I am, and I am sure many of you are, a tactical gamer at heart. I love seeing a good plan come together. I don't want to speak too soon for a new edition, but compared to 3.5, 4E introduces a lot more randomness into the game.
Many, many splatbooks made 3.5 a breeze to find options to specialize your character. If I wanted to be obscenely good at a skill, or combine effects to make a spell or magic item a specialty, or even set up situational bonuses for myself, I was able to create a character who was "ahead of the curve" in that area. With that type of specialization, the game lets you play to your strengths, your opponents play to your weaknesses, and conflict (combat or not) ends up usually being a matter of who can adapt to the opponent's advantages better.
One of the biggest enablers of that type of strategic play is a reasonable certainty of success. In 3.5, things like surprise, terrain, and distance could tip the odds enough in your favor (or against it) that victory wasn't a matter of dice so much as a matter of tactics. In a fair fight, the dice are king, but in an unfair fight, dice take a back seat.
In 4E, it looks like this mindset has been deliberately eliminated. Bonuses and penalties to every roll are severely limited. The curve is only 1 or 2 points below the absolute specialist maximum (excepting a couple of paradigm-breaking limited abilities) in every area, and the default odds are usually a 55/45ish split between success and failure. Getting a +4 to your roll (a gigantic bonus in 4E terms) that you are already top-of-the-line at only kicks you up to a 75% chance of success. The sliding scale of DCs, ACs, saves, and attack bonuses means that you never become really good at anything, you just keep pace with your challenges.
Does anyone else think that relying too much on the dice reduces the drama or immersion in the game? If they players aren't certain that their bread-and-butter abilities will reliably work, how can they act like confident heroes? Succeeding at incredible tasks is certainly heroic, but failing at mundane ones is much more non-heroic. What part of the mindset for 4E am I missing?
Many, many splatbooks made 3.5 a breeze to find options to specialize your character. If I wanted to be obscenely good at a skill, or combine effects to make a spell or magic item a specialty, or even set up situational bonuses for myself, I was able to create a character who was "ahead of the curve" in that area. With that type of specialization, the game lets you play to your strengths, your opponents play to your weaknesses, and conflict (combat or not) ends up usually being a matter of who can adapt to the opponent's advantages better.
One of the biggest enablers of that type of strategic play is a reasonable certainty of success. In 3.5, things like surprise, terrain, and distance could tip the odds enough in your favor (or against it) that victory wasn't a matter of dice so much as a matter of tactics. In a fair fight, the dice are king, but in an unfair fight, dice take a back seat.
In 4E, it looks like this mindset has been deliberately eliminated. Bonuses and penalties to every roll are severely limited. The curve is only 1 or 2 points below the absolute specialist maximum (excepting a couple of paradigm-breaking limited abilities) in every area, and the default odds are usually a 55/45ish split between success and failure. Getting a +4 to your roll (a gigantic bonus in 4E terms) that you are already top-of-the-line at only kicks you up to a 75% chance of success. The sliding scale of DCs, ACs, saves, and attack bonuses means that you never become really good at anything, you just keep pace with your challenges.
Does anyone else think that relying too much on the dice reduces the drama or immersion in the game? If they players aren't certain that their bread-and-butter abilities will reliably work, how can they act like confident heroes? Succeeding at incredible tasks is certainly heroic, but failing at mundane ones is much more non-heroic. What part of the mindset for 4E am I missing?
