1) Extremely long, boring combats
Not as much of a problem with raised monster damage. But this is mostly caused by DMs who
make monsters fight to the death.
2) The differences between PCs and NPCs: This is arguably one of the worst things in the system, IMO.
Let me guess:
1: You play but don't DM.
2: You massively prefer to play casters.
Because that was only ever true for casters in 3.X. Fighters could never learn the Claw/Claw/Bite attack routine of a dragon. So why should wizards be able to learn almost everything?
If PCs and NPCs use the same rules then prep time is
massive. And the DM is extremely limited in what sort of magic works - because if the PCs get their hands on it they can spam it and break the gameworld. On the other hand if you use different rules, prep time is limited and magic becomes ... magical. You get extraordinary effects. And combat magic is not what you can cast, it's what you can cast
by rote.
3) Remember the Christmas Tree the designers said they were getting rid of? Does it look like they did? No? They lied? Why would anyone be mad about that?
They massively reduced it. The Big 6 became the Big 3, and carrying around 57 minor items doesn't happen much. So yes, it looks like they followed through - the christmas tree effect wasn't being well dressed, it was all the little twinklies and quite how many of them there are.
4e without the errata is still a good game. With the errata is better.
5)Rituals I don't think many people use these.
Their loss.
The same money which you need to spend on magic weapons to stay on the random number generator and do useful things like "hit monsters" and "not die."
Like most people you're looking at the wrong rituals. Level 1 rituals can be cast by level 1 casters - but because of the exponential scaling, when you reach level 5 the cost of the low level rituals becomes trivial.
The utility siloing we were promised when 4e came out? Yeah, that never happened, because all the utility powers turned out to be combat related.
All of them?
All of them? Well, I suppose Beguiling Tongue or Inspire Competence
is if you count "Can help a third rate combat option that is the use of a skill" (i.e. Bluff or Intimidate) as combat related. Many are combat related, but even in the PHB1 there were utility powers like Beguiling Tongue which is only tangentally useful in combat.
And no, rituals do not let you interact with the world in any meaningful way - teleports are limited to where the DM says,
Or where you set up the receiving circle in advance. Takes strategy and planning.
you can't reshape continents,
Holy hell,
that's your standard for interacting with the gameworld in a meaningful way? Mine counts
Bloom - creating a 400ft blackberry patch - as interacting with the world in a meaningful way. If you do it in the right place anyway (bunching up an entire company of soldiers in one case, saving a villiage from famine in another).
Also, they take too long to cast, so if you're on the run and need to put up a magic circle between you and the demon, you can't because it takes 10 minutes!
In short you need to
think and
plan to use them. They aren't the snap-your-fingers solution magic once was. You run decoys, drawing the demon while setting up the circle.
Best of all, all the 'x image' illusions are now rituals, because player characters having actual, interesting abilities are not allowed in 4e land. I think I would trade an entire 4e class for the ability to use silent image at will in 4e land, and still come out ahead.
Silent Image At Will would be and is a gamebreaker. Even daily was bad enough (image of a fog cloud meaning it only worked one way, anyone?) As for being able to make an illusionary image as an encounter power, my last Wizard would have been very surprised to learn his level 2 utility power didn't exist.
How much power, in game, are each of these powers putting out? If your level 1 AT-WILL can kill level 30 creatures, what the hell does that mean in universe?
That it does damage. Give me enough time and
a hypodermic syringe full of air and I can kill a hundred people. This is not a realism problem.
This is also a perfect way to introduce the "4e is a video-game" concept. You will note that in 4e-land, you can only attack objects and creatures the DM says you can attack
And the same in every other damn RPG out there. Your point? I wouldn't stat the wall until the PCs tried to attack it - but if they wanted to attack it, I would stat it almost immediately.
but not attack the vendor because he has the green dot.
In all seriousness, is this anything other than a
completely theoretical problem based on a reading of the rules that no DM has ever used? Has
any DM anywhere ever said "No, I haven't statted the vendor for combat therefore you can't attack him"? Other than doing a WoW parody?
It's a violation of common sense and is bad for the game.
Which is why you have DMs. If you want to attack the vendor, you 1-shot him. And then deal with the consequences.
Furthermore, it puts more power in the hands of the DM AND THAT IS BAD FOR THE GAME. For every good DM who will use this power wisely, there are a bunch of idiot DMs who will use it to lord it over their players and screw them over.
Really? They screw the PCs over by this? Rather than by excessively mighty DMPCs with 9th level spells? I know which one I've routinely seen threads about. And it isn't the one you're calling out.
Lastly, I will now break the game. Give a flying melee monster a bow. Now that it has a 40 square ranged attack, fly above the PCs and kite them to death.
And as DM I will break the game. Orbital metiorite strike. Followed by the moon falling onto the world. Rocks fall, everyone dies. This demonstrates one simple rule.
If the DM is trying to break the game then the DM is a jackass.
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