(Rambling) Why 4e doesn't "feel" 1e...

[Nikosandros]

1E required you to rememorize spells you didn't cast?

No. Only spells that where used.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is absolutely correct. And there's no way to fix it without (a) making assumptions about the number of opponents a Magic-User will fight during a given adventuring day (either in a single encounter or greater number of encounters or (b) making Wizards pure at-will (0% Vancian). 4E went half-way to option (b) but mostly just decided to hide the problem by making Magic-Users and Fighters almost indistinguishable mechanically. This way the "number of opponents/day" assumption is built into all classes equally.

One of the fundamental differences between 4E and O/1E/2E/3E is on the Martial side of the equation. This effects how Magic-Users feel relative to Fighters. Pre-4E Fighters could not go full Boo-Yah! on their opponents at a time of their choice. Each round of combat had the same damage potential as the previous round, slow but steady. Every Fighter option (call it Feats, Maneuvers, Stunts, what you will) was "at will" in the 4E parlance. Now both Wizards and Fighters are part at-will, part per encounter and part Vancian in the form of their Daily Powers. The Magic-User no longer has anything that sets him apart. I think this is a big part of the change in "feel."

But keep in mind the first restriction above. A Vancian system (even only partial Vancian, like 4E) can only be balanced against a pure at-will character build if you hold the number of opponents/day constant. There's no way around that.

There seems to be little way out of this. But note that there is still a big difference in how classes feel - the difference is just... a different one then before. Role makes a big difference. But even that alone isn't it. Compare a Fighter to a Swordmage - the Fighter is constantly close to his enemies. A Swordmage tries to get away from them and forces them to follow him. A Fighter is better off if the enemies steers near to him, a Swordmage prefers the enemy keeping away.

But this difference is a "tactical" one. It is not the same as having constant, but weak "firepower" and having strong, but rare firepower.

I wonder if an interesting alternative solution wouldn't be to make all classes start as martial. There is no Wizard class. Instead, at higher levels, all characters get magical (arcane/divine?) abilities with daily (or other time-frame constrained) spells.

Of course, this is also not a real solution to our problems. You remove the mechanical differentiation between equal level characters. At high levels, you introduce the "fixed" number of encounters/day again. Though you get more leverage, I think - you can run a single high level encounter or a lot of lower level encounters.). I suppose 4E might be actually a subset of this, setting the "higher level" for being a magic character (though sometimes, your magic is called "martial") at 1st level.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow. I never see any former 1e high-level fighter players wishing the game was more 1e style (or any low-level fighter or magic-user players for that matter).

So apparently it's only the players who need to be the "special snowflakes" (i.e. the uber-powerful, uber-esoteric, no-one-is-like-me-I'm-completely-different characters) that can't stand that 3e & 4e balanced everyone out.

And I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Someone whose favorite thing is playing the end-all-and-be-all in wielding power is upset that they can't be that way anymore! Shocked, I say! Who'dathunkit?!?

 

[AllisterH]

1. Burst Damage

While generally speaking true that martial characters didn't have "burst" capability, 3E actually introduced this capability all the way back in 3.0 with the uber-charger builds.

The "uber-charger" was a build that focused on one-round "burst" damage thanks to stacking many feats and weapons onto the usually "once per encounter (heh)" combat schtick of the charge (either on horseback where it was just sick AND wrong in terms of damage or just regular charge where it was just sick)

2. Mechanics define the feel of the class.

I don't think this is true and I think WOTC figured this out thanks to a couple of things...

Namely, the feel and play between a swordsage, crusader and a warblade and as well, the difference in play between a dread necromancer, warmage and a beguiler. This is also why the spellcasting classes got nerfed from 3.0

These sets of classes are basically reskins of one another. However, nobody I know says a beguiler plays the same as a dread necromancer or that a crusader plays the same as a swordsage.

What I think WOTC recognized was that you couldn't allow a class to have unlimited options (a.k.a the cleric and the mage) as this not only affected other classes but in fact gave the similar level of feel between classes. (many sorcerors and wizards resemble carbon-copy of each toher due to having unlimited spell choices whereas the same doesn't apply to say a beguiler and a warmage...)

 

[Remathilis]

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow. I never see any former 1e high-level fighter players wishing the game was more 1e style (or any low-level fighter or magic-user players for that matter).

So apparently it's only the players who need to be the "special snowflakes" (i.e. the uber-powerful, uber-esoteric, no-one-is-like-me-I'm-completely-different characters) that can't stand that 3e & 4e balanced everyone out.

And I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Someone whose favorite thing is playing the end-all-and-be-all in wielding power is upset that they can't be that way anymore! Shocked, I say! Who'dathunkit?!?

I put forth a similar hypothesis a while back...

 

[Remathilis]

Actually, I think the key trade-off is not power for reliability, but power for limited availability.

Magic is powerful, but a magic-user could only call on it a limited number of times per day (or, in the case of a charged item, ever). Martial power can be used an effectively unlimited number of times, but is not terribly powerful.

This trade-off can break down when:

1. The adventuring day is so short that magic-users are not effectively limited by their number of spells per day.

2. The magic-user has ready access to a relatively cheap (whether in terms of xp, gp, or some other in-game resource) supply of magic items.

This is not a 3e-specific problem. Either of the above could happen regardless of edition, although the magic item crafting feats and the default assumption that magic items could be purchased quite easily makes (2) more likely in 3e than in previous editions.

4e's approach to this is to make magical and martial power roughly on par, both in terms of power and availability, and yes, this does break an "old school" paradigm.

This was probably the bigger element of spellcasting vs. martial power that seems to both break and define D&D's class paradigm.

The problem, as others have pointed out, is the "15 min workday" or "5 encouters and rest" design 3e seemed to balance around. Right around the time mages and priests become ascendant (9th level) is right around the time they have enough spell slots, disposable/charged items, and magic knick-knacks to no longer cast "conservatively". I pointed out in a post here that a 3e wizard at 9th level with an 18 Int has 22 spells before magic items. Again, that's 4 spells a combat (or the first four rounds of combat is all spellcasting) with 2 left over if your going by 5 encounters and rest CR/EL system. And since D&D fights in 3e rarely go over 6 rounds of combat, at most the wizard is sitting out 2 rounds (or using disposable items or his crossbow) while the fighter shines doing this thing.

What does a fighter get over a wizard? 10 rounds of combat dominance per day. Weeee!

Earlier D&D fared slightly better due to lack of wizard bonus spells and harsher craft/item acquisition. It was tempered by fighters have little or no options beyond "roll to hit"

Fourth edition did a wonderful job of giving us the most truly "balanced" D&D there is, but almost at the cost of making it too balanced. Perhaps, subconsciously, there is an element of the game that is obsessed with finding the truly powerful elements of the game and exploiting them. Rule Lawyers and Powergamers do it by name-right, but even low-level wizards know sleep is a better spell than magic missile at first level, and thieves outlive their usefulness at name level. Was it right or fair? Probably not. It was the consequence that was pieced together bit-by-bit and refined rather than remodeled. Once 4e introduced a truly ground-up balanced idea of D&D removing all the quirks, inconsistencies, and broken options, D&D played better, but was somewhat foreign and not quite the same.

 

[Corathon]

This is a purely subjective idea, and I'm not sure its full formed (hence ramblings) but perhaps its something...

For S&G, I pulled out my 1e DMG or peruse the words of wisdom. As I did, I noticed something, odd. Something I haven't noticed for a long time...

1.) 1e is random, and its weighted against your PC.

Take a look at character generation. You roll 3d6 (getting a 3-18 split, heavily weighted toward the middle 10-12) for scores. By strict reading, those rolls determine your class (primes and requisites) and race (racial min/max) even your gender (min/max)! You rolled starting hp (leading to magic-users possibly having more hp than fighters!) and starting gold (possibly not even enough to afford good armor or weapons!) and magic-users rolled starting spells (via two contradictory methods, one in the PHB, the other in the DMG). If you were dice lucky (or a horrible cheat) you got the PC you wanted and he would survive the grist mill to greatness. Else, you got to try again when that less-than-stellar PC met his end.

Not all of your points above are accurate (I doubt that most campaigns use or used straight 3d6 in order to determine stats in 1E, that's typically an OD&D thing; stat mins and maxes can disqualify you from certain races or classes, but you'd need truly awful stats to be limited to one choice of class; the "two systems" of spell generation aren't actually contradictory, etc) but you're right that there is no guarantee in 1E that you could play whatever you wanted or that your PC was just as potent as somebody else's. You might be a fighter with low HP, or poor armor, or a magic user with poor spells. If you were smart enough and lucky enough to survive, that would change.

Even beyond chargen, you faced an essentially "random" world. Random encounters, random treasure gen, even monsters had random hp. Your PC had a random chance of getting lost, and NPCs had (essentially) a random chance of liking or disliking you. And that doesn't even begin to factor the still-random elements of D&D (Attacks, Saves, etc).

In practice, the game is as random as the DM wants it to be. Most of the game isn't random IME. The DM creates the adventure locales (usually dungeons) and chooses what creatures dwell there. While it is certainly possible to do that using random tables (provided in the DMG) that is mainly intended for solo gaming.

All of this "randomness" puts the PC typically behind the eight-ball. Most monsters (typically) had more hp, better attacks, and more powers than any PC could possibly bring to bear. This lead to the second observation I noticed...

How do you figure? The monsters have 8-sided hit dice and no constitution bonus, so the fighters (10-sided HD+CON bonus) have more hit points than monsters of equal level. Often many more. The monster attack table is better than the fighter table up to about 10th level/10HD, but monsters get no hit bonus from Strength while fighters do. Add in things like weapon specialization and the much greater likelihood that a PC fighter has a magic weapon or armor, and PC fighters hit better, do more damage, and have more hit points than the monsters that they were fighting.
As for powers, even a mid-level spell caster has a lot more versatility than most monsters in 1E. Most creatures don't have any magical powers at all. Only Really Bad Things (demons, devils, beholders, liches, a few others) have a huge number of magical abilities.

2.) The trade off for power is reliability.

Why does 4e's Power System Soooooo offend old-school gamers? Because it breaks the most important principal of magic and mundane power:

Magic is powerful, but unreliable. Martial power is reliable, but not terribly powerful.

I'm definitely an old school gamer, but I'm not "offended" by the 4E powers system. I don't have a very strong opinion about is as I've never played the game.

There are, of course, exceptions to this axiom. Still, compare a fighter with a great sword NOT to an attack spell like burning hands, but to Sleep. Sleep ends a fight before it can begin. Sleep targets multiple foes. Sleep is a TPK in the hands of a foe. However, Sleep is a saving throw away from uselessness.

Actually, that's wrong. In 1E Sleep doesn't allow a saving throw. However, your point is still valid. There are plenty of things (polymorph other, hold person, stone to flesh) in which a saving throw completely negates the effect of a spell.

No second effect, no damage nothing. Save Negates. If the creature(s) save against the spell, its done with. Compared to a fighter, who might not be able to end a fight in one round, but he can continue to try to attack every round until he hits with no penalty.

4e changes that balance by making magic more reliable, and making martial more powerful. Its better balanced, but a major shift from this principle which has been with us since the beginning.

It is my belief that these two things create the greatest shift in D&D's style from 1e - > 4e (and each version of D&D in between, the changes show up slowly). 4e bridges power and reliability. 4e encourages a "planned" world where PCs create their characters without a single die roll and allows them a variety of "balanced" choices. 4e (for the most part) removed random encounters, random hp, random treasure for a more "why am I putting X here" approach to adventure design. Lastly, 4e tries to balance the needs of the players against the needs of the DM (1e was squarely in the DM's corner, 3e sat down with the players), all of which can been seen in the evolution of editions (esp latter-day 2e and latter-day 3e) from that "1e feel"

That's my theory. Feel free to pick it apart.

I think it's wrong to suppose that 1E is "squarely in the DM's corner" and against the players, as the players and the DM are not enemies. The 1E DM (I presume this is true for all the other editions as well) wants to see the players triumph - but he doesn't want to give them their triumph on a silver platter. An earned victory is much more to be savored than an easy victory.
As for 4E's way of doing things, it seems like it might make all the classes seem more similar to each other, but (as I said before) I have never played the game.

 

[justanobody]

You are misunderstanding. "3d6, in order" is not in 1E. It's not the same thing as "3d6, in order, 12 times and pick the best set."

Well then to truly get a 1E feel you need to convert most things to matrices. Attack matrices, ability score matrices, etc. Because that is what those 12 times represents. A number matrix.

Does 4th have any matrices?

Um, dude, in 1e, a 1st level magic user (without a Con bonus, which you'd only get with a 15+ con) typically had less than even odds of remaining standing after getting hit by a single arrow (which did a d6 damage). He had an average of 2.5 hit points at first level. By 10th level, he'd have, on average, 25 hit points.

Compare to a 4e wizard, who at first level already has something like 20 hit points. And by 10th level, he's got 56 (more if some of the stat raises go into Con. And the nastiest arrow is doing a d10.

So, in terms of how many hits he can take before falling, the modern wizard is clearly ahead of the old-style MU.

No no no no no... closer in relation to other 4th edition classes HP, not with other editions of wizards. That is where I mean the 4th wizard is a more sturdy character. At least compared to the other characters for its edition. You don't see any 3 HP wizards running around in 4th do you? Or 9 HP 4th level wizards in 4th....

The wizard in 4th compared to the other classes in 4th gained some backbone to help him stand up compared to the older editions class comparison within each edition.

Like the wizard used to be the weakest link in the chain by far, and in 4th not so much.

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow. I never see any former 1e high-level fighter players wishing the game was more 1e style

Can you see me now? I played fighters when I didn't want to have to mess with spells, and rouge abilities, etc. Just wanted someone that could bash stuff. I mean fighter fighters, not an off-shoot like ranger or paladin. Some times you just want to play something that doesn't carry all that other baggage.

Give me my armor and sword, and let me start a swinging. Or wrestling (not grappling but ECW style.)

 

[Irda Ranger]

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow.

Your theory is incorrect. It only takes one black swan to falsify that "all swans are white" and my existence falsifies the theory that "only former high-level magic-user players" prefer 1E to 4E. I have toyed with many house rules while DMing previous editions to fix the class imbalance and am certainly not concerned with losing some "special MU status." I am concerned with the loss of a game.

The problem, as others have pointed out, is the "15 min workday" or "5 encouters and rest" design 3e seemed to balance around. Right around the time mages and priests become ascendant (9th level) is right around the time they have enough spell slots, disposable/charged items, and magic knick-knacks to no longer cast "conservatively".

And not just 3E of course, but all previous editions.

I think a solution could be to fix the number of spells/day and just increase the power of those spells as you level up. That way "conservative" casting is maintained.

 

[mmadsen]

I find it amusing that from what I've seen on these boards... it's only the former high-level magic-user players from 1e that keep clamoring about how 1e was better than 4e and how they wish some things could go back that way somehow.

Do you seriously believe that? That the only reason someone might prefer 1E -- or some elements of 1E -- is that they personally enjoy playing overly powerful wizards, and 4E has "nerfed" them?

Seriously?