4th ed, the Good & the Bad?

[Plane Sailing]

A rogue would suck at fighting undead but a wizard under high level would be useless against an iron golem. A warrior without a magical/silver weapon would be ineffective against a werewolf. I don't see a problem.

Well, in 3.x

Rogue sucks against undead period.

Wizard doesn't worry much about iron golem ever since the golem was defined as unbeatable spell resistance. The wizard has such a range of no-SR spells that overcoming it is unlikely to ever be a problem unless specifically set up.

Warrior without a silver weapon against a werewolf? Well, thanks to the magic of 3e DR rather than immunities, he can power attack away with his two handed sword - it isn't that difficult to get some damage past the DR 10/silver each round.

Rogue still sucks against undead though.

In 3e the designers decided to balance the rogue being good in combat occasionally and not at other times by giving it more to do out of combat. Happily 4e designers (and thousands of person years of experience) has shown that it isn't a good plan. Much better to give all classes interesting options which allow them to be effective in combat, as well as interesting options which allow them to be effective out of combat too.

Cheers

 

[Gargoyle]

NO MORE LEVEL DRAIN - Good - The only thing good about level draining is that it scared the players. I think I'm a clever enough DM to do that without causing the frustration of losing a level.

NO MORE ABILITY DRAIN - Good - It's not worth the bookkeeping in 3.5.

NO MORE ETHICAL ALIGNMENTS - Good - I've never been a fan of alignment being shoved down my throat. As I understand it, it still exists in 4e enough so that people who want to use it can, and those of us who prefer to leave it behind can do so.

SNEAK ATTACK ON ANYTHING (Good for the most part) - I have no problem with abstracting sneak attack so that rogues can sneak attack undead or constructs. I do think that in very rare circumstances a creature should be immune to sneak attacks. Some examples: oozes, gelatinous cubes, incorporeal creatures.

FASTER GAME MECHANICS & NPC CREATION (Good) - Yes, very good.

NO MORE EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF MAGIC ITEMS (GOOD) - I like that I might be able to finally run a low magic campaign. Or at the very least, heroes will be defined more by their abilities and less by what they're carrying.

NO MORE (or less) VANCIAN CASTING (Good) - I love per encounter and at will abilities, and I like that they haven't completely abandoned per day abilities.

NO MORE SPELL SCHOOLS (bad?) FOCUS ITEMS (Unsure) - I'm not sure about this either. I don't like fluff mixed up too much in the rules, and this seems unnecessary.

SKILL SYSTEM REVAMP (Good) - I like the SW saga system and think skills need some simplification in D&D.

BASIC RACES CHANGES (Don't Care) - I've always tweaked the races in my homebrew campaigns. If I don't think the dragonborn will fit, I'll remove them. If I want gnomes, I'll add them. Right now I'm thinking I don't really care for tieflings or dragonborn too much and may take them out or make them rare.

In my campaigns I'm much more in favor of creating an interesting human culture rather than a bunch of races that accentuate some trait of human personality or culture.

 

[maggot]

• NO MORE LEVEL DRAIN - Neutral. It is nice to have something really scary in the game, but the paperwork was annoying.
• NO MORE ABILITY DRAIN - Okay, but see level drain above.
• NO MORE SAVE-OR-DIE - Fine, but see level drain above.
• NO MORE ETHICAL ALIGNMENTS - Sure, seems like they would be easy to add back in if needed.
• SNEAK ATTACK ON ANYTHING - Unsure. Have to see how constructs and undead are designed in light of this.
• FASTER GAME MECHANICS - Happy if true.
• FASTER (N)PC CREATION - Very happy if true.
• NO MORE EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF MAGIC ITEMS - Ecstatic if true.
• NO MORE VANCIAN CASTING - Getting rid of preprepping spells is great.
• NO MORE SPELL SCHOOLS - Unsure. I kind of liked illusionist and necromancers. Transmuters and abjurers won't be so missed.
• FOCUS ITEMS - Unsure. Seems like unnecessary baggage. Have to see how they make the wizards different.
• SKILL SYSTEM REVAMP - Sure.
• BASIC RACES CHANGES - Ick! I think most settings won't fit the Tiefling and the Dragonborn.
• RACIAL PANTHEONS GETTING THE BOOT - Whatever.
• ELIMINATION OF PRESTIGE CLASSES - Great news!
• EFFORT TO BALANCE FEATS - Is there really such an effort?
• PARTY ROLES - DEFENDER, LEADER, ETC. - This new terminology disturbs me.
• POINTS OF LIGHT SETTING DESIGN - Not big on it. If it were a minor background item it would be fine, but they are using up space in the DMG with setting info (complete town and area) and including races based on it. Put setting into a setting guide.
• LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - Ick! How do you convert old campaign ideas?

 

[The Little Raven]

Why were you playing D&D in the first place when there are other FRPGs out there that have so many of the features you're looking for?

If previous editions have the traits you want in your D&D, why make 4th edition adhere to those traits, since you already have the game you want?

 

[chitzk0i]

Warrior without a silver weapon against a werewolf? Well, thanks to the magic of 3e DR rather than immunities, he can power attack away with his two handed sword - it isn't that difficult to get some damage past the DR 10/silver each round.

Yeah, but it hurts my rep gain with the Mighty Arms of Kord

 

[Phaezen]

I suppose it is about time for me to delurk and add my ZAR 0.02

Opions expressed below are mine and based on incomplete and minimal info. They are bound to change in the next few months and may not be held against me any any way or form

As a side note I am approaching 4E as I would a new game system

1. NO MORE LEVEL DRAIN - Neutral to Good, level drain makes for scary fights but the maths involve, especialy in the middle of a fight is just not worth it.
2. NO MORE (temporary) ABILITY DRAIN - Nuetral to Good, see above
3. NO MORE SAVE-OR-DIE - Good, nothing sucks more than loosing a character or even a monster to one spell.
4. NO MORE ETHICAL ALIGNMENTS - neutral
5. SNEAK ATTACK ON ANYTHING - Good, nothing is more pathetic than seeing the look on a rogue players face when coming up against another batch of sneak attack proof monsters. Although we do need to see how they are going to be running sneak attacks in 4E. As a possible idea to test this in 3.x let the character roll a knowldge check (religion for undead, nature for plants, arcane for constructs) to find weak/critical points to attack to allow the sneak attack/critical.
6. FASTER GAME MECHANICS - Not enough info
7. FASTER (N)PC CREATION - Not enough info
8. NO MORE EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF MAGIC ITEMS - Good, what I am realy looking forward to here is not having to give disposable monsters magic items to make them a challenge for the party.
9. NO MORE (or less) VANCIAN CASTING - Good, hopefully this will see an end to the 15 minute adventuring day. Also I hope it will make dungeon crawls more exciting as we should now be able to design living dungeons with better interaction between groups of monsters.
10. NO MORE SPELL SCHOOLS - Good, what I am really looking forward to here is haveing specialist spellcasters not just being a wizard with a restricted spell list. A necromancer should be more than a wizard/cleric who focusses on creating undead, same as a summoner, illusionist etc.
11. FOCUS ITEMS - Waiting to see implementation, but could be a good thing tm.
12. SKILL SYSTEM REVAMP - Need more info
13. BASIC RACES CHANGES - Good, on further thought I like the focus of the new elf compared to previous editions. Elves now have the woodlands race schtick rather than the woodlandsracewhobythewayareswordwieldingmagicuserswithimmunitytosomeundeadattacksandcan spotahiddendoorinadungeonamileoff schtick.
14. RACIAL PANTHEONS GETTING THE BOOT - Neutral, this is setting specific and can be homebrewed as needed
15. ELIMINATION OF PRESTIGE CLASSES - Neutral, I am waiting to see what they do with Parragon paths, most likely moving to good depending on implementation.
16. EFFORT TO BALANCE FEATS - Good
17. PARTY ROLES - DEFENDER, LEADER, ETC. - Good, nice for designers helps to create focussed classes. Should help players as well.
18. POINTS OF LIGHT SETTING DESIGN - Good. Nice way to introduce new GMs to running a campaign, also more players as heroes focussed
19. LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - Neutral, no real opinion on this.

This should be an interesting thread to revisit every month or so as more info becomes available, see how peoples opinions change

David

 

[Hussar]

LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - Ick! How do you convert old campaign ideas?

At least they're being absolutely up front about this. They've said that you're better off capping your current campaign world and starting over with 4e. The current adventure from Dungeon works well as a "blow up your world" type event. And, really, they're just recognizing that most people haven't invested huge amounts of work in homebrews and are willing to try out new campaigns ever time.

 

[Reynard]

D&D changed drastically from 1E to 3E, did that make it D&D in "name only"?

For some. You can find them at dragonsfoot.org

In addition, while there was certainly plenty of mechanical change with 3E, that game was very much a "back to basics" approach in flavor and the "core D&D experience" and it was wildly successful in that regard. 4E is taking a different tactic: reinvention. Whether it will work or not is still an open question, but of this I am fairly certain: it will take less than a year for the first good "Classic Play" book to appear from some well rearded 3rd party publisher.

When it comes out, I might buy 4E.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was just reading an announcement in KotDT that Paizo is planning on continuing support of 3.5, so there will be some continued "Classic" stuff to play, regardless of edition.

 

[The Little Raven]

• LACK OF BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY - Ick! How do you convert old campaign ideas?

With a fully operational brain.