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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FreeTheSlaves" data-source="post: 4587787" data-attributes="member: 9952">My rather haphazard thoughts on 4E & 3E as follows:4E- Better overall playablility. Lots of small nuanced rules have been jetisoned, stuff like the difficulty of casting spells on horse back.- Better character progression. All characters have goodies at each level, not like when my Paladin gained 5 hps, 1 bab and an already obsolete spell while my cleric buddy gained access to 12 new powers.- Better monster design. The 4E vampire stat block is still a bit too long but much improved over the 3E 2 pages of summoned CR1 wolves & water immersion rules.- Consolidation of skills into tighter groups that still cover the important bases, oh and skill challenges (albeit after a rather major hiccup).- Better magic treasure design. The 3Emispricing of items and 1/2 resale value meant that a helm of underwater action was effectively converted into a +X stat booster. Each item now also does something cool.- Controlled numbers. The weird mismatched fights where one monster has a +9 to hit, another +16, one PC has AC 16 and another AC 32. Characters would go from seemingly invulnerable to wet tissue within the space of a combat. Given the limitation of the d20, this is in my view the best change.- Oh yeah, the (near) elimination of level drain & rolled character stats. Basically hard-coded unfair/unfun-ness.- The defined roles of characters does limit certain character development. E.g. the paladin needs str or cha for their powers and as 'to hit' is hard to come by, these stats need all the boosts they can get. Now if the paladin picks up a bow which requires dex, they'll find themself missing equal level foes most of the time. - MAD is back, and badder than ever. Said paladin needs str, cha, con, wis, and hopefully a bit of dex for ref defence. 22 pt buy leaves them all pretty thin. I think the pt buy should have been more generous with 16+ stats costing more than than they currently do.- Statting up classed NPCs is still a drag. The MM has 10 different sorts of Goblin, but no sample Cleric or Rogue? The whole urban dungeon has been neglected when time saving is otherwise a major grace of the new edition.- Paired stats that boost the various fort/ref/will defences clash with class stat requirements (and MAD). Some character will have nicely placed stats to cover all defences, while another guy will be rocking around with a big huge hole in their defences.- For melee based characters there appears to be a must have feat at level 21 to increase the crit range, but the twin stat requirement looks like it's going to sting various characters that didn't bear it in mind 20 levels earlier.- Pet peeve here, my human character gets a 3rd at will power, cool eh? Um no. He's a str build paladin who's forced to select a cha based 'at-will' power, which will never be used as it's always an inferior choice compared to the other 2 'at-wills'. I guess this is not much different to the Elf character that cares nothing for diplomacy but still gets a +2 bonus. Basically, this comes down to unused racial and class features still abound in 4E, i.e. the warlord who wields a greataxe, is paying for the shield proficiency they won't use. I would have liked an approach they use for skills applied to weapons & armour - where you get the essentials and pick other stuff from a smorgasboard of appropriate proficiencies.3E- As they say, 3E was a necessary step before 4E. There were plenty of fun times with it.- The ambitious universal rule set is still attractive but for the time commitment. There is just an arcane charm with the sheer complexity of the multitudes of rules covering such things like the shimmer when abjurations cross each other over time.- Characters got major goodies more freely than in 4E, or even 3.5. I remember the entire party with boots of striding and springing, and fun-turned-abuse-then-boredom with 3.0 haste.- Really, I think 3E is essentially less controlled than 4E. It has an upside for sure, but there was so much freedom that it included negative freedoms, e.g. my friends rogue sorcerer... he was a cool character, but man did he blow once initiative was rolled.Regardless of edition, there is at the roleplaying level little change. There are still mysterious dungeons, besieged castles, murder mysteries, scheming traiters, honourable allies etc in our campaign. A sizable chunk of the game imho hasn't changed.</blockquote>

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