D&D 4E Is 4E winning you or losing you?

[dmccoy1693]

Feelings: Not thrilled, but I officially reserve judgement until I see it.

Likes
Points of Light Setting
Streamlined Combat
lack of Christmas Tree-ness
OGL

Reserving Judgement
Overhaul of the magic system (Hey I tell my daughter she has to try new things, I'm willing to be a model)
Overhauling Fighters and similar (Have yet to see Book of 9 Swords)

Less then Thrilled
No Gnomes (sacred cow)
Wizard Weapons (as I am calling the staff/orb/bazooka/tie clip/etc)
Lack of monsterous playable races (Hey, I want to play my goblinoid game, how long do I have to wait?)

Odds are, I'll just be a 3.5 grognard and write for a grognard company. (hopefully one will specialize in 3.5 and I'll just write for them).

 

[Sigdel]

I've noticed too that some posters are going in the other direction. From initial optimism, many of the changes they're seeing are driving them toward a gloomy outlook. They don't like the new fluff, many of the rules changes are just weird or dismember the system in uncomfortable ways, sacred cows are being burned by the herd.

Let them burn. I'll bring the BBQ sauce.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Less then Thrilled
No Gnomes (sacred cow)

Lack of monsterous playable races (Hey, I want to play my goblinoid game, how long do I have to wait?)

My understanding is that gnomes will appear as a playable race in the relatively near future, and that some of the races in the Monster Manual--including the goblinoids--will include info on using them as PC races.

 

[Imp]

Completely neutral.

Look, I can't possibly know if I'd like it until I see it. Who can tell?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Fourth Edition is definitely winning me.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't resent changes to something I like when it doesn't mean that thing is going away, or getting something new and different when the old and comfortable things are still around.

What this means is that a lot of the flavour changes I've been hearing about don't bother me, even though I'm a big fan of Planescape and its cosmological assumptions (for example).

I guess what I'm saying is that, even if I prefer succubi and erinyes as distinct entities on opposite sides of the Blood War (and I picked this example because I don't have strong feelings either way about the change), the fact that Fourth Edition's core rules will be doing something different doesn't bother me at all.

To me, complaining about it would be a bit like complaining that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's orcs don't worship Gruumsh - of course they don't, "orc" isn't something which means something specific across every game which has a race of monsters called orcs, and most of the "traditional flavour" of Dungeons & Dragons has been historically just as mutable between editions and settings as it promises to be over the Third-Fourth change.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've always been baffled by the idea that certain things should be the same in two different settings - why should Greyhawk's drow and the Forgotten Realms' drow be the same, to say nothing of Eberron drow? - and a fan of settings which deliberately reject that idea and use familiar elements in different ways.

Meanwhile, everything I'm hearing about the actual game mechanics thrills me. That sounds like hyperbole, but I'm serious: I'm seriously excited by the picture that's beginning to take shape in my head.

 

[jasin]

Then I heard about "points of light", the most strangling and suffocating campaign paradigm I can think of.

How is that?

It's a matter of taste whether you like that kind of thing, but I figured the much of the point of "points of light" is to leave plenty of room for individual groups to do what they want without feeling it doesn't fit the setting.

 

[frankthedm]

Winning mostly. But 3E also had me won until sword and fist came out. Then the $plat escalation had begun.

I am very glad to see monsters available as PCs NOT be the default assumption. To balance such accurately requires FAR more playtesting than wotc should be spending time on.

 

[Hawklord]

They lost me real fast.

Which is weird really, because I'm normally an early adopter of new editions - bought Shadowrun 4 the week it came out, and back in the day I converted straight to 3rd edition when it came out!

However, I've yet to read or see one thing about 4th edition that appeals to me. I was planning on buying the PHB etc and having a look-see but the more I read the less inclined I am to do even that.

 

[Vegepygmy]

The more I've heard, the more I see that the gulf between my preferences and the direction WotC is taking the game continues to widen.

That sums it up perfectly for me, too.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

3.5e had already lost me and I was looking for other systems. However, WotC say they're addressing the problems I had, so 4e is almost(*) entirely a winner so far.

(* - Almost because I don't like some of the names they've come up with. Warlord. Emerald Frost.)