Why Changes were made in 4e

[Ariosto]

Having the sorcerer class as an option is cool -- the more (preferably well-tested) options the merrier, I think!

Think you get too many spells in 1e/2e/3e? In OD&D with Supp. I, you get (assuming intelligence to cast all 9 spell levels) 50 spells at 20th level! That's 7 per spell level through 6th -- and literally daily, unlike 1e's quarter-hour/level/spell preparation time.

It's a long, hard road to such power, though. Especially at low levels, the key to preparation is intel and recon. My personal fave is charm person, if I can get it -- but any of the "humbler" spells can be strategically powerful in the right circumstances.

Before 3e, magic items were not really a direct part of the "character level" deal. Holmes Basic lets you make scrolls even at 1st level, which is handy.

Anyway, the focus of the game has shifted; there's a different, "encounter4zed" structure and strategy.

One thing to remember, for you history buffs, is that in original D+D there was *no* good-evil axis ...

Well, good did not get significant mention that I recall until the first supplement introduced the paladin. "Anti-clerics" (with "reversed" spells and no "turning" of undead) were evil from the start -- as proclaimed in level titles culminating the once-infamous EHP (Evil High Priest, with The Finger of Death in place of Raise Read).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, good did not get significant mention that I recall until the first supplement introduced the paladin. "Anti-clerics" (with "reversed" spells and no "turning" of undead) were evil from the start -- as proclaimed in level titles culminating the once-infamous EHP (Evil High Priest, with The Finger of Death in place of Raise Read).

(emphasis mine)
He had a pop-up spellbook?

 

[Hussar]

2) That was not a typical stretch of adventures between rests, but neither was it atypical. Three to four combats between rests was pretty common, and I can't remember any time with only 1 combat.

That jives with my experience as well. We'd get the odd 1 combat day mostly because of bad rolls. Four was about max. 2-3 was definetely the usual for us.

Which, effectively, meant 15 minute adventuring days. Wake up, wander around, fight, wander around, fight, go to bed. Sure it wasn't literally 15 minutes, but, it certainly wasn't a long line of combats.

That took a wand of cure light for our group. Then we started rolling over entire adventures without resting. Not easily mind you, but, the group would keep pushing on because they could.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just to be clear, if we were talking about average # of combats between rests in our RttToEE campaign, I'd have to say that:

1) The Mode (most common value) was 3 combats.

2) The Mean (average of all values) was somewhere close to 4.

3) That we had 6 at one stretch is memorable not because it was unusual, but because it was the last big stretch we had before we finished off the module.

And, in addition, the triggering event for looking for rest spots was not the spells of the arcanists, but the combination of HP of front and second liners (including combat-centric divine casters) and how much healing was left. Typically, when we rested, somebody was in danger of being killed by a miffed marmot.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, I'll totally agree with that DannyA. My experience jives with yours. It was the clerics, IME, not the wizards who dictated stopping places.

Now, I will go a step further and say that this was true for me in earlier editions as well. When the cleric ran out of healing, we tended to stop, if we could. However, in earlier editions, it was easier to push on because each individual encounter tended to be signficantly less threatening. It was not unusual to come out of an encounter (again in my experience) having only been hit once or twice among the entire party. Because creatures could not do significant amounts of damage in a single round and, as an added bonus, we tended to play in groups of 6-8, combats were typically a whole lot less threatening. But, we tended to blitz through a lot more of them, so the end result was pretty much the same.

When the cleric ran out of healing, we stopped.

But, that aside erm... aside, I totally agree with you. Clerics dictated the pace of my games, not wizards.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When the cleric ran out of healing, we stopped.

I know it may seem like just a semantic difference, but in our case, it was more like "When the cleric ran out of healing, we started looking for a place to stop."

Sometimes, that wouldn't be found for a while- and there were often 1+ combats to get through between the healers running on empty and the party's actual stopping point.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

We had that problem recently, too. Or rather, my players had it, and the Cleric was just not low on healing, he was low (out) of healing surges, and there was no place to rest.

Pyramid of Shadows can be nasty for that...

 

[Storminator]

We had that problem recently, too. Or rather, my players had it, and the Cleric was just not low on healing, he was low (out) of healing surges, and there was no place to rest.

Pyramid of Shadows can be nasty for that...

I've played sessions where my cleric had no surges and we just pressed on. Risky, but we did it.

Our next game is going to start with one PC on the final stage of Filth Fever. He has no surges, can't regain hit points, has 1 hp, and penalties to his defenses... and we're trapped in the underground tomb. Getting him back to the surface is going to be quite tricky!

PS

 

[Celebrim]

Real Reasons for the Changes:

WotC wanted a rules set that could be easily ported with minimal changes to a real time computer environment. Vancian casting, for example, doesn't port well to a computer environment. The 4e rules set is in my opinion as a programmer who has worked on porting turn based pen and paper games over to real time computer environments, very easy to port over to a computer environment while still maintaining the feel of the PnP game. For example, compared to earlier editions, 4e is far more suited to balanced PvP combat, which is an expected part of computer gaming that has little role in table top games. 4e also provides a consistancy of play experience across a wide range of levels that you didn't have in earlier editions. A low level wizard plays very much like a high level wizard, which certainly can't be said of earlier editions. Also, the tight focus on combat is much easier for a game programmer, because non-combat situations tend to require much more human arbitration and anything that require human arbitration is hard or impossible to program. The skill frameworks seem to me an attempt to provide a resolution mechanic to game developers for outside of combat situations, albiet the whole skill challenge system has never really seemed to work as intended. WotC wanted a rules set that could be picked up by an average 12 year old and which would present concepts familiar to that player from outside the pen and paper RPG gaming world. WotC wanted a clean break with the OGL and 'open source' gaming. The real problem with the OGL was that Green Ronin was doing D&D better than WotC was. WotC expected 3rd parties to provide accessories with low profit margins and allow WoTC to concentrate on core books. Instead, too many players (like me) were using other gaming companies products as core books and simply not buying WotC books (at all). To break with OGL meant that they had to put out a system that wasn't really backwards compatible so that if you wanted to keep playing the latest and 'coolest' game, you had to stop using their competitor's books.

As for the flavor changes, I think you are really overthinking the issue. The reason for the flavor changes is quite simple - a new DM was put in charge. Every DM is going to try to put their own stamp on the official setting. If there was any overarching motivation beyond that it was again, just simplicity. The traditional D&D planar setting is very baroque and complicated. It's not something that people can take in at a glance and understand what's going on. A simplified core setting serves to get people into the cosmology and its conflicts in a hurry. Of course, over time I fully expect the new setting to develop all the quirks and complexities of any long lived setting - 'setting bloat' as opposed to 'rules bloat' - but if they had any unifying idea at all it was probably 'keep it simple'.

 

[AllisterH]

ER, Celebrim, I disagree strongly...

4e's rules are perhaps the WORST set of D&D rules EVER you want to be translated to real time.

All those "push and Slide powers" , plus a higher use of out of turn abilities like Immediate reactions....

No wau no how can 4e be turned to a real time game. You pretty much have to neuter EVERY single class to get it to real time.

I'm not sure why you believe Vancian casting is anathema to real time environments....

Furthermore, as a PVP game, 4e would pretty much bite. For example, using the PHB1 classes only, the only viable PVP class is the ranger.

Warlord and Cleric make no sense in PVP, rogues need somebody to flank with and there's no point in having Defenders in PVP matches.

Seriously, 4e as a real time game? No chance.

Now, if we're talking a turne based grid based game a la FFT/Disgaea...THERE, now that works...