Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition: Initial Impressions

[Alex_P]

More edition-warring myopia!

Look, I can do that, too:

"The D&D 4 update was necessary because the game lost its focus at high levels, multiclassing was clunky and impossible to balance, the CR system didn't provide adequate guidance for encounter structure, and the hit-points-and-healing economy was fundamentally broken."

Any time a publisher releases a book the goal is to make money and all this other stuff is part of how they make fans want to part with that money -- by creating a product someone actually wants.

-- Alex

Yeah, and whoever said that really has no idea what they were talking about.

I said it. Right here. Because those criticisms are pretty damn accurate.

(Honestly, I don't care about "balance" that much -- but it is the ideal the designers used as a yardstick for everything they did, so I'm just judging them by their own standards here.)

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

And that DM Tool to allow you to DM a game over Insider? Only if you and your gaming group all have a pre-paid yearly subscription to Insider. And only if it EVER GETS FINISHED instead of fucking around with it.

Apparently someone at the company looked at the total fiasco of "e-Tools" and decided that making a similar product the centerpiece of the new edition was a great idea. Or perhaps a long string of someones, each contributing a little bit to the monumentally bad idea.

-- Alex

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

My biggest issue with 4th ed. was that they gave abilities, generic things you or I could do (given proper training) all day long, until we got tired and decided we just wanted to kill our target, as special abilities, disarming your opponent is a once in awhile thing? Knocking them down, seriously? Were I to get into a fight with almost anyone and I decide I want to put them on the ground, I WILL put that person on the ground (with some exceptions naturally, but I'm already screwed if I picked a fight with someone I can't put on the ground). Another thing I found obnoxious was the ability of a fighter to inexplicably be able to walk up to a tower on stilts and literally force people to jump off, that these abilities had a "cooldown" was also VERY WoWish

I'm very sure you could trip a man all day long.
How easy would you find it if it was a four legged beast with tentacles coming out of it's back? Or a seven foot four inch mother fucker covered head to toe in armor and wielding an axe?
It's rhetorical by the way. Every time you bring up realism in a fantasy setting, you make your entire argument invalid. or are you the kind of person who tries day in and day out to figure out how a dragon's wings support it?

Interestingly enough the draconomicon has actual anatomy charts of dragons. While you do make an excellent point, what I think he is trying to say that while yes, realism went out the window when magic and monsters are everywhere, how much sense does it make that a fighter suddenly forgets how to trip? Nothing is really stopping him from attempting to trip a four legged best or 7 foot guy in armor, he just has a very small chance of success.

 

[McClaud]

And that DM Tool to allow you to DM a game over Insider? Only if you and your gaming group all have a pre-paid yearly subscription to Insider. And only if it EVER GETS FINISHED instead of fucking around with it.

Apparently someone at the company looked at the total fiasco of "e-Tools" and decided that making a similar product the centerpiece of the new edition was a great idea. Or perhaps a long string of someones, each contributing a little bit to the monumentally bad idea.

-- Alex

It's attempting to jump on the MMO bandwagon. It wasn't enough to emulate it into the tabletop. It also had to have a web application.

Moreso, Wizards looked at the fact that other people were using things like OpenRPG and wanted to cash in on that. Except that it's a horrible idea due to the fact that there are dozens of free over the Internet applications that are more manageable and more customizable than DM Online through Insider.

 

[Chibz]

My biggest issue with 4th ed. was that they gave abilities, generic things you or I could do (given proper training) all day long, until we got tired and decided we just wanted to kill our target, as special abilities, disarming your opponent is a once in awhile thing? Knocking them down, seriously? Were I to get into a fight with almost anyone and I decide I want to put them on the ground, I WILL put that person on the ground (with some exceptions naturally, but I'm already screwed if I picked a fight with someone I can't put on the ground). Another thing I found obnoxious was the ability of a fighter to inexplicably be able to walk up to a tower on stilts and literally force people to jump off, that these abilities had a "cooldown" was also VERY WoWish

I'm very sure you could trip a man all day long.
How easy would you find it if it was a four legged beast with tentacles coming out of it's back? Or a seven foot four inch mother fucker covered head to toe in armor and wielding an axe?
It's rhetorical by the way. Every time you bring up realism in a fantasy setting, you make your entire argument invalid. or are you the kind of person who tries day in and day out to figure out how a dragon's wings support it?

Interestingly enough the draconomicon has actual anatomy charts of dragons. While you do make an excellent point, what I think he is trying to say that while yes, realism went out the window when magic and monsters are everywhere, how much sense does it make that a fighter suddenly forgets how to trip? Nothing is really stopping him from attempting to trip a four legged best or 7 foot guy in armor, he just has a very small chance of success.

There's the biggest problem when it comes to people disliking 4e. They put everything so concrete, when there is really very little difference than 3.x.
Why should he ne forgetting how to trip? Who says he's forgetting? Maybe it's just not a viable option for the fighter more than once per combat.
Everyone keeps talking about how in 4e a fighter can only do something so often, but are we forgetting that in 3.x there are usage limits? If wizards are so powerful in 3e why do they have to choose which spells they will cast and how many times? Barbarians can only rage once per combat and then only a few times per day! Bards can only inspire someone with a poem a few times per day.
Hell, 4e didn't change shit. It just used the Tome of Battle for martial classes. There is almost zero difference in the games beyond how social skills are handled. Everything else is just your standard xenophobia.

The social skills didn't particularly NEED updating either. Nothing needed changing, if they wanted a wargame D&D (as I said prior) JUST UPDATE D&D MINIATURES' RULES.

 

[Chibz]

The only problem with 3.5 isn't complexity or flawed rules, but rather that nobody bothered to learn how to run them.

 

[McClaud]

My biggest issue with 4th ed. was that they gave abilities, generic things you or I could do (given proper training) all day long, until we got tired and decided we just wanted to kill our target, as special abilities, disarming your opponent is a once in awhile thing? Knocking them down, seriously? Were I to get into a fight with almost anyone and I decide I want to put them on the ground, I WILL put that person on the ground (with some exceptions naturally, but I'm already screwed if I picked a fight with someone I can't put on the ground). Another thing I found obnoxious was the ability of a fighter to inexplicably be able to walk up to a tower on stilts and literally force people to jump off, that these abilities had a "cooldown" was also VERY WoWish

I'm very sure you could trip a man all day long.
How easy would you find it if it was a four legged beast with tentacles coming out of it's back? Or a seven foot four inch mother fucker covered head to toe in armor and wielding an axe?
It's rhetorical by the way. Every time you bring up realism in a fantasy setting, you make your entire argument invalid. or are you the kind of person who tries day in and day out to figure out how a dragon's wings support it?

Interestingly enough the draconomicon has actual anatomy charts of dragons. While you do make an excellent point, what I think he is trying to say that while yes, realism went out the window when magic and monsters are everywhere, how much sense does it make that a fighter suddenly forgets how to trip? Nothing is really stopping him from attempting to trip a four legged best or 7 foot guy in armor, he just has a very small chance of success.

There's the biggest problem when it comes to people disliking 4e. They put everything so concrete, when there is really very little difference than 3.x.
Why should he ne forgetting how to trip? Who says he's forgetting? Maybe it's just not a viable option for the fighter more than once per combat.
Everyone keeps talking about how in 4e a fighter can only do something so often, but are we forgetting that in 3.x there are usage limits? If wizards are so powerful in 3e why do they have to choose which spells they will cast and how many times? Barbarians can only rage once per combat and then only a few times per day! Bards can only inspire someone with a poem a few times per day.
Hell, 4e didn't change shit. It just used the Tome of Battle for martial classes. There is almost zero difference in the games beyond how social skills are handled. Everything else is just your standard xenophobia.

The social skills didn't particularly NEED updating either. Nothing needed changing, if they wanted a wargame D&D (as I said prior) JUST UPDATE D&D MINIATURES' RULES.

Don't start that again.

I didn't even see Necro's post until he quoted it again.

Honestly, if you want to emulate encounter powers as being a one-trick pony because the enemy learns of it (and balance), instead of a cool-down effect, just add penalties for each time the power is used in immediate succession.

And magic has to be limited. It changes the very fabric of existence. That in of itself makes magic more powerful than mere swords and plate armor. Instead of spell slots or encounter power magic, just make it drain strenght from the caster each time its used until he passes out.

I hate that entire bullshit line that "we wanted to make casters more useful in games." Uh, making them able to cast magic missile without penalty repeatedly in an encounter is pretty much OVERPOWERING casters.

 

[Chibz]

I didn't even see Necro's post until he quoted it again.

Honestly, if you want to emulate encounter powers as being a one-trick pony because the enemy learns of it (and balance), instead of a cool-down effect, just add penalties for each time the power is used in immediate succession.

And magic has to be limited. It changes the very fabric of existence. That in of itself makes magic more powerful than mere swords and plate armor. Instead of spell slots or encounter power magic, just make it drain strenght from the caster each time its used until he passes out.

I hate that entire bullshit line that "we wanted to make casters more useful in games." Uh, making them able to cast magic missile without penalty repeatedly in an encounter is pretty much OVERPOWERING casters.

This would work as a better but it would make altogether too much sense. You've seen pathfinder wizards, those are pretty fair in comparison to 3.5E wizzies.

How to run them? As in how to play the actual game, or is this just "I've been playing longer than said people and they should play it my way" elitism?

No, how to run the rules themselves. You'd wouldn't believe how many people I know (Who even DM) who haven't even bothered to learn how the grapple, trip, etc systems work. It's mindblowing. The rules aren't obscurely placed, or even complicated. Nor are they much more involved.

 

[McClaud]

Pathfinder - in essence - gives the DM the opportunity to allow his players to play with noobs, normal or epic characters. It's highly scalable, and casters in Pathfinder are of course extremely powerful in epic level campaigns.

Just need a better way to do magic in D&D other than, "Here's some spells, here some spell-like powers, and here's rituals. All these things sorta overlap, but in combination, if you twink, you can make magic missile machine guns."

 

[Chibz]

Pathfinder - in essence - gives the DM the opportunity to allow his players to play with noobs, normal or epic characters. It's highly scalable, and casters in Pathfinder are of course extremely powerful in epic level campaigns.

Just need a better way to do magic in D&D other than, "Here's some spells, here some spell-like powers, and here's rituals. All these things sorta overlap, but in combination, if you twink, you can make magic missile machine guns."

They did do them much better in pathfinder. Especially with the specialist wizards.

 

[McClaud]

How to run them? As in how to play the actual game, or is this just "I've been playing longer than said people and they should play it my way" elitism?

No, how to run the rules themselves. You'd wouldn't believe how many people I know (Who even DM) who haven't even bothered to learn how the grapple, trip, etc systems work. It's mindblowing. The rules aren't obscurely placed, or even complicated. Nor are they much more involved.

Actually the rules are obscurely placed. if I remember correctly the rule that states that an off hand weapon deals only half STR damage is a single line placed between grappling rules.
The 3.x book structure is nothing short of a mess.

Actually, that's entirely incorrect. It's in the section for combat, under a heading that reads, "Off-hand Combat." And it's reiterated under fighing with a dagger in your off-hand. And again under using two-handed fighting. And it's also listed in the index under two-handed fighting.

Grappling is listed under Unarmed Combat, and with feats that use grappling the page number is referenced. And it's in the index under Grappling.

Same for tripping. Same for throwing.

I'm not sure what PHB you are looking at, but I have both 3.0 and 3.5, and it's easy to find each of these things and reference each of these things. And if you get confused easily, you can go look them up in the index and find the page(s) in which it is mentioned.

It's not like these books are set up in a random fashion without a handy index. Even 4e is presented in an orderly fashion with a pretty comprehensive index that makes things easy to find.

Is there anything else you'd like to mis-remember so we can continue to have this argument?

 

[Hammith]

I actually think that 4th edition is a much worse game than 3.5 edition. You may not terribly agree with me. However, after playing and DMing a few games of it I can safely say that it lacks what to me was the best thing about 3.5, complexity. It is simply far, far too simple for my personal tastes. This is, of course, coming from someone that made a Mecha RPG with 2,000 parts he made by himself, so it's possible my perception on this issue is skewed.

I like the little things in 3.5 that nullify and mess with each other, and I like the ability to have a huge list of possibilities of what I can do each round. Forth stops you at somewhere around 10 (I don't own any of the books so I can check the exact number). The base books also feel incredibly boringly generic. There aren't even any descriptions or real tactics sections for the monsters anymore.

As for those that say the game is faster, get to level 19-20 and fight a solo monster, just getting them bloodied can take an enormous number of rounds. Add to the the sort of same-y feel of all the classes and it just adds up to a sort of blah experience to me. I admit the same-y feel may just be me, as others have said they seem different to them, but I just don't see it.

Also, those of you that say 3.5 makes fighters useless after 6th level obviously either aren't reading enough of your options or have very stuffy DMs.

 

[Chibz]

How to run them? As in how to play the actual game, or is this just "I've been playing longer than said people and they should play it my way" elitism?

No, how to run the rules themselves. You'd wouldn't believe how many people I know (Who even DM) who haven't even bothered to learn how the grapple, trip, etc systems work. It's mindblowing. The rules aren't obscurely placed, or even complicated. Nor are they much more involved.

Actually the rules are obscurely placed. if I remember correctly the rule that states that an off hand weapon deals only half STR damage is a single line placed between grappling rules.
The 3.x book structure is nothing short of a mess.

It's also mentioned in the Equipment section, PHB, page 113. And I quote.

A one-handed weapon can be used in either the primary hand or the off hand. Add the wielder's strength bonus to damage rolls for melee attacks with a one-handed weapon if its used in the primary hand, or 1/2 his or her strength bonus if it's used in the off hand.

Seems pretty simple to me. It's mentioned in two logical places in case you miss it, so it's not the GAMES fault you never learned the rules.

I actually think that 4th edition is a much worse game than 3.5 edition. You may not terribly agree with me. However, after playing and DMing a few games of it I can safely say that it lacks what to me was the best thing about 3.5, complexity. It is simply far, far too simple for my personal tastes. This is, of course, coming from someone that made a Mecha RPG with 2,000 parts he made by himself, so it's possible my perception on this issue is skewed.

I like the little things in 3.5 that nullify and mess with each other, and I like the ability to have a huge list of possibilities of what I can do each round. Forth stops you at somewhere around 10 (I don't own any of the books so I can check the exact number). The base books also feel incredibly boringly generic. There aren't even any descriptions or real tactics sections for the monsters anymore.

As for those that say the game is faster, get to level 19-20 and fight a solo monster, just getting them bloodied can take an enormous number of rounds. Add to the the sort of same-y feel of all the classes and it just adds up to a sort of blah experience to me. I admit the same-y feel may just be me, as others have said they seem different to them, but I just don't see it.

Also, those of you that say 3.5 makes fighters useless after 6th level obviously either aren't reading enough of your options or have very stuffy DMs.

It's almost as if they were turning D&D miniatures into the real game itself. Most people who jump onto fourth criticise 3.5, but never made an active attempt to learn how anything works.

 

[Rational-Delirium]

As I said before I was raised on the 3.5 version and when I heard that version 4 was coming out I rushed to get it. As I read into it I became quite disappointed with the 4th edition. First off, it seems that they took up half the book to make up these new class powers and features. I found that these new abilities were restricting at best. The new abilities felt like they were just repeating over and over again. For example, the clerics abilities make "Sacred light shine from above searing a single enemy with it's brilliance." then another power is "A burning column of light engulfs your foe." and after that "With a wave of your hand, jagged lines of radiant light spread across the ground."
See the resemblance?

This became really annoying because a player of mine wanted to become an evil cleric, which would be easy with the 3.5 edition but none of the powers for a cleric worked with the new version. I find that these new powers narrowed down your choices for your character and made it more restricting.

Overall, It's just easier to DM with the 3.5 version, or just make up a whole bunch of house-rules to override the mistakes make with 4.0.