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

[Cadfan]

Can we please not destroy this thread? Lizard's opinions on whether "D&D is Magic the Gathering now!" would not be germane, even if they were rational.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In before the "come to the Dark Side" comment!

When they said it was easy for new players to pick it up, they meant it.

To Lizards post on "building" characters.

I am willing to agree that the "tweak-options" are in many ways less then in 3E. But I think there is a lot of customization to be done when creating characters. The (suggested) builds are no where as constrained as they might seem at the first look. (Note: I am comparing to 3E here, because that's what anyone else does when he is looking at this character build options)

For example:
- Fighter. Choosing between two-handed or one-handed weapons was already standard in 3E. After that, you can still select your favorite weapon, and that means a lot of options. Sure, some powers and feats might seem "pre-planned" now, but, well... If I wanted to make a Longsword Specialist or a Whirl-Wind Attacker, this was also true in 3E.
- Warlock. Basically, the 3 builds are Infernal, Star and Fey Pact. But if you look closely, only the Encounter Powers actually gain benefits from selecting the pact associated with it. This leaves all the dailies unconstrained by your pact.

 

[Xorn]

My players are loving it.

I've got a tiefling warlord lugging around a greataxe, specializing in moving his allies around the battlefield, a dwarf warrior swinging around a maul and specializing in braining people over the head, a halfling rogue loaded down with "just in case" weapons, but specializing in avoiding OAs and making sneak attacks with a dagger, and lastly an elf ranger who unleashes hell with her longbow, and has several powers to keep her at range.

Incidentally, it felt to me like she has preferred enemy still--whatever is closest to her is her preferred enemy.

What's been the most fun is watching them already start to flesh out their character as they advance into level 2. The fighter has started to specialize in improving his OAs, while the warlord is focusing on more healing through leadership. The ranger is just going for straight-up archery improvements, and the rogue has been focusing on making himself even harder to hit with OAs.

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. Several times now, I've declined to take an OA on the rogue because it just means the creature suffers a free hit from the fighter.

In the event the rogue can't work with the fighter (if he's badly surrounded or something) then the warlock, waving his greataxe around, slogs in and starts setting up flanks with his at-will, and even granting the rogue OAs if the target tries to escape the flank. It's brutal.

The ranger is actually pretty soloish--she just lets the other three tie up the front line, then puts arrows in anything she can. Ranged attackers first, then she helps with the main fight.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Sounds like a huge win.

 

[Lizard]

I don't really get this Lizard, if your mate was willing to play a sub-optimum character for flavours sake in 3e why not in 4e?
If you want to be a dwarven rogue, or an elven paladin or a dragonborn wizard, or a whatever there is nothing to prevent this.
I dinnie ken yer logic.

Not my logic, his.

IAE, not discussing sub-optimal so much as "Not cookie cutter". There's a difference, and, unfortunately, it's deliberately blurred by a lot of people. Anytime someone says "I want to play a unique character", this is either interpreted as "I want to play an incompetant loser" or "I want to play a ludicrously twinked out munchkin".

Back to the main topic, accessibility. Yes, 4e probably is, even though 3e also had pre-built 'sample' characters for each class. 4e is more designed to make it obvious what you should take so that you don't accidentally make an unplayable character (and not discover this until 5 or 6 levels later). Fewer choices==easier for new players. Can't argue with that at all.

 

[Harr]

It's been great fun watching by players slowly form into a coherent team... for years they've all been the soloist type, all of them trying to get high armor AND high damage AND high mobility AND healing AND area attacks and be them one-man show all to themselves.

I don't know what it is about 4e play, but slowly the paladin has realized it's actually better to use his moves to get into a position where he can soak up the most blows while the strikers do their thing. Slowly the strikers have realized they're better off in the back and picking one guy to stick with during the whole fight. And so on.

And yeah, eventually this 'preset' feeling will get repetitive - eventually. But when? My group plays extremely frequently (twice a week, about eight times a month) and though I can see the pre-built feeling settling in eventually, we're still nowhere close to that, and won't be for a long while. Yes I can see that the paladin player will not likely be picking a paladin to play through again once his guy gets to 30 and ascends, but who cares? There are the other classes to play through and by that time the PHB2 will be out with its new classes anyways.

So yeah, if you set youself to look at it from the immortal, 'never-ending and always on' analytical gamer who must be aware of every possibility and be satisfied that he will never reach them, it's somewhat shallow. On the other hand, if you're the type of guy who walks up to the table, sits around with some friends, picks a character and plays, it's frickin awesome. My guess is WotC is betting on the latter just being a better type of player to cater to.

 

[Lizard]

Can we please not destroy this thread? Lizard's opinions on whether "D&D is Magic the Gathering now!" would not be germane, even if they were rational.

Uhm...

How does using a metaphor to explain the shift in focus from out-of-play to in-play equal "D&D is Magic now!"

If anything, my comment should be interpreted as "THIRD Edition was Magic!", since the "deck building" metaphor was about how THIRD Edition was played. My friend's comment on Fourth edition ("Like playing with pre-built decks") was saying, in effect, Fourth edition is NOT ENOUGH like Magic!

Sheesh!

Dude...please.

Either learn to read my posts and respond to them intelligently, or just killfile me. Wasting board space explaining them to you, when you're the only person who seems to constantly and continuously misinterpret them through your filter of "EVERYTHING Lizard says is RAW, VENEMOUS BILE spewed at the PERFECT GOD WHICH IS 4e!" is getting a bite tiresome for me, and, I am sure, for everyone else.

 

[WhatGravitas]

"But now no one sucks!"

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.

 

[Cadfan]

Either learn to read my posts and respond to them intelligently, or just killfile me. Wasting board space explaining them to you, when you're the only person who seems to constantly and continuously misinterpret them through your filter of "EVERYTHING Lizard says is RAW, VENEMOUS BILE spewed at the PERFECT GOD WHICH IS 4e!" is getting a bite tiresome for me, and, I am sure, for everyone else.

"
It was probably my ADD talking. Or my narcissism. Or possibly both.

 

[Lizard]

I am willing to agree that the "tweak-options" are in many ways less then in 3E. But I think there is a lot of customization to be done when creating characters. The (suggested) builds are no where as constrained as they might seem at the first look. (Note: I am comparing to 3E here, because that's what anyone else does when he is looking at this character build options)

I'm going to need to generate a few and see.

To be fair, my friend's comments were based on what he *remembered* from reading my copy of the rules during downtime at our last gaming session. The scary thing is, that brief reading left him with a hell of a lot of accurate facts -- he basically memorized the Warlord section on a single read through. He was quoting page numbers from the PHB despite not owning it -- nor does he have the illegal downloads.

So it may be when he sees all the rules in full context, he'll be able to find the combinations and options he desires. Right now, though, all he sees is the 'builds' and the perception any character which flaunts them is going to be seriously gimped -- and, more importantly to him, two warlords (or whatever) of the same level are going to be virtually identical (or so he thinks), that there's no way to really make your character unique, and that's what matters most to him, in play -- mechanical uniqueness. He wants to either do something no one else can do, or do one thing really, really, well, even if it means being weak in several other areas. 4e is designed to make it hard to achieve either of these goals, or so it seems. There's a lot of ability overlap between classes and roles, and it's almost impossible to 'stack' options to get a killer bonus on one particular skill/trick/concept.

Accessibility is good. My favorite "teaching game" for new gamers is WEG's D6 Star Wars. You can create a new character in minutes -- pick a template, change a small number of skills, and boom, you're done. The characters are iconic and the number of choices for new players is just enough that they feel they're going more than picking the little dog or the little hat. (Cadfan: Now Lizard is claiming 4e is Monopoly! Is there no END to his perfidious LIES?) For experienced players, though, you can skip the templates entirely and build an effective character totally from scratch, one which is perfectly balanced with the template builds.

I see where 4e is giving us the templates. (Cadfan: NOW he's claiming 4e is Star Wars! Can he not pick one lie and stick to it?) What I can't see -- yet -- is where 4e gives us the "roll your own" ability. I welcome the chance to be educated.