Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cbas_10" data-source="post: 3790338" data-attributes="member: 55767">4E has (for now) lost me.I've been reading about it and will continue to do so (hoping that I'll return to a bit of optimistic anticipation); however, there are many elements of the new version and missing elements of the current version that all add up to a game I'm not really interested in.  I could be wrong, but I'll hit a few points that I've either read about or think about after putting what I've read into context.Character Customization: I'm not really sure what all of this means when they say characters will have defined roles, players will know their place in the game, and all that.  To me, it feels like we are telling players, "You play a fighter - you kill stuff.  You play a cleric - you heal us.  You play a rogue - you find stuff."  I may be oversimplifying things, but this is how 4E sounds to me.  Skills and feats play a LARGE role in my games and my player characters.  Those items are what mechanically separates the archer from the tank; the thief from the scout; the healer from the warpriest. (yeah, yeah....there are tons of prestige classes and alternate base classes for all that, but our group likes to stay with the basic stuff - it works just fine for us)  I just get a bad vibe about what characters are going to be. At what level will we have creative freedom over the customization of characters in 4E?Monster Customization: The ability to add templates, mix in class levels, advance Hit Dice, and tweak an individual monster's feats and skills....those points are what sold me on 3E and continue to be one of the most exciting parts of the rules for me today.  That stuff might be in 4E, but the people at WotC keep touting the ideas that specific monsters will have specific roles and be at specific power levels.  What if the theme of my adventure is goblinoids?  I can fill hundreds of encounters through every CR with various goblins, goblinoids, and related critters (worgs, tauric templated things, and more!).  Do I still have this creative freedom in 4E?There are no sacred cows that I'm afraid of losing.  The beholder change is irritating (not because of the change; rather the reason: to make it simpler to run.  If a DM cannot run 11 different eye rays on a monster, I guess he never runs NPC wizards?....), but games change...things are gained and lost.  Life goes on.  The only thing that seems to have been lost that I really will miss....and is something that some call a Sacred Cow....is the social dynamic of the game.  Characters have strengths, and they have weaknesses.  Some things they excell at, and other things they are totally inept at dealing with.  Thus, you have a group that cooperates, stands together, helps each other out, and behaves more maturely than a gaggle of MMORPG icons on a screen doing the best to get more loot than the icon right next to them.  It seems that aspect is being sapped out of the game. Everyone is equal...no more inherent weaknesses...you know your role...the situations you face will be properly constructed for you...you will advance faster and need not depend upon anything beyond your own power to thrive....Ew.....seems like an Orwellian nightmare to me.</blockquote>

Verification