Fifth Element
Legend
In all honesty, in my experience it's the opposite. The majority of 4E players used to play and enjoy 3E. I loved my time with 3E and may very well play it again in the future.
3E is awesome! Just like 4E.
On homogeneity, or how I finally got past the people talking past each other part
- Thread starter yarael
- Start date
3E is awesome! Just like 4E.
Fifth Element
Legend
This is not a tenet of 4E. It is an exaggeration of a tenet of 4E.
It's also an example of the type of post that is worded in a way to rile up fans of 4E. It's like a 4E fan posting "I don't agree with 3E's tenet that fighters are supposed to suck compared to wizards." It's a gross exaggeration, and isn't helpful.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
I'm annoyed enough at some of the posts in this thread that I'm really tempted just to close it, but let's try this: Enough, guys. You're adults. Act like it, and that means not insulting people and taking cheap shots. It seems like a number of folks chose this thread to regress in, and that makes me cranky.
So please - deep breaths, polite responses, and leave the gritted teeth for another time.
So please - deep breaths, polite responses, and leave the gritted teeth for another time.
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
3E was awesome when it came out. I loved everything about it. It was an improvement in nearly every way over 2E. It allowed more customization, there were a lot of cool new powers, there were real rules for grappling people, spells weren't so stupidly powerful, fighters had some real options instead of just attacking over and over again, BAB made way more sense than THACO, there were rules about how many magic items people had instead of guessing how many to hand out. It was all good.
After a while, the seams in the system just started to show. The same thing will happen with 4e and will cause me to want a 5e and so on. The more you use something, the more you see the flaws in it. My cracking point was with 3e was about the time I was running a 17th level wizard with a 16th level fighter against a group of 15th level characters. They were able to kill the fighter in round one before he acted and grappled the wizard in the same round so he was completely unable to cast spells(not a single spell prepared without somatic components). Then they slowly beat him him to death with their fists. It was about as dramatic and heroic as dirt.
Once that happened, I couldn't help but see the imbalances between the different PCs in the group, the differences in power level between the PCs and NPCs, the problems with the CR system, the differences between DCs and skill ranks, and so on.
Nearly everyone in the group was something like a 1 Barbarian/4 Fighter/10 Frenzied Berzerker or a Dark Template(I think that's what it's called) Human Warlock/Something/Something/Something(all wizard PrCs) who could hide in plain sight at will with such a huge bonus that he couldn't be seen by anything.
All I could see every time I played was that it was way too easy for some people to succeed in rolls and way too hard for others. You were constantly getting into situations where one PC had an automatic success and another one couldn't make it except on a 20. This applies to saving throws, skill checks, attack rolls, grapple checks, trip checks. Pretty much everything in the game had so much variation in it that most checks became a "yes or no" rather than a chance to succeed. There might be a person with a -2 in a skill in the same group as someone with a +60. There might be someone who had a +5 to hit in a group with someone who had a +35.
It was pretty much then that I saw the entire game needed an overhaul to fix those issues. From the bottom up. No stone left unturned.
And the key things that needed to be changed were anything that let players get too far off the baseline. Multiclassing, PrC, Feats, Buffing spells, Rolling for random stats, skill ranks, and the like were the main culprits.
And it appears that the people at WOTC noticed the same things. It was the number of options that were actually causing the game to have issues. So, when I see claims that 4e is too homogeneous, my response is always the same. Yep. And that's a good thing compared to the alternative.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Yep, pretty much.
There is no need to defend 4E vigorously. It's really an awesome game and doesn't need it. Not everyone likes its kind of awesomeness, and it would be nice to understand why not and what kind of awesomeness they prefer. Maybe there can be found compromises, maybe it gives ideas for future editions - or even entirely different game systems.
jasin
Explorer
Isn't this also very present in 4E? Perhaps not as present as in 3E, but enough to be an issue?
Opting for a shield fighter vs. a (pre-errata) battle rager fighter? Opting for warlock vs. a sorcerer? Opting to have any bracer slot item that's not iron armbands of power vs. iron armbands of power? Any weapon that is not bloodclaw vs. a bloodclaw? Numerous powers which get passed again and again vs. those that get picked again and again?
This is my experience, and while it's not the issue originally under question, it's very much interconnected. Most people want both variety and equality, and are willing to trade one off against the other, only in different amounts. I like the difference in structure between the 3E fighter and the 3E wizard, but I hate the fact that wizard is awesome and the fighter not so much. I'd be willing to sacrifice that bit of variety if it meant that everyone is awesome, but that is decidedly not my experience in 4E.
To extend the sports analogy, 3E has the golfer and the footballer. It kind of sucks that each mostly sits out the other guy's game, and it really sucks that they're mostly playing football, rugby and wrestling with just a bit of golf. But 4E has the pro quarterback and the amateur league tackle. No-one is as stuck as the golfer, but they're still not getting anywhere near equal spotlight time, and all they ever do is play football.
Majoru Oakheart
Adventurer
Out of everything in 4e, there are probably only 6 things that I've ever thought were considerably more powerful than all other options. They are pre-errata battlerage vigor fighter, iron armbands of power, bloodclaw, rain of blows(pre-errata), veteran's armor(pre-errata), and the warlord power that allowed you to switch initiatives with other people(pre-errata). All but 2 of these have been errata'd. And Iron Armbands are kind of iffy. They are still close to being balanced.
So, if you remove that entire list as choices, I think you'd be hard pressed to find something else that was as overwhelming as you say.
Wow. Even the difference between the weakest option and best option in 4e is still closer to the difference between two fighters in 3e rather than the difference between a fighter and a wizard.
I'm willing to admit that the 14 Cha Warlock who takes all non-combat feats va the 20 Cha Sorcerer and 16 Dex who takes all of them and has a +1 weapon is not fair balance. It'll suck to play that Warlock. On the other hand, the difference between them is:
Warlock: +2 to hit for 1d6+2 damage
Sorcerer: +7 to hit for 1d10+9 damage
At 30th level, as long as they both keep putting all their points into their primary and secondary stats and get appropriate magic items(no matter which ones they pick), the difference isn't going to grow that much:
Warlock: +27 to hit for 1d6+12
Sorcerer: +34 to hit for 1d10+24
Which is a pretty big difference. But the Warlock still gets a bunch of secondary effects from their powers. They are immobilizing people, giving them minuses, and some other effects that the Sorcerer isn't doing. Some of their powers do half damage on a miss or have an effect on a miss. When targeting a weak defense, the Warlock hits a level 30 solo on a 15.
It is, however, nowhere near the difference in 3.5e between the Fighter who put a 14 into their Str at level 1, chooses all non-combat feats, and multiclasses for role playing reasons into things like bard and rogue and the Wizard who put a 20 into their Int at first level and chooses all combat oriented feats, and optimizes their multiclassing into useful PrC.
I can't even estimate the exact numbers due to the number of variables involved. But it's fair to say that the fighter involved would need 15s to hit most enemies at level 20. The Wizard either doesn't require attack rolls or hits on everything but a 1. The Fighter would do approximately 1d6+9 points of damage on an attack. The Wizard would be doing about 20d6, twice a round, while flying, invisible, and nearly immune to attacks. That is, assuming he doesn't just kill the enemy outright with his first spell.
To even compare the two is nearly incomprehensible to me. There is enough variety in characters to have a difference between the best and worst characters in 4e without making the difference so great as to completely eliminate the worst person from the combat.
jasin
Explorer
Well, it's anecdotal, but a common experience for me and the people I play with is looking at a list of available options (powers at a given level, magic items at a given level) and
I've played a 25th-level swordmage alongside a 25th-level sorcerer which was only hit on 15+ by attacks that hit the sorcerer on 5+. In my experience, that was large enough to cause frustration for both the DM and the sorcerer player, and that's what counts: if there is annoyance, a diminishment of enjoyment, it doesn't really matter if it's a 30-point gap or a 15-point gap.
How about a warlock built by a reasonably talented player without extensive experience, and a sorcerer built by the same player?
A tiefling infernal warlock. Tieflings, devils, warlocks, should work, right? And a drow chaos sorcerer. Drow, chaos... again, fits, right? So Con 16 and 1d6 curse vs. Cha 18 and Dex 16. The most basic, obvious At-Will is 1d10+3+1d6 against one monster after spending a minor action for the warlock; and 1d10+7 in a close blast 3 for the sorcerer.
Isn't dealing slightly more damage in an area a huge difference from slightly less damage against one target with an addition action requirement?
Not as huge as between a gimped 3.5 fighter and a completely twinked out 3.5 wizard, but in practice, people don't play gimped fighters alongside twinked out wizards, they play reasonable fighters alongsider reasonable wizards, and reasonable warlocks alongside reasonable sorcerers. And the difference between the members of each pair is noticeable enough to diminish the fun of the player with the weaker character.
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BryonD
Hero
I apologize to each of you, as well as to the great number of other readers who don't get into these back and forth debates. It was not my intent to include everyone in my statement, but I certainly did not say it well.Majoru Oakheart said:
BryonD
Hero
For your game it may have been this way.
Can you accept that this does not describe my game?
In my games it is awesome when the golfer plays a role in making the football player even more a star at football and really awesome when they combine their skills to find a way to overcome some completely different challenge.
Your "sucks" and "really sucks" is my "awesome" and "really awesome". Clearly we play differently and thus want different games.
Which brings it all back to the very start of this debate. If WotC wants to start getting my money again, they simply need to start making a game that appeals to me. That doesn't mean they need to stop making a game that appeals to you. And it doesn't mean they are obligated to try to appeal to me. It just means they need to sell something I want if they want me to buy. Just like every other company out there.
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