4E Dungeons & Dragons - Verdict?

[Pilias]

My group has always been more old school than being eager for the next edition of the game. We were late in moving from 2e to 3e. We've been playing 3.5e for the last 3 years only. A friend's daughter has recently joined the group and she owns over 100 3.5 books - all the core, and mountains of splat books. Another recent player who joined the group has 50 of his own core and splat, some different the girl's collection. Thus a serious investment in 3.5 books.

None of us are eager to starting a brand new collection of 4e, besides the mixed reviews everywhere is cementing our position with 3.5 indoctrination.

Now that Pathfinder is coming into play, a new direction working with 3.5 is on the horizon, I excited though the rest of my group is apathetic, we'll just have to see when it happens. I've been told I will be getting a pre-release Pathfinder Handbook to assist my development of Kaidan as a publication.

Plus, I've been getting lots of map commission work lately from small publishers developing Pathfinder Compatible settings and game systems, so I'm very much comfortable sticking with 3.5 thinking altogether.

I'm not knocking any edition, just 3.5 is comfortable for me now.

GP

I can certainly agree with not wanting to box up all of the old 3.5 material. I personally bought almost every 3.5 book that came out until about 2 years ago or so. Now all those books collect dust in my basement next to my 2nd ed books.

I think that it takes a few years for a new edition to really hit it's stride, due simply to the fact that it takes a while for enough books to be released to really give you all the options you want from a system, this has been true of not just D&D but other systems as well.

[Pilias]

No one plays or rogues or other skill-based classes in my group ever.

GP

Thats probably why you didn't notice how broken the system is then.

I personally play a Rogue as my main class when I PC, which isn't often these days, so I noticed it right off the bat. It was almost a joke to put traps in the game after about level 7 and you don't bother with hidden doors either with Elves in the party so it really takes away from some of the tricks you can do as a DM, from a strictly rules based perspective, forcing DMs of 3.5 to adapt the system to overcome these challenges in various ways. Much like in 4th ed you need fluff (often I borrow fluff from 3rd ed books) to fill out the areas that were glossed over (a great example is the complete lack of a decent list of adventuring equipment (partially fixed with the Draconomicon))

[Pilias]

Two people have mentioned this, and I'll make a third. I agree with the sentiment "it was nice to have a wide range of skills and rules, as well as flexibility in how you train skills, in 3.5"... its one of the reasons I prefer 3.5. But it is, unfortunately, a tragically broken system (just one that I like).

A search for "diplomancer" will show you just how broken the system could be--some super-munchkin made a 6th level character with a +94 to diplomacy. Even without using a host of supplemental rules diplomacy was particularly abusable, and my new rogue 2/fighter 1 has a +20 diplomacy (7 ranks +5 feats (skill focus, negotiator) +6 sync bonuses (bluff, sense motive, knowledge: nobility) +2 charisma).

Like everyone said, it is very hard to set DCs because they are either easy for a specialist or impossible for everyone else. This is especially problematic when there is some sort of game mechanic or attack tied up in a skill (like diplomacy). I probably only like 3.5 better because in my group we are happy to discard rules in favor of story so these things don't get out of hand, but that's only an option for mature groups.

Overall, I'd say 4e is much more balanced, and does a much better job keeping the entire party relevant in non-combat encounters. There are great ideas on teh internets for 'secondary skills' for players to fill in the story-based gaps that 4e does leave (which are huge).

Not just on the internet, there are backgrounds provided in Dragon Magazine, the FRPHB and the PHB2 which provide a way to give your characters backgrounds. It even advises you to give circumstance bonus' when those backgrounds come into play meaning that even an inexperienced 4th ed DM will have an idea of how to incorporate backgrounds into the game.

Like all of D&D though the non-combat side of the game is lacking compared to some other systems, but that has it's roots in the origins of the system and would only be relevant in a discussion of say White Wolf's system vs WotC's system, not in a discussion comparing 3rd to 4th ed.

[Pilias]

That's all I EVER play! LOL!

PS. I meant to add... GP. I wouldn't switch if I had invested that much either. Hell, I haven't switched, and I think I own more books than anyone in my 7 person group (which I play in... not the DM). And I only own 7: the three core books + the 4 complete XXX books.

there were more than 4 complete books, they went back and did another set (IE complete Arcane and then later complete mage), ect ect.

[Pilias]

Wow, are you going to respond to every post in this thread? LOL!

I actually disagree with this one, although I agree with most of what you said.

I really liked the monster template + classes system in 3.5. The 4e version is fine and good, but it is a little trickier to get the balance right if you are trying to add classes to a monster. IMO, the monsters lose a little bit of their personality when they aren't fully formed classes like the PCs.

I do agree that the 4e version is easier, but I think you could have done the same thing in 3.5 without much difficulty if you wanted to. There was nothing stopping you from just creating 3 different types of goblins with different feats and BaB's.

But that's just me.

LOL, been out for a week and there's a ton of good stuff to respond to, much easier to reply to a post then make one novel of a post that addresses everything IMO.

There was nothing stopping you but it was difficult to make a balanced encounter in 3.5 than it is with 4th ed while using different monsters in the encounter. The monsters in general do lose a bit of personality when going from having PC classes to just generic monster types but most of what I was using them for was to give some variation in the combat encounter, IE instead of just sending goblins I would send some goblin warriors with a cleric as backup and a couple goblin rangers to snipe the party from behind cover, now all those roles are filled by the MM without applying the template.

I actually would argue that its about the same difficulty to make a monster PC as it was in 3rd ed, because most of the main races you would do this with are provided in the back of the MM and race doesn't have quite as much of an impact as it did in 3rd ed. The big factor in what makes up your character is your class.

[msa]

There was nothing stopping you but it was difficult to make a balanced encounter in 3.5 than it is with 4th ed while using different monsters in the encounter. The monsters in general do lose a bit of personality when going from having PC classes to just generic monster types but most of what I was using them for was to give some variation in the combat encounter, IE instead of just sending goblins I would send some goblin warriors with a cleric as backup and a couple goblin rangers to snipe the party from behind cover, now all those roles are filled by the MM without applying the template.

Its probably also the case that I just don't have much experience with 4e yet. Its hard for me to differentiate how easy it is to do certain things in 3.5e now vs. when I just started with the game. I expect with time I'll be able to balance 4e just as well without losing much of the versatility.

I think what I liked most about 3.5e was how much was possible with only the core books. I'm not, in case it wasn't obvious, much of a source book guy. Its been over a decade since I even played with a source book junkie. IMO, even without prestige classes 3.5 was incredibly customizable. Unlike 2 and 4 you don't have to have a large library to have almost infinite character and monster options.

I still think 4e is sweet though. I can't wait to teach new players D&D with it one day.

[Pilias]

Its probably also the case that I just don't have much experience with 4e yet. Its hard for me to differentiate how easy it is to do certain things in 3.5e now vs. when I just started with the game. I expect with time I'll be able to balance 4e just as well without losing much of the versatility.

I think what I liked most about 3.5e was how much was possible with only the core books. I'm not, in case it wasn't obvious, much of a source book guy. Its been over a decade since I even played with a source book junkie. IMO, even without prestige classes 3.5 was incredibly customizable. Unlike 2 and 4 you don't have to have a large library to have almost infinite character and monster options.

I still think 4e is sweet though. I can't wait to teach new players D&D with it one day.

The PHB of 3rd ed was definitely more "complete" than those of 4th ed, especially in certain aspects (lack of equipment, ritual selection, and Heroic Tier feats). I have found both the MM and the DMG to be more useful as a standalone resource than the 3rd ed books, despite having fewer monsters in it the MM of 4th ed gives you more options for brings out a balanced encounter at any given level than 3rd ed MM1 did. I remember specifically at some of the mid level encounters in 3.5 that there were some gaps in the types of encounters you could do without resorting to Monsters with PC classes.

[cyfir]

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned what (from my experiences with it,) has got to be the most significant factor in the changes in 4e - World of Warcraft.

I've been playing D&D since just before 2e dropped, and MMOs since Ulitma Online came out. MMO's started out, by and large, as a computerized RPG - largely due to the influence of the MUDs, etc. that preceeded them. They've taken on their own life, however, with their own strengths in comparison to paper-and-dice RPGs. WoW really ended up being the pinnacle of that (if you've ever been on a good 10- or 25-man raid, you know what I'm talking about.) And WoW's success speaks for itself - 10+ million players worldwide who are willing to shell out $15/month for the priveledge is nothing to sneeze at.
I don't know how common my experience is, but when I started getting into WoW's raiding scene, I stopped playing RPGs almost entirely. I think WotC is trying to win back that crowd (and a fair bit besides,) by making an RPG that's familiar to the MMO gamer. Look at how 4e plays - you have tanks, healers, and DPS (with CC/DPS as a subset, natch.) Combat is spiced up by replacing the "auto attack" with Powers, much like a class's abilities in a modern MMO. Game creation is built around creating modular encounters (trash pulls, suppression rooms, boss fights, the Chess fight in Karazhan, etc.) The PHB even explicitly spells out that the reward of adventuring is largely measured by the acquisition of magic items (phat lewtz!)

All that having been said - I don't think it's a bad thing. 4e is infinitely easier for DMs to design quality adventures. Roleplaying is only gone from the game if you let it - in fact, there's a significant part of both PHB and DMG devoted to creating and running "skill challenges," which are roleplaying events that do not involve any combat. When you do have combat, it's a *ton* less boring, and people have clearly identified roles that make combat more of a team event and less of a (pardon the MMO slang) zergfest. WoW isn't just successful randomly - it's because the system is genuinely fun. Porting it to the tabletop has been really promising for me thus far.

[msa]

I think WotC is trying to win back that crowd (and a fair bit besides,) by making an RPG that's familiar to the MMO gamer.

I sort of agree with what you are saying... except the part I quoted. I think they wanted to make a better game and MMOs are doing a lot of things right. Saying that WotC did it because they specifically wanted to steal or specifically target MMO players has a number of problems:

First, it's basically an exercise in trying to guess someone's intentions, which is silly. Do you work at WotC? Do you know anyone that does? What indication is there that this is *why* they did it? Just looking sort of the same is not enough.

Second, I'm not sure its realistic. I'm not sure players are any more likely to move from an MMO to tabletop than they are from final fantasy or pools of radiance to tabletop. I only know a *very* small number of people that, like you, stopped playing tabletop to play MMOs. I know a lot that play both, and some with no time for tabletops that MMO, but MMOs never even came close to scrtacing the same itch as tabletop just like pools of radiance never did. Its only the same if all you care about is no-personality encounters (scripted) and number crunching, and most people that were OK with that left tabletop for video game RPGs a long ago.

Finally, whats the difference between coping something and being influenced by it? MMOs allows for an unprecedented level of playtesting on game systems. There also have been a large number of games employing different systems for their games. And because there is far more money in MMOs than there ever were for muds or other video game RPGs, the work has been focused and good. There is just more thinking about RPG gaming systems to draw on today than there was 10 years ago, and certainly more than 20.

4e is simple and its rules are very consistent. Unlike any other D&D version, there is little difference between casting spells and being a fighter. The mechanics are identical, which makes it much easier to learn and play. A lot of this came from MMOs, but it also came from world of darkness, l5r, and a host of other games that did the same thing.

I just don't buy that they were targeting MMOs. I think they were trying to make the game easier to pick up to get *more* players, which I'm sure includes MMO players. But I don't buy that they did anything more than leverage contemporary knowledge of game development to make a new RPG system.

[NymTevlyn]

They were targeting MMO's. You're blind if you can't see that.