D&D 4E Another Review of 4e

[SSquirrel]

If you follow the recommended method for character generation and class you wind up with clerics with exactly the same powers no matter what their alignment is and no matter what god they worship.

The build recommendations are just that, recommendations for a specific type of character. Feel free to ignore them.

There isn't even an index listing the powers to make it possible to look things up easily. Readers are expected to memorize it or flip through each individual character class one at a time looking for a particular power.

Each power is specific to a class, and everything is neatly divided into each class' section. How is this hard?

My biggest complaint is that they've pushed the entire game so far in the direction of turning it into a board game with hero clix style mini's combat.

Oh you mean where the game originated in the 70s?

For those of you who think that the new game is more streamline than 3.5 just wait until the next few rounds of class books rolls out. You'll need the book with the Assassin class of course, and the Anti-Paladin...the Druid may make another appearance elsewhere, perhaps a swashbuckler...and on and on. Ultimately you are going to have a hundred classes each with fifty unique powers and you DM's are going to have to try and keep it all straight. Probably without an index in any of the books so you have to shell out another $180.00 a year in subscriptions to dndinsider just so you can use the index that should have been included in your books.

Actually there is an index in all 3 books, I've seen that claim multiple times and it's been shot down each time. You don't need Anti-Paladins in 4E, you can be a Paladin for any god, including the evil one (provided your DM allows evil characters as PCs). The DM has always been final adjudicator of what is and isn't allowed in the game.

When I would plan a 3E game I would look thru my books and decide what PrCs or non-core base classes I felt didn't fit w/the game I was running or that I just thought were stupidly overpowered. I let my players know in advance what would and would not be allowed. If they had something specific they were thinking of playing and I didn't own it, I borrowed the book to review it. I don't see this method of things changing in 4E except now it will all be base classes w/o PrCs.

Actually it will be quite simple to keep track of your players abilities. Just photocopy any pages related to their characters level. This gives you every power they could be using from their class. We're going to print off pages from the pdfs rather than use power cards. I'd rather have 3 or 4 extra full size pieces of paper than 10 index cards.

 

[tuxgeo]

Warlord, high dex and light blade. Some relevant abilities: Warlord's Favor(Warlord 1), which provides one nearby ally a +2 bonus to attack rolls against a certain enemy for one round; and Bastion of Defense(Warlord 1), which gives your allies either a +1 bonus to all defenses or a handful of temporary hit points. And note that the high dex you'll want for the light blade can easily make hide armor as good as chainmail, so you can have your full movement speed.

On a side note, what does a high DEX have to do with light blades, unless you are throwing them? This is the second time I have seen someone indicate that certain weapon attacks are based on DEX; I thought STR ruled melee. (I cannot look it up yet, as I ordered through Amazon and am waiting for July.)
Thanks!

 

[theNater]

On a side note, what does a high DEX have to do with light blades, unless you are throwing them? This is the second time I have seen someone indicate that certain weapon attacks are based on DEX; I thought STR ruled melee. (I cannot look it up yet, as I ordered through Amazon and am waiting for July.)
Thanks!

There are a number of feats that provide bonuses when wielding certain weapon types. The feats for light blades usually have some dex requirements.

An example from heroic tier: Nimble Blade provides a +1 bonus to damage on creatures you have combat advantage against, if you are wielding a light blade. You need a dex of 15 to take the feat.

 

[Belphanior]

Everything has been pushed in the direction of video game style quest trees. People. If you think that the quests presented in games like World of Warcraft make for the pinnacle of roleplaying questing and RPG plotlines you are sadly, sadly mistaken.

Yeah thanks for that buddy.

Let me tell you about my first 3e character. ( ) An elven monk who "wasted" almost all her attribute enhancements from leveling into Charisma, as she slowly but surely evolved from a stonecold disciplined dungeondelving killer into an open-hearted person. She eventually fell in love, married the party's rogue, bore him a child, and shortly after retired from adventuring to take care of her family life, being truly happy for the first time in more than a hundred years.

None of this was planned in advance. This was character development from level 1 all the way to 17 in its purest form. Not everybody defines "roleplaying" in the same way, but in my opinion this was some of it. And some damn good bit too.

I mastered 3.x, have almost every supplement, and number-crunched like a fiend when I had to. I used spells in ways nobody ever intended to in order to pull of some miraculous escape and can by memory alone construct NPCs of any level - on the fly behind the screen, if I have to.

And I love 4e.

Please don't ever again assume I'm a moron who thinks WoW's questchains are roleplaying.
Also please don't assume I'm incapable of grasping the complexities of 3e and require something simpler.

Rather, just get off your high horse and accept that some people have different tastes. For us, 4e is great. You don't have to like it, but you certainly don't have the right to insult us.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Man, my signature sure seems relevant around here.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

-1.

Just replace everything in your sig with 3.5 (or flip your "likes" and "dislikes" around) and that's what you'll get in an anti-4e thread.

Rolling everyone's opinion into a few lines of text is pretty groundbreaking, though. Is that like alignment?