Realism! Versamilitude! Other Words!

[MichaelK]

One thing that has emerged in this thread is the question, "If you don't like 4e, why are you complaining, it's coming anyway?".

I think it's a valid question so I'll answer it myself.

I love D&D, it's one of my main hobbies and it's something I spend a lot of time on. I have since I was 9 years old and gaming with my family. It's something I like talking about with people who share the hobby, that's why I'm on the ENWORLD forums to begin with (well also to read sepulchrave's story hour).

Now that a big change is coming along it's something I want to talk about and discuss my opinions with my fellow D&D enthusiasts. I don't expect it to change the outcome of 4e and if that's what I wanted I'd be contacting WoTC, not my fellow enworlders.

Also there's the hope that if I say, "I'm not happy about (for example) healing surges" then someone will come along and say, "Well actually they're good because of X" or "You can solve that problem by doing Y" and I won't have to worry so much about 4e. (For the most part they haven't people have just said things like "You're an idiot, 3e had stupid healing").

I want to like 4e, but right now I'm not too happy about the decisions the design team are making. So I'm talking about this.

A year ago if I was complaining that I didn't like the Complete Mage book, there would be no question of why I'm doing it or that it shouldn't be on the board. Now that I'm complaining that I potentially don't like the 4e PHB this is a problem... why?

 

[Dinkeldog]

Now that a big change is coming along it's something I want to talk about and discuss my opinions with my fellow D&D enthusiasts. I don't expect it to change the outcome of 4e and if that's what I wanted I'd be contacting WoTC, not my fellow enworlders.

Also there's the hope that if I say, "I'm not happy about (for example) healing surges" then someone will come along and say, "Well actually they're good because of X" or "You can solve that problem by doing Y" and I won't have to worry so much about 4e. (For the most part they haven't people have just said things like "You're an idiot, 3e had stupid healing").

I want to like 4e, but right now I'm not too happy about the decisions the design team are making. So I'm talking about this.

A year ago if I was complaining that I didn't like the Complete Mage book, there would be no question of why I'm doing it or that it shouldn't be on the board. Now that I'm complaining that I potentially don't like the 4e PHB this is a problem... why?

There are a few differences between Complete Mage and 4E. For one, if you don't like Complete Mage, in whole or in part, then the obvious answer is to say, "Okay, then don't use the part/whole that you don't like." I know a lot of books that came out for 3/3.x that my groups didn't like in whole or part and we ignored them.

4E is a little different--if you dislike the whole, you're going to be agreeing to live with the (more) static 3.x since it won't have any more "official" products coming out for it. If you dislike some aspects of 4E, then, well, houserule them or ignore them. When 3E came out, there were tons of houserules for everything from the kinder, gentler half-orc to non-spellcasting rangers.

Another difference is that we have yet to see 4E operate in a campaign setting. I've run official modules at GenCon--they did not come close to the breadth and scope of the entire 3E ruleset, so it's pretty easy to assume that the D&DXP modules could give us a preview, but won't give us access to the full range of rules and options that the ultimate edition gets us. Basically, when we argue about something we dislike about 4E, it's like (stealing from "Latter Days") holding the Sunday comics up to your face so that it's just a bunch of dots. We don't see the whole picture yet--and won't for another 2-3 months (depending on how much comes out in H1, we might get a better look).

As for healing surges, I think the goal is to take the one class that specializes in healing (and the other class which isn't even in the PHBI) out of a "necessary" slot in the party. All the other classes, mix and match, but you MUST have a Cleric (or Druid) in order to survive the first few levels. And then the Cleric could take any number of nifty spells that they'd then have enormous group pressure to swap out for CLW. Hopefully healing surges will de-couple the train of thought that you must have a cleric who at low levels is a walking band-aid.

Other complaints like endless magic missiles seem to me to place a different value on the flavor of a mage. I'd rather have a mage have a less powerful magical effect than their daily/encounter effects to use as an attack form (in a game where combat regularly occurs) than using the crossbow over and over--there's something that says "mage" about casting a spell as the primary form of damage.

For me, the thing I didn't particularly care for from the preview that I got from reports from D&DXP is the saving throws. I like that 4E seems, by varying accounts, to be getting away from save-or-die effects, but I still would like to think that a spell cast by a 30th level caster is harder to resist than one cast by a 30th level caster--and the scaling from 3/3.x while a step in the right direction, still never sat right with me. That's something that I'll likely houserule in some fashion for my own campaigns.

As all things go, with D&D, YMMV. And that's fine. Once 4E is live, there will likely be a place to discuss all the things that people are unhappy with and how half-elves got the shaft, and the house rules that people are going to use to help balance them out a little.

Until then, a good way to self-moderate is to look at your post and say, "Is this something that I have brought up in every thread no matter how off-topic it is?" If you find yourself repeating yourself over and over, then it might not really need a post.

 

[Felon]

One thing that has emerged in this thread is the question, "If you don't like 4e, why are you complaining, it's coming anyway?".

I think it's a valid question so I'll answer it myself.

I love D&D, it's one of my main hobbies and it's something I spend a lot of time on. I have since I was 9 years old and gaming with my family. It's something I like talking about with people who share the hobby, that's why I'm on the ENWORLD forums to begin with (well also to read sepulchrave's story hour).

Now that a big change is coming along it's something I want to talk about and discuss my opinions with my fellow D&D enthusiasts. I don't expect it to change the outcome of 4e and if that's what I wanted I'd be contacting WoTC, not my fellow enworlders.

Also there's the hope that if I say, "I'm not happy about (for example) healing surges" then someone will come along and say, "Well actually they're good because of X" or "You can solve that problem by doing Y" and I won't have to worry so much about 4e. (For the most part they haven't people have just said things like "You're an idiot, 3e had stupid healing").

I want to like 4e, but right now I'm not too happy about the decisions the design team are making. So I'm talking about this.

Good post. I feel the same way. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me Int isn't just "wizard Dexterity".

And moreover, designers listen. They patch things that players are dissatisfied with. I might not like 4e when it comes out, but maybe I'll like it a year later when the PHBII.

You always hear folks on forums telling people to stop whining. You know what, folks? Nobody ever got anywhere by suffering in silence. Squeaky wheels get the oil.

 

[johan_seraphim]

I just want to know,how can you argue realism in D&D when you can walk around as a 3 foot tall halfling who turns invisible at the drop of a hat and owns a flaming sword that talks to you???

 

[MichaelK]

As for healing surges

Oh sorry. My example was a random selection of something people discuss a lot. I actually quite like healing surges.

For the record the only things I dislike (that I can think of right now) are:
1) Tripping is a special ability.
2) Use of the word Spaces for measurement.
3) 1-1-1 movement.
4) Instant death from lava
5) A vague ominous feeling of dread that the things which haven't been revealed yet will turn out to be things I don't like based on the designer's descriptions of their priorities in this edition which don't match my own.
6) Some of the artwork.

So there's not too much actually that I'm against (well, nothing that's known for sure yet). I'm just a little worried. Still, since I've made some criticisms of 4e and the thread asked why people are complaining I thought I'd chime in with my reasons.

Other complaints like endless magic missiles seem to me to place a different value on the flavor of a mage.

I loved reserve magic so I'll be glad to see some more 'endless' magic in 4e.

Until then, a good way to self-moderate is to look at your post and say, "Is this something that I have brought up in every thread no matter how off-topic it is?" If you find yourself repeating yourself over and over, then it might not really need a post.

Agreed.

 

[Nightson]

1. I like the 1-1-1 change. I think it simplifies things and saves time over a system that most people forget, mess up, or just ignore because it's annoying.

2. Claims that the 1-2-1 system isn't realistic are fairly disingenuous. The actual length of the diagonal of a 5x5 square is 7.07 which can be safely rounded to 7 feet. 3e says that 2 diagonal squares is equivalent to fifteen feet of movement and in reality it's 14 feet. This means you have to use 75 feet of movement in a diagonal direction before there's a discrepancy big enough to show up in a system which is measured in squares of 5x5. So as approximations go it's very close to reality.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

1. I like the 1-1-1 change. I think it simplifies things and saves time over a system that most people forget, mess up, or just ignore because it's annoying.

2. Claims that the 1-2-1 system isn't realistic are fairly disingenuous. The actual length of the diagonal of a 5x5 square is 7.07 which can be safely rounded to 7 feet. 3e says that 2 diagonal squares is equivalent to fifteen feet of movement and in reality it's 14 feet. This means you have to use 75 feet of movement in a diagonal direction before there's a discrepancy big enough to show up in a system which is measured in squares of 5x5. So as approximations go it's very close to reality.

Isn't this exactly what we were talking about previously (in this thread)?

Point 1 taken, and I agree with it. I still don't like the idea of cubic fireballs (but we don't know for sure that this will be true)

Point 2 has come up often and doesn't help. The 1-2-1 system is still closer to "reality" and has been discussed over and over. People that dislike 1-1-1 do not necessarily want 100 % precision, but there is a difference between an error of almost 50 % and an error of around 6 %.

 

[Felon]

1. I like the 1-1-1 change. I think it simplifies things and saves time over a system that most people forget, mess up, or just ignore because it's annoying.

2. Claims that the 1-2-1 system isn't realistic are fairly disingenuous. The actual length of the diagonal of a 5x5 square is 7.07 which can be safely rounded to 7 feet. 3e says that 2 diagonal squares is equivalent to fifteen feet of movement and in reality it's 14 feet.

I'm not advocate of the 1-2-1 system, but claiming that there's something disingenuous about treating fourteen as fifteen is...well, disingenuous. That's closer to fifteen than ten by quite a bit.

 

[Nightson]

I was saying that the 1-2-1 system is unrealistic are disingenuous. The system is realistic, it's about as realistic as you can get without changing the entire way creature positions and movement speeds are mapped, so I get why people might feel like it impacts they're enjoyment of the realism of the game when it's changed even if I don't mind it getting changed.

 

[wgreen]

I think you guys are mis-parsing Nightson's double negatives.

Edit: Bah. Super-scooped.

-Will