D&D 4E An in depth rules discussion on the mechanical problems and breakthroughs of 4e

[Ahglock]

At level 1, you have one per encounter ability from your class, and one daily ability from your class. At level 10, you have three of each, plus three utility powers that may be either encounter or daily. Your allies have had a similar growth in options, and many of your options synergize with theirs.

You might be hitting on the same number, but that doesn't mean the play experience is the same.

Eh, I think it will play out with enough similarities that for some it will feel very similar to lower levels, and for others it will feel totally different. It kind of depends on what your play experience is focussed on.

I hope i can bring into focus the actions they are doing with enough descriptive text that the new powers feel totally different, but for some who focus on the die roll more they see they hit on a 11 still and its going to take 9 rounds of hacking to kill it.

I really do not know if I am a good enough DM to pull it off, so they step back from the die roll a bit and see what there character was supposed to be doing.

 

[Vaeron]

7. Endless magical at-will attacks, should a wizard be able to magic missile all day?

Well, of course this is better. Why should Harry Potter, a magic school *student*, be able to cast more spells per day than a level 30 archmage? The spell memorization thing never made sense, and was in defiance of how magic works in almost all fantasy literature that has ever been written.

And why should all other classes have at-will powers, but not wizards? There are many, many, many reasons this is a good change.

 

[Sadrik]

The XP system is very good. Simple, no more calculating everything,

In fact the whole encounter set up process is excellent and I cannot wait as a DM to sink my teeth into making some adventures. One of the things I really like about the system is it lets me do more things on the fly. 3e was really bogged down and favored the prepared over the brave. 4e lets the brave back into the room.

 

[Digital M@]

I have some players who have been playing 3.x since it was released, and will shamelessly tell me they don't know how to play a cleric or a wizard. Gone are those days. Good riddence.

This is huge. It allows more casual gamers to play roles other than barbarian and fighter.

 

[Digital M@]

I was going to say that it probably won't take long before people realize their characters are just running on a treadmill and get bored, but then I thought of all the MMOs and "action RPGs" in which you do just that, and I'm no longer so sure... It sill sucks, though.

Not like in 3E. The fighter says, I attack and that was the breadth of his ability. The cleric, was I buff, I buff I buff, I heal, heal, heal.... Every RPG & War game run on a treadmill. How many times do people play the same video game? Run the same course? Run the treadmill? It may be redundant but it the the whole experience that attracts them.

 

[The Sword 88]

I agree with your list of breakthroughs

Flaws
1. I completely agree especially with INT and DEX and CHA and WIS, at least STR and CON both provide obvious bonuses with to hit and damage and with hp and surges whereas DEX is for non wizards and warlords clearly the superior stat and CHA and WIS comes down to skill selection and most builds will use either WIS or CHA skills and most likely not both.
2. True
3. I wish the greatsword were better but that's just a personal thing. I do agree that the weapons are lacking in uniqueness.
4. None yet, hopefully they will be released in later books which I think will be better anyway
5. Pretty much not true, while the ranger is pretty much better than the rogue the ranged ranger and warlock are roughly even and the the melee ranger is quite frequently in peril of dying.
6. As someone said these attacks lack a prof bonus but hit non AC defenses which balances things
7. Yes and no. I the at will magic is a little silly, the wizard should need to take a little break to recharge kind of like monsters have those die roll recharge powers, that way the wizard has a reason to carry a weapon as well.

 

[Saeviomagy]

1. Stat polarity- tough or strong, smart or quick, perceptive or social
2. A clear focus on STR, CON, DEX (feats, what each stat does in general)

See, I don't agree with either of these statements. As far as I can understand, each class has one serious stat polarity (usually between their primary stat and their least-useful stat). Intelligence seems to be the big one that people pick on. Intelligence is, it's true, only marginally useful (at best) for a rogue. Having it at a decent level (13+) is still useful because it gives him access to a number of useful feats (and is very important for many uses of ritual casting...). If you're going to decide to have a smart rogue, you can: just don't expect to make int his primary stat.

The same in reverse works for a wizard - there are good feats that require a decent level of dex, initiative is a good thing, and possibly even the skill choices too (remember - fireball benefits from combat advantage now!).

Strong/tough, smart/dextrous and wise/charismatic characters still have very good options available. If they choose to go down a path which doesn't suit their stats, then obviously they won't do as well. I don't really see that as a failing of the system - it tells you what classes need what stats, and claiming that despite the fact that your character is in a profession he's not suited to he should still perform at peak seems to be being a little silly.

3. Weapons- sizing for small creatures, damages for various weapons, weapon uniqueness

To me, it doesn't look like there are any obviously awful or awesome weapons that would either be totally unused or used by everyone all the time, so it's fine. Small creature sizing isn't really an issue: it works well enough for the sizes that PCs will be with minimum complexity, and monsters don't follow the weapon rules, so that's ok too.

4. Streamlining all powers from all character types into one system (no excellent unique sub-systems)

I'm not sure there really were that many 'excellent unique' systems around. Spellcasting always seemed to be off on it's own ignoring the rules of the gameworld to the point where it became problematic, and everyone else didn't have their own systems really.

5. Class imbalance (Ranger)

As far as I've seen, there is one power (blade cascade) that's crazy-powerful when optimized. Since simply removing the power has no effect whatsoever on non-powergamers (it's an awful power if you don't power game), it's not that bad an issue.

6. Non-Weapon attacks missing a "weapon training" bonus to hit

Classes that make extensive use of non-weapon attacks usually have a broad range of powers that target different defenses. Classes that are stuck with weapon attacks will typically have to take a minor power hit to choose an attack that targets a save instead of ac.
For instance: The rogue gets "piercing strike", which targets reflex and does [w] + d. At the same level, he gets "sly flourish", which targets ac and does [w] + d + c - he loses out on damage for targeting the weaker defense, or "riposte", where he targets ac and does [w]+d, but gains a special effect.

When a cleric uses his wisdom vs reflex powers, he's doing damage comparable to what he can do with a weapon, PLUS a special effect.

7. Endless magical at-will attacks, should a wizard be able to magic missile all day?

Hell yes. In most previous editions the wizard at low levels was indistinguishable from a peasant in most fights (in most combats all he did was fire off xbow bolts which only had a slim chance to hit), and at high levels reverted to the same any time he felt a situation didn't warrant using a spell. In exchange for that, his spells were significantly more powerful than anything that anyone else could do.

Unfortunately that's basically saying "the price you pay for being the most powerful character is being the most bored player".

I'm totally happy with throwing that stupid situation out the window.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

In most previous editions the wizard at low levels was indistinguishable from a peasant in most fights (in most combats all he did was fire off xbow bolts which only had a slim chance to hit), and at high levels reverted to the same any time he felt a situation didn't warrant using a spell. In exchange for that, his spells were significantly more powerful than anything that anyone else could do.

Unfortunately that's basically saying "the price you pay for being the most powerful character is being the most bored player".

I was never bored holding my spells in reserve for fights that really needed that extra oomph. I would often just flit about the battlefield calling out hidden targets or concealed foes to the other combatants and use a spell or two to shape the battlefield. Conservation of arcane energies was paramount to the wizards personal safety, which was more important than the party.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I was never bored holding my spells in reserve for fights that really needed that extra oomph. I would often just flit about the battlefield calling out hidden targets or concealed foes to the other combatants and use a spell or two to shape the battlefield. Conservation of arcane energies was paramount to the wizards personal safety, which was more important than the party.

So how good was your character at that role? You must have had an odd build of wizard to make his spot checks worth a damn.

"using a spell or two" to shape the battlefield would suggest that you weren't really holding things in reserve.

And "conservation of arcane energies" was shorthand for "not doing anything worthwhile for most of playtime".

A lot of my time as a wizard was spent NOT casting spells, and simply going "well, I guess this crossbow shot MIGHT hit on a 20....".

That's not to say I had a full compliment of spells at the end of an adventuring day - far from it.

Of course the other alternative is to spend your spells like water and go to sleep after every other encounter, which is at least as bad.

 

[small pumpkin man]

I was never bored holding my spells in reserve for fights that really needed that extra oomph. I would often just flit about the battlefield calling out hidden targets or concealed foes to the other combatants and use a spell or two to shape the battlefield. Conservation of arcane energies was paramount to the wizards personal safety, which was more important than the party.

I personally quite enjoyed my first level Sorcorer too, since I made sure to choose spells which had the capacity to completely change the outcome of fights with one round of casting, but I've seen other people be completely frustrated/bored by even mid level Wizards when the campaign requires/heavily encourages extended crawls of 6 or more fights in one day (the last part of Red hand of Doom in particular). And it's not like any particular fight was that tough, the buffed "Fighters" were perfectly capable of hacking through them, so there really wasn't much/anything for the character to do.

(Of course while this is a very good argument for Per Encounter Wizard spellcasting, MM all day is another argument)