Changeover Poll

[Jack99]

For example: I have NPCs who have received magic items from PCs, who undertook quests to retrieve said items for said NPCs. Such magic items have powers usable 1/day (think Teleport, or Heal - both extremely useful power from 1E - 3.5E). With 4E, the NPC can only use one magic item power with a 1/day power, even if he, she, or it, has 5 such items. According to the 4E rules (as I understand them), my 7th level NPC could only use one such power per day, in spite of having 5 magical devices each with a 1/day power. That is a good way of balancing magical items with the rest of the 4E mechanics. But a player whose character went on a quest to retrieve one of these items for that NPC is rightly going to question why should he have bothered. Then why would the NPC go to the trouble of gathering these (mostly) useless items for himself? Versimilitude, setting, and NPC/campaign motivation killed by a game mechanic. This is a fundamental balance issue for 4E - 1/day magical items can only be used a limited number of times, no matter how many 1/day items the character possesses.

Technically, this is not entirely correct, for what it is worth. As a basis, you may use a dailies once per day. However, with each milestone acquired (by the book a milestone is two encounters without an extended rest - an encounter could be a skill challenge as well) you gain the use of another daily item. So if your NPC goes through 4 encounters in a day, he would be able to use 3 different dailies. I know that quite a few people have experimented with players being able to use 1 daily per encounter, without reporting breaking the game.

What that is said, these rules apply to players. The general attitude in 4e is that NPC's should be able to do what the DM wants them to do, instead of being modelled as pseudo-PC's.

Cheers

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

D&D has already failed once, and because of that failure, it was bought out and went on to one of its most successful eras since the beginning of the game. It is my belief that if it fails again, the market will move on and choose one or more successors.

I'm assuming by "failed once" you are referring to 2E? I'm not sure that era was a failure by any stretch. And I'm by no means a 2E fan.

At any rate, if 4E "fails" there is no competition for it save a previous edition of D&D. While I'll grant EN World polls are statistically meaningless, there is one floating around out here showing what people will be/are playing. The results: If it ain't 4E, it's 3E. The next closest option is barely 7% (when last I checked) and that was a tie between C&C and PF.

Make no mistake about it: 4E's only competition is 3E.

WotC made such a great version of D&D that they're now fighting an uphill battle to get people to move forward - at least those people who were/are invested in the previous version.

WP

 

[megamania]

wow.

Based on these numbers 4e isn't doing very well.

 

[megamania]

WotC made such a great version of D&D that they're now fighting an uphill battle to get people to move forward - at least those people who were/are invested in the previous version.

WP

Absolutely true.

 

[Jasperak]

At any rate, if 4E "fails" there is no competition for it save a previous edition of D&D. While I'll grant EN World polls are statistically meaningless, there is one floating around out here showing what people will be/are playing. The results: If it ain't 4E, it's 3E. The next closest option is barely 7% (when last I checked) and that was a tie between C&C and PF.

Make no mistake about it: 4E's only competition is 3E.

WotC made such a great version of D&D that they're now fighting an uphill battle to get people to move forward - at least those people who were/are invested in the previous version.

WP

Didn't someone like Dancy say as much would happen.

D&D is the WOW of the paper RPG industry. The only thing that will kill WOW any time soon would be something like making WOW2 that was not compatable with the original WOW. Think if WOW came out and said thanks for playing your 80th-level toons, we are now coming out with this new and improved game (because the original had so many problems) and everybody gets to start over.

 

[Korgoth]

I think with hindsight, this ignoring the old guard will rank as one of the stupidest mistakes WoTC have ever made with respect to D&D; especially when Ryan Dancey once pointed out that the only effective competitor that D&D would ever have to reckon with was a previous edition of the game.

I do wonder to what extent they deliberately decided to change the essence of D&D with 4E (consciously making a new game that goes in a different direction), and to what extent they simply thought that they understood what D&D was about but in fact did not. I think perhaps it was a bit of both. I know I was bothered by the "too cool for school" attitude that some of the 4E team gave off. Then there was the deliberate stuff like the famed "shaking your fists at the clouds" approach that made it appear as if some members of the team considered themselves as lofty and superior beings.

I spent a fair amount of time learning about 4E and reading the introductory materials. Every design decision I've seen (and they just keep on coming) convinces me that to buy a 4E product is essentially to pay someone who knows less about D&D than I do to tell me how to play it. Combined with the supercilious tone of some of the marketing pronouncements it means that not only am I not interested in the game (purely on its own merits), I also don't really care what happens to it. Which is doubly too bad, because I wanted to like it and and was hopeful at the prospect of having a strong team producing product that it would be fun to consume.

Speaking for myself, I can easily play D&D for the rest of my life without spending another dime on it (except for graph paper and mechanical pencils, I guess). I tried 3.0 and 3.5 for several years and didn't like them. I didn't even get as far as trying 4.0. I didn't really want to be alienated but that's how it turned out. If the new one succeeds, fine. If it tanks and gets canceled, fine. If D&D goes out of print, also fine. The strength of this hobby has always been the hobbyists themselves and that's how it will always be.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I'm assuming by "failed once" you are referring to 2E? I'm not sure that era was a failure by any stretch. And I'm by no means a 2E fan.

D&D failed because the company built around it went bankrupt and ceased publication, prompting the WotC buyout. That's the definition of failure.

At any rate, if 4E "fails" there is no competition for it save a previous edition of D&D. While I'll grant EN World polls are statistically meaningless, there is one floating around out here showing what people will be/are playing. The results: If it ain't 4E, it's 3E. The next closest option is barely 7% (when last I checked) and that was a tie between C&C and PF.

Make no mistake about it: 4E's only competition is 3E.

That's true today, but people will want to start buying again. It won't take long for that to happen, and when it does happen, the majority will want something that is mostly like the D&D they already know. That leaves OGL products and Pathfinder. The market will not simply evaporate because the industry leader goes away.

WotC made such a great version of D&D that they're now fighting an uphill battle to get people to move forward - at least those people who were/are invested in the previous version.

This would be true if 4E was actually a move forward. The general consensus is that 4E is a fairly large step in the opposite direction.

 

[RefinedBean]

This would be true if 4E was actually a move forward. The general consensus is that 4E is a fairly large step in the opposite direction.

I don't mean to sound snarky, but do you have evidence for this? I haven't seen ANY sort of consensus formed on 4E, other than it being "different."

 

[Darrin Drader]

I don't mean to sound snarky, but do you have evidence for this? I haven't seen ANY sort of consensus formed on 4E, other than it being "different."

The poll results speak for themselves.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I don't mean to sound snarky, but do you have evidence for this? I haven't seen ANY sort of consensus formed on 4E, other than it being "different."

The consensus is built on countless computer simulations I have run proving the point.

No, you can't look at the program.

No, you can't look at the data.

Trust me. There's a consensus.

It's science.