4th edition thoughts (very cursory)

[thormagni]

We tried a little 4th edition last night and I had some initial thoughts. Caveats: This was our first attempt. I didn't know the rules outside of the abbreviated version that came with the adventure. We started late, only had two encounters and there was lots of rule-book-flipping going on, so take it with however big of a grain of salt you need.

1) A lot of rules are changed just enough to be frustrating. Think you know how Saving Throws work? Think again. How does a Rogue check for and disarm traps? Not the way you remember. I'm not saying these changes are good or bad, just different... What makes it difficult is that lots of things have the same name, but work completely differently than in previous versions.

2) Your standard melee attack is really nearly a thing of the past. Why just hit something with a sword when you can do your uber-power attack?

3) It seems like there is an awful lot of "push and pull" going on, in which players (and monsters) move others around the map involuntarily.

4) "Opportunitistic attack?" Really? Couldn't we just keep calling it Attack of Opportunity?

5) The index in the back of the book stinks. What I wouldn't have given for an alphabetical list of all the powers with page numbers.

6) Everybody has powers. Everybody's powers are different and do not overlap. Powers can fit on an index card, moreorless, and that is all the information you get. Clarification or examples? Not so much.

7) Missing isn't always the worst thing. Frequently, even though you miss with a power, you still end up doing something to your target.

8) Conditions are important. However, conditions aren't highlighted or set apart in the actual text, such as being bolded or capitalized or any other way that I can see. Nor are they in the index. So it isn't always apparent that you just inflicted a condition on someone. For example, Sleep doesn't put you to sleep. It makes you slowed and can make you unconscious. Neither of which are in the index. Nor does the sleep spell explain where to find information about being slowed or unconscious. But if you happen to look up the word "sleeping and waking up" in the index, it will point you to a section, that will then point you to the page with all the conditions (including slowed.) Bookmark page 277 in the PHB until you learn the effects and names of all 16 or so conditions.

 

[BobProbst]

Anything positive?

As for indexes and finding conditions and stuff easily: 3.x wasn't great about that either.

As for the missing but not missing bit: Did you ever try to hit a bad guy but accidently touch their privates? And then there's that awkward pause and brief eye contact while you think "Should I . . . should I say something or would that just make it more awkward?" and then you think of something funny that could relieve the tension but it's already dragged on too long and maybe it's better to just let it drop. Did that ever happen? Because if not, I'm house ruling it.

 

[thormagni]

Well, to the positive, it appears that everyone will have something to do in every fight. Your bread and butter attacks are usable at-will. So there will be a lot less of "well, I used my really cool thing once today already."

And there are a lot of hit points at early levels, so you don't have to worry about getting one-shotted by, say, a kobold with a sling shot.

 

[Grimhelm]

I think there are new feats in 4.0, Bob, to mirror our new obsessions with crotch shots and farting. I think one is called Ball Blow and the other one is Noxious Vapor. Ball Blow is similar to Tasha's Hideous Laughter only it incapacitates everyone else in the room with humor while the person struck by the blow falls to the floor with his eyes bugging out making exaggerrated noises. Noxious Vapor is a defensive spell causing your opponents to look away pretending that they did not hear the noise or smell the smell. If, indeed, you have smelt it, you are regarded as having dealt it and are assailed by members of your own party for 1d6 punching damage.

 

[InzeladunMaster]

Thanks for the overview. I will be more likely to give it a serious shot once I have seen the druid, though, as druids are important parts of my world concept.

I think it is sad that the regular old melee attacks are basically gone, though, replaced by Powers. Is there even a chance at running a low-magic game with this version?

 

[thormagni]

Well, that is really an apples and oranges sort of question.

Every class in 4e has powers. However powers come from different sources, divided by character class. For example, a fighter and a wizard both have the same number of first level at-will, encounter and daily powers. However the fighter's powers come from the "martial" power source (his skill and weapon prowess), while the "arcane" power source is where the wizard gets his powers from (i.e. magic) (Incidentally, characters with arcane powers have "spells", characters with martial powers have "exploits" and divine power characters have "prayers" but they all work exactly the same and are roughly balanced in power.

So you could easily just say, "no arcane power source characters."

What would be really hard (and honestly more trouble than it is worth, compared to say, just playing another game) would be to rewrite an arcane power class to drastically reduce the number of powers it gets. These powers are pretty much hard-coded into the rules. From a rules standpoint, it would be the equivalent of saying "well you are a rogue, so you don't get any Charisma."

And all the powers, that I have seen so far, are combat oriented. So there is no real PC role for a non-combat character. And they are all balanced. Again, making it very hard to pick and choose which powers a given character has.

I hear there is an Artificer class coming, so it will be interesting to see what they do with that, power-wise.

 

[InzeladunMaster]

... but they all work exactly the same...

That is the part that bothers me. Essentially everyone has spells now - they just aren't all called spells.