From R&C: Fighters & Armor

[HeavenShallBurn]

The lack of mental concision in imagining what each role should be doing in a fight has caused a lot of blur that these clear role definitions avoid.

Except I LIKE that "blur" and don't prefer the new "clarity"

These roles will be available to you with cross-training feats and multiclassing- but you will not be as good a beefshield as a focused Fighter or as good a battlefield controller as a focused Wizard. If the end result isn't good enough to serve as a defender or a controller in the party without eclipsing specialists, then there's a problem, but it's an implementation problem rather than a design problem.

No they won't be available to me, because I don't intend to play 4e unless by some miracle it is totally unlike the previews indications. Besides I've already HRed in most of the elements 4e brings in for 3e and can probably port over anything I like the looks of without too much trouble.

 

[Counterspin]

Except I LIKE that "blur" and don't prefer the new "clarity"
No they won't be available to me, because I don't intend to play 4e unless by some miracle it is totally unlike the previews indications. Besides I've already HRed in most of the elements 4e brings in for 3e and can probably port over anything I like the looks of without too much trouble.

This is what passes for an argument? Whatever I said about 4e must be true because I'm not going to play 4e?

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

This is what passes for an argument? Whatever I said about 4e must be true because I'm not going to play 4e?

No, it's not an argument.

It's a simple statement that all our views on 4e are no more than opinions. In my opinion it's moving away from the elements I preferred thus I won't be moving with it.

I've already house ruled in a non-Vancian Magic model. Have been using static saves since 2004 to speed up combat. Consolidated the skill system about a half year ago and updated it with the SAGA trained, untrained skills after that came out. Added a character level based defense bonus in 2005. Now that I've seen the unified class progression of BAB, saves, and defense bonus from 4e I'm experimenting with porting that in too and it seems to be working.

So all I'm saying is I see a lot of elements I don't like, and feel confident that if I see one I do I can just port it back into 3e without too much trouble avoiding the need to deal with the elements I don't like by switching editions.

 

[Ahrimon]

No, it's not an argument.

It's a simple statement that all our views on 4e are no more than opinions. In my opinion it's moving away from the elements I preferred thus I won't be moving with it.

I've already house ruled in a non-Vancian Magic model. Have been using static saves since 2004 to speed up combat. Consolidated the skill system about a half year ago and updated it with the SAGA trained, untrained skills after that came out. Added a character level based defense bonus in 2005. Now that I've seen the unified class progression of BAB, saves, and defense bonus from 4e I'm experimenting with porting that in too and it seems to be working.

So all I'm saying is I see a lot of elements I don't like, and feel confident that if I see one I do I can just port it back into 3e without too much trouble avoiding the need to deal with the elements I don't like by switching editions.

Then I would have to say, that you and the designers think alike. You're both taking the game in very similar directions. They just happen to have a few other differences. But then it sounds like you stopped playing 3.X years ago and have been building your game more and more like 4e as the game evolved. From what you've said I'd say your game is a lot more like 4e than 3.X. So saying you won't play 4e is very seems to me to be a hollow statement. Wouldn't it be easier to say that you are playing a slightly modified version of 4e than a heavily modified version of 3.X?

 

[Counterspin]

Sorry, I have this weird thing where if someone quotes something I presume they're then going to respond to it.

 

[Voss]

Here's where the disconnect seems to be. Why does the archer have to be a fighter? If you can build a better archer by taking the ranger, why not build it as a ranger IF the 4th ed ranger has all the woodsman stuff filed off or tucked into a talent tree you arent forced to take?

The archer doesn't have to be a fighter. The specific classes involved really don't matter. But lets turn that around.
Why is good archery (or good use of warhammers, or good use of daggers) associated with a specific class at all? Yes, you can probably pick one of these weapons up and swing it about if you aren't in the 'right class' (or spending feats and possibly other resources to steal class abilities) but you will never be as good with it.

Thats odd design.

 

[Cadfan]

The archer doesn't have to be a fighter. The specific classes involved really don't matter. But lets turn that around.
Why is good archery (or good use of warhammers, or good use of daggers) associated with a specific class at all? Yes, you can probably pick one of these weapons up and swing it about if you aren't in the 'right class' (or spending feats and possibly other resources to steal class abilities) but you will never be as good with it.

Thats odd design.

Because combat is one of the most important things a class does, and how a character fights in combat is one of the most important ways one class is different from another class. We already divide up arcane magic from divine magic from melee, and then we subdivide different types of arcane magic into different classes, and different types of divine magic into different classes- it only makes sense to divide weapons which are used in different manners into different classes. It provides room for making the use of an axe significantly different from the use of a dagger, unlike 3e where you basically just make an attack roll and hope for the best.

 

[Counterspin]

I don't think it's bad design. The new system uses powers to give everyone more tactical options, and D&D is going to retain classes, so those powers have to be split up amongst the classes. Seems perfectly logical to me.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Then I would have to say, that you and the designers think alike. You're both taking the game in very similar directions. They just happen to have a few other differences. But then it sounds like you stopped playing 3.X years ago and have been building your game more and more like 4e as the game evolved. From what you've said I'd say your game is a lot more like 4e than 3.X. So saying you won't play 4e is very seems to me to be a hollow statement. Wouldn't it be easier to say that you are playing a slightly modified version of 4e than a heavily modified version of 3.X?

You wouldn't be too far off, I think you could say it fully became a home system rather than 3e sometime late in 2005 early in 2006. I'll even admit I've been traveling along similar design paths to the 4e team. Hell I've even got a cosmology with Some similarities to the 4e core one, not major similarities though. But there are several elements of the game I just can't jive with. Splitting up the Wizard and nerfing several of the old schools of magic are something I just can't go along with. And I can't get behind the fighter becoming like the wizard too specialized rather than the all-round class it is now.

If anything I should call my game 4e and they should rename theirs since it came second
It's still possible, but not likely, that I might switch over but I would have to house rule some things from the beginning. Where I've already got a system that largely suits me I'm practiced at applying House Rules to.

 

[xechnao]

It is not about names. There is indeed a difference in design. It is not positive nor negative. It is just a difference of taste and it depends on taste.
Old-school (if this is what it's to be called now) was about 3 classes: fighter class for full-contact violence, casting class for whatever trick you may like, and smart-ass class for the satisfaction of being able to do it your own way-no magic, no steroids, just what you got from your hood.
New menatlity is about picking a weapon and do your coolness in combat: be it a spear, be it a bow, be it a warhammer, be it a fireball or be it human resources.
Each one is cinematic in it's own way. IMO the first is kind of more dramatic, the second one is more action orientated.