The groundwork has been laid. That's step 1.
Forked Thread: PC concept limitations in 4e
- Thread starter Thasmodious
- Start date
The groundwork has been laid. That's step 1.
thecasualoblivion
First Post
We do. Its called 4E.
And also a pony!
No, really. Once you fit everything everyone wants into the original player's handbook, the scale will be about right. Just shrink wrap on a pony as well.
jbear
First Post
missed pages 4 and 5 of the thread, bleary eyes, need sleep nowww.... errrgh... so I apologise if someone else mentioned what I'm about to say there.
Someone mentioned entangle as a missing spell and also the loss of the Druid class in particular... I suppose the bard and the monk can be tossed into the same bag for now.
These classes have already been covered in TWO 3pp books and I think its a pretty safe bet the Druid will appear sooner or later (we already know bard and barbarian are both work in progress)....
sorry just my 2 cents... also my comiserations to the OP who seems to have been thwarted in his attempt to create a constructive thread... although I havent read pages 4 or 5... maybe things took a turn.
Another 2 cents... ehem... sry... also the idea of the OP to reflavour and tweak to make a player happy with his character doesnt seem like a bad idea to me. Certainly if I was you're DM with a proficiency with Longsword feat I'd be letting your Rogue use his powers... and no doe eyes would be necessary... all seems to come under that wonderful rule 'Say yes...' As for your bow, wellll I might throw in an adventure to find Rovin Hoof, renound brigand, thief and expert with a bow to get the right training or hell, just let you swap out proficiency with Xbow for Short bow and be done with it... again... no doe eyes necessary... actually doe eyes would be prohibited.
Also I have seen a thread on the 4e House Rules boards about the creation of generic characters using a points buy for powers/abilities/weapon and Armour Training/HP etc... Seems like a viable option for someone who has there heart set on something and cant get no satisfaction.
Someone mentioned entangle as a missing spell and also the loss of the Druid class in particular... I suppose the bard and the monk can be tossed into the same bag for now.
These classes have already been covered in TWO 3pp books and I think its a pretty safe bet the Druid will appear sooner or later (we already know bard and barbarian are both work in progress)....
sorry just my 2 cents... also my comiserations to the OP who seems to have been thwarted in his attempt to create a constructive thread... although I havent read pages 4 or 5... maybe things took a turn.
Another 2 cents... ehem... sry... also the idea of the OP to reflavour and tweak to make a player happy with his character doesnt seem like a bad idea to me. Certainly if I was you're DM with a proficiency with Longsword feat I'd be letting your Rogue use his powers... and no doe eyes would be necessary... all seems to come under that wonderful rule 'Say yes...' As for your bow, wellll I might throw in an adventure to find Rovin Hoof, renound brigand, thief and expert with a bow to get the right training or hell, just let you swap out proficiency with Xbow for Short bow and be done with it... again... no doe eyes necessary... actually doe eyes would be prohibited.
Also I have seen a thread on the 4e House Rules boards about the creation of generic characters using a points buy for powers/abilities/weapon and Armour Training/HP etc... Seems like a viable option for someone who has there heart set on something and cant get no satisfaction.
Remathilis
Legend
Agreed. 4e has done a great step forward toward a system of valid choices. However, its only step 1. My complaint has been how small step 1 has been.
by 2010, we'll probably have as many, if not more, options than we had in 3e. We're not there yet. To say we do is being disingenuous.
Having better quality options is good. If having less of them in core (and more added on) is the necessary cost, so be it. But don't tell me 4e has as many options out the gate as 3e had. There are some things you just cannot do yet without house ruling.
And I still think its dumb rogues can't use their power with shortbows without some future feat or a house rule.
The Little Raven
First Post
The problem is how you define an option. I don't consider worthless options to be real options. I considered it giving you the illusion of choice, not the real thing. To me, 4e core provides more options than 3e core, because it isn't full of options that are obviously inferior to others.
It's like saying I have choices for dinner, then you offer me (a) a hamburger, (b) a plate of broken glass, (c) grass from your lawn and (d) feces. The choice you offer me is an illusion, since only one of the choices is worthwhile.
Engilbrand
First Post
Right. I'll take the grass.
I use the mechanics to get ideas for the flavor. Yeah, I'll look at what the powers have for flavor, but that's not the extent of it. It's not at all difficult to reflavor things. You don't even need to describe it as the same thing.
I've played a Wizard. I used Thunderwave. One time, I described him standing in front of the monster and sonic screaming it back a few squares and injuring. Another time, I used a gigantic clap. It took a fraction of a second to describe each of those.
I like the idea of describing Cloud of Daggers as Zombie hands coming from the ground and tearing at the enemy. Maybe using a Cold spell and describing it as calling forth a ghost somewhere that gives the person the chills. I don't know. I'll let the descriptions work from my concept.
I had the discussion with some friends at one point about what class Rambo would be. We had disagreements about class and powers. They kept thinking of him as a Fighter and lamented the fact that the Fighter isn't all that good with dual-wielding daggers. I pegged Rambo as either a Rogue or Ranger with Toughness. When Martial Power comes out, maybe he'll be a Tempest Fighter. Who knows? The classes are just a suite of abilities.
I remember reading a thread where someone mentioned a player who was a Paladin of the Raven Queen. He used daggers and refused to heal his allies. The guy did it to show that certain things couldn't be done right. That's choosing mechanics over concept. Even if this wasn't true in previous editions, I'll go ahead and say that, in terms of 4e, he was playing the game wrong. That's right. If you can't use your imagination, you're playing the game wrong.
I use the mechanics to get ideas for the flavor. Yeah, I'll look at what the powers have for flavor, but that's not the extent of it. It's not at all difficult to reflavor things. You don't even need to describe it as the same thing.
I've played a Wizard. I used Thunderwave. One time, I described him standing in front of the monster and sonic screaming it back a few squares and injuring. Another time, I used a gigantic clap. It took a fraction of a second to describe each of those.
I like the idea of describing Cloud of Daggers as Zombie hands coming from the ground and tearing at the enemy. Maybe using a Cold spell and describing it as calling forth a ghost somewhere that gives the person the chills. I don't know. I'll let the descriptions work from my concept.
I had the discussion with some friends at one point about what class Rambo would be. We had disagreements about class and powers. They kept thinking of him as a Fighter and lamented the fact that the Fighter isn't all that good with dual-wielding daggers. I pegged Rambo as either a Rogue or Ranger with Toughness. When Martial Power comes out, maybe he'll be a Tempest Fighter. Who knows? The classes are just a suite of abilities.
I remember reading a thread where someone mentioned a player who was a Paladin of the Raven Queen. He used daggers and refused to heal his allies. The guy did it to show that certain things couldn't be done right. That's choosing mechanics over concept. Even if this wasn't true in previous editions, I'll go ahead and say that, in terms of 4e, he was playing the game wrong. That's right. If you can't use your imagination, you're playing the game wrong.
It's a large step. Fit the things you want into a single PHB - I dare you.
Than we had in 3E core? I don't think it's disingenuous. As another poster said already, illusionary choices are perhaps being given more credit than they should be.
I think this depends on what you consider "house-ruling". Reflavoring isn't, IMO. So far, apart from the "Win Game Button" of 3E spellcasting, I've seen very few things from core 3E that couldn't be replicated by a reflavored choice from 4E, and even fewer of those functioned well in 3E. Some of the mechanics are wonky when you do the conversion, but they're doable.
Meanwhile, we have new choices in 4E core that weren't in 3E core. From where I sit, that's a large improvement.
Fair enough.
thecasualoblivion
First Post
In 4E, you can full multiclass, defined as all four multiclass feats plus a Paragon Path of the second class or Paragon Multiclassing, any two classes. It isn't always completely optimized as you can end up sacrificing secondary stats if the classes don't match up well, but it can be done without much pain. You are still sacrificing less than a Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge would be in 3E.
Assuming multiclass feats for Artificer(easy, identical to Warlord and Cleric) and Barbarian(best guess on this one), we have 11 full classes and one class that is multiclass only(Spellscarred). Combine this with the fact that multiclasses end up completely different depending on which class you start off with, and the variety in combining different Paragon Paths or Paragon multiclassing and you have a lot of options. All of these options better compare with standard 4E characters than the Mystic Theurge did with a straight Wizard or Cleric over 20 levels.
Assuming multiclass feats for Artificer(easy, identical to Warlord and Cleric) and Barbarian(best guess on this one), we have 11 full classes and one class that is multiclass only(Spellscarred). Combine this with the fact that multiclasses end up completely different depending on which class you start off with, and the variety in combining different Paragon Paths or Paragon multiclassing and you have a lot of options. All of these options better compare with standard 4E characters than the Mystic Theurge did with a straight Wizard or Cleric over 20 levels.
I don't think anyone here is arguing that 4e is perfect.
The main source of frustration we're experiencing here is people who say "I want a Fighter that runs around and shoots people with arrows." And we're saying, "Ok, you use the Ranger class. You don't have to take the Nature skill. You don't have to have an animal companion. You don't even have to like elves or even trees. An archery ranger is just someone who uses the tactics of an archer."
That's not quite the same as saying 4e is perfect, although there are many here that are arguing they feel 4e is better.
With Rogue and Star Pact Warlock there was a bit of a backwards design approach, in my personal opinion... they have a really, really good class feature/ability (Sneak Attack or Fate of the Void, respectively.) Rather than making that one ability less good, they balanced the whole class on that one ability (very limited weapon choices to work with powers or SA for the Rogue, or Star Pact being the only one of four pacts that has to split their primary ability scores if they want to stay "pure".) Instead, they could have, as an example, added a line to Sneak Attack and said "You can only use Sneak Attack on a target within X squares of you" so that you didn't have sniper sneak attacks. Instead, they could have, as an example, limited how much of a bonus you can stack up at once, perhaps by tier, for Fate of the Void. But for one of eight classes and one of a couple dozen build options, they went to a weird place and balanced a whole class according to one ability instead of changing that one ability.
Taken as a percentage of the whole, they did pretty well. For the most part, they didn't take that very weird approach with every class (thankfully.)
And even saying that they may have gotten some things wrong does not mean that the main point of this thread (that you can recreate most character concepts - not mechanics) is wrong. You can. Overall, they did a good job mechanically so that someone can use those mechanics and create their concept. The warrior with a bow might not be called a Fighter, but he's a warrior with a bow. There are just a few odd bits here and there. This thread isn't so much about the fact that a few things were done in a weird (or wrong) way, but about letting go off the meanings of class names from past editions and building your concept with the class that is right for that concept in 4e.
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