I’ve played seven dwarf fighters in the past 9 campaigns. That’s right…seven. Everybody I play with wants to be the “cool” character…nobody wants to be the walking wall that just absorbs damage all day. So…when 4e came out, I got the great opportunity to play….dwarf fighter number 8. Say what you will about the rules convergence, I for one was ecstatic to do something other than “full round attack” thirty times in a day. The fighter has died, due to choices that matched his character in game. He was killed by a boss that he tried to solo to keep his friends from being hurt by.

Now that the fighter’s gone, I’ve created a Warlord, and started him at lvl 8 to match the party. I never thought I’d say this, but I have so much fun pouring over the battle mat, staring at miniatures, actually coming up with battle tactics in my head to make the entire party more effective, and use my own abilities to help them in the best ways possible. And yes, having a good group of role players makes the out of battle parts very entertaining, just with the way we interact with each other, and with other people. So, for everybody that gets discouraged by the never ending tide of negative comments…try it for yourself. You won’t know until you play it, honestly.

The rule books are quite poorly written. A dozen more cold readers would have helped immensely. Some of the things like the aforementioned [w] confusion are inexcusable. Looking through board postings shows up many more places where a few extra words would have clarified things enormously.

The simplification of Saves, and spells is an excellent idea however. Kobolds with 20+ HP slows down combat, but simplified spells speeds things up. Mob generation overall is much easier for the DM now which rocks.

A thought I had last night is – why do magic items have pluses? Why not just cool extra effects? Because the higher level monsters are designed with the assumption that you’ll have +X weapons by level Y, they have defenses to match. Why not just leave the defenses down a little, drop the + on weapons and armor, and save all the math? If the DM fails to pass out the right magic equip each level, the whole XP/encounter charts go off.

It’s the effects on the items that are the fun part anyway. You know there is a preset progression of pluses set in the DMG, so it’s not really exciting when you get the +2 sword on cue. Finding out what the power flavour is, however, can be exciting.

My guess is items just historically have pluses. Can anyone think of a good mechanic reason why they need them still – I think even the whole DR/resistance thing is dropped right? No more +3 need to hit 15th level demons or whatever?

There may well be reasons, I just can’t think of and good ones off hand.

Firstly, every time someone says it’s good, half a dozen people stand up and slam them down. Then when someone says it’s bad, half a dozen people stand up and argue that it’s so good, the person is clearly an idiot.

Having poked around with 4e, I’m convinced that it has some BRILLIANT parts, and some rather crusty parts. Instead of the childish Pros: It’s mechanically nice Cons: It’s unfluffy lists, I’d like to mention a few things that I’ve picked up:

Pros:
1) They’ve streamlined combat. ZOMG, THANK YOU WOTC. Combat is now fastfastfast, and this does make a massive difference. Admittedly, they limited options, but this is a GOOD thing. The number of times I’ve had arcane characters’ players going ‘umm… this turn I’ll… wait, I need to check up what this spell does… um…’, it’s truly great to have a limited set of options.
2) They’ve standardized a lot of things, and not just for combat. Non-combat things that players want to do used to be owned by a combination of rogues and wizards. If you had a party of combat types (imagine four fighters, with normal fighter builds), it was just a waste of time to do anything BUT fight. Now with rituals and a reasonably easy way to use them, all you need is one person in a party with an appropriate feat.
3) A focus on the coolness of individuals. Maybe it’s just my group, but they seem to loathe sharing the spotlight – and 4e encourages having the spotlight burning bright for a moment, then passing it on. Happy player (I use (speaks in funny tone of voice *LANCE OF FAITH*!!), happy group because the spotlight is passed on quickly.

Cons:
1) A loss of individual flavour in mechanics. One of the things that I’m always divided on is the wisdom of things like wizards with spell-lists while fighters go ‘I hit it with my longsword’. It results in not just lack of balance, but effectively playing two different games. One is ‘apply sharp steel to medulla oblongata until it ceases to move’, which is boring, the other is ’select from a vast range of abilities an appropriate one for the encounter, then unleash holy/arcane hell, OR buff OR utility to get away OR summon because they outnumber us OR…’, which at least gives players choices. With 4e, you’ve lost a lot of ‘flavour mechanics’, which sometimes I liked, sometimes I didn’t
2) It does feel a little limited, but I’m holding out until the range of 4e books available matches the range of 3/3.5e. Given the effect the DMG2 and PHB2 (3.5e) books had (forgetting the rest), I think when the next book or two come out, they might resolve a lot of the issues people have.
3) The books deal with definitive statements of things poorly. It took me twenty minutes of flipping around to figure out what [W] meant – it should be mentioned at least a few more times, just because it’s so core to the system.

I probably have more, but given this is a comment (I think I’ll copy/paste this into a blog entry at some point ), I’ll leave it to that.

Joheniuss last blog post..Online Quizzes for the Geeky

I took the time to thumb through the new rules at one of the local hobby shops this weekend (I had already pre-ordered the boxed set from Amazon being unable to pass up the savings).

I think to some degree they wanted to change the premise of D&D – and in some ways they wanted to get back to the “roots” – at least with rules that enforce the original “theme” of D&D.

1> The characters are heroic. Or at least proto-heroes. This means from the get go they’re able to kick-butt and take names compared to your run of the mill peasant. As this fits with about 90% of most people’s expectations of play it’s a good choice to build rules which support it.

2> Combat centric rules. Combat is widely viewed as the “fun” part of the game by a lot of people. Rules which make it exciting and fast(er) paced will enhance everybody’s experience of the game.

3> Balance or the illusion of balance is critical for some players – especially new players. Along with the focus on combat that has resulted in making all classes able to dish it out a little better than their 3E ancestors. The reason for that choice is clear. You can almost _always_ count on there being a fight in the game. As opposed to making character choice, and power selection a complete gamble on something that may (probably) not occur during the course of a gaming session (and ending up feeling screwed because of it) – they made sure you’d be able to contribute and not just have to sit there mutely while everyone else played the game.

For me some of the key take aways that are important to evaluate are things like – OK so you’re unhappy they don’t have rapiers. Well they didn’t have those back in 1st edition either. And frankly things like that are more of a setting choice; the rules as presented are attempting to be something fairly generic and yet original (oxymoron – yes). Meaning they don’t want to jam too many setting choices down your throat – but need to present something original enough that it appears to be unique intellectual property.

My verdict on 4E is still out – haven’t yet rolled some D20 in-game for it. But overall it seems like an interesting step – making it a little easier for the less-hardcore gamer to get involved and have fun. I’m finding the rules maintain a little edge in complexity over the rock-scissors-paper level of mechanic I found in WoW – so that’s welcome. But compared to the rules explosion of 3E /3.5E and where it got to in short order… Some pruning to a more agile rules basis may not be a bad thing.

Wholeheartedly agree, and I’ve been saying similar things for years. I know of no system that is good or bad for RP, only players who choose to do so and players who do not.

I got my copy of the PHB/DMG/MM already, and from what I see, this edition will be no different. The players in my group that are Heavy RP types will continue, and those that prefer to RP a little and let dice or the DM decide will continue to do that.

As far as Munchkinism, well, if you don’t let them into your party, it isn’t a problem, no matter how the system is “balanced”. My group may be atypical, be we regularly have players taht “munchkinned” one character in one game nerf their character in the next one because they want to RP something specific.

I’m still not convinced the scale is any different than before. What I mean is that, yes, 1st level characters are tougher. But, so are Kobolds. I assume that will scale, in play, up to dragons and beyond.

Want kewl powerz?
Want to kick some dragon ass, even at first level?
Hey, want to BE a dragon at first level?

Then play 4th Edition D&D, the Munchkin role-playing game!

Me? Bitter? Ok, maybe just a little………..

Good point. Munchkin gamers will ALWAYS kill a system. And the “ultimate character build” will always own a non ultimate one. I have a player that always takes High LA templates at character creation…EVERY time. She completely rocks out until 5th or 6th level before being passed up by the party, and left in the dust. Her personal favorite is the 1/2 celestial/ 1/2 dragon combo. I stopped allowing it for the reason that she was always ecstatic, stealing the spotlight for the first few levels – then complaining about getting robbed in later game. She just never got it.

You’re right though, Balance goes out the window as soon as people get involved, that is why role-playing is so important, it helps a lot to smooth out the worst spots – while allowing non stat centric characters to occasionally shine.

But I like where you’re at here, Dave. “The more elegant and simple a system is, the greater chance you have of attaining balance.” The facts behind that statement are the same facts behind this statement: “4E is dumbed down and uses the lowest common denominator to make all the classes the same.”

It’s all about perspective and preference.

The DMs last blog post..Balance and Rules Convergence in Dungeons and Dragons 4E

Well, I’m not even considering the GM in an equation. Exactly the thing that you state is the reason I advocate for some semblance of balance: “No one is going to be jealous of another player because of character abilities.”

In nearly every group I’ve been in, there’s been a case where one class/feat selection/combo/what have you has overshadowed another player, and that is just plain not fun. (It’s not a jealousy issue, it’s a frustration/feeling important issue.) It can get to the extent where someone is so good at designing their character that several other characters are useless by comparison. Then the GM is given the choice of either uplifting the other characters (and all the work that entails) or downgrading that character (and that’s not a fun conversation either.) Essentially, the game at that point is expecting it to fix it for you.

But you’re right, at some level, balance is an illusion in a game as complex as D&D. (And 4E is still plenty complex in game design terms.) However, the more elegant and simple a system is, the greater chance you have of attaining balance or something close to it.

Dave T. Games last blog post..EXCLUSIVE Preview: 2 Pages from the 4e PHB