D&D 4E What can change your opinion about 4E?

[Li Shenron]

Many people here probably know me as 4E hater and while I am so far pretty anti 4E is am not, like what most people probably think, fanatical meaning there are things which can change my opinion of 4E and I invite everyone else, no matter if he belongs to the pro, anti or wait and see camp, to also post what part of 4E will likely change their opinion of 4E (for good or worse) when it is done well or bad.

For me the primary thing is rituals. In my view they symbolize how combat focused 4E will be. If rituals are diverse, accessible for players and monsters alike, statted out as opposed to another reference to rule 0 "do whatever you want" and most importantly idependant from combat balance then I will likely change my opinion of 4E to "quite ok".

Another, but less important thing is how the game handles out of combat things. Here I don't want a abstract set of skill checks to solve any problem but rules how to handle common situations (and suggestions how to handle uncommon ones) but nothing more. The PCs and DM should decide when to use which rule and how the world reacts to what the PCs do.
The Escape from Sembia preview is exactly what I don't want (abstract rules of "making X rolls to succeed") but depending on how the final rules look like it can still become something I am neutral or only slightly negative about.

So as you see its very unlikely that I will become a big "pro 4E" guy, but depending on how the above rules will look I might play 4E regulary instead of buying the core books out of interest and then searching for another RPG to play.

So, what are your "critical rules" which will change your opinion 180° or will just tip you from "wait and see" into the pro or anti camp?.

Honestly, I think we're too far down the line and know too much about 4e to really change our opinions.

I am practically 50-50 about the new ruleset, and that I am quite sure I will remain when it comes out.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A name change would probably help, since I don't think it's very D&D-ish in feel.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

If the story on the joke at the expense of the Rose Theatre is true, it works both pro and anti 4E.)

 

[Imban]

A big - heck, probably the biggest - one is the multiclassing rules. If they're truly awesome, it might swing my opinion of 4e from "relatively anti" to "relatively pro" - I'm still going to need to work on a houseruled version to remove rules that annoy me for literally no gain, like 1-1-1-1 movement and square burst templates. On the other hand, if the multiclassing rules are as constraining as the Rogue class by itself felt without multiclassing, that's a pretty big dealbreaker, so much that I'd need to base my houseruled version on 3e then - the drawback of the multiclassing system being quite capable of producing characters who suck at everything is more than made up for by the multiclassing system being able to make nearly any sort of character you want.

On the other hand, if I find I have to houserule the majority of powers so that they make any kind of sense - "How are you inflicting a bleeding wound on a golem, again?" - that'll be a turnoff. I'm not sure of how big of one, though: if I'm already working on a houseruled version, it'll be the simplest thing to add keywords like "ongoing 5 bleeding damage" to Crimson Edge and note that (more or less) things which were immune to sneak attack in 3e are immune to bleeding damage in 4e.

 

[vagabundo]

I doubt I could be swayed now, I'm pro 4e, and I just had my first pre-playtest last night with return of the burning plague.

All the players loved it. They loved the powers, they lover that their 1st lv character were heroes. My little sis (23) never really gets that involved in the game with her character, she enjoys hanging out with us, I think. Last night was different she loved the Warlock and all the fluffy description of the powers. They're happy I'm happy, 4e does not interferer with my fun as a DM, I enjoyed the shift kobolds. We didn't get a whole lot more done than we normally would, but there was a lot more actions at the table and more interest from people around the table.

The only thing that could sway me about 4e is if they published the book with 200 blank pages.

 

[Roman]

Many people here probably know me as 4E hater and while I am so far pretty anti 4E is am not, like what most people probably think, fanatical meaning there are things which can change my opinion of 4E and I invite everyone else, no matter if he belongs to the pro, anti or wait and see camp, to also post what part of 4E will likely change their opinion of 4E (for good or worse) when it is done well or bad.

For me the primary thing is rituals. In my view they symbolize how combat focused 4E will be. If rituals are diverse, accessible for players and monsters alike, statted out as opposed to another reference to rule 0 "do whatever you want" and most importantly idependant from combat balance then I will likely change my opinion of 4E to "quite ok".

Another, but less important thing is how the game handles out of combat things. Here I don't want a abstract set of skill checks to solve any problem but rules how to handle common situations (and suggestions how to handle uncommon ones) but nothing more. The PCs and DM should decide when to use which rule and how the world reacts to what the PCs do.
The Escape from Sembia preview is exactly what I don't want (abstract rules of "making X rolls to succeed") but depending on how the final rules look like it can still become something I am neutral or only slightly negative about.

So as you see its very unlikely that I will become a big "pro 4E" guy, but depending on how the above rules will look I might play 4E regulary instead of buying the core books out of interest and then searching for another RPG to play.

So, what are your "critical rules" which will change your opinion 180° or will just tip you from "wait and see" into the pro or anti camp?.

Just like for you, rituals, if well implemented and well-defined/not left to rule 0, could indeed make a difference for me, especially if coupled with several other things I would like to see.

 

[qstor]

Fair enough. I suppose that explains why you are not happy with 4e.

But everything you like is stuff I have disliked or outrighted hated for the 20+ years I have been playing. For the first time ever, I feel like I can toss my house rules and actually play D&D by the book. And that has me incredibly excited.

Getting rid of the list cause you disliked it or outright hated it, like the Vancian magic systems means for 20+ years you've been playing a game that isn't D&D IMHO. But to each his own

There's another thread called 4e without the D&D moniker...I guess if they didnt' call it D&D, I'd be interested but most of game has been removed and replaced with at will, per encounter powers....

Now raise dead is gone and I still can't think of a game system where you get "healing" at the end of an encouter automatically without long term rest or PC/NPC actions. For the life of me I still I can't understand why the designers think ALL these changes are needed to make 3.5 a better system. Its more like they've gutted D&D and replaced it with 4e

Another thread calls it "anime"...that sounds more like it.

Mike

 

[UngeheuerLich]

For the life of me I still I can't understand why the designers think ALL these changes are needed to make 3.5 a better system. Its more like they've gutted D&D and replaced it with 4e

I think you missed the point...

3.5 was to make 3.0 a better system (and partially succeded). 4e IS a new System. To me it looks like an evolution of D&D (the change from 2nd edition to 3rd edition was bigger, but more subtle in a certain way...), just small fixes to 3.5 would not justify a name like 4th Edition.

 

[Monkey Boy]

What would change my mind regarding a switch to 4e?

Paizo coming on board and publishing a 4e adventure path. I don't really run DnD anymore I run Rise of the Rune Lords