D&D 4E Will the 4E classes be deliberately unbalanced to get players to read?

[doctormandible]

I completely disagree. DnD is and should be competitive. I shouldn't be able to randomly choose my feats and powers and make a character just as powerful as an experienced player. Perhaps a smaller gap between good and bad choices would be nice, but there should be an advantage to a player within a system. Otherwise what is the point of learning the system well? Where is the advantage of spending extra time working on your character?

Now I realize that the Bard is useless... That is a problem. There shouldn't be such a disparity between the top and bottom of the torem pole in 4e. But there should be a difference in power. Also there should be multiple classes/powers of nearly identical power at the top of the totem pole (dito bottom). The day that the rules of DnD have a zero learning curve will be a dark day, imo.

 

[NaturalZero]

I completely disagree. DnD is and should be competitive. I shouldn't be able to randomly choose my feats and powers and make a character just as powerful as an experienced player. Perhaps a smaller gap between good and bad choices would be nice, but there should be an advantage to a player within a system. Otherwise what is the point of learning the system well? Where is the advantage of spending extra time working on your character?

Now I realize that the Bard is useless... That is a problem. There shouldn't be such a disparity between the top and bottom of the torem pole in 4e. But there should be a difference in power. Also there should be multiple classes/powers of nearly identical power at the top of the totem pole (dito bottom). The day that the rules of DnD have a zero learning curve will be a dark day, imo.

Your going to have power disparities in any system that gives you a wealth of choices, theres really no way around it. People who know the system are going to be a little better than those who dont. Putting covert "timmy choices" in the system with the goal of purposefuly tricking new players is just shady and unnecessary though.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I completely disagree. DnD is and should be competitive. I shouldn't be able to randomly choose my feats and powers and make a character just as powerful as an experienced player. Perhaps a smaller gap between good and bad choices would be nice, but there should be an advantage to a player within a system. Otherwise what is the point of learning the system well? Where is the advantage of spending extra time working on your character?

Why does there NEED to be an advantage to a player? The point in learning the system well is knowing how to play and understanding your character well enough to use him or her effectively. I'm also confused as to why spending extra time working on your character is a good thing. The idea is that you can make up characters quickly and easily so you spend more time actually playing the game and less time working on your character.

Now I realize that the Bard is useless... That is a problem. There shouldn't be such a disparity between the top and bottom of the torem pole in 4e. But there should be a difference in power. Also there should be multiple classes/powers of nearly identical power at the top of the totem pole (dito bottom). The day that the rules of DnD have a zero learning curve will be a dark day, imo.

Why? So you can make fun of the people who don't know as much as you and lord the fact that you've been playing longer than they have over their heads? There just doesn't seem to be a productive reason for this other than to encourage people to become obsessive about D&D instead of just having fun playing it as a game.

There is a learning curve associated with EVERY game though. D&D still has rules. It still takes time to learn them. However, once you understand the rules, there isn't a next step above that where you now have to understand the "real" rules. You know, the ones that you need to know in order to build a GOOD character instead of a bad one.

 

[Torchlyte]

Your going to have power disparities in any system that gives you a wealth of choices, theres really no way around it. People who know the system are going to be a little better than those who dont. Putting covert "timmy choices" in the system with the goal of purposefuly tricking new players is just shady and unnecessary though.

A good example is the feat that gives +1d10 damage on a crit. With a normal crit range that's only .275 damage per swing, and even critting on 19s it's only worth .55 damage per swing.

It's an interesting flavor option, but mechanically it's total crap.

 

[Torchlyte]

Why does there NEED to be an advantage to a player? The point in learning the system well is knowing how to play and understanding your character well enough to use him or her effectively. I'm also confused as to why spending extra time working on your character is a good thing. The idea is that you can make up characters quickly and easily so you spend more time actually playing the game and less time working on your character.

Only if you come up with your character and concept on the spot so that game time and creation time directly conflict.

Why? So you can make fun of the people who don't know as much as you and lord the fact that you've been playing longer than they have over their heads? There just doesn't seem to be a productive reason for this other than to encourage people to become obsessive about D&D instead of just having fun playing it as a game.

Not every min/maxer is an .

I agree with 4e's efforts, but your post is off base.

 

[small pumpkin man]

A good example is the feat that gives +1d10 damage on a crit. With a normal crit range that's only .275 damage per swing, and even critting on 19s it's only worth .55 damage per swing.

It's an interesting flavor option, but mechanically it's total crap.

Actually, because of 4e's crit system, you have to remember it's the equivelent of an average of about .55 damage per hit, (assuming an 11 is required to hit) which of course increases to 1.1 at a crit range 19-20. it also makes proportionally more difference as it becomes harder to hit, making it more useful for characters with low attack bonuses, or when fighting tougher creaters.

This still may or may not be worth it.

 

[small pumpkin man]

I completely disagree. DnD is and should be competitive. I shouldn't be able to randomly choose my feats and powers and make a character just as powerful as an experienced player. Perhaps a smaller gap between good and bad choices would be nice, but there should be an advantage to a player within a system. Otherwise what is the point of learning the system well? Where is the advantage of spending extra time working on your character?

Now I realize that the Bard is useless... That is a problem. There shouldn't be such a disparity between the top and bottom of the torem pole in 4e. But there should be a difference in power. Also there should be multiple classes/powers of nearly identical power at the top of the totem pole (dito bottom). The day that the rules of DnD have a zero learning curve will be a dark day, imo.

Short answer, No.

D&D is designed to be co-operative, not competitive, as such having highly varied power levels between characters is a Bad Thing.

D&D is designed so that characters are played for upwards of 12 months, and for people to have emotional connection to characters they create. This means there shouldn't be "bad" character build choices, because just "swaping them out" like you would in an MMO, a card game or a board game causes problems for most RPG playstyles.

As such, learning curves in gameplay are okay, learning curves in character creation are Bad.

 

[AtomicPope]

Role-Playing Mastery? What's that supposed to mean?

It's one of two definitive books Gary Gygax had written on the subject of Roleplaying

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Only if you come up with your character and concept on the spot so that game time and creation time directly conflict.

In my group there are some people who are the type who obsessively make and remake their characters. They spend a lot of time between sessions reading the D&D books and coming up with new characters in case theirs dies. That's fine. They enjoy it.

Other people in my group play D&D only from the time the session starts until it ends. They have never even read the PHB. They think it would be boring to read through so they need help making their characters, they often ask me or the other players what options they have in combat, and so on.

However, the second group of players still enjoys playing. They just don't like doing "homework" for a game they play. 4e makes it easier for them to learn the game and puts nearly all the information they need to play on their character sheets so they don't even need to consult the book.

Not every min/maxer is an .

I agree with 4e's efforts, but your post is off base.

Not every min/maxer is, no. However, the poster I was replying to pretty much said "I think I should be able to make a better character because I know the rules better than other people. If I can't, then the game is dumb."

The implication of which is that there is some reason one player should have an advantage over another simply because they spend more time in between sessions thinking about the game. I disagree and was trying to find the reason he thinks the game should be less fun for certain people just because they decided to go to a movie with their girlfriend this week instead of staying at home reading Complete Warrior.

 

[AtomicPope]

I completely disagree. DnD is and should be competitive. I shouldn't be able to randomly choose my feats and powers and make a character just as powerful as an experienced player. Perhaps a smaller gap between good and bad choices would be nice, but there should be an advantage to a player within a system. Otherwise what is the point of learning the system well? Where is the advantage of spending extra time working on your character?

Now I realize that the Bard is useless... That is a problem. There shouldn't be such a disparity between the top and bottom of the torem pole in 4e. But there should be a difference in power. Also there should be multiple classes/powers of nearly identical power at the top of the totem pole (dito bottom). The day that the rules of DnD have a zero learning curve will be a dark day, imo.

So you're saying that a DM should make NPC's that are just as powerful as the worst Min/Maxed characters possible right?

If players are supposed to be uber rules monkeys then DM's should do the exact same thing. After all, D&D by your very interpretation is competative. So when a GM makes an Incantrix Wizard Mindflayer that deals 60d6 of untyped damage to the party every round while under a Superior Invisibility spell that's cool. Never mind that even the worst min/maxed parties cannot survive this. It's competition.


The problem with low-brow, superficial assessments is they don't realize that the DM can use the exact same tools to build monsters in 3e. People that don't DM never bother to figure out how CR is calculated. They just say, out of hand, it's competition. Well maybe it is competition, but it's also broken. One fact doesn't changed the other. They're not mutually exclusive. In 3e it's so easy for any DM that can min/max to TPK a party by building a rival NPC party to fight. The CR is legit. The rules are legit. Everything is according to the game. But the PC's will lose because it's about all about the opening round when uber min/maxed classes are involved.