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D&D 4E What would make you decide against 4e?

reducing magic to a choice in what element you are going to shoot your problem with this round. A lot of people on the wizards board seem to want to remove all spells that do anything outside of HP damage. I'm not even talking save or dies here, but like levitate because it steps on the climb skill. If they swing to far in that direction I'll play another system if given the choice. And I'll only run it if that is what everyone really wants.
 

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- Martial PCs that fall behind in power level compaired to wizards
- a world where wizards magic is locked in stupid rules from an mediocre novel.
- Having many useless skills like use rope still.
- Being limited to reprinting old, lame monsters
 

Won't bother with 4e if...

...if Wotc fails to deliver on their goal of "faster, better, more refined", and instead replace all the old complexities with new ones.
 

I think most of the posts here have said what I wanted, but I'd still like to highlight a few of points:

- immediate actions against PC actions (dragon, I'm looking at you!)
- per encounter abilities takes a lot of tactical/resourcing issues out of the game (I've played warlocks - they can be boring blasting everything with the same ability each round)
- superhero fighters with supernatural abilities (not sure about these things, but you can bet they'll be there - 'powers' seem to be the flavor of the day)

Pinotage
 

There's no one thing, but the cumulative effect of a lot of the changes I've seen suggest to me that this might not be a game I would enjoy running. Which is a shame, since some of the other changes are long overdue or otherwise very good ideas.

Edit: I should have noted that I'll still take a look when the game is released, and give it a fair assessment. My gut feel at the moment is "no", but that's not set in stone.

There is one dealbreaker for me, though: Asmodeus as a god. (yes, there's a reason; no, it's not entirely rational; can we avoid rehashing that discussion, please?)
 
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Droogie said:
...if Wotc fails to deliver on their goal of "faster, better, more refined", and instead replace all the old complexities with new ones.

Bingo.

I'm one of the biggest 4e cheerleaders on this site---but if it isn't *significantly* streamlined in preparation and play, I'm off this particular carousel.
 

Much obliged to 'pawsplay' and 'Celebrim' (with some emphasis of mine) :) :

- most if not all mid-level warriors acquiring supernatural or chi-like powers
- a world where endless healing is dispensed by clerics with no true limit on how much they can heal, where wizards and sorcerers can throw bolts of flame as easily as they could throw a punch
- stupidly rigid skill rules (SW Saga comes pretty close to this)
- the reintroduction of the strange PC/NPC/Monster stat block split of yore, where meeting a gang of 2nd level fighters was vastly different than meeting a group of HD 1+1 hobgoblins worth about same XP, in terms of what stats the DM had on hand.

c) Encounters that tend to play out in very formulaic ways. Ei, everyone uses thier per encounter powers in the same sequences every combat.
d) Gamist per encounter concepts, for example, mundane classes that mysteriously can only perform a particular manuever once per encounter even though they have the physical resources to perform an equally strenous but different maneuver in the next round. Encounter beginings and endings that are vaguely and arbitarily defined under the rules.
i) Balance achieved through cosmetic variaty. That is, all classes are fundamentally identical spellcasters with common arrays of abilities that in practice differ only slightly outside of the classes fluff. For example, a fighter with the per encounter ability 'long strike', 'knockdown' and 'power attack' and a wizard with the per encounter abilities 'energy blast', 'telekinetic push', and 'arcane blow' where the various abilities are fundamentally interchangable except for thier flavor. Alternately, everyone explicitly plays a spellcaster in some form, resulting in a Wuxia world were anyone who is anyone can 'fly'.
m) Demonic/diabolic themes pushed as fundamental to game play.


As can be seen above, my greatest dislike so far is the loss of ground toward symmetry, that had previously been gained with the design of 3e. I would have liked seeing more ground gained, as a matter of fact.

Maybe in 5e. . .

edit --- Oh, and in keeping with ah, the actual thread, that one thing is the thing that proved to be the turning point (from tentatively optimistic to decidedly against.)
 
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If I read the books and don't like them, I won't switch.

If I read the books and I do like them, I will.

Simple as that.

As it happens, everything I've heard so far I like... but I've not really heard all that much in the grand scheme of things.
 

Quartz said:
If 4e is more fun, I'll switch; if it isn't, I won't. Simple.
I haven't read anything so far that made me worry about 4th Edition. So I guess this is my major yard stick. Is it fun to play? I will play.

But there are other possible things:
1) Publishing D&D4, but not publishing adventure/modules for it. It doesn't matter how good the system is, if there aren't enough published adventures, my group will probably be mostly unable to play. (Since few of us can get the time to build a good adventure from the ground up.)

2) Removing any type of skill systems.

3) Removing flexiblity in character builds. Unless there are 200 classes, this won't work for me.

But not that a _lot_ would have to happen to make me not pick up the Core rulebooks (or at least the PHB) and run a test session.
 

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