D&D 3E/3.5 Ed Wars: 4E Fan Finally Gets 3E Fans' POV

[I'm A Banana]

It's very true that every single edition of D&D has focused almost exclusively on combat as the one mechanic for resolving challenges in the game.

However, this near-exclusivity had variation. From deadly low-level combat to spells like Charm Person to mechanics like level drain and disease to things like wandering monsters to things like XP for treasure to things like rust monsters and green slime and shreikers to things like difficult HP recovery to things like weak thief classes, the idea was that sometimes -- maybe only 1/4th of the time, but sometimes -- combat was something you wanted to avoid.

Anyone who says that 4e is just as combat focused as any other edition has to take into account the fact that other editions, while pretty combat focused, weren't monolithic in this in the slightest. There WAS variation. It may have been a bit "DM makes stuff up," and a bit "Ha! Screw you, Player Character!", but it was absolutely there. Fighting was deadly and swingy and unsatisfying unless you were a fighter or an attack-focused spellcaster.

4e, continuing a trend from 3e, had a few modifications that, in effect (if not in purpose) did away with that little bit of variety. Rituals and skill challenges suffer mightily from issues that make it seem like they were design afterthoughts. Powers and feats are almost always combat related. Encounter-based design doesn't like anything of consequence to happen outside of an encounter, and tenacious balance doesn't like anything to skew the math too bad.

Any 4e DM who wants to can choose not to embrace this focus. It's pretty easy, if you're a DM who is good at engaging other areas of the game, to do so. It's one of the tremendous virtues of having a DM.

But the mechanics of the system slant toward combat, in a way that wasn't quite as true before, in a very multifaceted way, in a way the designers maybe didn't exactly intend, and in a way that a good DM might never, ever see.

This doesn't mean the issue is illusory, or that people are "bad actors" when they make this comparison. There's something at the core of it. Maybe not something you personally are very familiar with, but something real nonetheless. Sort of, just because you're well-fed and happily employed doesn't mean that the system that you succeed at isn't deeply problematic for others.

 

[Herschel]

The only criticism I have for you guys is that you attempt to "argue" that issues people have with 4e are invalid. Keep in mind that we have an issue and that is indisputable. We give reasons for why we have an issue and they may or may not be 100% valid.

Nowhere do I say you have to like anything. My issue is with reasoning that's flat out invalid presented as edition wars. I'll refute that every time.

For instance, saying "4E is just a combat game where you can't role play" when every other edition has been combat focused is invalid. Saying you don't like the numbers bloat, which 3E and subsequently 4E most certainly do, is perfectly valid. Yeah, the math isn't really any harder, for example, but it's most definitely longer and there's a lot more of it.

Saying 4E classes are "all samey" because of power structure is also invalid because played by people who actually "get" them, they play very, very differently. And in the TSR days most characters within a class were very much similar. Saying you don't like characters that complex and you want simpler, more streamlined classes is most certainly valid.

Saying you only want certain classes more streamlined is an issue, but very blurry and a separate issue.

Saying you like more randomness in a game is also perfectly valid, as is saying you like a lighter rules game. Saying "4E takes away the DM's power" is invalid.

Saying 4E's early published modules were dry and linear is probably valid. Saying they "make no sense compared to the previous ones" in a game with a foundation of rooms with an Orc and a pie and where apparently the greatest practitioners of magical creation had a priority of creating artifact-level traps in random locations is not.

IoW, there's no issue in liking what you like, the issue is in trying to put forth a view with direct.... "falsehood" (?) in an attempt to paint it as something it's not.

 

[stoloc]

OK, here's the deal. Show me where the 4e books are substantially different from the other ones on the market. I'm not asking chapter-and-verse, just basic examples. I've played probably 20 different RPGs over the years, and I'm familiar with more - but we can stick with D&D if you'd prefer. And 4e has more than most about how to make an interesting character, roleplay them, and just make stuff up as you go along.


-O

I'll show you one HUGE example of where the 4e books differ from previous editions. The PHB's in 4e give equal time for non-caster classes as it did for the casters and that ticks the casters off because they no longer get to be the only ones with cool toys to play with. I don't call them mundane because they are heroic not mundane nor do I consider them to be casters. They simply use a similar format for showing how they are heroic to the ones the casters use.

This is a great big change in the previous phbs and all to the good imo.

 

[billd91]

I'll show you one HUGE example of where the 4e books differ from previous editions. The PHB's in 4e give equal time for non-caster classes as it did for the casters and that ticks the casters off because they no longer get to be the only ones with cool toys to play with.

But is this really true? Are wizards ticked off because their percentage of the rule books smaller than the fighters or because fighters have powers that fit the same structure? Has anybody actually studied or measured this as a reaction?

Or are they pissed off because the scope of the their magic has so significantly eroded in an absolute sense compared to previous editions? There is a big difference between those perspectives and unidentified third or fourth perspectives may be even more common yet.

 

[stoloc]

But is this really true? Are wizards ticked off because their percentage of the rule books smaller than the fighters or because fighters have powers that fit the same structure? Has anybody actually studied or measured this as a reaction?

Or are they pissed off because the scope of the their magic has so significantly eroded in an absolute sense compared to previous editions? There is a big difference between those perspectives and unidentified third or fourth perspectives may be even more common yet.

I have seen both being angry at the diminished scope of wizards (which I have mild empathy for but only mild because there are those who refuse to admit that the wizard needed to be reined in at all) and those who are angry because they no longer felt "special" because now fighters had cool stuff to do as well and for that I have no empathy for.

Now if you want to say that you want different subsystems for fighters and wizards I may disagree but that is because a prefer a unified mechanic - I prefer its simplicity.

 

[Grabuto138]

I have been fortunate enough to play in the same group, more or less, for the last 22 years. I have played every edition since the red box. 4th edition is my favorite flavor since 3rd edition. But...

I can see how, for new players, 4th edition can suppress role playing. In my opinion, it unintentionally draws a bright-line distinction between "in an encounter" and "out of an encounter." It is like an old Final Fantasy game. You role play on the "world map" but when an encounter starts it zooms in and becomes a tactical board game. I am not saying it has to be that way, only that the rules as written encourage it.

I am not a stealth Pathfinder player trolling. I really do play 4e and I really do think it is the best edition. We have already decided that we will not play Next unless it is balanced among characters and has modules for tactical combat and we won't play Pathfinder since there is no going back. (Though playing intentionally unoptimized Wizards so the fighter didn't feel like a useless jerk can be fun. "You're 13th level and you memorized Mord's Magnificence Mansion?" "Yeah. I am a rich and powerful Wizard. You think I am gonna sleep in the dirt like a serf?") But, for new players not raised in an environment that encourages improvisation, role playing, spontaneous DM adjudication, and "this ain't a board game you can literally do anything you can imagine", I can see how the RAW of 4e can emphasize a discrete and self-contained encounter at the expense of a dynamic and organic game.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Any 4e DM who wants to can choose not to embrace this focus. It's pretty easy, if you're a DM who is good at engaging other areas of the game, to do so. It's one of the tremendous virtues of having a DM.

But the mechanics of the system slant toward combat, in a way that wasn't quite as true before, in a very multifaceted way, in a way the designers maybe didn't exactly intend, and in a way that a good DM might never, ever see.

This doesn't mean the issue is illusory, or that people are "bad actors" when they make this comparison. There's something at the core of it. Maybe not something you personally are very familiar with, but something real nonetheless. Sort of, just because you're well-fed and happily employed doesn't mean that the system that you succeed at isn't deeply problematic for others.

I'd say this issue has nothing to do with combat whatsoever, or at least not a causal factor. In fact, I'd say the correlation runs the other way. To wit, if you run the following thought experiment, I think 4E has a higher floor but lower ceiling.

Give 100 late teen/early 20's groups the 3E PHB, MM, and DMG. Then do the same with another 100 groups with the 4E books. Give them no real advice or other instruction, ban them from outside interference, and see how they do. Most of them are going to end up doing a lot of combat. Let it run long enough, however, and I think you'll find the 3E groups branching into other stuff somewhat faster--because the 4E combat is a lot more varied and interesting by itself. And then the 4E techniques to really raise that ceiling for varied play are not often intuitive, at least not from the DM's side of the screen. (They are more so on the players' side, but if the players get frustrated trying them on a DM who isn't ready, they'll probably unlearn these instincts.)

OTOH, the 4E groups will generally start "having fun" getting through the basic adventures a bit faster. So it's really a race between floor and ceiling for the desire for variety to kick in.

I'll also note that in this particular test, I think 1E would kick both of their butts. 1E by rule is so brutal that people will start drifting almost immediately, but so wacky and esoteric in places that the various intuitive reactions will take some time to get squashed. Of course, while 3E and 4E both hit the early ceiling and then stagnate for awhile until each group can break through, the 1E groups will take off like a rocket while keeping various "gaming pathologies" that will emerge out of the inherent tensions in the design. On average, of course.