Gothmog
First Post
I watched his review, and I think he was pretty fair. For the record, I LOVE 4e, and loathed 3e, but he does bring up some good points. These same points that bugged him are things I have houseruled or just dropped from the game if I didn't like them. For example:
* I don't care for dragonborn or tieflings, so guess what? They aren't in my world. Problem solved.
* Lack of crafting/knowledge skills in the game. I simply re-added them in- no big deal.
However, there are some things he said that makes me wonder if he really has played much or read the book, such as:
* All character classes are the same. It might look that way reading the books and not playing, but its NOT at all true in my play experience. Even with just the core options, powers, and feats no two first level characters will be the same. By the time you get to 4th level, the differences are profound, and by 8th level (as far as we've gotten), I don't see how someone could say this. I actually saw a lot more "sameness" in 3e characters, since some feats and feat combos, and spells/buffs/magic items were clearly superior to others, and every single character took them for an "optimal build". The 4e powers are ALL good, so IME it tends to make more diverse characters with different powers and skillsets.
* All weapons are the same. Again, wrong. It looks like 4e took a page from WHFRP2 in this regard, which I think is a good thing. Weapons now have properties, such as high crit, reach, off-hand, heavy thrown, versatile, etc. Each of those properties makes weapons behave very differently to each other in practice. In 3e, the only difference in weapons was damage die, and crit range. Again, 4e wins on variety. I'd love to see more weapon properties added, similar to what was done in WHFRP2 (impact weapons, tiring weapons, etc).
* 4e isn't deadly. WHAT?!?!?! I don't think he's been playing the same game I have been. 4e is absolutely brutal, although it tends to shy away from 1 round kills as previous editions have. Yes, minions are weenies, and he's right in saying with classed/specialist role leaders with them, they can be extremely nasty. But wow, you get an equal number of classed opponents (brute, artillery, soldier, lurker, etc), and the PCs are in for a world of hurt. The number of fights PCs went down or died in 3e and previous editions was fairly small, but in 4e, pretty much every fight, even with good tactics, someone gets mauled and has to start making death saves. I've actually been able to cut loose and let the PCs have it in 4e, rather than having to hold back some like I did in previous editions. No handholding there.
Overall, I felt his review was mixed. Yep, 4e does a lot of truly great things that makes for a much better and more dynamic game, but it also lacks some things previous editions have had, since its so new and hasn't had time to grow and mature. With time, I think 4e will be by far the best version of D&D we've had, but for now it feels incomplete without some houserules or adding things back in. I agree with him though, I'd never go back to 3e/Pathfinder- I'd MUCH sooner go back to 2e or 1e.
* I don't care for dragonborn or tieflings, so guess what? They aren't in my world. Problem solved.
* Lack of crafting/knowledge skills in the game. I simply re-added them in- no big deal.
However, there are some things he said that makes me wonder if he really has played much or read the book, such as:
* All character classes are the same. It might look that way reading the books and not playing, but its NOT at all true in my play experience. Even with just the core options, powers, and feats no two first level characters will be the same. By the time you get to 4th level, the differences are profound, and by 8th level (as far as we've gotten), I don't see how someone could say this. I actually saw a lot more "sameness" in 3e characters, since some feats and feat combos, and spells/buffs/magic items were clearly superior to others, and every single character took them for an "optimal build". The 4e powers are ALL good, so IME it tends to make more diverse characters with different powers and skillsets.
* All weapons are the same. Again, wrong. It looks like 4e took a page from WHFRP2 in this regard, which I think is a good thing. Weapons now have properties, such as high crit, reach, off-hand, heavy thrown, versatile, etc. Each of those properties makes weapons behave very differently to each other in practice. In 3e, the only difference in weapons was damage die, and crit range. Again, 4e wins on variety. I'd love to see more weapon properties added, similar to what was done in WHFRP2 (impact weapons, tiring weapons, etc).
* 4e isn't deadly. WHAT?!?!?! I don't think he's been playing the same game I have been. 4e is absolutely brutal, although it tends to shy away from 1 round kills as previous editions have. Yes, minions are weenies, and he's right in saying with classed/specialist role leaders with them, they can be extremely nasty. But wow, you get an equal number of classed opponents (brute, artillery, soldier, lurker, etc), and the PCs are in for a world of hurt. The number of fights PCs went down or died in 3e and previous editions was fairly small, but in 4e, pretty much every fight, even with good tactics, someone gets mauled and has to start making death saves. I've actually been able to cut loose and let the PCs have it in 4e, rather than having to hold back some like I did in previous editions. No handholding there.
Overall, I felt his review was mixed. Yep, 4e does a lot of truly great things that makes for a much better and more dynamic game, but it also lacks some things previous editions have had, since its so new and hasn't had time to grow and mature. With time, I think 4e will be by far the best version of D&D we've had, but for now it feels incomplete without some houserules or adding things back in. I agree with him though, I'd never go back to 3e/Pathfinder- I'd MUCH sooner go back to 2e or 1e.
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