Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hexmage-EN" data-source="post: 4804478" data-attributes="member: 79428">I've found myself in a strange love/hate relationship with 4E. It's a fun game that focuses on combat, like 3E, but it also ditched a lot of the awkward, clumsy elements of 3E. However, I feel like they went overboard in other areas and that some of the design choices threw suspension of disbelief out the window in favor of what the creators thought would be most fun in tactical combat (such as the Fighter Paragon Path in Martial Power that lets him move an enemy and choose where it goes with a nasty look).The game is fun, but it's not what I expected when I picked up a book with the title "Dungeons and Dragons" on the cover.There are a ton of threads where people have made gripes about 4E. So, I want to make a thread where people can talk about the features of 4E that they like, whether they love the game, dislike it, or have a love/hate relationship with it (like me).Design Choices in 4E I Like- Martial characters have many more options (although some of these new options can be hard to swallow). - PCs and their opponents move around all the time now and don't have to worry about losing out on damage dealing, which is far more interesting in my opinion than staying put and using a Full Attack every round.- Rituals are a wonderful idea and I love them.- I much prefer Fortitude, Reflex, and Will as Defenses rather than saves.- Roles. I honestly don't understand why people have a problem with them. Classes can still choose powers that don't quite fit their role, and they were present to some extent in previous editions. I also think it's a much better idea to design a class's powers towards some specific goal rather than to give many options that leave a character a jack of all trades and master of none.- Simple, easy to build and run monster design. I created two monsters in 3E and was afraid I did the math wrong. I've made dozens of unique creatures in 4E, although Asmor's Monster Maker made the process even easier than it already is (Thanks, Asmor!).- Requiring that effects end with a save instead of rolling dice and keeping track of how many rounds are left. I also like the recharge mechanic for powers such as a dragon's breath weapon.Design Choices in 4E I'm on the Fence About- I find it interesting how 4E introduced the concept of PCs giving their allies a chance to move or attack outside of their turn. I wonder how similar abilities could be handled in a game without the Power System?- Not having to "waste" a turn to heal, although I'm not crazy about the implementation. I'd rather Clerics have some sort of constant beneficial aura rather than "hit to heal" powers.- Non-magical healing. I like the idea of being able to fight through the pain, but I think that this should be represented solely through temporary hit points. The party would still have to use special equipment to actually heal, but it could wait until after the battle.- Non-PC allies (such as a Ranger's Animal Companion) share actions with the one controlling them. I'm only putting this here because sticking to this design decision makes it hard to run the type of Necromancer class I wish was available (that is, a class that leads small numbers of undead minions).- The Power System. It's design isn't something I expected from a pen and paper RPG, but the highly abstract nature of the Power System and its reliance on grid-based combat makes it easy to create custom classes based on those found in Tactical RPG video games. In fact, I often wonder why detractors compare 4E to MMORPGs like World of Warcraft when it's far more similar to Tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem or Disgaea. Hell, the designers should have called the current edition "Dungeons and Dragons: Tactics" instead of "Dungeons and Dragons: Fourth Edition."</blockquote>

Verification