D&D 4E Revised 4E Wizard Class with Freeform Spellcasting System

[MwaO]

That's a stereotype of the guy who always plays the fighter, sure. But it's not every guy who ever plays a fighter.

But creating a simple (simply inferior) fighter 'for that guy' is like ...

...well stuff the CoC'd rather threads didn't drift into.


And fighter has consistently been the most popular class in the game - when it was hopeless back in the day, when it was OP, when it was complicated - it's just the class where most fantasy archetypes fall, especially the more relatable heroic archetypes.

The Fighter I described with a modified Twin Strike is basically functional and solid from levels 1-30. He's not going to be outstanding or broken, but there's nothing wrong with the concept. It will basically do vanilla Ranger damage+a little, but not have encounter/daily powers to boost things.

The stereotype is true enough that if you have this guy at the table and the choice is playing PF with him or 4e without him, and you're a home group, a lot of people will just go PF. Which is basically what happened given people who played Wizards were also problems.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The stereotype is true enough that if you have this guy at the table ...

Y'know, it's not as true as all that. I mean, I've seen the 'wake me when the fight starts' type, plenty of times, but they aren't always playing fighters, and I've seen plenty of people play fighters who didn't fit the stereotype. For that matter, the player in my old group who was closest to fitting the stereotype thoroughly enjoyed both his 3.5 leap-attack fighter, and his 4e greatweapon fighter (who would throw down Rain of Steel, C&GI, and Thicket of Blades with glee; and danced around using Footwork Lure) - and also played a Sorcerer at one point.

Interestingly, I didn't see the 'wake me when the fight starts' type among new players coming into 4e. I think it's in part of self-fulfilling expectation. Fighters in D&D have generally underperformed outside of combat and been fairly simplistic in the tactics you could use with them. Out of combat challenges prior to 3e were about wrangling with the DM, not the kind of thing new players would jump in to, and after that they were about skills that the fighter mostly sucked at. So if you go into the game wanting to play an archetype that the fighter is the only choice to represent, you have that experience of D&D as being about combat and not that terribly engaging combat beyond big numbers - so you either give up the archetypes and try other classes, give up D&D and try other games, fight the system the whole way, back out of the hobby entirely... or you start to look like the stereotype we're talking about.

 

[MwaO]

Right. But your group stayed in 4e — and your Fighter picked a more tactical feat chain choice for 3.5 than most.

I'm stating more of the extreme version, but it wasn't particularly complicated — some players don't like to do anything in combat other than roll to-hit+damage and 4e forced all of those players to do something other than just that. And some players want the option to short-circuit either combats or adventures, but not necessarily use them. And 4e forced those players to not have it as an option generally.

Have either of those players willing to blackball 4e or don't have a player in love with 4e at that table…not too hard to end up using PF...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Right. But your group stayed in 4e — and your Fighter picked a more tactical feat chain choice for 3.5 than most.

Leap Attack is a tactical feat chain?

I'm stating more of the extreme version, but it wasn't particularly complicated — some players don't like to do anything in combat other than roll to-hit+damage and 4e forced all of those players to do something other than just that.

While I admit I've seen players who resemble the 'wake me when the combat starts' paradigm, I've literally /never/ seen the player who just wants to roll hit & damage. Plenty who will limit themselves to that for various, sometimes passive-aggressive reasons, but none that are just happy as clams doing nothing else.

And, again, not everyone who wants to play an archetype covered by the fighter is one of those guys - even if they do exist.

And some players want the option to short-circuit either combats or adventures, but not necessarily use them. And 4e forced those players to not have it as an option generally.
Have either of those players willing to blackball 4e …not too hard to end up using PF...

Yeah, the greatest contribution players like that can make to any group is their absence.

 

[MwaO]

Leap Attack is a tactical feat chain?

Allows tactical movement in 3.5 — more options to pick who you attack = more options.

While I admit I've seen players who resemble the 'wake me when the combat starts' paradigm, I've literally /never/ seen the player who just wants to roll hit & damage. Plenty who will limit themselves to that for various, sometimes passive-aggressive reasons, but none that are just happy as clams doing nothing else.

At every other table of Living Greyhawk, I saw some variation of Barbarian 2/Fighter X, where the PC would repeatedly try to move in next to the nearest target and start power attacking away. They may have wanted to do more than roll to hit and do damage, but ultimately, that's all they were doing.

Yeah, the greatest contribution players like that can make to any group is their absence.

That's a real problem though when without their presence, the group doesn't have a quorum or that person is a best friend/SO of someone else and for whatever reason, they can't get dropped. If the choice is a big fight or playing a system everyone kind of agrees on, picking #2 is the easy choice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The point pen the plaintive cries for a simple fighter was never the option of a simple fighter for those who wanted to actually play one, but the removal of balanced options from the archetype. Note that essentials delivered the simple fighter to absolutely no effect, the edition war continued with extreme prejudice.

The fighter has always been the most popular class, because it's the most relatable, heroic, archetype. Making it a trap choice is thus key to over-rewarding system mastery, without simply everyone jumping on the best classes.

So, is the corollary that 4e was panned so much because (at least in PHB1/MP1 era) the Fighter was arguably the hottest class in the game?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm glad. One thing I noticed about roles was that they did have very different appeal.

Some strikers, like the Archer Ranger lent themselves to very simple, but, apparently, still fun, modes of play, while others could get a little more elaborate.

Controllers, OTOH were more involved, while Leaders invited you to pay careful attention to what your allies were doing, as well as managing your character.

Archer Ranger is actually an interesting case. It is possible to build and play it as a rather boring concept where you stand at the greatest range you can manage and stick things full of arrows as fast as possible (IE take as many off-turn attack powers as you can arrange, and any feats which let you amplify off-turn attack opportunities for example).

The OTHER way is I think what BA was trying to aim for. The guy who goes right into melee range and leverages his Prime Shot (suitably built up with feats) and various 'get out of jail free card' interrupts and whatnot to dodge around at close range wreaking havoc with a bow. This latter style of play is MUCH more interesting and less vanilla. Its still a relatively simple build that uses a fairly restricted set of powers, but it can be pretty interesting to play.

Edit: And let me note, I don't believe any 2-page class version is going to encompass all these options very well. It might actually do rangers OK, but even they will lose a lot of interesting stuff.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. But your group stayed in 4e — and your Fighter picked a more tactical feat chain choice for 3.5 than most.

I'm stating more of the extreme version, but it wasn't particularly complicated — some players don't like to do anything in combat other than roll to-hit+damage and 4e forced all of those players to do something other than just that. And some players want the option to short-circuit either combats or adventures, but not necessarily use them. And 4e forced those players to not have it as an option generally.

Have either of those players willing to blackball 4e or don't have a player in love with 4e at that table…not too hard to end up using PF...

Well, one thing is pretty true. A LOT of long-time D&D players are poor tacticians, in an absolute sense. Other editions pretty much make the game about some form of cleverness, either in terms of gaming the build rules, or in terms of exploiting, or at least knowing well, the spell lists. The tactics that do exist are relatively obvious ones (focus fire, get surprise, use terrain to make it impossible for the other guy to attack you while you shoot him with a bow, etc.).

So, a LOT of players found when they got to 4e that it was HARD to do well in fights. I know from my campaigns with players who mostly came from 3.x and 2.x that they didn't grasp how to coordinate their attacks well, nor understand what exactly a defender was for, etc. True 4e-style cooperation took a while to get figured out, like the first 5-8 levels of play usually. If you weren't 'into it' or got easily frustrated or were impatient, then it was likely you'd go elsewhere.

Newbies had no preconceptions and just played. Either they did or didn't learn the tactics they needed, and it was all the same to them!

Coupled with the loss of all their accumulated guru wisdom about how to game 3.x a lot of 4e hate was just sour grapes.

 

[MwaO]

So, a LOT of players found when they got to 4e that it was HARD to do well in fights. I know from my campaigns with players who mostly came from 3.x and 2.x that they didn't grasp how to coordinate their attacks well, nor understand what exactly a defender was for, etc. True 4e-style cooperation took a while to get figured out, like the first 5-8 levels of play usually. If you weren't 'into it' or got easily frustrated or were impatient, then it was likely you'd go elsewhere.

Newbies had no preconceptions and just played. Either they did or didn't learn the tactics they needed, and it was all the same to them!

Coupled with the loss of all their accumulated guru wisdom about how to game 3.x a lot of 4e hate was just sour grapes.

Yup. Think one of my best early decisions was building a strange Charisma-based Half-Elf Fighter that I played in LFR from levels 1-10. Build looked kind of like this:
1: Soldier of Faith, 2: Melee Training, 4: Novice Power: Valorous Smite

So basically, I'd Divine challenge one target and try to charge another one that would end up with me being next to both targets. My level 3 power was Shield Edge Block, so if either of them tried to hit me, I'd likely negate their attack and maybe get a swing back.

Very early on in the game, I was doing a metric ton of multi-marking and establishing catch-22s. It taught me a lot about positioning and how to control the flow of battle without having apparent options to just wipe things out. I noticed the advantages of charging for an MBA build. Etc...and it was really interesting at random LFR tables to explain what I was.

And that then played out in how I approached builds. Worked out well.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, is the corollary that 4e was panned so much because (at least in PHB1/MP1 era) the Fighter was arguably the hottest class in the game?

Until Essentials lobotomized it and started heaping power(s) on the wizard, the fighter was the numerically best-supported class in the game. And, fighter-type archetypes also got more classes to choose from, with the de-magicking of the Ranger and the addition of the Warlord.

So, yes, unequivocally so.