Alright already!!!

[Incenjucar]

Regarding having too many 1st level at-will powers, it's possible that there are a series of combos (say, a high-hit stun followed by a low-hit high damage attack), and that having access to enough of them ramps up your effective power, even if not to the point of being horrible.

Of course, it could simply be to keep it simple, keep characters unique, and to avoid mega-combos from closs-classed powers.

 

[SaffroN]

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.

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?)

All this focus on powers... Yeah, it would be boring to use the same power every round. Its not about that, is it? As a fighter its not a question of "what power shall i use next turn?" Its a question of "The Wizard is being attacked what shall i do?", or "how do i help the rogue gain combat advantage?".

You guys are all getting hung up on the tools of the fighter and not the objective. My two favorite fighters tools, and the ones that i think are the most interesting, are not actually powers at all. Its Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority. These two powers are the core of the fighter. They can be used in conjunction with powers (well not Combat Superiority) and really defines the fighter and makes the fighter interesting.

The choice is not just X or Y. Its a range of tactics across the board, working with your team-mates towards a common goal. The powers are just tools for that goal. You have more tools available like charging and flanking and shifting and grappling and ranged weapons and magic items. The tools are not that fun on there own, although they can be. Its the tactics and strategy and working towards a common goal that is the the fun part, for me anyway.

Powers are just a small section of your tool set and by all means boring if you consider it a choice of x or y with no regards to the situation.

Not to mention that these are 1st level fighters. More powers would be available at higher levels

 

[coyote6]

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.

That would be most amusing.

(I'd have thought of going with AD&D 1e, with almost everybody having AD&D-style psionics. )

 

[Exen Trik]

Trip in particular is really bad in this way. It's a risky, not-very-sure-thing maneuver that will, as often as not, leave a character knocked prone and wishing he'd just attacked, unless he invests in being good at it, at which point he very rarely wants to use anything else and just spams trip attacks.

That's more or less how I'd like to see it in 4e, as something that could be done by anyone at anytime in a very limited fashion (but less awkward). But instead of being trained in it and spamming it all day, it's once per encounter.

Works for me.

 

[green slime]

In theory, absolutely true, but in practice? Not so much.

Grapple (without placing two to three feats in Grapple) goes out the window when you are fighting Large or larger creatures, since they stack high strength (+8 minimum) and size bonus (for bull rush or grapple). If you are a fighter or barbarian, you are isolating yourself to a single enemy. Great for boss-type fights if it's just the PCs versus a medium-sized caster, but not when you are fighting mobs unless there are other guys that can stand up to the enemies.

Which is why you don't over specialise....

Still this does not preclude the fact that the 3.x fighter does have a myriad of choices of how to best tackle the present tactical situation, if he has been Intelligent in his feat selection.

 

[davethegame]

You appear to have missed the memo that the vast majority of DDXP demo groups had a TPK (a big part of which was not conserving per-day abilities and healing surges because of hard encounters earlier in the adventure).

Uhh? I was there, and I'd hardly say that the "vast majority" of demo groups had TPK. Mine did because the DM got the death and dying rules wrong. There were a few against the big dragon that was supposed to be super-challenging. But unless you have data proving otherwise, there is no way the "vast majority" had TPKs. Especially if you count the Delve as being demo groups... I didn't hear a single one ending in TPK.

 

[MichaelK]

The choice is, do I continue to play 3.x and its various problems, or do I switch to 4E and whatever problems it may have. So the whole point of most of the discussion around here is comparing and contrasting the two systems to determine which handles things better.

Actually for many of us the question is, do I continue to play 3.x with 8 years of house rules or switch to 4e. Every time I see WOTC bragging about "Look we've fixed this", I shrug and think "But I fixed that myself years ago".

In the case of 4E, we've already seen enough to know that playing a 4E fighter is more interesting than a 3E fighter.

I strongly disagree. I've seen nothing of the sort, have you perhaps been sneaking peaks into the 4e PHB?

It could potentially be more interesting, no argument about that. But I haven't seen anything yet "to know" that it will be so. In fact I suspect it will be vastly less so... at first, anyway.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually for many of us the question is, do I continue to play 3.x with 8 years of house rules or switch to 4e. Every time I see WOTC bragging about "Look we've fixed this", I shrug and think "But I fixed that myself years ago".

you should be happy then...

i for myself hate houserules for fundamental things. Some houserules here and there is ok, but even if it is very small, you have to explain new players not only that his XXX does YYY in your game, but you usually have to explain why this is better. If it is standard now, it makes life easier for you.

The only concern I really can understand is, that it could prove to be dull when the only choice you have left is an at will power which is superior to all other things you could imagine... (in 3.x, if you spells ran out, you had 3-5 equally bad options with crossbow beeing the best of them, if you were not willing to throw 50 gold alchemists fire around you)

but I think the game becomes less dull, if you start learning, that blasting all your encounter stuff, once you see the first minions is a bad option... imagine evil kobolds send their minions to you to get you exhausted (blasting all encounter powers) and then attack with real power...

 

[ThirdWizard]

Man, playing a game of 4e last Saturday, we didn't find the Fighter to be boring at all. He was always doing something interesting. Even if you use Cleave 2 or even 3 rounds in a row, if you're cleaning up 3 minions per round, that's pretty interesting! And, combat is much more mobile, so there are plenty of tactical decisions beyond what powers you use.

In practice, I didn't notice any of the problems people are bringing up.

 

[warlockwannabe]

When I played a high level fighter, I absolutely did all those things. Different things all the time. Grapple the wizard, sunder the holy symbol, power attack the rogue, expertise vs the giant, disarm the vorpal sword. Iterative attack when necessary, and cleave minions when possible.

That's kind of the point. A high level fighter has enough feats that he can be good at many different combat styles.

PS

But all I have seen is a 1st level fighter for fourth ed....