83 replies to this topic

[Chosen]

Does anyone play 4e?  If so, what do you think about it?  

[SalmonMax]

I have played a few "test encounters."

Combat plays pretty well, in a straightforwardly tactical sense. It is not really -faster- than 3e, but it FEELS faster, because more is happening, by and large. Movement is much more important in 4e, and many powers capitalize on this. A corollary of course is that it also makes the game hungry for maps and minis, spawning more demand for high profit margin goodies.

My criticisms of 4e are based on my readings of the PHB more than any experience playing it yet. One criticism is that despite there being a VAST list of powers per class, they are divided over 30 levels. This means that at any given level, you have typically 2 to 4 options to choose from. This is especially limiting for warlocks, as their powers are -further- subdivided by their "pact," or the source of their powers.

My other, and more pointed criticism, is that there is a deeper disconnect between the rules of the game and the flavor of the game than there is in 3e. Players will have to work harder to "fictionalize" how their powers work and why. The powers are intended not so much to be rationalized or defined, as much as to maintain game balance, and conform to a sense of "high adventure," in a pulp fiction way. This means that the hero can only pull off his big finishing move once per day not because he's somehow magically limited, or forgets the spell, or any of that. He can only do it once per day because more would be unbalanced, and in fantasy fiction, the finishing move is usually only done once. That's why it's a finishing move.

How that plays out in a game remains to be seen. I will let y'all know how it goes if y'all are interested. Y'all. Uh huh. Yup.

[Mike OOC]

SalmonMax: Warlock powers aren't limited by pact.  Rather, they are boosted by whatever sub-specialization your warlock's picked, depending on whatever pact they fall into.  They even say tha many warlocks choose powers outside of their pact for versatility's sake.  It's the same for the sub-specializations for other classes such as rogue or warlord.

Also, you do start out with only a few options, but by mid-levels you get a mix of about a dozen different abilities usable per-day and per-encounter.  I find the more even spread of abilities preferable to 3rd edition, where depending on your class you would have anywhere from as few as one ("I hit him, I roll damage") to several hundred ("Okay, I get every single divine spell ever to choose from.  Spell prep might take a while.")

I'll post more on my thoughts on 4E when I get home tonight.  But overall I like it quite a lot, and it addresses a great deal of the issues I had with 3E while adding very few new ones.  Bearing in mind I came to D&D Second Edition after playing Rifts and treated it as a step backwards, so take that as you will.

[VileBill]

Not gonna play it but I have read a bit of it and a buddy of mine was a playtester (yes, he's in the book) and has given me his run-down of it.

Not a fan of some of the rules changes like completely eliminating real multiclassing and creating a severe sense of railroading for character party contribution.

The books also seem cheaper to me. Still good art but the plain white pages outside of that are boring.

It looks mostly like DnD Lite, a pen and paper MMORPG rather than an honest to goodness role-playing game.

Mostly though I am inscensed at WotC regarding those twenty dollar "preview" books they put out. Totally disgusting.

If you play it I hope you enjoy it.

[Mike OOC]

All right, I'll start off with what I dislike...

1)  A step backwards for multiclassing: now, to be fair, a lot of the most insane crap that came out of 3rd edition came about as a result of multiclassing and prestige classes.  It's an exponentially growing problem, as number of classes grows and multiclassing options multiply, and people do love their new classes (see warlock and warlord AKA the marshal.)  All the same, I do wish multiclassing were a more versatile, viable option.  I'll live with it - once I've crossed the believability threshold of having character classes in the first place, being limited in my selection is cake.

2) Miniature Dependancy.  This is only really a problem in my online games since a working miniatures solution has yet to be found.  (Yes, we tried MapTools.  I loved it, the GM loved it, but it decided to not allow connections on the night of truth so now no one else loves it.)  GameTable made an acceptable stand-in, however, and it must be said that in offline games I've never turned down a miniatures table if offered, and when it works in OpenRPG I didn't say no to it there either.  Still, it's hard not to view this as an attempt to get some of those Tall Warhammer Dollahs.

3) Where is my Index Fuckdammit - no excuse here.  Yes, there's an online search engine.  Well fucking done.  That does me about as much good as orthopedic shoes on a mermaid when I'm at the gaming table.

With that out of the way, let's talk about what is awesome.

1)  Skill Bundles: Loved them in Iron Heroes, and now they are even more awesome.  One of the things that tripped me up in 3rd Edition as a rogue, was plowing skill points into Search and Disable Device, unsure if we would ever encounter a trap but knowing we were screwed sideways if we ever did and I didn't have both skills through the roof.  Now, if I never encounter a trap that's fine because I will get plenty of other uses out of Thievery and Perception.  Likewise, if I never get stuck on a boat I'll still be jumping and climbing with Athletics.  I no longer need three skills to notice things, two skills to sneak around, two skills to know anything about nature, or two skills to know anything about magic.

2) In some ways, the roles are more rigid, but the NEED for each role is reduced.  If there's no healer, you don't have to stop the game for five days every time someone gets scratched by one of the eighteen hundred hostile creatures in the average D&D ecosystem.  If there's no rogue and you find yourself in the Traps section of Bloodbath & Beyond because the GM once lost his elf to the Tomb of Horrors and it's time for the hate to run downhill, a couple of feats at the most lets you see and circumvent traps.  Since anyone can use rituals with the right gear and the right feats, even the need for those useful little spells is something anyone can fulfill.

3) Get a little better at everything: the generic universal roll bonus that keeps going up, to me, is great.  It emulates the target genre of "big damn heroes" well.  It avoids that thing I keep seeing where the guy with Charisma 8 who has a sword the size of a surfboard on his back still can't scare anyone worth a damn.

4) 3E sometimes felt like the job of the non-casters was to keep the casters alive long enough for them to have fun.  There were also a lot of levels there where your one bonus was "3 hit points and you're 5% better at hitting."  Now there's one advancement chart to key off of, and it's quite nicely laid out, with each level giving you something spiffy.

5) More hit points: no longer shall a French fry kill your first-level mage with its high trans-fats.

6) No random hit point rolls: I have to explain this one?

7) Randomly rolled stats are in the ghetto where they belong: I hate random attributes.  I have no nostalgic attachment to them whatsoever, the same way I have no nostalgic attachment to wizards being unable to swing a sword.  Yes, there was point buy last edition, but it was the "alternative" method.  Now the student has become the master, and all is right with the world.

8) "Flubbed a save?  Hope you brought a Nintendo DS, 'cause that's the only fun you'll be having for the next three hours."  No longer does one blown save vs. dragonfear or the wink of a medusa or the lich going 'pull my finger' mean I wind up leveling up Pikachu for the rest of the night.  This is not to say that you won't be put down for the count; in two out of three test combats a PC went down and very well could have stayed down had someone not given them a hand up.  But the game takes pains to keep players involved even when they're on the receiving end of the shit hose.

9) Spell prep almost gone: I would have campaigned for "completely gone and also, shoot it on the way out," but that's me.

Now, for other concerns:

"How to explain a 1/day ability that's non-magical?"  I always get puzzled by this.  Did anyone feel the need to explain why a barbarian could only get pissed off a few times a day?  Or why a rogue with Defensive Roll could use it only once a day?  Even before Book of Nine Swords showed up, x/day abilities have been in purely martial classes since 3E's inception.  If you're fine with a human being being able to take a ballista bolt to the face but not okay with him being able to chop it in half in mid-flight only once before taking a breather, I don't know what to tell you.  D&D's always emphasized the 'game' part of role-playing game.

"It's too MMORPG-ish" - what drove me away from games like World of Warcraft was the sensation that I was running on a cleverly disguised hamster wheel with no roleplaying and no plot because there was no GM and my fellow players treated saying "Thee" once in a while as roleplaying.  What drove me away was NOT the numbers crunching away under the hood, because if a tabletop system came out that was as intuitive and easy to use as World of Warcraft, I would be on it like white on rice.  The roleplaying will still be there; the plots will still be there.  If the system facilitates it better, that's all I ask of it.  On this, most signs point to 'yes.'

[VileBill]

Ah, Mikee has clued me into one of the other things I don't like about it.


Characters laugh at death. With more hitpoints and everyone having the ability to heal themselves and the unfuckinglikelihood of failing a stabilizing check and everything doing far less damage (Disintigrate maxes out at 6d10? Really? Disintigrate?) death is about as much of a deal as it is with an MMORPG.

Sorry, fuck that, not interested in a game where with spells like Revenance and Revivify already making death kind of laughable it becoming a total joke.

[Dave ST]

I'm thankful I was able to read the 4th Edition books prior to their release.  While I admit that there were several new tings I liked about it (like the skills), it wasn't enough to merit the purchase of $105.00 dollars worth of new books to star over again with a whole new collection.

The monsters being classified as 'brute', 'artillery', 'skirmisher', etc... those are MMORPG terms (terms may vary where you're from) that have been in use since EverQuest.

To me it's proof that they're catering to the MMORPG players hoping to get them off the computers.  Which is fine, except they don't need to make the game a carbon play-out of the very thing they just left their computers for.  Make sense?

Anyway, I've read it and it's okay.  I'll admit I was skeptical at first but the game has merit.  I won't purchase it or play it, however.

I'll stick to v3.5.

[Mr Fox]

Bill,

I've been reading it and plan on trying it. (Not buying the books yet though)

From what I've seen it might not be quite so easy to laugh at death.  Characters do start with more hit points but they also don't go up nearly as far or as fast.  You don't roll anymore for hit points, you get a set amount each level based on class and you don't get your con modifier added to that number, it's just a straight 4 or 6 per level.  Yes you get healing surges, but again only so many per day based on class and you get a total of 1/4 of your hps back per surge.  At 20 hps which is what my warlock is starting with that's only 5 hitpoints for a surge which is going to be my action for the round.  If I'm getting hit for 10 points per round I'm not going to last very long, healing surges or not.  My Warlock does 1d10 + 1d6 with his Eldrich Blast, and that's not out of line with the other DPS classes, a thief with 'opportunity' will do his weapon damage + 2d6.  So yeah, slightly less deadly at low lvls but potentially more deadly at higher levels.  At least that's the understanding I have of it right now.  That could change as I read more.

[Joani]

Originally Posted By: Dave ST

To me it's proof that they're catering to the MMORPG players hoping to get them off the computers.  Which is fine, except they don't need to make the game a carbon play-out of the very thing they just left their computers for.  Make sense?

Check out www.dndinsider.com - looks like they are trying to establish an online platform, too.

[Dave ST]

Yeah, I remember they tried the same thing with 3.5s E-Tools.  Some content is supposed to only be available online too.  So not only do you get to pay for the book, but you don't get the entire book, you have to have access to D&DI to get the rest.

I heard two of the project guys talking about this and they really hammed it up like it was the greatest thing since the wheel, but it was attempted with 2nd Edition, and with 3.0 & 3.5.

Overall, I think they've just really taken the game downhill.

[Chosen]

I have borrowed a couple books but haven't had time to read through them.  I am a little intrigued by the game table software.  I'm not sure if that is a great idea or an abomination.  

[VileBill]

The tools look really cool, except for the fact that I've tried gaming online, talking to folks over headphones and I fucking hated it.

[Mr Fox]

Yeah, tried an Aberrant game that way once and it didn't work out very well.  Think it probably would have worked out if we'd had video though.  The lack of face to face communications is pretty deadly to the concept.  Don't know if DnD takes care or not, but it's what killed the attempt I made.

Some of the tools do sound cool though and I'm all for anything that breaths some new life into the whole TT gaming world.  I'd hate for MMO's to become the only real outlet for gaming, and with all the young ones cutting their teeth on MMO's rather than the real thing, we aren't getting as much new blood as we once did.

[SalmonMax]

Playing online via a chat interface (that is, text) works fine, I think. Been doing it for years.

There are things that can be done to help keep the pace up, though it'll never be as fast in potentia as speaking. That said, it's not much of an issue IMO.

[SkyLion]

To me 4th edition seems like just another decision by the executive types to make products that force obsolecense on that whic was not broken to try and force us to all go out and buy another round of books.

Its seriously irritating.

[Dawn OOC]

Originally Posted By: The_Fool

To me 4th edition seems like just another decision by the executive types to make products that force obsolecense on that whic was not broken to try and force us to all go out and buy another round of books.

Its seriously irritating.

It's how they make money, so that's understandable.  They are a business, after all - they need to have income.  

That doesn't mean I'm going to buy their books, now or ever.

[Mr Fox]

I've read most of the PHB now and while I agree that they are trying to push people to buy new books and services, I also have to say that 4th is is a pretty significant change from 3.5.  It's at least as big a change as going from 2nd ed to 3rd.  I also don't entirely like the fact that they have made the system so much like an MMO with paper and pencil.  I'm going to give it a try though, and see how it plays out.

[SkyLion]

And that's the rub.  They are taking the game in a new direction that caters to computer gamers.  Call me old fashioned but I think its a mistake.  All in all we can only hope that by voting with their dollars, gamers will show them this is NOT the direction to take.

[The Fine Balance]

I think I'll be sticking with 3e.

[Mr Fox]

I didn't plan to even try it but a friend of mine that I game with won a set of the books so he wants to DM a campaign, so I promised to give it a shot. <shrugs>

I'll let you know what I think once we get started.  I've got my suspicions about how the game will play out, but we'll see, I'm going to try and give it as unbiased a chance as I can.

[Valerie]

I love how everyone faults  WotC when it's Big Daddy HASBRO who pushes the monthly books and the new editions.

Complains! That's all you people got, not one good word about it so far has survived without some kind of rebuttal.

"Too Much HP/Too Little Damage/Too easy to save/Not enough killing." If you want so much death, go play F.A.T.A.L. or Unreal Tournament, no need to bring bloodlust into DnD.

"Encounters are too long!" As opposed to the 6 second encounters that used to happen? I had one just last sunday. "I attack, it dies." was what my player said, and he was right they were minions weak things made specifically to die easy and still be able to damage the enemy.

Too MMORPGish, how? Because we now label things?  Because there is actualy synergy between classes as opposed to 3.X where they were made by M:tG designers around figthing each other?

Yes they are MMORPGesque, but it's because they figured out how to make it work damnit, they studied party dynamics, they figured who was best at what and expanded on that. You are crying because your Cleric of War now can't be as bad-ass as the Paladin? Play a damned Paladin.

"They are selling me new books! How dare they?!" I suppose you guys just LOVE working for free right? After all you should do it for the love towards your work! Love the company and refuse your paycheck!

"D&DI will ruin the game!" As did Dwarves that could cast spells and the removal of Level caps? Yeah it's different, yeah it's asking you to susbcribe for content, but the content is not new and even if it is, you will end up knowing it through the 'net or other people. What's that? You don't want to wait? Pay up.
"But I already paid for my books!" Yes and you got what was in the book, it's not like the book says "For this section, look at DnD Insider!" it's just EXTRA content, WotC is not holding  DnD hostage.

Also the last and only real concern.  Miniature dependency, this is all fixed by, you know, multiplying everything mesured in Squares by 5 and following along as you have done for the past 8 years.

Now, I know a couple of you will answer, slightly Vitrolic about how you are only stating your opinion in a Forum we all are granted access to by Chosen, but I do have to say.  If you don't have anything good to say, keep it to a single post like Mike did. No need to drag on for days and days on end.

[SkyLion]

I had the same issue with White Wolf btw.  They go and cancel the greatest game ever (Aberrant, duh!) and then proceed to restart the WoD with a whole new system.  i didn't invest a grand into a gigantic shelf of oWoD books just to move on because they felt they needed to sell more books.  Thats the trouble with gaming companies...they DON'T have to kep reinventing the wheel to stay in the publishing business.  They could come up with whole new games and *gasp* creative concepts (or at least reenergize Aberrant WITHOUT a new edition or new system mind you...) to keep making books.  NO need for planned obsolecense of my very expensive friggin collection that I bought from them....gack!

[Valerie]

Well, you DO know that if they make a new Game it will invariably have the same Hypnotic ink and pretty drawings that will sink you in and you will now have 2 Giagiantic collections worth a grand each, right? >_>

[SkyLion]

Nope.  Not gonna happen.

I haven't even read through my current collection all the way yet, it's just that friggen big.

EDIT: Oh you mean a NEW game.  Well i did buy the first Scion book but so far that's it.  Not as compelling as Aberrant to me, far too much of a railroaded metaplot almost utterly dependant on published characters (yet again...sigh) and the nail in the coffin is I havent found any good online games that have started.

On the other hand, Cthulhutech is just fugging awesome and i will be collecting that one in it's entirety as it develops...IF the fraggin printer can ever get enough books out and on the schedule they advertise....a WHOLE notha can o worms that one is...

[Dawn OOC]

Actually, they have to produce more materials to make money, and as your giant shelf proves, they'd milked OWoD pretty hard.  Honestly, I like the NWoD system.  It's a lot cleaner and easier to play, IMO.  Also, they kept promising Gehanna/the end and had to deliver, because I remember fans bitching about that.  That pretty decisively ended OWoD.  NWoD is perpetual.

Aberrant went under because sales tapered off.  It IS a business, and if they aren't making money on something, they can't put more money into developing it.  

[SkyLion]

I get that Dawn, but regardless of how new or shiny th NwOD is I havent yet gotten anywhere close to the story mileage out of the old game yet.  Why should I make my collection obsolete?  Just because they publish Gehenna books and some gamers are too ADD to stick with anything but the current fad doesnt mean that i have to.  My current WW group is still YEARS away from the end of things in story time.  Perhaps decades away in RL time...

It wasn't broke.  No need to fix it...

[SalmonMax]

I kinda hafta agree. NWoD is a LOT tighter of a system than OWoD. I feel the gripe about obsolescence, but lets face it...the Game Police won't arrest you if you play old WoD sometimes, or even Aberrant.

Same with D&D. I'm not torching my 3.5 books, even if I decide 4 is the best thing since sliced gravy. As for 4, I have my doubts, but I have nothing to lose but time, and I think it's worth giving it a try. If I don't like it...cool. If I do, also cool.

Lets not blow all this out of proportion, after all. We're talking about games here, not a cure for AIDS.

[SkyLion]

Im just sayimg...I dont play LARP for example, but if I did I would be PISSED when it switched to the nWoD...

EDIT:  Also nonone keeps me from playing Aberrant, my favorite game but it's telling that I can only do so through an inline community.  Trying to find gamer groups that arent agoggle at "the newest thing" has been impossible for me.  It seems to me at least that every group i have found mindlessly rushes to buy the latest edition instead of sticking with what works.

Also I see no problems with the oWoD system.  Maybe I've been playing it for so long, but the system is tight enough for my tastes.

[Dawn OOC]

Originally Posted By: The_Fool

I get that Dawn, but regardless of how new or shiny th NwOD is I havent yet gotten anywhere close to the story mileage out of the old game yet.  Why should I make my collection obsolete?  Just because they publish Gehenna books and some gamers are too ADD to stick with anything but the current fad doesnt mean that i have to.  My current WW group is still YEARS away from the end of things in story time.  Perhaps decades away in RL time...

It wasn't broke.  No need to fix it...

As Max said, no one is saying "Stop playing OWoD."  In fact, I encourage you to do that if you enjoy it.  But once Gehenna was underway, they couldn't keep making supplements.  They couldn't stop their flagship line, either.  So they had to come up with something else, but they couldn't just replicate it whole cloth.

Look at it this way - you have your old system, which you like.  But there's something else to play too, and have fun with.  Yes, you'll have to invest in more books, but only if you want.  You don't have to plug into NWoD.

And I'd disagree about it not being broken.  The Generation system was a POS, IMO.  It was just the only game in town, so to speak.

Max: Well stated post, btw.

[SkyLion]

Generation was and still is awesome: measuring the potency of blodd by distance from Cain, the Progenitor.

And I DO have to bitch if every friggin local gaming group toes the "party line" and switches to the nWoD books.  that puts me SOL now doesn't it????