Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 4203939" data-attributes="member: 29398">A few thoughts after lots of reading...1. There's one thing from earlier editions that (from all I've seen) will not be convertible directly to 4e: characters that function at lower power than 4e 1st-levels.&nbsp; Note that this&nbsp; immediately includes 1st-level characters from all prior editions.&nbsp; 4e won't let you have a 6 h.p. 1st-level character who is just a commoner with a bit of training, and that's very sad.&nbsp; (we've yet to see how or even if it handles 0th-level commoner types or whether they are able to adventure; I'm already laying bets that a major early splat release will be the &quot;prequel&quot; book, that explains how to advance a character from commoner to 1st-level)2. If the game isn't flexible enough to handle some characters in a party being &quot;sub-optimal&quot;, there's a problem.&nbsp; Characterization should trump optimality every time they ever come in conflict; the game system needs to recognize this and account for it.&nbsp; The pacifist character is a good example - someone who wants to play a pacifist Healing Cleric, for example, should have the option of swapping in a useful non-combat ability to replace the never-to-be-used combat ability it'll start with, rather than just be told &quot;get lost, we don't want you&quot;.Then again, I don't see a party as a high-efficiency machine-like military unit, nor do I play that way; it's just too dull.3. Someone else already hit this, but it bears repeating: Barbarian should be a race, not a class.&nbsp; A magic-distrusting less-intelligent less-civilized sub-race of Humans that can function in any class that does not use arcane magic.4. For flavour reasons, Bardic magic really needs to be cut adrift from arcane magic in how it functions.&nbsp; Bards do things by manipulating sonic energy, pure and simple; they are the only class that does so, and in all editions this gives them their niche.&nbsp; If the mechanics reflected this instead of trying to shoehorn them in with arcane casters, Bards as their own separate class would be a lot easier to explain.Lanefan</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 4203939, member: 29398"] A few thoughts after lots of reading... 1. There's one thing from earlier editions that (from all I've seen) will not be convertible directly to 4e: characters that function at lower power than 4e 1st-levels. Note that this immediately includes 1st-level characters from all prior editions. 4e won't let you have a 6 h.p. 1st-level character who is just a commoner with a bit of training, and that's very sad. (we've yet to see how or even if it handles 0th-level commoner types or whether they are able to adventure; I'm already laying bets that a major early splat release will be the "prequel" book, that explains how to advance a character from commoner to 1st-level) 2. If the game isn't flexible enough to handle some characters in a party being "sub-optimal", there's a problem. Characterization should trump optimality every time they ever come in conflict; the game system needs to recognize this and account for it. The pacifist character is a good example - someone who wants to play a pacifist Healing Cleric, for example, should have the option of swapping in a useful non-combat ability to replace the never-to-be-used combat ability it'll start with, rather than just be told "get lost, we don't want you". Then again, I don't see a party as a high-efficiency machine-like military unit, nor do I play that way; it's just too dull. 3. Someone else already hit this, but it bears repeating: Barbarian should be a race, not a class. A magic-distrusting less-intelligent less-civilized sub-race of Humans that can function in any class that does not use arcane magic. 4. For flavour reasons, Bardic magic really needs to be cut adrift from arcane magic in how it functions. Bards do things by manipulating sonic energy, pure and simple; they are the only class that does so, and in all editions this gives them their niche. If the mechanics reflected this instead of trying to shoehorn them in with arcane casters, Bards as their own separate class would be a lot easier to explain. Lanefan [/QUOTE]

Verification