Disappointed in 4e

[Treebore]

I love how people who've never played the game talk about the various merits and flaws.

Love it.

Please Dragonwrite, do go on.

The thing is, you haven't really played the whole game unless you have gone to very high levels. So very few people have actually fully played any edition of D&D.

Anyways, I played 4E for 9 3 hour+ sessions, and I agree with his assessment. 4E has failed to excite/hook me, so I'll never even fully play 4E.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The thing is, you haven't really played the whole game unless you have gone to very high levels. So very few people have actually fully played any edition of D&D.

Anyways, I played 4E for 9 3 hour+ sessions, and I agree with his assessment. 4E has failed to excite/hook me, so I'll never even fully play 4E.

I don't see this as a universal truth. Someone who played in dozens of AD&D campaigns over the course of many years hasn't fully played the game because the highest level attained was 11th or so?

An open ended fantasy game cannot be objectively "fully played" unless said game has a defined end. AD&D for example has no official level cap so it can never be "fully" played at all.

 

[Oldtimer]

You know, just like the BXCMI that got me started in the game in the first place.

Unfortunately WotC are probably well aware that the sales of each of those sets dwindled by almost an order of magnitude for each step. Perfect for the customers, but bad for the producer. Though I wish they had done that, I can see why they're not.

 

[Fifth Element]

I don't see this as a universal truth. Someone who played in dozens of AD&D campaigns over the course of many years hasn't fully played the game because the highest level attained was 11th or so?

An open ended fantasy game cannot be objectively "fully played" unless said game has a defined end. AD&D for example has no official level cap so it can never be "fully" played at all.

Agreed. I never played 1E above 8th level or so, but I played 1E weekly for many years (I just had a deadly and stingy DM). I daresay I "played" 1E sufficiently to judge it.

 

[Psion]

I don't see that at all. The fact is that "core" always sells better than "extra", no matter how good that "extra" is. So of course they hope everyone sees the PHB2, MM2 etc. as "core", since they're probably more likely to buy it in that case.

Yep.

Although Alzrius is factually correct, I'm not necessarily towing a hard line here. I do understand why from a marketing standpoint why it's a good idea. But I'm not compelled to like it from a prospective buyers' standpoint, and resent selective/collectors packaging in other markets.

I do think it was a mistake to leave out Bards and Druids in PHBI, I'm told that some folks don't share my demographic exposure there.

 

[Fifth Element]

I do understand why from a marketing standpoint why it's a good idea. But I'm not compelled to like it from a prospective buyers' standpoint, and resent selective/collectors packaging in other markets.

Indeed. I didn't suggest it was the best idea, or even a good idea. But their intent is pretty clear.

 

[Treebore]

I don't see this as a universal truth. Someone who played in dozens of AD&D campaigns over the course of many years hasn't fully played the game because the highest level attained was 11th or so?

An open ended fantasy game cannot be objectively "fully played" unless said game has a defined end. AD&D for example has no official level cap so it can never be "fully" played at all.

Yep. You don't understand a lot of the rules decisions until you see how they do, or do not play well at the higher levels.

Like, one example that stands out in my minds, is everyone talks about how god like mages are at higher levels. I found them to outshine fighters, etc... in games where the DM was afraid to give cool magic items to the other PC's. I found mages very easy to kill at higher levels, especially if a fighter had an item giving them an Anti MAgic Shell. Hitting mages with magical arrows, multiple times, from multiple fighter types, kills them pretty fast too.

So, as I see it, people claim the mage is an all powerful god because his spell list makes him look like one. However, when you actually play the game to those higher levels you figure out strategies that keep the mage pretty easy to kill. Plus, as the Game Master, you see the reason for allowing such things is to keep the mage in balance.

Heck, in 3E, the SR's, resistances, and immunities effectively turn Epic Level mages into buffing machines, because the opponents were immune to fire, acid, sonic, hold, charm, etc...

Which shows how 3E actually needs to tone down on such things at lower levels to make higher level play actually more viable. Which you will never see unless you play into those levels. My two experiences were to the 68th and the 48th levels, and in both games the Wizard class sucked at above 25th level.

So yes, I think it is important to play the game to its highest levels to really get a grasp on how its rules work and hold up across the levels, or don't.

 

[Treebore]

Agreed. I never played 1E above 8th level or so, but I played 1E weekly for many years (I just had a deadly and stingy DM). I daresay I "played" 1E sufficiently to judge it.

I agree you can judge it at the 8th level of play or so. However you cannot accurately judge it from the 18th level perspective. The game is too complex to judge how all of those variables work together without actually playing it with the rules.

So with 4E all I can say is it failed to excite me in the first 3 levels of play. I have no idea how it plays at higher levels, and I may even actually like how it plays at those levels. I just won't find out, because every other edition of D&D, including 3E, got me excited in the first three levels. I don't play RPG's that don't excite me at the beginning. So 4E is out for me.

I will be keeping an eye on it though. They will be expanding the core rules annually, so they may eventually add something that makes it exciting for me.

 

[Mercule]

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.

I understand the issue it's trying to fix, but I think 4e went way too far. It's like trying to fix your pants falling down using a nail gun. I'd have preferred 4e to just come with a belt.

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.

Actually, each class had something of their own subsystem. Casters had spells, thieves had skills, and fighters were the baseline. Each type of class had its own way of playing that made it something of a different game for each. 4e is the same game, regardless of which class you're playing. In some ways, that's really great -- I'm not a fan of system mastery. In others, it's not so great because it may actually not appeal to as broad of an audience.

It's something I want to see in play. From the single session of KotS I ran, it still looked like D&D to me, but at least one player (the wizard) disagreed. Everyone is up for another shot when the 3.5 campaign wraps, so we'll see. Still, it qualifies as a concern for me.

 

[Thasmodious]

Personally, I find the decision to spread certain "core" things around a series of core books to be pretty sound business strategy and not some evil, soul deadening move of unadulterated greed. I'd rather spend my $30 on a MM4 that has monsters I've actually heard of and would like to use rather than the disasters IV and V were in 3.5e. "You mean all I get is obscure, silly monsters and some of the same old monsters but with class levels or templates already applied? Drow ninjas and Githyanki Blackguards? That's what you got?"

MM 4 and 5 might go the same way in 4th, but the model is sounder, both from a business standpoint and from a usefulness standpoint.

I guess its the nature of the online gaming community that so many look at a company that seeks to make money on gaming as some kind of evil act. It makes some sense, I guess, with how much free stuff floats around the gaming community, and how much gamers like to create resources and share them among other gamers. But it's still a bit odd to attack a business for being a business.