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

[Casupaa]

I don't like it because I am a world builder.

I want a game that is about making a cool world and then using that world to build cool characters in it. 4E, to me, is exactly the opposite. 4E is about building the characters and skewing the rest of the world to fit those characters.

I want a world where a monster is imagined and designed to be exactly whatever the DM sees it as. Not a world where its attack bonus and AC are confined to a range to match its level. Not a world where a monster might be a soldier if you meet it one time and a minion if you meet it another.

I want a world where gauntlets of ogre strength simply make you stronger. Being stronger means being stronger and then you deal with balancing that in the game, or not bothering to balance it, as best fits what is fun to you at the time. I don't want a world where gauntlets of ogre strength are simply as close as you can get to "stronger" within the the math constraints for a encounter expected to include level X items. I don't want anything to be defined by balance. I want everything to be defined by what it is and then have balance work backward from there.

I want a world where magic missle isn't just the wizard's version of a longbow.

I want a game which makes a world where the characters don't matter at all, and then leave it up to the players, including the DM, to make characters that make themselves matter.

I totally agree. I've been so excited about 4E since it was announced, and I've followed the development on daily basis and been very supportive about the changes that the designers wanted to do, but now, after learning how it turned out, I cant help to feel really disappointed. To me, 3.5 feels like a real living world. 4E feels more like a hollow shell. But hey, nothing stops me from sticking to 3.5.

 

[Aeolius]

I just discovered that James Wyatt apparently said "D&D is a game about slaying horrible monsters, not a game about traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people." in "Races and Classes" (pg. 34).

You play your game and I'll play mine. Traipsing off through fairy rings and interacting with the little people sounds loads more fun than combat.

 

[Lackhand]

Full disclosure: I'm a f4nboy, and I have something like 5 PHBs and 2 giftsets on order (for my group and best friend and co-DM -- just call me Santa Claus ). So I have a viewpoint all my own on the issue.

However, I have obtained several of these copies -- and I have a bunch of nitpicks.

My biggest complaint about the new edition is execution. I am perfectly fine with a lot of things that give others pause: healing surges are a much-needed addition, 'fighters with powers' are okay in my book, and wizards seem a-okay to me.

It feels like another round of playtests with the full docs -- a sort of alpha test period, in which leaks were inevitable and acceptable -- might have helped. The problems I'm complaining about aren't typographical, they're stylistic -- spell descriptions that describe the mechanics of the spell instead of the in-game effects, for instance.

What follows are not problems with the new edition, but complaints about tough decisions that fell the wrong way for me. I can see why they did them, but I don't appreciate the way they went. Other people's MMV, but I suspect if you currently play 3e, they'll bug you too. Hopefully they're not dealbreakers, though, because it's easy to see how there's no right answer here.

There's also a definite feeling of "not enoughness", which will, yes, drive splatbook sales. There aren't enough adventuring items, enough arcane character choice, enough fighter choice, and so on. There's enough to play, and to design mutually different characters {a completely rough guess would be on the order of (8 races) * (8 classes) * (3 or so mechanically interesting builds each -- probably an underestimate, but then not all races appeal to all people) = 180ish characters} but there's still not a wealth of options.

This does mean that splats will be full of awesomely useful stuff -- a good thing, as far as I'm concerned, since I'd have bought them anyway -- but I can definitely see where it'd be a negative for someone else.

They paradoxically feel too crowded to me.

What's the difference between a Kensai and a Blademaster? In game? Out of game? They just seem to be very mutually toe-steppy. This is important, because the book is so cramped. There are a bunch of maneuvers that get VERY similar descriptions for different effects -- there are only so many ways to hit people, and I suspect game jargon will get used more often.
Upside, it's fairly rich, flavorful jargon -- a reaving strike _means_ something and will conjure the correct imagery, so that's okay.

Strikers, Leaders, Defenders, and Controllers (well, presumably ) have a lot of power effect overlap (themes are different, and usually the actual powers are different too, but you can spot the theme between them fairly easily).
It's not exact, in that the powers are equivalent-but-slightly-different, but it's clear to see that they're analogues.
During design, my guess would be that there were some striker proto powers that got differentiated as they were seeded to roles; the hereditary link is still visible and irks me, because it makes later design nonobvious (I'd rather extend the same power than duplicate the same implementation!) and because it devours up page count.

On the other hand, that page-count makes the book FAR better as a reference manual. When building your character, everything you need about 15th level powers is right there. Mine would make finding what your specific power did fairly complex, so I can see why the actual books spooled it down... ease of book use at the cost of additional content.

I'm also not sure how many power are so overlapped. Healing Word/Inspiring Word, obviously. I just haven't paid enough attention to catch the others, or it's a relatively rare problem. Shrug.

 

[SSquirrel]

There's enough to play, and to design mutually different characters {a completely rough guess would be on the order of (8 races) * (8 classes) * (3 or so mechanically interesting builds each -- probably an underestimate, but then not all races appeal to all people) = 180ish characters} but there's still not a wealth of options.

Just for fun, since I saw your post, I decided to check out the math. Allowing for the following (not including any racial powers, class features or powers gained from feats)

8 Races
1 Class (specifically showing who many options for each class)
12 possible combos for At Will powers
4 for Encounters
4 for Dailies

gives you 1536 possible character designs for a 1st level character. Yes not all of these are very synergistic, but you DO have options

 

[hong]

That is simply false.
The rules for PCs and NPCs have been completely the same in my games for many years.

Granted, it was somewhat true in editions prior to 3E.

IOW, it was simply true.

 

[Mallus]

Why did Mearls say it wouldn't appeal as much to world builders?

Ask him. He posts here. I can only speak for myself, and so far, 4e looks to present no significant difficulties for modeling my homebrew.

4E can not come close to providing the quality of model that I've been enjoying for years now.

See, I never though D&D provided a 'quality model'. I think the only simulationist elements D&D ever had were the ones people brought to it themselves. They didn't find them in the rules.

In 4e things are not designed to be a persistent element of the world.

What does persistent in the game world mean in the context of RPG play outside of 'the DM remembers some of what happened'? D&D isn't a weather model running on a lab computer.

Some mechanics do a vastly superior job of modeling the way a world works than others.

I think some mechanics provide a better play experience that others, and I think some gaming groups are better at mutually creating the sense of a persistent, living world, which is largely independent of the rules.

But modeling a world? No rule set does that. Some just dampen the arguments between players better.

4E is much better than Descent and much worse than 3E for this.

3e... a world modeling system in which inertia doesn't exist (see the Charging rules), aging invariably makes one smarter and wiser, broken limbs are impossible, limb loss is impossible, except in special cases involving magic cutlery, everyone has a lot of gold, illiteracy only exists among the very angry... need I do on?

All those things make perfect sense in the context of facilitating a certain kind of action-oriented FRPG play. But taken as the actual underpinnings for a simulated world and they look silly, as does the resulting world.

Again, D&D was never good at simulation. The real imperatives where always gameplay oriented. 4e is just more honest about that then its predecessors, as was 3e in it's time.

That people are trying to act like there was no trade off for these "gains" is laughable to me.

Go ahead and laugh, and I'll go ahead and not have problems using 4e.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I don't have the rules yet, but based on all the previews and such, I have a few concerns.

There's a concept I tend to call "Trademark mining". I use that term to refer to people trying to revive an older property--especially one that isn't used at all--and use it to either preserve their trademark rights or else to use a property--without doing any good research in why the property was successful.

There's also a similar concept called "executive ego". It's actually keeping a trademark and forgetting why those properties are successful. It leads to what I consider stupidity in brand management--why Hanna Barbara can't figure out to do anything with their dozens of characters (with the exception of Scooby Doo and using the characters as lame parodies of themselves in Adult Swim shows), why Marvel releases failed "reinterpretations" of minor characters, why VH1 abandons any form of music programing and Cartoon Network tries to say "why can't a cartoon be live action".

I fear that with the new management regime Wizards has undertaken some of those two big mistakes. I believe they think D&D at it's core is just a trademark they can repurpose for their own needs or the fads.

The key differences I saw between the 3e and 4e approach was this. I got the sense that Peter, Ryan, and the trilogy of designers worked hard to consider what D&D meant to the fans. They were willing to take the game into the future but also tried to respect the past. Look at how Peter worked hard to rebuild bridges with the creators--inviting Gary and Dave to GenCon, working with the fans, doing research, etc. There was also a pent-up desire for a new edition, and there was a bad sense from D&D's near death in the 90's. I remember actually clarifying some things on Eric's old site as a playtester. That was a far cry from the playtester blackout they seemed to have this time around.

I get the sense that the design team added new things "whether we wanted them or not". Was D&D successful in the market solely because it was first, or gained the most marketing and established dominance, or was it something more? And will changing the game cause a slow decline in the core fans?

Maybe this will be successful. But this is the first edition of D&D I'm not very excited for. I see a lot of people with not hatred but "eunni" towards it. I can give you specifics from my perspective but it seems everybody else has nailed it.

I do predict one thing. If sales aren't as good, expect the next edition of D&D to be a more "back to basics" approach. You'll see people delving into the history of the game, looking at its legacy. If what's happened with games like Traveller is any indication I could see the next designers going back to 1e or 2e or "Basic D&D" as a base and working from that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't have the rules yet, but based on all the previews and such, I have a few concerns.

There's a concept I tend to call "Trademark mining". I use that term to refer to people trying to revive an older property--especially one that isn't used at all--and use it to either preserve their trademark rights or else to use a property--without doing any good research in why the property was successful.

There's also a similar concept called "executive ego". It's actually keeping a trademark and forgetting why those properties are successful. It leads to what I consider stupidity in brand management--why Hanna Barbara can't figure out to do anything with their dozens of characters (with the exception of Scooby Doo and using the characters as lame parodies of themselves in Adult Swim shows), why Marvel releases failed "reinterpretations" of minor characters, why VH1 abandons any form of music programing and Cartoon Network tries to say "why can't a cartoon be live action".

I fear that with the new management regime Wizards has undertaken some of those two big mistakes. I believe they think D&D at it's core is just a trademark they can repurpose for their own needs or the fads.

The key differences I saw between the 3e and 4e approach was this. I got the sense that Peter, Ryan, and the trilogy of designers worked hard to consider what D&D meant to the fans. They were willing to take the game into the future but also tried to respect the past. Look at how Peter worked hard to rebuild bridges with the creators--inviting Gary and Dave to GenCon, working with the fans, doing research, etc. There was also a pent-up desire for a new edition, and there was a bad sense from D&D's near death in the 90's. I remember actually clarifying some things on Eric's old site as a playtester. That was a far cry from the playtester blackout they seemed to have this time around.

I get the sense that the design team added new things "whether we wanted them or not". Was D&D successful in the market solely because it was first, or gained the most marketing and established dominance, or was it something more? And will changing the game cause a slow decline in the core fans?

Maybe this will be successful. But this is the first edition of D&D I'm not very excited for. I see a lot of people with not hatred but "eunni" towards it. I can give you specifics from my perspective but it seems everybody else has nailed it.

I do predict one thing. If sales aren't as good, expect the next edition of D&D to be a more "back to basics" approach. You'll see people delving into the history of the game, looking at its legacy. If what's happened with games like Traveller is any indication I could see the next designers going back to 1e or 2e or "Basic D&D" as a base and working from that.

You make some good points but I don't know enough about the WOTC/Hasbro relationship to say how much of what I dislike about 4E is the designers fault. Who is really calling the shots here? The designers are gamers but the Hasbro suits are not. If sales aren't good we may see D&D scapped altogether. For Hasbro its small beans so they might not even care.

 

[Banshee16]

Now that I've seen it I find it kind of funny....my players (and I) all really liked the Book of Nine Swords, now that we've seen the new edition, we're all pretty disappointed. None of the group has any more desire to switch.

The complete nerfing of spellcaster classes, and reduction of the complexity of playing them to choosing which daily, encounter, or at will powers to use, combined with the sheer paucity of powers really hasn't impressed anyone. I mean, if you're going to make it powers based, and restrict what "things" characters can do to certain abilities used per day or whatever, at least give a decent selection. For many levels, there are almost no powers. And they all feel very similar to each other. A buffet with 30 different varieties of porridge is really just giving you a lot of porridge. It's gonna be a boring buffet. That's kind of how I feel about a lot of what I've seen.

The reduction of everything to just combat saddens me. The spellcasters can't benefit from interesting non-combat spells anymore...unless they want to take 10+ minutes to cast them.

And what happened to the whole idea of race defining your character beyond level 1? What happened to all the racial feats and abilities? Races like Elf and Eladrin get....2 or 3 each?

I knew I had reservations about the new game, but my players were more eager. And, I figured, I was just being resistant to change, and it would grow on me. But my dislike has been growing, rather than shrinking. I might rip out some elements to retrofit into 3.x, but I don't think I can play or run this game.

The fact that the game is blatantly incomplete is definitely not appreciated. Core classes and abilities are missing...I know that supplements are part of the business, but I do expect that the core books should have the stuff that belongs in the core.

I'm not a big fan of the new multiplayer rules. I was never a "dip" person.....my multiplayer characters tended to be more dedicated. The new game doesn't facilitate that in the same way. Maybe they plan on fixing that with dedicated multiclass archetypal classes.....but that should have been in the core. That they haven't included it means that many people can't play the character they want, right off the bat.

The funny thing is that a lot of the ideas they brought into 4E were *good*...rituals, a la Relics & Rituals, were cool. Race mattering beyond level 1, a la Dawnforge, was cool as well. The Book of Nine Swords. But it's like they took the core ideas, then reduced them to their simplest common denominators, ran everything through a filter to ensure that it was all completely balanced and super easy to use, and ended up with stale beer.

The *idea* of the Eladrin as a race.....kind of Faerie Lords is neat, and something I've wanted in the game for a while...but Bastion Press did it better when they called them Feorin.
I'm sincerely disappointed. I was really hoping my concerns were unfounded. I figured that maybe I'd resist, and my players would get overjoyed by the game, and convince me to give it a try.......but none of us are interested in it now. That, I wasn't expecting.

Banshee

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ok, let's do a list, then. I'm sure most of this has been covered.

I'll start with the BIGGEST issue I have: It took everything wrong with 3.5, and made it WORSE! In 3.5, unless you were a caster, you didn't really need a high stat in your primaries to do well. Sure, you want it, but you want to be the quirky fighter with cha 16 and only str 12? Sure! At least you can still hit things. Not so in 4E. Because of the generic across-the-board upgrades of attacks and defenses, and utter lack of ways to improve against it, like with a feat for +1 attack, EVERY class needs to pump their stats just to compete. If you start at level 1 with a str lower than 16, why are you even bothering making that fighter? Do you LIKE only hitting 35% of the time?! It's especially glaring with wizards. There is literally no reason AT ALL to not make your int 18 (+2 from race as well) and kick your other 5 stats in the junk. It gives you +to all attacks and damage, +AC, +reflex, what's the others give you? Nothing that's worth dropping all that. Paladins I've found nigh unplayable because it's such a waste, having to keep up wis and cha, which all add to the same things. Similar for the eladrin race. No matter what class, someone else does it better than them.

Ok, now for other things:

1) The turd-stained return of DM fiat, yay! Most people liked having hard and fast rules for skill DCs, or how hard it is to break an object (which I don't think you can even do now), or lord help us all, tell us how hard it is to talk down the raging orc barbarian. Those Diplomacy rules were bad, but at least there was some kind of baseline. Now, you want to try and tumble? Well, it's DC 15....unless the DM decides not! No more set situational increases, no. Who wants that? Want to barter for an item? I'm sorry, you're not even aallowed to have a rough idea of the number you need to beat, cause the DM's just gonna bs it at whatever amount he wants.

2) Help! *cough* I'm choking on the vanilla! WotC made all classes the same progression. Cause who likes individuality? Why should the trained human weapons be better at hitting than the bookworms? Why should hitting something with a sharp piece of metal hurt less than immolating it by fire? All this system does is create the urgent need for every character to find a way to pull away from the pack. Powergaming is more important than ever, if you want to improve your odds of wearing down the enemy before you go down.

3) It might not be dead yet, hit it again! I can't believe the phobia of these designers. LOOK at the larger weapons progression table! 1d12-->2d6? 1d8-->2d4? (notably only one table has this second progression, the other skips this step. Curious, no?) What is this crap? They're practically the same! 3.5 even rules them as such. And now two-handing gives...no benefit. Unless it wasn't designed specifically for 2H (versatile weapons), then it does. What? Also, nothing like holding a second weapon just to weigh yourself down, since outside of one class, it does nothing for you. At all. well, at least you have protection if one gets disarmed or sundered. Oh wait, that can't be done any more. Apparantly that tactic's just too complex.

4) I get punched for a living. You? I tried playing a Fighter, with shield, as 2H was clearly...worthless. Little did I realize, the role of the defender isn't the badass lockdown crusader who keeps foes at bay and gives it as good as he takes it of 3E, as it's advertised. Yes, it gets powers to keep foes on itself. Unfortunately, the second half of the equation is missing. Does WotC actually believe people are going to enjoy getting the crap kicked out of them while the rangers and warlocks get to do all the fun stuff and rack up kills? The CLERIC was doing equal damage as me...AND healing at the same time (healing strike)! The Wizard was doing the same as me, at range with multitarget! Boy, I wish I had an alternative to attacking AC defense like most other classes do...

5) What's that RP next to the G stand for again? Every. Single. Class. Every one, they have one major thing in common. Guess what it is? They're all defined solely for their combat role. Not one mention for out of combat. It's mentioned that there is a period between combats where PCs aren't eating, sleeping, or defecating, they just...like to keep it their little secret, I guess.

6) Nothing's so cool when everyone can do it To go back to earlier complaints, the fact that everyone's adding 1/2 HD to skill checks is just a disgrace. The only difference between a trained and untrained character is 5 points, ever. No "expert" who maxed stealth to 18 ranks and a "novice" who stopped short at 12, cause it's enough to beat a commoner's spot from range reliably. Everyone's the same. There isn't even synergy anymore. Alot of skills that are almost always opposed become nigh pointless to bother with. Sticking with the Stealth example, when against an equal level foe, even if they're untrained, they're within 5 points of you, really. What are your chances not one of them will beat your roll? Cause if just one does... Course, now the only penalty they possibly take to spot is -2, if you're REALLY far away, so that helps....

7) Come on, run! Please? This just deserves its own spot. The intimidate skill, oh how it's been nerfed mangled. If you use it in combat, you're automatically taking a -10 cause they're hostile. Right... But if I just walk into a shop and start yelling randomly, it's all cool? This...ugh. You can END A BATTLE with a single Intimidate check, as it can affect EVERY enemy that can see you and hear you, causing them to SURRENDER. What's the problem, you ask? In 3E, the concept would be, increase the DC to do greater things. This way, you could try to maybe Tumble at DC 100 to take no falling damage, but if you were fine just taking 10 ft off, you didn't have to beat DC 100. In 4E bizzaro world, it's all scaled based on the ultimate use, with the exact same DC, even if you're just trying to intimidate one guy, beaten to one hp, and grappled by 5 guys. With a dagger over his family jewels. HORRIBLE design logic.

8) It's the gaming equivalent of a padded cell Everything's been dumbed down to such a ridiculous degree. Every bit of precision of 3E was just thrown out. Whatever the effect, it's always a 10 on a d20 to end it, barring bonuses/penalties. Any utility spell that left room for creative thought and application has been replaced by daily utility spells with extremely strict parameters and very short durations. There is no more "101 ways to pwn with Minor Image." We saw towards the end of 3E the banning and errata on such "trouble" abilities that let the caster have too much freedom. After all, freedom's scary. The players might actually surprise the DM with a creative tactic out of the blue. Heaven forbid.

9) Dude, easy with that sword. Its just a game. The amount of metagame thinking going on in 4E is disgusting. No longer are the players just another batch of people in a giant sea of who knows what. Now they know they're special and great right from the start. They're "Heroic" tier, afterall. Even before they've actually done anything.

10) Would you ever believe the most broken houserule spell ever created would be something that does 1 point of damage to all creatures in a 50 ft radius? Ah, minions. The other part of that last point that just deserved its own heading... It basically tells the players to identify the "minions" quickly, lest they "waste" their daily single-hit power on one of them. These guys seem to exist solely to make the Wizard necessary. If they didn't exist, and every enemy had substantial hit points, there'd be no need for spells that do 1d6 +int to an area. You'd just have the strikers pick foes off one at a time, for much more efficient damage output.

Quick issues: Powers sometimes reverse-scale (higher levels are weaker); have to wait till level 11 to really multiclass; race-class roles are even more pigeon-holed than in 3E; the primary reason to play a dragonborn is to look like a dragon...; the alignment system is broken and nonsensical (Corellon's even "unaligned" now); the remaining existence of spell books is such a blatant sacred cow survivor it's like a neon orange sign in the forest; feats manage to be dull, severely limited in both power and amount available to any given class, incredibly weak, and have prereqs that make many unatainable for those who would actually want them...all at once!; I see no mechanical reason to never offer new, improved at-wills, ever, over the course of 30 levels; there is NO path towards fighting unarmed at all.