D&D 4E 4e - Too much change?

[JDJblatherings]

I'm of the mind that 4th edition needs to be rather different or it is totally pointless. If it makes changes, embraces them and does it well there will be a good game. Do it half-assed and there is so much competition out there it is insane. I've got enough 3.x books from WOTC alone I could be playing entirely different campaigns for decades.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

It's a new addition. I expect there to be fairly large changes. Fluff changes don't bother me simply because I homebrew and don't use the fluff in the books anyway.

The mechanical changes aren't extreme enough to make me worry (and in some cases, aren't extreme enough in my opinion).

HOWEVER, I do see why some others find them very extreme (both fluff and mechanically). I do think, though, that claims that it "ain't D&D no more" are a bit out there, but that whole feeling is totally subjective and is going to vary from person to person.

If I was the kind of DM that kept close to the fluff, I'd be upset, just as others are now.

 

[WayneLigon]

... I guess I don't see what is "better enough" to compensate for the massive incompatibility with D&D history.

I have no investment with 'D&D History'; it's history isn't my history with the game. We've mainly run homebrews so for me and most of the people I've gamed with, FR and Greyhawk might as well never have existed. So, too, with most of the 'D&D as a genre' views; we've mostly avoided that.

With the new revelations from the 'preview' book, it sounds as if they're changing 'enough', but then I'd personally go for even more change.

 

[tomBitonti]

It's not hard to see why they would introduce a half-fiend, half-celestial & half-dragon race to core D&D. Gnomes and Half-Orcs are the least popular races so they get cut in leiu of new kewl kids on the block. I'm just surprised they didn't include Drow in the mix...

I can see why, but I suspect that my answer -- "oh, cool, we have been free reign to change a bunch of stuff, and put our own artistic imprint on the game as uber designers" -- is not the same as yours.

I'm OK with moving Gnomes and Half-Orcs, along with Half-Fiend, Half-Celestial, and Half-Dragon (I know that Half-Fiend and Half-Celestial is not quite correct, but I don't have the proper description on hand) into a races expansion book. I'm OK with a reduction of core races to Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling. (Which would you choose if you had to take a 90% cut of what races are played). I'm not OK with adding Half-Fiend, Half-Celestial, and Half-Dragon to core. To me, that is too constraining on the target world. For example, WarForged, Shifters, and Inspired are tied very much to Eberron. They deserve to stay there (and perhaps go in a races expansion book). I do not think that they deserve to be in the core rules. Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are standard fantasy races. They are not for all campaigns, but I'm thinking that most games use them. But Half-Fiend type race, and the others, that implies a number of strong features in the campaign world, and I'm not comfortable with accepting those features by default.

I suppose that one of my difficulties is that with the current rules you don't have to throw out too much to have a human-centric campaign, where the conflicts are between people, and anything non-human is by definition a monster, or not well integrated into society. The new rules make that hard.

 

[A'koss]

I can see why, but I suspect that my answer -- "oh, cool, we have been free reign to change a bunch of stuff, and put our own artistic imprint on the game as uber designers" -- is not the same as yours.

Well, undoubtedly the designers & developers want to leave their mark on the game - they all do. However, the primary motivation will be to draw in new players and with that in mind it's not hard to see why they'd go with these choices.

 

[Lanefan]

Someone earlier brought up the idea of using as a continuity test the ability to convert or recreate characters from one edition to another. Well, I've tried this in what amounted to one long (almost 7-year) experiment*; attempting to create a 1e Illusionist using 3e rules. It sort-of worked and sort-of didn't - she can do too much non-illusionary stuff and has to to remain useful, and thank the gods that my DM didn't go along with the nerfing of illusion effects that "Save My Game" (i.e. WotC) came out with a year or two back or she'd be *totally* useless.

And now it seems illusion is getting further nerfed...but with perhaps an eye to making Illusionist its own class again. If these were both to happen in the initial core release I'd be close to dancing in the streets, but no...the nerfing happens now and the new class happens, well, sometime. So that particular continuity test for 4e would probably fail, at least initially, as I'd be (by what we've been told) essentially unable to build a 1e-style Illusionist.

The biggest thing about 3e that stuck in my craw on release was its complete and deliberate lack of backwards compatibility. 2e was at least vaguely compatible with 1e, whcih in turn was at least vaguely compatible with 0e or BECMI. (my litmus test here is whether I can run a module for one system using characters from another and not have to convert anything significant) It looks so far as though 4e may repeat this, which would be a shame...along with being a good way to lose 3e players as customers.

* - an experiment that has just ended; she died this past weekend, probably for good.

Lanefan

 

[A'koss]

Someone earlier brought up the idea of using as a continuity test the ability to convert or recreate characters from one edition to another. Well, I've tried this in what amounted to one long (almost 7-year) experiment*; attempting to create a 1e Illusionist using 3e rules. It sort-of worked and sort-of didn't - she can do too much non-illusionary stuff and has to to remain useful, and thank the gods that my DM didn't go along with the nerfing of illusion effects that "Save My Game" (i.e. WotC) came out with a year or two back or she'd be *totally* useless.

And now it seems illusion is getting further nerfed...but with perhaps an eye to making Illusionist its own class again. If these were both to happen in the initial core release I'd be [close to dancing in the streets, but no...the nerfing happens now and the new class happens, well, sometime. So that particular continuity test for 4e would probably fail, at least initially, as I'd be (by what we've been told) essentially unable to build a 1e-style Illusionist.

Well if you can't run your game without the Illusionist class I'd say your best bet then would be to continue to play 3e and take another look at 4e when they catch up with the things that are missing for you. There's certainly no rule that says you have to switch to the new edition the moment it comes out... But in the long run, the fact that they do intend to create separate Illusionist and Necromancer classes, with their niches protected, sounds to me like a good thing.

The biggest thing about 3e that stuck in my craw on release was its complete and deliberate lack of backwards compatibility. 2e was at least vaguely compatible with 1e, whcih in turn was at least vaguely compatible with 0e or BECMI. (my litmus test here is whether I can run a module for one system using characters from another and not have to convert anything significant) It looks so far as though 4e may repeat this, which would be a shame...along with being a good way to lose 3e players as customers.

Well, 3e was a major break from previous editions as well. You had to make significant changes in order to run any of the classic modules and the higher the level, the greater the hurdle.

In 3e, adventures were geared around fighting fewer monsters at any one time than in previous editions. In 4e, it looks like they are actually going back to the earlier D&D philosophy of having more monsters/encounter. There'll still be significant compatibily issues, no question, but WotC did say that they plan on converting older adventures to 4e.

Q: Will any classic dungeons throughout the editions make their return in 4E? Bill Slavicsek and Chris Perkins confirm that they will:

Bill: ... As for classic dungeons, we plan for all of them to exist in the new edition. We’ll talk more about that in the near future.

 

[Lanefan]

Well if you can't run your game without the Illusionist class I'd say your best bet then would be to continue to play 3e and take another look at 4e when they catch up with the things that are missing for you. There's certainly no rule that says you have to switch to the new edition the moment it comes out... But in the long run, the fact that they do intend to create separate Illusionist and Necromancer classes, with their niches protected, sounds to me like a good thing.

I agree; they're going the right direction if Ill. and Necro. become their own classes. I've never been a big fan of the wizarding schools as presented in 2e and carried forward into 3e; other than Evoker, Illusionist, and Necromancer they all just seem to blend together for me.

In 3e, adventures were geared around fighting fewer monsters at any one time than in previous editions. In 4e, it looks like they are actually going back to the earlier D&D philosophy of having more monsters/encounter. There'll still be significant compatibily issues, no question, but WotC did say that they plan on converting older adventures to 4e.

Q: Will any classic dungeons throughout the editions make their return in 4E? Bill Slavicsek and Chris Perkins confirm that they will:

Bill: ... As for classic dungeons, we plan for all of them to exist in the new edition. We’ll talk more about that in the near future.

They (or someone) tried converting some to 3e as well, usually as a "Return To ...", with mixed results. But I'll be interested in seeing what they do with it in any case.

As for more monsters per encounter, until recently I hadn't seen this as a design feature, but more as something in the purview of the DM when designing encounters...do they meet 6 skeletons or 1 bugbear...and there it should remain. If system-level design enters into it it should be only to ensure both options are viable. Let individual DMs figure out on their own what their parties can handle, and if it means a few pushover encounters and-or a few dead parties along the way, so be it.

Lanefan

 

[Arnwyn]

Comments?

It's certainly too much change for my players, as they've made clear to me.

For me - well, while I like some of the changes I've seen (mechanics only; absolutely none of the flavor), it's too much change for me at this stage of my life. If I were in the place I was 10 years ago, I'd probably be happily adopting it right away... not so anymore.

 

[cwhs01]

I think i've made an observation that i'm curious to have someone explain to me. A lot of complaints about 4e are about it being unflexible and unable to encompass the broad number of settings 3e seemingly can. it is then argued that 3e is a very flexible system. But often it is conceded that 3e edition is only able to encompass these different settings and genres after extensive rule modifications, such as new base classes or magic systems etc.

How is 3e a flexible system if you need to do extensive modifications to the basic ruleset for it to work with other genres and settings than the basic phb. And why is it assumed that one can't do the same with 4e?

i am a cautious optimist about 4e, so i don't really get why so many seem to be overtly (and imo unreasonably) pessimistic. Reasoned arguments, fine. But having one standard for 3e and another for 4e is... strange (imo).