D&D 4E Character conversion problems for 4e (Short Essay)

[the Jester]

...There is currently nothing that supports [the bard]. And again, please do not use the answer of "Well, just make a wizard and pretend all of that is true." That's not an answer. It's LARPing.

No it's not. You keep throwing LARPing around like it's an insult (which it may be to some), but what "just make a wizard and pretend all of that is true" is, is roleplaying. LARPing is Live-Action roleplaying. So if you aren't wandering around outside playacting, you aren't LARPing.

 

[DerekSTheRed]

Here is the crux of the issue. 4E will not let you make a useless character. 4E assumes you will be filling a role in the party. Is it possible to have a character concept that doesn't fit with those two 4E assetions? If so then not all characters can be transferred from 3E to 4E. I would argue that's not a bad thing.

To me D&D is fun when everyone is pulling their weight at the table (especially during combat) while everyone is performing different jobs/roles. The teamwork is very important to a fun experience for me (and I would assume for a lot of D&D players as well).

If you want to make a subpar combat character or a character that doesn't fit in any role, then 4E D&D is probably not for you. In fact all class based rpgs are probably not for you.

Derek

 

[RefinedBean]

Gosh

I love threads like these. I swear I can hear gunfire as I scroll down.

First off, why wasn't I invited to the Time Travel Party where it seems a whole bunch of people flew to the future on a plane made of dreams and memorized everything from the core books? What with almost everyone knowing everything there is about the forthcoming 4th Ed, I'm surprised these arguments even exist. For the love of god, someone post the new SRD ASAP, OK?

Second, have any of you scheduled your shakedown with the Thought Police in June as they forcibly convert every campaign and character to 4th Ed? They even do weekends!

All snarkiness aside,

1. You can't please all the people all the time. No edition of D&D did this with its core books.
2. WOTC is a company, and companies enjoy making money. I'm guessing not many people wrote WOTC an e-mail stating "I love Bards so much that I think they should be listed antialphabetically before Barbarians because they're so cool, and everyone plays them forever." They did research, reinvented some things, and are creating a new system that helps them reach a wider audience while still trying to keep their original fan-base.
3. How successful has this been so far? Well, in reading through this and other threads, it seems that about 3/4 of all posters/fans are happy with how the new system looks and feels, and I'm guessing that most of the remaining unhappy 1/4 will STILL buy the core books when they come out. Couple that with the new players 4th Ed is probably going to bring in, and bingo. Moolah.

So sure, your character concept is a unique, precious snowflake that all should behold and worship. And we will do so, when the appropriate book comes out, or if you're willing to remove the character CONCEPT from the character CLASS. Until then, don't judge on incomplete information, and stay loose!

 

[Xath]

It seems that several people in this thread have forgotten the civility rules. This is your first and final friendly reminder.

Remember folks, there is no such thing as "badwrongfun." Even if people's playstyle differs from your own, that doesn't mean that their play style is any more "wrong" than your is.

Also, lets tone down the LARPer jokes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The fighter in 3e did not perform any role that well. That is why few players played a straight fighter all the way through into high level. A barbarian was a better striker. A fighter was theoretically the best defender, but there were many ways of sidestepping the fighter with tumbling, magic, flying, etc. which made the fighter not as effective in their main role.

3E didn't have the concept of roles in mind, though, especially not as defined for 4E. The Fighter was someone that fights - that primarily means beating people with sticks and sharp implements. So he got all the things that you need to fight, but it didn't get a "mission" what to do with it.
I think for the Fighter it didn't work so bad (within the constraints of 3e and combat, at least). Other classes "suffered" a lot more - what's the Bard job? Or the Monks? Does what they do compare to what other classes do, if you find some class with a similar job?

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Here is the crux of the issue. 4E will not let you make a useless character. 4E assumes you will be filling a role in the party. Is it possible to have a character concept that doesn't fit with those two 4E assetions? If so then not all characters can be transferred from 3E to 4E. I would argue that's not a bad thing.

I agree with you on everything posted above, including not seeing the fact that not all characters are equally portable to 4E as a bad thing. But the thread starter states that all character concepts are playable under the new rules. With this, I respectfully disagree, and I explained why. In every previous edition it was possible to play a character whose strengths were concentrated on non-combat stuff. The design assumptions have changed, and I'm fine with that, but saying 4E is supporting any concept I played on previous editions is not true.

Cheers,

 

[malcolm_n]

How's this for a challenge: Stuff about pixies...

To be fair to WotC, Savage Species came out in February 2003; 3 years after 3.0 was introduced... To make your argument fair, you'd have to wait 3 years at most.

 

[Blue]

If you can honestly pin down your combat role, recognize that retraining will allow for character growth, and creatively design your out of combat role, then it seems that most if not all characters will be easier to create in 4e as compared to 3.x. Becoming familiar with the rules and philosophy of 4e will be the first step, and understanding which elements of a character are gamist elements, which are RP, and which are based solely on mechanics from other games will help you to get the character that you were most likely trying to create all along. And now you might even get that at first level!

I'm not sure I agree on this. Retraining is fine as long as you are willing to give up the previous concepts.

Let me try one. Here's one that probably works within 4ed mutliclassing. It's a 2ed character of mine from FR. He was minor nobility, a devote follower of Mystra, and wanted to be a Paladin. But was never blessed by Mystra (goddess of magic). He long practiced his martial arts, eventually becoming a tactician and eventually a leader of a force of men. The last time he was turned down, he was very dispondant but this uncle, convinced him of other ways to serve Mystra, and he turned toward wizardry. When he began to understand and be able cast spells, his magic was chaotic and uncontrolable (wild mage). Which to his lawful soul he saw as his flaw, and why Mystra would not chose him to be a Paladin.

Okay, in 2ed the character was a dual-classes human fighter / wild mage. The fighter part would better be emulated with warlord, an option that wasn't around back then. So most likely it would be a warlord, multiclassing into wizard. Wild magic is an FR thing that would need to be emulated.

The path that was followed in 2ed had him not advancing his martial side at all once he dual-classes, which I guess could be done with a massive retraining at some point during play to change him from a warlord with wizard multiclassing to a wizard with warlord multiclassing. My biggest problem with that would be all of the warlord abilities that he loses. Even things like armor and weapon proficiencies, skill trainings, etc.

I understand your concepts of "let go of the mechanics", but this is in-game history. The character worked in 2ed. It worked in 3ed. But retraining your class at high levels during play introduces major consistancy problems. Heck, you may not even be able to be on the same paragon path depending if it had power requirements in addition to class.

This isn't a deal breaker -- I've got 2ed characters that never were converted to 3.x for this reason and I can see having characters that won't make it to 4ed. Retraining can help mimic a character coming over at a specific point where there is no history (in 4ed) of abilities that you can no longer do. But since it's such a large things - it's retraining EVERYTHING effectively to retrain your class, not just a level like it was in 3.x, so doing it during a campaign with a super-hero-like radiation accident will be hard to write into continuity.

"Quick, heal me!"
"I don't know how to do that."
"Well, remember pretty damn quick or I'm dragon-food."

 

[Xanaqui]

I'll go with the bard example. The wizard/warlord has absolutely nothing that's even vaugely bard-like. At all. He's a warlord who also knows some magic. That isn't a bard. It's...ready? A warlock that knows magic.

Heh- My 3.0 Bard (translated to 3.5) really became an Archer, with healing/buffing/information gathering support magic. It looks like a Ranger would do, with some M-class, likely into Warlord (for healing - Cleric may not work due to the sunken Wisdom). Is it perfect? No. But I doubt that the 4.x Bard, when it comes out, will be perfect either. I tend to be more interested in the character's personality than their mechanics.

Maybe I'm the only one that thinks it's lame I can't roll up the class that's been core for a decade. But, well, I don't think it's just me.

Bards have been core since 1st ed AD&D, although they were in appendix II (and very few players played them due to their pre-reqs - you needed to be a specific Human Dual-class, where Bard was your third class).

In any case, I'd rather that they published a well-balanced game than one that facilitates conversion, but is less well-balanced. While the conversion issues may put off my playing it for a year or more, major balance issues would likely prevent me from ever playing it.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I believe sometimes character concepts are strongly related to mechanics. That's probably what the guy playing the bard is trying to connect. You can't play a character whose concept is "a sword brute who becomes stronger when enraged in combat" if the game offers no rage-like power.

Hulk becomes more powerful if you make him angry. Flavor won't explain "I normally cannot hit people with a car, but I manage to pull that if I'm angry enough", you'll need mechanics to do that.

Saying that mechanics have no rule over which kind of concept you'll play minimizes the possibilities of a concept as a one-line description of what your character should be all about. As far as we know, for example, 4E supports no "angry makes me strong" kind of character, as well as no "I'm a loser in combats but stay with this group for a reason". Various heroes have nothing but their powers as initial concept.

Cheers,