basic differences in rules per edition

[ProfessorCirno]

The problem with these threads is that they inevitably drift into people who have not read 4e, or read a bit of one book but never played it, or played part of a game for like an hour, start pointing out differences in 4e that aren't there.

When I critricize 3e it's because I played it for years, and I'm in a 3e game now.

When I criticize 2e it's because I played it for years, and my 2e game just yesterday went into hiatus.

When I criticize 4e it's because I've played it for a good year and a half now and I'm in a 4e game now.

But when so many others criticize 4e it's because of something they heard was in the book by someone else, or it's a rule they glanced at and made a lot of assumptions on, or it's something they saw on the internet.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

No, because most monsters don't have weapons to disarm, overrun and bullrush were useless, and everything is too big and has too many feet to grapple or trip (or disarm or overrun or bullrush either, since size matters). Of all the above only tripping can "work" and that's only if a wizard is giving you a thousand buffs, and even then you lose it once everything starts flying. There's a reason there's only the "fighter trip monkey" and not one built around any of the other maneuvers - at best, you've done relatively little, and at worst, you've just wasted your turn.

In which case then, either you weren't trying very hard as a player (utilizing your own magic where necessary - and not needing a thousand wizard buffs either) or your DM was giving no consideration to what your character-build was trying to do. I found this type of fighter a lot of fun to play. YMOV.

As for homogenous, it's like claiming that everything in 3e is the same since they all use d20 take highest - a complaint I did see when 3e first came out, since in 2e every damned thing had it's own mechanic.

Initially for me, it went way beyond roll a d20 and roll high. I'm talking about every class using the same at will/encounter/daily mechanic; everyone who gets "poisoned" has the same chance of recovering from it regardless of anything (level, con, expertise etc.), all the different character's fort/reflex/will were basically the same three numbers shifted around depending upon not very much. There was not much to differentiate them from each other. They were a generic character first, playing a role second and then third was their class which determined the particular flavour of their role. For me, this was completely arse about. Again YMMV.

So yeah, my 4e fighter throws foes around and grabs them and trips them and taunts them. My free hand fighter is basically a luchadore, it's awesome. 3e fighters? Charge and full attack.

Surprisingly, you really seem to have the blinkers on with this statement. The fighter in the Kingmaker campaign I'm GMing is doing exactly the same as you are describing with your 4e fighter. Perhaps it does come down more to the players and GM than the ruleset (although I will say that 4e "encourages" this more so than 3e).

What kills me is that 3e fighters were advertised as being made for new players, but they're so not the newbie class. They're the most complex because you can never change feats.

I disagree with this. Understanding all the ins and outs of a variety of magical effects is far more complex than handling a handful of feats. Both classes are OK at first level (and most "newbies" as you put it would be happy to accept advice as to what will make their character more useful). At higher levels though, spellcasters get a lot more complex than the fighter.

In addition, if a new player came up to you saying they were disappointed in how their character's feat selection was turning out, would you just slam the door in their face and say "sucker!" or would you try to help them out? Again, I appreciate that 4e has hardcoded effective characters into the game but at what cost? For some, this cost is too high. For others, this is what they've been looking for. To each their own.

When I criticize...

You generally have a good idea of what you are talking about. I know. You are very good at exposing and puncturing silly or fallacious statements. I have seen this repeatedly on the EN World and Paizo forums.

But when so many others criticize 4e...

I'd be careful with this one that you don't fall into the assumption trap here. In case you were wondering, I've played 4e regularly since it's release and have had a DDI account since it came out. I'm sure others on this thread have also had greater exposure to the latest D&D version than perhaps you are giving credit.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[CuRoi]

This is objectively not true.

RC

I will second that. I'm looking at my AD&D Monstrous Manual at the moment. Each page is completely dedicated to an individual monster. Just under 1/2 of the top of each page includes a stat block and a picture (both taking up the same amount of space). Every monster has a section on Habitat / Society and Ecology which takes up roughly 1/2 of the text area on the page. Combat is about 1/4 of that text area and the remaining quarter is descriptive text that includes what amount to roleplaying tips and physical descriptions.

Open any 3e monster manual and you're lucky to see a paragraph on physical description along with maybe very brief notes about the creature outside of combat. The biggest section is the "Combat" section and for many monster, the stat blocks are much larger than the flavor text.

I'd say thats a pretty significant difference between the two. They were willing and able to devote a full page to each critter and give a run down of things like habitat, ecology and detailed physical / behavioral info for a DM to use for inspiration. It's the reason I still take my AD&D Monstrous Manual and DMG to the gaming table even though I run 3e games.

Again, not trying to say which is "better" here - 3e or 2e or 4e or whatever-e. Maybe it is better to leave all the non-combat stuff completely up tot he DM? However, I definitely feel there was a much stronger focus on combat in 3e than previous editions and that previous editions provided more non-combat inspiration.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

In which case then, either you weren't trying very hard as a player (utilizing your own magic where necessary - and not needing a thousand wizard buffs either) or your DM was giving no consideration to what your character-build was trying to do. I found this type of fighter a lot of fun to play. YMOV.

But that's the problem - at the end of the day, it's not your fighter who's doing everything, it's the magical buffs supporting you.

Strip away the magic. What can your fighter do?

Initially for me, it went way beyond roll a d20 and roll high. I'm talking about every class using the same at will/encounter/daily mechanic; everyone who gets "poisoned" has the same chance of recovering from it regardless of anything (level, con, expertise etc.), all the different character's fort/reflex/will were basically the same three numbers shifted around depending upon not very much. There was not much to differentiate them from each other. They were a generic character first, playing a role second and then third was their class which determined the particular flavour of their role. For me, this was completely arse about. Again YMMV.

But see, I again saw the same thing in the 2e -> 3e change. Nihil novi sub sole. Everyone has skills? Everyone gains feats? Everyone gets iterative attacks? For many, that told them "Everyone is the same."

But when you dive into the powers and see how they work - just as in 3e when you dive into the character abilities - you see the differences. Rogue powers and fighter powers and cleric powers are all radically different.

Surprisingly, you really seem to have the blinkers on with this statement. The fighter in the Kingmaker campaign I'm GMing is doing exactly the same as you are describing with your 4e fighter. Perhaps it does come down more to the players and GM than the ruleset (although I will say that 4e "encourages" this more so than 3e).

I would be interested in seeing your character or the game to see how it's going, to be honest.

I disagree with this. Understanding all the ins and outs of a variety of magical effects is far more complex than handling a handful of feats. Both classes are OK at first level (and most "newbies" as you put it would be happy to accept advice as to what will make their character more useful). At higher levels though, spellcasters get a lot more complex than the fighter.

You honestly don't need to grasp the ins and outs of various magical effects. Someone who chooses color spray on whim because it sounds cool is going to rock the game at level 1. If they choose another spell and do poorly, they change it. A fighter who chooses Toughness cannot change it.

This isn't even really contested - the 3e developers have openly stated that System Mastery was a purposeful part of the game. The difference is that when you do badly at System Mastery as a fighter, you're stuck in it. When you do badly as a wizard, you can change it. There are far more "player traps" in feats then there are in spells. The biggest trap a wizard can make is focusing on damage and evocation. That's it, that's the biggest trap, and honestly potentially the only ones. Bad spell choice? Change it. Bad feats? Wizards are incredibly independent from feat choice. Their only flaw is a bad focus on what their wizard will do - and even then, they're still doing damage and doing something. For the fighter, all he has are feats - and that's where system mastery comes into play the most. Feats are a minefield.

The balance problem in 3e isn't with complex spells or combos or CharOps shenanigans. The flaw is that all it takes is for someone to say "Hey druid sounds cool, I'll take natural spell so I can just always be a bear," and just like that he's a powerhouse.

In addition, if a new player came up to you saying they were disappointed in how their character's feat selection was turning out, would you just slam the door in their face and say "sucker!" or would you try to help them out? Again, I appreciate that 4e has hardcoded effective characters into the game but at what cost? For some, this cost is too high. For others, this is what they've been looking for. To each their own.

Quite frankly, unless I was using DMG2's respec rules, then my only other recourse is to houserule. By the 3e rules, you have to slam the door. Certainly you can houserule it, but if you have to houserule things, then there's a problem. Again, Monte Cook has openly stated that this was an intentional part of 3e.

My feel with 4e is this - in 4e, I can make a character who's useful in combat and has stuff to do outside of combat. In 3e, the only way I could really do that is by making a spellcaster. For me, the non-combat part is the key. In 3e, you have 2+int skills as a fighter - and int ain't your main. You can climb and swim. Or climb and jump. Or swim and jump. That's all your fighter has outside of combat, unless you throw the whole skill system away.

I'd be careful with this one that you don't fall into the assumption trap here. In case you were wondering, I've played 4e regularly since it's release and have had a DDI account since it came out. I'm sure others on this thread have also had greater exposure to the latest D&D version than perhaps you are giving credit.

For what it's worth, I wasn't referring to you in that statement

 

[Votan]

Quite frankly, unless I was using DMG2's respec rules, then my only other recourse is to houserule. By the 3e rules, you have to slam the door. Certainly you can houserule it, but if you have to houserule things, then there's a problem. Again, Monte Cook has openly stated that this was an intentional part of 3e.

I have to agree that this is a concern. It's a very hard job to balance customization (so every fighter is different) and balance (so Jane doesn't rock while John barely rates as a side-kick). 4E introduced an effective solution, albeit one with downsides. Feats had a lot of undesirable properties in 3E, most of which were due to things like unexpected synergies between feats, complexity and the sheer number of them.

I am not sure that they were a mistake, but I note that old school games like Castles and Crusades seem to remove them as almost the first step (making the focus on choice of class). Spells still matter but it's not as much of a problem when they can be juggled daily.

In the same sense, a sorcerer takes more experience to design than a wizard, undert he 3E rules.

 

[CuRoi]

When I criticize 4e it's because I've played it for a good year and a half now and I'm in a 4e game now.

But when so many others criticize 4e it's because of something they heard was in the book by someone else, or it's a rule they glanced at and made a lot of assumptions on, or it's something they saw on the internet.

It's not enough to not play it because you are critical of it? I bought all three core books on release, read them, played in several sessions and never liked it. That said, I won't criticize the mechanics of the game or pretend to know how "balanced" it is. I like some of the rules changes actually, some didn't sit well with me and some were just not -enough- of a change. I don't think that means someone needs to play it for a year to decide they don't care much for the way the game plays and the overall feel of the system. So I think people who have studied it and given it a shot, should feel free to express their opinions or be critical to some degree. Of course I'll try to refrain as that's not what this thread is about.

 

[Mort]

I disagree with this. Understanding all the ins and outs of a variety of magical effects is far more complex than handling a handful of feats. Both classes are OK at first level (and most "newbies" as you put it would be happy to accept advice as to what will make their character more useful). At higher levels though, spellcasters get a lot more complex than the fighter.

The complexity is certainly there for the caster - lots and lots of options and interactions. BUT about 80-90% of those options are useful, misfire on a few of them - and your character is still effective and usefull, In and out of combat (especially the mage, the sorcerer suffers some of the identical problems to the fighter).

For the fighter, yes there are less feats but the choices are critical - pick the wrong feat at 2nd level and you may be stuck never really having an effective character.

Simply put a 15th level wizard designed with any knowledge at all of the spell system (minimal is fine) will be quite effective; a 15th level fighter designed without a very good understanding of feats and feat interactions will quite likely be a total dud by 15th level character standards.

In addition, if a new player came up to you saying they were disappointed in how their character's feat selection was turning out, would you just slam the door in their face and say "sucker!" or would you try to help them out? Again, I appreciate that 4e has hardcoded effective characters into the game but at what cost? For some, this cost is too high. For others, this is what they've been looking for. To each their own....


Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Helping them out isn't the issue - it's how much do you have to, that's the real question. My point is a newbie designing a fighter is likely going to need more help than a newbie designing a wizard - as far as effectiveness goes, and that's completely counter intuitive.

As for the thread topic - while casters were always powerful, 3e really let go of the reigns. I don't think it's too controversial a statement to say 3e mages are by far the most powerfull of the progression from 1e-forward. 4e yanked on those reigns hard, and while many people dislike 4e independant of this, IMO this contributes quite a bit to the dislike of 4e.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

But that's the problem - at the end of the day, it's not your fighter who's doing everything, it's the magical buffs supporting you.

Strip away the magic. What can your fighter do?

But you can't really do that can you because magical gear and expected wealth at each level is a core aspect of 3e (and is perhaps one of my chief gripes with 3e after hit points - don't get me started on hit points!). Magic is intrinsic to all characters in 3e regardless of how much I would like it otherwise. Pretty much, magic supports those actions and is occasionally expected to.

But see, I again saw the same thing in the 2e -> 3e change. Nihil novi sub sole. Everyone has skills? Everyone gains feats? Everyone gets iterative attacks? For many, that told them "Everyone is the same."

My very very initial thought on 3e looking at the PHB and that stupid picture of the barbarian was "what have they done to my game! They're dumbing it down the bastards." I then actually read the book and came to the opposite opinion - that they saved it from itself. The differences between the classes were obvious because as much as everyone got some similar stuff, each class was still very different to build. Feats were powerful and changed what your character could do. There were so many skills to be good at (or not good at). The differences between the different classes was fantastically obvious! Again though YMMV.

But when you dive into the powers and see how they work - just as in 3e when you dive into the character abilities - you see the differences. Rogue powers and fighter powers and cleric powers are all radically different.

But they are all tied to the role of striker, leader, defender, controller. Over time, this has been amplified (but also extended here and there). A character's fairly rigid role is far more defining in play than their class is my point.

I would be interested in seeing your character or the game to see how it's going, to be honest.

When you have a player that is more interested in what their character does rather than how their character is going to mechanically do it, and combine that with a DM who focuses on saying yes rather than no, it is an awful lot of fun and perfectly within the rules. If a character takes improved disarm, it is up to the DM/GM to give the character the opportunity to use it here and there and have the opponents act appropriately when they do. Admittedly, at higher level, the dynamics of the game changes and perhaps this is what you are focusing on. You are not going to reasonably trip a gargantuan dragon or gelatinous cube... oh wait

You honestly don't need to grasp the ins and outs of various magical effects. Someone who chooses color spray on whim because it sounds cool is going to rock the game at level 1. If they choose another spell and do poorly, they change it. A fighter who chooses Toughness cannot change it.

I like what pathfinder did to the toughness feat by the way. As for magical effects, I am thinking at higher levels with the newer player not able to get the most out of their spells because they do not fully understand how the mechanics work and so may not use a spell when it would be optimal to do so.

This isn't even really contested - the 3e developers have openly stated that System Mastery was a purposeful part of the game. The difference is that when you do badly at System Mastery as a fighter, you're stuck in it. When you do badly as a wizard, you can change it. There are far more "player traps" in feats then there are in spells. The biggest trap a wizard can make is focusing on damage and evocation. That's it, that's the biggest trap, and honestly potentially the only ones. Bad spell choice? Change it. Bad feats? Wizards are incredibly independent from feat choice. Their only flaw is a bad focus on what their wizard will do - and even then, they're still doing damage and doing something. For the fighter, all he has are feats - and that's where system mastery comes into play the most. Feats are a minefield.

The balance problem in 3e isn't with complex spells or combos or CharOps shenanigans. The flaw is that all it takes is for someone to say "Hey druid sounds cool, I'll take natural spell so I can just always be a bear," and just like that he's a powerhouse.

Quite frankly, unless I was using DMG2's respec rules, then my only other recourse is to houserule. By the 3e rules, you have to slam the door. Certainly you can houserule it, but if you have to houserule things, then there's a problem. Again, Monte Cook has openly stated that this was an intentional part of 3e.

Rule zero baby! If I see something not working at my table, I'm going to be fixing it. A new player I'd cut some slack. A more experienced player I'd point to the retraining rules.

But yes, system mastery is fun in itself and can be a game unto itself for certain players. As long as the DM can control the optimizers and assist the others where possible, then most of the time, things will be OK and everyone gets what they want out of the game.

My feel with 4e is this - in 4e, I can make a character who's useful in combat and has stuff to do outside of combat. In 3e, the only way I could really do that is by making a spellcaster. For me, the non-combat part is the key. In 3e, you have 2+int skills as a fighter - and int ain't your main. You can climb and swim. Or climb and jump. Or swim and jump. That's all your fighter has outside of combat, unless you throw the whole skill system away.

Intimidate, craft, ride etc. Plus the intelligent fighter build is a reasonable one (as I've been trying to indicate ). Besides which, in any version of the game you have roleplaying. A character will interact with the world how they will and make the most of it outside of combat. Again this comes down more to the group, the campaign they are playing in, the module they are playing and the situation they are involved in more so than the rules.

If anything, I have found skill challenges to occasionally be a distraction with this as players fumble around with their static skill selection and try to frame some form of relevance to the situation presented by the DM. My group prefers a more natural approach to things like characters in a story rather than hiding behind a skill check. And to be fair, the search skill is perhaps my most hated addition to the game. It basically says "I couldn't be bothered interacting with your world and so I'll just roll/take 20 and you tell me what I find." Using skills to replace roleplaying is something I don't like about both 3e and 4e - but it is something easily fixed.

For what it's worth, I wasn't referring to you in that statement

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It's not enough to not play it because you are critical of it? I bought all three core books on release, read them, played in several sessions and never liked it. That said, I won't criticize the mechanics of the game or pretend to know how "balanced" it is. I like some of the rules changes actually, some didn't sit well with me and some were just not -enough- of a change. I don't think that means someone needs to play it for a year to decide they don't care much for the way the game plays and the overall feel of the system. So I think people who have studied it and given it a shot, should feel free to express their opinions or be critical to some degree. Of course I'll try to refrain as that's not what this thread is about.

Sure, but it is the conclusions thrown out for consideration, often almost as asides, that cause a lot of the trouble. For example, I think I read a statement from you today to the effect that 4E was fine for those who didn't care about story telling. (Not an exact quote.) I was rather ticked for a few seconds, until I reminded myself that this "conclusionary aside" was not really germane to the rest of your post, and was probably based on a different defintion on story telling than I would use. But mainly, it was reasoning from what you found valuable for story telling to what other people found valuable for story telling--and then making a jump that what you found valuable was necessarily a sign of story telling taking place--or rather, that its absence was necessarily a sign that story telling was not. Or at least that is the way it appeared to me, perhaps because of a phrase chosen that was not the most precise.

Throw in a very slight (and entirely understandable otherwise) rules misunderstanding, and then follow it up with such a conclusion, and if it doesn't lead to flames, it is only because of restraint and luck. You'd think we'd have a topic about simple facts without such issues, but already it starts to edge into it.

Not that this is new to 4E. People have been making backhand slams (some of them even inadvertent) of all versions of D&D since there was something else to play.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The complexity is certainly there for the caster - lots and lots of options and interactions. BUT about 80-90% of those options are useful, misfire on a few of them - and your character is still effective and usefull, In and out of combat (especially the mage, the sorcerer suffers some of the identical problems to the fighter).

A newer player won't play that powerful caster as effectively as an experienced player though.

For the fighter, yes there are less feats but the choices are critical - pick the wrong feat at 2nd level and you may be stuck never really having an effective character.

Hmmm... I think I know what you are trying to say here, but my answer is that a reasonable group will help out a newer player not to fall into this trap. A complete group of new players and DM though will have to learn it as they go (with growing expertise being a feature rather than a flaw).

Simply put a 15th level wizard designed with any knowledge at all of the spell system (minimal is fine) will be quite effective; a 15th level fighter designed without a very good understanding of feats and feat interactions will quite likely be a total dud by 15th level character standards.

Depending upon their magical gear, this can certainly be true. I still contend that it takes a good player to effectively play a wizard, but an effective player with an effective wizard can totally unbalance the game at higher levels - it is just too damn easy to get off your spells. [Pathfinder has actually gone a long way in fixing this by the way - reduced spell selection, spells harder to cast when pressured, increased/more powerful options for non-spellcasters].

Helping them out isn't the issue - it's how much do you have to, that's the real question. My point is a newbie designing a fighter is likely going to need more help than a newbie designing a wizard - as far as effectiveness goes, and that's completely counter intuitive.

In play though, it is easier to play the fighter than to play the wizard effectively. Character design requires a level of skill regardless of the class.

As for the thread topic - while casters were always powerful, 3e really let go of the reigns. I don't think it's too controversial a statement to say 3e mages are by far the most powerfull of the progression from 1e-forward. 4e yanked on those reigns hard, and while many people dislike 4e independant of this, IMO this contributes quite a bit to the dislike of 4e.

3e casters needed to be reined in! 4e was a solution to this but resulted in compromises that did not jive with a lot of people. The solution was perhaps a little too extreme and other solutions would have been worked.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise