Forked Thread: Rate WotC as a company: 4e Complete?

[AllisterH]

Instead, we got a gutted spellcasting system. Sure, they'll probably put a lot of stuff back in the expansion books that come out in the future. But that in no way makes what is currently out there 'complete'.

Ken

Er, I have to disagree about the actual system. The 4E spellcasting system (the RITUAL system and the at-will/encounter system) is MUCH, MUCH closer to your typical fantasy novel than any other editions.

It might not have as many "EFFECTS" but the actual system itself, that's the closest any edition of D&D has come to resembling how much magic works in most works of fiction.

Seriously, even though it doesn't have summoning, the stock 4E magic system MUCH more easily duplicates say Conan or the Leiberverse than earlier editions.

True, as a 4E fanboy, I'm biased but I'll take having a much more robust system that can be easily added to instead of just the Vancian method of casting.

 

[Rechan]

In our area when we refer to roleplaying we're not talking about anything having to do with game mechanics. Roleplaying is interacting with each other and the environment. It's not rolling dice, though things like skill checks may be used to direct or support roleplaying.

This.

I ran a campaign that was 80% roleplay. The players were all con men and gypsies. Mechanically, it was awful. The sorcerer/rogue (played by someone who didn't understand spell casting rules) coudln't do what the player wanted. The swashbuckler at level three had a +12 to Bluff and Diplomacy, making him win almost always at any instance when he could roll. The barbarian had to spend feats just so he could bluff like the entire party so he wouldn't stand there and look stupid during 80% of the game time. And the roguish cleric had woeful options to emphasize her God of Thievery schtick.

I rarely used mechanics to reflect the roleplay. If I did, it was just a BSed skill roll. Because the party had fun. I honestly could have done it if there had been no rules whatsoever, and it was just us sitting around a table doing free-form RP.

There are several systems I would much more happily run that have a robust social interaction system. I would certainly reach for them before I ever picked up D&D for non-combat social interaction mechanics. Deciding to use D&D to reflect social games is like picking Rock Paper Scissors as a combat resolution system.

As to the whole topic of "Fly" and such, I see no difference between 4e's recalibration of Fly and 3.5's recalibration of Haste, Harm, and the never-ending errata on Polymorph from 3.0. By the end of 3.5, Polymorph was just 'Spell X can only turn you into Monster X. To turn into Monster Y, see Polymorph Into Y'. Fly in 3e was broken, and needed to be fixed. 4e did that.

 

[SSquirrel]

They could've included all four by excluding dragonborn and tieflings

Yeah -4 pages +52 pages. Real easy swap there

 

[Hussar]

Does the current edition of Shadowrun cut down on the scope of what Shadowrun's previous editions used to deliver?

Ask the decker.

 

[Andor]

Um... no.

A lance is just a spear. Look it up. In fact, the word lance comes from the same root as "launch," because lances were originally throwing spears like javelins. It wasn't until later in history that they became associated with horsemanship (and even then, they were still used by footman).

Yeah, you've been saying that repeatedly, but that doesn't make it true.

I did look it up. I found what I'm guessing was the same wikipedia article you used since it has that same bit about the etymology of the word almost verbatim. It also says:

While it could still be generally classified as a spear, the lance tends to be larger - usually both longer and stouter and thus also considerably heavier, and unsuited for throwing, or for the rapid thrusting, as with an infantry spear. Lances did not have spear tips that (intentionally) broke off or bent, unlike many throwing weapons of the spear/javelin family, and were adapted for mounted combat. They were often equipped with a vamplate, a small circular plate to prevent the hand sliding up the shaft upon impact. Though perhaps most known as one of the foremost military and sporting weapons used by European knights, the use of lances was spread throughout the Old World wherever mounts were available. As a secondary weapon, lancers of the period also bore swords, maces or something else suited to close quarter battle, since the lance was often a one-use-per-engagement weapon; after the initial charge, the weapon was far too long, heavy and slow to be effectively used against opponents in a melee.

Sounds like a bunch of differences to me.

There is far less difference between a katar and a short sword than there is between a cavalry lance and a spear.

 

[Fifth Element]

We've got this spiffy new feature called "fork to new thread" precisely for discussions like this.

 

[billd91]

I believe the word is re-invention. 2e and 3e were essentially continuations of the same game. 4e is essentially a new game. This may upset people who wanted 4e to be a continuation of 3e, and I know the inevitable reply will be "then it's not D&D" or some other such nonsense, but D&D 4e is basically an entirely new game, and saying it's incomplete because it has less options than a game with 8+ years of support is silly.

And I have no problem seeing it as reasonably complete... as a new game carving out its own niche. But not D&D.

 

[the Jester]

2E kits were mostly just fluff. It was an exception rather than the rule to get any mechanical benefits for taking a kit.

Wait, what?

Sorry- kits were the poster child for the "lesson learned" that you shouldn't try to balance mechanical advantages with roleplaying drawbacks.

 

[Fenes]

I prefer a more robust system, where people's choices matter. For perform, for example, I do not think the "just roll ability checks" method is enough. It falls short whenever one goes into the realms of song/dance contests, when it matters how good a bard someone is, or if one manages to placate the NPC that has a fondness for performances.

 

[rounser]

Sorry- kits were the poster child for the "lesson learned" that you shouldn't try to balance mechanical advantages with roleplaying drawbacks.

Big whoop. That just means that the implementation was shoddy - all that needed to be fixed was to balance mechanical with mechanical. Kits are, with little doubt, much superior a level of intervention than the heavyhanded approach that prestige classes take, IMO, but the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.

There's nothing wrong with the concept - just a flavourish tweak to a strong core class concept.

It's superior to what's going to be the 4E approach as well, with a class for every day of the year, based on the flimsiest of flim flam concepts, more thematically void rubbish which we saw a preview of with 3E. "Classes" with no real theme or concept beyond it's crunch - like the warlord but worse. That's gonna suck.