D&D 4E 4e style rules: General > Specific

[erik_the_guy]

I'm in love with the new rules in 4e, which give characters general skills that work in many situations.

In 3e a wizard was nice, unless you ran into creatures with spell resistance, or golems, are demons that resisted almost every element.
Rogues were fun too, unless you were fighting elementals, constructs, undead, or any of the other creatures that were immune to sneak attacks.
Ranger's were like weak fighters that were good against one type of enemy.
Paladins were like weak fighters that were good against evil.
The only classes that I found to be useful in every situation were fighters and clerics.

In 4e everything has changed. Golems are not immune to magic, zombies can be sneak attacked, and rangers deal bonus damage to their quarry, not just goblins or dragons or abberations. No more monsters that make half the party useless, no more fighters doing all the work.

Anyone else love this new take on the rules as much as I do?

 

[stevelabny]

We played our first 4E session last night, and I feel that problem still exists... just in a different place.

In 3E, there were certain types of monsters where each class had the chance to be the "star" or main damage dealers, usually because certain classes were weak or useless against those monsters.

In 4E, the characters are limited by their roles, strikers do more damage, defenders soak up more damage, etc. I don't see much ability for a character to step outside of their role for an encounter or two. Also, instead of characters being weak/useless against monsters, their are certain monster roles that will be more of a hassle towards certain character roles.


Then, it was the DMs job to make sure each character class had a chance to shine equally and took a support role equally.

Now, its the DMs job to make sure that each role has a chance to do what they're best at, and that theres an equal amount of monster roles for counter-tactics.


Seems a little bit like tomato/tomAto.


I think I like the idea of the varying roles for each character depending on the opponent (3E) over the idea of varying levels of usefulness for each role based on the opponents (4E) The roles thing seems like a handcuff.

That said, I've only played 4E once, and still need to test it out more. And there are definitely some rules/changes/concepts that work better in 4E. So don't take this as anything deeper system vs system than an answer to your question.

 

[underfoot007]

I think in 4E each character has a set role, so it is easier to create a balenced party. And within that party each PC knows his role, leader, striker, defender, or controller.
Each char has a chance to shine in each encounter.

Jon