Disappointed in 4e

[Ourph]

Some of us also like buying new game stuff - shocking, I know, but yes, some folks actually like to walk into a bookstore or LGS and pick up the latest splat, mod, or monster manual.

And what really confuses me is that the same people who complain that 4e is just a money-churn where WotC is employing shady marketing to get people to buy an endless stream of books for the current edition... also complain that 3e is now unsupported and they no longer have the option of buying... an endless stream of books for their favorite edition.

If having the option of buying new books for the RPG you play is such an evil scheme, everyone who's sticking with 3e or an earlier edition should be rejoicing. They're now immune to the evil, corporate machinations of WotC.

 

[Mercule]

Not only the best way - but the only way to deal with profit making corporations is to vote with your wallet

Nothing else matters at all. Period.

Quite. This is why I never, ever buy a Forgotten Realms product. May the setting die a humiliating death (which it apparently has in 4e).

On topic, I have yet to play a real game of 4e. I know I dislike 3.5 and knew that before the 4e announcement. After the first of the year, I'll be giving 4e a try, I think, and then we'll see whether it's that or something else. I have some concerns, but I'm willing to see how it plays out.

Specifically, I agree with the OP's #2 point. The "economy of actions" is assinine. I can see the case for having some restrictions, but the level of restriction that seems to be part and parcel of 4e is just as bad. Too loose isn't fun because someone dominates, but too tight isn't fun because it completely kills some fundamental concepts and feels artificial.

As I said, I haven't played 4e, yet, but I'm hopeful. What I see as the risks, though, are:

1) Economy of actions. See above.

2) No mechanical differentiation between fighters and wizards. I'm taking on faith that the powers are created to feel different. But, I can see where a unified powers mechanic and advancement might not have the best feel. Not a pronouncement, but a concern.

3) Too narrow of power definitions within a class. I have noticed, reading through the PHB, that many of the fighter powers seem to be a variation on "you hit really hard" with little else in the mechanics. If this is more than just "reads bad, plays good", then presenting them as powers is meaningless. They should be scaling class features. That brings up my #2 again, though.

4) Bland magic items. The magic items section in the PHB has to be one of the least inspiring sections of any game book I've ever read. There seem to be a couple of interesting items in the Adventurer's Vault, but mostly more of the same. I'm one of the people who hated the magic economy in 3e and always ran low-magic in earlier editions, so I was thrilled when they proclaimed less reliance on magic items in 4e. What I really see is more numerically predictable reliance and formulaic, bland items. Oh, and a hard economy of actions built in, too.

5) Combat-focused balance. Combat isn't the sum total of the spotlight. If I play a rogue, I don't care if I'm not shining in combat -- so long as I'm not completely worthless. My time to shine is outside combat -- ambushes, sneaking, and the like.

There are some things I'm really looking forward to, though:
1) Depowered wizards. Yes, you heard me. I like my swords and sorcery to be heavier on the swords. I don't have any issue with players who like to play casters, but I don't. I also don't like set-ups that require casters to be too common.

2) Separation of rituals and "quick" spells. I always hated having to trade off combat time for general utility. Plus, it never made sense to me that you couldn't just take all the set-up time you needed for some things like knock to cast it un-hung. Plus, I see rituals as being the more likely way non-wizards would dip into the arcane arts, anyway. About the only thing that I'd add would be the option to hang a ritual or two if you thought you'd be needing it quickly.

3) More solid advancement math. If things scale the way they're advertised, this will be really great.

4) Monster and classes designed with a role in mind. I like flexibility and the option to break the mold, but for both new/casual players and adventure design, having a baseline concept is pure awesome.

5) Refined skill system. NWPs in 1e/2e were too coarse. 3e skills were too fine-grained. While I have a few minor quibbles with the 4e system, I think it looks to be a great improvement.

5a) Skill challenges. Sure, these would work in 3.5, but they weren't included. Also, that'd involve playing 3e, which isn't on the table, for me.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Let's see here...

When Wizards first announced 4e, I was really excited. I thought it would be really cool. So, a few months before it came out, I went out and sold all my 3.x books to Half Price Books. When I finally got the books...they were OK. I have played a campaign for 4 months and we have agreed...3e is better.
Here are, at least, my reasons.

Man, sorry to hear you sold all your books! On the bright side, there's enough people out there lovin' 4e that I'm sure you can find some of their old 3e books. And there's Pathfinder, too, which will have it's own books (with some of 3e's more glaring flaws addressed!).

1) The extreme cookie-cutterness of the characters. Every character seems to be plotted out in advance. You get 4 powers a level, each one similar, and two builds. This leads to an extreme lack of flexibility. Wanna play a ranger with a greatsword? Wanna play a fighter (not a ranger, because that is inevitably nature-themed) who specializes in archery? Wanna play a character who can stand toe to toe with his enemies and fight with two weapons? Want to play a cleric whose deity doesn't shoot Holy Laserz of P3nage? Well, just wait for some more $30 books...
In our group, we found ourselves wanting a lot of stuff we had in 3e. Animal companions, spells other than fire blasts, etc. The common response I see from the 4e supporters is "Wait for the splatbooks! WoTC is a business, so they have to make money!" However, I feel compelled to wonder why I should reward a company who has come up with a product that I feel is bad with more money so they can continue making it.

This is a fairly fair cop, to varying degrees. WotC did give you options and variations, but a lot of those options are eerily similar.

This isn't purely about future book sales, though. It's also about the 4e powers system itself (which requires a LOT of pagecount!), and the philosophy of "no accidental suck!" (which requires you to tightly control your players' options so that they don't accidentally pick the bad ones).

2) The extreme tendency for 'balance' and 'fun'. The whole "economy of actions" is stupid and annoying. No summoners, necromancers, et al because it could slow the game down. Everyone gets the same amount and types of powers for balance. Some people might ask why magic and physical training work similarly, with the same usage restrictions. By attempting to balance this, they have created a world that feels fake. Then, of course, we have the "if anything bad happens to your PCs, it might not be fun," leading to the nerf of status effects. The fighter's "Paralyzing Strike" might sound like paralysis...until you read it. It immobilizes the opponent. This means the opponent can't move...any squares. They can still attack, cast spells, and stand despite being 'paralyzed'. Everything lasts for either 6 seconds, or requires a save, which is always a ~55% chance of escaping. If the most powerful wizard in the world casts sleep on a random peasant, they have a ~55% chance of escaping. Wow, studying magic sure is worthwhile!

I think the Economy of Actions is actually a really big challenge for them, and it warrants the attention paid to it. "Get A Soda O'Clock" should be minimized in the game.

That said, there are obviously ways to handle animal companions and the like that don't interfere with the Economy (or at least don't interfere too badly). That they decided not to put this in the Core Rules speaks to their other priorities.

I'll agree more with the fluff/crunch divide, as I've been preaching against that divide (the wrought iron fence made of tigers!) for months now.

3)The powers. I thought "Hey, everyone gets cool powers" was a good goal...until I read what our good friends at WoTC came up with. The ranger powers are all variants of the Rapid Shot and Two-Weapon fighting feats, except renamed and damage altered. The powers all have fixed damage, which results in redundancy for some classes (You replace your Holy P3nage Lazer with...ANOTHER HOLY P3NAGE LAZER! WOO-HOO! GO YOU!), and really don't feel like powers. When my friend and I were having a boss fight against a solo monster, I was getting bored because all of my powers did pretty much the same thing (damage) and it was going nowhere. Which leads us to...

That is, from my perspective, a pretty fair criticism. "Everyone gets cool powers" is an awesome goal, but if all your powers are very similar, it makes it harder to build the character you envision (as opposed to the character WotC envisions).

4) The hit point spike. This is just great. HP has been inflated, damage reduced, so combats take forever. Add to this the whole "what is HP" argument, and then you begin wondering the difference between a miss and a hit.
"That wizard just shot a fireball at us! Despite the fact that we're in the center of the 10 foot radius - I mean, 2 square cube (because physics apparently dictates that everything manifests as cubes) he somehow completely missed us, leaving us alive! But...Bob, I feel really bad about myself."

I think another poster put it best when they said that if HPs are more than physical resilience, why is the only thing that takes HPs away physical damage?

Heisenberg Points represent too much to effectively model anything. They're just a way of keeping score in 4e.

5) The wizard nerf. Wizards are boring and uninteresting. While they may have been overpowered in the last edition, stripping all the creative options for "fireball, fireball, fireball," is a game design travesty. The spellbook sucks. 2 spells a level, and you can't add spells, unless you take a feat, which allows you to add one Xd6 damage attack spell per level.

I admit, this is another instance of that flavor/rules disconnect. There *are* Rituals, which are more flexible, and can be used in the same way, but stripping them out of the class leads to a lot of people forgetting about it. They shouldn't, though. It's there, and it's ready to eat! Rituals go a long way to addressing this problem!

6) Rituals. At first, I thought these were great. I had visions of rituals for animating the dead, binding otherworldly creatures to your service, curses, and calling down thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. Now? We have all the utility spells, except they cost money to cast, because apparently all one needs to know what to do with magic is to throw lightning at other people, as those are your powers. The illusions have been severely limited and moved into rituals, except for that Dragon article, which is "Damage...with ILLUSION!" Frankly, no thanks. I want to deceive with spontaneously crafted images, not just some psychic damage fest.

The GP cost isn't the best balancing system, I'd like to see something different. And the inability to "prepare" a ritual, so that you can light it off with a simple word and action at the spur of the moment, is an oversight that will haunt 4e until they rectify it.

7) Lack of Verisimilitude. Some things, frankly, don't make sense. Such as, how do you make warlock pacts without the ability to summon creatures? How do you craft figurines of wondrous power? WotC's answer? "Give us money!"

I'm not so sure it's quite so manipulative, but yes, a philosophy of "Don't think about it! Roll!" is pretty annoying to me, and, apparently, to you and others, too.

And those three words sum up 4th edition.

Yeah, that'd be enough to sway me, too. I don't think everything is a problem to the same degree, but yeah, if these irk you, 4e probably isn't the game for you.

 

[Mercule]

Sounds like the OP needs to go with Fantasy Hero.

I'm going to give 4e a shot because of the benefits of the published adventures and massive player base.

If that doesn't work out, then I'm either going for Fantasy Hero or Savage Worlds. I figure Hero won't be any more complex, plus it allows incredible detail for characters and a non-exception based ruleset. Savage Worlds gets consideration because I'm a busy man and half my group are decidedly non-gearheads when it comes to games -- they really love gaming, but don't want "system mastery".

 

[Grimstaff]

I am sticking to the facts, and we were outrightly told that by WotC prior to the Core Rulebooks coming out. Try double-checking your facts, please!

Easy enough to prove, I suppose - kindly post a link to the official WotC statement that "several classic monsters wouldn't be in the MM simply so that they could be included in the MM2 to drive up sales". If you're referring solely to the flip, joking comment made in a podcast a while back, and assuming this was the official company line, I will have a nice chuckle.

But if you have an actual statement please let me know.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Why on earth would you sell all your books without even seeing the new rules system first?

I unfortunately must confess to doing this when 2nd edition came out. I took my PHB, DMG, MM, MM2, and Fiend Folio to the local used book store and sold them all so I could afford the 2nd edition PHB.

Oops.

In the years since then I have managed to track down most of the books I sold back then, but that one action taught me the importance of holding on to all of my books up until the point where I've read them and come to the conclusion that I'll never have any use for them at all (the most notable exception to that policy was in 1996 when I pawned the Temple of Elemental Evil because I needed the cash).

 

[Grimstaff]

This is not appropriate behaviour for EN World.

You are welcome to disagree with the post, and offer your opinions why, in the spirit of a discussion forum.

You are welcome to not participate in the thread if it doesn't interest you.

You are not welcome to malign the poster for his opinions, even you have heard other people express them before.

Folks, please take the above into account before posting. You don't have to post.

I thought the "I hate 4E" thread was being discouraged in general, as it inevitably descends into edition war, WotC-bashing, and name-calling.

 

[Korgoth]

Easy enough to prove, I suppose - kindly post a link to the official WotC statement that "several classic monsters wouldn't be in the MM simply so that they could be included in the MM2 to drive up sales". If you're referring solely to the flip, joking comment made in a podcast a while back, and assuming this was the official company line, I will have a nice chuckle.

But if you have an actual statement please let me know.

I'm surprised that you're not aware of it.

It is in the D&D Podcast #16. The question is very early: at 1 minute 52 seconds the question is asked regarding the criteria for those monsters which made the cut. In response, it is stated that some monsters were intentionally held back.

If you click on the WOTC D&D main page, you'll find a link in the upper left hand for the podcasts. It is podcast #16. It is pretty long, but you'll only have to listen for a couple minutes to hear this portion.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I unfortunately must confess to doing this when 2nd edition came out. I took my PHB, DMG, MM, MM2, and Fiend Folio to the local used book store and sold them all so I could afford the 2nd edition PHB.

Oops.

In the years since then I have managed to track down most of the books I sold back then, but that one action taught me the importance of holding on to all of my books up until the point where I've read them and come to the conclusion that I'll never have any use for them at all (the most notable exception to that policy was in 1996 when I pawned the Temple of Elemental Evil because I needed the cash).

It's a common mistake to toss away the old for the new, happens to a lot of people. I guess I was lucky enough to see firsthand my friends selling off their classic video game consoles for a miniscule fraction of what they cost in order to help pay for the shiny new one. All too often, they soon lamented that decision, in some cases shelling out much more than they sold the old systems/games for in order to get them back after realizing how valuable they were. Taught me from a fairly early age never to do that. I learned it from videogames, but it applies to about any game system, I think. The games never lose value just cause there's something newer and flashier out there, and nothing beats the feeling of being able to always go back and play whenever you like.

/threadjack

 

[Mister Doug]

Quite. This is why I never, ever buy a Forgotten Realms product. May the setting die a humiliating death (which it apparently has in 4e).

On topic, I have yet to play a real game of 4e. I know I dislike 3.5 and knew that before the 4e announcement. After the first of the year, I'll be giving 4e a try, I think, and then we'll see whether it's that or something else. I have some concerns, but I'm willing to see how it plays out.

Specifically, I agree with the OP's #2 point. The "economy of actions" is assinine. I can see the case for having some restrictions, but the level of restriction that seems to be part and parcel of 4e is just as bad. Too loose isn't fun because someone dominates, but too tight isn't fun because it completely kills some fundamental concepts and feels artificial.

As I said, I haven't played 4e, yet, but I'm hopeful. What I see as the risks, though, are:

1) Economy of actions. See above.

2) No mechanical differentiation between fighters and wizards. I'm taking on faith that the powers are created to feel different. But, I can see where a unified powers mechanic and advancement might not have the best feel. Not a pronouncement, but a concern.

3) Too narrow of power definitions within a class. I have noticed, reading through the PHB, that many of the fighter powers seem to be a variation on "you hit really hard" with little else in the mechanics. If this is more than just "reads bad, plays good", then presenting them as powers is meaningless. They should be scaling class features. That brings up my #2 again, though.

4) Bland magic items. The magic items section in the PHB has to be one of the least inspiring sections of any game book I've ever read. There seem to be a couple of interesting items in the Adventurer's Vault, but mostly more of the same. I'm one of the people who hated the magic economy in 3e and always ran low-magic in earlier editions, so I was thrilled when they proclaimed less reliance on magic items in 4e. What I really see is more numerically predictable reliance and formulaic, bland items. Oh, and a hard economy of actions built in, too.

5) Combat-focused balance. Combat isn't the sum total of the spotlight. If I play a rogue, I don't care if I'm not shining in combat -- so long as I'm not completely worthless. My time to shine is outside combat -- ambushes, sneaking, and the like.

I'd probably quibble with some of your points.

1) Economy of actions is an attempt to fix the huge number of complex actions that became possible in 3e by the interaction of iterative actions, pets, summon spells, followers gained thorugh the leadership feat, etc. Since huge number of actions = huge damage = monster or PC dead before actions occur, can lead to very weird, swingy and (IMHO) unrealistic results wherein the brutal, terrifying enemy is swarmed by attacks by a ginsu fighter and his small army. Besides, this isn't very interesting to play out. This isn't as much of a problem in, say OD&D, which provides few options for actions in a turn because, as EGG pointed out, D&D combat is abstract.

2) Your concern is understandable, but back in OD&D or Holmes, the big differences between low-level charactes were hit points, the armor and magic items the characters could use, and the fact that spellcasters had some access to a few spells, and we could tell them apart. I think there is a reson to believe the philosophy of differentiation by powers is reasonable, though I think the debate over whether it has been successful is also reasonable.

3) See, I just don't see that the powers are all the same. Fighters, for instance, have powers that damage, shift, mark, knock down enemies. Makes sense to me, and reminds me of the development of powers for characters in games like hero system. The potential problem I see is that powers are gained every level, so the incremental power difference between a first level power and the next level power of the same type seems kind of small -- and with so many powers, they have to be pretty specific to have a niche, which seems the most difficult parts of designing and balancing powers rather than having open, flexible powers.

4) Yeah, that is a problem, but seems to me continuation of a problem that had begun to develop in 3e rather than a new problem for 4e....

5) See point above.

Also, my experience is that unless you run a very role-play heavy game, the only reasonable thing to keep an eye on is power. If one player has fewer roleplay abilities, it's still fairly easy to keep that player in the game. If one player is useless in combat, they can die quickly on accident. This is a real problem. And this is hard for an inexperienced DM to miss until they have dead PCs on hand, and usually PCs feeling like they built a cool character and were punished for it.

If you were marketing a game hoping to bring in new or inexperienced players and DMs, I think a company could do worse than focusing too much on making characters balanced based on combat ability.

Of course, there are other ways to balance PCs, though I am not sure D&D has ever done a good job of actually doing that.