Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5439616" data-attributes="member: 87792">Ah, I can see that being a horror.  Two things.  Firstly if you ever want to try 4e again, you'd do much better with Essentials and possibly the Red Box.  And secondly the Character Builder really helps; I timed myself to make a new character in a class I didn't know at all and I had a printed character sheet in less than five minutes from starting the program.  These character sheets come with the powers printed out - which means you very seldom need to consult the rulebooks.  I'd have described all that as moving from 3 to 4e.  Stats and skills are much more confining in 3e because you end up being unable to effectively use the skills you aren't trained in at all.  I find resource management higher in 3e than 4e.  In 3e there are classes (all spellcasting classes) that can literally expend all their resources.  In 4e you always have some options left and some that will be recovered.  When DMing you're meant to have the monster statblocks in front of you.  And a core difference between 3e and 4e stat blocks are that 4e statblocks contain everything.  Other than the basic and universal conditions, there's no looking up.  If we look up a 3e statblock the monster has feats.  Which need to be looked up separately.  So do the monster's spells and spell like abilities.  The powers are part of the character.  The attack powers are the combat moves they have practiced until they are second nature.  My favourite example here is the Fighter's "Tide of Iron" at will.  That's the big burly bullying guy who doesn't even need to think.  He just gets in the other guy's face and drives them back - hence the free push.  A combat style I use when reenacting and one that is trivial in 4e to replicate and simply can't be done in 3e.  Large ones - it's a combat focussed game.  But smaller than e.g. the 3e ones because every non-general rule you need for a monster is in the statblock.  Try writing out 3e statblocks and including the full text for every feat the monster posesses.  And the full text for every spell.  It's going to be way bigger than the 4e one.  Hardly paragraphs.  And no, sleep no longer ends an entire fight.  I don't see a problem here.  Unlike 3.X where the fighter was more of a supernumerary beyond 6th level rather than either a tank or a killer.  Sorry, shouldn't snark.  But other than Spiked Chain Fighters (with their Big Bag of Rats), fighters quickly fell behind to near uselessness when compared to casters or even barbarians.  Also I think you want the Slayer from Essentials - a fighter that specialises in doing damage rather than exploiting any weaknesses anyone shows.  And?  This is hardly paragraphs.  Because 4e combat is very tactical.  Getting up takes their move action - a fairly large penalty.  If you knock a ranged guy or spellcaster prone and are next to him, he uses his move action to stand up.  At that point if he shoots you get the opportunity attack.  If he shifts back he can't attack.  And if he goes for his dagger rather than shooting you he's lost the chance to do something much nastier to you.  Lose/lose for him.  And if you knock a melee guy prone and shift back when he stands up he'll normally be too far to hit you and too close to charge you, meaning he's got to work hard to do anything useful.  Ask 3e.  In 3e the defender rolled fort/ref/will.  In 4e the attacker rolls against the defence.  Much simpler.  (And for the record, shields do boost reflex).  Huh?  IME most attacks hit vs AC.  Almost all weapon wielders do.  And most non-weapon wielding brutes.  Because you're a PC?  Ask 3e - you get some pretty huge abilities in that game.  Same thing it's always been.  A way of keeping score.  It isn't an in-world thing at all.  In 3e there are only a few hit point values that are meaningful within the game - -10, negative, 0, and above 0.  If you're on 1hp you're mechanically as capable as someone on full hp until you are hit.  In 4e there's also bloodied.  Because WoTC lowballed the early monsters.  Monster Manual 3 and later books (including the excellent Monster Vault) seriously boosted monster damage and fights I run last 3-4 rounds.  You find a good game in it?  Someone wants to run it?  There are good systems that simply don't mesh with you.  If you want to try it again, get the new red box and see what happens (you'll definitely prefer the martial classes in there).  From the DM's side of the screen:1: Low prep time.  I can literally pull monsters out of the monster manual and have everything I need right there in front of me.  Which means prep goes to the story.  And an unexpected fight can be pulled straight out of the MM.2: Superb improvisation guidelines (DMGp42) in a system that encourages them but doesn't penalise you if you don't.3: Superb guidance for making matters tense and challenging but not overwhelming.  By the same token I know that the PCs might outthink me, but that their resources are predictable whereas a smart high-level 3e group is ... OTT.4: Easy differences.  If I put scenery down, it will matter - the PCs will push the monsters into it.  Fighting on a narrow bridge with no handrails is dicing with death, not something that simply means people can't get past.  And a level 1 kobold that people can't lay a hand on (Shifty: Minor action - shift one square) is more different from a cowering goblin that knows how to jump back (immediate interrupt when missed by a melee attack - shift one square) than a 3e orc with an axe and shield is from a 3e ogre with a greatclub (one's generally ... bigger.  But they don't move differently on the battlemat).  This combines with 1 to make it easy to improvise a memorable fight with a minute's notice.5: Because DMing is easy and it's easy to make distinctive and memorable, there are more people wanting to do it so you can spread the workload much more. From the player's side:1: No looking things up.  Everything I need is on my character sheet.2: Easy character creation.  I don't need to go into the detail of allocating (8+Int)*4 skill points across however many skills at first level.  And the Character Builder prints out everything I need.3: Never being useless.  Given the difference between skill levels, in e.g. 3.X, you end up by fifth level with The Stealthy Guy, The Talky Guy, The Arcanist, the Healer.  And if you aren't in your speciality you have a negative impact.  Also not worrying I'll overpower everyone with a min-maxed character from 3.X or Exalted because I've misread the level of optimisation of the rest of the group.4: Some excellently done character classes if you understand the abstractions (see Tide of Iron above) that make it easy to manage some archetypes that were damn near impossible in previous editions.  (See the Swordmage - defensive melee sword/magic user).5: Good tactical play that isn't degenerate* - see the point about distinctiveness above.6: Much easier to find a DM because more people are willing to. * Degenerate tactical play would be the whirlwind cleaving trip spiked chain fighter - effective, but does the same thing every turn.  ... Were you playing Dark Sun? Being serious, that description sounds like a DMing problem.  It's also something that's system-independent.  And I don't like 4e combat online - it doesn't flow.</blockquote>

Verification