What I absolutely love about 4th edition thus far

[Daniel D. Fox]

...I can dissociate parts of the game that I don't like.

Magic items? I can dump them.

Not keen on high magic? I can remove Clerics and Wizards from the game without completely unhinging the delicate balance between fighting higher level monsters and magic item/magic power as in 3.X

I can effectively eliminate At-Will magic by removing all casting classes and only allow Rituals. No more Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, Cloudkills and so-on. Now, I can run a low magic game and still put some utility-based Ritual magic into the game, ala Conan.

No more Cure Light Wounds or reliance on Clerics. All classes seem to have a way to heal themselves by way of Exploits. I like that HP is not just "flesh wounds" any longer; they're a combination of stamina, endurance, wounds and actual "deep wounds" (bloodied). I got my fingers crossed that the Heal skill will do something spectacular as Healing Surges.

As the previews come out, I am finding that the game seems to be very modular. And although the elements fit together as a part of the greater puzzle, I can effectively put the puzzle together still and not use all the pieces to complete it.

Kudos to you, WotC. You've designed the basics of what I've been waiting for (and houseruled the ever-living heck out of over the years).

 

[greyscale1]

Here here!

This was one of the things I was enjoying most about 4evas well. However; I have been finding that I actually really enjoy most of the 4e ruleset (theoretically).

I may not have to remove any pieces at all! :smile:

 

[Sphyre]

I'd have to say I've made the same perception and like it for that reason as well.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

So...your favorite part of 4e is that you can choose not to use it?

 

[Protagonist]

So...your favorite part of 4e is that you can choose not to use it?

nope, but that it is (more or less) MODULAR. 3.5. kinda pretended to be modular, but the whole mid-to-endgame was based on some rather inflexible assumptions.

 

[FireLance]

So...your favorite part of 4e is that you can choose not to use it?

I was going to quip a reply along the lines of "you can choose what not to use", but that's not quite accurate.

The key difference between 4e (what we've seen of it anyway) and previous editions is that it gives you a lot of advice on how to customize your game. It tells you how to modify the basic D&D system to cater to various styles. Sure, there's a default option, but the rulebooks don't present it as the only option.

 

[drjones]

Based on todays previews my fave thing is that they seem to be spelling things out for novice DMs much much better then they used to. I remember being 14 reading all the books from cover to cover and still not knowing wtf I was supposed to do.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

I have had this feeling for a while, and the interesting thing is that I really don't understand the firm stance of the anti-4e crowd at all. It really does seem vey modular. Paizo has said that 4e does not allow them to tell the stories that they like to tell, but I feel like the storytelling power of 4e is massively better than previous editions. PCs have had a major protagonizing boost and infusion of variability in actions, and this is accomplished without a real boost on power. The modular style of 4e allows a greater variety of fantasy worlds to be "simulated" so from a GM perspective this gives fantastic freedom for storytelling. In the bildungsroman thread it has been discussed that, potentially, these changes allow a better representation of this literary style in the fantasy tradition. Vancian spellcasting is virtually dead. All these things add up to an amazing toolbox for fantasy gaming.

 

[OchreJelly]

all thanks to modular design and rules transparency. They have done a fine job here I agree. I have a hope there will even be a chapter in the DMG that outlines the different campaign types: Want low magic? Do x, cut y, alter C and you are ready to go.

 

[katahn]

I'd made the same observation regarding 4e's modularity as well. It dawned on me when I was reviewing how I'd adapt 4e material for a variety of modern or post-modern games (I'm a fan of both Urban Arcana and of Dragonstar) and realized how easy it would be to determine which sorts of classes would be allowable.

I could construct a straight modern setting and restrict classes to only "martial". If I wanted to run an "Agents of Psi" campaign I could include psi as a power source. If I felt up to creating my own post-modern power source "Cybernetics" I could make character classes defined around infusing their bodies with prosthetics.

The best part of 4e though is that it explicitly describes the PCs as being heroes, or at least heroic. Not in the sense of being goody-goody, but in the sense that they are special, a cut above ordinary members of their various species. Shadowrun did something like this as an explanation for why PCs seemed exempt from things like catching the common cold and I thought it was kind of neat.