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

[jadrax]

I still don't get why Fly was considered broken in a game that was going "back to the dungeon".

There are loads of Dungeon hazards that are bypassed by flight, Chasms to jump over, icy floors and ledges, caltrops, rivers of lava... all the environmental stuff that 4E wants to emphasise.

 

[AllisterH]

There's a major difference in 3E: 3E wizards can put all of their Utility spells on scrolls. In 1E/2E, having access to a utility spell pretty much meant giving up a Fireball. In 3E, a wizard can load up with combat spells and keep his noncombat stuff on scrolls and in wands.

Ken

Let's not forget that having the Fly spell was no sure thing. Spell acquisition for Fly was totally under the control of the DM.

As for the problem with Fly in outdoor settings, like the ogre example listed, the 3e MM basically took the previous editions MM as its source, but those editions, Fly was much less prevalent which was reflected in the creatures.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I still don't get why Fly was considered broken in a game that was going "back to the dungeon".

Did you mostly fight in big halls or out in the open, where you could fly up out of reach? And people out in the open never had any defense against flying foes?

The way I see it, if it was a major problem, 3.5 would have "fixed" it, rather than adding the warlock with permaflight. Compare it to the Warforged.

A vocal portion felt that Warforged immunities removed such hindrances also. You couldn't starve a party anymore! You couldn't have an chasm in a flying party or they'd just bypass it!

In either case it comes down to playstyle, I wouldn't want a game that micromanaged food or that had a chasm that could only be bypassed by "player intuition" (which is codeword for "the players have to guess the one solution the DM dreamt up") or a random die roll. Other game groups, these are valid challenges that the players and DM enjoyed.

4e has a more "consistent" view to the rules system I think. It seems like there wasn't as much diversity of design, so we have a core system that is internally consistent, but conforms to what that design team imagined.

That can be good or it can be bad.

 

[CountPopeula]

I think i figured it out. And I can use a food metaphor. I ordered peas, and you brought me carrots. I like carrots, but not when I ordered peas.

I can understand that. It's kind of the reason I didn't like G Gundam or Gundam Wing. Still had giant robots, but didn't have the same deep, political discourse on the morality of war and the blurring of the lines of right and wrong.

That said, I believe the term is "impasse." If we can't agree on what defines "complete," then i don't think anyone can say that 4th Edition is or is not complete.

 

[pemerton]

I think in the BLT analogy...rpg's in general are sandwiches, while specific roleplaying games are specific sandwiches. To say I just wanted a very good sandwich is to say I just wanted a good rpg. This could, depending on one's tastes include Exalted, WoD, D&D 4e, Runequest, Warhammer FRPG, True20 or Pathfinder.

The problem with Generic Food Metaphors is that they're so hard to evaluate! How do I know that RPGs as a whole are not like tasty light lunches, and D&D is a sandwich, and only a particular way of playing D&D (a type I don't like, given I'm a vegetarian) is a BLT?

Now if you want D&D in particular, then you are buying it because you expect (from past experiences) certain things from said game.

<snip>

D&D 4e feels incomplete because it has removed many of the previous editions tropes...both fluff and mechanical...and replaced them with less.

Which is interesting. Because I am looking at 4e and seeing the first version of D&D I can imagine running and playing in a serious campaign since 1st ed and Moldvay/Cook. Now I'm not one of those who thinks that 4e is retro - for a mainstream RPG its design is pretty cutting edge - but I do think that it evokes the tropes of classic D&D: the goblins and kobolds look right to me (on paper, at least - our game won't start until a couple of existing campaigns come to an end over the next month or so), the PCs are exciting and the mechanics seem evocative of a fantasy world without being either backwards or tedious.

At the moment I'm working on a conversion of B10 - Night's Dark Terror, an old 2-4 level module from the Menzer era of D&D. This seems very well suited to 4e - plenty of minion-heavy combats, skill challenges (of course they weren't called that in the original module, but I think that they can fairly easily be reconfigured), points of light, ancient empires, haunted places of darkness (ie Shadowfell) and faerie (ie Feywild), etc.

For me one of the least inspiring things about 3E was the general trend in WoTC adventures towards dungeon-heavy, story-light grinds. IMO the Demonweb Pits and Greyhawk hardbacks really exemplify this, as do many of the 3E-era online and Dungeon adventures. (When I say that these are story-light I don't mean that they lack backstory for the benefit of the GM - I mean that they are virtually railroads, which offer little chance for the players to meaningfully interact with or shape the story). I feel that these adventures have the burdensome weight of the old 1st ed dungeons (C-series, S-series, etc) without the trade-off of the comparative lightness-of-touch of the 1st ed mechanics.

Given that 4e seems very apt to facilitate a less grinding approach to play than 3E (with quests, skill challenges, and other complex reward mechanics, interacting with complex and multi-layered action currencies) I'm hoping that 4e adventures will reflect that (classic D&D modules that I'd put into this category are B10, X2, and the interlude-y aspects of D1, D2 and D3, but not the Shrine or the Fane in the latter two modules). On a quick skim of the Dungeon modules to date Heathen looks promising to me, Sleeper so-so and Rescue very dungeon-grindish.

 

[Fenes]

I guess since my group doesn't have many fights, usually just sticking to the "main fight" in a plot, and we don't really fret over pit traps and chasms (which can be bypassed by dimensional door as well, and cheaper for the whole party) I don't see fly as that overpowered.

Not appropriate for some campaigns, but that's more a matter of taste and verisimilitude.

 

[delericho]

There's a major difference in 3E: 3E wizards can put all of their Utility spells on scrolls.

Yeah, that's the problem there. Once the party can invest in a wand of fly, they can basically have everyone flying as much of the time as is useful. This does indeed bypass a great many encounters.

Obviously, this is somewhat different from the case where the 5th level Wizard has the ability to cast it once, meaning that one member of the party can be flying in one of the encounters in the day.

I don't think the fly spell is actually unbalancing at 5th level, though - those scrolls will quickly add up to a significant cost, a wand represents a huge investment for the party, and the Wizard can still only cast it occasionally (and the Sorcerer not at all). However, just a few levels further in, it definately becomes a problem in the hands of a skilled party.

Despite this, 'fixing' the 3e fly is a relatively simple matter: the suggestion of making it a personal-range 4th level spell would seem to do it. But given the scope of the changes from 3e to 4e, what they've done to flight is not particularly shocking, to me at least.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I always found sorcerers with fly to be more of a 'problem' in terms of the flying party issue.

 

[Imaro]

The problem with Generic Food Metaphors is that they're so hard to evaluate! How do I know that RPGs as a whole are not like tasty light lunches, and D&D is a sandwich, and only a particular way of playing D&D (a type I don't like, given I'm a vegetarian) is a BLT?

I can see your point, but it doesn't seem that hard to me. In the end D&D being a specific game...as opposed to a grouping of a particular type of roleplaying game (i.e fantasy genre) is one step above the most specific one can get in a metaphor. In otherwords, I view the playstyles and specific campaigns as modifications to a singular item, like the ingredients which can be switched out or put in to modify the basic BLT that is D&D.

Which is interesting. Because I am looking at 4e and seeing the first version of D&D I can imagine running and playing in a serious campaign since 1st ed and Moldvay/Cook. Now I'm not one of those who thinks that 4e is retro - for a mainstream RPG its design is pretty cutting edge - but I do think that it evokes the tropes of classic D&D: the goblins and kobolds look right to me (on paper, at least - our game won't start until a couple of existing campaigns come to an end over the next month or so), the PCs are exciting and the mechanics seem evocative of a fantasy world without being either backwards or tedious.

See for me previous versions, evoked these tropes just as well, if not better than 4e. I feel that all versions of D&D up to 4e feel like evolutionary steps in the game's progression (which is not to say 4e is bad, it just doesn't, IMHO, feel like an evolutionary step so much as an offshoot).

At the moment I'm working on a conversion of B10 - Night's Dark Terror, an old 2-4 level module from the Menzer era of D&D. This seems very well suited to 4e - plenty of minion-heavy combats, skill challenges (of course they weren't called that in the original module, but I think that they can fairly easily be reconfigured), points of light, ancient empires, haunted places of darkness (ie Shadowfell) and faerie (ie Feywild), etc.

All of these things were in D&D before...points of light isn't new to D&D, and unless you were playing in a world specifically designed for a different playstyle, was always the default. I would argue D&D has been flexible enough to accomodate various setting tropes and, with 4e, still is. Ancient Empires...FR, GH, Dark Sun, Planescape... all of these incorporated ancient empires, so I don't see that as a "new" trope for 4e. Haunted places of darkness...you had Ravenloft since 2e and before that I think before 4e it wasn't necessary to devote an entire plane to this concept, there were enough of these places in the "real world". Faerie...now you may have a point here, but again I think that instead of basing an entire plane on faerie, it was assumed that there were pockets in the real world that embodied this concept...certainly with just the corebooks, this concept is as fleshed out as much as it has ever been in D&D. Planescape certainly gave DM's the freedoom to create an entire plane of "faerie" if he so desired.

For me one of the least inspiring things about 3E was the general trend in WoTC adventures towards dungeon-heavy, story-light grinds. IMO the Demonweb Pits and Greyhawk hardbacks really exemplify this, as do many of the 3E-era online and Dungeon adventures. (When I say that these are story-light I don't mean that they lack backstory for the benefit of the GM - I mean that they are virtually railroads, which offer little chance for the players to meaningfully interact with or shape the story). I feel that these adventures have the burdensome weight of the old 1st ed dungeons (C-series, S-series, etc) without the trade-off of the comparative lightness-of-touch of the 1st ed mechanics.

Given that 4e seems very apt to facilitate a less grinding approach to play than 3E (with quests, skill challenges, and other complex reward mechanics, interacting with complex and multi-layered action currencies) I'm hoping that 4e adventures will reflect that (classic D&D modules that I'd put into this category are B10, X2, and the interlude-y aspects of D1, D2 and D3, but not the Shrine or the Fane in the latter two modules). On a quick skim of the Dungeon modules to date Heathen looks promising to me, Sleeper so-so and Rescue very dungeon-grindish.

Again, I don't know if I agree here. First you're making a judgment based on "the future of D&D 4e". Secondly even in the small amount of time it's been out, 4e has produced quite a few rail-roady dungeon crawls. The adventure in the DMG, H1:Keep on the Shadowfell, Rescue, Sleeper is a dungeon crawl with (I believe) one skill challenge, etc. (I haven't looked over Heathen or H2 so I won't comment on those). But I don't see WotC necessarily breaking the dungeon crawl trend anytime soon...It's just easier to write these types of adventures.

 

[Andor]

For me one of the least inspiring things about 3E was the general trend in WoTC adventures towards dungeon-heavy, story-light grinds. IMO the Demonweb Pits and Greyhawk hardbacks really exemplify this, as do many of the 3E-era online and Dungeon adventures. (When I say that these are story-light I don't mean that they lack backstory for the benefit of the GM - I mean that they are virtually railroads, which offer little chance for the players to meaningfully interact with or shape the story). I feel that these adventures have the burdensome weight of the old 1st ed dungeons (C-series, S-series, etc) without the trade-off of the comparative lightness-of-touch of the 1st ed mechanics.

Given that 4e seems very apt to facilitate a less grinding approach to play than 3E (with quests, skill challenges, and other complex reward mechanics, interacting with complex and multi-layered action currencies) I'm hoping that 4e adventures will reflect that (classic D&D modules that I'd put into this category are B10, X2, and the interlude-y aspects of D1, D2 and D3, but not the Shrine or the Fane in the latter two modules). On a quick skim of the Dungeon modules to date Heathen looks promising to me, Sleeper so-so and Rescue very dungeon-grindish.

I wouldn't bet on it. Any time a published module has a set-piece encounter the module design either has to railroad the PCs into it, or trust the GM to get them there. It's a rare writer who extends the GM that trust, and the general tone of 4e gives me little hope that will change.

Besides it much easier to write up a dungeon crawl than it is to write up a city adventure that presents a half-dozen factions, lists their plots and says 'Go for it'.