What was so bad about DMing 3x?

[Dragonblade]

It's unfortunate that the section on advancing monsters and giving them special abilities, and then estimating CR is tacked on in an appendix.

Thats the thing. I don't want to advance monsters or level up NPCs. I just want to be able to give them the stats they should have and call it good.

4e will just tell me a Brute monster of this level should have this range of AC, this attack bonus, these Defenses, these HP. Perfect! Thats exactly what I want. I don't want anything else.

But the cool thing about 4e is if I want to painstakingly level up the monster, I can do that too. So I can play 3e style, or 4e style. Its the best of both worlds.

 

[helium3]

Speaking as someone who has played simpler systems than 3.5E... no. No, I'm really not.

What other systems are we talking about here?

 

[helium3]

Everything I've seen about 4e so far has told me that they are balancing "the math" rather than formalizing the math from older editions. Perhaps its because this is the first edition of D&D that the bab/ac and defenses/spell rolls all scale a the same level (baring a constant bonus from level and feats) and less reliance on "math-affecting" items like rings +2 or belts +4. If they can make that mathmatic sweet spot last, I'm statisfied.

Another way of saying this is they're making the game more "predictable."

I'm not so sure that's going to be all it's cracked up to be, though it'll certainly fix the problems encountered in 3.5E.

It'll be interesting to see what the general complaints are about 4E a year or so in.

 

[Mark Hope]

This is a problem anytime you provide hard numbers for things. Some people see the numbers as a guideline and others as rock-solid limits.

So in a way, this is how 3E's codification of every little rule led to some of the problems people complain about now.

Totally agree. Major lack of transparent DM advice on this kind of thing until waaay too late in the edition.

By implying there's some quasi-computational structure in the way the rules are presented, people rightly assume failure to strictly adhere to the structure results in immediate and catastrophic failure.

Hmm. Don't agree that they "rightly" assume. Assume, yeah. Rightly? Gonna disagree with you there, mainly because immediate and catastrophic failure does not result. Not surprising that folks might think it would, though.

I'm not really sure how 4E will address the problem now that everyone's been trained to see the system this way.

Indeed. The more things change...

 

[helium3]

Thats the thing. I don't want to advance monsters or level up NPCs. I just want to be able to give them the stats they should have and call it good.

4e will just tell me a Brute monster of this level should have this range of AC, this attack bonus, these Defenses, these HP. Perfect! Thats exactly what I want. I don't want anything else.

Fair enough. I'm actually pretty stoked about this aspect of 4E as well. I am curious though about how much territory each monster role covers. I mean, does a brute of a certain level always do X damage and differences from monster to monster are merely "skins" placed onto the numbers? Or are there a couple of different types of Brutes that have distinct abilities.

But the cool thing about 4e is if I want to painstakingly level up the monster, I can do that too. So I can play 3e style, or 4e style. Its the best of both worlds.

This is one area where I am very very skeptical about the claims made and will remain so until I see some concrete examples. I don't see how you can just slap class levels on a monster and call it good if the two systems are entirely separate.

Think about it like this. If slapping a class level onto a monster were so easy, why would you put races in the PHB at all? Couldn't you just put them all in the MM and say "Play whatever you want!! Just take a monster, slap some levels on it and call it good!!" Doesn't this also imply that we can play a party that consists of a Dragon, a Medusa a Beholder and a Giant that all have the appropriate number of class levels slapped onto them?

Do you see why I'm so skeptical about this claim?

 

[nerfherder]

What other systems are we talking about here?

SWSE. I'm loving refereeing that game right now

I've run lots of games from RQ3 to GURPS to Vampire to Ars Magica to Feng Shui to Call of Cthulhu to Millenium's End to Over the Edge, and my preference has shifted towards the simpler systems.

 

[helium3]

SWSE. I'm loving refereeing that game right now

I've run lots of games from RQ3 to GURPS to Vampire to Ars Magica to Feng Shui to Call of Cthulhu to Millenium's End to Over the Edge, and my preference has shifted towards the simpler systems.

When did your preference shift? Was it after playing 3.5 for a while?

Also, how long have you been reffing SWSE now?

 

[helium3]

Hmm. Don't agree that they "rightly" assume. Assume, yeah. Rightly? Gonna disagree with you there, mainly because immediate and catastrophic failure does not result. Not surprising that folks might think it would, though.

Oh, I meant "rightly follow" in that the logical chain they're using to arrive at that assumption isn't unreasonable when viewed in light of the original assumption of solid limits.

 

[Mark Hope]

Oh, I meant "rightly follow" in that the logical chain they're using to arrive at that assumption isn't unreasonable when viewed in light of the original assumption of solid limits.

Heh, yeah, I realised that after I hit submit . Agree with you totally.

 

[Pinotage]

4e will just tell me a Brute monster of this level should have this range of AC, this attack bonus, these Defenses, these HP. Perfect! Thats exactly what I want. I don't want anything else.

I suspect that you'll find that after the first splat books arrive, the inevitable power creep will set in and all those 'guidelines' will go straight out of the window. Or players will learn to build 'killer' characters or find loopholes in the rules that allow devastating combos. I really fail to see how 4e is going to solve the problem that the CR system had. It won't. Party composition differs, players differ, magical item combinations differ - you can't control everything. That's why the CR failed, and that's why I suspect this 'table guideline' system will eventually fail as well. As others have mentioned on this thread, the best thing a DM could do at the table was to know his characters and build challenges around them.

But the cool thing about 4e is if I want to painstakingly level up the monster, I can do that too. So I can play 3e style, or 4e style. Its the best of both worlds.

You can do that with 3e as well. Nobody's forcing you to pay attention to detail. It applies both ways.

Pinotage