Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition: Initial Impressions

[Kais86]

Sorry I never actually finished my first post I was at a store and had to go. Next on my list of complaints against 4.0 is the fact that every ability has a name, this isn't a cheesy martial arts film I don't need to call out my attack let alone have anything with which I might be tempted to call out at the top of my lungs, this is fantasy. Then there is the serious lack of noncombat uses for spells, charm person used to be one of the most useful spells ever concieved, now what does it do, it allows the caster to take control of the target and make them move and/or attack nothing else...that's it! I can't make a guard give me his keys I can't force someone who is annoying me to shut up or do a lovely dance number for my amusement anymore. There are no spells which can alter rocks so I can't partake in my favorite pass time of making giant statues of myself in every location with more than 2 buildings. The fact that EVERYTHING you can do is combat-oriented is exactly like WoW, I can feel my character's pixels. Then there is what they did with magic weapons. Holy cow are they bland, while I do appreciate them being in the player's hand book (and the DMG a waste of money in one fell swoop although I have more than one bone to pick about the DMG) they are unimpressive especially given that they don't do anything, a +5 flaming Bohemian Ear Spoon used to deal it's normal damage (whatever that may be)+5 and 1d6 of fire, now it does its normal damage +5 and ON CRIT's it does it's modifier (in this case +5) in D2s/3s/4s/6s/8s/etc.(s) to which I immediately called foul on because a normal magic weapon does the same bloody thing, only difference is the type instead of those additional dice being magic a flaming one does fire damage, it gets worse when you realize the "special ability" it DOES have takes away from YOUR DAILY ABILTIES, even in WoW I've never seen a weapon which is potentially crippling to the wielder, but every magic weapon in 4.0 has this.

Even the character creation system has an audible clunk to it, especially when you realize that anyone with more than a total modifier of +8 is classified as an unplayable character and anyone with less than a +4 total modifier is in the same boat. Then there is picking abilities, I typically play non-casters because I don't want to have to select what powers my character uses at any given time, it takes too long and making EVERY class function like that is time-consuming, irritating, and ultimately unnecessary.

Realistically I could call this thing out all over the place but I don't really want to, all I can say is that what Paizo did is a lot better.

 

[Chibz]

My one character I rolled up was the 4th edition equivalent to my standard stand-by: A gray elf wizard name Sylv. Born blind, chaotic neutral. Very interesting character to roleplay.

My first impression was: Holy cow. +4 total modifier? Then I soon realized...

...Intelligence and dexterity... Do the same. Things.

So my intelligence & dexterity will be good; but for no benefit.

What would've been better would be, for example, +2 intelligence, +2 wisdom. Or +2 intelligence, +2 constitution.

Anything other than giving benefits to stats with identical functionality.

 

[Alex_P]

Unwinding the reply stack is like going back in time...

I don't see how anyone could be confused by any of this, and just because YOU don't use half the means provided to challenge your players... Doesn't mean every DM's game is a total cakewalk.

You and McClaud are making some unfounded assumptions about what I play and how I play it. It's kinda fun, actually -- I admit to being just a bit vaguer than necessary in order to see if it'll get a rise out of someone.

I'm aware of how grappling works. And how disease and poison and energy drain and spell resistance work. That's kinda sad, actually, given that I haven't touched D&D in... jeez, almost three years. At least I've managed to forget the specific rules for drowning (D&D's approach to drowning will never be as good as the one in the Drowning & Falling role-playing game, anyway).

Most groups simply didn't use all of the special combat actions all the time. This was obvious enough to me from having been on D&D forums back in the days of 3rd Edition. It's not surprising: many of the special combat actions just weren't very good for most characters; you had to make a character specifically designed to use them to get much mileage out of them, and then you'd only be good at one or two of them. For many melee characters it always made more sense to just attack normally. So, yeah, many groups didn't use grappling until the GM pulled out some special grapple-oriented monster, at which point they had to run through a procedure that involved making up to three rolls per attack. So, umm, I'm not surprised they called it "complicated", even though, yes, it really is just three simple checks.

I bring up grappling and disease and level-drain and drowning because I think they demonstrate a problem with 3e's design. The D20 System was supposed to make everything more standardized, easier to use, but instead you've got all these rules that are just as quirky and idiosyncratic as in previous editions, they just all say "roll a d20" somewhere. Now that I look back on it, I definitely see 3e/d20 as a lot less of a leap forward than it claimed to be.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

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?

I used to be on a forum where people kept saying this. You're oversimplifying. There's no reason you have to forgo logic and realistic detail just because you also want to have dragons around, just like there's no reason everything has to be scientific just because you put it in space.

D&D rules aren't the way they are because the setting has wizards in it. They weren't the way they are (nowadays it's largely inertia that keeps them the way they were) because of the kind of narrative that the game was trying to create: fantasy action inspired by pulp fantasy stories, 70s B-movies, and a dash of LOTR on top.

The language that D&D players(*) use to talk about stuff they like, man, it's killing you guys -- killing your fun. Like when people complain about something being "not realistic" and everybody bitches back and forth about what realism means for a whole week when really the first guy just meant "this doesn't conform to what I what from a story" and nobody is aware of how those are different or how to actually address the griper's concerns.

-- Alex
__________
* - It's not because of D&D the product. Well, not directly. It's because of D&D as a community and a culture of play. You can play D&D as a game but avoid most of the traps if you don't adopt the language of the community or accept its conventional wisdom.

 

[Chibz]

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?

The best lies contain a grain of truth.

 

[Alex_P]

(lots of stuff about realism)

See, all that stuff about realism? It's irrelevant. Because the guy who bitched about realism, he's not really bitching about realism.

He's bitching about a certain feel. All these rationalizations about what is and isn't truly "realistic" are irrelevant to resolving his actual issue, which is that the game doesn't feel right. You've got two options here:
1. Show him how to change his play in order to create the feel that he desires.
2. Say "Enh, the game was never supposed to do what you want it to do. Sorry," and go on your merry way.

-- Alex

 

[Corjha]

EDIT: On Racial Limitations on Classes
Oh for God's sake, did anyone really limit class selection due to Race? Talk about putting the rules against roleplaying! Only humans and elves were 'good enough' to be Paladins? Please, we always just thought that was a rule for... well, racists

No, just humans. It fitted the lore best. Dwarves didn't have the right CHA, and elves had too low Con/Str. But again, what the DM says, goes.

*EDIT* But I was only using that as an example, did you REALLY let people do things like have Gnome Druids or Dwarf Rangers? Some races are just unsuited to the class.

Hey, I've DMed a mean couple of Goliath Rogues who would get on either side of an enemy and do 16d8+19 at level 2 once every encounter, and they didn't give a damn if they would've done better if they were elves.

 

[Corjha]

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?

I used to be on a forum where people kept saying this. You're oversimplifying. There's no reason you have to forgo logic and realistic detail just because you also want to have dragons around, just like there's no reason everything has to be scientific just because you put it in space.

D&D rules aren't the way they are because the setting has wizards in it. They weren't the way they are (nowadays it's largely inertia that keeps them the way they were) because of the kind of narrative that the game was trying to create: fantasy action inspired by pulp fantasy stories, 70s B-movies, and a dash of LOTR on top.

The language that D&D players(*) use to talk about stuff they like, man, it's killing you guys -- killing your fun. Like when people complain about something being "not realistic" and everybody bitches back and forth about what realism means for a whole week when really the first guy just meant "this doesn't conform to what I what from a story" and nobody is aware of how those are different or how to actually address the griper's concerns.

-- Alex
__________
* - It's not because of D&D the product. Well, not directly. It's because of D&D as a community and a culture of play. You can play D&D as a game but avoid most of the traps if you don't adopt the language of the community or accept its conventional wisdom.

Whether or not I was oversimplifying is beyond the point.
Yes there is a lot of realism based in fantasy settings, such as D&D first being a huge rip off of LoTR to the point that the Tolkien estate sued, but LoTR borrows quite a bit from Nordic mythologies.
The actual point is that when you start bitching about combat because of what you supposedly can do in real life is an argument that has no place at a gaming table.
I can wield two rapiers quite easily, I'm rather ambidextrous when it comes to fighting, however in 4e you don't get any strength modifiers when wielding them in your standard attacks. Twin Strike is just weapon damage, I can apply any amount of finesse I want at any point to a rapier, I'm thinking anyone with skill enough to go out and kill monsters would have that ability. So then why can I only apply my finesse once every encounter?
That's a realism issue. Combat usually takes my group at a minimum 30 minutes. However that combat in D&D time only lasted about 48 seconds. Now, let us take a realistic view on combat in D&D.
Let us take as displacer beast. Crazy ass high powers, challenge rating 3. Now, most groups will handle a displacer beast pretty easily. However, that's ignoring entirely how such a creature would act. Last I checked they have a really low intelligence. They're animals. When the fight or flight instinct kicks in and they choose fight, they're not going to hold back. They are going to use their strongest attack and abilities first. They are going to go for broke and just do everything in their power to demolish their assailants. Playing like this, as per the book's listing on the creature, a group of 5 level 3's cannot beat this beast. We've tried several different ways. With the randomness of the dice, it's just too difficult. Knowing all this, I'm not going to just sit there and use my weakest attack, I'm going to go all out and start with my encounter powers to weaken it, throw out a daily if necessary, and then finish him off with my Twin Strike for the next couple of rounds.
If I were to encounter a lion in reality with only my rapier, what would I do knowing I can't get away? Well, I can't out strength it, so I would have to rely on my ability to out maneuver it and wear it down. Now, you and I both know it most certainly does not work like that, ever. That lion will outlast me, and tear me to tiny little bite sized Necroswanson chunks.
And that's a point of the argument of realism. It has very little place on the table when discussing combat. Why the hell are you crying because in a minute long fight at best, you can only try to trip him once, when you are fighting a god damned lion!? It's not like it's some martial arts move, you're fighting a damned displacer beast! Trying to trip it is going to be very difficult because you're not just going to be able to shout, "Monkey swings tail!" and have it go down like some well placed kung-fu strike. You are fighting this creature for one minute, maybe 3 if you're doing poorly, you also have to maneuver so as to not get caught in, or catch your partners in an attack. Knowing this, no, you won't have very many chances to trip the guy. You just won't. (and if someone has such a problem with Spinning Sweep, perhaps they want to argue how Cleave works)
The other way to look at it would be to go through 3.5, you could try tripping all day long, unless you specialize in it however, you're just not going to pull it off very often. 3.5 can be discussed with realism, because it's so mechanic heavy that it almost feels like it's trying to emulate a realistic fight.
But 4e is nothing more than a war game. And in a life or death situation, you're probably going to be thinking of self preservation much more than how many times you can trip him. And if you are facing a displacer beat/gibbering mouther/bugbear platoon/Iron knuckle, and you are thinking about how many time you can trip him, I just hope your character has lived a good life, because there's not time for regrets at this point. You're going to go down.

This isn't necessarily my point of view, but the dev team said that you can only use your encounters once per encounter because it wouldn't have the same element of novelty, and the enemy would see it coming or figure the move out after a while.

If you don't like this, fine, you're supposed to question and change the rules of D&D, that's why tabletops are so great.

 

[Chibz]

This isn't necessarily my point of view, but the dev team said that you can only use your encounters once per encounter because it wouldn't have the same element of novelty, and the enemy would see it coming or figure the move out after a while.

If you don't like this, fine, you're supposed to question and change the rules of D&D, that's why tabletops are so great.

Or maybe the development team has no idea what they're doing, and we should stick with the system that works best?

 

[Chibz]

Being 4 editions in, what exactly would that one be?
And if you say 3.x, you might as well not post. It's a question that can't be answered due to it being about OPINION.

After all, your opinion is the only one that matters. /sarcasm

 

[Alex_P]

(lots of stuff about realism)

See, all that stuff about realism? It's irrelevant. Because the guy who bitched about realism, he's not really bitching about realism.

He's bitching about a certain feel. All these rationalizations about what is and isn't truly "realistic" are irrelevant to resolving his actual issue, which is that the game doesn't feel right. You've got two options here:
1. Show him how to change his play in order to create the feel that he desires.
2. Say "Enh, the game was never supposed to do what you want it to do. Sorry," and go on your merry way.

-- Alex

...That hardly has anything to do with what I just posted...

You posted a long, rambling explanation of what is and isn't "realistic", with occasional claims that realism doesn't matter because it's fantasy or a game or whatever. Over the years, I have seen many of these -- here [http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?s=d5bf8a5120eb8dcafa2307733c7d1f28&f=693], for example, when I as still occasionally over there.

That's a good way to drag a "realism" argument into ten pages (again, speaking from experience), but the core issue, which actually has nothing to do with actual realism or even verisimilitude and everything to do with personal preference and narrative expectations.

-- Alex

 

[Logan Westbrook]

As several people have said before, if you don't like 4e, don't play it. This obsession some people have with making others dislike something just as much as they do, something that I will freely admit that I'm guilty of at times, just ends in redundant, circular arguments.

Not every game is going to be suitable for or even appeal to every person. My group, for example, is going to love 4e, because we're a 'beer and pretzels' kind of group that likes dungeon bashes and epic loot (they like more than I do, but that's a different story). Will they care that you can only use Brute Strike once a day? Probably not.

 

[Chibz]

That's a good way to drag a "realism" argument into ten pages (again, speaking from experience), but the core issue, which actually has nothing to do with actual realism or even verisimilitude and everything to do with personal preference and narrative expectations.

-- Alex

He can't answer what you said because to make fourth edition have the same feel would involve ripping the classes/etc apart, reassembling them slowly. Basically, recreating the whole of the edition.

I doubt its even more tactical. With the cool-downs, etc I might as well play WoW.

At least there this certain design has pretty colours. /sigh

Oh, and I will NEVER accept the 1HP goblins.

Ever.

 

[51gunner]

As several people have said before, if you don't like 4e, don't play it. This obsession some people have with making others dislike something just as much as they do, something that I will freely admit that I'm guilty of at times, just ends in redundant, circular arguments.

Not every game is going to be suitable for or even appeal to every person. My group, for example, is going to love 4e, because we're a 'beer and pretzels' kind of group that likes dungeon bashes and epic loot (they like more than I do, but that's a different story). Will they care that you can only use Brute Strike once a day? Probably not.

<3

That summed up perfectly what I think about these long circular arguments. Some people can argue the whole day away, and I just laugh because I've got a brew in one hand and a D20 in the other as I tell the party that they're fighting the CEO of a minion-temping business.

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Oh, and I will NEVER accept the 1HP goblins.

Ever.

Really? I like the idea of minions, they're like stocking fillers for encounters.

They're not for everyone though, I suppose.