Do you know how many powers there are currently out there?

[Obryn]

Maybe, but I think it leads to more churn as players decide they want options that they cannot have because their choices are already narrowed.

Then that'd be kind of the opposite of option bloat! If your options are too narrow, I don't think they can also be too much.

Still, I don't think there's any single power which would be worth a player switching classes. Even in those cases, there are ways to do so, should a player really want to. If it's just one power, it'd take two feats - which could conceivably be done in a single level, with some retraining.

And if it's a class feature rather than a power, well, that's no worse than any edition to-date. I mean, I didn't get the high-level monk features without putting in a lot of levels as a monk.

Personally, a friend of mine is already struggling with 4e as a GM and feels that the game remains too narrow and restrictive.

I just think that it is crazy to have already released so much crunch in such a short period of time.

It's really only "so much crunch" if you look at it in ways which no player or DM would ever need to. From a player's perspective, it just doesn't feel overwhelming. From a DM's perspective, it's not even a little overwhelming - after all, I don't need to know what every power does. Or almost any of them, really.

-O

 

[Mark]

It's really only "so much crunch" if you look at it in ways which no player or DM would ever need to. (. . .) From a DM's perspective, it's not even a little overwhelming - after all, I don't need to know what every power does. Or almost any of them, really.

Is it the general concensus that with 4E the DM only needs to adjudicate what happens at the table and need not know in advance what available powers do? It is enough that the player can show it to the DM in whatever book they have with them? Is the assumption that if the player brings an official 4E source with them it is fair game?

 

[Phaezen]

Is it the general concensus that with 4E the DM only needs to adjudicate what happens at the table and need not know in advance what available powers do? It is enough that the player can show it to the DM in whatever book they have with them? Is the assumption that if the player brings an official 4E source with them it is fair game?

I am pretty much happy with players using anything from WOTC that is in the character builder, there have been one or two small issues, but those are easily fixed by a short trip to the errata forums (Solar Enemy I am looking at you).

The format of the powers and feats make it easy enough to know what they are mean't to do

 

[Mark]

I am pretty much happy with players using anything from WOTC that is in the character builder, there have been one or two small issues, but those are easily fixed by a short trip to the errata forums (Solar Enemy I am looking at you).

The format of the powers and feats make it easy enough to know what they are mean't to do

I find when I jump into a game with a pregen it is incredibly simple to glance over a sheet (or cards) and know just what to do, in the same manner that I used to do so with DDM, only a bit more complex. Now, mind you, I haven't played at the higher levels yet. I hope to get that chance over the holiday break this December.

I guess the above questions have something to do with prepping, then. I haven't DMed 4E and wondered about doing do without having all of the knowledge of available character options in advance.

 

[Belen]

It's really only "so much crunch" if you look at it in ways which no player or DM would ever need to. From a player's perspective, it just doesn't feel overwhelming. From a DM's perspective, it's not even a little overwhelming - after all, I don't need to know what every power does. Or almost any of them, really.

I think the huge caveat here is the DDI. If you do not have access to it, then the amount of options is a bit staggering and unwieldy or you just do not have the books and cannot "compete" with those that have the access.

I am not really going to debate the merits of 4e. Personally, they have already released more crunch material than fits my comfort zone.

 

[Obryn]

Is it the general concensus that with 4E the DM only needs to adjudicate what happens at the table and need not know in advance what available powers do? It is enough that the player can show it to the DM in whatever book they have with them? Is the assumption that if the player brings an official 4E source with them it is fair game?

It would vary from table to table, I'm sure.

In the game I play in, the DM allows everything. In the game I run, I allow all sources in the character builder, except for a very short list of specific items and a house-rule regarding attack bonuses.

If a DM is more restrictive, they can go into the Character Builder, set all the options that they allow or don't allow, and send that campaign file to any of their players who also have the character builder.

If a player pulls out something I'm not familiar with, I look over the power when they use it and just remember it from there. Power cards can be very handy that way. Or, I just go by their description, and look it up later if I'm concerned about it. In general, I have found that 4e powers are a lot more manageable from my DM side of things than all the various cleric/wizard spells that a player could prepare.

-O

 

[keterys]

I actually have a little bit of glee when people pull out powers I don't recognize (as a DM or PC) and I get to see the new thing.

I do find there are insufficient choices when I have to pick a power sometimes, so I definitely see room for more power options. It would be possible for more classes to share powers - like when creating a class for 4e I was listing many powers from other classes as acceptable use. That said, I am _far_ happier with the current state of things than the amount of sharing that occurred in 3e.

I don't believe that on the fly power building will ever be a good idea for 4e, late in the line or otherwise. The psionic theory of doing it might work out, of course, but that's not what was brought up.

I don't know what the actual number of options in 3e were, but I can say that I personally was involved in the creation of several hundred spells, a few hundred feats, and a couple dozen classes and prestige classes for 3e. I'm sure that was somewhat abnormal, but I'm also not a primary publisher for the game so...

So I may not be your target audience for any complaints about too many powers.

 

[Obryn]

I think the huge caveat here is the DDI. If you do not have access to it, then the amount of options is a bit staggering and unwieldy or you just do not have the books and cannot "compete" with those that have the access.

Well, I can certainly see that. But generally, if I were making a PC without the help of the Character Builder, I think I'm still on stronger footing than I was during late-era 3.5. I remember making a bunch of 12th-level 3.5 characters with my group, and having well over a dozen books strewn around!

If I were to make a 3.5 Wizard today, I'd probably want PHB1+2, Complete Arcane, Complete Mage, Spell Compendium, the Races Of... book for my PC, and maybe some specific stuff for the character or campaign, like Frostburn or Libris Mortis or a campaign-specific book. I'd also definitely want some kind of management system like SpellForge, but that's just me!

If I were to make a 4e Wizard today, and I didn't have DDI - and hence no Dragon, either, remember - I would want PHB 1+2, and Arcane Power. From there, the feats would be the toughest to look at, since I'd probably want all three books. As for powers, I'd only want to look at PHB1 & Arcane Power. I'd have only about 6-8 power options per level, too.

The same would go for any other class so far, I think. Three books for feats, two books for powers. And everything broken down by level, so my choices are somewhat narrower than you'd expect.

Will this increase later on? I'm sure. But I also think later on, you'll see a lot more "Primal classes only" or "PHB1 + Psionics" campaigns from 4e DMs. No different from 3.5, really, with DMs limiting the number of sourcebooks they allow. (Heck, just eliminating Dragon gets rid of a huge chunk of feats.)

I am not really going to debate the merits of 4e. Personally, they have already released more crunch material than fits my comfort zone.

No, I can see that. To each their own! All I'm saying is that from my perspective, the raw numbers are a bit deceptive. It's a lot more manageable in actual practice than you'd think from seeing, "4,000 POWERS!"

-O

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Is it the general concensus that with 4E the DM only needs to adjudicate what happens at the table and need not know in advance what available powers do? It is enough that the player can show it to the DM in whatever book they have with them? Is the assumption that if the player brings an official 4E source with them it is fair game?

Well, I can't speak of consensus, but it is how I generally treat it.

If I spot broken combos (as a player "researching" my own characters, or via forums or during play), I will of course react and might ban a power or modify it.

 

[pawsplay]

And you'd be correct to do so. I think Belen was probably referencing the 175 "classes" listed here which is rather misleading, since that list includes substitution levels and variants of each class. (The wizard is listed five times, for example.) I think the real number of 3.X base classes is only a few dozen.

Using that counting method for 4e, you'd count each class once for each build plus once for every race that gets racial feats for it, heh. I'm not sure there is a perfect method for counting 3.5 class variants, but the 175 number is certainly distorted.