The Early Verdict (kinda long)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

To be honest, I look forward to finding out. It's entirely possible that, any early reservations notwithstanding, 4E could quite simply be enjoyable enough to significantly transform my group's expectations. As it is, I fully intend to give it the chance. My current campaign is only barely underway, and I hope to see it last well into the Paragon levels, at the very least. And it certainly isn't the only 4E game we're going to play... my players have plenty of things they want to try out in other side games that we're tentatively planning.

We sometimes run other game systems - every player is also a DM. That can be very refreshing, though sometimes other game systems show a certain... inferiority. Others are just very cool, but hard to write for. (And unfortunately, most of the guys in my group prefer running published modules*).

I don't think I ever expected to play D&D for now ~8 years. My first game was Shadowrun, and game with ablative hit points (how unrealistic is that!) or Vancian magic just wasn't what I expected to like. Well, now it's 2008 and I am a fan of hit points (not of Vancian magic, though ). It is not a surprise that experience changes you, I guess, but who would have thought?


*) interestingly, one of my DMs has decided to turn our Savage Tides campaign into a 4E game. Looks like monster creation is easy enough to do to convert the scenario. We'll see how it works out in actual play. But the advantage is clear - with a set story, the worst thing of creating a homebrewed adventure is done. At least in 4E.

 

[hong]

Well, going from my experiences in KotS, there is a big difference in the way at least 2 classes play.

Yes, Virginia, there still is a newbie class, and it's the ranger (archer spec). It cannot get much simpler: stand and go pew-pew all day with Twin Strike. When a boss monster appears, hit it with your encounter power. If it's still there, hit it with your daily power. Rinse and repeat.

By contrast, the warlord is about tactical smarts and applying those smarts to the group. You have to keep yourself alive, which is no easy task when you're in the front line with worse AC and hp than the fighter and paladin. You also have to keep track of the tactical situation, decide who to give bonuses/actions to, and revive wounded comrades.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

By contrast, the warlord is about tactical smarts and applying those smarts to the group. You have to keep yourself alive, which is no easy task when you're in the front line with worse AC and hp than the fighter and paladin. You also have to keep track of the tactical situation, decide who to give bonuses/actions to, and revive wounded comrades.

Which makes it one of - if not the - coolest class in 4e. It's what the 3e marshal wanted to be, but the poor guy didn't have the mechanical underpinnings of the game to do it.

 

[Cadfan]

OR Cadfan, we could just say to ourselves that "everyone has a right to an opinion, even if we don't agree with it".

The guy obviously DOES believe what he has written, and making fun of his way of expressing it is not really that nice! It is also fairly cowardly, since I doubt you would speak to someone like that if you were in the same room as them.

Honestly, either discuss the OP sensitively or SAY NOTHING!! I for one, have had enough of edition wars to last me a lifetime!

And for the record; I like most of 4E, but I don't much like the 4E mafia that seems to prowl these boards.

But most of what he says isn't opinion. Like his assertion that you can't make suboptimal characters in 4e. That's not a statement of opinion. Its just a statement that's incorrect. Same with his statement that success in 4e is handed to you by the system, rather than being something for which you have to work.

I submit that he genuinely doesn't believe these things. How could he? Obviously you can make a suboptimal character if that's what you want to do, and you do it the same way you did in 3e. You make choices you know aren't any good. Obviously success isn't handed to you by the system, dragons don't yet slit their own throats for your convenience.

These things are just hyperbole that's standing in for something else. What else, I don't know.

 

[gizmo33]

I sat down to convert B2 to 4e because that is a simple module with a strong combat focus where the whole module can be thought of as a series of encounters where you must use your characters as a tactically cohesive units, and was immediately struck by the fact that most everything would have to be minions and that the new mechanics wouldn't be helping increase the interest much.

IMO B2 was relatively uninteresting as written even in my earliest memories of 1E. The fond memories that I have for the module were based on the fact that it served as a framework for a fledgling campaign. The interesting aspects of the setting were the things I added as a DM, or arose spontaneously as we played, which I think was the intention anyway. AFAICT minions were designed to make shorter work of the slug-fest leading up to the interesting encounters.

So the questions I would have with B2 are: what are the interesting encounters? Are those interesting encounters really enough to carry the module? If not, does 4E make it easier to add/alter encounters that complete B2? How often did you add things like terrain, special features, skill challenges to the existing encounters?

The fact that most of the combatants seem like minions IMO is a indication of the relative unimportance of those battles. I don't know that *any* game system can take a few cave complexes full of humanoids and make it interesting to gamers with decades of experience. If my idea for an adventure is "goblins live in a cave and have some treasure" then I need to work on the adventure.

To me, the thing I would be looking for is how easy does 4E make it to add interesting features. And also, during play, do the interesting aspects of the adventure stand out, and are the not-so-interesting aspects (like minions) resolved in a fairly quick and satisfying way so that they support the more interesting features?

 

[el-remmen]

I'm still trying to figure out how to build a fighter who's an effective archer.

Since everyone can't make it to our next game session we are planning to do a playtest of 4E with those who can next time - I am looking forward to it, and I think it should be fun for a one-off - but in the long-run I think I like quirkiness in my character classes and the lack of differentiation in how powers work for different classes is lame to me - I really dislike each class being essentially mechanically similar in terms of resources. I understand the reasoning behind it to balance things - but balance is for suckers.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

In all seriousness, what does 3.5 offer in that regard that 4e doesn't? Games like that have never been the brand's focus, and it's been my experience that successful campaigns run in those modes have always done so on the strength of the the participants brought to the game, not from anything found in the rules (any edition).

I agree. I guess that what I'm attempting to express isn't that the 3.5 system offers something to the roleplayer than 4th Edition doesn't (excepting, perhaps, a bevy of skills that are easily deemed "unnecessary", and perhaps rightly so), but that I have only rarely encountered character concepts proposed by my players that weren't easily constructed in 3.5, but are less plausible in the new system. I don't mean this to seem a judgement against the system in any way... just a recognition of different goals built into the design of the game.

My wife, for example, once wrote up a wizardess who was woefully inadequately prepared for adventuring. She was a research mage, her spellbook stocked with utility spells and very little that was designed for combat. Over the course of the game, she was forced to compensate with what she had, developing clever applications for her spells that aided the party in unconventional ways. Eventually, learning from her experiences, she became more combat-ready, approaching the development, acquisition and application of offensive and defensive magic with the scrutiny and efficiency of a researcher. It was fun.

Another player of mine wrote up a club-footed dwarven sorcerer who had grown up as kind of an outcast in his community. Crippled and unable to keep up with his brethren, the development of sorcery separated him all the more from his peers. As a 1st level character, he had left his home and was determined, in the community he then settled into, to prove himself (to himself) every inch a Dwarf. He opened a smithy. He went on drinking binges. He told tall tales of his travels in distant lands. He took pride in excellent craftsmanship and garnered a reputation as a canny tradesman with a nose for the better deal. And, perhaps most interestingly of all, he used his sorcery to try to make himself a more effective fighter (which he had all of one level of...), in "true dwarven fashion". He was one of the most entertaining and extraordinary characters we've ever seen.

I'm not trying to criticize 4E for changing up the focus, but it's hard not to feel that the possibilities are somewhat... narrower...

 

[Mallus]

I guess that what I'm attempting to express isn't that the 3.5 system offers something to the roleplayer than 4th Edition doesn't (excepting, perhaps, a bevy of skills that are easily deemed "unnecessary", and perhaps rightly so), but that I have only rarely encountered character concepts proposed by my players that weren't easily constructed in 3.5, but are less plausible in the new system.

Oh... in that case, sure. Half of my current 3.5e group would be difficult to represent mechanically in 4e. Of course, in their current form, these characters couldn't have been done under early 3e, either.

I don't mean this to seem a judgement against the system in any way... just a recognition of different goals built into the design of the game.

And I didn't mean what I wrote as a defense of 4e. I just didn't see how the prior edition offered robust tools for the kinds of campaign you described.

 

[Razuur]

And for the record; I like most of 4E, but I don't much like the 4E mafia that seems to prowl these boards.

Amen Ydars. Amen. I am glad that a lot of people love the new system, but the vehemence that creeps up when somebody expresses their opinion that they don't like or question the news system is uncalled for.

I thought the review above was very well put and not bashing at all. They were just stating their opinion. Even if I didn't agree with some parts, it was well said and they are entitled.

Razuur

 

[hawkwing2k5]

I sorta get what the posts have been saying that its hard to see broad range of style classes such as presented in the 3.5 ed. But if you looked back at those "other" such as the researcher, they often got blasted as being a "lame" prestige class anyways. I did not agree with that assessment because it was up to the DM to allow or not allow and I think it is a group effort to discuss what you want with the character.

Personally Im running an all evil campaing that is sorta in limbo because one half the the eight man party does not have 4e classes to play. This is with out a doubt the true problem of 4e ..... we dont have enough books to created or re create the characters that our players want to play.....solution either wait and use only what is "official" classes or homebrew....and there have been some AWESOME homebrew classes races and rule....the people on this board rock at making some very origional stuff