Gothmog
First Post
I'd have to say that 3E did not fit my group's playstyle at all, and in order to make it work for us, we had to tack on a ton of house rules. Problem was, every game mechanic was so interconnected in 3E that it had a cascade effect on the system, which caused problems later. So we quit 3E about 3 years ago for a variety of reasons:
1. The rules were needlessly complex and time consuming. Since I usually DMed, I'd have to spend 3-4 hours statting up enemies for a session of equal length. Thats absolutely absurd. Yes, people have said you didn't need to stat everything out, but when the RAW require you to do that in order to follow them, the game has some serious flaws.
2. Extreme power discrepancies between classes. Remember when 3E came out, the designers said they tried to rebalance all the classes based on their combat abilities and potential and standardize the experience point progression? Problem was, they didn't do a very good job of it. The problem only got worse with the 3E multiclassing rules and cherry-picking levels of this or that class, and prestige classes. This is one of the areas that when people say 3E was "deeply flawed" immediately springs to my mind.
Witness the complete dominance of the game past level 8 by casters, or the complete brokenness of druids and certain cleric builds. The 4E team took a long, hard look at the completely broken features of 3E and rebalanced the classes with powers so they have similar combat ability at a given level, but with different types and effects of powers. All classes needed to be put on a similar power level as they advanced through their careers. Yes, that means wizards, clerics and casters lose some power in 4E, but other classes benefit from their loss and make the game more enjoyable for the group as a whole. Casters can make up for this with rituals (which I love the implementation of) to regain some of their versatilty, but no longer will casters completely dominate every other class in the game.
3. PC power level was very high- most of the time the PCs just steamrolled through encounters with little or no difficulty, and I found my group got into a "ho-hum" attitude when we played it. 3E wasn't exciting, the system made the game boring and methodical by its nature. And using mosters of a higher CR (IME 3-6 CR higher) either resulted in the monsters going down just as easily, or a TPK due to some immunity or special ability of the monster.
4E doesn't seem to have the problem to nearly the same degree, and all characters have worthwhile powers and abilities. So its much less likely you have one character who is immediate toaste versus certain monsters, and other characters who wade through the monster's special attacks like walking in the rain.
4. 3E came with a huge set of assumptions of how you should play, and due to the interconnectedness of the rules, if you didn't follow their assumptions, the system broke down sooner than it normally did. The big culprit here was magic item/wealth by level...and if you wanted to run a lower magic level game, 3E made your job tremendously hard.
I know 4E hasn't been out too long yet, but so far in the two groups I DM and play in (about 3rd-4th level in both), my four major issues with 3E have been solved.
1. The rules were needlessly complex and time consuming. Since I usually DMed, I'd have to spend 3-4 hours statting up enemies for a session of equal length. Thats absolutely absurd. Yes, people have said you didn't need to stat everything out, but when the RAW require you to do that in order to follow them, the game has some serious flaws.
2. Extreme power discrepancies between classes. Remember when 3E came out, the designers said they tried to rebalance all the classes based on their combat abilities and potential and standardize the experience point progression? Problem was, they didn't do a very good job of it. The problem only got worse with the 3E multiclassing rules and cherry-picking levels of this or that class, and prestige classes. This is one of the areas that when people say 3E was "deeply flawed" immediately springs to my mind.
Witness the complete dominance of the game past level 8 by casters, or the complete brokenness of druids and certain cleric builds. The 4E team took a long, hard look at the completely broken features of 3E and rebalanced the classes with powers so they have similar combat ability at a given level, but with different types and effects of powers. All classes needed to be put on a similar power level as they advanced through their careers. Yes, that means wizards, clerics and casters lose some power in 4E, but other classes benefit from their loss and make the game more enjoyable for the group as a whole. Casters can make up for this with rituals (which I love the implementation of) to regain some of their versatilty, but no longer will casters completely dominate every other class in the game.
3. PC power level was very high- most of the time the PCs just steamrolled through encounters with little or no difficulty, and I found my group got into a "ho-hum" attitude when we played it. 3E wasn't exciting, the system made the game boring and methodical by its nature. And using mosters of a higher CR (IME 3-6 CR higher) either resulted in the monsters going down just as easily, or a TPK due to some immunity or special ability of the monster.
4E doesn't seem to have the problem to nearly the same degree, and all characters have worthwhile powers and abilities. So its much less likely you have one character who is immediate toaste versus certain monsters, and other characters who wade through the monster's special attacks like walking in the rain.
4. 3E came with a huge set of assumptions of how you should play, and due to the interconnectedness of the rules, if you didn't follow their assumptions, the system broke down sooner than it normally did. The big culprit here was magic item/wealth by level...and if you wanted to run a lower magic level game, 3E made your job tremendously hard.
I know 4E hasn't been out too long yet, but so far in the two groups I DM and play in (about 3rd-4th level in both), my four major issues with 3E have been solved.
