The D&D Edition Thread (That I Should Have Made Sooner)

[i_was_like_you]

He isn't, and I don't think you have played 4th at all if you think he is.

What the Wizard should be is as useful to the party, at every level, as the fighter or the rogue. He should not be a liability at 1st and overshadowing everyone at 9th. That's not the same thing at all as "everyone is exactly the same".

I've played 4th. It has its benefits, but it's not really the style I like. What is it, every even level, add a point to everything? That's what I mean when I say all characters progress the exact same. Same with the number of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities. What changes with classes is the flavor of the attack.

When I said the wizard was as good at stabbing, I mean basic stab, not the at will power of flaming stabbing that somehow, despite the additional flaming damage can also be treated as non-lethal if you declare it. [We had to take someone alive. My character used his flaming stabbing to bludgeon the npc unconscious and / or knock the force possessing him out of him. The whole group was joking about how I'd set my lightsaber to warm and comforting instead of slice n dice.] In a pinch, the wizard, or whichever typically non-melee character, can still just bludgeon or stab his or her way out of trouble.

I do like the notion of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities, when it comes to spells. Having to have a caster get a full night's sleep and an hour of meditation / prayer / book reading before they were useful again was very limiting. It could seriously ruin the tempo of a game.

Oh, according to the map, we're almost at the heart of the cave.

Caster: But I'm out of spells.

Looks like we have to bed down. Caster, take first watch, then get a full night's sleep.

I don't like the notion of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities for fighter types. They're supposed to be easy for new players. I swing my sword at it. Not, Don't you want to use your at will power of flaming sword to do more damage? Oh, that's what I meant.

I'm also not fond of healing surges and what they've done to clerics as a result. I stab the monster and at the same time, it causes the nearby fighter to expend a healing surge and gain a bonus to his next attack, thereby saving the day.

Yes, my clerics could heal the party and out fighter the fighter in 3.5. That was the point, right? To be a stalwart bastion of hope (or hate) in an otherwise hopeless situation. To bolster the party, as well as oneself, against implacable foes. To have to make the hard judgment calls of Do I heal him now? Or do I take the chance of smiting our foe and raising the fighter from the clutches of death, if my deity sees fit to allow it?

[Evilbleachman]

I like 4th Edition of D&D. I started in 3rd Ed. shortly before 3.5 came out and then switched over to that with my gaming group in the day.

Both 3.5 and 4th are good in their own way. At the moment I am running a 4th Edition campaign with some friends and we're having a blast.

People tend to complain about technicalities about the game, but in the end you can alter these rulings as befits you and your group. We have small house rules that apply in addition to the regular 4th Ed. rules and we come along great.

Our main focus of the game is still the RP factor of the game and we use D&D's tabletop aspect as a way to take a break from all the serious RP and just have some gaming fun on top of it too.

Some of our players are real number crunchers and build up strong and effective characters and thrive to see what all they can do in combat. In addition they also create kickass player characters that are fun to roleplay with on more than a superficial level.

In the end I really do not mind which edition of D&D we will be playing. We will focus on the RP sections and change certain parts as we see fit.

I could go into why Wizards of the Coat even developed 4th Edition and all that yadda yadda stuff we have heard before. I just want to make my point clear that you can have a good time regardless of which edition you play. Change small things that you dislike and have a good time.

[Dracomax]

I have a few issues with 4th edition myself.

First, it is extremely focused on the 5person party dungeon crawl. the at will/encounter/etc. system breaks down when you aren't getting into more than a fight or 2 per day. the party balance is broken pretty badly if you don't have all the roles covered, either from too few people or too many of one class/role.

The reduction of skills is both a benefit and a curse, as it means that skill-wise, characters are a lot less distinguishable.

All characters with the same role are very similar, especially if you use the preferred point-buy system--all powers of a given level effectively do mostly the same things, with mostly fluff differences. there are exceptions, but not as many as you think.

I also think they went a bit too far in tieing player power to magical equipment. They certainly went to far in taking power away from the DM.

I never found skill challenges to work, but I like the idea.

That being said, it did do a few things better than 3.x ever did. allowing the better of two ability scores for will, reflex, def? awesome. Making them defenses, rather than saving rolls? better from a situationist and storytelling perspective. Simplifying cover and Attacks of Opportunity? wonderful. Monster creation? Mostly awesome comparatively--the only problem I had was that it wasn't made obvious in the MM as to how you could or should modify/create a monster of a much higher or lower level.

Overall, I always felt both as a Player and a DM that 4e made the players feel more like superheroes, even fighters feeling like bad@$$ magic users. For some types of stories and games, it works really really well, and it works well as a miniatures game too.

3.x always felt a bit more indifferent to your character, like they were adventurers in the world, rather than predestined heroes of it. I fully admit this is a matter of taste, and YMMV.

---------- Post added at 02:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:09 PM ----------

I have a few issues with 4th edition myself.

First, it is extremely focused on the 5person party dungeon crawl. the at will/encounter/etc. system breaks down when you aren't getting into more than a fight or 2 per day. the party balance is broken pretty badly if you don't have all the roles covered, either from too few people or too many of one class/role.

The reduction of skills is both a benefit and a curse, as it means that skill-wise, characters are a lot less distinguishable.

All characters with the same role are very similar, especially if you use the preferred point-buy system--all powers of a given level effectively do mostly the same things, with mostly fluff differences. there are exceptions, but not as many as you think.

I also think they went a bit too far in tieing player power to magical equipment. They certainly went to far in taking power away from the DM.

I never found skill challenges to work, but I like the idea.

That being said, it did do a few things better than 3.x ever did. allowing the better of two ability scores for will, reflex, def? awesome. Making them defenses, rather than saving rolls? better from a situationist and storytelling perspective. Simplifying cover and Attacks of Opportunity? wonderful. Monster creation? Mostly awesome comparatively--the only problem I had was that it wasn't made obvious in the MM as to how you could or should modify/create a monster of a much higher or lower level.

Overall, I always felt both as a Player and a DM that 4e made the players feel more like superheroes, even fighters feeling like bad@$$ magic users. For some types of stories and games, it works really really well, and it works well as a miniatures game too.

3.x always felt a bit more indifferent to your character, like they were adventurers in the world, rather than predestined heroes of it. I fully admit this is a matter of taste, and YMMV.

edit: Of course, all of this is in contrast to AD&D in which you were poor lost souls with a trick or two sent out into a hostile, uncaring world that was more likely to kill you then strengthen you...

[Forar]

What is it, every even level, add a point to everything? That's what I mean when I say all characters progress the exact same.

Except 20 levels later, the Fighter is still going to have a MASSIVE edge in Str, and the Wizard is going to have a MASSIVE edge in Int. The +1 every other level is simply calculated into how the math works around the characters and their opposition. Since everything is based off opposed rolls, it allows the numbers to get higher while the primary/secondary statistics improve faster and everything else simply bumps up slowly over the course of the months/years/campaigns. That's not a bug, it's a feature of how the system is balanced, even if it is unlike previous editions.

Same with the number of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities. What changes with classes is the flavor of the attack.

However this is flat out untrue. Just because everyone retains the same number of at-wills, encounters and whatnot does not mean they're all the same. Just taking the Cleric, you can build them for massive healing power, impressive preventative/shielding power, 'tanking', and even some flavours of damage (both ranged and melee). Compared to my experiences as "the guy who heals us" in 3E, 4E's efforts to divorce the role of party leader from "heal bot" was a massive improvement in both game mechanics and my enjoyment of the class, and I've been a fan of Clerics since AD&D.

When I said the wizard was as good at stabbing, I mean basic stab, not the at will power of flaming stabbing that somehow, despite the additional flaming damage can also be treated as non-lethal if you declare it. [We had to take someone alive. My character used his flaming stabbing to bludgeon the npc unconscious and / or knock the force possessing him out of him. The whole group was joking about how I'd set my lightsaber to warm and comforting instead of slice n dice.] In a pinch, the wizard, or whichever typically non-melee character, can still just bludgeon or stab his or her way out of trouble.

Or maybe you just used the hilt of your sword instead of the blade.

However, at the end of the day, the Wizard (at first level) is going to melee something for 1d4 damage at possibly no bonus to attack or damage, and the first level Fighter is probably going to get at least a +4 to both. While at later levels this disparity will be reduced to a degree, it's a false example to begin with, because the Fighter is likely using an At-Will that probably has a modifier on how many dice are being rolled and possibly other boosts, so at 10th level the Wizard might be rolling 1d4+2 damage at a +5 to attack, the Fighter may be rolling 3d4+6 at +12 to attack.

Point being, the wizard is not, by any stretch of the imagination, "as good at stabbing as the fighter".

I do like the notion of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities, when it comes to spells. Having to have a caster get a full night's sleep and an hour of meditation / prayer / book reading before they were useful again was very limiting. It could seriously ruin the tempo of a game.

Oh, according to the map, we're almost at the heart of the cave.

Caster: But I'm out of spells.

Looks like we have to bed down. Caster, take first watch, then get a full night's sleep.

Looks like something we can agree upon! I wholeheartedly think that the "five minute work day" of earlier editions was just as immersion breaking as many of the things lamented about in 4E.

I don't like the notion of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities for fighter types. They're supposed to be easy for new players. I swing my sword at it. Not, Don't you want to use your at will power of flaming sword to do more damage? Oh, that's what I meant.

Shenanigans. Utter shenanigans. Why should martial classes (fighters, rogues, rangers, etc) be any less proficient than casters in a fight? That's bonkers to me. If I want to play a daring swashbuckler, swinging from chandeliers and gutting my foes, why should I have to take a back seat 5 levels later to the casters who are no longer afraid of house cats? I mean, hey, if that's how you and your crew roll, that's great, but designing the games like that? Utter shenanigans.

Why the hell would they dedicate like 1/2 of the classes in the game to a "tutorial" roll? What, are new players supposed to play a Fighter for a few weeks and then take off "babies first class training wheels, discard your sheet and roll up a Caster like the real players"?

I'm also not fond of healing surges and what they've done to clerics as a result. I stab the monster and at the same time, it causes the nearby fighter to expend a healing surge and gain a bonus to his next attack, thereby saving the day.

Yes, my clerics could heal the party and out fighter the fighter in 3.5. That was the point, right? To be a stalwart bastion of hope (or hate) in an otherwise hopeless situation. To bolster the party, as well as oneself, against implacable foes. To have to make the hard judgment calls of Do I heal him now? Or do I take the chance of smiting our foe and raising the fighter from the clutches of death, if my deity sees fit to allow it?

Disagree. Disagree hard. I played clerics in AD&D and 3E. I'd primarily choose between blowing my entire allotment of spells (or a giant pile of gold from wands) on picking up the others, or simply buff myself up with Bull's Strength and other such magic and wreck faces harder than that simpleton who chose the Fighter ever could, oh ho ho, what a buffoon for thinking they could roll up a Conan inspired character when we all know that a civilized gentleman plays a caster. 4E allowed the cleric to both heal (and/or shield) a player AND make otherwise meaningful contributions to the battle without simply buffing up and going to town.

Y'know, I'm sensing a little snark creeping in here, and I dare say it's in response to a sense that you were one of the people who picked "the right classes" (ie Casters). If we're all sitting at a table playing pretend elves and dwarves, there is no good reason why the druid should be orders of magnitude better a scout than the rogue, or the cleric better than the fighter, or the wizard better than the ranger, all a bare handful of levels in. Everyone should be able to enjoy being at the table contributing to the cause, and 3E had some absurdly overpowered abilities that could outright negate the need for entire classes (why pick the lock? Knock! Why sweat the pit traps? Fly! Why worry about travel particulars? Teleport!).

4E reigned much of that in, and for all your issues with "not killing using a flaming sword" (something I'll note you could cheerfully do in 2nd and 3rd as well), I personally enjoyed the class balance vastly more than this "linear martial classes, exponential casters are awesome" vibe I'm getting here.

[Ryu]

New Player's Lounge? Shouldn't this be in General Discussion?

4e: Boo, with hints of yay.

That is my scientific analysis.

[Boshea]

Shenanigans. Utter shenanigans. Why should martial classes (fighters, rogues, rangers, etc) be any less proficient than casters in a fight? That's bonkers to me. If I want to play a daring swashbuckler, swinging from chandeliers and gutting my foes, why should I have to take a back seat 5 levels later to the casters who are no longer afraid of house cats? I mean, hey, if that's how you and your crew roll, that's great, but designing the games like that? Utter shenanigans.

Why the hell would they dedicate like 1/2 of the classes in the game to a "tutorial" roll? What, are new players supposed to play a Fighter for a few weeks and then take off "babies first class training wheels, discard your sheet and roll up a Caster like the real players"?

This right here is why I hated 3.5, and to a lesser extent pathfinder. So many games of doing nothing while Johny Powergamer makes me wonder why I ever bother wanting to play a rogue or fighter. 4e can be linear as balls if you want to optimize it, but I've had way more fun in that system when I could just auto-set my progression and focus on role-playing my character. Then again, I had a better group and DM for 4e.

[Dracomax]

Then again, I had a better group and DM for 4e.

I honestly think this makes the biggest difference as to how good any game is. You can take an awful system (Like FATAL) and have fun if you have a good group, DM, and are willing to modify things for fun. You can take an awesome system(hopefully the Malifaux RPG) and suck all the fun out of it with a couple of munchkins and a railroding adversarial DM.

[Evilbleachman]

I honestly think this makes the biggest difference as to how good any game is. You can take an awful system (Like FATAL) and have fun if you have a good group, DM, and are willing to modify things for fun. You can take an awesome system(hopefully the Malifaux RPG) and suck all the fun out of it with a couple of munchkins and a railroding adversarial DM.

I agree. It all really comes down to your group and the fun you guys want to achieve.

[Rifter]

I played 2e, until 3e came out... then moved to 3.5, then to 4e. We are now back to Pathfinder. Our one GM has pushed some for Dungone World, which is pretty neat, but different.

I think 4e is a simpler model, and more fun for the long haul. Not as much fiddling with sleeping and regaining spells. No, caster casts 5 spells and is done. I like that side of things.

I like 3.5 for the style of play. It is just different. They have the same name, but are very different games. Tome of Battle for 3.5 was one of the coolest books they EVER published. I'm also a huge fan of psionics. Ultimately, I just want to have fun. I think 3.5 is a little more serious game, than 4.0, but that is fine. Play what fits for you, and your group.

[CRC]

I don't like the notion of at wills, encounters, dailies, and utilities for fighter types. They're supposed to be easy for new players. I swing my sword at it. Not, Don't you want to use your at will power of flaming sword to do more damage? Oh, that's what I meant.

If you're going to bring up the "easy for new players" argument, I have some Essential classes for you to use.

Some of them are that simple, for exactly that reason. It took WotC a while, but they eventually realised that some players just want to "hit it with my sword."

Yes, my clerics could heal the party and out fighter the fighter in 3.5. That was the point, right?

No, that's a point in favour of 4th. If (for any X), some class Y can out-X your X while still doing Y, the system is broken.

In fact, this is the very definition of broken. A game system is broken when some choices, as presented to players, are in fact not choices but traps. No 3rd edition D&D player should ever play a fighter, because clerics are just better. That's bad design.

[Forar]

I have a few issues with 4th edition myself.

First, it is extremely focused on the 5person party dungeon crawl. the at will/encounter/etc. system breaks down when you aren't getting into more than a fight or 2 per day. the party balance is broken pretty badly if you don't have all the roles covered, either from too few people or too many of one class/role.

Personally I only found it could break down if your players KNEW they were only getting into one fight that day. Give them the possibility of another one or two hanging over their heads and it was easy to become quickly conservative with ones limited use powers.

I entirely disagree with the party balance issue, however. That is simply a matter of party adjustment and encounter design. Group lacks a controller? Fewer minion hordes. Lack a striker? Fewer punching bags. A Defender? Fewer single target killers. A Leader? Fewer drawn out battles that would tax otherwise limited healing reserves.

I played one 3 man team that lacked either a dedicated Leader (Healer) or Defender (Tank) so I rolled up a Dragonborn hybrid Paladin/Cleric that took a beating like a champ, kept things focused on him and could toss out a clutch heal or three (the glory of the healing surge system; being based on quarters of the target's life pool plus a bonus meant you never had that "crap, I rolled a 1, guess you get 6 hit points back, good luck" moments). One of the most fun characters I've ever played in D&D. Especially getting terrain creating features at later levels. Oh, how I love creating terrain. Was I as good at either as a single character dedicated to that role? No, but I fulfilled both well enough that the DM didn't need to rewrite their campaign to account for the change either, just tweak a little here and there.

The reduction of skills is both a benefit and a curse, as it means that skill-wise, characters are a lot less distinguishable.

All characters with the same role are very similar, especially if you use the preferred point-buy system--all powers of a given level effectively do mostly the same things, with mostly fluff differences. there are exceptions, but not as many as you think.

I also think they went a bit too far in tieing player power to magical equipment. They certainly went to far in taking power away from the DM.

I never found skill challenges to work, but I like the idea.

I respectfully disagree. Looking at the Defender's "mark" system alone, all of them do similar things ("face me or take X penalty/attacks/damage"), but I wouldn't say they were indistinguishable. And while character advancement does 'expect' a certain amount of magical treasure to end up in the player's laps (barring Dark Sun style inherent bonuses), is that really so different from 3E, which similarly all but expected players to have up to date gear of one sort or another, lest they fall behind the curve on AC/defenses/damage/stat sticks?

As for power from the DM... I'm not even sure where to begin, but if having a fairly balanced system that allows for less "PLay By DM Fiat" is problematic, I think we're looking at playing fantasy elves in very different fashions.

Edit: Before anyone reads me wrong (especially if they haven't read the thread that spawned this discussion), I have played AD&D, 3E and 4E extensively. I enjoyed all of them in different ways at different points in my gaming career, and I have no problem with those who have a differing preferred system. If 3E or 2E or bare bones original D&D are your thing, go for it.

What I was mostly taking issue with were A) outright derision and disrespect, regardless of respect shown towards those with differing opinions) and flat out misinformation (willful or based simply on ignorance).

And that all said, as much as I enjoy 4E, I will admit there is even a small part that wishes I could one day go back and play the Halfling Paladin astride his mighty holy wardog, charging through dungeons (literally), or build a Druid and break wildshifting wide the heck open as I've seen some do.

Edit again: New Players Lounge? O.o

Edited April 11, 2013 by Forar

[CRC]

Like Forar, I fel I should clarify my position on the various D&Ds:

Ever since I discovered other RPGs, I haven't been a "big fan" of D&D. In fact, I would never run any D&D before 4th, because there are other systems out there that I feel do everything D&D used to do better.

I have, and do play 4th edition, because it's a really fun tactical miniatures combat game. We get together once in a while, read encounters out of a module book (with occasional expository paragraphs read), and throw miniatures down on a map and brawl it out.

Not that dissimilar to Malifaux, really.

It's a lot of fun, and quite well balanced and designed, but I would never recommend it for role-playing.

As for why I'm posting on it here? Duty Calls.

[i_was_like_you]

As far as Through the Breach goes (and I really ought to spend more time looking it over) I hope it turns out well. Otherwise, I'm probably going to be converting the system over to White Wolf's New World of Darkness system, subbing in the Fate Decks to flip a card and add the value in place of the classic d10 dicepool.

No, I don't tend towards power gaming. In fact, aside from playing a few niche classes, like Favored Soul or the Metal Master variant of Druid (originally drafted up as an NPC since the party lacked a healer of any kind and were relying solely on a rod of cure light wounds to save their bacon), I tended to play straight up fighters, barbarians, sorcerers, or clerics, as the needs of the party dictated. I tend to make my characters last, not to show up the other players, but to fill in as needed.

No need to make a Warforged Juggernaut when the other two players had chosen Gnome Sorceresses. Instead, I opted for Warforged Scout Favored Soul. I could heal them and pull some aggro.

Our AD&D game already had a Wizard (who was far better at hitting things with her weapon than with spells, due to an 18/00 Strength and the not moving stats around prior to class selection), a priestess of Aphrodite, and an Elven Fighter. The DM wanted me to play a fighter. So I played a Barbarian kit Human Fighter Conan clone. If I was going to be the fighter, I was going to be the paragon of such, at least as far as flavor. In stats, he was probably so-so, except for Strength, which our DM equated with Charisma, at least as far as manly men go.

I've played Swashbucklers and not had a problem with what should have been drawbacks to their utility.

------------------

My main complaint against 4e vs 3.5, comes down to Action Points.

They originally arose as an optional rule in Unearthed Arcana, and were added to Eberron as part and parcel of the high action adventure meets film noir world they were trying to create.

In the 3.5 variant, they act very much like soulstones, adding an additional d6 (or higher, with feats) to be added to a roll, prior to the DM announcing success or failure of the roll (which was usually already determined by the players rolling and missing at certain numbers, but finally hitting at another number). Polite DMs might even ask, Would you like to spend an Action Point? if they knew that the player only needed to roll a 1 or 2 on it to succeed in hitting.

They could also be used to gain additional uses of dragon marks, additional uses of a spell slot, etc. They could also be spent to automatically stabilize a character, so that their health didn't continue to trickle onto the cobblestones. They could be dropped into an existing campaign as easily as adding 5 + 1/2 character's level, and refreshed at every level gained. They were a renewable resource that could vastly influence the course of a battle, saving other precious resources for real threats.

The 4e version of them could buy an extra action in a turn, and refreshed only insofar that players continued on in combat, encounter after encounter. This may work out fine in a casual campaign, but doesn't work well at all in WoTC's weekly D&D Encounters, where it takes a few weeks to get that Action Point back, despite every week having yet another Encounter. It makes players a bit more stingy about when to spend them.

[Evilbleachman]

D&D Encounters was more or less a dual encounter each session. Meaning every week you would have that action point back as you have reached two mile stones since you first gained one/had your extended rest.

I tried Encounters for about three weeks and got bored of the stiff players, all RP shy and mostly at it for the tabletop gaming aspect. I have real tabletop games for that. I do recall having an AP every session I was there.

4e is based on making the person feel like a hero. Something exceptionally special and awesome. And this is achieved not with RP and atmosphere as good DMs might do eventually in their campaign, but by game mechanics. AP just helped emphasize this by giving players the ability to save their hide in a dire moment or land that finishing blow before the dragon breathes fire on the team again to whipe them out.

[Rifter]

As far as Through the Breach goes (and I really ought to spend more time looking it over) I hope it turns out well. Otherwise, I'm probably going to be converting the system over to White Wolf's New World of Darkness system, subbing in the Fate Decks to flip a card and add the value in place of the classic d10 dicepool.

I am REALLY hoping it plays like the old TSR Saga system. It is still my favorite gaming system to this day. I think it could have been extended, as well, in many ways. I just loved the 3 fold mechanic that cards gave you. The Saga Fate deck acted much like Mali's fate deck. You had suites, you had 1-13 (no jokers, if I recall), plus some other mechanics based on if a card was high or low. So, there were actions that you would want a good, meh, or bad reaction. The good were the lower 1/3 of the cards. If you were trying to do an action, you wanted the higher cards. Plus, you wanted suites for trumps. It was intricate, but in a good way.

I will have to admit, when I heard about Through the Breach, D&D Saga system flashed back to me! :-)

[i_was_like_you]

My main concern so far is that the Fatemaster doesn't roll / flip for anything. It just auto-succeeds unless the players take actions against it.

Sure DMs / GMs / Storytellers are encouraged to fudge the numbers if they make for better stories, but auto-success is more than just DM fiat.

[The Godlyness]

Why all the fighter hate?

No one argued with me when i was a Stalwart human fighter with a Trident. yeah a trident. no body ****s with a fighter with a trident. Did i mention my trident had a chain "leash" yeah dont want to drop it. course when i threw it off mark saved time when trying to find it. (course there was that time when that giant grabbed said leash and turned me into a projectile but hey we just dont talk about it.) thankfully having the Feat Exotic weapon whip made it work well. this is the joy of a Fighter. For the aspect of this Class is better? i call shenanigans. they all do something, now if you want to be a power gamer trying to roll a Prophet of peace Monk that is an aesthetic. so at level 5 your ac is "over 9000" then i as a dm can only do the respectful thing and throw a Torrasque at you and say, hey guy just calm It down, you got this....

in 4e i have dmed a few games and must say if i wanted to i could have TPK'ed alot, just by doing what the encouter wanted to do. instead i had the evil sorcer do things like taunt and laugh manically while saying how bad they were as adventures. which gave the party time to heal....and maybe think about their next action. but i really dont have much love for it.

[Rifter]

Why all the fighter hate?

Low level, they are gods. High level, their damage output goes down. While a mage (or other caster) is mowing down dozens of baddies with a spell, the fighter is maybe, if lucky, taken 3 minions down.

in 4e i have dmed a few games and must say if i wanted to i could have TPK'ed alot, just by doing what the encouter wanted to do. instead i had the evil sorcer do things like taunt and laugh manically while saying how bad they were as adventures. which gave the party time to heal....and maybe think about their next action. but i really dont have much love for it.

It seems to me, that 4e had far more healing needed to run. It was a very different way. Healers had to heal, and keep on healing. 4e still reminds me of World of Warcraft/EQ type game, in rpg style.

A well focused fighter, though, is pretty deadly. My fiance is playing a pimped up archer. She does more damage than pretty much anyone else. The frequent feats and other doohickies really reamp up. But, it seems the ranged/archer classes are a bit better than up-front fighters for doing that.

[CRC]

A well focused fighter, though, is pretty deadly. My fiance is playing a pimped up archer. She does more damage than pretty much anyone else. The frequent feats and other doohickies really reamp up. But, it seems the ranged/archer classes are a bit better than up-front fighters for doing that.

Check the roles. In 4th a fighter is a defender, while they can be built for damage, (and quite well I might add), there never going to catch up to the ranger/archer/etc striker types (unless said striker types are also building against role).

Similarly, the archer/rogue/etc will never be as tough as the fighter. It's just how the system works.

[Forar]

The need for (or lack of demand for) healing is based on the encounters the DM throws at the party, their responding tactics, and some luck of the dice. Personally I never found 4E all that healing intensive, and at higher level play the system (in my experience) rewards proactive play more than reactive play.

As of MM3(?) with the updated monster stats, expecting to be healed up from a heavy hit was just asking for trouble. It was often far more effective to have a Warlord style leader throwing around bonus attacks left and right, as a dead foe (generally) deals zero damage, whereas healing doesn't quite keep pace with how much monsters dish out. (purely hypothetical example: Joe Fighter has 100 hp. Bob Cleric heals for a Surge + 15, or 40 hp on Joe. If Joe is taking 50-70+ point hits, trying to heal him up is only postponing the inevitable, and while that may often be enough, giving Sam the Rogue 3 extra attacks might put that enemy in the ground after their first attack)

And with healing tied to other effects (attacks, reactive effects, warding/buffing/debuffing) it wasn't so bad to smack something with my giant mace and get a character back up from the brink of death, as opposed to when I played earlier editions where I brought that character back from the brink of death (oh so many d8s rolled) and likely did absolutely nothing else that turn. Well, maybe moved, but that was probably just to get close enough to heal them so it was kind of part and parcel with the healing.

I wouldn't exactly call them 'gods' at low levels, however. As of level 1 (and I daresay, through Heroic and at least some of Paragon) a lot of the classes, feats and other character choices were pretty balanced. Fewer 'trap' feats (3E designers have outright admitted that some System Mastery expectations are built into that edition, just like sub-optimal cards are released in Magic sets), and it was much less likely that you needed to plan out your skill points and feats from as early as character generation if you wanted access to a certain Prestige Class as soon as it could feasibly become available.

That said, 4E fell flat on other fronts. Epic tier had minimal support, which dried up even further despite assurances that wouldn't happen. Essentials had a place, kind of, but that ranged from cannibalizing on the market share/audience to outright blatant cash grabs (Fortune Cards or whatever they were called, I'm looking at you).

But I enjoy Heroic/Paragon more anyway, so for me and my games it worked out quite well.

The biggest disappointment was the online cluster..shenanigans. Advertised at release, it took like 3 years before even a beta of the virtual table top came out, and great as RPTools can be, getting everyone patched and in game together was often an exercise in frustration.

Still don't understand how 4E is any more "WoW-like" than 3.5 is.

[i_was_like_you]

Why all the fighter hate?

No one argued with me when i was a Stalwart human fighter with a Trident. yeah a trident. no body ****s with a fighter with a trident. Did i mention my trident had a chain "leash" yeah dont want to drop it. course when i threw it off mark saved time when trying to find it. (course there was that time when that giant grabbed said leash and turned me into a projectile but hey we just dont talk about it.) thankfully having the Feat Exotic weapon whip made it work well. this is the joy of a Fighter. For the aspect of this Class is better? i call shenanigans. they all do something, now if you want to be a power gamer trying to roll a Prophet of peace Monk that is an aesthetic. so at level 5 your ac is "over 9000" then i as a dm can only do the respectful thing and throw a Torrasque at you and say, hey guy just calm It down, you got this....

Tridents are fun. Had a halfling cleric dragon rider in full plate with a Trident of Returning. He looked like a C3PO gold R2D2. [DM was suffering from NBS - New Book Syndrome, so we were all dragon riders. His armor was fireproof, so the party locked him in a room full of fire elementals to deal with them. By the time they let him out, he was roasting trail rations on the end of his Trident.

[Claymore65]

I am a fan of 4th edition the most, mostly because the monster design/monster creation rules.

Answering another question, the whole "GM doesn't roll for anything" aspect of Through the Breach isn't nearly as scary as it appears. After reading more on the Kickstarter (which I missed unfortunetly), what it really means is that the GM only uses static numbers for the attacks/skill check DCs/whatever else you would normally roll for. For example, if a player was being attacked by a gremlin, the gremlin might have a to-hit value of 9. The player would then have to flip a card over and add their def (it might be swiftness or some other stat name, I forgot) and if they get over 9, they dodge the attack. In other words, the player's dodge attacks instead of the GM flipping to hit. If the player is hit by the attack, the weak/moderate/severe flip still exists, although the card is flipped by the player. This allows them to cheat low cards in to get them weak damage. It sounds scary at first, but makes a whole lot more sense once you learn more.

[Rifter]

Still don't understand how 4E is any more "WoW-like" than 3.5 is.

You have very defined roles. Striker(DPS), defender(Tank), etc. It plays very similar to WoW. And, I am talking about the video game, not the RPG. I don't know much about the RPG. Third ed had more of the generic feel. While yea, you HAD those roles, they were not quite as rigidly defined... and didn't have the "tools" to do the job as effectively.

[Forar]

You have very defined roles. Striker(DPS), defender(Tank), etc. It plays very similar to WoW. And, I am talking about the video game, not the RPG. I don't know much about the RPG. Third ed had more of the generic feel. While yea, you HAD those roles, they were not quite as rigidly defined... and didn't have the "tools" to do the job as effectively.

In a manner of speaking, the roles have always existed. While 'Defenders' often didn't have a fraction of the tools 4E gave them to keep monsters focused on them instead of the squishier leather/cloth wearers, the basic idea of 'look, someone is probably going to get hit, we should probably have someone that can take a beating on hand' was present.

Similar to having someone that deals damage, someone that could deal with traps, etc, etc.

I'm sure there were plenty of groups that fell outside the standard, and skipped the ensuing "So we have a Thief, a Fighter, a Mage and a Cleric, good to go!" step and just played what they wanted, but in my experience with even AD&D, lacking one of those often proved to be a burden on the group. Well, until the casters had the wands necessary to make the Thief mostly irrelevant. >.>

I just find it weird that so many people would find it so offensive to mechanize something that, in some form, already existed. My books are unfortunately packed away, but it wouldn't even surprise me if there were recommendations for such a rough layout in the handbooks (with variance by swapping around some of the interchangeable classes/races with overlap in their fields of expertise).

[Dracomax]

4e is the first version to require that you play that role. I maintain it breaks down when in groups of 2, which is what I usually play(1 DM, 2 players). and is far too focused on combat.

Roles may have existed before, but It was never an issue, because any character could easily fill multiple roles. You didn't need someone to mark enemies and make them attack him. Now you do. Your play experiences may have varied, but just because you played that way doesn't mean that everyone did. I've played in far more games where there were two wizards, or 2 rogues than in which all "roles" were filled, and it just worked better in earlier editions. Mechanising it not only brings it out in the open, but enforces that style of play. The designers of 4e have gone on record as saying they built the game around it, with 5 players filling all roles, and it is evident. Can it be played without that? yes, but it's harder, and the CR budget breaks down.

Bottom line, 4e is a miniatures game with RP tacked on. That's what some people don't like.