What CAN'T you do with 4e?

[mattdm]

If the "woodsy" flavor is tied to the class, then no, fighter wouldn't work. And if it isn't, and I can play a "woodsy" fighter just as easily and just as well as a "woodsy" ranger, then one wonders what the point is of calling the ranger a ranger, and not "swashbuckling archer dude".

I'd see it as: there's a default woodsy flavor (similar to arugula, I suppose) to the ranger class, but that doesn't mean you can't build something similar another way. This is true in 3.5 as well — I had a rogue/ranger multiclass character I described as a "scout", and was a little surprised when someone expected me to rebuild it with the class actually named "scout" when that supplement came out.

But anyway, you've ignored the larger part of my post, which is that it seems the ranger class can actually do the spear thing just fine. And the other line too, about: if multiclassing helps get the character build you want, why start by ruling it out?

Admittedly the point about the fighter class being only a melee fighter is completely valid. I think they would have been better calling this class what it is: not the fighter, but the knight from 3.5 PHB2 with its paladiny shine buffed off.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I can't say I from my (and my groups) possible campaigns/character concepts we have seen anything that in 4e can't be handled.

Current Campaign Ideas:

-Artificial World, with lots of technology and various aberrations, reality warping.

-Celtic-esque world, with dreams influencing/warping the world as powered from the Feywild

-WW1-esque campaign with necromancy powering the technology (just as soon as PHB2 comes out, that is good as gold).

Character Ideas:

-Rogue who is trained in engineering, he uses his skills in engineering to sap buildings.

-Fighter who is a trained dancer and listens to music while fighting.

-Urban Ranger who is trying to bring the Feywild into the city.

Just a couple examples, of things currently in our minds for 4e, and so far nothing we have found doesn't work.

 

[Nellisir]

Okay, sure, if there was some joke, it went over my head. Sorry to give a serious answer.

Hrm. You're right, that wasn't a very fair retort on my part. I'll try to work out a marginally comprehensible response, though (let's be frank) I resorted to juvenile behavior last time because I couldn't.

First, I consider "optimal" to be a sort of pinnacle, whereas "effective" is a sort of middle ground, and the norm. An archer-ranger, or a twf ranger, is "effective", and with the right race and right feats and right skills, might even be "optimal" (though I think 4e has flattened the bell curve -alot-). Simply being able to hit a foe with a weapon is not "effective". It's a four-point scale: useless, ineffective, effective, optimal.

Second, you might be right. Maybe a (melee) spear wielding ranger is just as effective (or "optimal") as an archer or a twf ranger. I have not memorized the rules yet. Life is busy.

Third, the name/tltle "ranger" has certain meta-game connotations, just like "swashbuckler" and "paladin". In this case, those connotations are nature-oriented/wilderness warrior. Exploiting those connotations used to be the reason for playing a ranger, and that "flavor" was built into the class.
Now, while it looks like some of the flavor is still optional in the class, the main reason to choose a ranger isn't the meta-game connotations, but combat style. It doesn't matter if your character is nature-oriented or not; if you want to be a ranged attacker or a two-weapon fighter, you play a ranger. Dwarven artillerist? Ranger. Urban duelist? Ranger. Woodsman with an axe? Uh, fighter. Do fighters and rangers have the same starting skills?
I haven't examined the paladin; maybe the same thing has happened there. If you want to play a mounted knight, play a paladin without religion.

And 3e sucked at rangers too; I tend to forget that since I houseruled them. 1e wasn't bad, though. And 2e was decent, I think.

 

[Nellisir]

But anyway, you've ignored the larger part of my post, which is that it seems the ranger class can actually do the spear thing just fine. And the other line too, about: if multiclassing helps get the character build you want, why start by ruling it out?

Because I have a bias and I love it?

Seriously, because -from what little I know-, it looks like a suboptimal or less effective choice. It certainly seems to add a level of complexity. I'll have to look into it to really respond, though.

Admittedly the point about the fighter class being only a melee fighter is completely valid. I think they would have been better calling this class what it is: not the fighter, but the knight from 3.5 PHB2 with its paladiny shine buffed off.

I could live with that.

 

[SSquirrel]

I can't julienne vegetables worth a darn w/4E, 3E was much better for that!

 

[Lanefan]

Hmmm...what can't I do with 4e that earlier editions could do, that others haven't already mentioned?

Run a 10-year campaign. Admittedly, the jury's out on this one and will be for a while, but 3e was designed for short campaigns and did not handle long ones well without severe house-ruling...and 4e is designed for, if anything, slightly *shorter* campaigns than 3e. 2e was probably the best for this, or 1e with no ExP for gold.

Turn a giant into a goldfish.

Make that goldfish think it is swimming in a fishbowl.

Run a game that bases its physics and logic on the real world with magic tacked on. (examples: firecubes*, 1 h.p. minions, rules that change as soon as a PC shows up, diagonal movement, etc.)
* - and the 4e spell description even says it creates a *globe* of fire...

Hire a henchman or cohort and take it into the dungeon. Or find a familiar.

Hide the existence of certain magic items from my players, unless I want to rewrite the whole item list.

Make bad choices to build good characters, where "good" means fun, entertaining, and unpredictable.

Play the true archetypal adventuring party: the fellowship of the Ring.

Lanefan

 

[Khairn]

Hmmm...what can't I do with 4e that earlier editions could do, that others haven't already mentioned?

Run a 10-year campaign. Admittedly, the jury's out on this one and will be for a while, but 3e was designed for short campaigns and did not handle long ones well without severe house-ruling...and 4e is designed for, if anything, slightly *shorter* campaigns than 3e. 2e was probably the best for this, or 1e with no ExP for gold.

Turn a giant into a goldfish.

Make that goldfish think it is swimming in a fishbowl.

Run a game that bases its physics and logic on the real world with magic tacked on. (examples: firecubes*, 1 h.p. minions, rules that change as soon as a PC shows up, diagonal movement, etc.)
* - and the 4e spell description even says it creates a *globe* of fire...

Hire a henchman or cohort and take it into the dungeon. Or find a familiar.

Hide the existence of certain magic items from my players, unless I want to rewrite the whole item list.

Make bad choices to build good characters, where "good" means fun, entertaining, and unpredictable.

Play the true archetypal adventuring party: the fellowship of the Ring.

Lanefan

Well said!

It appears clear to many of us that 4E is a completely different game where a number of enjoyable classic D&D elements just aren't available. I'm not saying that 4E isn't a fun game, as many gamers clearly are having fun with it. But it simply doesn't provide many of us with the gaming options that we enjoy. And have enjoyed in earlier editions of D&D.

 

[charcoalninja]

nothing

I have yet to see a single thing 4E cannot do, or a game type 4E will not work for.

I realise there is an amount of jest in this thread, so I'm not going to talk about the missing druid, monk, etc.

But I don't understand how people can claim 4E restricts you to archtype. You want to play a dual weilding cleric? Take ranger base, multiclass into cleric, take a cleric paragon path or cleric instead of paragon path. Or just take the TWF feats, since your cleric will then be fighting with two weapons. To focus on other points mentioned in this thread:

When people say things like "play a spear wielding ranger" or other such class X doing Y they're really getting way too focused on semantics. You want to play a swashbuckler, they're not fighters. The characters are identical, but now rather than fighter written next to class you have ranger or rogue.

From what I've seen you can make pretty much any character you want aside from psionics, bards and such specifics because they just haven't been released yet, but they will be. You couldn't play a Psion in any edition of D&D with just the core. Though if you ONLY have the core it's very simple to alter wizard or warlock into having the flavor of a psion.

In terms of game styles 4E strikes me as being a very narrative based game. And thus since it is narrative based it can tell any story you want. If you want to roleplay rather than roll dice for your characters do so, the players can just say they take 10 on everything and you give them DC modifiers based on the roleplay. 4E doesn't stop that at all.

If you want to play mass combat, 4E I argue does it even better than any other D&D before it, since we now have minions and you can create an encounter with 20 odd minions for the PCs to fight. Mass combat in D&D worked as a movie spot light for the most part anyway as far as I remember.

People mentioned that 4E is built for one type of world, I don't agree at all with this, you can change anything about it, the fluff anything and it will work for your world.

Resource management can be achieved through a slew of 1/day magical items in your bag of holding that your character switches out based on the situation. Combine this with ritual scrolls and ritual magic and you can have your gadget master with an answer to any situation with ease.

All of the classes are ready to roll all day, they have a few special ubermoves but they can fight and do cool stuff all day long. They have more cool stuff to do at will than any edition before them as well.

Number crunching and adding bonuses and layering effects is the domain of wizards and leader classes, plenty to do there. You even get to layer effects like free attacks, there's armour debuffs for monsters, stunning and other effects that can overlap for great fun.

A mundanes game you could play by setting everyone's hp at their bloodied level for the first while. Boom, they're now peasants.

With the good vs good campaign, 4E has said that anything can be any alignment. So you can take any monster you want and have them good. In fact you have more freedom for good vs good than any other edition because there is no mechanical impact for alignment. Paladins don't fall for slapping bratty kids anymore so there's even more fun.

Different eras: 3E had one table in the DMG that listed some weapons damage. That's hardly anything you'd need for a future game. If you want a future game rename the weapons. Greatsword is lightsaber, longbow is blaster, etc. a few flavour changes and you've got your high tech world.

Magic universities are just as viable if not moreso than in other editions because you can, completely within the rules make up any ritual you want. Diviners are ritual magic casters, etc. Summoners and binders and necromancers will all be in a future suppliment but you could easily make them work with the core, again by using rituals and writing a few powers.

Planescape - 4E does this just fine, you're talking about a few flavour changes inherent to any campaign setting. Claiming you can't play Planescape in 4e is like claiming you can't play FR. You can do both just fine.

Gnomish inventions - Skill Challenges for building things, use non magical rituals for greater tech. Want to create a mech? Ritual: Mechwarrior construction. Takes 2 weeks, costs 2000g end result you get a mech you can use <insert mech stats>. The framework is there...

Magi-Tech - 4E does this better than any other edition ever because now all you need is money. people need a feat to be able to cast ritual magic, and now you can have people building floating cities, magical buttresses or whatever else you want without having to be epic level if you don't want them to be. Magi-tech, because of the core ritual system is completely and powerfully supported by the 4E core especially with Disenchanting and residium.

Considering I don't have the DMG handy, I can't comment on the castle arguement.

I could go on. I feel that 4E can more than handle anything you could come up with, with a minimum of effort. Of course though the farther you go from the type of game D&D is (heroic fantasy) the more work you yourself is going to need to do. Sci fi, mystery, horror, etc, all possible with the 4E mechanics, just take more and more work to do.

Just my take on it.

 

[drothgery]

Because I have a bias and I love it?

Seriously, because -from what little I know-, it looks like a suboptimal or less effective choice. It certainly seems to add a level of complexity. I'll have to look into it to really respond, though.

Seriously, there's no reason a TWF ranger can't use two spears. It's a one-handed weapon. I mean, some weapons may be a little better, but whatever...

 

[Toras]

Planescape - 4E does this just fine, you're talking about a few flavour changes inherent to any campaign setting. Claiming you can't play Planescape in 4e is like claiming you can't play FR. You can do both just fine.

Gnomish inventions - Skill Challenges for building things, use non magical rituals for greater tech. Want to create a mech? Ritual: Mechwarrior construction. Takes 2 weeks, costs 2000g end result you get a mech you can use <insert mech stats>. The framework is there...

Magi-Tech - 4E does this better than any other edition ever because now all you need is money. people need a feat to be able to cast ritual magic, and now you can have people building floating cities, magical buttresses or whatever else you want without having to be epic level if you don't want them to be. Magi-tech, because of the core ritual system is completely and powerfully supported by the 4E core especially with Disenchanting and residium.

Considering I don't have the DMG handy, I can't comment on the castle arguement.

I could go on. I feel that 4E can more than handle anything you could come up with, with a minimum of effort. Of course though the farther you go from the type of game D&D is (heroic fantasy) the more work you yourself is going to need to do. Sci fi, mystery, horror, etc, all possible with the 4E mechanics, just take more and more work to do.

As that is your take, I must ask that you defend it against my inquiry and counter arguement.

For magi-tech, while I agree some of the larger uses of magic like raising an island and a floating city would beg for a ritual, what about functions that require that the magic take less time to set than a mundane action or be inexpensive enough that it can be unbiquitous. I'm thinking if you were to play in a Netheral, Halraa, or Shade game. High magic empires, where its use is both easy and ubitiquitous. Where magic is highly understood and items would be required to function continously or many times per day. From what I've seen of 4e it doesn't handle that well, and perhaps I missed the many times a day part of the items a day rules.

For Gnomish Inventions, (Skill challenges? What skills, as it seems that 4e lacks it utterly and given the way that the skills system is set up, people of completely unappropriate backgrounds could attempt such a thing as well. More over this applies to any non-magical craft such as siege weapons or alchemical substances. The advantage is that anyone can do it, but the disadvantage is that anyone can do it. Can the characters build such weapons and hire crews to man them? Can they lure a dragon or another such creature into traps of their own design? Can they fortify their stronghold/homebase against attacks while they are away?

Finally Planescape, are you serious?
Alignment is easy enough to fix and adding a planar version of the Lore skill isn't that hard either. But my gods man, a thousand minor changes would have to be made. Everything planar gutted. Wide tracks of the monsters rewritten. All those non-combat abilities of monsters coming into play if you want to play one or ally yourself with one (not to mention trade with them). Baatzuu, Tanari, and Yugoloths, o my. Lack of shapeshift amongst celestials and fiends a problem. Heroes becoming demi-gods on something resembling a regular base and being generally more durable as impacts on the setting.