You don't like the new edition? Tell me about it!

[Dannyalcatraz]

After examining the Core 3 for a couple of days now, I'd have to say that there are things I definitely like about the game...but many more that I don't.

As a DM examining the game, I feel like a guy who asked for a longsword and was given safety scissors and a pat on the head. Some of the options I expected from previous editions' DMGs are simply absent (as far as I can tell)- like some kind of hint on how to do Magic items that aren't listed in the Core.

As a player examining the game, I feel like my ferocious attack dog has been returned to the age of a puppy. 3.X's multiclassing rules were the most flexible ever in D&D history, and 4Ed now gives us some of the weakest.

Is 4Ed streamlined and easy to learn? Yes.

That just makes it a grilled cheese sandwich next to 3.X's cornucopia of options.

I'm sure some of what I miss will be introduced in future releases, but the very mechanics of the game preclude even the possibility of the return some of my favorites.

I'm not ruling out the possibility that I may wind up playing 4Ed- I've played many games I don't like just for the camaraderie of gaming with people I like- but I'm damn sure I'll never DM this incarnation of D&D.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Speaking solely (likely so) for myself, it isn't so much "ecologies" - in my thinking "ecologies" aren't separate blocks of text, but cool stuff in the overall description.

The new MM is lacking those. For example, here's the new MM entry on the Sauhagin:



Now compare that to the column inches taken up by Steve Marsh's entry for them in the original MONSTER MANUAL for AD&D - which is copied from SUPPLEMENT II: BLACKMOOR, verbatim.

The MM has no ring to it.

That's just the opening paragraph.
You "forgot" the "Sahuagin Lore" section, which has more info.

Geoff.

 

[Intense_Interest]

PHB Chapter-by-Chapter Hate-review:

1
An Inflated Point-buy system

2
Half Elves - what is special here? Why do you exist instead of half Dragonborn or half Dwarfs?

3
A class called "Ranger" that really should be termed a Scout or Skirmisher.

4
History is wildly vague.

5
"Underfoot" feat prereq should be Small + Acrobatics training rather than Halfling + Acrobatics training

6
Spiked Chain, even as simply a more accurate Glaive, is a stupid weapon.
Ugly blank spot under Superior Weapons- Should have designed the table to have Improvised Melee shifted under that.

7
No extended Dim light from a Bright source

8
3 characters arranged in a triangle don't count as "Flanking"

9
Needs to be a higher-level Gentle Repose subset and a "Healing Zone".

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I agree with a lot that has been said. Now some things that haven't been said:

Nothing is permanent. Medusas no longer turn you into stone; or rather, you magically turn OUT of stone once combat is over. In fact, that's how combat works - each bit of combat is it's own withdrawn thing completely unconnected to everything else in the game.

Maze. Oh god, maze. See sig for more.

The lack of identify is a sore spot for me. It just screams of dumbing things down. "We found identifying things could sometimes be challenging, so we removed that!"

Really, that above covers a lot of my problems with 4e. There's a sense of "We didn't think x was fun. It's gone now." The problem is, they just removed something that other people did find fun. They didn't made it a side bit, or "If you like x, you could y instead." They just got rid of it.

Someone else here used the phrase "Going to a doctor for a sore toe and they cut off your foot." That really hits a lot of my thoughts on 4e.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I was examining the "monsters" as PCs options as presented in the MM and found something else to be annoyed about.

The Minotaur, despite being 50-100lbs heavier and 9-11" taller than Dragonborn (on average) still receive the same +2Str mod.

4Ed is weak and watered down gaming. It may be fun to play, but its not D&D to me.

Perhaps I'll start calling it NerfEd D&D.

 

[Felix]

I've just read the Ken Troop thread over on the WotC boards, and was chuckling the whole time. I cannot imagine a worse way for WotC to shoot themselves in the foot than to utterly fail to deliver the most heavily hyped service of the edition.

I wasn't going to switch to 4e anyway, but it amuses me that Wizards can be so consistently and staggeringly incompetent with regard to digital support software. Heads really ought to roll for this gaff. Or rather, heads should have rolled 9 months ago when they (should have) realized they'd not be getting it finished on-time.

 

[resistor]

Cleaving through your enemies and using a shield bash to throw them back are thematically and mechanically the same?

First, I said thematically. There was certainly mechanical variation. My issue was that that was the ONLY difference.

No, cleave and shield bash were ok. I still don't know how a reaping strike differs from just, y'know, hitting them with your sword. It actually seemed worse, to me, with the rogue, at least in the demo game. All of his powers seemed to amount to "I be sneaky to hit them harder." I know he was using two or three different ones, but honestly I could only tell them apart by their mechanical effects.

So, what does this have to do with 4E? The Fighters purpose seems to hit people that try to ignore him so hard that they reconsider.

In games that feature aggro, the purpose of "tank" characters is to get all the monsters to attack them, so everyone else can shoot/blast/kill them w/o being attacked. The fighter's "convince them not to attack anyone else" powers push a similar strategy.

I know that this comment basically came from one of the designers, but I am still not convinced it is true. I felt a certain "spark of imagination" hitting me when I read the preview books and the core rules. Maybe time will tell if that's actually true.

I think the real issue is deeper: 4e makes simulationist play, or play with strong simulationist tendencies harder, by virtue of applying a separate ruleset to PCs as to non-characters. A lot a people who are into "detailed" world building have a simulationist streak, so this ticks them off.

Cool, such classes are already out there? Can you cite a good example (preferably one without monthly cost. I am already paying for a fitness center I barely visit, but definitely should visit more often...)

Yes. See the Captain in Lord of the Rings Online. For one without a monthly fee, see the Paragon in Guild Wars: Nightfall.

They still do such manuals? Since the days of Descent 2, I became more and more disappointed in the computer game manuals...
Now, T.F.X, that was a great manual!

Unfortunately, not so much. I think such things might still be available if you get the "collector's edition" sets. Those usually include more detailed game guides/manuals and poster maps, etc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think the real issue is deeper: 4e makes simulationist play, or play with strong simulationist tendencies harder, by virtue of applying a separate ruleset to PCs as to non-characters. A lot a people who are into "detailed" world building have a simulationist streak, so this ticks them off.

QFT.

When I started realizing this, I had to stop reading the game for a while- I was grinding my teeth.

 

[Treebore]

I just want to say that my gripe when 3rd came out, was the reliance on magic items and how it got to be more like a video game, with all the buff spells. The only real house rules I have are to reduce the "all adventurers have gauntlets of str/dex/wiz etc so your mage is walking around with 17 str" (eventhough he was built with a 9 str). After playing 3rd for awhile, I found that I could really control this, by limiting magic, and adjusting bad guys.

Well, now here comes fourth, where they kicked it up by five notches and not only have thoes items but turned thoes thing to powers that everyone can have. Noe instead of normal people growing and learning about the world around them, and earning thier place, we have the justice league right out of the womb. Instant gratification. Apparently that is what people want these day though. They don't want to struggle and earn thier power, they want to be given it from the get go.

Yeah, WOTC got rid of the magic item issue by just making the players automatically more powerful from built in mechanics that the DM cannot get rid of without changing the basic rules of the game.

These guys are professionals, right?

 

[pemerton]

The lack of identify is a sore spot for me. It just screams of dumbing things down. "We found identifying things could sometimes be challenging, so we removed that!"

D&D is a game in which one of the main aims of play is to find and use magic items. Most people enjoy the finding bit - if you play D&D, you like a good combat - but what is added to the play experience by the identification requirement?

Or, to put it another way, what is non-dumb (intelligent?) about playing a game of finding and using items, but having the game make it hard to use those items properly once you've found them? Adversity in a roleplaying game isn't meant to be real adversity - that's what life is for - it's meant to be imaginary adversity which it is fun to roleplay out. How many people like roleplaying an assayer?

The problem is, they just removed something that other people did find fun. They didn't made it a side bit, or "If you like x, you could y instead." They just got rid of it.

Like all rules systems, some things are in there and others are not. Now the game is fun for those who didn't like Identify. I assume that WoTC believes that they are the majority. I think that WoTC are right about this.

Yeah, WOTC got rid of the magic item issue by just making the players automatically more powerful from built in mechanics that the DM cannot get rid of without changing the basic rules of the game.

Your criticism makes no sense to me. Yes, in 4e the players get more powerful, but this is because the changs to the game's mechanics of character build and action resolution give the players more narrative control. Why is this a bad thing?

It's also perhaps true that low-level PCs get more powerful because those same changes make them less likely to die on a single unlucky dice roll. Why is this a bad thing?

And those who don't like the flavour of traditional D&D magic items can easily strip it out in a mechanically consistent fashion. Why is this a bad thing?

Is there anyone whose objection to magic items in 3E was not a flavour one, but rather that it made it too easy for the players to have fun? How can a game make it too easy to have fun? That's the raison d'etre of a game!