D&D 4E I'll say one thing for 4E... It is more accessible.

[AllisterH]

I do think 4E has intentionally put the brakes on the extremes of core 3E.

I think in a lot of ways,the difference in power between an optimized 4E character versus a casual gamer's 4E character of the same class will be akin to 3.5's Martial Adepts.

It was pretty hard to actually make a substandard Warblade and similarly, barring a couple of tricks, the output of an optimized warblade is on the same page as a casual warblade.

We're not going to see the wide swings that it is possible when building a core only fighter.

 

[Lizard]

Delete, double post.

 

[LostSoul]

Good game design has mechanics reflect personality, turning it into something which comes into actual play.

What kind of personality mechanics do you want?

 

[Lizard]

That's the complaint I hear often and never get. I mean, most people I hear it from, don't play sucky characters - and if you say "you can still suck by doing the wrong things", they'll answer "yeah, but that's just (role)playing sucky, not being sucky".

I sometimes think people want the chance for sucky characters to exist to show off that they're not sucky, despite the fact that they'll never see one (if the group is on par with their munchkin skills) - they're thriving on the fact that they could do worse and that perhaps some people do worse. *shrug*

Cheers, LT.

To clarify, "But nobody sucks now!" isn't a complaint, rather, it's the usual REPLY to complaints that 4e offers less freedom. Yes, it's a lot more difficult to make a character "wrong". I concur. New players, or non power gamers, or people who want to spend four hours writing their character's family history and four minutes writing their character's stats, will not find themselves with an unplayable or sub-par character. Indeed, you'd need to be a min-maxer to end up with one. The downside is that the range of choices for many classes is more limited. You can't dabble a teeny bit in cross-class skills to build flavor; you are Trained or Not. There are fewer ways to really specialize or focus your character. There are fewer things to choose from, overall -- familiars, animal companions, paladin mounts all helped to define or embody aspects of a character's personality. You can SAY your character hates orcs, but you can't build a Ranger who is extra-double-good at killing orcs. Clerics of all gods are an awful lot alike -- one (optional) feat does not really distinguish them. Etc.

You can't really say, "I want to build this kind of character", then poke among the rules to find the right combination of classes, skills, and feats to let you do it.[1] Rather, you need to look at the options you're given, decide the one you like best, then make a few minor picks and tweaks to it. This is a problem endemic to all class based systems, including 3e, but 3e was seemingly designed to minimize the "classiness" of the game, while 4e strongly enforces it.

Hmm. Getting idea. Back later...

[1]Which, for a lot of players, is Total Win. Many people do not WANT to have to figure out how to build the character they want. It's not fun for them; it's an impediment to play, not a part of play. If they're the majority of gamers, WOTC has made the right move. If they're not...

 

[Wormwood]

The fighter and rogue have been working together--the rogue provokes OAs from targets the fighter has marked. They'll most likely miss if they swing, and it earns them a viscious beatdown from the fighter if they take the attack.

I just can't stop grinning.

4wesome.

 

[Lizard]

What kind of personality mechanics do you want?

If I say, "My character is a sneak; he has spent his life focusing on being stealthy and quiet", then, I ought to be able to reflect this. In 3e, you not only max out H/MS, you take Stealth and SF in both skills, then make sure you keep pouring skill points into them. In 4e...you can get Trained and SF, and that's pretty much it. Your max difference between you and someone else with the same dex and no training is 8, and this won't change from first level to thirtieth. This is a deliberate design element of 4e; the range between the specialist and everyone else is very small, relative to 3e.

I understand the reasons why. They wanted to avoid "Send the rogue with +25 H/MS, we all stay here". They didn't want "I can't fail a Fort save and can't make a Will save" characters. They didn't want "fighter only misses on a 1, Wizard only hits on a 20". I get that. The cost of not sucking at anything, though, is not being great at anything, either. Is this a fair tradeoff? Only extended play will tell...

 

[TwoSix]

To clarify, "But nobody sucks now!" isn't a complaint, rather, it's the usual REPLY to complaints that 4e offers less freedom. Yes, it's a lot more difficult to make a character "wrong". I concur. New players, or non power gamers, or people who want to spend four hours writing their character's family history and four minutes writing their character's stats, will not find themselves with an unplayable or sub-par character. Indeed, you'd need to be a min-maxer to end up with one. The downside is that the range of choices for many classes is more limited. You can't dabble a teeny bit in cross-class skills to build flavor; you are Trained or Not. There are fewer ways to really specialize or focus your character. There are fewer things to choose from, overall -- familiars, animal companions, paladin mounts all helped to define or embody aspects of a character's personality. You can SAY your character hates orcs, but you can't build a Ranger who is extra-double-good at killing orcs. Clerics of all gods are an awful lot alike -- one (optional) feat does not really distinguish them. Etc.

You can't really say, "I want to build this kind of character", then poke among the rules to find the right combination of classes, skills, and feats to let you do it.[1] Rather, you need to look at the options you're given, decide the one you like best, then make a few minor picks and tweaks to it. This is a problem endemic to all class based systems, including 3e, but 3e was seemingly designed to minimize the "classiness" of the game, while 4e strongly enforces it.

Hmm. Getting idea. Back later...

[1]Which, for a lot of players, is Total Win. Many people do not WANT to have to figure out how to build the character they want. It's not fun for them; it's an impediment to play, not a part of play. If they're the majority of gamers, WOTC has made the right move. If they're not...

I have to agree with you on this point. 4e is less conducive to "gearhead" play, the kind the people on the CO boards on the WotC boards loved, than 3e. That part, I agree, I'll miss.

 

[Wolfwood2]

I have to agree with you on this point. 4e is less conducive to "gearhead" play, the kind the people on the CO boards on the WotC boards loved, than 3e. That part, I agree, I'll miss.

It's been said that 4E emphasizes party optimization. You can still optimize, but you can no longer do so by building your character alone and showing up at the table with an unstoppable killing machine. Instead an optimized group will build their characters to complement each other by using powers that synergize well.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I have to agree with you on this point. 4e is less conducive to "gearhead" play, the kind the people on the CO boards on the WotC boards loved, than 3e. That part, I agree, I'll miss.

Yeah, that's true. On the "characer concepts" part: I've made an interesting observation:

4E trades depth of concepts against breadth of concepts.

Seriously, if you like an infernal warlock or a swashbuckling rogue, 4E is heaven. Unlike previous editions, the various powers allow you to do much more "in-character" things in combat than before. A infernal warlock can now really raise hell (almost literally speaking), summons imps, conjures hellfire - instead of firing eldritch blasts all the time (though he can still do that), where as a rogue is not relegated to doing "sneak attack" over and over again, but fights with panache and dexterity - all the time.

In other words, in 4E, you can play a character concept in combat much better than before, often starting at level 1. The trade-off, however, is that the classes are now more narrowly defined to allow that depth of concept, decreasing the breadth of concepts.

It's a trade-off - if it's good or bad is highy dependant on your game style and is much more conductive for casual and/or freewheeling games with less focus on the mechanics. I like that, but I see the drawbacks.

Not good for gearheads (the sort of building gearheads - for homebrew gearheads, 4E is *great*).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Agamon]

And the best part is that it's not off-putting to the vet either. Other than the 1st chapter of the PHB, which after first blush elicited a roll of th eyes, I saw it had a lot of merrit for new players over what most RPG put at the beginnings of their core books.

The rest is just user friendly for all.