Grognard's First Take On 4e

[Cadfan]

I fear that 4e will much more require all players to participate close to the tactical optimum and that just a few tactically avid players won't be able to make up for what the less tatically avid players lack. So instead of just being on the battlemat and neither contributing much nor hurting the team effort, I will be a dangerous weak link in 4e that could lead the party to doom

If you intend to be essentially a nonparticipant in combat situations, the solution is to have your player not count when deciding how much XP to spend building the encounter. So if a 5 person party for your level gets an encounter worth 500 XP, the DM instead gives you an encounter worth 400 XP because he knows you won't help.

This was true in 3e as well, really.

 

[Duelpersonality]

I really hope that this gap can be just as extreme as in 3.x.

So I can build my weak fighter (because I deliberately take less Str/Con to take more Int/Cha because I just want a smart womenizer despite knowing that I will cripple my usefullness on the battlemat) and can just rely on the guys more into char-optimizing to be as effective as two ordinary chars (so they cover me being only 1/3 as effective as an ordinary char)

I think the question here is "Why should you have to make your character that sub-optimal to roleplay that concept?" I can almost see it in the 3.x mindset: every point of ability bonus is necessary to compete. I don't think 4e will be quite this rough. Having one (or even two) points less in your Str bonus than the ultra Str-optimized fighter isn't going to lose you too much in terms of effectiveness as far as build is concerned.

Also, you have to think about a larger number of group dynamics. If you allow one character to be as effective as 2 other characters based solely on their build, what happens to the players that are not so good at char-op but want to be just as effective in battle? They get hosed most of the time.

As has been said, if you really want to play a fighter that is not good at fighting, it's more up to you and your DM to work out how combat will work best for you and the rest of your group. Building the rules around that kind of play is not going to work well for most groups.

 

[drjones]

..3.5E grognard ..

Maybe I am just old fashioned but I still don't believe such a creature exists. Unless the term has been expanded to mean 'person who does not love everything about 4e'. All the 'nards I have met would not touch 3e with a pole.

 

[mhensley]

All the 'nards I have met would not touch 3e with a pole.

I touch it all right, but I make sure to wash my hands afterwards.

 

[SSquirrel]

The funny thing is, I've always seen the high lethality of 3E D&D as taking cues from Type I in M:TG.

In Type 1, depending on the era, the winner of a duel literally came down to who won the coin flip to start the match. Which to me was part of my lack of enthusaism for mid to high level D&D.

I don't think I would say they looked at M:tG and decided that was something to emulate, considering WotC moved as far away as they could from 1 and 2 turn wins. Type I is also almost completely unsupported by WotC.

 

[SSquirrel]

I am usually glad to have the players with the more powerfull characters handle the main part of the fight because that means I can more easily keep a low profile and stay where it's more safe for me (I guess in 4e I will be the one who only fights minions and stays as far away as he can from anyone with more than 2 hp)

Do minions have some magical tattoo on their forehead only adventurers can see an it points to their neck and says "your sword here"? If I run 4E I will always have people give me damage rolls. The lucky crit and max damage roll and the celebration afterwards from the players is completely worth that. He doesn't need to know it was actually a minion that lucky roll got used on. Minions look no different than other members of their race right? They're just the Red Shirts scripted to die

 

[Trainz]

I'm a tactician and I hate / dislike quick deaths. In 3.x is was charge at the enemy and hope they die first. Massive fights end in 1 or 2 rounds due to save or dies being thrown around or just massive damage output. That gives no time to change plans in combat. There is a certain amount of pre-combat planning (or buffing as it mostly is) but nothing in the actual combat itself.

A huge AMEN to this.

My last 3.5 character was a rogue that I played from 1st level to about 17th. During the whole course of this character's career, by the time he finally got in an advantageous position to truly sneak attack, the fight was over (or 1 round away). I felt cheated by the unachieved potential of a rogue during a whole year of weekly game sessions.

If anything, 4th ed looks like this will not be the case anymore, for ANY class.

That's a humongous plus, if you ask me.

 

[Agamon]

Do minions have some magical tattoo on their forehead only adventurers can see an it points to their neck and says "your sword here"? If I run 4E I will always have people give me damage rolls. The lucky crit and max damage roll and the celebration afterwards from the players is completely worth that. He doesn't need to know it was actually a minion that lucky roll got used on. Minions look no different than other members of their race right? They're just the Red Shirts scripted to die

But they can look different, of course. There's another thread devoted to this topic, but I agree with those there. Does playing "guess if it's a minion" increase metagame thinking or does subtly making possible minions more obvious (most if the time) maybe move that kind of thinking to the background? Players will wonder "if it's worth it" anyway (they did in 3e with spells); taking the guesswork out of it (but not doing so obviously, leaving some doubt) will probably actually help verisimilitude.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Maybe I am just old fashioned but I still don't believe such a creature exists. Unless the term has been expanded to mean 'person who does not love everything about 4e'. All the 'nards I have met would not touch 3e with a pole.

Well, all people become Oldies fans as their music gets that label. (My generation tends to not even want to use the term "Oldies", but that's what "Back to the 80s" or "Back in the Day" really means).

So I suspect Grognard will mean 3e players if/when 4e displaces them as the current playerbase.

 

[Aeolius]

So I suspect Grognard will mean 3e players if/when 4e displaces them as the current playerbase.

Examine WotC's D&D Forum. First they changed the D&D forum into the "Previous Edition" forum (leaving the D&D 4e forum alone). Then they consolidated and combined 3e threads. Then they dumped all "Other Worlds" forums into one forum (except FR and Eberron). Then they closed the "Concerns and Criticisms" topic. Then they put the Previous Edition forum within the 4e forum. Now the 4e button at wizards.com/boards is gone entirely. All this before 4e launches.

WotC clearly does not want to acknowledge that a large number of malcontents will prefer the 3.5 ruleset.