D&D 4th Edition - The positive, constructive thread, Negativism, go post elsewhere! Options

[Bull]

As the threads title and description states, this is a thread purely for positive and positively constructive discussion about the new 4e D&D. PLease keep the negativity, negative non-constructive criticism, and flat out WotC Bashing in another thread (There's a couple around here).

I'm serious. Behave.

Ok, that out of the way, for those picking the books (or the *cough* PDF's) up and reading through them, what's your read on it so far?

I picked up Keep on the Shadowfell last week to check out the basics. It's a nice, if straightforward adventure. Makes for a decent introductory adventure. It was a tad pricey though. And the rules overview was a bit light. I've been a gamer long enough that I figured everything out easy enough, but a newb would have a hard time tracking some of it.

But, I was interested enough to go out and pick up the core books today. While I played some 3 and 3.5, I never bought any of the books. I was an old school fan, mostly because of nostalgia, but I thought if they were gonna redo the game, they needed to start over fresh and build from the ground up. 3rd didn't do that. 4th does, which I think is a good thing.

I'm still just skimming the PHB, and haven't even cracked the GMG or MM, so I can;t comment too much yet, but I like what I see so far. Mechanically, it borrows a bit from CCG and MMO mechanics and design theory, but to me, this isn't a bad thing. There were what, a couple million copies of 3rd ed sold? Meanwhile, WoW has 10 million current, active subscribers. Even if you assume that half of those are dummy accounts (Gold farmers and "mule" accounts for the real addicts), that's still more than double the number of poeple who bought 3rd Ed. And that doesn't even count in the probably several million inactive accounts from people who've dropped the game over the years.

Likewise, there are probably more kids that have played Magic, Pokemon, YuGiOh, and other CCGs than have played D&D and other RPGs.

So to me, this says that WotC's playing it smart. You put in some familiar aspects, and it makes the game more accessible to folks who might come into the RPG from another medium. Consoles and WoW are really opening up the gaming market some, and hopefully we'll get a little trickle of new players from it.

Ok, that was a bit of a side ramble, but something that's been on my mind since I first started seeing "reviews" of the game and when I started looking the game over myself.

Anyways, I'll post more later once I've had the chance to digest some of it a bit more. But so far, I think it's a positive step forward for the game.

Bull

[Particle_Beam]

One thing that irks me a little bit is that there isn't some kind of minion-template that you could put upon any monster. A little bit sad that there isn't a possibility to "minionize" every monster with little work, the same as you can turn monsters into elites and even solos by adding simple templates to them.

Also, the number of At-will powers are quite limited. Every player character race can only use two (humans get to use three from mostly four), and there aren't that many at-will powers to chose from. Hopefully, the supplemental books will add some more for that. It would have been cool if there were higher-level at-will powers to replace your old at-wills with.

And the rules-description of some power might perhaps need some more precise wordings, as for example in the test-battle, where a group of level 30-fellas dropped the 1450-hit points-tarasque, people were wondering if the beast really might have been stunned by some warlock daily power.

Feats aren't that much super-important anymore (they only add some small and nice advantages, but that's all), however, if you want to take them, you still have to pre-plan your character statwise for the prerequisites. Although, you had to do that too in D&D 3.X, so not a big deal.

But those are only minor nit-picks. The rest is mechanically sound and really works good. BAB and skill points have been replaced by an automatic half-level bonus, making it absolutely unncessary to waste time thinking how to distribute your limited skill-points. Although a nice idea, 3rd edition proves that class-and-level-based games aren't that good for alloting skill-points, because they become way too valuable ressources at especially higher-level games.

I do hope that the current game designers really didn't intentionally put in some turkey-feats and powers like they did back then in 3rd edition (I'm looking at you, dodge, skill focus and toughness).
Also, character creation is much much faster, especially if you want to start a higher-level game. The one table in the DMG will help creating your super-level-hero in no time, something which could have taken many more hours in 3rd edition if you used spell-caster classes... Or one of those newer and better melee-classes from Tome of Battle.

All in all, a good pen&paper-RPG that will surely become successfull.

[Bull]

Ok, read a bit more over lunch. Still not nearly enough, but...

I was iffy on the new races at first, but I'm digging them a bit more now. Tieflings still bug me, just for that "oo! Cool!" factor, but I'm liking the Dragonborn, and I like the new Fey race once I realized they're basically High Elves to the Elves "Wood Elves". (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Looking through the DMG a bit, I like the new Ritual stuff. It's kinda cool, and opens up some magic and other stuff as a more generally available ability.

I was highly amused by the "Player Types" break down, as well as the "how to deal with..." sections of it. This is something that's kind of necessary for a GM, but it's something no major game has really tackled in print before. It's simplified and by no means all encompassing, but it's pretty neat (and amusing) to say the least.,

I was moderately amused (and disturbed) by the Experience Awards section, especially when they broke down an average "Advancement Timeline" and said that with average play and XP awards, at 4-5 hours a week playing once a week, the average party would hit 30trh level in a year and a half. I mean, Damn. That's some seriously fast progression there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's easy enough to tweak and what not, but coming from old school D&D, I had characters that hadn't broken level 10 in a couple years of regular play.

This isn;t really good or bad, IMO, just something that would take a bit of adjustment. Plus, you can tweak the XP awards as necessary (And the book even talks about doing this to slow down advancement).

I'm at the point now where I really need to sit down, make a couple characters, and get a couple friends together to try out a game.

Bull

[Critias]

For those of us without the books yet (who are still in the "I'm certain I'm undecided" camp about the whole edition), does anyone with a positive spin want to give a quick breakdown on character creation?

Same old stats? Same 3d6 (or 4d6 and drop)? I heard you no longer roll for hit points (which are triple digit numbers, anyways, right?)? What races are there? For those of us who were quite comfortable in 2nd and 3.x editions, what is there in this one that'll still feel like home?

[Bull]

For those of us without the books yet (who are still in the "I'm certain I'm undecided" camp about the whole edition), does anyone with a positive spin want to give a quick breakdown on character creation?

I will honestly have to sit down and actually work up a character before I can really comment on the changes. A lot looks the same, some looks a lot different. More on that when I get home from work, I think.

Same old stats?

Yes

Same 3d6 (or 4d6 and drop)?

4d6/drop or a point allocation system. They seem to recommend point allocation, and even have a small chart with various stat spreads already worked out.

I heard you no longer roll for hit points (which are triple digit numbers, anyways, right?)?

Hehe, not quite. But yeah, each class gets a fixed number, plus your constitution stat, to start. Most classes look like they get between 12-15 + Con to start, and then they get a flat rate per level, rather than a random result.

What races are there?

Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Human, Tiefling, Dragonborn (Basically Draconians with a "Noble Heritage" and a per encounter minor breath weapon), a Fey race called the... Eladin? Something like that. Basically, another race of Elves. High Elves to the standard "Wood" Elves. I think that's it.

For those of us who were quite comfortable in 2nd and 3.x editions, what is there in this one that'll still feel like home?

Plenty. It resmbles D&D a lot, actually. More than I figured it would. I suspect it will still mostly feel like D&D (More 3.5 than 1st/2nd). There's a lot of changes, some good, some bad, but.. It's still D&D at the end of the day.

Bull

[Dumori]

What every ones view on the lack on none combat stuff. And what if any races have been dropped. I wont by any 4e stuff as SR and 3.5 are what i play and theres many a reason for that.

[FrankTrollman]

What every ones view on the lack on none combat stuff. And what if any races have been dropped. I wont by any 4e stuff as SR and 3.5 are what i play and theres many a reason for that.

Positive: races haven't been "dropped" exactly. The Gnome and the Goblin and the Bugbear are all in the game, you can even play them with DM agreement. It sounds weird to have Gnomes be playable with DM agreement only, but really all races and classes are like that anyway so it's not as big a deal as you'd think. Certianly it would never even occur to me to run a game where dragonborn even existed, so whatever.

Caveat: None of the races outside the Humans, Night Elves, Blood Elves, Half Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Draconians, and Draenei are complete. All the races have roughly balanced stat modifiers (though for weirdly game mechanical reasons you happen to suck if you get a Str/Con bonus, a Dex/Int bonus, or a Wis/Cha bonus), all the races have a set of special feats that they can (and usually will) take, and all the races have a roughly balanced set of abilities. Except that the races other than the "standard" 8 have a short power list and no feats. So despite having writeups that you could nominally play, they aren't really quite playable out of the box.

So close, but so far. They finally just knuckled down and wrote a playable gnoll, a playable kobold, a playable minotaur and so on and so forth, but they didn't actually finish any of them.

-Frank

[Dumori]

From what I've read doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I normally run combat as a part of the adventer not just all of it use nonecombat skills a lot and such. As 4th is a combat fest from all Ive seen and read it will not be any fun for most of my group Ned the munchkin might like it but screw him. So ill stick with 3.5

[Aaron]

Don't think of them as "unplayable," think of them as "unlockable," except that instead of playing the game, you wait a while and then pay money.

On the positive side, I'm hoping that the game satisfies my wargame cravings more than it disappoints my inner role-player. Although I would find it ironic if it turns out that Classic BattleTech ends up having more role-playing crunch than D&D 4e.

[imperialus]

From what I've read doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I normally run combat as a part of the adventer not just all of it use nonecombat skills a lot and such. As 4th is a combat fest from all Ive seen and read it will not be any fun for most of my group Ned the munchkin might like it but screw him. So ill stick with 3.5

Amazingly enough I found out that people still use Usenet today. He gets kinda philisophical in it but it's still an interesting article

4E and the Wii

In it he compares 3.X to the PS3 and 4E to the Wii. He suggests that the two systems are both excellent games but that 4E will be more successful because it is more accessible.

To sum up my take on it, he suggests that while there is a segment of gamers who enjoy deeply complex rule systems that there has been a trend in recent years towards 'simpler' games. As games evolved through the 90's there was a trend towards trying to find a rule for everything. This brought us the Skills and Powers books of 2nd ed, Shadowrun 3, Gurps, the infamous Palladium (god knows what edition) and yes third edition. Since the release of 3.5 however the trend has reversed across the gamer community. The two best examples of this in my mind are "Castles and Crusades" and "True20" though Shadowrun 4 fits the bill too. While the two systems appeal to widely different audiences, C&C is seen as 'old school' while T20 is the indy rock band both are very simple, intuitive, straight forward systems. I think 4E hopes to appeal to both, with the core mechanic of "Roll a D20 and seen what happens" staying the same but with a more progressive framework built around it.

A poster on ENworld said it quite well IMO

My feelings on 3e VS.4e are thus; In 3e your imagination was limited only by the ruleset, in 4e the ruleset is limited only by your imagination. Just because something isn't printed in the one of the three core rulebooks dosen't mean it isn't possible. The ruleset is simple, yet comprehensive, enough to become intuitive. Which in turn opens the game up to limitless possibilities gameplay wise. Which I think is the true genious driving 4E D&D.

Personally I've been entranced by the simpler systems and I'm a wargamer, chits on hexes style. I enjoy wargaming because it is very intense, detail oriented mental gymnastics where you need to understand the workings of the system to do well. I know exactly one other person who I have this in common with. I need more than that for a D&D game. Besides I never got into the D&D system since the actual 'rules' of most wargames are fairly simple too, just implementing them is tough. I game with my sister who after 8 years still needs help doing characters, along side a father of 4. Simpler systems let us focus on what our characters are doing, not how they are doing it.

It's natural for D&D to want to get on this trend. After all it's working.

[Dumori]

3.5 was never complex for me. I am also a wargamer but I view both RPGs and wargames differently. Most wargames you need the moddles and such its all part of it what make it fun but with RPGs you can run an encounter over lunch (i have done) this with only some dice a pencil and some paper. Some time with a lack of rule you can get into abusive sitiuations or have a shitty Gm who is not in the book so no. Even if a rule no one really uses is in the book at least you can use it any where.

[last_of_the_grea...]

What every ones view on the lack on none combat stuff. And what if any races have been dropped. I wont by any 4e stuff as SR and 3.5 are what i play and theres many a reason for that.

They dropped half-orcs. Outright. Mikey is not pleased.

Still, seems playable so far. I need to try it out first before I can say "tea" or "nay." Skills are quite simplified. Every skill is available. If you're proficient you get a +5 bonus to the roll. Add the relevant attribute modifier, proficiency bonus and half your level rounded down. Voiala. Instant skill check.

The major change at a glance is how healing works. Every class gets a set amount of "healing surges." A healing surge heals you of 1/4 your maximum hit point total. You can use as many as you like while resting, one during combat. Certain class powers can make more available during combat. That'll take some getting used to.

[BishopMcQ]

Humans, Night Elves, Blood Elves, Half Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Draconians, and Draenei

Frank--Did you intentionally mix names from 4E and WoW, or did 4E use the same names as the new WoW races?

[FrankTrollman]

Frank--Did you intentionally mix names from 4E and WoW, or did 4E use the same names as the new WoW races?

That's intentional on my part. The High Elves have been renamed "Eladrin" and now they are the splinter elf faction who are magic addicted and refused to abandon the magic world. The early concept art for the Eladrin was even just dressed as a WoW Blood Elf, it's pretty obvious.

The Tieflings aren't the old D&D tieflings at all. Now they are normal humans who made a pact with Infernal forces long ago and had their world destroyed. And now they all have weird face barbels and giant horns and red skin. They even released a video in which they had a female tiefling whose voice was someone trying to do the bad Eastern European accent of the WoW Draenei women.

I mean sure, they aren't the blue skinned Draenei, they are the red skinned Draenei, which is why they try to convince you to play one as a Warlock (interesting note: despite in-book rants about how you want to be a Tiefling Warlock, you actually don't. Tieflings are genetically inferior as any kind of Warlock except the Fey-Pact Warlock. If you want an Infernal Pact you want to be a Half Elf, a Human, or a Dwarf).

But yeah, the new Halflings are a lot more like WoW Gnomes than they used to be, so the PHB is very explicitly the "Alliance Races" (plus Draconians for some reason). That's not necessarily a bad thing, that's just a thing.

-Frank

[Particle_Beam]

Impossible. 4th edition halflings are swamp-rats. WoW gnomes are steampunk fetishists. With big noses.
The only thing besides a short size they share is that both suck thematically. Oh well, at least, the Lord of the Rings-movies didn't introduce gnomes.

[Fuchs]

WoW gnomes are tinker gnomes from Dragon Lance. Also, "magic-addicted" high elves were around before WoW from what novels I dimly recall reading in the 90s (like just about everything else in WoW was around beore WoW).

[Grinder]

Shocking! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Particle_Beam]

You need a smilie with a hat whose monocle is falling into his tea-cup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Grinder]

Indeed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Aaron]

I'm thinking the Eldarin and Elf 4e races are a result of the realization that 3.5e elves were just over the top, and so were split into two races. Each 4e race has aspects of the 3.5e elf.

[Particle_Beam]

If only. There are still too many elf-races. Normal Elves, Eladrin, Drow, Half-Elves. Pretty sure they'll still (re-)introduce Half-Drows, Half-Eladrin, and other crap like Dwelves or Elarfs, or Drogres and similar silly stuff. D&D always had a crapload of elves. Grey Elves, Sea Elves, Dark Elves, Wild Elves, Green Elves, Wood Elves, Silver Elves, Silvermoon Elves, High Elves, Gold Elves, Sky Elves, Water Elves, Fire Elves, Light Elves, Crystal Elves, Planetouched Elves, Blue Elves... It will take generations to eliminate that silly amount of sub-race crap/creep that pervades D&D. The bad thing is, Shadowrun is trying to imitate it with their own branch of elf-a-hol, making tons of elf-subtypes.
The Horror!!!
And no, I'm not talking about those Earthdawn-Demons.

This is one thing that D&D whateveredition won't succeed. They will try to appeal to the Elf-Fanboys, and re-introduce bajillion sub-elves. Sure, they might say that they don't intend to, but as soon as they roll out those Campaign Setting books, every author will try to blend in his own "unique" touch. After all, that's how all those silly elf-races started in the first place. And these same authors will still continue writing setting-differenting stuff.

[Dumori]

WoW gnomes are tinker gnomes from Dragon Lance. .

and what was/is Dragon Lance a campine setting for D&D tush the tinker gnomes are well based in D&D. But WoW stole all it stuff from the huge amount of fantsy works that became part of Warcraft. SOme how Wow made warcraft suck. I still waiting for the Starcraft mmorpg it will come out.

[Kingboy]

They dropped half-orcs. Outright. Mikey is not pleased.

Re: Strange starting racial choices and those that were left behind, et. al.

As this is the "positive" thread, I will make a simple observation and try to refrain from too much editorializing in order to stay on the "behaving" side of the list. In order to do that I will quote a few brief passages, nothing intrinsically rules related though.

Pointe the Firste: The Title of the basic player book is the Players Handbook, same as always. The subtitle is "Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes". Why is this important?

Pointe the Seconde: To find that out we must move on to page 54, and the sidebar titled "Power Sources". The relevant bits are as such (with emphasis added):

Every class relies on a particular source of energy for the
“fuel� that enables members of that class to use powers.
The three power sources associated with the classes in this
book are arcane, divine, and martial.

Other Power Sources: Additional power sources and
techniques provide characters of different classes with
powers and abilities. These will appear in future Player’s
Handbook volumes. For example, barbarians and druids
draw on the primal forces of nature, monks harness the
power of their soul energy (or ki), and psions call upon the
mind to generate psionic powers. Future power sources
include elemental, ki, primal, psionic, and shadow.

So, the practical upshot of this is that it is fairly likely that when they bring out additional Player Handbook(s)—with five alternate "power sources", I am betting at least two additional PHBs to come—they will package at least a few new (or in this case old) player races in the books as well.

Don't think of them as "unplayable," think of them as "unlockable," except that instead of playing the game, you wait a while and then pay money.

Precisely...

Whether or not that's a "good" thing is not something I will dicuss, lest I stray into negativeland.

[Fuchs]

That's how it works for every other system, and worked for every other system. "Unlockable" wasn't thrown around back when D&D or Shadowrun supplements added new races to play. After every new edition, it takes a time until everything from the old edition and its splat books is officially converted.

[FrankTrollman]

That's how it works for every other system, and worked for every other system. "Unlockable" wasn't thrown around back when D&D or Shadowrun supplements added new races to play. After every new edition, it takes a time until everything from the old edition and its splat books is officially converted.

This is completely true. However what is specifically being complained about is the fact that races which were main book standards in 3rd edition and even AD&D are now relegated to expansion material, while two entirely new races are being added (keeping in mind that the 4e Tiefling and Dragonborn aren't in any way the Tiefling or Dragonborn from 3rd edition).

So Wood Elves went from optional content (fully playable Monster Manual write-up) to PHB content. Gnomes went from PHB content to an advertisement for the PHB2. Half Orcs went from PHB content to unmentioned. Two new races were added that have the names of the Tiefling and the Dragonborn (who were both expansion content, but presumably altogether gone from 4th edition because their names have been given to new races).

Gnomes will be back of course, they have a partially finished writeup in the Monster Manual appendix. But gnome players have a right to be annoyed. Anyone who is kvetching that Drow or Kobolds or whatever aren't fully playable in the new edition is being disingenuous - they weren't fully playable until expansion material came out for the last edition either. But Half Orc and Tiefling fans have a right to be straight pissed - their races seem to have been excised from the edition altogether.

-Frank