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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jemmerx" data-source="post: 4382766" data-attributes="member: 48235">In the last several weeks, I've played in Game Day, I've run Keep on the Shadowfell, converted the Caves of Chaos (Keep on the Borderlands) to 4th for playtesting, and we've run a bunch of test parties through the encounter decks described in the DMG. I have a very mixed opinion on 4th so far. I know that I was a bit worried about it when it was first announced, but as I saw different previews pop up, I grew more and more excited to see it. I loved my first look at the game and the first adventure on Game Day (June 6th.) I know that DMing it was frustrating at first. Instead of the promised quicker fights and less complexity, I found that first level holds a much higher level of complexity than 1-5th in 3rd ed. I'm being conservative on that at this point, but I will admit I was still learning the rules. We've clocked encounter times and have been steadily lowering it to around 40 minutes per encounter now. Not bad. This is also three people running up to 2 characters a piece and charing the DM load (using the encounter deck.) This is an improvement. I'd like to point out that in any comparison between 3rd and 4th ed, we should be ruling out those things that are not edition dependant or easily fit into one or the other. The DMG for example is an amazing piece of work that is almost entirely useable no matter the edition or even what game system you use. It's that good! The Monsters are a great improvement over the way they used to be done and can be taken almost as is and inserted into 3rd ed. I've been doing something similar in my 3rd ed campaigns. To me, the real comparisons are in the rules that have changed. This is almost entirely based on the PHB.  So with all that said, here is my impressions so far. I will discuss them point by point: - The rules are now simplistic and unified across the board. This is both good and bad. Good because once you know the rules, you simply apply the exception created by the powers on them. Very much like Magic the Gathering.Bad because it anything based on those rules suffers in flexibility. Every character class and race feels almost the same. Almost like those video games like Diablo where your class choice was irrelevant because they all accomplish the same thing in only slightly different ways. - No more 5 minute adventuring day.So far, with all our testing, we've extended the 5 minute adventuring day into an hour or so adventuring day. PCs last longer but the encounters are more draining. After 3-4 encounters of appropriate level, the party cannot go on. This is an improvement, but not anywhere near what we'd have expected from the 4e promotions. - Monsters and encounter designThis has been an amazing improvement. It's so easy to throw encounters together now. And finding total XP after the encounter is a no-brainer now. - FeatsIs it just our group or are there really no good feats to choose from? I've now made almost 2 of each character class covering all the races, and I'm always stuck choosing a feat. Not because I'm stuck between two good ones, no, because I can't decide which one might actually be helpful. I've chosen durable and toughness on more than I care to admit. - RacesI don't see what the designers were talking about on a race having more impact over the course of a characters career than before. A few feats maybe, but nothing more than what was available on 3rd. Racial Powers seem to be the greatest differentiation, but I find that gets lost among all the other powers a PC has. - ClassesAt first glance, the classes seemed to really be well defined. After a number of games, the only real difference we noticed is a slightly similar thematic set of powers. And even then, leaders are very much alike, strikers the same, defenders the same. I also noticed that if I blink, they all feel the same. - PowersThese went from the neatest improvement to a great frustration. How many encounter powers or dailies have been lost to staight misses, more than half. Admittedly we tend to roll really bad, no matter the edition.Also, this new mechanic of a power affecting the target until the end of your next turn or until a save is made just makes many of the powers, especially the wizard's, feel wimpy. Best daily so far that we've seen: Flaming Sphere.  - Dice decide everything * I know this seems strange to be bringing up as a point, but read on to understand my point. *Using powers that we get once per encounter or per day really has increased the stress of each die roll. With each one we hear breaths being held (which sounds good right?) but too often, as fate would have it, encounters and daily's miss. This may be a hollow complaint, but it's the one constant we've encountered (no pun intended) in all our 4th ed sessions. The misses have much more impact that they once did, especially in light of the tougher monsters and the greater number of them. - MulticlassingThe weak point of 4th ed. Multiclassing now just isn't very good. It pales in comparison to the ultimate flexibility of 3rd in this regard. I've found that I would rarely take any multiclass feat past the first as the others allow only swapping of powers. Remind me of metamagic feats.Right now, I'm still testing it. But at this point, I'm more mining for ieades to alter 3rd to take the better ideas and leave the rest. ~~~~What angers me most about 4th, especially after seeing it and playing it, is that Wizards could have just fixed 3rd ed with many of these ideas and made a better product than either is seperate. I stack these editions side by side and I'm not sure which is better. I know that there is a missed oportunity though. Sorry about the long post!</blockquote>

Verification