Feeling short changed by 4th Ed.

[Ydars]

I think I would have preferred them to split the game into the three Tiers and put more of the classes into the PHB I up front.

So I would have had PHB I; Heroic Tier, PHB II; Paragon Tier and PHB III; Epic Tier and the same for the DMGs as well. I would have done it this way a) because players who know D&D well like lots of options up front to re-create their favorite characters and b) because most people will start at Heroic and go through at the speed of their daily/weekly/monthly game and it will take most people a fair while to get out of that Tier and c) because many people don't actually like playing D&D at the higher levels (though I think/hope 4E might change this).

Having said this, I am sure it would have upset as many people doing it as I suggest, it would just have been my preference.

 

[Bagpuss]

This is what I believed anyway, until three weeks ago when I saw that they are releasing a "basic game" for newbies in November.

To me H1 is much more the entry level game. The purchaser has everything he needs to play, except for some tokens and dice.

 

[DanChops]

First off - and I promise that this is not intended to sound snarky - hard returns are your friend. Huge blocks of text with no whitespace are difficult to read.

Second - while I understand where you're coming from, I don't really agree. There seem to be two main points to your complaint: 1- "classic" character options are missing from the PHB I and 2- the Warlock and the Wizard don't have many options. Here's my problem with those two complaints.

Regarding the lack of "classic" options:

• What does "classic" really mean? Who defines the term?
• For example, to me, there's nothing classic about the Druid or the Bard. Neither of these were (in my campaigns) meaningful options prior to 3.x, and neither were particularly popular even then.
• Further, the flavor of the Warlord is "classic" to me - the intelligent, heavily armored tactician of a fighter is an archtype that has long had its place in my experience of what D&D is.

Regarding the lack of options for the Wizard and Warlock:

• For the Wizard - one of the design goals was to make the Wizard and the Fighter on par with each other in terms of power at any given level. (Personally, I think this is a wonderful thing, and I'm glad they decided to do this. I understand that not everyone agrees with this though. However, whether you agree with the goal or not, the fact remains that this was their design goal.)
  Now, given this design goal, and given that flexibility is a source of power, it seems reasonable to me to bring the Wizard's options in line with those of the other classes. I'm thrilled that they did this by both taking options away from the wizard and by adding options to the fighter. True, the wizard retains a significant amount of flexibility through the spellbook, and this increases its potency somewhat, but I think that, by and large, WotC succeeded in bringing all the classes to a rough parity of power at any given level; this necessitated eliminating some options from the Wizard's spelllist.
• For the Warlock - well, I suppose they could have added a fourth (or fifth or sixth) pact, but how would they have made space for it? What else in the book would they have cut in order to make room for more Warlock-y goodness? How many pacts would have been "enough"?

Regarding the overall complaint that WotC is somehow cheating us out of content by not including these things, I don't buy that either. First off, there are more than enough options in PHB I to satisfy what I would consider a typical gaming group for several years. Secondly, these guys have gotta eat too. They need to sell books in order to make a living. I agree with Mustrum - better that the coming books add options without breaking the game. By holding class and race options in reserve, they increase the chance that they'll be able to do that.

 

[Ydars]

Danchops; some nice points that I agree with.

I appreciate that wizards needed to be toned down but giving them more options wouldn't make them more powerful, just more flexible. Now a wizard is no longer a wizard instead he is pretty much a war-mage. I am particularly disappointed with the section on rituals because I think they really have potential to make this game really brilliant and anyone (with ritual caster feat) can now use them. Actually, I want more rituals, as a DM, for NPC as flavor but I guess, since balance is not such an issue with NPCs, that I can always create them.

Don't get me wrong; there is tons of stuff in the PHB; it is just that because it is spread out over 30 levels, there are very few options off the bat.

 

[theNater]

3E - Feeling short changed by 3rd Ed.

After reading the 3rd Ed PHB it occurs to me that its not really a complete version of D&D the way 4th Ed was. 4th Ed had more races, tons of exploits and just seemed like a more complete rule set. By comparison, the 3rd ed. PHB deliberately does not include classic classes, races and powers that have been part of the D&D experience for over 3 weeks (Warlords, Warlocks, Dragonborn, Reaping Strike come to mind). If you want to use this classic D&D material in your game, you will have to wait (and shell out $35 more) for the PHB II. The Tiefling Warlock became an iconic race/class combo with 4th ed. but you can't play it with 3rd ed. as released. Likewise, 3rd ed classes like the Sorcerer and particularly the Barbarian barely have enough "powers" to make them interesting. Sorcerers get only ten choices for familiars even though WotC clearly has many more sitting on a shelf waiting for the splat books (Undead rat, tiny elemental, dragonling, etc, etc.). The poor Wizard, whose class feature is the spellbook, is left with precious few opportunities to fill it. I feel short-changed. WotC knows players are eager to play their favorites from future editions and they are holding out on some of the games best stuff...on purpose. To get a complete D&D game that has the best of the future versions, players will have to buy the PHB II (and maybe PHB III) and lots of splat books. When the PHB II hits the stores, l think players will be killing off their own characters left and right or begging their DM to reboot the campaign just so they can play the races and classes they actually wanted to play all along but could not. WotC will definitely sell more books with this savvy marketing strategy but more $ for WotC does not ensure that D&D is now or will be a better, more enduring game.

Sorry, I couldn't help it. The idea popped into my head and beat my will defense.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I agree with the OP entirely; everything in 4E save the combat system feels like it is lacking something, and even the vast number of powers don't actually give potential players that many options.

I have yet to run a game above 1st level, and already this statement is absolutely ludicrous given what we have actually played so far.

 

[Ydars]

Sorry you don't agree Kwalish. I am talking from my point of view and labelling it as "ludicrous" is not particularly enlightening.

 

[jdrakeh]

I think the frustration comes from expecting new editions of games to be exactly like old editions in every regard. Obviously, this is directly at odds with the concept of a "new edition" but, more importantly, it's also at odds with the actual history of D&D publication.

For example, the Half-Orc PC race did not originally appear in the D&D core rules, but was introduced in AD&D 1e, later removed in AD&D 2e, and re-introduced in 3x. Now it has been removed in D&D 4e. It has hardly been a constant feature of D&D for 30+ years, nor does there exist a strong argument that is was ever a defining feature of the game as a whole.

Likewise, D&D did not originally have a "Thief" class in the core rules. This first showed up In Supplement 1 and was later added to the core game in AD&D 1e. It was removed in D&D 3x and replaced with the well-rounded Rogue, which still did thief-like things, but without the rigid contraints imposed by earlier editions.

Similarly, Monks were not part of the original D&D core rules but, rather, were introduced in Supplement II as a sub-class of Cleric. They didn't become their own class until the advent of AD&D 1e, were subsequently removed as a core class in AD&D 2e, and when re-introduced as a core class in D&D 3x, lacked many characteristics of the class in previous editions of the game.

Likewise, the Barbarian didn't exist at all in the original D&D core rules or supplements, first showed up as an optional class in the Unearthed Arcana supplement for AD&D 1e, wasn't in AD&D 2e core rules at all, and finally become a core class until in the D&D 3x Player's Handbook. Like many of the other classes and races of D&D, Barbarians have hardly been a constant throughout the years.

In short, new editions mean change -- they always have. Some things get dropped from the core, some things get added, and some things reappear in supplements (like the PHB II) some time down the road. That's just how it works.

 

[Crothian]

I think the frustration comes from expecting new editions of games to be exactly like old editions in every regard. Obviously, this is directly at odds with the concept of a "new edition" but, more importantly, it's also at odds with the actual history of D&D publication.

That seems to be it. I'm happy 4e is different. If I want half orc barbarians I'll play a different game. I don't want product filled with stuff from the early games. I want new stuff for the new game. Show me what the game can do, don't force feed me old stuff with new labels.

 

[malraux]

I appreciate that wizards needed to be toned down but giving them more options wouldn't make them more powerful, just more flexible. Now a wizard is no longer a wizard instead he is pretty much a war-mage. I am particularly disappointed with the section on rituals because I think they really have potential to make this game really brilliant and anyone (with ritual caster feat) can now use them. Actually, I want more rituals, as a DM, for NPC as flavor but I guess, since balance is not such an issue with NPCs, that I can always create them.

I think making the wizard more flexible would be a mistake. Ok, I think that within the arcane power source you should be able to have great flexibility, but sticking that all within the wizard class makes the wizard outshine other classes. So in the future, I hope there's an illusionist, a necromancer, a conjurer, etc, but each should have its own niche.

As to rituals, those do feel somewhat lacking, but they are easy to add more later, either by wotc or by you as a DM.

I think really what people are feeling is a conscious choice by the designers to not just protect the niche of each class within the phb, but also for future classes. Of course, I think this is a very good thing.