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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GregoryOatmeal" data-source="post: 5625751" data-attributes="member: 6667661">Man, I tried so hard to make that game work for years. I was really sold on it when it came out - I probably bought at least 12 hardcovers and hundreds of dollars in minis. If WOTC loses the business of customers like myself I can't foresee them lasting much longer.I found the usual criticisms (too much like WOW, not enough role-playing, similar classes in presentation) to be pretty superficial and baseless. After playing for a few years I found a different set of issues to be much more aggravating1) Combat length - This will be the downfall of 4e. I've tried everything to speed this up. The long boring combats make a combat-oriented dungeon crawl unplayable and seem to crowd out time for advancing the story and roleplaying.2) Healing surges seem to take the edge off combat. In older D&D if you lost 8hp in a battle you feel it and fear the next encounter or the wandering monster that sneaks up on you while wandering. Now it's just onto the next slog, which takes even longer since everyone starts with full resources.3) Managing powers and conditions - The Christmas-tree effect of this game is unprecedented, even at very early levels. As a DM it makes my head spin trying remember which orc has 45hp and is dazed, which one has 22 and used his encounter power...gah.4) Monsters and magic items are too complex - Monsters and items now have elaborate stat-blocks that require a lot of page-flipping or careful notetaking. PCs need an additional two pages of character sheet to manage powers and items.5) Published adventures are unreadable. Good riddance to the delve format.WOTC deserves a lot of credit for balancing classes, resurrecting Dark Sun, streamlining many rules and numerous other accomplishments. Unfortunately combat is just too friggin detailed and long. After hopping from 2E to 3E to 4E I noticed character complexity and numbers in general ticked up dramatically - this has not helped the game. It sounds more glorious to kill an orc with 50hp in 4e than one with 6hp in 1e, but really it just takes longer to slog away at the orc and add all the bonuses up.I concluded my best games were when I started at 12 in 2e and could generate a character on a half-sheet of 3-ring notebook paper. I switched to running Castles and Crusades with a lot of 1E and 2E material and couldn't be happier. I would recommend that system as it's very easy to incorporate material from 1E/2E (and also 3E to an extent). Combat is very fast allowing lots of time for storytelling, rping, and even more combat! The old modules are awesome and the settings (Planescape, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, FR, Al Qadim, Dark Sun) are much better supported in older editions than in 4E with lots of flavor text.It really seems like the older D&D games are more complex than 4E - that the modules will be dated, poorly written and filled with complex bizarre rules. They're actually really easy to play and tons of fun! Sorry to contribute to the edition war, I just had to get that out.</blockquote>

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