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

[Brown Jenkin]

Feat names that sound like they were done in a random feat name generator. Seriously see the thread http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=212967 and you realize that a java script can do they same quality of fluf as we are getting now. I really have no desire to play a game that consists of really stupid names no matter how good the underlying mechanics may be.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

I'm riding the fence... but it's bucking like a wild golden wyvern.


I like lots of the crunch. SWSE has some very innovative mechanics I'd like to see enacted for D&D. The further refinement/expansion of skills is simply genius, and making broader classes that specialize through talent trees is pure silk.

I even like some of the 'implied setting', particularly tying elves more closely to their fey bretheren, and the parallel-world flavor of Shadowfell and the Feywild...

...which leads me to some not-so-good stuff...

I'm flummoxed by their naming conventions, where a 'kewl-style' is more important than function. They appear to be creating unneccesary obfuscation with several "WTF?" random word combos (Golden Wyvern Adept and Dragon Tail Cut?). Mhensley's brilliant D&D 4E Feat Name Generator deliciously showcases this silly trend.

Poor names aren't a deal-breaker, but in conjunction with what follows, I am seeing an underlying element that I strongly dislike:

Completely leveling the foundation of what I consider some core elements of D&D. Specifically the races and classes that my campaign is built on. I'm forced into banning, extensive retconning, remaking, and renaming.Not much incentive to switch there. And waiting a year or more for an official write-up (and another book purchase) strains my resistance to conspiracy theory... and creates the additional headache of translating a homebrew tide-me-over character to the new one.

This whole character roles and siloing theme seems to be creating elements not to my liking. The new paladin's smite is... too gamey (for lack of a better word). The more I hear of how they're handling roles, and some of the powers they engender, the less I like them.

Several of the 'implied setting' elements seem to directly impinge on the crunch (ie. wizard traditions), which translates into more retconning, etc. Without a detailed development article on this one, it is far more nebulous a concern, but it's a concern none the less.


At this point I will need to inspect before purchase. If I roll my eyes at it enough times... then it looks like I'll forego the books and mine the SRD.

 

[erf_beto]

No SRD.
:\ a "Dungeons & Dragons 4.5 Edition" announced in less than a year, because they rushed everything in without playtesting it enough...

I'm loving everything so far, though...

 

[Mark Chance]

Things to make me decide against it? I'm still waiting for things to be revealed that to make me possibly want to buy it.

Add me to this list. I just don't see anything so far that'd make me want to shell out my hard-earned money for the books. If I were to switch to a different game (and 4E is a different game based on everything I've read that strongly indicates no 3.0/3.5 to 4E compatability), I'd switch to a game I already own, such as True20.

 

[scruffygrognard]

Add me to this list. I just don't see anything so far that'd make me want to shell out my hard-earned money for the books. If I were to switch to a different game (and 4E is a different game based on everything I've read that strongly indicates no 3.0/3.5 to 4E compatability), I'd switch to a game I already own, such as True20.

Same here. I see nothing in 4th edition that interests me. I'd love to see some of the rules bloat of 3rd edition fixed BUT it looks like 4th edition is replacing 3.X's flaws with its own set of overly complicated and unnecessary rules.

 

[Zustiur]

Pretty simple really - I won't buy this edition if they split the basic content across too many 'core' books. I refused to by PHB2 for content that should have been in PHB1.

Where are my sacred cows?

Zustiur.

 

[Terramotus]

i) Alternately, everyone explicitly plays a spellcaster in some form, resulting in a Wuxia world were anyone who is anyone can 'fly'.

Did that stop you from playing 3.x? Because after a certain point, the ability to fly and take the fight to your opponent through various other means is practically required. If nothing else, the party wizard takes care of everyone.

When my first 3.x game, which started at level 5, hit around 14th-15th level I started having real problems designing adventures until I realized that I WAS playing a wuxia superheroes game (which ended at 25th, by the way). They were all smart, resourceful players, and there was virtually nothing they couldn't accomplish if they had time to plan. The big switch was that I stopped having to design in ways for the party to succeed and just started dreaming up wacko impossible challenges and noting what definitely wouldn't work.

Since they haven't mentioned a drastic reduction in the upper power levels of the game, I don't think any of that is going away. Hopefully they will be reducing the exponentially increasing bookwork required for designing and running high level foes.

 

[neceros]

Since they haven't mentioned a drastic reduction in the upper power levels of the game, I don't think any of that is going away. Hopefully they will be reducing the exponentially increasing bookwork required for designing and running high level foes.

I believe high level games will always require more bookwork than a lower level campaign, but that's just how it is.

However, I do believe that it will be much more streamlined. Currently, once you hit a certain range in level you just can't seem to kill a PC without setting up long winded and deliberately cheesy or brilliant plans. It's very hard to make a game challenging because PCs have so much power.

The power isn't dwindling, but the Monsters are becoming more balanced. PC power and Monster power should scale appropriately if used in the encounter system properly.

 

[Terramotus]

Same.

Without reading the previous 3 pages, I'll say I agree with a lot of stuff on page 1 of this thread.

So far, 4e looks great, but I'm suspicious of martial types with supernatural powers. I don't think that's what "Power Source" means, I think it's how it sounds that has me freaked. As long as I don't have to rewrite the PHB in order to run a campaign where the players are all medieval knights (or rogues), I'll probably be happy. The minute a player starts protesting that his 12th level fighter gets to do crazy anime moves, I'll start revising the game... which I'd prefer not to have to do. Ultimately, I'd like to have the freedom to simulate a Conan feel or a Song of Ice and Fire feel without major retooling. While I realize that D&D 4e is not intended to simulate those worlds, I feel very strongly that the martial classes should look and feel like, well, martial classes. Bah, I'm just rambling now.

I would submit that you can't effectively simulate either Ice and Fire or Conan with 3.x without major retooling. Even if you eliminate the magical classes entirely and are left with Fighter, Rogue, and perhaps a nonmagical Ranger, you still have to deal with the fact that not having magical items to boost AC will start seriously warping the numbers at around that point.

Not only that, but at 12th level a fighter has so many hitpoints (94.5 on average with a 14 Con) relative to the damage of a regular weapon that gritty realism is pretty much out the window anyway without some sort of supplemental rules. Unless you ARE Conan, I suppose, in which case it makes sense.

I believe high level games will always require more bookwork than a lower level campaign, but that's just how it is.

However, I do believe that it will be much more streamlined. Currently, once you hit a certain range in level you just can't seem to kill a PC without setting up long winded and deliberately cheesy or brilliant plans. It's very hard to make a game challenging because PCs have so much power.

The power isn't dwindling, but the Monsters are becoming more balanced. PC power and Monster power should scale appropriately if used in the encounter system properly.

Honestly, since not every adventure had 4 encounters, which, by the way, I think is nearly impossible to force onto a high level party due to their ability to circumvent challenges, it got even worse with 3.x.

What I'm most excited about is the new assumptions about encounters, since I ended up moving to story-based EXP anyway and just jacking my encounter levels way up and eyeballing the challenges to make sure I didn't TPK. Which, given their elaborate countermeasures, I'm not sure I even could have achieved by the end anyway. When you're Superman, the threat is to the world, not you, anyway, so it didn't really matter.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I like how this thread INSTANTLY became "Restate your pre-existing opinion of 4e in list form."

Rather than saying what I like and don't like about the previews we've gotten so far, I'll keep my answer hypothetical:

I would decide against 4e if the combat mechanics were less efficient (i.e., a higher ratio of complicatedness to variety in the things you could do), if the character-building system became EITHER too monolithic (classless) OR too rigidly class-based, or if there were a significant number of reasonable high fantasy character-types (e.g. swashbuckler, archer, scholarly priest, dumb-brute warrior) you couldn't create competent version of with the PHB1 material.

Of these, the last is the only one the current previews leave me to doubt.