Savage Wombat
Hero
The S&S Ravenloft books were awesome as worldbuilding material. The level of detail and plot seeds were well done and invaluable. The rules material? Fairly forgettable. But hardly necessary.
D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)
- Thread starter XunValdorl_of_Kilsek
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herrozerro
First Post
I'd like to call shenanigans on this. At least as far as 3.5 is concerned.
3.5 PHB p4
You character is an adventurer, a hero who sets out on epic quests for fortune and glory. Other characters join your adventuring party to explore dungeons and battle monsters such as the terrible dragon or the carnivorous troll.
Sounds like in 3.5 you can't be an adventurer without being 1. A hero. 2. out for fame or glory. But since we all know that we can't read as literal as that. Why don't we cut the crap about 4e suddenly changing the name of the game.
4e PHB1 p8
"As a player, you create a character—a heroic adventurer.This adventurer is part of a team that delves
into dungeons, battles monsters, and explores the
world’s dark wilderness."
They are practically the same, so lets drop the attacks against 4e, how it somehow changed the fundamental nature of the game.
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Then you would be wrong.
Go back to 4E pre release stuff and even the first set of core rules. It was pretty clear and communicated often that in 4E you start of as a experienced Hero with capital H.
Thats why 1st level 4E characters were so powerful (HP etc.), thats why many evil options like necromancy were not available to players, thats why the evil gods only got a few sentences in the PHB instead of a description like the other deities (the DMG flat out says that PCs are not supposed to worship evil gods) and that was why the first MM had hardly any good monster in it, even going so far as to turn formerly good monsters unaligned, so that the PCs could fight them.
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I will continue to reference 4th edition where ever I feel it is needed. The fact is, you were considered a hero in 4th edition from the get go.
herrozerro
First Post
As was 3rd edition as quoted above. Whats the difference?
Your above quote does make 3e and 4e sound pretty similar in terms of motivation. Starting power-level still a bit higher in 4e at least in terms of mortality rates?
Skimming through Moldvay, 1e, and 2e I didn't see any mention of being a hero in terms of motivation though... Unless I missed something, that would mean a change in terms of default motivation seems to have happened somewhere after 2e.
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4E starting characters were supposed to be already experienced adventurers according to marketing. I think 1st level in 4E was meant to represent something like 3rd level in older editions, but I am not sure about that one.
The imo main difference between 4E and previous editions where this "in 4E you play a Hero" was most noticeable was the absolute lack of anything evil usable by players in the first few releases and only having monsters which were fightable by good/unaligned PCs. I think there were only 1 or 2 good monsters in the MM1 and many good monsters like metallic dragons were turned unaligned so that players would have reasons to fight them (I think WotC did even directly confirm that this was the reason).
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herrozerro
First Post
I don't dispute that the player characters are assumed to be heroes in 4e, I am disputing that this is something different from what came before, namely 3e.
For the whole level 1 HP thing, take a look at the level 1 monsters, they easily have 2-3x the HP of the players! a goblin might have 20-30 HP, doesnt sound like the PCs are sooooo powerful?
I also feel that the whole necromancy thing was because of how the action economy in 4e was setup a traditional necromancer would have not worked.
As for evil options for players, I am convinced that it is more of an issue with how PCs and NPCs are made in the same manner than anything else.
Even reading the alignment descriptions in the 3e PHB, all of the evil alignments reference villains. Subtly in my eyes telling the reader that they are not for the heroes they will be building.
3e starts off by telling you that adventurers are heroes, and in the alignments explains that the evil ones are villains. Yes there are options, and eventually 4e did get "evil" options as well.
herrozerro
First Post
Thanks for the help with the older editions, I don't have any of those to reference.
