4E Dungeons & Dragons - Verdict?

[Nexis]

As I read the posts I have come to a realization. I now know what it is that is making me shy away from 4e. Its NOT the mechanics. As a mater of fact I realy like what I'm reading here of the new rules. What I realised is it the way they presented the game.
They came out saying things like "a fair and ballenced party", "a more ballenced combat". THAT is what rubbed me the wrong way. Now I know it's a wrong idea from what I have seen but when I read that I see in my mind an image of a race for children. They all run but only one crosses the line but all get trophies and ice cream.
To me it destroyed the notion of Dare to Be Grate! No guts no Glory! If I run a bad guy I think like a bad guy. Being fair and ballenced to the enemy? *&^$&$! to THAT! I WANT TO WIN!!
As I said I realise how wrong that image is now.

Any way. One other thing. Is anyone interested in opening a thread on talking about Pathfinder compared to 3.5? Just asking!

[NeonKnight]

If people can keep it civil, Sure, Why Not?

[torstan]

Actually I'd love to hear a good discussion of pathfinder vs 3.5. I haven't taken the time to read through the beta rules yet, so I'd love an edited highlights run down of the changes that have been made. Given the size of the book they're bringing out I'm guessing there are a lot!

And just because a game is balanced it doesn't mean you can't dare to be great. There will still be losers in 4e - and if my players screw up I will kill them. It's just that the mechanics make that a little less random than in 3.5 (though I have to say the funniest thing is still to take Malebranches at their face CR and throw them against a party. That is just hilarious. Yes being unbalanced can be a lot of fun sometimes.).

[Steel General]

As NeonKnight said, just keep it civil.

I know absolutely nothing about Pathfinder but it still might interest me.

[cyfir]

So, I'm happy to see the thread unlocked. I cringed a little when my innocent third-post-on-the-forum question turned into a flamewar of doom... sorry.

That having been said, I absolutely love 4e for a few reasons. First, the powers system. While a lot of people are a little tore up about the loss of spell variety, as someone who played a fighter more often than not, the grass is a little greener on this side of the fence. It's nice to be able to do something more useful than provide additional damage to my sorc's battle strategy. ^_^ Caster classes have had their overall utility vastly reduced, but the end result was to spread that utility across all the class archetypes.

The second thing I really like about 4e is how simple the combat system is. I don't like when combat bogs the game down, which happens far too often in my experience. Since trying out 4e, combat just flows better.

I was a little daunted by creating skill challenges at first, but I ended up cribbing from Shadowrun and just mapped them out into a story matrix. Basically, you create a flowchart that ensures you're prepared for whatever outcome a given roll yields, and that you give the players plenty of decision points throughout so they can tailor the challenge to their strengths and give them a measure of control over their characters' choices. It takes a while to make a really good one, and like any "battle plan," requires flexibility, but so far, its made for some really fun encounters for my players.

[wormspeaker]

I like minions, but 1hp is too little for my taste. I make them 1hp per level instead and make them take damage on a miss if the ability calls for it. They still usually drop on a single hit, but sometimes it takes two. (This makes them more susceptible to area effect dailys that do damage on a miss, but the players really like seeing a load of minions drop regardless of the roll.)

As for the saving throw vs. defenses, one thing that hasn't been mentioned so far, is that it allows the DM to fudge the roll.

Originally the player would roll the save and while it could be quite dramatic, sometimes they would fail when you really needed them to succeed and would succeed when you really needed them to fail. Now, I can fudge it if I need to. So that's really nice, and I do fudge them when needed. It's worked out well so far.

[Gamerprinter]

Skill challenges, or at least an early version of it existed in Eberron 3.5, so skill challenges are actually a part of 3.5 SRD, it is not an invention of 4e, though they emphasize its use more than general 3.5.

GP

[overlordchuck]

Yar! I don't think I'm going to stop playing 3e either. I don't need simplicity... I prefer flexibility. If I play 4e, it'll be with noobs, where I think the game really shines (not saying only noobs like 4e, I just think it was brilliantly simplified and made more consistent).

I guess this is a bit late, and has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand, but I had to mention this. I was listening to Alestorm's newest album, and just as I read "Yar!" in the post, the singer said the same thing. Twas weird to say the least. And then the song shifted into the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. The whole thing just took me by surprise.

Okay. Resume discussion.

[jfrazierjr]

I would certainly agree that there is nothing inherently more or less RP about D&D 4th Edition. There might even be more in there than the first edition books. I don't remember the 1st edition books going into much detail about how to role play, but I could just pull the PHB off the shelf at home and take a look to refresh my memory.

I will say that D&D (in general) has less of an RP bent than many other systems out there. Pendragon, the World of Darkeness books, and most of the rules light systems (such as BESM) all have a much larger focus on RP than D&D does. Nothing wrong with that of course (and some of those games might not be the kind of RP you like anyway) but they certainly put greater emphasis on it than D&D does.

However, there is nothing in D&D that says you can't focus on RP, it's just that the mechanics and source material do not support your efforts as much as other systems do. So it then falls on the GM/DM and players to promote it. Which I think is actually a good thing, because I know a lot of people who would have been turned off by the RP expectations of say, WoD if they had not been eased into the hobby with D&D.

I can say that yes, some of the premade stuff could do a better job,(but again, at least there is tons of material available as a launch point, unlike many game systems where you get the rule book and have to make up all your campaign), but at the same time, I rarely buy a module and don't make some changes to it.

Now of course I have had the rust blown off with a few months of running a D&D4e campaign and I'm ready to move back into a character driven rules light or rules medium game, and I think so are my players. I've been getting some complaints about the endless hack and slash progression of the current module we are running, so I am starting to take liberties with the module in order to juice up the RP a little. (I’d advise against buying the “Scepter Tower of Spellguard” module, it’s just a series of hack and slash encounters once the players get underground. While they’re above ground there are some RP opportunities, but the module provides little support in that regard. My players are thoroughly sick of it and we aren’t more than half way through with it.)

Please don't take this the wrong way, but, I think this approach is exactly what makes a good GM (unfortunately, I don't always have enough time to do what I would really like in this regard as the GM)

I have played with some exceptional guys at times, and as the GM, I have (in the late 80's) had a players who RP'ed with a Red dragon and found out that the dragon was not inherently evil and became a friend and ally (set up for a HUGE battlesystem battle with the dragon on the good guys side). Likewise, I have had more than a few "monsters" that I RPed because the players took the time and in most cases, the players made allies(as well as a few friends, and one or two traiters!!!) that lasted for years in the campaign.

[Alfar]

I think a lot of people interpret things differently from what I do... here some thoughts:

When they say that 4E is more balanced, I think they mean that the group dynamics are more balanced - everyone has something to bring into an encounter. Back in the day, when I was actively playing, I was always the cleric. While I did have a few tricks up my sleeve, most of the time I was a heal-bot, which, while important, wasn't all that exciting. The thief would be hiding in shadows until the battle was over, and the mage... well, one-hit wonders. In 4E, you always have some powers available, and you always have an option that does damage to your enemies. I think it still tips the balance in favour of the PC's, but you don't get people whining "I don't want to be the cleric" as much.

There's a LOT of complaints about characters being unbalanced. It usually boils down to "My character doesn't get as much spotlight as that other guy's" - they tried to solve this.

Also, I think there's a reason for wanting (more than needing) four classes for each power source. It's about the balance again. Power source has at least one meaning to crunch - it applies a keyword to the related powers. Monsters can have immunities to powers with certain keywords. If you have only one class with a Ki power source, you'll have a lot of people wanting to play that class because there'll be few monsters immune to Ki. So you'll have a whole team of... strikers? If there was a leader, defender and controller class for Ki, you'd get the diversity that is useful, as well as a bunch of monsters immune to Ki.

Ramble end