D&D 4E What Doesn't 4E Do Well?

[KarinsDad]

"Wow! This feat SO matches my character concept. Too bad I didn't know at level 1 that it existed and that I needed a 15 Dex to get it."

Like many RPGs, there is now so much material for 4E (after only 1.5 years) that my players feel inundated.

The other side of this coin is that players now feel that they must at least partially design their PC to mid-Paragon from day one, just so that they don't screw themself out of something they want later on.

Without the software tools, people would be really hosed here. I just re-organized my books the other day and noticed that I now have 20 hard back 4E books. 20! That's a huge number of RPG books. I don't think 1E or 2E put 20 books out total each. And this is just in 1.5 years. What will it be like 5 years from now, even it it all goes totally online or electronic??? It will probably be a massive amount of material that even many of the hard core gamers here on the forums will be totally swamped by, let alone their players.

 

[Garthanos]

I know they wanted fighters to be more interesting, but they really threw out the baby with the bathwater when they decided to eliminate it altogether?

I probably wouldnt have come back to playing D&D if
"I hit it with my sword" repeated ad infinitum was a
good and supported option --- snooze.

 

[Infiniti2000]

1. The way magic items are hard baked into the system. They are absolutely necessary and integral to a PC's power in a way that has never before been done in D&D, and I hate that because I've never been a DM who enjoys kitting out the PCs' paper dolls. I'm much more about fewer, cooler magic items.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are rules in 4E that LIMIT magic item use to a PC, so how is it hard-baked? I don't see how you can conceivably come to this conclusion at all.

The above quote is why such 4E bashing threads like this suck. People make unfounded or at least unexplained statements of why 4E sucks without even understanding the version.

 

[KarinsDad]

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are rules in 4E that LIMIT magic item use to a PC, so how is it hard-baked? I don't see how you can conceivably come to this conclusion at all.

He's not talking about the limits on Daily abilities. He's talking about how items are required to run the system (without using optional rules).


4E did combine some of the 3E slot items, but then they turned around and combined the powers of multiple 3E items into one 4E item.

As an example, in 3E a Cloak of Elvenkind gave a +5 bonus to Hide checks.

A 4E Elven Cloak gives a +2 to +6 to Fort, Reflex, and Will along with a +2 to +6 bonus to Stealth checks.

The item is a lot more powerful than its 3E counterpart. It gives bonuses to 3 defenses (the equivalent of 3 saves in 3E) and a skill. There might be fewer 4E item slots, but many of the items are more powerful and hence are required in the game system. I won't even go into the weak NAD discussion that even with the item, the PC is totally screwed.

And, the player of 3E had to decide if he wanted the Amulet of Health, or an Amulet of Natural Armor. In 4E, every PC tends to get all of the basics. You don't see 20th level 4E Wizards without a +4 or better implement. That had no need for such an item in 3E. Fighters needed such bonus offensive items, but Wizards did not.

The person you responded to is talking about the fact that all PCs now need multiple magic items (especially the bonus items). It's not just magic armor and weapons anymore. A DM could more easily run a low magic item world in 3E without adapting optional rules. In 4E, one has the choice of handing out the magic items or using the inherent bonus rules.

In 3E, spells could take the place of magic items. Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor could be used instead of Bracers of Armor for many many levels.

In 4E, there are no such spells. PCs have to have the magic items (shy of inherent bonus).

4E is nothing but magic items. 0.8 of them per level per PC.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are rules in 4E that LIMIT magic item use to a PC, so how is it hard-baked? I don't see how you can conceivably come to this conclusion at all.

The above quote is why such 4E bashing threads like this suck. People make unfounded or at least unexplained statements of why 4E sucks without even understanding the version.

magic Weapon/Implement, magic Armor and magic neck slot item are part of the expected power curve.

The real critique to his point would be:
- The reliance on it is transparent. You can easily remove magic items from the game and just make the +1-to-+6 bonuses part of the regular character advancememt.
- Earlier games lacked any transparency and you did never really know if you gave the PCs the right or too powerful or too weak items. 3E tried its first approach with wealth by levle, but it soon turned out that way too many item benefits could stack and they often became considered "mandatory", leading to the "Christmas Tree" effect.

 

[Odysseus]

I was thinking more along the lines that 4E reduced the generic benefits of the ability scores. Constitution no longer grants a bonus to hit points on a per hit die basis, so there is no significant benefit if you decide to raise Constitution instead of your primary or secondary ability score. Intelligence no longer grants additional skill points, so raising Intelligence instead of your primary or secondary ability score only benefits Intelligence-based skills. Similarly, Dexterity no longer adds to AC/Reflex exclusively, and Wisdom doesn't add to Will exclusively.

Perhaps a better way to put it would be: I think 4E characters have too many dump stats.

One of the things I loved to do with 3/3.5 was play characters that have the similar attributes but different classes. I find with 4E , the class mostly determines the abilitiy scores.

 

[ForceUser]

He's not talking about the limits on Daily abilities. He's talking about how items are required to run the system (without using optional rules).


4E did combine some of the 3E slot items, but then they turned around and combined the powers of multiple 3E items into one 4E item.

As an example, in 3E a Cloak of Elvenkind gave a +5 bonus to Hide checks.

A 4E Elven Cloak gives a +2 to +6 to Fort, Reflex, and Will along with a +2 to +6 bonus to Stealth checks.

The item is a lot more powerful than its 3E counterpart. It gives bonuses to 3 defenses (the equivalent of 3 saves in 3E) and a skill. There might be fewer 4E item slots, but many of the items are more powerful and hence are required in the game system. I won't even go into the weak NAD discussion that even with the item, the PC is totally screwed.

And, the player of 3E had to decide if he wanted the Amulet of Health, or an Amulet of Natural Armor. In 4E, every PC tends to get all of the basics. You don't see 20th level 4E Wizards without a +4 or better Staff. That had no need for such an item in 3E. Fighters needed such bonus offensive items, but Wizards did not.

The person you responded to is talking about the fact that all PCs now need multiple magic items (especially the bonus items). It's not just magic armor and weapons anymore. A DM could more easily run a low magic item world in 3E without adapting optional rules. In 4E, one has the choice of handing out the magic items or using the inherent bonus rules.

In 3E, spells could take the place of magic items. Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor could be used instead of Bracers of Armor for many many levels.

In 4E, there are no such spells. PCs have to have the magic items (shy of inherent bonus).

4E is nothing but magic items. 0.8 of them per level per PC.

A very detailed and accurate explanation of my point, thank you.

magic Weapon/Implement, magic Armor and magic neck slot item are part of the expected power curve.

The real critique to his point would be:
- The reliance on it is transparent. You can easily remove magic items from the game and just make the +1-to-+6 bonuses part of the regular character advancememt.
- Earlier games lacked any transparency and you did never really know if you gave the PCs the right or too powerful or too weak items. 3E tried its first approach with wealth by levle, but it soon turned out that way too many item benefits could stack and they often became considered "mandatory", leading to the "Christmas Tree" effect.

You are absolutely right. I do admire the absolute transparency of magic item benefits, and the effort to ensure that items are fairly distributed with something interesting for all. And yes, I absolutely could sift through the items available and just bake those bonuses into the PCs themselves. But 4E is supposed to be about reducing the DM's workload, not increasing it. The problem for me is the style of campaign I like to run (fewer, cooler magic items with names and histories, heavy RP, less of a focus on wealth and item rewards) is pretty different from the 4E default, and it's harder for me to houserule 4E effectively than it was in previous editions.

 

[Infiniti2000]

The person you responded to is talking about the fact that all PCs now need multiple magic items (especially the bonus items). It's not just magic armor and weapons anymore. A DM could more easily run a low magic item world in 3E without adapting optional rules. In 4E, one has the choice of handing out the magic items or using the inherent bonus rules.

You must have a completely different set of 3.X books than I do. Maybe they're from an alternate universe? I'd sooner believe you if you told me my cat poops adamantium nuggets.

 

[KarinsDad]

You must have a completely different set of 3.X books than I do. Maybe they're from an alternate universe? I'd sooner believe you if you told me my cat poops adamantium nuggets.

In 3E, if the DM did not want to hand out a Cloak of Elvenkind, he just didn't.

In 4E, if the DM does not want to hand out an Elven Cloak, he still minimally hands out the +3 Amulet of Protection.

If you don't want to discuss this rationally and without insults, you don't need to post at all you know.

 

[eriktheguy]

The main difference from 3e to 4e is balance.
In 4e, balance is WAY tighter than any previous edition was. Players of equal level have about the same to-hits and defenses. There are some differences by class and role, but the numbers rarely vary by much.
The problem is that Wizards didn't do a good enough job balancing, so there are quite a few 'best' options that are significantly better than others. In an earlier edition, these options wouldn't ruin the balance because the balance was hardly there to begin with, but in 4e, they really show. Look at how 'bloodclaw' and 'reckless' weapons used to work, you can see they were overpowered at first print. If you look at 'expertise' and 'iron armbands of power', you can see that these "options" are so good that every player should take them (thus gaining a static flavorless bonus in place of a more interesting feat or arm slot item).
It is way harder to publish a more balanced edition of DnD than it is to publish an imbalanced one, and Wizards have done an okay job so far, but when balance is so tight, even the little problems can become glaring.

Another problem that most people complain about is that combat can take much longer, but there are plenty of threads that offer good advice to shorten it.

Another problem is that most PC classes only come in two or three flavors. If you are a rogue you are either going to go with STR or CHA, and then your options become limited. In 3e two player characters with the same class and ability scores could be played remarkably differently. In 4e there is less flexibility IMO.