OK, I'm in ...

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Now, with 4e, every class has mechanically the same management. At 1st level you have two at-wills, an encounter and a daily, wether you're a rogue, fighter or wizard. File off the names and you could swap classes and power sources about.

This might sound nitpicky, but they're actually not exactly the same.

Class: At-will / Encounter / Daily
Ranger: 2 / 1 / 1
Wizard: 5* / 1 / 2**
Cleric: 3 / 5*** / 1
Fighter: 2 / 1 / 1****
Warlock: 3***** / 1 / 1
Paladin: 4****** / 4******* / 1

*: Including three cantrips
**: One of these is memorized every day, Vancian style
***: Including three "Channel Divinity" abilities that share a cooldown
****: Reusable if it doesn't hit
*****: Including a wizard power (possibly racial)
******: Including "Lay On Hands," which is 3x/encounter
*******: Including two more "Channel Divinity" abilities that share a cooldown

And that's just from the character sheets we already have, and not including (most) racial powers and feats and class options and class abilities like the warlock's curse and the ranger's quarry and the spellcasters' ability to cast rituals.

So while the overall mechanical shell is similar, it seems to me that they've actually taken steps to ensure that "daily" and "encounter" and "at-will" powers are somewhat different quantities for different classes. The fighter can keep hammering the Big Bad with his daily until it connects, the cleric and paladin have Channel Divinity as a "sub-pool" of encounter powers, the wizard memorizes spells, etc.

 

[Raduin711]

Step back from what? Demonstrating in an easily understandable, metaphorical way how dwelling on semantics can be harmful?

With poop?

 

[Li Shenron]

After reading today's reviews and looking over the released mechanics, I'd made my decision: I'm in for 4E.

They didn't break D&D. It's still going to be the exploratory, kill the monsters, get the treasure, roleplay with the bartender game it was before. The options will be different, but I can see that much is streamlined, and based on the 1st level character sheets it seems easy to understand the changes and looks like tremendous fun & easy to play.

I won't become a raving fanboi. There are things I don't like, some mechanical (1-1 diagonals), and most flavor (two new races I hate, didn't release some of my favorite classes in the 1st PHB, rearranged some old classic flavor not to my taste). But overall, I can change the flavor back myself, and mechanics so far look to be improved on the whole.

So WotC has convinced this grogrnard to at least pick up the core books, and when an opportunity comes, to try them out.

No DI for me, thanks -- no sale there. But I'm confident the game as a whole will carry forward. Better? Maybe yes, maybe no, but at least a suitable successor for the game I've loved for 27 years now.

I basically share all your feelings, except that I'm not quite ready yet to say "I'm in".

I will have to consider that my available gaming time has decreased in the last 6 months. Couple that with the effort of learning an entire new set of rules, and I'm still not sure it's worth the effort yet.

 

[Darrin Drader]

FWIW, I'm leaning more in the direction of being in than being out. I always get grumpy during edition changes. I'll get over it.

 

[Wormwood]

Thats like saying "when I flush the toilet the poop shoots back out of it, all over me and my bathroom, but they designed the toilet to do that on purpose, so it isn't a bug, its a feature".

Whatever semantics game you feel like playing, you're still covered in poop.

Charming.

My point was: the similarity of 4e play-styles seems to be intentional design, not unintended consequence.

 

[Klaus]

This might sound nitpicky, but they're actually not exactly the same.

Class: At-will / Encounter / Daily
Ranger: 2 / 1 / 1
Wizard: 5* / 1 / 2**
Cleric: 3 / 5*** / 1
Fighter: 2 / 1 / 1****
Warlock: 3***** / 1 / 1
Paladin: 4****** / 4******* / 1

*: Including three cantrips
**: One of these is memorized every day, Vancian style
***: Including three "Channel Divinity" abilities that share a cooldown
****: Reusable if it doesn't hit
*****: Including a wizard power (possibly racial)
******: Including "Lay On Hands," which is 3x/encounter
*******: Including two more "Channel Divinity" abilities that share a cooldown

And that's just from the character sheets we already have, and not including (most) racial powers and feats and class options and class abilities like the warlock's curse and the ranger's quarry and the spellcasters' ability to cast rituals.

So while the overall mechanical shell is similar, it seems to me that they've actually taken steps to ensure that "daily" and "encounter" and "at-will" powers are somewhat different quantities for different classes. The fighter can keep hammering the Big Bad with his daily until it connects, the cleric and paladin have Channel Divinity as a "sub-pool" of encounter powers, the wizard memorizes spells, etc.

I'm reviewing those sheets right now, and I look forward to running a party vs. kobold skirmishers encounter.

Hey, Mouse! How many kobold skirmishers to put against 1, 2 or 3 PCs?

 

[EATherrian]

How is that a function of power escalation, and what purpose would house ruling down power escalation serve?

Well if I didn't need to do much to get the desired effect in earlier editions I believe it shows a clear amount of power escalation. I don't like high-power campaigns until later levels. I actually enjoy starting games at 0 level to give the characters a chance to decide their fates in game. It's looking less and less likely 4th Edition would allow me to do that. Again, it's just vastly different play philosophies.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

FWIW, I'm leaning more in the direction of being in than being out. I always get grumpy during edition changes. I'll get over it.

Yeah, that description fits me too.

The kobold statblock looks great... and the 1st level PCs charsheets are so simple and clean. My first thought-- my current thought, actually-- is that if you added "roleplaying" to DDM, you've got D&D 4e.

Which is kind of interesting since D&D grew out of a miniatures game in the first place, although folks who should know better like to forget that inconvenient fact.

But I haven't yet put my finger on why such brilliantly clean mechanics are actually making me more hesitant. Until I do, I have to chalk it up to the same kind of grumpiness you're experiencing.

Of course there is plenty of room to criticize the new edition for the wanton slaying of so many fluff-based sacred cows. I could punch somebody in the junk for the some of the capricious changes they've made in that arena.

Maybe that's the source of my hesitation. I know the mechanics needed fixing, I just wish I didn't have to suck down all the unnecessary changes to switch over.

(I have a second junk-punch waiting for anybody who tells me to just switch it back.)

 

[wedgeski]

The kobold statblock looks great... and the 1st level PCs charsheets are so simple and clean. My first thought-- my current thought, actually-- is that if you added "roleplaying" to DDM, you've got D&D 4e.

After reviewing the char sheets, something similar occured to me. It was the Warlock abilities in particular, a couple of which said 'Affect the nearest enemy' or 'Do such and such as long as you're the nearest character to him..', or similar. This is a very tabletop-miniatures-game approach. I neither approve nor disapprove of these in particular, but it makes for an interesting observation that combat in the RPG is now more reminiscent of combat in DDM.

Will we ever reach a point where the two systems are the same? For the sake of both games, I hope not!

Otherwise I'm all smiles and happy face about the crunch that is coming out of the eXperience... must play asap!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Of course there is plenty of room to criticize the new edition for the wanton slaying of so many fluff-based sacred cows. I could punch somebody in the junk for the some of the capricious changes they've made in that arena.

That's still my most significant gripe of 4E ... all of the "because we felt like it would be cool" fluff changes. Sigh ...