4Edition. Do you like it?

[Twin Agate Dragons]

I can't say that I like or dislike it, having not the opportunity to actually play it for an extended period of time. As per from the books I own and have read, I must say that I do prefer 3E over 4E.

[alhoon]

Recent news: We decided to start an off-shoot short campaign (2-3 sessions and over). It would be high level, high fantasy, story-light and action-based (monster bashing). I would DM

Now, that's exactly the campaign 4E is better suited for. But no. My sister and my other player strongly disagreed with 4E! I set my foot down, trying to convince them that 4E would be far easier for me the DM and about as enjoyable for them. Still no. In the end, I gave in. It would be 3.5 edition.

Synopsis?
The Players are hired by a lich, to travel to Acheron, infiltrate the "Tower of Broken Promises" where oath-breakers are punished and every broken promise is kept in a huge archive, to locate and retrieve a promise once made to the lich by a demilich.

What will happen? Combat with low-power masses of enemies or few high power enemies over cursed platoes, lava rivers, over bridges made of bones, in long corridors etc etc etc. The usual hack-and-slash high level adventure. Level 16.

Now, no offence to 3E, but 4E would be far, far easier for me and I believe the players for such stuff., Also 4E has good, solid and fast rules for how you can kick the bone that holds the bridge together so the cornugons would take a dive in the 3 miles deep canyon. And also has minions. So the hordes of the maddened souls of the oathbreakers would die in droves but they would mean something. Now a fight between the PCs and 100 or so petitioners would be boring, long and useless.

I'm actually still quite frustrated that my players turned me down on 4E and prefer 3E for this.

[Jester of the FoS]

I agree with 4e for that type of game. 4e works very, very well for its narrow milieu.
But there's nothing stopping you from adding minions to the game. Or borrowing from Pathfinder's streamlined monster creation rules (and table very similar to page 42).

[brilliantlight]

I'm torn.
I don't like the limited feel of 4e compared to the flexible sandbox that was 3e. And 4e really needed another 3-6 months of playtesting and tweaking before launch as there's some pretty glaring errors (skill challenges, the discrepancies between monster defenses and player attacks and vise versa that makes high level harder).
And I dislike how every class is functionally the same and the sheer number of powers that need to be made for each class leading to insane amounts of redundancy. And since every class is now a sorcerer it makes players who just want to hit things have to think....

But it plays well and it's easy to learn and I'm having a blast DMing it for one of my groups.

Yes, its main limitation is its inflexibility. All the clerics, wizards and warlocks are very simular to each other and I have a problem with that since I often play casters. I like to figure out what I need to take as a spell not just having a choice of two or three. Another problem is that it isn't compativle with any previous edition.

[alhoon]

I agree with 4e for that type of game. 4e works very, very well for its narrow milieu.
But there's nothing stopping you from adding minions to the game.

I added: Minions, healing surges and the effective-but-not-vey-realistic rules for ability checks of 4E (I.e modifier +1/2 level vs DC) for things like "I destroy the corner bone that holds the bridge! Does the Cornugon take a dive in the acid river 1000' below?".


On topic: 4E isn't bad, but since my players don't like it at all, it's of no use to me it seems. I can't blame them. Players used to playing wizards feel much underpowered in 4E.

[Jester of the FoS]

Well, there's always Pathfinder, or at least taking elements from it (monster creation, DC table, ect).

I'm a fan of some 4e philosophy, such as taking monsters and renaming them or tweaking rather than building whole new monsters.
I also recommend online tools like Monster Forge here:
http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/default35.asp

[Lady Victor]

I cannot vote on this, as I have not played 4E, but the reason is quite simple:

My players all refused to go out and buy the books.

At $40 a pop for a Player's Handbook, plus the similarly priced accessories, plus figurines and battle boards, nobody in the group was interested enough in the "let's make a tabletop RPG that runs like a video game!" idea that they pitched as 4th Ed to dole out the dollars.

I understand that the game companies exist to make money, but I have players who would happily pay top dollar for out of print 2nd edition collectibles instead of buying into yet another fad that a company will discontinue rather than support if they don't like the first quarter sales numbers.

Just my two cents on the matter.

(And now my cheap-ass self will pick those two cents up and put them back in my very dusty piggy bank for whenever 4.5 comes out.)

[HuManBing]

To be fair, the figurines you bought for 3rd Ed should work just fine.

But yes, I share your feeling that 4E owed less to an organic, well-thought out development of 3E, and more to a corporate profit cycle. There's nothing inherently wrong with that - that's just what corporations do. But the other end of the economic deal is that a consumer exercises choice over whether they want to buy in. For a variety of reasons, some objective, some subjective, I chose not to.

I sat down and sketched out mechanics that I really wanted in a game, and interviewed about eight different game systems. I found that overall, GURPS was the most suitable. It was also the most versatile, which was a benefit to a cost-skeptic like me. It might not be the single best system for any given setting (sci-fi, horror, historical, etc.) but it's the only system I could find that would give you at least a decent run of any chosen setting.

It occurs to me that I'm starting to sound like a pimp for GURPS. But it is true, GURPS will "do all sorts of things for you that D&D won't do", and you can "switch it around any way you like for a different experience", etc.

I could probably have added in some innuendo about cost as well, which would be true. Although any mention about STDs would be entirely irrelevant.

[alhoon]

I have to say that currently I'm running a paragon tier campaign of 4E with a few twists on my own. It's different than 3rd edition campaigns by a lot.
But still, the d20 is adding a lot of chance even at paragon levels. A single tactical mistake isn't as bad as in 3E. This is sometimes good, sometimes bad.

What I have to say is that 4E combat is far more fun with a large group (4-5 players +DM) than 3E, since it's simpler and faster. On the other hand, a 4E adventure with a small group (2 players +DM) is less enjoyable overall than 3E.

[Jester of the FoS]

4e is more balanced but at the cost of serious flexibility. 4-6 people, all about the same level, and playing heroes in a cinematic action game.

I was writing fluff for the new PHB2 class for Ravenloft and found it to be pulling teeth sometimes to make them interesting or fit the world. The avenger for example, who's purpose is really to be a divine striker and, in earlier editions, would just be a multi-class cleric/ranger or paladin/rogue. Even in 4e you could multiclass a strength cleric into a two-weapon ranger and come up with something that feels like an avenger, save the few mechanical elements unique to the avenger. It is a purely mechanical addition to the game.

[alhoon]

4e is more balanced but at the cost of serious flexibility. 4-6 people, all about the same level, and playing heroes in a cinematic action game.

No secret there. I agree

I was writing fluff for the new PHB2 class for Ravenloft and found it to be pulling teeth sometimes to make them interesting or fit the world. The avenger for example, who's purpose is really to be a divine striker and, in earlier editions, would just be a multi-class cleric/ranger or paladin/rogue. Even in 4e you could multiclass a strength cleric into a two-weapon ranger and come up with something that feels like an avenger, save the few mechanical elements unique to the avenger. It is a purely mechanical addition to the game.

Indeed. Difference in mind-set.
It seems much more 4E mindset to change the names, the fluff and the energy type of an attack to make a different power than to think something that is inherently different.
This of course simplifies things a lot in some cases. Check my thread about wererats with Igor. I changed the fluff and a couple of things in the powers of some random monsters and voila! I had completely new monsters. That's not always bad, although the lack of real variation leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Other Gripe with 4E: Minions. Nope, they are not 4 to a monster at paragon levels. Example from my game:

4 9th level minions should be the equivalent of a 9th level monster, right? Orc warriors changed to wererats, stats same, no speed bonus to charge but a +2 damage when they have C.Advantage. Sounds logic, right?
Well, in most encounters they did next to nothing. I mean, they missed all the time, and they were going down with Area Attacks.

Out of Curiosity, I summed up what was their "Threat level" in an encounter.
They caused directly or indirectly 21 damage. 5 directly, 16 because one attack from a skirmisher would have missed without the +2 bonus from combat advantage.
They drew 2 attacks total that could go to other enemies. Both at will attacks. One at will attack from the ranger that killed one minion before closing to flank an enemy and later one at will attack from the cleric that chose to attack a minion in order to score a hit and allow the ranger to make a save.
Both attacks hit. No wonder there, they had 21 AC (the ranger has +18 to hit) and 18 reflex (the cleric has +14 to hit reflex).
The other two minions were killed with area attacks.

Then I used a 9th level monster. A blade spider -1 level turned to a rat with steel jaws. Well, this rat was a far greater threat. At least he soaked up 2 encounter powers and 5-6 standard actions total, and caused some damage!

[Mortavius]

Fair points Alhoon, but I'd point out that you're only using one example and drawing a conclusion from that.

I've looked through the Monster Builder, and I found level 9 Minions that have higher AC and do more damage with a hit (Witherling Rabble).

I'm just saying that one example isn't a good idea to draw a conclusion on. All the editions of D&D have things where they weren't balanced against other things in the same category (feats, etc.).

And I thought it was 5 minions to a standard monster?

On the subject of the Avenger, I agree with Jester that they are very much like the Cleric/Ranger or the Paladin/Rogue of the previous versions...but I can point out an advantage.

In a previous version, if I wanted to make an "Avenger" type character, I had to multiclass as above. In 4E, I just make an Avenger, and then I can multiclass into something else as well! In 3E, I couldn't do that nearly as easily or with the same level of power. Seems like consolidating some class options into a new class would *increase* the player's options and allow for more flexibility?

Another example, I can pull from the recent Dragon editorial. In 3E, if I wanted to say my character was a blacksmith, I had to spend skill points on the Profession skill instead of putting them somewhere else.

In 4E, I can just say my character is a Blacksmith. Period.

This seems more flexible to me?

[Jester of the FoS]

That is the advantage to the avenger/swordmage/warden/etc. They're a single class. But people still multi-class and hybrid to make perfect reflections of their idealized character.
And 4e really limits some multiclassing more than 3e. Both fail to make an adequate gish (fight/mage) with the exception of the swordmage. In 4e you need to have a high-Int fighter or a high-Str wizard and sacrifice in both classes. And 4e really assumes specialization, with a minimum 16 in your primary attack stat (20 preferred).

There's other strangeness, like how classes like the avenger and swordmage attack with swords yet likely have poor Strength. The irony is, when they do need to make a basic melee attack they'll almost never hit. There's many classes like that (which also impacts the warlord who has many powers that trigger basic attacks).


Minions.
This has been stated by some staff as a problem. They're fine at heroic level but just don't cut it at paragon and epic, especially the basic MM ones.
They've improved them (and elities and solos) with MM2 and DMG2, as seen in the Monster Builder. Especially by giving them another role. But their damage does need to amp-up at higher tiers. +1 damage/tier? Shyeh, right. It should be 5/10/15 damage at least, more for strikers and brutes, less for soldiers.

A quick fix might be to make them 1/5th a regular monster at paragon and 1/6th at epic. Off-the-head solution that might require some playtesting.

[alhoon]

Minions: Well, most minions are the same more or less. +/- 1-2 AC or damage at the same level. Also they're supposed to be 1 every 4 monsters. Which clearly doesn't cut it.

Jester: 5 to a monster still doesn't cut it in paragon and it's not a solution IMO. I mean, they need to get defences upgrades and increased damage.
What danger would an enemy that does 5 hp damage with a 13+ poses, that goes down with an area attack poses? Really, they're more like moving obstacles. They're useful to cover artillery in bottleneck situations. They delay the PCs. Else, the PCs just pass by them, perhaps getting 5 damage to reach the enemy.

Also, I used 6 to a monster and still, they didn't make any significant difference. I admit that 3 minions were close to the real monsters while the other 3 had to run for a couple of rounds to get in the fray.

I believe they should be upgraded like giving them a chance to soak up some attacks (increased defences!) and a chance to do something meaningful; either combat abilities like grab, mark etc or do some more damage, so the PCs don't just bypass them.

Also, in the encounter I mentioned, where the minions were responsible for 21 damage? It was before they figured who were the minions.

[Ancalagon]

I don't like 4e.