Retrospective: 3.x stuff I'm glad I left behind

[Rechan]

Ah, I see Runestar. The issue being "The only resource, both in character and out of character, the players are spending is just money." Money here = charges to the wand.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Wizard overpower - Fighter lameness: Is this really an issue?

- For me, this has been a huge issue at higher levels in 3.x.
I'm just not too sure I like how 4E has "fixed" this though.

- I think the CLW/Healing thing is a definite step in the right direction, 4E execution is just a little bit fumbled for my logical liking though.

- Save or Die effects going is an improvement too. Again I think I would have preferred a different solution.

Actually when I come to think of it, the 4E gameplay is fairly smooth and the sum total of changes creates this. I'm just not too sure I like how they did it though. There are a great many things from 3.x that I'm yearning would return.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

While I agree with every point you make, and thank you for making them in a logical fashion, I'm not sure I agree with many ways they were "fixed" in 4e.

In particular, I find the multiclassing in 4e to be underwhelming at best.

I also loathed the class marginalization that occurred in 3e; as a DM, it became difficult to balance encounters when one player could take one hit and die and his buddy could take seven. That said, my yearning for "class balance throughout level progression" has mean that all classes are very, very similar in their powers (IMO). What's the difference between doing "1d8+Wis and sliding your target 1 square" and doing "2d8+Int and pushing your target one 1 square"? I'm exaggerating, but there's a thematic and systemic issue there (again, IMO).

Is 4e a better game? Sure, I'll give you that.

Do I agree with the manner in which the flaws you mentioned, including many others, were tackled? Not really.

But I'm not a designer, so it's hard to throw stones when I'm not sure if I have a better alternative.

5E, man...5E is gonna be hot.

WP

 

[Corsair]

Laundry Spell List - Gone are the days of any spellcaster with a dozen and a half of spells, with rules they don't have in their hands, spending their five minute round deciding "What should I cast?" Or, "What should I prepare today?" "Wait, let me look up the rules for the spell I want to use." Having every single rule on a single line, on your character sheet or on a card, is so empowering. The options are limited, yes, but all those spells you had did most of the same thing.

Speaking as a player of a currently 17th level wizard: I don't want my spell list dumbed down because your players can't seem to handle being able to play a complex character.

But hey, that is why our group is sticking with 3.5.

 

[MarkB]

I never said that they were the ones using the wands, just that wands of curative magic could be used to heal their wounds. Typically, the cleric or druid was the one administering such aid. In the end, it still results in the same thing - the PCs can continue adventuring however grievous an injury they may suffer, and have a way of rationalizing it apart from simply closing one eye. Rather than the fighter simply standing up after 5 minutes and announcing that he is fine despite being trampled by the tarrasque...

Yes, I know about the supposedly abstract nature of hp. But I do play games where the PCs actually get hurt, or trade blows with their enemies, get mauled by ferocious beasts, continue fighting on despite having multiple arrows sticking out of their bodies, and so on, coming out of combat generally worse for wear. Their low hp literally means that their life is hanging by a thread, and they are in dire need of healing magic. This is something a simple "rush of adrenaline" or "5 minute rest" can patch up, or when it is just not practical to say "Yes, I know that mechanically, the foe hit your AC. But in actual fact, he missed."

Fighters and their pitiful skill list was another issue, I concur. Which is why I have played only warblades since the release of ToB...

This is part of the paradigm shift of 4e, but the change doesn't work the direction you think it works.

Every one of those "rushes of adrenaline" or "5 minutes rests" that increases a character's hit points also reduces their number of healing surges, and in 4e it is "hit points plus healing surges" that determines how injured they are, not hit points alone.

A character with full hit points, but who has expended three or four healing surges, is not uninjured. He's taken some nasty hits. It's just that he or his companions have managed to stop the bleeding, treat the bruises, etc. and he's able to go on adventuring.

Basically, your hit points represent how much damage you can take before you fall over. It's the combination of both hit points and healing surges that represents how injured you are.

 

[TerraDave]

I agreed, I Don’t miss

*Move limiting full attack
*Layers and layers of buffing
*Painful for the players, not just charecters, de-buffing
*Fiddly Skills
*Save or hammered
*Every spell is a system
*Every spell must be carefully tracked/managed
*Multi-prestige classing mania
*Looking up grapple, turn undead, etc, over, and over
*Its magic or its crap at mid to high levels

But I really don’t miss

*Monster stat blocks
*Making NPCs
*Looking up incorporeal, invisible, ect, over and over

 

[Voadam]

I thought you were going to say monks, druids, half-orcs, gnomes, barbarians, bards, sorcerers, etc.

 

[buzz]

After four months of play, both as a DM and as a player, I realized that there are many things in 3.x that I'm not missing that I didn't expect to not miss.

After six sessions of KotS, I can't think of a single aspect of 3.x that I miss in the least. Good riddance.

 

[mmadsen]

After four months of play, both as a DM and as a player, I realized that there are many things in 3.x that I'm not missing that I didn't expect to not miss. In some cases, they're things I didn't realize didn't really work until they were gone and the game improved for it.

So you thought you'd miss Inappropriately leveled animal companions, Wands of cure light wounds, Too many skills/cross-class skills, and Level-drain and rust monsters?

I can understand expecting to miss Full attack/Power Attack, Multiclassing, Buffs, and Death from massive damage/Save-or-Die spells and then being surprised that the game was better without them, but the others? Those seemed like they obviously needed to go.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Things I don't miss from 3.x...

DMing, and everything that went along with it, from monster stat blocks to the time it took to work up an adventure.

Gnomes. Good riddance.