D&D 4E What's Wrong With 4e Simply Put

[Irda Ranger]

If all I wanted to do was patch some bandaids on 3.5's "worst problems", I can do that with some house rules and liberal use of Rule 0. If I'm gonna pay $80 for a set of rule books, I want a real new edition.

It helps that there isn't a single thing on pawsplay's list that bothers me, but if I wanted a game system to be set in stone, all I have to do is keep playing the rules that I already have the books for (AD&D 2e, D&D 3 and 3.5, C&C, Iron Heroes, etc.). Short of my house burning down, those rules aren't going anywhere. And it would be entirely unrealistic to think that WotC would come out with "just" D&D 3.75. Can you imagine the howls of "Money-grab!!" then?

 

[tenkar]

They are keeping all sorts of legacy baggage around to keep the grognards happy as is (like those seven different dice, just because they couldn't get any others back in the day),

Don't touch my DICE! The things are sacred I tell you... still have my first set dating back to 1980 (less the d4... that was lost many moons ago)

On second thought, 4.0 can drop d4s all together

 

[drothgery]

[waits for someone with a better grasp of Netscape/Mozilla history to yell at me]

Okay. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (note that this was written in 2000, before Firefox even existed, but it's basicly an explanation of why, even though the Mozilla project eventually produced a pretty good product, blowing up Netscape and restarting from scratch was a terrible idea).

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I see the whole thing more from a global perspective. 3e was the D&D that tried to fix the game in two ways:
1) Give it a new unified core mechanic inspired by the old game.
2) Retain a number of central sacred cows of D&D to respect continuity.

4e goes seems to go another way: When the designers see a loose thread lying on the floor, they no longer simply stuff it back in. They go to the core and fundamentally change it´s inner workings, then build the whole thing again from the ground up.

More dead cows. More seemingly arbitrary changes that result from a general "this should be different so that X can be Y when Z arrives" thoughtline we cannot fully comprehend yet.

I like that. I own the other editions of D&D, that were afraid to do this. I have the "oooh let´s not change too much, and just make the whole thing more boring!" edition (2e), and don´t need another. We´ll see if the end product is (to me) diamonds or dust. Looks (again, to me) good so far.

 

[Sundragon2012]

4e needs to bring dramatic changes to the table in order to make it ever worth buying in the first place. 4e is about recreating the game in a manner that makes it, according to what I have read, mechanically easier to play and to run and I am 1000% behind that. What a clumsy, time-consuming mess high level gaming is with 3.5.

I am also behind dumping legacy crap that I see has nothing more than an idiosyncratic and nostalgic value. The Great Wheel is predicated on a silly iron-clad alignment system that is hard wired into the system that has been forcing itself onto settings that never should have even had alignment because some fantasy requires moral complexity. The Vancian magic system was an easy choice by Gygax but simulates nothing of the magic of myth, folklore, and good fantasy fiction. The differences between devils and demons exist only to justify the whole preposterously black and white alignment system. The entire Blood War is predicated on a hatred rooted in battling alignments.

There was a time when people used the D&D rules to simulate various forms of fantasy such as Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Conan, Tolkien, etc. D&D wasn't seen as its own genre then, but now it is. That is unfortunate. I don't know any DM that wants to be bound to the World of Dungeons and Dragons where that cheesy 80's cartoon exists next to the horrid Dungeons and Dragons movie. Every DM and player I know plays and DMs the game in order to create and act in worlds bound only by imagination with enough mechanics to make it a viable game and not in order to partake in some 30+yr holy tradition that is Dungeons and Dragons. 3.5 went farther than ever in demanding a certain playstyle from gamers and I will be happy to see this die a quick, bloody and painful death.

If the 4e changes allow me to use the game as a generic fantasy game rule set, I will be thrilled. If the fluff changes cast aside decades of outlandish junk that has glued itself to the game like barnacles on a ship's hull I am all for it. Who the hell actually DMs or plays D&D in the World of Dungeons and Dragons anyway where all the fluff/lore is used out of the core book as it is anyway? I have never known a DM outside of a 13yr old just learning how to DM who does this kind of thing.



Sundragon

 

[WayneLigon]

The problem is that 4E is not just fixing what's _not working_ well, it is also "fixing" what _is working_ well.

And what's working well that's getting a change, besides fluff changes?

 

[Aloïsius]

And what's working well that's getting a change, besides fluff changes?

I guess there are things who worked well in 3x but are changed because of internal consistency. When you change one aspect of the game, you must often change many other things.
example : if you change the DR works, you must lower said DR for a lot of monsters (see 3.e >>> 3.5).

And Eladrin are a good way of getting rid of the elven subraces proliferation.

 

[pawsplay]

Ah, worried about the WOTC gestapo bashing down your door if you don't use this one are we?

Does anyone else smell gasoline?

Why's that? Seems to me that 'at will' is more in line with fantasy source material than the abomination of Vancian slots.

Um, no. In fantasy source material, spells are precious. D&D wizards, with their dozens of spells a day, actually cast a lot MORE spells than most fantasy mages. Further, "Vancian" refers to the writings of Jack Vance, who was a strong influence on D&D ("Excellent Prismatic Spray").

If it resembles the swordsage disciplines like Shadow Hand and Desert Wind, then I can buy that complaint, since they're the overtly magical ones. If its like virtually anything else from that book, especially the Iron Heart and Tiger's Claw styles, I have to ask why? Why can't people who've trained most of their lives to wield weapons and fight do funky things that make lesser mortals go "whoah"?

The mechanics are horrible and wonky, the numbers are too big, and some of the unintended consequences are ridicululous (like a non-magical technique being used to cut an adamantine wall in half in one stroke).

I don't have any fear about 4e somehow "ruining" my 3.5, I'm just perturbed by a number of things about 4e. Mainly, I'm annoyed that 3.5 source material is going to be kindling if you want to use 4e source material, and WotC has decided to throw their clout behind what looks to be an ill-conceived version of the game, IMO.

Unlike many people, I do not have confidence that 4e will be better than previous editions; I think it will be different than 3.5, but probably not in ways I like, and definitely in some ways I do not like. 3e brought me back to D&D; 4e will probably not attract me.

For all its faults, 3.5 reflects a world, a game philosophy, an aesthetic I can relate to. 4e seems intent on tossing game world logic on its ear, special-casing everything, and abandoning any remaining shreds of medieval romance and real world mythology. I see D&D becoming a sort of tabletop version of Final Fantasy, where characters have "at will" special attacks, high level fighters have special attack powers, and things exist in whatever abundance is dictated by game play, not by what makes sense. Can you imagine a world where someone, anyone had unlimited healing, even if limited to certain circumstances? It would be as different from a traditional D&D world as GURPS Transhuman Space is different from Buck Rogers.

 

[pawsplay]

The differences between devils and demons exist only to justify the whole preposterously black and white alignment system.

Just an observation: Talislanta preserves the same difference along very similar lines, with demons being entropic and devils being fallen archons. But Talislanta has no alignment rules of any kind.

 

[BBQ]

I'm not new to the game. I've played through all the editions of the game. I've seen the good and the bad of all the editions. I always found that every edition has been better than the previous ones. So, here we go:

Well, nothing's stopping you from adhering to some of the older rules and flavor. You can have all the demons and devils you want. I prefer the Erinyes to remain the "Goddesses of Punishment" as they were in Greek mythology anyway, but that's just my personal opinion. The reshuffle you are mentioning means little, if anything, to me.

I welcome the eladrin. I've been playing the grey elves/high elves off as a much more magically inclined, fey-like breed anyway. The new edition makes that distinction clear and even. Same with drow (they've been apart from their elven cousins for so long, they're like a different species).

The new planar setup actually works better for my world. However, whatever planar set up you want will be fine. You don't need to adhere to the DMG completely. Dungeons & Dragons is about telling a good story with your friends, not all about those tiny rules that people for some reason cling to like some sort of holy grail. Sure, the rules on demons and devil are different for the core game: who cares? Do what you want! It's your world to play around in! You don't like not using the Great Wheel? Use the Great Wheel! You don't like the fact that wizards get at will spells? Um... have you read much good fantasy? A lot of mages have "at will" powers. If you don't like using tieflings as a core race, then don't use them. Monster stat blocks have been cropped, yes... but do you really want to know how many ranks in "Use Rope" a balor has?

4e may not be your father's so-called Oldsmobile, true, but here's the thing: My dad owned an Oldsmobile for a long time, and it looked horrible. It chugged gas, it was a long, troublesome ordeal to get anywhere, it leaked oil, it leaked coolant, and when I used to drive it to school, people would actually give me a hard time about it. The old editions could be seen as such. They have their own set of problems. Now, you're being given the chance to drive the new 2008 model, and there seem to be a lot of people saying "No, I liked driving the old clunker better." Bah!


As for the people who say things about how "4e is not 3e" or that "this edition was way better than this one" or whatever... Get over yourselves. No D&D book ever gets outmoded/outdated 100%. I still use the 2nd Edition Book of Artifacts in my 3.5 campaign. I still use 1st edition adventures when I'm feeling a little lazy and don't want to come up with my own. I've seen a ton of changes between all the editions, and have enjoyed each more than the last. I'm sure 4e will be even more fantastic, and with a little creative DM and player action, it'll be the most awesome D&D experience yet. Be creative, have some fun, play the game, give it a chance. You might have some fun by accident.