A difficult question

[pemerton]

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] - I agree on saving throws (an oft-overlooked aspect of the classic D&D > 3E transition), and also with your last paras points about the braod similarities between classic D&D and 4e.

 

[Raith5]

I've always felt 4E was much more like BECMI than 1E,2E,3E, perhaps excluding the "dominion" portion of the companion rules. Few people actually played BECMI enough..most people "graduated" to 1E if they played BECMI at all. A lot of the snarky criticism of 4E could be applied to BECMI, and if memory serves, I heard a lot of the same condescension from 1E players/DMs when they heard I played BECMI. It wasn't widespread, because it was limited to people at school or the FLGS, we didn't have the internet back then, but I think its safe to say BECMI was less popular than 1E/2E.

How do you think the Elf class would fly nowadays?

I am not totally sure why, but this has been my feeling having played BECMI a long time ago and via currently playing 4th. I think the cosmological take on alignment, the points of light setting, race being more important to a PC in 4th have given me this impression.

I also think rituals have made magic feel more magical is many respects.

 

[Emerikol]

I could care less about cosmology. I make my own worlds and my own cosmology each time. (These days anyway). I do think the Forgotten Realms fans got shafted in 4e so I'm sympathetic to them but it doesn't affect me. I'll never run a game in Forgotten Realms.

Perhaps the changes that 4e brought into the game will make it clearer. I am basing this on initial release of Players Handbook 1 and not what it was at the end. I think all games should be evaluated in this way.

1. Healing Surges. - In earlier editions of D&D you interpreted the meaning of hit points how you wanted. Healing surges forced you to interpret hit points in a particular way. For the folks that thought that way all along it was no big deal but for everyone else it was a deal breaker.

2. Martial healing - ditto. 1 makes this a deal breaker. The class itself if bannable wouldn't be.

3. AEDU - All classes followed this model. This was a massive departure from what had gone on before. For many people this made playing any particular class feel like playing any other. For some it didn't. For those where it mattered it was a deal breaker.

4. Loss of Utility - Many spells were made a lot higher level or were removed completely. While perhaps not a deal breaker over time it made the game feel not very magical. In the end it was a deal breaker for me.

5. Rituals - While I like rituals conceptually. This was a pretty big shift especially given how few spells wizards had utility wise afterwards and how weak those spells were. There should have been hundreds of rituals from day one. Also one feat to be able to get any ritual? That pretty much devalues the whole concept for magical characters. (note: this last bit was easily houseruled).

6. Magic Items - As someone has pointed out these got better later in the edition but at the start they were massively boring compared to earlier editions. Again I houseruled a little.

7. NPCs - When an NPC had a class in any edition prior to 4e it was that class. The DM had the spells etc.. 4e abstracted this with recharge powers etc.. Definitely a jaring approach for class based enemies. I didn't mind monsters being different and being improvable by templates instead of by adding class levels. Nor did I mind recharge powers for monsters. But if I have an npc wizard I would want a wizard. (again houseruled easily.)

8. Attitude. - The DM went from judge and arbiter to enabler. The say yes attitude. Minor because it's easy to just ignore advice. It did lead I think though to 9. The whole attitude that is.

9. Removal of bad things. - Level drain while poorly done in 3e at least existed. Rust monsters too. I remember reading the design book where someone said that bad things happening ruined the fun. I'd say the absence of the possibility of bad things happening ruins the fun. 3e started this in some small degrees I agree. 4e though made it policy.



I like the guy who said something about the engine versus the user interface. It may be an apt analogy. 3e did streamline the math. It did organize it so that martial things applied to all martial classes. It also did the same for magic in many ways. It became far more systematic. But the play experience especially if you weren't trying from day one to screw with the system, was very similar. 4e though completely changed the play experience and for me it did it for the worse.

 

[Raith5]

I like the guy who said something about the engine versus the user interface. It may be an apt analogy. 3e did streamline the math. It did organize it so that martial things applied to all martial classes. It also did the same for magic in many ways. It became far more systematic. But the play experience especially if you weren't trying from day one to screw with the system, was very similar. 4e though completely changed the play experience and for me it did it for the worse.

I think the things you mentioned were positive changes to the game - but you are right that mechanically 4th ed was a big change from previous editions. The biggest mechanical thing thing is how up front the mechanics are. Things like encounter powers, second wind and healing surges are very prominent in how the game is played, and while I think they can be used creatively, I do understand how some players find the mechanics intrusive.

I have to say when I first saw 4th ed and played it, I had a lot of reservations given that I played 3rd ed for a considerable time. But I started to embrace the mechanics of powers etc and now it is my favorite edition by a large margin and I dont know that I can go back to a system where some classes have significantly more power than others, where there is not self healing, were utility powers are not siloed from attacking powers, etc.

 

[Emerikol]

I think the things you mentioned were positive changes to the game - but you are right that mechanically 4th ed was a big change from previous editions. The biggest mechanical thing thing is how up front the mechanics are. Things like encounter powers, second wind and healing surges are very prominent in how the game is played, and while I think they can be used creatively, I do understand how some players find the mechanics intrusive.

I have to say when I first saw 4th ed and played it, I had a lot of reservations given that I played 3rd ed for a considerable time. But I started to embrace the mechanics of powers etc and now it is my favorite edition by a large margin and I dont know that I can go back to a system where some classes have significantly more power than others, where there is not self healing, were utility powers are not siloed from attacking powers, etc.

I started out gung ho and then fell out of love after playing it for a while. We probably passed each other going the opposite direction. . I hate self-healing or non-magical healing in general. I disliked surges too. Not the surge value which could have been useful in another context.