Blog post on the feel of D&D (marmell, reynolds et all)

[Zeborah]

I think one of the advantages of 4E is that it's easier to compare powers and special maneuvers, since there is a more or less clearer scale.
We have:
- Basic Attacks. Nothing fancy. Attack, deal damage, no special effects.
- At Will Powers: Attack with or plus minor special effect (pushing, higher bonus, small rider buff)
- Per Encounter Powers: More damage + minor effect, or normal damage and better effect
- Per Day Powers: More Damage, plus strong effect.

If you want to rule a unusual maneuver, you can use this as a base-line:
- Throw Salt is easy to do if you stack up on salt. So, it deals no damage and grants a minor benefit. Making it on par with basic attacks, maybe at-will powers.
- Turn Tables to trip multiple foes: Requires the presence of a table, so it should compare to a per encounter power.

That makes sense. Based simply on the action description, I'd make it a +(Dex Modifier) vs. (Reflex Defense) roll, inflicting the Blinded condition if it succeeds. I had a fairly similar situation come up when I tried out the rules, and it worked.

 

[Jhaelen]

This would be one of the pictures I would put in the dictionary next to the word stale. But I have never been either a fan of chess or adept at it. Although I respect the people that can play it at a high level quite a bit.

I'd put it in the dictionary next to the word stalemate

On a more serious note, I've enjoyed playing chess quite a lot for a couple of years. The thing is, after a certain point you really have to start memorizing matches to get any better. At that point I decided it was more tedium than fun and stopped playing it.

I also firmly believe that chess belongs to the category of games where the player who makes the first move cannot lose unless making a mistake. I.e. it's in the same category as tic-tac-toe, reversi (engl.?), and checkers. It just hasn't been proved yet because the number of possible moves is so large - but it's only a matter of time until someone does.

Back on topic:
The comparison of chess and D&D fails on more accounts than I could possibly list. So, I'll limit myself to one point I consider crucial:

Part of the enjoyment in D&D comes from new toys to play with: new monsters, new items, new feats, new classes, etc. It never gets boring because it keeps changing and evolving. While this can be accomplished by a creative DM without any need for additional supplements, it also requires a lot of time which many DMs do not have, so obviously, it's an excellent way for a company to make more money than from just selling the rules.

This still doesn't account for the need of releasing a new version of the rules from time to time. However, I think it's important to keep the game alive. No rpg system is perfect (or at least I don't know of one ). Over time you'll notice more and more tidbits you don't like about the game. You can make do with house-rules but eventually you'll reach a point where the minor nitpicks become numerous enough that you no longer enjoy the game the way you used to.
Rule-Mastery is another problem: While not everyone is a min-maxer, given enough time everyone will notice that some things work better than others and start using the winning strategies, eliminating variety.
Btw.: Incidentally, this effect is usually amplified by the rules-bloat caused by supplements, so they're a really a mixed blessing.

That's when you need the rejuvenating effect of a new ruleset:
It will get rid of (most) of the problems you've grown to hate and refresh your enthusiasm. They'll also reset the metagame: You need time to figure out the new winning strategies and can have fun again exploring different options. The sense of wonder is renewed.

Then, after a couple of years (sometimes more, sometimes less) the cycle repeats: The new ruleset will have new tidbits you're starting to dislike, you get frustrated because of things that don't work as well as you once thought, etc., etc.

 

[hong]

If these miracles were, somehow, to all come together, than a DM in 3x could say "Make a touch attack; if he fails a DC 15 fort save, he is blinded for 1d4 rounds."

But we cannot do those things in 3e, alas and woe! Truly, when 4e comes, it shall be an age of wonders!

Unfortunately, when 4E comes, it will no longer have the philosophy that if your head is in an oven and your legs are in a bucket of water, then on average you're just right. Actually, come to think of it, neither did 3E.

 

[Kichwas]

Bad idea then, bad idea now.

Word.

I skipped 2E for a reason.

When 3E came out, it grabbed back a lot of people who had drifted away because it advertised a recapture of all the old gems of 1E, but with a modern gaming engine.

D&D without half-Orcs and Monks just isn't D&D...

I don't care how silly it is to have Monks in western style fantasy. It's even sillier that they -don't- have guns, which arrived in Europe before 1000 A.D, and they they -do- let peasants be armed and walking around, when 90% of them in Europe were de-facto slaves/serfs.

And I don't care that some people's half-Orcs come from violent births, that's neither here nor there - they, like the wandering harlot table, are what make D&D, D&D.

Well, I don't need the Harlot table, but if you don't know what it is, you have no business speaking about what D&D should be - though I suspect everyone here does recognize it.

My point is that well, if you take out several of the very core aspects of what has defined 'D&Dism' over the years, just because you personally don't use them in your games, or even if many people don't use them, and you then go changing so many of the core conceptual elements (not rules, rules can come and go - I can play a game truer to D&D using Champions rules than some people can with D&D rules) - like what an elf is for example, and then go adding in a whole stack of new races and classes that have either A, no history with the game, or B, very thin history...

Well, you're not just Jumping a shark, you're Evol Knievel and you're riding that motorcycle over a whole canyon of sharks.


I may not be a big fan of D&D, but when I sit down to D&D I want a D&D experience.

4e, from the previews, is approaching the point where other games will have managed to copy the D&D experience better than D&D itself has. Even games that have completely alien-to-D&D rules.

 

[JohnSnow]

That makes sense. Based simply on the action description, I'd make it a +(Dex Modifier) vs. (Reflex Defense) roll, inflicting the Blinded condition if it succeeds. I had a fairly similar situation come up when I tried out the rules, and it worked.

Well, Zeborah, I don't know if you ARE AintitCoolNews's Massawyrm, but if not, so did he.

For those who missed the review, Massawyrm commented that during his first 4E playtest, one of his players, who he labeled as his "game designer buddy who got us into the playtest," tried a particular stunt: his rogue ran forward and attempted to kick over a table that two of the bad guys were standing on (sound familiar?) Then said player/designer (let's call him "A.M.") turned to Massawyrm and said "so...how will you handle THAT, DM?" Massawyrm's response: "Hmm, Strength Check vs. their Reflex Defenses." At that, A.M. smiled, because that is, of course, exactly how the game suggests doing it.

For something like the salt in the eyes trick, it sounds to me like a "dirty trick" move. To me, that's more "Wisdom Check vs. their Reflex Defense," since Wisdom seems to me like the relevant attribute for attacks that rely more on cunning and treachery than anything else (like throwing stuff in your opponent's face). But since it's a thrown object, I can see the argument that it ought to be based on Dex. But the point is that there is clearly a default, always on system, for how to resolve attacks of any kind. Mike Mearls certainly hinted as much in the thread about the Bugbear Strangler, and between Massawyrm and Mouseferatu, it's been totally confirmed that said system is in the DMG, even to the point of suggesting roughly how it works mechanically. That's cool.

I imagine that helping DMs decide which attribute to use is discussed at greater length in the DMG. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

 

[FireLance]

The same.

Which is a lot better than if you add one good thing and one bad thing.

That's the great thing about a game with a human DM. You can take in the good and house-rule the bad, leaving you with a net improvement.

 

[small pumpkin man]

I think you actually want to talk to arkady.

Yes, apparently I do.

 

[Zeborah]

Well, Zeborah, I don't know if you ARE AintitCoolNews's Massawyrm, but if not, so did he.

No, not me.

 

[AllisterH]

Ok, I see everyone keeps ignoring my point so I'll repeat it again. It seems like unless you insult people, your point gets ignored.

How can you get a feel for D&D at 1st level? Especially given that historically, D&D at levels 1-3 has never felt LIKE D&D AND that these were pre-generated characters.

Seriously, am I the only one that said "ok, so that's what I can do at 1st level in 4E, how does it feel in comparison to 1st level in pre-4E" and which experience is closer to the feel of D&D?

For example, a 1st level halfling paladin has Smite Evil once per day and 1 feat to his name. Really, in a typical adventure, he's basically just swinging his sword and the same goes for the fighter. He only gets 2 feats at all.

The 4E paladin actually gets to do stuff at 1st level whereas if the 3E paladin had used the same feat as the 4E paladin, you would be reduced to "Smite Evil once per the adventure".

Does anyone actually think this would've been fun to play?

Or how about the Ranger? 1st level Ranger really when compared gets "wild empathy", "track" and "favoured enemy". People here and elsewhere have complained that the characters seem too limited and I'm looking at the characters and comparing them to 1st level characters in the past and I'm wondering, what ARE they talking about.

I stand by my belief that at least at 1st level, 4E is MUCH closer to the feel of D&D than 1E/3E ever was. You can actually use tactics, you actually get to use your class abilities, you actually are different from each other. These usually happen in a pre-4E D&D game about 3rd-4th level and I actually am impressed that WOTC has made it happen right from the start.

 

[billd91]

I stand by my belief that at least at 1st level, 4E is MUCH closer to the feel of D&D than 1E/3E ever was. You can actually use tactics, you actually get to use your class abilities, you actually are different from each other. These usually happen in a pre-4E D&D game about 3rd-4th level and I actually am impressed that WOTC has made it happen right from the start.

Considering the 4e characters at 1st level have been ramped up to be approximately the power of a 3-4th level 3E character, this isn't exactly surprising. I've seen plenty of games (including Dark Sun) that started characters at a higher level to provide the same level of options. So I fail to really see how it's a particular strength of 4E.