm fine with everything except two things:

1- Miniatures rules; when the devs/playtesters did their thing, did they actually playtest the new rules WITHOUT miniatures? If not, they're either not doing their job, or they want to force miniatures sales to their customer base. In either case, that would be W.R.O.N.G.

2- Combat Plusses Nightmare; this has been repeated a lot in this thread, all those little things that will slow down/confuse combat. Marking. 1 round effects. Powers that make miniatures shift/move.

They did a great job with the inovations in 4th ed, they really did. The mechanics are simple, intuitive, elegant. It would be very sad if after they achieved this little miracle, they would spoil it all by implementing innane things like these to clutter combat.

The devs should go back to the drawing board and fix this before release, as it IS the most common complaint from the community. Ignoring such a common outcry (from those who actually WANT to switch) would be... there's no words to express how wrong that would be.

 

[Set]

That the virtual tabletop will reduce the number of people willing to play in a pen-and-paper game.

Yes to this.

I've played a lot of EQ, EQ2, WoW, DAoC, etc. and I'm always amazed by what amazing jerks people can be when they have no fear of being punched in the face. I kinda dread the idea of playing D&D games with people I can't throw dice at when they are being dicks.

It's not a virtual tabletop / D&D thing, it's just a changing part of the world that I don't like, all the internet muscles and virtual peens and sad, sad people who post 'first!'

I'm sure us old-timers with our Monty Python quotes and war-stories about how many characters we lost in the original Tomb of Horrors are just as annoying and inexplicable to them.

 

[LostSoul]

Tracking small modifiers, ongoing damage, marks, etc.

 

[Stalker0]

1) That int and strength don't have enough mechanical advantages for classes other than ones that directly rely on them that they become dump stats for almost everyone.

2) That with all the conditions combined with the larger number of monsters that DMing will actually be harder, especially at lower levels of play.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I dislike very little of 4e thus far, but I am worried about the miniatures aspect. I played warhammer for a long time, so I don't mind, but some in my group are horrible sometimes when to comes to using minis in combat (which we don't do all that often). They simply don't use them precisely enough, like not bothering with exactly how much movement they have or what range their weapons have, etc. so that the miniatures really add very little. Seeing as how 4e puts a lot of emphasis on this, I think this might be a problem with my group.

Also the amount of short duration buffs and penalties and such will be nasty to keep track of, so I'll probably need a bunch of markers to put down next to the minis if that is going to work.

My final fear is that 4e will be hard to use for my homebrew campaign in which I've forwarded technology from medieval to about 16th/17th century, introducing gunpowder as a big development and making most heavy armor outdated (and a lot more stuff). I don't know if the flavor of 4e will work with what I have in my mind for my campaign...

 

[Anguirus]

I'm afraid that they'll go too far with pigeonholing classes into roles and appearances. The rogue write-up was one of the first and only things that gave me a bad feeling about 4E...suddenly rogues should be "brutes" or "tricksters" and you're stuck with "light blades." One of the best things about 3E was it let rogue mean more things than "thief," and now I'm worried that classes are back to feeling restrictive.

In a not-unrelated manner, I am extremely interested (and slightly concerned) about how multiclassing is going to work.

 

[Wormwood]

If past experience with this design team is a guide, then my fears are (for the most part) unwarranted. That said, here are my remaining concerns:

Fear: High-level play may remain complicated and unfun as 3e

Fear: Multiclassing may allow for inherently broken combinations. I'd rather see no multiclassing in that case.

Fear: They won't go far enough in removing legacy elements which contribute to unfun.

Fear (confirmed): The grid is here to stay---making wife's departure from D&D effectively permanent. Regardless, I'm willing to accept the (godforsaken) battle grid *if* combat is fast and fun for all involved.