Dispelling the anti-4e misinformation and why 4e is the best ever!

[Psion]

I seem to be in the minority but by my reading of the books it looks like 4E is actually less dependant on minis.

Hmmm. Even folks who I know who love 4e seem to think that it's more minis dependent than ever, taking into consideration various powers that depend on positioning.

As for me, it's not even close to the most aggravating thing about 4e, but I can certainly see why people are making the case.

 

[LoneWolf23]

I just wanted to comment on the whole mini's thing. I don't necessarily have anything against them, but with that said I would have liked for them to be more optional and less required than they are in 4e. Why? Because sometimes I don't feel like setting all of that stuff (minis, tiles or mat, etc.) up, or because it can limit the area where it's possible to play, and as the DM if I have to travel it's a hassle carrying all that extra stuff.

Agreed. And I mostly play online (or at least try to), but running D&D combat online, without miniatures, is next to impossible.

Is it so wrong for me to ask for Simple combat rules to let you run a fight as if it were a Final Fantasy battle?

 

[mmu1]

I do not understand most of the reasons for the anti 4e crowd.

Ah, yes. The good old "I don't get it, so it must be wrong." school of thought.

Don't worry, the answer is simple - the defect lies with you, not all the people who don't like 4E.

 

[DaveMage]

Najo,

You may want to go read the recent thread where people outline why they dislike 4E.

Many of the reasons given have nothing to do with the reasons you state in your original post.

Link for your convenience: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=228960

 

[Plane Sailing]

Sure D&D started with mini's cause thats what people played back than. Read the old Gyax articles and you'll find him comparing stuff to gazillion other mini games like Tractics or some historical mini-battles.

Forgive me if you are actually reflecting your experience, but it sounds as if you are basing the comment on old Gygax articles... I've been playing D&D since 1975 and there was no emphasis on minis at all. A hodgepodge of wargames minis were brought together to put on a map (when we didn't just use marks on graph paper or our imaginations).

I only bring this up because a number of times I've seen people refer to chainmail as the predecessor to D&D and assume that people used chainmail. Neither I nor anybody that I knew ever saw it

Cheers

 

[BryonD]

I must totally rule. In every single 4E thread, someone comments about how some activity was impossible in 3.x, and every single time I've accomplished exactly that which is said to be un-accomplish-able.

It is a common theme is pro-4e / anti-3e rants.
3E sucked because of <insert item number X> was [too hard, didn't work, took too much time, caused confusion, etc...]. Which certainly makes it hard to not feel smug when others express over and over and over their inability to achieve something that you found pretty simple. shrug

 

[BryonD]

Najo,

You may want to go read the recent thread where people outline why they dislike 4E.

Many of the reasons given have nothing to do with the reasons you state in your original post.

Link for your convenience: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=228960

Mine certainly don't. But hey, why get hung up on details????

 

[vagabundo]

How about the reason, I am still having fun and enjoy 3.5e? I also don't need the core concepts either, out of 30 players that I DM in a month only 1 wanted to change to 4e (He pissed me off with his preaching that I ended up kicking him from the group)

It was implied in the 'investment' comment, but if your having fun with unaltered 3e or pathfinder (or [other 3e varient]) then more power to ya. I believed only a sadist would invest (time and money) in something he wasn't having fun with.

I stopped enjoying 3e, mechanically, quite a while ago.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Sorry Najo, but as I think about it this seems like an edition wars thread, aimed as a rebuttle against an imagined audience. It is likely to go down in flames, so I'm shutting it.

Regards

 

[Henry]

I completely agree with the OP. The only real reason not to go 4e is your level of investment in 3e. And even then I would grab many of the core 4e concepts as I could and keep some level of compatibility (core combat, healing surges, rituals, npc/monster building).

I think sjmiller made some more poignant arguments: Specialty wizards, Rangers who are still strikers but don't rely on two weapons or ranged attacks, Monks or unarmed fighters -- these and quite a few other ideas are undoable at the present time if you don't want to make all that up whole-cloth. Healing surges definitely rub some people the wrong way, as does the lack of anything save diseases that give persistent disabilities; by the time the combat ends, so have most conditions like blindness, deafness, etc. Wizards, when they retrain to other spells, have their spells apparently VANISH from their SPELLBOOKS!

So, there are lots of things that bug people who are used to the way things were, and it's perfectly valid. It's as valid as someone ordering a Steak to eat when a hamburger would have done the same job -- some things just come down to flavor and preference.