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

[Halivar]

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?

The first two I didn't realize were issues until they disappeared. The latter two I was welcome to chuck. I meant to imply in my OP that some of them were quite unexpected.

 

[Voadam]

Full attack/Power Attack - This one scared me, at first. As someone who has always preferred melee fighters and paladins, my first impression of hearing that both full attack and power attack were going to missing from 4E was near-panic. One attack a round? No more 2-for-1 damage bonuses? In 3.x, they are the only things that make fighters competitive with other classes; taking them away denudes the fighter of power. In retrospective, I can see that these mechanics failed utterly at allowing the fighter to stand out as a melee character. This is especially so for full attack, since it is used (or abused) with far greater efficiency by splat-book PrC's like the Whirling Dervish. These mechanics are now gone because they simply aren't needed for the fighter to stand out. I can play a fighter without having to "dress up" what is otherwise a dull, repetitive mechanic. The greatest side benefit is that no one rolls for nine attacks per round anymore.

I see the allure of having 1 attack and done. Particularly in driving combat to be more mobile as opposed to simply planting yourself and wailing on the enemy. I like planting myself and wailing on an enemy, but I see the allure of dynamic combat scenes.

I disagree on the necessity of power attack though, I hate fiddly math so I don't use PA a lot and I've seen the straight fighter archer as the most damage output character in our group's level 17 game. My 4th level melee fighter does not use PA either and is considered a formiddable PC even with his LA hindering him. The 17th level paladin in our group calls PA his "tempt me to miss feat".

Inappropriately leveled animal companions - Nothing is more annoying than having a large part of your character's "class power" derive from an animal companion/special mount/familiar, especially if you multi-class and your companion is stuck in power-stasis. There are rare cases where I have managed to well-and-truly break the animal companion rules, but usually I end up better off forgetting I have the companion in the first place. This is especially true of wizards and rangers, who have many, many PrC's available that do not scale companions. I am looking forward to a future official reintroduction of animal companions to 4E; if the current design philosophy holds, I expect a solution that scales by level. (BTW, I foresee a problem with static level 4 warhorses. There needs to be a mechanic for advancing them. I would be tempted to say that they are always at least CL-2, using monster advancement to scale them.)

I dislike pets and henchmen in general, I want the PCs in my games to immerse in their characters, not their squad. Same when I'm a PC. I often create or use existing options to move away from pet mechanics.

That said I think only the druid companion is truly formiddable even when the others stay single classed, and they have plenty of other power through wildshape and spells. Druids get annoying by having too many critters when they have a companion plus summoned beasts then multicreature buffs.

Multiclassing- This is another one that scared me. As a devoted melee player, I have historically relied on multiclassing to add mechanical flavor to my fighters and paladins. To remove multiclassing is to remove my ability to add nuance to my character. I can happily report that my fear here was alleviated in actual play. Multiclass feats enhanced my game over a la carte class levels in two ways. First, powers I receive from other classes are properly scaled to my level, and I choose what powers I get. In 3.x, multi-classing means you must get the bottom tier abilities first. If you're a Ftr10/Wiz1, that means you get... magic missile with 1d4+1 damage. In 4E, you can cast fireball, or something else appropriately leveled. Second, you lose nothing by multiclassing. In 3.x, if a fighter or a wizard wants to multiclass, they risk losing precious BAB or caster levels to do so. At level 10, the power level difference between BAB +7 and BAB +10 or between spell level 3 and spell level 5 is enough to thwart most of the thematically "cooler" multiclass concepts right out of the gate (and heaven help the poor soul playing a multi-classed druid, who has three separate class abilities to lose to stasis). The "multiclass by feat" mechanic allows my players and I to express characters that simply weren't viable in 3.x.

eh, multiclassing costs feats in 4e plus you give up class powers and paragon powers. I don't consider it accurate to say "you lose nothing by multiclassing" in 4e.

Spell loss is a significant power for ECL loss that I feel needs to be improved.

I'm happy though with a couple house rules for 3e MC (fractional BAB/saves, no xp penalties, spellcasting house rules).

Wands of cure light wounds - Every game, every session, after every combat: "Ok, I pull out the WoCLW, and *bink* *bink* *bink* *bink*." They're cheap enough to outfit every wand-user in the party, and that makes them part of the "standard adventurer's pack" in our games; you're stupid not to have one. The healing surge is a huge thematic change in 4E to accomodate a more cinematic narrative, but also has the side effect of mooting this klunky and decidedly non-cinematic 3.x artifact.

Nonmagical healing is a weakness in 3e that can use an upgrade. I've gone with reserve hp for a while from UA but I like 4e's healing surge stuff and incoroporating it into a new game I'm planning to run.

Buffs- Math hurt brain... head too full of dumb... Seriously, the fact that we needed the rule that multiple adjusts of the same "type" don't stack should have been a warning that this mechanic was broken. That WotC then proceeded to make fifteen bajillion "types" in splat books to make sure they do stack should have sent us running to the hills. Not once in 4E play have we spent more than 30 seconds trying to decide what kind of bonus someone gets to their attack or skill check. Good riddance to bad rubbish (WotC, please leave this one dead and buried, because if it comes crawling out of its grave, I'm gon' have a wooden stake ready).

I like the 4e design philosophy of fewer buffs and debuffs. I like the simplified math for keeping the game flowing at the table.

Too many skills/cross-class skills- "One man's trash," and all that jazz, since it's a fiercely debated topic. Here's my take: as a fighter in 4E, I can take a single multclass feat, take stealth, and perform that skill with the same proficiency as a rogue of my level. In 3.x, even with multiclassing, it is hard to accomplish this. Using fighter skill points alone? Impossible, especially given that what are now catch-all's like Stealth and Thievery were really several individual skills. Actually, I wish 4E had gone a step further and abolished the limited class skill list altogether. I'll stick by the rules, for now, and see if the changes made are enough to fix it.

I'm all for collapsing the skill lists ala Pathfinder or 4e.

While it is true you can't master a cross-class skill in core 3e, a feat makes it something you can do.

Death from massive damage/Save-or-Die spells - King's Quest V was a really fun game for the first hour. Then I walked into a bar, and died. I expect that I was supposed to be Pavlov's dog, learning the next time I played not to go into that bar; except there was no "next time." Save-or-die is another hotly-contested topic. In my game, it is not appropriate. It is not heroic. It is not cinematic. Not from the player's perspective, nor the DM's. Therefore, it doesn't belong at our table. The problem is that this is a hard mechanic to excise from 3.x because so much of 3.x's balancing presumes the existence of these mechanics. I've had four characters die in the first round of combat (twice, before my first action), and I am happily confident that it shall not happen again.

I never used massive damage and a few years ago I switched all save or die effects to save or dying which has been fun. I disagree that these are hardwired into the balancing of 3e, I've done fine without them and found it trivial to excise them.

The other part though is the dying in the first round, and this raises the increase in 1st level hp for 4e, something I consider a good thing. I want PCs to be survivable for more than a round too. I'm trying out giving 10 extra hp (half the 20hp kicker from Hackmaster) as a bonus for 1st level PCs in my new game.

Level-drain and rust monsters - The latter, though iconic, isn't iconic enough to not piss me off every time it's used. Mechanics designed simply for the expressed purpose of permanently punishing a player for rolling badly is garbage. Some of my characters would have been better off jumping into molten lava at the start of initiative; 1 lost level has a 75% chance of being better than 1d4 lost levels.

I agree on level drain, I tend to go with alternate mechanics like variant vampires that only do con damage blood drinking. I've tended to stay away from using energy draining foes for decades in my DMing simply because I don't like it.

Rust monsters and creatures with sunder are designed not to punish PCs for unlucky die rolls but to have an in game reason to smash PC items. This can be to simulate that things can be broken in combat similar to some cinematic style scenes or to reduce PC equipment when it has gotten out of hand in a DM's opinion. A useful tool for a DM to have available when he desires IMO.

 

[timbannock]

I agree with a lot of these.

But Rust Monsters? Why the hate? I like Gygax's mind, and sometimes, I think it IS okay to just screw the Players over. Not often, but it's not totally off limits.

 

[Psion]

Rust monsters and creatures with sunder are designed not to punish PCs for unlucky die rolls but to have an in game reason to smash PC items. This can be to simulate that things can be broken in combat similar to some cinematic style scenes or to reduce PC equipment when it has gotten out of hand in a DM's opinion. A useful tool for a DM to have available when he desires IMO.

Well, while I'm not above destroying equipment (I do find it obnoxious that for so many players, equipment is more important than the character), for me the main reason for such encounters is to give them something to fear, to treat with care. Something you just don't want to charge in and bash to bits.

To me, throwing such obstacles in is so much better than having a stream of monsters that are just a pile of HP and damage rolls with different description lines.

 

[Cadfan]

I've always found that this

Well, while I'm not above destroying equipment (I do find it obnoxious that for so many players, equipment is more important than the character), for me the main reason for such encounters is to give them something to fear, to treat with care. Something you just don't want to charge in and bash to bits.

To me, throwing such obstacles in is so much better than having a stream of monsters that are just a pile of HP and damage rolls with different description lines.

is better served by plot related solutions rather than monsters like rust monsters.

Honestly, rust monsters break my sense of immersion. After all I've written on this forum, you just knew that something would do it, right?

The problem with rust monsters, as I see it, is that players react to them exactly the way that regular people would react to normal monsters. Players climb trees and shoot arrows, they run away, they do anything and everything they can to avoid having to fight the rust monster up close. And not because they're worried that the rust monster will kill them- no, when they fight monsters that might kill them, they charge straight in. They're worried because the rust monster might destroy their stuff. That inspires fear.

This inversion of threats bugs me for some reason. Charging right in to battle some orcs doesn't seem silly until your character is standing on a table shrieking because of a big cockroach.

 

[Psion]

Honestly, rust monsters break my sense of immersion. After all I've written on this forum, you just knew that something would do it, right?

The problem with rust monsters, as I see it, is that players react to them exactly the way that regular people would react to normal monsters. Players climb trees and shoot arrows, they run away, they do anything and everything they can to avoid having to fight the rust monster up close. And not because they're worried that the rust monster will kill them- no, when they fight monsters that might kill them, they charge straight in. They're worried because the rust monster might destroy their stuff. That inspires fear.

Heh.

Well, things like low level orcs that are just likely to do a few hp damage aren't, fairly, not likely to kill the party. Things that are likely to take a toll, like some of the final encounters in the likes of Rappan Athuk and Castle Whiterock, DO demand care as well. And a thinking group will create plans to deal with those sorts of creatures as well, but still stand a chance of fatalities there are well.

The reality is that this is not a one dimensional issue. Rust monsters can immediate minor consequences. By way of comparison, Bodaks can cause immediate major consequences. That's why I don't use Bodaks in 3e, but have no issue with Rust Monsters. PC death without opportunity to plan or flee is dirty pool in my book. Armor or sword destruction, OTOH, I'm ok with.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

IMHO, the 4E version of healing is superior for the simple reason that even if you concede that 3E healing had more flavor (or "logic"), then it still remains that it is far easier to change the flavor of 4E healing than it is to change the mechanics of 3E healing. This is especially true for gamers that might not have much experience with house rules. I mean, how hard is this to do:

"All healing surges must have a power source, whether second wind, a combat power, or whatever. No more free use of healing surges during rests. Most healing stems from magic supplied from outside the body, but there is (still) only so much a person can take in a day."

Then introduce a few items or whatever to allow healing surges during rest, at a cost. You can even introduce a different kind of CLW wands, if you want (one that doesn't count as magic item use per day, since the surge is what is paid). Me, if I wanted this, I'd probably use a ritual, with a low (but real) cost in time and components, with levels at 1st, 11th, and 21st (thus needing to upgrade at each tier). Then make it work on people in a small radius. Bam, done--you have a logical method for why magic is needed for healing. You might even have people toughing it out on that last surge or two, on the grounds that no one else needed healing.

On 4E multiclassing, I'm going out on a limb and predicting that multiclassing in 4E is what craft skills were in 3E: Good enough, consistent with the design, but not that drop dead, elegant powerhouse they could have been had they been better integrated with the core class mechanics. We'll never know for sure, but I think that the designers either neglected them too long, chickened out on certain approaches as too radical, or perhaps tried some things that didn't work. (Or maybe, all three.)

The obvious design, from the 30,000 feet perspective (i.e. not having to deal with the messy things, like details), is to extend the paragon path and epic destiny ideas down into the heroic tier. Something like, each class gets part of a second class for free, no feats required. You get roughly half the powers on the second class (and this is on the class chart). Let people trade off powers in their second class for more in their first class, if they so desire., since each pick from their original class is presumably not earthshattering. (If they are powergaming, they picked the earthshattering powers with the main class picks.) Now, if someone wants to use main class picks to get even more second class powers, charge them feats. Do the same for someone wanting to dabble in a third class. In effect, the whole thing would be kind of like a low-grade, 3.5 gestalt, which is what the paragon path and epic destiny are.

My guess is that the reason this wasn't done is because it increased the number of encounter and daily powers to the point where the game would (theoretically or from playtesting) bog down. Since our group wasn't having any problem with 3E/AE gestalt, I think it would work pretty well for us.

 

[Voadam]

IMHO, the 4E version of healing is superior for the simple reason that even if you concede that 3E healing had more flavor (or "logic"), then it still remains that it is far easier to change the flavor of 4E healing than it is to change the mechanics of 3E healing. This is especially true for gamers that might not have much experience with house rules. I mean, how hard is this to do:

"All healing surges must have a power source, whether second wind, a combat power, or whatever. No more free use of healing surges during rests. Most healing stems from magic supplied from outside the body, but there is (still) only so much a person can take in a day."

Then introduce a few items or whatever to allow healing surges during rest, at a cost. You can even introduce a different kind of CLW wands, if you want (one that doesn't count as magic item use per day, since the surge is what is paid). Me, if I wanted this, I'd probably use a ritual, with a low (but real) cost in time and components, with levels at 1st, 11th, and 21st (thus needing to upgrade at each tier). Then make it work on people in a small radius. Bam, done--you have a logical method for why magic is needed for healing. You might even have people toughing it out on that last surge or two, on the grounds that no one else needed healing.

How hard is it to add in healing surges to 3e?

Second wind and healing surges per day for out of combat nonmagical healing are easy to add and "Bam, done" CLW wands replaced for out of combat healing.

Its what I'm trying in my new campaign and I don't anticipate any problems or hiccups.

 

[Runestar]

I am still not convinced that ready access to healing is a problem. I mean - so what if you could easily convert gp to hp. Isn't that a good thing? You can easily exceed the 4-encounter/day limitation placed on you by the designers, and rest only when your party feels it is appropriate to rest.

Then there are other features, such as ghaele8 (as per the SS progression), or a binder binding buer (available at 5th lv with improved binding) which allow infinite healing.

What exactly is the point of controlling healing accessibility so tightly? The 4e healing surge mechanic seems more towards allowing non-clerics to boast that they too can heal on their own without having to rely on clerics, but I just find it irritating when the party defender runs out of surges after the 2nd or 3rd fight and the whole party has to stop, even though the controller still has all of his.

 

[garyh]

How hard is it to add in healing surges to 3e?

Second wind and healing surges per day for out of combat nonmagical healing are easy to add and "Bam, done" CLW wands replaced for out of combat healing.

Its what I'm trying in my new campaign and I don't anticipate any problems or hiccups.

Back when I was running a 3.5 game, I used reserve hitpoints from Unearthed Arcana. It worked a lot like healing surges do now, except there was NO way to access them during combat. Helped make the group having only a druid for healing work a lot better. Never used CLW wands.