That's an interesting way to look at it I haven't considered before. So in essence, 4E makes me organize myself better?
I guess it depends on if you like sifting through piles of cards or not. I'm leaning towards not. This is totally subjective and personal, but I feel it's taking me away from the character sheet, and thus altering the way DnD works on a very fundamental level. Having a dozen small bits of paper in front of me makes the table feel even more cluttered than it was previously.
Do you like it more complex or less complex, or do you feel your group needs different complexity grades? Or do you like both.
I definitely fall into the category of believing that different complexity grades are required. I could imagine introducing certain non-gamer friends of mine to 3.x, but the idea of introducing them to 4E just won't work. I'm certain that having to choose all of those powers would put them off, whereas playing a fighter and picking a couple of feats struck me as something they'd be okay with. Strange but true.
It's an at-will power. I expect spamming with them. They are no more spamming then a 3E Fighter making an attack every round.
Absolutely. It's to be expected. It's what they're there for... except in my experience thus far they serve so little purpose as to be a waste of space. My real problem with them stems from what people say at the game table. I have an aversion to catch phrases. Having someone say "sly flourish" every round is much more repetitive than a previous edition fighter's attacks, for the simple reason that the fighter could use any number of synonyms for his attack, but a sly flourish is
always going to be a sly flourish. A fighter's attack could be a swing, a chop, a smash, a slice, a flourish, or any number of other descriptive terms that the player finds appropriate at that given moment.
in 4e all you have to wait is one level, in 3.5 (unless you use the retraining rules) you are stuck with the feat, forever. you know you pick up levels in a "orc slayer" class and suddenly the GM stops using Orcs.
Granted.
You never had a magic item crafter in your group make the fighter a +1 frost, shocking, acid longsword? or the +1/+1 ghost touch, holy staff of Disruption?
No. But there's also a secondary reason. If the DM only hands out items like that infrequently, the players are less inclined to create them. Particularly when your players (like mine) don't get their own the DMG. Now that this information has moved into the PHB... I foresee players pining for the kind of exciting equipment that adds complexity to the game.
Someone did a thread here about magic item distributions throughout the printed core modules, comparing AD&D with 3e and generally found that AD&D had the potential to give MORE magic items, not fewer.
Yes they have, but that's actually separate to the point I was making. Yes magic items may have been more common. However, magic weapons that gave additional dice of damage, where not more common.
As alluded to above, the group that I DM for are very casual about playing DnD, thus the less non-core complexity the better. This means having more bland items and encouraging of certain players to use non spell caster classes, but it is what works for us. This re-balancing in terms of how many options each class has in battle is not something that suits this particular group. The players that want it can dig into multiclassing and other in depth parts of the rules, without bothering those that just want a simple to play character to kill monsters with. 4E seems to sit somewhere between these two points.
In the group I play with that has switched to 4E, we have not reached a verdict. I am merely commenting on how I feel about the system, and how it doesn't suit me personally. I note that out of 6 of us (including the DM), there's 3 grumbling about the system between game sessions (starting the moment we're out of earshot of the DM who does prefer 4E). I don't see this as a healthy situation for the group as a whole.
I'm not trying to put 4E down as a game, it's just not the game for me. I'm playing it in order to give it a fair go, and to ensure that I do actually get a regular game, but I do not find myself enjoying the system itself. I like the character personalities we've created. I'm intrigued by the story. But the mechanics are getting in the way of my enjoyment.
and 4 E have all done it and not done it for me. With 4E though I am a better DM and feel I can deal with everything. As a player I feel overwhelmed with the power "cards" and often the party mulls over which one to use even when it's their turn. Kinda like standing in the line at McDonald's, ponder the menu that's always the same, the clerk says can I take your order and you look blankly at her and then again at the board ... so that time wasting can suck the life out of the game if not managed better.
