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

[JeffB]

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.

+1

I was initially very excited as WOTC had finally lost me back around 3.5s release. The core 3.0 game just became too cumbersome for me to enjoy running, so I was ***really*** hopeful when I first heard about 4E simpifying alot of things.

But god..alot of the changes..classes, flavor changes.. Just not D&D *to me*. 3.X was a pretty big departure IMO (from what I grew up with) and from what I see of 4E so far, it moves even further away. I'm no longer even remotely close to the target market. C&C and Lejendary Adventure are more my style :shrug:

 

[Falling Icicle]

I was very suprised to hear that 4e was coming out so soon, and my first reaction was that, like the 3.5 edition, it was just going to be another minor upgrade for WotC to make money. But I have been very surprised at how much they are rethinking the game. They are showing a willingness now to kill alot of the sacred cows of DnD. And while I was pleased to see that they were rethinking things, some of the changes seem to go too far, and I fear that what they end up with won't really be D&D anymore. We'll just have to wait and see, of course.

Liked:

Race being a more important and distinguishing part of the character.

Magic Items having less importance to character power. I like magic items to be special and cool things that characters have, not necessities to just get by.

Simplification of combat rules (grappling, AoO, etc). Of course, I will have to see the final product before I can see if it actually has been simplified.

All classes having at-will, per encounter and per day abilities. I love this change. I hated playing a Wizard at low levels, where I had like 3 spells a day and ended up using my less than spectacular skill with a crossbow all the time.

No empty, pointless levels where all you get is a +1 bab and a couple skill points.

Save or die spells being "adressed."

Disliked:

Gnomes being removed as a PC race. If you don't like Gnomes, don't play one. But they are a staple fantasy race which has been with the game since before I can remember. I like them, and I'm not very happy that they were removed.

High Elves being replaced with Eladrin. I HATE this change, as I love playing intelligent, wizard elves. We don't need a dozen different types of elves, but the high and wood elves should remain, IMO. I will especially despise this change if elves get an intelligence penalty, as their description implies.

Wizards using "tools" to cast their spells, which from the sounds of it will be nothing more than generic stat-boosters. I don't want to have to buy a +6 wand, +6 tome, +6 orb, etc. But this is more from my dislike of such "necessary" and generic magic items rather than the change to the class.

Increase in magic in the setting and classes overall. I like magic, but I also prefer magic to be a rare and wonderous thing, not something that can be obtained in every village kmart. Magic that is overly abundant is just ordinary and taken for granted. Fighters, rogues and other "mundane" classes shouldn't have magical abilities at all.

Tieflings, Eladrins and other "weird" races in the PHB. I don't like these being considered default racial options. I'd rather them be in the MM or planar handbook. I especially hate Eladrins being the new High Elves, as I noted above.

 

[amethal]

I was shocked ("all major announcements will be at D&D experience" ) and then angry, because I was not (and am not) ready for a new edition.

Then I got quite excited to see what they were going to come up with, and what EnWorld would be like while they did it (wasn't here when EnWorld started on 3rd edition).

Since then I've been feeling more and more that the new game won't feel like D&D to me, and I'm coming to terms with becoming a grognard at long last.

 

[Crysmalon]

I'll get the PHB and stay optimistic. However, I'll probably run my mixed 3.x rules for a while after 4e comes out. I may wait until the inevitable "revised" and perfected edition comes out correcting the many errata. Besides I'll need about a year to run through Savage Tide after my current campaign ends.

 

[Garnfellow]

I'm pretty ambivalent and trying hard to keep an open mind. It's nigh impossible to evaluate the tidbits we're getting because there is really no context. None.

I understand that Wizards is trying to embrace new communication methods with the blogging, but I have to wonder if in this situation -- trying to gradually release information about a revision to an existing game with a huge existing user base -- it's just the wrong medium to transmit this message to this audience.

Remember when 3.5 was being previewed, and people were jumping off bridges when they first saw the mystic theurge prestige class? It sure looked horribly broken, but what no one outside of Wizards knew was that with the 3.5 nerfing of buff spells, the class was really quite reasonable.

So at this point, I think the best thing one can do is listen to the broad goals that are being described and try to ignore the details because of the total lack of context. And truth be told, I really like the high level goals that have been stated, but I have been pretty underwhelmed by some of the specific changes they have previewed.

My biggest concern isn't so much the mechanics: based on the glimpses we've gotten from recent books like the PHBII, MIC, and Spell Compendium, I think the Wizards shop has a team of some of the best and most innovative d20 mechanical designers around.

My concern is that, while these folks are great at developing elegant and fun mechanical bits, for my money they really aren't so good at the story piece. Frankly, I have hated most of the fluff in the recent WotC books: I find most of their story elements incredibly bland and uninspiring. I know they like to think of themselves as storytellers, but I'm not so sure that's their strong suit.

Take Mearls, who is like unto a God of d20 design. I probably have most of the books he has worked on, and that's a LOT of freaking books. And I can think of dozens of lovely little mechanical innovations he developed during his freelance years. But I can't for the life of me think of a single cool NPC name or an encounter or bit of fluff that he wrote. Maybe I have selective memory, but maybe that's just not his bag.

The sole exception are the WotC books that were largely done by freelancers like Erik Mona or James Jacobs. (Or you, Ari!) Now, the Paizo boys might not be the absolute best mechanical designers out there, but their fluff beats the crap out of anything I've seen from the Wizards shop. They know just how to toss in a beautiful little easter egg or descriptive passage that usually sticks in my mind long after I've read it.

 

[Blacksmithking]

I like everything I've heard about 4e.

I like the changes to wizards. I was playing through NWN2 yesterday with a high-level wizard. Staff of the magi, staff of power, staff of defense, it's all junk--I already have enoughs pells per day. I want "wizard weapons" that offer bonuses such as +2 DR to stoneskin, +1 extra magic missile per casting, +1 damage per die of fire damage. It sounds like the orb, staff, and wand will provide that kind of thing.

I was hoping to see a "cloth caster" cleric in core, like the Guild Wars monk, WoW priest, or UA cloistered cleric, but perhaps that'll be available as a talent tree. I can't represent the champions of non-violent faiths in the game with the tower-shield full-plate clerics of 3.0/3.5e. I'll be interested to see how clerics are differentiated from paladins in 4e.

 

[GlassJaw]

Definitely looking forward to 4E as a whole. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach on a lot of things but I really interested to see what they come up with given what I've heard so far.

I definitely like the fact that they seem to be willing to kill some of the sacred cows.

 

[papakee]

Between indifference to totally lost. Already stopped playing 3E/3.5E and started playing Mongoose Runequest. It blends complexity and old school feel quiet well. I'll take a look at the players handbook when it comes out and see if I like it. It appears this edition is not designed for the 'old school' generation.

 

[Aus_Snow]

From thoroughly cynical to 'trying to be optimistic' (i.e., open-minded) to grognard of the latest flavour, that being 3e/'Od20'. Yum.

 

[Sundragon2012]

I am happy so far

I've dumped D&D 3.5 for Mongoose's Conan and Green Ronin's True 20 and haven't run it except sporadically for quite a long time. I am thrilled by the coming of 4e:

Likes

OGL
Streamlined Combat
Points of Light Setting (darken the core of D&D up a bit)
Overhaul of the magic system
Wizard Implements (Orb, staff, wand)
NO core setting (no assumed Greyhawk setting)
Fluff can be tossed at will without affecting the game.
Reimagining Devils and Demons
Rethinking the whole Great Wheel cosmology (save it for Planescape)
Having no mechanical impact to alignment (wished they dumped the damn thing)
More emphasis on character less on magical trinkets
Lack of monsters as PC races at the outset.
No unified, thus limiting, ruleset for monsters. (Let them be fantastic)
There will be things that NPCs like monsters can do that PCs can't
Race being a more important and distinguishing part of the character
Weapon choices that actually mean more than just what damage die one uses.
No more PrCs
Elves being more fey and somehow tied to Eladrin (god do I hate the 'S' they add to that word)
No more 'Core Pantheon'



Cautious

Overhauling Fighters and similar (hopefully little or NO wuxia in PHB1)
No gnomes in the PHB1
Tieflings in the PHB1


Rather Unhappy About

Warforged in the PHB1
Asmodeus as a god (meh....pandering to PS fanboys...toss em a bone)


All in all I am happy as a pig in the mud about what I am seeing. I am still hoping that warforged won't be in the PHB1, but we'll see. I know its cool to dislike WoTC, but I think they are on the right track and can hopefully assure D&D's continued survival. I haven't played any edition of D&D that met all of my criteria for perfection thus far...and I never expect to. Each edition has its merits and drawbacks but I think with 4e, at least so far, merits outweigh drawbacks considerably.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 3rd party developers such as Mongoose, Green Ronin, Necromancer and others do with this rule set. Its an exciting time. And its coming out just in time for me to release my own setting...well within 6 monhs to a year of release.

Oh, thank you great gods of OGL gaming.



Sundragon