Cynicism of an AD&D refugee

[CleverNickName]

Mourn arriving in 5...4...3...2...

I really don't know enough about the new rules to start writing new material, so maybe someone else can answer this question:

How hard would it be to create your own version of an Eldritch Knight in 4E? This seems like it would be the best way to solve the "not getting what I want, and not wanting to spend more money" problem.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Does my wallet like it? No. But I completely understand them wanting to make money by selling stuff

If you don't like it, why pay for it?

That's mostly rhetorical, really, but if most consumers' wallets don't like it, they will have more and more trouble making money by selling stuff like this.

4e has to provide a solid motivation for paying for the game, a solid value. That's subjective, of course, but it's easier to find value in something that you find has a lot of useful content for the money you paid than to find value in something that you find has less useful content than you expected for the money you paid.

 

[Holy Bovine]

The worst thing any RPG publisher can do is give the impression they want to make money.

Actually that's the second worse thing. The worse thing is them trying to make a profit.

 

[Remathilis]

If you don't like it, why pay for it?

That's mostly rhetorical, really, but if most consumers' wallets don't like it, they will have more and more trouble making money by selling stuff like this.

4e has to provide a solid motivation for paying for the game, a solid value. That's subjective, of course, but it's easier to find value in something that you find has a lot of useful content for the money you paid than to find value in something that you find has less useful content than you expected for the money you paid.

Ah, I only dislike because I'm poor, but in response to your thought, I did think 3e was a better value:money ratio. It doesn't make 4e any more/less fun, but I get the feeling I paid for a lot less in the 4e books than I got in the 3e books (one need only look at the magic items section or the traps section to see this).

 

[CardinalXimenes]

Mourn arriving in 5...4...3...2...

I really don't know enough about the new rules to start writing new material, so maybe someone else can answer this question:

How hard would it be to create your own version of an Eldritch Knight in 4E? This seems like it would be the best way to solve the "not getting what I want, and not wanting to spend more money" problem.

Well, you could play a swordmage. You're a guy who hits people with swords and casts spells to help you do that better. If you want more classical wizard powers, then you just multiclass into wizard- since both swordmages and wizards share Int as their prime requisite, your powers are every bit as strong as a "real" wizard.

You could argue that you can't really be a heavy-armor type with that class and not waste feats, but Eldritch Knight doesn't let you wear _any_ armor without some other prestige class ability.

 

[Irda Ranger]

It isn't very easy to improvise a new class,

I think it's actually easier than 3E. Because of the universal mechanics (not just d20, but effects like stun and slide) you can see the tradeoffs the different classes have made. That makes it much easier to adjust the settings, so to speak.

each class is pretty limited in what it does well.

That's a feature, not a bug. Put another way, it's crystal clear what each class is good at.

So where does that leave us? Let's say you played and enjoyed an Eldritch Knight in D&D 3.5. Well, in 4e, you can choose to

A) suck worse than a poorly planned 3.0 fighter/wizard, by taking less than exciting multiclass choices
B) lose your character's basic flavor, by taking somewhat more effective multiclass choices
C) play something else
D) pay money

B.s. How much money have you spent on 3.x vs. 4.0? A lot more, I bet. You already own all the options.

Now, there's no question that fencers, fighter-mages, lightly armored fighters and the like benefitted a lot from the 3.5 splatbooks. But even with just core, they're viable. Perhaps not ideal, but in their own niche, as good as anything else. Not so with 4e.

Sure they are. It's called playing a Rogue. The "Fighter" (the class) is the heavy weapons guy. If you want to be a skirmisher play a Ranger or Rogue. They're Martial classes for a reason.

splats are evil! (paraphrased; not actual quote)

Bah. Your arguments are old & tired. They've been aired a hundred times already.

4E is designed so that each book is "complete." You don't need any additional books to play a Fighter. That's pretty cool. The additional books will bring whole new classes, races and power sources (and those books will also be "complete" in that sense).

The fact is that lots of people like buying more race & class options. That's not my cup of tea, but I understand the market demand there, so WotC would be dumb to let someone else supply it.

 

[malraux]

Ah, I only dislike because I'm poor, but in response to your thought, I did think 3e was a better value:money ratio. It doesn't make 4e any more/less fun, but I get the feeling I paid for a lot less in the 4e books than I got in the 3e books (one need only look at the magic items section or the traps section to see this).

I sorta see this point of view, but I also think that what WotC has done by not making the PHB I, MM I, DMG I not overbroad is to make sure that later products have a similar value to money as the core three. Give how little of the books is actual rules, I think its entirely plausible, though not likely, that the PHB II will look exactly like the phb I, just with new races, classes, etc, making the PHB I irrelevant if you don't need stuff from it.

This might be a worse deal for people who only ever buy the phb I, but its a much better deal for people who buy a large range of books.

 

[Imaro]

White Wolf product lines must give you fits, then.

Huh?? ... I don't get this. I feel that spending a little over $100 on nWoD books...gives me a more robust and complete game than the core 4e books give me. Maybe I just don't get what you're talking about. Please explain.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This might be a worse deal for people who only ever buy the phb I, but its a much better deal for people who buy a large range of books.

I don't get this.

How?

Future splats could be chock full of brand spankin' new stuff to get the bang for my buck.

They don't need to parse out the core in order to make new splats a "better deal."

The "better deal" would be to give us new stuff in the future, rather than just making us more able to do again what we did two years ago just fine.

 

[darjr]

One thing that I think keeps getting missed in this argument is the cost of development.

Even if the core books have fewer options or mechanics or word count, they could still be a better value through development. Time, effort, skill, care, and love for the work of developing quality rules costs money. That value isn't recorded in number of options or word count.

I guess an example would be simplifying the rules. Lots of fine tuning of rules and stripping some of them down to bare essentials, while trying to still provide good play, results in a smaller word count, and seemingly or really, in fewer options.

Another example is editing. Sometimes good editing starts by being ruthless and cutting until only the simplest of prose that expresses an idea is left. Should that end product cost less than the unedited, uncut version? Not necessarily, because the value might have gone up even as the end product got lighter.