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

[Zander]

Tieflings, Dragonborn as core, but gnomes, halforcs are not.

I enjoy 4E but I have to agree with you about the core races. That bugs me too.

I'm also disappointed by the absence of certain classes; barbarians, druids and swashbucklers in particular.

And I'm angry about the missing monsters in the MM: frost giants, clay golems, centaurs, pegasi and merfolk to name a few.

I admit to being something of a traditionalist: I like fantasy based on mythology, folklore, legend, classic literature and (to a lesser extent) on old school D&D races, classes and monsters. I don't mind the new game mechanics but I'm most unhappy that WotC is trying to redefine fantasy (see the quote of Clavis in my sig).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Could we please have some more moderation to keep this thread on topic?

Thank you.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Could we please have some more moderation to keep this thread on topic?

Thank you.

I read your Greedo theory and had a good laugh. Thanks for posting that. I disagree with that full assessment a little bit. IMHO 3.0 to 3.5 became the edition where Greedo shot first. 4th Ed is more like the reimagined ET. All of the flavor of the classes, feats, and abilities have been replaced with walkie talkies.

 

[EATherrian]

Not all encounters can be solved by combat and not all potential combat encounters need to be fought if the suitable application of a skill can suffice.

No combat? No combat? That's pre-4E thinking there and you need to stop that! That is unFun, and this new edition is all about fun. Really, I want the PDFs just to count the number of times the word fun is used. It's up there with a and the I think.

 

[Nellisir]

Sidestepping the fact that you force your players to purchase expensive books for you in order to use them,

I never forced anyone. Not one player ever bought me a book. Then again, not one player of mine ever bought a book I didn't already own. My 2e library was $4000+ (cover price); my 3e library is more.

and that everyone who addressed this thinks I was advocating that demanding your way and throwing the hinges off every single book in your possession is correct, what I'm actually saying is that "automatically banning entire books" is not the same thing as "letting a player use a few abilities for their character that they find especially exciting". If you don't like some new thing, talk it out with the player. The line about "not fitting with my campaign" is something I've always seen various DMs say to players who wanted to break their molds. If Augment Healing doesn't "fit a campaign", why does healing magic even exist?

It doesn't matter if you ban the entire book or one sentence, if that sentence is the one the player wants.

It comes down to where you draw the line between DM perogative and player perogative. I encourage my players to help develop my world, but in the end, it's my world and my setting. Did I disallow books? Absolutely. No psionics, no incarnum (not that anyone asked), no epic. I would've allowed binders, but probably not shadowmagic or truenamers. And I made that clear to everyone that joined the group. It had nothing to do with balance, and everything to do with a) versimilitude of the setting, and b) my burden, as a DM, to be familiar and comfortable with the rules. I don't think its fair of a player to ask a DM to run a game using rules the DM isn't familiar with and probably doesn't even own!

This is entirely off topic, though -- I'll not reply to this again in this thread. Maybe in a new one.

 

[EATherrian]

Since I've spent the weekend reading and re-reading the books I find the need to add my ideas here.

1) Every class looks EXACTLY the same. There are all just sets of powers. The Player's Handbook reads like the Advanced Squad Leader rule-book, but without the humor and soul.

2) The Dungeon Master's Guide really didn't give me enough to adjudicate properly. I'm still not sure how a real random encounter can and would work under this new system.

3) The over-use of the word fun. It's a game, we wouldn't be playing it if it wasn't fun. It becomes obnoxious after a point and starts to sound like they are trying to convince themselves.

In conclusion, I really don't like it. It just doesn't have the feel of D&D to me, but I will play it to see if I can house-rule it into something worthwhile.

 

[Nellisir]

I'm not sure I follow. How does defining the roles then building classes from those roles lock down or restrict anything?

It's the mechanical approach vs the thematic approach, or bottom-up vs top-down. I don't have time to go into it right now, but I'll try to come back to it later.

The classes have a role as they always have, and can multiclass out of that role.

Erm, not really.

Did you mean that classes within the same role feel the same?

Nope, that's not what I meant.

Well, I'm not sure, but I think there is quite a bit of difference between a warlord and a cleric. Their powers simply do different things, even if achieving the same thematic goal of support.

No, -mechanically- they are support roles. Thematically they are inspiring leaders, devout priests, etc.

Is this a complaint with D&D as a whole or with 4E?

The problem is greater in 4e, and this is a 4e thread, so 4e.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No combat? No combat? That's pre-4E thinking there and you need to stop that! That is unFun, and this new edition is all about fun. Really, I want the PDFs just to count the number of times the word fun is used. It's up there with a and the I think.

A campaign can have a near 100 % focus on combat, a near 100 % focus on non-combat, or anything between.

I prefer any class design that will let each of the two extremes and anything in-between work fine, with no one feeling sub-par or useless, and no one being the constant spot-light hogger or being overpowered.

I want to play in any kind of campaign and let my decision whether I play a Fighter or a Bard be independent of the focus of the campaign.

A dream? Naive? Infeasible? Wishful Thinking?

Spoiler

4E?

 

[EATherrian]

A campaign can have a near 100 % focus on combat, a near 100 % focus on non-combat, or anything between.

I prefer any class design that will let each of the two extremes and anything in-between work fine, with no one feeling sub-par or useless, and no one being the constant spot-light hogger or being overpowered.

I want to play in any kind of campaign and let my decision whether I play a Fighter or a Bard be independent of the focus of the campaign.

A dream? Naive? Infeasible? Wishful Thinking?

Spoiler

4E?

I always get confused when I read things like this. I always played the class I wanted to play. I never bothered to see if it fit into the game first, I found a way to fit it into the game. Am I an anomoly? I can't be the only one who played like this.

 

[Storm Raven]

I'd let this stand if we were talking about a single class monk or bard, but we're not. How often were monsters defeated by social skills, anyway? If orcs ambush you, you don't have time for your one minute diplomacy check, and even then you have to get some silly number that a multiclass bard/monk isn't going to have.

Wow. A lot of assumptions there.

The frequency by which opponents are defeated by social skills in a campaign is campaign dependent. In some campaigns, its all about whacking the heads off goblins. In others, its about negotiation.

And not all "monsters" are orcs, or similar beasties. "Monsters" could be a guild of thieves running the organized crime of a city. Or a neutral baron who needs to be cajoled into a coalition. The fighter/barbarian isn't going to be any good at pretty much anything that involves anything other than bashing the heads of his opponents.

The question of whether a bard/monk could be good a social skills just shows a lack of understanding as to how a character could spike a couple skills even if he is multiclassing. There isn't a need for a bard to take six seperate skills with his allotment of skill points - he can focus on three and double up to "make up" for levels where he uses monk skill points, and vice versa. He could easily have a diplomacy score as high as a single classed bard if he wanted to.

And this doesn't even get into his other options - stealth (both classes have these skills on their class skill lists), use of magic to enhance his mundane skills, or his allies and so on.

Fighter/barbarian - bash, bash, bash. That can be fun, but if its the sole option, its pretty boring.