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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aegeri" data-source="post: 5553660" data-attributes="member: 78116">In my mind, unquestionably yes. It really has done. You use the example of the PHB, but while there is stuff in there that was absurd broken or outright awful, there was so much good. We had one of the first non-cleric healer classes in 4E ever that was awesome (and still is) in the Warlord. We had fighters that weren't simply fodder and wizards/clerics were not gods. The game has expanded a lot since then adding in numerous other elements, with some pure crap (Beastmaster Rangers) but there was always gold to go with it (Like the brawler fighter).Like let's consider one of the most monumental and important books in terms for DMs last year: Monster Manual 3. There are 303 creatures in that book. There are seventy four monsters over level 21 in that book. That is just fantastic, because many of them aren't even elites and solos - plenty of good old fashioned standard monsters (albeit with awesome epic tier powers and tricks!). I have never said a bad word about this book just about everLet's look at the essentials monster vault. There are twelve monsters over level 21, out of three hundred and four monsters. Now that's just bad. This is an excellent book with fantastically designed monsters, yet it was immensely disappointing because of what it didn't include. Not even ancient dragons for gods sake - something that is iconic to the game. I can forgive it for this because I thought "Oh well next book will offer something and - " oh wait. The next book ALSO is ditching epic tier support again (as the book is explicitly for heroic and paragon tier). So once more something I should be excited for I am barely interested in. Despite the fact the preview was unequivocally awesome.How should that be possible? To have such a fantastic preview and yet not get me remotely excited about a DMs book full of great monsters? Oh, I know why - because it completely ditches an entire tier of the game well supported in every previous monster book. Thanks Wizards.Now let's consider Heroes of Shadow. I thought this book should have been great support for necrotic as a damage type. It added a mediocre striker class onto the pile of mediocre classes (Vampire - making it almost entirely devoid of options and on rails to add insult to injury), it added a decent striker in the Blackguard (who is pretty decent at what he does), one of the worst possible options in 4E in the Binder (who is worse in every way to a regular Warlock) and more options for wizards/clerics (who were SO lacking in them obviously). It did nothing for necrotic in terms of feat support, which is still a terrible damage type and added a bunch of feat cruft that nobody will ever take. Oh and reintroduced the concept of racial penalties into 4E: An awful design decision. So unlike previous books, I can certainly say there was way more bad than there was good in this - probably for the first time this edition. Then we get these themes. Now last year I remember being nothing but excited about Dark Sun. I devoured all information on the setting I could find and of everything I read, themes were the things I was most interested in. Mostly because I wondered if they would turn out really badly or not. As it was, I think themes were one of the best things added to 4E. I loved the concept and the mechanical effect was reasonably limited. Some exceptions, like most things in 4E exist. Like rangers whoring the 18-20 crit range of the Wilder theme with twin strike + interrupt attacks. Noble Adept was arguably one of the strongest themes as well, with its leader interrupt power that can apply to any roll. In general, they really hit the mark and successfully. There is no theme I can say is outright awful.Now we get these themes. Gutted and stripped down versions of the originals. I can say that the animal master is outright awful, one is frankly superior to any theme I can think of (even noble adept from DS won't compare to getting an entire classes awesome utility powers), another asks major questions about rules loopholes (getting the item and training it out - what happens to the item?) and another is actually okay (checking LFR, they have ruled that all alchemical items are common unless otherwise stated. I didn't know that, but it's a ruling I'm putting in my own games as well). I mean in terms of being thought out I just don't see the degree of balance and design in these compared to the DS themes whatsoever. Corner cases like Neonchameleon bought up with an avenger ranger (which isn't actually possible by default in DS, but some DMs DO allow divine options so is worth considering) do happen with DS themes. But there are some major imbalances that occur among a whole crapload of classes with one of these themes. Any defender would want shield. Any defender would like wizards escape. Any defender could use flight for an entire encounter + insubstantial (one of the later utility powers). Hell who couldn't use shield? Wizards escape? I can't think of any class that wouldn't mind having an ENTIRE classes utility powers to choose from, on top of getting +2 will and other benefits. The irony that Wizards get the least out of a theme that apparently suits them by fluff is just the icing on the cake here.In a long winded way, I do think quality is going down. Both in the range of options available - even in the really well designed monster vault products that completely decide that epic tier is no longer worth supporting. We are filling books with fluff and reducing meaningful crunch options. Anyone should have been able to point out obvious problems with some of these things before publication: The shades racial power. The order adepts ridiculous benefits compared to the three other themes presented. The binder being pretty much worthless in every conceivable way. Dragon is just laughable really compared to what it was - I mean do you have an argument to even offer against that statement?Quite frankly, I do believe the quality of the games design is going downhill now. Like there were always stupid things before essentials, but they were always put right alongside the damn GOOD things. Now we have the stupid things and none of the good things. That's the problem.I don't design this game. I just devote much of my free time to running 2 games that I vastly enjoy every week (adding a third soon I hope!). I wouldn't mind Wizards feeling like releasing epic monsters and a working monster builder at minimum was something worth doing. But that's just me. I mean, this is it now for me: I've bought ALL my expectations back to those two things. If Wizards can release some epic monsters (or adventures, as they've promised) in future and a monster builder that builds monsters, I will call it even.Is that so unreasonable to you? Is it unreasonable to anyone?</blockquote>

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