I don't get what you'all are saying

[Orryn Emrys]

I've examined this issue at length, and I, too, believe that the issues lie within the character roles outlined by the new system. More to the point, however, is that the system, as a whole, is constructed around them. Classes and their powers were constructed around the dynamic between these individual roles, how they relate and compliment one another, and how they compensate for each other's weaknesses. I just started a new campaign, and we're converting it to 4E this weekend, but I think I lucked out in that the character concepts and party concept will work well within the structure of the new rules.

My players are excited. And they are, unapologetically, ROLEplayers. (Interestingly enough, this is why the conversions work... because the players are more interested in who their characters are beneath the stats than in how they do whatever it is they do.)

With the "role" development of the new system, in order to more clearly define a character's place in the party (tactically speaking), the lines between classes are fairly firmly drawn. Even with multiclassing, you're barely dipping into the abilities of another class. And if you take powers that don't work well with the role you currently have, then you could seriously cripple your character.

In 3.5, versatility was the name of the game. We had 11 core classes, then more than 20 more through various (WotC) expansions, hundreds of prestige classes, an elegant (if sometimes deficient) multi-classing system, and numerous feats that allowed us to further customize our characters to the Nth degree. The point is that most of these elements were designed to "blur" the lines... you could sacrifice versatility to be really good at one thing, or you could spread your build around to incorporate a broad expanse of powers and abilities at the cost of the overall level of power. In any case, character "roles" were defined only by how the player chose to exploit their character's abilities. And almost any "role" was possible for a given character, if the PC's development was directed appropriately.

One of the few things I lamented in the switch from 2E to 3E was that, back in the day, my players would clearly define a character's roleplaying potential (personality, background, goals, etcetera), and then seek out the statistics that would most readily allow such development. 2E "kits" were actually quite clever in this regard, given that their statistical trade-off for the role that they suggested was quite minimal. With 3E, my players continue focusing, to this day, on finding the collection of statistics that they haven't yet tried. The new idea that's buried in the rules as presented in the books. I'm not saying that they aren't creative, but the system doesn't actually require them to be, for purposes of basic character design anyway.

Of course... I loved the system. And I honestly don't think that 4E will hinder us overly much as roleplayers.

 

[Scribble]

4E is nothing like OD&D and never will be.

I'd say 4e is more like OD&D then 3e was. Obviosuly it's not the exact same game, but I'd say it's a lot closer then we've been in a long time.

Good parts of OD&D mixed with Good parts of 3e = 4e.

It does put a load more work on a DM that wants a world that makes any kind of sense.

I'd argue exactly opposite again. Makes a lot more sense to me as a DM, and a lot less work for me to create a world with this edition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'd say 4e is more like OD&D then 3e was. Obviosuly it's not the exact same game, but I'd say it's a lot closer then we've been in a long time.

Good parts of OD&D mixed with Good parts of 3e = 4e.



I'd argue exactly opposite again. Makes a lot more sense to me as a DM, and a lot less work for me to create a world with this edition.

I guess the question is defining-What is a world that makes sense?
4E looks like it will be much easier to prep for than 3E but not BD&D or OD&D. If putting together a quick session of hack & slash tactical combat the yeah 4th E is your best bet. If world consistency matters then 4E does require more work.

 

[Storm Raven]

Hey there, FireLance. Nice to see you again.

I remember something like that back in OD&D. Elves were always fighter/wizards. Halflings were always thieves. Dwarves were always fighters.

But we were able to work around those restrictions. We had fun in spite of those restrictions (and heh, we overthrew those restrictions, when we got tired of them! )

I think you have accidentally hit on one of the main reasons some people (including me) react negatively to 4e. Pretty much each edition of D&D since OD&D has seen an increase in flexibility and an opening of options. In OD&D, halflings and dwarves were all fighters, elves were all fighter/magic-users and so on. In 1e you had race based class restrictions and low race based class level limits. In 1e UA, you saw an expansion in options and a raising of those race based limits. In 2e you saw an even wider range of options, and a further raising of the race based level limits. In 3e, you saw the elimination of race based class and level limits, and a very open multiclassing system.

And in 4e, it feels like a lot of restrictions have been put back into the game. I don't want to have to "overthow" restrictions in a new edition of the game. I wanted the system to continue along the path it had taken for the last 30 years - less restrictions, fewer hard coded roles, more flexibility in character design and development, and so on. Instead, we have a system that tries to pigeonhole characters as "strikers", "controllers", "defenders", and "leaders". It just feels like the game has gone backwards.

To me, it seems like the 4e team said "you got a lot of flexibility in 3e, but you didn't use it right, so we are going to protect you from your ability to choose and make choices for you so you will have more 'fun' when you play." My response is simply "no thanks."

 

[Scribble]

I guess the question is defining-What is a world that makes sense?
4E looks like it will be much easier to prep for than 3E but not BD&D or OD&D.

Well yeah. I agree with you there. But it's quick enough that it isn't a PITA, while still giving me a lot of options.

If putting together a quick session of hack & slash tactical combat the yeah 4th E is your best bet. If world consistency matters then 4E does require more work.

World consistency does matter to me. I find 4e to be much better at it, and have a less "clockwork mechanical" feeling to it.

 

[Tsyr]

Hey there all, this is Edena_of_Neith. Greetings to ENWorld!

A lot of you are saying that in 4E, you are unable to ... how do you put it? ... roleplay the way you want? Play the way you want? Experience the game the way you want?

I don't understand. Could you clarify? Because I really do not understand. (Perhaps it is because I haven't played enough 3.0 and 3.5, but I am at a loss here.)

This post is not meant as a troll (so for heaven's sake, don't feed any of those trolls walking around!) I just want to know why it is so many people feel 4E 'crimps their style' as it were.

I've used this analogy before, but its the best I've come up with...

4E feels like a small-press RPG that has setting and system closely tied. That's great, if you want what it offers, but not so great if you don't. 1-3E had a certain implied pseudo-tolkienesq setting, too. But theres two differences.

The first is, the new 4E "Points of Light" setting isn't the same implied setting 1-3E had. Which means if that is what you liked, your kind of out of luck. I've been playing DnD for years and years because that is what I wanted. When I wanted something different, I played something different. "Something else" was always available to go to, I didn't need DnD to become my something else. Now, in effect, I have to find a new DnD.

The second is, 4E feels less flexible. If I wanted DnD, but lower magic, or higher magic, or wanted to run a game with a party entirely of one class, or wanted to say a class didn't exist in my world (Say, clerics, or wizards), the rules didn't break much. Now, and this is just from preliminary experiments with 4E granted, but right now it feels like this is not nearly as true.

 

[ExploderWizard]

World consistency does matter to me. I find 4e to be much better at it, and have a less "clockwork mechanical" feeling to it.

Could you elaborate on this? You might have the ability to make sense out of things I cannot. I can look at the events that play out on the battlemat and assume they just happen however. Its applying those events into the world beyond the board that takes work or a truckload of handwaving.

 

[Scribble]

Could you elaborate on this? You might have the ability to make sense out of things I cannot. I can look at the events that play out on the battlemat and assume they just happen however. Its applying those events into the world beyond the board that takes work or a truckload of handwaving.

I guess it's just a difefrent style of world building?

What types of things are you attempting to apply from the battlemap outside of the battlemap?

3e always made me feel like my worldbuilding was kind of like a paint by number thing. Do these math problems and plug in these numbers and you have a world.

Villages have X, X, and X members eah of these levels etc...

If that's the kind of world building you like, yeah, maybe 4e will dissapoint. It's not my style, so 4e feels like a breath of fresh air.

I'm not saying my style is better, it's just my style.

prior editions, didn't so much bother with that. I felt more like the world was whatever I needed it to be.

In my head, the people of the world don't have clocks that measure things in rounds... They don't make houses that are all perfect amounts of 5' squares, and they have no idea about what a class is, or what a level or hitpoints are...

The king is the king. A peasant is a peasant. The king does king stuff, the peasant does peasant stuff.

Their stats are of little concern to me when world building. They only become important if they actively effect my PCs in some way.

If the PCs decide to kill the king? Then I'll need stats. The stats that concern themselves with how he fights the PCs.

Also I find 4e more liberating in other ways... Like monsters... Now monsters have different powers and abilities, and it's not based just on their monsterness.

 

[Remathilis]

To me, it seems like the 4e team said "you got a lot of flexibility in 3e, but you didn't use it right, so we are going to protect you from your ability to choose and make choices for you so you will have more 'fun' when you play." My response is simply "no thanks."

There can be a problem with too much open-ended flexibility in a game though...

1.) It was entirely possible to build a character that "sucks". a ftr1/rog1/clr1/wiz1/sor1/brd1/bbn1 is not equal to ftr7. Even a wiz5/clr5 was not equal to a wiz10. This isn't the "trade-off between versatility and focus" because there is no combination of 3rd level wizard + 3rd level cleric spells that even remotely came close to a 5th level wizard spell.

Someone (Monte Cook?) let slip that 3e was full of "sub-optimal" choices (toughness, whirlwind attack) because they wanted to reward players who "mastered" the system like players who played M:TG could build better decks than casual players could.

2.) It was possible to "too narrowly" focus your PC. A lot of later PrCs (for example) became "monster hunter" classes (giant killer, dragonhunter, undead slayer) which posed two problems: a.) the presence of a slayers chosen foe made any encounter with said foe meaningless (and any series of encounters a cakewalk) and b.) made the slayer PC useless against any other type of foe. So your undead slayer PC was bored to death in Against the Giants due to the lack of any option beyond " roll to hit" while the rest of the team sat around watching the undead slayer deal triple damage against nearly everyting in Castle Ravenloft.

3.) False choice. Assuming your game spent equal time in and out of dungeons, how welcomed was a rogue without search/disable device? A cleric who negatively channeled? A wizard without evocation and/or conjuration? A fighter in only a chain shirt and rapier? A paladin loaded on mounted combat feats?

Third edition (quietly) assumed that a character of X power could handle Y challenge, but between improper focus and sub-optimal choices, that was nearly impossible to control. A rogue who didn't have sufficient ranks in Open Lock couldn't open the doors in a 9th level dungeon. Or heaven forbid he didn't max out search, you'd be a trap-magnet.

This lead (at least in my experience) to players often choosing the "optimal" builds for PCs: rogues with maxed out search/disable device, fighters with power attack. etc. It also lead to PCs seeking out feats/PrCs that didn't "dilute" them from their role: rogues avoided long PrCs without Search/DD as class skills, etc.

4.) The CR system: The CR system assumed four reasonable PCs of a given level. However, we've shown its easy to build unreasonable PCs. That meant the CR system collapsed under its own assumption. A CR 11 dragon might be a good challenge for a 9th level group of PCs if you assume a plate-and-greatsword fighter, a battle-ready wizard, a sneaky/SA rogue, and a positive-energy/healing cleric. Against a diplomacy-heavy bard, shifter-druid, an archery-ranger, and necromancy-heavy sorcerer, that dragon is a MUCH more difficult challenge.

The only defense to this is to chuck CR as a measure of power and (hopefully correctly) make your PCs face enemies of CR lower (or higher) than their level but appropriate to their power-ranking. Tailored vs. status quo. Pretty soon, status quo become meaningless and your game's power level begins to look very askew compared to my generally-core-looking game.

So in the end, while 3e offered lots of "choice" much of that choice was bunk anyway, and people tended to focus on optimal builds anyway. Why not make that standard?

4e takes a lot of the guessing game out of the equation. Every PC is good at its role. You have to work VERY hard to make a rogue who can't disable a trap of a given level or a cleric who can't heal his allies in combat. You can take on secondary roles (a battle cleric is a good warrior, a wizard can act as a secondary healer with the right rituals) but you know that a cleric always brings healing, a fighter always brings defense, etc.

Most sub-optimal choices have been removed, or clearly spelled out. Its possible still to suck, but overall its easier to make a character good at what he does.

Focus is built into you paragon path or epic destiny. Your still a rogue, you still get X sneak attack, and Y to thievery, but you can flesh him out as an assassin, acrobat, or con man without losing focus what made you a rogue in the first place.

Lastly, that assumption on what a PCs power level will be a given level (which seems more accurate that 3e CR system, time will tell) allows for a more consistent game play. Your PCs should be able to handle a given challenge at a certain level, with less emphasis on a PCs particular "build." As long as you group has a leader (be it a battle cleric or an inspiring warlord) your set as to who can heal you and how powerful his healing ability is.

All that said, I think the "restricting" of options is really just the culling of poor options masquerading a "viable choice". Is it more limiting? Sure. Will that be fixed down the road? I'm certain. However, I'm glad to know I can again look at a PCs class, race, and level and have an accurate measure of his power level and abilities without needing to know every feat, PrC and skill point allocation.

It feels good to be home.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I guess it's just a difefrent style of world building?

What types of things are you attempting to apply from the battlemap outside of the battlemap?

Explaining aggro mechanics,minions, wondering why healing potions don't work without surges, wondering why, if the powers are so balanced that a wizard can't prep two of the same encounter power?-stuff like that.

3e always made me feel like my worldbuilding was kind of like a paint by number thing. Do these math problems and plug in these numbers and you have a world.

Villages have X, X, and X members eah of these levels etc...

If that's the kind of world building you like, yeah, maybe 4e will dissapoint. It's not my style, so 4e feels like a breath of fresh air.

I am with you 100% on this. I never really used that population center stuff from 3E. My world building concerns are largely those about the rules of magic, and what is/ is not possible without it.

prior editions, didn't so much bother with that. I felt more like the world was whatever I needed it to be.

Agreed. I prefer the feel of pre-3E worlds myself. I don't bother with full stats every NPC. Everyone in the world plays by the same rules though. A monster is a monster. There are no 15th level badass fighters with 1 hit point.

If the PCs decide to kill the king? Then I'll need stats. The stats that concern themselves with how he fights the PCs.

No problems here. If the king were to be a possible encounter in any form I would have notes about general security measures, bodyguards, ect. but not a full writeup unless he was a planned combat.

Also I find 4e more liberating in other ways... Like monsters... Now monsters have different powers and abilities, and it's not based just on their monsterness.

I have mixed feelings about this. Simple stablocks are good but removing all non-combat material was not so good. It is totally about thier monsterness now. The old definition of "monster" was anyone or anything the PC's met. Now its only a bag of stats to fight. There is no logical explanation of why 2 creatures from the same tribe are so different. Both are 6 HD, one is tough as nails and the other is a minion? You can't explain how a 1hp critter survives to adulthood in a violent humanoid tribe. 1hp is 1hp, the poor thing can't survive by just not thinking of himself as a minion.