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

[Banshee16]

I don't know who said this, but it is silly. Let me put myself in the place of my character (The whole object of a RPG in my opinion). I get into a fight. A big dude is involved. I try to get away from him, and he "hits me so hard I reconcider" and go after him. Not so much. If he hits me that hard, I fracking run the hell away from him, and find somone easier to kill. Aggro is not rational, even in the context of a fantasy RPG. Could it work on some people, yea, thoes who have berserker traits, but should it work on the average mo. Heck no. Maybe 4ed bad guys never flee. (that would explain minions, heck if I got into a battle and me and my five friends knew one hit would kill us, would we stick around to confuse the opponent and make time for our leader?? hell no, all you'd see is my minion arse running the hell outta there. )

Good analogy.....I guess the Knight in 3.5 was the test case for the aggro mechanic. I didn't like the class much then either.

So, you've got this big, powerful looking knight in heavy armour, with a big sword. He salutes you, to challenge you to combat. You're a sneaky, dastardly assassin. Are you going to go attack him? No....because you're a sneaky, dastardly assassin....you're smart enough to know that going up against that knight is not going to end in your favour. So you go around him, and stab your blade into the guy standing behind him dressed in robes, waving a holy symbol around.

4E seems to look at it differently.

Banshee

 

[Felon]

I have no time, no money, and no interest in the new edition, not even one hour to spend to go and get a look at it in the LGS. But... I would like to hear from others how smart I am to remain away from it.

This thread is for those who are disappointed, angry, whatever negative feeling they got about the 3 new books.

Of course, this thread is NOT to begin a flame war, only to hear about those who don't like it and to know why. Obviously, lovers of the new game should better ignore this thread and read something else...

In no particular order:

1) In 4e, it seems that virtually every opponent is supposed to be susceptable to virtually everything a PC can throw at it. If you have an attack that slides a foe around, it works on a purple worm or colossus just as easily as it does a goblin. If you have a mind-affecting power, it works on mindless undead. If you have an attack that knocks a target prone, it works on oozes and swarms and other things to whom the term "prone" should be meaningless. And while we're on swarms, even the most particulate swarm can now be killed with a sword.

Putting aside any debate about verisimilitude, there's the much more concrete matter of monsters not being able to do what they were intended to do. A purple worm is supposed to be this enormous, implacable thing--it makes players move, not vice-versa. Oozes and swarms are supposed to be formidable because their amorphous forms shrug off physical abuse, while zombies and skeletons from previous editions were only regarded as formidable because they could ignore crowd-control effects like charms and illusions.

I don't accept the argument that this homogenization is a good idea because it's unacceptably "unfun" for a player to press a power's hotkey and find it doesn't work against a particular target. The aforementioned creatures have been in the game a long time, and in my experience there's not this huge sense of entitlement. Players didn't storm out the door in protest of having encountered a golem, rust monster, rakshasa or something else that their standard playbook didn't work against. Indeed, gamers have been conditioned by movies and books to accept the idea of encountering a monster that shrugs off conventional attacks. It's what makes monsters scary. The key to such creatures is using them in moderation, not making them homogeneous.

2) I don't see the overall benefit of letting players manipulate what ability scores are used for their attacks and defenses. If that's going to be the design, then there ought to be some reward for investing in the ability scores that aren't the character's prime choice. I don't mind a rogue having a low INT and not suffering for it. I do mind a rogue wanting to be smart and not gaining an appreciable value for investing in a high INT.

3) Many powers display sloppy design elements. You should not have an attack that says "keep attacking until you miss". You should not be presented with a choice between an at-will power that lets you make two attacks and another at-will power that gives you only one attack at +2; one is hands-down better than the other and it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out which. And going back to my first issue, powers ought to have reasonable restrictions based on their effects.

4) Coin-toss saving throws biased in the PC's favor--even formidable opponents don't seem to impose saving throw penalties on the PC's. The eptiome of the designers' preferrence for simplicity over elegance--the club over the rapier.

 

[Felon]

\So, you've got this big, powerful looking knight in heavy armour, with a big sword. He salutes you, to challenge you to combat. You're a sneaky, dastardly assassin. Are you going to go attack him? No....because you're a sneaky, dastardly assassin....you're smart enough to know that going up against that knight is not going to end in your favour. So you go around him, and stab your blade into the guy standing behind him dressed in robes, waving a holy symbol around.

4E seems to look at it differently.

That's a good example of what I mentioned in my post above. Maybe a sneaky assassin shouldn't be affected by marking.

 

[SSquirrel]

Obviously he isn't sneaky enough, the fighter saw him

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Good analogy.....I guess the Knight in 3.5 was the test case for the aggro mechanic. I didn't like the class much then either.

So, you've got this big, powerful looking knight in heavy armour, with a big sword. He salutes you, to challenge you to combat. You're a sneaky, dastardly assassin. Are you going to go attack him? No....because you're a sneaky, dastardly assassin....you're smart enough to know that going up against that knight is not going to end in your favour. So you go around him, and stab your blade into the guy standing behind him dressed in robes, waving a holy symbol around.

4E seems to look at it differently.

Banshee

No, it's not different, really. Just go around the fighter, take a shot from him, and kill your intented target. That's all. Marking is just "Attack of Opportunies Deluxe". It's not Command or Dominate Person.

there's the much more concrete matter of monsters not being able to do what they were intended to do. A purple worm is supposed to be this enormous, implacable thing--it makes players move, not vice-versa. Oozes and swarms are supposed to be formidable because their amorphous forms shrug off physical abuse, while zombies and skeletons from previous editions were only regarded as formidable because they could ignore crowd-control effects like charms and illusions.

This is actually good criticism. It's also an example of choosing playability and "balance" over any kind of simulation/believability concerns. It's certainly possible to narrate all these aspects in a way to create satisfying results, but it's probably still a step more then if the rules just said "You can't push targets n size categories larger then you" or "skeletons are immune to charms" (though I think the latter is not really a problem in the believability sense. Both skeletons and charms or illusions are usually magic, and thus work in what ever way we want. The story reason for skeletons is to have (creepy) eternal guardins that fight singlemindedly against you.)

 

[ironvyper]

Please do not give those of us who dislike aspects of 4e a bad name. This post does that unfortunately well. It is such a shame after noretoc's reasonable post explaining his displeasure with the 4e system.

All the reasonable stuff has been said, over and over, ad nauseum. LOL you should pay more attention.

None of it is actually reasonable remember? We are afraid of change, or just dont understand the new paradigm and once we do we too will fall to our knees and worship at the idol of 4e because its so much better.......

I suppose i'm bitter because i was really looking forward to a 4th edition. Alot of the early stuff when it was just ideas sounded good to me. Its the execution of those ideas that sucks. Like the guy before you said, its probably a perfectly good board game. Unfortunately that sucks in my opinion.

But in an effort to be reasonable and rationale, i thought about posting a list of my dislikes, problem was it was rediculously long. So instead I'll post a list of the couple of things i do like.

1.The new cosmology. I know it bothers some people but i never got into planescape so theres no dissapointment built into it. The new cosmology seems tighter simpler and more concise. I like the flavor of the new demons, devils, elementals and the shadowfell too.

2. Vancian magic is dead. This was a horrible sacred cow that should have been slaughtered editions ago. better late then never though. They made wizards a little too limited and weak but its not too hard to take some of the rituals and just make them regular powers.

3. Rituals. Another cool flavor aspect because anyone can do them. Also i like magic as rituals, its more of a throwback to the mythological and fantasy roots of magic so it feels more like magic to me.

4. Gnomes and half-orcs are gone. The only way this could make me happier is if they were ground up in a giant blender and thrown into the sun instead of just taken out of th PHB. But at least its a start.

Other then that i guess if the entire equipment chapter, all the rules for magical items. the whole chapter on skills, and virtually all of the "kool powerzz" for the non-magical classes, and the multi-class rules were swapped out for 3rd edition rules then it would be a playable roleplaying game instead of a squad based game of warhammer.

 

[Ambush Bug]

It's not like this thread needs another reply, but hey, venting is fun. The thing I like least about 4E, and the thing that will keep me from playing it as written, is that it tells me what style of game I should play. Not only does it needlessly define characters by their use in combat, it overdefines them into one of four arbitrary roles. Not every group needs or wants a rogue. Not every rogue wants to be good at picking locks or disarming traps. Not everybody likes dungeon crawls or minis or careful tactical combat. And yes, there are plenty of other games we can (and do) play.

The sad part is that if you strip away the surface layers of class/role from 4E and make a few alterations, you get a much more flexible game without any apparent loss of balance. Which means to me that the design team could have made a more flexible game based on their innovative mechanics - a game that would have appealed to a broader spectrum of people than the current one does. I don't mind change. I mind being told what kind of play experience I'm supposed to have.

 

[Andor]

What do I dislike about 4e? Well I played my first game last night and my dice decided that since it was 4e, there was no need to roll above a 4. -_-

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What do I dislike about 4e? Well I played my first game last night and my dice decided that since it was 4e, there was no need to roll above a 4. -_-

Did you happen to play a Cleric?
In our first playtest after the DDXP, the Cleric players dice seemed to think similar. He "successfully" tested the new 3-Strike-Out Dying rule in the final encounter thanks to this...

Not only does it needlessly define characters by their use in combat, it overdefines them into one of four arbitrary roles. Not every group needs or wants a rogue. Not every rogue wants to be good at picking locks or disarming traps.

You usually prefer class-less systems?

Not everybody likes dungeon crawls or minis or careful tactical combat. And yes, there are plenty of other games we can (and do) play.

That for sure is true.

 

[Andor]

Did you happen to play a Cleric?
In our first playtest after the DDXP, the Cleric players dice seemed to think similar. He "successfully" tested the new 3-Strike-Out Dying rule in the final encounter thanks to this...

No a rogue. Nothing like lining up the sneak attack, invoking the Infernal wrath and rolling a 2. Dammit! Action point! Roll a 3.