WoTC Interview with Rob Heinsoo

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I have played fighters and thieves at high levels. In fact Thieves have always been my favorite class since OD&D.

As to why, I think its because I never played them as simply a class. I was able to become a Thieves Guild Master, or a mighty lord. How many games have others played in where games went in those directions? I am betting not many. I also bet even fewer went so far as to have a PC tap into the power they have as a Thieves Guild Master or mighty lord, or High Priest of a temple for that matter.

And you're still better off as a mage/thief (only 1 level behind thanks to AD&D's design!). Because anything you can do, the mage can do better.

Plus I think many people don't get how powerful having their "to hit" increase is, particularly since it is such a fundamental power of the fighter class and related classes. My fighter could hit practically anything with ease, and do a lot of damage too.

Less than the fighter/mage, or cleric/mage or whatever. 1st edition adventures were dripping with wands,

In games where my fighter got his hands on Girdles/Belts of Giant Strength he was very god like and taking on creatures he wouldn't have even daredd take on at lower levels.

Magic item dependency is a good thing now?

Personally I think the problems come down to "player envy". Yes, my fighter kicks butt, but he doesn't have the cool powers of the mage or priest or Druid. Well then, play one of those classes!

In our group, no one played the fighter, or a single class. It was blatently apparent they sucked compared to a MC'd spellcaster, given how poorly the rules were designed. You'd be a level behind, in exchange for a massive powerup. Why be a fighter, when you could be a fighter/cleric, tossing around what amounted to save or die effects at 3rd level (hold person)?

Too many players want the "I can do anything" character, well a fighter isn't meant to do everything, neither is a wizard. You want to do everything then you have to be both, but then your very limited in how fast you become powerful in both, and players cry about that!

You werent limited at all. You were a level behind (if that).

The reality is many players don't want to be limited, they want the "I can do everything!" character. They don't want balance, they want to be super cool and super powerful!

No, what many old school geeks really want is someone else to suck. Someone to play the fighter or thief, while they be the wizard or cleric. Otherwise they wouldnt piss and moan about balance. Why else would it matter if the fighter was just as useful as the wizard? God knows he'll still be comparatively useless out of combat compared to the guy who can teleport, scry, read minds, contact other planes, and in general, break any adventure given a day to load up the appropriate list of ever expanding superpowers.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

2) Healing surges are the killer (literally). At least in 3e, a party could reasonably continue on potions, scrolls and/or wands for quite a while... normally in the ballpark of 4-6 encounters per day before resting. But in 4e, once any single character is out of healing surges, the party pretty much has to take an extended rest. Pressing on at that point, without that character being able to heal at all during an encounter, is akin to that characters death sentence... I've found in our mid-late Paragon game that that point now seems be be about every 2-3 encounters.

I actually like the concept of healing surges, if not the execution. In 3rd edition, Wands of cure light wounds are so cheap that out of combat healing may as well be free past 5th level or so. If the players arent killed or ability drained/damaged, they may as well be healed to full and save everyone the trouble of rolling dice and tracking charges while the characters spend a minute poking each other with sticks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So you liked OD&D despite the frustrations? Do you think they were necessary to make you appreciate the game more?

Liked it despite the frustrations? Absolutely. They were irrelevant to my appreciation of the game though - and I think that is the point I was trying to make. It was just the way that D&D 'was', and it neither improved nor harmed it.



(nb RuneQuest 2 was our favoured game of choice, once it came out we pretty much abandoned D&D completely for it, with some additional time spent enjoying bushido)

 

[Jhaelen]

1st level has always been fun, I have no idea why Rob Heinsoo felt it was not.

Probably because it hasn't been fun for an overwhelming majority of players?

For me (and my circle of roleplaying friends) it's been fun exactly ONCE.
After having started at level 1 once, we always started on higher levels after that. Sometimes as low as level 2, often higher. Note, that this wasn't just because the characters are pathetically weak at level 1 but also because there were no interesting monsters to fight at these low levels.

Imho, it was a correct decision to make the changes to level 1 characters in 4E. I'm just a bit disappointed they didn't include a section on level 0 characters in the 4E DMG for those few individuals out there who continue to enjoy playing farmers and their like.

 

[Mournblade94]

In our group, no one played the fighter, or a single class. It was blatently apparent they sucked compared to a MC'd spellcaster, given how poorly the rules were designed. You'd be a level behind, in exchange for a massive powerup. Why be a fighter, when you could be a fighter/cleric, tossing around what amounted to save or die effects at 3rd level (hold person)?

If your group consists of minmaxers I can see this. Otherwise I have never seen this problem.

No, what many old school geeks really want is someone else to suck. Someone to play the fighter or thief, while they be the wizard or cleric. Otherwise they wouldnt piss and moan about balance. Why else would it matter if the fighter was just as useful as the wizard? God knows he'll still be comparatively useless out of combat compared to the guy who can teleport, scry, read minds, contact other planes, and in general, break any adventure given a day to load up the appropriate list of ever expanding superpowers.

Your insight is astounding. CLearly you are someone that has played with many groups of so called old schoolers to understand their secret.

Why would someone want to play the fighter? Because they did in fact NOT 'suck'. Most of my cahracters have been a fighting class mostly ranger. This nonsense of the fighters being the weakest class comes from people that did not understand the balance factour of the wizard was his spells per day. If you allowed rest periods like the 4e does, the wizard is never power downed. But a wizard USED to require strategy. You had to pick your spells carefully, and use them carefully or you would... uh oh! Run out of spells!

The fighter very often carried the party through these times. But you would have to assume an actual 8 hour day instead of 10 minute days. I never worried about that as a fighter.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

As has been stated earlier, I think there is a certain chutzpah to Mr. Heinsoo's statements regarding wrongbadfun in earlier editions of the game.

I've tried 4e and what I've found (so far) is that it makes it extremely difficult for a DM to be able to run a gritty, low-magic campaign.

D&D has NEVER been low magic. Unless you ban spellcaster classes from the players, they use magic more than they poop. Player wizards make any game a "high magic" game IMO. D&D magic is almost always a safe, known commodity. Aside from a few spellls, there's little chance of magic backfiring as I would expect in a low magic world. Its always been a poor system for this type of play.

Frankly, the idea that 4e fixes the sweet spot that existed in 3e is a fallacy based upon the fact that players (and DMs) don't really have a decent toolkit in 3.x to allow them to go from being one of the grunts in the trenches to becoming generals of armies and eventually political movers and shakers. There are smatterings of help in the DMG2 and Power of Faerun, but you'll also have to adopt rules from something like MMS:WE.

It amazes me that there aren't rules as good as what is in 1e AD&D or BECMI D&D to do something as simple as acquiring landholdings, attracting vassals (to work the land, provide income, etc.), directing armies on the field of battle or allowing for political intrigue. D&D's War Machine mass combat rules and its dominion rules are elegant and allow players and DMs to quickly and easily play out all of those things that high-level PCs should be doing instead of slogging through every 2-bit dungeon.

That stuff should really be in a supplement, IMO. Not everyone wants their game to become Axis and Allies at 10th level, and it shouldnt be the default assumption. I actually picked up MMS for this reason, but the player that is interested int hat sort of thing handles it between sessions, because the other 4 are bored to tears with that sort of thing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Probably because it hasn't been fun for an overwhelming majority of players?

For me (and my circle of roleplaying friends) it's been fun exactly ONCE.
After having started at level 1 once, we always started on higher levels after that. Sometimes as low as level 2, often higher. Note, that this wasn't just because the characters are pathetically weak at level 1 but also because there were no interesting monsters to fight at these low levels.

Imho, it was a correct decision to make the changes to level 1 characters in 4E. I'm just a bit disappointed they didn't include a section on level 0 characters in the 4E DMG for those few individuals out there who continue to enjoy playing farmers and their like.

I think we just need more 1st level foes - and I don't mean more Kobolds or more Goblins, but different type of creatures.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

If your group consists of minmaxers I can see this. Otherwise I have never seen this problem.

Its been my experience that everyone min-maxes, or "optimizes". First edition was easier to break, because it was so poorly designed in regards to balance (among other things). I also didnt see many fighters running around using daggers over longswords.

Your insight is astounding. CLearly you are someone that has played with many groups of so called old schoolers to understand their secret.

Why would someone want to play the fighter? Because they did in fact NOT 'suck'. Most of my cahracters have been a fighting class mostly ranger. This nonsense of the fighters being the weakest class comes from people that did not understand the balance factour of the wizard was his spells per day.

And when the wizard and cleric were cashed, you rested. Period. You hopped in your rope trick, played cards for 8 hours until the real party memebrs were ready to do the heavy lifting and moved on.

Oh right, you never rested in 1st/2nd edition...

 

[billd91]

Remember, if you cast fireball 2 rounds in a row and one round the creature saves and next it fails, you've taken two rounds to deal 75% of your potential damage (or less, if the target has evasion/improved) which may/may not kill the foe. If you do the same with Finger of Death, you took two rounds to kill the creature. Period.

My experience has been more along the lines of Plane Sailing's. The caster players in my groups generally make a different calculation.

If they hammer away with a couple of rounds of fireballs, they've done significant damage even if the creature is making its saves (barring evasion, but then they switch to rays if that's the case) which makes it easier to mop up by the fighters, rogues, druids, and monks. By comparison, if the save or die spells fail, the monster is typically at full or near full strength and the spell slots cast were wasted.

The way they set their expectations, they put a higher penalty on failing to have a significant effect for the resources expended, particularly when multiple layers of defense are involved (SR, saves) than the benefit of an immediate takedown.

 

[Thasmodious]

I'm not saying that it cannot be criticised or improved upon though - what I'm saying is that assertions that it is a poor basis for a game to have low level wizards with only a spell or two are not borne out by the evidence.

I think those assertions have backing, even from yourself -

I think we all found it frustrating that wizards had limited shots

This was certainly my experience. As a player I'd argue against starting at 1st level because of wizards and as a DM, I've had players wanting to play wizards outright refuse to start at 1st level. People have complained about the weakness of low level wizards for decades and many have found it frustrating, as you say. So I'm not sure how you acknowledge on the one hand that this was a frustrating problem and then say it wasn't a problem because that's the way it was for years. I certainly think that a trained up wizard having to badly wield a crossbow is a problem.