When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[Fifth Element]

By modern standards, a Model T Ford is a rotten car. It's the same logic.

My last comment on the matter:

No one still drives a Model T. Many people still play OD&D.

 

[Thasmodious]

But why not do both? For me, the mechanics and the roleplay are inseparable. I mean, if you roleplay a flighty elf archer, but the character sheet is a dwarf berserker, isn't there some fundamental disconnect there? That was one of the reasons I used to hate 2E so much. I was constantly coming up with what I thought were neat ideas, but which mechanically just couldn't fly. (And granted, some of them still didn't fly in 3E -- I never did get a "warrior mage" to work the way I wanted. But at least the system was trying, so to speak.)

If this is your position, I find it pretty strange that you are using this statement to defend 3e over 4e. 3e was very limiting on what you could play and how you could play it because of the things they tied into the basic system.

First, though, to be fair, the 3e PHB had 10 classes and the 4e PHB has 8. If you're trying to compare 4e now to 3e at the end of its run, well, that's a pretty skewed way to go about things. Wait 8 years, then compare. Those 10 classes in 3e had a very limited range of options (do I want my fighter to have a longsword and focus or a greataxe and power attack?). Both games are built to expand through future products, its the business model. New options for existing classes, new classes, new pretige/paragon paths, etc.

That said, 3e attempted to pigeonhole characters pretty strongly. All fighters pretty much looked the same. One might trip, another cleave, but they had the same pitiful skills and none of them could effectively utilize the other skill based systems like craft. You couldn't make the character you wanted, unless you could justify any non adventuring details mechanically. A fighter/blacksmith? How you going to pull that off without making a subpar fighter? You had to do it by not actually taking fighter levels, you had to dip in something else for skill points, never mind your concept is not rogueish at all. Spellcaster multiclassing was awful and severely limited what you could do and how far you could do it.

That's the problem with trying to encompass everything in the rules. Every group doesn't need everything, and the attempt leaves the system full of holes, corner cases, unworkable subsystems and unfixable disparity. It took WotC 8 years to come up with a way to put a dint in the caster/melee disparity and the solution was to magic up melee classes with Tome of Battle.

If the chapter devoted to "finding your character" was then followed up by mechanics that supported that character, I would be a lot more 4E-friendly. Instead, what I see is "find your character -- and then shove him into one of six pre-made slots from which there is little derivation."

Class doesn't define character and character doesn't have to be represented mechanically (although its easy to do so if your group desires). Class represents the skill/powerset that a character uses while adventuring. Right now, class choice is limited, just as it was at the beginning of 3e. But within that range there is a lot of wiggle room, as a whole and within each class. A lot of options are realized through the limited power selection versus the large number of choices (which will only grow, and has already). A fighter focused on heavy damage with a 2h is a lot different from a fighter built for toughness from a fighter built around skilled tactical combat. Feats and powers leave plenty of room for variety. Sure, all those are fighters, but thats the class.

A lot of this is the "you are your role in combat" thing coming up again. For me there should be just as much "roleplaying" in combat as out of it. So when I wanted to create a fighter who kicked down the door, ran across the room, and lopped the head off the enemy boss, and was told "your job is to defend your teammates while the ranger or the wizard do damage," it really stuck in my craw. To me, a "fighter" is "someone who fights." It's not "someone who is and always shall be the meatshield."

The roles have variety as well. You can be an offensive defender. In my group, the fighter is exactly that. He is the guy who kicks down the door and charges the BBEG. As class choice expands though, so will overall options as to how you can realize your concept mechanically. Every role will be represented within each power source, in all liklihood. A martial controller, a primal defender, an arcane leader, etc. Looking at the general design layout, it looks to me like 4e will be able to reach the end game versatility of 3e in a much shorter time/book frame. There are simply more avenues for expansion.

 

[The Little Raven]

Not that the statement you are quoting was an argument so much as an example, but: WoW features monstrous races.

And so has D&D, since at least 2nd Edition, with its book on playing monstrous humanoids. Then we have 3e with its Savage Species, as well as books like Races of the Dragon.

This is just another case of WoW being cited without there being any actual facts to support the citation. Previous editions of D&D have way more influence on dragonborn and tieflings being in the core than any non-D&D source.

 

[justanobody]

You're forgetting ANTHER valid reason for play balance.

Players are no longer expected to play ALL the levels of the game. Another poster in a different thread mentioned that his players are mature enouh to realize that just because they're ineffective today, they will get to shine a few levels down the road. They're playing 6-10 hours every week so the "payoff" isn't that far away.

WOTC has realized that this may no longer be true at all for the majority of gamers. Most gamers might only get together once a month and basing a game system with THAT underlying assumption means it isn't relevant for most gamer's needs.

The majority of gamers also does not play D&D because they don't want the work it includes. They play video games instead, or CCGs. Things that take little effort and have a big payoff with quick returns.

You never had to play all the levels. You don't even have to play a whole level. You never have to play the same class from game to game and can switch it up.

Nothing has changed that a party will still need most base classes and a single class party won't work. So there is no real balance when you cannot play the class you want because everyone else want to play it and that leaves the party deficient in functioning because the system has not changed to solve any of that. So there is no real balance so long as each class cannot perform all things equally.

Or a party of all fighters cannot perform equally well as a party of all wizards, all clerics, all rogues, etc.

So there still is not a balanced game, only a shift in the balance from one aspect to another. Playing a single level or even all levels still does not fix the problem of balance. It just creates another problem. Oddly for such a poor balanced game D&D survived for decades as the #1 RPG in the industry above other games that were more balanced for ages.

So you idea really doesn't seem to hold water.

 

[Windjammer]

And you might want to read my sig.

Touché! Still, not having played 4E doesn't grant you immunity to resorting to ad hominem argumentation in defense of 4E. And, by the way, I've encountered lots of 4E fanboys on diverse forums who never played it. That's nothing to do with 4E in particular, just the fact that 50%+ of the people on boards don't play the game they're talking about, and are willing to love and hate it nevertheless.

 

[justanobody]

No one still drives a Model T.

You are sadly mistaken.

 

[The_Gneech]

Older editions of D&D weren't as good at detailed mechanical character-modeling. That's inarguable true. Whether that meant they were bad for role-playing is a whole other kettle of fish...

Again, that's one of those fundamental areas where people are going to disagree. As I said above, for me they're inseparable.

Another player's character in a very light-hearted game I played a while back was a halfling rogue who was insane and believed himself to be a dwarf berserker. It was a funny bit. But if someone found themselves at the table trying to play a dwarf berserker when the rules just screamed "halfling rogue" instead, they'd have room to complain, wouldn't they?

Certainly, 4E isn't that extreme, but I'm just using it to illustrate the point. I'm an old HERO player, so I'm used to divorcing the mechanics from the special effects -- but there's only so much reskinning you can do before you've left the realm of handwaving and entered the realm of metaphoric schizophrenia.

-The Gneech

 

[Fifth Element]

Touché! Still, not having played 4E doesn't grant you immunity to resorting to ad hominem argumentation in defense of 4E. And, by the way, I've encountered lots of 4E fanboys on diverse forums who never played it. That's nothing to do with 4E in particular, just the fact that 50%+ of the people on boards don't play the game they're talking about, and are willing to love and hate it nevertheless.

I don't love or hate 4E. It looks interesting and I will try it when I have the chance. At this point it's at best a 50/50 chance that I will switch to it full-time from 3.5.

But you'll have to read my user title as well. It's not any edition of the game I'm defending. I just hate invalid arguments, made about any edition.

 

[Greg K]

Or a party of all fighters cannot perform equally well as a party of all wizards, all clerics, all rogues, etc..

This, of course, being dependent upon the type of adventures and encounters the DM throws at the characters. For 2e and 3e, there have been discussions in products dealing with the running of single class campaigns. It just takes a little more effort and planning on the part of the DM.

 

[Fifth Element]

You are sadly mistaken.

I rather doubt they're road-worthy. I'll rephrase.

No ones still uses a Model T for its intended purpose: transportation.

Plenty of people still use OD&D for its intended purpose.