Alright already!!!

[Storminator]

And none of this will be available in 4E?

I never said that.

I just said a 3e guy had some options.

Given Star Was Saga Edition, I'm inclined to believe that much of this will be available for every character. Accordingly, some characters might get powers that allow them to do one or more of these things better and some feats will allow a character to do these things better.

It looks like there will be plenty of interesting things for PCs to do.

PS

 

[Stalker0]

Before people go off the handle about combat manuevers in 3e, remember we already know that 4e characters can do bullrushes and grabs.

We've heard rumors that trip will be a power now, so its still in. And we haven't heard about disarm yet.

So there will still be things to do other than using your powers.


As for the "why should the at will power be the standard attack" question, this is actually a very intelligent design move by WOTC.

In 4e, you get one swing, but that one swing increases in damage more than the one swing in 3e (especially with powers). However the problem comes with AOOs. AOOs literally give you twice the attacks per round, which is a huge increase in power.

However, with the advantage of powers, this is negated somewhat. Since you can't use a power on an AOO, an AOO now becomes a weakened form of attack, allowing the mechanic without causing a 100% increase in attack power.

 

[LEHaskell]

Before people go off the handle about combat manuevers in 3e, remember we already know that 4e characters can do bullrushes and grabs.

We've heard rumors that trip will be a power now, so its still in. And we haven't heard about disarm yet.

So there will still be things to do other than using your powers.


As for the "why should the at will power be the standard attack" question, this is actually a very intelligent design move by WOTC.

In 4e, you get one swing, but that one swing increases in damage more than the one swing in 3e (especially with powers). However the problem comes with AOOs. AOOs literally give you twice the attacks per round, which is a huge increase in power.

However, with the advantage of powers, this is negated somewhat. Since you can't use a power on an AOO, an AOO now becomes a weakened form of attack, allowing the mechanic without causing a 100% increase in attack power.

An excellent point! Though I notice that monsters don't have a "Basic Attack" stat. I'm wondering if they have the same limitation. As a guess, I'd would bet that the first attack listed is assumed to be its basic attack, though some of those are decidedly "powers". For example the Human Guard has what appears to be a marking ability with his halberd attack.

 

[hexgrid]

Once again: The sins of the previous edition don't excuse the sins of the next.

I think they do, to some extent, at least for the purposes of EN World discussion.

3e is the baseline of comparison for the majority of the EN World community, and before the 4e announcement, it's game of choice. So because 3e already has the EN World seal of approval, it's not unreasonable to assume that aspects of 3e carried into 4e will also meet with approval.

(Note that I'm speaking about the community in general. I'm not saying that each and every EN Worlder is a 3e fan, just that most of us are.)

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Yes, but I think you miss the point:

Doing the same attack every round is boring.

If the fighter is going to use his at-will power over and over again every round, it's going to be boring.

The criticism is that if a fighter is just doing the same thing over and over again in every round, that's a bad thing. And if 4e suffers from this problem, it would be a bad thing.

Doing the same attack every round is exactly what fighters did in practice in 3E. They only manuevered as necessary to engage the enemy. . . from there on it was full attack action every round with pre-calculated power attack numbers and so forth. At some point during each full attack you took a 5 foot step to try to set up a flank.

That was it. Every round, every combat.

I do think 4e is going to have enough options that people will at least be deciding between as many things as they were in 3e (Do I apply expertise? Power attack? Do I try to flank? Do I charged, or use my bow?), but the decisions will be different (Power X or Power Y?)

As shown above, these "choices" are really not choices at all. In 3E 95% of the time you full attack or manuever to full attack with your primary weapon. 4% of the time you use a range attack or other secondary attack form. 1% of the time (if you're adventurous) you use some kind of combat manuver - grapple, bull rush etc.

These numbers are generous. Its very possible, even likely that many fighters will go several levels without ever using anything but their primary or any tactic except close, full attack, full attack, full attack.

In 4E you're going to have a choice among several per day, per encounter, and at will powers. All of them worthwhile vs. a normal attack. You'll have a *real* choice as to what to do each round. Once you've blown all your "specials" for the day, you still probably have a choice of at will powers. . . and ON TOP OF THAT you still have access to many of the 3E "options" that were there (charge, grapple, bull rush, whatnot).

There's also a slight criticism that there should always be a place for a "normal attack," one that doesn't use any powers. 4e seems to have deliberately made the normal attack a pretty rare thing, so whatever happens with that, it's working as intended.

Once again: The sins of the previous edition don't excuse the sins of the next. If 4e does something to expand the fighter's options, it'll be doing a good thing.

4E is doing something to expand a fighters options by quite a bit.

Is it giving the fighter a totally unique attack form for every round of combat? No. Nor should it. But the fighter does have a lot more decision making to do under 4E than he did under 3. . . and that, as you say, is a good thing.

 

[Gundark]

Have we even seen all the fighters at will powers? I suspect no. Some people are looking at the sample character provided and assuming that this is all the fighter can do...which may very well be not the case.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think one of the biggest differences between 3E and 4E is that in 3E a Fighter's combat options tended to decrease as he leveled up, and in 4E they will increase.

Because the way the math tended to get strange as level increased in 3E, a Fighter really needed to specialize in order to optimize a strategy and remain viable, even with a single gimmick. A fighter needed to devote a lot of feats (and probably dip into a few other classes and Prestige classes) for moves like trip, grapple, or cleave to stay competitive at high levels. Thus, anything which isn't the primary focus of the character tends to fall behind the power curve until it becomes suicidal to attempt.

In 4E, though, your number of viable options, even with limited resources expended, is governed by your chosen at-will powers, which will almost certainly increase as you grow in level. A 30th level 4E character will probably have a much wider variety of at-will powers than a 1st level 4E character, and many more per-encounter abilities as well (especially because magic items seem to grant powers in 4E), so as you level up your chances of falling back on the same power for every turn will decrease more and more.

I think this is a positive change.

 

[CinnamonPixie]

<crying from laughing so hard> Yup, this one is very funny! You think people would be happy their mage of choice isn't pulling out a crossbow and hoping their god of choice was watching at that moment to let them roll a 20!

Well at least in 3.5 I CAN do something else other than the one or two per day and per encounter spells than "magic missile, magic missile, magic missile"... And frankly, being able to do it at will every round of every minute of every combat, all day long is just pathetically cheap and stupid. Let's face it, NO good fantasy book has ever seen a party so well stocked, prepared, safe, etc that they didn't have concerns about their equipment and the need to rest to recoup and recharge and prepare for upcoming challenges. Taking that element out of the game cheapens the entire feel of an adventure by likening the grueling encounter-by-encounter exploration/clearing of a dungeon/ruins/whatever to being a 2-hour movie without the need for anything resembling reality and/or sensibility. You may as well have arrows that never run out by default and a seeming endless healing... oops, never mind I guess that last one they've already made steps towards including, haven't they?

*yawn* so instead of thinking and planning and doing all that "investment into my character" I can sit back and play playstation during the combat and roll the to-hit and damage dice mindlessly doing the same magic missile over and over and tune in when combat's over - after all, it's going to be nothing but the same old thing over and over - and silly powers names and abilities names or not - that's not "more fun."

More power doesn't mean it's more fun.... And D&D has always been a character-driven game, it was made to recreate the adventures of the great fantasy novels those were rich in combat and magic and powerful artifacts and monsters - but they were dominated by the stories of the characters that used and/or fought those elements. Ripping out the "little things" that allow a Wizard a lot of flexibility to slim down the list to a mindlessly simplistic limited choice list is not "more fun" to me... even if I can do more damage and do magic missile until I've whittled chessboard piece out of what once was a mountain.

Where's the "caution" the "planning" the risk!? Yeah it sucks to have a character die, or to go really big in a combat to realize it was a trap, a ruse to do just that - sap your strength, but that's part of the evil genius of the evil bad guy. Knowing it could happen and trying to plan and account for it and all that epic heroic wisdom that comes from knowing the fight isn't always as simple as it seems and not always the goal (such as the ruse fight to sap the party before the real fight begins) is part of what it means to be a hero and an adventurer. If you have no fear of running low on anything or no risk of over exerting yourself there's no reason to bother restraining and therefore no reason to bother playing - there's no challenge when you have limitless power to eventually whittle down your enemies with - at that point it becomes a game of lucky die rolls to hit and to do more damage as a pathetic over-hyped power-gamers war of attrition - and nothing else.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Let's face it, NO good fantasy book has ever seen a party so well stocked, prepared, safe, etc that they didn't have concerns about their equipment and the need to rest to recoup and recharge and prepare for upcoming challenges.

That depends entirely on what you read. If you go back to the touchstones, then Gandalf (e.g.) certainly didn't worry about 'recharging' his spells. That was not the limiter. If you go by contemporary fantasy, then you have a circular argument. Most contemporary fantasy has as its 'baseline' D&D game-workings, in some form. In magical terms, Vancian magic. To argue that 4E is not abiding by fantasy tropes because those tropes are based on something that 4E is moving away from is a valid argument, but it cannot support itself.

I'll also note that those books which are clearly not based on D&D but upon another system (e.g., the Earthdawn novels) don't have this problem.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Well at least in 3.5 I CAN do something else other than the one or two per day and per encounter spells than "magic missile, magic missile, magic missile"... And frankly, being able to do it at will every round of every minute of every combat, all day long is just pathetically cheap and stupid. Let's face it, NO good fantasy book has ever seen a party so well stocked, prepared, safe, etc that they didn't have concerns about their equipment and the need to rest to recoup and recharge and prepare for upcoming challenges.

Actually, the Black Company series by Glen Cook features wizards that can sit there and cast the same spell over and over again for hours on end as well as throw some really big shots in occasionally to mix it up. For example, the assault on the Black Castle outiside Juniper.

From a resources control standpoint sounds pretty close to me. . . . and The Black Company is part of the "holy trinity" of the best fantasy novels:

The Black Company series by Cook
The Drenai Saga by Gemmell
The Vlad Taltos series by Brust

Actually. . . now that I think about it. . . the 4E approach to resource management could probably do a pretty fair approximation of the Vlad Taltos magic system too assuming you had the right spells in the right slots.