D&D 4E First Impressions of 4E / Predictions on 5E

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't get the vehemence against those who have loved D&D for years but aren't happy with what they're reading about the latest incarnation of the game.

The vehemence isn't one way. There's not an insulting nickname for people who don't like 4E, for instance, but there are several for those who do.

Both sides have some pretty serious offenders.

 

[Benimoto]

How often have you seen characters in your game with the same ability scores in one stat? I have seen this very often.
I find it laughable that a beduine warrior from the desert should have the same swim skill as a warrior who lives near a river but never bothered to practice swimming very much.

...


Bards tales must be really educating when you can practice physical skills just by listening to them.

The thing is, and this is a point people were making back when SAGA had just came out, this is the whole point of a level-based system. My 3rd edition wizard, now 10th level, hasn't drawn a weapon for the past 6-8 levels, and yet my melee attack skill keeps going up. The whole point of being higher level is that you're better at things.

As to your example with the two warriors' swim skills, this hasn't changed at all. In 3rd edition, if neither of them put any points into the skill, all other things being equal, they would have the same skill. In 4th edition, it's the same. The difference is that a 10th level desert warrior in 4th edition might (emphasis on might, since I'm just assuming the skills might work similarly to SAGA) be as good at swimming as a 1st level trained swimmer. Or slightly worse, if the DM takes the fact that the character's never been in the water before as a unfavorable circumstance and imposes a -2 penalty. I think that's fine, and not laughable. The 10th level character is assumed to be capable in a wide variety of things, and it's not the system's fault for assuming that after 10 levels of play, the character might have a better idea of how to swim than even a trained novice.

I think both systems are inferior to some sort of ideal system that rates exactly how much your character values each skill and how much experience, training and natural capacity the character has in the area, but both the 3rd edition system and the 4th edition are acceptable compromises to me.

First, I never said that D&D had no rules restrictions, just less than 4E will apparently have.
Second, fighters might have the similar prefered skills, but they still could choose individually which skills fit them and which didn't. You can take ranks in a cross class skill if you want after all.
(Thrid, they still had different attributes and race...)

Even in SAGA, and presumably in 4th edition, characters can pick trained skills. I don't think you can train non-class skills. My opinion is that the system leads to roughly the same results, without the bother of skill points.

 

[LEHaskell]

Yes, but it is much more concrete in 4E than in 3E. Tell me, what is the role of a fighter in 3E? i had the freedom to make a defender/tank or use charger build to make the fighter a striker. Even a Controller build with the spiked chain was possible.
Now in 4E this roles are spelled out and you can expect that the things a class can do is more limited to this role. Fighters are defenders, so most of their abilities will revolve around defending. It will be quite hard, either by rules or group pressure or a combination of them, to play a striker or controller fighter.

A minor point, but I would classify a spike-chain fighter as firmly in the Defender Class. As the devs have described it, Defenders are "sticky", hampering the movement or actions of a single combatant -- which is the chain fighter's shtick. Controllers, as described by the devs, impact multiple targets through area of effect effects (damaging or hindering).

 

[scruffygrognard]

The vehemence isn't one way. There's not an insulting nickname for people who don't like 4E, for instance, but there are several for those who do.

Both sides have some pretty serious offenders.

I've seen 3tards thrown around, as well as the dismissive use of grognard for those who aren't digging 4th edition. Still, you're probably right that both sides are being snarky... hence the edition war repeat.

 

[Fifth Element]

I've seen 3tards thrown around, as well as the dismissive use of grognard for those who aren't digging 4th edition.

I believe 3tard was a term invented as an insult for those who like 3E more than 1E and 2E. I believe it's used on the dragonsfoot boards.

 

[Scribble]

I'm talking about monsters loosing out of combat abilities. In 3E having a demon in the area which has Animate Dead as at will ability could lead to a "automatic plot hook" by having the demon raise fallen creature and spread havoc. When I want to have this sort of adventure in 4E I will likely have to rule 0 that this demon can animate undead. Sure, houseruling is easy but I can always do that even if the demon does have spelled out out of combat abilities. It just means that I as DM have more work to do as I have to houserule

Hrmm... I always find this argument interesting. That the abilities that monsters have that are no longer useful were put there to make coming up with a back story easier. Like the Ogre Mage charm thing...


I see it simply as a poorly disguised argument against changing something, by people who just don't want to see change.

I'd really like to ask the original designers what their intent was when giving the monster said ability. Because personally I doubt it had anything to do with back story. I bet that either ability was more relevant back when the monster was created, or the designer just didn't do the math, and thought it would be a good ability. They end up just being traps, that have the ability to make a good monster suddenly become less effective.

Cut them. Get rid of the traps. I can make up back story when I need it.

 

[StarFyre]

...

"Cool! A thread that compares 4E to WoW, and mentions 5E! What more could one ask for?" -- FifthElement

---

What else?

I say we start guessing on changes in 6th Edition, in around 2021

Who is with me?



i say dice will be gone and the system will move to whatever you want to happen, does...
That way no one will be disappointed, like how they found that when someone is charmed or paralyzed, they are bored for those few minutes

Sanjay

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hrmm... I always find this argument interesting. That the abilities that monsters have that are no longer useful were put there to make coming up with a back story easier. Like the Ogre Mage charm thing...


I see it simply as a poorly disguised argument against changing something, by people who just don't want to see change.

I'd really like to ask the original designers what their intent was when giving the monster said ability. Because personally I doubt it had anything to do with back story. I bet that either ability was more relevant back when the monster was created, or the designer just didn't do the math, and thought it would be a good ability. They end up just being traps, that have the ability to make a good monster suddenly become less effective.

Cut them. Get rid of the traps. I can make up back story when I need it.

Rituals in 4E will also empower these sorts of monsters. Want to have a demon who animates all the skeletons in the cemetery? OK, he uses a ritual. We don't need that as a speed bump in the MM to trip up unwary newbie DMs.

 

[Vayden]

*Achieves level 11, slides on "Ring of Ignore Derren"*

Aaaahhh, blessed relief.

 

[Scribble]

Rituals in 4E will also empower these sorts of monsters. Want to have a demon who animates all the skeletons in the cemetery? OK, he uses a ritual. We don't need that as a speed bump in the MM to trip up unwary newbie DMs.

I agree completely. I think the powers probably (I'd have to do some research becuse I forget a lot of the rules and such from older editions) worked well within the earlier editions...

But with the changes of the rules, they just simply became excess code.