"Stuck" playing 4e (i.e. unwilling converts)

[Zustiur]

In the case of the player who prefers 3rd Edition wizards, the itch he's looking for is character customization. Pre-3rd Edition, wizards were basically the customizable classes. 3rd Edition opened up the customization of other classes, but lots of old school wizard players just kept right on playing wizards (which remained the most customizable class -- particularly in terms of their ability to customize to different situations on different days).

Quoted for those who've run off at a tangent. At no point did BotE say that the customization was in choosing what spells you learned. The wizard/mage was the customizable class, when compared with other classes of the same edition.

One of my personal bugaboos is the relationship between the game world and the game rules. My preference is for all action to be born out of the game world. I "translate" that action into the system and use the system to resolve the action. I want the mechanical aspects of the system to be smooth, effective, accurate, and fun -- but I still consider them to be in service to the world and not vice versa.

4th Edition not only turns that on its head, it frequently says, " the game world. The game world doesn't matter. The mechanics do what the mechanics do."

XP for BotE there. This sums up exactly how I feel about the rules. DnD is essentially about telling stories. The rules are there to help tell the story. Not to over-ride the story. 4E gets this very wrong. This is one of the points where 'board gamey' or 'computer gamey' comes in, because the rules are more important than the story, just as in any board game.

 

[AllisterH]

What I actually said is that 3rd Edition nerfed a lot of spells. Which is true.



When did stone shape or wish become evocation spells? (To name two off the top of my head.)

But, sure. Other than all the ways in which their powers were nerfed, wizards weren't nerfed. You've formed a beautiful tautology there.

How did Wish get nerfed in 3E? The 1e/2e version was only castable by humans and had serious drawbacks of namely requiring bed rest for the better part of a week and aged you permanently 5 years. The 3e version only loses 5000xp which can be presumably gotten back by adventuring....

Similarly, the Stone Shape spell in 2e had a 1 round casting time (is a std action in 3e), was a 5th level spell for wizards (became 4th level for wizards in 3e) and affected only 9 cu ft +1 cu ft/level (the 3.x version starts at 10 cu ft + 1 cu ft/level)

How is that spell nerfed in 3e

You have an interesting definition of the word "only". How many abilities of the 2nd Edition fighter were customizable? How many of those could be re-customized each day?

And yet you claim that the wizard wasn't the class people played when they wanted to customize their character.

Compared to the 3e version? I thought the argument was that the 2e version was as customizable as the swiss army knife version that the 3E wizard was.

This I disagree with. A wizard in previous editions would rarely have the best spells for the job and even if they did have them memorized, they would think long and hard about using them. (with no wand of Knock, are you really going to use up your 2nd level slots for that spell or are you going to let the thief handle it?)

re: Zustiur

I simply take issue with the idea that the 3e wizard is simply the evolution of the 1e/2e wizard. I think it's an entirely new class along the lines of the warlord since every subsystem that kept it in check was done away.

Many of the arguments against the 4e wizard DO come down to simply it not being as powerful/versatile as the 3E wizard. My point, which I think you ignored, is that the 3E wizard itself was an entirely new class to the game when compared to its predecessors.

 

[Thistonius]

Wouldn't it be better to just say that some people prefer 4th ed than 3rd ed without going into how a class is compared to other classes of an earlier version?

To me, the OP was starting a fire-lighter topic which would set this off as an Edition war disguised as one of their plsyer's feelings to his class.

Both editions have their fans whilst having their haters as well.

 

[Obryn]

What the heck are you talking about?

(1) Even in the most restricted game, the player still gets to choose at least one spell at every level. That's far more options than the fighter had in pre-3rd edition rulesets.

(2) The number of spells a wizard had in their spellbook was always, IME, significantly larger than the number of spells they could cast per day. This meant that, on any given day, the wizard was able to customize their spell selection.

Technically, in 1e, you do all of the following as a 1st-level Wizard:

(1) Look up your Intelligence score. Find your % to Know chance.

(2) Go through the entire list of 1st-level spells, starting wherever you'd like. If you succeed, you may know this spell. If you fail, can never know this spell, unless (IIRC) your Intelligence increases or you do your own spell research.

(3) If you've hit your Max # of Spells per Level, stop. You're done, until your Intelligence increases. Those are the spells you can learn. If you are lucky enough to find scrolls with these spells, you can add them to your spellbook.

(4) If you have finished the entire list and have not hit your Minimum # of Spells Per Level, go back through and re-check spells until you reach the Minimum #.

Repeat this every time you attain a new level of spells. Or, just go through the whole spell list up to level 9 when you make the character. It'll work out the same, either way.

Now, with that said, very few people actually did this. I know I'm not, in my own 1e game. It's one of those many cases where the 1e rules are fundamentally different from the way 1e was played. But, that might be what AllisterH was referring to.

-O

 

[Rel]

DnD is essentially about telling stories. The rules are there to help tell the story. Not to over-ride the story. 4E gets this very wrong. This is one of the points where 'board gamey' or 'computer gamey' comes in, because the rules are more important than the story, just as in any board game.

Can you explain this to me? I don't get it.

I'm planning a new campaign for 4e and I don't feel my storytelling options are reduced in any way from previous editions. What am I missing?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why? Were magic items impossible to buy or make?

1) Almost nobody in our group bothers with the Item Crafting Feats. Those that did weren't making wands.

2) Magic shops exist, but they don't have everything.

 

[Herschel]

DnD is essentially about telling stories. The rules are there to help tell the story. Not to over-ride the story. 3E gets this very wrong. This is one of the points where 'board gamey' or 'computer gamey' comes in, because the rules are more important than the story, just as in any board game.

Fixed that for you. 3E was FAR more rules-intensive than 4E and virtually everything had a roll based on specific skills or tables.

 

[AllisterH]

1) Almost nobody in our group bothers with the Item Crafting Feats. Those that did weren't making wands.

2) Magic shops exist, but they don't have everything.

Not even the scrolls? Surely the players realized how cost-effective/cheap magical items could be especially given the spells that exist at a low level but are useful across all levels?

Not (ab)using the item creation system cuts down the power of a 3e wizard in a significant manner...Explains partly why your wizards might not have been as overpowering.

 

[Beginning of the End]

How did Wish get nerfed in 3E? The 1e/2e version was only castable by humans and had serious drawbacks of namely requiring bed rest for the better part of a week and aged you permanently 5 years. The 3e version only loses 5000xp which can be presumably gotten back by adventuring....

Yeah, but look at the actual power of the spell: In 3rd Edition the scope of a wish spell is severely limited. In 2nd Edition, a wish could literally do anything (albeit with the risk of DM word-twisting).

Many of the things that a 3rd Edition wish spell can do (requiring 5000 XP) can actually be done with a 2nd Edition wish spell with no penalty at all. 2nd Edition PHB, pg. 197: "If it is used to alter reality with respect to damage sustained by a party, or to bring a dead creature to life, or to escape from a difficult situation by lifting the spellcaster (and his party) from one place to another, it will not cause the wizard any disability."

And 2nd Edition wish and limited wish spells had no casting time. It was the equivalent of a free action.

Similarly, the Stone Shape spell in 2e had a 1 round casting time (is a std action in 3e), was a 5th level spell for wizards (became 4th level for wizards in 3e) and affected only 9 cu ft +1 cu ft/level (the 3.x version starts at 10 cu ft + 1 cu ft/level)

This is somewhat my fault. I meant to top stoneskin, but apparently my fingers had other ideas.

Compared to the 3e version? I thought the argument was that the 2e version was as customizable as the swiss army knife version that the 3E wizard was.

Which is odd, because that's not what I said. In fact, I've made a point of reiterating what I said several times and you're still getting it wrong.

You've misread and misrepresented other people's posts several times in this thread now. I think it would behoove you to actually slow down and read the posts you're trying to respond to. Your penchant for miscommunication is not serving you or the discussion.

(with no wand of Knock, are you really going to use up your 2nd level slots for that spell or are you going to let the thief handle it?)

Wands are not cheap. The XP cost if you're creating scrolls and wands for yourself actually becomes significant very quickly. (I've got a wizard in my current campaign who does it. It helps a lot... but it also means that he's already a full level behind the other PCs. That's a meaningful trade-off.)

I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark here and guess that your 3rd Edition campaigns got rid of the XP penalty for crafting magic items. I know that's popular, but it does have a rather huge impact on game balance.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Can you explain this to me? I don't get it.

I'm planning a new campaign for 4e and I don't feel my storytelling options are reduced in any way from previous editions. What am I missing?

If you don't get it after I've explained it to you, then you're probably not going to get it.

4th Edition dissociates the game mechanics from the game world. For those of us who believe that character and story arise from the game world, this dissociation is poisonous.

I became particularly aware of the distinction when I tried DMing 4th Edition for players who had never played roleplaying games before. These new players, like many I'd played with in other games before, really glommed onto the concept of roleplaying -- they didn't have much mastery of the rules, but they knew what they wanted their characters to do.

It was easy to DM for these types of players in 3rd Edition: They told you what they wanted to do in real world terms, you used your mastery of the game system to translate that into mechanical terms and told them how to resolve it, and play continued.

But with 4th Edition, this glitched up. And it glitched up for a couple of reasons: First, the mechanics of 4th Edition frequently don't model the game world -- so translating what they want to do into game mechanics is either difficult or impossible. Second, the system is mechanically balanced in a way that has little to do with the game world. If you don't play the mechanics in an optimized way your character will be significantly disadvantaged.

Example: The difference between a fighter's cleave and reaping strike abilities. The advantages and disadvantages of these abilities have nothing to do with the reality of the game world and everything to do with the game mechanics.

The distinction is significant if you care about it. (And, for me, it's basically the entire reason I play roleplaying games. So it's pretty frickin' significant.) If you don't care about it, it's apparently very easy to not even understand what we're talking about.