Biggest 4E PHB complaint...

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Y'know, it's probably my Planescape bias, but I love the idea of tieflings as orphans, social rejects, and general outcasts, looked askanse at because of their "different" nature, necessarily assumed evil even though they aren't necessarily evil.

It's a really great RP vehicle to trot out concepts like social equality, to play with the medieval idea of "your blood is who you are," to twist this idea of self-determination when you are literally part of the evil of the planes, and even to work with concepts like race and class divides in a fantasy context in a way that's maybe a little easier to buy than goblins or orcs or the like.

These new tieflings with their ancient empire and their evil pact and their "no one really holds it against us but look how almost evil we are!" don't have the same juicy RP potential. They might have some different potential, perhaps more suited to Swords and Sorcery, but as a fan of urban fantasy and fantasy-as-allegory, it's less suited to the kind of games I like to run.

Now that you write it this way, something ... "resonates"... with the 4E Tiefling that I wasn't aware before. On the risk of Godwin-ing the thread, I feel somehow reminded of my countries dark past - unfortunately, it's not as long ago as Bael Turath, and for better or worse, it didn't result in any lasting, visible deformations on me, but it still is a crime committed by ancestors, a crime I am not personally responsible for, but that is to horrible to forget - and one that has to be worked for to never be repeated again...
I wonder if Tiefling schools also teach the history of their race as a reminder on what never should happen again, and if Tiefling (Infernal) Warlock are seen as backwards orientated people that never learn from history...

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Er, I tend to disagree.

I'm not sure how the MUCH bigger wall of text that is the Spell chapter of previous editions was NEWBIE firendly even with an index.

For one thing, it was in the back of the book, after the actual game.

 

[carmachu]

Aren't the powers also broken down by level and class? And more importantly, they aren't jumbled together.

Not like the spells were.

can you list all the 1st level at will powers? no. You have to go section by section and scroll through.

Where as the spells its cleric 1st, listed. if I need to know what it does I can look it up.

4e players REALLY needed an index.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How would you get around the Wall problem, besides moving it, which really doesn't solve the problem?

Well, in a way, it does. It is contained to a single chapter, and you can read the class descriptions without reading the powers. But I am not sure it works really well.

I found the page-flipping overall relatively acceptable so far. I rarely have to switch between feats and powers, since the interaction between them is only weak. Equipment rarely needs going back to the other chapters.

I think for referencing a class or creating a new character, the organization is top-notch and couldn't get any better (except by expanding the word count and repeating material). It is less helpful for reading through, admittedly, because either people run into the mistake of trying to read all powers, or you have to flip pages to get to the next class.

 

[The Little Raven]

The presence of differences does not erase the magnitude of the similarity.

The magnitude of similarity is isolated to a single physical characteristic: a tail. Other than that, there are no similarities that couldn't be used to connect any bipedal creature to them.

It's like saying Warcraft Orcs are just like D&D elves, because they both have pointed ears.

Compare the Draenei and the 4e Tiefling, and, let's say, a DiTerlizzi tiefling. Obviously one of those things is much more different from the others.

I've attached a DiTerlizzi tiefling to this post. It resembles a 4e tiefling, but not a draenei.

Just because they're different doesn't mean they're not also disrtinctly similar.

They're so different than using one minor point of similarity (tails) is really reaching.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not like the spells were.

can you list all the 1st level at will powers? no. You have to go section by section and scroll through.

Where as the spells its cleric 1st, listed. if I need to know what it does I can look it up.

4e players REALLY needed an index.

For common uses, I don't think a list of 1st level powers of all classes is ever needed. Most of the time, you want to know what your specific character can learn, and that's in the class list.
Players of Half Elves are the only ones that would find the 1st level power list useful.

Though a larger Index would certainly _never_ hurt usability. (Okay, maybe if it was half as large as the book itself and made it 50 % heavier... )

 

[AllisterH]

For one thing, it was in the back of the book, after the actual game.

Hmm? So the spells WEREN"T part of the game?

That's a surprise.

 

[The Little Raven]

x8 classes and you have the whole wall

Just like your claim that the spell lists make digging through the spell chapter easier, having powers organized by class makings finding your powers easier, since you don't have your powers intermingled with other class powers. No more having to check a small entry on the spell's stat block to determine what class it goes with.

And you only need to read the class you're playing. Saying that having 8 classes makes it overwhelming is ignoring the fact that having hundreds of spells from other classes intermixed with your own is even more confusing.

can you list all the 1st level at will powers? no. You have to go section by section and scroll through.

The beginning of the classes chapter has a list of what page each class starts on. The at-will powers for each class are on the first few pages of the class entry. That's easy as pie.

Where as the spells its cleric 1st, listed. if I need to know what it does I can look it up.

You can look at the Cleric entry and see all of the 1st-level abilities in a couple pages, with full descriptions. With 3rd's spell list, you got a minor description which still required you to flip through the alphabetized (not level-based) description section. So, you basically are flipping back and forth between a reference table (which isn't really good for reference, because it doesn't give page numbers or anything) and a "wall of text" in order to figure out what your few first-level spells do (which can be separated in the description section by dozens of pages).

I'll admit that the index couldn't be better, but claiming that 3e's multi-page flipping is better is just laughable.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Well, in a way, it does. It is contained to a single chapter, and you can read the class descriptions without reading the powers. But I am not sure it works really well.

I found the page-flipping overall relatively acceptable so far. I rarely have to switch between feats and powers, since the interaction between them is only weak. Equipment rarely needs going back to the other chapters.

I think for referencing a class or creating a new character, the organization is top-notch and couldn't get any better (except by expanding the word count and repeating material). It is less helpful for reading through, admittedly, because either people run into the mistake of trying to read all powers, or you have to flip pages to get to the next class.

My point exactly.

 

[FDM]

For my players multiple strikers was more useful. To each their own, though.