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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ipissimus" data-source="post: 4012727" data-attributes="member: 41514">After reading the previews of 4E, which I believe I approached with a healthy ammount of skepticism, I have to say I like what I see. I also like what alot of the devs have been saying pointing out the flaws they've encountered with 3.5 and how they've gone about fixing them. I've said to myself for a year or two that I had no idea how they were going to fix some of the problems without taking a wrecking ball to the system and starting from scratch, which appears to be exactly what they did. It seems to me that it is inevitable people were going to hate this move and I have to say that WOTC is showing some guts re-vamping the system the way they are.As I said, I was skeptical of 4E, based purely off the 3.5 debacle. They could have printed an update splatbook and re-printed the original books with the changes, but no, they had to render the 30+ books my gaming table had already bought obsolete. Which was fine, they're a company that wants to make money after all and I simply downloaded the OSD and made some notes from my friend's copy. In the end, there weren't enough changes to really matter (especially since I had the OSD). They didn't really fix any of the major issues.Maybe I'm in the minority but alot of what they are saying matches with my experience of the game. I've had new players who just couldn't get a handle on the game mechanics. Newbies encountering the system aren't likely to persevere if they can't get to grips with it in one session. It's supposed to be fun after all and if you're having problems remembering where everything is on your character sheet... it's no fun. I personally never had any problems but then I've played alot of RPGs with different systems so there was much less Information Overload for me and I'm suspecting alot of you.Less mucking about with numbers seems like a good idea to me. One prospective player my group introduced to the game who quit after the first try was an accountant. She had troubles dealing with all the different numbers and how they were derived, so much so that she was more worried about rolling the dice and getting the additions right than in solving puzzles and interacting with the world. Most of my players commented that they couldn't be bothered using the skill system to it's greatest advantage since it seemed more like work than play, so they just dumped all their skill points into the major ones they used all the time.The Wizard flat-out refused to do any item creation. I don't blame him, who wants to lose XP in bucketloads like that? Besides, taking the monster's cool stuff is half the fun (ok, maybe a quarter of the fun).How many times have I had a mystery encounter ruined by the Paladin's Detect Evil? That has to be the grand-daddy of Gamist thinking, gone with 4E. And a great sigh of relief was had by DMs everywhere. But you couldn't just rip it out because without it, the Paladin's pretty much a useless class.The Vancian magic system? I won't miss it. I won't miss my party working for half the day before sleeping and wrecking the momentum of the session. As a player, I won't miss my mage becoming useless after one or two spells at first level. It always seemed a bit contrived to me anyway.Gnomes? Yeah, the wizard at my table's a gnome, not that it's ever really mattered. Neither of us are crying over the loss, honestly. I've never understood why Gnomes were there in the first place back in 1e, aren't Halflings (and hobbits) really inspired by legends of Gnomes?I like bards and yet Bards never really had a place in the 3.5 party. Yeah, i could boost all the others' rolls, but it gets boring quick. I like helping my party but occasionally I like doing something useful too, particularly in combat which takes up most of the game. Yeah, I'm sure alot of people love the interation and crafting a story and all that... but you don't need rules to do that. Ok, maybe a couple of skills, but interation and world-building is done by the DM and the Players with every little to do with stats.In the end, the core of DnD is adventure. A big part of the appeal for me personally is going into a dungeon, kicking ass and looking cool doing it. Tieflings are a race I want to play. Dragonborn sound cool too, their females having breasts is a bonus. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I mean, they'd look wierd without them. Male barbarians have breasts, keeping them from the lizard girls would seem churlish. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Honestly, I prefer a more simulationist game myself, but the vibe I'm getting isn't that 4E is going to be gamist. Choosing your feats, powers and skills as well as rolling attributes (even if they take that away, like that's gonna stop anyone from rolling) is going to make each character much different rather than the sameness that seems to pervade character creation in 3.5. I'm not saying 3.5 characters are flat, there's just a tendancy for people to go with certain options than others just to remain effective in the game. Right now, i feel spoiled for choice, I hope if I get the books (not a foregone conclusion just yet, but things look promising to me) I'll still feel spoiled for choice.Really, what could spoil things for me down the road is 4.5, if it happens. If they pull that again I might just give the whole thing up.</blockquote>

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