D&D 4E The Dispensible 4E

[Steely_Dan]

1) You missed the utility powers. Which still means that it leaves 3.X in the dust where it was spells and a much worse skill system.

2) D&D has never had many good non-combat rules (the Wilderness Survival Guide being the arguable exception). 4e is less bad than previous editions.

1) Not to me, I find Utility Powers (and powers in general) to be trite and clunky. And the Skill system was not much worse, just different.

2) Yes it has, IME, 4th Ed is not as good as previous editions, IME.

 

[Arlough]

Okay, so now we know (again) that 4e is liked by some and disliked by others.
But the topic here is, if I may paraphrase, what is to be heralded as a success of 4e, and what needs revising and reevaluating in 4e?
What are the lessons learned that would help make 5e the game for you?

I've already stated that I like healing surges, but wish they were called something else, and were used in more interesting ways.

Many people don't like powers, with justifications ranging from "they are fighter spells" to "they aren't vancian enough."

While other people will argue the merits/flaws inherent in a grid based tactical system. (Though, quite frankly, most of the time I don't see people taking advantage of the tactical options, so I don't see why this would be a point of contention.)

Let's keep the thread on topic, guys. If you want battle it out over which is cooler, not only are there (statistically speaking) always at least 3 threads out there that are exactly on that topic, but you also have the option of starting one of your own at any time.

Thanks,
Arlough

 

[Gryph]

Played and DM'd 4e from Jan of 2009 until Jan of this year (we're on hiatus because my co-DM and I both had children in this winter).

Things I didn't like in 4e and would like to see disappear in Next:

The vast array of finicky, short duration penalties and bonuses. Way to many attack rolls devloved into "25 against AC", "Misses", "Did you remember the +2 to attack from my last hit?", "No, that's a 27", "Still misses", "Wait he was dazed too, right. That means I have CA so 29 vs AC", "Ok that hits". Happens way too often.

In a similar vein because it also slows down the action, off turn attacks. In concept, the off-turn attack is kind of cool and at low levels when they are still fairly infrequent we liked them. By late heroic and paragon they are just too readily available. I've had rounds as a Warlord where one of my dailies triggered a slew of free action attacks from the rest of the party, by the time they were resolved, I damn near forgot I had a move action, minor action and a follow up attack from the daily left myself. The DM did forget where we were in the initiative order.

I hate superior weapons and implements with the burning intensity of a thousand dying suns. (Over the top exageration for effect. In reality, I just think they are silly and slightly stupid. Superior weapons are Shire Hobbits without the good beer.)

In tone, I would like the rules to better support a Swords and Sorcery style of game over a High or Epic Fantasy style of game. The whole kit and kaboodle of feats, paragon paths, and epic destinies is great for evoking high fantasy, which sometimes I prefer, not so great for a grittier style.

If Next gets the system so that the math works if character building options are restricted to simply race/class, I think I will get my wish for an easy switch to flip between S&S and High Fantasy.

 

[WarlockLord]

I don't feel like messing with quote tags, so I'll reply to Neonchameleon here.

2e Monks: Complete Book of Priests. Hey, it's no more core than Heroes of Shadow, despite what the 4e developers would have you believe. And you have basically proven that to equal the 3.5 core books, I need to get the PHB, PHBII, and Heroes of Shadow.

As for warlord, refluff a cleric with bless, prayer, and the rest. Boom. Instant warlord. Warlock could seriously just be a sorceror with the word "warlock" on his character sheet. And this is just in 3.5 core, while you're going dumpster diving through an ungodly mix of Essentials and PHB2. You want to tell me you're limiting your feats for your necromancer to the PHB and HoS?

And it seriously took us 2 years to get a lightly armored spear fighter.


As for the ocean god, where is my cleric who can use ice or water powers? I see the power system shoehorning in holy lasers, but I don't see any ice powers I can use while also healing people.

Oh, and that gnome feat was good back in the day before they hit it with the nerf stick. But as that seems to be the core of 4e errata, while allowing Hurricane of Blades to survive playtesting...well, what can I say?

I also fail to see how 4e's skill system is noticably better than 3.5s. 4es DCs seriously scale with your PC's level, so you never actually get better at anything. Second, skill challenges. I need say no more.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't feel like messing with quote tags, so I'll reply to Neonchameleon here.

2e Monks: Complete Book of Priests.

As I understand it that monk is a caster who can use fists to fight. That's not a monk. It's a caster. None of the stuff that makes the monk other than a fighter. No wire fu at all or monk disciplines.

That's even more of a fail trying to be a monk than needing to be level six to handle poisons without poisoning yourself is for a "poisoner" or being a "shapeshifter" and being unable to shapeshift for the first four levels.

When 4e does a concept, it almost always does it well (Necromancer, Binder, oAssassin I'm looking at you). You can shapeshift from Level 1 as a PHB2 druid. And aren't then the D part of CoDzilla, putting fighters to shame with your raw power and your animal companion. (Unless you're going for a world-specific book in Eberron and the Changeling to Warshaper). It took a while to get a decent poisoner but when it did it the Executioner poisons well and works from level 1, rather than from a prestige class.

As for warlord, refluff a cleric with bless, prayer, and the rest. Boom. Instant warlord.

Um... no. Spellcaster. Who has to pray for an hour a day.

You'd have done much, much better to claim the bard.

And it seriously took us 2 years to get a lightly armored spear fighter.

Are you cherry picking my post? The lightly armoured spear fighter is good out of the PHB. And I said this. The prerequisite for Rain of Blows being a monstrous power is Dex 15 and wielding a light blade, spear, or flail. Dex 15 at level 3 is almost high enough to encourage light armour - certainly enough to make it viable. At Paragon you add Silverstep as an encounter power.

The lightly armoured spear fighter was not only viable from the PHB, it was one of the builds they nerfed - you simply lack the system mastery to make it work. It's also swarming the CharOp boards these days for other reasons to the point that I consider saying it's missing to be weird.

As for the ocean god, where is my cleric who can use ice or water powers? I see the power system shoehorning in holy lasers, but I don't see any ice powers I can use while also healing people.

And yet you're happy claiming a warlord is a cleric. Double standards. If you want to be able to use icy powers and to heal, there are several ways including multiclass feats - Shaman being one obvious one.

Oh, and that gnome feat was good back in the day before they hit it with the nerf stick.

No it wasn't. It hasn't been hit by a nerf stick ever as far as I know. It looked good back in the day, but the objections I've raised applied back then other than that they improved the expertise feats to make it comparatively even worse.

I also fail to see how 4e's skill system is noticably better than 3.5s. 4es DCs seriously scale with your PC's level, so you never actually get better at anything. Second, skill challenges. I need say no more.

And now you misunderstand the 4e skill system (which, to be fair, a few of the writers for Dragon magazine also have). Difficulties scale with level of challenge which normally scales with level of party. The difficulty to jump a gap for instance is an absolute number. As should any given feat under the same conditions be. (The difficulty to pick a lock is meant to be based on the level of the lock, not that of the PC - it's simply that normally when you want to pick a lock it's in an area of about your level).

As for skill challenges, they are a DM tool. And work that way. When they fail is when people just say "I roll diplomacy". In my experience, skill challenges actually work pretty well as long as you don't mention to the PCs that's what you are doing behind the screen.

As for the 3.5 skill system, that was grounds for massive incompetence. Because the skills existed and you never got better at most of them they pointed out where you sucked and what it wasn't worth you attempting to do. And then it made the fighter pretty incompetent (the 4e one isn't that skilled - but when he has at least a rising baseline competence from experience, and can take climb, jump, and swim with the same skill choice he's a lot more versatile)

 

[WarlockLord]

As I understand it that monk is a caster who can use fists to fight. That's not a monk. It's a caster. None of the stuff that makes the monk other than a fighter. No wire fu at all or monk disciplines.

That's even more of a fail trying to be a monk than needing to be level six to handle poisons without poisoning yourself is for a "poisoner" or being a "shapeshifter" and being unable to shapeshift for the first four levels.

Because dimension door is totally a nonmagical fighter power...oh, no, wait.

When 4e does a concept, it almost always does it well (Necromancer, Binder, oAssassin I'm looking at you). You can shapeshift from Level 1 as a PHB2 druid. And aren't then the D part of CoDzilla, putting fighters to shame with your raw power and your animal companion. (Unless you're going for a world-specific book in Eberron and the Changeling to Warshaper). It took a while to get a decent poisoner but when it did it the Executioner poisons well and works from level 1, rather than from a prestige class.

PHB1 warlock would like a talk with you - half it's powers were unusable and it didn't deal striker level damage. As would PHB1 cleric, although it did get some good stuff. The system didn't really support much on release, unlike 3.5. The image line of spells are gone, making illusionist kinda blah. Fighter has less options than 3.5, as all the options are "I hit them harder" or "I upgrade a power from another level".

Also the executioner is pretty damn bad conceptually, because chemical reactions only occur once per day. You know, it makes sense.

Um... no. Spellcaster. Who has to pray for an hour a day.

You'd have done much, much better to claim the bard.

What? Are you serious? The warlord's entire schtick is that he inspires his allies to fight better. You could pack bless (morale effect), refluff cure light wounds to yell super loud, remove fear (duh) and if warlord allows intimidating people, you've got doom and cause fear. Refluff the prayer to "reading inspirational books" or some crap and boom, warlord.

Are you cherry picking my post? The lightly armoured spear fighter is good out of the PHB. And I said this. The prerequisite for Rain of Blows being a monstrous power is Dex 15 and wielding a light blade, spear, or flail. Dex 15 at level 3 is almost high enough to encourage light armour - certainly enough to make it viable. At Paragon you add Silverstep as an encounter power.

The lightly armoured spear fighter was not only viable from the PHB, it was one of the builds they nerfed - you simply lack the system mastery to make it work. It's also swarming the CharOp boards these days for other reasons to the point that I consider saying it's missing to be weird.

Sure, fine, whatever. I read slayer and thought non-PHB.

And yet you're happy claiming a warlord is a cleric. Double standards. If you want to be able to use icy powers and to heal, there are several ways including multiclass feats - Shaman being one obvious one.

Sure, fine, whatever.

No it wasn't. It hasn't been hit by a nerf stick ever as far as I know. It looked good back in the day, but the objections I've raised applied back then other than that they improved the expertise feats to make it comparatively even worse.

It was. It used to stack with expertise.

And now you misunderstand the 4e skill system (which, to be fair, a few of the writers for Dragon magazine also have). Difficulties scale with level of challenge which normally scales with level of party. The difficulty to jump a gap for instance is an absolute number. As should any given feat under the same conditions be. (The difficulty to pick a lock is meant to be based on the level of the lock, not that of the PC - it's simply that normally when you want to pick a lock it's in an area of about your level).

Ok, so we're playing Oblivion with that stupid level scaling mechanic now. Especially when the monsters use the same fireball animation for more damage and a similar effect. Cool.

As for skill challenges, they are a DM tool. And work that way. When they fail is when people just say "I roll diplomacy". In my experience, skill challenges actually work pretty well as long as you don't mention to the PCs that's what you are doing behind the screen.

As for the 3.5 skill system, that was grounds for massive incompetence. Because the skills existed and you never got better at most of them they pointed out where you sucked and what it wasn't worth you attempting to do. And then it made the fighter pretty incompetent (the 4e one isn't that skilled - but when he has at least a rising baseline competence from experience, and can take climb, jump, and swim with the same skill choice he's a lot more versatile)

Wait - the lack of skills is what doomed the 3e fighter? When the hell did anyone care about skills in 3e (besides UMD, knowledge,diplomacy, and a few others))? After about level 6-9 you can seriously fly all the time and don't care about climbing or jumping unless you're leap attack charging people. By contrast, 4e is seriously "you don't get comparatively better, because we don't allow for real advancement."

 

[FireLance]

I personally think that some of the issues mentioned, e.g. large numbers of fiddly conditions, could be fixed with good encounter design.

One thing about 4e that bugs me that I can think of offhand is the discrepancy between the PCs' best and worst defense. Either the gap needs to be closer, or the monsters' attack bonus against non-AC defenses need to be scaled back somewhat so that PCs with high scores have an advantage, but PCs with low scores are not almost always hit.

 

[pemerton]

let's get rid of the millstones aka milestones round our necks.

Are you objecting to a "power up for pushing on" mechanic in general, or the details of milestone implementation? My group quite likes milestones, but I would agree that there could be other ways of doing something like it, including perhaps ways that were slightly more integrated into the way encounters are built and adjudicated (HeroQuest revised is a good example of this).

reduce out of sequence actions in combat. The number of reaction and interrupt actions gets crazy sometimes.

I see this quite a bit. Personally, though, I think out-of-sequence actions are crucial for breaking down the stop-motion feel that can otherwise arise. I wouldn't necessarily object to rolling OAs and interrupts together, however, and perhaps free actions and reactions. And then finding some other, more intuitive way, of regulating their frequency of use.

skill challenges. I need say no more.

Is the objection to extended contest mechanics in general, or to the particular way skill challenges implement this? I like extended contest mechanics. I think the skill challenge approach has some particular issues - because the players roll all the dice, the GM has to rely on narration alone to introduce adversity - but in my view it's by no means a bad system when used according to the stated rules (ie GM describes situation; player explains PC's action within that situation; GM declares mechanical means for adjudicating that action; mechanics are resolved; changed situation is described by GM; keep going until the scene closes when N success or 3 failures have arisen).

The 16 Str/16 Wis/16 con dwarf fighter with dwarven weapon training never had any problem being a strong build.

Agreed. The only PC with starting 20 in my game was the wizard, who in combat is the overall weakest PC. And the dwarven polearm fighter, who at start was 16 STR and CON WIS, but 15 WIS and 14 DEX (for polearm momentum) is one of the strongest.

 

[pemerton]

Fighter has less options than 3.5, as all the options are "I hit them harder" or "I upgrade a power from another level".

Huh? First level Cleave, Tide of Iron and Passing Attack. Third level Sweeping Blow. Seventh level Come and Get It. And these are just the ones I know because the fighter in the game I GM has (or has had) them (except Tide of Iron - he's a polearm fighter).

 

[WarlockLord]

First level 3e fighter can bull rush, trip, grapple, disarm, sunder, power attack, cleave. But people will inevitably bring up the difficulty using those untrained, so let's check out some other stuff.

But let's take an actual usuable build, shall we?
Human Fighter 6:
1ower Attack, Cleave, Improved Bull Rush
2:Combat Expertise
3:Improved Trip
4:Another feat
6:Shock Trooper

So this build gives us plenty of options. We can use power attack. We can use combat expertise. We can trip dudes. We can bull rush dudes forward or sideways if that's important for some weird reason. We can domino charge, tripping two dudes at once. We can hit guys super hard with our greatsword. We can charge and apply power attack penalties to our AC. If we're using more dumpster diving, we could tack on silly intimidate tricks. And we still have a feat to add more options. That's quite easily the equal of a 4e fighter, and if we start multiclassing we get even more options.

As for skill challenges, I believe even the devs admitted their implementation was terrible. And I don't know how many times those things have been revised.