New player asking for some advice/help, please. 3e vs 4e. Which one is for me?

[Cadfan]

1. Both 3e and 4e can make a werewolf bard. But beware. The 4e werewolf bard will perhaps be less werewolf-y than you might prefer, and the 3e werewolf bard will suck. 4e might work for your werewolf bard depending on how loose you are with your definitions, though. Druids can shapeshift, and this can represent a wolf form, and you can multiclass druid and bard (or hybrid when the rules come out for it).

2. If you're new, start playing with an edition that's actively supported. That means either 4e or Pathfinder. Pathfinder is kind of like 3e, except modified a bit. Its hard to say how good it is because it doesn't fully exist yet.

3. 3e cares more about proper process, even if it leads to stupid results. 4e cares more about proper results, even if they're most easily obtained through a trite process.

By this I mean: 3e tried to come up with "realistic" procedures by which things occurred. Then it applied fantasy and 20+ levels of character advancement to them, until you end up with ridiculous outcomes. For example, 3e came up with "realistic" rules for tripping people. You can try it as often in a fight as you like, since obviously you never forget how to trip someone. You have to "get" them first, so you make a touch attack (an attack that ignores armor, since armor doesn't stop you from getting knocked over). Then you make an opposed check, weighing how strong you are versus either how strong they are, or how agile they are, representing them keeping their feet through strength or agility. If you succeed, they fall over. Ok, fair enough. Now add extra abilities that happen when you trip someone, and a character built with a laser focus on tripping well. Pretty soon that character enters every fight with one goal in mind- trip every single person in the fight, up to several times in a single turn. The process was realistic, but the outcome, a farce in which the entire battle becomes a procedural experience of each monster that pc fights getting knocked over and stabbed, then standing back up and hitting the pc, then getting knocked over and stabbed, repeated ad naseum, forever, as long as trippable monsters are around. And its worse with weapons that let you trip people from far away, then the fight involves the entire enemy force falling over, repeatedly, like a gag involving the three stooges and a dropped sack of marbles. Realistic process led to unrealistic, warner brothers cartoon like results.

4e cares more about results. It wants an outcome where a character who knows how to trip someone does it once in a while during a fight, while mixing things up with other attacks. To get this they went for the quickest, most efficient option. You have certain attacks you can do only once per fight, or even only once per day. Some of these might involve tripping someone. If a fight lasts 7 rounds and you only know how to trip someone with one "per encounter" attack, then the most you can trip someone in that fight is one round out of seven. On the other rounds you mix it up using your other options, creating a fight that has a believable feel to it- your character might charge one enemy, fight him a bit, and then knock him down and finish him off. Fairly realistic. But in terms of process, the feel is not realistic. You knocked someone down once, and now you can never do it again until the fight is over? Why? Did you forget? How did you forget? Realistic outcome was generated through unrealistic process.

What really matters is which you care about more. Personally, I care about realistic outcome. I accept that abstraction is required in a game, and believe that what matters is not the mechanics used to reach the outcome, but rather the events in my imagination. That means caring about results, not the abstraction used to obtain them.

 

[pawsplay]

By this I mean: 3e tried to come up with "realistic" procedures by which things occurred. Then it applied fantasy and 20+ levels of character advancement to them, until you end up with ridiculous outcomes. For example, 3e came up with "realistic" rules for tripping people. You can try it as often in a fight as you like, since obviously you never forget how to trip someone. You have to "get" them first, so you make a touch attack (an attack that ignores armor, since armor doesn't stop you from getting knocked over). Then you make an opposed check, weighing how strong you are versus either how strong they are, or how agile they are, representing them keeping their feet through strength or agility. If you succeed, they fall over. Ok, fair enough. Now add extra abilities that happen when you trip someone, and a character built with a laser focus on tripping well. Pretty soon that character enters every fight with one goal in mind- trip every single person in the fight, up to several times in a single turn. The process was realistic, but the outcome, a farce in which the entire battle becomes a procedural experience of each monster that pc fights getting knocked over and stabbed, then standing back up and hitting the pc, then getting knocked over and stabbed, repeated ad naseum, forever, as long as trippable monsters are around. And its worse with weapons that let you trip people from far away, then the fight involves the entire enemy force falling over, repeatedly, like a gag involving the three stooges and a dropped sack of marbles. Realistic process led to unrealistic, warner brothers cartoon like results.

First of all, what's unrealistic about the results? There's nothing unrealistic about jujitsu fighters grappling people all the time or kickboxers trying to punch or kick them. I've watched enough kung fu movies to know that genre has no discomfort with that concept, either.

Second, if you want to get really realistic, combat needs to become MORE farcical. Even the most punishing systems I've ever played have underestimated the odds of a fumble or dropping your own weapon, and virtually none account for the possibility of injuring yourself, which is all too likely. Characters in a realistic game would be tripping all the time on unseen obstacles, blood, and water. Sometimes people would miss each other repeatedly, while other times, the enemies would mortally wound each other in less than a second. Most fights would end in a rout, with the majority of the enemy fleeing. Ranged attacks would virtually always miss under chaotic conditions. Shields would rarely survive a fight. You would have to worry about accidentally attacking your allies. Everyone would dress in billowing, layered clothing. Characters would haul their armor around in a pack, then frantically attempt to armor themselves when attacked. Many melee combats would end with one opponent beating the other down, the grappling them and stabbing them with a dagger in the armpit, face, or groin.

Third, I can't see this scenario playing out in D&D as described. There are so many times tripping an opponent is not viable. Some monsters are too large. Some characters are too dwarven. Some monsters are so strong enough you will simply trip yourself repeatedly. Some things are so powerful that if you knock them prone, they will just kill you while prone. What's the point of knocking something prone with a gaze attack or a breath weapon? Tripping is a tactic that mostly is of interest when fighting Medium or smaller opponents with fairly human ability scores.

Fourth, by comparison to 4e, 4e is, if anything, more guilty of the "use special move repeatedly" phenomenon. There are some PCs who will literally be sliding opponents around virtually every round.

 

[LostSoul]

I'd hate to sandbox a campaign where the NPCs planet wide, morph every time PCs grow in power.

I was surprised to see how quickly the PCs chewed through the first encounter in the Well - and then I realized they should be level 5 when they hit it, not level 7. I mentioned this after the game, and one of the players said it's not hard to level up encounters in 4E. I agree, but I'm not going to do that - they made their choices, we live with them. If that means these encounters are cakewalks for them, so be it.​

 

[Cadfan]

Wow. Well, pawsplay, I didn't know that anyone actually existed who was willing to defend 3e chain-tripper-spam as a realistic combat tactic. I thought that would be a pretty non controversial way to make my point. Thanks for edifying me.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not going to push you towards one edition or another. My heart lies with 4e.

BUT

I want to mention the folly of a werewolf bard.

Lycanthropes in 3.5 are a combination multi-class and template. There are two versions of the template: infected and true. The latter is a +3 level adjustment (more on that in a moment) the former a +2. In addition, you must effectively take two "levels" in "wolf" to gain the wolf-aspect of your race.

Now, level adjustment is a way of balancing power by making you spend more XP to level. The +2/+3 is equivalent to how many "levels" of your class you're giving up. Those "phantom levels" don't grant you any hit points, skills, feats, attack or save bonuses, etc. Just pure XP soak.

The template grants you a number of bonuses (+2 to armor class, low-light vision, a +2 to wisdom, and animal empathy) The +2 version gives you the ability to resist 5 points of damage form non-silvered weapon and forces you to go wild during the full-moon (though investing in a skill called "control shape" can help you resist it and trigger it when its not a full moon). The +3 version allows you to resist 10 points of non-silvered damage, the ability to spread lycanthropy to others (thus making the +2 cursed version) and no forced shapechange.

In addition to the level adjust, you must buy the two hit dice of "wolf". This is two levels (like class levels) where you hp, saves, and skills, but no class powers or such. After you have paid for all this, THEN you can become a bard. At 6th level (if a true lycanthrope, 5th if you're infected).

So what does your 5 levels of werewolf give you (before becoming a 1st level bard)?

8+1d8 hp (+ con mods) or 9-16 hp + con
+1 base attack
+3 base fortitude save
+3 base reflex save
+0 base will save
2 +Int x 5 skill points (class skills: Skills:Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, Survival)
natural bite attack (1d6 +str +free trip)
+2 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Wis
DR 10/Silver weapon
Curse of Lycanthropy (spread on successful bite)
Scent
Low-light Vision
Shapechanging
+2 Natural Armor
a -21,000 XP debt before you can advance to 1st level bard.

Compare that to what a 6th level PC gets (esp a 6th level bard) and it doesn't look like that good a deal after all.

Oh, an infected lycanthropes are always Chaotic Evil if the actively try to shift into their wolf-form. Per the rules. You might want to houserule that.

 

[Mark]

Hey, I'm just getting into table top RPGs. Wanted to for a long time, but I'm now finally getting it together. I always wanted to GM and I have at least 3 players waiting for me to get this started.

My only problem though is which edition should I choose.

(. . .)

Not that I'd feel commited. I'd like to try both at some point. But at the moment, am I right in thinking 3e is the game I want to play?

Regardless, I think you should download the freebies and try 4E out right away on your own, with just the new players and yourself.

D&D Test Drive

Then get someone to run a slightly more advanced 4E game for you. After that, check around and, since people have been playing 3.XE for years and can probably show you more in a short time than trying to learn it yourself, find someone with an ongoing game who is willing to run a session or two for you and your friends.

I think the strengths of each can be found in the ease with which a 4E game can be started but the depth of which a 3.XE can can encompass. If you get DMs for each that are fairly matched in skill, you'll enjoy both games then be able to better make a decision for yourself which one to continue playing, if not both.

 

[Ariosto]

From what I've gathered 3e has much more flexibility with PCs and adds more depth to non combat adventures. And that I could, with enough understanding of the rules, pretty much create anything I wanted. While the downsides of 3e are some somewhat unbalanced character classes and a system which some find tedious.

As a Game MASTER, you should feel free to create anything you want regardless of what someone else has (or has not) written in a book!

That said, both 3E and 4E are pretty thick with rules, and some expectations go along with them. The former gives you more game-mechanical gadgets with which to play. However, it does likewise for players -- which contributes to the downsides noted above.

One thing I noticed right away with 4E was how much more user-friendly I found the "stat blocks" for monsters.

Cadfan's and alleynbard's posts above seem to cover the fundamental difference in philosophy, and in the long run that may be the decisive factor. Actually playing under each set of rules is probably the best way to appreciate the "feel" of one versus the other.

Castles & Crusades has been mentioned. It's a blend of elements from "old school" D&D with "modern" touches from 3E. C&C is in my view much easier to manage, and faster playing, than either of the other contenders. One can adapt material either from 3E or from 1st/2nd ed. AD&D.

 

[Ariosto]

[4E] goes all the way back to the original AD&D mentality where the roleplaying aspects of the game are the result of a social contract between the DM and the players, with minimal mechanical influence.

I don't recall dice-fest "skill challenges" in AD&D! Perhaps those were introduced late in the 2E era.

 

[Derren]

Wow. Well, pawsplay, I didn't know that anyone actually existed who was willing to defend 3e chain-tripper-spam as a realistic combat tactic. I thought that would be a pretty non controversial way to make my point. Thanks for edifying me.

There are several (real world) martial arts which use tripping extensively, for example Aikido. And I bet no one here is so well versed in medival, european martial arts so that he knows if there also was a trip heavy combat style there.
But tripping often is in no way unrealistic.

Also I don't think <trip,trip,trip> is in any way less realistic than <push,push,push> or just <twin strike,twin strike,twin strike>.

3E, for the most part, cares about more "realistic" (=not totally unrealistic) procedures. 4E doesn't care for either "realistic" procedures or "realistic" results. It just wants to "get the job done" fast and easy.

 

[resistor]

I think that there's a lot of conflation of personal gaming styles with actual edition differences.

To use myself as an example, I've always been a seat-of-the-pants, off-the-cuff kind of DM. I've never used significant use of social mechanics. I've used something akin to the minion rule for years.

And yet I prefer 3e.

While I don't usually play in a highly simulationiat style, I like knowing that so could could stat out that NPC it I wanted, or that there are rules for X that I can fall back on if I wish.

----------------

The other reason for my preference is more hand-wavey: I find that 4e changed a lot of the default assumptions of the game (with respect to classes, races, magic, and settings) in ways that I simply don't like as much. Yes, I could retcon things back to the old version, but coupled with the issue noted above, it's simply not worth it for me. I'm better off just sticking with the system that already supports the stuff I like.