D&D 4E What changes aren't being made in 4E that you think should be

[Cadfan]

Its not the fact that you expressed misgivings. Its the fact that you expressed particular misgivings which have a history on this forum of being the province of trolls, and you expressed them in a manner similar to the manner used by those trolls. Your comments about "Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing sub-culture of 3.x players that believe..." are particularly notable for being flame bait around here.

 

[Mort]

Funny, many if not most of the fixes I've seen have address serious problems with 3x, ymmv.
Regardles, just a thought, starting a post in this somewhat inflamatory mannor isn't going to get the best of responses.
QUOTE]

Why is expressing a misgiving about 4E inflammatory?

No problem with misgivings - saying I don't like changes x,y,z or wishing they would do x differently (For example, I personally have big misgivings about eliminating confirmation rolls)- that's what a public forum is for.

Saying - all changes being made are either unnecessary or easily houseruled- with no backup, that's inflamatory.

 

[WayneLigon]

I do not see this trend changing in 4E. If it does not, 4E will be no better than 3E for me and, in which case, I will not buy it. Period. Even if it means giving up RPG's altogether.

I would have preferred the True20 approach where you have 3 classes - expert, warrior, and adept (spellcaster). These broad class types could be developed to fit any archetype you wish.

I, too, would have preferred that approach or something very much like it.

However, if the idea of WoTC publishing lots of material and such is the stickler, you might want to just drop the hobby now since that's not going to change. The only reason we don't get as many books for, say, True20 or other games is not because they sit back and say 'Well, we're done; there's nothing more we can or should add to the rules', but rather they have much more limited resources. If Green Ronin or Chaosium was the size of WoTC you can bet we'd have a new Mutants and Masterminds book or Call of Cthulhu book most months out of the year. Neither of those veins are anywhere close to being tapped out.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I would have preferred the True20 approach where you have 3 classes - expert, warrior, and adept (spellcaster). These broad class types could be developed to fit any archetype you wish.

I think I'd rather have 15 well developed and well balanced classes than just three. Only three classes is too close to a pure point-buy character generation system for me, which generally I am not fond of. Those systems seem to promise an infinite number of classes, but you quickly realize that there are only a small number of "optimal" builds; and that everything else is sub-par. The appearance of "infinite class combos" is therefore an illusion, and the only real difference is that you lose out on the benefit of professional R&D and playtesters doing a lot of legwork figuring out what works and what doesn't. Legwork that otherwise you'd have to do yourself.

It's sort of like building a car. GM and Toyota have the engineering clout to build any car they could possibly dream up; but all of their cars end up being easily classified into a few categories, and which look exactly like the cars made by other companies (styling differences and options aside). This isn't a failure of imagination on their part, but rather a reflection of the fact that a pick-up truck is well designed to meet the needs of pick-up truck drivers. The "space" of actual needs is well explored, and really "new" designs, like minivans or SUV's only come along once every decade or so. Designing a class is much the same: everyone needs a Fighter, and they've done the same basic thing since the 1970's. There have been improvements in styling and design, but since the class fills a need, why not just write the class and save all the game's DM's and players a bunch of headaches?

As for people who want to play sub-par characters, well there's no rule that says that just because your character sheet says you can Sneak Attack that you have to use it. I actually know a guy who never uses his Sneak Attack because it's not "in character." He sucks during a fight, but he's OK with that. If you're OK with it to, go for it.

 

[Jayouzts]

No problem with misgivings - saying I don't like changes x,y,z or wishing they would do x differently (For example, I personally have big misgivings about eliminating confirmation rolls)- that's what a public forum is for.

Saying - all changes being made are either unnecessary or easily houseruled- with no backup, that's inflamatory.

Fair enough. I can provide examples of how I would houserule most of the changes worth making but was concerned about brevity.

For example, the most common problem I hear is that spellcasters run out of spells at lower levels. Unearthed Arcana provides Action Points, which can be used to recall a spell just cast.

As for unnecessary changes - take the new races and all of the fluff changes (the Points of Light). None of these sound bad, but why not create a new setting where halflings are river folk, dragonborn and tieflings are PC races, etc.

 

[Conjurer]

Anyone who thinks I run a substandard game if I don't allow drow (or any LA races, for that matter) can take a hike and find another game more to his liking elsewhere.

Then again, I've never actually met anybody who thought this way.

 

[Dormammu]

Who's forcing you to use all that extra material? Are you complaining that there are too many car types in the world as well?

The only problem with this reasoning is that a game designed for a lot of classes will have classes that are more limited in scope. Thus if you exclude some classes from your game, you exclude characters with those ability sets. A game with fewer, broader classes would encompass more concepts within a given class' ability set. Personally I'd prefer a compromise. Somewhere in the 12-15 class range is about where I top out on what I want. I think it's just personal preference for most people.

My vote for what hasn't been changed that should be is the built-in tactical wargaming. 3E really institutionalized what, to me, should be optional rules: miniatures-based tactical combat. I would remove all rules related to that from the main combat rules. No Attacks of Opportunity, no Feats that are purely related to tactical movement (like Spring Attack), etc. Either publish a separate supplement for tactical combat, or make it a chapter in the back of the book which is easily ignored.

Tactical wargaming is not role-playing. People who want the latter may or may not want the former and it shouldn't be built into the game as standard.

 

[Cadfan]

Anyone who thinks I run a substandard game if I don't allow drow (or any LA races, for that matter) can take a hike and find another game more to his liking elsewhere.

Then again, I've never actually met anybody who thought this way.

I've never thought poorly of a DM who didn't allow a race or class if that DM had a in-game reason for their decision.

I have thought poorly of one DM who didn't allow certain classes because they were, and I quote, "retarded."

 

[Doug McCrae]

I agree with you that the classes in D&D are bolluxed up. They more-or-less worked in OD&D which, like True20, has three classes with a fairly sensible division of labour. The problems arose with the OD&D splats which added a lot more classes that were subsequently incorporated into AD&D 1e. These problems have continued through to 3e. A lot of the new classes don't have a broad enough niche - the paladin and druid are too similar to the cleric - or any niche at all - the wizard can do everything the thief can but better.

Market pressures demand the printing of new classes (and spells, magic items, feats, monsters, etc) so we're never going to get away from that. But it seems 4e is doing a good job of taking the current classes apart and rebuilding them so they work. The prime example is the reduced power of the wizard.

 

[Mort]

Fair enough. I can provide examples of how I would houserule most of the changes worth making but was concerned about brevity.

For example, the most common problem I hear is that spellcasters run out of spells at lower levels. Unearthed Arcana provides Action Points, which can be used to recall a spell just cast.

The full problem is running out quickly at lower levels - and effectively not running out, at high levels. If you introduce a houserule that helps not run out at lower levels - then what about the fighter. Don't you then have to introduce something so he doesn't get overshadowed by the mage at lower levels (like he already does at high levels)? Then if you fix the fighter - what about the rogue? And on down until you realise maybe a revision couldn't hurt. For example they're introducing Bo9S like manuevers for fighters (but not as complex and with other modifications) a move I think will be a great idea.

As for unnecessary changes - take the new races and all of the fluff changes (the Points of Light). None of these sound bad, but why not create a new setting where halflings are river folk, dragonborn and tieflings are PC races, etc.

I agree with you on the races. I'm not a big fan of tieflings and why introduce a whole new race (dragonborn) when you have so many existing to choose from.

Points of Light - we'll see; it's actually a good model - just not to some people's taste.

As for creating a new setting - TSR had multiple "official" settings competing with each other with disastrous results - WoTC likely doesn't want to repeat that mistake.