Forked Thread: Name exactly what 4E is "missing"

[I'm A Banana]

I don't get how someone could read through the utility powers for any of the spellcasting classes and come away with the impression that spells only deal damage in 4e.

I agree with this. 4e is pretty damage-focused for powers, but there is an entire suite of Utility powers that don't deal damage in the slightest. Combined with the rituals, I just don't understand what people who don't think that 4e has no non-damagin spells are actually looking for...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I agree with this. 4e is pretty damage-focused for powers, but there is an entire suite of Utility powers that don't deal damage in the slightest. Combined with the rituals, I just don't understand what people who don't think that 4e has no non-damagin spells are actually looking for...

Many utilities have a clear combat focus, even if they don't deal damage.

People are still trained to the "good ole days" where all spells were treated "equal", using the same in-game economy - spell slots. Now the economy has changed. Stuff you don't need in combat used a different "slot" from stuff that's relevant for fighting. The "real" Utility spells are the Rituals. And they don't work much like we remember them - they are expensive to learn and to cast. We don't entirely see them as part of the wizard class, since the rituals are listed not along his class spell list, but at the end of the PHB in their own chapter. And anyone could use them, provided he took the feats for it.

 

[El Mahdi]

My comment was influenced by the fact that I played with two guys who were optimisers. They had their feat selections planned out through level 20 and were brutally effective. That left the rest of us with the choice of matching them or practically sitting out half the fights. My character concepts were totally useless in the face of that. I had to rebuild three times in 8 levels just to participate (and I'm glad my DM let me).

Which comes back to what we all play D&D "for". Some people get a kick out of tweaking the system (just like hot rodding a car they can't legally drive or over-clocking a PC used for web surfing to 5 Ghz), and 3E was great for them, but their presence made it a lot less fun for people who were there for the roleplaying/storytelling aspects of the game. It was like showing up a friendly game of pick-up basketball only to find that one of the guys had modded his sneakers to make him run 2x as fast and jump 2x as high. It's a neat trick and cool proof of concept, but it doesn't make for good basketball.

Those guys were optimizers, and I understand what you're saying about this aspect of some gamers. I don't find this fun either.

But what I think most people are saying on here isn't that they enjoyed the intricacies and flexibility of 3E because they could "optimize" characters for maximum lethality, but that they enjoyed the intricacies and flexibility of 3E because of the way it had a mechanic to support just about any roleplaying concept, and therefore maximized the roleplaying experience for them. There are just too many concepts that can't be envisioned in 4E (and "keep the mechanics, change the fluff" is not the answer for these players - including me).

There are lots of different reasons that people play RPG's. Different people get different things out of them. Just like that test that determines what type of gamer you are (narrative, simulationist, gamist, etc). There's nothing wrong with any style of game, other than when conflicting styles are mixed into the same group. But that requires an entirely different kind of resolution. However, the problem of conflicting play styles will never be fixed simply by making changes to a game system.

Just because the system could be used to make "optimized" characters that, although legal with RAW, broke the spirit of the RAW, doesn't mean there's a problem with the system (it's not necessarily a problem with the players either, as long as the group you are playing with prefers or doesn't have a problem with this type of play). In any codified structure, there will always be loopholes. Even though they haven't been found yet, it doesn't mean 4E doesn't have them. There will be powergamers in 4E just as there has been in every D&D edition and every game system. There will be "optimized" characters that "break" the spirit of the systems rules, and will make the game "unfun" for some. The fact that this is possible in a system does not make the system bad.

I don't Feel that 4E is a bad system or game. It very definitely is a different game than 3E, but no more so than 3E was a very different game from 2E. 4E achieved what the designers set out to accomplish, it is a balanced, fast, simple, and fun system to use. Playing it will provide just as much enjoyment to those who like and use the system, as any other game or system has provided to those who like and use those systems.

I just don't understand why the "concepts" that were thought up as fixes to percieved problems in 3E, couldn't have been applied to 3E, rather than completely stripping the system down to it's bare bones chassis and then rebuilding it into a very different game. (That is, I can't understand why they took this course, other than they needed to make a "new" game in order to keep making money - and there's nothing wrong with that. However, this means that eventually, there will be a 5E. If for no other reason than they will need a new system to rejuvenate income. Though, there's no way of knowing how long that will take.)

Anyways, back to the subject, I think that's why most answers to "What is missing?" seems to be Complexity, Variety, and Flexibility.

 

[El Mahdi]

And there are many different ways to do 2W damage and shift one square.

I wouldn't say that. There are many ways to name doing 2W damage and shifting one square.

100% correct Fifth Element, and there in lies the problem with "keep the mechanic, change the fluff". (Very well said FE.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Many utilities have a clear combat focus, even if they don't deal damage.

People are still trained to the "good ole days" where all spells were treated "equal", using the same in-game economy - spell slots. Now the economy has changed. Stuff you don't need in combat used a different "slot" from stuff that's relevant for fighting. The "real" Utility spells are the Rituals. And they don't work much like we remember them - they are expensive to learn and to cast. We don't entirely see them as part of the wizard class, since the rituals are listed not along his class spell list, but at the end of the PHB in their own chapter. And anyone could use them, provided he took the feats for it.

As far as I'm concerned, these are all changes for the better. Having to choose between being effective in combat and being effective out of combat is not a very good choice. 3e introduced the lesson, and 4e has well learned it.

 

[Drammattex]

So far, I don't feel it's missing anything. Most of what I dislike occurs in small bits of flavor, which I find far easier to change than making up a new rule (for example, I strongly dislike the "glow" of the cleric flavor at early levels; however, in-game I have removed those glowy elements). Many of the elements that were removed from the previous edition I don't miss.

 

[Engilbrand]

How does "Keep the mechanics, change the fluff" not work? That's what I do for just about everything. There are very few true concepts that you can't make using the current rules. Some might require a minor reflavoring of abilities, but none of the mechanics need to change.

 

[Angrydad]

Something that has been mentioned in other threads is the feeling of "pounding away at hotkeys to activate powers" in 4e. I feel that the boundary between video game and table-top RPG is starting to deteriorate with 4e, and I miss that boundary. To me, 4e essentially feels like a group of people getting together in their MMO of choice and playing that. While I realize that a lot of the "take the crunch, modify the fluff" type people will say that it's all up to imagination and blah blah blah, I still feel like the mechanics of 4e direct me very much towards a video game style of play and mindset. There's nothing inherently bad or wrong with 4e, it just feels like D&D has started aping the video games that were previously aping D&D.

 

[The Green Adam]

Easy...

Options.

And I'm not talking about 'a-dozen-third-party-books-that-will-eventually -come-out' options, I'm talking basic, my-character-shouldn't-be-exactly-the-same-as-every-other options. My biggest grip with the game is that while the wizard may have an at will magic spell, there is really only a couple of at will magic spells to choose from per level that a worth a damn. The path 'builds' are fine but I just want to make my character my way, picking the skills, feats and the like that I think will make a cool character. It's how I play WoW too, or try to, which is probably why I'm not great at that game. 4E feels like that to me. If I don't take one of the very few possible abilities, or the right ones, and build my character the right way, my character isn't cool. I want versatility, not necessarily maximum effectiveness.

I love Angrydad's description of the other major element of the game that bugs me but just not having every third ranger being a copy of the first would be awesome.

AD

 

[Midnight Dawns]

I don't get how someone could read through the utility powers for any of the spellcasting classes and come away with the impression that spells only deal damage in 4e.

Sorry about that, as Mustrum put they have a combat focus, and I was mentally merging damage and combat focus. Your right there are spells that don't do "damage".

As far as I'm concerned, these are all changes for the better. Having to choose between being effective in combat and being effective out of combat is not a very good choice. 3e introduced the lesson, and 4e has well learned it.

See that is part of the problem. With my players there was no real need to choose between the two. They were able to use whatever type of abilities they had for whatever purpose they needed.It is this increase on cobat in the rules that I dislike the most about 4th ed..

Edit: Now I may be blind and there they are actually in the PHB but I want my illusions and sleep/charm spells with out damage that don't don't take an extended period to cast. (If it is the PHB please let me know where as I couldn't find it before.)