4E Dungeons & Dragons - Verdict?

[Pilias]

Yeah, see, I just don't buy the argument that in 4e it is harder to have unique characters. I look at 2nd edition, and 1rst editiona, and even worse (to me BASIC D&D), was there was NO difference between characters.

1st & Second D&D: A 7th level Dwarf Fighter was the same as the next 7th level dwarf fighter. not accounting for stats had the exact same abilites as the next guy. And for some bizarre reason, was incapabale of sneakng quietly down a dark hallway and climbing over the 10 loose rock wall.

Look at Basic D&D and it was worse. ALL Dwarves were fighters. Not a single cleric, rogue or anything else in the group. All Elves were Fighter/Magic users (but dad, I don't want to learn magic! Too bad son, it's the way of our people!)

Now, now there is some variance. Again, people being people, and gamers being gamers, they will look to 'tweak' their characters the best they can to eek out as much of an advantage as they can. They did it in First edition (how many fighters all had 18's for strength, how many wizards 18 Ints, and Rogues with an 18 Dex?) It is the nature of the game, and off ALL games for that matter.

Compared to 3rd ed there is less choice by far.

[Pilias]

I do have one issue with 4e, and that's the lack of secondary skills. There is no room in the rules for a character who was an apprentice cooper before running off to become an adventurer, and the thousands of farmers' sons on a path to glory know nothing about farming. I'm thinking I'll tack on a portion of the secondary skills system from Rolemaster.

Actually with the PHB2 and backgrounds you can work in those kinds of things

[nolgroth]

Looked at the initial release of D&D 4th. Was not overly impressed, but I also did not have the negative response like I did with 3rd Edition. I think the whole skirmish thing is about right and it would be fun for the occasional evening worth of entertainment. For role-playing I'll stick to my old standby; HERO.

[megahunter]

I haven't bought the books so I could only flip through the books at a friend's house.
The core rules didn't shock me, but I prefer the overly complex system there is with 3.5 (yeah, I'm strange) which I have changed slightly thanks to the OGL.

What really put me off is the new Forgotten Realms. Wizards has made so much change that I think they have lost their personality pretty much.

[Midgardsormr]

What purpose would that serve? It's a background skill that you can write into your characters history. Only ****ty dm's ignore simple points of a background like that.

Because sometimes my players like to actually use the skills in their background descriptions, and it's handy to have some kind of system in place for adjudicating whether or not they can manage to keep their sloop from capsizing in the storm.

And I would thank you to keep a civil tongue with me, please.

[Greason Wolfe]

Have to say that I am in agreement with Midgardsormr on this one. Some of the best times I've ever had at the table back when I played, were based on those background skills and having a way to adjudicate them. Admittedly, they don't all have to be based on dice rolling, but there have been plenty of times when some, seemingly useless skill has turned the tide in an adventure.

Of course such things shouldn't be ignored by DM/GMs, but without some way to define and/or adjudicate them, things can get bogged down. Any such skills need to make sense for the character as well and be a reasonable part of their background.

I can recall one particular instance where the other players and myself were all starting with "new" characters that had never "adventured" before. My character was a farm boy that had spent his youth slaughtering livestock for meals and wrestling with his older siblings. When we hit the first battle, that wrestling experience came in handy and, after the bloodshed, my character, along with one other, were the only ones that didn't get "sick" from seeing all the dead bodies and flowing blood. It made for a really good RP session as everyone actually got into their characters from a background point of view rather than a "mechanical" point of view. From there on, everyone developed their characters based on that background rather than "min/maxing" for optimal character effectiveness.

GW

[Rogueleader89]

My group tried 4e for a couple of months, then went back to 3.5. I like how they have simplified some portions of the game in 4e (such as some parts of combat), but I think they carried that simplification a bit too far. Skills were done well in 3.5, they really didn't need to be changed for 4. I have far too much to say about my belief that 4e ruined the (admittedly flawed in some areas) 3.5 magic system to go much into it. The lack of ability to create items in 4e is very disappointing as well. In my opinion, 4e has simplified things to the point of restricting players who so choose to follow all of its rules (and not create homebrew rules), we did not need restrictions, we needed some limited simplification, minor rule fixes, and creative new mechanics that made the game more fun.


In short: I prefer 3.5 over 4e

[Gamerprinter]

In my opinion, 4e has simplified things to the point of restricting players who so choose to follow all of its rules (and not create homebrew rules), we did not need restrictions, we needed some limited simplification, minor rule fixes, and creative new mechanics that made the game more fun.

And this is why I am hopeful in the upcoming Pathfinder RPG and 3pp books that will support that system. It has been mentioned that not everything in the Beta version of Pathfinder will stay, some things will revert more to 3.5 than they currently stand. However, combat has been simplified somewhat. Grapple is a single d20 roll, that and other combat issue things such as Trip, Bull Rush are under the combined mechanic of CMB, or Combat Maneuverability Base. The five foot step is gone as well.

One of the third party publishers in support of Pathfinder, is one I've been reading about on the ENWorld forums, Bad Axe Games, Trailblazer. Among the many ideas brought up with that add-on system is a simplified encounter creation that is somewhat based on 4e ideas. It works especially well for a party of mixed level adventurers fighting mixed level opponents in a 3 step process, an idea that I really like.

The goal with Pathfinder is to maintain the viability of 3.5 with fixes to that system while basically remaining backwards compatible to it. I can agree that parts of 3.5 need fixed or simplified and that is what Paizo's rules set is supposed to do.

I can't wait until August 2009 when Pathfinder is officially released.

GP

[NeonKnight]

Because sometimes my players like to actually use the skills in their background descriptions, and it's handy to have some kind of system in place for adjudicating whether or not they can manage to keep their sloop from capsizing in the storm.

And I would thank you to keep a civil tongue with me, please.

Actually 4e would make this really simple. Just give your player a 'freebie' skill in whatever, and then give them a +5 bonus for being trained in that skill.

[NymTevlyn]

Because sometimes my players like to actually use the skills in their background descriptions, and it's handy to have some kind of system in place for adjudicating whether or not they can manage to keep their sloop from capsizing in the storm.

Yeah... it's soooo hard for the player to roll a d20 and soooo hard for the DM to make up a target number on the spot. I guess there are crappy DM's everywhere that can't handle anything unexpected that isn't covered by the rules anywhere. I guess we should add every single tiny rule that could possibly come up at any point in time in any campaign just to make sure every DM knows exactly what to do.

Looked at the initial release of D&D 4th. Was not overly impressed, but I also did not have the negative response like I did with 3rd Edition. I think the whole skirmish thing is about right and it would be fun for the occasional evening worth of entertainment. For role-playing I'll stick to my old standby; HERO.

There's nothing in the rules that prevents you from roleplaying.