Ask the Guy Who's Seen DnD 4th Edition

[sturmhauke]

I got back from my local game store’s 4th ed. prelaunch game session and midnight sale of the rulebooks. I haven’t bought them yet, but I’m thinking about it. The store hosts Living Greyhawk games on Monday nights, which I’ve been playing in for a little over a year. 4th ed. combat didn’t bog down as much as 3.5 often does, although that may change when splatbooks start coming out. Also, the LG people I play with tend to be massive power gamers anyway. I’ve kind of been cutting back on the LG for that reason, but I also met some people who I play a home game with. That guy got the new books and is going to run a 4th ed. game on Sunday, so I’ll get a better sense of the game there.

Tonight I played a 1st level wizard, and was actually able to be useful most of the time instead of hiding behind a rock after casting a couple spells. I haven’t decided if I like the new magic system or not, but Vancian pretty much sucked so it’s better than that.

[Hoopy_Frood]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Interesting point. IIRC, second ed. didn’t have bards, barbarians, or sorcerers in the basic books

Wrong on bards. 2nd Ed had bards. Bards were the 2nd hardest class to qualify for. (Paladins being the toughest as they required a 17 charisma. Hard to roll that on a 3d6.)

But Bards were pretty much overpowered. You got a fighter/thief/wizard combo, without the XP allocation issues you got from a multiclass. (I.e. a multiclass character’s XP were divided according to which class(es) a given action that netted XP was most appropriate for). Additionally, they advanced levels on the thief table, which required the least amount of XP (as opposed to wizards who required the most). Granted, an individual fighter, thief, or wizard were much stronger for their disciplines due to specialization, but the bard being able to generalize with a fast xp progression made it probably the strongest class in 2nd ed.

With 3.0, the bard was nerfed down to next to useless. It was extremely underpowered as a class. Instead, the cleric, who was little more than a glorified helaer in 2nd ed turned into a class that was arguably the strongest, and one of the few able to go toe-to-toe with a high level wizard due to the shear awsomeness of the clerical spells. In fact, you could pretty much play the game with nothing but clerics (and a rogue for finding/disarming traps) and would have an extremely strong team. In fact, since bard songs were based on the perform skill and not bard levels, give that rogue one level of bard and you have a party that can emulate practically any other party makeup out there. (As the clerics could pretty much specialize to imitate almost any other role.)

3.5 nerfed a lot of the clerical spells, though, relegating the class back to gorified healer (though, still much more versatile than 2nd ed). Bards got a well-deserved boost for 3.5

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Hoopy Frood

Wrong on bards. 2nd Ed had bards. Bards were the 2nd hardest class to qualify for. (Paladins being the toughest as they required a 17 charisma. Hard to roll that on a 3d6.)

D’oh! You’re right (I say, having Googled it). I have no memory whatsoever of the bard in 2Ed, but apparently it was there.

Daniel

[Bosstone]

Personally, I thought the only thing really wrong with the Vancian system was fixed with the introduction of reserve feats. I understand they were intended as a precursor to the new system, but it works very well with the system and allowed wizards and sorcerors to dump the crossbows. The only downside is the lack of functional 1st-level feats. (Why yes, I do intend to keep playing 3.5.)

[smiling_bandit]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

A lot of folks have opinions on this, a lot of negative opinions–but then, a lot of folks had strongly negative opinions of 3E when it came out, and 3.5E when it came out. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong this time, too, but it does mean I’m withholding judgment until I get to play it some.

Cough I didn’t like 3rd edition either. Wound up having to mod the guts out of it to make it playable. The basics weren’t bad but was extrmely dull. Prolly the biggest flaw was that you could not, in fac, properly use its major new feature: multiclassing. It never worked right and most of the multiclasses required oodles of magic junk to be playable. And then introduced PrC’s… and things went downhill from there.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@smiling bandit

Prolly the biggest flaw was that you could not, in fac, properly use its major new feature: multiclassing. It never worked right and most of the multiclasses required oodles of magic junk to be playable. And then introduced PrC’s… and things went downhill from there.

Okay, first multiclassing wasn’t a major new feature: it was done different from other editions, sure, but it’s been in the game since the beginning (elves being magic-user/fighters, e.g.). Feats were a major new feature. Object-oriented gaming was a lovely new feature.

Second, of course it was playable! Granted, it worked a lot worse if you were MCing with a primary spellcasting class–but all the others worked beautifully. In fact, it worked so well that it was considered cheesy to use certain combinations (a level of ranger, a level of barbarian, a level of monk, etc.)

Certainly we modded the game in some respects. Diplomacy needed fixing, as did certain other skills (tumbling, for example). Overall, however, 3E was IMO a huge improvement over earlier versions.

I remember when I first realized that it was object-oriented gaming. It was with “Charm person.” Earlier versions of the spell would say things like, “You may charm a bugbear, dwarf, elf, goblin, halfling, half-elf, hobgoblin, human, … or Zebraman with this spell.” Clearly you couldn’t charm a derro with it. If you introduced a new creature, could you charm it or not? YOu’d need to rewrite the rules each time a new critter was introduced.

Now, it just says something like, “This spell will charm a humanoid.” To figure out if it works on any given creature, you look for the humanoid type. Brilliant simplicity.

Daniel

[Lightray]

@Bosstone

Personally, I thought the only thing really wrong with the Vancian system was fixed with the introduction of reserve feats. I understand they were intended as a precursor to the new system, but it works very well with the system and allowed wizards and sorcerors to dump the crossbows. The only downside is the lack of functional 1st-level feats. (Why yes, I do intend to keep playing 3.5.)

I liked the idea of the wizard variants from Unearthed Arcana, but did not like many of the variants; they didn’t seem fun enough. So I just subbed in some of the more moderate Reserve Feat powers. Worked fine; I didn’t really care if the wizard got off a piddly 1d4 force dart instead of a crossbow bolt on his turn. Mind you, only played a few sessions with that, though. There might be some hideous Pun-Punnery possible.

And I just found my 4e books sitting on the porch, secretly dropped off by the UPS fairy!

[Scupper]

@smiling bandit

There’s only one person whose opinion I listen to other than my own. My gaming group’s interests don’t count for much. Several of them are wargamers, and have so little imagination that this seems like the perfect game for them.

Wow.

You must be fun to game with.

[Chimera]

@Hoopy Frood

3.5 nerfed a lot of the clerical spells, though, relegating the class back to gorified healer (though, still much more versatile than 2nd ed). Bards got a well-deserved boost for 3.5

I’m currently playing a 3.5 Bard with a Cleric Cohort, so I can comment here.

Depending on build, a Bard can do quite a bit, although their spell list - even with the Spell Compendium - is woefully lacking in a few areas.

I’m not combat optimized, so I’m not going to complain about my effectiveness in combat. I made my choices there. I’m optimized to help others in combat (Inspirational Boost + Song of the Heart (feat) = +3 to hit/+3 damage, +3/+4 if I pull out the Masterwork Horn. Going to +4/+4 at 8th level.) and am a Social Dynamo (+17 Diplomacy, +12 Bluff, +12 Gather Info, +8 Sense Motive), easily blowing through most social challenges.

But I could have optimized for more combat, since my boost helps me too, or I could have optimized for other purposes. Same BAB as a Cleric, Monk or others, only really need Charisma, good reflex and will saves. Heck, a couple of levels as a Fighter and he’d be pretty tough!

I haven’t played a lot of Clerics in the past because for the most part, they never get much of a chance to do anything but stand behind the primary fighter and cast healing spells every round. Outside combat, they’re only decent Diplomats if the player is capable and puts a few extra points into Int to get the skill points.

However, that being said, my now 5th level Cohort is a lot of fun and can play a number of roles. With the Fire and Metal Domains, I’m having a lot of fun using him as a sort of archer with Produce Flame (120’ range, ranged touch attack!), and he can melee like the dickens with his own Bull Strength combined with the +3/+3 Bard inspire. Sure, he doesn’t have the hit points to hang for long periods of time, but then he backs off and heals the crap out of himself (Augment Healing feat) very quickly.
I might have said it above, but our War of the Burning Sky is going to end up waiting for a working Bard class to come out before switching to 4e. I’ve offered to temporarily retire him and play a Warlord for a while, but apparently there’s a big NPC Bard coming up in the next module and my GM is hot for a little Bard on Bard action.

[smiling_bandit]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Okay, first multiclassing wasn’t a major new feature: it was done different from other editions, sure, but it’s been in the game since the beginning (elves being magic-user/fighters, e.g.).

:dubious:

Yes, I know there has been some form of multiclassing all along. That does not mean the new system was a new feature, one which was a major change and a major marketing tool.

Feats were a major new feature.

But did not amount to much.

Second, of course it was playable! Granted, it worked a lot worse if you were MCing with a primary spellcasting class–but all the others worked beautifully. In fact, it worked so well that it was considered cheesy to use certain combinations (a level of ranger, a level of barbarian, a level of monk, etc.)

This is one reason I did not like it. It rewarded freakish min/maxing, and the game gave no reason not to do so. Moreover, it didn’t work very well. Several seemingly-sensible and practical combinations worked out horribly, because you weren’t stacking spells and so forth, and were virtually unplayable. Hence, they introduced numerous PrC’s to cover the holes. This bothers me.

I remember when I first realized that it was object-oriented gaming.

Ah, I figured that out when a preview promo mentioned it was a lot like object-oriented code.

It was with “Charm person.” Earlier versions of the spell would say things like, “You may charm a bugbear, dwarf, elf, goblin, halfling, half-elf, hobgoblin, human, … or Zebraman with this spell.” Clearly you couldn’t charm a derro with it. If you introduced a new creature, could you charm it or not? YOu’d need to rewrite the rules each time a new critter was introduced.

Now, it just says something like, “This spell will charm a humanoid.” To figure out if it works on any given creature, you look for the humanoid type. Brilliant simplicity.

Grand, except that they never considered the consquences of their rules in this regard. Half the spell list could only be targeted on creatures or whatever whether or not this made sense. We eventually had to toss the whole targeting rules because it kept getting in the way whenever we wantd to do something which was not “kill everything.” For example, we found numerous uses for throwing certain kinds of spells at creatures those spells did not effect. Heh heh heh.

@Scupper

You must be fun to game with.

I don’t listen to the opinions of the insane, the barbaric, or the incomprehensible. My gaming group contains all of the above. I listen to thse who take the time to think or comprehend and can communicate intelligently. I know only one such person who is interested in RPG’s.

[hotflungwok]

@smiling bandit

Grand, except that they never considered the consquences of their rules in this regard. Half the spell list could only be targeted on creatures or whatever whether or not this made sense. We eventually had to toss the whole targeting rules because it kept getting in the way whenever we wantd to do something which was not “kill everything.” For example, we found numerous uses for throwing certain kinds of spells at creatures those spells did not effect. Heh heh heh.

Like what? I still don’t get what you mean and I’m curious.

[Scupper]

@smiling bandit

Grand, except that they never considered the consquences of their rules in this regard. Half the spell list could only be targeted on creatures or whatever whether or not this made sense.

So you were rendered unable to make a judgment call when players attempted to abuse the system?

@smiling bandit

We eventually had to toss the whole targeting rules because it kept getting in the way whenever we wantd to do something which was not “kill everything.” For example, we found numerous uses for throwing certain kinds of spells at creatures those spells did not effect. Heh heh heh.

Really? I’d be interested to hear how you justified doing that while attempting to roleplay. I’d also like to hear how older editions of D&D were impervious to metagaming and abusing the system. Did you let every fighter make a straight “bend bars/lift gates” roll on every portcullis they ran into, regardless of size?

@smiling bandit

I don’t listen to the opinions of the insane, the barbaric, or the incomprehensible. My gaming group contains all of the above. I listen to thse who take the time to think or comprehend and can communicate intelligently. I know only one such person who is interested in RPG’s.

I was referring more to your disparaging remarks about your wargaming friends having no imagination.

Just out of curiousity, what would you consider a good roleplaying game, that allows you to exercise your imagination without the restrictions imposed by wargaming-style rules?

[smiling_bandit]

@hotflungwok

Like what? I still don’t get what you mean and I’m curious.

There are a lot of spells which can only be targeted on a creature, for instance. However, the spell might stil have a logical effect if used on an object, or a different kind of creature, etc.

Here’s one early in the list: Align Weapon it gives a single weapon or 50 arrows an alignment bonus which, of course, lets it deal more damage to opposite-aligned creatures.

Now, frm the character’s perspective, what does this do? It charges the weapon with alighnment energies. Ok, why only weapons? Can I use it on a puzzle which works on alignment energies? If not, why not? Why does the spell care whether the object I use it on is a sharp, pointy sword or a crowbar? If the spell is given out by a deity, why does that deity not let me cast the spell on other objects where appropriate?

We usually try and figure out not only what a spell or effect do, but how it does what it does. That lets our characters make new spells, or tweak old ones, or especially put our stuff to new uses.

@scupper

So you were rendered unable to make a judgment call when players attempted to abuse the system?

:dubious: Perhaps you did not comprehend that I just told my judgement call was to ditch the targeting rules, as well as why you think this is somehow related ot me possibly not being able to make judgement calls about fighters lifting portcullises.

I was referring more to your disparaging remarks about your wargaming friends having no imagination.

They don’t. It’s scary. One of them, though incapable of making characters or reading books (he is literate, but cannot concentrate long enough to read a paragraph), continues to game. Every character he has has been ripped off blatantly from an anime, a comic book, or his mono-maniacal idea of a rip-snorting military killing machine. His characters generally lasts no more than 2-3 sessions becuse he cannot think up ways of dealing with his problems either than attacking them. He also cannot play fantasy, because somehow the thought that people have magic spells (in a fantasy game) fills him with confusion. He constantly attempts to bring in machine guns in the fantasy games, and refuses to even accept magical equivalents.

This is not disparagement. It is a fact whether I ackowledge it or not.

ust out of curiousity, what would you consider a good roleplaying game, that allows you to exercise your imagination without the restrictions imposed by wargaming-style rules?

Shadowrun 1-3 (4th is actually fine on the criteria you list, but due to flaws in the game’s karma and equipment pricing, there is no rational way Shadowrunners would still exist, and I can’t GM or play it because of system holes); Exalted 1-2; WoD everything, Deadlands, BESM, Star Wars 1-2, Paranoia…

There’s a lot. I don’t necessarily like all of those games, but Ive playe and enjoyed them and the rules weren’t a straightjacket.

[Lightray]

Back to 4e… I’m liking most of what I’ve seen so far.

The races and classes look like they’ll be a lot of fun to play. The monsters look like they’ll be very easy to run as DM. Thank Og. (3.5 seriously sucked for DMs). Really liking them dividing the monsters up into roles. Monster creation and templating in the DMG looks straightforward, too.

Multiclassing is… interesting. I suspect that, since each PC has the same number of power choices available, it’ll work fine. But it is sure going to take some experience to understand it.

The art is, as usual for D&D, fairly good to fairly bad, mostly okay. Someone has a really bad time at perspective – there’s quite a few pics with too-short legs (minotaurs come to mind). Some of the pics just look silly – dire animals (“it’s a wolf… with spikes!”), wild hunt hound

I’ve run across a few things where I’m puzzled by the designers’ choice. Mordenkainen’s mansion is a level 22 utility spell… even though it seems exactly the sort of thing that rituals are supposed to be. Some of the monsters included seem odd… berbalang, really? And I’d thought they’d learned their lesson about sticking in lairs and mapped places back from MMIV (or was that MMV?)… but there’s a whole village in the DMG that surely could’ve fit into an adventure so that newbies could have it as an example. It’s the only instance of content-padding I’ve seen so far.

So far, though, thumbs up.

[sturmhauke]

I just noticed something that bugs me about the level advancement in 4th. In 3/3.5, you needed your current level * 1000 experience points to advance to the next level. This was easy to remember and was a big improvement from the several different class-dependent (and somewhat arbritrary) tables of earlier editions. In 4th, at least all classes still use the same advancement table, but there is no simple formula behind it. After plugging a few simple test formulae into Excel, I’m not convinced there is a formula at all. I like not having to look up tables as much as possible, especially for something basic like this.

[Scupper]

@smiling bandit

They don’t. It’s scary. One of them, though incapable of making characters or reading books (he is literate, but cannot concentrate long enough to read a paragraph), continues to game. Every character he has has been ripped off blatantly from an anime, a comic book, or his mono-maniacal idea of a rip-snorting military killing machine. His characters generally lasts no more than 2-3 sessions becuse he cannot think up ways of dealing with his problems either than attacking them. He also cannot play fantasy, because somehow the thought that people have magic spells (in a fantasy game) fills him with confusion. He constantly attempts to bring in machine guns in the fantasy games, and refuses to even accept magical equivalents.

This is not disparagement. It is a fact whether I ackowledge it or not.

Fair enough, I guess. I stand by my opinion, however.

@smiling bandit

Shadowrun 1-3 (4th is actually fine on the criteria you list, but due to flaws in the game’s karma and equipment pricing, there is no rational way Shadowrunners would still exist, and I can’t GM or play it because of system holes); Exalted 1-2; WoD everything, Deadlands, BESM, Star Wars 1-2, Paranoia…

There’s a lot. I don’t necessarily like all of those games, but Ive playe and enjoyed them and the rules weren’t a straightjacket.

Wait, you’re a WoD/Exalted player and you’re in here discussing Fourth Edition D&D?

NOW I GET IT.

This is the roleplaying equivalent of a Mac vs. PC discussion! For a little while there, it kinda sounded like you were debating the merits of 4E vs some previous version of D&D. You just don’t like D&D.

That’s cool. I run a little hot and cold on it myself.

I will freely admit that D&D is much further away from LARPS than anything on your list. If I want rules lite, though, I’ll take Savage Worlds over everything you mentioned.*

Just as a bit of information, though, it’s kind of considered bad form to jump into a thread discussing the new version of a game and then badmouth it simply because you don’t like the game in any form.

*Well, maybe not Paranoia. It’s a great evening, particularly if you have some game group members you want to alienate forever.

[Jragon]

@Scupper

Fair enough, I guess. I stand by my opinion, however.

Wait, you’re a WoD/Exalted player and you’re in here discussing Fourth Edition D&D?

NOW I GET IT.

This is the roleplaying equivalent of a Mac vs. PC discussion! For a little while there, it kinda sounded like you were debating the merits of 4E vs some previous version of D&D. You just don’t like D&D.

That’s cool. I run a little hot and cold on it myself.

I will freely admit that D&D is much further away from LARPS than anything on your list. If I want rules lite, though, I’ll take Savage Worlds over everything you mentioned.*

Just as a bit of information, though, it’s kind of considered bad form to jump into a thread discussing the new version of a game and then badmouth it simply because you don’t like the game in any form.

*Well, maybe not Paranoia. It’s a great evening, particularly if you have some game group members you want to alienate forever.

I don’t think that’s fair to say, he has been making useful debate comments, and he does seem to enjoy D&D at SOME level at the very least.

@smiling bandit

They don’t. It’s scary. One of them, though incapable of making characters or reading books (he is literate, but cannot concentrate long enough to read a paragraph), continues to game. Every character he has has been ripped off blatantly from an anime, a comic book, or his mono-maniacal idea of a rip-snorting military killing machine. His characters generally lasts no more than 2-3 sessions becuse he cannot think up ways of dealing with his problems either than attacking them. He also cannot play fantasy, because somehow the thought that people have magic spells (in a fantasy game) fills him with confusion. He constantly attempts to bring in machine guns in the fantasy games, and refuses to even accept magical equivalents.

This is not disparagement. It is a fact whether I ackowledge it or not.

O.o
I’ll give you that one. I’m not very creative in regards to character creation, or rather I tend to have a strict personal model I follow, but that’s just plain over the top.

You’re right on the alignment thing, but that’s why you try to get the more creative members to justify it, personally if I were DM and someone wanted to use an “atypical use of a spell” (i.e. on an object type not in the description) I’d have them make a spellcraft check with a DC depending on how “out there” the application is for an “impromptu altering of the spell trigger.” (I also may or may not alter the duration or casting time depending on the application and/or the roll they get) I’d also let it slide or give a circumstance bonus if they can give a compelling reason I should consider the item they’re casting it on as a “weapon” even if they won’t use it as such.

When I was playing a campaign once, I actually kept a mock “mage journal” I wrote between sessions detailing my character’s “studies” on magic, that I could feasibly use for justification of certain actions, provided DM consent. (it never really came up by the time we gave up the campaign due to real life difficulties, but I had one just in case!)

Anyway, you may view this as a flaw (I kind of do as well), but how many people play with unmodded rulesets anyway? House rules are practically a requirement.

[Scupper]

@Jragon

I don’t think that’s fair to say, he has been making useful debate comments, and he does seem to enjoy D&D at SOME level at the very least.

You’re probably right. Particularly since, on review, I realize he started the thread in the first place, so he didn’t exactly jump into it. :smack:

Anyway. I’m waiting for my hard copy 4E books and more than a little surprised that it is as good as it seems to be. Time will tell, but I can’t see any significant change in this version that isn’t an improvement on the versions that came before.

I cannot believe I’m *defending *4E. It’s like I fell into Bizarro World the minute I opened up the PDFs.

[Kinthalis]

ARE the books officially out yet? I tried going to Barnes and noble yesterday and they didn’t have them.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

I ordered mine from Walmart earlier in the week. They’ve still not shipped. Yesterday I got a wild hair up my ass, and I decided I could pick them up from Walmart and then return the shipped copies when they arrived. Only Walmart’s website wouldn’t tell me if they had them in stock at the local Walmart. So I called the local store. After being put on indefinite hold once and having the phone set down indefinitely once (I could hear people carrying on conversations near the phone), I finally drove out there. Nobody at the store could tell me if they were in stock, but they didn’t appear to be (the store is huge, the book selection tiny and consisting mostly of inspirational texts and romances). So I went to Barnes and Noble, figuring I could return the books once they came in from Walmart. B&N still has 3.5 on display. So I went to Books-a-Million, where I finally found the books.

It’s a little sleazy, I guess, to buy books with the intention of returning them (I’ll at least return the brand-new copies I get from Walmart, not my used copies), but into every life a little sleaziness must fall.

I’ve just finished an initial quick read of the PHB.

I like it.

For the most part.

POSITIVES:
-The powers are chewy and cool, mostly. Yeah, most of them deal damage–but they also mostly have secondary effects. This is a good design decision, I think: instead of having to choose between dealing damage and something tactically interesting, you get to do both. (You sometimes can choose instead to deal googobs of damage). The many different powers encourage creative thinking.
-The reliance on miniatures is, in this respect, positive: it encourages the DM to have tactically interesting battlefields, so that combatants can do cool things with their powers, such as pushing an opponent into a lake of acid or something. This is an area in which the DM’s creativity and competence will really make a huge difference.
-There is a lot of advice on roleplyaing; what’s more, the advice is often intertwined with the rules. See my example earlier in the thread about skill challenges.

THE BAD:
-I’m not clear yet on how long a combat will take. On the plus side, everyone will probably be dealing damage every round. On the minus side, critters appear to have a lot of hit points, and powers in general seem to do less damage than their 3.5 equivalents. The days of a high-level barbarian dealing 70+ points of damage with each of four swings in a round appear to be over, as are the days of 15d6 flamestrikes at 15th level. On the other hand, since people will generally only be taking one attack action each round, rounds should go a lot faster: that barbarian with four iterative attacks, or the monk flurrying, can be doing a lot of math (simple addition, sure, but still a lot of simple addition problems while retaining several numbers in working memory), and in 4e, that’ll come up less often, I think.

I’m still unsure on a lot of stuff. Most notably, major features such as the at-will, per-encounter, or daily powers. Will I like this or hate it? The fact that each class has 4 at-will powers from which to choose, and that each character gets two of these: will this end up making most characters of a given class look identical? How will multiclassing work in practice with a set of rules that admittedly looks elegant and flexible on paper? Will healing surges come across as cheesy or awesome?

There are a lot of factors that I’m not sure about. I’m excited to test the game and get to the point where I have an opinion.

Daniel