Fourth Edition just feels... incomplete

[Aldarc]

as you wish, but (3.0) haste and Polymorph are to examples of OP spells, I am not surprised at all that Polymorph is gone. I am reasonably sure there is a power similar to 3.5 haste, but Wizards may not have it (sounds like a Leader ability). Summon Monster is probably also gone from Wizards for a later conjuror class, if it can be balanced. I am not all that sad to see the jack of all trades wizard go, to be replaced by more variety in classes overall.

Polymorph is not entirely gone. It just has gone from being a catch-all spell to being a spell-descriptor for more specific shape-changing abilities.

 

[The Little Raven]

Yep, you're crazy. Core rules 3.5 was never boring.

3.0/3.5 is the only edition of D&D that I would use to fall asleep when I was having trouble. It read like a series of textbooks, not gamebooks.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I agree 100%.

I bought pretty much all of the 3e and 3.5e books. Because I'm a D&D collector at heart. But I virtually never played with anything beyond the core rules. The PHBII was such a good book, that I eventually added that to my list of "core" as well, but it wasn't immediate.

4th edition compared to the 3.5 core feels extremely bare bones. It's not that 4e is badly done or incomplete. There's just so many obvious places for more choices and more detail. Compare the 3.5e wizard's spell choices at every level to any particular class's power choices. Of course, every class now has choices similar to those wizard choices. That's a good thing.

Artifacts... pretty sparse. The 3.5 books spent a lot of time on those puppies. There are some serious classical artifacts not mentioned. No Rod of Seven Parts? Please let this mean that they're doing this as an adventure...

Traps. Not a lot of them.

Paragon Paths... Making them per class is what really makes these seem so bare. If they'd just said: here. Have 32 prestige classes, we'd be rather impressed. But 4 paragon paths per class doesn't seem like much because we're myopic.

Epic destinies are a ridiculously small set. Which is fine by me. My players never get that high level anyways.

I agree with most of your comments, however, given the page count of the books, I doubt they could have added a lot more content... I imagine the editors and designers must have wailed in despair a few times over what they could not include in the book.

Hopefully, we will not have to wait for splatbooks for some stuff (like additional feats, paragon paths and epic destinies)... Small stuff like that would be perfect for the new online Dragon

 

[Remathilis]

Yep, you're crazy. Core rules 3.5 was never boring.

Ok. Not boring. Bland. Generic. Baseline. Traditional. Functional, but without real unique flair.

Better?

 

[Kichwas]

I think what it is is you are comparing it to earlier versions. You could do something and now you can't so it feels like that thing was left out.

And that is a very fair comparison to make. It seems to be falling short here as well...

3.0/3.5 is the only edition of D&D that I would use to fall asleep when I was having trouble. It read like a series of textbooks, not gamebooks.

I'd point you to the 1E books and say get a clue, but those had nipples and the wandering harlot table and I was 12 and it was before the internet... so...

 

[Lanefan]

Er, by RAW in 3E

1. Magic items can be bought
2. Magic items can be made.

True, but that still doesn't mean the players can use the DMG like a catalogue. It's up to the DM to determine what is for sale in any given place, and when it comes to making items the player decides what she wants the item to do and the DM goes through the math and comes up with a cost.

Again, if this was 1e/2e where the above 2 points weren't true, I'd agree with you Lanefan but since 3E when item creation/acqusition was given over to the PCs?

One of 3e's biggest mistakes, pure and simple.

Nope. Can't justify why the magic items be in the DMG. AM I the only one that has players looking through their the DMG in deciding what items that actually want to create?

Why are your players limiting themselves to what's in the DMG? Were I a player in such a game, I'd rather say "Mr. DM, I'm going to build a +3 sword that shoots lightning bolts" without care as to whether such a thing exists in the DMG, and have you as DM tell me what it's gonna cost and how long it's gonna take, or whether it can be built at all.

As for the 4E DMG, I'd say it like this.

1. IF you were mostly interested in building a virtual world, then the 3E DMG has more nformation for you.

2. If you are more interested in advice on constructing/running a roleplaying session, then the 4E DMG is the best DMG by far.

We-ell, as I've now got something like 24 years experience at running sessions, it sounds like the 4E DMG won't tell me very much I haven't already learned the hard way. That said, I can't say the 3E DMG told me much about world-building; the 1E one was better. (the 2E one was probably better yet but I haven't looked at that one in 10+ years...)

Lanefan

 

[Steely Dan]

but my first read over left me feeling all substance, no style.

Do you mean all style, no substance?

 

[delericho]

We-ell, as I've now got something like 24 years experience at running sessions, it sounds like the 4E DMG won't tell me very much I haven't already learned the hard way. That said, I can't say the 3E DMG told me much about world-building; the 1E one was better. (the 2E one was probably better yet but I haven't looked at that one in 10+ years...)

It wasn't. The 2nd Edition DMG was a waste of paper. Apart from the section on magic items, it was almost completely worthless.

However, 2nd Edition did have the "Campign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide", which was excellent.

 

[Steely Dan]

2nd Edition did have the "Campign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide", which was excellent.

Now that was killer!

 

[Fifth Element]

If we're comparing 4E to 3.5 core, I don't now how you can complain about their being only a few epic destinies and epic feats. How many epic feats does the 3.5 PHB have? Zero, I think. The rules for epic characters are not in 3.5 core.

Same type of deal for paragon paths. If we equate them to prestige classes, there are far more in 4E (31, I think) than in the 3.5 DMG.

From my understanding there are also more feats in the 4E PHB, though I stand to be corrected here.

I really think it's a bias of perception. We're so used to the way all previous editions have presented information (1E, 2E and 3.X all used the same basic format) that the change is jarring. But it's a good change, and all classes (save the cleric and wizard) obviously have far more options in 4E core than they did in 3.5.